sorry to leave and good riddance.

things I will miss, and things I will not, about the UK.

I have set myself a challenge, friends: find an equal number of things I will miss and not miss about the UK.

It’s the first category that’s the issue. There are many things I will specifically miss about Nottingham (here, I made you a list), about the apartment where I lived, about my friends. But I’m trying to think about things that one might consider culturally English, or at least that aren’t tied to one ultra-specific location. (Sidebar: no, England and the UK are not synonyms. And still, I do not want the Scottish to jump out from behind a hedge to accost me for lumping them in with “the British,” which is also not a synonym for the UK because the Irish are also here, and woof do Irish identifications open a can of worms. So some nuance is necessary.) It’s no secret I did not love living in the UK, and there are very few things where I don’t prefer the US variant. Call it familiarity, call it comfort, call it taste—but here we are.

The Encyclopedia Britannica appears to have decided that all of Ireland is part of the UK now; typical.

So, here we go: 10 things I’m sorry to leave, and 10 good riddances, regarding the UK.

Sorrys:

1. The rail network. This is the first thing I always mention that I like about the UK and the thing that confuses Brits the most. Yes, trains are often late, crowded, and expensive. And, if an EMR train is 20 minutes late, I can get a partial ticket refund. If Amtrak is 20 minutes late, no one even notices, because that’s way better than usual. I’m from a part of the country where it took 7 hours on a good day to get from my hometown to my college town on the train that only came at 5:30 in the morning and cost $169 (and this was in 2009). The eastern seaboard is much better, all things considered, but nothing will compare to being able to get virtually anywhere in the country, relatively quickly and relatively reliably, by train. The rail network is a marvel and striking rail workers deserve everything they’re demanding and more.

2. The easy availability of vegan food everywhere. Outside of New York, LA, and Chicago, this is really a toss-up in the US. In England, I can walk into any pub in pretty much any city, and they’ll have at least one vegan option that has been decently well thought out (i.e., isn’t just a salad where they removed the cheese). This was shocking and is such a luxury. Ask me how many cafés I’ve been to in the largest city in Rhode Island this week that had a vegan option. (One of two, but you get the point.)

3. The NHS, with an enormous caveat. The Tories have gutted the NHS, gender-affirming care basically doesn’t exist anymore, and I could write a book on how inadequate and narrow-minded NHS mental health services are. And, if I have a medical emergency, I can go to an emergency room and have it covered. I’m oversimplifying, of course—a friend recently decided to go private for an MRI because the NHS wait list was too long and she had lost all function in her legs—and also, the idea and intention of the NHS is still way better than anything the US healthcare system, such as it is, could ever come up with. COVID booster vaccines are now $200 without insurance. Sure, you can’t get COVID boosters at all in the UK at this point, but $200? Come on, man.

4. Blackberry brambles. Nothing in New England can compare. I lived in the middle of a city, and I could walk down the street and pick enough blackberries every day to constitute several servings of fruit. The easy availability of wild food in the UK is magical. Wild food is available in the US as well, but it’s not down the street in a major city, you know?

5. Cheap cell phone contracts. For three years, I have paid £20 a month (about $26) for cell phone service and way more data than I have ever used. It is a month-to-month contract that I can cancel at any time without penalty. The coverage is shit between Kettering and London, but why would you ever want to voluntarily be in that part of the world anyway. Before moving to the UK, I paid around $80 a month and was locked into a multi-year contract I had to buy myself out of. A quick Google indicates that that’s still more or less the norm. Fun!

6. The weather. I am not a hot weather person. I once infamously walked around a canal, away from my group of friends, to sit in the shade because I simply Could Not. (It was probably 75 degrees.) I am perfectly comfortable in 50–degree weather. Moving to Boston is the first time I have moved south of my previous location in a decade. You get the point. I miss real winters, but not melting into a puddle of goo every summer has been lovely. (I also love rain, so that part’s just fine with me.)

7. Widespread availability of electric kettles. Yes, you can buy these in the US, and I will be doing so at the first opportunity. But they are just not a thing for most people. Trust that I shall spread the gospel of near-instant hot water at every opportunity.

8. Some very convenient expressions. “I’ll sort it” is a great alternative to “I’ll work it out.” “Cheers” is a delightful way to say “thank you.” “Bin” is shorter than “trash can.” There are others that I continue to insist are nonsensical (stop saying “sorry” when you mean “excuse me”; the “pavement” is the road and definitely not the sidewalk), but the English have not completely massacred English—a clause that will break your brain if you think about it hard enough.

9. The no-chorizo tortellini from Waitrose. This is where I start to really stretch. Most British food is underwhelming—more on that in a minute. But the no-chorizo tortellini at Waitrose are a dream. I love filled pasta and I love gently spicy things, and this ticks the boxes. Have I hauled this back from hiking trips because I happened to find a Waitrose? …what do you think.

10. The proximity to Europe and Asia. Ryanair is a horrible company, and yet I have adored where its cheap flights have allowed me to go. Budget airlines in the US are simply not comparable price-wise to things like Easyjet. Part of this is the size of the country, but not all of it. I am excited to prioritize travel to parts of my home continent that I haven’t seen yet, and also I’ll miss getting price options that aren’t at least three digits by default.

Good riddances:

Confession: this was hard to narrow down. Sorry not sorry, Brits/English/everyone. I tried to go with things that have annoyed me the most for the longest period of time. Not all are uniquely British, but they were outsized components of my life here, so. Honorable mentions: Rennies (Tums are infinitely better and I know this in part because Brits keep asking me to bring them Tums); no screens on windows (why do you all want wasps in your home); no top sheets (WHY. IT IS HOT AND ALL YOU HAVE GIVEN ME IS A DUVET.); pre-packaged vegetables at the grocery store (I only want one leek; why are you making me buy three); the absolute refusal of delivery services to leave packages on your stoop such that you are tied to your house all day waiting for them to arrive; the stiff upper lip (stop suffering and install a damn ceiling fan).

1. No outlets in bathrooms. This is wild. The rest of the world regularly plugs in their curling irons in their damn bathrooms and somehow manages to avoid constant electrocution. Raise your hand if you have ever been personally victimized by trying to find the weird ceiling cord to turn the bathroom light on at night. How on Earth did these people run an empire.  

2. The lack of outward emotion. Once a coworker explained that another coworker (English) was incredibly angry. How did he know this? The Englishman had said, “I am starting to get very annoyed.” Must I throw things at you just so you’ll feel something!! Outward expression of any emotion of any valence other than “mildly pleasant” is just not done, except by loud crowds of roving men on the way to the football match. Those are scary. There must be a middle ground.

3. The incredible fear of being sued. I am from the US, the country that loves to sue people, and I am baffled by the British fear of lawsuits. I’m not sure lawsuits actually happen that frequently, however, so maybe the fear is working. Regardless, the amount of trainings I’ve had to sit through at work about how to avoid getting sued because, I don’t know, I left a piece of paper with a student’s name on it somewhere that another human being might conceivably find it while excavating after the apocalypse, have been such a cartoonish use of time.

4. Having my accent be misunderstood. I will preface this with a note that this is par for the course, and far more serious, for many migrants of color; my encounters on this front have usually been seen as humorous or at worst pathetic by the other person. And, I am so confused as to how “croissant” was heard as “latte.” Heaven forbid I speak quickly. I had to actually have someone help me figure out how to pronounce my name in the UK such that others would hear it as “Anna” (rhymes with “Hannah”) and not “Emma” or “Ella.” (In the US, I get “Anne” a lot, which at least makes sense.) Again, this is par for the course for all sorts of people with non-English names, so I am mostly whining, and: I hate it. It makes me feel constantly out of place.

5. Unseasoned! Food! English food has two flavors: unsalted and way too spicy. Lest you think the latter might be okay, we’re talking pure heat—nothing else to round it out. I am obviously not talking about the incredible curries available everywhere in the UK because of, well, imperialism—but I might be talking about a white English person making a curry. I digress. “Anna, these people stole all the spices and you’re expecting me to believe they just…never used them?” Yes, yes I am. “Anna, has salt always been available in the UK and they just…never used it?” No, no they did not.

6. The fucking TERFs. Every North American person I have ever met who lives in the UK is bowled over by the level of transphobia here. We expect it from the political right, but its rampancy on the political left gives it a mainstream acceptance that is both bizarre and incredibly, incredibly harmful. Of course, transphobia is an enormous problem in the US as well—and, there’s a coldness to it in the UK that is really hard to explain. Maybe the example to use is that puberty blockers are illegal now and this happened under a Labour government. I don’t know. It’s atrocious and inexcusable.

7. Social justice convos in the mainstream being decades behind. When I moved to the UK in 2021, the biggest item in the news was the police murder of Sarah Everard and subsequent protests against gender-based violence…which felt a hell of a lot like 2017–era #MeToo. I would consistently come to find that a lot of practices I’d become accustomed to, such as introducing yourself with your pronouns, were just not done here outside of very specific spaces. “Reverse racism” is encoded as a real thing in my university’s policies. The racism and colonialism conversations would take thousands of words to even begin to parse, so I will summarize this way: a Black British acquaintance’s parents were astounded by the National Museum of African American History in Washington, DC—not (only) because of anything in the museum itself, but because such a museum was built mere steps away from Congress and the White House. A museum discussing British colonialism steps from Westminster in anything other than a laudatory light is somehow unthinkable in 2024. Again, the US is not good at any of this, but at least acknowledging that slavery was bad is a mainstream position. (We’ve gotta set higher bars.)

8. The entire higher education system. The absolute rigidity of this system. It blows my mind how much effort goes into making every single decision, from how long an essay should be to whether a professor is allowed to cancel class due to illness, an absolute bureaucratic nightmare. I have never met students so single-mindedly, and unhealthily, focused on grades, nor have I ever encountered a system that crafts every incentive to make them feel that way. If you think the US is bad, you are right, and also, you have no idea what bad looks like. This is before I get to the chronic underfunding, the institutional disregard for students, and the utter unkindness of the whole system. And, while I’ve only taught at one UK institution, I have serious reservations about the quality of the entire enterprise. I have said it before and I will say it again: no one without personal reasons for being in the UK, or who has other options, should teach or study in this system. And UK students and higher ed staff alike deserve far, far better.

9. No air conditioning. Let’s do a lighter one, except it’s not actually lighter because the planet is burning and this is going to become even more of a problem in the next few decades. (Whoops.) AC is becoming more common in the UK in businesses but lags far behind in private homes. And businesses don’t always know how to use it efficiently: you’ve gotta close the front door if you’re running AC, folks. Houses are built to retain heat, so without AC, the temperatures inside can soar even if they’re relatively reasonable outside. I have lived without AC for most of my adult life, and trying to do it in England was hell.

10. Regular coffee. Brits make fun of US folks for drinking black Americanos, but listen: I don’t want to be drinking them either. I want to be drinking a drip coffee, but that is not an option at any of your coffee shops and a black Americano is the closest thing available. I’m very happy to treat myself to a pour-over on occasion, but for getting through the day, a regular drip coffee would be my dream. Alas: the British.

11. One for good measure: airport baggies. I know this is eleven things but I will yell about this at every opportunity!!! Until relatively recently, it was a requirement in the UK that toiletries had to be packed in specific plastic bags provided by the airport—and so I understand that some people may not have adjusted to the possibility of packing their liquids in a plastic bag at home beforehand. And, why would you want to make your airport experience even more chaotic when you have the option not to do so. Instead of buying a reusable clear toiletry bag (which works; I’ve brought mine through at least nine UK airports), the British have instead decided to pack their toiletries in the security line. It is maddening. It is incomprehensible. Good. Riddance.