You can never go home again...

Me chopsticks go in the chopstick holder. Me frying pans hang on the frying pan hooks. Me milk goes int fridge, and me HP sauce goes ont shelf. I know where everything goes, except me.

I thought I were staying in Hong Kong. I thought it weren’t a permanent, rest of me life kinda thing. I thought I’d never turn into one of them people that lives in HK cos they don’t realise time passes, or praps just dunt fancy living back in their home country.

But now I’m not so sure. Having come back to Blighty fert family stuff, and getting the whole “this is how things have changed int last five years” lecture from me dad, I’m beginning to think that praps I’ll not drag me feet when it comes to getting ont plane next Tuesday – I’ll be running, screaming, making sure they don’t leave wiowt me.

I’ve come to pretty much rely on the Devil’s Kitchen fer proper dissection of current government affairs. Oh what am I saying? I just read it cos it tells me what’s going on wiowt all that fucking boring analysis shite, and just puts it all in perspective. With sometimes hilarious results. And there’s another thing – who said politics and working out who’s supposed to be running the country should be all serious and sober? YAWN. I reckon the DK should have their own primetime TV slot (also available in Hong Kong, please) so that I can sit and watch someone reading it me – partly to keep me off Tinternet fer a bit, and partly cos, Tom Leonard style, the truth sounds truer in a Scots accent.

But there’s always that thing in yer head that goes “you will miss England, you will miss England”. And it makes you think of Saturday afternoons in front oft telly watching footie matches, Red Dwarf or Danger Mouse, of Mam’s steak n ale pies, school uniforms and yanking them ties off at 4pm, stuff like that. It makes you think of all the sunny afternoons spent walking home from school, the fun climbing trees, of the excitement of school trips that go all the way to foreign countries like Wales. Fanciful stuff, I know.

But then you sit and remember the other stuff. Walking home int lashing rain in winter, cos yer dad can’t get the car fixed in time, cos the parts place has made up some excuse about not having parts even though they said they had em in stock, and now the car’s stuck int garage till tomorrow. The fight wi two different counties to get a subsidised bus pass fert sixth form bus. The wrangle and emotional pummelling from fighting wi sometimes three different care authorities and / or hospitals and / or health authorities over trying to get some bastard, anywhere, to get a proper look at and correctly diagnose a member of yer family. The fight and subsequent endless running battle wi “local” government offices over benefits, care-giver allowances, pensions, job-seeker’s allowance, subsidised mortgage payments, council tax, disability allowance... In other words, the not so lovely memories of how a country treats the people who need help the most.

And I’m thinking: do I really want to get stuck over here? Do I really want to get meself mired in all the shite that goes wi trying to get into a UK uni as a mature student? Of student loans and struggling to survive on some shitty part-time job just to get a degree at the end of three years, only to find that it dunt help you get a job int UK anyway? Do I really want the hassle and red tape associated wi it all?

I’m really thinking of just changing me UCAS application. I could just keep it on hold, And apply to finish me degree at the Uni of Hong Kong instead. Yeah, it costs shitloads every year, but when you compare it to the price of a UK degree, it’s not so bad - in fact, it’s about the same. And it’s simpler - apply, get in, go to Uni. The fact that visas need to be changed in order for you to go is not a problem (and I’ve know a potential visa problem when I smell one). You see, before, I moaned about how long it took em to actually do visa work over in HK. Then I went back to England and experienced first-hand the concept of “fucking ages in processing”. Now I don’t consider two or even three weeks to stamp a piece of paper a long time. Not when you consider the ONE YEAR it took to confirm and re-apply benefits to me dad.

I’m not bad-mouthing England. I do still like it. Apart from the government, the food, the weather (fert eight months oft year), the transport, the hospitals, the red tape that is part and parcel of every fucking thing you try and do, the shit telly (what HAS happened to UK programming in five years?), the tolerance and intolerance of people and clashing cultures, religions....

Woah woah woah, let’s not get onto religion. I’ll save that fer another day. We really do not want to start on that one right now, this post is already long enough.

No peach, no lube - wait till after tomorrow night, when I've been subjected to approximately two hours of Sean Porn in the form of ‘Outlaw’, then I’ll be in a better mood.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
Hong Kong ~ England ~ travel ~ university ~ government ~ Sean Porn ~ Outlaw