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Observing Good Times: Binging Bimbos and Fun Time Ladettes!
Binge Babes!
Whilst pottering around the other morning my wife was doing a bit of ironing and watching daytime TV. One item in discussion on This Morning caused me to pin my ears back as I learned a new word - Fringer - but what the hell is a Fringer?
Before I get mashed up by every ardent feminist, or one of numerous happily married Moms, this post is not intended to be a slight on women per se. The content is merely an observation of some (unfortunately) prominent traits in many, but not all of today’s young women. I turned to my Twitter account to find out more…
@itvthismorning - In the papers today it has been reported that two thirds of single women go out on the town with uglier girls in a bid to make themselves look more attractive! (see ITV This Morning)
Apparently a fringer is a friend who is a minger that girls use. The ensuing comments on both the show’s Twitter feed and Facebook page were both amusing and interesting. Many respondents totally denied the ‘accusation’, some admitted it but tried to dress it down and as for the remainder? Well they actually coughed to being, or at least feeling like the group fringer. Whatever the response and for whatever reason, I can assure you from my observations, the fringer phenomenon is a fact, not just something invented by the media.
You see in general, many young women actually appear to be very shallow and display many overtly materialistic characteristics. Their aspirations and desires are often based solely upon fad, fashion and physical or financial attributes. I see examples of this all the time in my work as a bar tender. I’m always amazed how a so-called group of friends can be such bitches and so catty about each other. It’s no wonder they never go to the toilet alone, they’re probably scared shitless about what their ‘friends’ say about them when they’re not in the group. Perhaps when they take a pee in pairs, at least that’s one less member of the group slagging them off?
At the bar you also hear all manner of conversations and comments. You are often privy to stuff that would normally be private information and to be fair, it probably wouldn’t be offered up so willingly to others, if not for the fact people usually get significantly louder the more they drink. None more so than young women whose inner volume control appears to have an inbuilt OTT setting. One that automatically increases along with rising levels of consumed alcohol.
I despair at the quantity of airheads there appear to be today, although there are some very pretty ones, thanks mainly to five (expensive) hours in Chantilly’s Beauty Parlour before hitting the town, they’re still shallow simple-minded airheads all the same. They neither possess or hold any desire to get a grasp on any of real issues in life. Their only interests appear to be who is shagging who and, how to become a celebrity and move to Essex!
Whilst formulating their life plan, there is little or no mention of anything academic or industrious, any real gainful employment is simply out of the question; “like I really fancy Billy’s brother, he’s well fit and single. You know he makes masses of cash!” After a brief foray into which celebrity is shagging which other celebrity, the discussion turns quickly to the type of makeup, must have designer label to wear and which bling handbag is required for the task at hand; to successfully snare Billy’s hapless brother!
Our girlies, caked in various thicknesses of beautition’s plastering and sporting eyelashes that look as if a family of hairy caterpillars have set up home on each lid, continue to get ever more loud (and pissed). The conversation moves on to boob jobs, other surgical enhancements and which shop ’Stacey’ got her “Fcuk Off Heals” from? During all this the group Fringer, although doing her utmost to be included in the ‘exciting’ conversation but mostly, shrinks away into obscurity of the group or worse, becomes the but of jokes for her drunken ‘friends’.
However local fat bottomed girls worry not, take solace from some information received on good authority… There’s a squeak on the street that suggests, our fringers don’t actually have to miss out on all the ‘action’ or go home alone after a night on the town… When I get more details I’ll let you know!
Related articles
- Britain’s ‘Buckfast Babes’? (bankbabble.wordpress.com)
- Binge drinking ‘harms’ teen girls (bbc.co.uk)
- British women match men for binge drinking (telegraph.co.uk)
How much Summer Wine is left?
Image via Wikipedia
Yet another mainstay of my life is coming to an end but mustn’t grumble I suppose? As you get older, more and more aspects that have formed the framework of your life change, some even disappear for good. Your hair, your teeth and even your toes when you look down, are just a few examples…
A state of constant flux is one of those aspects of life that will always go on however it just feels like there’s bloody more of them as you get older. How you view a change is usually dependant upon how it affects you but in general, I think people embrace change. Just so long as it’s for the better, shame that isn’t always the case.
What did Last of the Summer Wine* teach us? - After 37 years of capers from Compo and his pals, Last of the Summer Wine says goodbye this week. One thing it has taught us, says Yasmeen Khan, is that elderly people can still have fun. (BBC News Magazine)
It was interesting to read Yasmeen’s piece as in addition to the good journalistic content and comment, she was able to add a ‘local knowledge’ slant to the story, having grown up in the area where it was filmed.
Holmfirth is a typical Mill town of the Pennines that is an example of the change I’m talking about. It originally grew up around a corn mill and bridge at the confluence of two rivers in the 13th century. Three hundred years later Holmfirth expanded rapidly as the growing cloth trade grew and the production of stone and slates from the surrounding quarries increased.
Today, despite maintaining and enhancing its status as a vibrant Market Town, Holmfirth probably has very little of its previous industrial type employment but which town does in the UK today? The town however appears to get a reasonable income from the visiting droves of TV show fans, that and the lovers of the Arts in their various forms. Like the characters in the TV show, it may have grown older (and had bits fall off) but is still intent on having fun, a factor confirmed by the Holmfirth tourist guide!
So what did I learn from the show? I don’t think it was ever an intention of the writer or indeed the production team however; one of the major things it taught me (at least latterly) was how family values and community spirit, along with a dry sense of humour are dying out in our society. Towns like Holmfirth were always the epitome of our close-knit communities, they were full of characters like Compo, Foggy & Clegg and, towns like this were once the bedrock of our erstwhile great Nation. Sadly many of those qualities are missing in this Country today. I say it’s sad but perhaps that type of dismay is only voiced by people of my age group or older? I might be Mr Grumpy but trust me, this type of social change within society is not one of the better ones!
Tonight I had those feelings reinforced when I watched Real Crime with Mark Austin. Although in no way connected with Holmfirth or West Yorkshire, it examined the apparent levels of depravity our society has stooped to in many areas. I was deeply saddened at the murder of Gary Newlove in Cheshire however, I was almost just as sad about our society and how in many respects, the police have totally lost control of our streets. Not with standing the good work that still goes on, our police have lost the ability to effectively respond to the needs of our communities. Often with devastating after effects on families like the Newloves!
(Some answers as to why can be found here)
Briefly for those who aren’t aware Gary went out of his home one night to remonstrate with a group of drunken youths engaged in antisocial behaviour and damaging property. For his efforts, the father of three young girls was subsequently and savagely kicked and beaten to death by the yobs, simply for challenging them. Apparently when arrested later, the youths suggested one of the reasons for their actions was “he was disrespecting me”? Did nobody ever teach these thugs that to earn respect you need to show respect!
So how much Summer Wine do I have left? Sufficient for me to continue to grow old disgracefully whilst still having fun, just like the old boys trio. That said, I will also continue to challenge unacceptable behaviour when I see it, I just can’t help myself after 30yrs as a police officer. In the absence of adequate police resources on the streets, someone has to! I’m just hoping my family never have to experience the emotions felt by Mrs Newlove and her daughters!
* Last of the Summer Wine is set and filmed in and around Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England and centres around a trio of old men. Originally consisting of Bill Owen as the scruffy and child-like Compo, Peter Sallis as deep-thinking, meek Norman Clegg and Michael Bates as authoritarian and snobbish Blamire. When Bates dropped out through illness in 1976 after two series, the role of the third man of the trio was filled in various years up to the 30th series by the quirky war veteran, Foggy (Brian Wilde). The men never seem to grow up and developed a unique perspective on their equally eccentric fellow townspeople through their youthful stunts. (Source Wikipedia)
Popularity: At its peak in the late 1970s, the programme was hitting between 18 and 20 million viewers, around a third of the available audience at the time. It ran for 31 series over 37 years.
Examining Grump’s Big Issue?
Aug 29
Posted by Dave Hasney
The Big Issue!
No, I’m not browsing through the news on the street, all be it an important but smaller part of my particular Big Issue. Many of my babbles thus far, have shown a tendency toward focusing upon policing. After 30+ years of experiencing all the issues impacting upon, what in my opinion is such an important aspect of our society, is this really so surprising?
The recent riots in England, and all the subsequent heated debate, have served to bring this factor to the fore in other people’s minds too. That said, policing is only one part of the framework we use to address our social ills, in our attempts to keep a lid on the bigger issues we face. There is so much more to examine in the so-called moral vacuum, an issue now reaching all levels of society.
Thanks to that almost continuous (but often unsuccessful) quest for answers to these social ills, which usually takes place at The Fisherman’s Arms, I’ve decided to try to broaden my horizons somewhat. This partial change of direction, mainly spurred on by ‘Rab’ (aka The Portree Kid) my regular social sparing partner and Teuchter that cam frae Skye, is aimed at provoking some response from a wider database of social observers.
This may however prove to be unsuccessful, let me explain… Throughout my many years of social observation I have noticed a worrying trait in that; people’s varied topics of conversation (in general), tend towards the more mundane subject matter of life today. Not only are these conversations often inane but also, tend towards insular and mostly unimportant subjects, conversation that is simply for conversation sake.
I suppose that has to be (partly) expected after all, the human being is a social animal and, conversation is an important component part of that social interaction. To many, the fact they actually have nothing more intellectual to talk about, or base any educated opinion upon, is immaterial. This trait appears non more prevalent than within the younger generations and I’m sorry to say, young females.
Before I get berated for ‘demonizing the young’ or maybe even overtly sexist, I’m aware these comments are generalistic however; many of our social issues stem from problems of a somewhat simple and general nature.
In Whatford’s opinion our “social and economic disadvantage, and a lack of hope and opportunity ever to escape from it” is the major reason for our creation of our ‘apparent’ underclass. But it’s not the ‘children’ I refer to per se, more their parentage . A parentage that has mostly insular and materialistic viewpoints on so many issues; thoughts which have travelled increasingly in that direction as generations have passed us by. Our intrinsically insular views come directly from a satisfaction of residing in a microcosm of self-important here and now values and vision. Or, as a recent respondent to a BBC News article on the recent riots debate put it;
But, as many have found previously, trying to pin all our social ills on one particular causation factor is impossible. That said, taking a more general view sometimes helps in trying to find issues indicative of the problems. However, one must be guarded not to tar with the same brush when forming conclusions or the application of repair methods. It does however astound me that, given our propensity for hindsight answers and observations, we appear to take little cognisance of our history. But perhaps things aren’t as bad as we actually perceive them to be?
My personal take upon that root causation tends towards our inherent love of cash; an issue compounded by the cononomics of current politics, as opposed to the ‘economics’ mentioned by Whatford. We hear almost daily that our rich are getting richer, whilst the poor get poorer, especially (but not exclusively) within the inherent wealth condensation of our mostly capitalistic western world. It has been said “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (actually a quote from the First Epistle of Paul to Timothy). The choice of quote shouldn’t be taken in a religious context, far better to examine it with a purely historical viewpoint.
Another throw-back from religion, perhaps also worthy of our consideration when looking for social answers, would be the Ten Commandments. Although, given how many human conflicts were (supposedly) born out of religious argument, perhaps this isn’t such a sensible route to take either? As a person who holds fairly simplistic (and non religious) views on many things, I can usually take words at face value, especially when they make moral common sense e.g. thou shalt not steal etc. However, and even more so as our society has progressed, we have a tendency to question or challenge anything and everything. Even more so when it doesn’t particularly fit within our individualistic tendencies.
Whatford suggests that education is a fundamental part of redressing the balance in our somewhat disenfranchised and dysfunctional society. I would have to agree but only partly… Firstly and in real terms, can we honestly say our society is ‘disenfranchised’ in true terms? Many of those, who say they have no power to influence decision-making process in governments, simply choose not to use their vote. Whether or not our vote actually has the power to drive ‘real’ change is a wholly different and arguable matter.
Secondly, if the root of ‘demonization’ is social unrest caused by poverty, “closing the social gap through education” is only part of the overall answer to the problem. Recently, in Our degrees of Chicken or Egg, I argued that perhaps our education system is a contributory factor in our great social and business failings. If as I believe it is, how can we then expect ‘education’ (in isolation) it to provide the answers we are actually looking for?
Until we can actually distance ourselves from the mostly materialistic views we attach to most things, I feel it will be a very long time until we achieve the results we keep searching for, if ever? Maybe we are just being far too simplistic and craving idealistic Nirvana? One thing I do know is; the mostly rhetorical use of the phrase ”we’re all in this together” is actually true… Unfortunately, too many of our equals are more equal than we happen to be most of the time! I’m sure the Teuchter and I will keep searching for the answers but until then…
Perhaps you’d like to join this secular hermit sometime at The Fisherman’s Arms as we continue our quest for the route out of the Wild, Wild Wood… Mines a pint, thanks!
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