Observations on chav

The Burberry chief executive, Rose Marie Bravo, joked at the beginning of this year that because she wore the label she must also be a chav - but simultaneously distanced herself from the working-class fans of her company's tainted red, white and beige check by saying, rather nervously, it seemed: "I'm sure they are very nice people." She conceded that the company's reduced half-year results to September were probably not helped by the chav phenomenon and voiced a limp hope that chav was a thing of 2004, soon to be consigned to history.

If only. Two weeks later, as Burberry's results for Christmas came out, the fin-ance director Stacey Cartwright added that the UK had now become Burberry's weakest market, even though chavs mostly wore counterfeit check. Few of the label's customers, she insisted, "associated what they are buying with what chavs are wearing". But the po-faced denial and the very mention of the four-letter word proved that chav is still king.

And while Burberry suffers, Chav plc is having the last laugh. The buzzword of 2004 has spawned a whole merchandis-ing industry underlining the triumph of chavdom. Chav! A User's Guide to Britain's New Ruling Class, by the founders of the chavscum website Mia Wallace and Clint Spanner - who claim "there is a little bit of chav in all of us" - has sold 70,000 copies since October.

The book even features on Richard and Judy's recommended list - the holy grail for any publisher. Then there is The Little Book of Chavspeak and The Little Book of Chavs: the branded guide to Britain's new elite. Surely a book on chav towns - currently a favourite feature on the chavscum website - cannot be far behind.

Other websites encourage the patronage of high-street ChavShops: everything-for-a-pound shops where you can get Burberry-check box files to store your chav purchases.

The chavscum shop online has also branched out into the world of fashion. Take your pick of the logos: Von Chav, FCUKIN' CHAV and faux Golden Arches above the legend "I'm Chavin' It". Or, for the less chav-friendly: "Warning! Chavs", with a red triangle containing a youth in baseball cap and tracksuit who bears more than a passing resemblance to Blazin' Squad's Kenzie. Then there's the simple but stylish Official Chavspotter T-shirt. Move over, eBay: they ship worldwide and you can use PayPal.

Non-official chav merchandise (the chav equivalent of counterfeit Burberry?) is also cropping up online: T-shirts with a photo of Prince Harry and the words "HRH CHAV" above his face, or the legend "UK Pond Life - a great natural resource". A slightly scary website called smellyourmum.com has no fewer than 17 anti-chav and anti-townie T-shirts such as "Kill a Chav", "Fuck This Shit I'm Going Chav-Hunting" and "Chavs Suck, Innit".

There is even talk of Chav: the movie. The cast, according to one website, would be The Streets frontman Mike Skinner (though he denied any involvement in a recent Radio 1 interview), Ralf Little of The Royle Family and Two Pints of Lager (and a Packet of Crisps), the rapper Dizzee Rascal and the teenage songstress and the Jordan lookalike Jentina. It would, apparently, be a sort of Quadrophenia set in our modern chav world.

I'm sure chavworld.co.uk speaks for us all when it sighs: "We wait and hope."

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