Today, one of the most disturbing things was said to me by Lorna. We were having a pick-nick/barbecue on the beach and she said I didn’t like England because I keep on slagging it off. That got me thinking on my way back. Long walk: 45 minutes. With flip-flops, I hate flip-flops! They are for people who’ve given up!
I realised it was true. Since I came back here, I haven’t been feeling like I felt when I was in Stafford but mainly Blackpool: at home. And that gets me, very deeply so I can’t help but finding everything crap. I slag off England’s binge drinking, all the men walking around half naked at every single ray of sun, the slags all around, the dismal public services, the arrogance… And nothing positive can come to me.
Have those ten months in France really destroyed my special relationship with England?
I know I don’t like France more than England but I can’t help but feeling that somehow I might have made the wrong choice and now that I know I’m here for sure, I can’t stop thinking of leaving for somewhere better.
Has the dream died? Has the reality got me up? Have my eyes been open on the cruel reality of an agonising country riddled by desperation, sex and alcohol?
No.
No.
No.
And no!
It’s not England. It’s Portsmouth!
It’s not England I resent, it’s here. It’s like leaving in France but without the advantages of good doctors, good buses, good trains, good schools, good manners and sensible, clever people…I miss the North. I miss Blackpool, that’s the problem. People in the South are happy shaming the North only because it helps them to forget their own mediocrity, to put it into perspective by pretending there are worse people than them.
I miss the Northerners. They are funnier, wittier, more cynical but more welcoming, warmer, simpler and smarter. It’s the little everyday thing you don’t realise but who weight a lot in the scale because at the end they make your life better, more pleasurable. It’s the bus driver calling “Mate!” or the cashier calling you “Love”. It’s them saying “Cheers!” everytime and answering back when you say “Have a nice day” or “Take care”. It’s the simplicity of people who don’t show off, pretend to be better. There’s no arrogance, no insults, they don’t look at you like you are different in a bad way. They like you because you are different. They are some raging tits of course. Les cons sont partout there’s something in the North.
Portsmouth city is disgrace! It’s ugly (they blame the Germans for this, of course!), people are rude, insulting, men are pillocks, women are slags, when they are not drunk and they are arrogant. They are always looking down on you, they are cold and overbearing. They believe they live in some kind of paradise because there is (more) sun. The “English Côte d’Azur” I was said. God, I don’t like the French Riviera because it rhymes with boredom and old rich people but what an insult it is to compare Portsmouth to it!
And that sun! I came in England for a colder, more bearable weather. It hasn’t rained for over a month (but for ten minutes one morning) and the temperature hasn’t got below 25°C since the beginning of June. If I wanted that, I’d have stayed in France or gone to Spain!
And the university! That is even worse than Nanterre. Four times have I got to photocopy my passport for the same fatuous cow whose scale of incompetence is more than unbe-fucking-lievable!
The thing is about France is that you expect them to be incompetent so somehow you can do things by yourself. They are actually quite happy with you doing everything: calling the right people, running everywhere from buildings to buildings, offices to offices to find the scattered and lost pieces of what they were supposed to give you and put everything together yourself. Here in Portsmouth, they are driven by this complete inability to do anything right or on time, they lose everything and never work but you can’t do it yourself. They won’t let you, you’re not allowed to go and have a word with the guy who’s not doing anything.
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