Yep, it's that time again. Large groups of school neds on NEPN stretch between Ainslie Park and Craigleith blocking the path and jumping out at passing cyclist along with accompanying verbal abuse. May have to adopt a new policy of avoiding that stretch of path at school hols time.Only a matter of time before somebody is knocked of and badly injured or robbed- wouldn't put anything past these little urchins.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Schools hols again so trainee jailbirds causing trouble
(122 posts)-
Posted 7 years ago #
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Similar story at junction of Macdonald Road and Leith Walk yesterday: large gang of wee needs in tracksuits and baseball caps (20 to 30 of them) hurling abuse at cyclists stopped at the lights. At least the road is wide enough to avoid them...
Posted 7 years ago # -
F&C was fine between Port Dundas and Maryhill McDs. I think they have smoothed out some of the setts. I was picking up a bust of Beethoven in the Common Wheel and looking at black bikes.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Can we lose the 'neds' thing at all? The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's addiction to social class as a prime signifier makes me sad.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@Iwrats Oaves, instead? Categorises behaviour independently of any social classification. Lifetime qualification thereas is free to anyone who has ever deliberately smashed some glass on a bike path.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Ok Iwererightaboutthatsaddle, any other suitable descriptions for those would be most welcome but it doesn't do away with the problem (eg grey hoody suits)
Posted 7 years ago # -
How about 'Scrotes'?
Posted 7 years ago # -
Lobotomites like the ones from new Vegas old world blues? They certainly fit the profile.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Wee eejits does it for me.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Or neds as they are also known.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Oh dear Dougal- we're seemingly not to call them "neds" (non- educated delinquents). Think I'll just call them Ds as obviously I can't be sure of their educational attainments but they are most definitely delinquents
Posted 7 years ago # -
I'm not interested in folk etymologies like Non Educated Delinquent (where do these daft ideas come from?! see also Port Out Starboard Home, Fornication Under Consent of the King, blah blah) but if I've got a perfectly reasonable word for hooligan in my dialect I'm going to use it.
Posted 7 years ago # -
I always assumed 'ned' was a contraction of "ne'er-do-well" and that the other explanation was a more recent backronym.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Not that I would regard Wikipedia as definitive -
"
Ned is a derogatory term applied in Scotland to hooligans, louts or petty criminals
"
Which we know, but it also says -
"
One folk etymology for Ned is that it stands for "Non-Educated Delinquent," a backronym which arose long after the word "ned" came into use.[15] In 2003, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosie Kane tabled a question to the Scottish Parliament condemning use of the word "ned", which she said was degrading and insulting to young people as it stood for non-educated delinquent."
Posted 7 years ago # -
I'm just annoyed that I can no longer use the name Ned as a shortening for Edward.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Aye you can.
RECLAIM IT.
'I'm Ned and I'm proud!'
Posted 7 years ago # -
I'm good with a sliding scale from pesky kids through oaves to delinquents and then rioters.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Sorted!
Posted 7 years ago # -
Shall we call them chavs, instead?
(Does anyone else think that neds are male but chavs can be male or female, or is that just me?)Incidentally, the whole point is that we want to be rude... or is it ok for me to call some person in a 4x4 who cut me up "an over-educated idiot" or some such, because I'm a fully-paid up member of the middle class myself?
Posted 7 years ago # -
nedd1e_h
Awesome, dude.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Whatever we call them they're out in force on NEPN around Crewe Toll and I'm at the point of using the road on the way home to avoid confrontation until they're back at school.
Posted 7 years ago # -
@fimm
I just feel sad when labels are applied as a function of class or skin colour rather than behaviour. If Princess Beatrice Elizabeth Mary of York stood at the top of MacDonald Road shouting at cyclists no one would use the words 'ned' or 'chav' in her regard. They might use 'hijinks' or 'cocaine frenzy' or something.
My neighbour calls me a 'toff' because I say 'window' and not 'windae'.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Insulting the middle class when you're in it or are further down the ladder is fine - we benefit from the system, we can take the odd bit of slagging. But I'll stick to insulting behavior when kids are acting up - categorizing poorer kids as "neds" or "chavs" never just stops with the individual youth who is actually up to no good, and tends to lead to a pernicious assumption that all those kids in grey hoodies/tracksuits/whatever are intrinsically suspect. Which has real life effects in policing, sentencing, second chances, attitudes from potential employers...
I know that when people actually ask kids from poorer backgrounds what they think about all this, they're VERY aware of what "society" thinks of them - not very much. And given how - legitimately! - sensitive we are on here to broad social attitudes to "bloody cyclists" perhaps try and think what it's like being inescapably labeled as a wee shite because of an accident of socio-economics...
Posted 7 years ago # -
For goodness sake let me repeat: Whatever we call them they're out in force on NEPN around Crewe Toll and I'm at the point of using the road on the way home to avoid confrontation until they're back at school.
Posted 7 years ago # -
"I just feel sad when labels are applied as a function of class or skin colour rather than behaviour"
I think you are missing a point here.
Whatever names are used and whatever assumptions are made about the individuals comprising the group that is involved in this particular bit of anti-social behaviour it's you who are relating the actions of a tiny minority to a whole "class".
Posted 7 years ago # -
Need more police on bikes!
Posted 7 years ago # -
Actually I think IWRATS and unhurt make good points.
A friend has a story of being on a train and wearing a hoodie; she said that the attitude, language and behaviour of the ticket inspector changed markedly when they realised that the person they were speaking to was not, in fact, a teenage male...Posted 7 years ago # -
Facts is that those children on holiday from school are causing trouble to innocent people walking and cycling on one of our main "safe routes" regardless of what we call them or what they are wearing!
Posted 7 years ago # -
"she said that the attitude, language and behaviour of the ticket inspector changed markedly when they realised that the person they were speaking to was not, in fact, a teenage male..."
Ah yes, appearances (and gender sometimes).
My son (generally well behaved Gillespie’s product) once decided to remove all his hair.
He soon discovered how skinheads are treated/feared.
Posted 7 years ago # -
Referring back upthread
"Jimmy Rabbitte: Do you not get it, lads? The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud.
"
Posted 7 years ago #
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