TVR Gone Now!

Not sure about the Capri driver Dom. Although he was going fairly fast, I can't remember if he was overtaking on the left because the car in the outside lane was turning right. It happened about 30 years ago. I do remember the flying pram and (just before the impact) the mother's lack of judgement.

 

Don't get me wrong - I'm not gloating in the carnage (even if it appeared like that); that's an appalling thing to have to see. I've seen the aftermath of a few pretty nasty pedestrian/motorbiker car accidents - very grim business.

If it was 30 years ago it was almost certainly a Mk1 - probably being driven by a real speed head - the Capri was never one for handling well either - real point and squirt. I'd imagine a fair few got written off by inexperienced showoffs...

 

Got twin overhead cams in me ford capri, its got 2 dipsticks and one of thems me!

 

I hope it has fluffy dice and 8track as well

We inherited a Mk1 (it replaced a mentioned-elsewhere Austin 1800 that died of terminal hydrolastic suspension collapse) and I still miss that metallic brown (I kid you not!) Capri 1600GT - it was a 1972 classic - with original AM radio too.

Mind you, my dad still drove it like a snail...

Oh - for non-Capri lovers, check out the one that gets blown up in "Bad Taste"

 

bob,

so wayne rooney is working class is he?

 

John a Chav is not defined by their social status but their mentality. They have absolutely no respect for anything but themselves and as a result are some of the nastiest people to be around unless you are considered part of their gang. In fact it could be said Chav is a gang in itself, if you don't dress the same as everyone else you get mocked and beat up.

I suspect if you lived around here for a while you would quickly change your mind and be pleased if the term was considered an insult. There are truly a lot of Chav's around here that IMO deserve little less than a death sentence as they actually enjoy and take pride in committing the crimes they do.

You might guess I could tell you a few nasty stories. Where my best friend lives it is worse than here. He once saw someone getting hung by the neck from a tree by a group of Chavs as a joke. It was hilarious.

 

Tenson

As i said the use of Chav as a catch all is lazy. the way it is used, I suppose particularly in the media, ropes in huge swathes of the white working class who are hard working and law abiding, maybe asside from a dose of youthful exsuberance. Their only crime may be wearing junky rings and 'tracky bottoms tucked in socks'

The people you descibe aren't chavs they are young hooligans, lawbreakers what have you.

I live in south east london so i can relate to most of the stuff you experience and probably more but manage to resist the temptation to paint everyone with the same brush

 

at the end of the day actuaries determine how much insurance premiums are based on assessed risk and the total costs such risk is likely to incur. if insurance premiums price young drivers out of driving that's perceived as a good thing as in theory the risks are reduced. i doubt they go so far as to assess whether the likely increase in uninsured drivers actually presents an increased overall risk and i couldnt imagine if they did take this into consideration that they would respond by reducing premiums for young drivers in order to reduce the number of uninsured young drivers. their decision is simply a commercial calculation.

i would have thought that the higher premiums get (due to increased risk) the higher the risk due to more uninsured drivers thus the higher premiums thus more uninsured drivers.... - it could become a self-fuelling

 

John would you care to actually argue it then as it seems a rather trite and condescending remark to me.

 

greg

it would be quicker if you read my last two posts

 

john perhaps you could define what chav means - i find it difficult as it seems to have varying meanings according to who is using it and their location. to some the menacing youths on the street corner are the epitomy of chavdom to others rooney is, or beckham or the unmarried mother next door or the orange fake tan wife in her burberry and chealsea tractor or whatever. chav is a relatively recent word whos etymology it incredibly unclear. the fact that you find a word this new and undefined strikes me as kneejerk pc-ism of the worst kind. if you can offer up a definite origin of the word and a concrete definition of it that means the same to everyone then i'd be very interested to hear it.

 

Okay I can see what you mean but it does seem that an oddly large proportion of these young hooligans are chavs – people ‘wearing junky rings and tracky bottoms tucked in socks’ . I don't see anywhere near as many 'skaters' going around causing trouble, despite there being lots of them and it also being a kind of life style.

I’m sure there are chavs who are nice, but it seems to me the number of them who are as I described, having no respect, generally inconsiderate and rude, is large enough to tar the whole lot I’m afraid. It becomes dangerous not to at my age and where I live!

 

You suggest the term is used lazily and that you dont like it and you suggest everyone uses it as a catch all way of describing white, working class people - btw that's a bit partronising really.

However you dont actually argue how anyone who uses the term is one. Care to expand?

 

From Wiki -

Chav is a derogatory slang term in popular usage throughout the UK. It refers to a subculture stereotype of a person who is uneducated, uncultured and prone to antisocial or immoral behaviour. The label is typically, though not exclusively, applied to teenagers and young adults of white working-class or lower-middle class origin. Chav is used for both sexes, where a male chav is sometimes referred to as a chavster and a female as a chavette.

 

going back to the old chav thing - in the north east the word 'charva / charver' was in use (that I know off) around 1991 and it then simply was another word for a bloke or geezer, it didn't seem (from what I recall) to be used as a derogitary...

but I guess it's a more social thing now

 

I think it would be fair to say that the web site www.chavscum.co.uk is solely responsible for the huge, viral adoption of the term in the past two years or so. It became a way of hard working "middle class" (whetever that means) office types have a snigger at the "chavs" without the chavs understanding the joke. Interestingly it has partly succeeded in applying a brand name to enable easy labelling beyong the old fashioned terms like "yob" or "hooligan" which have their roots in the 60's/70's/80's.

Where referring to someone as a "geezer" is generally perceived as a term of respect, being referred to as a "chav" is probably largely considered a pi55 take, though I think some people like to use the term to describe themself in the same "fcuk you" vein as calling oneself and ones associates a "n1gga" if black or "queer" if gay.

 

greg

i don't see how expressing a view on language usage is patronising.

my initial comment was a little toungue in cheek, granted.

 

julian

you want some definitions - he is what I think people mean when they use the word

chav - council house scum
chav - looks like council house scum
chav - young hooligan
chav - white/poor
chav - isn't as sophisticated as me
chav - has bad/no taste
chav - claims benefits

pretty odious expression then

 

chav - council house scum
chav - looks like council house scum
chav - young hooligan
chav - white/poor
chav - isn't as sophisticated as me
chav - has bad/no taste
chav - claims benefits

That pretty makes the entire country chavs then (sorry I have not followed the thread properly).

I am sure most of us had been poor and have claimed benefits at some stage during our lifes unless we were born with a silver spoon.

To me a chav is just a long term unemployed person dressed in £300 worth of fake clothes who does nothing but hang round street corners waiting for bikes to steal

 

some nice emotive words there john but i don;t see how the beckhams, rooney or 'footballers wife' type 30 something soccer mums in burberry, gold chains and sprayed orange fit in there.
chav seems to be the swiss army knife of terms at present so i can see no point in being offended by it. certainly as long as there are multi millionaire journalists making tv programmes to proclaim themselves 'chavs' (i forget the journalist in question but it was some inane bint who's waffling prompted me to chanel surf every 5 minutes) i'll be taking the whole chav phenomenon with a pinch of salt.
looking closer at what you describe i'd say the term 'hoodie' in the non clothing sense would be a more accurate term than chav.