1001 Reasons Why Britain Is Crap

Number 35: People Who Base Their Entire Life On 'Strictly Come Dancing'

2009-10-17T00:47:00.001-07:00

It is everywhere. From BBC Breakfast News to Football Focus, Radio 5 Live to The Guardian, there is no escaping the TV programme that cringe-worthy fans insist on calling 'Strictly'. Up and down the country, millions of viewers base their entire lives around the decidedly average adventures of Z-grade celebrities into the world of sequin-wearing, teeth-baring rubbish dancing.

It might sound odd, but I honestly have no interest whatsoever in watching some bloke off Eastenders doing the Cha-Cha with all the grace of scaffolder in a pair of concrete trousers. And yet a nation is smitten. 'Boo' they hiss panto-like at the mean judges who dare to question the ability of the hopeless toe-thudding stiffs. These people, in case you need reminding, are adults, some of them in their 40's, 50's and 60's. Not since the utterly terrible 'Generation Game' or the sickening Saturday night moron-a-thon 'Blind Date' have so many been so excited by such a light entertainment horrorshow.

When is modern television going to start?

Number 34: Media Wailing Over War Heroes

2009-10-17T00:29:00.000-07:00

This really is quite simple. If you join the army, there is a very real possibility that one day you might have to go and fight in a war. If you go to fight in a war there is a higher than average possibility that you might get killed. If you don't want to put yourself in this situation, don't join the fucking army.

Well, it seems straightforward enough doesn't it? Not for the asbestos-headed half-wits in the news media it isn't. For the last two or three years, every news outlet from the BBC News to The Daily Star has insisted on being shocked and surprised whenever one of the nations 'hero's' comes home in a bodybag. The people of weird war town Wotton Bassett line the streets in tribute to every single casualty.

For crying out loud, they are soldiers, some of them are going to die, it is one of the defining characteristics of war.

Number 33: Roadworks Without Roadworkers

2009-09-05T07:23:00.001-07:00

It is, almost certainly, another privatisation issue.

There you are, driving around the most over-congested and under-funded road network in the world, when suddenly you have your mind blowing pedestrian progress halted by a sign featuring a bloke trying to lift up a giant cheese triangle.

Roadworks are, of course, necessary, especially in the digital age. But the problem is that more often than not you can see a bloody great hole in the concrete but no-one with any intention of filling it in. Presumably, the private contractors that are responsible for maintaining Britain's crumbling roads are interesting in profit and nothing else and couldn't give a damn if this inconveniences millions of already suicidal motorists in the process.

Another great triumph of our Labour Governments' determination to sell-off every public service they possibly can before they leave office, then. The other day it took me the best part of half-an-hour to drive through an enormous 200-metre wide roundabout development, do you know how many people were working on this multi-million pound mega site? Two.

Don't worry, take your time, none of us have got anything better to do.

Number 32: The Public Adoration Of Banksy

2009-09-05T05:56:00.001-07:00

The recent exhibition of work by anonymous graffiti everyman Banksy at the city museum and art gallery in Bristol drew in more than 300,000 visitors in just under two months.

In fact, by the time it finished at the end of August, organisers must have been left thinking that it wasn't so much an event as a phenomenon.

The 'Banksy Effect', as it is now being called, injected an estimated £10million into the city's economy with everyone from airport chief executives to hot-dog sellers witnessing an upturn in sales at odds with the downturn in the economy. "Have you been to the Banky exhibition," has become the most asked question of the entire summer. To which I always give the same reply: "No I fucking have not."

The reason for this is simple. Banksy is crap. At best, his oh-so-cheeky addition to the vastly over-rated world of graffiti can be considered lighthearted social commentary. At worst, it is over-simplistic tabloid dribbling foisted on an under-informed public seemingly impressed by anything 'urban' who wouldn't normally set foot in a gallery. What it is not, however, is decent art. If this so-called spray can terrorist was working as a normal artist, he would be an absolute laughing stock. His ideas are simply not interesting enough, unique enough or, indeed, good enough to be taken seriously. And yet the Turner Prize loathing public have formed an almost permanent queue outside his first exhibition, even braving the seemingly endless summer rain to say they were there when this most modern of emperors paraded in his lovely new clothes.

"It's nice to see it's been so popular but it makes me a bit suspicious," said the can-holder himself about the overwhelming public response. He's got that right. Anyone doing anything that can be considered 'creative' should be rightly wary of being so hungrily accepted by a local news media who usually spend the majority of their time covering stories about mysterious cake thefts in small villages in Somerset and any event featuring a fly-over by the Red Arrows. Put it this way: if Banksy was, in any way, challenging, ground-breaking or upsetting to viewers aged 60 and over, BBC Points West wouldn't go anywhere near him.

Somewhere in a graveyard in Rouen, Marcel Duchamp is raising his eyebrows in resignation.

Number 31: Craig David

2008-02-19T00:14:00.001-08:00

Otherwise known as the most embarrassing man in Britain. Here is a R&B singer, innit, who actually believes he has genuinely original insights into what he sees as the complex female mind. He thinks they are so good, he builds his songs around them. They usually go something along the lines of this: there's this girl, right. She is hot, natch. She is sitting in a cafe sipping her mocha lite and pretending not to notice how buff Craig David is. But, and here comes the psychological analysis bit, what she is doing and what she really wants are two different things, d'ya get him. I know it's complicated but try to keep up with da man. Now all this is, of course, already the basis for some really stupid rhymes but what Craig likes to do is sing the words really fast so as the ladeez know what he is able to do wiv his tongue. Nice. And this is why Craig David is the Alan Partridge of UK R&B. He didn't even realise Avid Merrion is taking the piss out of him on Bo Selecta! Hilariously, Craig has recently put a few pounds and now looks a bit like Eddy Murphy in one of those terrible films he does where he gets really fat.

Number 30: Too Many Empty Fields

2008-02-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

What is the countryside for exactly? The only time I ever seem to see it is when I'm sitting in a car going somewhere quite far away. Like Yate. Or Dorset. And all I ever seem to see is fields, empty fields, loads of empty fields with nothing in them whatsoever, no cows, no sheep, no motorcycle display units, nothing. Why are there so many empty fields in the countryside? Is this what people like about the countryside? Because I reckon they are pretty rubbish really, the empty fields I mean. They aren't even nice fields, they're sort of scruffy, unkempt and look as if they might smell of spilled diesel. Do the farmers who own them ever use them for anything? Or aren't they fussed about them being empty? If I had a few empty fields I reckon I'd turn one into a football pitch with proper size goalposts with nets in and corner flags and just fill the rest with chairs or fridges or something like that. Bastard fucking fields with nothing in them. How crap are they?

Number 29: Media Reporting Of Amy Winehouse And Pete Doherty

2008-01-24T01:18:00.000-08:00

You're not going to believe this but according to The Sun, The Mirror, BBC 6 O'clock News, News At Ten, Radio 5Live, TalkSport and about 227 dopey looking twats who work for Heat magazine or its rivals, there are two rock stars living in this country who regularly take drugs. Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse are the two musicians in question and they have been turned into the nations folk devils of the day. 5Live even broad casted a lengthy interview with Amy's dad recently in which he blamed her boyfriend, predicted her imminent demise and eventually called for the public to stop buying her music. It was the most embarrassing five minutes of last year. For fuck sake, the girl is only 24, she's done a bit of a coke, swallowed a few downers, smoked a bit of crack. The Stones did tonnes of coke, mountains of smack, lakes of Jack Daniels and whole reference libraries of LSD and toured the world for about 25 years. The Happy Monday's gulped down whatever they could, as often as they possibly could, in doses big enough to flatten entire herds of elephants. It may come as a surprise to the 3am Girls, or whatever they are fucking called, but drugs have played quite a significant role in the history of music. In fact, every single artist who has ever been any good has taken drugs. Charlie Parker? Horse. Hank Williams? Speed. The Stooges? Everything. Bowie? Coke. Stone Roses? E. Bright Eyes? Lots. Do you know who they wheeled out as 'fellow musicians' of Amy Winehouse on News At Ten the other night? Bastard sodding Westlife. Now they are a reason to take drugs if ever I saw one. As for Pete Doherty, the only reason the tabloid press are interested in him is because he went out with Kate Moss. I listened to some red top hack telling Sky News what a disgrace Doherty is and how he should be locked up immediately. Hey fuckwit, he shouldn't even be on your radar, how dare you enter his more culturally sophisticated universe and start laying down the law? Now get out and shut the door behind you.

Number 28: Closed And Abandoned Petrol Stations

2008-01-22T09:49:00.000-08:00

So there you are driving along perfectly happily when you happen to glance down at the dials and suddenly notice you are about to run out of petrol. 'Shit, I'm about to run out of petrol,' you think to yourself. You turn off the CD player, the windscreen wipers, the heated seats, the air conditioning. And you begin knocking the car out of gear and free-wheeling down hills and approaching traffic lights. It's okay, though, because there is a garage just down the road. Or is there? Chances are there isn't. Not any more. Because in the last four or five years just about every petrol station you thought you knew has closed down and left an abandoned forecourt covered with overgrown weed-life and graffiti in its place. Why? According to the companies themselves, it's because of competition from supermarkets. But hang on a minute. These are multi-national oil giants were talking about here, some of the wealthiest companies on planet Earth. And they are supposed to provide a public service ie: petrol. So why have they pulled the giant metal blinds on almost of third of petrol outlets in the UK? Because they want to maximise profits for the benefit of their wealthy shareholders, that's why. The rest of us just have to suffer. Here's an idea: why doesn't the Government just classify the provision of petrol as a public service and force them to operate within set guidelines of social responsibility?

Number 27: 30,000 Old People A Year Die From Cold Weather

2008-01-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

More people die in Britain every year from cold weather than any other European country, including Siberia. The biggest single factor in this startling statistic is poverty. Professor William Keatinge has carried out a huge amount of research into this area and has argued that more government money needs to be made available. But, of course, our Labour Government can't do that because they want to give tax breaks to the rich and put utility companies into private hands so they can whack the price of gas and electricity up in order to maximise their profits and give hand-outs to their already wealthy shareholders. So, in a nutshell, tens of thousands of pensioners are being sacrificed, quite literally, so that the wealthy can become a little bit richer. You have to ask yourself what sort of country we live in in the 21st Century? They say you can measure the compassion of a nation by analysing the way it treats the elderly. If that is the case, then Britain is cruel, greedy, bastard with a cold, cold heart and no sense of justice, equality or indeed, history. That means you Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown.

Number 26: Incorrect Use Of Fireworks

2007-11-10T13:15:00.000-08:00

Its November 10th and for the last two and a half weeks every evening has been punctuated with seemingly endless occasional bangs from somewhere out there in the darkness. Bang, they go, followed by silence. 11 minutes later another bang rings out across the rooftops. Then there's another gap, maybe a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, but there's always an empty space. Even on November 3rd, this years 'official' Guy Fawkes night because its the Saturday closest to the actual anniversary, the organised displays get the whole firework ethos all wrong. They release the bangers-and-flashers sporadically during two hour displays. What they should do is release a sustained burst of fireworks during half-hour displays. And its the visual, not the sonic side that's supposed to take presidence. All we get is noise. Bang bloody bang. Bloody amateurs. This is why every significant public event requiring fireworks in this country since the Millennium celebrations in London have turned to Australian or Italian companies. Like a damp sparkler on a cold and windy common, British firework displays are slightly less exciting than the slow trudge home.

Number 25: Grumpy Old Men

2007-10-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

Anyone accusing this blog of being the work of a grumpy old man is barking up the wrong tree. What separates these postings from the gripes and moans of a hundred vaguely famous talking heads on BBC2 is that they target everything and I target rubbish things. The existential unease that occasionally sweeps across the brows of Bob Geldof, Jeremy Clarkson, Arthur Smith and the rest of them is born not of a highly developed appreciation of economic, social and cultural injustice and its resultant behavioral patterns but because they feel a bit pissed off at it all from time to time. The Grumpy Old Men's bones of contention are usually either far too obvious or just plain wrong. People who stay in the middle lane of the motorway, the Internet, income tax, conceptual art, the French, holidays, hoodies, graffiti, hosepipe bans, German towels, the nanny state, the use of slang, striking postal workers, the London Olympic logo. Its as random as pointing a machine gun in the air and hoping you down a goose.

Number 24: The Tweenies

2007-10-23T14:55:00.001-07:00

'Every day...come and play!' they sing as if there is little choice in the matter. Actually, every day I feel like getting the train to London, walking into the studio where The Tweenies is made and smacking the entire cast around the head with a large metal pole. Why such violence? These stupid, squealing, quarreling, multi-coloured life-sized puppet creatures are probably the most annoying creations to have ever walked planet Earth. 'I'm Bella!' 'I'm Milo'! I'm Fizz!' Yeah? Well I am now in a very bad mood and I am going to kill you. Especially you Jake. Until I discovered that Justin 'Mr Tumble/Higgledy House' Fletcher did the voice for Jake, I thought he was all right. Not the new Oliver Hardy, but you know, all right. Y'see it's the voices that are the problem with The Tweenies. They sound like adults desperately trying to be 'weelly cute kids' and they end up sounding like the biggest bunch of cunts you've ever heard in your life. I've done some research and not one American children's show that employ adults to do children's voices are irritating. It is a problem unique to The Tweenies. My three-year-old son is banned from watching them and I think he's on my side when it comes to the extermination plan too. Come on kids, rise up and destroy!

Number 23: Insurance Companies

2007-10-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

So you've taken out some insurance on your house/car/life/Rolex/signed photo of Jesus and it's cost you a not inconsiderable amount of money. Never mind, at least you know that if anything happens to your treasured item, at least you'll receive the cash to cover the cost, if not its sentimental worth. But if you do put your foot through the ceiling/crash your car/lose your Rolex/have your signed photo of the crucified one nicked here in the UK you'll have to pay what the insurance companies call an excess charge before they will give you a penny. Hang on a minute, am I fucking insured or am I not? I am? Then what is this fucking excess charge bollocks? Oh its a way that some of the wealthiest companies in the country manage to hike their profits up even further and allow their lazy, fat do-nothing shareholders to go to the Maldives for 5 weeks next summer instead of 4. Marvellous. It is absolutely unbelievable that compulsory insurance is operated by private organisations in Britain, something close to an abuse of human rights. Or stealing from the many to line the pockets of the few, as it might also be called. In Europe it is much, much cheaper and more socially responsible. But this isn't Europe, it's the UK and this is fairly typical of the sort of uber-capitalistic stealing that goes on here. Under a Labour government. Now what was that about being quoted happy?

Number 22: Tattoos

2007-10-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

Once they were the preserve of sailors, criminals, hells angels and council estate dads. These days everyone has got a tattoo. Balding 47-year-old sales reps, buggy-pushing teenage mothers, single twenty-something aerobics victims, chavvy binge-drinking football wankers. Even David Cameron's missus has got one, a dolphin on her ankle, should you be interested. It is safe to say there is nothing rebellious about having a tattoo anymore. So when did tattoos become so acceptable, so mainstream Around about the time that David Beckham and Robbie Williams started appearing in public with ink on their bodies, I suspect. Beckham, you will recall, has Victoria misspelled in Hindi on his arm and what looks like a Nazi symbol gone wrong on the back of his neck. And this is the problem with tattoos. Although the tattooed like to think of them as a unique personal marking that makes them stand out from the crowd, the designs they choose are neither personal or unique. There's the Celtic ones worn by thousands of blokes who have never left England, the Chinese ones on people who have no interest in China, the Maori armbands on biceps born and raised in Rochdale and those bloody lower back ones that look as if they have been copied from the mantelpiece at your Nan's house. Then there's the multitude of animals that hide away on the shoulder blades, ankles and abdomens of girls who weren't 100% sure about having a dancing hula girl across their forehead. Gecko's, lizards, snakes and bloody bastard dolphins. If you are going to have your skin permanently marked surely you should choose something that means something to you, not some obscure creature from a faraway land that you once saw in the zoo. Marco Materazzi, for example, has a tattoo of the World Cup on his leg. Fair enough. I saw a young skinhead a couple of years ago doing his Christmas shopping in BHS who had a large swastika tattooed on his head. Horrible and misguided but at least he had the courage of his convictions. Amy Whinehouse's array of horseshoes and naked ladies is original and a little threatening, having a small gecko on your ankle is just a gesture of rebellion for girls who are a little worried about being really dull. And what are these good girls trying to be bad going to do when the whole skin art fetish falls out of fashion? They will spend the rest of their lives regretting they had it done in the first place. As the heavily-tattooed Ozzy Osborne once said "if you want to be different, don't get a tattoo".

Number 21: Car Window Stickers

2007-10-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

In the seventies they were part Benny Hill, part low-rent Georgie Best. There was the sinister 'Passion Wagon: Don't Laugh Your Daughter May Be Inside', the cringe worthy 'If It's Rockin', Don't Come Knockin' and the hilarious 'Don't Follow Me I'm Lost Too'. A decade later we saw Yuppie jesting such as 'My Other Car's A Porsche' and 'Windsurfers Do It On Boards'. Embarrassing they may have been, but the car window stickers of today are probably even worse. Even buying a sticker for your back window is an unforgivable act of vanity. It says 'look at me, this is the best thing I have ever done in my life'. Which would be bad enough if the stickers read 'I Read Satre And Realised Life Is Without Meaning And Now Devote Every Waking Hour To The Enlightenment Of Other Human Beings' or 'Ive Been To The Moon' but they tend to be a little more mediocre than that. 'I Have Seen The Lions Of Longleat' is not the most earth-shattering claim ever committed to print. Neither is 'I Slow Down For Horses'. There's smug, 'Baby On Board', sadly self-conscious 'Princess On Board', branded 'No Fear', born again Christian fish symbol and that one that says Kernow which might be something to do with reclaiming Cornwall for the Cornish or something. But these are for the mild of manner or the mediocre of mind. King of today's looky-I'm-a-twat-behind-a-wheel slogans are the saucy postcard on wheels of 'Honk If You're Horny' and the Alan Partridge with a mullet cheesiness of the quite unbelievable 'On A Mission'.

Number 20: Thatcherism

2007-10-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

Nothing casts quite as dark a shadow across the country as Thatcherism. Almost every single one of the One Thousand And One Reasons Why Britain Is Crap has its roots in her political philosophy. One of the first things the future Prime Minister did when she was appointed Secretary of State for Education in 1973 was to take free milk away from junior school children. Cruel? She hadn't even started. By the time she ordered the sinking of the Argentine Navy cruiser The Belgrano the so-called Iron Lady had slashed income tax, hiked VAT up to 15% and taken unemployment beyond the two million mark. In 1982 Thatcher was the most unpopular leader this country had ever ticked a box for. But this storm trooping flag-bearer of Milton Friedman's brutal laissez-faire capitalism had a trick up her long frilly sleeve; two tiny islands in the south Atlantic ocean that nobody had ever heard of. She went to war with Argentina and her popularity rating went skywards. Over the next decade this most radical of monetarists destroyed Britain's manufacturing industry, privatised all the public utilities, created a underclass of 4 million people, drastically cut funding from the welfare state, handed tax breaks out to the rich, took power away from the trade unions, sold off council homes, encourage everyone to own a car, lent money to Saddam Hussain, opposed boycotts of the apartheid government in South Africa, played a significant role in the disastrous capitalist reforms in the Soviet Union, began the country's arms-length relationship with Europe and named 'How Much Is That Doggy In The Window' as her favourite pop song in Smash Hits. But the biggest and most brutal act inflicted on the people of the country was her embittered ideological assault on the mining industry and its communities. In 1984 she announced proposals to close a large number of mines up and down the land. The National Union of Mineworkers led by the hugely misrepresented Arthur Scargill, began a strike that lasted a year. Thatcher's war was against all unions, it pitched miner against miner and police against miner and caused unprecedented hardship in some of Britain's poorest communities. Scargill had right on his side but still ended up on the losing side. He famously said he'd let history be his judge and that he would be proved correct in his assertion that we needed to continue mining our own coal instead of importing it from abroad. And hey, guess what? History is on his side too.

Number 19: Pretend Opera Singers

2007-10-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

It started with Russell Watson. Then came Il Divo and G4. And more recently we've seen Bond, Medieval Babes, Amici Forever and 'Britain's Got Talent' winner Paul Potts added to the horribly manufactured genre that should probably be known as 'Fake Opera'. Whatever it is, it may well have contributed to the untimely death of Pavarotti. Only in Britain could such a uniquely inauthentic dumbing down of classical music have so much success. If any of the aforementioned acts were ever to take to the stage in Italy, they would be showered in rotten tomatoes. As Royal Opera House director David McVicar says "opera is good for you and everyone should go. Its fuck all to do with Russell Watson and Charlotte fucking Church...as ever it's British attitudes...I'm fucked off with trying to promote my art-form". Blame Simon Cowell, blame every comfortable middle-class no-nothing who wants something not-too-challenging to listen to on his drive home after work, blame the mediocre housewife idly recalling that opera tune she quite liked off that TV ad the other day. Fake Opera is clogging up the classical music charts as well the minds of anyone who opens their CD collections and allows it in.

Number 18: 'Designer' Clothes

2007-10-13T07:02:00.001-07:00

The streets and shopping malls and bars and clubs of Great Britain are walking, talking proof that you cannot buy style. Decked out in their Ted Baker jeans, Duffer of St George shirts, Gucci handbags and D&G tops the vast majority of the nations 18-45 year-olds still don't manage to look anything other than ordinary. As the obsession for 'designer' items took over the high street, something got lost in translation; aethestics. There is very little point in shelling out £170 for a pair of Versace jeans if the jeans look just like the ones you can get for £1.75 in Asda. If you compare the range of expensive clothes in a shop like John Anthony and a range of cheap clothes in a shop like Top Shop you'll see that they are virtually indistinquishable. Surely one of the main reasons for wearing 'designer' clothes is to to look different, to stand out from the crowd. But what passes for 'designer' clobber in today's Britain does exactly the opposite. Bench T-shirts, Hugo Boss polo shirts, Stone Island sweatshirts, Ralph Lauren leisure shirts, Lacoste baseball caps, FCUK vests and Paul Smith denim jackets all look as if they've been deliberately produced to help people to look as average as possible. There are no sharp edges here, no chances are taken, no stitching from outside of the box. Okay, there are some edgier designers out there, Prada, for instance, do the whole ultra-modernist clothing as sculpture thing and the there is the occaisional store like Karen Millen that do justice to their price tags. But how often do you see someone wearing a skinny-cut Prada suit? Not nearly as often as you see someone wearing a saggy-necked Von Dutch T-shirt because they saw a photo of Robbie Williams wearing one. Oh and how much did you pay for that, mate? £80? Bargain. It isn't a 'designer' item, it's a T-shirt with the name of a designer on the front. The worst of these showy-off T-shirts is from the ubiquitous Bench label. Whenever I see someone with the word 'Bench' written across their chest I have the urge to say to them; 'I see you like benches, I'm a bit of a woodworking fan myself', 'oh, I'm sorry it means you are a bench, are you a bench? Are you a bench? Are you a fucking bench? Then why in the name of all the things you could have written on your T-shirt did you choose the word 'Bench'?

Number 17: The England Band

2007-10-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

De-da-de-da de-da da, da-da-da-da de de da de da. When will the England band finally put a sock or several in those fucking brass things they insist on bringing to every single international game? Invited in over ten years ago by the then sports minister Richard Caborn, the England Band were seen as a way of making England fans seem friendlier as well as getting them to sing along and livening up the atmosphere. It worked too. But after about 24 minutes, it became as irritating as the behavior of the fans has always been. "This is something special," said a clearly excited David Davies. 'This is something that is really getting on my nerves' thought every sane minded football fan in the world. A decade of this self-conscious exercise in low rent marketing and many of us have lost the will to live.

Number 16: Fishing Magazines

2007-10-13T03:52:00.000-07:00

There are about 300 magazines devoted to fishing in this country. Head for the lowest shelves of the biggest newsagents and you find them lined up quietly displaying their scaly prisoners like wriggling silverware with teeth. Fishing is the UK's most popular participation sport, leaving football, golf and lounging around on the sofa wishing that there was something other than women's international archery on Grandstand. And almost every fisherman must have his own magazine. There are loads of them. Anglers Mail, Match Fishing, Total Course Fishing, Advanced Carp Fishing, Carpology Magazine, Trout & Salmon, UK Carp, Improve Your Coarse Fishing, Boat Fishing, TotalFlyFishing, Crafty Carper, Advanced Pole Fishing, Total Sea Fishing, Carpworld, International Carper, Big Carp, Total Sea, Carp Addict, the list goes on and on. And on. So when they're not sitting at the edge of water with their enormous rods, they're sitting at home looking at other men sitting by the edge of water with their enormous rods. What a fantastic life it must be. One look at the titles of the magazines themselves is enough to tell us that we are in a very peculiar place here. My favourites are Crafty Carper, possibly about a sneaky confidence trickster who's surname is Carper, Total Sea, this month we interview the North Sea as it tries to shake off its 'worse sea in the world' tag and ask what ever happened to the Pannonian Sea and Carp Addict, a cautionary tale of a man who loses everything when his dependency on the popular fish gets out of control. The message here is that if you must fish then do it discreetly and never mention it to anyone. If you must buy a fishing magazine then order it online so the rest of us can have a bit of room on the shelves for slightly more exciting fodder. Insect Murderer Monthly anyone?

Number 15: Low Taxes For The Rich And Super-Rich

2007-10-10T21:47:00.002-07:00

This is the one single biggest issue that contributes most to the overall crapness of the UK. Since the Labour party came to power in 1997, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest people in the UK has grown to its highest level for forty years. Shockingly, Britain came bottom of a league of 21 countries in a recent UNICEF report into child poverty. This inequality comes from the governments refusal to back down on their initial election promise not to raise income tax. But in addition to redistributing wealth, which in turn has a positive affect on areas such as crime, taxes also raise cash for public services and it is here where Britain's tax system leaves its most crippling legacy. Britain currently spends 39.1% of GDP on public spending. In Germany the figure is 45.9% and in France 52.1%. The Institute of Fiscal Studies recently estimated that even by spending an extra £5billion a year, it would still take the UK 15 years to reach German levels and 25 to catch up with France.What this means is our health system, housing, social services, education system, public transport, leisure facilities and transport network has been massively underfunded for more than 25 years. This is the reason patients are left in corridors on hospital trolleys for 24 hours or more, why we lock up more of our citizens than any other country in Europe, why families sit on the housing waiting list for years and 30,000 pensioners die each winter from the cold, its why the railways and the buses barely function, why we cant fund imaginatively and environmentally sound road networks, why our comprehensive schools are failing our children, why our bins are only collected fortnightly giving the streets the stench of a Victorian slum and why our public spaces are like landfill sites compared to the uber-modern affairs that decorate every town and city of our nearest neighbours. And all because of a reluctance to ask someone who earns over £100,000 a year to pay a larger share of their income. As well as making us work the longest hours in Europe and allowing us the least holiday entitlement (25 days compared to 9 weeks in Italy and Germany and 11 in France), the nations businesses also get away with paying the some of the lowest taxes in the developed world. So if you've ever wondered if everything is done on the cheap in the UK, it is. The simple facts of the matter are that this island is a significantly more unpleasant place to live than almost all other member states of the EU. So there is only one real reason why Britain is so crap after all; the rich do not pay enough tax.

Number 14: The Decline And Fall Of Top Of The Pops

2007-10-10T21:47:00.001-07:00

When the BBC finally bought the axe down on 42 years of Top of the Pops in the summer of 2006 director of television Jana Bennett said "the time has come to bring the show to its natural conclusion". Even the shows horrible old presenters seemed to share this fatalistic view. The Hairy Cornflake noted that the world is "too fast moving"for the programme. Tony Blackburn spoke of a loss of relevance. Sir James of Saville muttered the word 'inevitable'. Not for the first time, these three stooges of bad taste got it wrong. But not as wrong as the BBC. In 2003 they appointed former children's irritant Andi Peters as Executive Producer in an attempt to bring back its 'must-see factor'. But Peters, who's CD collection probably peaks artistically at OMD, was obviously a ridiculous choice for the job. What the fuck did that little twat know about decent music? How could he possibly have put his finger on the pulse and shifted the show along according to the developing rock and pop zeitgeist when he wouldn't have been able to recognise it if it shook hands with him at rehearsal? So instead of making a clean break with the past and moving the content towards the imminent new rock order being carved out by the likes of the White Stripes and the Artic Monkeys, Peters turned the other way and flooded the show with Britney Spears. In the months that followed, TOTP hit new lows as pre-teen froth took centre-stage alongside weekly Britney competitions that were hyped every five minutes or so and all manner of mind-numbing celebrity bits and pieces from giggling hostess Fern Whatshername. Amazingly, BBC entertainment head Wayne Garvie later described Peters as a "brilliant creative leader".

Number 13: Twenty20 Cricket

2007-10-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

The arrival of Twenty20 cricket says more about the country's state-of-mind than anything else. In 2003, against a backdrop of supporter apathy at county level, the English Cricket Board announced its plan to bring fans back to the game. Twenty over professional cricket was born. Edmund Blunden once said of this most noble and English of sports, 'cricket to us was more than play, it was a worship in the summer sun'. This new form of cricket bears no relation to the timeless, literate twists and turns that give 5-day cricket its majesty. Its a hyper-accelerated all-running, all-throwing, all-diving, bat-swinging floodlit horrowshow of an idea that smacks of that most dangerous of compromises; giving people what they want. Scantily-clad all-girl dance troupes line-up in front of the pavilion, fans wave banners saying things like 'the man behind me can't see', thumping pop clips blast out from loudspeakers whenever a boundary is scored or a wicket falls and the whole thing is done and dusted in a couple of hours. Its ugly as hell, and full of wild, agricultural hoicks across the line. Unsurprisingly, the English public have taken to it like a six-year-old to a Playstation, every match is sold out. Now, the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup has exploded the format's popularity across the Indian sub-continent too. Now there are the beginnings of real fears that the ECB may well have created a monster that will go on to kill test cricket all over the world. 'They [ICC] are turning cricket into baseball,` stated the increasingly worried Pakistan legend Javed Miandad recently. Congratulations all round then.

Number 12: Use Of The Word 'Partner'

2007-10-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Don't you just hate it when people say to you something like "oh, is she your partner"? No, she is not my fucking partner, she is my girlfriend. If she were my partner, we would only see each other at work and, occasionally, for drinks. Wouldn't we? When did this toe-curlingly horrible description of your other half creep into to heterosexual life anyway? It is loveless, joyless and really bloody sensible. Its also a betrayal of pop history. Did The Angels famous 1963 hit go 'my partner's back and you're gonna be in trouble/Hey-la, hey-la, my partner's back'? No it did not. Did The Smiths sing about having a 'partner in a coma, I know, its serious'? They did not. Do The Pussycat Dolls pose the question 'don't you wish your partner was hot like me?'. Enough said.

Number 11: Shakespeare

2007-10-10T15:22:00.000-07:00

A message to any theatre directors out there: please can you stop putting on any of the works of Stratford-based playwright William Shakespeare. He only wrote 38 and most of them are usually being done in every town and city in the land 52 weeks a year. And its been 500-odd years since he was around. Okay, he was good. But now he's dead. Get over it. Move on.

Number 10: English Football Fans As Innocents Abroad

2007-10-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

It doesn't really matter which club is involved or where the away leg is being played because English football fans are always pissed, always lary and always offend everybody. Bellies hanging over their jeans and lager lofted skywards, they descend on elegant city squares across the continent and make them their own. Arses are shown, local women leered and jeered at, bar owners insulted, songs not sung but shouted in an exaggerated deep tone. "We love you blahblah we do...oh blahblah we love you...waheeyyy get your tits out for the lads...rule Britannia...your just a bunch of wankers..." and so on and so on. Yet the cultural ignorance of the English fans is so deeply ingrained they can't see that what they are doing is offensive. Rowdy, yes. Boisterous, certainly. But not out of order. They do this every Friday and Saturday night at home. So when a hundred of Roma's hardest Ultras descended on the main square and stabbed and hospitalised 10 Middlesborough fans two seasons ago there was outrage from all corners of the English media. A similar response erupted after Man United fans were apparently 'attacked by police' during the Champions League game last April. Funnily enough there seem to be a whole host of stories like these from all over Europe. Could it be the English fans behaviour that is causing all the violence in the first place? Listen morons, you are probably the most offensive bunch of yard-dogs in the world and your actions are seen by everybody, except you and the often remedial English press pack, as aggressive, provocotive and disrespectful. And you are in another country where different rules apply. So if Man United fans want to provoke the Roman riot squad its up to them. But if anyone does that in Rome, they get their fucking heads kicked-in. That's the way it is. And unless the UK government can obtain a licence that puts them in charge of law and order policy across all European states, that's the way it will stay. Innocents abroad? Don't make me laugh.

Number 9: Intrepid Explorers

2007-10-09T10:30:00.005-07:00

Balloonists, multiple marathon runners, round-the-world sailors, Arctic trekkers, in the last decade or so there seems to have been an alarming rise in the number of monied adventurers with too much time on their hands heading off to far flung places in the name of nothing much at all. Listen Ranulph, Hempleman- Adams, Branson, Bear Grylls, or whatever your bloody name is, it might have been big and clever in the 19th Century but it really is a bit redundant these days. What Ellen MacArthur did was heroic and meaningful but there is a big difference in sailing single-handidly around the world and paddling across the pacific ocean in a tin bath just because no-one's done it before. Oh look at me, I'm the highest bloke in a balloon ever, can I go in the Guinness Book Of Records now please? No you can't. Now piss off.

Number 8: Casualty And Holby City

2007-10-09T10:30:00.004-07:00

Whenever I have the misfortune of sitting down and watching either of the BBC's established hospital soap dramas, I always imagine what the reaction of the cast and crew of ER would be if they were watching too. Similar to mine, I usually conclude. First they start yawning, then they gawp open-mouthed at the shocking quality of the scripts, the story lines, the special effects, the shabby attention to detail and, most of all, the acting. Then slowly they sink into a mild passive depression before eventually drifting into a temporary coma with around 20 minutes to go. Why are TV shows like Casualty and its smoother but possibly even duller spin-off Holby City so fucking slow? They have a double-codeine effect by having all the zip and fizz of an amateur drama production added to the misfortune of being set in a hospital. And you can always rely on the writers never to deviate from the tried and trusted sequencing of events. The opening five minutes show a pensioner tramp who's drunk on Lambrini standing on a ladder with a broken rung as he tries to cut down an electricity pylon with a chainsaw. Oh no, he might do himself an injury, you say to the missus. Next minute a boy with a headdress made from dynamite cycles into an ironworks and nearly skids on the floor. Oh no, you say to the missus...You get the picture. If the story lines guarantee clunkiness, the actors cement that idea home. My current favourite is Harry Harper played by Simon MacCorkindale who delivers his lines to an imaginary third person in another room to the one he's in and good old Charlie Fairhead played by Derek Thompson who delivers his lines to an imaginary third person in another room to the one he's in but with a slight twitch. Unmissable stuff.

Number 7: The Transport Network

2007-10-09T10:30:00.003-07:00

If anything perfectly encapsulates the mindlessly deregulated, grossly over-priced and deeply dysfunctional state of the nation then it is surely our public transport system. With the amount of traffic on our potholed roads already at breaking point, subsequent Tory Governments decided it would be a good idea to privatise first the buses and then the railways and then sit back and turn a financially-lidded blind eye as the chaos began. And what chaos we have witnessed brothers and sisters. With all manner of bidders vying for the same most profitable routes, fairs have gone through the roof whilst reliability has gone out of the window. Unsurprisingly, the number of people using the buses has plummeted year after year. The country's rail network is an even bigger shambles and an even bigger rip-off. Under the philosophical guidance of the right-wing think tank The Adam Smith Institute, the railways were initially split into about 174 different sections all of whom had names such as the Strategic Rail Authority, RailTrack somehow managed to make old British Rail seem as flash and as punctual as a French TGV. In order to experience the privilege of standing outside the out of order toilet from Manchester to London we now had to hand over about £438 and were no longer permitted to buy a return, except on Shrove Tuesday's between 5am and 5.21am. RailTrack shareholders were delighted and should have been lynched. But then Blair arrived with a flurry of as-yet-unidentified new fairness wafting in his wake. And he did nothing. Well, virtually nothing. There were horrific crashes at Hatfield, Clapham Junction, Kings Cross, Moorgate and Ladbroke Grove, all a direct result of cost-cutting. Then, finally, in 2002 Network Rail took over and a promise of 'operating in the public interest' was made. It may not be quite as dangerous as it was after John Major washed his ruby-red stained hands of it at the turn of the century but Britain's rail network is still the worst in the developed world. Transport Secretary's talk of an 'intergrated transport system', of getting the public out of their cars and do absolutely nothing to faciliate the possibility of it happening. They urge people to use the buses just as FirstBus put up their fares once more. Pointless and pathetic. And it is inside our yellow-hued heavy metal slowcoaches that we really get to feel a sense of our own shared misery, it is on the buses and the trains where Britain really begins to understand that it is being taken for a ride.

Number 6: BBC 3 Comedy

2007-10-09T10:30:00.002-07:00

There is a very real possibility that every single comedy sketch show and sitcom that has ever aired on BBC3 might have been scripted and directed by Richard 'Formerly Trying To Be Britain's Answer To Will Smith' Blackwood. With the exception of The Mighty Boosh and a handful of others, the third channel from the Beeb has spewed some of the most appalling comedy programmes ever to go to air. With the long-running and endlessly repeated (14 times a year!) Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps as a blueprint, the twentysomething orientated Wood Lane cul-de-sac has done its best to bring back the limbo-like standards set twenty and thirty years ago by the likes of Are You Being Served, Ain't Half Hot Mum, Terry & June, Dick Emery and Kenny bloody Everett. Step forward TittyTittyBangBang, Little Miss Jocelyn, 3 Non Blondes, Nighty Night, Rock Profiles, Pulling, Touch Me, I'm Karen Taylor, Gavin And Stacey, Thieves Like Us, Grown-ups and about a dozen more one-offs that were so bad I can't even bring myself to do a Google search for them. As Graham Linehan put it, "I do hate BBC3. Television 'for the kids' that assumes the kids are a bunch of f***ing idiots."

Number 5: Not Eating Pizzas

2007-10-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

It is incredible that in these days of globalised supermarket shelves and multi-international eating out that it is difficult to get a pizza in the UK. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that most people in this country have never eaten a pizza because they don't know what a pizza is. You see those round things with cheese on the top that you see in Tesco's and Sainsbury's and all the other stores who's names escape me right now are not pizzas. The bases are always wrong, the toppings always over-elaborate. They don't smell like pizzas, they don't taste like pizzas. None of them. And those round things that kids in motorcycle helmets deliver to your front door are even worse. Take a look at the menu offered by Dominos, the nation's number one pizza delivery company. Tandoori chicken? No, that shouldn't go anywhere near a pizza. Barbecue sauce? Not on a pizza, no. Pineapple? Mixed grill? Beef and onion pie? No. No. And again no. Put those ingredients on a pizza in certain areas of Napoli and you might find yourself in a whole heap of trouble. Pizza should have a thin base, it should be burned and bubbled at the edges and have a thin layer of tomato in a large centre circle. If it don't, it ain't a fucking pizza. The Italian's aren't happy with this bastardisation of one of the cornerstones of their food culture and have taken their case to the European Union. So do yourself and the cultural heritage of the old country a favour and phone up your local Italian restaurant next time you want a pizza.

Number 4: Idiot Toys For The Under-5's

2007-10-09T03:13:00.001-07:00

My three-year-son is currently wearing a pull-up nappy emblazoned with artwork from Spiderman 3. I've asked him if he is pleased about this and his reply was decidedly non-comm ital. The reason for this might be the fact that the film is rated a 12 certificate in the UK and him and his mates haven't quite got the whole fake i.d. thing sorted out just yet. This is a typical example of inappropriate marketing aimed at our wide-eyed and innocent toddler folk. Walk into any toy store in the land and you'll be bombarded by acres of over-hyped, over-priced universe saving/destroying uber-machinery. Stuff like Transformers usually boast massive cube-upon-cube stacked torso's, hulking great plastic gun-carrying biceps and a vaguely aggressive cyber warrior-like stare. They are a bunch of tossers. Same with WWF wrestling action figures, Biker Mice and those once infamous helmets in Lycra, the Power Rangers. Why is brash, aggressive, Americanised tat being sold to our children? Yes, little boys have always played with soldiers, always gone to war on the bit of the landing between their bedroom and the bathroom but these ultra mega intergalactic warmongers have all the subtlety of the latest 16-spinning-blade multi-function Beckham-endorsed razor. And they really do look like total wankers.

Number 3: Jools Holland

2007-10-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is how it goes. Its Friday night, it's 11.35-ish and you are just settling down to watch Later...With Jools Holland. As the bands are revealed in the opening credits you nod and say stuff like 'excellent The Horrors...oh good Ian Brown...and yeah he's alright isn't he at someone such as, oh I dunno, Vic Goddard from Subway Sect. What you forget in these overly optimistic early moments is that you'll be forced to sit through some Godawful Senegalese nose-trumpeter or a half-baked jazz wanderer from Memphis who goes by the name Smooth Lenny Hoopcake, or the like. And on at least one of these tracks will be Jools Holland, tinkering away on the old Johanna with the smugness of a thousand jamming sessions written across his cheeky little face. If South London's answer to Oscar Peterson must present the programme then so be it. But why is he allowed to get involved with the booking policy of the show as well? And it's even worse come New Years Eve. Jools is allowed to do whatever he likes on the stupidly-titled Hootenanny and so he brings along as many of his muso buddies as he possibly can in what amounts to a terrifying extravaganza of arm-linking mediocrity. Joe Brown, Sam Brown, the drummer from Squeeze, Ray Davies, BB King, Roland Rivron, Hugh Laurie, people out of Casualty, Gifford & Tilbrook and so on and so on into boogie-woogie wonderland. Somebody needs to tell him to stop.

Number 2: The Worst Tabloids On Earth

2007-10-09T00:04:00.001-07:00

Every time I go into a newsagent or a supermarket or a petrol station or a corner shop the same thing happens. I see a bloke, and it usually is a bloke, pick up a tabloid and take it over to the counter to pay for it like its the most normal thing in the world. It isn't. It is the equivalent of hammering a flag into the middle of the top of your head that reads 'I HAVE NO INTEREST IN THE POSSIBILITY OF LIVING AN EXPANSIVE LIFE OR IN THE POTENTIAL OF THE REST OF HUMANKIND TO SOAR AND CONQUER AND PREFER INSTEAD TO WALLOW IN AN IDIOTIC LUKEWARM SOUP FLAVOURED BY MANUFACTURED CELEBRITY AND BLINKERED PREJUDICE'. Or 'I AM A WANKER', for short. And yet, and yet, people still buy The Sun, The Mirror even The Daily fucking Star. In public. And don't try to hide it. Personally, I'd rather my mum saw me picking up a copy Giant Glasgow Gazongas Monthly than buy any of the red tops in front of any person in the world. Make no mistake, these sheets-of-shite are the single biggest contributory factor to the arse flashing, tit-wobbling, pissed-up-n-fighting, stag-n-hen night puking, x-factor watching, unexpected dog-mauling, junk food shovelling, England's-gonna-win-the-World-Cup, Brentford Bishops Falaraki Tour 2007 18-30 Division Britain that we have come to know and be embarrassed about. Over the last ten years they have turned Katie Price into a best-selling author, handed over vast libraries to the whole sorry Beckham fiasco, lied and confused several million people into not voting at General Elections, given Nikki, Nokki, Naggi and NasalTwat from Big Brother 15 minutes of empty vulgar fame and generally taken the social, cultural and political intelligence of the bulk of the population of the UK back down to levels last seen around the time of the iron age. But its okay. They're only havin' a laugh. Come on darlin', might never 'appen. Oh Fuck off.

Number 1: Highest House Prices And Highest Interest Rate

2007-10-09T00:04:00.000-07:00

Yes folks, you get a really life-enhancing double-whammy of cash misery when you live in the UK. Not content with allowing the price of an average terraced house in, say, Barnstaple to rise somewhere close the half-a-million pound mark, the Bank of England then heap further financial misery on the home-owning Mr and Mrs Public by hiking interest rates up beyond the 7% mark. Millions of Britain's now shell out more than half their monthly income on mortgage payments. Who benefits from all this? Oh that'll be the banks. Some of the wealthiest companies in the known universe. Their obscene profits are partly funded by taking a huge slice of the hard-earned wages of Britain's workforce. Hurrah! Well done to everyone involved in the last ten years of the Labour government. No-one could ever accuse you of selling your principals down the ftse river.