Real England

almost makes me proud to be english

http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/former-spurs-star-david-bentley-spotted-in-gloucester-pub-and-kebab-shop/story-29891443-detail/story.html

xp
His sense of pain was working overtime!

'Tis the season

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/nov/21/bakewell-winter-wonderland-labelled-disgusting-mud-bath

This is going to happen every single year now eh

is there such a thing as a “winter wonderland” that is actually really good and heartily enjoyed by every one of its patrons, or are they uniformly forlorn rip-offs? if it's the latter then you'd think people would have twigged by now.

the south bank's german-style xmas market is a rip-off but a fairly lovely one. iirc leeds of all places had a decent one too

but anything that isn't german-style is fairly doomed, yeah

it would be sad if someone went to one of these wonderlands hoping to see some realness/children crying in a muddy field etc, but when they got there it was really charming and magical

lol

And visitors to a Christmas lights show and winter wonderland-themed event at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire last year demanded their money back when they encountered melting ice sculptures, an effigy burned in a wheelchair and 90-minute queues.

Say what now?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/incoming/teenager-dragged-pizza-restaurant-raped-9307708

first tube ride ever, train taken out of service = real England

LOOOOOOL, have fun here, Morbs!

aww it's like they made a special effort for your first trip :)

Don't know how long you're here for but you might be around for the first will-they-won't-they tube strike of the festive season.

http://i.imgur.com/XfMg4QN.png

http://i.imgur.com/hKJ4UVv.png

people who you kinda sorta hope get their heads kicked in

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/gritty-mcgritface-definitely-not-kp86z6dcd I can think of another name for this.

adolf gritler ftw

Auschgritz, Gritoris, Gary Gritter all not doing too well I believe

Ex-wife of multi-millionaire: I'm too scared to live outside Kensington

kinda feeling her tbh... even among gilded environs kensington inner sanctum is an afterlife unto itself, not quite heaven perhaps but the appropriately opiated side of purgatory. have a heart your honour

that being said north kensington's dominion stretches ever further according to local estate agents (chestertons haunted by g.k i'm guessing) so maybe plonk her on mozart estate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpt5aStiOJY

cheeky micro-rave

"This...is a micro-kick-in-the-balls"

but it wouldn't be micro, really

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/12/christmas-dinner-fatbergs-raise-flood-risk-say-water-companies

boy i really wish i hadn't clicked on that link while eating lunch

Young Conservatives on floats as part of Easter Monday parades in Weston-super-Mare

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.4500498.1461052782!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.3532323.1396947072!/image/607779214.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/607779214.jpg

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.4056825.1430469776!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg

http://www.thewestonmercury.co.uk/polopoly_fs/1.4056826.1430469779!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg

the THIS-TO-THIS tableaux is not very easy to decode -- is it abt giving up alcohol?

The past isn't real

DRINK IS BEST

Is it trying for a Hogarth type Gin Lane/Beer Street tableau?

While I hold to the view that nothing older than c.20 years can be Real England, according to my own arbitrary bullshit definition of same, they are great photos.

the THIS-TO-THIS tableaux is not very easy to decode -- is it abt giving up alcohol?

― mark s, Monday, December 12, 2016 2:03 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually, I think it is less about giving up alcohol per se, than giving up being working class: alcohol being hugely important in the constitution of working class identity, for the Weston Young Conservatives.

it shows the evolution of british music from chas & dave to mumford & sons

xpost I think that's right, unfortunately the tableau makes it clear that the booze-soaked before is a whole lot more fun than the straw-boatered after: in the "to this!" side they all look bored out of their wits.

Is there a date for this? I'm assuming 65/66 kind of season from the fashions (esp general lack of hairiness) but maybe Weston Young Conservatives weren't necessarily right up to date with the beardyward swing of sixties style?

ok but there are other, less parseable signifiers here: the drink-is-not-best house also features NO MEN (and NO SKELETONS)

hmm. it could be channelling old religious temperance to drink i.e. no drink also equals virtue (no men, women=virtue) also equals eternal life/no death.

tho that requires some serious garbling to end up with that float. v difficult to say.

I've half a feeling the cub scout is supposed to be on the TO THIS side as an exemplar of all things nice and middle class but he's hanging out on the fun side because why wouldn't you? Hard to explain the complete absence of boys in the TO THIS side.

idea of baden-powell cub scout *depraved* by drink is making me laugh.

what's clear: it's more fun even just to play at being a member of the degraded classes, even for WSM Tories, than it is sit in you front room wearing cricket jumper and a straw boater.

DRINK IS BEST.

They've got a piano there and everything.

that's a just william-esque schoolboy rather than a cub surely?

there was still the odd Temperance bar in the UK at this point - the classic 19th century BOOZE = POVERTY arguments were probably still getting made

I mean those arguments have a sediment of truth to them but died out in popular culture at some point in the 60s/70s I guess, thank god nowadays we have Budweiser and Helen Mirren to warn us of the dangers of Pillockry.

looking closer, i think there's actually another scout hiding behind the highest-sat girl (dark hair, pale skirt) in the ETERNAL LIFE/NO DEATH/NO LAMPSHADES house

(both the cub scouts are hunkering down somewhat; the just-william-esque schoolboy is not one of the two scouts)

ps i think this could well be early 70s, tho 60s seems more likely

obviously male hair as a whole got longer in the 70s, but schoolboys were still often under stricter manners, esp.the male children of WSM tory respectablity?

Despite this the Movement experienced a steady decline throughout the century, with members eventually having to sell its assets in an attempt to keep it afloat. For example, in 1981 the New North Road Temperance Hall was put up for sale. However, in an interview with Norman Riley (President of the Huddersfield and District Temperance Union) in 1981, he stated how he knew that the movements membership “had dwindled to a handful”, and it was impossible to compete with brewers with millions to spend on advertising.He added that “drinking alcohol is now socially acceptable and nobody cares, the Temperance Movement began when conditions were appalling because of drink. Perhaps it will have to get like that again”.

from an article on Huddersfield Uni's website. it hung on a little longer than I thought. can easily imagine Oxbridge colleges of the 60s still having Temperance Societies.