the other day, drinking on public transportation was banned. and what that lead to, predictably, was a giant booze party that ended in violence.

i’ve lived here quite a while now, and one thing i still just cannot wrap my head around is the british approach to drinking.

many of my u.s. readers will be surprised to learn that drinking on public transportation was legal in the first place. in fact, drinking in almost all public places is perfectly legal. this, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. but combine it with the british attitude to alcohol, and you get a lot of problems.

drinking makes up a significant percentage of most socialising in the u.k., and drinking regularly (read:daily) is considered the norm by many. going to the pub several times during the week for “a few pints” is fairly typical, and binge drinking on weekends is a frequent occurence. for special occasions or sporting events, the ante is upped even further. nor is it restricted to the menfolk – many women i know go home and unwind after work by consuming the better part of a bottle of wine. just because.

all this drinking means there are high levels of associated rowdiness, illness, and violence – the news is full of it every day. and because of this, tube rides home on saturday evenings are loud, crowded, sloshy affairs. yobs sit at the back of buses with a can of lager, disruptive, intimidating and vandalising. empty trains become rolling parties for underage teen drinkers, smoking cigarettes and playing music.

and in response to the ban on alcohol on public transport, there’s near riots in a protest of the loss of their “right to drink”.

i just don’t get it – the french drink a lot. the spanish drink a lot. yet they don’t have anywhere near the consistently excessive levels of binge drinking that occur here. every weekend is seen as another opportunity to get wasted. and the problem is not even so much that it’s their “right”, but that they seem to take real pride in just how much, just how often, and just how many places they drink. they seem intent on drinking themselves into a stupor just as often as possible.

they’re drunk at sporting events, drunk on holiday abroad, drunk on the tube, drunk in the park. anywhere and everywhere.

i’m no teetotaller, and i’ve certainly had my share of embarrassingly tipsy evenings and hungover mornings. but they are the rarity rather than the rule. jonno and i frequently go a week or two without any alcohol – something nearly unthinkable to most of my british friends, who tell me how they find it really difficult when they “detox” by abstaining for 10 days.

when i first arrived, i enjoyed the more relaxed attitude to drinking. five years later, i’m so tired of all the public drunkenness and shit that goes with it. i’m astounded by just how deeply alcohol permeates everything – it’s depressing and ugly.

not that the ban means people will be any more sober when i’m on the northern line after 11:00pm, mind you. just that there will be fewer empty bottles rolling around under my feet.

anti-flag – drink drank punk

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Like this post

Unlike

so i broke down and bought a new mobile phone yesterday.

lots of people love getting a new phone. me? i hate it. i’m no luddite – i actually first bought a mobile phone back in 1994 (not dissimilar to this one), due to some complicated flatmate dynamics which resulted in our landline being turned off for extended periods of time.

i ended up paying for that stupid phone for 2 years… long after i’d stopped using it. expensive lesson learned.

after that, i managed to avoid cell phones for almost 10 years. i simply didn’t need one, didn’t want want – particularly in the u.s., where you are charged for all incoming calls as well.

then i moved here – where cheap phones, extensive “pay as you go” usage, and 10p text messages meant *everyone* had one. and everyone expected you to have one, too.

i was job hunting, and so within a week, i had a very basic, simple mobile phone. it did calls and text messages, and that was all i needed. i still remember the first phone call i received on that phone – i was in the middle of london bridge station, trains and people roaring all around me, trying to have a conversation with a job recruiter who had a thick scottish accent. it would have been comical if it wasn’t so horrible.

and that, in a nutshell, is one of the main reasons i hate mobiles. i hate trying to hear through all the background noise. i hate feeling like everyone is listening to my conversation. i hate people thinking anytime is a good time for a phone call, or that just because i have a mobile i’m constantly available. i hate that people have a knack for trying to call me at the worst possible times (mum always manages to ring when i’m out at the pub!) i hate that if i were to lose my phone, people would have all sorts of personal information about me. i hate that the police (or even ordinary citizens) could track me. i hate fishing around in my bag, madly trying to answer before inevitably missing the call anyway. i hate the intrusion into movies, restaurants, museums, etc.

my biggest gripe, though, is how *disposable* everyone seems to think mobiles are. no longer do you use one until it actually *stops working*. no, no. if you have a contract, you get “upgraded” to a fancier new phone every year – because god forbid you be seen with a passé model of one or two years old! people attach *so much importance* to their flashy status-symbol phones… only to then lose them, drop them in toilets, drop them on sidewalks, spill things on them, etc. millions of discarded phones sit in people’s drawers… until they chuck them. for all the billions of phones out there, the vast majority of them end up in landfills, with the toxic chemicals from batteries and other heavy metals just sitting in the ground.

so, while they are convenient, (and, yes, i know, have saved lives) i hate them, and i’ve done my best to avoid getting caught up in the extensive consumerism that surrounds them. i’m proud to say i’ve not bought a phone in more than 5 years (i’ve been happy to take cast offs from friends and family “upgrades”), and that my total phone usage is generally less than £60/year. jonno has actually managed to go phone-free for over a year now – something i’m not sure i could do (i tend to text my international friends pretty frequently), but find impressive nonetheless. it is annoying when i need to remind him to pick up milk at the shop, but we manage somehow

but yesterday, i had to buy one. and so i walked into a shop, picked the cheapest, most basic model available, and walked out 5 minutes later. came home, swapped in my sim card, and quickly browsed the more advanced menus, and was done.

i will admit, however, my newfound delight in setting my ring tone to the sesame street “yip yip aliens” – i think it summarises how i feel about them quite nicely

Like this post

Unlike