Being almost permanently skint due to expensive kids and funding our holidays and lavish lifestyle in one of the Top Ten places to live in the UK (honest….look), our non working time activity tends to be dictated by whatever treats our £8 a month we give Netflix and my Amazon Prime membership can give us.
You’ve probably wondered in the past how on earth we have time to watch all the stuff we do as I have regaled you with reviews of all sorts from the unbeatable Breaking Bad to lesser, yet still entertaining shows. The trend, you may have spotted, is that they tend to be US shows. I don’t think this is a coincidence. There is simply something more exotic and exciting about watching a show set in the US than in Droitwich (apologies to the fine folks of that town).
I think it is burned into the DNA of many of us here in the UK, certainly those of my age, who were raised on shows such as Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes of Hazard and Knight Rider. Younger generations were raised on Lizzie McGuire, or whatever show was relevant to their generation too. None of those were outstandingly good of course but they just looked exciting and different from the grey Uk-ness of our daily lives.
Our latest binge watch sessions have revolved around the first two series of Ray Donovan and it has been great. This is set in (the very expensive bits of) LA, a place we haven’t been to and must, and it just looks great. Most of the most successful US shows rely on location to make them appealing to the eye. The sunshine helps, unless you are making some sort of Nordic Noir drama, then you go to Canada or Boston, but they still look great too.
It might be just me but I am a sucker for the TV non-reality of the States. All the traditions we try to imitate but fail, such as prom (ours just don’t seem the same having paid for two), the ball game and those leafy suburban streets with kids throwing newspapers from bikes onto freshly mowed lawns. Of course, those suburban scenes are those of the affluent upper classes and the gritty ghettos of the big cities might not float my boat as much.
My rational self knows that these cinematic scenes are not necessarily representative of real life. Having given emigration to the States more than a cursory consideration over the years I know that healthcare is a challenge, vacation time from work is limited, the politics are incredulous and sending your kid to school is only slightly less risky than deploying them to a war zone, but still, I can’t shake the dream from my mind. I guess America is a great place to live if you have money, much like anywhere, but I think more so.
Over the years of dreaming of such a move, our roots in the UK have been too deep and it never really was an option. Canada too has crossed our minds but family, jobs, schools and even bloody pets have meant it hasn’t ever come close to being a reality.
With Louise a nurse now our path into such a move may be easier than we might ever have found it. The kicker now of course is that with us in our mid-forties no bugger wants us, with our limited working shelf life and increasing health issues as we crash from middle age into our twilight years.
So I guess we’ll have to stick with Salford over Seattle and Leigh over LA, and whatever US scenery we can stream to our telly.
I know a few folks who sometimes read this blog have made big moves to new countries, so I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts and findings from your experiences. Don’t get me wrong we are not planning a similar move, I’d just be interested to know how you found it (and did it).
Till the next time…..
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