前段时间“猪梅伦”事件闹得沸沸扬扬。据《每日邮报》爆料，卡梅伦在牛津念书时曾加入英国顶级高富帅聚集的秘密社团，并在里面酗酒、抽大麻还曾和猪发生“亲密接触”。虽然此事真假还尚无定论，但英国早已舆论大哗。
这个社团就是大名鼎鼎的布灵顿俱乐部，英国首相大卫卡梅伦，财政大臣乔治奥斯本和伦敦市长鲍里斯约翰逊，都是在这个俱乐部认识的。
布灵顿俱乐部要求会员具有纯正的蓝血血统，比如前会员英王爱德华七世和八世、丹麦国王腓特烈九世。这让布灵顿成为牛津城里最排外、另类的学生团体。而电影《喧嚣贵族》就是以这个俱乐部为原型的故事。
《喧嚣贵族》(The Riot Club)影片以臭名昭著的牛津“布灵顿俱乐部”为原型，又一次在全世界范围内掀起了有关这个神秘贵族社团的激烈讨论。尤其是在英国，布灵顿俱乐部几乎就是“高贵”、“危险”和“政治”的同义词。你可能不知道布灵顿俱乐部到底是什么，它又为什么声名狼藉。没关系，下面就跟着看东西一起走近这个世界上最高大上的神秘团体吧!
With the upcoming release of the The Riot Club,whispers have started up again across the globe concerning the most well known secret society in Oxford: the notorious “Bullingdon Club”, on which the film is based. They may be a household name, especially in Britain where they are synonymous with all things posh, perilous and political – but you would be forgiven for not knowing exactly what the Bullingdon Club is, or why it has attained such an infamous reputation. Luckily, KanDongSee is here to give you an insight into one of the most exclusive groups on the planet.
什么是布灵顿俱乐部?
俱乐部的具体成立时间已不可考，但据称可以追溯到1780年，形象点说，它的年龄和美国一样大!
It is not known when the Club actually formed, but some have claimed as early as 1780; to put that into perspective, it’s about as old as the United States of America.
这原本是一个狩猎和板球的俱乐部(有段时间甚至成了牛津唯一的板球俱乐部)，不过很快就因为奢华的晚餐而名声大噪。只有英国社会顶层的高富帅才能成为俱乐部的会员!即便只是招待俱乐部成员，你也必须有皇室血统、身份高贵或者富得流油。
It was originally a hunting and cricket club (becoming one of the only available cricket clubs for a while), although this was quickly overshadowed by the exuberant dinners for which they would become famous. Membership was limited to the highest of England’s social strata – even to entertain an audience with the Club you had to be royalty, nobility or at least from an absurdly rich family.
俱乐部的成员都是将来要统治这个国家的精英，普通百姓听说他们的奢侈活动时难免羡慕嫉妒恨。这些活动通常包括贵得惊人的晚宴——而且公子哥们在用餐之后还要砸毁餐厅，扔椅子掀桌子砸窗子……然后再霸气地甩出一捆现金赔钱。因为这些暴力的打砸行为，从1927年起，俱乐部一度被禁止在牛津方圆15英里内组织聚会。
These were the people that would go on to run the country, so you can see why it was somewhat distressing for the public to hear about the Club’s activities, which usually consisted of terribly expensive dinners, after which they would destroy the restaurant they had been in, tossing chairs, upturning tables and smashing windows before paying for all the damages, often in cash. It was these violent outbursts that caused the Club to be banned from meeting within 15 miles of Oxford in 1927.
它为什么如此有名?
让一群有暴力侵向的富二代在一起胡闹，想想就觉得危险呢!你可能以为，这种荒唐事在数十年前就应该被曝光和禁止了吧。
Young men with destructive tendencies and an almost unlimited supply of money: a dangerous mix, and one that you might have thought would be found out and stopped decades ago.
可问题在于，不管媒体爆出多少丑闻，布灵顿俱乐部都能凤凰涅槃般地“浴火重生”——大概是因为俱乐部成员有强大的社会影响力，他们在某种程度上保护着俱乐部。俱乐部的历届成员包括数名国王，有英国的也有国外的;就连现任英国首相大卫middot;卡梅伦和现任伦敦市长鲍里斯middot;约翰逊也在布灵顿俱乐部相遇相识!
The problem is that the Bullingon Club rises from every media scandal like a regenerating phoenix, and there is no denying that this is due to a certain amount of protection given by the political and social powers of its members. Its roll call has consisted of more than a handful of kings, both of Britain and abroad; the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, as well as the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson,both attended and met at the Bullindgon Club.
它的阴暗面又在何处?
《喧嚣贵族》的结局是餐馆被砸毁，无辜的餐厅经理被暴打。这些疯狂的行为真实地反映了现实生活中布灵顿俱乐部的作风。即使在比较近的2010年，也有报道称有俱乐部成员醉酒后发狂，把垃圾一股脑倒进酒吧和乡间别墅。
The denouement of The Riot Club – if the trailer is anything to go by – involves the wrecking of a restaurant, and a violent assault on the unsuspecting manager.
Such behaviour seems within the realms of credibility when it comes to the real-life Bullingdon Club: even as recently as 2010 there have been reports of members laying waste to pubs and country houses in their drunken rampages.
尽管有着悠久的历史，但布灵顿俱乐部到今天依然臭名远扬。它是英国权贵的地下交际圈。对公众来说，布灵顿俱乐部既因为破坏性而让人担忧，但也因为其高冷而让人神往。
Archaic though it may be, the Bullingdon still maintains its sinister reputation to this day, epitomising the image of an underground social network of powerful upper-class men that long been both a worry and an attraction to the imagination of the British public.
牛津为什么不管管呢?
在上篇中，我们介绍了布灵顿俱乐部的组成，以及它在英国政界广泛的影响力。事实上，俱乐部的暴力活动经常把牛津大学推向舆论的风口浪尖。照理来说，牛津应该尽快解散俱乐部，但现实中，一些外界因素的干涉使得校方难以发出“禁令”。
In the first part of this article we took a look inside the formation of the notorious Bullingdon Club, and its mysteriously wide-reaching effects in the world of British politics. The Club’s violent tendencies has regularly thrown Oxford University into disrepute, and one would have thought that university officials would have shut the Bullingdon down as soon as possible; there are, however, a number of problems that prevent them from doing so.
首先，布灵顿俱乐部并不是正规大学社团，和大多数社团不同，它不需要本科生公共管理处(“Junior Common Rooms”，牛津的社团管理部门——译者注)的资金援助，也不对外招收会员，所以，校方能做的仅仅是禁止俱乐部在城里聚会(他们的确在1927年禁止了)，但不能阻止俱乐部继续存在。
The first is that the Bullingdon is not an official University club: it receives no funds from Junior Common Rooms, as most societies do, and its membership is certainly not open to anyone, as most societies are. This means that Oxford could only ban the Club from meeting within the city limits (which it did in fact do, in 1927), and not from actually being a society.
其次，俱乐部的成员大都是牛津最有权有势的富二代，不少成员的老爸还是位高权重的贵族、政客或者大商人，校方很难对他们的行为加以控制。因此，牛津大学几乎什么也做不了，除了每次媒体曝光俱乐部的疯狂晚宴时，愁眉苦脸，弱弱地表示不满。
The second is that the Club is made up exclusively of the most powerful and richest young men at Oxford, many of whom have fathers in high positions of aristocracy, government or business, and this inevitably makes it somewhat difficult for the university to control them. Unfortunately, the best the university can do is scowl every time the limelight reveals one of the Club’s raucous evenings.
为何媒体为什么对它如此着迷?
相比学校，媒体受到的限制要少得多。它们也乐于将人们的注意力吸引到这个丑闻不断的社团上来。其中一部分原因是因为奢侈挥霍永远是有料的好新闻(至少是好八卦)，就和名人隐私对媒体有着无穷的吸引力是一个道理。
The media, on the other hand, is under no such restrictions, and loves to draw attention to the mischievous Club whenever it can. This is partly because the exuberance of the rich is always good news(or at least good gossip), much in the same way that the personal problems of celebrities seems to be a source of endless fascination for the media.
▲George Osborne , Boris Johnson , David Cameron
当然，主要原因在于，媒体希望把“布灵顿俱乐部”描述成牛津大学学生群体的写照——一群享有特权、高高在上的富二代，用强大的关系网掩盖自己放纵享乐的丑闻。所幸，百分之九十九的牛津学生并非如此，但媒体还是经常用俱乐部的荒唐行为来抨击这所英国的顶尖学府，批判它强烈的排外性，指责它被上流阶层所垄断。
Mainly,though, it is because the Bullingdon has become synonymous with the media’s view of Oxford and its students: privileged, out-of-touch young men with more cash than sense and a network of powerful friends and family to cover up their hedonistic misdemeanours. Fortunately this is not the case with 99% of actual Oxford students, but it has not stopped everything the Club does being used by the media to rail against the inherent exclusivity of one of Britain’s most prestigious universities.
牛津学生怎么看?
最后来看看牛津学生们的想法吧。布灵顿俱乐部在学生之间名声不一。对一些人来说，它象征着对权力财富的渴望，对另一些人来说，它意味着校园中可怕的性别歧视，但对大多数人来说它只是一群有着巨大影响力的富二代组成的愚蠢社团。
Which brings us on to the students themselves. The Bullingdon has a strange reputation among Oxford students: for some it is a realistic social aspiration, for others a horrific example of institutional sexism, but for most a silly group of boys with as much actual influence on people as the bogeyman.
然而更大的问题是，校园里涌现出了一些模仿布灵顿俱乐部的社团(社团活动基本就是成天酗酒)。所幸校方在酿成大祸前及时阻止了这些社团。一个例子就是圣休学院“神秘”的黑天鹅社，他们的不良活动被学校火速扼杀在了摇篮里。(2013年该社团邀请女性新生玩带有性别歧视的酒吧游戏，引起校长震怒。——译者注)
A bigger problem is those societies,usually dedicated to drinking, which spring up in imitation of the Club; thankfully these are usually stopped by college authorities before anything bad can happen. A good example of this is the ‘secret’ Black Cygnets society at St Hugh’s College, whose roguish activities were nipped in the bud with lightning speed.
最后，如果你要看《喧嚣贵族》，记得保持理智，别因此对牛津产生偏见。尽管影片内容部分属实，但牛津的校园生活可比片中描写的要正常得多!
So if you do go to see The Riot Club, keeps your wits about you –though there is some truth in it, academic life at Oxford is somewhat more normal than it may make out!
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（编辑：秦洁）
