Quite Possibly, the Worst Country in the World. Apart from All those Other Ones.

I confess, this is a pretty lousy country in many ways.
And getting lousier by the day.

Life in the UK is not quite as fun as the TV tells you.

Sure, a lot of people must be able to spend quite a bit of money. Hence all those programmes about buying houses, or interior decoration.

But in reality, we work long hours at pointless jobs, aspiring to rent our homes from the building society, rather than a landlord.

We don't even really have much of a culture any more.

But aside from the fact that we don't live in a polarised, anger filled, failing economy like France, or a society of self-loathing, like the Germans, or worse, any one of those hundred or so other nations where everyday life is so miserable, you or I can not even consider it, there are things about this country that make it home.

Like it or not, whatever we might think, we don't really yearn for open spaces.

We are used to a land of Housing estates, Out of town shopping centres, Business Parks, Heritage sights, Power stations, Inner city ghettoes, Areas of outstanding natural beauty and Victorian Architecture.

We are used to a culture of Beer, Football, Soap Operas, Shakespeare, Tabloid journalism, Indian food and Hooliganism.

Where people never say what they are thinking, are cultured in small talk, where office politics are more complex than national politics, where the girls are loose and the lads are drunk. These people you understand.

So yes, it's no Paradise.
But it's home.