Photograph: Werner Schmidt

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Among Chavs And Yobbos At HRR?

As the ladies on the left are not following the HRR dress code "with a hemline below the knee", they will not be admitted to the Stewards' Enclosure. They just have to get drunk with the chavs and yobbos along the riverbank.

Previous years there have been some problems with chavs during the days of the Henley Royal Regatta, if I understand an article right in yesterday’s Henley Standard. The Thames Valley Police would like to have increased powers to crackdown on these unruly elements, take the liquor away from them and fine them a hefty 500 quid. Not that I can work out where the yobbos would get that kind of money, unless they are stealing it from the poor people they are harassing. Although, I do, of course, applaud and support law enforcement’s eagerness to keep the regatta spectators safe, I am twisting my brain to see what the chavers have to do with the Henley Royal Regatta. Any person showing ill-behaviour and acting in a disorderly way is doing so outside the regatta’s enclosures and after the regatta has ended for the day, it seems. Therefore calling the article “Clampdown on regatta drunks” is more than a little misleading. Read the article in Henley Standard here.

I do remember reading something in The Daily Telegraph a couple of years ago that the Henley Stewards’ decided to ditch the fireworks at the end of the very last day of the regatta due to drunkenness and pugnaciousness among the crowd. It seems not to have helped, I am sorry to say. (By the way, I found the article in the Telegraph, so click here to read it.)

So, all of you who are going to this year’s Henley Royal, do all your drinking inside the regatta’s different areas, away from the mob! I have decided, that now, when I am actually going to Henley this year, I will keep my drinking to the bar in the Press Tent. If you are looking for me, I will be under the third table on the left.

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