Colo(u)r me shocked!/ People can really change

I am not a person that can be shocked easily. However, this little anecdote from my mother in a phone call yesterday surprised even me.

I have met/known a variety of “dangerous” people in my short life time: unpredictable crack addicts, pyscho ex-para alcoholics and various other ne’er do wells, although none struck as much fear into hearts of many people on my estate as the twins from the family I will refer to as the cast of Cheers.

Cliff and Norm were out and out scumbags, as were the rest of the family. You name the crime, it was probably them that did it. One of the reasons that I learned kung fu and karate as kid were to protect me from their ilk. I remember they were banned from every shop in our area and were always fighting. If one lost, you could guarantee the other was waiting with an iron bar. In the end, after a large number of complaints from other residents, the family was evicted and sent somewhere else. The reign of terror was over.

Fast forward 20-odd years. My mum and dad moved out of the city into a small country town due to a combination of ill health, shattered dreams and broken promises and are living in similar government sponsored accommodation. Rumours start circulating in the local neighbourhood that 2 gay nurses are moving into one of the houses after their previous house was firebombed ( :unamused: ) in a homophobic attack.
My mother goes to meet her new neighbours and recognizes one but she was not sure of the context. Going through her medical history proved a blank and so on until she asked, as a complete stab in the dark, “Do you have a twin brother?” To which he nervously replied “Yes”. Yep kids, it was Cliff.

Turns out that Cliff decided to leave his dark past behind him and went on the straight and narrow. He is now an extremely qualified nurse and lecturer who gives talks on equality in the medical profession :astonished: . He admitted that he was over compensating with the aggressive alpha male act and was seeking approval in his youth.

I have to say I’m still shocked after hearing that one, and I find it oddly inspiring as, given the history, he would be the last person you would think had made a success of himself, and to have come out.
To Cliff, although you will never see this :bravo:

Does anybody else have any similar inspiring tales?

[quote=“Funk500”]I am not a person that can be shocked easily. However, this little anecdote from my mother in a phone call yesterday surprised even me.

I have met/known a variety of “dangerous” people in my short life time: unpredictable crack addicts, pyscho ex-para alcoholics and various other ne’er do wells, although none struck as much fear into hearts of many people on my estate as the twins from the family I will refer to as the cast of Cheers.

Cliff and Norm were out and out scumbags, as were the rest of the family. You name the crime, it was probably them that did it. One of the reasons that I learned kung fu and karate as kid were to protect me from their ilk. I remember they were banned from every shop in our area and were always fighting. If one lost, you could guarantee the other was waiting with an iron bar. In the end, after a large number of complaints from other residents, the family was evicted and sent somewhere else. The reign of terror was over.

Fast forward 20-odd years. My mum and dad moved out of the city into a small country town due to a combination of ill health, shattered dreams and broken promises and are living in similar government sponsored accommodation. Rumours start circulating in the local neighbourhood that 2 gay nurses are moving into one of the houses after their previous house was firebombed ( :unamused: ) in a homophobic attack.
My mother goes to meet her new neighbours and recognizes one but she was not sure of the context. Going through her medical history proved a blank and so on until she asked, as a complete stab in the dark, “Do you have a twin brother?” To which he nervously replied “Yes”. Yep kids, it was Cliff.

Turns out that Cliff decided to leave his dark past behind him and went on the straight and narrow. He is now an extremely qualified nurse and lecturer who gives talks on equality in the medical profession :astonished: . He admitted that he was over compensating with the aggressive alpha male act and was seeking approval in his youth.

I have to say I’m still shocked after hearing that one, and I find it oddly inspiring as, given the history, he would be the last person you would think had made a success of himself, and to have come out.
To Cliff, although you will never see this :bravo:

Does anybody else have any similar inspiring tales?[/quote]

Well, for starters, there’s you yourself.
When I met you, you were an utter twat.
Now you’re, well…a married twat.

Wow, that’s quite a story.

[quote=“the chief”]
Well, for starters, there’s you yourself.
When I met you, you were an utter twat.
Now you’re, well…a married twat.[/quote]

Don’t forget how well he has managed to stay at the same height for so long. He has also managed to keep the exact same distance between his date of birth and mine. I think those are achievements worthy of note.

[quote=“the chief”]

Well, for starters, there’s you yourself.
When I met you, you were an utter twat.
Now you’re, well…a married twat.[/quote]

Good to see you find me so inspiring

I used to be a complete cow. I changed my ways this morning. It’s been 28 minutes. I’m ready to be an inspiration.

There was this little bastard on my father’s street in the fine burg of Langley. I’ll call him Jerry O’Brien, because that was the little fucker’s name. Burgled my father’s sister four times in as many weeks. After his bones had set, he saw the light and joined some ridiculous tambourine church and used to preach in Midd, outside the Civic Centre. He even went round and apologised to the family. Of course, my cousins made his life an absolute living hell for ever and ever Amen, after that. Meek now, are you? Good. :laughing:

Seriously though, I wish him well. Some kids have it hard.

Why are English people so violent?

Lots of reasons, historical and socio-political. There’s no such thing as the English people, being a good place to start. And we are a lot less violent than Scots.

I can probably explain some of it, to a sincere seeker.

Great story and no I can’t top it. All the scumbags i once knew are still scumbags.

Do you know what happened to Norm?

Prof Gao, you should take your sabbatical in South Africa.

Can you? That’d be great.

No really. We have some intense, quite often lethal violence in the US between gangs, and plenty of random school shootings, but there aren’t too many American schoolboys wandering around the streets with iron bars and billy clubs and knives, mauling and robbing everyone of all ages who cross their path. And young American men go to pubs to meet young American women, not get in fights with each other, beating each other’s faces into the floor, knocking out teeth and kicking their organs inside out. That seems to be standard fair in the UK, right alongside fish and chips. Why is that?

That’s all true, but you do have more of your fair share of serial killers and school shooters. Why is that? I’m glad that in Australia we don’t suffer from quite the same level of casual violence. The worst influence is arguably the obsessively destructive drinking culture.

I couldn’t possibly give a better answer than the one offered by MT in this thread.

That’s all true, but you do have more of your fair share of serial killers and school shooters. Why is that? I’m glad that in Australia we don’t suffer from quite the same level of casual violence. The worst influence is arguably the obsessively destructive drinking culture.[/quote]

British, Irish, Aussies… we all have massive amounts of casual violence. Mostly spawned by drink. In Britain and Ireland it’s half mindless violence by teenage yobs and half by drunken yobs of all classes. At least 50% must be drink related…alcohol is a depressant and also relieves your inhibitions, the scourge of drink. For young criminals it’s socialism gone wrong, they are not punished for minor crimes so the culture of impunity sets in early. The state must help me and and at the same time I must f%ck the state. The schools in UK and Ireland are also shockingly violent, I dealt out and received beatings in school that would be assault and edging towards GBH charges for adults! For me seeing Taiwanese society and kids in Taiwanese schools was a real eye opener.

Australia is the only place I’ve been attacked by a stranger woman (over a pool table). In fact I got into countless arguments over pool in Australia for no reason (guess they don’t like losing :slight_smile: ). Aussies are generally friendly folk, more like Americans in their love of country and less vandalism culture but quick to anger, it’s all that BS macho stuff. Me and my friends were run out of a country town in Queensland once cos the foks in the pub didn’t like us all wearing sunglasses in the bar ?!? Aussies also have a big drinking culture of course which combined with the macho posing doesn’t help.

Tribalism, mostly. Incredibly diverse society with a poor infrastructure and a dense population. The death of football.

[quote=“StuartCa”]

Do you know what happened to Norm?[/quote]

I asked my mother about Norm but apparently Cliff wouldn’t say more than “he’s still a waste of space”. I forgot to mention that he has tried his best to sever all links with his family.

[quote=“Funk500”]

I have met/known a variety of “dangerous” people in my short life time: unpredictable crack addicts, pyscho ex-para alcoholics and various other ne’er do wells[/quote]

Damn, I was hoping your post was going to be a story about your Taiwan coworkers :laughing: :wink:

[quote=“Chewycorns”][quote=“Funk500”]

I have met/known a variety of “dangerous” people in my short life time: unpredictable crack addicts, pyscho ex-para alcoholics and various other ne’er do wells[/quote]

Damn, I was hoping your post was going to be a story about your Taiwan coworkers :laughing: :wink:[/quote]

Expats in Taiwan are the least ‘dangerous’ people you’ll ever meet. The majority are deeply conservative middle class kids.

Maybe if one percent of Britland’s population was in jail like the situation in the states there’d be less of a problem?

Which 1%?