[tom_]

Most interesting part of the article for me:

> and being of considerable utility, they are remarkably undamaged. It seems that sticking chewing gum in things only applies when the vandal feels they wont personally lose out

(assuming this is actually true, and not another in a long local tradition of overly rose-tinted journalistic views of our grim North Sea shithole)

[1ba9115454]

- grim North Sea shithole

Spend some time in other coutries and you'll yearn to return. Trust me.

[ben_w]

Four months continuous in Germany, only reason I came back was mum’s Alzheimer’s getting to the point of needing more care than my family and inlaws could provide themselves. When she gets too bad for me to be of any use, I’m off again.

I’ll miss chips and the NHS. I’ll miss my friends. I won’t miss the country — especially not in the current toxic political situation.

[mcjiggerlog]

Over 3 years in Spain and no plans to return to Brexitlandia.

The UK has it's good points, but better quality of life can be found elsewhere.

[growlist]

Not much QOL though if you're one of the millions of unemployed.

[ben_w]

And that’s why I never bought a place in Merthyr Tydfil despite being famously affordable, and also why I moved out of Aberystwyth when I graduated despite it looking pretty and being a good place for really long quiet countryside walks.

High unemployment in an area sucks even when you personally have a job. Given nothing will stop Brexit, I wish I could say I thought Westminster cared enough to provide replacements for EU support of the poorest regions of the UK… but, and this is mere opinion, I don’t think it can see past Kensington nine days out of ten.

[growlist]

I was talking about Spain. Opportunities for young people are not good there atm - worse than the UK.

[ben_w]

I know you were. I’m saying that conditions in the UK are about to get a lot worse because the impoverished areas are about to lose support that Westminster doesn’t appear to understand that it needs to replace post-Brexit — support which would still be necessary even if Brexit had literally zero economic effects, which, given their track record of overconfidence since Austerity began, would be a surprisingly good outcome.

[dazc]

I lived for 3 years in Spain and while I miss cheap rent and cheap public transport I don't miss the noise and bad manners.

[Reason077]

Noise levels can be pretty bad in big UK cities too. Especially London. Too many extra-loud modified motorbikes, too many overflying Heathrow planes. But yes, British people are for the most part polite!

[superflyguy]

Oh yes. My trips to countries such as Thailand, Italy, Holland, Japan, Denmark, the US (Pittsburgh, LA, NY) and Spain can never end quickly enough. The thought occurs to me that you've only visited France and whatever they're calling Czechoslovakia this year.

[detritus]

Whereas as someone who spends quite a lot of time each year in Spain and Italy, and dearly love both; have family in one and a partner from the other - we are both quite glad to return to Britain after a few weeks away.

She, particularly, sees the downsides of her home country quite quickly. I have a bit more tolerance, but there're elements of a certain flavour of society missed. For us, anyway.

Oh, and I visited Czechia (whatever) for the first time last year and was smitten... but I was only there for a couple of weeks. Not really enough time to form any useful - or, indeed, completely useless - comparisons.

/anecdata

[superflyguy]

I see you didn't defend France there!

[DanBC]

I was surprised that they felt USB charging is a feature. We've had that, and WIFI, on some diesel buses in Gloucestershire for a while.

USB charge points under the seats tend to be more broken - accidentally kicked.

[Tepix]

Wireless chargers would be a nice vandalism-proof option. But slower of course.

[tom_]

OK, sorry, this comment supposed to be a bit of light-hearted fun and I particularly didn't expect to stir up the hornets' nest of "BUT IMMIGRANT'S" (though I should know by now that those people can see immigrants in everything).

Anyway, if you can read this, please flag my post, and give it a downvote while you're there, and perhaps dang will delete it. I hope so. It's too late for me to do it myself. Apologies.

[growlist]

So awful there are still plentiful migrants banging on the door to be let in.

[lurcio]

Not really, when you see the data http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l...

UK is not a particularly attractive destination for either economic/humanitarian reasons compared to Germany/Italy etc.

[growlist]

You are the one making that comparison, not me, and that's only for asylum seekers. Net migration to the UK is still near historic highs, with migration from outside the EU actually increasing, and the predicted exodus of EU migrants far smaller than was forecast. The UK is still a dream destination for many migrants.

[dalore]

Yeah but aren't they the right kind of immigrants? /s

[growlist]

For some reason a points based system is deemed OK for Australia etc, but when the UK looks at the same it's not long before the accusations of racism start flying.

[walshemj]

So why the camps at Calais then? given that the UK isn't welcoming to asylum seekers it makes you wonder how bad it is in other European countries.

[ben_w]

Most of those (1) couldn’t speak French, (2) had contacts in the UK and a desperate human need for strong social connection, (3) believed, rightly or wrongly, that any contact with French authorities would result in their applications being rejected and them being forcibly returned to Syria/Afghanistan/wherever.

Source: Girlfriend did supply runs to The Jungle. She also found the place shocking in comparison to a literal slum in Nairobi.

But also: compare the size of that camp (~6500) to the ~million (at peak) who had asylum in Germany.