Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Whilst I do agree Brits who live abroad should integrate and learn the language, I think there is a difference between moving somewhere where you are self-sufficient financially and arriving illegally and expecting tax payers to pick up the tab for you and your extended family.

@pete, the one-in-one-out nonsense means if a thousand people arrive in a week, our population has permanently gone up by a thousand even if substitutions are made. Madness.

 

I lived some years in a country that had a large "Expat" American community. These people didn't live in a foreign country as such, but lived in an Expat community. Apparently being an "expat" carried some sort of status.

They had their own newspaper, library, cafe etc, which I (and many other foreigners) used until I learnt enough of the local language to be able to enjoy my newspapers and books in that language.

(A Finnish expact society bubble would be, by definition, rather small )

There was an uproar within the broader foreigner community though when the American Expat newspaper published an article of how to create "real pizza" using local ingredients, giving tips on which cheese to use if Monterey Jack (the one and only pizza cheese apparently) was not available in The Tesco.

"After all, pizza is an iconic American invention"- sentence was too much for the Italian community

 

There are many legal Pakistanis and Indians in the UK who restrict their wives access to language and thus communication with and information about their local community outside their own immediate family group.

If I'd wanted I could have spent my entire life in Belgium in English because there are schools, trades, shops and services provided by Brits doing things the British way. Not for me as I wanted to explore Belgium and other nationalities there while I could and found life much richer for it and no time to be bored or depressed as so many other "trailing wives" were.

 

According to the BBC, the majority entered the UK legally, however the type of visa that they entered would of not allowed them to work legally in the UK. The report carried on in saying that one was to young to work in the UK with all of them being paid under the minimum wage. Apparently it was an agency that supplied them, however the police found the passports of all those arrested at the depot they were working at. So, it will not just be the agency that face prosecution but also the recycling depot, no defence if they were in possession of the passports.

It's for this reason I can't see labours obsession with having an ID card will stop illegal migrants working in the UK, if any anything, it will do the opposite and increase it.

When it comes to asylum seekers waiting for their application to be processed, then I personally believe they should be allowed to work until their application says otherwise.

 

I still think if you want to live in another country you should at least try to fit in if only learning some language however you get there.

But yes if you arrive illegally you should be shipped out anyway before you even get chance to learn the language.

 

I've been in this country all my life even born here and i still can't speak the language properly

 

Sounds like East Anglia around the American Air bases there, they never left the bases.
My Uncle and Aunt moved to Spain when he retired and left Leicester (due to his inability to recruit enough white workers for his company) neither learnt Spanish and lived entirely within the English expat community.

 

This is particularly the case with Pakistanis who still live in village or extended family groups especially in areas like Bradford. They came over in those groups to work in the mill producing cloth, worked together and live together. Cousin marriage was very common until recently and the NHS and Health Educators had to work hard to explain the problems with cousin marriage and the resultant genetic defects.
Another issue is when the mother of a child with a serious health issue cannot speak English very well and the child ends up having to translate for the doctor when normally the doctor would talk to the mother directly. Sometimes an older child or relative is brought along to translate. Translation services are scarce and overstretched.

 

We used to live near Huntingdon and rented out our house to Americans from the nearby American Airbase - I think it was Alconbury. They took all the doors off and whitewashed my lovely floral wallpaper in my bedroom. We never moved back there, but dad must have put the doors back on. They liked open plan living.

 

Another one this morning, hopefully the next one will be BANG!!!!! this the only way they're going to learn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lots of people walk and ride bike's/horse's etc

 

When they do they knock people off motorbikes, for some reason they like to drive on the wrong side of the road.

 

Insurance companies/policies........... pages and pages of "changes to your policy" and a little column alongside each change which they have entitled "Clarification ( what we really mean ) ". It mostly starts with.........guess what.......... "we won't pay out for.....".
I don't have Life Insurance but I'll bet one of their policy changes before too long will be "we won't pay out if you die from illness, or by accident or if shot by police..........sorry. We look forward to you renewing your life policy with us ".

 

I had my renewal of my car insurance yesterday. I noticed that the date they had for my wife and I passing our driving tests were the same, but not the actual date for either. I called to get it corrected and that only took about 2 minutes of speaking to a human. Unfortunately the call was about 15 minutes of trying to get a robot to understand what I was saying and/or sitting in a queue waiting to speak to the human.

 

@shiney I don't remember being asked either, but when there's a date on the form I want it to be right.