My dear fellow Charioteers,
I was informed today that
a company wishes to interview me
next month for a permanent position as a co-ordinator
in Bristol. Should thinks work out,
I could be moving to England quite soon.
Perhaps to England?
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Boadicea's Chariot 
Christopher, excellent! Don’t be put off by cherished expats who denigrate our gree and pleasant land! 🙂
Janus: as a great believer in the reality that the world has already gone to hell in a hand cart, it is difficult to persuade me that England is somehow more rubbish than most other developed countries. At least England has good tea aplenty.
Tea-True! and a damned sight cheaper than here.
Not a lot wrong with Bristol as long as you don’t live in the wrong area. There is a cheap immigrant area, can’t remember its name, that is to be avoided like the plague, violence, drugs, robbery etc. Trouble is it doesn’t look that bad at first sight! Will investigate it if you go further with it.
Co-ordinating what?
I would come home to Wales in a minute were I by myself. Yes of course the British moan and bitch to the point of denigration but one had to accept it is a national sport! Never happier than when having a good moan! Not a habit of many other nations.
CO: I’ve looked at places to rent in the Bristol region. I may live just outside the city in one of the middle class towns if it works out. Bristol is beautiful, but it has “interesting” neighbourhoods as you say.
The job entails co-ordinating schedules for an assisted living company.
In any event, if it works out I will have to holiday in Wales.
I akshully lived/worked in Bristol for a few years. Some good flats in Clifton, seaside towns also within commuting distance.
Are you shelving your academic pursuits, C?
Janus: as hard as it is to believe for most, I really never wanted to be a professor or academic. Of course, teaching a few online courses might be fun but having worked at the college level for 5 years has left my deeply cynical and none too keen on spending my life in academia.
Any advice, should this go forward, would be appreciated.
Fully understood. Good luck with the interview.
Excellent news, Christopher, and good luck with the interview. When do you have to attend?
Does it fit in with your proposed visit next month?
Janus: thank you.
Minty: the recruiter told me just to telephone him
when I’m in England and we can arrange the final details then.
The only difference this will make to my travel schedule is that
I may go to London later than planned.
That’s brilliant, so you don’t have to make a separate trip, Christopher. It’s worked out rather well. 🙂
This is very good news, Christopher. Ich drücke die Daumen.
C, I had a flat for a couple of years high above the bay at Weston-super-mare. Spectacular views, fresh air, great walks, quiet but thriving town. Why not take a bus while you’re in Bristol?
Janus: at the moment my schedule in England is very, very tight. If the interview is successful I will certainly take the bus to Weston-super-mare when looking for places to stay.
C,
This is my old stamping ground as an estate agent. Where you live will will be more restricted if you are going to be dependent on public transport. Bath, a beautiful and vibrant city, is only 15 mins away by train and I loved living there, even thought I’m not usually much of a townie. If you are going to have your own transport there are loads of pretty little towns and village within easy reach.
Bath is great – if more pricey.
JL: thank you for the advice. At the beginning, at least, I will be reliant on public transportation as I still need
to obtain a UK driving license. My Californian is only valid there for a year. The South West region in general appeals to me — beautiful naturally and architecturally, not too bad off economically and not as absurdly congested as the South East.
If it all happens—
St Pauls is the area to avoid like the plague! The brain took 24 hrs to remember, aargh!!
Just drive on the American license, spousal unit does, no particular hassle. But get the UK license as quickly as possible as there is significantly more difficulty in the driving part of the test in the UK than in the USA. Driving tests here (USA) are a bloody joke. Get a few professional lessons.
There are a few significant differences, no equivalent to ‘right on red’ or overtaking on inside lanes, that will get you nicked quicker than a flash, or worse, driven off the road!
One thing in incidents of road rage in the UK at least the psycho bastards don’t have guns to finish you off!!!!
Houston always tickled me, they drive down the motorways taking potshots at each other, quite interesting how many cars have bullet holes in them in Houston!
Btw, we drive on the correct side! 😉
Dammit j, forgot the most salient feature of the mechanical horse!!
The best rule ever is always in a new country to look out of the drivers window and find the central white line right next to you.
After all this time when I am distracted I still go to the wrong side of the car to get in sometimes but never actually drive on the wrong side, the old central white line trick rearranges the brain. I note that it often happens after visiting shopping malls, particularly disorientating places.
Good evening, Christopher.
Thinking of moving to England? To echo the Scot who was told by a proud Englishman that all his ancestors from time immemorial had been English, ‘Man, man, have you no ambition?’
In truth, Bristol is mostly a very pleasant spot and is, of course, within the boundaries of the glorious county of Cheltenhamshire. You will, however, need to do some preparatory work for your interview as the local dialect is almost as incomprehensible to native English speakers as Weegiespeak.
‘How to speak proper Brizzle’
Good luck with the interview.
PS Sad to see that CO has gone even more native and has forgotten that it is ‘licence’ and not ‘license’ when it is a noun in proper English.
I know! Dreadful isn’t it? I have got to the point that I have to really think what is attributable to which country and after 35 years of it I rather think it is a lost cause.
After living in Memphis for six years my ears could no longer discriminate between a deep south drawl and the Queen’s English. The boy came home at 5 with a dying magnolia voice it took him till 9 for it to be reshaped into crisp boarding school English. Even as an adult, some words came out very suspiciously!
No hope!!!
Note to self, must change loincloth!
CO: my intention is to take a driving lesson or two per month for about 10 months while studying for the theoretic portion of the exam in order to be able to pass both. Actually, I quite understand the UK’s laws in this respect. Some countries’ nationals, such as Australia, New Zealand and I believe Singapore can simply have their driving licences transferred to a UK licence because their driving laws and styles are compatible with those of the UK. I realised just how significant the differences in driving are earlier this year in Australia. A 9-year-old was mocking me as I was partially terrified and almost fully at a loss. Driving becomes instinctive and unlearning something that has become instinctive is perhaps more difficult than learning an entirely new skill.
Janus: yes, that I am well aware of. It is, in fact, the better side. Most people have stronger right eyes than left eyes. Driving on the same side as continentals and Septics is counter-intuitive.
Sheona: thank you for your kind wishes.
JM: thank you for the correction, I must confess to having confused the correct spelling of “licence” was well. I blame the bloody Septics. My licence has the incorrect spelling on it.
It is, perhaps, a lack of ambition on my part but my choice is to either spend the rest of my life working as a part-time cashier or clerk in Hunland, teach English in Asia or seek employment in England. My Australian and New Zealand mates of both sexes are growing rather tired of my offers of marriage so I must gain more practical work experience before trying to move there on my own merits.
CO: just be glad that you never had to hear me speak. On occasion I say something in a distinctly northern California way, despite my best efforts not to. I suspect that my years there resulted in at least a portion of my brain turning to silicone.
Yup, you need a job! You can always go back as and when. To be fair west coast accents are not very strong compared with elsewhere. you can always tell any west country denizen you are Canadian, less than 2% would be able to differentiate!
(A rising dipthong would probably be taken as a sexual offense in Bristol!) OOOOH! look at that spelling!!!!
Hunland is not doing you any good, pity really when you were so looking forward to it, but shit happens. Perhaps the UK is a good option because you have no real ties to the place and therefore it is neutral territory of which you have no loaded emotional expectations, you would be able to relax and enjoy yourself.
Not that there aren’t plenty of warts anywhere but when you have no emotional investment you can detach and laugh at the idiocy of life in general anywhere.
If finances allow I would recommend a driving lesson once a week and speed up the whole thing. Public transport in the UK is a damned sight dearer than in Germany or the USA, there are no subsidies as there are elsewhere. Before you look too far afield for accommodation check the commuting price it will give you heart failure!!! Somebody here recommended the Clifton area, I second that, near enough to be cheap on a bus and far enough away from the troubled areas downtown. Costs of living in the UK are seriously up on those elsewhere. I find a good rule of thumb is to just substitute a Pound sign for a dollar one, not far off. That makes it about a third more expensive in the UK than the USA generally.
🙂
Good evening CO.
I will treasure ‘dying magnolia voice’ for years to come. Simply superb.
My own accent is now firmly ‘educatit Embran’ in the main but, as an Army brat, I have been through a few in my time. I first spoke in Singapore and was, apparently, bilingual in Hokkien and English with the latter being heavily influenced by Bazaar Malay thanks to my amah. Lost the Hokkien on the boat home and was pretty well RP by the time we got to Dad’s next posting in Perth. Two years there rubbed the edges off that and I was pure dead Scottish by the end.
On again, this time to a Salisbury prep school,and I was back to RP almost immediately in self defence. Still got nicknamed ‘Jock’, of course and never got the ‘et’ for ‘ate’ thing. I also picked up Wiltshire for local integration.
Back to Perth and a few uncomfortable weeks until I tuned in again. I still remember the moment when I reintegrated. First term in First Year French and I was translating ‘une petite fille’. The ‘little’ came out as ‘littel’ in classic glottal stop mode and the whole class cheered.
The only word I now struggle with in eE is ‘Salisbury’ which happens to be an area of South Embra as well as an English cathedral city. I still pronounce it ‘Saulsbry’ and just can not get myself used to my fellow Embrans’ ‘Sahlsburgh’.
Strange John how certain pronunciations linger on and however hard you try you never get rid of them, sort of buried in the soul.
With me it is a long aaaaay. never an a! Sounds hideously affected in an RP accent but at least the yanks don’t get the affectation, poor souls just think it is terribly upmarket!
Had a girlfriend in Memphis who was real old school deep south from the late 1600s. Completely natural. every word seemed like she was breathing her last. Violetta in La Traviata had nothing on her! The ennui of every word had to be heard to be believed. This was a terribly upmarket accent for the locality but seemingly had to be acquired from birth. The boy was born in Memphis and went to an exclusive nursery school, hence the acquisition of the accent.
Barbara, the lady in Memphis, actually divorced her first husband for farting in bed, honestly I do not exaggerate!!
After several years of finding equally repulsive males she remarried the same guy but remodelled her bedroom to provide a second bathroom ensuite. He was to remove himself to his bathroom, close the door and fart in there to keep her space unviolated!
She had a coloured maid for whom she bought black groceries, left them in the pantry and were obligingly stolen by the maid in due course. When I asked her why she allowed the theft ,observed from the kitchen window by myself, she told me the maid’s mother had worked for her mother and had stolen her groceries, it was the thing to do to allow the tradition to continue, it also guaranteed the maid would never be lured away to another employer. Everyone was happy!
Dying magnolias are the deep south aristocracy still to this day.
Tennessee Williams had it right on the button.
And yes, there really are ‘black’ groceries and ‘white’ groceries in the deep south.
CO: not to worry, no one has ever suspected me of being American. Nor, really, have I ever suspected myself of being American, either. Depending on how often I speak English, most suspect Northern European. Dutch, or perhaps Swedish, Danish or Norwegian. When speaking primarily Hunnish for several weeks, the accent grows more distinctly Hunnish.
I never intended to stay permanently in Hunland. It was, at best, meant to last 3-4 years before hopefully moving on to Australia or New Zealand. Nor, truly, was I looking forward to it that much. I really never had much interest in Germany — even living here when I was younger. Even my low expectations were disappointed and leaving it would be no great loss. The primary reason why I cannot obtain a job in Germany is because I am blocked from doing much other than working part-time because the government decided to invalidate all educations obtained outside Germany unless the extortionate fees levied by the state to “accredit” accredited educations paid. Really, my connexions to the UK are far, far stronger than they are to Germany. At the same time, I am fully aware of the cost of life and the social problems. At least my packets won’t take months to arrive because some petty official wants to see if s/he can extract 40 cents in VAT from me.
The cost of public transportation in Germany has grown absurd. Following the privatisation of Deutsche Bahn, costs have grown tremendously and the quality of the product has nearly imploded. I already booked train tickets from London to Dorchester and from Dorchester to Bath. I would have to pay more money for a second class ticket from Trier to Karlsruhe than I paid for a first-class ticket from London to Dorchester. Having travelled by rail in the UK in the past, the condition of the trains in Germany does not compare favourably. Whenever I go to Luxembourg I breathe a sigh of relief when the train is Luxembourgish rather than German as it will be far cleaner and better maintained. I also buy tickets from the Luxembourgish company as the Germans charge nearly twice as much for a single direction ticket than the Luxembourgers charge for a day pass.
Good Christopher, hope all goes well within your expectations. Best wishes for a wanted outcome.