Just reading an article in the locaL PAPER about 'silly slapping' which is the rage amoung the toughs and slugs of England...i.e. your gang bust in on some unsuspecting person waiting at a buss stop, or walking alone, and beat them up, all the while it is being filmed by another gang member--to be posted on the net later, for all the sickos of the world to enjoy. Does anyone know or have heard of an incident like this. Are we at risk when we travel? Just one more thing to worry about?

I read about this yesterday. I think it is a really inappropriate name for mugging, it makes it sound so innocent.

You probably don't have to worry about it happening to you, but anything is possible. As the mantra goes, be cautious but have fun. We can't worry about everything that might happen.

When I first read this title I thought it was a joke. It sounds like the something straight out of Monty Python. But since this is real, I agree w/Sea Urchin that it s/b renamed.

I just came back from a 2-week trip to the UK and felt perfectly safe. You can't go thorugh life worrying about everything you hear in the news. I don't think you're any more at risk for being mugged in the UK than you are in the US.

I heard of a kind of similar activity that was filmed and investigated down in the Las Vegas area. Kid just fight each other and film it and it's just "all in good fun". Of course it got out of hand. Makes me wonder sometimes.

Over the decades, there have been periodic media panics about youth gang violence based on a few well-publicised incidents (don't forget this is the summer 'silly season' where there isn't much news). Where anything like this happens, it tends to be between young people who probably know each other already, in places near to where they live and congregate.

In other words, it's rather less likely to happen to someone visiting major tourist attractions than any other sort of crime, and much less likely than, say, an accident from not looking the right way crossing the road.

"Silly slapping" makes me think of the Monty Python skit where Michael Palin dances up to John Cleese and slaps him in the face with a herring. And then he does it again. And again. Then Cleese clonks him on the side of the head with a giant bass and Palin falls into the water.

Good times.

Nearly sixty million people live in the UK and, at most, a few dozen might have any experience of this supposed phenomenon. You're far far far more likely to be knocked down by a car. If you worried about every silly story like this, you'd never leave your own bedroom, but then more people die in bed than anywhere else, so it's the most dangerous place to be.

I'm pretty sure it's only known as "happy slapping". But that aside, Geoff's response is the only sensible answer there is to the original question.

Actually this is quite an unpleasant 'fad' although hardly prevalent - the trouble is that the papers jump on the back of it and make into far more than it is, and probably then just perpetuate the problem a hundred-fold.

Over here it's known as 'Happy Slapping' (it rhymes better!) and has grown since mobile video phones became the norm for teenagers. There have been one or two particularly nasty incidents in recent weeks but on the whole it is just what it says, one person slaps a stranger whilst their mate records it and then they both run away and send it on to their mates. It's a fad that will disappear as fast as it arose.

However, please dont scaremonger - clearly you're looking out for things to worry about but please don't go around worrying other people. It sometimes astonishes me that the people who log on to travel websites appear to be the very people who are afraid to go out of their own front door...

Doing it in Vancouver, BC too. They call it 'swarming'...just find someone alone and kick/beat the heck out of them...it was all caught on tape. The most alarming part is that kids think that violence is 'fun'. I could think of a few things I would make those kids do when caught, that might give them pause next time, but as my Canadian friend told me, they were 'out' the same evening as they are "young offencers' and cannot be prosecuted.~!!

Sounds like that gang in L.A. that drove around hitting people with baseball bats and shooting people with paint-balls while filming. I'd list it up there with Geister Fahrers as a media sticking point. Don't let it disturb you.

Recently my SIL (Cambridge) told me that her children (14) are not permitted to wear hooded sweatshirts to school. Something about the hoods representing various gangs. She won't even allow them to wear their hoodies around the neighborhood - which is a shame since I just spent a small fortune sending them university sweatshirts to wear.

Has anybody else heard of this?

Yes.
Many schools with dress codes do not allow hooded sweatshirts. And almost all will not allow the hoods to be worn inside.

No, they wear uniforms to school - but they were always allowed to wear a sweatshirt to school, until recently. (They never wore them in school as well). If my SIL won't let them wear hooded sweatshirts while playing, there must have been some sort of "incident" to prompt her decision.

seetheworld:

You sent hoodies carrying the logo of another (and therefore, by definition, inferior unless it was Oxford, which doesn't do hoodies) university to Cambridge?

What on earth made you think the kids would be so devoid of local pride as to wear them?

Do they wear Cambridge (the real one) hoodies around Harvard?

seetheworld, I read recently that some shopping centers "somewhere" in England will not allow hooded sweatshirts in their shopping centers due to the problem that the young thugs were using their hoods to cover their idenities from the survellance cameras.

flanneruk, I'm afraid you are missing my point - I am referring to the hoods on the sweatshirts, not the school logo. And as a matter of fact, my nephews are very proud of where their cousins go to school and requested the sweatshirts as a gift.

Yes, LoveItaly, I have heard of that. I am sure my SIL is just being cautious, but I will inquire further when I see her in a couple of weeks.

Is this for real?.. Do people really go around thinking they might be "silly slapped". It's amazing we come out of our house each day. "Are we at risk when we travel". Probably from more than a good silly slapping - but does that really worry anyone? Between this and the European society of backpack slashers, I think I've had enough Fodors for one day.

Here in Ottawa, Canada, the latest social disease is called "bitch-slapping": A group of teenage girls confronts an unknown girl -- often someone smaller and plainer -- and slaps her.

Usually, they claim "You were with my boyfriend" or some such justification.

What distinguishes the practice is the outlandish epithets, often archaic, that the girls use. Evidently there is some research involved or maybe they find these on a website.

"Slut" is one common term of abuse. The local paper, however, reports the use of Renaissance and Restoration terms such as "trull, slattern and round-heels".

Happy Slapping was a favourite subject for the media a month or so ago, but it really doesn't happen as often as they would like you to believe.

I wouldn't let it worry you at all - it is really rare, and just another thing that the media have inflated out of all proportion.