Tim Davey: Historic area is dominated by boorish behaviour

I feel like I've been tagged, in the manner of a common criminal. Not for me, though, one of those electronic boots that tells the boys in blue where I am at any given hour of the day.

No. This is a sociological tag. An age thing.

And it's starting to prevent me going where I want to go.

The centre of Bristol is actually where I am talking about. Specifically on a Friday or Saturday night.

Because, after a recent trip into Bristol from the suburbs one weekend evening, I am left unsure as to whether I can be bothered again.

Fellow columnists have railed already this week about the perennial influx of students.

And I have long ago decided that when it comes to the end of a week it's best to leave Whiteladies Road to them and their intensive studies into the effects of alcohol on the human body. Similarly Park Street. Here, where the two cultures, academic and local, mingle, the atmosphere, I feel, gets even more unsavoury as the night draws on. It never used to be that way.

But there's worse to come.

The trip to which I referred at the outset was to attend someone's evening wedding reception. It wasn't a late starter, around seven-ish, so we hopped on a bus and arrived in very good time.

Time enough to take a drink along the waterside. But why would you? The place was full of lairy blokes, shouting, bawling, boozing. All were themselves old enough to know better. None, I suspect, had ever possessed a student card.

We wandered along right to the end where our salvation hove into view. Bordeaux Quay bar and restaurant is truly an oasis of licensed sanity in an iconic, historic area now, sadly, dominated by boorish beer-fuelled behaviour. And, remember, this was only just about Saturday tea-time for most of us.

Anyway, fortunately, the wedding "do" was around the corner and a bit away from here but when we emerged late night to go home, the city centre scene had deteriorated big time.

Waiting for a bus was no option. In fact my wife rejected the idea outright after our first few steps into night-time Bristol from the relative calm of the wedding party.

So we hailed a taxi. We were heading out of town but the initial stages of our journey, travelling around the Centre, were an eye-opener. Various people attempted to clamber on the vehicle as the driver stopped at traffic lights. At any moment you half expected someone to wrench the doors open and jump in.

What I had not noticed anywhere though, were any police. I have a suspicion they may have been inside a large anonymous white structure, rather akin to an armoured portable cabin, that was plonked right in the middle of the Centre.

They were inside, I guess. Observing the rest of us, presumably. It would be interesting to know what they thought.