Letter from Britain

Some personal views on life in the UK.

A Silent Spring: "It's been an eerie week out in the countryside. The weather clamped down over the weekend and the first signs of Spring were quickly covered with a blanket of icy wet snow, chilled hard by a biting wind straight from Siberia..." Liz Butterfield describes the eerieness of a country in the grips of foot and mouth disease.
Talking To The World: "The Sixties icon Andy Warhol once said: "Everyone can have their 15 minutes' worth of fame", but at the Butterfield Broadcasting Corporation, you'll have to make do with just 13. So says producer Chris Butterfield who, from his tiny studio in Bardney in Lincolnshire, is making waves in the world of radio." Liz Butterfield writes about the radio station her son created at home.
The Wise Counsel Of Friends: "Had cameramen captured another submarine volcanic eruption - surely that was it? Only slowly did I realise that the deep blue was sky and the monolith was a skyscraper. Somehow in those moments the brain filtered out the explanatory words of the newsreader. Only when a second plane swooped like a dragonfly and exploded in flames into the World Trade Center did reality reassert itself..." Liz Butterfield writes in the aftermath of the 11 September tragedy.
Where Did We Lose The Plot?: "The 'Independent' newspaper reported this morning that 20,000 people die each year in NHS hospitals from bacterial infections caused by super bugs that are almost immune to all known antibiotics. Well, that might be the cause of death as a coroner sees it, but every housewife and retired old-fashioned Matron knows better." Liz Butterfield laments the primacy of cost-cutting over excellence.
When did they take the "Great" out of Britain?: Linda Heard is a proud Briton as long as she doesn't have to live in those green and, these days, not-so-pleasant lands, which constitute the British Isles. As one of the hated species expatricus non-interruptus, her eyes have become increasingly jaundiced when it comes to the land of her birth...
Why You Should Be Glad You Don't Live In Britain: "OK, so you can't buy Baked Beans the way you like them and Marmite's a no-no. OK, so export Guinness is a treacly mess. OK, so you get The Times three days late. I know living abroad isn't all hay and sunshine, but it could be worse - oh so much worse. Living abroad has one major advantage - you are all about as far away from British Bus Stops as I would wish to be." Dave Stock indulges in a rant at one of his pet peeves...
Bush, balls and blast: "Those of us with any sense have been stoutly ignoring the state visit by Emperor Bush to London this week (whilst those of us without sense seem to have spent the week attempting to scale the gates of Buckingham Palace, where the nice guards with silly hats have shown admirable patience...)" Dave Stock writes for British Expat magazine about the Bush State Visit to the UK and the Rugby World Cup final.
How European migration is starting to recede: "In the three years since the European Union welcomed 10 new members, record numbers have moved from east to west. The scale of migration has cheered those eager to promote mobility within the EU and distressed those who fear the economic and social effects of uncontrolled immigration. Yet both cheerleaders and detractors of Europe's newfound mobility are getting worked up by a temporary phenomenon." Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah explains why the UK has nothing to fear from the legendary Polish plumber.
Brits Behaving Badly...: With the publication of the FCO's third annual "British Behaviour Abroad" report, the UK media are full of stories about Brits misbehaving overseas. Are we really all as bad as the press would have us believe?