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Post by spindrift on May 16, 2009 7:38:27 GMT
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Post by gyro on May 16, 2009 7:56:34 GMT
I reckon taking notice of the Daily Mail is pretty low, in all honesty.
Still, we in the UK are a bunch of drunks that fight and fuck at every opportunity, whereas the rest of the world are ALWAYS 100% perfectly behaved. That's FACT.
Anyway, it's Cardiff. Makes a nice change from Brit bashing.
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Post by BigIain on May 16, 2009 12:38:58 GMT
As the comments on the article say: We could have taken those pics over the course of an hour in any city in the UK. If it was a Wales v Scotland rugby weekend then I have seen worse than that in Cardiff. What a waste of his time and effort. I hope his plumbing/joinery/general labouring rewards him better than that load of crap.
They do need some more rubbish bins in Cardiff though.
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Post by spindrift on May 16, 2009 13:03:31 GMT
I rather enjoyed seeing this crap behaviour exposed. It goes on Friday and Saturday nights in my supposedly quiet town, though perhaps not to that extent. I thought the pictures were good quality and I'd like to know the camera he used.
It's not until people are made aware of bad behaviour that something will be done about it. Like warnings of 'black spots' on roads.
I knew Gyro would have a go about the Daily Mail.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2009 16:03:54 GMT
I saw all of that in Copenhagen on a Saturday night once.
And in terms of the trash, the Champs Elysées looks like that every morning because rubbish bins are not allowed in the area for security reasons. When I go to work early and the street cleaners have not been through yet, it is a horrifying sight.
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Post by gyro on May 16, 2009 19:21:59 GMT
Ha, yeah Spinny, I abhore the Daily Fascist. Thing is, this sort of activity is mentioned ALL too often in the tabloids and elsewhere in the media. Nothing changes.
The sad thing is that visitors to this fine land often think that's how we ALL behave. That's what gets my goat, the whole tarring and brush thing.
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Post by Deleted on May 16, 2009 20:07:45 GMT
It is true that England has that reputation -- but it is not alone. All of Scandinavia, Poland and Russia have it, too. Whether it is true or not obviously makes no difference.
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Post by hwinpp on May 18, 2009 2:50:19 GMT
You've got it in Germany too. And recently I read or saw somewhere that in Spain the juveniles plan their binges on Facebook. Agree too that it's just the Brits that get that reputation...
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Post by gyro on May 18, 2009 4:50:22 GMT
Naturally, there is an element of our nation deserving such a label, but the problem is that it has been sooooo overused and exaggerrated that now all you need do is see one pissed person being an idiot and immediately the WHOLE attitude can be applied to almost everybody that happens to share the same nationality. It's the same with football hooligans.
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Post by spindrift on May 19, 2009 8:37:57 GMT
I don't like living with the bingeing that's going on in my small town 24/7. There are small bevvies of drunks, druggies and beggars in most streets all day long. They congregate more after 5pm. If I go to Sainsbury's at that time (or towards 7pm, closing time) the shop is full of them and I feel vaguely threatened. There is a druggie half-way house in town; my daughter used to work in that road and there was constant annoyance and disgusting behaviour in front of the office's windows....raggedy people exposing themselves to the office workers, lying in the gutter and so on. The other weekend early on a Sunday morning an entire area in my road (supposedly the quietest and 'best' in town ) was filled with masses of blood, on the pavement, road and up all over shop front windows. There must have been a massive fight there in the early hours. The council had to send a huge cleaning truck with a power-spray to get rid of the evidence. I'm sorry, but none of our cars are safe. They are broken, badges stolen from the bonnet, aerials cut off, wing mirrors smashed, even the roofs are jumped on and finally the mindless idiots key the sides just for good measure. My daughter's car was keyed only a couple of weeks ago. It's heartbreaking. My wing mirrors have been broken off and dumped in the road endless times. I'm sick of it. The thugs come singing, bellowing and fighting down our road at 1 or 2am throwing bottles and creating mayhem. Not all the time but sometimes. Police are called but there are so many thugs what can they do? Said thugs usually then sit on the pavements to argue with the law. Oh I'm fed up with it.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 8:45:03 GMT
Fair enough (well, not in your case, obv.) I'm fed up with people outside of the Uk thinking the above description is applicable to almost the ENTIRE country ... !
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Post by spindrift on May 19, 2009 11:01:24 GMT
Yes, I get your point. Surely that bad behaviour wouldn't happen in English villages?
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2009 11:11:15 GMT
Frankly, I think that if most people around the world were asked to make a list of what is good and bad about the UK, the list of good things would be a lot longer than the list of bad things.
So if binge drinking is mentioned as being an authentic problem in the UK, I don't think it is going to erase all of the things that people like about the country. And it should certainly not be hidden if it is to be vanquished some day. It needs to be looked at unflinchingly.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 11:12:36 GMT
I'd hope not. We in Cromer get our fair share of louts and rucks, but NOTHING like how you describe it. And I'd class us as a small town.
Small-ish towns (particularly market towns, due, presumably and historically, to the influx nature of 'out of town' traders) have always had issues like this in terms of the odd fight or two, but it's never been on a large scale, and certainly wasn't anything to make the residents feel especially initmidated or scared to go out, etc.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2009 11:15:50 GMT
I have drunks in my street every night, because there are 25 all night kebab places with guaranteed halal meat and guaranteed 8.6° cheap malt liquor.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 11:17:54 GMT
Indeed. But I've never heard of the French having a problem with alcohol in the way it is reported for England. Sadly, probably the biggest offenders in this 'propoganda' are probably the British press .....
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Post by spindrift on May 19, 2009 11:36:15 GMT
Perhaps. On the other hand my son and daughter tell me that drunkeness is the norm now. Not only alcohol is involved - drugs too. As a matter of course. No-one thinks twice about it. At dinner parties too.
One of my close girlfriend's son died suddenly 5 weeks ago (age 33) when he was out with a friend. Too much booze - we don't know about toxicology tests yet.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 11:43:51 GMT
True. Plus, a few years back, people in general were more 'physical', in terms of job and attitude etc., so it was less of an issue for them.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 11:44:22 GMT
( a few years back being more than 30 or 40 .... ! )
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Post by spindrift on May 19, 2009 14:21:43 GMT
I think you're right if you're saying that high stress calls for relaxation which comes in many guises.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 14:27:24 GMT
Not necessarily high stress, just that there was more of a Mans World type attitude about things. Does that make sense ?
I could be well wide of the mark, but I think that could still be the case in some of the ex Eastern Bloc countries ... ?
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2009 15:58:52 GMT
I agree with spindrift on this one. I lived in the UK for a couple of years with my kids, a few years back. And they couldn't believe how the English didn't seem to care about their own country and environment. I have never seen so much rubbish in the streets before. Not to mention the brawling late at night as the pubs closed. The government put up some really nice public telephone booths in the High Street, with all the modern technology attached to them, and within days, someone had destroyed them all. So many teenagers with ASBO orders, even the the local bus company wouldn't drive through our area after 4.00pm, because one bus driver narrowly missed being seriously hurt after a yobo had thrown a large peice of wood through the bus window missing him by inches. A local man was attacked in the woods while he took his dog for a walk behind where we lived, motorbikes were constantly being stolen (including my neighbours) and later burned in the woods. The teenagers sitting around in the allys smoking dope and drinking.... A man hanged himself some doors away, and my little boy nearly saw it all, thankfully he didn't go behind the house where the man was hanging. I could carry on.
It makes you think what the heck? Especially when you consider just how privileged these degenerates really are compared to people living and trying to survive in third world countries.
Fair enough I lived in a rough area, but I grew up in the area, and it has got worse over the years. It's such a shame, because there are so many things I DO like about England. But I'm put off ever wanting to live there again, at least not with my kids. There are a few English families that live in my village here and they all say the same thing, no matter where they seem to have come from in England, you get this kind of behavior to one degree or another.
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Post by gyro on May 19, 2009 19:18:51 GMT
That's the sort of dangerously generic type of attitude/description I'm talking about. To me, saying something like 'The English' suggests all or a majority of them. Of course, some people are like that, as they are in ANY country. Do you really think that is how most English people think ?
Naturally, you can only form opinions based on your personal experience, but it has to be pointed out you yourself admit it was a rough area. Trying to validate comments based on a 'few' English families doesn't really prove anything either, as the fact they live in another country probably means they don't want to be in England, and therefore have a more biased opinion to an extent.
What's REALLY a shame is you have allowed your opinion to be clouded by bad experience. In itself this is obviously natural and human nature, and I can't say that I would feel any different, but the negative projection you then give on this stance is what I find dissapointing.
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Post by lola on May 20, 2009 23:14:33 GMT
If you were visiting somewhere and only 5% of the people were out acting like that, the other 95% sitting quietly at home, which group would make an impression?
The small towns in the economically depressed areas of our state have significant drug problems. In my city, our friends and coworkers tend to be more on the puritanical side, moderate to a fault almost.
I think drug and alcohol abuse stems from a lack of anything interesting to do.
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Post by gyro on May 21, 2009 15:19:36 GMT
Indeed. It's like the old cliche that (and I know the figures almost certainly aren't correct) you tell 5 people about something good, but 20 about something bad. Or something like that ...
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Post by rikita on May 23, 2009 20:56:44 GMT
i like the photos though, they are really good... wondering though, if he did get model releases from all of those, and if he didn't - is he even allowed to publish them? because really, how do you get a model release for example from someone who is passed out?
as for drinking in the UK - what i enjoyed on my (few and short) visits was that i didn't have to worry about all the nonsense i said when i drank to much, while in germany, at least in the circles i was in then, people always made remarks and seemed to judge me. on the other hand, i think i have never been as drunk as there... and in part i found it had to do with buying rounds and all that. here, if each buys their own drinks, you somehow keep an overview of how much you've had much more easily...
but anyway, i would say drinking would be only one things of many, and by far not the first thing, that comes to mind for most people i know, when asked about the UK...
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Post by lagatta on May 23, 2009 21:13:13 GMT
Hmm, another stereotype, but I find the Germans I know are rather inclined to make remarks that seem judgemental to me, (about all sorts of things) though I suppose that is another cultural difference. And I'm referring to friends whom I like very much.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2009 21:24:08 GMT
So would it also be a stereotype to say that "Germans make judgemental remarks?" My own stereotype would be to say that "Germans are very direct and not always very diplomatic." That's one of the things I like about both them and the Vietnamese.
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Post by gyro on May 24, 2009 18:38:45 GMT
I'd say the Brits and the Germans are probably the two most stereotyped nations in Europe. France and Italy come in at 3rd and 4th...
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Post by tillystar on May 24, 2009 19:06:42 GMT
Well I certainly hope you put them stright and explained it wrong to judge an entire nation based on their experiences of a view, because of course to do so would be racist?
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