Publications

Drinking and Public Disorder

A report of research conducted for The Portman Group by MCM Research

Dr Peter Marsh and Kate Fox 1992

The effects of alcohol on behaviour have been the subject of discussion and scholarly speculation for centuries. In Bickerdyke (1886) we are entertained to an account of the beer shops of Egypt in 2000 BC and the customs associated with, perhaps, the earliest known consumption of ale. Some of Bickerdyke’s comments on the regulation of drinking behaviour strike us as being very pertinent today as he was a fierce antagonist of licensing laws. While recognising that alcohol could sometimes be associated with disorderly behaviour, he was of the opinion that restricting the times and places of its consumption was only likely to lead to more problems:

"To check the evils of drunkenness, we [must] rely not on prohibitory legislation which has been tried elsewhere and found wanting, but on the gradual spread of education and enlightenment."

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The Smell Report

Although the human sense of smell is feeble compared to that of many animals, it is still very acute. We can recognise thousands of different smells, and we are able to detect odours even in infinitesimal quantities.

Our smelling function is carried out by two small odour-detecting patches - made up of about five or six million yellowish cells - high up in the nasal passages.

For comparison, a rabbit has 100 million of these olfactory receptors, and a dog 220 million. Humans are nonetheless capable of detecting certain substances in dilutions of less than one part in several billion parts of air. We may not be able to match the olfactory feats of bloodhounds, but we can, for example, ‘track’ a trail of invisible human footprints across clean blotting paper.

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Passport to the Pub

The Tourist's Guide to Pub Etiquette

Visitors to Britain are bewitched by our pubs, but they are often bothered and bewildered by the unwritten rules of pub etiquette. This is not surprising: the variety and complexity of pub customs and rituals can be equally daunting for inexperienced British pubgoers.

Even at the very simplest level, ignorance of the rules can cause problems – such as unsatisfied thirst. Gasping for a beer, the innocent tourists go into a pub, sit down and wait for someone to serve them… (see Chapter 1). The more complex aspects of pub etiquette – the intricate behaviour-codes governing every moment from “what’s yours?” to “time, ladies and gentlemen” – are an infinite source of misunderstanding, confusion and potential embarrassment.

Full text available on-line in pdf and html formats.

Pubwatching with Desmond Morris

Available from the Internet Bookshop

Football Violence and Hooliganism in Europe

The game of football has been associated with violence since its beginnings in 13th century England.

Medieval football matches involved hundreds of players, and were essentially pitched battles between the young men of rival villages and towns - often used as opportunities to settle old feuds, personal arguments and land disputes.

Forms of 'folk-football' existed in other European countries (such as the German Knappen and Florentine calcio in costume), but the roots of modern football are in these violent English rituals.

The much more disciplined game introduced to continental Europe in 1900s was the reformed pastime of the British aristocracy. Other European countries adopted this form of the game, associated with Victorian values of fair-play and retrained enthusiasm. Only two periods in British history have been relatively free of football-related violence: the inter-war years and the decade following the Second World War.

Full text available on-line in pdf and html formats.

Drinking and
Public Disorder

The Smell Report

Passport to the Pub

Pubwatching with
Desmond Morris

Football Violence
and Hooliganism
in Europe