Forever Colonial

I live in a former British colony. This is never so obvious as when a crowd of inebriated foreigners (formerly, colonials) has a big party that lasts till 3 in the morning, during which out-of-tune beery singing fills the night and smoke fills the air, and nobody is able to take them down.

I should imagine Saturday nights in former colonies throughout the world are like this. But I'm quite sure that in some countries, never colonised nor colonial, this kind of irritating behaviour would not be tolerated. Countries like Switzerland, perhaps.

I've no problems with parties that last till 1 or so. New Year's parties tend to fall into that category. But 3 am? Followed by incompetent clearing noises as people attempt to resolve the consequent mess and get their ungainly SUVs out of each other's ways and trundle off home? Hurrrr.

In my younger days, I would have deployed chemical solutions to the problem. The only thing that restrained me early this morning was the knowledge that my innocent family would have been aghast to know of the latent 'urban terrorist' living in their midst. But hey, the wonderful things you can do with bleach, cooking oil, potassium manganate(VII) and other simple things you can buy from any competent supermarket...

That's the one difference between the colonial and post-colonial phases: education. Wait, hold on. The post-colonial phase can also be called 'rectal'. Or maybe, 'anal'.