Can Reading Make You Happy?

It's been a while since I wrote anything and my head is about to explode.  There's so much in it and the more full it gets the less I feel as though I can write anything. Where do you start? Nobody wants to read the random rubbish that's floating around in there at the moment.  As I'm surprised anyone wants to read the normal rubbish that appears on this page, I think the best thing to do is write.  If you are reading this then I apologise and remind you that I am not writing for you but for the sake of my own mental health (such as it is).

Telling someone, yesterday, that my daughter is studying journalism I was accused of rolling my eyes as I said it.  "I suppose you're thinking that someone has to," they commented.  I am very proud of her and I'm sure that when she starts to write I will enjoy every single word but this has been a week when I find myself holding my head in my hands and wondering why journalists actually exist.  I'm probably reading too much and for that I blame Twitter.  The constant drip-feed of news, gossip and speculation about what might or might not be news, the links to both good and bad articles and the reporting in newspapers of what has been said on Twitter has left me jittery, checking my phone every 2 seconds in case I miss the next rude thing to be tweeted.

Last week I was fascinated as the Reeva Steenkamp murder unravelled on twitter.  I use her name on purpose because it is not the Oscar Pistorius' murder, he is not the victim and he might not even be the perpetrator (although as more details unfold in court it seems it was his gun and he did pull the trigger) but reading my twitter feed on that day, you would be forgiven for thinking that he was the victim.  Then, as the day went on he became a 'wife beating monster.' and I worried about laws I don't understand like sub judice.  The next day the 'proper papers' got involved.

The last time I can remember being shocked by the front page of a newspaper was in November 1981 when the Daily Mail called Michael Foot a 'Worzel Gummage' and an 'Out of work Navvy in a Donkey Jacket'

At the time I thought this was terrible. Here was an old man, with a chest complaint, wearing a nice warm coat and they were picking on him, not because he hadn't done his coat up (which I would have thought was perfectly reasonable) but because they didn't think his coat looked like it cost enough money.  The more enraged I got about the picture the more stories I read about it and then it became clear that it was his wife's fault and everyone hated his wife because she was a feminist.  This only confirmed my desire to be a feminist, who didn't have to make sure their husband wore expensive coats. At the time, I decided I would never read the Daily Mail again and until the invention of twitter I have never not even been tempted to pick it up in the Dentist's waiting room. Twitter seduced me, when a girl who had shown us round on one of the University open days had a horrible article about lazy teachers published and then I was then again seduced by the the Samantha Brick controversy. 

As I grew up I took what was written in papers with a pinch of salt and have mostly found headlines to be funny in their crassness and wondered who they were fooling and then last week the Sun stooped to an all time low of tastelessness.  I was genuinely shocked after being confronted with row upon row of the headline, " 3 Shots. Screams. Silence", illustrated with a picture of what I thought was their page 3 girl, pouting and pointing her various assets in my direction.  Only when I got home and consulted twitter did I discover that the picture was of Ms Steenkamp and there were opinions ranging from total outrage to an appreciation of her beautiful form in her 'work clothes'.  

In the last few days, I have been obsessed with Hilary Mantel's comments about Kate Middleton.  One of my pet hates is women turning on each other and having read some of Hilary Mantel's writing before I was surprised, as I didn't think this was really her style.  The Prime Minister got very worried about it, he made a statement from India, where he had previously said that he was worried about the lack of women in his cabinet but really wasn't sure what to do about it.  The poor man is so confused!  The Mantel piece is worth reading in full, not least because the woman really knows how to write.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/hilary-mantel/royal-bodies

She wasn't really attacking Kate but the press and the establishment that still forgets that women who marry royals are real people, with real hopes and dreams. I quite like this royal couple and I like to think that they married for love and are strong enough to ignore everything  the stupid press and anyone else says about them and it should end there but the backlash is unforgivable.

Mantel Piece - love a play on words

The criticism seems to have been along the lines of, "how dare that ugly woman who is too clever for her own good say anything about the beautiful princess, who is having a baby." 

The Sun reduced it all to Bump...1 Grump....0, with several pictures of Kate looking beautiful and radiant and Hilary looking, frumpy.  The comments by women on these articles was really shocking.

http://storify.com/robertsharp59/the-unwitting-irony-of-mantel-s-critics

Mostly, this has been about lazy journalism and women being cruel about each other but just occasionally it has sparked a brilliant piece of writing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/feb/19/hilary-mantel-duchess-of-cambridge-controversy

That should please Hilary Mantel, to inspire brilliant writing as twice winner of the Booker Prize has to be worth taking all this rubbish for. 

Waterstones book shop tweeted in the week, "Whoever said that money can't buy happiness has never bought a book."  They may have a point so I'm off to find my happy place in a book and leave Twitter and the Newspapers alone for a while.