This week, blame the chronobiologists. Go on, you’ll feel better. We all like somebody to blame. They’ll put your irritation down to lack of sleep. That’s what they do, I’ve learned, the chronobiologists. They study sleep, its impact on us. Or, more tellingly, impact of lack of it. Though last week, it was the long-liers who caught it from the chronobiologists. Those who get up late are at risk of an early death. Both lazy and doomed.
Truth is, you might not be able to do much about it. The reasons are complex. Could be because staying up later, you eat badly, maybe eat at the wrong time, impacting health. There are psychological reasons. And some of it might be beyond your control. Your body clock could be largely inherited and hardwired. You were made this way.
Of course, if the sleep business doesn’t get you, the booze probably will. Hot on the heels of the deadly lie-in report came the deadly booze report. Even a glance at the devil’s buttermilk and you’re knocking years off your life. Resistance is futile. The end is assured.
Survive it long enough and we’re in a period of uncontrollable uncertainty. The President of the United States of America tweets the planet towards war. The only people left to see it, fought out by long-range robot missiles, will be teetotal millennials, perfectly rested to make sure their selfies look good as the cloud goes up and conspiracy theorists argue that it’s not ACTUALLY happening and is being put together by actors for the Deep State.
I spent some time last week in Dublin, speaking at a magazine publishing event. And there, the majority of questions that came were framed around Brexit, and around uncertainty. The event came on the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, though not related to it. The Agreement – that hard-won bulwark against the darkness, an incredible document, birthed by serious, smart, brave people that changed history, for the people across Ireland and for the people across Britain and for the people beyond. And that is now being treated as some sort of tatty printout that at best can be massaged, and at worst is an irritant to be shredded and ignored. I couldn’t blame the chronobiologists when the good Dublin people asked good questions about a post-Brexit future. The pesky border issue grows.