Chav Spotting

*Warning: Some may find this offensive. If you do that means you ARE indeed a Chav. You've gotta love irony aye?*

Someone wise once said
"In every group there is at least one asshole.
 If you don't know who it is, then it's probably you."

Whilst I generally recommend this as a useful rule of thumb, I would also say it is particularly applicable to Chavs. No, I'm not saying that all Chavs are assholes (in fact my dubious dating history seems to imply a fondness for them if anything...) but in my experience Chavs do not know that that is what they are.  For example, I have never considered myself to be a Chav. It is a phrase meant to stand for council house and violent, and whilst I do live in a council house I wouldn’t class myself as particularly violent (get in my way during a Top Shop sale however and you may discover otherwise). However, when younger I was often (much to my dismay) picked out as the chavvy one in my friendship group. Ok, so I used to have a fondness for overly big hooped earrings and yes, I did once own a Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Gucci, but it wasn't until it was pointed out to me that I realised what I was. I may not have been giving Vicky Pollard a run for her money but the warning signs were there. Chavviness it turns out is like having spinach stuck in your teeth; everyone else can see it but you.

I have therefore taken it upon myself to provide a Chav check-list- A safety net for those of you who are teetering dangerously close to entering the world of shell-suits and knock-off Burberry. Think of it as a Chav Richter Scale, if all of the below sentences apply to you then you are the Chav equivalent to Hurricane Katrina.

(Please note: If you have ever appeared on Jeremy Kyle this check-list is redundant- you are, and will always be, a Chav.)

Look out for...

1) An intense aversion to ear-phones. Music must instead be played out-loud, in public and preferably from a (presumably stolen) mobile phone.

2) Cars with more blue lighting than you'll find in a dodgy public toilet. Neon lighting is of course illegal when on the road so use of such party lights is reserved for Tesco car park on a Saturday night.

3) An over-enthusiastic tendency towards public nudity. Lads- it’s one thing getting your top off during a game of footy with your mates, it’s another thing completely doing the weekly shop with your moobs on show. And girls- thongs are meant to sit just above your buttocks, not double up as a back support for all to see.

4) Tattoos- Now, tattoos do not necessarily make you a Chav but the following do-

•  "I love arsenal/my mum" tattoos
•  Facial tattoos- particularly anything meant to signify a prison sentence/gang affiliation (need I explain why?)
• "Slag-tags", these are generally considered to be poorly executed tribal designs and normally sit at the same level as the all-too-prominent neon pink thong.
•  Tattoos of your dead dog. Yes it's sad Fluffy the Pitt-BullTerrier / harnessed killing machine got run over, and yes we know dogs are for life and not just for Christmas but that does NOT necessitate getting their face drilled into your skin. You don't see me with a portrait of my dead gold-fish on my forehead, do you?

5) A penchant for any of the following types of jewellery;

• Sovereign rings. Unless you belong to the Mafia, yes these are chavvy.
• Hoops big enough to act as a canary perch.
• Gold chains heavy enough to impair body movement.
• Multi-finger rings that double as knuckle dusters.
• Anything bought from Argos.

6) A diet consisting primarily of White Lightening and Sovereign cigarettes. These should be consumed outside the Job Centre before picking up your dole.

7) Eye-brows plucked to near non-existence, tattooed make-up and the obligatory lip piercing masquerading as a wart.

8) In terms of clothing-

For men: Trackies/sports wear (despite never having been near a sports-field in your life), bottoms should be tucked into to sport socks worn too high and paired with grubby Reebok trainers.

For women: A love of market-bought clothes that would not look amiss on the cheapest of strippers. These should be worn with hair scraped back, giving the impression of a botched face-lift.

9) Whilst most people collect novelty key-rings and other useless trinkets the Chav, like a criminal-minded Magpie with low aspirations, collects ASBOS, court-orders and arrest warrants. These may be earned in a number of ways but most commonly through benefit fraud, driving offences (earnt in the aforementioned souped-up Citreon Saxo) and that fight you had last Saturday night outside the kebab shop.

10) A front garden with more rubbish than the local tip, despite the collection of rusting cars and used needles this still doubles as a playground for the children of the family (or as I like to call them "Chavlings").

And so concludes my Chav symptom list, if you are worried about your own state of chavviness there are a number of cures:

Clothing costing more than £2.50 a piece, contraception and most importantly A JOB.