The UK - nice and that

[dissolute ocelot]

Zero chance of getting killed by a bear

Tigers on the other hand...

[Buelligan]

The peas are very round.

[Mr Banlon]

The canal system. Fucking great for cycling, especially in London.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I spent over half my adult live living outside of the UK and missed the supermarkets (or corner shop etc) and humour most of all. I find the general landscape of the country coupled with the weather kind of depressing and would generally favour a holiday anywhere abroad but there are stunningly beautiful little spots here and there when they're not overrun with annoying people trashing everything.

[Darles Chickens]

There is plenty of beautiful countryside, and I was lucky enough to grow up right in the heart of it.  It's a shame that the most beautiful areas tend to also be the areas with the most cunty attitudes.  And if you actually want to enjoy the countryside on a nice day, you've got this double menace to contend with:

   

[Emma Raducanu]

I don't want to slag the UK off but the many villages I've visited on the continent tend to be vibrant lived spaces, brimming with taverns, cafes and the young and old. Villages in Britain are deathly sterile Tory heartland. Watch an episode of escape to the country. They're bouncing if there's a post office nearby.

[chveik]

is it a Bergerac thing?

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Yeah, everything in the UK countryside used to be something - the Old Schoolhouse, the Old Post Office, the Old Abattoir...

The irony is that some of the residents seem to bemoan the hollowing-out of the countryside and lament the loss of a 1950s world of bustling communities while loyally voting for the politicians whose neoliberal economics do the damage.

I don't know whether the UK has been worse at preserving its identity than other western countries where neoliberal policies have dominated and second home-owners and holiday lets have pushed locals out, or whether there wasn't enough of a strongly distinctive culture(s) there in the first place. 

With areas like the Scottish Highlands, it doesn't help that they were systematically and deliberately depopulated for economic and political reasons long ago, and I suppose the UK in general probably had a bigger population shift from country to city in industrial times than most countries (I think the Republic of Ireland has a rural population of about 30%, whereas Scotland and England have less than 20%).

[Small Man Big Horse]

I risk being beaten to death due to the following comment as I know many hate it but...London - Fucking amazing place, I've lived here for eighteen years now and still haven't tired of it, there's just so much to do and it can be a beautifully odd place as well, yes there are downsides but the positives outweigh them an enormous amount for me.

[Mr_Simnock]

Yeah, everything in the UK countryside used to be something - the Old Schoolhouse, the Old Post Office, the Old Abattoir...

The irony is that some of the residents seem to bemoan the hollowing-out of the countryside and lament the loss of a 1950s world of bustling communities while loyally voting for the politicians whose neoliberal economics do the damage.

I don't know whether the UK has been worse at preserving its identity than other western countries where neoliberal policies have dominated and second home-owners and holiday lets have pushed locals out, or whether there wasn't enough of a strongly distinctive culture(s) there in the first place. 

Within my own lifetime we have lost a hell of a lot of services from the countryside but to be honest i don't think it's down to just neoliberalism (or the tories) that removed them, I think everyone owning a car and thus travelling to local towns for a lot and supermarkets killed off a lot. Most villages did have their own primary schools but it just became harder for councils to justify class sizes of 5 and less in some schools and just decided to merge a lot of them years ago. Post offices are still plentiful but almost all operate on very reduced hours often only open 2 days a week for a couple hours at a time.

On the second point I've always held onto the idea that up to the late 1600's many areas of the UK had very strong identities and culture etc but then along came the industrial revolution which was basically an atom bomb on all that. The speed at which the countryside emptied and many old ways of life vanished almost overnight was incredible.

[Fr.Bigley]

I risk being beaten to death due to the following comment as I know many hate it but...London - Fucking amazing place, I've lived here for eighteen years now and still haven't tired of it, there's just so much to do and it can be a beautifully odd place as well, yes there are downsides but the positives outweigh them an enormous amount for me.

"A man who tires of london, is tired of life"- Samuel Johnson 1777

Mr Johnson hasn't been there much recently though has he. Witnessing a 30 something city worker on the Jubilee line Shitting in a carrier bag or sitting outside Starbucks in Stratford seeing a teenage lad stabbed to death in broad daylight. London, Without the people..Is alright.

[Emma Raducanu]

I've only stayed in London a few times. I remember waking up in my hotel room and thinking "aahh the possibilities". Then I went down for breakfast and a sea of middle aged men in suits passed by and I wanted to columbine the place. That said, I had a wonderful time. London does have brilliant free-to-enter museums and an absolute plethora of decent greasy spoons that puts the rest of the England to shame.

[Gurke and Hare]

Famously no British city other than London contains middle-aged men in suits.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

I quite like London but I think that's mainly because I don't have to live there.

[BlodwynPig]

I've only stayed in London a few times. I remember waking up in my hotel room and thinking "aahh the possibilities". Then I went down for breakfast and a sea of middle aged men in suits passed by and I wanted to columbine the place. That said, I had a wonderful time. London does have brilliant free-to-enter museums and an absolute plethora of decent greasy spoons that puts the rest of the England to shame.

Even around Leicester Square there are some quiet places to enjoy.

[Emma Raducanu]

Famously no British city other than London contains middle-aged men in suits.

I'm from the industrial North. They tend to wear poppers and hi Viz jackets here. Do the same job though just for less money.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

A lot of the decline in rural services is inevitably down to technological advances, but free market economics have let the supermarkets (even without the online shopping factor) kill off town centres.  Plus, the lifestyle that the economic system forces people into in the UK means that they end up taking whichever option takes least time, at the expense of looking after their communities in a way that I think continental Europe is generally better at.

Things like the supermarkets starting home deliveries have really accelerated this. I suppose there's been a bit of a counter-movement to this with a growing market for local produce, organic produce etc. but 
this can only take you so far.  Affluent places can fill the gaps vacated by traditional shops with new coffee shops, boutiques, organic bakeries and the like but in poorer areas you see only empty shops and deteriorating buildings.

Christ knows what things will be like in the aftermath of Covid, with further shop and facility closures, and more people working from home rather than in city/town centre buildings. Will there be serious strategic thought about what town centres should be used for (e.g. getting people living in them instead of building on greenbelt) in an era in which the purposes they were designed around have been pretty much usurped? I'm not holding my breath.  If there is no-one to occupy shops and office space, the rentier class won't have any incentive to maintain buildings and there could be a spiral of decline where countless traditional buildings end up being bulldozed.

On the voting Tory thing, I suppose I meant in my earlier post that you might well hear the same people who vote Tory moaning about how there used to be this that or the other in the village while the austerity imposed by the Tories shuts them down. Take libraries for example - it's clear that most Tory politicians would happily shut these down and have everyone even more beholden to Amazon than they are already, but it won't stop their own voters complaining when they're shut down, and (if they're lucky) they're offered the opportunity to run a mini-library in a lovely old decommissioned red phone box.

Farmers are another mystery - I can't imagine that many vote for left-wing parties and yet the Tories, to use one example, deregulated the dairy industry by getting rid of the old Milk Marketing Board system of fixed fees and centralised buying, making farmers sign contracts with supermarkets and big multinationals like Muller which have pushed thousands of them to the wall by pushing milk prices down and down.

Turned into a bit of an epic post.

tl;dr - too bad, I can't be arsed trying to summarise.

[bgmnts]

I assume that in ten years time, most provincial areas of the UK will just contain;

* Amazon Warehouse
* Lidl
* Wetherspoons
* Morrisons
* ASDA
* Sports Direct
* Co-op
* A park
* Greggs
* Starbucks and Costa
* McDonalds
* KFC
* Subway
* Natwest and HSBC
* Pizza Hut
* Papa Johns
* Dominos

[Clatty McCutcheon]

There'll probably just be a big amphitheatre into which the municipal overlords release a great vat of assorted fast food twice a day, and the populace will wrestle and gouge at one another in the hope of snaffling enough McNuggets, shreds of Pizza and quadruple-cheeseburgers to survive another day.

[Foggy Buntwhistle]

And thus the thread turns to endless pessimistic shitting. Inevitable really.


Regards London, I've lived here my whole life. There are obviously lots of things wrong with it, but it's also an amazing city. Any generalisation is inevitably ridiculous reductive bullshit considering how large and spread out and diverse (in all ways) the city is, it has a population larger than a lot of countries.
It is a mad old place, in both great and terrible ways.

[Foggy Buntwhistle]

On topic. The ability of British people to endlessly moan and moan and complain and moan and moan and whinge and gripe and complain and wahwahwah everything's shit wahwahwah.

etc.

I'm being a prick but there is actually an art to the moaning as well, fills the time before grim death and that. Can be funny when done right, the ability for mutually recognising how shit everything is, and carry on and do your best in spite of that. Not neccesarily keep calm and carry on but the awareness even in the dimmest of bulbs of just how fucked everything is creates a bond I think. Bonded in misery. Grey brutalism and skag needles in urea stunk stair wells on yer shittiest estate.

And yet, transmuting that into art, a song, a picture, a book etc. May as well have a laugh mate. Laugh or you weep your soul outside yourself

Pissed. Obvz.

[Dewt]

On topic. The ability of British people to endlessly moan and moan and complain and moan and moan and whinge and gripe and complain and wahwahwah everything's shit wahwahwah.

etc.

I'm being a prick but there is actually an art to the moaning as well, fills the time before grim death and that. Can be funny when done right, the ability for mutually recognising how shit everything is, and carry on and do your best in spite of that. Not neccesarily keep calm and carry on but the awareness even in the dimmest of bulbs of just how fucked everything is creates a bond I think. Bonded in misery. Grey brutalism and skag needles in urea stunk stair wells on yer shittiest estate.

And yet, transmuting that into art, a song, a picture, a book etc. May as well have a laugh mate. Laugh or you weep your soul outside yourself

Yes. Also there's nothing more miserable than unbridled enthusiasm. There's no actual joy when you're smiling about everything; you're presenting as happy but I don't believe it for a second. You can't see beauty unless you contrast it with the shit.

[Foggy Buntwhistle]

Yes. Also there's nothing more miserable than unbridled enthusiasm. There's no actual joy when you're smiling about everything; you're presenting as happy but I don't believe it for a second. You can't see beauty unless you contrast it with the shit.

Well yes quite. And there is plenty of shit here, which makes the beauty transcendent, imho. When people here break the conditioning fucking amazing things happen. The highest of highs. But ground up, straight out the manure, can't grow dew specked green leaf and rainbow flowers without it.

This is not a defence of the shite of course. It is miserable drudgery and the people who enable it are demons in a very literal sense.

But there is something there, in our mutual recognition of it all the knowing smile, twinkling eyes.

y'alright?

can't complain can't complain, could be worse and all that.

Beauty in the stoicism. Buddhist non-attachment in the alcoholism. Shamanic fury at the football. 

[BlodwynPig]

And thus the thread turns to endless pessimistic shitting. Inevitable really.


Regards London, I've lived here my whole life. There are obviously lots of things wrong with it, but it's also an amazing city. Any generalisation is inevitably ridiculous reductive bullshit considering how large and spread out and diverse (in all ways) the city is, it has a population larger than a lot of countries.
It is a mad old place, in both great and terrible ways.

I said a nice thing about London, first time for everything. Just seen a video of a woman kicking* a swan and a man then getting pushed into a canal. "Britain" was my first response.

*more of a prod with an outstretched leg, so thankfully it seems no harm done - but blimey wildlife must be regretting lockdown is over

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

If only Canal Pushing was an Olympic sport. We'd be unbeatable.

[greenman]

Yeah, everything in the UK countryside used to be something - the Old Schoolhouse, the Old Post Office, the Old Abattoir...

The irony is that some of the residents seem to bemoan the hollowing-out of the countryside and lament the loss of a 1950s world of bustling communities while loyally voting for the politicians whose neoliberal economics do the damage.

On the more self interested side I suspect both of these relate to the Tories being more likely to keep housing prices high which in turn makes it more likely businesses will shut down to make way for housing.

[Foggy Buntwhistle]

I said a nice thing about London, first time for everything. Just seen a video of a woman kicking* a swan and a man then getting pushed into a canal. "Britain" was my first response.

*more of a prod with an outstretched leg, so thankfully it seems no harm done - but blimey wildlife must be regretting lockdown is over

Swans can be right cunts though to be fair.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've seen that video. They are all cunts, but I suspect they may have thought the man-swan was attacking the woman swan than you know, doing nature and that.

Although I condemn them, I did also laugh at the slapstick of matey being pushed in the drink.

[Dex Sawash]

And thus the thread turns to endless pessimistic shitting. Inevitable really.

Still to come; paedo content

[bgmnts]

And thus the thread turns to endless pessimistic shitting. Inevitable really.

Yeah because its the UK.