Another brick in the wall

So, a story in today’s Washington Post documents the last hurrah of legally sanctioned drinking on public transport in London. Seems one of the newly-elected mayor’s first acts was to ban what many Londoners view as a God-given right: drinking to excess in public places. The story was actually about Londoners using the ban—in effect as of today—as an excuse for one last movable binge.

The action was organized by a guy on Facebook, quoted as intoning, “This has hit a nerve. People are asking about civil liberties…A part of British culture is about drinking.”

I find this interesting for several reasons.

First, invoking the shibboleth of “civil liberties” is kind of funny in a nation where there are more closed circuit TV cameras spying on the citizenry in any given city than public toilets & where the courts have recently discussed eliminating that pesky concept of jury trial in an effort to cut the costs of justice. Seems those sorts of thing don’t send shivers down the backs Her Majesty’s subjects; but tell them they need to stop chugging gin straight from the bottle on the Bakerloo line & they’re howling about their rights being trampled.

Second, the response to what they’re implying is a diktat isn’t to protest in a town council meeting or bombard Boris Johnson (the mayor in question) with emails. No, it’s to show up on the Tube with bottles & cans in hand & a determination to drink steadily until the midnight hour.

Way to exercise your civic responsibilities, folks!

Another point of amusement: the head of the union that represents London transport workers predictably weighed in with a whine about how nervy Johnson was to enact the ban without consulting the workers. Seems they’ll “now have to ask people to throw away their drinks.”

Yeah—you knew that one was coming: God help anyone expecting the Transport & General Workers Union to have to do actual, you know, work. I’ve been on more than one Tube train that pulled to a halt at a station & just sat there because it was time for one driver’s tea break & the replacement driver hadn’t shown up. Coming from Los Angeles, where public transportation was kind of a myth, hearing the announcement that, “We’re looking for a driver” just doesn’t instill confidence that, despite being the first subway system in the world, they have all the kinks worked out.

I also wonder where the drunks are expected to toss their tinnies. London Underground’s policy is to have no trash receptacles at the station platforms, the idea being that bins attract, you know, rubbish; & people will just chuck their candy wrappers & newspapers in the direction of the basket but not bother to make sure they get inside. My prediction is that there’ll be a lot more refuse on platforms & tracks.

Moreover, I’m rather amused at this whole fracas about the booze entitlement, because Brits take such a superior stance with respect to Americans’ attitudes toward alcohol. We, it seems, don’t really know how to handle it; either we abstain or we go on benders.

Maybe so, although I have to say that there’ve been no stories about presidential offspring like the ones about Tony Blair’s son Euan or Prince Harry being caught in public as drunk as skunks (or whatever the UK equivalent would be). & I never saw the term “falling down drunk” in action until a company Christmas party, when one of the VPs was in that condition.

(At another company bash there was a rumor that the open bar would stop at 1900. My colleagues forestalled this potential disaster by literally having drinks in each fist. As they finished the one in their left hand, they started in on the other while getting another from the bar.

(As it happens, the bar stayed open until the last dog was down. Management weren't going to risk mob violence.)

So I’m not going to argue with the statement that drinking is part of British culture. When I lived in London, many’s the time I had to pick my way past empty pint glasses & beer bottles left in the vicinity of the three pubs that were on the two-block route to the post office. I could also always tell when the nearest pub closed—the noise level spiked until the lads & ladettes drifted off.

But in setting up why Johnson might have wanted to curtail the drinking, the Post really didn’t talk about any reasons except the desire to cut down on assaults that kind of cast a pall over the system. It doesn’t deal with the concomitant effects of overboozing: puking & peeing.

At no time did anyone—interviewees or interviewers—mention that, in addition to being belligerent after spending the evening drinking, Brits lose that vaunted reserve & pretty much rival frat boys on Homecoming night. On my trips to the post office? There was also the caked-on vomit & puddles I didn’t want to think about on the sidewalks.

(Actually, as I was leaving Royal Ascot one year, I passed a number of men & women relieving themselves barely far enough into the shrubbery that I couldn’t tell the color of their eyes. At least they weren’t shagging, though.)

One of the “protesters” yesterday started his binge at 1400 & planned to go until midnight. Presumably staying on the London Underground system that entire time. Let’s do the math on that one…

Trust me—an institution that is morally opposed to providing trash bins isn’t going to lay on the loos. At least making it illegal to continue drinking on subways & busses should help with that early morning stench that really grabs you with an iron hand as you’re heading in to work.

I’m not at all sanguine about how quickly this transformation will be actually implemented (I hope no one associated with the T5 debacle is working on this), I applaud the effort. Change is hard, & I do understand that if a policy was good enough for Victoria, we really should think it through thoroughly before messing with it.

But it’s a good start.

Now, about the National Health Service…