Ignorance, Bliss, No News, Good News

To quote CJ, the boss of Sunshine Desserts in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin: 

Cognitive Distortion.
Image: © Mike Bodnar

'I didn't get where I am today by using clichés,Reggie. I avoid clichés like the plague'.

And while I agree with him about the use of clichés, here are two that have recently reared up and become an important part of my life: No news is good news, and ignorance is bliss. Tell you why...

A few weeks back I started feeling depressed and even slightly angry. It wasn't a one-off one-day thing - I was feeling this way from morning onwards throughout the rest of the day, every day. My usual second coffee didn't help, nor did nice weather. Alcohol might as well have been water, and going for a walk just made me introspective rather than appreciative of my surroundings.

I've had depression before and been on medication for it, quite a long time ago now, but I remember clearly how it felt. The symptoms will vary from person to person, but for me it was a feeling of hopelessness and a sense of 'why bother? And, 'why me?' A real sense of, well, depression and - importantly - helplessness. That was the worst thing, helplessness.

So it worried me to recognise these symptoms again a few weeks ago, and concerned me also that in general I had little or nothing to be depressed about. Lockdown had been relatively easy and not too much of a chore, I don't mind wearing a face mask (most people would be pleased that I am!), and although I missed travelling and we had to rethink journeys and having visitors, it didn't worry me too much. So what was it?

In short, the news. I realised I had got into a daily rut (which is the word 'routine' with some letters missing) where the first thing I would do on waking each morning was go online to read the Guardian and the BBC News, followed by some social media. Later in the day I'd watch the evening news, just to see what had changed or happened since the morning.

And it dawned on me that what was getting me down was that the news in general, week after week - in fact for months if not years - has not been good. The Brexit debacle, Trump, the Amazon rainforest disappearing, climate change,

A dangerous virus

species extinctions, knife crime, police shootings of black people and the resultant BLM protests, Russian conspiracy theories, the Royals divided, a violent reaction to statues connected to slavery or racism, and of course the virus, with the attendant shambolic government responses.

Yes that's a personal selection and yes there has been some good news (cue Captain Sir Tom), but I propose it has been vastly outweighed by the bad. And it vastly imbalanced my mental wellbeing. Turns out I am not alone, and that overexposure to news and the adverse impacts it can have on a person's mental well-being is a thing.

The website verywellmind.com has an article about the negative impact of bad news and Covid-19 in particular. It quotes psychologist, Logan Jones, PsyD, who says, 'Unfortunately, a lot of the news we consume today isn’t so much reporting as it is a way of keeping people addicted to the news cycle'.

He adds that sensational headlines attract more attention, so media outlets frequently focus on disaster reporting at the expense of positive news.

Boris Johnson

The same article quotes Annie Miller, who has a string of letters after her name stolen from the Polish alphabet: MSW, LCSW-C, LICSW. She says, 'It can be damaging to constantly be reading the news because constant exposure to negative information can impact our brain'. She adds that our brain then activates the 'fight or flight' response, and the systems in our body react accordingly.

And it turns out there's a chemical equation to all this; watching or being exposed to a lot of negative news can release stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. The likelihood of this happening increases during a crisis (e.g. every time Trump opens his mouth, Covid-19 in particular, Boris Johnson failing to get to grips with the virus, and the complete omnishambles of mixed messaging from government in general) to the extent that we can develop physical symptoms. Some of the most common are: fatigue, anxiety, trouble sleeping, and - guess what? - depression.

Time magazine, in a report in May this year, quoted Graham Davey, Professor Emeritus of

Prof. Davey. Image: Psychology Today

Psychology at Sussex University and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology as saying, 'The way that news is presented and the way that we access news has changed significantly over the last 15 to 20 years', adding that: “These changes have often been detrimental to general mental health'.

The changes he refers to are that news reports are 'increasingly visual and shocking', but also of course it's to do with how we get our news; mainstream media, social media, even celebrity and influencer gossip - all bombard us on an all-too-frequent basis. Never has there been such omnipresent and widespread 'news', opinion or comment; it's available 24/7.

So it's not just how I was consuming the news, it was the news media itself and the way it was being presented. Turns out I'm a victim. Okay, poor Mike you say, why can't you just look the other way and shrug off the negativity? 

Loretta Breuning.
Image: psychologytoday.com

Because, says Loretta Breuning, a former professor of management at California State University who unknowingly rushes to my defence, the human brain is actually attracted to troubling information since 'we are programmed to detect threats rather than overlook them'. In the Time article she says, 'This can make it hard for us to ignore the negatives and seek out the positives around us... our brain is predisposed to go negative, and the news we consume reflects this'.

Whoa! So now we're in a situation where our brains are predisposed to 'go negative' while at the same time we are exposed to an increasing amount of negative news coverage presented in sensational and don't-look-away styles, and our bodies react chemically resulting in actual imbalance of our physical and mental states. Vicious circle. Fact! Nobody knows more about vicious circles than me.

But all is not lost; there is an answer, there is hope. The solution, the experts say - as with alcohol, fast foods, sugar and other things that can be bad for you in

extreme doses - is to practise moderation in your news consumption. Supporting this, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends for example searching news about Covid-19 largely so that 'you can take practical steps to prepare your plans and protect yourself and your loved ones'. Once you have that information, WHO says, it’s time to turn the news off.

The same approach applies therefore to all negative impactful news, and as we all know we've got no shortage of it. But I arrived at these answers myself before I read any of this, and I'm here to share it with you. It's fine, you're welcome.

About a month ago I changed my routine, and for weeks now I have not read any news, nor watched TV news bulletins. Stories that try and attract my attention on Twitter or Instagram go ignored, unless they're of particular interest to me. I will click on any news of archaeological finds, space travel, astronomy, resurgence of wildlife, or amazing photography from National Geographic. (Note to friends: photos on Facebook of food, pets or grandchildren still don't do it for me so don't even try). My wife Liz lets me know if there's anything really important that I need to know about, and that's an acceptable answer too - rely on a trusted companion for your news.

Do I feel any better? You bet I do; I have more energy, I am more relaxed, certainly more optimistic, and all my depression symptoms have dissipated. I feel like a million dollars, and no medication was required, so I've eased pressure on the NHS at the same time.

I know you're going to say, 'That's all very well, but it doesn't stop bad news happening, and you could be missing out on important events'. True, bad news will always happen, as will major events, but nothing I can do will change or in any way influence them if they've happened, certainly not just by knowing about them. So I am happy (literally) to be ignorant, and I now realise that ignorance really can be bliss. I know Covid-19 is still rearing its ugly head, but then, I avoid clichés like the plague. 

If I were a rich man...

Image courtesy Al Jazeera

I don't want £76 million, writes Mike Bodnar...

Money. Wealth. Ooh those words, they conjure up some great images don't they? Being debt-free, travelling first class, living in a mansion. Or, if you're more philanthropically inclined, helping the needy, supporting education and welfare. Perhaps giving anonymous donations to people and causes. Surprising a busker with £100 in their hat.

Well unless your name is Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos or a few of the other obscenely wealthy people in this world, you will be just like the rest of us – dreamers. And it's the dream of wealth that makes lotteries so attractive. But there's a problem. Whereas Bezos et al have gained their wealth through commercial enterprise (and let's not go into the ethics of that here please), the rest of us struggling to make ends meet on salaries or benefits need a short cut to wealth.

As with wealth, so there is greed. The more you have the more you want; witness the world's largest and wealthiest companies and individuals with their funds 'offshore' to avoid paying tax. But I'm not here to moan about tax avoidance or evasion. It's the use of greed by the lottery organisations themselves that disturbs me.

As I write this I can, within the next few days, win £8.5 million on Lotto, £76 million on Euromillions, and if I have New Zealand residency, NZ$50 million (a smidgen over £25 million in sterling). Last week I missed out on having £44 million deposited in my bank account, despite using my favourite numbers.

The so-called 'jackpotting' of prizes means that small prize pools eventually, over time, can become huge prizes, which drives the deprived and desperate into a frenzy. They buy even more lines in the draw, spending more money on the increasingly remote possibility of becoming unimaginably wealthy. (And when I say 'they', yes, I am excluding myself because not only can I not afford to indulge in lots of lines or tickets I don't actually want £76 million. Seriously. Read on...)

What happens when prizes become salivatingly enormous is that common sense goes out the window. People forget that the more tickets the population buys the more diminished the chances are of winning. (I will tell you how to increase your chances of winning in a moment. Meanwhile the rant continues...)

Look at it from a simple church fair raffle perspective. If the vicar is selling raffle tickets for a picnic hamper and they cost a pound each, and there are only 200 tickets being sold, then if you buy one ticket you stand a one-in-200 chance of winning. Buy two and your chances double, and so on. Buy all 200 and you've won (but you've paid £200 for a £40 picnic hamper, duh). At that local village scale it's easy to understand, plus the number of tickets is capped.

With a national lottery, tickets will be sold right up to the last minute to as many desperadoes

Hmm, what would you buy? (Image: Wikimedia)

as want them, thereby reducing your chances of winning the major prize as each minute ticks buy until the draw is closed. But the lotteries people use this massive jackpot prize to whip up a frenzy of buying.

But let's get to my main gripe: who wants £76 million anyway? (Okay, hands down, don't be silly. Maybe the word isn't 'want' so much as 'needs'). 

As I've said, I don't. I wouldn't know what to do with £76 million quid. Maybe buy a small village in the Cotswolds. No, I would be very happy with one million, even a lot less. A win large enough to pay off the mortgage and get the family together for a holiday somewhere nice would be perfect. Oh, and maybe a bit more to make up for the fact that I don't qualify for a pension, but that's another story.

So, my plea to the lotteries organisations is that they stop appealing to our greed by marketing the attraction of massive jackpot prizes and instead cap all monetary prizes at £1 million pounds per winner. I think we can agree that if you won a million you'd be very happy, right? Then by all means let the prize jackpot to £76 million, but let's have 76 people become millionaires.

That way your chances of winning a substantial amount of money increases, there are more winners, and the country would suddenly have 76 new millionaires contributing to the economy. No individual needs £76 million quid, but I'm one of at least 76 who could do with one million. Lotteries people take note.

Now to the bit you've been waiting for: how to increase your chances of winning in a lottery. I learned this from someone who worked for the New Zealand Lotteries Commission and it makes sense to me.

Let's say you spend £5 a week on buying a lottery ticket. That means that each week you have maybe two or three lines of numbers, which is the limit of your chance of winning. If you had more lines you'd have more chances, but you don't want to spend more than five quid a week because you know your limits.

So don't spend five quid a week. Instead, save it, and the next week, and the week after and so on for six weeks. Then you have £30 which you spend on the one lottery. Now you've got six times the chance of winning something in that lottery, and you haven't spent any more than you usually do. Simples, as a meerkat might say.

Of course there's always the chance you'll just end up with one of those silly 'lucky dip' tickets as a prize, or unlucky dips as they should be called, but that's another gripe and I think we've had enough for today.

Good luck.

The Lost Goon Show Script of 2020

What would a modern-day Goon Show radio script be like? 

What follows is purely a musing on my part. 

I have aimed to maintain the 'spirit' of The Goons while

referencing contemporary mores. (I know, dangerous
territory, but then the Goons broke rules back in
the 1950s...)

Milligan, Sellers and Secombe
(Image courtesy of the Goon Show Site)

Announcer

This is the BBC

FX

Rioting, fighting noises, general mayhem.

Neddie

Coming to you live from the BBC canteen!

Announcer

We’d just like to apologise for the offensive material, 

upsetting scenes, tears, chaos and despair this evening…

but that’s what you get in every night’s news. 

Instead, it’s The Goon Show 2020!

Music

Opening theme

FX

Mournful wind

Announcer

We present: The Cellphone Tower of Doom or, 

for our French cousins, The Tour de Farce. We open 

on a windswept heath. Clouds scud across the sky. It is 1652.

Grytpype Thynne

Ah good, almost tea-time.

Announcer

Suddenly a strange figure approaches…

Neddie

Hello folks!

Grytpype Thynne

That’s one of the strangest figures I’ve ever seen. 

I say, you there sir.

Neddie

Me there sir?

GT

Yes you. Who else is there?

Neddie

Well, there could be a whole army behind me!

GT

Given your girth that’s true. I shall walk around 

you to make sure.

Announcer

Two weeks later…

GT

There, I’ve circumnavigated you.

Neddie

What, what, what, what? But I’m not Jewish!

FX

A mobile ring tone of Lady Gaga or similar

GT

What’s that ridiculous noise?

Neddie

It’s my mobile phone, you upper class idiot!

GT

Don’t you use that ring tone with me! Who could 

be calling you out here in the middle of nowhere?

Neddie

Well, let’s see, I’ll just scroll through my contacts. Er, gee… 

gee…

GT

Only 2Gs Neddie? You need a better network than that. Now then, 

where were we?

Neddie

What's that? Huawei?

GT

Not so much who are we as who were they. I saw some Chinese technicians checking a new cellphone tower near here.

Neddie

You mean…?

GT

Yes, they were Chinese checkers.

Neddie

And I suspect you sir are working with them, aiming 

to take over the world by spying on everyone and 

noting down their most intimate details.

Eccles arrives

He wouldn’t get much from me. I don’t tink I’ve got 

any intimate details!

Neddie

Eccles my man! And I use the term loosely. Why on 

earth are you wearing that tin foil hat?

Eccles

It stops naughty invisible microwave radiation from 

entering my brain and making me stoopid!

GT

It’s not working…

Announcer

Meanwhile, not five miles away. In fact not two miles 

away. In actual fact, quite nearby, the custodians of 

the 5G repeater tower are preparing their weekly report…

Henry

Min…Min… It’s time for our call on the interthingy. Min, 

have you taken everything down?

Min (flustered)

Oh Henry, this is no time for naughty shenanigans. 

I am keeping everything on until after our report Henry, 

you naughty modern man!

Henry

Oh Min, you... you snowflake!  Now climb to the top 

of the tower and send me the readings. Here, take 

this talkie-walkie…

Min

Don’t you mean walkie-talkie?

Henry

No, I put the batteries in the wrong way round

FX

A ‘ping’ noise

Min

Oh Henry, you have a text message! What does 

it say?

Henry

It says, ‘Someone will knock at the door’

FX

Knocking at door

Henry

Ah, it must have been predictive text!

FX

Door opening

Min

Oh! It’s a woman Henry!

Major Bloodnok

Only on Wednesdays madam. Underneath my 

disguise I am in fact Major Denis Bloodnok, DIY, 

MOT, LGBT.

Henry

What about the Q?

Bloodnok

There’s a queue? Then let me be at the 

head of it!

Henry

Min, Min, make way for the military gentleman. 

Or woman. Major, what pronoun do you prefer?

Bloodnok

I’m a ‘them’ or a ‘they’, but only partly because of my size.

Henry

Min, make way for them!

Min

But there’s only one of him…

Henry

Min you Generation XXS woman, are you not 

woke to sexual preferences?

Min

Of course I am Henry; but we’ve no time for that now!

(Min and Henry make saucy noises together)

Bloodnok

Enough of this! I’ll not have any sex on my watch! 

Get off him woman! Now then, I’m here to help defend 

this cellphone tower from invasion. The entire manpower 

of the Queen’s Own 14^th Fuchsias have the place 

surrounded. They’re nervously fingering their pistils 

as we speak.

Henry

Min! Cover your ears so that you don’t hear any of 

this floral-type talk!

FX

A knock on the door, it squeaks open

Bluebottle

Bluebottle enters stage left. Waits for applause. 

Not a sausage. Not even a computer-generated 

sausage. I have a massage for the Major.

Bloodnok

A massage? You mean a message my little 

asylum seeker!

Bluebottle

Am I seeking asylum Major?

Bloodnok

Yes, and there’s one just nearby. I’ll make sure you 

are fast-tracked into it as soon as you’ve delivered 

the message. But first, give me that massage…

FX

Slapping noises, Bloodnok moans in ecstasy.

Bloodnok

I say, I don’t suppose a chap could expect a 

happy ending?

Bluebottle

Thinks to himself… but has no idea what he 

means. Alright then! ‘Hip hip, hooray!

FX

Everyone claps.

Bloodnok

Hand me my stockings and dress. Now then, 

what’s the message?

Bluebottle

Your man on the inside is outside with another 

man, who he says is on the inside of the enema.

Bloodnok

You mean enemy!

Bluebottle

All I know is he told me where I should stick 

the message in case I got caught. 

You’ll never find it!

Bloodnok

I’m not even going to look. Bring them in!

FX

Door opens, shuffling of feet as Neddie, Grytpype 

and Eccles enter.

Neddie

Ah Major Bloodnok. Neddie Seagoon reporting 

sir/madam/other. I have uncovered the spy who’s 

been planning to overthrow the mobile phone network!

Bloodnok

Excellent work Seagoon. I can see he was astute, 

devilishly clever, a master of disguise too. Alright you 

scoundrel, we’ve got the measure of you!

Eccles

Yup, about five foot two. But you’ve got the 

wrong man – and I use the term loosely.

Grytpype Thynne

Alright all of you. You think you’re all so clever…

Bluebottle

I don’t!

GT

Stay where you are and put your hands up. 

On my mobile phone I have a 16 mega pixel jpeg 

of a gun, and I’m prepared to use it!

Neddie

Not so fast! Before we came in I tweeted you 

a gif of a ticking time bomb!

GT

Yes Neddie, I received it and Photoshopped it 

into a bucket of water, thereby rendering it harmless. 

Now turn around and face…

FX

Bomb explodes, noises of things falling and crashing

GT

Curses! I thought I’d defused it!

Henry

You did. That was my Min imitating a bomb 

through the talkie-walkie. Min… Min… you can come 

down from the tower now. Just mind the bucket of…

FX

Min falls from the tower, her scream getting louder, 

ending in a large splash.

Bluebottle

She’s fallen in the water!

FX

Theme music.

Announcer

That was The Goon Show 2020, starring the 

late Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Peter 

Sellers, with material (corduroy mainly) by 

Mike Bodnar. Any complaints should be

addressed to someone else. Goodnight.

Image from Wikipedia