Our drive home at two this morning took us through some of London's party zones. The people they used to call "revellers" staggered through the streets like survivors of a major terrorist incident. At a zebra crossing in Islington my wife, who was the designated driver, stopped because she wasn't sure whether a group of two couples were planning to cross the road or continue their canoodling. One of them lost his footing on the slope at the edge of the pavement. As he fell he took his girlfriend with him. She tottered backwards into the other couple who fell down hard. All four of them were then lying on the crossing like beetles on their backs, their puzzlement and apparent pain picked out perfectly in our headlights. As they righted themselves, which took at least thirty seconds, nobody giggled or looked embarrassed. When they were eventually standing and I had pointed out that one of the girls had left her handbag in the road, they didn't apologise either. "Drunk" doesn't begin to describe it.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
New Year's Eve and wasted youth
Our drive home at two this morning took us through some of London's party zones. The people they used to call "revellers" staggered through the streets like survivors of a major terrorist incident. At a zebra crossing in Islington my wife, who was the designated driver, stopped because she wasn't sure whether a group of two couples were planning to cross the road or continue their canoodling. One of them lost his footing on the slope at the edge of the pavement. As he fell he took his girlfriend with him. She tottered backwards into the other couple who fell down hard. All four of them were then lying on the crossing like beetles on their backs, their puzzlement and apparent pain picked out perfectly in our headlights. As they righted themselves, which took at least thirty seconds, nobody giggled or looked embarrassed. When they were eventually standing and I had pointed out that one of the girls had left her handbag in the road, they didn't apologise either. "Drunk" doesn't begin to describe it.
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New Year's Eve is chaotic, expensive and largely pointless. Drunkenness of the sort you describe has no use except to indicate a person's low maturity threshold and self-esteem.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed New Year's Eve as I was working, and it's the most lucrative night of the year for me.
Happy new year David.
Something's very ugly about our British society - from obnoxious teenagers, drunken 'revellers' to abandoned ol'folks. Not sure what it is, but I'm not unhappy that I'm past the half century and it's another generation's problem. I'd be tempted to move abroad if my family weren't here.
ReplyDeleteO and yes, happy new year ...
I posted this clip some time ago on the Word website, but I think it bears repeating here.
ReplyDelete"They drink their weight in Stella...."
Zebra crossings are quite revealing in several ways.
ReplyDeleteAs our Word pal Archie shows, these Hogarthian scenes are not merely the outcome of a 'good night out' on New Years Eve.
ReplyDeleteThey are played out in multi-coloured vomit strewn streets in many town and city centres on any given Friday and Saturday night. I and mine avoid such 'zones' at all costs.
...and yes of course - Happy New Year!
Are you sure it wasn't Paul Weller?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1102916/Modfather-Paul-Weller-avoids-arrest-girlfriend-lay-sprawled-street-following-drunken-night-out.html?ITO=1490