Britain's not broken it just needs switching off and on again...

It's a well known fact for anyone who's ever worked with a computer that, a) the computer will fire warning messages at you quicker and with more regularity than Katie Price hurls "exclusives" at the lip-licking tabloids and, b) that it will do so only at the most inconvenient and crucial moments leaving you berating everything from your job to Bill Gates to the woman who sits opposite you chewing obnoxiously and recanting the details of her bizarre and ugly sex life with all the volume control of Brian Blessed. And when said CPU meltdown occurs you can also guarantee the lifeless IT helpline worker will offer only one solution, the dreaded "Off 'n' on" solution or 'ONO' as it used to be called in my office. As in 'ONO if that didn't work I'm really fucked.' But the most disheartening thing is that it really works, it's as if the machines need a rest or they're just laughing at the futility of mankind and our belief that "progress" means there are people who earn in excess of £15,000 to simply reboot machines all day. Okay so I may be underestimating the work of our friends in IT and I daresay we all have a few given the proliferation of computer-based services in this crazy world. However, whatever the truth one thing remains a constant nine times out of ten, things aren't really broken they just need a brief break; the 'ONO' solution really works.

I think we've now got to a stage where if Britain was a computer it'd be showing a granite box to our neighbours with the fury-inducing message, "An error has occurred and Britain needs to shut. Do you want to send an error report?" And maybe for once we should send a report, a detailed memo to the world on how not to develop and behave. After that we should shut Britain down for, say, six months and wait to start again fresh, having used our break to chill the fuck out and see where we've been going wrong for so long. We should ban all media outlets except the BBC website and insist even that only prints boring, factual news pieces. Any job title with more than three words should be rebranded to say simply what it is or better still disbanded. No more 'Head sales representative for marketing' thank you very much, that ship has sailed and been sunk.

The media would halt; the same papers that peddle the notion of broken families and communities that then gleefully print blow-by-blow accounts of divorces whether it's the Price and Katona break-ups in the red-tops or the oil magnates and people no one has ever heard of in the Mail and the Express. If we want people to be reasoned and civil during a divorce especially involving children, and we really should, we should ban the likes of Trisha and the Jeremy Kyle Show and send them to a distant island with their inbred guests to scream and shout and behave how they wish. Let's not put a microscope on the negative all the time, let's be genuinely thankful that this isn't Rwanda circa 1994 or Vietnam circa 1969 or even London in 1941. Life isn't really that bad for us, yes there are problems but most of them are simply impotent, wearied attitudes. As for removing pointless job titles that’s just for my personal fun, plus I just want to be told what someone does in an inane conversation, I don’t want follow-up questions just because some twat got a thesaurus for Christmas and feels compelled to call his poor minions by an absurd selection of meaningless words placed together with all the care and attention and organisation put into Leslie Ash’s face.

I know this all sounds a little communist and dictatorial but if people want change they have to do something about it. Forget Obama's "Change we can believe in" and let's look at Ukraine where people have genuinely moved for change in the last decade. Countries like Ukraine don't peer listlessly and bitterly at tabloids bemoaning the little things or the big things, they do something about it. Maybe I'm idealising a country I know little about but the reality is Britain isn't bad, we're the problem. We need to come to some key realisations, principally we're not the biggest or best country on earth and shit does, indeed, happen and when it does you have to deal with it sensibly and with action rather than fingers pointed in blame at everyone but ourselves. Take the recent attacks by two young brothers in Sheffield, a tragedy no doubt but it's naive to suppose that this is a) a one-off, and b) not part of wider a social problem which we should try to resolve as a collective rather than tut and moan about parental decay and social services in this country.

Life isn't easy and being part of a balanced, cohesive society's even harder but it's possible. Shit will always happen, unfortunately there will always be unpleasantness, it's hard to accept but inevitable that humans will always commit unfathomable acts against each other, Ross Kemp will always find work in TV and people will still buy James Morrison albums. But it's the reaction that really shows humanity and society's mettle, it's the ability to exist with a degree of happiness and success. Britain's not broken it just needs a bit of reflection, a bit of perspective. It just needs switching off and on again.

This week... Chris would like to send a massive shout out to our only follower, hope you're better soon mate. Chris also sat at home and read a not very good book by Carol Joyce Oates.