I DON'T know about you but sometimes I reckon everyone in this country has totally lost the plot.

In fact, looking back over the last week I have to admit I'm wondering if some people even saw the script in the first place.

Honestly, it's flippin' ridiculous.

From where I'm standing we've become a nation of almost complete wasters in every sense of the word - and that includes everyone from the government down to the Neanderthal football fans in Charleroi.

I'm sure this current state of affairs is not why my two grandads fought in the war, I'm sure it is not why my parents brought me into the world - and I'm damn sure this is not the mythical green and pleasant land England was once crowned.

Put simply, I think the current state of the nation is nothing more than a complete disgrace.

Job losses, poverty and general doom and gloom seem to have a grip on East Lancashire and I for one can't see how or when things will change.

Internationally we seem to have plummeted uncontrollably from a tip-top superpower with an Empire bigger than the McDonalds hamburger chain to a country with such a dubious reputation that we might as well be a party of bumbling chimps.

It's not surprising though really when you consider our ambassadors abroad range from the worst kind of drunken holidaymakers in Union Jack shorts to rampaging football fans with mis-spelled tattoos. Nightmare, isn't it? And what are the powers that be doing to help bring about a much needed change of direction? Well, I'll tell you. Among other things, we're now paying people to pretend to be caravaners for the week.

No joke. Honestly. I heard it on the news with my own ears. They were actually trumpeting it like it was something to brag about. Just exactly why is unclear I'm afraid and unfortunately I can't tell you either because I have absolutely no idea.

Perhaps we're trying to teach people the fine art of wasting time, effort and money in one fell swoop - though there seems to be plenty of people who have already mastered that particular skill around here if you ask me.

I can never believe that in the 21st century people are still living in shop doorways or that children are being abused or that some families survive on less money than it takes to feed a dog each day - but paying thespians to play holidays? What's that all about?

I just don't get it, do you? I mean, I'm all for a bit of culture but, come on, this isn't culture in any way shape or form. It's a joke.

Apparently this family are supposed to argue and draw attention to themselves as part of the Millennium Year of the Artist thing - though how you're actually meant to spot them among all the other rowing families and frayed nerves on the campsite I don't know.

I'm wondering if the man behind the idea - and, surely, it's got to be a bloke - is the same numbty who ordered the Millennium Dome and the batch of dud fireworks that failed to light up the Thames at 12 midnight Millennium Eve.

Perhaps he's also in line for a knighthood for the plague of Millennium Greens, Millennium Festivals and enough millennium projects generally to keep us all busy for the next 2000 years.

Meanwhile, here we are, wondering why, when we pay such huge taxes, we've no money for schools or the NHS or why one of my aforementioned grandads has just been awarded a pathetic, paltry 25p a week payrise in his pension for clocking up 80 glorious years. To those questions I'm afraid I'm stumped - and that's just not like me. Maybe I'm the one who's lost the plot eh?