New Year, New Futile Attempts To Stem The Tide of Boredom: A Manifesto (of sorts)

It's January. It's a Sunday. We're bored shitless and there's nothing else to do. Hello.

"Misanthropy is a general dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt, or hatred of the human species. A misanthrope is someone who harbors those views and feelings. " - Wikipedia.

Cretins like to bang on about what constitutes 'true Britishness'. Whether that's some pseudo-BNP crap about our 'Bulldog spirit' or some Ruritanian flimflam about a time and place that never was, they're wrong. True Britishness - if there even is such a thing - is Misanthropy; the pessimistic, mocking, begrudging acceptance that life is mainly rubbish and so are most people. Including ourselves.

This is what we have to offer the world. The weather's disappointing, people take it as a personal insult to be expected to do their job halfway-decently (us too), nothing seems to run on time, we all love to self-sabotage, you're expected to put yourself down all the time and everyone's scared of human emotion. We're petty-minded and uptight. Whiny and passive-aggressive. We don't like to cause a fuss but we certainly like to moan about whatever we should have fussed about. We're all a bit scared of life and whilst we parrot the mantra 'mustn't grumble', grumbling's what we do instead of trying something different, something better. Treacle-black humour is the way to cope with everything and taking the piss and being smug about not being blind to the iniquities of life are the only panaceas we've got in return. Well, that and tea - and we don't even like tea. Pity us, O readers.

So if you like to read other people moaning bitterly and unnecessarily about things that aren't really very important, get on board. Passengers are not permitted to talk to strangers, read the tabloids, or have their jeans worn halfway down their arse, anyone whose music is tinnily audible through their headphones will be summarily executed and if someone's put their bag down on the seat next to them, it means fuck off. Flamethrowers can be activated if teenagers try to flag us down.

E.

PS If you're very lucky, we might occasionally be cheerful about stuff. But don't hold your breath.