On my mind

FOR some the lockdown has been depressing. So when I came across Sigmund Freud’s 1905 book with the catchy title: ‘Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious’, I thought it might help.

In my early reading about behavioural psychology, Pavlov never did ring a bell and, although I felt a little Jung for psychoanalysis, having a super ego attracted me to Freud.

Sigmund suggested that jokes provide a kind of release valve and allow us to bring out repressed and forbidden feelings.

Jokes cover up more serious things, have a kernel of truth and help us from feeling bad about something. So when I postponed my birthday this year (now I am a year younger than I should be), and when a friend opened up a fast food store on eBay and another set up a restaurant for the squirrels in his garden, that raises some serious questions.

So now I understand it all. Sigmund has explained the reason for the pranks played by those who are in control. Let’s have a chuckle at them: Prime Minister Cummings’s eye check-up at Barnard Castle; the hilarious U-turns of Cummings’s special adviser Boris de Pfeffel Johnson; the amusing Johnson super-spreader handshakes; the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ exclusive club of advisers and politicians; the mixed messages sent out to occupy us in lockdown; the carefully co-ordinated and synchronised approaches of the four countries of the ‘United’ Kingdom. Great jokes.

In Wales there was a special joke for us when the Welsh Government’s announcement about the return of children to school angered the teaching unions, confused parents, irritated the local authorities and seemingly took a different view from the Chief Medical Officer.

But all they wanted to do was make us feel better about ourselves. Yeah, yeah.