Old sayings are useless - and you can quote me on that!
The subject of boredom and how to avert it came up on the radio the other day. It was a programme I don’t normally listen to, but I was bored.
A woman whose name I didn’t catch, and hopefully never will, smugly asserted that: “Only boring people get bored.”
I was presented with that saying on many occasions during childhood and am even less inclined to believe it now than I was then.
If it was true then right now most people you know should be considered boring.
Conversely, it would put people who are transfixed by the daytime output of ITV among the most magnetic and thought-provoking of our citizens.
If something is a proverb or saying then it must be right. Right? Nah.
Proverbs and sayings are for people who can’t think of an argument for themselves.
Why else would they be used? They’re usually cobblers.
For example, if someone has made their bed they are under no obligation whatsoever to lie in it. Bed makers are neither legally nor morally impelled to do anything different from the rest of us.
A watched kettle will boil merrily whether it is watched or not.
Many can now confirm this since the surge in popularity of kettle watching during the absence of social interaction, sport and pubs.
Blood is indisputably thicker than water. But Ronseal decking stain is thicker than blood. Neither statement is incorrect, it’s just that both are useless facts.
And sadly, it takes more than an apple a day to keep the doctor away.
John Cleese has been casting his eye on the people protesting about the restrictions they face during a pandemic; outraged that the rules will remain, just because they help keep other human beings, as well as themselves, alive.
With a mixture of sympathy and contempt, he identified their problem, saying: “If you’re very, very stupid; you can’t possibly realise that you’re very, very stupid?”
I predict that Mr Cleese’s statement will never become common parlance as a proverb or saying. It’s far too true for that.