To be shocked and bemused by the mentality of some people?

[Bbq1]

I am as horrified as most other people are, by the hordes of people descending on beaches around the UK and behaving worse than animals in many cases. Scum who defecate and urinate in public places, leave tonnes of litter and fight and drink. All for 3rd degree sunburn and possibly Coronavirus. I am just bemused by their mentality of these people. Are they selfish, thick, just don't care? I heard the most unbelievable thing on the radio earlier. The presenter lives in Bournemouth and was approached by 2 guys in their 20s early this morning asking where they could get a bacon butty. She said they were a bit early and they said they had slept on the beach on towels. After seeing Bournemouth on the news last night they had jumped in their car at 10pm and driven straight to Bournemouth from London "to join the party"...WTAF?! A party?! Who and what are these people that think that type of idea is actually a good one?

We were talking about this over lunch yesterday.
I’m afraid a lot of young people are VERY angry with the older generation. From their perspective it’s very much a ‘These people have ruined our futures, plunged us into debt and a eco crisis, voted us out of the EU and now we’ve had to lock ourselves at home (not our homes obviously as we can’t afford our own) to protect them well NO we are fed up and refuse to go along with this anymore!’

There were, I’m afraid, always going to be idiots and people who simply didn’t care, those people exist in every age range, gender, ethnicity and income bracket BUT there is a bit of an uprising happening amongst very frustrated young people which wasn’t really ‘expected’.

I’m afraid I also agree with others that ‘lockdown’ was done poorly and eased too quickly but the economic repercussions started to outweigh the risk to life, there’s no point everyone being alive if they’ll starve to death unable to feed themselves in a country unable to support them when half the population or more are left jobless and hopeless.

What covid has highlighted more than anything is that some (quite scarily large) segments of society don’t really give a shit about elderly or vulnerable people.

@ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal

Oh look here is another Mumsnetter here to show us just how much better she is than the masses who behave differently than she does.

I don't condone everyone flocking to the beaches but i think calling these people things like scum, selfish, thick, and worse than animals makes you pretty scummy yourself.

Your personal standards must be pretty low if you don't think your better thanthe revolting behaviour that's been going on at some beaches and beauty spots.

Yes I am better than that, are you really not?

I personally would get involved in any protests about closing beaches. That's too far a removal of civil liberties. If everything else was staying shut and flights wasn't happening, then fair enough. But I'd be a bit cynical and think it's because there's no profit to be made from beaches.

The cuts, the policies, welfare reform, attitude to Covid and the behaviour in Parliament since the start, shows that anyone under the middle class is in an abusive relationship with our government and we need to stop listening.

Welcome to what those of us living near Glastonbury have to put up with for 4 days every single year. Not this year though we are enjoying our peace and quiet safe in the knowledge that there will be no mayhem, garden shitters and tons of litter, tents, hippy crack canisters and broken glass to contend with. Oh and we can get the car out of the "residents only" car park because it's not blocked by abandoned cars. I'd say Bournemouth got of lightly.

This is a much more nuanced understanding of why people went to the beach from Ponoka7.

You can go to Primark but you can't go to the beach? Its just insane to be given the public this message.

But its far easier and simplistic to rant that people are scum. And its the same type of unpleasant rhetoric that we had after Brexit.

We have been to the beach every week for the last month and there has been no litter, no crowds, no problems at all. Just a nice, socially distanced day at the beach. We've avoided the very hot days though, and gone when it's more overcast or showery. It's still fun, and the sense of freedom you get on an open beach has been very therapeutic during lockdown.

I’m not condoning how they’ve behaved at the beaches but lockdown has essentially cancelled life for a generation of people and after they will spend the rest of their lives paying for it all.

Everything that has been done to protect our vulnerable is valid but the cost is enormous. You can’t just forget about people and say well you’ll be fine so just shut up and stay home. The stuff that’s opened has been beneficial to our older spenders, our kids have been written off and our young people are looking at a gloomy future.

I’m surprised it’s not been worse if I’m honest. Summer is going to be a nightmare. But think on whilst tutting at them sitting in the garden of your comfortable house, shopping delivered, after a nice walk to the country pub and a toddle around the garden centre. This has all come at great cost to many and there’s only so long people will put up with it.

@flamingochill

The cynic in me thinks he wants to use these people as data to evaluate whether other big gatherings can recommence eg people attending footie matches

I was thinking this too.

Why do they do it? I think it's a fear of missing out thing, an everyone else is doing it, I want to. I have to admit I look at pictures of packed beaches and feel a little pang. I can see that they see 'everyone's here' and want to be a part of it. Especially if they have been suffering from this for the last three months and haven't had it badly affect anyone close to them. You gain in confidence that you are actually safe. Plus the things you want to do feel so normal.

Not excusing them. I won't be joining them, just trying to see where they are coming from.

Dominic Scummings.

@TheGreatWave

And as for closing beaches, how the hell do you do that?

Close all the beach car parks for a start.

I live on the coast and the few car parks are pretty small with no where near enough space for the number of cars we get during a mini heat wave.
Everyone just parks on the coast road, blocks drives, parks dangerously on corners or parks on the edge of the green. Periodically the council will come along and ticket everyone but it doesn’t stop them.

"However, in defence of the people making those questionable choices, our lockdown as a whole has been ineffective and pointless because we didn't do it quickly or harshly enough,".
Well, clearly it has been effective as the R0 has reduced significantly, hospitals have coped and deaths and infections have fallen. If we hadn't locked down, the opposite would have occurred so it has been effective. (I agree we could have cut deaths by locking down earlier and being tougher though).

@ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal

Oh look here is another Mumsnetter here to show us just how much better she is than the masses who behave differently than she does.

I don't condone everyone flocking to the beaches but i think calling these people things like scum, selfish, thick, and worse than animals makes you pretty scummy yourself.

Nah, criticising idiots isn't the same as being one.

I don't know Bournemouth at all, but I also live next to the coast.

I took DS to the beach on Thursday. We walked as far as possible away from the crowds, which was actually pretty easy and found a quiet spot away from the shops and vendors. There must have only been 6 other people in the same area. I didn't bring anything with me aside from a couple of water bottles, a football and a bucket.

I don't understand why this is difficult for so many people. The fact is, where I live the main beach was very crowded and full of litter, quieter areas were not. From this I gather that many people actually wanted to be in a crowded area with the associated risks, sunbathing amongst piles of garbage.

Oh and my DS is nearly 2 and managed to get by without needing to take a shit in a burger box. Who would believe?!

I’m afraid a lot of young people are VERY angry with the older generation.

I understand this, but if you look at the beach crowds they're by no means made up of only young people. There seem to be plenty of families and people in the 30s/40s age group there. Look at the situation with gridlocked roads and parking - that's not going to have been caused predominantly by young people, given the cost of insuring young drivers nowadays puts a car out of reach for many under 25.

@ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal

"I don't condone everyone flocking to the beaches but i think calling these people things like scum, selfish, thick, and worse than animals makes you pretty scummy yourself."
Defecating and urinating on a beach, leaving litter, ignoring social distancing guidelines, descending on a town and causing mayhem by parking all over the place and then having parties including drug-taking and frightening others by fighting In front of families with children IS scummy behaviour. It IS selfish behaviour. If people are intelligent and unselfish, they wouldn't it, ergo they must be thick.

The behaviour of animals is instinctive and functional but, as humans, we have brains that enable us to rationalise and be socially aware. The people who have behaved badly on our beaches are morally bankrupt.

The people who exhibit scummy behaviour are indeed scum because they have choice and they have chosen to show disrespect towards others and our beauty spots.

There are idiots around everywhere and drink etc makes them worse.

However, the vast majority of younger people don't fear the virus as many on mumsnet do - they have no need to in the main since they are young, fit and really don't fall into the category of high risk. In reality, most people in the population don't. As we find out more we all realise that the virus is not risky to fit and healthy younger people and so people have got back to doing what they would normally do on a hot day - the beach etc.

Mumsnet is a funny place, very judgemenal of others and ridiculous fear of things, out of all proportion in the main. Most people are good people and just getting on with their lifes, very few are drunken louts who defecate etc... the few get the headlines.

However, since very few can go on holiday, the pubs, various entertainment places are shut all are crammed into very few spaces... normally thinned out at other places. Therefore, extra busy.

I think a lot of people have lost so much they have no fear of being reprimanded. Mental health has been ignored throughout this pandemic and many people have slipped through the cracks financially. They now have nothing to lose and feel they might as well enjoy their life.

I wonder if being in lockdown for months without meaningful contact with people outside the household has had the effect of making some people more selfish and inward looking.

People are desperate to get out and enjoy themselves again. It's been awful for many during lockdown.
CV won't spread easily on a beach.
They should not leave rubbish or excrement behind though.

Even in my teens and twenties I wouldn’t have considered shitting and changing my sanitary towel on a crowded public beach. Obviously I wasn’t hedonistic enough

See, the decent people who visit the beaches who take their litter home, don't defecate everywhere etc there's no problem with. The keywords here are respect and entitlement. The "scummy" people have zero respect for the environment and a massive sense of entitlement so that if they want to go to the beach, they WILL go to the beach. I'm sure some of the beach dwellers are responsible etc but not many. Apparently on one beach a few days ago six children went temporarily missing over the course of the day and the police were so busy finding lost kids, they couldn't deal with antisocial behaviour caused by idiots, scumbags - call them what you like the behaviour of the masses is disgusting. I actually live bear a beach but the nearest entrance/exit to the beach is about 10 minutes walk away and there are only houses around there, so it's quiet. Not so 10 minutes the other way, the high street and residential area leads directly onto the beach and there are hordes around there. A pub has just opened up so those who desperately want a warm pint in a plastic glass can pay £5 for the privilege and then drink it on the street. Cue yet more antisocial behaviour and another huge litter problem as plastic glasses are predictably just dropped to the floor by the brainless after use.

"Everything that has been done to protect our vulnerable is valid but the cost is enormous."
The 'lockdown' measures taken were to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed. They weren't taken to protect the vulnerable. We are all doing it to protect each other so that the NHS could cope.

"The stuff that’s opened has been beneficial to our older spenders, our kids have been written off and our young people are looking at a gloomy future."
Non-essential shops (including toy shops, Game, fashion for the young), zoos, safari parks, playgrounds in parks have all opened. These aren't all for older spenders. Most aren't.
Premiership football is back - that isn't only for older spenders.