I am extremely pleased with my species. When two scandinavian artists brought a choir in Birmingham together to sing a piece entirely recorded from complaints submitted by members of the long-suffering British public the result - watchable here - had me beaming with reflected glory. The subject matter ranges from grumbling banalities (”Why does my computer take so very long…?“; “People eat my biscuits / When we have a pot of tea“) to the heart-breaking sudden intimacy (”No one appreciates me“) but all delivered in the same elevated tragi-comic tone which equates the mixed-up flux of modern life perfectly. This is art that’s doing its job.

Happily, the concept has gone viral and a second video was made by the Helsinki Complaint Choir, who push it still further by force of numbers and poker faces. It begins “You can’t get rich by working / And love doesn’t last forever” but my favourite moment is the dramatic surge as they sing “My dreams are boring / Reference numbers are too long…” or, no wait, actually their mournful delivery of “Evenings wasted hiding from the TV License inspector / Because I don’t want to pay for sports and reality TV” is pretty totally affecting, too…

I dunno, I’m not feeling especially articulate, but it knots my heart into an origami flowerhead… Go forth, be happy.