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A stranger in my own country

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  1. #1

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    A stranger in my own country

    When I visit England I still feel that I belong there, but not all the time. I quickly learn the coins in any new country, but I will never learn the £2 coin.

    In the main shopping street of the London suburb where I grew up, there is a retail property that has recorded some of the changes in English society. I first knew it as a bank, with a name that could have come from a nineteenth-century novel: the National Provincial Bank. Then it was an Indian bank. Then perhaps something else. Now it is, of all things, a Thai restaurant, quite a good one.

    I was there once when some customers came in, including a woman with a double push-chair in which the children sat side-by-side, so it was quite wide. The restaurant was entered through two sets of double doors. Both the outer doors opened, but one of the inner doors was bolted. She called to the staff, with an English accent but Australian questioning intonation, "A double buggy?"

    The Thai restaurant, the word 'buggy', the intonation; I was a stranger.

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  2. #2

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    Feeling nostalgic, I see.

    I grew up in two places of two countries and even then I don't feel connected to them. Hope all is well. Though I love to hear more.


  3. #3

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    When I was back in UK a few months ago for my father passing away, of all places I was back in Telford, the arsehole of the country. The whole place just reminded me why I grew to really detest the place and I couldn't get back soon enough.


  4. #4

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    As most of you know, I moved back to the UK in June this year after 3 years of living in HK (and more time in France before that). I'm LOVING being back but I've discovered it's very location specific. I've returned to my old stomping ground in east London where I still have a lot of friends etc so settling in has been VERY easy. I was also offered a job at my former employer (with promotion and significant salary increase) after a 30 min informal chat so things couldn't have been easier. At this moment, I couldn't be happier and wouldn't want to live anywhere else (I actually just turned down the chance to work in SanFrancisco for a year)

    BUT, as part of my new job I had to attend a course in Woking for a week. *now trying hard not to swear but **** ****$!!!!*. If I came from Woking, or had to live there, I'd never have set foot in the UK again. Horrendous place. Made me realise why some British expats don't want to come back to the UK. If that's the kind of place you guys come from, I wouldn't either!!!


    Sent from my iPhone using GeoClicks

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  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by bibbju:

    BUT, as part of my new job I had to attend a course in Woking for a week. *now trying hard not to swear but **** ****$!!!!*. If I came from Woking, or had to live there, I'd never have set foot in the UK again. Horrendous place. Made me realise why some British expats don't want to come back to the UK. If that's the kind of place you guys come from, I wouldn't either!!!


    Sent from my iPhone using GeoClicks
    Trust me, Telford is 10x worse. You wouldn't even feel safe walking down to the end of the street.
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  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Proplus:
    Trust me, Telford is 10x worse. You wouldn't even feel safe walking down to the end of the street.
    I agree on Telford. We spent 10 months in Shropshire a few years ago. It was the first time I had been to a 'new town', and I was amazed that any government could think it was a good idea - an indoor, windowless mall for a town centre. Hubby's job was just outside of Telford, but after driving around I refused to even contemplate living there, and we went further north to Whitchurch. Telford is soulless, and scary, even in daylight.

  7. #7

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    In matters of free expression and sexual censorship I think of myself as a liberal.

    It was my first day back. By mid-evening I was very tired but thought I had better not go to bed too early, so I looked for something to watch on television. On the terrestrial channels, at least, there was nothing interesting, so I settled for a programme called something like 'Hollywood Secrets'. My sister, who I was staying with, was in the room, reading the paper, with half an eye on the television.

    The programme was such rubbish that even I knew most of the so-called secrets. Then there was an interview with a woman who had run a high-class escort agency in Hollywood and had written a memoir, naming some names. In my eyes she was contemptible, a prostitute who had betrayed her clients, but the first part of the interview was innocuous. Then the interviewer leaned toward her and, in a nudging tone, asked, "Which Hollywood stars have the biggest ... members?"

    Before I knew what was happening, I burst out, "That's disgusting!", seized the remote, turned off the TV, and was walking out of the room, while my sister, who I think of as a model of rectitude, was saying, "You have grown prudish in your old age!"


  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by bibbju:
    As most of you know, I moved back to the UK in June this year after 3 years of living in HK (and more time in France before that). I'm LOVING being back but I've discovered it's very location specific. I've returned to my old stomping ground in east London where I still have a lot of friends etc so settling in has been VERY easy. I was also offered a job at my former employer (with promotion and significant salary increase) after a 30 min informal chat so things couldn't have been easier. At this moment, I couldn't be happier and wouldn't want to live anywhere else (I actually just turned down the chance to work in SanFrancisco for a year)

    BUT, as part of my new job I had to attend a course in Woking for a week. *now trying hard not to swear but **** ****$!!!!*. If I came from Woking, or had to live there, I'd never have set foot in the UK again. Horrendous place. Made me realise why some British expats don't want to come back to the UK. If that's the kind of place you guys come from, I wouldn't either!!!


    Sent from my iPhone using GeoClicks
    Lived for nearly a year in Slough, if there is a worse place to live I would hate to see it.

    Been going down south regularly and shit are those southerners unfriendly (and I am a ex-southerner) and prices are ridiculous. Feel totally at home in Hull. I am still puzzling how the OP can't work out a two pound coin.
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  9. #9

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    If we're having a "shittiest place in the UK" thread I will confirm the awfulness of Telford and Slough and offer Stoke-on-Trent for your consideration.

    A city surrounded by hills which gives the place a climate similar to Mordor. Such comparisons are quickly dispensed, however, when on closer inspection it is clear that Mordor is obviously better maintained and far more inviting than Stoke.

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  10. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by hullexile:
    Lived for nearly a year in Slough, if there is a worse place to live I would hate to see it.

    Been going down south regularly and shit are those southerners unfriendly (and I am a ex-southerner) and prices are ridiculous. Feel totally at home in Hull. I am still puzzling how the OP can't work out a two pound coin.
    I'm starting to think I'm living in a small protected happy bubble (admittedly I do hyperventilate if forced to leave the postcode areas of E1, E2, SE1, EC1/2/3/4) as almost everyone is being really lovely and friendly to me....maybe it's just a Shoreditch/Clerkenwell kind of thing where it must be the latest cool fad to be nice???! Only explanation I can think of. Lots of friendly chatty people...from baristas to sales assistants to other customers in the supermarket to even other passengers on the tube (!). Clearly some "weird sh*t" is going on in parts of London. My Northern side is loving every minute of it. Saying that, it's obvious that people who aren't "local" to the area get treated differently (i.e. they get the usual London sh*t grumpy service). On the rare occasion when I've been dragged elsewhere in London (such as London Zoo last Fri eve!), miserable unfriendly Londoners/southerners still reign supreme. And I have no shame in admitting that I include myself as one of those rude, grumpy Londoners if you're an annoying tourist who gets in my way. It takes a millisecond to switch from friendly smiley to serious attitude problem. I haven't ventured out of London yet (except to the vile Woking) so no idea what the rest of the south/country is up to.

    Also confused as what the struggle is with the 2 pound coin....it's a coin, it's worth 2 pounds....how hard is that? A special limited edition 5 pound was recently released so I hope that doesn't push the OP over the edge.
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