Mara's Musings

I have just got back from a 10 holiday in La Palma, one of the Canary Islands.  Apart from the weather there were a number of striking contrasts between that area and the UK which really makes me wonder why things are the way they are here and how necessary a lot of what we deal with here actually is.


Food

The price and quality of the food is outstanding, most of it is local.  In addition most of the items which we are very heavily taxed on in this country are taxed much less but the Government still manages to gain revenue.  Compare the price of wine and cigarettes in La Palma (around 2-3 euros for a decent  bottle of wine and 2 euros for 20 cigarettes) to England where you are looking at at least £5 for a drinkable bottle of red and £7 for a packet of cigarettes. At the time of writing 1 Euro =  85p. And it is pretty much the same for meat, fruit, veg and your essential items.  Eating out you can get a 2/3course meal for 2 for under 20 euros and this usually includes a glass of wine of beer.


Society

The biggest contrast was in the general conduct of society out there.  I only saw one CCTV camera whilst I was there - and that was in the airport.  Were their marauding villains everywhere?  No.  There were a couple of police ambling around during the day, stopping for coffee and chatting to folk in the town and that was about it.

The other thing there was an absence of was signs saying how much you would be fined for x-y-or-z.  I saw one "don't let your dog poo on the grass" sign.  Suprisingly, although dogs probably outnumbered human beings 4 to 1 they were not wading through piles of dog poo.  Their whole attitude towards dogs is very different too, there aren't "bad breeds" just bad owners.  The owner is responsible for the behaviour of their dog, not the dogs.

There were no gangs of youths standing on street corners with their trousers half way down their backsides, no maniacal drivers screeching up and down the roads blasting stereos out of the window.  And actually I didn't even see a speed cam.  For a European nation with a history of apparently having a "macho" culture, the men all seemed pretty chilled out.  They certainly didn't seem to need to out-strut each other or use their cars as extensions of their penises.  Likewise, none of the women or young girls seemed to have the urge to walk about exposing acres of  flesh or trying to squeeze themselves into lycra that was 2 sizes too small.  There seemed to be an absence of what I like to call "youth cloning" where everyone dresses and does their hair the same way.  Everyone seemed confident enough in themselves to be perfectly fine about doing their own thing, developing their own style and just enjoying life.

So my question is - Why the difference?  We are the most spied on nation in Europe yet our crime rate still seems pretty high.  We have CCTV and speed cams everywhere yet people still race around like idiots and seem to get away with it.  We have signs about dog poo, smoking, and drinking in the Street.  We are taxed to the hilt yet the Government still make cuts.

I think the thing that came across most is that people seemed to have much more pride.  They seemed less angry and beaten down than people within the UK and took a pride in themselves, their homes and their general demeanour.  Maybe we should start getting to grips with these issues as a society and re-establish the importance and promotion of self respect, respect for others and personal responsibility.  If we had these expections as a society then it would be such a nicer place to be. 

Maybe I'm just turning into an old fart but I may well be retiring outside of the UK!!