Cross passenger on the 0703hrs train from East Dulwich to London Bridge (Lounged)

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

But Asset may be nearer the mark. [think anagrames FL]

[????]

and who rattled your cage?

[Asset]

Not a financial asset, just a bonus.

who's cage? Mine or PGC?

[SeanMacGabhann]

I've already err... robustly defended myself on the betting shop thread against Quids just now, so am wary of wading in again

My eyebrow did raise when the original poster used the word chav so casually but we'll come back to that

The reason I don't think calling someone chav is the same as black, is because when people discriminate against black people it's because of the colour of their skin - ie how they were born

Chav and working-class are not interchangeable terms. When I was growing up (poor, working/unemployed dolescounging class) I took inspiration from Orwell when he said there was no finer human than one who did an honest days work and came home and used his spare time to read and improve his mind (I paraphrase but you get the gist)

Many working-class families do just that. Chav as a term tends to be used when referring to general uncouth/disrepectful to others/meanspirited public behaviour. That the people who exhibit this behaviour wear a certain uniform sometimes is self-evident. What isn't evident is that is always working-class people who do this. I know of many a middle-class chav

So to call someone a chav in my book is nothing like referring to black people in the same way - it's labelling someones behaviour. The guy on the train SOUNDS like a gobshite at least doesn't he?

[????]

he does, but I know many people who look like 'chavs' who are thoroughly decent, hardworking and nice people...with crap dress sense....

[SeanMacGabhann]

I know many people who look like middleclass who are thoroughly decent, hardworking and nice people...with crap dress sense....

[Asset]

oy, I've got great dress sense.

[????]

indeed, prejudice runs accross all races and classes, personally I love everyone but the french

[SeanMacGabhann]

indeed you do - but my point being that not all of any class can be easily categorised. Which was much the same as quids point

[Asset]

it was a joke - I am middle class.

EDIT: well, on my mother's side. What does that make me? sort of slightly lazy?

[SeanMacGabhann]

oooh look you see - he posted same time as me and made exactly the same point

except he spoiled it with the French thing - I will never understand this "thing" between the French and the English

[Asset]

Not like the Scots and the French, the old alliance.

[????]

it's not true...........it was meant to be a lighthearted comment reinforcing the prejudices of the english...are you a stupid aussie or something?

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

???? you don't half go forward one step and back two.

[Asset]

I'm confused now. I see this heading to the lounge.

[????]

is it compulsory to have an irony bypass on here?

[SeanMacGabhann]

nah ???? - just hard to tell sometimes

I fear Asset may be right tho - this is lounge bound unless someone can help with an unruly passenger on a morning train

Anyone?

[Michael Palaeologus]

Is that cross-rail related?

LOUNGED!

[RosieH]

didn't think the original post was asking for help so much as letting off steam..? seems what galled about the chav thing was the implication that somehow by being a chav, the potty mouth was more likely to attack than a nice jumper-wearing White Stuffer..?

is it not a simple case of something needing to be said(though perhaps not "chav"? or am I naive because I'm a woman and less likely to be assaulted under such circumstances?

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Sean - Your class is not something you can always pretend not to be, or leave behind, and why the f%*k should you have to in order to be taken seriously or given the respect you deserve?

I know working class social climbers who sound stupid trying to pretend they are something they are not and middle-class slummers who run back to mummy at the first sign of real trouble.

The class divide in this country is as strong as it ever was and the love of money (not you ????) and financial status as the measure of success make the middle classes feel entitled to look down on the white trash and chavs that spoil their otherwise 'perfect' life.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Sorry Chav - can't agree with you on most of that

If people want to worry so much about what others think then let them - but yet again, that has nothing to do with class

there isn't as many people as you think who are middle-class and spend their time "looking down on" the working class - just because there some that DO shouldn't allow you to generalise in exactly the same way to complain about how working-class get generalised

and where does "spoil their otherwise 'perfect' life." come from? Anyone think they have a perfect life? Anyone at all?

Everytime this debate comes up it amounts to the same thing. There are some people who like to look out for others and take an interest in what goes on around them and there are others who are, to use an Irish expression, "m? f?iners" - ie out for themselves. TO constantly bring class in to the debate makes the whole thing tribal which isn't going to solve any problems

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

Sean - you moved away from your home country and any of the subtle class markers you may have had in Ireland would not be the same here so you are more able to be classless.

When I have lived in Canada, Belgium or France the same happened to me, my class markers were different to the class markers they recognised and although they still have class hierarchies, I seemed classless because many of mine where not the ones they understood.

Coming back to the UK was depressing because after being respected as generic English, having the class hierarchy imposed on me again by others and having to try to prove that what I say is more important than how I say it became an uphill battle again.

[SteveT]

I thought I was working class until I discovered my favourite pub, The Castle.

[Maximay]

I overheard an argument today where a white woman called another white woman "white trash"! Erm... How the hell does that one figure in the intelligence ranks!! Especially as the woman (term used very loosely) was not black! It would have been perhaps slightly better if she'd called her "trailer trash" but then again we don't have trailers in London, just caravans whereby she probably would have called her a gypo! Confusing and I could'nt help loudly saying to the woman in question "wot a tw@t!" as I walked pass them! Getting all too Americanised if you ask me! And fogive me if I'm wrong, isn't "white trash" another term for "Chav"?

[Zebedee Tring]

If someobody regularly gets on a train swearing and shouting at anyone who gets in their way, they are a fair subject for criticism, whether they are chavs, Hooray Henrys, yummy mummies, or wha'ever. For what it's worth, some of the rudest people that I have encountered on public transport are those whom I would categorise as soi-disant 'born to rule'. On the other hand, a number of v. rude people have come from a social category that is not so elevated (iron.)

Rudeness is rudeness, whoever the person is.