A botellon is an informal gathering of teenagers to drink in public. The concept comes from Spain, where the kids wanted to rebel against bar-prices by organizing massive drinkathons in parks. The largest botellon was held in Madrid with 10,000 participants.

These parties are organizable by word of mouth, and most recently, via social websites such as facebook. The possibility to call up thousands of fellow kids at once is a power only recently in the hands of the kids themselves. A botellon requires no organization: just declare a day and a place. The momentum builds amongst the kids who have no more money left for vacations and openair concerts. The fright and angst among the parents also builds.

Slowly but surely this phenomenon is arriving in Switzerland. First in Geneva, geographically Switzerland’s closest corner to Spain. Then in Lausanne and now in Zurich.

The German-speaking authorities are scrambling to legislate this currently unlegislatable phenomena. The police in Zurich and Basel are even scanning facebook for evidence of Botellon formation in their precious tax-mountains. Oh how I love the thought of my tax-francs paying 25-year-old police officers to cruise facebook! However, drinking in public is not illegal in Europe (illegal public-intoxication would shut Europe down for a few years). Undeterred, the German-speaking (AND certain French-speaking!) authorities still have questions:

1. How are we going to make sure we can keep the place clean?
2. How are we going to keep the high-rent paying neighbours happy?
3. How are we going to tax these thankless drunk fuckers?

Furthermore, the German-language police have stepped in, the “academy”, the “Duden” from Germany, and have launched a task-force to incorporate the word “Botellon” into the German language. Wow. Can’t let any word organically slip past the glaring eyes of the high-paid professors standing guard over their German language!

Its a further beautiful example of the clash of the titans that remains Europe! A few kids way down south of the olive-oil/butter border rebel against the bar-owner mafia by organizing a few drink-ups in the park. They name the fests after the spanish word for “big bottle”. This idea is then accelerated and distributed via high-speed social-networking, which bleeds the phenomenon firstly into France and then into Switzerland! Now the country with problems-light has a “real problem” deserving dire measures such as task-forces (CSI Facebook).

That’s why Switzerland so exciting: its situated exactly on Europe’s olive-oil/butter border. The southern Europeans keep conjuring up new ways to rebel, and the hapless teutonic authorities are constantly having to reinvent themselves to counterract problems which, in any other country, wouldn’t be considered problems.

Where were all the task-forces during the European Cup?