Violent, Cynical, Broken and Full Of Immigrants - Britain According To Andrew Flintoff

'I have no problems with a multicultural society, I think that is to the benefit of the country. But you have to be careful what levels you take it to.

'It annoys me when I phone a hotel receptionist in my own country and they don't understand what I am saying because they don't speak English.'

Hmmmm? Are you sure that they don't understand you because they don't speak English or could it be because you're wasted after being rescued from drunken night time pedallo ride or because you've won The Ashes and have celebrated too hard?

As an immigrant myself I obviously get wound up by ignorant pricks claiming that we're all benefit cheating scroungers who are too lazy to speak English. But this from a dude who doesn't respect his country enough to behave like a grown man when representing the national team at his beloved sport? Do me a lemon!*

I don't stay in as many hotels as Mr Flintoff, but I can bet that most English hotels choose receptionists for their communication skills, would it be in their interest to hire someone that guests complained about? It doesn't make good business sense you douche!

He continues:

"There are places I wouldn't go to now. You see these reports of stabbings, bottlings, shootings, and you think, "What is happening to this country?"

I think rap music has a lot to do with it. It makes it sound cool not to conform, and to be violent. That's why I think sport plays such an important role. Cricket kept me away from trouble."

ARGH!

If I have to hear one more wealthy person in the public eye bemoaning the state of the nation because there are places that they would no longer go I will scream. Of course there are places you would no longer go, (There are places places that I will no longer go now that I have a job, Matalan being one of them) you're rich! You don't have to go to Peckham (what's the Prestonion equivalent of Peckham any one?) or Camberwell. Just because you're living large doesn't mean that the world is any more violent than it was. British people have been bottling one another since the the cavemen fashioned bottles out of stone and filled them with water** I mean come on! Christopher Marlowe was stabbed in the eye in a drinking den in 1593! 

This is not to say that binge drinking and violence among teenagers is not a serious issue, it totally is, but I don't think it's caused by rap music (are we still pushing conformity and blaming music for complex societal issues?) or solved by sport (don't most schools force their students into PE anyway?)

Flintoff continues:

'Our reputation abroad is getting worse, we are seen as a violent country now.'  

Now? NOW? For as long as I can remember Brits Abroad have been getting pissed and nicking pedaloes, sorry, having fights. Nothing much has changed, except the fact that our highly visible sportsmen do it too. European football fans have always thought of England fans as a bunch of lairy thugs , because of the lairy thuggery they indulged in while watching England abroad or at home. When you look at pictures of people no longer allowed to travel and watch the national side on the news it's not a group of immigrants or hip hop loving teenagers is it? Are white English males being influenced by immigrants to ruck on the streets of Cologne and Croydon in the name of patriotism? No.

When I was a teenager I was banned from going on a trip to Aiya Napa (I didn't want to go anway - f'real!) with a group of friends because of all the violence, boozing and teenage shagging in the streets and it wasn't just the black kids or the immigrant kids, it was all of them and it still is.

To lay Britain's problems squarely at the feet of immigrants and immigration policy is a nonsense. A racist, ignorant and ill informed nonsense. How does he think his words make us immigrants feel? How does he think they make team mate Monty Panesar and his family feel? 

My favourite bit is this though:

'But when you go to somewhere like India you realise we're not in that bad a shape. We have a tendency in Britain to talk ourselves down.

'I wouldn't want to be American, but you have to admire the way they talk themselves up as a people, athletes and as a country. Our glass is always half empty.'

Thanks for talking down to us and talking us down Mr Flintoff. Looking to the most famous country of immigrants in history as an example of something to work towards is a blogger's dream. Thank you so much for making mine. I also love the reference to India, as though you can fairly compare the development of a country that was colonised to the country that did the colonising. Nice work there Freddie.

Link to article here, pinched from The Daily Mail's website, lots of amusing and distressing comments from the public as always.

*See! I know idioms and slang and everything!

** I have no evidence of this