Diary – 13 March 2004

I see that the papers have finally given a name — ‘chavs’ — to the new working class. They are the type of people I have been drawing for years: trailer trash covered in bling bling, wearing Burberry baseball hats, white tracksuit bottoms and white trainers. They couldn’t be more different from the docile ‘pint-of-mild-please’ working class of the 1930s. I remember Mass Observation and the films by Humphrey Jennings, which collated their behaviour as if they were animals in a wildlife documentary. Try doing that now: ‘Wot you looking at?’ ‘Er …nothing. I was just observing you drinking a large Jack Daniel’s and Coke so as to understand the sociological dynamic of the prole …Ow! For God’s sake, don’t hit me!’

They’ve taken down the wonderful turnstiles that used to let you into the London Zoo with a click-click sound, and replaced them with boring PC turnstiles that can take a wheelchair, an elephant — perhaps even an obese child.