A Nova student once told me that he didn't like girls from England because "they're fat, loud and eat too many chips". Whilst this is a rather sweeping statement, it does encompass a number of the girls that you can see lining the city roads on a Friday night. You know the sort - wearing a navel revealing crop top despite having a 36 inch waist and a spare tyre, kebab in one hand, bottle of smirnoff ice in the other. Could there be anything more unattractive? Probably, but I'm not sure what it could be...

The same Nova student went on to say that even though Japanese girls could often be rather highly strung and fashion-oriented, they at least had some sense of propriety and decorum. And small waists and on the whole slim, attractive figures. I had to agree with him. Thus far, life with my fiance has been wonderful. She is kind and caring, polite and funny, interesting and thoughtful. The student told me that he dated an English girl when he was in London, and within a few weeks he was horrified by her behaviour. "She would drink until she fell down, and then shout at me when I tried to help her. She never did any kind of housework and would scream at me if I asked her to do anything for me. Her friends were all unfriendly and childish and I hardly saw her when they weren't there."

He asked me why girls like that behave the way they do. Good question... the emergence of the laddette in popular culture? Decades of girls being told that it's their right to expect instant gratification? Bars' policies of having ladies nights of discounted (or sometimes free) drinks? Probably a mixture of all of these.

"Is that why you came to Japan?" he asked me afterwards, "to escape from the girls?"

I had to answer that no, it wasn't. I came to Japan primarily because I had met my fiance, and she lived there, and also as I had always been fascinated with Japan and wanted to see what it was like. With hindsight though, I certainly don't miss seeing gangs of lumpy laddettes with "kelly bellies" vomitting on the pavement, and a further reason for my emigration was the deep rooted political correctness that was bearing bitter fruit (firemen taking their fire department to court because a fire they arrived at was too hot, a school boy with green hair taking his school to court for sending him home and causing him stress). In February 2004 I thought that England was in ruins, and I couldn't wait to leave. Now, although I do miss certain things, I find myself feeling exactly the same...