There are plenty of things the world knows about the UK and the British in general. Our weather is awful, we drink tea and we bend over whenever the US gets a little frisky. Apparently we also live in castles too which would be fantastic, if a little cold in the winter.
The point of this article isn’t so much to brag about how useless this nation is, as every country has its own problems, but think of it as merely venting my displeasure at how things have changed in recent years. Yes I am proud to be British, but these days I am getting pretty frustrated with what goes on here, and rarely a day goes by nowadays where I don’t wish to live in another part of the world. Maybe a country that functions properly and doesn’t break when it snows, and a paradise city where the grass is green and I stop spouting 80’s rock lyrics.
So without further ado, here are my reasons why living in the UK sucks!
1. Everyone’s an alcoholic
The UK is like the dude who wants to be the life and soul of the party, except he can’t hold his drink, gets into a fight and then collapses in his own filth. Which to be fair sounds like a great night out but you wouldn’t want a reputation as someone that wets the bed, which is exactly the type of reputation the UK is receiving now.
In 2005 the Government brought in the 24 hour drinking legislation in the hope that it would reduce the amount of alcohol related crimes. Many of which were the result of a large number of people gathering in town centres at ‘kick out time’ around 2am.
They failed to consider that increasing the amount of drinking time would just lead to drinking more alcohol.
Well duhh!
To be fair efforts are being made to reduce the amount of hours that we can buy alcohol but the damage has long since been done. Britain is the binge-drinking capital of Europe, with 12 per cent of the population admitting they have up to ten drinks in a single night out. This along with the supposed 1 million violent crimes committed due to alcohol per year and the 25% increase in liver diseases, suggests we can’t handle our drink either.
2. Everything is ridiculously expensive
No wonder the rest of the world think us Brits live in castles and pop round the Queens house for tea. Only the stupidly rich can afford to buy stuff on this island of ours and still have enough change to buy all that hard liquor. The cost of gadgets for example cost 32% more in Britain than America and this is one of the reasons why we’re all up to our eyeballs in credit card debt.
I remember buying my current guitar in 2006 for £650 which is a good price considering the exact same model now retails for over £850. The issue I had back then was that this guitar sold for $799, which you don’t need a degree in maths to figure out is a lot cheaper. In fact I imported one over for the sole purpose of re selling it on eBay for a hefty profit.
I should thank the UK for bringing out the hidden entrepreneur in me, but I won’t because that would be stupid and I’m still in the ‘moody’ part of the article, maybe later.
3. The weather
I’m not going to harp on about how much it rains over here as I think anyone with half an eye and a quarter of a brain will already know this. My major gripe is that the weather has no idea what it is doing. One minute it will be sunny and calm and 10 minutes later there will be torrential rain, closely followed by hailstones and then back to sunny again.
You can chuck a rainbow and some snow in there too if you want. It happens, I’ve seen it!
Of course this is something that cannot be changed due to our geographical location and the jet stream from the Atlantic. The irony is that without it, our little land would be genuinely cold instead of a bit chilly, and yes our weather would be more stable but if you think we moan about the weather now, imagine the misery if we didn’t get our three days of summer.
4. Chavs
If you aren’t from the UK and you have no idea what a Chav is then look below.
You see that? They are Chavs and I don’t like them. I don’t even know if the term ‘Chav’ should be or deserves to be capitalised. Well there is no point changing now, I don’t want to be labelled as indecisive as well as a moaner.
They loiter on street corners wearing their fake Burberry clothing intimidating old people and the confused. If you’re extra lucky you might even see one of them with their socks pulled up over their tracksuit bottoms.
I remember walking home from a night out and I had to pass through a big group of them, maybe 15 or so. They were stood there doing their thing, which is pretty much just staring at the floor occasionally spitting and saying the word ‘blud’. As I walked by, one of them turned to me, and as I braced myself for the inevitable beating, said these fine words;
“ha nice clothes”.
A teenage boy with socks pulled halfway up his legs was mocking the fact I wore jeans and a plain white t shirt. I’m not entirely sure if I can be part of a society where this is allowed to happen.
Oh if you’re American I suppose the closest thing to a Chav over there is what you would call a redneck or trailer trash, but with you know, the sock thing.
5. Health and safety gone mad
Being part of the European Union has many benefits and I’m sure that when I think of some I will let you know about it. One of the many drawbacks is that their health and safety laws become OUR health and safety laws. The problem being that these are not created for the purpose of improving our health and our safety, but for annoying the hell out of everyone and causing immense frustration.
In February 2012 a drowning man couldn’t be saved because, and get this, the Fire-fighters and police on scene were not allowed to attempt a rescue. Now this wasn’t some rough stretch of coastline or a pool of water with the depth of infinity, but simply a lake that was 3ft deep.
THREE FEET!
This country allowed a man to die because of the health and safety law. What would have happened had one of these people tried to save him? They would probably lose their job. Madness.
6. We’re generally ignorant towards other cultures.
I wish I could see the stats for how many British people can speak another language as I’m fairly certain the number would be somewhere between 4 and 9. Compare this to Sweden or Germany where a large portion of the younger population has achieved a decent level of fluency in English. Now I know many of you will say something like, “yes but you don’t need to speak another language as English is spoken around the world”. It is you’re right, to an extent.
We will actually travel to places like Japan and Brazil and genuinely find it weird that almost nobody speaks English, at least to a fluent level. We will also happily go abroad on holiday or even to work and not put in the effort to mingle with the natives, yet when we meet a foreigner in our homeland who can’t speak English, we accuse them of being lazy and disrespecting us.
7. We hate ourselves
It’s true. The north and south hate each other, the Scottish hate the English, the Welsh hate the English and the English hate everyone else. This is even before we get into city rivalries and the racial tension. Okay maybe hate is a strong word and I might be going all ‘Daily Mail’ on you here so replace the word ‘hate’ with ‘gently mocking’. Yes that sounds better.
Regional rivalries are common all over the globe and in the UK they are largely harmless, but where it gets serious is when we enter the topic of gang culture and knife crime.
The UK and London in particular is now the knife crime capital of Europe and this is a large part of the gang culture that is infesting our streets. One study for the Home Office found that up to 6% of 10-19-year-olds belonged to a gang in England and Wales. Of course a lot of these gangs will be non-violent but you only have to look at the recent London riots to see the kind of tension that is bubbling under the surface.
8. Cricket
Has there ever been a more pointless sport in the history of the universe? Those of you who are thinking of Snooker can shut up, at least that doesn’t last for days on end with the possibility of nobody actually winning. By the way, If you’re unfamiliar with Snooker then just imagine Pool but with a bigger table and tighter pockets.
Cricket is just the Britain’s version of Baseball in the sense that you have someone with a bat, someone bowling the ball and a load of bored people standing in the field waiting to catch something. If I’m displaying a certain level of ignorance here, then it’s definitely intended. I have friends who love the sport for some inexplicable reason, and I’ve tried to work out why, believe me I have.
It’s British to its core and maybe that is why it is so unfathomably popular over here. I don’t know. I give up.
9. Nothing works properly
I’m not exaggerating here, nothing actually works. Everything breaks eventually and when there is the smallest of disruptions, society crumbles and all we’re left with is Thunderdome!
I’ll give you an example. About once a year, we will have snow that actually settles on the ground. Nothing major, certainly not a blizzard and we can forget about calling Mr Plow too. I’m talking about a few inches of snow, which while barely enough to build a decent snowman, is more than enough to close all schools and shut down our whole transport network.
You can thank our health and safety regulations for this too.
We’re just very good at being incompetent in general. I dread to think what people think when they visit our land of hope and glory and wonder why they have been stuck in a queue for 3 hours because we’re short staffed.
10. The Daily Mail
The chances are that if you are human and you have some degree of reading ability (not to worry you don’t need much) then you will know all about our most infamous newspaper. Actually to be ahead of The Sun in the infamy stakes is quite an achievement.
So why does this deserve to be on the list? Well gather round kids, I have a story to tell. You’ll be hard pressed to find another newspaper as awful as this. Every other week they will publish a story on how a certain food will give you cancer, why the immigrants are ruining our nation, how the entertainment industry is warping our children’s minds and that is before we get into the subtle undertones of racism and homophobia.
Basically it’s a fun read for all the family.
Their website is even worse as most of their articles are written by ‘journalists’ who rarely give their real names. It’s no wonder they hold on to their anonymity given a lot of these articles contain basic spelling and grammar errors. Not to mention many of these stories aren’t actually factual at all and are obviously opinion pieces covered up as news.
It’s not all bad though. While their website is now the most visited news site on the internet, they are heavily in debt so let’s all cross our fingers and hope they go away.
On the plus side, they employ Martin Samuel who I consider to be the best sports journalist around.
On the upside
This being a light-hearted article means it wouldn’t be fair to talk about the UK without mentioning the positive aspects of living here, of which there are many. Here is a quick list;
- The National Health Service is perhaps the best in the world.
- Relatively speaking it is a safe place to live.
- Our military is world renowned and highly respected.
- Only a tiny percentage of the population could be classed as genuinely poor.
- We have some of the world’s finest universities.
- The UK is one of the most culturally diverse places on Earth.
- The 2012 London Olympics was perhaps the greatest yet.
- We are the birthplace of Football. (the most important obviously)
So there we go. If you have your own personal thought’s about the UK then please leave your opinions in the comment section below.
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lol
you just made me reconsider not to go there
but i think some countries are way worse
farouk recently posted..5 surprising psychological facts you would want to know
It’s honestly not that bad really. We could have the economic worries of Greece or the crime rate of South Africa, so it puts things into perspective. Thanks for the comment.
I also hate that if you are a teacher and you go to comfort/hug a child that is distressed and hurt, you are a paedophile and will be fired. I also hate the Justice system and I also hate how scared we are of upsetting anyone non English, like for example the lady who had to take her Cross necklace off or face unemployment, yet the Muslim was allowed her headscarf no questions asked. ARGHHH!
I do love it here most of the time, though
I agree with that definitely. I didn’t write much about political correctness as I think I would never actually finish the article! Haha
You are funny guy, Jamie! I took great delight in you humor here today. I suppose the “grass is always greener…” Onward and upward my friend
Hey thanks for your comment! The grass is indeed always greener, at least we think it is..
Love your sense of humor, Jamie!
Truth is, I planned on just checking your blog out for a moment or two and glancing at your post, but couldn’t stop reading! What a crack up! I suppose most of us could come up with reasons why where we live could be a lot better, right? But not all of us could have made it as entertaining as you did.
Hilariously done, Jamie!
KenWert@MeantToBeHappy recently posted..The Virtue of Intolerance: 10 things you should never tolerate
Thanks for your comment, it means a lot.
I am from India and a few things are quite similar !Particularly that cricket thing Maybe we inculcated it during the 200 years of colonialism ! I have made a live streaming Cricket website and almost 10,000 Brits visit it per month !(Source- Google Analytics)
The London Olympics were the worst so far not the best.
You’re not Australian by any chance are you?
What about the absolute lack of customer service that I hear about from other Brits? Drunkenness, gangs, hooligans, bullies…it doesn’t sound to me like Brits are a really happy, functional bunch of people. If alcohol fueled violence is so rampant, then yes, you have a country full of unhappy people.
Yep that sounds like us!
No shit sherlock, heres a medal for you.
I agree with you on everything there. But one thing I have to say, and I want to make it very clear so that it spreads hopefully between the Brits: the only good thing about your universities is the certificate, simply the NAME of the university. But the QUALITY of your education is a different matter. I am only a student and I would not dare say that I have a wider knowledge than the graduates (especially older), however the fact is that you don’t know the basic stuff! I know a vet who doesn’t know that cortisol is a hormone…. well now he does because i told him. I met Scottish people who are not sure if Scotland is really a country… or if India is a continent or a country… the list is too long. Also you guys are very fake. You are famous all over the world for being helpful gentlemen, so on so on, but only on the outside. You ask ‘how are you?’ all the time, if you know someone at work for example, but when it comes to even going for a stupid coffee, you just ignore people. Let’s be honest here. At least with the eastern european people you know who is your friend and who is not. If they don’t like you they will just tell you to sod off, and at that point you know who really is your friend…
Wow Simona, thanks for that. Our education system is actually very good. Yes there are uni’s that are below par but that is the same in every country. Our very best can hold their own with anywhere in the world.
And we are not allowed to tell people to sod off as we would probably get a hefty fine and a criminal sentence !
UK also seems to have growing censorship concerns (relative to countries like USA, Sweden, Norway). I’ve remember a legal fight broke out when someone published that Homeopathy doesn’t work. The fact that legal drama breaks out over little things like that is sad.
Additionally people in the US complain about inequality but people in the UK can’t even trust their political reps to represent their interests. In the US, SOPA, PIPA, CISPA are pretty unpopular and regularly rejected but in the UK there’s concern that it’ll become common practice. Moreover, the new US COICA bill had a random thing in there that made unlocking phones illegal..and even that’s being reconsidered now!
I believe the UK has a positive reputation for it’s educational system (hierarchical if you ask me). But for some reason, I think I ‘d be quite fine relying on edX and Coursera to fill in the gaps of my education.
Anyways, I found your article quite cathartic, thanks!
UK is nice but not for me, lived there till age 9 then we moved
to US (Houston).
Whenever I go back I realize how much easier life in
US is. Cost of living is bloody cheap in America. People
have huge homes, big trucks, best price deals. In UK to have that same standard of living you’d have to earn way way more. People live really crappy in UK shitty closet size houses with toilets next to the kitchen?? Wtf?
Also US is so huge all the best land, from deserts to snowy mountains, warm
beaches, all kinds of cities , it’s awesome. One could spend their whole life just exploring America.
I agree, we do get the bum end of deals over here. I would counter that last part though by saying that while very true, a lot of Americans never leave the comfort of their own borders.
Hi jamie, who said you were a funny guy. Don’t they know you are a British guy!!!!
I am in northern Ireland and the weather is worse here and it is more expensive and some of us want to be british and some don’t. But we love self help and getting better!!!!!!!!and we are way funnier
keep up the great work.
Money.
Everything you have pointed out here Jamie comes down to Money. Apart from the weather but even that’s changing because of money. (I’m not going to explain that one, should be easy enough to work out)
Actually let me retract that, it comes down to greed. All the failures of this country, any country in fact….sod it…..mankind, it all comes down to greed.
No, I am going to change that again, it all comes down to Pride.
Why do we get greedy? Why do we want so much of this and that and the other…..pride. I hate pride, it is the root cause of all misery and suffering.
It is a 3 stage downfall. Someone wants to have the best to say “I have it and you don’t”, an inherent need to be Proud, that becomes an an addiction if you like which we call Greed, to keep staying the best, to have the best of everything, to laud it over others. The medium we use to get this, Money and no further explanation is needed on that one.
Pride, Greed, Money.
If we could have the advancements in medicine that we have but go back to simpler times where people worked for themselves and traded items that their particular business made, for items that other people made that you needed (not wanted), then I think we would be all so much better off.
I know its a far fetched ideal but hey I can always dream.
Great post by the way, cracked me up :O)
Everything you wrote here comes down to international rise of hate, why am i not surprised when stupid articles like these comes from a total crack head loather who doesn’t want to work and complains about how hard life is. You’re a real freaking joke my man, as only people like you think there’s a better life abroad and live in dreams. I can already guarantee that if a person like you will go somewhere else you will definitely bring all your problems along with you no matter where you go. All countries have they’re do’s and dont’s but obviously you think that some countries always have positive life bits whilst others have nothing but bad sides. That ain’t how life works, and if you haven’t figured it out yet once you will grow out of your air head state you will realize that one time.
Ahh an irony deficiency I see. Maybe a change of diet will sort that out..
I got out from this rapidly declining hovel cesspit of a country 7 months ago im now living in tropical Bali enjoying 33 degree heat every day of my , safe in the knowledge im half way across the globe from the uk, and ive never looked back, there is nothing that i miss about the UK except my remaining family members there, not once have i saw a white nike trainer tracksuit wearing scumball chav speaking like a retard and gobbing repeatedly on the pavement while people pass by looking “very tough” (pussy more like) Im also glad to see the back of the hordes of useless slob alcoholics drinking stella artois beer and eating dubious takeaway baltis, pansy lilly livered politicians, shite weather, rubbish health service, fat useless pc plod police, thick necked tyski drinking eastern europeans everywhere “enriching english culture” opening “polski delicatessy” and crap disgusting food, dirty hospitals complete with flesh eating bugs and illiterate black knife wielding gun toting monkeys taking over the capital cities then blaming it on discrimination, while all the while being told to embrace our fabulous “multi cultural lovely heritage” the only thing most of the pathetic people do in uk is get wasted on the weekend and start fights or smash beer glasses into each others faces, truly retards degenerates, then there are the english women who are revolting too, frequently voted the most ugly and obnoxious women in Europe- morbidly obese lager swilling, loud mouthed trollops with muffin tops and fat saggy arses with a cheap g string protruding complete with the now obligitory tramp stamp directly above there cracks, yes indeed they think nothing of getting knocked up with a black man and having a string of mixed race mongrel kids, its a badge of honour, not a source of shame to them. then the man buggers off and leaves the state to bring up there revolting offspring to perpetuate the next generation of knife wielding gang members and braindead chavs, someone should put in a whole bottle of bleach and quickly flush the whole country down the toilet like a large hot stinking turd.