The Awl has officially delivered unto America some news from our former British slave-lords. That pair of panties adorning the ankles to the left there are a warning alert to all of Britain that their ladies are all filthy drunks (and probably sluts besides). England is awash with drink!*
A DRUNK girl staggers along the street with her knickers around her ankles – in a shocking illustration of booze-riddled Britain. The picture emerged as experts warned British women are now binge-drinking TWICE as much as any other nation.And it is not just youngsters who are getting out of their heads. The number of middle-class, middle-aged women being taken to hospital with alcohol-related conditions has surged.
Maybe she thinks it’s the drink that is preventing her from putting one foot in front of the other. Or perhaps she knows the vulgar truth and is merely trying to impress her friends. Either way, the sight is certainly not an edifying one. This shrieking ladette was photographed staggering through Cardiff city centre late on Friday night.
Such scenes are not uncommon, which is why Cardiff – one of the country’s worst cities for binge drinking – has just banned boozing on the streets. The crackdown is aimed at late night revellers, targeting rowdy hen and stag parties and generally trying to make the streets safer after dark. Police can use the new powers to confiscate alcohol or arrest anyone who defies them. The ban has been a success in trials in small areas but will spread across the entire city in time for Christmas and the New Year.
There is much more, like this story and this story, which considers “ladette culture” to be a sign that the United Kingdom has forgotten about “tradition, including religion, national pride, or even a sense of certain things being right and other things being wrong”.
I think these news reports are interesting on several levels: For one thing, England went conservative just a year before America back in 1979, and this whole hedonism-being-emblematic-of-a-dying-culture thing is a classic conservative power-grab ploy. For another thing: I could totally see some new outlets closer to home totally taking a photo like this and trying to turn it into a crusade. So, you know, try not to take your underwear off in public, ladies, lest a stupid fucking credulous hack turn you into a poster child of everything that’s wrong with the kids these days.
*Oddly, an average of 52 pubs are closing in the U.K. each week, so perhaps these young kids are downloading all that beer from the internet?
I’m sorry, I don’t get it.
Why is this bad?
$300 each way on Virgin. Just sayin…
Because acting classless is only good ol’ fun if men are doing it?
good point, Dee.
Gee, that depends, Will, on how you feel about being pissed or puked on, or having a drunken brawl roll across you, or a torrent of half-eaten fast food dumped around your ankles, while you’re waiting for your late bus.
I’m not sure who took the pic of the lovely lady with her panties down, but Cardiff’s St. Mary is famous for this sort of thing, in large part due to the work of Maceij Dakowicz, whose photos can be seen here: http://www.pbase.com/maciekda/cardiff_st…
There’s one of a fellow enjoying his curry right next to a guy who’s puking his guts out that’s expecially poignant.
This from the country that fed gin to its children as well as adults for well nigh half a century before banning the practice, and that served its enlisted sailors a daily rum ration until 1970.
And they’re surprised they’ve sired several generations of panties-around-the-ankles walking drunks?
you may be correct about the socio-politics of this story, but in my experience drunk bitches is crazy in gb. hot blasted twentysomethings shitting on doorsteps cant be erased from memory.
The Brits have always been the biggest drunkards in the world. Nothing wrong with that, except they’re ugly drunks too.
Britain definitely has a drink problem. Not so much in the big cities, as in the provincial towns just outside them, that have nothing much to offer except for places to drink and try to get laid. I lived in the center of Guildford for a couple of years, and the weekends were a nightmare.
To be fair tho, that article is from the Sun, which is like fox-news in paper form.
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you’ve been a naughty girl
you let your knickers down
Goo goo g’ joob
I can see her fanny pack.
British prudery rocks almost as much as their tarts.
Now if only those footballers walked around with their knickers around their ankles, Britain would be saved!
@5: That’s a magic link, Fnarf.
British girls are loose. Is this news? I totally got hit on there. Kind of handsome gals, but I loved it.
Now, Cornwall girls … that I could see.
oh give them a break, haven’t you heard the old british saying: We will not be defeated until the panties of our women are on the ground?
@12: indubitably. thanks fnarf.
look, a couple of hundred years ago, most people pointed out that Brits would rut amongst the bushes and trees if you let them.
You all fall for the facade, but I just don’t see why you believe the facade when this really isn’t that different.
You’re an idiot, Will. Your posts fail to meet even the barest minimum standards of truth or even intelligibility.
Note: these drunk kids do not drink in pubs, not as that word is commonly understood here. They’re not allowed in pubs. Pubs, the kind that are closing down in droves, serve ale to old men. These kids drink 10% lager, or cider, or blackcurrant Vodka Hooch. They drink in clubs, which are allowed to stay open late (past 11 PM).
You should consider refining usage of the term “stupid fucking credulous hack”. It really doesn’t apply here as you have (ab)used it.
@18 – try reading some books from the 17th and 18th centuries – the writings of travellers from Spain, Holland, France, Germany, Italy …
Persist in your delusions if you will, Fnarf, but the Brits have always been pretty much like this.
There’s even a fairly typical TV show, Eastenders, that’s pretty darned explicit about this, and it’s been on for DECADES.
I want to know how she magically got her panties THROUGH her shorts to show them off.
On second thought, no, I don’t.
Sorry to get here late, but I couldn’t resist after I read #8. I currently live in the center of Guildford. On the way home from the train station you have to pass the huge “clubs.” Walk past there around midnight on a Friday or Saturday and it’s like a war zone. Men and women (boys and girls) bleeding, vomiting, fighting, slumped on the ground, blind drunk. I once got on a local bus where a drunk 17- or 18-year old girl got up out of her seat, squatted right in the aisle, and peed. The drinking in US universities may only begin to approach the level of drinking here in the UK. Only here, it’s everyone doing it, not just students.
Cardiff is in Wales, not England.
The Story, if not the picture, may be faked. Sarah Lyons, the girl in the pic. claims that she was on antibiotics and therefore was not drinking and the knickers were a joke ‘David Hasselehoff’ pair being passed from girl to girl in a bit of fun .
If Sarah was sober last Saturday night she was probably the only 20 year old in Cardiff that was.
The UK is awash (har! har!) with booze and puke. I am an expat of 30 years-and I will freely admit we are now and have always been one of the booziest nations in the world-what do you expect from a Saxon/Viking/Danish heritage? The Temperance Movement of the 19th Century only took root in Celtic Wales and Far Northern Scotland–the rest of the country stuck to Hogarth’s Gin Lane. Mind you, if you lived here, you would prefer to be pissed all of the time too!
I have just stumbled on this site,and as an American who has been resident of the UK for over 20 years,I can’t resist commenting.
I live in Plymouth-where the combination of the locals (‘janners’ ), a 25,000 strong University population, and an equally large number of military personel means there is a ‘lively’ atmosphere on weekend nights.
I used to live in ‘clubland’…and the goings on provided a shocking insight into what our young people are doing…..drinking themselves to death. There are already statistics showing an alarming increase in liver damage in the young here. There are periodic calls for the ‘europeanisation’ of our drinking culture…but that will never happen. Slow drinking is ‘out’ as throwing it back has always been the norm here. Get as much in as fast as you can is the mantra of most drinkers.