And there are plenty of people well past their teenage years in some of those intimidating crowds. Some of the most infamous and psychopathic football hooligans are men (and some women too) in their 30's and 40's - with respectable and responsible day jobs.

You are right Tom. We call them "Rent a Mob". They turn up for the fight. They cannot be real footie fans.
A friend went to a concert in the millenium stadium in Cardiff. She said there were people filling tumblers of lagar and knocking them back. There were drunks everywhere, and many in their 40's and 50's. It was as though they couldn't have a good time if they didn't have a drink.
Bev.

Gosh .. what a range of topics this thread has covered ....

Reminds me of a radio phone-in I once heard - starting off talking about ancient monuments, ended up on naturism!

nick

I blame the Cerne Abbas Giant !

Actually, that WAS the topic. The presenter played a record, and then said

'we've just had a call from X of the Bristol naturist association, to say how pleased he is that in the discussion about the Cerne Abbas giant, no-one has spoken against naturism'.

Collapse of THIS listener, at least ...

nick

Was it James Whale, par hasard?

Non. C'etait une programme de Radio Bristol, qui s'appelle 'Compass', en 1980... And please don't correct my French (just for you, FB), which is even older than that!

nick

Austria has come an awful long way in facing up to what happened 70 years ago. As for a population being contolled easily, Jersey comes to mind... Yes I'm perfectly aware most of Austria welcomed them in - my mother was there at the time and saw it happen - but I'm talking about Austria NOW not THEN, which I would have thought was obvious.



Which proves - what, exactly? Of course Austria has its problems, as does everywhere else, but I'm talking about the volume of problems, and street safety in particular. Fact: in Vienna it is safe for women to wander about the city at night alone and return home on public transport at 4.00am without fear of approach or attack. My 21-year-old female cousin does this all the time and looked baffled when I questioned her on safety issues. My 50-year-old school teacher cousin also looked baffled when I told her hardly any primary school children go to school unaccompanied in the UK. She's also amazed that primary school teachers aren't allowed to hug children in the UK, but that's a whole other story.



I'm talking about the ruination of British town centres at weekends. I have heard parts of London are different; perhaps this is because of the large volume of foreigners. Believe me, provincial Britain now has massive problems of drunken behaviour in town centres at weekends. Where I live no one with any sense or over the age of 30 would actually enjoy a drink in the town centre at the weekend and if you walk through town on a Sunday morning you're greeted by pools of stale vomit and bloodstains all over the street - it's horrible. Parisians going out and getting drunk? I'm sure some of them do, but their problems in that area don't resemble ours in the slightest. They have other problems, especially in the banlieux, but I'm talking about British town centres being no-go areas because of regular and frequent public disorder. You think I'm making it up? You need to get out more, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Some Europeans have fixed the age of consent at 14 primarily because they don't want 14-16's criminalised for sexual activity with each other. I do think their laws should be changed to better protect minors from predators in the porn industry, however.

I'm talking about 6-11 year olds being safe to walk to school unaccompanied, not 14-year-olds. Paedophiles who have a propensity, god forbid, for primary-aged children aren't going to be protected by Austrian law and anyway to suggest that children are safe to walk to school in Austria because paedophiles are allowed to target 14-year-olds is daft, illogical and frankly insulting.

Also your statement that improving public transport would make no difference makes no sense. Part of the reason we are so reliant on the car in Britain is that our public transport system has become so lamentable. I use public transport a lot and services are being constantly reduced to the extent that some bus services run only once an hour, or stop at 6.00pm.

As for protectting children by driving them to school, if you ask parents what their greatest fear is re children walking to school on their own, they tend to say 'traffic'. But most of the morning and afternoon traffic is caused by - guess what - the school run itself. Parents are creating most of the problem themselves.

Just let Britain be Britain and keep evolving? Seems to me that we're actually copying America with far too many of our policies when we could do so much better by emulating most European countries of who while by no means being perfect do seem far better able to manage aspects of public life, like education, health and public transport.

Re quality of life in various cities in Europe, by the way, Vienna came second in a large survey taking in all aspects of life in a city. London came way down the list.

For the record, I'm absolutely not tarring all teenagers with the same brush! How could I - I have a teenager living in my house! I'm not tarring all students either although it would be naive to imagine that students never annoy their neighbours by having loud parties or going out, getting drunk and violent and throwing up in the streets. I have a friend who works for the local taxi firm taking calls and he tells me a large number of students frequently get arrested for drunken and even violent behaviour on a regular basis. But even that doesn't mean I have it in for students - of course not, and I know there are large numbers of students who don't fit this description in the slightest.

However, in this country we do seem to have developed a culture where binge drinking/drinking for the sole purpose of getting completely blotto has become acceptable across vast swathes of society, and unfortunately in some people getting this drunk leads to aggressive behaviour. I have no idea why excess drinking makes some people all lovey-dovey and makes others want to punch each others' lights out, but it's just the way it is and something needs to be done!

We probably need a concerted campaign involving adverts stressing that regular binge-drinking can lead to irreversible liver damage. We need more police on the streets in town centres at night. We need pub landlords to be far more responsible in checking ID and not serving drinks to people who are already drunk. We may even need supermarkets and off-licences to stop selling alcohol to under-21s, althought this would be draconian and unfair to young people who drink sensibly. In other words there are no easy solutions but what worries me is that nothing much appears to be being done about it at all, which means it'll probably just carry on getting worse.

This is nothing if not upsetting and irritating, especially when you think of the populations of all ages in towns and cities all over Europe perfectly able to go into their town centre for a pleasant evening on a weekend. Once upon a time in Britain you could do the same, but not now.

So are children safer in Austria or not? Children of 14/15 years old have a legal protection against being groomed by paedophiles in Britain whereas they don't in Austria.

How is it illogical? If a paedophile has a choice between legally dating a 'young' looking 14 year old, which is perfectly legal in Austria at least, or a 12/13 year old with the risk and indeed near certainty of going to jail for it which do you think they'd choose?

Its quite simple, most children live within walking distance of their primary school, as a result public transport is only relevant to the small minority who live far enough away from the school. In case you haven't realised you were the one who drew a link between good public transport and fewer incidents of child snatching.

What policies other than believing terrorism is wrong and working to defeat it (which by the way has been followed by Britain since before the first American colonies were even founded) have we followed America in? Can you possibly cite a couple of precise policies? For some reason i don't think you're going to come up with many .

And I'm talking about learning from history. Nazi Germany had a good transport system as did Mussolini's Italy. Does that mean every country with a good transport system is ran by Fascists? Of course not but it does mean we should look at the cost of such things rather than taking them at face value, just as we should with every policy. Purely looking at a transport system the cost means more in taxes/efficiency savings, the effect means less going to the roads budget which just about everyone uses and more going on buses etc which only a minority uses, in practice it also means roads/parts of them being lost to cycle paths/bus/taxi lanes etc. Likewise with the child protection issue. I think we can better judge a system by its laws, and in particular the protection they give to children, than the transport system. After all by the latter standard Nazi Germany would have been a model of good practice.

It gives perspective which is something that is consistently lacking in posts you make regarding Europe.

Here we go again, Violinia's town centre as a model for the rest of Britain. As do most countries where the cost of alcohol is cheap relative to their wages. In the past drink has been cheaper than water, what you talk about is nothing new and it is a common phenomena in many countries.

sorry

Read the post again SF. The original word made sense.

'it' is singular
'a phenomenon' is singular
'phenomena' is plural....


no need.
I accept it may be understandable MrB - if that's what you mean by 'made sense' - but...

silly boy

Wrong. Minors aged 14-16 are protected by Austrian law from paedophiles and pornographers, rendering your argument void.



I was drawing a link between good public transport and safety for children because good public transport means less cars on the roads. Anyway plenty of children live too far from their primary school to make walking there and back every day particularly viable.



Give me a break. Privatisation of public tranport, for a start. Creeping privatisation in the health service. The involvement of private companies in the running of schools, ie the new academies. As for working to 'defeat terrorism' - do me a favour! Do you really believe America's forays into the Middle East are really about defeating terrorism? They saw you coming, didn't they!

?

Hi Violinia. I see you have decided to get tough, strengthen your guard, and unleash a little more of the power of your considerable intellect! When are you going to go on the full attack rather than deflecting weedy blows and getting in the occasional counterpunch?

This is great to watch from the ringside ... rather like seeing someone being given a lesson on the canvas by George Foreman at his best ... and continually staggering to his feet for more punishment!

But what a tough opponent. What an ability to soak up punishment. Totally outclassed, outmanoeuvered, bruised and b lood y, way behind on points ... clearly the loser in the eyes of every spectator ... and still he keeps staggering back for more.

Well I doubt the indefatigible snhs will see it that way. To him I'm an intellectually weak liberal leftie pinko with a propensity for not answering questions.

I've got another one for him - just saw today the results of a survey (just released) showing that British teenagers are the third highest drinkers in Europe, beaten only by the Ukraine and Malta! Yes snhs wanted us to believe that Europeans are just the same, but it would seem not. Perhaps he should go for a Saturday night out in Birmingham followed by a Saturday night out in Lyon, France. Or how about Brussels? Spot the difference!

I was in Bratislava last summer, marvelling at the fabulous architecture, lovely cobbled streets etc. Shortly after arriving back I read an article about a British stag party in Bratislava roaming around that very square ending up with the groom throwing up into the fountain and making a complete prat of himself. He got arrested and flung into a Slovakian jail, and it looked like he was going to have to miss his wedding. The distraught bride bleated something like: 'it's so unfair!' Um, no it's not unfair at all - it was a fair cop I'd say. Stupid berks, going over to Europe, behaving like that and giving us all a bad name - they deserve all they get as far as I'm concerned.

LOL! Sorry, I didn't even realise I'd wrote that!!! Ha I'm happy now, I don't even realise when I'm using stuff.

How about you try backing up a few of your statements rather than just making them. I quoted from Austrian Law as it is translated on Interpol's website earlier yet you fail, once again, to put in any quote and for that matter answer the question. This legal protection you claim exists probably comes under "According to § 207b (1) of the Austrian Penal Law Code persons shall be punished by imprisonment of up to one year or a money of up to 360 daily rates who perform a s***** act on a person that has not yet reached the age of 16 and is not yet sufficiently mature, for certain reasons, to understand the significance of the act or to act on the basis of this understanding, by taking advantage of this lack of maturity, as well as of an age-related superiority, or who incite such a person to perform a sexual act on a third person or to have it performed on themselves by a third person." Now are you really so blinded by stupidity that you are unable to see the gaping holes in that code which render this 'protection' virtually worthless? It only applies when they are not yet sufficiently mature. What do you think will happen if a charge such as this comes up in court, the prosecution produce experts saying they weren't the defence produce witnesses saying they were, and of course all of that assumes it even gets to court in the first place given that they'll probably have the child in 'love' with them and the evidence is going to be rather limited if the child is unwilling to make a statement for the prosecution. My initial challenge stands, I stated children in Austria don't have a legal protection against being groomed by paedophiles, this remains the case for all of those children deemed 'sufficiently mature', maybe you consider it adequate that hundreds/thousands of children are left with no legal protection. Do you? And how about you answer my question whether such children are really 'safer' in Austria as you claimed.

Well you are clearly very bad at drawing links then aren't you? The only part of your initial post creating the link you claim is "Neither do they get run over on a regular basis, but then you're not allowed to jaywalk and there are crossings everywhere...why oh why have we ended up with this ridiculous situation where millions of parents take their children to school by car every day (or walk with them if school is close), causing the 'school run' traffic rush that causes most of the very dangers British parents are so worried about?". You had around twice as much dealing with child snatching/paedophiles not to mention the fact that the first point you made after your usual 'good transport' spiel was not about traffic problems but child snatching. If you weren't creating a link between child snatching and transport you should have kept the issues separate, but I suppose that would have required a modicum of common sense.

Is that it? Private 'companies' have been involved in schools for centuries, in the past many schools were operated by companies/parents/groups or indeed the teacher themselves, as opposed to the state/council. This policy you allege that we copied from America probably predates the first colony never mind the independence of America. America has an almost entirely private health service, unlike Britain which has a National Health Service, we are hardly copying a policy when we have entirely different systems and apply it in entirely different ways. On the Iraq War/fight against terror, can you prove otherwise, or maybe you happened to be taking a poll and you discovered a few people in your town agreed with you, so it must be true.



If the shoe fits...

How about you actually provide a source or two once in a while? Is this from another one of those left wing magazines you seem so enamoured with? Whatever summary you may have read also seems to have been wrong. According to the report Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children: WHO Collaborative Cross-National Study: ‘Inequalities in young People’s Health’ and the measure "15-year-olds who report first drunkenness at age 13 or younger" Estonia, Lithuania and Austria are ahead of England and Wales, then we have Bulgaria and Finland before Scotland comes in.

You have also misreported the measure you were using, you are in fact referring to the table headed "15-year-olds who drink alcohol at least once a week", that does not mean they are the 'third highest drinkers in Europe' whatever that might mean, just among those who drink most regularly, and again you are wrong on it being British teenagers, Wales takes third place and England fourth. Scotland are lower down the table, again below Austria.

If these errors are meant to demonstrate your 'considerable intellect' or for that matter score points then you've clearly failed miserably, and the opposite of Mad Tom's view seems to be true.

We'll let the impartial observers decide on the relative grasp of reality of Violinia and snhs.

snhs, I gave my self mild concussion on Tuesday, and thought temporarily your post was making sense, then I realised, my brain was still in the "mashed banana stage".

I happen to know which town Violinia lives in, and it has been mentioned in another post in this thread quite innocently by another poster who is going on evidence based posing rather than your hitting us over the head with sociologiogical, anthroplogical clap-trap, full of false statisitics.

The truth is we have a fractured society. And please do not imply I read left wing papers, as I tend to read a balance of them all. I fact most of our international news is read via the Economist.

How we deal with this fractured society is the biggest problem politics of all colours needs to consider. However whilst the sheeple all say Baa, nothing is going to happen, and whilst we have more and more of our civil liberties taken away in the name of terrorism, wer'e not just going to have another Ratenburg. We are moving closer and closer to a police state.

The legislation is in place. All that is needed is for there to be there to be the correct political will.

What concerns me about this country, if we really must learn the lessons from history, is it's striking similarities between britian in 2008, and the Weimar Republic in the 1930s

No contest, methinks!

does that mean my brain is still in mashed banana mode, or did my previous posting hold water?

Absolutely on the nail. And concise. I'd have taken 4 screens full to say the same.

What especially, this bit?

For someone ignornant to that period in history , can you enlighten us a little more please, Jod?

The Weimar Republic... but, from my limited study, wasn't that the GOOD period, before Hitler came along..? It didn't work for economic reasons, but the society in this time was sort of healing from World War One, and Stresemann was slowly trying to fix the damage... until the Wall Street Crash it was doing fabulously, I thought. Am I wrong? I know it's not as simple as that, but I thought those were the basics?

And then Hitler turned up, early thirties, after the Weimar republic collapsed, and started messing it up again as which point it became the third reich and not the Weimar republic any more?

I guess I'm wrong, I'm not trying to be contentious, but I wouldn't mind someone pointing out where I've got confused, if I have...

Unless I'm mistaken neither you nor Cyrilla can be considered in any way neutral, after all I've had the temerity to disagree with the two of you before .

There is nothing false about them, indeed unlike Violinia I actually used the correct data rather than providing evidence which was factually inaccurate.

In what way is it fractured? Again where is the evidence for this? Is this only applicable to Violinia's 'Britain' which seems to be variously defined as England/England and Wales or her town?

And who is it that is defending those liberties? The main opposition was the Conservative party, similarly on ID cards and a host of other measures which would have 'eroded our civil liberties'. As it seems likely they will become the next government its also likely they'll redress the balance.

I think your comparison is flawed. To begin with the Constitutional Monarchy remains one of the great strengths of our system, we're not reliant on the leadership and decisions of a solitary and ageing figure such as Hindenberg. Nor do we have a system of PR, the first past the post system traditionally creates strong governments and increasingly it seems likely the next election will return a Conservative government with a sufficient majority to pass legislation, the current numbers within the House of Lords will also be in their favour before too long. The society is also nothing like post WWI Germany, no matter how much you may wish to pretend otherwise. We do not have anything comparable to the national 'humiliation' of the Versailles Treaty, we have not, despite Brown's incompetence, had an experience of hyperinflation nor are we almost entirely economically dependent on another country.

I do believe you are getting the hang of this debate/discussion lark. This post is a lot gentler in tone, and a lot less antagonsitic and confrontational than your usual stuff. Rather than being an attack on every little point of other people's postings post this is a a useful contribution. Not perfect yet - but also not 100% certain to raise everyones hackles ... a big step in the right direction.

You are right, there were a great many differences between the Germany that developed in the 1930's and the UK now. But there are still some worrying parallels in: the systematic destruction of civil liberties, the growth of political correctness (hence importance of having the "correct" viewpoints) and the growth of the state's sphere of influence and the extent of its power and control within it. And also in the dishonest and duplicitous way that our leaders go about getting their way (The most devious of the lot is now gone I am glad to say - though I think in his dreams he is President of Europe and everyone loves him).

Unlike you I don't have great hopes for the next Government. Just because I hate New Labour does not mean that I love the conservatives - though there are some individuals that I admire. But then - I shall probably not be in the UK.


Cheers
Tom

Indeed. my German grandparents lost everything they had in two massive inflations. It's conditions like those which give rise to extremism - not being German or Austrian. It could happen to any nation.

Hyper inflation is only one of the criteria around during the Weimar republic, indeed, we did have high inflation during the 1970s, and keeping inflation down appears to be the one economic criterion that Prudence Brown has been h'ell bent on sticking to.

Where I have more concerns is the fact that since we have got rid of high inflation and high interest we have as a country brought in the legislation of a police state. Orwell was only wrong in 1984 in that he was 24 years too early.

OR shns are you too busy spouting Newspeak to realise that this is what is going on?

You also make the false assumption of guessing the colour of my politics, which as it is without colour, I vote for a person not a party is a false assumption.

I think the Thoughtpolice are out to get us.

I didn't go out at all last night but did have an encouter. They weren't yet half naked and spewing in gutters but given another couple of hours I expect they would have been.

I think the biggest threat to our young people at the moment is other young people. Perhaps in Austria there is still some respect for oneself and for others. This seems to be sadly lacking in a large element of our society.

There's still a formality in Austria that we don't have here any more. Old men dress in smart suits with polished shoes, women dress up to go out. Young people seem less loud and chaotic and I'm NOT criticising young British people in general - I actually adore young people in general and find their energy and excitement in life very endearing and inspiring. I work with young people of all ages from 6-18 and enjoy my work immensely, while knowing that some of the young people I teach go out and get hugely drunk on a regular basis and probably annoy older members of the community in the process.

In other words, it's not the young people themselves I'm critical of, it's the way our culture seems to be developing in certain respects. I don't know exactly why it's happened and I don't know how we can reverse the trend, but I think it's a terrible shame that so many British people, both young and older now think the only way they can enjoy themselves is to go out and get hugely drunk. It seems funny and fun at the time and god knows I like a drink myself at times (though less and less these days as it seems to just send me to sleep). And I know there's rubbish television all over the place, but I'm also fed up with the number of 'reality shows' we now have - I think they're cheapening and contribute to the general downward trend.

Anyway, I think it's interesting and heart-warming that in Europe generally people can still go out at the weekend and enjoy a friendly meal or drink without the fear of encountering large numbers of baying, brawling idiots all over the place.

So now I'm sounding like a real old fogey and had better shut right up. A rather cool teenager invited me to be his Facebook friend today so I can't be a total old fogey JUST yet but perhaps it's time to start watching out.

To shns - I will answer your latest postings in good time.

I just thought I'd mention that today was Fête de la Musique here in France and there were lots and lots of musical things going on all day. I've just got home, it's 3am here and took public transport alone. I must say, despite the 3 million people who were roaming the city streets - it was more packed than the last Saturday afternoon before christmas - until the point I got on the train, that I never once felt threatened even though about 75% of the people out tonight had bottles in their hands. It was open to everyone: the youngest person I saw was probably around 8 years old, the eldest maybe 70 odd. That would never ever ever happen in any of the UK cities that I know.

Same thing here in Nantes - concerts on every street corner, hundreds of thousands of people wandering around and no fights, no obvious crime, no animosity and - spectacularly - even at 3am no violent drunks or vomiting people.

We did have a crowd of people singing that dreadful penguin song from last summer, though - perhaps that could be classed as violence... ?

I was very disappointed by the fête de la musique this year. The streets were full of people and as Freda and Rosfrog have said no crime, animosity or drunks but the music was all amplified and nearly all electronic (the only exceptions being a saxophone and drums - also amplified).

There was no classical music, no jazz and no folk music this year and the noise level was so high that my eight-year-old demanded to be taken home and complained it should be renamed "fête du bruit."

It's a shame you didn't get to hear a diverse range I tried to go to the Louvre to listen to l'Orchestre de Paris play Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony but they stopped everyone going in about 3 people in front of me because it was full! Argh! There was loads of folk and jazz to balance out the teen grunge. I was impressed Can't wait for next year, I'm going to have to find myself a pleasant spot and play some Queen!

Btw - what's with France's obsession of The White Stripes' - Seven Nation Army?

OP: Sorry, will get back on topic, but thought it was important to say.

We had a fair bit of jazz and folk too, but a rather disappointingly large amount of DJ's who were essentially not even very good - I did enquire at one bar why they thought putting their stereo outside was participating in the fête de la musique, but didn't get any reasonable answer (they did that excellent French thing of talking for a good while without actually answering what you asked them) - on the whole it was good though.

Just for the DJ thing, though, I'm going to agree with your daughter Kerioboe and vote for the renaming to fête du boucan.

A French government minister said on television that she was going to see that thousands of free condoms would be distributed during the Fête de la Musique.

I have absolutely no comment to make as I that left me speechless.

What's wrong with that?! I read that too. I would've picked some up however I didn't see any around all night. Nothing wrong with free contraception.

Edit: Started a new thread here.

I am not anti young people at all and I know that not all of them are drunken yobs but I strongly dislike that culture and have so far sucessfully kept my girls away from it. Theri school is not in our direct area, this makes it easier, the local teen drinking largely takes place in the park opposite our house at weekends.

It sounds to me that in Europe that people are happy to participate which is something that certainly isn't happening in our area at the moment. I wonder if some of the problem with young people is that we bend too much towards theri culture and don't expect respect in return. On the other hand I think celebrating individual talent wouldn't go amiss.

I agree about all the reality TV these days. I saw an interview with Naomi Campbell, playing the race card against BA, I'm not commenting on what happened on the flight in any way. I can't help thinking though 20 years ago she would have been seen as someone who was making excuses for bad behaviour. Nowadays she's taken seriously.

interesting article about teaching and the inspiration and passion of teaching today, including:

"But we know that children of all abilities respond well to challenge and enjoy the satisfaction of getting to grips with difficulties. We do them no favours by pre-packaging knowledge and reducing it to what might be thought relevant and useful."

my underlining.

I think part of the problem is that we never read or hear a proper sensible discussion on any important issues.

The newspapers want only to increase sales, so better to talk of the pedo menace, rather then the fact that your child is far more likely to be hit by a car. It has to be sensational. Who cares about the truth. It's a consumer society in which nobody has time for real reflective thinking. Buy, buy, buy, shop, shop, shop...rush home...watch mind numbing soaps on tv..etc
When was the last time you heard a calm intelligent discussion? Even programmes like Question time have been dumbed down.

I'm not normally a conspiracy theorist, but sometimes I wonder. I do have the feeling that we're being 'controlled' more than in the past. Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses. Now it's tabloids and television. People are kept so busy that they don't notice how things are changing or simply don't think they can make a difference.

This idea of needing to control the people more is nothing new. I remember people talking about it back in the late 70s. A combination of demographic changes following the baby boom, declining birth rates, global economy, future pension crises (grossly underestimated!), oil prices, effect of oil on stockmarkets and subsequent pension funds....etc..all suggested that there would have to be more central control.

For example, I think that the idea of I.D. cards has very little to do with terrorism but everything to do with keeping a close eye on the 99% of lawful taxpayers in the country!

We're all doomed.

Only music can save us!

Steve

Except in a certain excellent forum.

Sadly the Beeb has gone downhill since some smartar*e decided it should compete in the open market with commercial broadcasters. What chance of upholding standards when the lowest common denominator is "Reality (haha) TV"?

"Never a truer word, etc...."