We’re All Lager Louts

Posted by Jules on January 12th, 2009

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eye-british

eye-british

“C’est les Anglais…”  said the woman sitting opposite me at a dinner party a few months back. “The English  are ruining Verbier.”

“Les Anglais sont les buveurs de bière.” (Beer drinkers).

This Swiss lady had obviously not picked up on the fact that I was in fact one of those ”buveurs de bière” as she so charmingly stereotypes us.  As in my early days living here, when I couldn’t quite tell the difference between a Swiss and a French accent, she had obviously thought that I was the same nationality as the hostess – an American.  I let it go. 

Then this holiday up in Verbier we had a seven year old Swiss neighbour over for tea to play with Lexi and it happened again.  Firstly, she told me that she found the English tourists were “très bêtes” (very stupid) on the slopes.  I was amused by this and explained that in England we don’t have the possibility to ski and thus the English here are very excited by the snow and the mountains and most of them are still learning so would indeed look and feel very stupid.  Then they went into the garden to make a snowman.

“Mum come here!”  shouted Lexi.

I went out and saw them pointing at a patch of snow into which some unfortunate had vomited.

“C’est les Anglais,”  said the little Swiss girl-next-door.  “They vomit into our garden too.”

Scene change:  New Year’s Eve Place Centrale, Verbier.  French, Swiss, Dutch, Swedish, Russian youths all happily dancing and falling over in the snow looking very stupid having drunk, no doubt, some of those beers the English drink.

Living in Switzerland, Most Popular Posts 11 Comments

Ghinch said,

January 12, 2009 @ 7:28 pm

I totally agree that some of the beer vomit belongs as much to Swedes, Russians, Swiss and Dutch as to Les Anglais.

So we should ask ourselves why is it that the English get singled out for this unbecoming recognition?

It’s because they are so bloody good at it that’s why.

While other nations blend into anorak’d mass good-natured drunkenness, your average Englishman minor, with shirt proudly proclaiming allegiance, at -8°C, to Tottenham Hotspurs, Newcastle or Blackburn Rovers, is always the first, loudest, rudest, smelliest, worst-dressed and stingiest bloke at the bar. The one with the worst chat-up lines, shouted at elegant foreign totty in a dull, slurred monosyllabic voice while he ineptly attempts a grope.

Here, I’m not just talking about inner cities lager louts who pay for their week in the snow with either hard earned cash, unemployment giros, creditless credit cards or ill gotten gains and do what is expected of them. There are also those who have dumbed-down for the hols. Sons of gentlefolk from the “nicer” suburbs and the “better” schools. The only difference being that they have daddy’s credit card and a key to the chalet. But once they pull that cross of St. George bobble hat on, Tourette’s syndrome kicks in and any demographic gap is forgotten.

I was in the crowds at the airport on Saturday afternoon meeting friends from London. Buses marked Verbier, Flaine etc. filled the car park. There’s no need to watch the arrivals announcement board. When the scruffy bunch come through the doors in cheap Millets ski jackets carrying clinking duty free bags, some even wearing ski boots on the plane, you know the London flight has landed. The scruffiness gets progressively worse as the UK embarkation points get further north.

“Makes ya proud to be English don’t it? Oops, ‘scuse me Darlin’, I’ve gotta fro up.”

Bolton bap said,

January 13, 2009 @ 11:12 am

When I started to read this post, I was expecting some negative recount of the Brits in some way as we are an easy target for the obviously more cultivated Eurointelligensia. I agree that the Brits have a puerile drinking culture that unfortunately doesn’t travel well as when people are on holiday they want to relax and drinking is part of this process. Throwing up in your own back garden is unpleasant enough and throwing up in someone elses is completely uncivilised. What I wasn’t expecting though, was Ghinch’s condesending description of the ski tourists arriving at the airport. What do you know about living in the UK now and especially up north? It seems to me he is suffering from what I call ‘ex-pat itis’ where thinking you have culturally matured, you become mortally embarrassed by your own countrymen…or is this just a British thing?
I’m sure Ghinch congratulates himself on his situation as he moderately drinks his wine of an evening but I bet he has a stack of ‘cheese strings’ and ‘mars bars’ hidden away to eat where no-one can see him.

Nadia said,

January 13, 2009 @ 6:59 pm

I’m a lager lout! I’m a lager lout! Yippee! I recently discovered Guinness after a lifetime of hating beer, so I feel I certainly qualify now!

I’m also part Brit and have spent several New Year’s up in Verbier getting blitzed on vodka shots or straight tequila so I’m even more qualified.

Oh, but I don’t ski. Rather pointless, interferes with the partying. Plus it’s cold on the pistes and I HATE carrying skis and walking in ski-boots.

Are lager louts allowed to wear Uggs and miniskirts? Or Uggs and treggings (today’s outfit?)? I promise I’m SWILLING my Guinness, really!

Martin said,

January 14, 2009 @ 6:50 am

I suppose that the reason that 1664 over here is seize-cent soixante-quatre is that, when you cant say it anymore, you’ve obviously had enough ?

Ghinch said,

January 14, 2009 @ 7:02 pm

Dear Bolton Bap.
That was very funny, but I must confess I have no idea what a Cheese String is and my last Mars bar was over 50 years ago even though they are available all over Switzerland.
I know absolutely nothing about living “up North” and today, I know little about living in the UK, but I fail to see why this should deprive me of an opinion on the dross that gets poured off planes all over the world. Brits are constantly fed with negative imagery by newspapers and TV (Yes, I know they do jolly good drama and arts too) glamorizing Britain’s toughest pubs, roughest towns, filthiest homes, gangs, road rage, street crime, binge drinking etc. Is it some kind of inverted pride?

However, you are quite right. I do despair at the antics of some of my countrymen. It would be difficult not to.

Chavs on the high seas. See The Sunday Times of Jan. 11. 2009.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/news/article5489227.ece

http://www.ghinch.com

Nadia said,

January 14, 2009 @ 9:29 pm

Martin, the real test of sobriety is if you can actually read the instructions for use on one of those little alcotests they now sell in pharmacies… tiny print, incomprehensible details, if you can do it, you’re sober! 1664 is easy in comparison.

Graham, a cheese string is a piece of plasticy cheese shaped like a carrot stick but bigger. It pulls apart in “strings” that you then eat, like liquorice. I know because I love silly junk food and the Coop carries it occasionally (possibly Migros too). When we have lunch again I’ll bring some so that you can happily cringe in disgust at the reality of the concept.

Bolton Bap, I think ex-pat itis (great word!) is universal. Most Americans I know feel it too. But possibly they have good reason…

Martin said,

January 15, 2009 @ 6:48 am

Nadia – one wonders why you feel the need to buy alcotest kits from pharmacies …… let alone read the instructions!

Going to Fribourg? We’re registered so see you there perhaps?

Bolton bap said,

January 16, 2009 @ 6:12 pm

Dear Ghinch,

I would never deprive someone of their right to an opinion but such damning views evoked a strong response from me. You call the British public ‘dross’, isn’t this rather colonial?
Next you’ll be telling us some scruffy, Northern, ‘Millet’ clad tourist has vomited in YOUR garden and made you late for afternoon tiffin. I think it’s to the Brits credit that they are keen travellers and what with cheap fares from budget airlines the numbers are only going to increase. With regards to how they behave abroad, well,as you said, it is influenced by a home-grown,permanent bombardment of media tripe peppered with lobotomised advertising and marketing (even the credit crunch became a marketing slogan). Combine this with a national (obviously generalising) lack of critical differentiation, an excessive drinking culture and you end up with ’serial garden vomiters’ or ‘Chavs on the high seas’.
However, reading the Guardian on-line yesterday I came across an article entitled ‘UK holidays…..the new attraction for hard-up Britons’, so after the ski holidays are over all will be quieter on the Swiss front…..for a while at least.

I have really enjoyed this post and the last one from the Sunday telegraph inspired me to remove my daughter’s glued in i-pod from her ears and take her and my 2 sons up into the mountains. Thankyou.

Ghinch said,

January 17, 2009 @ 5:09 pm

To the Bolton Wanderer.

“I think it’s to the Brits credit that they are keen travelers.”

What is the point of being a “keen traveler” when the moment they hit the tarmac, in whichever country they have decided to inflict themselves upon, they seek out British (or Irish) theme pubs, Harry’s All-Day Gut-Buster Breakfasts, Watney’s Red Barrel, The Sun and Golden Virginia roll-ups. Days are spent drinking, shouting and singing football songs. Nights are spent drinking, shouting, singing football songs and mooning. A week in the sun, if it ever peeks through the pub doors, and the unlikely possibility of a two minute shag on the beach with a drunken tart from Dagenham is all they ask. They get back on the plane a week later not knowing or caring where they have been. Why they bother getting on a plane in the first place is beyond me.

I had always assumed a “keen traveler” to be someone who visited other countries and, apart from the beaches, sun, food and wine, enlightened themselves with a little art, history, language and a culture other than that found in their yoghurt. I know they eat yoghurt, I’ve seen them licking the lids in some of Europe’s finest hotel dining rooms.

“Good ‘oliday Brian?”
“Yer, t’riffic.”
“Where d’ya go?”
“Dunno.”

Thanks to Jules for starting this hysterical forum and to Bolton Bap for being a such a good egg and setting herself up.

Keep up the good work. G.

http://www.ghinch.com

Nadia said,

January 17, 2009 @ 5:57 pm

Graham, I would just like to point out that, to the natives, ANY tourist wave is a plague… you should see the Russians on what I consider MY beach in Sharm El Sheikh! And let’s not even mention the Italians!

Brits on that beach are perfectly civilised, possibly because they’re rare, it’s all the other tourists that are detestable – possibly because they’re in pods, schools, murders, or whatever name you want to give to their groupings. Put more than 5 tourists on any nationality together, they become an immediate cliché of that nationality… or haven’t you noticed?

Martin: I buy alcotests mostly to make sure my daughter always has a supply (sneaky, eh?). New Year’s Eve was a bit arrosé (Palais Mascotte was wild), so I attempted to use one to see if I could drive home. By the time we figured out how to use it, I was sober.

And finally, I won’t be at Fribourg – judgments can be in Finnish or German (I speak neither) and the grand prize is a pen-knife. But best of luck to Maggie, though, don’t forget to buy that nose stuff! (hah! isn’t that ambiguous?)

Bolton bap said,

January 17, 2009 @ 7:03 pm

Dearest Ghinch,’
My interpretation of ‘keen traveler’ was along the lines of someone who isn’t afraid to go abroad regardless of what they do there.
Perhaps you need to take a different type of holiday in order to meet Brits who don’t fit in to this stereotype. Ditch the ‘European dining rooms’(can’t be that great if they serve yoghurts for pudding, or should I say dessert) pick up your rucksack and a whole new world will open up before you.
BB (Good egg).

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