BBC: Have your say, you cynical, moaning bastards.

Sometimes when I'm feeling a bit down I try to cheer myself up a little by logging on and laughing at the nauseatingly offensive, bigoted, often borderline racist, right-wing nuts that infest the BBC Have Your Say forums. It rarely works.

Alternatively, if I'm feeling in a good mood I feel compelled to log on anyway and despair at the cynical, selfish, mind-numbing vitriol that spews from the pages of what is a seemingly never-ending winge-a-thon.

Whichever way you look at it, it's an addiction.

So the best thing I could do was make a game out of it.

I call the game: "How F***ing Predictable Can You Be?"

The rules are simple:

First you must operate on the (safe) presumption that the most popular comments are going to be the sort of cliches you imagine would come from the mouth of someone who constantly yearns for rose-tinted times gone by, thinks 'taxes' is another word for 'stealing', is convinced an asylum seeker is about build a house at the bottom of their garden, is particularly sceptical of climate change, believes political correctness has 'gone mad', and uses the term 'Commies' to describe anyone vaguely to the left of Thatcher. To put it simply: They have 'had enough'.

That is your average BBC Have Your Say contributor.

Once you have that mindset it's easy. So here we go: In the morning the BBC will open a new discussion. Looking at the title make an educated guess as to what you think the typical contributor would say on the subject. When you have finished, open the debate and click on the "Readers Recommend" tab. Compare your answer to the most recommended comment and see how close you got.

Here are a few examples of the system in action:

Let's start with a crime debate from back in May, which can be found here:

How can we tackle knife crime?

An interesting debate. What steps could we take? Stop and search is a highly charged issue. So what does the most recommended Have Your Say contributor have to say about it?

"Oh, will it upset the knife carrying little darlings who clearly have done no wrong? No doubt it’s against their human rights not to carry a knife then?
This type of liberal thinking sums up everything that is wrong with fighting crime in the UK."
Cyrus P Turntable, At The Races
Recommended by 484 people

I see. (I almost forgot: A recurring theme in the forums is that the Human Rights Act is bad. Apparently it only applies to criminals or something.)

Now let's try an international issue, discussed in June:

"Should African leaders apply more pressure on Mugabe?"

Perhaps we need to discuss what form this pressure could take, how to encourage progress and what barriers lie in the way. Let's ask the most recommended contributor, responding here:

"All these states demanded independence from the old colonial powers after WW2 and they all got their wish, since then all they have done is scream for help and continuously held out the begging bowl.
It’s about time these countries were left alone to sort out their own problems maybe then they will start to grow up."
Alan Baker, Chelmsford
Recommended by 429 people

How sympathetic.

Just to show how ridiculously predictable this game is, move on to a potentially inoffensive topic. Such as this one here, which cropped up in August:

"What is Britain's happiest place?"

Surely the system can't apply here? It's a nice topic. Maybe the most recommended comment will be "Brighton - because it's fun!" or "York - because it's friendly and there are some lovely sights!"

Sadly not. Because when you factor in the mindset of your average Have Your Say contributor the answer is obvious:

"The happiest place in Britain? Any place that has not yet been "enriched" by enforced, unwanted "diversity", so that people still feel they belong to that place and share its history and traditions."
Robert Soria
Recommended by 220 people

Marvellous, isn't it?

UPDATE: This weekend provided a few more debates which neatly fit the mould.

On Saturday this debate was raised:

Do we care enough about the Paralympics?

The most endorsed comment summed up the general consensus of the forum:

"I'm not really bothered, nor interested in this PC nonsense."
Bored Indifferent Chap.
Recommended by 152 people

Well at least he's honest.

I'll leave this sprawling post with another fitting example from yesterday:

What is your favourite decade?

"The seventies. The last time I can remember England feeling like England before PC loonies made it Racist to be proud to be Heterosexual, White or Christian, Whilst encouraging every one else to celebrate their ROOTS!"
Louis Cannell, Northampton, United Kingdom
Recommended by 131 people

Ah, yes. Louis nails what the majority of Have Your Say contributors feel is wrong with today: It's today.