Originally Posted by HiddenPaw

We are talking at crossed purposes. The OP mentioned 'Brits'. He made no reference that Brits on this forum think the UK is crap, nor did he mention that those who eventually emigrate think the UK is crap. Hutch took offence that the generalisation was directed at people on this forum, which it wasn't.

Originally Posted by callé

Ya know, a lady just asked me yesturday why on earth I would leave Florida to come back to the UK.
Ah yes, sunshine ( extreme heat and humidity, hurricanes, and mosquitos)
beaches ( you get tired of the sandy, sticky, lay in the sun and swim in sticky salty water routine)
big houses (they dont really make you that happy inside)
Disney world ( ok after going there probably at least two dozen times, I'd like a real holiday to another land)

No, nothing is wrong with England....Its beautiful and close to europe and full of wonderful countryside and amasing people and history.

Originally Posted by wmoore

I took it as meaning 'all Brits', which is an even bigger generalisation. Though I would accept it as a slip of the keyboard if the OP said so. It's been said many a time how easy it is not to get your point across properly on here .....

Originally Posted by HiddenPaw

Yes, I agree, the OP is just 'national stereotyping' which we all know is not indicative of the views/traits of an entire nation. (I mean, are all Aussies fit, tanned and good at sport?; are Scottish people really that tight? Are Canadians really that slow/stupid? )

Originally Posted by merlotsmum

But all Northerners wear flat caps, have whippets and eat tripe . . . ummm off for some bread & tripe for lunch, sorry that is dinner up North, don't want to sound too POSH

Originally Posted by merlotsmum

But all Northerners wear flat caps, have whippets and eat tripe . . . ummm off for some bread & tripe for lunch, sorry that is dinner up North, don't want to sound too POSH

Originally Posted by PhillyD

Can any of you men tell me what makes a man pack up his entire home send it off to the docks, tell his wife he wants to go home to England, that he is looking forward to it. And then write a letter every day, and emails and phone calls every day, for almost three month, confirming his undying love and then at the last minute decide not to come after all. Of course another woman!!! one who wants to stay in Canada.

Originally Posted by wmoore

That's awful. There's no way I could do that. Career or not, my missus will always, always come first.

Originally Posted by HiddenPaw

You must be the fittest, most tanned, sporty, tripe-eating, flat-cap-wearing person I know.

Originally Posted by Crispyuk88

It’s all because of the 'Grass is all always greener on the side' mentality. All of its influenced by TV, Magazines, not appreciating what you have fully & want-want-want attitude.
I've lived in the states coming on 3 years now... I still can't get over how some people still think it’s a 'better' place.

I've had mates and family over from the U.K for visits, they go back home thinking that it was great, and sure, they would move here in a heartbeat if they had that choice!
Thing is, they never experience LIFE here; they see the positive, fun bits of the country. They relate what a good time they had on holiday to how it would br if they moved here, and continued the 'holiday'.

When you move here, it finally sinks in that you're now not around you're family, but in-fact half way around the world. You get to see them maybe once every 2 years. Same applies with friends, usually worse so though. Some of your good friends you lose contact with, you only keep in touch with your really good friends.
Amongst that... You start to realize the foods crap (I did anyway + most of the family did to) so that’s another thing to add to 'crap list'. When your on holiday, you can blow it off if you don’t like it, stick with it for a couple weeks. Not when you live here. Then maybe you went a bit overboard with the money situation, yeah you have bigger and more material goods, but it’s not making everyone as happy as you imagined (Self included). Problems with Immigration seem to bugger up a lot of things. Doesn't feel like home at all, and your treated like a foreigner by the system; can't work, can't sign up for things with a lack of SS Number. Still after 2 years of living here people are still asking you the 'where are you from questions' that I'm frankly sick to death of! (Slightly anti-sociable now! )

I reckon that people think England’s bad because they live there (Slight Irony).
Take America; someone typically foreign and clueless thinks of the U.S, and the first thing(s) that pop into there head is:
California, New York, Florida – ‘Cause there’s only 5 states in the U.S
Celebrities, Fame, Glamour
Gigantic House with pools and all that other crap
Big Cars (Lots of them)
Having lots of money
Beaches etc etc...
Then you get the average American’s thoughts of England. They are thinking London, Big old fashioned mansion, expensive European cars etc etc...

How many people live those lives? On a relative scale, a definite few do, but the majority… not so much. I don’t think one can really interpret what life would be like if they were living somewhere other than where they were now. People always seem so optimistic about how there future will be if they had it there way. Optimistic is good, being realistic is BETTER and will help you more. The dream is always there, for the most of them it will only ever be a dream, a distant dream of how the other half live.

Only until that dream becomes a reality will they realize that although their house is bigger, their car nicer; a gust of wind might blow the house down. And the Ford they bought is always in the shop…
Only then do they want they’re tiny brick house back, and that Vauxhall Vectra they owned for 5 years that never broke down once!

Apologies for the Essay

Chris

Originally Posted by ShozInOz

The media has a lot to do with it - and the unfortunate British attitude on being somewhat over-cynical and fairly-or-unfairly known for whinging. This compares with the sometimes unbearably 'Proud Aussie' attitudes of 'Best country in the world' - even in 45 degree heat or 90% humidity etc (same with some Americans). And yet life satisfaction among Australian is only 1% higher than that of Britons, as measured in major social science studies in the 1990s.

Then people judge other countries on the basis of media portrayals and fantasy and think, "Life must be so much better there" or "Australia will make me happy" or "I'm meant to be in Australia - it's my soul country" (slightly embarrassed to admit that this was my fantasy for too many years before arriving). Then they follow this hunch up with a short exciting holiday, which obviously confirms their hunch. Then after a few months or a year or so, they are doing much of the same stuff that they always did - work, commuting, shopping, staying in to avoid bad weather (but in this case heat and humidity), etc, doing some other stuff that they couldn't do before (e.g. going to the beach a lot), and not doing some stuff that they could do before (e.g. travelling around own or foreign countries). And in the end its often a zero-sum game; a different life, not better after all.

Interestingly, four out of five of the visitors (couples) to Australia that we've had (all of whom have travelled around Australia) loved it at first, but ALL who have stayed in Australia for a few months or seen a fair bit of Australia said in the end "...but we couldn't live here" (varuous reason - too remote/too underdeveloped/too hot or humid/too career-limiting/etc).

But getting back to the point..I think that some key reasons are:
- Newspapers
- TV programmes (e.g. Crimewatch, Place in the Sun)
- Failure to understand how the media works (especially in crime reporting/statistics, which does not accuractely portray the actual crime rate [per 1000 people], which is very similar between Australia and UK for most crimes)
- Transferral of personal problems and negativity to the UK
- Living in a crap area and being unable or unwilling to move elsewhere
- Tarring the whole of the UK with their local brush
- Hanging around with nagative people
- Fantasy

Originally Posted by Garfielduk

Sometimes David posts things that can be misinterpreted so you had better ask him exactly what he meant to clarify things

Originally Posted by callé

Ya know, a lady just asked me yesturday why on earth I would leave Florida to come back to the UK.
Ah yes, sunshine ( extreme heat and humidity, hurricanes, and mosquitos)
beaches ( you get tired of the sandy, sticky, lay in the sun and swim in sticky salty water routine)
big houses (they dont really make you that happy inside)
Disney world ( ok after going there probably at least two dozen times, I'd like a real holiday to another land)

No, nothing is wrong with England....Its beautiful and close to europe and full of wonderful countryside and amasing people and history.

Originally Posted by DavidWright

I really cannot understand why Brits think the UK is so bad, perhaps they don't realise that the grass isn't any greener abroad?