h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

at the OGC.

They have got to be kidding about the Gaylords. Dangerous? They're high school aged white kids who hang around parks smoking cigarettes. There were a bunch of them in my high school (the phenomenon seemed limited to just at or just outside the city limits back in my day) and the most dangerous thing I ever knew them to do was fart in the public swimming pool.

I might need to clarify that "gaylord" was a mild UK schoolboy epithet for a homosexualist. See also "bummer", as in "one who bums" other men - "get off me you bummer."

Do they know the UKanian connotations of their name?

Gang websites and YouTube videos are an interesting phenomenon. Obviously it's all part of bigging them up as a force to be reckoned with...but also part of establishing a formal, official identity - about being as much an established institution as the police, of carving out control over part of their environment. That's a significant element in a lot of social deviancy: hopelessness = lack of self-determination.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gaylord

Do you enjoy listening to Laurie Taylor, Ed? I do, even if I only understand about a tenth of it at best.

To tell the truth...I think he's a bit of a self-important tw*t - but, yes, some interesting topics that don't get covered elsewhere.

The gangs issue always comes up in by semi-professional capacity. In the area I deal with, it's always a worry for teenage boys. Heavy shit!

A question being raised on R4 at some point soon is "can you stop being a Muslim?" amid fears of radicalising the young.

The gang problem around here's pretty isolated to the South and West sides of the city these days. When I was a kid, 20 years ago, we still had housing projects and also a couple neighborhoods near mine were considerably rougher than they are now that the city's phasing out segregated public housing and switching to mixed-income dwellings. With luck, the same thing will happen west and south, too. Spreading people amongst each other rather than isolating all the poverty (where it's easier to forget about, ignore or avoid people) seems to have a beneficial effect, overall and in general.

Seriously, though, the Gaylords were hardly toughs in my day- obnoxious punks, more like it. And no, I doubt they knew or cared about the UKnian connotations. Here, it's a brand name for corrugated cardboard cartons. When I worked in retail, and in the Traffic Department at Balfour, we referred to the large cardboard boxes that come stapled to pallets as "gaylords". I imagine, though, the "gangsters" () picked it up because it's a reasonably common given name.

The medical record envelopes we stock are still referred to as "Lloyd Georges" (after David Lloyd George, Prime Minister in the late 1910s who as Chancellor put together the first notions of a welfare state, including records for everyone).

The Glasgow problem is that gangs are *extremely* territorial. Kids can't go more than a couple of streets without fear of being attacked. So their solution? To form their own gang. It's mostly low-level stuff (although it does involve gangs, meat cleavers and the like) - but a good recruitment field for the drugs trade.

Funny how names stick. A number of old-timers like myself refer to our copy machine as "the Xerox", even though it's made by Minolta.

(Incidentally, if you're ever on the market for a new copier, run, don't walk, away from Minolta. These copiers blow.)

Is it still along sectarian lines?

The territoriality issue is the same here- it seems to be the primary motivating factor these days. Most of the "older" bangers are locked up, and the kids find themselves with no "leadership", so all kinds of little groups start up. It's not as bad as it could be- there's no legal gun owndership within the city, so access is limited to buying on the street and not taking dad's .22 to school, which is at least something- but things are far from perfect.

The worst gang problems are out in the suburbs, where the big-time bangers who deal in major drug and stolen goods distribution tend to live. It's easier to be "territorial" out in the 'burbs these days, where things are organized in subdivisions rather than becoming all mixed together. If I've explained that in any way that makes sense.

Not that I mean to say there's *no* gang crime in the city any more... there still is. Just that it seems that in the city it's more down to kids and younger people who either don't have much of anything and are fiercely "protecting" it or those who are just trying to "identify", rather than lots of big-time hoods and pimps.

Yes, the territoriality is along sectarian lines...to the extent that people in a Rangers gang will hate anyone in a Celtic gang even more than they do someone in a Rangers gang a couple of streets down.

The gang violence is more along the lower-level lines that PC describes (last para)....although there are also organised crime elements amongst adults. And organised crime feeds on the young gangs who want to up their rep. They're the logistical resources and cannon fodder. When they go into jail they're converted into customers - up to then the drugs of choice are cheap alcohol and hashish. The line of credit they're extended while developing a heroin habit also gives them obligations once they get out.

Nice, huh?

Quite. There but for the... mmm.

I recently found out the Ipswich - Norwich match is known as the "Old Farm Derby"*, though a little less hostile.


*Old Firm = Rangers v Celtic

>>There but for the...

Well that's just it. You're a normal kid born in the wrong place. You don't go looking for gang trouble, but it comes looking for you. You have to join a gang and carry a knife for your own protection....and you end up trapped in a jail-acquired habit and unpayable debt.

Serves them right for being moral degenerates in the first place, eh?

When I was in a Salvation Army hostel for a bit (back in Ipswich after dropping out of Uni and screwing up a couple of jobs) I met a guy from Paisley called Billy. He gave me bits of hash and was great company, when I could understand him. He came from similar impoverished circumstances as you've described - but was the warmest, kindest guy in the whole building. Certainly kinder than the Sally Ann people.

There's an update on the hand-shandy logo

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/04/the-original-lo.html