hnd

... I know that 'love thy neighbour' and all that isn't that easy a lot of the time but does it have to descend to this kind of stuff:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-...n_Rival_Groups

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news...-1225910218235

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-Bradford.html

It's not that I love all my fellow humankind, I don't, but just can't get my head around the absolute HATRED that so many seem to feel towards others.

Ah, well, it's late and I seem to be in a rather maudlin state of mind ... ignore my self-indulgent post ........

but hooray, have just managed to kill that bl00dy pesky fly which has been bothering me for the last hour or so. Squashed it against the screen. Thanks guys - if it wasn't for me posting I wouldn't have seen it lol!

Millhouse

I have to agree with you - I don't really understand it either.

But one question that springs to mind... do you think that the guy dressed at Santa in the last picture of the daily mail link was in the wrong place?

Ethos83

I just finished reading The English by Paxman. Now I wonder why I waited so long to get around it.

One of his key observations that really stand out is despite the much vaunted tradition of stiff upper lips and all that, that there's a long, long, long history of violent mobs in England dating to times immemorial. It's a small and often well concealed streak, but it's there in the national psyche and every now and then it rears its ugly head. When you remember your history lessons it really does make sense.

The most sensible thing is to simply laugh at them and these skinheads will slither away to their council estates where they will only cause violence to themselves.

Another interesting fact gleaned from Paxman: in early 1700s the total amount of gin consumed by the English was at least quadruple that of today despite having a population more than six times larger.

Millhouse

I'm pretty sure that the amount of Bacardi Breezers drunk these days is infinity greater than the amount drunk in the 1700s despite the population only being 6x larger!

I seem to remember being told at school that they drunk gin as the water was bad.

Ethos83

History lesson: the Brits have always been drunks.

The typical 18th century squire was blotto most of the time. The farm labourer was blotto most of the time.

The Victorian anti-drink morality was only a brief episode in the long and glorious history of British drunkedness.

Millhouse

I think they ditched the booze temporary while they abused Heroin.

Ethos83

Opiates, you mean.

Perhaps that's why Sherlock Holmes was an instantaneous hit?

MacScot

Well that was a mistake...didn't you realise that God is a fly (Musca omnipotentus). His Buzziness won't be amused when you eventually meet up him.

Bahtatboy

Waddies 6X is now drunk 6X what it formerly was because the population is now 6X the size. Love and XXXXXX

(Alternatively: Has the bottom fallen out of your world? Drink 6 pints of 6X and let the world fall out of your bottom.)

Charismatic

There is a black guy right in the middle of that Daily Mail photo .

Pity anyone that shows any pride in England or being English is marked as a racist by people who go home to their houses built with cheap Polish labour with their food cooked by underpaid Turks and head out in a taxi driven nonstop for the last 48 hours by someone from Bangara for a pint probably pulled by an eastern European with a degree in physics. I have more respect for those that are honest about the situation in the UK even if I don’t agree with their views on how to deal with it. Racist? A bit but no more than any other nationality really.

>Shaves head<

expat.brat

stiff upper lip has always been a bit of a myth.. a stereotype if you will.

littlejimmy

Interesting angle, but I don't think the people you refer to created the situation (the government/big biz did to keep costs and wage inflation down), and they certainly don't resent their presence and mutter things about "facking immigrants should go home"...

Do you get any anti-Pom hostility in NZ, by the way?

Ethos83

Nah. It's quite real even today, but it belongs to a minority of the population. Lots of people did bawl of Diana but lots of people were pissed off at those bawling over her too.

During the days of empire it became part of the persona of a typified Englishman and a goodly majority of the population did try to live up to it. Paxman does a good analysis of this trait.