The last two years have seen a big jump in how much the average Briton complains – with 2015’s whinges being led by those from God’s own country and the capital

Name: Complaining.

Age: How can “complaining” have an age?

Appearance: What do you mean? It looks like people complaining. I wish I could say I expected better, but honestly, this is just the kind of lazy journalism that’s typical of the Guardian nowadays.

Sorry, I am trying my best. I just thought you might want to know that the famously stoical people of Britain (including you, it would seem) are complaining about things more than they used to. Oh, really?

Yes. According to data just released by Ombudsman Services, there were 52m complaints made about products and services in Britain last year, which is 21% fewer than the 66m that were made in 2014. What do you mean fewer? I thought you said people were complaining more?

I did say that. But maybe they just had fewer things to complain about? Did they?

Yes. According to the data, the number of “conceived complaints” – ie the average number of times during the year that someone might have complained – has also fallen, from 2.9 to 2.4. These people must live charmed lives if they didn’t even get three things to complain about all year.

Nevertheless, when we compare this to the number of times people actually complained, we get a complaining rate of 46% for 2015, which is similar to the 48% from 2014. But both of those show British people being much more complainy than they were in 2013, when the rate was just 32%. Riii-ght. What were they complaining about?

Things they bought from shops last year, in 23% of cases, followed by the service they got from telecoms (16%) and energy companies (13%), then various others. Interestingly, there are often big differences in where people did the most complaining. Oh yes?

In both 2013 and 2014, Londoners on average made more complaints per person than people in any other British region. Typical. They think the world revolves around them, those Londoners.

But in 2015 a new region came storming into the lead: Yorkshire and Humberside. By ’eck! Now I’m even less surprised.

But these figures show only the number of complaints, not the rate at which people were complaining, or how justified the complaints were, or … Don’t spoil it.

Do say: “In my day we didn’t complain about things. We just got on with it.”

Don’t say: “But you’re complaining when you say that!”