Moor Larkin

Plainly more bothered about something that no longer concerns him more than his adopted home country then:

FACTS ON BAHAMIAN POVERTY

➢ About 34% of poor youth, ages 19–24, are out of school and unemployed.
➢ More than 50% of the country’s poor are children 14 years of age or younger.

Poor children are. . .
➢ Less likely to have an early childhood education.
➢ More likely to repeat a grade in primary school.
➢ Less likely to attend college or university.

Housing conditions
➢ 58% of poor families rent, rather than own, their homes.
➢ 54% has no piped water.
➢ 33% lacks access to a flush toilet.
➢ 50% crowds more than three people into each bedroom.
http://www.centralbankbahamas.com/pu...%20summary.pdf

Anyone planning to head for the Bahamas?.......

christoph404

You could probably apply those statistics to the slums and tenanments of 1930s/40s Edinburgh and Glasgow, I believe Connery is no stranger to poverty and a poor education!
I think it is a fairly similar socio economic outlook throughout the Caribean as well, I went to Barbados several years ago and was shocked to see people living in corrogated huts by the roadside on the way the famous Sandy Lane Hotel , not that I could afford to stay at such a luxurios Hotel you understand it is the play ground of the rich and famous after all which excludes me! To be fair to Connery he did donate his entire fee of one million dollars for Diamonds Are forever to set up a charity in Scotland to help educate underpriviliged children, that charirty still exists and he regularly pumps money into it but does not seek publicity on that account, charity begins at home as they say. I think there are many places in the world that offer luxurious holidays and surroundings next to abject poverty and social depravation.....London and the South East for example!.......

TimR

Hmmm...interesting to read this. Britain has always seemed to me an attractive place to move to. I used to plan on moving there, but life responsibilities took over! It's surprising to read of so many who want to move away - but of course I don't live there and I am not aware of the problems in a direct sense. It's a shame about the increase in crime; Britain always had the highest reputation for safety and civility.

I was in Britain for a total of about three months during the late 80s and again in the early 90s, and found the people to be very civil. London seemed to me a marvelous city: I remember walking around St. James Park thinking: "If I were born here I would never want to leave permanently". But of course it is always easier for an outsider to make these obseravtions!

The one drawback for me would be the lack of space: as an American, there is always the half-conscious awareness that there are 49 other states to move to. The crowding in London was hardly a suprise: I am from NYC! But the lack of open spaces outside the cities was unusual.

The one trait I found disconcerting among the people I met was the tendency to complain. It was almost always mixed with good humour - but the complaints about life in Britain and life in general startled me. That is simply foreign to American temperament. Of course, there is plenty of complaining here , but it is usually associated with action and is much less good humoured.

It's interesting to see that Australia is the most attractive destination; I know many Australians, and they are probably the only people who are louder and more boisterous than Americans. (In the northeastern US, where people are far more reserved - Australians stand out as FAR more boisterous and oustpoken). It seems their temperament is about as different from that of the Brits as it is possible to be.

Moor Larkin

That's why they call us Whingeing Poms

TimR

Ha!

I didn't know that. Well, I have the heard the term POM - but not the whining part. I was told that "pom" stands for "prisoner of mother England". True, or were they pulling my leg?

Steve Crook

It still is, despite the original subject of this thread, and the various complaints expressed. There are twice as many people that want to move here than want to move away, and the crime rate is still one of the lowest you'll find. But we do have newspapers that like to blow everything up out of proportion. Their job isn't to report the news, it's to sell newspapers and to do that they make everything as sensationalist as possible, even if it means making a lot of it up.

It's a crowded little island. But despite that it's easy enough to find open spaces. OK, not as big and open as the mid-west plains, but fairly big and fairly open. In fact there is hardly anything that is extreme here. We have some mountains, but they aren't as big as the Rockies. We have some lakes, but they aren't as big as the Great Lakes. We have some rivers, but they aren't as big as the Mississippi. However, there's nothing here that's very dangerous either (except some of the people) with no lethal animals or plants. Even the weather doesn't get taken to the extreme. We have some snow, some sun, some wind and some rain but only very rarely an excessive amount of any of them. The weather here is continually changing. We don't have a climate, we have weather, and lots of it. But if you don't like one lot just wait a while and there'll be a different lot coming very soon

But as big cities go, London has a huge amount of open spaces. There are the big parks and gardens in the centre and around the edge there are areas like Hampstead Heath, Wimbledon & Clapham Common and Richmond Park.

I was born and brought up in and around London and I love the place. Despite all of its problems I'd still much rather be here than just about anywhere else.

Steve

TimR

[quote]Interesting. I travel quite a bit for my job and was in Heathrow a few months ago on a layover with a long wait for the next flight - I watched a London-based news show about people leaving Britain, mostly concentrating on Spain as the destination of choice (Spain? ). There was no mention at all of people who want to move to Britain.

Yes - I do like the moderation and the constant changes in weather, and the countryside that I saw was very beautiful indeed. My sister was living there at the time and I had a few weeks in Wells and Salisbury.

I would not miss the plains or the Rockies or the Mississippi because I did not grow up in those areas. The weather in Britain is not that different from the coast of New England (I think), except for the snow storms! Now that is something I would miss! I don't think you get proper blizzards in Britain? Perhaps I am wrong?

When I referred to lack of space, I was probably not being very clear: it's not really a lack of physcial space - it's more the option of being able to move thousands of miles and still remain within the US, even if it is only an option. I had not been aware that was a part of my thinking until I went to Europe. Actually, it matters much less to me than when I was very young.

The parks are a pleasure. Also, there are so many monuments and residential areas with surrounding space. I took many early morning walks around London, just exploring. Like New York, it is an easy city to navigate and perfect for walkers. I thought: "Now I know why the British fought the way they did and wouldn't give in back in 1940. If I lived here, I would fight for it too." Not at all sentimental - even though it sounds that way. It was an honest, thoughtful response.

John Llewellyn Moxey

Please enlighten me. What is a Lada?

John

christoph404

A Lada is a low quality brand of motor car which I belive is manufactured in the eastern Bloc, similar to a Skoda insofar as it has no street cred whatsoever, hence the various jokes such as, " what do you call a Lada with twin exhaust pipes?" Answer; A wheelbarrow!... It would generally be considered very insulting to suggest that someone might own and drive a Lada......!

Steve Crook

The source article from the ONS that started this thread says "380,000 people emigrated from the UK for a year or more; over half of these were British citizens". So about half of them weren't British.

It also shows that more people still want to come and live here than want to go.

But journalists, be they TV or newspaper journalists, rarely present a balanced argument. They just want to sensationalise either the emigration or the immigration.

We had quite a good one in February. It closed most of the motorways. That was on the day when I was trying to drive from London to Wales to celebrate my Mum's 80th birthday. Luckily they cleared the roads ahead of me and although they were closed when I set off, by the time I got to each stretch they had cleared it enough to open at least one lane each way.

But that is quite unusual. And it's because it's so unusual that it always catches us unprepared.

You can go from here, via the Channel Tunnel, to (mainland) Europe where you can travel for even more thousands of miles without hitting the sea. You won't have left the United States of Europe

There's a lot more worth fighting for. To drag this thread back to the subject of British films, watch something like A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Steve

John Llewellyn Moxey

Thanks..It's never too late to learn!!

John

Steve Crook

Why does a Lada have a heated rear windscreen?
To keep your hands warm when you're pushing it.

What do you call a Lada at the top of a hill?
A miracle.

How do you double the value of a Lada?
Fill it with fuel.

Why does a Lada have a rear wash/wipe?
To clean off the flies that crash into it.

What's the difference between a Jehova's Witness and a Lada?
You can shut the door on a Jehova's Witness!

That sort of thing.

Skoda's are almost quite posh in comparison. Especially since the collapse of the evil empire, Skoda have come back with some quite respectable models after they were bought out by the VW group. Although even Lada have been seen in some serious racing events.

Steve

John Llewellyn Moxey

Great! Thanks Steve.

Cheers John

DB7

Lada's weren't that bad; pug ugly with rust spots but I've seen farmers run them into the ground and they keep going. BL's and Dacia's (and my most hated Imps) were far worse.

batman

Only one man could make an Imp look cool ....



Bats.

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"