Once upon a time, British travellers used to marvel at the lack of sophistication of their hosts. From the back of a lofty howdah they could declaim about the scurrying natives and their unclean ways as their elephant lumbered through the market, servants in tow. The whole planet was a never disappointing freak show to an adventurous, well-heeled chap about the world.
But is it me, or is that position now pretty much reversed? Known across the Earth as a nation of football hooligans, the standard British tourist does nothing to allay that tawdry and intimidating image. While smartly dressed, attentive locals serve and trade and make busy, the rampaging hordes of fat, idle, tattooed sloths waddle through areas thick with the eternal eastern promise of 'Full English Breakfast', loudly denouncing their far more civilised and long suffering hosts as somehow inferior.
From their wobbly, red, exposed bellies atop their Union Jack shorts; from their artless, thoughtless poorly-executed ink; from their Jimmy Savile jewellery to their Del-boy approach to haggling and their loud, foul-mouthed commentary on anything they see as 'not right', they are truly a horror to behold.
I hate the British abroad; I always have done. But these days I do my utmost to not be associated with them. Que?
This slobbish behaviour is not just abroad, though, is it?
ReplyDeleteSadly, no. It's just more excruciating to see it. I genuinely believe a cull is the only workable solution.
DeleteJust found your site and this post evoked an old memory.
ReplyDeleteMany moons ago four of us went to Kos on holiday. Looking for a place to grab a beer we passed up on the bar with hundreds of battered British waiting 20-30 minutes to get served just because it was the place supposedly to go. We took a random decision to drop into a smaller bar further on down that had absolutely no customers.
A lovely evening we sat outside as four mates (two from Manchester, two from Nottingham). A young waiter from Athens working his summer job came to take our order and we got to talking football. He was a Panathanaikos fan which was interesting as (if memory serves me correctly) had just played either Swansea or Cardiff in a game and it had all gone pear shaped with the British fans running riot.
The talk turned to our teams. As Nottingham lads, me and my friend told of our allegiance to Nottingham Forest and our Manchester mates told how they were City fans. We were a bit perplexed by the puzzled look on the waiter's face as he tried to solve what he thought must have been a translation error.
Off he goes to get the owner who also comes out to discuss our different allegences. Two Forest fans and two City fans. Eventually comes the question. "How come you're not fighting?" "Because we're mates" came the response. "But you support different teams" he responded. " Why would we fight - we're mates".
He was still a bit puzzled but eventually we had a real bonus. "You're good English tourists, you drink free in my bar". The Amstel flowed after that and we returned there night after night (no, we did start paying after the first night as it was only proper). Eventually it benefitted his bar as other British folk who decided they didn't want to be part of the madness down the road also came into the bar after seeing that it was popular with the British.
I couldn't believe what a disease we could be abroad during the late eighties and we have as OR points out watched it morph into everyday behaviour on our own shores.