It's time to bring the project to a close. 

In this chapter, we touch on some subjects we haven't covered and check if Elisa's British boyfriend still wants to talk to us. 

Thank you for being with us through those 10 episodes, and let's home we'll meet one day in our new podcast entitled "You're Great again, Britain!"

* * * 

While Elisa wants to remain private, you can follow Tomasz's work by following him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOrynski, Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TOrynski or by checking out his website www.orynski.eu. 

You can also check his other podcast Lewackie Pitolenie which is mostly in Polish but some chapters are also available in the English language: https://lewackiepitolenie.buzzsprout.com/

People from all over EU until recently were coming to the UK in their thousands to look for work. People from other parts of the world  still find Britain an attractive destination. 

But is the British workmarket a good place to be an employee? Was it ever? Are salaries really good and worker's right protected? 

The comparition with Finland or even Italy shows that this might not be the case any more. 

One of Elisa's English language students said that "Britain is the country where everything is organized and buses are always on time". Oh, how wrong she was. 

With the bus and rail strikers, the government accuses trade union leaders for "making the public transport unreliable". But perhaps they should go on strike, because it can hardly get any worse?

Listen to the newest episode. 

And then, if you want, watch this short documentary we mentioned in the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlTq8DbRs4k

We invited professor Jan Čulík, lecturer in Czech from the school of modern languages and cultures at Glasgow University today. 

We decided to ask him if the British universities, so famous around the world for their teaching quality, are really as good as their places in the rankings show. 

Turns out, not everything is going so great, especially after Brexit.

Our guest today is Mat Ireland, driver, podcaster, and writer. We discuss the topic of the infrastructure for truckers in Britain. 

You can find Mat:
- on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@suffolkmatireland/videos
- on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matstruckingpage
- the Truck and Driver podcast is here: https://audioboom.com/channels/5017443
and you can find his book here: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/trucking-earthmoving-and-demolition?

This week Elisa and Tomasz discuss why British bureaucracy is so disfunctional and what can be done to improve user's experience in contact with the government, banks and other insitutions. 

To ilustrate problems when talking to automatic voice recognition systems, we used a fragment of a clip from a TV show Burnistoun: https://youtu.be/HbDnxzrbxn4

Britons are pround of being one of the richest economy. But are standards of living really that great?

We lived in a few countries between us, and we can't remember topics like "mould", "leaving rooms unheated to save money", "single glazing windows" and "struggling to fit double bed into the bedroom" to be topics of everyday conversations anywhere else in the world. Unless this conversation starts with "when I lived in Britain..."

Tomasz' comparision of the Finnish and British housing standards:
https://orynski.eu/what-are-finnish-housing-standards-compared-to-british-ones/

Britain is very proud of it's democracy. You can often hear soundbites like "world leading", "well-established" or "historic". 

Sure, Magna Carta and other things were good - for their time. But it's XXI century. Is Britain's democracy suitable for the times we live in? Can it be even considered a modern democracy at all?

Britain is a beautiful country. Old victorian towns, beautiful landscape, walkable city centres. Yet it is all spoiled by rubbish. Litter is everywhere, even despite the fact that bins are plentiful and easily accessible - from the main streets of big cities to the most remote areas of Scotland. 

Why is it, that Britain can't keep itself tidy? Why, instead of just making excuses, blaming foreigners, foxes, seagulls, wind, kids, the bin men strikes and literally every possible excuse Britons just don't admit they are a dirty nation and just stop throwing rubbish and litter everywhere?

Once upon a time, I (Tomasz) was asked to write a series of articles about how Britain looks through the eyes of foreigners. I simply had to start with the NHS. It's a recurring topic of every conversation between EU citizens in the UK. I think pretty much every European we met - from Bulgarians to Portuguese  - have very bad opinion of British health service. Yes, some elements of it are pretty good, but in general, the service is terrible. 

It's absolutely normal for Europeans living in the UK that if they want to get medical help, they fly out to their own country. 

Yet if you ask any Briton, it's completely the opposite. They believe their health system is the best and it's an object of envy of the whole world and people from all over Europe flock to those islands to try and benefit from it. The facts, of course, are completely opposite. But Britons don't want to hear any of it. For them, the NHS is like a religion. And you can't criticize someone's religion. 

This is why they refused to publish the first of my articles. "You can criticize anything you want, but you can't criticise the NHS" - said the editor. But I won't be told what I can and cannot criticize in my articles. And I won't start my series by removing the whole topic I found one of the most important when it commest to how different the perception of Britain is in the eyes of the natives and the incomers. So I pulled out of that project, teamed with Elisa and we decided to make it into a podcast. And so, here we are. Enjoy the listen - even if you might not like what you hear. 

But remember - it's for YOUR OWN GOOD!