On a school trip to Russia, I remember one lad openly addressing his exchange partner as "Shitforbrains", others offending their host families by refusing to eat fruit because it was bruised and one girl getting so drunk on strawberry liqueur she had to be carted off to hospital - where her appendix was whipped out (she soon regretted not owning up).
What must these people think of us, I recall thinking at the time. The same question crossed my mind as I watched the first episode of Blood, Sweat and Takeaways (9pm, BBC3, 19 May), which charts the journey of six young Brats, sorry Brits, as they travel across South East Asia to find out how the food they take for granted is produced.
Their first stop was an Indonesian tuna factory where, suffice to say, they didn't cover themselves in glory. The line worker putting a couple of them up looked distinctly unimpressed when Manos, who despite being of Bangladeshi descent preferred fast food to curries, threw up after catching a whiff of the non-flushing outside loo. The sight of the six wrinkling up their noses in disgust as they walked into the factory for the first time was an equally unedifying spectacle. But worse was to come.
Luxury food-loving Lauren passed out before 10 minutes were up on the production line. And Olu, well, I've never seen anything like it. Taking offence at Manos's apparent cheating in the fish preparation test, the psychotic fitness fanatic lost his rag and, after menacing the poor fellow to the point he was more or less whimpering, picked him up and pushed him through a sheet of glass.
Why the producer failed to intervene I have no idea - did we really need to see such a display of gratuitous violence? Anyway, the upshot was that the remaining boys were banned from returning to the factory and sent out to sea on a trawler, while the girls spent the rest of the visit trying to redeem themselves - and for the main part failing.
Yet another low point came when Stacey asked a worker if she'd feel happy if her kids worked there and when she said yes, informed her that in the UK we don't have to work because we can claim benefits. Let's just say it didn't make you feel proud to be British.
What must these people think of us, I recall thinking at the time. The same question crossed my mind as I watched the first episode of Blood, Sweat and Takeaways (9pm, BBC3, 19 May), which charts the journey of six young Brats, sorry Brits, as they travel across South East Asia to find out how the food they take for granted is produced.
Their first stop was an Indonesian tuna factory where, suffice to say, they didn't cover themselves in glory. The line worker putting a couple of them up looked distinctly unimpressed when Manos, who despite being of Bangladeshi descent preferred fast food to curries, threw up after catching a whiff of the non-flushing outside loo. The sight of the six wrinkling up their noses in disgust as they walked into the factory for the first time was an equally unedifying spectacle. But worse was to come.
Luxury food-loving Lauren passed out before 10 minutes were up on the production line. And Olu, well, I've never seen anything like it. Taking offence at Manos's apparent cheating in the fish preparation test, the psychotic fitness fanatic lost his rag and, after menacing the poor fellow to the point he was more or less whimpering, picked him up and pushed him through a sheet of glass.
Why the producer failed to intervene I have no idea - did we really need to see such a display of gratuitous violence? Anyway, the upshot was that the remaining boys were banned from returning to the factory and sent out to sea on a trawler, while the girls spent the rest of the visit trying to redeem themselves - and for the main part failing.
Yet another low point came when Stacey asked a worker if she'd feel happy if her kids worked there and when she said yes, informed her that in the UK we don't have to work because we can claim benefits. Let's just say it didn't make you feel proud to be British.
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