Save Me…… from the people who grumble about nothing

The Olympics will have kicked off in London this time next week. But I´m prepared to make a prediction already. In fact it´s a guaranteed bet. It´s a rock solid shoe-in for the Gold medal for Team GB if ever there was one. This one cannot lose. I stake my life on it.

Well, it wouldn´t lose if the event was actually in the Olympics. But it´s not. Which is a shame. Because if it was, they would probably just give the gold to the British team immediately without even having a competition.

The Brits are rubbish at football, they´re rubbish at most sports actually. But at the sport of complaining they are Olympic champions. No, in fact they are World, Galactic and Universal champions.

If there´s one thing I´ve noticed above all others looking back at the UK from here in Spain it´s that you guys never stop bloody whinging. I should know. I´m one of you!

Think about it. How familiar are the following sentences to you? Everything´s rubbish nowadays; They don´t make ém like they used to; It wasn´t like that in my day; It´s all wrong it is; Kids today eh?; We´re all going to hell in a hand basket (whatever that means).

These are phrases that are used so commonly in everyday British society that they´ve actually entered the English vernacular. And as if that´s not enough damning evidence, then let me give you another example. When someone asks you how you are, often the answer will be: “Mustn´t grumble.” You´re fine, but you don´t say you´re fine. You complain about having nothing to complain about.

Christ knows how the UK ever became a global superpower in the past what with the complaining about how rubbish everything is all the time. Mind you, thinking about it, maybe that´s how they did come to dominate the world. Everywhere they went, they depressed the locals so much with tales of misery and hardship and the fact that it never stops raining that the locals gave in without a fight just to shut them up. I think the only reason the British Empire slowly disappeared after the Victorian era was that everyone else in the world started cheering up and telling them to bugger off.

A brief scan of the British papers this past week revealed the following stories to me; O2 mobile phone customers getting livid about having no phone network for a day and a bit, complaints that some security staff at the Olympics being “illegals”, anger at the fact that it´s been raining a lot recently, complaints that there are too many women teachers in UK schools, much gnashing of teeth over the fact that David Beckham hasn´t been selected for the Olympic football squad, fury over claims by a government minister that Britain will always stay in the EU, outrage over cuts to the Olympic opening ceremony, wailing over the fact that there isn´t enough security at the Olympics.

Did you notice a common theme in there? There seems to be a lot of people angry about the Olympics. You´d think the fact that the UK is hosting the premier sporting event in the world, an event they´ve been planning for four years, would generate some sort of joy, excitement, thrill or happiness among the British people.

But oh no. We can´t have that, can we? It wouldn´t be right to actually be positive about something as big as this. The staging of the Olympics is perfect for the British mindset because it gives them the opportunity for an Olympic-sized moan. And there´s nothing that makes the British people happier than being unhappy about something.

The other stories are almost as bizarre in their banality. Mobile phone users without coverage for a day or so? Well, all that does is show just how much mobiles control their lives. Grumbles about the fact it´s being raining a lot recently? It always rains. It´s Britain. It´s hardly breaking news. Grumbles about the EU? Again, nothing new there, just some bloke´s throwaway comment sparking fury and threats of conspiracy. And as for the claim that there are too many women teachers in British schools? Well, that one came from the Daily Mail. Say no more.

 Here in Spain, there´s 24 per cent unemployment (or if you´re a young person 50 per cent), there´s tax hikes, pay cuts, slashed government spending and businesses closing left, right and centre.

But the sun is shining, the beaches are full and people, while expressing their frustration with demonstrations from time to time, generally just get on with things. There´s not the culture of persistent moaning here that permeates the core of British society. Maybe that´s because the Spanish have had it a lot tougher than this in the past. That´s not to say they don´t care. They do. But they just express it in a slightly less permanently irritable way.

They realise that things aren´t great at the moment and haven´t been for some time. No jobs means people here have had more time for leisure or sport activities. Maybe that´s why they have the best football team in the world at the moment, because they´ve had a bit more time to practise. There´s nothing like success in the sporting arena to galvanise the masses, to send a wave of happiness through the population. And that´s just what happened earlier this month when Spain won football´s European Championship again. It makes the hardships easier to bear, at least in the short term.

So instead of complaining about how everything´s rubbish all the time, maybe the UK population should instead celebrate the huge sporting bonanza that is the Olympics and be happy and excited about this festival of everything that´s good about the world.

They might even find that things aren´t quite as bad there as they are here in Spain.