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Fancy a bit of emigration, love?

February 07, 2002 ~ 12:09 a.m.

I noticed a hilarious newspaper advertisement for an international job center. Allow me to share it with you:

�Isn�t Britain wonderful? Apart from the long winters, of course. And the awful summers. And Railtrack. And the National Health. And the Post Office (sorry� Consignia!) and Anne Robinson and �need we go on?

There is an alternative�emigrate�

Classic! This is enough to make me run away from these shores screaming in horror. Only I don�t have to emigrate. I could just return to my native America. Suffice to say, I already did that twice before finally determining to settle down here.

Some things I could shrug off: The weather isn�t that awful. I miss the extremes of Boston. But, to be fair, it�s been quite a mild winter. Furthermore, we had a very satisfyingly hot and sunny summer last year; the dark tan I received in London was as good as I could have received in the tropics. And I actually enjoy watching �The Weakest Link.�

But some things are no laughing matter.

Take, for instance, the Post Office�er, Consignia (what the hell kind of patsy name is that for the post office anyway?) Postal workers are constantly striking and mail delivery is subsequently disrupted. But sometimes, poor postal service is due entirely to gross incompetence. I have had several things lost in the British mail over the years. Recently, my tax credit check got lost in the mail. The Post Office was satisfied that the check arrived in the U.S., saying it was now in the hands of the U.S. Mail, considered the matter closed and sent me a packet of first-class stamps as compensation. Customer service knows no bounds at Consignia! What the post office failed to tell me is that the U.S. does not accept registered deliveries from Britain. In other words, if they�d only had their heads screwed on straight, they�d have told me this and I�d still have my check. I could have taken it back to the States with me to cash up in December! Thanks to the Post Office ... er, Consignia ... er, Fuckwit Inc. ... I am out $300.

Railtrack, the country�s commuter-rail train network, is in shambles. If service isn�t cancelled altogether due to strikes, then trains are often maddeningly delayed due to perfectly understandable reasons�such as the disappearance of the train conductor! (I was just on me tea break, wot!) Weekend engineering works are constantly taking place on the line that connects our neighborhood to the city, because the signaling systems are so crap. My wife and I are never sure whether a planned Saturday trip into London will pan out or not. Imagine not knowing whether the train service you pay for will not only actually run on time, but even run at all! Yet the British live with this day in and day out. Thank God I can take the bus into work. I would add London Underground, the subway system, as something for which Brits should be thankful for (not). It is just as shoddy. Suffice to say, the average daily experience on London Underground often makes the ordinary Londoner feel as though he�s living in the Third World.

But if you want to talk Third World, look no further than Britain�s esteemed National Health Service. Americans may have to pay exorbitant prices for their health care, if they�re not covered through their employer, but they get quick consultations and state-of-the-art care. In Britian, waiting lists for vital operations are months, sometimes years long. Emergency facilities in Britain are terrifying: after a very brief initial assessment and the barest essentials of treatment, the patient is strapped to a gurney and left lying in corridors for hours on end due to a lack of beds, and soon forgotten about by nurses and doctors alike. Add to this indignity sub-par sterilization of instruments and hospital surfaces, botched operation procedures, bureaucracy that bounces you from office to office and saddling you with paperwork you could fill a pool with and swim through, and you somehow are left with the feeling that you have entered a time portal into the Dark Ages. I�ll add to this list of disgruntlements the taxes that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, wants to impose to prop up the NHS. Not only do clear-thinking people know that tax increases don�t work toward their intended purposes, but analysts have deduced that the NHS is stifling under the weight of its own bureaucracy and its spending budget which often doesn�t take the immediate needs of the patient into account. Taxes aren�t what�ll cure the NHS, but an overhaul of its hierarchy. But Mr. Brown won�t listen, cut from the cloth of tax-and-spend Old Labour such as he is.

I actually heard a member of a British talk show audience say, �Our public health service may be in bad need of repair, but at least we�ve got one.� OK, thanks, I�ll be sure to remember that. It�ll do me a world of good when I�m dead. Thanks to the NHS, I can be six feet�six feet under.

I would joke that this Britain is killing me, but that is no laughing matter. After a few more years here, I may forget about going back to America. Bangladesh will begin to look attractive.

� M.E.M.

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Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.

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