December 2010 The Expat Telegraph published an article I had written called Thoroughly Modern Expats.
For a number of years following I was a regular monthly columist for them.
Reading through the original articles that I submitted recently, I was taken by a) how relevant many of them still are today, and b) I had no online record of them of my own.
So I have added the original submissions to this blog, so if you want to read more of them just search for telegrapharticles, and while you are at it you may want to search for expatarticles as well to see other columns I wrote in the past for various newspapers in Spain.
The sun is setting on 2011 as I write this months column, and the thoughts of many an expat will have turned already to Christmas, the New Year and what 2012 holds in store.
For many I suspect it will be a quiet and somewhat depressing Christmas period this year if the Costas of Spain are anything to go by: trapped by a lack of flights, a lack of money, and a lack of anything new to do, many I know are looking ahead to 2012.
Unfortunately it is hard to see 2012 being anything other than ‘more of the same, only worse’, and it is little surprise that many given the opportunity to return home to the UK already have. Many like former Telegraph Expat columnist Robert Pickles (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/8938869/A-whinging-Pom-finally-back-on-his-own-soil.html) and former Telegraph Expat blogger Josephine McDermott (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/8950944/I-miss-the-food-and-the-massages-but-theres-life-after-China.html) have no regrets of either their time as an expat or their return to the UK, and both seem to be settling in well but my impression is that they are the lucky ones.
I have lost track of the number of expats that have returned to the UK this year from our part of Spain leaving behind the inevitable ‘did they jump or were they pushed’ speculation, from those with little else to do than sit around the few bars that are left, gossiping and speculating. To be fair to them it is a little confusing considering just how many success stories apparantly left the UK to set up home in Spain in recent years. Personally I blame Ryanair (for no other reason than they are one of the few airlines still flying to Spain) as I reckon that during the early 00’s (if that is what you call the 2003 – 2008 period) they operated magic flights shipping Brits over to Spain: board as a plumber, disembark as the owner of a plumbing business. JK Rowling surely got her inspiration for the Hogwarts Express from these flights!
My friend blames Ryanair as well. His belief is that with the limited baggage allowance and excessive check in fees many an expat opted not to check their brains in when they left the UK, figuring that they wouldn’t need one to live in Spain: open a bar by the sea, sit back and watch the holiday makers flood in, or set up a property maintenance business and charge for key holding and airport transfers etc.
I know that many an expat has been effected adversely by the exchange rate, especially those on pensions, but in all honesty it is hard to feel to sorry for them here in Spain when around 23% of the population (10 million people) are living on less than 500€ a month, and just under 1.5 million homes don’t have any income coming in at all.
I do not mean to sound callous but when the only real hardship you face is a moderate reduction in your alcohol consumption and less meals out, it isn’t easy to be sympathetic.
So what does 2012 hold in store? What is to stop those expats that haven’t already ‘done a Clarkson’ from slipping further into the depths of the hard to avoid drinking culture?
Not a lot is going to be the answer for many as ironically the one thing that most claim they craved when they went in search of the expat lifestyle, time, is now their greatest enemy: far too much time, not much to do to fill it, and not as much money to spend on doing it.
I am sorry if this all sounds rather bleak, but the reality is that things in all probability are going to get worse: a winter recession in the Eurozone is being predicted in the first half of next year, leading to economic growth of just 0.1% for the whole of 2012, European shares and the Euro have been in decline caused by concerns over the ‘is it isn’t it’ treaty that the UK vetoed and a number of countries are now looking to distance themselves from, with Ireland a good example saying that they will wait until March to rule on whether they will hold a referendum to ratify Europe’s plans for a tighter fiscal union.
In Spain we have unemployment at a record 5 million, a staggering 21.5% of the nation, and the highest percentage in the Eurozone, and a new conservative government focussed on larger austerity measures and long overdue structural reform.
In the UK the Jon Gaunt led Vote UK out of EU (www.voteukoutofeu.co.uk) has announced a number of EU Referendums in the leaders constituencies and the Graham Richards led Votes for Expat Brits (www.votes-for-expat-brits.com) continues to draw attention to the scandalous denial of voting rights to British expats who have lived outside the UK for more than fifteen years.
I suspect that both of these organisations will be busy during 2012 and of much interest to many an expat wanting to have a say in the way that Britain is being run these days.
The end of the world then? Not really. To borrow a well know phrase: their’s life Jim, just not as we know it.
With lots of time and not much money perhaps 2012 would be a good year for expats to concentrate on learning the language, learn more about the culture and traditions of the country they now live in, and integrate more into the local communities rather than try and establish pockets of expat communities.
And if all else fails somewhere near you no doubt, rather like an oasis, there will be a ‘British Bar’ offering an All Day Breakfast combined with a happy hour from 11am to 8pm, kids eat free, and karaoke available every evening ……….
Who said it couldn’t get any worse?
Please feel free to search on Google for the published versions of these columns.