luvwelly

I agree. Dutch supermarkets are the worst in Western Europe....give me a UK supermarket such as Tescos or Sainsbury's over Albert Heijn anyday. Innercity living is not UK at its best.

julii2020

Here are some of the main differences that I’ve seen (having been away for 17 years and been back in the UK for about 5 years). This is just my personal experience, not any kind of objective study.

- People are more aggressive when driving (possibly due to the huge increase in the number of cars on the road in the last 20 years and the installation of thousands of “traffic calming” speed bumps and chicanes).
- There is a huge increase in alcohol consumption, not only with younger people, but also middle-aged/middle-class individuals.
- I’ve noticed an increase in petty crime and burglaries compared to the 80s.
- A large number of non-English speaking immigrants have moved to the South East since the late 90s.
- The quality and choice of food in supermarkets has improved massively since the 80s. In restaurants, although the food has become better, service is still often poor.
- There are fewer songbirds in the gardens.
- Divorce is much more common.
- Rudeness and impolite behaviour has increased, particularly amongst young people (maybe it's just me getting older )
- The weather has changed slightly, there seem to be more thunderstorms in the spring and summer and heavier downpours rather than constant drizzle.
- Parents in the UK have become paranoid about letting their children play unsupervised; this is in marked contrast to the USA nowadays and the UK in the 70s and 80s when children were allowed to roam freely without their parents worrying.
- The general standard of living (material goods, cars, holidays) has increased considerably in the last 20 years in Britain.

I wonder if this rings true with anyone else.

ForzaItalia21

Kid's quality of life has gone down hill in my opinion.

They don't have half the amount of freedom that I had when I was a child. When I was 5 I used to walk to school on my own and when I was about 8 I used to go off for the day with my mates on our bikes.

Today parents in England are too scared about what the media tells them will happen to their children and so over guard them.

There's also too much political correctness in England's society of today. People have to keep watching what they say all the time. Kids are being brainwashed at school by the marxist regime and teenagers are into this 'respect' culture going around with all this 'attitude' bruv trying to emulate their rap idols.

Loads more chavs around today, underage sex, more binge drinking, tatoos in strange places, facial furniture, knife crime, burglaries, third world immigrants (some of which have no intention of 'blending in'), graffiti, class A drugs and a liarbour govenment.


Apart from that it's a paradise!

elfman

ForzaItalia21

Got a bit carried away there.

Marxist, in terms of thought control, big brother, everyone being equal and adhering to a political agenda. For example in our town in the UK competitive sports day races are banned because 'everyone has to be a winner', but real life isn't like that.

Did you know that Gordon Brown used to be a Marxist in his earlier days?

Cape Blue

Smells like BS to me - do you have any links to show Labour banning competitive sports?

hudd

julii2020

I found working near the M4 that drivers were more aggressive than they seems to be where we have moved to in SE Kent. I also found there are plenty of speed bumps that make your drive at 20 mph in built up areas. Though I would rather think this would slow down driver near schools.

I think drinking has become a issued for older people. Its dirty cheap. what I can buy at TESCO I could pay at least double if not more in Ontario. We tend to be very careful and drink only a half of weekly recommended amount. It can be easy to drink too much, when booze is cheap.

Petty crime has not been an issues for me, so I can not really see any different from the 80's and now. I would say I saw more petty crime in the 70's when I lived on a council estate, than the nicer area we live in today.
Quality/cost of food in supermarkets is better today.

Parents in the UK have become paranoid about letting their children play unsupervised- caused by media hyping issues. We let our boys go out and about, but we lived in out of town areas and villages.

I seen a rise in standard of living for myself and my family in the last 20 years. My wife commented at Christmas that I was from a mining/labourers family background and my family have become highly educated professionals. Engineers, Managers, Directors, Teachers etc.

hudd

Lothianlad

As a true Scot I maintain that England is a great place......to get back home to Scotland from!

There is no finer sight in the whole wide world than that kilted piper doing his stuff in front of that massively big stone marked "Welcome to Scotland" right on the England/Scotland border on the A68 road at Carter Bar!

Lothianlad

The Labour Party now has less than a year left in office here in the UK - their demise is now virtually guaranteed......like the egg timer, the sands are running out for Gordon and his crew We already have a new Speaker in the House of Commons and he certainly isn't Labour!

A General Election in the UK must, by law, be held in or before June 2010.

Cape Blue

Yes, I am aware of that, not that it has any relation to the point about Labour banning competitive sports.

I think that any flavour of UK government has a maximum time in power before they annoy enough of the population about enough things, to pass their sell-by date. I am sure that the media also gets bored and likes to change the Gov on behalf of the populace after a while.

luvwelly

Yes we know all this despite being expatriated...thanks.

Jules Europe

Given your reference to the large numbers of non English speaking immigrants in the SE along with terminology such as "Marxist regime" and the fact that you call yourself "Forza Italia" probably defines your political agenda.

For those that are not aware "Forza Italia" was a right wing christian liberal conservative party led by the highly corrupt and scandalous mafia overlord Silvio Berlusconi.

backagen

It has in Britain too, and to be fair I have found in the last couple of years that prices of eating out are roughly the same in both countries (although the quality is far, far higher in Britain).

I'm not sure when you last went to Britain, but there's been a huge increase in the number of fast food outlets in the last 5 years or so, and you do now get lots of them grouped together just like in Australia too.

In my home town of Bolton for example, back in the 1980s there used to be
1 McDonalds
1 Burger King
and that was it for major fast food chains.

Now Bolton has
5 McDonalds
3 KFCs
2 Burger Kings
8 Subways
1 Nandos
3 Pizza Huts
plus at least 2 starbucks, and at least 3 other major coffee chains
and those are just the ones I am aware of, there could well be others.

cricket1again

Good I'm glad. I used to get so fed up of driving 20 miles to just MacDonalds. Is that all under just one roof though?

Jules Europe

I wouldn`t group Nandos with the rest of the fast food chains, as it tends to be of far higher quality than the rest.