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Trouble is in British culture so many people believe certain behaviour is acceptable if the perpetrator is drunk. If they were not drunk it would not be seen as acceptable so IT IS NO EXCUSE.
Mark
Value Is EverythingDrunken, sometimes violent behaviour has been part of British culture for hundreds of years. It has nothing to do with politicians, Europe, do-gooders, the high price of oil, the 1960s or anything else and it isn’t getting worse
Agree with all of that except for "it isn’t getting worse". The increase in alcoholic liver disease and its earlier onset over the last twenty years or so is – if stats mean anything – a pretty clear indication that consumption has increased. Beer, that drink of the masses, which was once universally Mild ‘n’ Bitter at 3-3.5% alcohol has been replaced by Lagers and Alcopops at 5% or more.
Drinking with the sole intent of getting drunk is generally a Northern European trait and specifically a British trait, and has been for generations. Those who thought 24hr licensing would turn us into a ‘Euro-Cafe Society’ overnight really should have got out a bit more
Its 2008 now people are supposed to evolve.
I’m not sure what’s especially evolutionary about pasting the living plop out of kids in schools like so many cavemen; but then I’m just a fluffy pink bunny rabbit in a "Vote Clegg" singlet, so what do I know?
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Its 2008 now people are supposed to evolve
Presumably you mean socially, rather than genetically. In that sense, we have evolved in many respects. We no longer bait bears, hang draw and quarter people, execute people for stealing a loaf of bread or rely on priests to translate the Bible for us.
On the other hand, certain British cultural traits remain and as Drone pointed out, it is rooted in the tradition of drinking solely to get drunk. It isn’t any more pleasant now than it was hundreds of years ago.Various Kings have tried to crackdown on this tendency of the British, with little success. It wasn’t acceptable a hundred years ago either. Matthew Arnold’s report on Derby Day in 1869 was dripping with distaste as he recounted tales of drunkenness, violence and debauchery. The church, the state, the upper and middle classes have railed against it for centuries.
I take Drone’s point about the increase in alcoholic liver disease, but wonder whether any surveys of early Victorian London might not have recorded even more alarming statistics.
Interestingly, on the subject of football violence, I read a report which suggested that the only two periods in our history where it declined significantly were between the wars and in the decade following 1945, presumably because war tends to take the edge off people’s desire to start random fights and, more tragically, there were far fewer young working class men around. I wonder if this was repeated in other areas of British cultural life, a short respite from our traditional drunken pastimes, which has led people to assume that before the 1960s, everybody behaved with decorum. History suggests that the current state of affairs is the norm.
Finally, it hardly needs saying, but some posters seem to need it pointing out, that in saying these things, I am not condoning drunken violent behaviour, merely pointing out that it is not new and it has more to do with our culture, going back centuries, than any more recent development. On an individual/law and order basis, anyone who breaks the law deserves to be punished.
Next week I will be sitting in the opposite side of the ground to the drunken morons and hopefully watching some good cricket.
I’m just a fluffy pink bunny rabbit in a "Vote Clegg" singlet, so what do I know?
Looks very nice with the sandals I’m sure.
……………..and hopefully watching some good cricket.
Presumably you aren’t going to the test match then
Excellent stuff Andrew.
In this part of the world the boozey daytrips, weekends and holidays that disgust southern Europe and embarrass provincial Britian are worked for and dreamed of by many. Multiple partners, vomiting, hideous sunburn, police cells, grim hotels and airport hell are not a nightmare, there a British and Irish dream, a raison d’etre if you like.
Always has been, always will be, which is why limiting the areas where alcohol is consumed and having robust security eject the ¨messers¨ quickly is the way forward for the racecourses in tackling the issue imo.
Its 2008 now people are supposed to evolve
Presumably you mean socially, rather than genetically. In that sense, we have evolved in many respects. We no longer bait bears, hang draw and quarter people, execute people for stealing a loaf of bread or rely on priests to translate the Bible for us.
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Yes Andrew I mean socially.
WE haven’t revolved in (some of) the respects you mention at all. Politicians have decided they knew best for us and taken away the death penalty. It isn’t a democratic decision there never was a public vote. Most polls (certainly every one I’ve ever heard of) has the public massively in favour of capital punishment. I’m fully in favour by the way. I realise I’ll be called barbaric and all the rest of it I’ll call the opposition do-gooders. Society isn’t nearly hard enough on scum and I make no apology for use of that word. There are people out there that rape and kill babies etc sorry but I don’t want filth like that allowed to live and if that makes me "as bad as them" in some peoples eyes thats their problem maybe they need to get perspective?
There is a current fashion to blame alcohol – alcohol isn’t a criminal nor is it an idiot its the people that consume it. There is no need for it if people cant stop before they get to the stage where they are out of control then its them to blame not alcohol its is no excuse at all to blame booze its a cop out.
I drink alcohol sure, but I’ve never got to the stage where I turn violent – why? Because I know my limits and I’m not a yob looking for an excuse to hide behind.
Anything can be justified if you try hard enough but in the end it all comes down to people, self control, standards and respect. People think its Ok to drink and do pretty much what they like – it isn’t and they are idiots that should be treated as such.
I drink alcohol sure, but I’ve never got to the stage where I turn violent – why? Because I know my limits and I’m not a yob looking for an excuse to hide behind.
Anything can be justified if you try hard enough but in the end it all comes down to people, self control, standards and respect. People think its Ok to drink and do pretty much what they like – it isn’t and they are idiots that should be treated as such.
Can’t disagree with any of that. I suspect we are talking at cross purposes. On an individual level, everyone is personally accountable for their actions. At the same time, it is possible to talk about British culture and society in a general way and note wider trends. The two are not contradictory.
Presumably you aren’t going to the test match then
Unfortunately yes. I have tickets for the third day – assuming England haven’t lost by then.
I drink alcohol sure, but I’ve never got to the stage where I turn violent – why? Because I know my limits and I’m not a yob looking for an excuse to hide behind.
Anything can be justified if you try hard enough but in the end it all comes down to people, self control, standards and respect. People think its Ok to drink and do pretty much what they like – it isn’t and they are idiots that should be treated as such.
Can’t disagree with any of that. I suspect we are talking at cross purposes. On an individual level, everyone is personally accountable for their actions. At the same time, it is possible to talk about British culture and society in a general way and note wider trends. The two are not contradictory.
Fair enough mate.
A good post Andrew Hughes, but you aren’t seriously trying to suggest that the standards of behaviour at England’s racecourses hasn’t declined sharply over the past ten years are you ? It gets worse year-on-year as the yobs are slowly priced out of their first love, Football and enticed into Tatts for a booze-up / sing-song.
(I will exclude Scotland and Ireland here as I haven’t been racing in these countries enough).
I take Drone’s point about the increase in alcoholic liver disease, but wonder whether any surveys of early Victorian London might not have recorded even more alarming statistics.
You may well be right, if not the 19th then surely the 18th?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin_Craze
and here’s an article about Hogarth’s famous depictions of ‘Gin Lane’ and ‘Beer Street’
250 years on, simply replace gin with ‘shooters’ perhaps
Some interesting stats buried in this one
especially:-
“6,000 children on alcohol treatment programmes last year. A thousand of them under 14. The average amount of booze slipping down the necks of our under-15-year-olds has doubled in a decade. One hundred kids a week hospitalised through drink – most of them girls. A sevenfold increase in young men dying of chronic liver disease since the 70s.”[/color:50e8epvj]
A good post Andrew Hughes, but you aren’t seriously trying to suggest that the standards of behaviour at England’s racecourses hasn’t declined sharply over the past ten years are you ? It gets worse year-on-year as the yobs are slowly priced out of their first love, Football and enticed into Tatts for a booze-up / sing-song.
I’m not a frequent enough racegoer to comment so I won’t contradict what you say. It may be that racecourses have changed their policies in recent years or are more tolerant of drinking to excess, I don’t know.
Presumably you aren’t going to the test match then
Unfortunately yes. I have tickets for the third day – assuming England haven’t lost by then.
They can’t throw three tests away – can they?
Although I expect some of the local club players in Birmingham are getting excited – just in case they get a test call-up
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