Whingeing pom

As any self-respecting Englishman will tell you, Britain has been slowly turning into one big dog house since it was first established many years ago. One way of avoiding being governed by our most trusted animal friends is to emigrate to another country where, according to popular belief, there are no problems with drugs, booze bingeing, fat people, violent toddlers, where the national sports teams have had success in the last 40-odd years, where being good at something results in you being given a pat on the back instead of being pilloried by all around for daring to have ideas above your station, and where new ideas are at least considered before being told that it'll never work and that you can't even try before filling out the 50-page health and safety questionnaire.

One of the favourite destinations for those of us in search of optimism and a feel good factor is pretty much as far away from England as you can possibly get - Australia. The land of the optimist, where nothings worth worrying about and even the local marsupials help the rescue services locate children in distress. The land where the sun always shines and kids are actively encouraged to participate in ball games.

In much the same way as Americans are baffled by us not personally knowing the Queen, us Englanders find it hard to believe that down under is anything but a garden of Eden. They even have the Union Jack on their flag as a tribute to us so it must be good. Mustn't it? Indeed I have set foot on the hallowed shores of Oz and spent not an inconsiderable amount of time amongst the eternally optimistic antipodean population. By and large it was a very enjoyable experience and I found much to uphold the legend of optimism being found in one of the worlds least populated land masses. If an Australian were to have his hand bitten off by a croc he would be excited about the fact that he still had the other one to hold his beer. Us poms however would probably sue the government for not stopping Crocodiles from doing what they do naturally, and then sell our story to the Daily Mail who would run a incredulous front page exclusive about the new wave of crocodiles who were biting the hands off British backpackers and then claiming Asylum and six bedroom houses in Kent because the Ozze autorities aren't allowing them fair trials.

After a couple of months however I found myself missing the one thing that Australians simply can't grasp - the perverse pleasure that is found in finding fault with everything and then complain until a soul destroying UK level of begrudgement has returned.