If Lorik Cana, formerly of Marseille, can do it, so can I. He exchanged the south of France for the much grittier qualities of North East England and has not so far been heard to moan about it in any of the half dozen languages he speaks.
Of course, Mr Cana is earning tens of thousands of pounds a week plying his trade as a footballer at Sunderland. I just went there on assignment for The National, Abu Dhabi.
My colleagues were interested in the decline of Labour. They, not I, suggested writing about it from up north. Despite a lifetime of manipulating such situations to sneak in a Sunderland match, I failed to be anywhere near a game while there (even flying from Toulon to Stansted 24 hours after a Carling Cup match at Norwich where I'd have enjoyed the rare spectacle of four Sunderland away goals).
Even so, it was good to see home territory again and to catch up with friends. Labour, as we all know, really is in trouble, as was pointed out to me in stark terms by my former colleague, Tony King, professor of government at Essex University and - despite being Canadian - a wise professional observer of the British electoral landscape.
"Their predicament is irretrievable," he told me. "They are held in contempt, though sometimes benign contempt, because they are seen as chaotic and incompetent."
While in Sunderland, I met the Tory candidate, Lee Martin, who actually voted to elect the Blair government in 1997; I was pleased to discover that he has the good sense to be a committed fan of Sunderland.
Chris Mullin, a veteran Labour MP who impressed me many years ago with his dignified but robust campaign on behalf of the Birmingham Six, found time to see me, too. He's a Sunderland MP but has decided to stand down at the general election next Spring; if he had chosen to fight on, Lee Martin's chances of becoming the city's first Tory MP in 40-odd years would have looked a lot slimmer task than they do (in a real landslide, he could well take the newly created Sunderland Central).
Chris Mullin was able to challenge one of the thoughts expressed by Prof King on the alienation of New Labour and its core, working class support. With the departure from government of John Prescott, Tony had argued, no prominent Labour politician sounds Labour any more.
His point, in general, has some force.
But Chris Mullin saw the obvious weakness. "It occurred to me, after you had gone," he wrote, "that there was a much better answer to the question you asked about working class members of the Cabinet than the one I gave: the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, was a postman, brought up by an older sister in the absence of parents; Alan Milburn was brought up by a single mother in the poorest part of Newcastle. These are just ones that come to mind off the top of my head. I am sure there are others if one looked systematically."
In truth, the way top Labour people sound is probably the least of their problems. Tony King thinks that apart from the obvious unpopularity of military commitments overseas, foreign policy does not add greatly to Labour's difficulties.
I wonder: the saga concerning the premature release of the convicted Lockerbie plotter Abdel Basset al Megrahi continues unabated. There must be some risk of electoral damage, notably in Scotland, though I would argue that Gordon Brown should ignore American bleatings. He needs to take no lessons on justice from a country whose system allows people to be locked up for decades for relatively trivial crimes and where juries are permitted to award millions in compensation to smokers who - surprise, surprise - suffered illness because of their habit.
Lorik Cana, if he is the thinking man I somehow assume a polyglot to be, has lost the Mediterranean sunshine but moved to an area with proud political traditions and plenty to argue about, even if his native Kosovo is no longer a subject on everyone's lips.
I hope to see him again soon, if you know what I mean.
* My picture is from the St Clair beach at Le Lavandou. I thought it quite arty until I remembered that I also had this rather excellent photo of Lee Martin at Wearmouth Bridge, taken by a proper photographer, Jim Varney, with whom I worked while in the North East.
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