Ed Hart examines the great British disease of pastures new

ANY SURVEY which purports to show that Britain is a dump should be treated with circumspection. As should pastures new.

Democratic countries – with a few exceptions – don’t make people disaffected – culture and personal baggage do.

Booze and ciggies
So, when you read that the British don’t like getting a “raw deal” and being ripped off on everything it only tells part of the story.

We take no responsibility for the culture we’ve created and then 10% of us announce without a shred of irony that we’d be happier in a place with more sunshine, lower duty and excise on booze and ciggies plus cheap petrol etc.

According to the compilers of this nonsense – uSwitch – this means the preferred residences of choice for the hapless Brits who’s soiled their own culture would be either Spain or France.

Our interest in other climes usually extends only in so far as we can mix with other ex-pats in a convivial sun-drenched haze of cheap booze and fags.

Buggering off
It doesn’t mean – ipso facto- that we will be any happier or that we will drag the host nation’s happiness index up a notch or two.

Having engineered a society which – apparently repulses us – we now want to bugger off to pastures new spurred on by cheap petrol, fags and booze.

The breathtaking absurdity in all this – withstanding the totally mercurial weather in the UK – is that we never want to take responsibility for making our own modus vivendi intolerable.

A perfect example…

Ed Hart, a wowdewow editor, sought pastures new in Glasgow. And look what’s happened to him.

Do pastures new appeal to you? Your feedback appreciated in readers comments below.

wowdewow is always looking for new bloggers. If you want to blog on the above or anything else, please feel free to write to the editor, nathan@wowdewow.com, and he’ll be only too pleased to send you blogging guidelines

Readers Comments (1)

1. Clare Grant says:

   October 1, 2011 at 9:26 am

   This is absolutely correct.
   The people say that Britain’s Finished are often too discontented and querulous by nature to settle elsewhere
   It would be interesting to see how many people who aspire to move abroad can speak the native tongue.
   I’m guessing very few Ed

   Reply »