British ‘Still Evolving’
ByBroke in Berlin was subjected to a recent invasion of British friends on a stag party. He doesn’t sound impressed:
Again, I had the odd moment of despairing for England. But remembered all the while to think, “This is a rowdy rabble. It is not representative. Men talking about FIGHTING – yes, fighting, with glee, in their thirties – who, you then see from their e-mail addresses, are senior partners in such and such a firm, are a staggy blip. England is really wonderful and sedate and civilised. The men were just having a bit of wild fun. Really, BiB, don’t get so het up”.
But the thing is, I snuck off early – about 3am – on one evening to go to tbf(the beautiful friend)’s birthday party. Firstly there was the shock of his beauty to cope with as he opened the front door but then the different world of Germans sitting discussing things round a table. It was a touch like being fast-forwarded several significant rungs along the partying evolutionary ladder.
6 Comments
September 13th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Are you ever shocked by our countrymen, EINY? I’ve got a feeling that post will get me in trouble one day. But it WAS shocking. Still, I haven’t got to the stage where I yet shudder every time I hear a British accent, as I believe your British detractor does.
September 14th, 2006 at 3:47 am
It’s definitely there, I have travelled the world and never found a society that drinks & riots more than the English apart from perhaps Stornoway & Iceland. I think it is an end of empire/decline of manufacturing industry thing
September 14th, 2006 at 8:07 am
But I don’t think it’s a question of “still evolving” rather I think we had our zenith in victorian times and are now in a state of elegant decay. Two world wars fought on one’s doorstep do take a chunk out of the demographic. And there is no more coal in Newcastle or refined steel in Sheffield.
you can probably trace a nation’s decline by checking the balance of it’s import and export sheets.
rather here than Germany though, you only have to look at the design of their toilets in order to steer clear, fascinating 3am discussions notwithstanding
September 14th, 2006 at 11:43 am
What’s wrong with German toilets? And how much time do you spend in them?
September 14th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Perhaps Beau is referring to the dreaded ‘ledge’. Similar architecture is to be found in Russia, Pavvers, if ya hear what I’m sayin’. OK, Germany hasn’t got a patch on Armitage Shanks, but I don’t know if it’s just a decline thing. I wonder if the wildness is more deep-seated. Plus, I think the drinking thing is fuelled by a poor (though improving, and we went to proper restaurants, rather than folk just grabbing some snack) food culture. And I think abroadness heightens it. This might be an island thing, and, anyway, other nations have it too (Russians, for example), but I think Brits think in an ‘us and them’ way. Somehow, in the right (read wrong) circumstances, this can lead to behaving worse abroad than you’d dare do at home.
September 15th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
All that loss of Empire and manufacturing and that is a load of “old cobblers”. Maybe 30 – 40 years ago. But now? Most likely it is the gene pool made up of the lost Legions and another 2000 years of added Anglo/Saxon/Viking/Norman troublemakers.