I'm struggling to think of a time when so much unease was woven into the words of our national story. Whether it's an advert for cryptocurrency or the UK's flag carrier, the comments on a TikTok, or a political leader's speech - regardless of which end of the ideological spectrum they occupy. The feeling that things 'aren't quite how they're meant to be' is everywhere. Sure, the five years following the 2008 financial crash weren't exactly peachy; TV was dominated by adverts for payday loans, Channel 4's idents talked of the country having "gone to the ruddy dogs", and the BBC had resorted to serving up at least three helpings of Morecambe and Wise in an attempt to comfort a nation looking in the rear-view mirror instead of forward. (This 'don't worry, everything's fine' strategy was repeated in the midst of the Covid outbreak, where Christmas 2020 saw six...)
But this is different. The despair rings louder, and the long tail of decades-old poor national decisions is thwacking more people than ever before. Even the rich in Britain are starting to feel quite poor. Although those on the bottom rung of the payroll ladder might justifiably baulk at that suggestion.
Nothing captured this mood better than an advert from a hitherto relatively unknown cryptocurrency firm, Coinbase.
Credit: Coinbase/YouTube