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| sent from: Waterloo Station, London, UK. destination: San Anselmo, California, USA |
The newspapers have reported on various stories of people who, having lived abroad (outside of the UK) for years, return to England, their homeland, only to leave again after 1-2 years, citing the level of violence and the relative safety they felt in their adoptive countries or cities. Gary Numan was ridiculed for this, as he moved from a small English village to Santa Monica. The paper solemnly cited comparative crime stats (USA: high UK: low) and anecdotes from bewildered residents – ooh we don’t ‘ave no crime ‘ere no sir this is polite ole’ England innit. What they all miss is that there is in the UK a genuine sense of danger, of violence and confrontation, an anger in the English nature that can explode without cause. In 15 years of living in the USA in these supposedly violent places, I can hardly remember feeling threatened, yet in 3 months in the UK, I have already felt it several times.
Yeah.. and then there's the Geordie Shore 'culture'. Bit disheartening.
Never really noticed when we were there (for OUR “1-2 years”) but now that you mention it, St Albans on a Saturday night was a bit ugly… 🙁
…and 76p for a postcard! Bloody hell!
The last one was me, by the way.
Semi-Anonymous Simon
Haha Simon. Or rather – Semi-Anonymous Simon. Yes, 76p, it's sort of amazing isn't it?
#welcometolifeintheUK
It's not that I think that there wasn't menace/threat/danger in California, but there's a belief in the UK that (relative to the USA at least) the UK is fundamentally a much less violent place populated by only quiet, polite, pleasant people, and I would like to redress that balance if only in a small way.