I suspect all of us have heard and been told gems of information regarding the UK over the years. The other day I was speaking to my mother in Australia and she told me about a conversation she was having with another lady, apparently all the small villages in the UK have been taken over by Muslims
Another gem was on an Australian cooking show, one of the 'contestants' had recently returned from some time in England so the inevitable question was asked and yes of course this girl was rightly pleased to be home and away from all the stodgy flavourless food over here a it was nice to be able to buy fresh food again.
Although I laugh at this stuff do these people actually believe what they are saying ?

Everyone has different experiences, though the part about small villages taken over by muslims leaves me bewildered. Perhaps in the future though.

Well seeing as less than 5% of the population are Muslim it will be quite sometime, I dislike all religions equally so it makes no difference to me. Our village has been taken over by Christians lol.
I realise people have different experiences but it's like me saying there are no spiders in Australia, that isn't an experience it is just clearly wrong.

What cooking show was that?

Mmm, trying to think , the one with the really gay bloke, Winton. Can't think of the name. No not Dale Winton he is over here I think. My head hurts Ready Steady Cook, thanks Google.

When in Canada, I was told that the clouds in the sky over Britain are caused by air pollution, and the absolute favourite -- the cold in Britain is worse than cold in Canada because it is a 'damp cold'. Yeah, right, -2° with high humidity feels so much worse than -20° with dry air. I don't think.

This is what I mean, do people honestly believe this nonsense ? Unfortunately the worst culprits are expats, we had a newly arrived Brit visit us in Queensland and he kept talking about all the stuff he could now do which he couldn't do back home, in the end I gave up saying we used to do all that stuff.

As chris says, it's primarily the Brit expats in Canada who come out with the "dry cold" nonsense.

You can forgive the odd cradle who most likely has never left Manitoba or wherever.

In the 1950s I was told by a Canadian in England that he felt colder here than in Canada, and this summer while waiting for a boat from Brixham back to Torquay, another Canadian said the same. Why this is I don't know, but it can't be discounted.

'Taken over?'

Possibly some of the people who move in may be Muslims. So what.

I have not seen much of what the doom-mongers presaged. Waiting to see my first poo tree. Some school kids were playing with the trolleys outside Sainsbury's and I thought we would run into chav trouble. But they all dispersed as we walked up. Absolutely no problems with health service. Food amazing.

My mum had told me there are no white people left in Birmingham - it's true cos they said it on the TV.

It rains more than in LA, and I'm already sick of Christmas stuff.

Yes exactly, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if Muslim families moved into our village as long as they behaved like anyone else. They are hardly likely to take over though lol

Same, not spotted a much heralded poo tree myself either.
The biggest 'problem' is that some Brits, not all by any means but a vocal minority will happily tell you just how bad everything is here and how it MUST be better elsewhere.

Ask my wife when she has felt the coldest and she will tell you it was a bike ride from Geelong to Ballarat in Victoria.

Yeah it's a PR problem of some kind.

Even if everything's fine, "It will all go wrong in the future."

I really do try to ignore it.