Be Excellent To Each Other

I really don't think fuckwit kids torture animals because they don't have a job, and if your'e happy assuming they'll just live on handouts, then they'd be just as happy living on burglary. Most people on benefit want to work.

So why do you think they do it then?

The "boozing-as-indicator-of-imagination-free-dunderheadedness" generalisation doesn't sit too well with me. I do all of the lovely things you chaps have mentioned as hobbies in this thread, and have plenty of my own. I enjoy all of this life-affirming fun and these learning experiences whilst hammering my liver into a cirrhotic, panting walnut. The chav's problem lies in not being a prolific enough drinker to give equal attention to other stimuli whilst he imbibes.

Or the blissful welcome of a pint _after_ doing something fun.

True. A good drinker can slosh down the port whilst holding witty conversation, taking part in a craft or hobby, playing sport, performing surgery, coming up with scathing put-downs, or running the country. It's only the amateur who has to dedicate his whole being to it.

Hear hear. *sips port, makes Airfix model, grasps kidneys in pain*

Not to mention justifying his piss-taking near-dependence by insisting on an internet forum that he does do some other things, sometimes.

The solution to the dunceboozing problem? A new brand of white cider called "Give a Hoot". Every 2-litre bottle comes with a free copy of Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

Are you sure you're reading the instructions correctly? Airfix models aren't for internal use, you know.

The clue is in "fuckwit". I had just as little to do as those kids, but I didn't go around maiming animals for a laugh. Some people are just cunts. Even your common neighbourhood yoof will generally not be that much of a dick - they may talk big and be irritating and vaguly menacing to anyone who walks past the corner shop, but it takes a genuinely nasty piece of work to do stuff like that.

The attitude of middle class tutters and headshakers doesn't help. I've defused a dozen volatile situations in public (particularly on buses) simply by talking to the stereotype-looking grunters with a little respect and reason. Sure, a lot of them will spurn it, but quite often if you give them some credit, they'll acknowledge it. And I say that as a massive elitist snob.

Any examples, Sinister Agent? I could use some bus patter that goes beyond "aren't headphones great? Turn that tinny piece of rubbish off before I kick it at your face ninety thousand times."

(I've never actually said this to anybody. I'm a fannybaws.)

May I also join you?

I speak as someone who loathes practically all teenagers, because I (maybe slightly irrationally) think they're all drunken, loutish scum.

I have no time for the poor babies whining that there are no playing fields or whatever, because even if you build them places to go to, we all know they will just ruin it by smashing it all up. Also, as if the lazy fuckbags would care about playing football or whatever on a field (though I suppose they could get drunk there, as a slight change of location).

I also get angry when I read things like the cat story. I would happily see these people locked away in a hole and fed one slice of bread per day, but I presume this is illegal or something, and instead we are to offer them understanding and tolerance.

So that's alright then.

I hate teenagers.

I hate this country.

Sorry for the rant.

Heh, I was on a train once and there was one of them making that tinny noise. A fellow passenger had an excellent technique - he just said "would you mind turning it down a bit please". "bit more". "bit more". "bit more". "bit more". Until the gangsta yoof made a huffing noise and went to the next carriage to annoy them instead.

Indeed, in fact I'm considering a handicap system for our work 5 a side matches along the lines of "Score a goal, down a shot".

Mrs Chris was wandering down one of the country lanes near our house the other day, and a couple of threatening looking teenagers walked round the corner. Given experiences we've had in London, Mrs Chris braced herself and carried on walking, only to be met by a cheery "hello! Lovely day, isn't it?" and a nice conversation with the two lads. The third time that something like this happened with teenagers in the space of a week she began to wonder whether there's something in the water near us.

I can only imagine how much the nice teenagers must hate being tarred with the same brush as the minority of fuckwits.

Something similar happened to us once - a group of 3 or 4 shaved head teenage boys walked up to us in the street. I was all ready to use Mrs Squirt as a shield before running for my life, but all they wanted was to ask for the time, and they were really polite as well. Pesky kids, challenging my comfortable world view.

That's a little hard to swallow for me. What exactly are you giving them credit and respect for?

I get this all the time. I look like a death-metal dog-toucher, but I'm disarmingly polite and amiable really...

Typical stuff like the bunch of kids getting on, one of them with a dodgy bus pass/oyster card. His mates whinge that they've paid now and don't want to leave him, and they shouldn't have to pay again, etc, and the driver starts giving them grief, and people are tutting and snorting and glaring, and the whole thing's just going to get unpleasant if somebody doesn't calm down. It'd be tedious to reproduce a whole conversation (frankly they kind of mesh together), but just little things like that. Two people are at loggerheads and one won't back down because it's his job, and the other won't back down because he's out with his mates. 'course some are right wee shits, but plenty are just young and so used to having to act like a nob to get noticed that they're glad to be treated like an adult for once.

For being human. You're most likely older than they are, so you should have more patience, is how I see it. Give them the benefit of the doubt and think of them as people with thoughts and feelings and motivations, and just try understanding where they're coming from. You don't have to agree with them or like them. Just consider them. Sure, they might throw it back in your face, but fuck it, you tried, and on the occasions where it works out, everyone will calm down and feel a little more respect for each other.

Well I went to the gig last night and due to stupid train times kipped on a mates sofa. SO left two 16 years olds in the house by themselves. These are the two parents to Chloe, so no reason to believe they should be anything but responsible - ha! They couldn't be bothered to cook so went to the local kebab shop, most of the food was just left on the kitchen table, no dishes done, a bag of chips left open on their bedroom floor, dirty washing everywhere and for some bizarre reason the indoor door mat outside because Chloe had been sick on it - still trying to get my head around that one, it had been chucking it down so was soaked, the front garden muddy and I had to step into the house with nothing to wipe me feet on onto a terracota carpet. Plus other genral messyness (it looked like the family home that Lisa moved from basically). I think it narks me more because they consider themselves responsible enough to be parents yet don't know how to use a bin or more importantly have the respect for living space that they share with others.

As a parent of a teenager who drives me up the wall, sometimes as a parent there's bugger all you can do about it. It seems in todays society that children are very aware of their rights, but not the responsiblities that come with them. I hate kids sometimes.

Although with the canal walks I've been doing every child/teenager we've come across has been lovely.

Rest assured you are a regular and awesome person.

Chris is right, some teenagers are reasonable and naturally I don't want to maim those with an axe. For the others, however, I can't help but fantasise about a humvee with a mounted turret, and me, shreaking with maniacal laugher as I gun people down at high speed.

Even the thought brings a smile to my lips

I'm off to meet some teenage friends in the pub shortly. There will be intelligent conversation and drinking. Depending on who is there, subjects may include philosophy or 18th century poetry.

Sure, some teenagers are twats, but so are some "grown ups". Treating them like a different species is never going to help.

I think a lot of teenagers have to dress like hardened chavs simply so they won't be hassled by actual chavs.

They have realized that wearing 'softie' clothing is rather like wearing an enormous neon sign with an arrow pointing at their head flashing 'KICK THIS TWAT IN'.

That's the thing.

I don't like kids. When I worked in a library , I saw all kinds of them being annoying, sometimes downright horrible brats. The older ones sometimes had an edge of real nastiness in them, too. But after a while, I came to see that mixed in with them were some reasonable, even lovely people - they just weren't drawing attention to themselves by being dicks, and even the mouthy ones had their charm.

Some of them were genuinely funny, if a bit crass. Some of them were surprisingly intuitive and had good instincts about people, whether they realised it or not. Some of them would come in and play games instead of working - as a librarian of course, I'd have to ask them to keep it down, but as a person, I could chat to them about games as well, and be quietly amused that they weren't doing their work and were playing instead. As a group, they're often dicks, but that's just people, really.

You don't teach a person to talk by sneering at them when they don't automatically know how to. You don't teach a person to drive a car by shouting at them, or telling them off. You don't teach a person to play the piano by talking about how everyone should play the piano. This is where the government is missing the point - they are, I reluctantly admit, right that a lack of respect is part of the problem. But throwing your weight around won't teach anyone anything except how to throw their weight around. It'll just make you look like a belligerent cock and entrench them even further. People who don't show respect often simply weren't taught how, and the best way to teach respect is not to demand it simply because you're in charge, but to act in a respectful manner yourself.

At the other end of the scale though, there's patronising and ingratiating, which is where a lot of well-meaning teachers fall down. I don't know. I just think this whole 'chavscum' thing and looking down on people simply for what are most of the time very petty things (and I'm as guilty of this as anyone) is only making the problem worse.

Honestly, I think that's the worst possible thing any teenager can do. This way, you're allowing them control over your life - even if it only has to do with things as trivial as what you've got on. It's never that bad, anyway; it's the endless procession of wit-free, casual insults that can get to you. Throughout high school, I was literally the one kid out of 2000+ who didn't have his hair closely cropped. I was never once beaten up for looking like a cross between Crystal Tips and Corpsegrinder (and this was in Walton, Liverpool), but even if I had been, it certainly wouldn't have had me running to the barber's, pissing down my legs. Fuck 'em.

(Sadly, I do occasionally get into fights for such trivial reasons now. This usually happens when a visibly confused, angry and downright boring gutter-brain feels the need to walk right up to me, bold as you like, and fire off completely artless, witless quips or tell me I'm a stupid cunt. These are more often men in their early 30s than teenagers, as it happens. Again, fuck 'em. You simply must not let them get you down. )

Batesian Mimicery is what it is called.

I don't understand the obsession with teenagers and their associated trends. It's obviously nothing new as each generation views the new one as perverse in some way. I guess the main difference is how teenagers are viewed as gutturally violent in a way they haven't been before (although how different the current view is to that of 'teddy boys' or 'punks' is questionable). The solution can't be to apply generic stereotypes but view incidents individual community by community, person by person. By creating the 'hoody' a simple costume is provided for anybody to look intimidating.

I'm sure that the break down of the nuclear family has made it less likely for different generations to interact thereby creating the misunderstandings that result in this fear. It' simple far easier to ostracise these people then look at the social problems that create it. As a society we removed the outlets of education and tradesmanship that have traditionally allowed the poorest communities to aspire. At the same time the depiction of the poorest people in the media is often guttural (Little Britain and seemingly BBC THREE as a whole seems dedicated to depicting the working class as sub-human shit stained freaks). Why are so many people concerned with the working conditions of workers abroad when they are doing the very jobs that have been taken away from the working class in this country? No government is ever going to tell middle England that their affluence relies on on the underclass remaining as they are. It's too easy to ignore that fact that these people rely on physical violence to get by in life so it's hardly surprising that they are going to clash with the rest of society. Viewing this as a 'teenage' problem is a simplification of a wider issue.


However I'm a full-time working healthy male in my late-20's. Society won't work if it isn't for my kind so a bit more attention on me and a bit less on them please.