Recently it feels like I have fallen down a well. Whilst at the bottom of said well, I slipped like some Murakami novel, into another world. A world that looked exactly like mine, people behaved almost exactly like mine, except they were all in an uproar. They were so angry, and it seemed Britain was going to hell in a hand basket.

It seems no one listens to anyone’s point of view anymore. You are either with us, or against us. You can’t be reasoned, you are just a fence sitter then. If you understand even one aspect of someone’s point of view, then you are my enemy. You either agree with the Daily Mail which makes you a frothing at the mouth racist, no better than that boss-eyed Mr Toad lookilike Nick Griffin. Or you side with the Guardian, making you a bleeding heart liberal who is the very reason this country is in the dumps, and why they cancelled Last of the Summer Wine.

At least that is what it seems like.

People talk about the loss of Britain, and the loss of England due to all these foreign hordes. As if we are losing in a war against a tidal wave of Johnny foreigner. What I want to know, is what version of England is this? Is it the one after the war, where everyone lived off powdered egg and drank 3p pints? BRING THAT BACK! Is it the one of the 60s, which was all about rebellion against the post war austerity? Maybe it was the 70s, where Punk and Unions roamed the land. Or the 80s perhaps, with its Greed is Good mantra, and white dog turds in the street. That is not a racial comment, it is a ‘dog turds out in the street so long they turned white’ comment.  It can’t be the 90s, because that was when political correctness came along and ruined everything. And it sure it wasn’t the noughties, because that was when we were given our hand basket to go to hell in.

So why are we angry? Why? Because of fear? Fear of poverty, fear of homelessness, fear of getting ill, fear of the other, fear of children, fear of strangers, fear of the future, fear heaped upon fear. With a side of fear. And what do we get from the so-called leaders? More fear. What do the newspapers and news channels give us? Fear. Fear paralyses all of us, and so we retreat into our idyllic versions of things we used to know but may not have ever existed.

Other people may say it's got nothing to do with the current government, the current economic crisis etc. Its technology, ROBOTS TO BLAME! Blame the way in which people can be outraged on a daily basis and immediately comment on it. We have a news system that requires many more small stories in a day. It's mainly because of how the  internet behaves.

I wonder how much publicity any of these recent situations would've got if Twitter didn't exist and journalists had better stuff to do rather than to report on the latest Twitter trends. It isn’t really news. It is some bloke (Clarkson) saying something mildly offensive. It is some drunk woman, shouting hate at someone. Yeah, not pleasant, but there are far bigger fish to fry.

I was looking at a Victorian map of my area, and on said map was written: "Witches burned here in the 18th century". People were actually burned alive, because someone didn't like the way the looked, talked, acted, etc? We have actually come a long way. In that context a young woman shouting abuse on the Tube is reprehensible, but at least she's not a slave owner or actually physically oppressing or injuring anyone. Maybe someone should sit down with her and ask her why she hates foreign people so much. Only way we can help surely? Maybe you are thinking, SHUT IT HIPPY! She was right, send ‘em buggers back. Last time I checked, the only way to get to an island, is from off it. All those who are so keen on booting out those foreigners because they weren’t here all them years ago. Sure, lets all do that. Lets all live in our ‘own’ (sic) countries. Sure you may get rid of us, all 7 million of us,  but you are going to get over 24 million back from America, and 10 million back from Australia, and then you have the countless millions retired in Thailand, Spain, all them places! And which of them are going to be cleaning office blocks for a fraction of minimum wage? Or sweeping the streets?

I guess its symptomatic of the times; we seem to have a very nasty, selfish group of people in charge. They are then supported by their mates in the press, who perpetuate all the myths about who is to blame. Immigrants who take "our" jobs, never the bosses who employ vulnerable people on below legal wages. Dole "Scroungers" who are "stealing" public money, never the rich, who are stashing their money in tax havens. We'd rather spend money on systems for killing people (Trident) than money for saving people (the NHS). What kind of civilisation does that? I am not against people becoming stupidly wealthy, and I wholly think they should keep the lions share of it, but they should equally pay a proportion, not be able to pay accountants to hide it.

Our moral compass is screwed and it is all our faults! And the worst thing is it is cyclical! In the 80's, it was the unions and communism, now it's immigrants and 'political correctness'. There will always be someone to blame for why we aren’t all Jordan, or Posh and Becks, and whilst they are photographed coming out of the Ivy, we sit at home with our Findus Crispy Pancakes and Spaghetti Hoops wondering why we didn’t try harder at maths in school. Then at least we could have been the bankers growing rich, rather than whatever shitty job we do.

And don’t get me started on the word Multiculturalism. I hate how that has become a bad thing. Sure, some people don’t like foreign muck, but others do. I love houmous, and falafel, and other things from other countries that aren’t chick pea based. Now how ever, it is made out that it is a bad thing. Something shoved down our throats by lefty do gooders. Maybe a better way would be to be painfully ignorant about other cultures and the social morays of other people, because then when our governments went over to bomb them for their natural resources we’d feel less bad.

I am going to leave you with a story about something my mum taught me when I was a kid. I came home once, and was exceedingly happy. My mum asked why, and I said that the teachers had told me that as I wasn’t a Christian, I didn’t have to sing hymns anymore. To which my mum, a god botherer herself, ‘You will sing those hymns. We live in their country, so you will live by their rules. You respect what they believe in because it is important to them. It doesn’t hurt you to listen and understand.’

We don’t do that anymore. We don’t flex to other people. We just carry on with our lives, and tweet abuse to the people on X Factor because it is easy and pretty anonymous.

Hell in a handbasket!

- Anand