WE'RE a funny old bunch in England.

Forget the old cliche about us being animal lovers, I fear we could be a nation of moaners.

For as long as I can remember we have been grumbling about one thing or another. We have highbrow, political 'observations' on the state of our education system, the national health service or our European neighbours and we spend the week whining about work before blotting out our free time with an excess of alcohol, then moan about how we feel in the morning.

And if we run out of steam we can always return to that favoured British topic the weather.

Strange how it's always too hot, too cold or too wet in this country, eh? I mean, look at me, I'm even moaning about moaning, a kind of meta-moan if you will, and where's the sense in that?

I've recently returned from India where, God knows, they have enough real reasons to complain but, for some reason, don't, and my first contact with a fellow Englishman as I headed home was to become the victim of a random rant.

Having been separated from my friends in the mad scrum to get into the airport I joined them as they waited in a line to had over our baggage.

I must have skipped a whole five people to get to them and was verbally assaulted by retired major type on having broken the scared convention of the queue.

When taken to task he had to concede it wasn't going to make any difference to when he got back to Blighty but, like most of us, was going to make damn sure he didn't miss a chance for a whine.

My response? to shrug it off then spend the next two hours moaning about the man. At the end of the day we have a lot of blessings to count.

People have had to put up with a lot worse in years gone by and still are in other parts of the world.

Looking at our lot we've got it pretty good, and even the poorest of us live an absurdly coddled life in comparison. Perhaps that's the root of our toddlers' tantrum temperament.

We throw the toys out of the pram at the slightest provocation because when you get down to it we haven't got any real battles to fight and obstacles to overcome. So let's lighten up and change the record, we don't know how lucky we are.