Folly in not-so-wise wisdom
If pasta is good for us now, what other things have we got wrong?
Yup, pasta is OK. It’s not actually fattening as previously thought, according to a Canadian study published in The BMJ. Some of us knew this would surface sooner or later; we sensed that whoever said “everything in moderation” might have had a point.
We knew this in our guts, yet we went along with it. This makes us wonder how many other wisdoms we are living our lives by, while deep down knowing they’re a waste of time. Here are a few that spring to mind:
BURGLAR ALARMS
Last month, our neighbour had their back door kicked in. During the day. Cleaned out in three minutes flat. Our response was to upgrade our burglar alarm. But if you wanted to get into our house you could just break a kitchen window, do your burgling and the alarm would merely get on your nerves. We know this but we paid through the nose to get the box on the wall that, it has already been proved ( because our neighbour has the identical alarm), deters no robber — even at three in the afternoon.
VITAMINS AND FOOD SUPPLEMENTS
There’s always a new musthave one — this month’s is curcumin (something to do with turmeric, possibly antioxidant). It’s hard to tell if they’re doing anything, but it seems unlikely, especially as we always forget to take them. We’re really buying them the way we buy Giller shortlisted books, for the security of knowing we have them.
RECYCLING
We all know this is a penance for destroying the planet, don’t we? A mild inconvenience requiring separating things into six different bins and washing out cartons etc, after which they send it in one big lump to China. Are the men at the recycling plant committed environmentalists, or simply laughing their heads off at all the losers separating their ale cans from their spaghetti sauce jars?
SWITCHING TO VINYL
Are you doing this? Have you dusted off your old albums, and ordered loads more? Have you got the turntable and the super woofer and whatnot, and the upgraded versions of all of them? Are you, of an evening, unsleeving your copy of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and listening to the fat sound (there is nothing like it) or are you flicking on your Spotify playlist every single time?
ANTI-AGING CREAMS
To be fair, there is Boots Protect & Perfect (which really does work). My husband was told to put it on a scar by a doctor. But we dodge that one because it’s sort of boring-looking and go for the fancy schmanzy, 10-times more expensive one, modelled by the woman who has been airbrushed to a pebble finish. We like to spend money on silly cream. We could burn it in an ashtray but we prefer to do it this way.