Real England

haven't got much to add I'm afraid, other than the man next to me on the train is gorging himself on jelly babies and red stripe. I'm not exactly going to follow suit, but might go and get a kroney from the drinks and light refreshments carriage in a bit.

as a fellow friday afternoon drinker & soulja boy enthusiast I'm really feeling this update

god i miss crucial brew

okay, not that much

http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/the-most-british-headlines-of-the-modern-age

first couple i thought "tired rubbish" but there are some very Real gems in that lot

e.g. the 'pirate' one is genuinely a 'story'

Loads more here: http://itsallkickingoff.blogspot.co.uk/ - some good candidates for Most Important Local News Story.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/may/30/asda-wearable-flag-england-ku-klux-klan-kkk

http://www.jacoblillis.co.uk/img/photographs/england/04.jpg

http://www.jacoblillis.co.uk/england.html

the nostalgia of northerners who don't live in the north

so real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzP1XC51kro&sns=em

1:29

oh wait 1:50

http://dougiewallace.com/601687/stags-hens-bunnies-a-blackpool-story/

fuckin classic

#21 is too real, just way too real

ok wait #24

wait

all of it

some WS UK candidates in that shit tho

all of it is amazing but if i can narrow it down to three then i go with 21, 24 and 62

special mention to 4, 65 and 67

but yeah, a work of great scholarship obv

i dunno, i feel this precariously straddles the line between high quality real england material and jeremy kyle-style gawping at the other.

draw that line tho

can nothing be enjoyed on ilx anymore

is fancy dress for 66 'muslim w/ blackface'?

figured the perceived issue with J Kyle-as-entertainment was less the 'otherness' and more the degree of misery that's being gawped at. not really seeing much misery here

#63 in my personal top three for sure

we need a thread in otherness and we need it ringfenced

describing this shit as 'other' is the problem, Merdy - we've ALL been one of these people, once

yes. once. that's right.

*cough*

ha

you'd look well in a tutu imo

pictures convey that nice mix of joy, threat, next-day regret and doing yrself irreparable damage that constitutes the great British night out

the event night out tbf

surprisingly similar to any other weekend ime

I feel like I'm out of touch with something in that I don't know anyone who dresses up in themed costumes to do nights out - it looks liberating

ya i mean i think there's a strikingly and endearingly chaotic camaraderie and stuff to a lot of them, maybe most of them, but i dunno that i or that many of the people viewing these have ever been e.g. that guy with his kecks doon tae his ankles in the middle of an empty dancefloor.

i should get back in touch with all of my schoolfriends so i'll have the opportunity to go on this kind of bender, not gonna happen rarefied academic/weirdo circles i move in.

poll

Generally, high street binge drinking culture seems to have this thick benign vibe going on at the centre of each little group - thick like honey or concrete. In the calm at the eye of the storm, they could do each other no ill, best mates forever, and if you look closely a reminder that people don't have to be especially intelligent or friendly to be, again, benign, at peace. Big rough violent people, giving each other piggy backs, or doing that tiger-paw petting thing, towselling each other's hair and saying 'Ah, you fucker, haha'.

On the other hand, when the edge of one group collides with another ...

could also be read as self-loathing & anxiety manifested as the desire to be subsumed into the collective blur of laughs

projection of intent or emotion onto lumpen drunkenness is almost entirely wasted (WASTED LOL) IMO/e

depends what yr up to. freud thinks its therapeutic cos we're repressed & struggle to express ourselves &c. lumpen drunkenness is about as real england as you can get imo.

there's levels of intent or blitheness to it but ime yr serious drinkers, the slabdevouring shithouses and litredowners almost always go at it like its a job of work that needs done, or a social task in which to participated release may or may not come but I don't think the urge is necessarily there to seek it, even subconsciously

post-work pack drink culture is more what I was thinking of rather than yr hardcore individuals

oh yeah idk you could populate fifty profiles of types I was referencing the ppl who end up in the depicted situations tbh

just saying that as the bar for problem drinker is somewhat higher in the british isles than most of the rest of the world, lads&lasses on tour are v mundane (hence real). anyone who is up for cheerfully disgracing themselves & enabling others to do the same can get involved, the resulting stories to be used as fuel for future sessions

thread idea?

I know of no other culture in which so much bonding takes place through vomiting

but idk bruce parry is always throwing up, mb I need to rethink this

there are surprising resonances between homosocial english working class bonding and parent-young bonding in ciconiiformes.