swappies & having a laugh

[KeyboardJockey]

The more I think about it the more the idea of a swappie controlled state appeals less and less.

No pubs
no humour
herded into draughtly halls and harrranged by Rebel Warrior et al
compulsory Brainwashing


Sounds like a mashocists delight rather than a governmental system.

 

[Pickman's model]

Hmmmm fair point but what the hell is one sitting? Does that mean if I drink up to my limit get up and come back an hour later thats a new sitting?

i fear you'll find that's a double binge.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

i fear you'll find that's a double binge.

Scary!

(oh yeah sorry to derail you're thread with this curiosity got the better of me!)

 

[bolshiebhoy]

This is getting a bit silly. I know for a fact the SWP CC is full of people who in certain states of the US would be defined as alcoholics. I agree that the editor of SW has got it a bit wrong this week. But hold your horses collective critics of the SWP.

 

[easy g]

They do? I thought it was drinking more than a certain number of units in any one week?

you wouldn't necessarily be binging then....

 

[Kid_Eternity]

you wouldn't necessarily be binging then....

Eh? So if I think I aint binge drinking i'm not?!

 

[Pickman's model]

Eh? So if I think I aint binge drinking i'm not?!

no. the number of units yr supposed to have each week is something like 21.

assuming there's 2 units in a pint, if you have two pints each night in the week yr on 28 units, not binging but above yr recommended maximum.

 

[hibee]

The more I think about it the more the idea of a swappie controlled state appeals less and less.

No pubs
no humour
herded into draughtly halls and harrranged by Rebel Warrior et al
compulsory Brainwashing


Sounds like a mashocists delight rather than a governmental system.

Said it before.

Tough on fun. Tough on the causes of fun.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

no. the number of units yr supposed to have each week is something like 21.

assuming there's 2 units in a pint, if you have two pints each night in the week yr on 28 units, not binging but above yr recommended maximum.

Oh right...yeah 21 units is a shit number though, it doesn't account for things like height, weight etc, its an "average man" number aint it?

 

[flypanam]

SWP ruin our fun.

 

[tollbar]

I remember when it was part of the thursday night ritual to get a few pints down, go to an SWP meeting and hear the chair say "sorry about not making much sense comrades, I'm pissed" and no one batted an eyelid. The most attractive thing about the swipes used to be that they liked a good bucket. Reading stuff like this makes you want to take out a sub to Spiked.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

You really think most swps aren't still out of it most of the time they're not at work? Course they are. There were always people in every branch who frowned on the drinking and good luck to them but they were always a minority. What is it Cliff used to say 'nothing human is alien to a marxist'.

 

[articul8]

and Marx himself liked a bevvy or two, of course.
In fact didn't he nearly get thrown out of uni for pissed-up high-jinx?

Maybe the "sober" turn has something to do with not offending muslims?

 

[Chuck Wilson]

For once PM has a point. What the hell is SW doing giving vent to such prudish crap? There is nothing for or against drinking to excess from a political point of view. The IS was built on people (Cliff not withstanding) who got up for industrial sales at silly o'clock with the most profound hangovers. Capitlaism sucks. If you're telling us we can't blot it out for a few hours and still be good socialists then you can feck right off.

I always thoought that the SWP's decline was characterised by the abolition of the beer break at the weekly branch meetings.

I remeber a particularly acrimonious deabte about perspectives in the Willesden Branch on a very thirsty Thursday which Sheila McGregor attended. She rang the next day and said something like ' I have never ever heard a full timer heckled by a group of drunks like I did last night.We all like a drink but when I could see through the cigarette and cigar smoke I couldn't see over the glassess piled high on the tables.This isn't a night out its a branch meeting to attract contacts to' The fact that we had recruited most of our members locally from such thirsty Thursdays, Fridays , Saturday and Sundays was lost on her.

When I moved from London to Manchester in 1986 I was heartened to find that the beer break had not been abolished up there.of course less than twelve months later Manchester SWP had been 'modernised.'

 

[mk12]

My local branch has the meeting, then we get some drinks, and sit and continue to chat, with the speaker still there.

 

[james_walsh]

This is getting a bit silly. I know for a fact the SWP CC is full of people who in certain states of the US would be defined as alcoholics. I agree that the editor of SW has got it a bit wrong this week. But hold your horses collective critics of the SWP.

I've got too hold the horses, because you lot have scarred the horses..

I heard a story , that Marx almost got in a fight (when drunk) with some cockneys , over weather england or germany where better countries, he hadn't heard about the swp football ban , i guess.

Also when my old man told some students in the the DDR in the early 80's , that Marx liked a drink or three, they told him, that that was a capitalist lie.

Edit- i've also heard the Sparts are right piss heads, its the only alright thing i've ever heard about them.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

The more I think about it the more the idea of a swappie controlled state appeals less and less.

No pubs
no humour
herded into draughtly halls and harrranged by Rebel Warrior et al
compulsory Brainwashing


Sounds like a mashocists delight rather than a governmental system.

My experience of the SWP is that their members tend to drink more than average rather than less. I'd be more worried about their real plans to abolish competitive sport under socialism than their fictitious plan to abolish pubs.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Edit- i've also heard the Sparts are right piss heads, its the only alright thing i've ever heard about them.

Don't know about that, the only Spart I ever knew well was in Dublin (he later joined the SP) and he was a right old party killer. A few glasses of Bulgarian wine and he'd regale all and sundry with stories about how he left the US Maoists once they started pointing RPG's at the Chinese embassy. Scary folks these Sparts. Other than them there are pissheads and boring bastards in every party I've come across. If anthing Cliffites are usually worse than most other Trots (I like to think it's cause we are slightly more romantic in our marxism!)

 

[belboid]

Militant members used to be renowned pissheads - probly cos it was the only thing their CC allowed them to do ()

 

[Nigel Irritable]

There has always been and continues to be a fondness for boozing among members of the Socialist Party but over recent years a real effort has been made to seperate that from political activity. If we have to meet in pubs, people can and do have a pint during the meeting but actually getting pissed before or during the meeting isn't reasonable behaviour. Some branches discourage drinking during the meeting at all.

These days though we try where possible to have the actual branch meeting somewhere that isn't a pub. That was given added impetus here in Ireland by the growth in Socialist Youth which primarily involves school students. Most people in my SP branch joined as school students - and frankly neither most parents nor most pubs are overjoyed by the idea of fifteen year olds down the pub on a school night. It can be very difficult to get a decent meeting room that isn't in a pub though.

The Committee for a Workers International annual school in Belgium is absolute carnage however, at least as far as the northern europeans are concerned. The exception being the Swedish organisation which is quite puritanical about drink.

 

[audiotech]

I remember when it was part of the thursday night ritual to get a few pints down, go to an SWP meeting and hear the chair say "sorry about not making much sense comrades, I'm pissed" and no one batted an eyelid. The most attractive thing about the swipes used to be that they liked a good bucket. Reading stuff like this makes you want to take out a sub to Spiked.

Duncan Hallas fell off his chair on more than one occasion. He also chain smoked Capstan Full Strength. Gawd bless him.

 

[Karac]

I always thoought that the SWP's decline was characterised by the abolition of the beer break at the weekly branch meetings.

I remeber a particularly acrimonious deabte about perspectives in the Willesden Branch on a very thirsty Thursday which Sheila McGregor attended. She rang the next day and said something like ' I have never ever heard a full timer heckled by a group of drunks like I did last night.We all like a drink but when I could see through the cigarette and cigar smoke I couldn't see over the glassess piled high on the tables.This isn't a night out its a branch meeting to attract contacts to' The fact that we had recruited most of our members locally from such thirsty Thursdays, Fridays , Saturday and Sundays was lost on her.

When I moved from London to Manchester in 1986 I was heartened to find that the beer break had not been abolished up there.of course less than twelve months later Manchester SWP had been 'modernised.'

I was crying with laughter reading this!-quality!
When i was in the Millies we used to drink before and after the meeting but never during.
Though one guy used to go out for the odd line of coke in the bogs every now and again.

 

[audiotech]

I became to dislike Sheila McGregor intensely, when in a meeting I asked why the SWP weren't taking anti-fascism seriously? After much whispering, she said that I had a 'guilt complex'. To which I replied what bollocks.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

I was crying with laughter reading this!-quality!
When i was in the Millies we used to drink before and after the meeting but never during.
Though one guy used to go out for the odd line of coke in the bogs every now and again.

In Harlesden, Kilburn and Willesden branches the Thursday night meeting was treated by most as the weekend starts here. For a hardened minority the weekend used to start at about after the Thursday night paper sale at the Tube and railway stations. Our favourite game after a few pints was to make a contribution refering some strike or campaign in an obscure part of the world that we had read up on the night before that had nothing to do with the topic and then applaud.

When Paul Power, ws the district full timer he wouldn't allow coaches taking us to demos or pickets to stop at any pubs.When members started to take 'refreshments' ie cans and quarter bottles on the coaches he threatened to suspend people.We eventually settled on a no spirits line.

In Manchester there was a group of Irish lads who used to come all suited up to the meeting and then hit the town afterwards.

 

[audiotech]

ANL Carnival 1978. Somone had 'done a chemist' (allegedly) the night before. 'Smarties' passed around the coach. Some didn't sleep for three days.

 

[sevenstars]

I'd be more worried about their real plans to abolish competitive sport under socialism than their fictitious plan to abolish pubs.

Me too, I remember Marxism 1994 when the ban on having the world cup on the TV in the bars was first introduced...had a great time in the nearby pubs though.

Or 2002 when Chris Bamberry tried to discredit Brazillian football by denouncing them for never having had a Black captain...when a speaker slip was put in suggesting 1970 captain Carlos Alberto, he said 'he wasn't really Black, not like Pele' !

 

[bolshiebhoy]

You're kidding? The same Bambi who used to sit through caucuses doodling Gunners shite on his notepad.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

When I went to the founding conference of Socialist Youth, the guy on the door wouldn't let me in to start with because he thought I was drunk. Admittedly I did smell strongly of booze but this was a result of a hangover and not because I had started drinking early that morning. This left me briefly stuck outside with the Sparts. The combination of a vicious hangover and a group of Sparts is not one I care to repeat or would recommend to others.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Me too, I remember Marxism 1994 when the ban on having the world cup on the TV in the bars was first introduced...had a great time in the nearby pubs though.

Or 2002 when Chris Bamberry tried to discredit Brazillian football by denouncing them for never having had a Black captain...when a speaker slip was put in suggesting 1970 captain Carlos Alberto, he said 'he wasn't really Black, not like Pele' !

Or the famous circular in 1990 ( I think) that criticised members for not attending branch meetings when the World Cup games were on tv the same night.Branch Commitee members were ordered to confront the 'Terry Butcher' faction.

 

[Nigel Irritable]

They managed to schedule a relaunch of the ANL in Glasgow some years ago at the same time as an important Celtic-Rangers match.