350,000 British students a year feel the need to hire a specialised company to help them get shitfaced.
I've heard of money paid to personal shoppers to help the wealthy look trendy. I've heard of hired job interview coaches and career advisors; style experts a-la Trinny and Susannah; private remedial teachers and even dog groomers.
But to pay someone to help you knock back shots on a night out is just in a league of its own. £10 for a white t-shirt with the word 'Carnage' on it and the chance of spotting your face amongst the online photos of paralytic young people in nightclubs. Wow. That sounds like fun.
Yet this is what 350,000 UK undergraduates have been doing each year since 2004- securing a company called 'Carnage UK' an annual turnover of £3,500,000.
Which can only be explained by galloping levels of social ineptitude.
I mean, how sad can you get if you can't even get to know people in your course or halls of residence? Is suggesting a night out such a daunting prospect that you've got to delegate Carnage UK to do it for you, in the sad hope that getting wankered on an industrial scale or vomiting all over the pavement may help you make friends and maybe even get a blow job?
And if even the Sun, normally so sympathetic to lairy larffs and tits-out-for-the-boys, finds it so sad (see here and here), then this Carnage stuff really must be loser-material.
Not convinced yet? Take a look at the recent photo (see top) of a shitfaced 19-year-old ex public schoolboy emptying his bladder on a WWI memorial in Sheffield.
*UPDATE- I've just come across a document online (a letter, in fact), written by the Group Managing Director of VLG, Carnage's parent company. Dated, 16 September 2008, it says: "We would also like to state that we currently do NOT operate ANY UK events under the slogan ‘It’s gonna get messy.’" I then checked one of the Carnage UK Facebook pages. It says: "Carnage UK will be gracing the streets of Brighton once again to provide YOU with a night to remember! Remember..it's gonna get MESSY!"
Also on the subject: "Retch, student, retch"
I've heard of money paid to personal shoppers to help the wealthy look trendy. I've heard of hired job interview coaches and career advisors; style experts a-la Trinny and Susannah; private remedial teachers and even dog groomers.
But to pay someone to help you knock back shots on a night out is just in a league of its own. £10 for a white t-shirt with the word 'Carnage' on it and the chance of spotting your face amongst the online photos of paralytic young people in nightclubs. Wow. That sounds like fun.
Yet this is what 350,000 UK undergraduates have been doing each year since 2004- securing a company called 'Carnage UK' an annual turnover of £3,500,000.
Which can only be explained by galloping levels of social ineptitude.
I mean, how sad can you get if you can't even get to know people in your course or halls of residence? Is suggesting a night out such a daunting prospect that you've got to delegate Carnage UK to do it for you, in the sad hope that getting wankered on an industrial scale or vomiting all over the pavement may help you make friends and maybe even get a blow job?And if even the Sun, normally so sympathetic to lairy larffs and tits-out-for-the-boys, finds it so sad (see here and here), then this Carnage stuff really must be loser-material.
Not convinced yet? Take a look at the recent photo (see top) of a shitfaced 19-year-old ex public schoolboy emptying his bladder on a WWI memorial in Sheffield.
*UPDATE- I've just come across a document online (a letter, in fact), written by the Group Managing Director of VLG, Carnage's parent company. Dated, 16 September 2008, it says: "We would also like to state that we currently do NOT operate ANY UK events under the slogan ‘It’s gonna get messy.’" I then checked one of the Carnage UK Facebook pages. It says: "Carnage UK will be gracing the streets of Brighton once again to provide YOU with a night to remember! Remember..it's gonna get MESSY!"
Also on the subject: "Retch, student, retch"
8 comments:
Was this perchance dreamt up by a Birmingham student? It's what the annual charity pubcrawl was called when I was at uni there, from at least my second year (which was 2001).
"Tickets" always sold out on the day of the launch.
Never went myself, but there were always some rather unpleasant tales going round afterwards.
Indeed Phil.
According to the papers the guy behind is a former Birmingham student indeed. The parent company is, alas, also based in Brum.
It makes me so proud.
Take an ill-advised once-yearly student charity event, and replicate it many times across the country for personal profit.
Classy.
Good fucking grief, some people are indeed idiots but Claude, it is not that many steps removed from the organised chaos of package holidays and all that entails.
Totally.
I remember "Carnage" from when I was a student at Brum. I was on a bus one evening going up Broad St, reading a book, and there they were, staggering up the road wearing Carnage T-shirts and looking drunk. *slow hand clap* And I still see them now wearing those T's. I thought it was something to do with the Guild...!
I had friends who went to "Carnage" though and it really didn't sound like my cup of tea (a cup of tea being what I rather have than an evening of "Carnage").
Regarding that photo, I wonder how staged it was? It's pretty shocking to pee on the memory of dead conscripts, but it's a bit like that photo from the mod/rocker riots in 1964. The headline was "Putting the boot in" and the photo seemed to show a mod kicking a rocker (kicking anything in desert boots doesn't sound like a good idea to me, though).
It turned out the photo was completely staged - the two boys were actually friends and were told to pose by the photographer.
I wouldn't be surprised if a photographer paid (in pints?) the student to wee on a war memorial.
Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if someone weed on a war memorial with no encouragement whatsoever....
(squaddies never get drunk or wee in inappropriate places, of course)
Sorry... big waffle there...
Yes, I was incredulous at having to spend £10 to find bars. Still, I've seen similar in Crete.
My recollection of such (free) events actually centre around Hagley road - The Duck, Unspoilt By Progress and Ivy Bush(?)before staggering into town. Didn't feel the need to desecrate a memorial though - not even during my white poppy days -
Now where dis I put that 'I hate students' badge?
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