Sunday, August 21, 2005
Good and bad in Bilborough
I was successively depressed and angered, then cheered, yesterday evening at home. I was out in the back when I heard some young Darrens shouting "terrorist!" and "bomber!", which at first I thought was them pissing about amongst themselves, but soon figured they were abusing someone. I went out the front door and saw that the target of their abuse was an old Indian woman in a sari, who seemed outwardly unaffected by their bollox and had turned her back on them.
By the time I got out the door they were aways up the road out of sight. I suppose I should have gone after them to give them grief, but just stood there, stunned and angry and disgusted. The only way you can deal with lumpen white trash like them is with a firm slap in the gob, but that would lead to all sorts of aggro with parents, cops and the rest of it. At least, that was my excuse for inaction, pathetic as it was. Anyway, I got on with my hedge-pruning (awful time-consuming PITA that is - next house will be hedge-free) fuming at the racist scum and silently cursing Bilborough to all sorts of dark damnation.
(Had the darrens shared a brain cell amongst them, they'd have realised that the woman was Indian and most definitely not Muslim, the sari and lack of headscarf being a complete giveaway, but I don't suppose that would affect these tossers who probably consider anyone Asian-looking to be 'pakis' and 'bombers'. Fucking dimwits.)
Not long afterwards, a pair of large coaches drew up down the road, and I remembered that on Friday evening I'd come home past a load of cars parked along the road, with asian guys 'n' gals in suits and saris converging on one of the houses, where a party was in full swing. The next morning I was woken up at 8am by one of the coaches drawing up and the same snappily-dressed folk climbing on, so I figured it must have been an Indian wedding. Anyway, when the coaches returned around 8pm they disgorged an encouraging mix of happy people, including a fair few white folk with smiles on their faces and a wobble in their steps, who chatted and joshed merrily with the asian folk. Plainly all had had a damn good time.
That put a smile on my face, and to some degree banished the antics of the racist lumpens out of my mind, as it showed that the dipshit darrens were probably in a minority in Bilborough, and that some, if not most, folk here get on fine with each other, regardless of 'ethnic background'. It's just a sad blot on the estate that these young knuckledraggers, who look like the banjo-playing inbreed out of Deliverance, feel safe enough to come out with that sort of racist shit without any fear of comeback.
On a different note, I was astonished to be told, by my GF, that Bilborough College was 10th in the national league table for FE colleges. I knew it had a good rep from what folk at work said, but I didn't know it was that good. This partially explains why there's been so much new (and very tasty architecturally, IMO) building on the college site. With luck, the success of the college and the new blood it'll bring into the area will help drag Bilborough uphill.
By the time I got out the door they were aways up the road out of sight. I suppose I should have gone after them to give them grief, but just stood there, stunned and angry and disgusted. The only way you can deal with lumpen white trash like them is with a firm slap in the gob, but that would lead to all sorts of aggro with parents, cops and the rest of it. At least, that was my excuse for inaction, pathetic as it was. Anyway, I got on with my hedge-pruning (awful time-consuming PITA that is - next house will be hedge-free) fuming at the racist scum and silently cursing Bilborough to all sorts of dark damnation.
(Had the darrens shared a brain cell amongst them, they'd have realised that the woman was Indian and most definitely not Muslim, the sari and lack of headscarf being a complete giveaway, but I don't suppose that would affect these tossers who probably consider anyone Asian-looking to be 'pakis' and 'bombers'. Fucking dimwits.)
Not long afterwards, a pair of large coaches drew up down the road, and I remembered that on Friday evening I'd come home past a load of cars parked along the road, with asian guys 'n' gals in suits and saris converging on one of the houses, where a party was in full swing. The next morning I was woken up at 8am by one of the coaches drawing up and the same snappily-dressed folk climbing on, so I figured it must have been an Indian wedding. Anyway, when the coaches returned around 8pm they disgorged an encouraging mix of happy people, including a fair few white folk with smiles on their faces and a wobble in their steps, who chatted and joshed merrily with the asian folk. Plainly all had had a damn good time.
That put a smile on my face, and to some degree banished the antics of the racist lumpens out of my mind, as it showed that the dipshit darrens were probably in a minority in Bilborough, and that some, if not most, folk here get on fine with each other, regardless of 'ethnic background'. It's just a sad blot on the estate that these young knuckledraggers, who look like the banjo-playing inbreed out of Deliverance, feel safe enough to come out with that sort of racist shit without any fear of comeback.
On a different note, I was astonished to be told, by my GF, that Bilborough College was 10th in the national league table for FE colleges. I knew it had a good rep from what folk at work said, but I didn't know it was that good. This partially explains why there's been so much new (and very tasty architecturally, IMO) building on the college site. With luck, the success of the college and the new blood it'll bring into the area will help drag Bilborough uphill.