More on immigrants

Over the past couple of weeks i've spoken to a few people who moved to the UK, mainly from the Indian sub-continent, about how the east end of London has changed over the years. One thing we agree on is that the most recent immigrants are quite different to my father's generation of immigrants - those who came to the UK in the 70s.

My dad, his brothers, and many men i know from that generation, worked long-hours sweating to earn a living in this country. And they had respect both for themselves and their host country, and instilled that in their kids.

Now when you look at the eastern-european immigrants flooding into the country, the image is of free-loaders who are here to squeeze as much out of the government as they can, whilst breaking all sorts of rules to make extra money on the side. And thats an image not just portrayed by the tabloid media, but its what i see when i step out my door every day.

But the thing that really annoys me is just the basic lack of respect that some of these immigrants have. Back when i was a kid, i remember coming back late one evening from bowling with my cousin, and i was speaking loudly in the streets. My uncle basically told me to shutup and not disturb neighbours who were trying to sleep. Now, you have indians and tamils who walk down the road close to midnight talking so loud you'd think they were sitting in their own living rooms.

But the worst offenders for me are the Polish.

Gadzooks what is it with Polish men and urinating in the streets? So many times i've been tempted to lay into them on this blog over their tendency to urinate on main pedestrian routes in broad daylight, but i've withheld till today.

Earlier this evening, as i stepped outside my house with my young son, an aging Polish man happened to be walking past and smiled at me and my son. "OK" i thought. What does he do? He walks about 5 houses down and starts urinating on the wall of someone's front yard.

"Oiiii no!!" I yelled.

The filthy man looked round and managed a weak smile.

I shook a fist at him at which point he hastily zipped up his jeans and waddled off round the corner, not leaving one with much doubt as to what he was going to do when he rounded the bend.

Behaviour like that is just plain nasty and i'm surprised that grown polish men have no problem in exhibiting it in full view of the public.