Jeremy Clarkson offended me this week. And tram woman. And if that wasn’t enough I was then slightly offended that so many other people were offended by Clarkson. And realising I could be such a squawking, over-reactive little tossbag myself offended me even further. I’m not making this up. I was offended at my own feelings of offence.

This week Britain turned into a big offended whirlpool of agitation and I was inside it, loving it. I was spluttering and chocking as I spun round and round trying to spot something else on the horizon I could be pissed off at. Sometimes I sit and read things I know will offend me just so I can be offended. Give me Richard Littlejohn, Jeremy Clarkson, Jan Moir or James Delingpole any day of the week. A group of journalists who spend their whole lives chiselling ignorant toss out of the alphabet, but I will gleefully lap up every smug drop of prejudice and misinformation they can piss from the end of their fingers. I don’t understand why, I don’t care. I just love soaking in the quagmire of hate and ignorance that fuels the whirlpool. I do it just for the moment I sit back in my chair, slurping tea, slowly shaking my head in disbelief.

I’m probably not the only person who does this. Over 20,000 complained about Clarkson. Inside my warped mind that means a lot of us are part of a big herd of horny, self-righteous morally frustrated stags on a crusade to hump anything offensive to death. Whether it’s Clarkson, Moir, Brand or Boyle, we want to scare them with our antlers before screwing them with our big judgement penises. We do it because we love it. We scrape the bottom of the barrel looking for any old reason to spray our sticky morality juice from our big opinion bollocks. It’s not enough just to be offended and have to deal with it privately. No. We’re so aroused by offensiveness that we take to Twitter or Facebook to register our self-righteous erections. We love showing off how big our lipstick-like deer cocks are. To get it off our weird pelt-like chests properly, some deer have to make an official complaint by ringing up Ofcom so the exact size and bpm of the throbbing hard on can also be logged officially. I bet if you were one of the deer who made an official complaint about Clarkson you loved it when you heard that 20,000 others in the herd did the same didn’t you? It’s okay though, I would too.

I’m probably so eager to register my disgust because I’m so full of my own self-importance. It’s not my fault though because every waking moment we’re all showered with marketing wankery. It means our already overworked, stressed out brains are engaged in a constant battle to unscramble the conflict between advertisers telling us our opinions matter and our own, correct suspicions that they do not. It may have felt good if you complained about Clarkson, but it made no difference. In the grand scheme of things his career and reputation haven’t been dented a jot. Why do we assume that with a phone call to Ofcom we can make a difference? “Because you’re worth it”, of course. Because we’re all so unique, likable, intelligent and sexy. “It’s your world. Take Control”, “Have it your way”,  “On your side”. The endless list of corporate ego-toss pissed on us from up high is relentless. No wonder we feel that by complaining we can make a difference. The worst one for me is Vodafone’s “Power to you” – a particularly condescending piece of marketing wankspeak considering that this year, Vodafone only paid £1,400 of tax on profits on £3.5bn. We are being seduced by the same predatory psychopathic financial system that is screwing us. We’re all victims. Even Jeremy Clarkson.

If companies were real people they would be attractive, strong and alluring. They might spend an evening tenderly caressing and holding your hand, understanding and listening intently while you moan about your problems. You’d probably be in absolute awe of them. But the moment you turned your back they’d be riffling through your wallet and frantically rummaging around your underwear draw, grinning and twitching as they sniffed your pants. If you caught them doing it they’d just smile back at you and ask if you wanted some more coffee. They want us to think we’re intelligent, that our voice matters. We clearly believe them else they wouldn’t spend so much money doing it. We believe that with our smart phones, Twitter accounts and blogs we somehow matter more, that the world will listen to us. The tragedy is that it won’t. Our opinions don’t mean anything. Not even 20,000 of them. Next time you get your face patronised off byApple, Tesco or Vodafone, remember the billions of pounds they spend confusing us by massaging our shoulders and giving us cuddles. Remember they’re just robots, robots with a cute plastic smiles and a flat plate of cold metal where their genitals should be. They will tell you anything to get at what’s in your purse or wallet. Even if it means lying to your vulnerable, hopeful, little face.

We’re angry but we can’t seem to figure out what to do about it. The things which really offend us - war, hate and greed - are so far out of our control that we have no hope of instigating change, despite our smart phones, haircuts and all the other hollow pieces of toss we’re told empower us. We’re hopeless and frustrated, which is probably why we jump down the throats of people like Jeremy Clarkson. Anyway, no wonder I’m happy being tossed around in the whirlpool. I’d rather that than have to face the reality of what I’ve just written about. I am a stag, stalking the long grass, waiting for the next thing to come along I can senselessly hump.

WHEN it comes to Christmas the meteorological term, perfect storm, comes to mind. A sequence of supposedly unlikely events that somehow combine; manifesting into something hideous.

In fact, for the rest of this article I’m going to call ‘it’ Winterville because I can’t even stand to see the C-word (Christmas, not c***, you idiots). I genuinely hate what it represents: a bleeping, chiming, flashing festival of bullshit that I despise on every level. It’s difficult to know where to start unravelling such a tangled web of patronising, commercialised lies and misery. Perhaps I first ought to explain that the only reasonable excuse you have for celebrating it is if you’re either unlucky enough to look after children, or believe that 2011 years ago a baby was born who you’ve decided to worship. It’s fine with me if you do, I’ll even wish you a Merry Christmas and declare that you’re not part of the following rant. You kind people are safely off the hook. But for the rest of you on this rainy, Godforsaken shithole of an island it’s about time you grew up and took a long, hard look at yourselves. For you, Father Christmas isn’t the only fictional character you celebrate at Winterville. Don’t let that stop you though, you weirdos.

And secondly I wouldn’t be writing this if I could opt out somehow, but I quite obviously can’t. As a testament to exactly how far this bizarre celebration of unearthly celestial power has come, for me to opt out I would literally have to disown my family and catch a plane to the nearest place where Winterville isn’t welcome. Riyadh perhaps? I don’t know because unfortunately a) I can’t afford it and b) there’d be no alcohol in a Muslim country. So for me, and the countless other people too ashamed to come out of the Winterville hate-closet, there is no escape. Like a brutal, Orwellian dictatorship, most will comply because we have to. To speak out is to be shunned. So tight is its grip that hating it is taboo. It’s like a corporation in itself, a creepy, fake psychopath that smiles back at you no matter how many times you punch it in the face.

To have some idea how relentlessly frustrating this is just imagine: you can’t walk around any precinct, shop or bar in Britain without being haunted by the same Winterville songs that have been on loop for the last 20 years. You’re not even safe walking down your own street – your retinas will be burned by an array of glaring, tacky flashing lights. TV won’t spare you either, it will expose you with propaganda and hollow emotional Winterville branded filth. You can’t even find sanctuary in the pub. Everywhere you go you are being stalked by Winterville – the smells, the sounds and the sights tug at you from every angle like some sort of creepy, obsessive sexual predator hellbent on locking you in its Winterville dungeon.

Your colleagues, friends and family can’t help. They just stare at your face blankly while you sit, frantic and sweating, as you try to ward them off; trying, but failing, to keep them from being drawn into the alluring light. But their eyes have already glazed over. There is no point trying to reason with them. Like a freshly bitten victim in Dawn of the Dead, it’s too late for them. Their heads are empty inside. They’ve been turned. 

So why so much hate? It’s December 1 today – and for the past two months civilisation as I know it has slowly been losing its mind. Winterville victims let the Winterville parasite in months ago, unquestioning and obedient, they let it surge through their veins, consuming all rationality in the process. It all starts in October, when the Winterville propaganda engine, fuelled by destructive western consumerism, rumbles into life and invades every capillary of our culture. We sit, for example, in awe at Winterville television adverts – and some of them cause me despair, actual physical pain, to watch. I recoil in disgust while everyone else seems tp gleefully gulp down the never-ending spoonfuls of patronising bullshit being discharged by everything that moves or speaks. Corporations want your cash and they want it now. Society demands you embrace Wintervilel spirit, whatever that is. Like a patronising school teacher, Winterville wants you to be kind and think of others while it feeds you Belgian chocolates and sits you on its knee.

The harder all of this hypocrisy and wanton bullshit is pushed against my mind, the heavier the pressure to “get in the Winterville spirit”, the harder and more resolute my resistance has to evolve. I adapt to survive. I hate Winterville and I’m not ashamed to admit it because my initial polite, perfectly reasonable wish to not take part gets tossed aside, year after year after year. I’m made to feel like I’m the unreasonable one. This mad, Las Vegas world of flashing lights, squawking toys and tacky fakery, drunk on corporate cash, actually has the cheek to make me feel like I’m the unreasonable one. No wonder I feel confrontational – Winterville is no longer something it is possible to happily co-exist with, it is an enemy to resist, undermine and fight. Such is the madness of Winterville it is either this or be consumed and gleefully clap along to its loopy, off-key tune. What choice do I have? My mind will never be swayed. An unstoppable force of jingle bells, flashing bullshit and fake corporate smiles collides with an immovable object – me. Someone who kindly, reasonably and respectfully wants it to fuck off.

Take a look at exactly what you’re going to do this Christmas. It’s great fun seeing friends that you’re too lazy to see during the rest of the year and everything, but seriously, look at what most of us actually do. Fittingly you will no doubt toss up a fake, plastic tree (or sacrifice a living one), chuck some more plastic at it and plug in some lights to create a flashing monstrosity that at any other time of the year would make you want to be sick. You may back this up by tossing more cheap plastic up elsewhere in your home. Step back and look at what your house actually looks like at Christmas. Don’t you realise you’ve turned into a swivel eyed Winterville lunatic? Who looks at that and feels warm inside?

You eat mince pies and drink mulled wine, like all other ‘food’ shovelled into your face at Winterville it tastes of piss so rancid that you remember precisely why you don’t eat it for the rest of the year. But you’ll lap up sprouts and turkey to the sounds of Cliff Richard’s Winterville songs until you can graze no more. Fat and humiliated, you will fester in front of your television with your boring relatives, watching kids’ programmes like an idiot. You’ll be too full to move, trying to remember the human you were a few months ago. The funnest thing about it is your shit paper hat and that knee-slapping moment when somebody falls asleep. Look at yourself. 

And that’s if you’re lucky. The first thing I think of when I see such greed and extravagance before me is all the people hungry, alone and sad. While society gorges, drinks and spend, spend, spends in the name of Jesus, the forgotten will sit alone, stinging, in their living room. Their sense of isolation and sadness amplified by the garish Winterville wonderland outside. It’s no secret that for many people who are either alone or depressed, Winterville is the worst possible time of year. A perfect storm. It is in their name that I will rant, fight and pour scorn on the virus I’m being exposed to. It shouldn’t be taboo to reject the values of Christmas. It’s not unreasonable to suggest we turn the volume down, just slightly, and stop rubbing Winterville spirit in each others’ faces.  And to the people who think I’m overreacting I’ll say this: remember I’m not the aggressor in this situation. And I’m certainly nowhere near as insane as the depths of insanity that humanity plunges itself to during fucking Winterville.