My Life as an expat living in London, UK

I wish to be the voice of my younger Canadian generation. You can escape your miserable existence, your poor prospects, being a vulgar copy of what might be, and become the real thing within the motherland, the United Kingdom. As this is what attracts thousands of New Zealanders, Australians and Canadians to the UK every year.

I’m not talking about the other colonies, the rest of the Commonwealth. They only dream of England as a way to escape their ultimate misery. It’s not the same for us, well it is, but it is another sort of misery we wish to escape.

We want to reach out to the source of it all, where we actually truly come from, the almighty United Kingdom. Never mind that I am actually French-Canadian, for me both France and England are the same, they are both my motherland.

I have my British boyfriend, my own Border Terrier, my parrot from the Amazon, a whole zoo, just as my life has become. Such a nightmare we can make of our existence, but as long as hell is here in the UK, well, it is still an exotic lifestyle, I’m still miles away from what I was destined to be somewhere North in Canada.

And then you realise something amazing. Being British is not enough, you can easily remain Canadian, New Zealander or Australian, without changing much of who you are. Because even the Brits dream of something larger than they are, it is called America, the United States, and more to the point: Los Angeles.

We have only one master, Los Angeles. And until you reach the place, conquer the damn place, you will not have lived fully, you will always feel something is not right. I’ve gone through all this before, I lived in Los Angeles. I can happily report that whatever you might feel you might achieve there, it will be meaningless, as it can only be from the point of view of the whole world that you could wish to express yourself. It lacks identity, who you are, who you might be. You no longer are anyone, you are everyone, and you must speak for everyone. You can only lose yourself in Los Angeles.

So I went back to my roots, Old Isleworth in Middlesex just outside London. This is where I have been living for the past 15 years. Lovely place, next to Richmond Upon Thames, where only the richest celebrities in England live, next to Hampton Court Palace, where Henry the VIII wrecked havoc as the ultimate dictator all over England 500 years ago.

Henry the VIII is what defines the world, the man responsible for millions of deaths since he was born. I don’t think much of him or his accomplishments, like creating Protestantism outside Catholicism, though someone had to get the message to the Vatican that no one could possibly obey any of that crap from any damn Pope, but I certainly appreciate his Palace made of red bricks. It is so British, it defines me entirely, it becomes me. I could easily die in a bed made of red bricks, as this is where my ancestors come from.

Well, my ancestors are actually from France, but I do not care for dying in a bed made of cement and stucco. France be damned, with its weird ways of doing anything in this world. Especially with a President like Nicolas Sarkozy, this little George W. Bush in power, or should I say this little Hitler in power? Even here I could say this little Harper in power, it is all the same in this day in age. In Australia he was called John Winston Howard.

So yes, there is something to be said about reaching England. There is something to be proud of about living in London UK. You can easily feel like you are on the top of the world, and that whatever you say or create comes right from the centre of everything, as you rapidly become the centre of everything yourself. I know it is all for show, I’m not that stupid, but that is what I feel like, as a Canadian living in London UK.

“Without irony, this life would hardly be worth living.”

Roland Michel Tremblay

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