MUSN'T GRUMBLE

Britain is a septic island of complaint, a rancid, rotting, pathologised husk of whinging and griping.

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Around seven-thirty in the morning, when I returned home after completing my paper round, I would find my mother and grandmother in our living room, moaning.

The subject of the moans would remain consistent. The weather, of course, was either too hot or too cold; there was too much rain, or not enough; complaints about politicians-“they are all the same” and “only in it for themselves.”

Rising crime was another perennial complaint, as was the failure of the justice system to sufficiently lock up miscreants. Motorbike riders, dustmen, loud noises of any kind, unruly, excreting dogs - the world was drowning in wrongness, and what could you do about it?