From the perspective of a newly-arrived foreign observer, Britain must seem an impenetrable and baffling array of unspoken rules and traditions. From a distance, the archetypal British male still wears a tweed jacket and sips his tea with his pinkie firmly erect. American films and TV programs even now, whenever called upon to include a British character in their story, insist on the cliché of the anally-retentive and pompous snob, invariably settling for either the humourless and morally upright bore who is quick to express disgust at those incapable of observing arcane codes of etiquette, or the evil baddie hiding behind a façade of suave and urbane charm.
A few months ago I happened to be glancing at one of those TV programs that records police officers in action as they pursue drunken and drug-crazed thugs at eye-watering speeds, mostly on American public roads. A scene had just finished during which a brave American officer of the law, after a high-speed chase, catches up with the fugitive as he slows down and pulls into a petrol station. The quick-thinking police officer then decides to ram into the side of the crook’s car (who was seemingly about to stop of his own accord anyway), forcing him to smash into a petrol pump which immediately bursts into flames. In the background, we watch as children from a neighbouring school flee in terror. The narrator, one Sheriff Burnell, surely the campest man ever to reach the higher echelons of the macho American police service, then ends it with one of his trademark quips and we move on to an aerial shot of the Houses of Parliament. ‘London, England’, chimes Burnell in an admonishing tone, ‘home of sophistication and good manners… but listen to the language that this outlaw uses’. The scene then shows your typical Burberry-capped chav being cornered by a police car. As he opens his car door and begins to hurl abuse at the police officer, he turns and notices the camera. He then points his finger at the cameraman and with all the verbal alacrity and rich poetic texture you’d expect from a cultural descendant of Shakespeare, warns, ‘If you don’t turn that fucking camera off, I’m gonna shove it up your ring-piece’.
What Burnell and most of his countrymen probably don’t realise is that that type of nylon shell-suited thug who marches proudly around our high streets, looking for trouble from anyone who might make eye-contact, is far more prevalent and ubiquitous in British culture than the genteel, elbow-patched and stiff-pinkied snob.
Television and pop culture, aside from their enduring pointlessness, foster and encourage this very brashness. Banal celebrities don’t only spill out from the hundreds of ‘celeb gossip mags’, but make headline news. Thuggish and brain-dead footballers are revered, and the public wants to read about what their airhead girlfriends bought on their latest shopping spree. Big Brother contestants become, overnight, people whose opinions are prized (if the amount of air time they are given is anything to go by), despite never having anything of value to say. In the north of England, where I live, xenophobia and racist remarks pass for wit and insightfulness. If I had a pound for every time I heard someone say ‘I’m not racist but… I hate Pakis, hate the French, hate the Germans’, etc etc, I would be taking a daily dive, Uncle Scrooge McDuck-like, into a tall pile of money.
I suppose my point (if there is a point here) is that modern Britain is essentially brash and rude. It doesn’t resemble, even mildly, the stereotype cultivated in the minds of foreigners. Whether in big cities or chocolate-box quaint little towns, youths (children, ostensibly), patrol the streets and assert their authority with aggressive intent, ritually abusing or attacking anyone who may seem suitable prey. And this is not confined to gangs of teenagers in town centres. Teachers are habitually threatened, harassed and sometimes even stabbed; asylum seekers, not having suffered enough in the countries from which they fled, are forced to endure verbal abuse at best, and sharp implements imbedded into their skulls at worst. People have become prisoners in their own homes. The snob has been given a thoroughly good kicking by the inverted snob, and now speaks with a pronounced lisp.
So, what I’m calling for here is that other cultures update their databases as to the reality of Britain in the twenty first century, and relay this message back to us by portraying the archetypal British figure more accurately. By pointing a mirror back at us and thereby embarrassing us into seeing how truly grotesque we have become may yet be the only way to reverse this journey to becoming the chavs of Europe.
Proof yet again that I was born in the wrong era. Bring back Noel Coward and his silk dressing gowns and cigarette holders (although I don’t smoke…. do you?). I hate the chavs that litter the streets of my beautiful Brighton, I hate them and their tracksuits and flat caps, their ubiquitous pit bull.
Great, truthful account of how Britain lost both its rule and its cool.
enidd was travelling in an indian train, and got talking to the family sharing her carriage. ah, said the father of the family, england. he sighed and stopped to contemplate.
enidd, imperialist that she is, wondered what was coming next. the land of shakespeare? birthplace of the greatest physicist, isaac newton? heartland of the industrial revolution?
england, said the father again. famous for your football hooligans.
cut down to size, and rightly so.
The ‘Chavs’ are always a soft target for ‘liberal’ bed wetters aren’t they?
Good to poke fun at white working English youth isn’t it? Nobody will call you a ‘waycist’,nobody will rush to their defence.There is no provision in law it seems for long periods in jail for race hate crimes conducted against the indigenous whites in spite of repeated race attacks on ethnic English people by immigrants -which the Britstate controlled media always describes as just ‘an unprovoked attack’.(80% of violent crimes have ‘white’ victims and black attackers.)
When does the middle class self loathing end?
We have a good example of it from Enidd.
It seems these people remain forever in a land based in the 1950’s when the dying empire was still worth abusing.
These strange types still insist that the sins of
our British fathers should weigh heavily on the children and children’s children of the ‘evil colonial empire’.Err no! The rest of us have moved on.
In Darwinian terms those who do not defend their grouping within their own species will be wiped out.This is what will happen to the embarrassed sackcloth and ashes brigade on this forum.They will have achieved their end and ceased to exist as a recognisable group.
Normal English people will however carry on protecting our children and even our ‘Chav’ teenage misfits who are deculturalised by the revisionism which passes for education in our PC obsessed schools.
It’s a sad, but cuttingly accurate, reflection of the disintegration of polite society. We’re all for freedom to express yourself, but as the Lovely Lady were sitting in Regent’s Park last eve, we witnessed a group of chav teens casually leaving litter, screaming at one another and throwing bottles and cans all over. She remarks ‘nobody teaches them any respect anymore’ and we had to agree. No one does – they know their rights, but not their responsibilities, and that needs to change before we slide into the abyss.
Where will it all end?
PotW’d.
See I found this when I was living in the ‘city’ (it was more of a large town) and I found it weird to feel intimidated when I grew up in one of the toughest cities in the world.
We have been very lucky to have found a little village in North Wales where time has stood still. People know each other by name, we know who all the kids are and they mischievous sure but they’re also ever so polite.
I love it and I’m glad that it is this type of behaviour that my kids will be exposed to first.
A
What a sad thought – the chavs of Europe……….
Can’t remember the last time I saw a chav…
Are they being recycled with their litter?
This reminds me why I left England. When I go back to visit I cringe at the tacky headlines in the papers, can’t believe how crowded the shops are all the time, and forget that people are not friendly. I think nothing of starting up a conversation with strangers, as it is perfectly normal behaviour in Italy, but the looks of disgust I get from those English people! I do miss some things though…crumpets, Sainsburys and PGTips..
I read a study once that showed that the British touch each other in casual conversation the least of any nationality in the world. I am talking about a little pat on the shoulder or a touch on the arm. I thought it was telling and it sort of made sense given the image of the reserved, sophisticated Brit. But your post gives me new food for thought. Hmmm…
The ‘chav’ culture has always been there underneath everything, even if it hasn’t always been called that. It’s just that for some reason Hollywood (with a bit of help from Richard fucking Curtis) feels it necessary to perpetuate the falsehood that everyone in Britain comes from Kensington, has floppy foppy hair, and eats canapes while talking about sending little Charlie to Eton. The BBC has to take some of the blame too, for consistently parading jumped up toffs in front of us to read the news, or do anything much.
But this also works the other way around. How many Brits have a pre-concieved notion that America is ridiculously dangerous? Or that everyone who lives in Texas is a dullard or an oil baron? And how many people think that as soon as you step foot in Israel you’re going to get murdered by a suicide bomber? These are all simple one-dimensional pictures that the media paint in order to perpetuate a train of thought that keeps them in business.
After all, crime in the UK isn’t that bad, and it’s certainly no worse than it has been in the past. We are just force fed news that tells us “everything is terrible”, “you’re going to die!”, etc. So what are we going to think?
Yes, this nation is going down the pan, but when was it ever any good anyway? These attitudes have been around for centuries and will still be around long after I’m gone. That’s just the way people are. And are we any more homophobic as a nation than, say, the French? Or any more racist than Americans? God knows.
Well, I can’t speak to the issues in the UK but I will say that in my little piece of the US, crime (particularly homicides) are on the rise. I see it and work with it first hand in the hospitals of this area…and when one guy shoots another over pocket change or a sidelong glance at his girlfriend, it’s all just grotesque and sad any way you look at it.
And for the record, Timbo, everyone who lives in Texas isn’t a dullard and an oil tycoon…just the ones who make it into office are.
waspgoddess: thank you. I’d say Brighton is one of the bright lights in a gloomy sky. I love it there. Oh and nice try, asking me if I smoke.
enidd: lol you say it in such a beautifully succint way. but you’re right too in that britain does have so much to be proud of.
mr. x: I don’t disagree with you there. I doubt it’ll ever end though. oh and thanks for nominating this for POTW, it’s very kind of you.
alley: it’s nice to know that places like that still exist. you are indeed lucky.
sally: hello. and thanks.
cream: for real?
nicki: whenever I go to italy, it’s the first thing I notice: complete strangers will just start chatting to you, it’s so friendly. whenever I come back, I start thinking up ways that I could move there but haven’t yet come up with anything concrete.
maryam: yes, I was once a ‘touchy-feely’ south american but after years of living in britain, I do always think twice before touching someone.
timbo: you make some very valid points there, and I agree with most of what you say. when I say these things though, I’m not saying them as the paranoid middle-englander looking through the narrow window of the vile and scaremongering daily mail. these are things which I see all the time up and down the country with my own eyes.
as for the bbc, the thing that gets me is how they use clones of presenters all the time – not only the usual middle class types but also they often look like each other, especially people on breakfast tv. what’s that all about?
oh and yes, richard curtis has a lot to answer for with the ‘romantic comedies’, although I still find it hard to criticise someone who co-wrote blackadder.
cubana gringa: hello there. I can imagine you must see some pretty gruesome stuff. that’s amazing work that you do.
oh and I think that’s precisely the point timbo was making: that not everyone in texas is a dullard oil baron – only some of them…
So. Umm. You are actually Americans?
I’m sorry. The devil made me say it.
As a Brit living in the USA it is absolutely true that many US women I meet have sexual fantasies about English men, and the English men always seem to resemble Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice or Prince William. When I explain that outside of Eton and the like these men don’t exist, and you’d be more likely at the end of a date to be felt up in his clapped out Ford and to share a portion of chips in a greasy wrapper they look at me like I’m mad.
As for Timbo’s comment: “How many Brits have a pre-concieved notion that America is ridiculously dangerous?” Well, it kind of is, people are allowed to carry guns in the streets you know. America is definately much more dangerous than the UK however you slice the cake…and for that maybe you Brits should count your blessings. Although I agree the state of Britain does sound a bit like it is up shit creek and hopefully things will get better.
lj: you might say that… I couldn’t possibly comment…
emma: hello and welcome. I have experienced it myself on the occasions I travelled to America. I got the ‘aww I looove your accent! which part of england are you from?’ so many times and I just played along, not having the heart to tell them that I was in fact brazilian. who am I to shatter their fantasies? I’ve decided that next time I fly over I will be wearing the puffed out shirt and grow my sideburns too…
[...] 3. Edvard Moonke Chavs R Us [...]
Brilliant article, it sums up everything. I would like to follow on with a few points raised here in the comments.
1. Crime in Britain has certainly got worse. In London a lone 27 teenagers were muredered in 2007 and this is unpresidented. In many parts of the country violent crime is rising at a horendous rate.
2. The murder rate is uncomparable to the states as only our murders which the states would conider ‘1st degree’are recored as murder. Most killings are consdiered ‘man slaughter’. If some one was to attack you in the street and you pulled out a knife and stabbed them, in the UK it would propbably be clasified as man slaughter as it was not pre-meditated. Manslaughter figures are not published.
3. Parts of the USA are very, very dangerous, but these parts tend to be segregated off from the large section of the States and in these post code areas a major part of the crime stats for the whole country are represented. In the UK there is not this separation and it is very hard to escape the chav mentatlity. It is far easier to find a safe haven in the states with large christian populations etc. I don’t believe any town of a uch exists anymore within the UK.
4. We live in a backwards society in Britain. It is wrong to speak correctly to many. Surely doing the correct/right thing should not be frowned upon. I do not understand why it has become so common place to break the laws of speach. But the message it does send out is breaking the rules is fine. Childeren watch this on TV and it is acceptable and the cool thing to do.
5. Someone here ctirised the BBC for having snotty newsmen. Most of our news reporters have been the most pleseant people to bring into the living room. They speak corectly, present themselves well and come accross as thoroughly descent people, who I’d prefer to have on the news. Its not the BBC fault if most of our population are below par with the civilised world idea of how a normal person should behave. If you go to the states or Australia or New zealand, you will find it very hard to distinguish between someone who is privately edcated and someone who is essentially working class if the don them out in the same clothing.
Sadly our whole system is floored that our kids who are not privatey educated (in many cases in the south) can’t string sentences together and speak a terrible form of cockney – unpresntable to any news and this means that the privately educated will steel the jobs.
It has nothing to do with the schools, just that as a nation we let chavism and cockney be tolerable, when really all childeren shouldbe given the right to a fair education and that means being able to speak correctly!