If you can't beat 'em, wee on 'em.

The headline: "Don't keep up with the Joneses. Beat them." (Independent, opinion) The article is actually talking about the recent research that says that making a million pounds doesn't mean much if all your friends make two million.

My first thought was, yeah, but she doesn't mean literally!

My theory of Britishness is not "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." British society is all about class and status. It doesn't really matter what people do, just if they are better or worse than you.

But different sections of British society have different ways of dealing with people who succeed [at anything].

The English, I feel, like to mock and humiliate things that are better than them or that they perceive to be better than them. They see something nice, and they want to wee on it. That's all, just to make a statement that it doesn't matter to them and they sincerely don't care that it's nice.

The Scottish, by contrast, when they see something nice, they want to destroy it.

I feel like in most parts of England, if I had a nice greenhouse in my garden in a crappy neighbourhood, the locals would mark it with grafitti, maybe nick some stuff, but it would be relatively undamaged. The Scottish, however, are more likely to put a brick in. Not cause they want what's inside, but just cause they don't want you to have something nice.

It's the one thing that's holding the underclasses back -- peer pressure to be, um, the same shit as everyone else. How dare you be better than us! How dare you think that an education and reading are going to improve your life! Your role in life is not to work hard, learn, get ahead, or improve anything. Your role is to reinforce the fact that I have nothing in my life and neither will you!