5ive Things I Don't Get: UK'd Up in England

1. Fences & Thieves. In England you can't build your fence above a certain height - why you ask? Because if a thief, in climbing over your fence to terrorize and dispossess, hurts himself he can sue you (see 5th paragraph in second link)! Indeed you are discouraged from using barbed wire or any kind of fence-climbing deterrent due to the fact it makes the thief's job that much more incovenient. How very dare you! Otherwise, if a burglar enters your house and proceeds to rob, beat and intimidate - do nothing! If in defending his new property (formally known as 'yours') you injure him - he again can sue you. In which case is it really breaking-and-entering or just suing-by-breaking...or something?

2. Saggy skinny jeans. I've already registered my befuddlement regarding skinny jeans - but this is even more befuddlementizing - skinny jeans that are saggy. Now baggy jeans are...baggy, so they sag - a notably African American fad. But the Brit fad is to wear skinny jeans down to the knees. But how, what with all that bum squelching tightniss? The result is an I've-just-took-a-huge-dump-in-my-pants type of look. I strongly suspect that the trend started because of dump-in-pants-takers trying to direct attention away from the bulges in the wrong places. How they got folks not to notice the smell? Bathing once a month is a good cover.

3. Public drunkeness. A huge problem in the UK. In Jamaica, we don't get drunk in public,  drunkeness is for old men in bars and it's considered weak and wussy. Besides we don't need alcohol  to publicly humiliate ourselves in the Caribbean when we have Carnival (wink wink)! But in the UK getting drunk is the most important part of the week for many - it is how they have a 'good time' (though they cannot recollect it). It also seems that women are far more into this public inebriation than men. Indeed, it was in the streets of Birmingham that I first  I  saw a waggle (just made that up) of women actually harrass and grope two men - first time. Wow. But I must say that alcohol fuelled street rolling provides lots of fodder for police reality programmes. Hurrah for contributing to media content and by extension the GDP!

4. Racism? What racism? Yes apparently the nation that invented hating-people-for -profit no longer has racism. It is ignored and almost taboo to talk about - with a white British person. I've tried and they usually get upset. The in-thing is 'institutional racism'. This, as I understand, is the idea that British people (white people specifically) are not racist but British systems are. So if someone is discriminated against it's nothing personal, just that bloody system operating completely autonomously. The system apparently fell out of the sky or erupted from a wart on someones butt. Who knows? At any rate it should be noted that the 400 years of slavery is completely left out of the school curriculum - so the Brits who are racist (and they certainly are not all racist) don't actually know that they are racist because no one told them - fair enough then! Ironically, the closest thing to what can be construed as 'institutional racism' or systemic discrimination is Apartheid.

5. State sponsored irresponsibility. When a sixteen year old has a child she gets a stipend from the government as well as goverment housing. Now, this is good in that teen mothers get much needed support - not good because teens abuse the system and do use a child as their meal ticket. This might be the reason why the UK has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in Europe. I reckon we're now heading into the second generation of kids raised by kids, which might mean that Supernanny will have loads of work. It might also be the cause of points 2 and 3, and indirectly, point 1. Now, that said, teen pregnancy in Jamaica isn't state sponsored, but may have a more sinister motive (in some cases) - but that is another 5ive Things altogether.