“Ugg.” says Charlie Brown. The original grump and one of my favourite grumps. He moaned, complained, and even shouted at times in an explosion of built up frustration. Let’s face it, we love Charlie Brown because we all love to be grumpy ourselves. We love to let out that selfish grown. To moan at how aggravating we find life and its many annoyances. We should admit it. We should be proud of it.
After all it comes with being British. Stuck on an island with nothing but grey clouds for company. Grey defines the weather. Grey defines us. Gray. Grey, even. An in between colour. Not very black but not very white either. Just sort of there. Like those ever present clouds that block out our sun and deprive us of vitamin D. Yet they bring us plenty of what I call vitamin G. G for grumpy. Grey and Grumpy. We really are only a product of our environment.
We are grumpy because the clouds make us grumpy. We can’t get away from the clouds. In order to do so we must use either boat, train or plane. Boats cause seasickness, trains are habitually late, and planes involves queues a mile long. Not to mention your person being searched and your toothpaste being taken away, because it counts as a liquid and may be used to make a bomb of some minty, cavity free sort. No we must deal with the clouds, but we will not do it happily.
No. No, we will groan about them until the sun breaks through. Then we will moan about how hot it is. But lets not get onto that yet. Don’t get me started on the hot, sticky, sweaty trains. Smelling of warm human bodies squeezed together into a carriage and jostled about. ( I said don’t get me started.)
Yes it’s very British to moan. We feel together in our moaning. It’s a bond, a grumpy bonding of fellow Britons groaning about life. We complain about each other even as we bond with each other.
We are G.B.
Grumpy Britain
