Discriminatory Petrol 'Offers'

[RedexRobB]

Have to say, when i went to france last year I was pretty embarrased to find that they spoke more english than i could french!

[Jamz]

I try to speak thier language and eat thier food when I go to foreign climes...

No doubt I've ranted before about people who go on holiday and try to keep a little bubble of England around them. What a waste!

Even worse are these Poncho's trying to get you into thier clubs!

"Come eeen! Eet just like Eeengland, no? Just like back home!"

I didn't come all the way to -ing Spain to sit in an English bar, drinking English beer, with East -ing Enders on a TV screen, and English bastardy food!!!! :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013

[superman]

well to be honest in my book when i go abroad i like to learn the "lingo" in my view it helps and to be honest the locals love it even if you dont quite get the pronounciation correct. i would really like to learn chinease and spend some time over there one day i think.. anyway, if someone pays to go on holiday its there choice on what they do surely. as for the abide by there rules its true... you have to stick by there rules or your out on your neck. the only reason its tolerated more in places like the coasts of spain is because £££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££ have you ever seen the POLITZI beat an english tourist for bein to leary..... in my view thoe our police should have them powers i think it would knock half the trouble straight on its head....

[Caz]

I always make sure that I can atleast say 'thank you' , 'i dont understand' and the essential phrase when you are away on business ' can i have a receipt please'

in Germany, I order everything that I can in German and only resort to English at an absolutely last resort. I was even ordering beer in Finland! probably provided much amusement to the bar staff - drunk British girl ordering beer in Finland in very bad Swedish!

[Zedder]

I didn't come all the way to -ing Spain to sit in an English bar, drinking English beer, with East -ing Enders on a TV screen, and English bastardy food!!!! :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013

Unfortunately Jamz, we're in a minority when we go on hols. I don't get that either.

[Caz]

I didn't come all the way to -ing Spain to sit in an English bar, drinking English beer, with East -ing Enders on a TV screen, and English bastardy food!!!! :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013 :smt013

Unfortunately Jamz, we're in a minority when we go on hols. I don't get that either.

easy way to avoid that is to not go to the main tourist hotspots.

When I go away I do it to escape British lifestyle/food/people etc and to experience the country I am going to. I eat local food, go out where the locals go, drink local beer (which is usually 100 times better than the stuff you get in UK) and I do my best to try and avoid being labled as a foreigner

I think that the majority of people want to go on holiday like this, however as per usual, it is the small minority of people (trying to replicated the UK) who have the loudest voices!

[superman]

dont get me wrong here but if i go to a non english speaking country i prefer to stay where other brits are it feels better. dont like the thought of bein out in the sticks where the only native words you know are hello goodbye please and thankyou

[RedexRobB]

I quite like the idea of being out in the stix! Only then do you get a true sense being away from britain!

[Jamz]

Superman - I have a mate who's been in China now for about 5 years teaching out there.

When he comes back his has the most fkd up accent I've ever heard in my life!!!

Imagine Brummie spoken with all the Chinese speech inflections???

I swear I'm going to record him when he comes home for Christmas this year!

[superman]

haha cool... im thinkin of what it might sound like,.... pass the gravay pluys, Quickryyyyy.

ill obviously not get a wonkey accent if i go there

[deviant]

Right then, since I'm partially responsible for the tangential nature of this thread I suppose I'd better explain myself...

The reason for my original response to Northern Andy was that we were talking about whether bikers should remove their helmets before going in to a petrol station shop. His response was to say words to the effect of "well I take mine off otherwise I'd be no better than one of those Muslims".

Why did I get pissed off with that?

Well first and foremost because there's no connection between bikers who want to save a few minutes at the petrol station and people who choose to cover up their head/face in public because of a belief system dating back thousands of years. Having to take your lid off doesn't hurt you, it isn't (whatever Jamz's views on biking as a religion) the same as being forced to do something which is against your fundamental beliefs.

So I was forced to ask myself why Andy brought the comparison into the thread, particularly in such a derogatory tone. Or why Scott221 then weighed in with a load of tabloid hyperbole, all of which is demonstrably false. I'm trying not to make this personal towards you two, but having been the reason behind my original responses I am obviously now trying to explain my reasoning to you and to encourage you to think about your own reasoning. (which is what I should have done in the first place, but I was tired and generally disillusioned with the world at the time and settled for abuse instead - for that and that only I apologise fully to everyone on here)

As far as I can see there are two 'concerns' here. The first being that somehow people are getting away with things you can't and justifying it on grounds of race/religion. The other being that what you might class as "the british way of life" is somehow being eroded by a multicultural society.

I've already mentioned the first of these, and my opinion is that there is no parallel. not being able to wear your lid in a petrol station does you no harm. a muslim woman wearing a headscarf in a petrol station does you no harm, but making her remove it might cause her considerable distress. a muslim girl wearing a headscarf to school (substitute sikh girl/bangle or any other examples that have arisen recently if you prefer) does not destroy the education system, despite what the Daily Mail might tell you. And if none of it hurts you, why turn it into an issue. And to quote Caz - "There are always going to be people who abuse the system, it doesn't matter if they are white/black/asian/male/female/young/old."

As to the death of the British way of life, I challenge you to define what the British way of life ever was. Everyone on this island is an immigrant or descendant of immigrants in one way or another. It's just that for the first few thousand years there was no quick transport so the people that arrived were mostly white europeans. But with every influx of people from the Romans onwards 'British Culture' changed. Now people come in from further afield and are more recognisable as 'different'. And our way of life changes as a result. But it changes slowly and in the long term it changes for the better. In my opinion there are a lot of things which are making bigger changes to our way of life than any amount of immigration - take the internet as an example - you could easily make the case that that is steering us towards a homogenised, americanised culture. But while people occasionally complain about that, noone is trying to ban the internet, or attacking the offices of ISP's, or claiming that people who use the internet are inferior to people who don't.

Like Caz, I grew up in Birmingham, where living alongside different races is a fact of life, whatever your background. There's people of all races scraping a living and there's people of all races living in leafy suburbs and sending their kids to private schools. And this has been the case for longer than the 25 years that I have been on this planet.

But in my opinion the grit in the ointment isn't the occasional idiot like Nick Griffin that believes in deporting everyone who's not white (although he doesn't help). It's the petty things like racist jokes, or making some of the comments that we've seen on this thread, and all those other things that keep the resentment bubbling away just below the surface, and maintain the belief that your world would be just a bit better if it wasn't for all these asians/blacks/muslims/whatever about the place, rather than taking responsibility for your own situation.

So to bring this to a close, I'll apologise to everyone who's read this thread for the *way* in which I replied to Andy's post, but I won't apologise for the fact I did reply.

[RedexRobB]

I have just remembered something my mum told me once, and thats 'you should never bring religion and politics into conversation'.

[Jamz]

Well first and foremost because there's no connection between bikers who want to save a few minutes at the petrol station and people who choose to cover up their head/face in public because of a belief system dating back thousands of years. Having to take your lid off doesn't hurt you, it isn't (whatever Jamz's views on biking as a religion) the same as being forced to do something which is against your fundamental beliefs.

The knee-jerk reaction to this always comes down to religion, so people often neglect the reasons WHY we are asked to remove our helmets.

The long and short of it is that they want to see everyones face incase they participate in criminal behaviour.

Therefore it doesn't matter in the slightest whether your religion or any other reason dictates that your face be covered - and by saying that it's ok for Muslims to cover their faces you're assuming they can't possibly ever be involved in any criminal activity which would benefit them to be anonymous for. If you wore a balaclava and said you wore it because you were in the IRA, they wouldn't be too happy with that.

So by saying bikers must remove helmets, they're saying there is some expectation that the biker has criminal intent, whereas the burka-wearer has no criminal intent.

And THAT is where the prejudice lies, because for whatever reason one person is allowed to cover their face and the other isn't.

Religion doesn't even come into it, and shouldn't, either.

[RedexRobB]

The long and short of it is that they want to see everyones face incase they participate in criminal behaviour.

Isnt this what i said to start with?

[superman]

i agree with james on that one yet deviant has a point about something that has been practiced for thousands of years. BUT i do know the head dress isnt a must wear is it. i aint got no problem takin my helmet off in a station but if i went in as saw someone with a balaclava on i would be pssed..
also one thing that did pss me off enough about what deviant wrote weather he knew what he did or didnt mean it.

maintain the belief that your world would be just a bit better if it wasn't for all these asians/blacks/muslims/whatever about the place, rather than taking responsibility for your own situation.

so there your assuming that its just white ppl who are racist. which would be very VERY wrong iv met ppl from all sorts of minoritys that are racist. as for racist jokes, if no one is offended then no problem i find them funny and yes i laugh at white, black, irish, asian etc jokes....