A happy ex-pat, but also an Angry Exile

I think I should start this blog by saying that as much as the state of affairs in the UK depresses me I'm still quite fond of the place, and also that as much as I love it here in Australia I'm not blind to its faults. Nor were my reasons for emigrating confined to feeling that the UK was fast becoming a shithole run by a bunch of self serving power crazed tossers who could only be replaced by a slightly different bunch of self serving power crazed tossers. It's fair to say that politicians are broadly the same the world over and I didn't really expect Australia to buck the trend a great deal in that respect. In fact my ending up living in Australia has as much to do with knowing that my wife wanted to be here as anything else, but it didn't take long for me to appreciate the place for other reasons. Better weather for one, though here in Melbourne it can be at least as unpredictable as in the UK. Warmer generally, but it speaks volumes that the rest of Australia takes the piss out of the weather in Victoria and the way that Victorians talk weather almost as much as the Poms. And having been lucky enough to have done some traveling here, including a drive from the southern coast to Darwin in the north, I've become fascinated with this astonishing country.

However, that's not really what this blog is going to be about. The thing is that I just don't miss Britain. Family and friends, yes, but the UK itself I miss slightly less than a bad dose of flu. Is that sad? Certainly it seems to be unusual in an ex-pat, and weirdly I experience feelings of guilt for not being homesick rather than the occasional pangs of homesickness that seems to be the norm for Poms in Australia. I can't say I didn't shed a tear when I got on the plane because saying goodbye to family at the airport is the toughest thing I've had to do, but looking out of the window as the plane took off all I could think was "thank fuck for that".

I wish I did miss the UK and when asked by Aussies what it's like I can think of dozens of reasons for visiting, dozens of things to do there and dozens of places worth seeing. In my opinion the UK is a fantastic place to visit... but I wouldn't want to live there anymore. Not with the nanny state looking over my shoulder wagging a disapproving finger all the bloody time and helping itself to half the contents of my wallet supposedly for my own good. Not with ID cards and DNA databases and surveillance and monitoring and regulations all inflicted on an innocent majority for their own good. Not with an ever growing army of parasitic little pricks administering and enforcing and kissing each others arses to get ahead. Don't get me wrong, Australia is no libertarian utopia and I'll be an Angry Exile about that as well from time to time. But mostly I'll be lamenting anything and everything I come across that makes me say thank Christ we're out of there.