Sunday, December 28, 2025

Ode to Britain: The Holy Trinity

 I've become an unapologetic Anglophile, more so the longer I live here. There are a bevy of reasons for why this place is so special and remarkable. Today I will focus on the top three or the holy trinity of reasons (probably more accurate to say the secular trinity of reasons).  But understatement as you know has never been my calling card. Go for the flourish while the blood is still pumping.


Reason One

The National Treasure of the NHS




The creation of the NHS (Britain's name for its National Health Service) was a direct result of Labour sweeping into power in the 1940s along with flush financing from America's Marshall Plan. The system born on 5th of July, 1948 had at its heart three core principles:


Upon my move to the UK in August 2019, I received my NHS number by post within ten days; all that is needed is resident status and a stable address. My experience has been a 9 out of 10. Private health insurance is available and supplementary when you need to expedite an acute issue but I have found that NHS response times are relatively quick and the doctors and nurses are all smart and professional. Don't expect comfy furniture and crystal chandeliers. The waiting rooms are a basic set-up and some of the medical receptionists are as warm and fuzzy as Carol Beer in Little Britain. 


Why are so many British receptionists so mean?

But, back to the NHS, I can't stress how hard-working and heroic they have been for me including the fact that they found me an immediate bed for a bad flare of ulcerative colitis and saving my colon in the process. Those six days changed me but it could be the prednisone talking. For nearly a week I stayed on the hospital grounds and the nurses and sraff kept me well-fed with meals, meds and medical updates. It was all free of charge at the point of delivery. In fact, the NHS only takes out 96 GBP from my monthly paycheck with comes out to about 120 USD. Not bad for a world-class health system which turns no one away.

The Brits should be proud; the creation of the NHS was their best achievement of the twentieth century.

Reason Two

A Rich Network of Public Transport

Parts of me, upon moments of waxing nostalgic, wanted to stay in Boston forever. The Hub, after all, is awash in charm and leisure: nearby beaches and mountains, a small but brave theatre scene, a tapestry of dessert establishments and independent film houses galore; enough diversion in which to spend your time. Notice, however, what I didn't include in Boston's advantages: the MBTA. With major lines shutting down for weeks at a time, the T's checkered performance pushes citizens off the tracks and onto 93 South and we all know how traffic does wonders for societal cohesion and individual blood pressure. To be fair, my last time spent in Boston was in 2023 when the T was at its nadir. I'm talking about slow zones and train car fires and negligent accidents and whole lines closing down for weeks at a time. Since then, new MBTA head honcho, Phillip Eng, has turned things around dramatically and has become something of a folk hero in southern New England.






Transit Matters is a wonderfully wonky MBTA data collection site where you can follow real-time improvements on train speeds and customer service. You can see the progress in real-time. Strong leadership still means something.




Yet, in London, there's more here here. The public transportation network is an embarrassment of riches. In America, people denigrate the local, infrequent bus as "the loser cruiser." Here in London, they are like these busy red blood cells that everyone takes everywhere. Fully half of my colleagues do not own a car. Why would you when the incentives for public transport are so robust? And the trains so frequent, arriving every five to eight minutes. And like San Francisco, there is this colorful variety of different carriages to take.





The Victoria Line outclasses them all. Trains swoop in every 90 seconds and take you to such critical junctures as Vauxhall, Green Street, Oxford Circus and King's Cross. Just be prepared for the high speeds and the loud noise.






"The Old Smoke," with its two-thousand-year-old history, pioneered the modern railway. Boosterism by Prince Albert certainly helped move things along (as evidenced by this clip at timestamp 3:18 of the program Victoria on PBS), leaving London with a legacy of options in getting around. For the modern Transport for London (TFL) includes:


675 Bus Routes 🚍

  11 Tube Lines 🚆

9 Branches of the Urban-Suburban Rail Elizabeth Line

6 Newly-Named Overground Routes

5 Dockland Light Rail Routes 🚈

5 River Bus Routes 🌊

3 Branches of the Croydon Tram 🚋

and 

About two dozen national rail operators emanating out from one of London's rail terminals 🚃








Anyone who knows me knows that I am anti-car and pro-train and thus London keeps me impressed with its genteel socialism. As seen from ten thousand feet up, you can imagine every trek via bus, foot or train as nine million little circuits criss-crossing and intermingling. Whatever the image, moving around the city (especially on the upper decker of windowed bus) is a great way to get one's bearings and explore the geography of this great metropolis.









The TFL is not all sunshine and unicorns though. The UK, while having a comprehensive transit network, also suffers from the highest commuter prices out of all major cities. Something to do with few subsidies emanating out of Westminster. So maybe it's not a socialist as I broached earlier.

She works but she'll charge you.





Mercifully, my hero, the London mayor Sadiq Khan, has frozen bus fares for the seventh time in a row. A trip remains 1.75 GBP plus there are a number of concessionary subsidies for kids, teenagers and seniors who are 60+. Furthermore, the buses are clean and spacious and the seats quite comfy. Way-finding, digital signage and polite announcements are superb. Can you tell I'm a stan of the TFL? Actually, if I didn't choose librarianship as my field, I would gladly break into transportation; there's no greater satisfaction than getting people to their destination quickly and safely.

Reason Three

A Culture of Safety, Safeguarding and Gun Control

The last pillar of the secular trinity is "the handholding" of British customs and norms. These safety precautions take many guises. First one that comes to mind is that managers of offices and library locations always give newcomers a tour of fire exits within their buildings. Second, and this segues smoothly from the public transport mention, there is a clear and defined pedestrian infrastructure best demonstrated in zebra walks where drivers must stop to give walkers right of way. Think of the fab four on the Abbey Road cover.

Famous Photo of Abbey Road Cover

One of my favorite YouTubers, an American living in London, named Evan Edinger, actually went into cinematic detail in multiple videos comparing the pleasant pedestrian infrastructure of London to the paltry and lethal one in his home state of New Jersey (and mind you New Jersey is quite a blue state that should do better for its amblers!).

A Still Shot of one of Evan Edinger's Urban Exploration Videos

But the best way to assess safety is to look at homicide rates and here London once again shines.

The homicide rate from a 2017 survey found a low rate of homicide (140 murders) for London, a city of nine million people that beats out all major American cities that year. London even tops New York, one of the safest cities in America, by a 50% drop in lethal violence. Eight years later in 2025, London's homicide rate has plummeted even lower with just seventy murders in the first nine months of this year. Of course, it must be said that one murder is too many, but the fact remains that this city and this country is an incredibly safe place in which to live. We can thank strict gun laws for that phenomenon.

Regarding safety and accessibility on the Tube, London comes in at a respectable sixth place in terms of step-free access at stations (Seoul, Madrid and Shanghai were the top three). London did, however, score first place in the number of bathrooms at train stations with 63% of underground stations having public toilets. So you know which metro you should use when you need to powder your nose.

Lastly, in terms of safety and safeguarding, Britain is a country that tries its best to consider the welfare of their young people. On school field trips, you'll witness a gaggle of schoolkids roaming the streets and they are all wearing those lime green safety vests in order to be seen by motorists. Also at all the churches I have attended, there is clear and honest signage about safeguarding for young people, vulnerable people and seniors and I think it's an admirable and progressive approach by bringing sunlight to old ways of abuse and corruption.

To wit, I've fallen in love with Britain. It's been a slow burn but now I consider it home.


References


Little Britain USA-Rude British Receptionist: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZDxIFQLOiV0

Phillip Eng MBTA Biography: https://www.mbta.com/people/phillip-eng

Transit Matters, a nerdy MBTA database: https://transitmatters.org/

Transit Matters, an Orange Line look: https://dashboard.transitmatters.org/orange/?view=all

The Victoria Line Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_line


Transport for London (TFL): https://tfl.gov.uk/



Video by Evan Edinger from 14 September 2025: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=lShDhGn5e5s





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