Gloomy January tells us being "British" becoming a distant memory

A HMV store (Image: Metro.co.uk)

January is widely known to be the gloomiest month of the year. It has been a month past Christmas and we have already spent our money on everything apart from treating ourselves, we're struggling to lose the pounds we gained from our turkey sandwiches diet and getting back to work after a decent break with family and friends is proving more difficult than previously feared.

The UK is finding this January in particular gloomier than any other. This week, we discovered one of the nation's favourite retail stores, HMV has entered administration. Its poor sales and profits means the shop which sold our favourite album and film, have surprisingly put their future to the safe hands of the administrators who will put thousands of jobs in potential risk. This news comes days after Jessops closed for business and weeks after Comet bid its farewell to its last store - and to further the disappointment to High Street enthusiasts, Blockbusters (another technology shop) has also entered administration. The High Street is heading towards destruction and we can blame online shopping all we like but it's how the High Street shops cope with the digital changes. HMV's struggle has come to a surprise because of its online success but evidently, the likes of Amazon and Play.com are doing a much better job income-wise.

Things happening in Britain are getting rather depressing, not just because of the bleak future our beloved High Street. Oil prices are set to soar because of the cold front heading from Scandinavia meaning heating bills and car petrol prices are expected to rise. In addition, train ticket prices have gone up earlier this month as the government hopes to afford the costs of the controversial high-speed rail link between London and Birmingham and the electrification to various routes. Also, rocketing inflation levels means the prices of newspapers are getting higher - The Guardian is now £1.40, up from £1.20 meaning it is almost cheaper to purchase a bus ticket from your home to the shops than it is to buy a paper, unless you buy The Sun. If you like to afford reading excellent journalism and think it's okay to pay a little extra on fuel 'this one time', remember to save those precious pennies because child and housing benefits are cut to those who need that little extra helping hand.

Not depressed yet? I would be surprised if you weren't even a little bit - unless you have more money than sense, of course. You can say it is gloomy to be British at present but even being called "British" is seemingly offensive to some parts of the UK. People in Scotland are starting to weigh up the pros and cons of possibly being independent by late 2014, Northern Ireland are violently protesting about when the British flag should be on a Belfast building - by doing this, the small headline-grabbing minority badly injure police officers and burn the Union Jack flag and we hear quite a lot of people in Wales speaking their disappointment in Westminster over their latest antics. Basically, "proud to be British" is now translated to "proud to be English" - and even the English aren't pleased by how the UK is shaping at the moment.

Recent image of Olympic Park (Image: Andy Wilkes)

The royal family we once admired in the past are losing the small amount of popularity they had and I've heard debates about whether Queen Elizabeth II should be the last monarch, which is ludicrous to even consider. And now the Olympic fever we had six months ago has completely vanished. I went past the Olympic Park on the train through Stratford last week and saw for myself its disintegration with the swimming pool arena being knocked down in front of my eyes. London simply could not wait to disappear parts of the city which reminded us of the happier times we had in the UK. The Olympic fever has gone so low, one of our national treasures, golfer Rory McIlroy doesn't know who to represent in Rio in 2016. This moment in three years is meant to be exciting times for golf as it had never made it to the Olympics before but the sport's world number one doesn't want to crush fifty percent of his support by deciding to represent Team GB instead of Ireland, for example. This divide could put him off competing in the Games at all which means chances of gold for either GB or Ireland could be thrown out of the window.

There isn't much pride today as there was decades ago when The Beatles and Rolling Stones were British prodigies, rather than the English legends they are today. The only bit of pride we call British is in relation to the armed forces. We remember their dedication so much, they are treated like a bit of escapism - so we can forget about our woes and worry about those "dying for our country".

What should we do? Being "British" is in a crisis but there are solutions. Let's try and remember why we were proud to be British in the first place and see how we can incorporate that to the future. That may mean looking at our past but I think it will be great if all 62 million of us are acting as one community rather than so many little ones conflicting with each other. I am proud to be Welsh, don't get me wrong. But, I am also extremely proud to be British.