Beorn
05-21-2009, 11:20 PM
I'm reposting this, as besides it being my absolute favourite window into a section of English society, it is just damned hilarious.
in this programme, modern rogues speak ancient verse. As tony and co. Pursue their respect agenda, we show that all of our modern day bugbears (the asbo kid, the binge drinker, the slapper) come from a proud lineage.
-2450957773837990181
-2020626005774740465
Binge-drinking
On the eve of the Battle of Hastings, the Normans spent the night in quiet contemplation and prayer – while the English got bladdered. This first-hand account, written shortly after the battle, makes it clear that our brave lads went into battle with a massive hangover:
"The English, being reveling before, had in the morning their brains arrested for the arrearages of the ingested fumes of the former night – and were no better than drunk when they came to fight."
(Peter Haydon, An Inebriated History of Britain. Sutton Publishing, 2005)
When Fyodor Dostoevsky visited England in the 1860s, he records the reality of what he saw:
"On Saturday nights, a half-million workers flood the city like a sea, flocking into certain sections to celebrate the Sabbath all night until five in the morning. They stuff themselves and drink like animals ... They all race against time to drink themselves insensate. The wives do not lag behind their husbands but get drunk with them; the children run and crawl among them."
(Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1862 – quoted in Duncan Campbell 'In the Heart of Babylon' Guardian, January 6th, 2007 ).
And more quotes from 'An Inebriated History of Britain' which you’d be forgiven for thinking describe our present-day drinking habits:
"What immoderate drinking in every place! How we flock to the tavern! As if we were born to no other end but to drink! Tis now come to pas that he is no gentleman, a very milksop, that will not drink...How we love a man that will be drunk, crown him and honour him for it, hate him that will not pledge him, stab him, kill him. A most intolerable offence not to be forgiven!"
(Peter Haydon – An Inebriated History of Britain, Sutton Publishing, 2005)
"We drink the very strongest liquors that can be brewed or distilled! The classes among us who are not decent are in the habit of getting mad-drunk, and of fighting after the manner of wild beasts, when we have a chance of using their fists, feet or teeth on each other, and on the Guardians of the law. Our places of licensed victualling are ugly dens, where the largest number of sots can get tipsy in the shortest space of time…They are the most horrible terrestrial inferno that the eye ever beheld, that the ear ever hears, or the heart ever sickened at."
(Peter Haydon – An Inebriated History of Britain.)
Rudeness
Along with countless foreigners over the centuries, the Scot James Boswell was gobsmacked by the relentless rudeness of the English:
"The rudeness of the English vulgar is terrible. This indeed is the liberty they have. The liberty of bullying, and being abusive with their blackguard tongues."
(James Boswell, London Journal, 1762.)
Bigotry
In one of the scenes in the programme, a White Van Man (Gary Scott) appears, standing in the middle of Europe's biggest Asian supermarket, in Southall. So as not to be heard amongst the turbans and bhurkhas and confused stares, he sidles up to the camera and begins to outline his views on immigration:
"Your Machiavellian Merchant spoils the State. Your Artifex, and craftsmen work our fate, and like the Jews, you eat us up as bread. Every merchant has three trades at least, and with your cut-throat selling you undo us all. We cannot suffer long. Our poor workers do starve and die.
In Chambers, twenty in one house will lurk, living far better then at native home. And our pore souls, are clean-thrust out of door.
Expect you therefore such a fatal day, shortly on you, and yours to ensue. We’ll cut your throats, in your temples praying. As we do just vengeance on you all."
(Arthur Freeman, Marlowe, Kyd and the Dutch Church Libel, English Literary Renaissance 3, 1973.)
This nasty, threatening anti-immigration rant was written in 1593. It was an attack on the Huguenots, Protestant asylum seekers, fleeing a religious-cleansing programme in the Netherlands. As with today, this "Swarming" of foreign asylum-seekers was welcomed by "the Quality" but greeted with hostility by the lower orders, whose wages were being cut, jobs lost and rents forced up. Racially motivated killings and riots followed.
Later, huge numbers of French Protestants, driven-out by Catholic massacres, began to arrive, and by 1600, something like 25% of London's population was foreign-born – almost exactly the same proportion as in today's London.
Violence
"Look at this group at a street corner. Hulking, idle, slouching young men ... foul-spoken, repulsive wretches. The young Ruffians of London molest quiet people to an extent that's hardly credible. The throwing of stones in the streets has become a dangerous and destructive offence. The throwing of stones at the windows of railway carriages is an act of wanton wickedness. And the blaring use of the very worst language possible, in our public thoroughfares is a disgrace.
When a Ruffian gets a police-constable down and kicks him helpless for life, it’s because that constable once did his duty in bringing him to justice. When he rushes into the bar of a public-house and scoops an eye out, or bites his ear off, it's because the man he maims gave evidence against him."
(Charles Dickens – The Uncommercial Traveller, 1860)
Source (http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/S/seven_sins/quotes.html)
5ip3VA67X38
mlL2tny-YUM
pHPAL5TFb1M
2,000 years of binge drinking
Drunken youths, booze with every meal, children raised on alcohol. No, not the result of 24-hour licensing, but a picture of our troubled relationship with the demon drink.
By Paul Vallely
Saturday, 19 November 2005
No one is really sure how the British love affair with alcohol began. Stone Age beer jugs have suggested that we were intentionally fermenting alcohol as early as the Neolithic period, 12,000 years ago. Since there is no evidence that we drank it with straws - which the Egyptians did 6,000 years back - that means we probably filtered the wheat husks out with our teeth. We have always been a sophisticated nation when it comes to drink.
We probably didn't get on to thevinum until the Romans came with their wine diluted with water - a habit they picked up from the Greeks (one part wine to four parts water when the weather was hot). Which perhaps explains why their contemporaries said the Greeks were among the most temperate of ancient peoples.
The Romans, despite what you see on the telly nowadays, were generally moderate too, though their traditional values of temperance, frugality and simplicity did give way at times to heavy drinking, degeneracy and corruption. Just our luck, then, that their arrival in Britain coincided with one of their binge periods - the four emperors who ruled from AD37 to AD69 were all known for their abusive drinking, though it was still an offence to be drunk in charge of a chariot.
Source (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/2000-years-of-binge-drinking-516009.html)
Would you agree with how the media portray the English lower classes? Do you believe the English lower classes have been on one degenerate, alcohol fuelled bender since recorded time, or do you think the portrayal to be that of an excited and over played image by the more 'mobile' classes and media?
I would love to hear the stories and tales of our non-English members on their journeys and travels through England.
in this programme, modern rogues speak ancient verse. As tony and co. Pursue their respect agenda, we show that all of our modern day bugbears (the asbo kid, the binge drinker, the slapper) come from a proud lineage.
-2450957773837990181
-2020626005774740465
Binge-drinking
On the eve of the Battle of Hastings, the Normans spent the night in quiet contemplation and prayer – while the English got bladdered. This first-hand account, written shortly after the battle, makes it clear that our brave lads went into battle with a massive hangover:
"The English, being reveling before, had in the morning their brains arrested for the arrearages of the ingested fumes of the former night – and were no better than drunk when they came to fight."
(Peter Haydon, An Inebriated History of Britain. Sutton Publishing, 2005)
When Fyodor Dostoevsky visited England in the 1860s, he records the reality of what he saw:
"On Saturday nights, a half-million workers flood the city like a sea, flocking into certain sections to celebrate the Sabbath all night until five in the morning. They stuff themselves and drink like animals ... They all race against time to drink themselves insensate. The wives do not lag behind their husbands but get drunk with them; the children run and crawl among them."
(Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1862 – quoted in Duncan Campbell 'In the Heart of Babylon' Guardian, January 6th, 2007 ).
And more quotes from 'An Inebriated History of Britain' which you’d be forgiven for thinking describe our present-day drinking habits:
"What immoderate drinking in every place! How we flock to the tavern! As if we were born to no other end but to drink! Tis now come to pas that he is no gentleman, a very milksop, that will not drink...How we love a man that will be drunk, crown him and honour him for it, hate him that will not pledge him, stab him, kill him. A most intolerable offence not to be forgiven!"
(Peter Haydon – An Inebriated History of Britain, Sutton Publishing, 2005)
"We drink the very strongest liquors that can be brewed or distilled! The classes among us who are not decent are in the habit of getting mad-drunk, and of fighting after the manner of wild beasts, when we have a chance of using their fists, feet or teeth on each other, and on the Guardians of the law. Our places of licensed victualling are ugly dens, where the largest number of sots can get tipsy in the shortest space of time…They are the most horrible terrestrial inferno that the eye ever beheld, that the ear ever hears, or the heart ever sickened at."
(Peter Haydon – An Inebriated History of Britain.)
Rudeness
Along with countless foreigners over the centuries, the Scot James Boswell was gobsmacked by the relentless rudeness of the English:
"The rudeness of the English vulgar is terrible. This indeed is the liberty they have. The liberty of bullying, and being abusive with their blackguard tongues."
(James Boswell, London Journal, 1762.)
Bigotry
In one of the scenes in the programme, a White Van Man (Gary Scott) appears, standing in the middle of Europe's biggest Asian supermarket, in Southall. So as not to be heard amongst the turbans and bhurkhas and confused stares, he sidles up to the camera and begins to outline his views on immigration:
"Your Machiavellian Merchant spoils the State. Your Artifex, and craftsmen work our fate, and like the Jews, you eat us up as bread. Every merchant has three trades at least, and with your cut-throat selling you undo us all. We cannot suffer long. Our poor workers do starve and die.
In Chambers, twenty in one house will lurk, living far better then at native home. And our pore souls, are clean-thrust out of door.
Expect you therefore such a fatal day, shortly on you, and yours to ensue. We’ll cut your throats, in your temples praying. As we do just vengeance on you all."
(Arthur Freeman, Marlowe, Kyd and the Dutch Church Libel, English Literary Renaissance 3, 1973.)
This nasty, threatening anti-immigration rant was written in 1593. It was an attack on the Huguenots, Protestant asylum seekers, fleeing a religious-cleansing programme in the Netherlands. As with today, this "Swarming" of foreign asylum-seekers was welcomed by "the Quality" but greeted with hostility by the lower orders, whose wages were being cut, jobs lost and rents forced up. Racially motivated killings and riots followed.
Later, huge numbers of French Protestants, driven-out by Catholic massacres, began to arrive, and by 1600, something like 25% of London's population was foreign-born – almost exactly the same proportion as in today's London.
Violence
"Look at this group at a street corner. Hulking, idle, slouching young men ... foul-spoken, repulsive wretches. The young Ruffians of London molest quiet people to an extent that's hardly credible. The throwing of stones in the streets has become a dangerous and destructive offence. The throwing of stones at the windows of railway carriages is an act of wanton wickedness. And the blaring use of the very worst language possible, in our public thoroughfares is a disgrace.
When a Ruffian gets a police-constable down and kicks him helpless for life, it’s because that constable once did his duty in bringing him to justice. When he rushes into the bar of a public-house and scoops an eye out, or bites his ear off, it's because the man he maims gave evidence against him."
(Charles Dickens – The Uncommercial Traveller, 1860)
Source (http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/S/seven_sins/quotes.html)
5ip3VA67X38
mlL2tny-YUM
pHPAL5TFb1M
2,000 years of binge drinking
Drunken youths, booze with every meal, children raised on alcohol. No, not the result of 24-hour licensing, but a picture of our troubled relationship with the demon drink.
By Paul Vallely
Saturday, 19 November 2005
No one is really sure how the British love affair with alcohol began. Stone Age beer jugs have suggested that we were intentionally fermenting alcohol as early as the Neolithic period, 12,000 years ago. Since there is no evidence that we drank it with straws - which the Egyptians did 6,000 years back - that means we probably filtered the wheat husks out with our teeth. We have always been a sophisticated nation when it comes to drink.
We probably didn't get on to thevinum until the Romans came with their wine diluted with water - a habit they picked up from the Greeks (one part wine to four parts water when the weather was hot). Which perhaps explains why their contemporaries said the Greeks were among the most temperate of ancient peoples.
The Romans, despite what you see on the telly nowadays, were generally moderate too, though their traditional values of temperance, frugality and simplicity did give way at times to heavy drinking, degeneracy and corruption. Just our luck, then, that their arrival in Britain coincided with one of their binge periods - the four emperors who ruled from AD37 to AD69 were all known for their abusive drinking, though it was still an offence to be drunk in charge of a chariot.
Source (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/2000-years-of-binge-drinking-516009.html)
Would you agree with how the media portray the English lower classes? Do you believe the English lower classes have been on one degenerate, alcohol fuelled bender since recorded time, or do you think the portrayal to be that of an excited and over played image by the more 'mobile' classes and media?
I would love to hear the stories and tales of our non-English members on their journeys and travels through England.