In partial defence of Blighty

On your first essay: all excellent advice; but the only thing I slightly have a niggle with is when you characterise Britain as having "bad food, bad weather, and high prices". By all means malign Blighty for its repressive laws, but not for the things it's actually good at. Prices are high for energy, utilities and housing for political reasons connected with half a century of neoliberalism, but the price of groceries is substantially lower than in the US and the cost of living is generally lower than in the US, though higher than in Europe and higher than Britain has had historically (hence the cost of living crisis - the yanks don't think they have a cost of living crisis because they have always been slaves and lapdogs to the top 1 per cent - and have been well trained to leap gallantly to the defence of their economic masters and betters whenever some foreigner tries to suggest that they'd be better off without them). The weather in Britain is generally excellent, avoiding extremes, whilst being changeable enough to give us all something to talk about. I somewhat miss crunching through the winter snows of my childhood, but that's global warming for you. Our food is excellent, and has been for some time. It has fewer of the additives found in yank products, which are simply there to prolong the shelflife of the product to the benefit of the manufacturer. The peanut butter I spread on my bread has precisely three ingredients: peanuts, palm oil from sustainable sources, and sea salt. No yank actually knows what chocolate tastes like, unless they've been to Europe, because the stuff that is marketed and sold as chocolate in the US contains a chemical called tert‑butylhydroquinone which gives the product that special yank aftertaste of puke. British food has been excellent for decades. In any case, a Londoner has access to the best curries on the globe. There are more Indian restaurants in London than in Mumbai and Delhi combined. In Britain, the right to roam means that, so long as I am respectful of crops, I can go anywhere in the countryside, including private farmland. In Yankland, you're more likely to be confronted by the owner pointing a gun at you. Oh yes, and then there's that small matter of being able to leave my front door with the certain knowledge that I won't be shot dead. I am sure that Europe is much better than Britain, but I would rather gnaw my testicles off than step foot in the Trumpist hellhole known as the USA. (Sorry yanks, I know many of you are lovely - it's just that your country isn't; except for the beautiful wildlife of course).