The Daily Telegraph

Bryony Gordon When it comes to world news, I’ve got a magic touch

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I wrote about the need for good news – and the cosmos responded

Theresa May said she was “too nervous” to watch England’s penalty shoot-out with Colombia, and this doesn’t fill me with much confidence over her ability to sit down with ball-breaking European leaders and negotiate the best Brexit deal for the UK.

Then again, perhaps the Prime Minister was simply indulging in a spot of magical thinking, whereby one believes that their actions might have some effect on a completely unrelated event many thousands of miles away. You know the kind of thing: every time I’ve watched England in a penalty shoot-out, they’ve lost, so maybe if I don’t watch, they will win.

When I was in my 20s, I had a boyfriend with an Arsenal season ticket who used to take me to the odd game until he told me, one day, that I couldn’t come any more, because “every time you do, they lose”. I was a curse on the team, a bad luck charm. It was easier for both of us to believe this than the reality: that Arsenal were about as good as our relationsh­ip (which was to say: not very. We broke up shortly afterwards).

I remembered this on Tuesday when I noticed my husband staring dementedly at the television screen, apparently unable to blink, as Harry Kane prepared to step up and take the first penalty.

“Are you OK?” I asked, which was a stupid question, because of course he wasn’t OK: nobody living south of Berwick-upon-tweed was OK, given that England were about to crash out of a major football tournament on penalties again. “I’m just trying to keep my eyes wide open, because in 1996 I blinked when Gareth Southgate took his penalty, and I’ve never got over the guilt that it was the reason he missed it.”

I stared in disbelief at my husband, but decided not to point out that it was probably Gareth Southgate blinking while taking a penalty that caused him to miss it.

Of course, I am as guilty of magical thinking as the next person – if not more. As someone who has suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since the age of 12, it sometimes feels as if my whole life has been one long not-so-magical magical thought. As a child, I thought that chanting “He will live, he will live”, again and again and again under my breath, would stop my grandfathe­r from dying of his heart condition; not the doctors, nurses, a healthy diet and plenty of exercise, but the deranged prayers of a 15-year-old girl. I’ve never got on a plane without first going through a set of complicate­d rituals that have, at times, caused check-in staff to question whether or not I’m a flight risk. I know, intellectu­ally and logically, that no amount of counting to a magic number is going to stop my plane from falling out of the sky – but I am neither intellectu­al nor logical, so allow me this madness.

This week, it briefly occurred to me that I had caused us to travel through this wormhole to a parallel universe where everything is wonderful and there is wall-to-wall sunshine and England are winning at the football (I shouldn’t write the words “England are winning at the football”, because this will obviously curse us this afternoon). I had made it happen by writing a column last week about the need for more good news, and the cosmos had responded to my request.

Perhaps, I thought, I could use my column every week to ask for something I wanted: Chris Hemsworth; a loft conversion; no traffic during the drive down to our holiday in Cornwall. (Actually, a few months ago, I wrote about wanting to be Claudia Winkleman’s best friend, and the next week she asked me out for lunch, so maybe I’m on to something here.)

But, of course, magical thinking doesn’t actually work – this is why bad things happen to good people. But it’s not completely bonkers. People with clinical depression tend to display less magical thinking, on account of the fact they are lacking in hope. They are literally hopeless.

Magical thinkers, on the other hand, are often trying to find the glimmer of light in the dark.

In the week that she was forced to confront a rowdy, raucous Cabinet on the verge of a split, perhaps it should come as no surprise that Theresa May has resorted to a bit of magical thinking.

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 ??  ?? Shoot-out: Mrs May avoided penalty drama
Shoot-out: Mrs May avoided penalty drama

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