Fractured society

I've just come back from a week's holiday in a fun, cheap hotel full of Brits, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Spanish, Swiss and a few more nations. Embarrassingly I realised after a day or so that you could quite easily tell which were the Brits because generally they were the fattest, worst-dressed, least active and most tattooed and pierced. It made me so proud, particularly when one big English bloke passed me in the restaurant sporting a t-shirt bearing the words 'Masturbation is not a crime'. I'm guessing he's single.

I agree with Alan Greenspan that we need to pick up our flagging education system if we're to have a chance of competing globally in years to come but we also have to mend our increasingly insecure and weakening society if we're going to hold our own on any level in the future. I know ours isn't the only country facing increasing social problems but but that shouldn't bring comfort. Today we have calls for an alcohol tax rise to protect the young but it's going to take a lot more to reverse the trend of general over-indulgence in our country.

Let's get into a simpler, less selfish way of living. There are loads of ways to live for free and have fun on a budget. There's so much more real fun to be had in life and most of it is free!

Comments

[Nick Clayton]

I'd like to think the bloke with the "Masturbation is not a crime" was being ironic.

I live in Ibiza and a couple of years ago the local (non-tourist) shops seemed to have quite a few items with this slogan on it. (Actually I remember it as "Masturbating is not a crime." It's accurate either way.)

The first time I saw it was on a large local momma with her two unruly kids in a cafe. I can't imagine she had any idea of what it meant. I just remember leaving the cafe with a group of friends, none of whom had apparently noticed the woman, and all of us bursting out laughing.

Incidentally the same shops that were selling the masturbating tee shirts also had ones which said: "I'm running for a bus." Figure that one out...