Britain Shamed By Proliferation Of Drunken Ladies

“Captured on our streets by a foreign lens,” ran The Daily Mail headline, “shaming images that turned Britain into a laughing stock.” The captions warned, “Tequila-fuelled young women strike crude poses that will (or should) mortify them in the sober light of day. More worryingly, one or two are unconscious on the pavement, dangerously vulnerable in their pathetic state.”

In fact, in the lead image, part of Polish photographer Maciej Dakowicz’s portfolio, Cardiff After Dark, the girl shown “passed out” amid garbage was actually posing to make her friends laugh, and the Mail knew it. The photographer told The Guardian,

“I explained it to the Daily Mail, but still they put a wrong and misleading caption. She was with a group of friends, they were just a bunch of people on a night out, they laughed about the pile of rubbish and she laid down on the pavement and her friends photographed her. She was not drunk, it was a joke she made with friends. It happened right in front of me, so I shot it as well.”

The Guardian adds sardonically, “We are a nation of pathetic boozers, and many of the drinkers -– horrors! –- are women.”