Chapter One- 'People Get the Society they Deserve'
There are some marvellous anecdotes, which I have scoured and included in this book. They mean a lot to me, they obviously meant a lot to the person who wrote them. This is my favourite:
“People get the society they deserve” Anon.
The time had come for me to think about leaving the country.
The new English Best-seller filling out shelves was called ‘Being Jordan, a book by Katie Price.’
I don’t dislike Jordan- but I don’t have an opinion on her either, which is how I preferred my life to be. Jordan-less.
For me, when a glorified glamour model becomes the nations top reading material you know in your heart that the country is going to the dogs (no pun intended- well perhaps) Her name now goes down in history with literary giants of the likes of William Shakespeare, Keats, Hemingway and George Orwell. Living in a world, dominated by an endless stream of vacuous celebrity brain dead miscreants was not one that I envisioned living in, or for that matter being a part of. I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy your existence in the all encompassing world of the B list celebrity, and if Big Brother is your ideal evening’s viewing, then you’re perhaps a better person than I- but let’s be honest- I doubt it.
Personally, I need a cultural existence in order to function as a normal human being, after all the brain is muscle which if fed on ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here,’ can only turn to a mound of irredeemable white blubber, and before you know it, Dr Gillian McKeith will be dragging you through the most humiliating experience of your life by televising your poo on National TV. And yet perhaps the most terrible aspect of this is, you let her, while of course you bask in your new found glory of becoming yet another overweight idiot who sits and watches shit on Television.
Your shit to be precise.
I had to jump clear of the sinking ship, possibly to the tune of ‘Rule Britannia’ as I saluted and watched as England submerged itself into the icy depths of the Channel.
After watching Gillian’s forays into human excrement one evening in morbid fascination, I decided to ignore all her advice for healthy living and took myself off to the local Threshers wine shop, in order to drown myself in the sorrow of living in a media soaked society for another evening. I headed down the drizzle soaked street, I don’t drink but thought I’d treat myself to an exciting Saturday bottle of lemonade and perhaps a bag or peanuts. On first approaching the doorway and being surrounded by teenage yobs who spoke to one another as though they lived in the Bronx (and not middle class Brighton) and where turning them down on buying them a pack of 10 B &H often results in being called a ‘Cunt’; I entered the over illuminated, and over priced off-licence. Now, as if Jordan hadn’t been enough to tip the balance for me, and of course Dr Gillian rummaging through some buffoons constitutionals, I noted rather horrifically that Threshers had enclosed all of their shelves with bullet-proof plexi glass. I was stunned and rather speechless, which for me is relatively unheard of. I don’t know what terrible events took place to make the staff fear for their lives and wall themselves in, or if a robbery took place by said middle class yobs, but everything in the store was unattainable. I wanted to touch things, pick them up, look at them, put them back and wander around aimlessly for five minutes of my life amusing myself, but sadly this was not to be. Apprehensively I approached the small slot through the plastic window where the shop workers sat; you could hold a strained conversation with them, provided it was carried out sideways. I asked a man behind the plexi-glass if he wouldn’t mind getting me two bottles of Sprite, to which he meekly obliged while a queue of people behind me waited impatiently to buy a bottle of wine each, all the while looking extremely fed up because they wouldn’t be able to read the fucking labels themselves. And quite rightly so. I felt as though I were the reason the plexi bullet-proof wall had been erected in the first place, that I had to be reprimanded, or maybe it was because no-body could be trusted and now I was being pigeon-holed into that category of not being trustworthy along with everyone else who looked trustworthy enough to pick up their own bottle of sprite without running for the nearest exit. I hardly look the type to hold up an off licence with a gun, I shuffle around in oversized clothes and am about five foot five. Others have committed crimes- everybody else is being punished. People now have to ask permission for buying a bottle of wine or in my case, two half bottles of Sprite.
I think this is taking the piss, I don’t like being labelled as untrustworthy, I don’t like having to ask other people to get me peanuts, and I don’t like the fact that Britain is turning into a mini version of America right before my eyes. I could understand if Threshers were situated on the Gaza Strip, but it isn’t, it’s in a residential area of Hanover, one of the nicer parts of Brighton and is often frequented by old men from the bookies opposite on a Sunday afternoon for a can of Mackesons and a single cigar. Piss has been taken, unlikely to be returned, a refund of personal freedom to buy your own poxy lemonade is not something I am holding my breath for.
A small complaints box had been erected outside of Threshers, but was removed after someone thought it would be funny to post dog-shit through the front flap. I expect next week I will have to order a bottle of lemonade on the black market. Possibly over the internet. And pay for delivery. And have to wait in all day between 9am and 5pm. (exact time of delivery not stated.)
A week before these rather minor but ultimately life changing changes took place, I had decided I wanted to leave Brighton and try to make my life elsewhere for a while. I was jaded by everything I saw taking place around me, and everything I had turned a blind eye to for so long. It probably all began in quite small and insignificant things, which are hard to pin down. It felt more like escaping than leaving Brighton, and possible escaping Brighton would not be enough, I would maybe have to consider going further afield to instigate a radical change of lifestyle.
‘Lifestyle’ is something I’ve never considered myself to have, a life yes, a style possibly, but never the combination of the two. A lifestyle to me, are what B list celebrities have, and what the readers of ‘Hello’ strive to attain. This was more than a lifestyle choice. This was all out war on common decency and repression.
I’d always been quite a tolerant person, but my tolerance for even the smallest misdemeanours had been pushed to its absolute limit. I also think that many other countries have a different set of moral codes and I was intrigued to find out more about them. When I first sat down and wrote down this book, it was well over a year ago. Since then I feel I have perfected the art of complaining; my misery is now alleviated by the fact that I can isolate specific problems without the need for mindless rantings, I have systematically disseminated everything which needs to be questioned in my own life, like why I find myself putting up with such appalling conditions in all manner of circumstances. I think by pinning down things which are detrimental to our lives, it can lead to a better understanding of how the world works around us, why at times we feel insignificant and helpless to change things, and how at other times we can make big differences to the benefit of not just ourselves but others. I hope this book will be a starting block and that others will question why they put up with so much. To me British people are very forgiving of others wrongdoings, for example, if a child in this country were to misbehave in public for example, it might get told off by strangers, and perhaps think twice about doing it again, I said might... and I said perhaps. However I have seen Italian and Spanish children being told off by their elders to a point that would have you or I running for the nearest monastery and repenting our sins for the rest of our meek little lives, all the while flagellating ourselves with an Olive Branch and never daring to step out of line again lest we be whipped mercilessly down the street naked while people point and laugh. Someone in Brighton was recently “happy slapped” by a group of teenagers (possibly the same ones who called me a cunt and tried to set their mangy yellow eyed Pitt Bull Terrier on me for not supplying them with fags) A group of five teenagers, two of them girls, attacked a woman outside a bus stop where she was standing with her ten year old son. They slapped her around a bit, kicked her to the ground and captured it all on their mobile phones, which no doubt, their parents bought for them, (as they do so worry about the kind of nutcases out there, and wanted to be sure that young Ashley or Simon would be safe) The woman initially told them off for swearing in front of her young son. Irrefutable fact that Britain has the biggest population of idiotic people who like to attack other people for no apparent reason. I hope that one day five teenage youths step forward to “Happy Slap” me.
I am not to be fucking trifled with.
The fact remains, the UK has the highest number of teenage pregnancies, we have to most ASBO’s per country than any other, we pay high taxes and in return we gain very little. We pay for everything in Great Britain twice over in terms of our freedom of choice, our standard of living and our respect for others. Go to Threshers in Hanover, Brighton, if you doubt this for one split second.
In the privacy of our own homes, or to people we know well or those we work with we complain about our day so often without ever taking steps to change it. I think the time for change may be here. I am now forging a campaign. I am calling it
“Fuck that, you must be joking”
A common complaint I often hear second hand is about the service people receive in shops, complaining to anyone who will listen, and yet we won’t actually tell anyone they’re being rude or unhelpful because to do so, often means we are more involved than we need be. But people often don’t complain because no-one really cares. If someone who stacks shelves for a living, drops a misplaced can of baked beans on an old ladies foot, they really won’t give a shit. They’ll perhaps say sorry and laugh about it later. And if they don’t apologise and the person insists upon telling them to be more careful they’ll probably be told to ‘fuck off and shop elsewhere.’ We watch shit on TV and we continually take it on the chin. Life is difficult enough without be able to voice your opinions and have them even considered.
My campaign will be successful, I just know it.
