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azzuri · 'Our Scotland' Fossil Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 3787

Stop the bus, I want off…… (a rant about 21st century Britain)

So this is what 'Britain' means in the 21st century. Ding Ding, next stop is the Multiplex cinema and the Sports-Bar grill.

I went 'out' on Saturday night. I went to a 'happening' place in a local town for a few drinks with a couple of old friends. This 'great' place I found to be dull, boring and posturing – did I mention dull? Cheap watches and expensive pink FCUK T-shirts with holes fashionably ripped or burned into them. boring boring boring. people sat not talking, not being social. just sipping silly little blue drinks, texting, camera phoning. I lost count of the times I overheard the word 'babe' by girls who style themselves on Paris Hilton. People 'spice' about the place looking sulky, like the plot characters from the Daz washing powder 'a soap you can believe in' tv advert. note to self. this is boring. very boring. nothing to see . nothing to do. no culture. nothing new. everywhere I look everyone looks the same. Same tired pubs.

I don’t go out much these days other than once in a while when someone phones up and suggests a night out, which usually features in the background a load of posers dressed up in crap sitting around drinking s***e and not talking. When I was younger I didn't notice all this stuff because I was single and only interested in the girls a place was full of. when did everything become so crap? Having lived in the South-West and North-East of Scotland as well as Northern Ireland, I see loads of depressing similarities. Time to emigrate?

That was certainly my thought when I overheard the two girls sitting at the table beside me. Moaning about their money problems and debt, which no doubt was contributed to by their glitzy new outfits, one of them remarked how 'rich' she'd be if her father died, and wasn't joking either. "It's not like I would want him to suffer in agony or anything, but I'd be like so rich if he died". I thought my ears had deceived me, but apparently not.

Thank god I read the odd book and care about my friends and family I thought to myself.

Also, I always find it funny when Brits joke about how America has no culture.

What is British culture in the 21st century?

- getting drunk in 'bars'
- 'Barclaycard' Premiership football
- obsessing over property and interior design
- buying goods to boost ones 'status'
- loading yourself up with crazy, unmanageable amounts of personal debt

That is it.

'Britain' is finished. Any culture that my grandparents were proud of has been completely destroyed by greed and poor education.

Is it any wonder why people here are grappling to the idea of a Scottish cultural phenonemon? I know I certainly am.

According to many acquaintances of mine, prior to the 1980s it was possible to live a simple life. Wages were crap but bills were manageable. Every park had its own park keeper, hospitals had enough doctors & nurses and every suburb, village and town had ample, helpful coppers walking the beat. Trains & Buses were affordable and our roads were free. Dentists were free & there were no prescription charges.

Towns and markets were full of independent traders and everyone pulled together.

Welcome to 2006 you c**t – 40 quid parking tickets that double to 80 if you try and appeal them, severely under-funded endowment mortgages, Tesco is the only place left to shop, £1500.00 per year council tax, 1 pound per litre petrol, VAT on domestic fuel, ASBOs, train travel costs a fortune, tolls on roads, no standing at the football or the stewards will eject you like the criminal you are etc. etc. etc.

pence in the pound tax revenue the highest it has ever been.

Yet we're told no state pensions, retire at 80, NHS is skint, police can't cope...etc. So where the f**k is all my money going?

We're all being fiddled and they're using all our money on stupid wars and building a huge angry police force to kick the crap out of us when we start to protest about it.

They are spending our money on ID cards not to prevent terrorism but to keep tags on us to make sure we obey their rules and work hard. New laws to stop us protesting and even talking about certain subjects.

My family often tell me about the peace-loving 60s and the general 'ordinary happiness' of the 70s, then after that it all was about greed and self. The Yuppy 80s arrived and it’s just festered without correction. You reap what you sow and all that. Cheeriness seems to have gone out the window. It's all about being sullen. Like pete doherty from babyshambles. and heroin. No one is happy unless unhappy.

Voting in a UK-wide general election is about as effective as wiping your **** with a dirty nappy. We don't have a say at all.

The good things a small town like Kilmarnock had in the past are not fashionable. Quiet. Pie-eating. A coarse, industrious, proud town with coarse, hard-working people. Ruined by planners into a decaying, hybrid ‘super-town’ where all roads lead to the local multiplex cinema and DIY superstore. A modern bus station set against rows of crumbling terraces and local listed buildings falling to pieces. Why do I feel so out of sync? Doesn't anyone else recognise how crap everything is? Why does every town have to be 'happening'?

....if people want 'cool', move to Glasgow's West End or something. I'm not interested in your brightly-coloured, sugar-filled alcopops or your 3 quid pre-packed sandwiches. I like beer, and not your fizzy stuff. Dark, dark as it gets. And I'll have soup for lunch please. What do you mean you don't do soup? I don't want f***ing fajitas!

Why is it the only interesting conversations left in the world are with people much older and wiser than me?

AAARRRRGGGGHHHH! Evil or Very Mad

All of this crap has resulted from a lack of investment in education, leading to everyone getting into 20Ks worth of student debt in order to complete their media studies degree which invariably leads to a job in McDonalds.

Talking about education - get this. Spoke to an old friend the other day who is now a teacher. She said that if a girl pupil came up to her in tears over something and wanted to put their hands round you for comfort you had to back away and put your hands behind your back - you must not have any contact with a pupil. This even extends to disabled pupils - the example she gave was a disabled pupil falling out of their wheelchair.... as a teacher you must not help them back in, but instead get a qualified helper to do the job whilst they lie there!!

Luckily though, we have a choice.

Scotland has a chance to get out of this dreadful situation it finds itself in. We can either get off this decaying banger of a bus now or wait until we’re thrown off at the last stop, with nothing worth left to save in 20 or 30 years.

I'm off to find myself a bit of land somewhere and build my own eco-house. I'll filter my own water, generate my own heat and electric and grow my own food. My kids will grow up being home-schooled and will be taught the core values about respecting themselves and others. Come and knock on my front door when you're ready to become Independent Scotland, I'll be the first to lend a hand and pitch in when needed.

It might or might not happen. We could become Independent and improve this country whose people and culture are decaying by the day. If it doesn't happen in the next decade, I'm off abroad – it's where all the young, smart ones from these isles seem to be heading. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Yours,

Disillusioned Drunkard

_________________
"Every single person on this planet is unique. Just like everyone else..." - Random Guy in Edinburgh Pub

Possibly the funniest site in the world, 'The Daily Mash' - http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/

Leathlaobhair · Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:10 am Post subject:

Every generation thinks itself in the setting sun of a golden age of a former one. That's all I can really say. It looks bad when you walk around these days--it seems like loads of people either don't care about politics or have extremely simplistic views--but there are always people who care about the world and how it goes. Things will always change anyway.
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Those must have all been important to me once. What I am now grew from that. A former self is a fool, an insufferable ass, but he's still human, you'd no more turn him out than you'd turn out any kind of cripple, would you?
-Thomas Pynchon

parkhead_rfb · Getting on a bit! Joined: 13 Oct 2005 Posts: 1974

agree with that about city centre bars, a lot of these places are full of pretentious arseholes. The student ones are the worst though, does anyone else think that spouting a catchphrase from the latest popular tv show doesnt make you instantly hilarious or is that just me?
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"our revenge will be the laughter of our children" bobby sands MP

"there is no equality in a society that stands upon the political and economic bog, if only the strongest make it good or survive" bobby sands MP

azzuri · 'Our Scotland' Fossil Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 3787

"you are the weakest link, goodbye!" Sad

guess who was feeling angry with the world last night?...... Laughing

_________________
"Every single person on this planet is unique. Just like everyone else..." - Random Guy in Edinburgh Pub

Possibly the funniest site in the world, 'The Daily Mash' - http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/

Aventinian · Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:50 pm Post subject:

You think Scottish independence could solve this? It's the socialist mentality that finds itself a comfortable home within the Nationalist movement that's keeping this going. To be honest, most of the people who'd share these views about society are Tory voters or those on the right of the Lib Dems. Maybe you'll realise that it's got nothing to do with Britain - indeed, you'll find many of the people sick of this nonsense are on the fast train down to England.

This is exactly what I rant about every week in the pub. Yet you offer a completely ineffective cure for the symptoms. f**k Scottish independence, how's about strengthening the powers of local communities? I was reading the minutes of my community council recently - not only are they powerless, but they have a bank balance that doesn't exceed three figures. Imagine if people actually set about working with these organisations, donated half their moveable estates to them on death, allowed towns that can function largely independently of county control to do so...

Meanwhile this "Scotland" of yours centralises powers away from these bodies, sucks them up to Edinburgh and demands more from London...

It's us that are going down the tubes, meanwhile we jealously look at the English, mock their sports teams and complain about how nice the South East is when we get far more money than they do to play with. Who are the fools now?

Lothian Sky · I Love 'Our Scotland' Joined: 04 Feb 2006 Posts: 350

Babygael · Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:20 pm Post subject:

People follow trends because who or what the hell else to follow????

Where's the Bruce when we need him???

BG smurfin

Aventinian · Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:12 pm Post subject:

Deid, in case you haven't noticed...
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The resident pantomime villain.
'Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.'

Rinty · Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:31 pm Post subject: m

In my young days in Kilmarnock pubs the culture was drinking, smoking, talking pish, vomitting and fighting. In my fathers day there would be people ranting about the idiots who go to the picture house three times a week and waste their money on brylcreem and motorbikes.

The Culture is still there Azzurri its just that you are not part of it and dont recognise it. For every person you see dressed exactly the same standing in a Wetherspoons there are 10 young people elsewhere doing something else.

If your looking for culture, you went to the wrong place.

In Killie, in my opinion, the cultural peak was the 80s gig scene that spawned Nyah Fearties, Trash Can Sinatras the Longhorns etc. But I was one of the 2 or 300 hundred people who were there. To other people who lived in the town at the same time they might not have any idea of what and when I'm talking about, yet their own cultural experience could have been right under my nose and I missed it.

wisnaeme · Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 7:35 pm Post subject:

Aventinian · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:34 am Post subject:

SLG · Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 12:13 pm Post subject:

azzuri · 'Our Scotland' Fossil Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 3787

I've tried to avoid looking at this post for a few days I wasn't sure opf the replies I'd get on the thread.

Anyway, I have to pull Aventinian up on the above post