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I sat last night thinking (this is a very dangerous thing for me to do :o ) about the things that have changed in this united kingdom of ours, during my lifetime of some 50+ years and wether the changes were good or bad IMO. I will start with a few what are other forumites experiences/thoughts.
The police: used to be local, clip yer ear, not scared, notebook.
Now, centralised, scared of being sued, rarely seen solo, ten tons of paperwork.
IMO the police now have too much paperwork, are not respected and have lost touch with the communities they are policing.
The disappearance of British made goods like motorcycles, tools, TV’s, radios. Remember when we used to laugh at Japanese goods.
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysThe police cannot be respected at the moment when all they do is collect the new motorist tax for the goverment, why tackle a real crime when you can catch a few motorist doing 3mph too much at £60 a go!
The area that I was born into was full of collieries, waste tips and a black river(suspended coal particles).
Now there are no collieries(no local jobs), the waste tips have been removed or they have greened over and we have heron, dippers and hundreds of mallards on the river.
Colin
I think the "Eurovision" episode has turned out to be quite prophetic as the songs we send don’t even qualify for the main competiton these days.
I haven’t seen a manual settler in decades…..
More seriously, living in a small town in the North seems nowhere near so depressing now as it did 10 or 20 years ago. Your friends are only the click of a mouse away.
Failing that, you can always have an argument with someone on TRF instead.
I had a meal at the weekend which involved Rocket, goats’ cheese, hummus and sun-dried tomaotoes, none of which would have been readily available in the Britain of the 1970s or 1980s, or even probably the early 1990s.
Whether that’s a good thing or not, I’ll leave it to you to decide…….
Reading the papers today, I spotted a piece about what people loved about England.
It got me thinking and I wondered what you lot thought.
Heres my favorites.
The history. Its the best in the world.<br> The olde bobby on the beat. (Where did he go?)<br> Cup of tea out of a bone china tea pot.<br> Bangers and mash, and the full English.<br> Chelsea pensioners.<br> Pomp and ceremony.<br> Real ale. (not too warm though).<br> William Webb Ellis.<br> William Shakespear and Churchill.<br> The stiff upper lip.<br> Chicken korma.
The dont likes;
Potitical correctness. <br> Weather.<br> London 1990 and onwards.<br> Rising crime.<br> Weak politicians.<br> The premiership. (footballs going down)<br> Public transport and its staff.<br> Lack of politeness in shops and everyday life.<br> Harrow.<br> Uncontrolled imigration.<br> Not being able to say what you want to whom you want.<br> Call centre staff that you cannot understand.
Well that will do for now.
Any others?<br> <br>
I agree with most of your likes L. M.
Would add one  thing to what I like about England.<br>Our tolerance of the Scots!<br> <br>And one other thing I don’t like about England.<br>It’s ban on fox-hunting with dogs.
(Edited by insomniac at 8:31 pm on Jan. 9, 2006)
The history. Its the best in the world. <br>The olde bobby on the beat. (Where did he go?) <br>Cup of tea out of a bone china tea pot. <br>Bangers and mash, and the full English. <br>Chelsea pensioners. <br>Pomp and ceremony. <br>Real ale. (not too warm though). <br>William Webb Ellis. <br>William Shakespear and Churchill. <br>The stiff upper lip. <br>Chicken korma.
****
me senseless.Let’s sum up this list:
"The best things about England:
things that don’t exist anymore<br>s**t
e food<br>s**t
e drink<br>foreign food"****
me, if that’s the best things going for England, what a s**t
country.Steve
Blackpool – always go there once a year, back in the day people went for a fortnight at a time but now it just rains, still it is British.
London (see previous thread). The other day I was walking across Waterloo bridge at sunset (cue song). The sky was blood-red over the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye and I was giddy with excitement with the beauty of it, like I was 11 again.
I even stopped a couple of heads-down commuters to get them to look. Tourists were deliriously taking snapshots all over, and at the risk of sounding trite I was immensely proud of my city.
It seems to me that people who are miserable and moaning are like those commuters, too busy with their heads down to notice what a great country they live in. If they keep their heads down I don’t suppose it matters where they live, they’ll still be miserable twats. If they brought a tourist’s eye or a younger more optimistic version of themselves to the show then maybe they’d see how lucky they are…
<br>Here’s a few other highlights of the year for me:
Walking through Bishop’s Park to Craven Cottage with the Thames on your left, families on your right, and hope in your heart. (The journey back isn’t always as good, but then it’s better to travel hopefully!)
Running (Ok jogging) through Wimbledon Common, Putney Heath and Richmond Park.
Watching the birds in my garden from where I type this – from the common or garden, to the nuthatch, woodpecker, and even a presumably lost heron who stopped off for a rest on my shed roof.
Walking along Embleton beach (northumberland) in the autumn sun and then the next morning teeing off at the par three with Dunstanborough castle looming up out of the mist as backdrop.
The 15th annual trip to Brighton with old work colleagues – with the full breakfast, Rottingdean pitch and putt, and beachside pub, and tenpin bowling and karaoke on the pier, and Thai meal and pub and club and chips on the beach.
Cycling from London to Brighton with 30000 other idiots on the hottest day of the year, and realising 17 stone is too much for one bike to bear with Ditchling Beacon rising up in the distance.
Dr Who
Cider pubs in Bristol – still there, and still full of the same madmen whose brains have addled to a pulp.
Or for the more snobbish, evening drinks on the verandah at the Gorge Hotel with its view over the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Which leads me to a trip round the museums at Ironbridge and a reminder of what an amazing engineering history we have.
Strolling into the Tate Modern to check out the white cube installation, and realising that its real (if unintentional ) point is to show up just how gob-smackingly massive the turbine-hall is.
Hill-forts everywhere, and Kennet Long Barrow in particular for showing just how much history we have (and how unprecious we are about it).
Lesley Sharp (what other country has so many actors with talent over looks?)
Helmsley or Richmond or any other of a dozen such market towns in Yorkshire (or anywhere else for that matter), that <br>remind you that England isn’t just something nostalgia-tinted out of John Major’s dreams, but here, alive and thriving.
Strauss’s catch and Flintoff’s roar and my wife caring.
Greasy-spoon cafes.
Or the Blueprint cafe with its view of the Thames and an onglet to die for.
Sandown Park on a hot summers day. Sitting in the bleachers by the 5f finish far away from the action. And then the horses come towards you and you feel and hear the full driving, thrusting, steaming and stamping finish played out right by you with no crowd noise at all, in a surreal dream-like slow motion.
Sergeant Cecil.<br>
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