Watch those two!

Bunneh

Two hoodies at the bottom of the street, both sat on a wall chatting. I pop to the newsagent, come back and one of my fellow neighbours, a nice fella, says 'keep an eye on those two'. I reply I will do and just as I say I do watch them on and off for 40 minutes whilst doing my weight training.

They soon disappear and I thought it was a shame to brand them as possible 'thugs' or 'thieves' because of their attire, which is basically what we both did. When I was that age I used to hang about with my friends on street corners, we dressed in the current trends but all we were doing was 'hangin''. I lost count of the times I got moved on because we looked 'wrong 'uns'.

Are we getting a little too paranoid?

MattC59

Nope........... there's a lot more chavs and scum about these days !

CrackFox

When I was a 15 year old metalhead hanging out with my mates, we attracted a lot of negative attention. I'm sure those grannies who nervously passed us by would have imagined that we were Satanists or something because of the way we dressed. Fact is, we didn't give a toss what they thought - we wanted to be different and stand out, that was the whole point. I think we would have been slightly disappointed if they'd smiled at us sweetly and offered us sweets.

Chip \'oyler

CrackFox wrote:

When I was a 15 year old metalhead hanging out with my mates, we attracted a lot of negative attention. I'm sure those grannies who nervously passed us by would have imagined that we were Satanists or something because of the way we dressed. Fact is, we didn't give a toss what they thought - we wanted to be different and stand out, that was the whole point. I think we would have been slightly disappointed if they'd smiled at us sweetly and offered us sweets.

How can you be different and stand out if you and your mates all looked the same?

Splottboy

Mark "Chav" endish?

unixnerd

I think you really need to be careful here. If you don't have a basic faith in your fellow man (or woman) you end up living in fear of them behind locked doors. You've only to look at the US vs Canada as a perfect example of the different way people live in fearful and more trusting societies.

Any time I've come into contact with teenagers I've had no trouble at all. A criminal is a criminal regardless of age.

I've no time for chavs and their attitude to life. But you have to ask where it all came from? Bad parents, lack of morals in society, who knows.

Perfect example, I went to my local council office the other day. Two druggies waiting at the bottom of the stair for a counselling session. One says, "aw cool, you've got a Marin. Great bikes, ride one myself". We got into a blether and it turns out the guy has a few problems but loves cycling. Just going through a bad patch maybe. Proves there's more to folk than initial appearances may hint, it pays to have an open mind until proved otherwise.

SteppenHerring

What unixnerd said.

We do run the risk of buying into the Daily Mail culture of fear. Newspapers will never sell with a headline of "Everything's not too bad. Carry on."

Compare today with the 1980s - fewer deaths by terrorism, fewer deaths on the roads. You can buy nice carbon bikes with STI shifters and access the internet at the cake stop on your phone. Yes, there's a lot wrong with the world, but it's not all gloom and doom.

CrackFox

Chip \'oyler wrote:

How can you be different and stand out if you and your mates all looked the same?

Well I suppose we wanted to stand out as a group, and not necessarily stand out individually from each other. Anyway, we did look different. I had a Saxon t-shirt and a fluffy 'tache, my mate had a Dio t-shirt and a fluffy beard etc.

Cleat Eastwood

CrackFox wrote:

Chip \'oyler wrote:

How can you be different and stand out if you and your mates all looked the same?

Well I suppose we wanted to stand out as a group, and not necessarily stand out individually from each other. Anyway, we did look different. I had a Saxon t-shirt and a fluffy 'tache, my mate had a Dio t-shirt and a fluffy beard etc.

And her name was Jenny

Anonymous

I used to think it rather ironic that when the Levellers played at festivals there were thousands upon thousands of people wearing the same t-shirt, looking exactly the same singing "There's only one way of life and that's your own!"

Ben6899

They were all individuals!

morstar

Ben6899 wrote:

They were all individuals!

Lol.