I wrote this on gumtree but no-one seemed to give a damn so ill put it here, this is a must read if your thinking of moving to the uk. I am thinking of moving, yes i am, i live in southampton which is great if your a student which im not despite being student age, however most of my friends have moved away to uni, and my parents have moved back to bristol, plus even to get to brighton or london is like an hour and a half which is far too long a trip even once a week let alone every day...however, having seen most of the uk i have no idea where i want to go. Yes everywhere in the world has its problems, but for a modern world country, there are far more negatives than positives: I'll start with the first problem, in fact its a massive problem if you get a train to work or wherever as most people do in fact it is the highest growing method of transport here.where my parents live in bristol, what is a just 1 hour 30 or so train journey into london, neither peak time nor first class is around 60 pounds thats 120 us dollars, its irelevant where i live, anywhere in the country such as bristol to london, manchester to london leeds to london, all between an hour to two hours and the prices are astronomical, and those arent even open travel anytime tickets (once you see those prices your eyes will pop out if your converting it to dollars), hell my sister lives in bath just ten min from bristol well a bit over but its ten pounds roughly thats not even first class or peak time, and i went reading to london off peak and that was like 16 pounds, however this was before the beautiful christmas present network rail when they gave us (so touching)... and train prices went up by anything from 3% to 14% cough cough firstgreatwestern. None of those figures have been exagurated, those are the kind of fares you pay for a saver return which arent open anytime tickets as these cant be used before 9.30 am, plus these arent even first class.... however taxes on cars are so high when you consider mot, fuel, congestion charge etc, that you have no choice but to use trains... its a no win situation. okay so thats covered the transport problems. Next is the problems with gangs yes i know what your going to probably say mister ponytail guy with a hawain t shirt whos just come back from a tour of easter europe and is reading this from an internet cafe munching some maltesers youll say oh *you get them everywhere* but here its just pathetic, everywhere you go you see street corners rotting with groups of chavs, or bored jobless people with nothing better to do than start on other people.... and do NOT start the whole *oh not all chavs are that bad* or *oh because i wear a baseball cap does that make me a chav* arguement... its a known fact if you dress like a chav and hang around a street corner at night, your not exactly out on a family picnic, so yes most if not all chavs are absolute scum of the earth, and the sad thing is unless you live on the most expensive areas of towns, ie your behind a huge steel gate and quiet a distance from other roads, your bound to have a gang of chavs within a few hundred yards guaranteed, ive been all over the country from plymouth up to glasgow.. yes i know every country has its problems but they are never so widespread to the fact that EVERY SINGLE city is full of them. The government say they are clamping down on immigration... thats a joke, why do you think the amount of people who come here every year are the same amount who could cram into a city the size of liverpool (another statistic), why do you think 1 in 4 babies (goverment figures) is born to a foreign mother, because everyone is welcome in the uk..it doesnt matter if your a peadophile terrorist or caninbal, if you claim to be looking for work your welcome to come, get a house, benefits all that, hell if you claim to have children back home your more than welcome to have extra to send back to them regardless of if they live here or not. whereas my oldest brother has lived in the us since 2000 worked his ass off as an estate agent (NOT THE SHIPPING DOCKS OR FLIPPING BURGERS) and is still trying to become an official citizen. My grandfather who is close to 90 lost the use of his right hand during the second world war, even with his disability pension he doesnt get as much as what a 20 year old unemployed polish man who has just waltzed into the country would get.... disgusting absolutly disgusting! Next problem is the prices of everything, ive already covered trains, what about basic things such as regular small bottles of soda; well the cheapest youll possibly get them for is 99 pence, if you go to a wh smith or any normal shop which isnt a cheap whole saler, theyre about 1 pound 30 which is 2 dollars 50 or more depending on the exchange rate. Everything is sky high here, when windows vista came out it was on average around 50% if not more expensive than anywhere else... its like other countries see us as suckers, lets rip the british off they wont complain. Which brings me onto the last point which really makes my blood boil. The stupid human rights and political correctness garbage: To sum it up - if you break into somebodys house but hurt yourself breaking in, you can sue them for making the property unsafe. if you commit murder and get sentenced to *life*, life does NOT mean life, you can appeal and more often than not your out within 5 years, long term sentences are around ten years at most., names of peadophiles, serial killers, or underage yobs are quite often not allowed to be made public to protect their *human rights*, everytime you read the news you read about islamic terrorists with their plots to kill on a mass scale, sometimes they are released scott free, or at the very most get a year or two... i could go on and on, you tell me where else in the modern western world, its the victims who are the accused? you tell me! My friend was being threatend at the door once by a gang of chavs, he called the police, when they arrived 3 hours later the chavs had gone, the police accused him of being a timewaster as they werent there, and that theres nothing they can do unless physical harm has taken place. However the worst and most famous story occured a few years ago where a elderly man had two youths who he assumed were armed break into his house, he shot and injured one, and he got a few years in jail, i cant remember how long. in the us he would have been a hero, but here in the uk, you are NOT allowed to defend yourself through violence! None of what i have said is exagurating, anybody living in the uk can tell you the same, we live in a society where the goverment are more than happy to tax us for every penny (even when we are dead they tax the hell out of us and our families) and where the cost of living is higher than most places in the world, however we are no better off when it comes to security than living in a war torn neighbourhood in zimbabwe or afghanistan. Before you get the wrong idea and think oh hes a miserable old sod who finds problems with everything, well im not even 20 yet, i do have a really good social life, im well aware of other problems in the world, ive been to los angeles and new york and france so nobody can say *look around you*. i do believe in positives outweighing the negatives, but theres a good reason why the goverment rarely likes to talk about people emigrating from the uk, thats because british people are leaving in sky high numbers, nobody wants to be here, the only people who want to be here are people from countries with bog standard living conditions, and where somewhere like the uk is paradise for them So to sum it up, i want to move, yes but abroad, i will be the first to admit that there are some nicer places like brighton, exeter, and cornwall but on a whole unless your absolutly loaded to the brim and can afford to live in a really posh area behind huge gates with security guards, or are more than hapy to live in countryside or hours away from a main city which i could never do (i live for my social life), then theres no guarantee your safe. If you're thinking of coming to the uk, please think twice.. yes you may have really enjoyed a weekend here, but it doesnt show what life is really like here........avoid it, for your own sanity. Comments much appreciated as this took me a long time to write
