Grunt Report from London: Brexit, Trump, Guns, Snogging and More

James Gruntson, Drunken Gruntington Post Foreign Correspondent

Gruntington Post[London] – Our man on the street in London, James Gruntson, has finally achieved enough sobriety to post his report on the political vibe in London less than two weeks before the historic Brexit vote.  His report was dictated Saturday evening via a Skype session directly from a pub off Regent Street in Soho where he was drinking with his college classmates from Colorado and assorted new European friends and interview subjects.

Drinking, for twenty-year-olds in the USA is, of course, illegal.  So, our intrepid correspondent’s first major discovery was that he really liked drinking in pubs legally.  His second was that the same Irish/English porters and ales that taste like crap in the USA taste shockingly good on draught in the UK.  He didn’t mind telling us that he had no problem drinking 8 or 9 Imperial pints of Guinness in one sitting, and he seemed to take some pride in this.  Further, that seemed to be a fairly common occurrence.  Suddenly, it became clear that we were going to need to get all the information we could via phone before James passed out, and we were going to have to write his article about Brexit ourselves if it was going to get written at all.  So here goes.

Piccadilly Circus, Soho, London, UK

PM David Cameron has campaigned against Brexit and for the EU

On Brexit: This national referendum is a simple up or down vote on the United Kingdom staying in the European Union, and it’s scheduled for June 23rd.  Enormous pressure is being applied to brits through political speeches and scaremongering advert campaigns to get people to vote one way or another.  James’ take is that the older brits who voted to join the EU in the first place have concluded that it was a bust, and they’re all mostly voting against it.  Staying in means being taxed by unelected control-freak assholes in Brussels, loss of sovereignty, and a marginally better trade situation.  The clueless young, who would all be Bernie Sanders Zombies if they lived in the USA, are voting to stay in the EU, simply because they are too stupid to know better.  The more mature voters expect to win, because they seem to be more numerous than the young in this country where people stopped breeding in earnest decades ago.

On Trump:  This was surprising.  Because James was traveling with a number of cute, young college females who were thoroughly brainwashed into thinking that Bernie Sanders is the Messiah, he didn’t expect that any socialist-leaning Brits would do anything other than reinforce that mindset.  That turned out to be wrong.

The George Pub in Soho

Just today, in fact, some French dude was chatting up the girls and putting the heavy moves on them at the pub.  Dutifully observing through bloodshot eyes, James noticed him start to ask the girls political questions.  After hearing their usual answer, French dude asked if they’d considered voting for Trump.  “That racist bastard?  Of course not!”  Frenchy pointed out, “You know, he’s not really racist, clearly; he just speaks his mind honestly.  Personally, I think he’d make the best President out of all the others who ran.”

This was typical, apparently, and it gave James huge thrills because it was just so unexpected that the natives would be helping him make his favorite point with his Bernista classmates.  Was this a universal phenomenon?  Impossible to tell, but keep in mind that he observed this in Soho among the youngest, hippest people practically anywhere.  This wasn’t in Northumberwinchesterderbyshire.  This could be a good sign.

On Guns:  One of the things James observed in the British theatre and on the street was that there are 3 things that get a pretty sound mocking:  Scots, the French, and American’s infatuation with guns.  However, he also noticed that despite the world perception of London being a peaceful gun-free zone, it’s really more like an armed refugee camp with every square inch under constant video surveillance and a fully automatic weapon in the hands of a paramilitary copper on literally every corner of the city.  Ironic, it seems that here you are never very far from having a loaded machine gun in your face.  James also experienced a bomb scare and (unrelated) fire in a tube station that panicked everyone and brought in truckloads of additional heavily armed soldiers.

On Snogging:  Apparently, wherever you go in public in London, there are people snogging like crazy.  There are people snogging in the bushes, in the dim corners of tube stations, on the tube trains, in restaurants and clubs, even in the pubs.  There are couples on park benches coming within millimeters of needed to bring out the condoms because they’re essentially shagging at that point.

Snogging Like There’s No Tomorrow in London

No, really.  While we, in America are obsessing about whether women should breastfeed babies under discreet blankets in public, Britons are happily tonsil-probing, heavy petting and sucking on plump nipples right out in public, and nobody seems to notice or care.  Strange, that.  But, at least they seem to be coming around to their senses on Brexit and are beginning to be rather fond of Donald Trump.  All in all, things may be looking up in the land of the Prime Meridian and the home of the Queen.  At least, that’s the observation of our chronically smashed correspondent.  When he sobers up again, we may get another installment.  Hopefully, that will happen before King George VII (Prince Charles) gets coronated – corona’d – crowned.  Whatever.