National Curmudgeons Day.

 National Curmudgeons Day. 

So come on, cheer up. It may never happen and probably never will but it could and then you somehow knew it would be so that's a self fulfilling prophecy. There are those people out there who inhabit a world of constant despondency, nothing but incessant pessimism, gloom and doom merchants, misery guts merchants, grumpy, cantankerous, thoroughly objectionable, negative, disagreeable souls who are the proverbial pain in the neck. They're always complaining about something and can never be happy unless they're whinging and moping about the worst case scenario. 

Now, my late and wonderfully delightful father in law Stan was the best in the world, an admirable and hardworking father of two wonderful children. He served the Ministry of Defence as a conscientious civil servant for almost 40 years. He worked hard and diligently because he was dedicated and always knew the meaning of duty and service to the work force.

But, and this is a view widely shared by his loving family, Stan loved a good, old fashioned moan and gripe and was always finding fault with something and somebody in officialdom. But he was the greatest and kindest, most warm hearted and considerate father in law you could ever meet. And yet, according to Stan, there was always something fundamentally wrong with the government of the day, there were far too many injustices within society that could never be righted and there were annoying imbalances that none of us could rectify.

Essentially though, we tend to get all hot and bothered under the collar about the trivialities and insignificant aspects of our life. Now, though, we are incensed about the astronomical fuel and electricity prices, the soaring gas bills, the unfeasibly expensive phone bills and those ever rising rents to landlords that are always a thorn in the side of young students looking for their first property. So it is that we get angrier and angrier, wildly indignant at the declining moral fabric of the British culture and so much more.

We wake up in the morning and the immediate concern is that good, old fashioned chestnut known as the British weather. Now the weather across the United Kingdom has always been one of the most enduring and traditional preoccupations that do so much to dominate our everyday conversation. We have to worry about ephemera, the things that shouldn't really matter but do and we can never tell you why. We despair of rain during the summer when it should be up in the 90s and gloriously hot. Then we look up at the dark, cloudy skies in June and July and wonder how Britain invariably ends up with day after day of wet, soggy pavements. 

But in complete contrast, we open our blinds and curtains during the winter and half expect twenty inches of snow on the ground and are frustrated when not being able to get out as much as we would like. So when it feels like spring in December and there are still one or two tulips in our gardens, our minds get totally confused and befuddled. So we get on our high horse and criticise our highly qualified weather forecasters because they can never be accurate and it's not the weather we're supposed to get. 

There are the pompous, pontificating politicians who, according to some, are a complete waste of time. The trouble is that there can be no satisfying those grumpy grouches who are always blaming someone or bleating about something. They sit all day in the kitchen, leafing through the news in the tabloid newspapers, fuming and fretting, privately boiling and seething, blustering and bickering with insufferable neighbours or telling their local councillors that those wretched pot holes in the road are getting worse and worse. But then again some of our neighbours are full of sympathetic understanding and kindly words. 

We just become exasperated with those council tax bills, the criminally extortionate prices of breakfast cereals, bread, meat, fish and all of those essential foods that keep us alive and well. It's the cost of living crisis at the moment and how are we ever going to cope and afford basic clothing for both kids and their mums and dads? We more or less surrender to the inevitable relegation of our football team West Ham United all the while condemning outright the manager, the chairman or woman, the ground staff and the catering department for our eternal shortcomings. 

And finally we can barely tolerate the unbearable traffic on the road, vehicles restricted to slowcoach pace at roughly 20mph. There are the winding, twisting tailbacks, bumper to bumper cars, lorries and vans that lead to a procession of bad tempers and very patient motorists who just keep hooting their horns just in case this is something of a deliberate conspiracy. So we just keep airing our understandable grievances because nothing is going to get done and may never be however many times we email the authorities.

Recently, our recycling bins reached bursting point and you found yourself shoving tons of cardboard, paper and plastic into a huge orange and black repository that looked as if it was about to explode with excess and rubbish. So you kept your feelings to yourself and just remained cool and composed, recognising the absurdity of what was happening in front of you.

Then you realised that even though we are almost a month into the new year, the dustmen and women still think it's Christmas. They've forgotten to empty the eco waste again.  And yet there is something warm and reassuring about the world of the grumpy people. They're seemingly never satisfied and yet we love them. They are indeed the rich tapestry of life.  Here's to the Curmudgeonly folk of the world. You're brilliant. Victor Meldrew, of course we believe it.