It actually makes us feel better to have a good old whinge about how everything is not fair and nothing ever goes our way.
It's how Britain complains as a culture that bemuses me - the letter writing culture. In the USA, if you don't like something, you march right on down there and you tell'em.
In some parts of the world if you complain, the likelihood is you won't live long enough to have the opportunity to do it again - people who would love the opportunity to be able to freely tell people they are wrong or that something is wrong.
So why is it that in Britian we think that the good old stiff, stern, snotty letter will get us the most attention? Why not go down there and kick up a fuss?
I think it's partly down to balls. It's all well and good writing a letter because you can read it over and over again. But actually going to speak to the person face to face would be much more of a problem. We would end up freezing up and fluffing our lines, whilst absorbing their corporate jargon (or whatever it may be), end up apologising and walking out, red faced, tails between our legs and a smacked bottom.
I rarely write letters, I think it's usually a waste of time. If I was working for a company and I received a snotty email I don't think my reply would be too dissimilar to "find something worthwhile to do with your time."
However, I did come across something this week, which has actually been bugging me for a while. Football ticket prices are absolutely shocking. The other day, I logged on to the Arsenal website to book tickets for the Leyton Orient FA Cup replay, thinking they won't be more than a tenner.
I was wrong - £34 at the cheapest price. I was so angry, I wrote them a letter. Observe...
"To whoever it may concern,
I have just found out, to my disgust, the price of the tickets for the FA Cup replay with Leyton Orient. I think it's absolutely disgusting that you are charging £34 per ticket to a game which is, in effect, a bonus to ticketing revenue for the season.
We have already gone all the way in the Carling Cup, had home games in all previous rounds of the FA Cup and four games in the Champions League, including the astronomically priced FC Barcelona game.
I am a student and would love to come and support my team, I love Arsenal, but I simply cannot afford to do it at these prices. I understand the club needs to make money from ticketing and has a vast role of staff to pay for...but making a cup replay £20/£10, like you have done with the Carling Cup, would hardly have broken the bank, and allows real fans, who might not be able to afford to go every week (for whatever reason), to go and see a few extra games a season rather than clogging your ticket centre up trying to get United or Chelsea tickets because it's the only game they can afford to go to and might as well make it a big one...
I highly doubt you will sell out this game, first reason being it's against Leyton Orient, and with no disrespect to Orient - it's hardly a high profile derby. The second is it's on a Wednesday night and night games can be a problem for some people. The third and probably most important is that it will be on TV anyway. It seems to me a very strange decision to make it even harder for yourselves to sell out by keeping the ticket prices so high.
I am not usually one to write snotty letters, but I only write to you because I care. I love my club and want to support it in all ways I can. All I ask is for something small in return. Don't get me wrong, it won't stop me from buying a season ticket as soon as I can afford it, but right now (and this will always be the case with thousands of fans), I have to limit the number of games I attend. So far this season - only Ipswich at home.
I hope you can understand my frustrated point of view.
Yours sincerely,
James Warner"
It sort of fades out at the end because by that time my anger had deteriorated. I was quite proud of my achievements but of course, that was sent on Tuesday and I'm still waiting for a reply.
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