Researchers discover that you can be bored to death
POOR CONRAD MURRAY. Fancy being declared a criminal just for giving his insane, screaming boss what he wanted. I’ve always given my insane, screaming bosses what they want, since doing so comes with an attractive bonus: you stay alive.
I mean, can you imagine the punishments Michael Jackson could have threatened his poor personal doctor with? “Gimme the drugs or I’ll make you sleep in the same bed as my chimpanzee, my sticky snotty junior high buddies, and ME.”
Now I always get a nasty email from Michael Jackson’s fan whenever I mention him, so let me say up front now that I have absolutely nothing against the dead singer except for the fact that he was a repulsive junkie egotist who blew his children’s entire inheritance on junk such as statues of himself.
The press said the drug Jackson took was five times stronger than a normal sleeping pill, which I reckon gives it about half the sedating power of a Chinese government announcement. Oh yes, believe me, those babies can KILL.
Consider this. The same year Barack Obama came out with: “Yes we can” as a slogan, the Chinese government issued this slogan:
“Hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, unswervingly adhere to the socialist road with Chinese characteristics, unswervingly adhere to the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, unswervingly.”
Yes, that not a misprint: THREE “unswervinglys” in one sentence. You’d think that ONE PERSON among the 1.3 billion would have had the guts to say to the Chinese premier, “Er, Your Excellency, I think our people are smart enough to get the point by the second unswervingly.” But no.
Beijing announcements are so lethally boring that it is impossible to even discuss them for more than a couple of paragraphs before falling into a deep------zzzzzzzz.
Oops, sorry. Just lost consciousness there for a moment.
Anyway, I was ranting about the sedative power of Beijing announcements at the bar when someone said that it was medically impossible to die of boredom.
A news junkie sitting nearby insisted that a recent medical study proved you could.
The only authoritative reference I could recall on this topic was a line in a children’s poem by Edward Gorey, “E is for Elspeth who died of ennui”, so I didn’t mention it.
***
WHEN I got to my office at the crack of lunchtime the next day, I did a Google search and found the study. Civil servants who declared themselves bored in a 1980s survey were more than twice as likely to have died of heart disease by 2009, researchers at University College London discovered.
So you CAN bore people to death, albeit indirectly. If any doctors reading this have the misfortune to be retained by celebrities, don’t give them sedatives.
Here are the Six Most Sleep Inducing Things in the World, as nominated by a group of readers.
6) Stephen Fry’s Twitter feed.
5) Any announcement by the Chinese government.
4) Any announcement by any government.
3) Reading Mr. Jam’s Diary. (Thanks, guys!)
2) People on Facebook who post dull personal trivia, like what they just ate. And number one?
1) Reading unfunny funny lists.
Okay, okay, I’m shutting up.
***
FROM READERS…
Grandpa was entranced this weekend by this video of a surf-boarding, snow-boarding dog.
Chip Webber was amused by a video report on a protest against a marine recruitment base opened the most pro-hippy part of the world, Berkeley, California.
***
(Illustrations – I think the top one is from Press Association, well done guys, great pic, the middle one has no credit on it)
Coming on Wednesday: Magic rock from children’s story found in real life—and it works.
