The Soapboxx
Thursday, November 02, 2006
The Rise (And Pies) Of The British Hick
A couple of years ago I went to Germany over my birthday, and had a jolly old time. In a four-day stay I visited Dusseldorf, Magdeburg and Berlin. Both sides. The East was a bit drab and dreary, and seemed to have been painted entirely in battleship gray, but it was somewhat understandable. After all, David Hasselhoff had only worked his magic some fifteen years previously.
But you know what the best thing about Germany was? The bars. Not only were they almost without fail clean, respectable and, of course, efficient, but the alcohol flowed freely and cheaply, the waitress actually came to your table to take your order for more drinks, and the barman kept the place open until the last person left. And, typically, that was me.
But wait, it gets better. I must have visited twenty bars over my travels across the Fatherland and not once - and I mean not even the remotest hint of a sliver of an eyelash kiss of a nod to a wave of a suspicion - did I encounter anything resembling violence.
Hang on. Twenty venues serving alcohol? In Germany? That sounds like a recipe for the Fourth Reich, but believe me, Hans knows all too well how good he's got it now. And so does Hans Jr, because, as we've seen on our own shores in the past few months, it's the kids what started it.
Kids. You can't even read the word with uttering a dismissive tsk, and I used to think that was entirely justified. But it suddenly seems far more serious than it was back when I was a nipper. When I joined my secondary school as a wide-eyed, mostly middle-class wet-behind-the-ears oik I, like pretty much all the kids in my year, quite simply shat ourselves at the thought of the burly near-blokes in the fifth form. Some of them had beards and everything, and even an unintentional look in the wrong direction (i.e., towards them) could and often did result in severe beatings. We'd been told during our entire primary school education how bad it was going to be and, believe me, they were right.
However, when I left the sixth form in 1990, the new crop of first-formers were amongst the mouthiest little shites it's even been my displeasure to witness. Clearly, something had changed.
But what? I've got a few theories, and most of them have something to do with Sunny Delight and Ginsters Pies. But whatever it is that triggered this social change has snowballed to the point where you can't even go three pages in The Evening Standard without reading that some fifteen-year old cretin, somewhere, has stabbed, killed, eaten, urinated on, threatened, bottled, stolen the hubcaps of and/or crucified somebody else. And that somebody is usually an adult and, usually, middle-class.
Hold on, hold on, what's it all about. Class war? I didn't say it, but Jesus, have a look around. With the news today that 49% of ASBO holders go on to breach the terms of their order, you only have to take a walk around your local park to see it certainly isn't that nice Timothy Smithe from The Mews who's feeding his neighbour's cat to his pitbull.
There's definitely something in the water, and it can't be in Evian because, well, I drink that, and I've yet to spend even five minutes outside my local chip shop cheering on two white-tracksuit clad 14-year old girls beating the living crap out of each other. Girls, fighting? Call me a sexist pig of the highest magnitude, but that shit just ain't right.
I'm not living in the past; I'm well aware that there were snotty little punks back in my day, and most of the days before that, too. But they were concentrated. Rare, even. Just a few. Now, these pockets of aggression seem to be blossoming everywhere.
And it's an entirely new breed. These aren't the same 15-year olds that I knew (and was) back in 1986. They're new and improved, inasmuch that they won't hesitate to leave you for dead at the station, whereas before they'd just deliver a poisonous sneer and then pull down the sign for platform two. But while a certain percentage of kids have always been thick, this new breed takes it to a previously unchartered sub-level.
We used to mock Americans. Remember how we once laughed at the concept of suing everybody for anything? Well, thanks to the now re-born Claims Direct and the ten thousand firms that copied them, now you can do it to. Slipped over your own bloody two left feet at work? Sue the bastards, take that five grand and to hell with being blackballed from the industry.
And what about country music? What's that all about? Bluegrass? That's for hicks, isn't it?
Well, if it is, expect Cotton Eye Joe to re-enter the charts at number one yet again this year and to stay there for an unprecedented ninety weeks, as, believe me, the British youth is making themselves heard. In grunts, mostly, delivered between cold stares and a shared puff on a Benson & Hedges. It's the British Hick. The Brick. Uneducated, work and contraceptive-shy, almost indestructible and pre-loaded with a disposition towards violence. They're here to stay, and short of a return to a healthy dose of national service and an elite team of Guardian Angels, I'm not sure there's very much we can do about it.
But you know what the best thing about Germany was? The bars. Not only were they almost without fail clean, respectable and, of course, efficient, but the alcohol flowed freely and cheaply, the waitress actually came to your table to take your order for more drinks, and the barman kept the place open until the last person left. And, typically, that was me.
But wait, it gets better. I must have visited twenty bars over my travels across the Fatherland and not once - and I mean not even the remotest hint of a sliver of an eyelash kiss of a nod to a wave of a suspicion - did I encounter anything resembling violence.
Hang on. Twenty venues serving alcohol? In Germany? That sounds like a recipe for the Fourth Reich, but believe me, Hans knows all too well how good he's got it now. And so does Hans Jr, because, as we've seen on our own shores in the past few months, it's the kids what started it.
Kids. You can't even read the word with uttering a dismissive tsk, and I used to think that was entirely justified. But it suddenly seems far more serious than it was back when I was a nipper. When I joined my secondary school as a wide-eyed, mostly middle-class wet-behind-the-ears oik I, like pretty much all the kids in my year, quite simply shat ourselves at the thought of the burly near-blokes in the fifth form. Some of them had beards and everything, and even an unintentional look in the wrong direction (i.e., towards them) could and often did result in severe beatings. We'd been told during our entire primary school education how bad it was going to be and, believe me, they were right.
However, when I left the sixth form in 1990, the new crop of first-formers were amongst the mouthiest little shites it's even been my displeasure to witness. Clearly, something had changed.
But what? I've got a few theories, and most of them have something to do with Sunny Delight and Ginsters Pies. But whatever it is that triggered this social change has snowballed to the point where you can't even go three pages in The Evening Standard without reading that some fifteen-year old cretin, somewhere, has stabbed, killed, eaten, urinated on, threatened, bottled, stolen the hubcaps of and/or crucified somebody else. And that somebody is usually an adult and, usually, middle-class.
Hold on, hold on, what's it all about. Class war? I didn't say it, but Jesus, have a look around. With the news today that 49% of ASBO holders go on to breach the terms of their order, you only have to take a walk around your local park to see it certainly isn't that nice Timothy Smithe from The Mews who's feeding his neighbour's cat to his pitbull.
There's definitely something in the water, and it can't be in Evian because, well, I drink that, and I've yet to spend even five minutes outside my local chip shop cheering on two white-tracksuit clad 14-year old girls beating the living crap out of each other. Girls, fighting? Call me a sexist pig of the highest magnitude, but that shit just ain't right.
I'm not living in the past; I'm well aware that there were snotty little punks back in my day, and most of the days before that, too. But they were concentrated. Rare, even. Just a few. Now, these pockets of aggression seem to be blossoming everywhere.
And it's an entirely new breed. These aren't the same 15-year olds that I knew (and was) back in 1986. They're new and improved, inasmuch that they won't hesitate to leave you for dead at the station, whereas before they'd just deliver a poisonous sneer and then pull down the sign for platform two. But while a certain percentage of kids have always been thick, this new breed takes it to a previously unchartered sub-level.
We used to mock Americans. Remember how we once laughed at the concept of suing everybody for anything? Well, thanks to the now re-born Claims Direct and the ten thousand firms that copied them, now you can do it to. Slipped over your own bloody two left feet at work? Sue the bastards, take that five grand and to hell with being blackballed from the industry.
And what about country music? What's that all about? Bluegrass? That's for hicks, isn't it?
Well, if it is, expect Cotton Eye Joe to re-enter the charts at number one yet again this year and to stay there for an unprecedented ninety weeks, as, believe me, the British youth is making themselves heard. In grunts, mostly, delivered between cold stares and a shared puff on a Benson & Hedges. It's the British Hick. The Brick. Uneducated, work and contraceptive-shy, almost indestructible and pre-loaded with a disposition towards violence. They're here to stay, and short of a return to a healthy dose of national service and an elite team of Guardian Angels, I'm not sure there's very much we can do about it.
Comments:
A song by a hiphop guy called Plan B has been getting a lot of press of late- sung from the perspective of one of these lovely kids of which you speak...
http://www.lyriczz.com/lyriczz.php?songid=25215
http://www.lyriczz.com/lyriczz.php?songid=25215
# posted by 
: 3:09 AM
: 3:09 AMRecent Posts
Archives
