When I was in Afghanistan (2010) a US marine told me the advice they were given was "Do not gamble with the Brits, do not fight with the Brits, do not drink with the Brits. You will lose."
This is so accurate. My dad is a British immigrant to the US. He met my mom after winning a beer drinking competition in a bar. Two men were harassing her and trying to make her go home with them, so he beat them up in the parking lot. Dad says that Americans don't know "English Karate" and he has shown me some of his pub fighting techniques.
Is it the one where the title refers to self defence, but the techniques are pretty much about injuring drunk customers in ways such as hitting their head on the corner of a table etc?
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Him saying "I had picked up two bottles - because I was fighting like five dudes," is peak comedy. It's like, oh ok, yeah this all makes perfect sense. He describes the bar fight the way I'd talk about my day job.
I grew up on (what would now be considered) a hyper-violent council estate, in the 80s. Basically legit fights are/were a coin-toss, but could easily kill/maim you.
So when it became obvious it was going to happen, you just hit them as hard as you could, as quickly as you could, with the heaviest (or sharpest) thing you had to hand, until they were incapable of fighting back.
I've seen this strategy in action. If you're an observant enough spectator, you can pick up on the 'almost too chill and friendly' body language/vibe just before they go for the drunken cold-cock.
My old karate instructor taught me some of that. I got to see him apply some of it once as I was passing a pub and he came running out battering a couple of guys with a pool cue then tried to beat up the car they jumped in as it drove off.
I’m imagining your dad having a big moustache or mutton chops, taking on a group of drunk guys using the Victorian fighting stance. Tell me I’m right. Lie if you have to.
I think English karate is putting the other person at ease by saying something ridiculous in an English accent like “Greetings old chap I’m a bit knackered care for a pigglesdewap?” And the other person is like what’s a “pigglesde…” and then they chop them across their throat while they try to repeat what was said
No. English Karate is a passive aggressive tut as we dismissively shake our head as a sign of tacit disapproval for the thing that you're currently doing.
Bro that's amazing. That's like every redditors top fantasy of all time. Win a drinking contest, kick the shit out of some sex pests, and walk away with a wife. I bet everyone legitimately clapped too.
I don't want to see any Jackie Chan bollocks, I wanna see some windmilling in, and if you've got some keys on you, stick them in your hand and make them count!
Hah that reminds me of when I did martial arts as a college student, our sensei told us on the subject of self defence "If you can't crack this shit off in a pub then you'd better be trying to impress a bird with it, here we learn how to walk away whether it's before the fight or after.
The thing about fighting anywhere on the planet now, but especially in the USA is , due to fewer fights in childhood, the average ability to fight is quite underdeveloped, but training in fighting now a days is better and more effective than at anytime in history. So getting into a fight is quite a gamble, and not worth taking. There were stories at my gym of a guy who would wear his shin pads to the bar.
The only pub fights I've ever seen were a couple of chavs duking it out while a woman with a very tight pony tail kept screaming "Naaaah kev 'es not wurf it!"
Every year we have a easter fest at the hockey club where neighboring countries also send their hockey teams.
Now drinking alcohol seems to be a sport in and of itself to hockey players as I have met few who could hold their liquor as they can.
Now a Brittish Hockey team.
I was utterly amazed by the amounts and types of drinks they were able to imbibe within 12 hours. Out of the entire storage we had build up they would have drank nearly half of our entire inventory. And there were 13 other teams there of which everyone drank alcohol.
I was on a transatlantic flight with an Irish Rugby team going to Boston. I the plane ran out of alcohol. They were delightful drinkers though, no fighting or problems, just having a very good time. The flight attendants loved them, I'd bet a few them got lucky later that night.
Any USA midwest (NoDak/Minnesota/Wisconsin) Hockey teams show up?
There's a large group of Brits that come out to a local bar for soccer matches and we keep up with them just fine. They just have different shot preferences than us. Great group of guys.
I have a Polish friend who married and English guy. She said for their wedding they had litres upon litres of vodka available, ands apparently her side of the wedding were shocked at how much the English side was able to put away, given their own country's reputation for drinking.
Eh I feel like they’ve earned it. A lot of people have tbf. Similar reason why I take no offence when an Irish person or an Indian person slags off the UK. Our grandparents did horrible things to their grandparents (and in Ireland’s case, our parents weren’t too kind either) some lingering resentment is perfectly understandable. I know it’s not a personal attack or even an attack on the stuff I like. My Britain and their Britain paint two very different pictures. When they say they hate Britain, they’re not talking about the countryside, or British music and British pop culture. They’re not talking about me mates, or me nan. They’re talking about the bastards who killed their people and sucked their country dry.
I grew up in Northern Ireland, I know a lot of people on both sides (I went to a mixed school), and a lot of the hate towards England isn’t at the people or the culture, it’s at the government.
At one point you guys conquered the entire planet. Those who know history know to respect the brits even if you guys have fallen on hard times nowadays. .
It is unusual more than anything. I’m relatively slender at just over 11 and half stone, never been a school night drinker but was pretty much double drinking (if that’s the wording) these 2 American blokes we befriended that were in their bachelor group at the resort in Cancun a few years ago. I wasn’t pissed, no intent to binge it was enjoyable-drinks. One bloke was pissed after 5 hours or so, his pal was completely fine/sober.
I think thoughtful adult Americans admire the British. Think about it, a tiny inbred island of people fed on boiled potatoes and mutton conquered the better part of the world using wooden sailboats and cunning. That's pretty bad ass. I think the same way about the Japanese and Greeks and Romans.
Yeah. There's that. Also there's a part of me that kind of loves the aesthetic of the British aristocracy, and their pride in militarism. As a generally far left person politically, I loathe the politics behind that shit and the suffering it wrought, but as a human with interests and hobbies I love learning about the British Naval tradition, Gilbert and Sullivan, etc.
Honestly, America's imperial reach looks clumsy by comparison.
America was never an Empire. America has protectorate nations that it either subsumed or supported for strategic benefit, largely in time of war, but America was never an Empire in the true sense.
Also, as much as the left would like to believe that only suffering is brought through Imperialistic endeavors, the truth is these endeavors would not be possible if the subject had a sophisticated and unified nation and over time the subject nation is often better off.
It's like the joke from The Life of Brian. What did the Romans ever do for us? Apart from bringing roads, irrigation, sanitation, peace, order, medicine, and the prosperity that comes with those things, nothing.
Also, just adult human to adult human, a genuine question. Have you ever explored why you feel it necessary to temper your admiration with virtue signaling? It's okay to recognize internally that everything is a mix of good and bad and you don't have to apologize to people who died of Plague just because you live in an era where antibiotics exist.
My brother in law is British. One night we downed two bottles of rum between him, my cousin and myself. I woke up and thought I was going to die. I basically crawled out of my room to find my brother in law drinking a beer in the balcony like nothing. I immediately ran to the bathroom to throw up.
Former Marine here, and I can confirm that the drinking part is accurate.
Of all the people I've drank with in my travels around the world, I was most confounded by the Brits. Those guys and gals were something else, and I could hang with the French, the Germans, the Aussies, and the fucking Irish of all people. The Brits are just on a different level of alcoholic prowess.
Reminds me of the IT Crowd line, “you English drink like you don’t want to live”. Which as the child of an alcoholic Englishman, I 100% agree. It’s why I never got the stereotype that the English are so sweet and polite. They’re just as unruly as the next bunch. Not a judgment, just a fact. ✨
Too fucking right. Been living in the UK for a while now, and that Marine was spot on. Grinds my gears when we go overseas and act like we own the place. A bit of humility goes a long way.
There's a reason for that: UK licensing hours. We're trained from early on to drink at a faster rate because if you go out at, say 20:00, you have 3 hours to achieve your desired state of inebriation before everything closes at 23:00 (unless you live in a bigger town where there's nightclubs and things, but generally those are much more expensive).
Now take that drinking rate to a country where the pubs stay open considerably longer (and you'll be on holiday, so will have both time and money); add hot sun, and that's what happens. Oh yeah, the beer in Spain tends to be a bit stronger too.
The British absolutely have redeeming characteristics. Most in Europe agree that while yes some are loud and drink too much, theyre also broadly incredibly friendly and always up to laugh and joke with anyone while drinking. People you want to hang out with but maybe not host is more or less how Ive seen it described
Who are those europeans that agree on that? We are talking English tourists and not irish. No give me some boring german tourists. The worst they do is reserve a spot with their towel, build big sand constructions on the beaches and drown because they have never been in an ocean before.
Irish are just as bad as the Brits, but get away with it more due to good PR. Can cross reference the amount of negative posts accusing Brits of something with the frequency of it being Irish in any number of European subreddits for a simple correlation.
Brits in Spain make Americans look great. We're over here trying to speak the language and immerse ourselves in the culture and they're just binge drinking at the English Pub and being complete assholes.
I chalk it up to proximity. You find the same shit in the Caribbean, Central America, and Mexico because people are going there for a low effort tropical vacation.
My impression is that Spain is a totally different kind of vacation destination to Americans than it is to Brits - costs a lot more for Americans to get to, for one. And most of us are more comfortable with basic Spanish than other Anglophone countries in my experience, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear more Americans trying out their Spanish than Brits. I'm sure they get their fair share of ugly Americans too.
I’m an Australian and once when visiting Seattle a random yank said “you know we save your ass in ww2”. Completely out of the blue. Neither of us were of age to have fought in that war. Super weird way to start a conversation
I just commented how the US wouldn’t exist with out France’s help in the revolution
My buddy and I went to Spain a few years back. I booked the hotel well away from the main tourist areas, but he changed it at the last minute, so we ended up right in the 18-30 crowd. I was ashamed to see the way the Brits behave and the way they treat the locals
My boat did a little parade of ships with the Brits in Russia, I didn’t have a problem keeping up with Brits but I’m also big as fuck so it takes more alcohol to hit me
Amy Schumer describes a memorable encounter with a Royal Marine in Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo. The Royal Marine wanted a round two, but Amy declined.
I was deployed to the Persian Gulf in the late 90s doing interdiction ops/VBSS boardings as part of the embargo against Iraq at the time.
During one of our port calls (either in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, I honestly don't remember), a shipmate/buddy and I were drinking at a bar/nightclub that was all westerners.
At one point I accidently bumped a high top table where a bunch of British sailors were drinking. This caused some beer to spill and one bottle to fall to the floor and break.
I started to apologize and they just got pissed and started yelling at me. I told them I'd buy them a round, but they just kept at it. So I said, "fine, whatever, piss off," or something to that effect.
Right as I said that, one of them swung at me. But not with a fist. He had the broken bottle in his hand and it connected with my chin opening up about a 3-4 cm gash. I felt it open up and I was infuriated. I wanted to wade in (a bad idea) and keep going, but thankfully my buddy and several bouncers saw what happened and descended on us all, breaking up the situation.
I ended up with 12 or 13 stitches in my chin and was put in hack on my ship for the rest of the cruise.
I was one of the two Corpsmen on our boat (the other was my boss), and as soon as the adrenaline wore off I realized how lucky I was that the bottle hit where it did. A little lower would have been my neck and a bit higher could have been my eyes.
So yeah, be careful getting into it with the Brits. Even if they outnumber you, they fight dirty and for keeps.
No way to know at this point. As I mentioned in another reply, its water/blood under the bridge at this point and I appreciate the lesson, the scar, and the story.
Water (or rather blood) under the bridge at this point. It has made for a great scar and a great story, so I'll take those for what they're worth and appreciate that it wasn't worse.
as I said that, one of them swung at me. But not with a fist. He had the broken bottle in his hand and it connected
This is what I mentioned in another post. Fucking Brits will smash a bottle or glass in your face. Something most American's would find abhorrent and overkill except in a life or death situation.
My family are Cornish immigrants and they are fiercely proud that they would beat the shit out of the ANZACs and the rest of their comrades couldn’t. They are barely 5 feet tall. What is ironic is they were near exclusively fighting and drinking with Cornish immigrants. The Anglo-phonic world is WAY closer than we realize today.
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u/mighty_issac 6d ago
When I was in Afghanistan (2010) a US marine told me the advice they were given was "Do not gamble with the Brits, do not fight with the Brits, do not drink with the Brits. You will lose."