Alas! Coronation St. is the default position here.
However I'm listening to Jeremy Vine at the moment. It sounds disgraceful.

Still! All will be OK after they have shown Nick Griffin and his supporters the error of their ways on QT..... apparently.

I never saw it but it sounds horrific

I recorded it, Pooly.
Will watch it tonight.
Sounds awful.

I've just checked the local online Bristol newpaper, there's anger from Bristolians about the programme, they are saying it was making a mockery of Bristol and picking on Bristol to show it in a bad light, over 90 comments so far, that's double from this morning, the BBC didn't make Bristol look bad, it was some of the dumb scum residents they actually caught on camera.

It was truely shameful. Not wanting to diminish the racist angle ( which was horrific) it really showed the yob mentality endemic in parts of the country. I felt that if it hadn't been race, they'd have found another reason to act like that.

I saw a similar programme filmed in a town oop north, where they had an Asian lady running a shop with secret filming of the scummy people abusing her.

Surely the Bristolians don't expect them to do a programme about each and every area with resident racists?

I was amazed that an 11 year old kid would want to threaten to kill someone, made me think of cases like the bulger kid, and that recent one where that kid was attacked up North with his kid uncle, what makes kids think like that, when I was 11 we were playing footie in the park with rolled up sweater as goal posts, or in town ice skating.

i was half watching it, the woman seemed t get far more abuse  than the fella, well until some mouth beathing,knuckle dragging oik smacked him in the gob.

so they pick on women because there's less chance of them fighting back , that  snidey little kid soon upped and legged it when a bloke came out of his house and told him to leave the woman alone.
i just dunno what anyone can do about people like this, it seems t be a local cultural thing,  if you mix constantly with oiks i suppose you must grow up thinking it's nomal.

We watched it with mounting horror.  So depressing and anger-inducing.  These scumbags and their parents are a disgrace to the human race.

they are probably celebrating now about being on the telly.

It was covered on Jeremy Vine Radio 2 this lunchtime too.

I was shaking after listening to the female reporter being interviewed and I felt physically sick.  The programme on its own was bad enough.  I know we're better than lots, possibly most, other countries in Western Europe but stuff like that makes me really quite ashamed to be British and share our national identity with people like that.  I mean, the thuggery was bad enough but the overt racism on top makes me despair.

That's pretty much covers it: mounting horror.

I suppose this was pretty much what that woman who did the murder-suicide thing with her disabled daughter went through.

The problem is that they probably think that this type of behaviour is acceptable and encourage their children to behave in this way.

I didn't see it, football got the vote in our house, but sadly it seems it's an all too familiar situation all over the country.

How to address the problem?  I wish I knew, as another poster has said, at 11 years old we were messing about in our local park, not threatening people as we were too concerned about what our parents would do if they found out.

Afterwards I was left wondering what can possibly be done to reduce this kind of thuggery.  I'm pretty sure that most of this is learned at home, therefore the parents have to take part of the responsibility.  Once these "people" are identified, they could be made to attend workshops in which they have to learn about empathy (a bit of a tall order, I know, but surely worth a try), and learn about other cultures/races.

I was thinking that if I were in that young woman reporter's situation, I would carry some kind of alarm (like a rape alarm) that I could press if I were in danger.  As we saw on the programme, one of the yobs was frightened off when challenged by a man who came out to see what he was doing with a brick in his hand.

the snidey kid and the racist girl were both given community orders or some thing.

I only saw part of the programme but what I saw was extremely disturbing and very saddening at the way the two reporters were abused and treated by those yobs. The female reporter was in tears at some point because she'd not experienced anything like that before. The male reporter was punched in the face by some obnoxious kid, and the girl in that group was as bad as the boys, throwing stones at them and shouting abuse.


I'd hoped to hear at the end that they'd been taken into police custody but seemingly not.


So the people of Bristol aren't happy with the way a part of their town has been portrayed???? They should be up in arms at some of the kind of people who live there who think they can treat others in such an ignorant and abusive way.

Well said!  It's happening all over the country, not just in Bristol.

To be fair to the show (and Bristol) they did show lots of perfectly affable people of all ages too. There are bad seeds everywhere...they just seem to start younger these days.

the show also made it clear that were in a particular  area known for it's yobbery.they never said it was indicative of bristol as a whole.

Birch the little bastards

I watched it and was horrified, what on earth?? I thought people like that died out a long time ago!

I`ve just watched it on Catch-Up. It saddens and sickens me that anyone would behave like those lowlife thugs.

A little update for those FMs who don't live in the SouthWest:
There have been two arrests so far as a result of the show: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/eng.../bristol/8316799.stm.

I could not and would not watch this particular episode....I knew it would anger me beyond belief.

Friggin' nightmare estate that was.

11 he was  

It was a real eye-opener. I watched it with my 10 year old and he was stunned at the behaviour of the 11 year old boy....he asked me why he was so full of hate and not respectful to a grown-up?

I live in Bristol, and know some of the Southmead area.

There are areas of Southmead, that even people born and bred there, wouldn't willingly walk, no matter what the colour of their skin.
These yobs may have been racist, but equally they probably would have verbally or physically attacked anyone they perceived as different.
I hope the thugs responsible are caught and suitably punished. Not just given a slap on the wrist, as is so often the case.
It is a shame that the whole area is being judged by the actions of a few.

They were very brave to stick it for - what was it - 8 weeks?  I bet they were glad to get the hell out of there, but no doubt feeling bad for all the people with no choice but to stay there.

It was a painful programme to watch, l really admired the reporters restrain. Especially the woman, there is no way l would have some stupid skinny kid abusing me in that way.