Lost Horizons

Fame is the Echo of actions....

Freedom, tolerance and liberty are fine sentiments in an open society, but when the anti-social activities of a minority are allowed to blemish the peace and tranquillity of the general public, then something needs to be done.
Last night, I was in Carnegies, helping to celebrate P’s birthday. As P had her work’s Xmas dinner last night, she didn’t turn up until a bit later. When I got there, the quiz was going on, and the bar was fairly busy, including some crew from HMS Echo, who were enjoying themselves in a sensible manner.
After the quiz finished, two groups of girls came into the bar, first some western girls, who were celebrating their friends last night in Hong Kong. Another group of Asian girls turned up, who were quite merry and obviously enjoying themselves. These girls asked if they could dance on the bar, so the brass guard rails were put up ready for the gyrations of these lovely ladies. Well, when I say lovely ladies, there was one exception, who reminded me of Trace from two fat slags in Viz magazine, but I digress.
One of these girls made it onto the bar, and started dancing. The matelots thought this was great and about four of them decided to dance on the bar as well. One in particular was very unsteady on his feet, and nearly fell off the bar a couple of times. This same person thought it would be absolutely hilarious to get the soda siphon and squirt the bar maid. NOT a good idea. He was immediately thrown out of the bar, and his mates shortly afterwards.
In my opinion, one of the main problems is the lack of education about alcohol in the UK:- we have sex education, classes on the dangers of drugs, government warnings about smoking, but, nothing to advise youngsters on the short and long term affects of excessive drinking. Every year at Christmas the government launches a very expensive advertising campaign against drink driving, but I think this money would be better spent educating children on the dangers of alcohol.
Having watched members of the US navy on shore leave here, behaving so well (OK, I know about the fight in Joe Bananas, when the Enterprise was here, but I didn’t see it), I felt that having had a few drinks the behaviour of these people from HMS Echo was disgraceful. Yes, the incident with the soda siphon was only mucking around, but generally, there language was foul and offensive, with every other word starting with a F.
Of course these guys, should be able to go ashore and enjoy themselves, but they should also remember that they are ambassadors of the Royal Navy, and last night it was not a pretty sight.
P really liked her present though.

posted by Luke @ 11:36 AM