Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9673944)

I think many young people are drinking themselves silly by buying cheap booze from supermarkets. In fact some publicans blame the cheap booze available in supermarkets as part of the reason pubs are going out of business. The phrase 'binge drinking' is another phrase that I had never heard of when I lived in England; along with ASBO (Anti-social Behaviour Disorder).

Originally Posted by chris955 (Post 9674042)

I think a lot of comes down to what you choose to remember, as I said it makes me laugh when people say 'the UK has changed so much', no shit Sherlock, what country hasn't ? We like to look back 10 or 20 years and see sweetness and light and that contrasts starkly with the current Daily Mail doom and gloom. I have lived in England when there was much higher unemployment and always had a job as did all my friends. I have lived through recessions here and in England and never starved or became a victim of crime.
It is human nature to look back with rose coloured glasses but really the social ills today were the social ills back then too.

Originally Posted by Sally Redux (Post 9674046)

Some things have changed, like more variety in restaurants, but many seem very similar. This summer I went back to where I grew up, it was hardly any different. I have no idea why Brits want to talk everything down.

Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9673921)

If I were moving back to Britain in the near future I would be somewhat worried. As I mentioned before, for some, it might be like jumping out of a frying pan into a fire. The financial and social upheavals going on in the U.K. at the moment are pretty worrying in many areas of society. Even pubs are getting hit. Apparently, two pubs, on average, are closing down every day. :frown:

Originally Posted by Mummy in the foothills (Post 9674035)

You must have lived in a very sheltered place in UK not to notice the binge drinkers. I've been here (US) since the 80'S. I trained as a nurse in the UK and Saturday nights at the A&E were always busy, full of drunks who had drunk themselves into unconsciousness and the police who wanted to arrest them for fights and whatever else they'd been up to.
Our house was on a council estate and the local was full of binge drinkers vomiting their way home and falling over hedges. We just called them a bunch of drunks, same people different title. Come Monday morning most of them had sobered up enough to get on the bus to work.

Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9674344)

The number of people admitted to hospital for alcohol related problems has doubled in the last ten years. Alchol related liver disease has trebled.

Originally Posted by Mummy in the foothills (Post 9674035)

You must have lived in a very sheltered place in UK not to notice the binge drinkers. I've been here (US) since the 80'S. I trained as a nurse in the UK and Saturday nights at the A&E were always busy, full of drunks who had drunk themselves into unconsciousness and the police who wanted to arrest them for fights and whatever else they'd been up to.
Our house was on a council estate and the local was full of binge drinkers vomiting their way home and falling over hedges. We just called them a bunch of drunks, same people different title. Come Monday morning most of them had sobered up enough to get on the bus to work.

Originally Posted by sallysimmons (Post 9674440)

I think the increase in alcohol-related illness is not what some think. There were always drunk kids in England throwing up in the town center, but normal everyday middle class folks didn't always drink wine with dinner the way they do now. I bet digging into those stats would show that the alcohol-related illness is not because of the hoodies Returnee imagines are worse now than they ever were, but because older people are finding themselves ill after decades of sipping wine with dinner.



I lived in a very sheltered little village growing up and then moved to a city for my work in the mid-80s. What a shock to see how it was after dark! I soon learned to get home before the drinking started.

Those who glorify the past seem never to remember the reality. What about 3-day weeks and rubbish piling up in the streets and football hooligans wrecking town centers week in and week out, and IRA bomb scares being a regular occurrence. Not to mention the awful food and generally low standard of living and watching Margaret Thatcher rip the heart our of northern communities. Yes the good old days indeed!

Or perhaps the yearning is for longer ago, back to the 40s when the nazis were killing jews throughout Europe and no one had enough to eat and there wasn't a national health service?

Or further back to the 19 century when there was no such thing as the dole and the vast majority of people lived in abject poverty with extraordinarily high child mortality rates?

I'd love to know which prior era is the exact one that constitutes 'the good old days.'

For me much of England is the same as it always was, with the same social problems, but there are also many improvements. In general, the average person's standard of living is much higher with young families able to afford the kind of holidays my parents could only dream of. The food is so much better there aren't even words. And the multicultural influx seems to be giving the miserable old Brits a new lease of life and energy. I was very pleasantly surprised on my recent trips back.

Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9674491)

In my day there were no football 'hooligans' or Organized football gangs like Chelsea's Headhunters or Manchester United's Red Army rampaging and damaging property.

Originally Posted by Grayling (Post 9674504)

When was that then?

There certainly were when I was a teenager and I bet you are not much older than me.

There were certainly such gangs in the sixties.

There are also gangs in Japan and other countries.

I am not sure what you are doing on this forum apart from trying to shit stir

Originally Posted by Mummy in the foothills (Post 9650452)

she can't believe how badly people are treated here with work and health care (well she believes it now)

Originally Posted by Grayling (Post 9674504)

There are also gangs in Japan and other countries.

Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9674344)

The number of people admitted to hospital for alcohol related problems has doubled in the last ten years. Alchol related liver disease has trebled.

Originally Posted by Grayling (Post 9674371)

....or is this just another 'bad news' story from you?

Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9674491)

In my day there were no football 'hooligans' or Organized football gangs like Chelsea's Headhunters or Manchester United's Red Army rampaging and damaging property.

Originally Posted by Returnee (Post 9674563)

I used to go to footbal matches in the sixties and never experienced rampaging football hooliganism and the violence that has developed since.