13: People (normally younger than me) who make everything sound like a question?

I'm a child of the 1980s. Yes, I was born in the 1970s, when punk was at its highest of dizzying heights and Margaret Thatcher was about to be festooned upon us like a rusted T-1000 in a bouffant wig. But I'm a child OF the 1980s, because that's when I grew up. If your first childhood memory is not of He Man but of the Turtles, you're a child of the nineties. I care not one fuck if you were born in 1989, you were merely sent into this world in that year. You were not "Made in the 1980s" as your fucking Top Man t-shirt says. Your personality, likes and dislikes and sensibilities are shaped by your childhood and mine took place in the 1980s. The early part, admittedly. The bit where video games consoles were still made of wood and people queued round the streets of Leicester to see the stunning special effects of Ghostbusters.

Thing is, I'm the last of a dying breed. My generation (I reckon those born in 1982 and before) are the last bastions of hope for a rapidly vanishing tradition. A noble, thoroughly British area of etiquette that precious few youngsters subscribe to. An issue that is so simple in the very nature of its being and yet so far from being able to be saved that a billion Daily Mail readers cry into their Fruit 'N Fibre every morning to mourn its obvious passing, like the gradual decline of the Queen Mother - with her peanut teeth giving away the fact that the royal family were waiting uncomfortably long for her to croak, like a family eying up new dogs whilst their labrador limps past 87 in dog years.

I speak of course, of the tradition of talking without making everything sound like a question.

We've become so used to this that we never, ironically enough, question it. Well, normal people don't. I do. I sometimes imagine that I'm possessed by the irritable spirit of a Victorian diction coach, liable to crack people across the backs of their knees with the birch because they made the sentence "I ate a lovely orange yesterday" sound like a question by using the wrong intonation at the end of said sentence, the reckless mavericks.

If you just read the sentence about the orange and your voice went slightly up in tone at the end of it, you are going to hell. I can rest assured that you're younger than me and I can only sleep well in my bed at night knowing that my generation and those before me have wrecked the world beyond all belief for you to live in. The children may be our future, but they can't fucking speak properly.

Thing is, it is a basic fact of life that we imitate and mimic others. Mass media is such that we can watch whatever we want from across the globe at any time. Satellite television has a billion channels with nothing on, so they have to get the programming from somewhere. I could blame any country for this phenomenon if I chose.

It's not the UK, because we invented actual language, so my Dad says. Yeah.

It's not America, even though I'd love to blame them for something else. Their contributions to youth culture know no bounds. I would like to thank them in particular (via the means of me besting them in a Coal Miner's Glove wrestling match) for Dawsons Creek and the wonderful way that it has enabled the love lorn the world over to overanalyse relationships and talk in sentences that no-one would ever use in real life. An actual quote:

Dawson: God, I am so lonely. I'm 16 years old and I'm so hopelessly lonely.
Joey: Is that why you got drunk?
Dawson: Yeah...Jo, why did you break up with me and run straight to Jack?
Joey: Because he wasn't you. Look, it was never about looking for something better, Dawson. It was about looking for someone who wasn't so close to me. Where I could tell where I ended and he began. I mean, our lives have always been so intertwined that in many ways I feel like you partially invented me, Dawson. And that scares me so much. I need to find out if I can be a whole person without you. I need to find out if I can be a whole person....alone.
Dawson: Well, do it quickly, okay? Because....God, I love you.

Seriously, what the fuck?

Anyway, yes. I blame Australia, for so many reasons. The main one being that they can take it. If you know an Aussie, criticise him and her. Watch the look on their face. The wry smile. That's them thinking "Ha! Least I'm not British". While I'm awake at 6am writing this rant, every Australian I know is having a dream about how good he or she is at sport. Even if they're useless at it. They don't have egg and spoon races in sports days in Australia. No sack races. They do three-legged triathlons, and then the talented little fuckers run home afterwards so they can sprint to the beach and swim to Papua New Guinea.

Back to my point about the 1980s. In 1986, something terrible came to our shores from down under. No, not Yahoo Serious (Young Einstein came out in 1988).

Neighbours.

Until the people of Erinsborough appeared on our TV screens, I'm convinced that we spoke normally. You could point to the Americans and the way they talk (which has similar intonation) but I reckon they merely copied us. Because face it, we're cooler than Americans. But not as cool as the Japanese, because they have the whole Harajuku thing and Ninjas.

Over 5,500 episodes of Neighbours have been screened in the UK. My sister (three years younger than me) used to watch it every day. I remember the look of delight on her face when she'd had a day off sick and she rang her friends to tell them that she'd watched the afternoon version of Neighbours. The way she described the experience was akin to someone of my Gran's generation having a biblical vision of St Peter and the pearly gates. My entire school was addicted to Neighbours (and later on, to a lesser extent Home and Away). The only plotline I can ever remember getting interested in was when Todd (I think) got addicted to arcade games and they showed him playing Ghosts and Goblins in an arcade. You could tell he was a dangerous addict because he had on a long coat.

There is so much non question asking chicanery in one episode of Neighbours that I have to turn it off before my neighbours bang on the walls to ask me why I'm screaming utterly random-seeming sentences at my television, like a schizophrenic having a surrealist row with himself. There is no reason that we should pay any attention to Neighbours at all - it's not like the rules of Erinsborough have any bearing on real life.

RULE A: You'll probably work at Lassiters at some point.
RULE B: It's quite easy to become a journalist, so maybe try that.
RULE C: Or a teacher.
RULE D: No other forms of work are available.
RULE E: Unless you count being a sub par Matthau / Lemmon combo as a job (I'm looking at YOU, Harold and Lou)

MAJOR RULE: If you ever leave Erinsborough, you will AT THE VERY LEAST be terribly maimed. If you go into the forest around Erinsborough, you will definitely die.

The popularity of Neighbours was such that if you imported any Australian programme then people genuinely got excited. I remember the debut of Flying Doctors - my mum and sister had planned their evening for weeks. I went outside and there was no-one about. And that night, another 100,000 people made the sentence "I'm going to bed now" sound like a godforsaken question.

Australia - and indeed Neighbours itself - has given us so many great things. Kylie and her bottom. Dannii and her breasts. Stefan Dennis and "Dont It Make You Feel Good". The belief that any simpleton can have a number one record in this country. Angry Anderson. It's all good. Australia may have given us this habit, but we're the ones to blame for copying it so frequently and making it normal. Makes you wonder what's next though, what the next great cultural explosion is, the next best import to Aussie soaps.

I'd quite like the joy of Bollywood films to be a bigger part of British culture - they certainly deserve to be. If only because I'd love dull days to be brightened with dance routines and smiling.

I'm off now, hope you enjoyed this rant? Argh, now I'm doing it.

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