The chav: member of a pernicious new subculture sweeping Britain characterised by a glorification of vulgar white trash consumerism, chronic lapses of taste, ignorance and anti-social behaviour, writes Kilian Doyle
The chav uniform is white trainers, baseball hats, hoodies and shellsuits. These must be Burberry, Fila, Lacoste, Nike, Reebok or cheap imitations. You can see them in any suburban shopping centre, roaming around in packs looking for decent human beings to torment.
Females of the species, known as chavettes, glow orange from fake tan and favour Council House Facelifts, which are the result of pulling their badly dyed hair into tight ponytails on the top of their heads. Tiny miniskirts and belly-tops exposing blotchy flab are classy formal wear in their eyes.
Both sexes love bling, fake gold or diamante. Their heroes are the Beckhams, who are chav royalty.
The etymology of the term is a matter of some debate. Some say it comes from the Romany gypsy words for boy, chavo, or prostitute, charver. Others say it originated in the English towns of either Chatham or Cheltenham, places I've never been to or had any desire to visit. I can only imagine what shocking kips they must be to spawn such a monster.
In case you think we've escaped, the chav mindset is over here too. Except we call them scobies or scumbags. (To be fair, a scumbag is actually an extreme form of the species, a type of ünter-chav, if you will. A chav will scrape your car with his sovereign ring out of spite as he walks past, whereas a scumbag will just steal it.)
Unsurprisingly, the chav drives cars. And chavs them up accordingly.
Standard chavmobiles are cheap early 1990s bangers such as Micras, Fiestas, Corsas and the like. These are bought for a few thousand euros and chavved up with DIY paintjobs, go-faster stripes, bucket seats and plastic mouldings. Then chavs spend twice the car's value on a sound system so loud it interferes with the signals beamed down from TV satellites orbiting the planet.
Which begs the question - why would you spend a small fortune doing up a crap car that's worth nothing when you could spend the money on getting a decent car in the first place?
There are two answers. First, the one used by chavs themselves - the car is a symbol of their individuality. What to you or me is a scrapheap-dodging crock is to them a blank canvas. Putting a BMW M3 bodywork kit on a 1992 Fiat Panda and topping it off with an iridescent paintjob and neon undercarriage lighting is their way of expressing themselves, the window to their souls.
The second answer, the one favoured by the rest of us, is that they have to do it this way because no bank will lend them the money. Would you lend thousands to a 19-year-old bumfluffed teen in a shiny tracksuit? So, unless they're drug-dealers, chavs are reduced to building up their dream cars piece by piece.
A recent survey by a British used car company has found the chav effect can knock thousands off the value of a car. Dog detritus, smoke damage, bodywork bumps and handbrakes and wheels wrecked from doing wheelspins could wipe as much as 15 per cent off a car's worth, the research shows.
Chav accessories, such as massive plastic fairings and Burberry upholstery could cost a new owner up to €3,000 to put right. This begs another question - why would a normal person buy a car from a chav?
You know it's going to have been used for doing donuts in some carpark to impress spotty girls with massive hoop earrings and other chavs in baseball hats. You know it'll probably have spliff burns and cider patches in all the carpets. Not to mention the mystery stains on the back seat. The radio will be permanently tuned into some pirate station that broadcasts nothing but Eurotrance or Eminem.
The only person who's going to buy a chav's car is . . . another chav. But then, that's what they want, isn't it?