The title may sound like the rant of a grumpy old man, but a hit book about how bad modern life is makes a strong case, writes Brian Boyd
Modern life is rubbish. All of it. Just take a look at what's been thrown up over the last few years alone: Lynne Truss; Starbucks; Lastminute.com; boutique hotels; loft apartments; Jimmy Carr; the war in Iraq; Jamie Oliver; city breaks; paninis; 50 Cent; Changing Rooms.
They all have one thing in common and that unifying factor, according to a surprise best-selling book this Christmas, is that they are all crap. And persuasive reasons are provided for each and every one of the above.
Usually when you get people banging on about the horrors of modern life, it's from the joyless, misinformed mouths of grumpy old men and women - so much so that now they even have their own grumpy old television shows.
Invariably they complain about things that (a) they don't understand or (b) they don't know how to work properly - such as iPods and Playstations. This new assault on the spiritual, emotional and practical deficiencies of modern life, though, comes from two youngish (early 30s) media types who are bang up to date with their Babyshambles and their iPod Nanos.
Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur have written the misanthropic miscellany du jour with their book, Is it Just Me or Is Everything Shit? The Encyclopedia Of Modern Life. Like most good ideas, it began with a list drawn up in a pub. They wrote down everything from the last few years that was supposed to be "new", "exciting" and in some way "enhancing", and when they got to the end they realised that, truly, modern life is total rubbish.
There's no grumpiness or bewilderment here - this is a clear-headed indictment of contemporary mores, in particular the celebrity/consumer complex that now seems to govern everything we read or watch.
Go to buy a pair of jeans, and they try to sell you a "lifestyle"; go for a cup of coffee and you get a panic attack from the amount of choices available; turn on the TV and someone who once might have slept with a Premiership footballer is trying to flog a book.
Thankfully, Lowe and McArthur, resist the obvious targets, and have scattered among their dictionary of detritus some "high brow" choices.
Sofia Coppola (the director of the awful Lost in Translation) gets an entry that reads: "A supercilious rich-kid auteur who does pseudo-profound confections that people initially twat themselves over but which, on second viewing, are the cinematic equivalent of unflavoured rice cake."
And the Glastonbury Festival (which is now even more sacrosanct to the British media than Wimbledon and the Henley Royal Regatta combined) gets done on the following grounds: "The toffs who slum it at the festival are one of the few arguments in favour of hunting with dogs, but not in the way they intended."
Also in there, although you would think he's the epitome of all that is good and great in the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll category is Keith Richards. His entry reads: "In a world of fakes, Richards is the real deal . . . except he's a pampered old jetsetter and very silly man. Keef is the fearless spirit who said 'If you are going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use both feet'. But, in living memory, the only authority Keith has kicked with two feet is the Ramblers' Association. He took a legal action demanding that a footpath on his country estate be moved."
Is It Just Me... now lies at the top of the amazon.co.uk bestseller list and is the year's surprise hit. There's even a new genre, "complaint literature", to describe this style of book. Also selling well this year in the complaint stakes are The Pedant's Revolt: Why Most Things You Think Are Right Are Wrong; The Dictionary of Bullshit and The Gripes of Wrath.
From the ridiculous euphemisms now used to describe the ongoing war in Iraq to how fashion journalists use "Manolo Blahniks as a metaphorical tool", Lowe and McArthur may at times be overly reliant on that which is known as the lowest form of wit (yeah, right) but then drastic times do call for drastic measures.
One of the joys of this book is how they can reference both Isabella Hervey and Donald Rumsfeld and make some form of connection. They highlight one of the central contemporary problems, which is, instead of people talking about subjects they understand, we now have "celebrities" talking rubbish about things they don't understand.
It has been suggested by more than one person in the publishing world that if Lowe and McArthur knew how well their book would sell, they wouldn't have been so flippant with its title. But that's very silly. Everyone knows that putting something scatological in the title of your book is very now.
You can't move in a bookshop these days for titles such as Crap Towns, Crap Cars and Crap Jobs, never mind Shite's Miscellany (modelled on the Ben Schott book) and Eats, Shites and Leaves (modelled on the Lynn Truss book). There's even a book called Shitedoku.