I have a good friend who was born, raised, educated and lived in Alabama most of his life who was forced to work in London for British Telecom for the first couple of years after he was hired.
He and his wife hated how backwards and archaic everything was in London. When his two years were up, BT reneged on their promise to send him back to the U.S. and he quit on the spot. BT in turn caved on the spot and he and his family are now living happily in Texas, still employed by BT.
London is a great city - it’s true that they do things differently there - such as not really believing in dryers - they like to hang their clothes to dry.
I know personally that things weren’t that great in the 70s but London today is an amazingly vibrant, exciting city. We’ve rented flats during vacations and aside from that damn dryer we love pretending we lived there, lol.
Who would have guessed that a country thousands of miles away with thousands of years of history would do things differently to Alabama. I for one am shocked.