Is This News?

[Cole Parker]

While I was scanning the Bristol Evening News, I happened across this, which might be of interest. I think I've eaten with these women in the room!

(I don't really read the Bristol Evening News, but it seemed enterprising to make that statement. Oh, and my apologies to the women here among us. I didn't post this to disparage women, only for the humor I find in the article.)

C

A recent statement by a professional Russian footballer here in the UK playing for an English club was that there should be separate roads built for women drivers, an expression of which I fully concur.

I would also strongly advocate women-only restaurants when they seek a night out on their own, away from us males.

When you encounter a group of women in parties of four or more in a restaurant or pub, you can be certain the noise being extruded verbally is absolutely deafening.

Recently in Nailsea one evening, at one of my favourite restaurants, there were parties of four and 10 women and the noise being made by these people had to be heard to be believed.

One woman at the table of 10 never stopped talking the entire evening and that was while she was drinking and eating, which I found to be a feat in itself.

Then we have, every 20-30 seconds, ear-piercing peals of laughter which would indicate to myself, as someone that enjoys a quiet laugh and a good clean joke that certainly these women should audition for the TV or music hall as the entertainment world is in dire need of good comedians.

I wonder what their reaction would be if someone had recorded their antics and noise levels on video and then played it back.

Come to think of it, I doubt very much if it would make any difference, they all seem to be totally oblivious to any other people around.

It's obvious there is a distinct lack of decorum and good manners within a certain minority of the population here in the UK due of course to a lack of discipline in the home and schools.

As regards the woman at the table of 10, who was obviously the leader of the pack, I am certain there must be an academic or professor at Bristol University who would just love to have this lady attend one of his group classes and study her unique ability to devour food and drink with endless chatter.

Ivor Pearce, Failand,

[Bruin Fisher]

Cole, I just have to respond to this.

This is my home territory. I have probably eaten at that restaurant, I have a mate who works for that newspaper, I live down the road.

I'm embarrassed to identify with these people. Yes it's true that big groups of women in restaurants can be coarse and noisy, and Nailsea, situated in a valley bounded by ridges of hills, is full of such people. It's also true that Failand, where the writer lives, on top of one of the ridges above Nailsea, is the home of a lot of people who think themselves better than the rabble down the hill.

It's all so sad. Groups of young men in restaurants have been rowdy for generations and no-one bats an eyelid because it's what you expect of them. But women used to be better behaved and are no longer so, and that grates with the kind of people who write in to newspapers (generically known as 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' in the UK).

Now that you've revealed our underbelly, how can I maintain the illusion that we Brits are cultured and civilized?

[DesDownunder]

Now that you've revealed our underbelly, how can I maintain the illusion that we Brits are cultured and civilized?

I think you have just achieved that with your post, good Sir

PS. In Adelaide, all of our suburbs have at least one disgusting correspondent to the local paper...sorry, I mean disgusted correspondent, of course.

[Cole Parker]

I myself thought the article funny, not serious. I didn't know if the man writing it was actually complaining or had his tongue lodged in his cheek. Though his tone supported the former, the absurdity of the complaint seemed to support the latter.

Everyone has known groups like that, ones that become boisterous at a restaurant. Most of us simply roll our eyes and get back to our third martini. Wait, I didn't mean that. Get back to our ice tea. To me, it's more abrasive, and more common, for someone to open up a cell phone while I'm trying to carry on a civilized dinner conversation and begin talking loudly into it about the problem he had with a balky client that day, seeming to think all the client?le in the restaurant would want to know the details of his inability to close a sale for twenty cases of linseed oil. What's with these people?

Singling out women for being noisy is a bit much, isn't it? Of course there are noisy women, but as a group, they aren't any noisier than men, and in fact probably less so. This is simply another case of looking at an extremely small sampling of a population and extrapolating pejoratives to a hysterical degree.

And Bruin, thanks for your usual calming post. I doubt Bristol and its environs is any better, or worse, than anywhere else in the number of overzealous womenfolk populating their eateries.

C

[Bruin Fisher]

I love you guys.

[Dorothy]

I often watch the police programs and have noticed that there is a frightening increase in young women rolling out of pubs and clubs almost paraletic. So I am not at all surprised about this report of noisy henparties.

Dorothy

[colinian]

I think you have just achieved that with your post, good Sir

PS. In Adelaide, all of our suburbs have at least one disgusting correspondent to the local paper...sorry, I mean disgusted correspondent, of course.

Des, don't you mean "a correspondent distinguished by his disguestedness"?

Colin