DRUNKEN BRITS

Over the years I've grown accustomed to reports of British people getting over-the-top swozzled and creating incidents. Whenever there are serious soccer-related disruptions in western Europe, it is often the English who are in some way responsible, and whenever they are overseas, the local press has a field-day describing what the Queen's subjects did, didn't do, and shouldn't have done but did at great length.
The drunken Englishman is a regular fixture.

I don't know where the Irish and the Russians got the reputation for being intoxicated lumps of coal; maybe that was just the nation of Chaucer and Maugham fighting back.
Additionally, Irishmen and Russkis are kind of fun when they're blotto, however rarely that occurs. The English, when drunk, are usually utterly unbearable, and violent besides.

All of my father's English colleagues, when we lived in the Eindhoven area, were insensate on cheap beer half the time. I honestly don't know how Pater put up with them, although it was undoubtedly less stressful than having the Germans trying to shoot him out of the sky for three years during the war.
Sane and sober Englishmen must be a rarity; one never notices them.
Maybe they're in permanent hiding. Flying under cover.
If they can do American accents.

Be that as it may.

This blogger, being a sane Dutch-American person with a Waspy accent and a serious tea habit, occasionally has cause to resent being mistaken for one of that lot.
I suppose the Londonian pipe tobacco doesn't help either.
I counter this by seldom eating bangers.
Or drinking gin & tonic.


Please imagine my lack of surprise at a key detail in a news article recently that mentioned a plane turning back because of a passenger who was misbehaving.

QUOTE:
"A rowdy British passenger forced a London-bound Virgin Atlantic flight to return to Hong Kong on Monday (Aug 11) after he "lost control", police said.
The 26-year-old, identified only as "Robert", was on a Heathrow-bound plane from Hong Kong International Airport and became disruptive after the flight had been in the air for more than an hour.
It was forced to turn around after 90 minutes, the airline said, and landed safely back in Hong Kong. The passenger was arrested then sent to hospital."
End quote.

[Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/rowdy-passenger-forces/1306796.html.]


British. How predictable. How utterly unsurprising.

What is remarkable, however, is how soon it happened. He must have slammed down drinks at an alarming pace immediately after the unfasten your seat belts sign lit up. Pounded an entire bottle of tuppence gin. Stolen his seatmates' cocktails too.


A minor cause for wonder was that I first found out about the incident from an article on the BBC website (see: "Passenger Bob"), which entirely neglected to mention that Robert was British. Not even a hint.

Good going, guys.


You know, we Yanks have an expression about 'not showing your ass in public'. It means acting properly if among people, not embarrassing yourself or your group by your behaviour, showing the flag as it were, not giving the other tribes too many opportunities to think ill.
Whenever possible striving not to let down the side.
Gentlemanly behaviour. Acting cricket.
Not being such a wanker.
Showing class.

Just saying.


Anyhow, Mr. Robert (the British passenger) was taken into custody at Hong Kong airport by the authorities and transferred to a local hospital.
Where he was treated. For what may have been a very severe case of alcohol poisoning, or an excess of high spirits.
He had not been charged a day later.
Probably still too drunk.

All of the other passengers were inconvenienced.

There should be travellers' insurance for that.

It's not entirely unexpected nowadays.

Airborne Brits; a public hazard.

Some restrictions apply.

Cheers, mate.



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