As a true Brit, the one thing that angers me the most is, of course, patriotism.

No right-minded person can think love for your country and people is a good thing- it only leads to fascism, ignorance and hate. As a citizen of the country that single-handedly fought off the those sauerkraut-munching, sausage-loving germans during WW2, I think I should know.

So you can imagine how sickened I'd be when I turn on the telly tonight to find the Daily Mirror's Pride of Britain awards on TV.
In theory there's nothing wrong with having a celebration where awards are handed out to members of the public who have performed some selfless deed like saving a kid from drowning or rescuing a guy from burning wreckage.

The bit I have a problem with is how they're made to stand up and recieve their award (from, ironically, Carol Vorderman, who recently quit her cushy job doing Countdown because they'd only pay her a 'fraction' of the million quid a year she was paid before- that's selflessness for you right there) in front of a crowd of world famous celebrities including Michael Caine, Paul McCartney and David Beckham (oh yeah, and Gordon Brown, whoever he is).
As if the lowly members of the unwashed masses can, by risking life and limb, be eligible to join the ranks of the high and mighty elite- if only for one night. Because hell, if David Hasselhoff isn't a global symbol of heroism and bravery in the face of peril, who is?

Anyway that's all well and good. There was some weird bit where they played a video of Tony Blair (who isn't even in charge anymore, and is widely hated for basically lying to us about Saddam and Iraq) talking about how the show was a "cure" to cynicism, which just goes to show how disastrous he really was for the economy- cynicism and satire is one of our biggest exports, second only to rotten teeth (am I doin it rite?).

The worst part was when they had some sob story about a chav mum who had to dob in on her own two sons after she found out they had beaten a guy almost to death. Okay, that's pretty harsh but she made the right decision in the end, albeit the lesser of two evils. The messed up bit was how they subtly mentioned she had sold her story to the press, then she got up on stage, was applauded by the entire audience then handed an award by some idiot celebrity.

What the hell? Is it just me, or is this totally wrong? Sure, she made a tough decision and should sort of (emphasis on the sort-of) be half-heartedly commended for sending both her sons to do 2 years in jail, but then sobbing about it after she made however much from selling her story doesn't quite add up. If I had condemned my (hypothetical- I have a blog on the internet) kids to jail, I wouldn't be yelling about it. I wouldn't even tell them, I'd just keep quiet and kind of suffer in horrid self-imposed shame.

I was going to do some kind of witty end to this post but it's already 1 am and I've not written an overdue email to my grandma yet.

I guess the moral to take from this is that classism is bad and chavs are scum.