Canada v England

Long time no see. How are you?

I haven't written an entry to my blog for a while as I didn't feel I had anything new to contribute. Now I do, so here I am.

I feel inspired to write again as a result of my recent trip home to see family and friends. I had been dying to see them and my short holiday quenched my thirst, however it also made me realise what miserable b*stards the general public are in the south east of England.

Everyone has a tendency towards nostalgia and idolising home when they've been away for a while, and I am no different - I was desperately looking forward to seeing quintessentially English things like green grass, oast houses, red letter boxes, good quality television programs etc and I certainly had my fill. It was amazing to see my family and friends too and it makes me really happy to realise what a thoroughly nice bunch of people I know. However, I was surprised at my surprise at things that I accepted as part of day to day life but now found uncomfortable and displeasing i.e. busy and crowded roads, shops and towns and the general public (in the south east) having a "what do you want from me?" and "please keep your distance" approach to life when dealing with other members of the public.

I was terribly home sick when I first arrived in to Jasper and could not invisage myself living happily here for a sustained period, however now I've had time to settle in and groove a nice social, work and leisure lifestlye I feel very content. There are aspects of this life which I now cherish i.e. the willingness of the average person on the street to meet my eye contact and exchange pleasantries, the helpfulness and competence of every day workers and serving staff and strangers' apparent happiness to have an amiable conversation with me. I will give an example to illustrate my point. I was cycling past the playing field the other day when there was a group of blokes kicking a ball around and it just so happened that I was wearing a Brazil football shirt at the time. One of the men saw me, and I assume as a result of seeing me wearing a football shirt, shouted over, "hey, come and join us, do you want to play football?". I thought it was a really friendly thing to do and made me feel very happy. Could I imagine this ever happening at home? In short, no. I think it is more likely a catholic priest would stay celibate.

In response to what I imagine will be the questions raised as a result of me saying this, no, I don't want to live in Canada permanently. Maybe were my situation different, and my family happened to relocate here, I could imagine doing so. But that won't happen and there are many reasons why I will be very happy to return living in England.

I have found that travelling to different parts of the world makes me appreciate England more each time I leave. I believe us to be a nation far advanced in terms of human rights, ethics, justice, political fairness and stability (well, I actually believe all politicians are cheating, self promoting w*nkers, but ours are slightly more covert with their dishonesty and cheating in comparison to the rest of the world I've seen), technology and the countryside is beautiful. Furthermore, stuff works and our climate is 'mild'. We don't have riots in parliament, tornadoes, tsunamis, droughts (well, councils do have a penchant for premature hosepipe bans) and we actually have a transport system that (a) exists (b) works for the most part and (c) is fairly priced. Here in Canada, if I want to travel from Jasper to Vancouver, which is about 500 miles away, I can do so, however it takes approximately 14 years to do so and I will have to take out a 25 year loan to pay for my journey. Also, there is a charge for EVERYTHING. I farted the other day and a local official came over with her hand out asking for money. If you want to receive a call on your phone, you pay for it. If you want to receive a text, you pay for it. If someone pours you a drink and does you the service of taking your money from you, they expect a tip. What a load of old shite I say!

In summary,I propose the simple solution of importing a few jolly Canadians in to England, particularly the south east, whereby I will have them interbreed with the miserable, incestuous miserable b*stard general public, and then everything will be grand. Our national sports teams will suddenly develop a sense of competitiveness and pride and people will actually start saying, "good morning" to each other.

The only problem is that I will have to pay excess baggage fees to bring them back. Any contributors to help fund my plan?