Sunday, September 27, 2009

Donk: The Essence of the North West


Recently, in keeping with my North Western heritage, I have begun getting into the music of donk. Although i am not a chav, and my parents are pretty stable, so its not exactly a familiar scene.

If you are not from the north-west of England, I emplore you to now watch this video on the background of donk/chav culture, and get a feel of what the North West is like.



Particular highlights include:

"This is Spanish", Like Waynes World but with chavs.


"Do you want sittin on your fuckin arse?" I've seen this situation waayyy too many times, especially with the good Samaritan guy stepping in at the end "He's not worth it, not now mate, i'm not in the mood, don't touch me"


The "nice but dim bouncer", "If you do not let go of me, I will pop your eye out"

(the word was "co-operative" btw)


This skank. Although you may have seen a couple of maybe kind of attractive girls in the video, i guarentee most will end up looking like this. I recently witnessed an abomination like this hit on one of my friends in a pub, it was a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour.


There are far too many quality moments here containing the essence of the north west, so I find it hard to pinpoint any really, I just think you should watch the whole thing, and soak up the cultural wasteland of the North.

As you can probably guess, I have way more in common with the presenter here than anyone else featured, and find it funny to see him with all these working class northern types. There were probably a good few situations not shown where he got severely bullied and maybe even almost fought by his subjects, that weren't shown, and I have to give the guy mad props for going down Wigan pier, which is like Mordor for middle class kids like me and him. Although he was kind of undercover, in his new get up.

If you come from the north west of England, this video should make you squeal with recognition, as it definitely did me. Otherwise you will just find the strange sketchy working class English guys funny, but not really get it. I now feel like I have a one up on guys from New York or Tampa, even if it is just silly chav music.

On the note of Blackout Crew, I seriously love this group, even if they do look like the kind of people who would mug you/beat you up for having longish hair.
This is my personal fav, even if "put a donk on it" is their most famous track.



On a final note, this girls birthday party in the documentary shows just how classless northern girls are. Even though some may be attractive, the second they open their mouths it's all gone. This is probably why I developed a fascination with German girls, and I would get depressed whenever I came back from there, normally encountering someone like this girl at the airport. Now skip to 6:20, and feel my pain. It is a pain I still feel, and commonly run into at student house parties. Imagine trying to have a romantic moment with someone with that voice. At some point I will try and follow this up by documenting some hideous English girl voices, and post away. Until then, try and hold your puke back as she talks. Extreme example I know, but gives you a taste.


5 comments:

Matthew said...

Great post, mate! Have been living in Athens for the past 7 years and only get to see chavs/charvers on the local news when they invade Faliraki and Zante during the summer. A far cry from the council estates and shopping centres I recall so fondly back in the UK. Maybe donk will provide the soundtrack to piss-ups at holiday spots throughout the Mediterranean in summer, 2010...

Eyelicker said...

Athens? don't you guys get invaded every weekend by English working class hen and stag nights, with their self made "lads on tour" t shirts. I imagine there could be quite a lot of mobile phone donk during that time

Matthew said...

Haha! Well, we used to here, but think they figured that the Greek police were less hospitable than the dutch ones. Get quite a few coming over for Champions League football games though, but in those events you can appreciate that one's identity as a chav is largely shaped by region. Chavs in East Anglia (where was living before moving here) are nothing like those in Liverpool or Brum, but probably stating the bleeding obvious here. I read something about the other day about the originality of "the donk movement" being compared to what Napalm Death did when they got going in the 80s. Am sure Shane Embury would be well chuffed reading that..

Anonymous said...

A+++! I love hearing more about this from someone who's closer to it than I am- I can only observe with morbid fascination from behind the telescope, so to speak.

Matthew said...

Well, Sarge - chavs/bouncy house/scouse house/tartan house etc do form a very rich cultural tapestry indeed. Unfortunately, this hasn't yet been exported to other civilized countries yet. Also fair to say that had any chavs had half a business mind, they might have made a savvy investment in shares in Reebok (their Classic model of sport shoe remains, well, a classic), Adidas (nothing like hanging around the bus station on a wintry Saturday morning in your best white tracksuit) and Argos (purveyors of fine jewelery).