What it’s like to be extremely boring

Getting some things off my boring chest

I’m struggling to decide what direction to take this newsletter in. This is because I am actually a very boring person. I don’t mean I have had a boring life. I have some fairly good stories – like the one about the time I made the Queen laugh – and I have suffered enough childhood trauma to write one of those depressing memoirs that were so popular for a minute in the noughties, but in myself, I am mostly interested in things that many (normal?) people find incredibly dull.

Here’s a for instance. The other day, I was at a quiz at my daughter’s school to raise money for their play (because apparently state schools can’t afford to put on plays any more and god help us). There was a question about which junction of the M25 had been closed, and my friend, an extremely Cool Woman (new album out now in all good record shops), said, “What a BORING question.”

But here’s what she didn’t know: I had just that day read a whole Twitter thread about the M25.

That is the kind of person you’re dealing with here. The kind of person who, yes please, will very much click on a link in a newsletter about why the M25 is a victim of its own success.

I’m the sort of person who will accidentally commandeer a perfectly innocent comment thread to talk about the con of non-bio laundry cleaner. I will discuss the myth of rising damp at length with anyone foolish enough to own an old house. I think Roman concrete is fascinating.

Meanwhile, as if that were not enough of a barrier, I have read some pretty catty remarks in the Substack Notes section about how dreary it is to write about writing or the industry.

And so we come to my problem. I am still not sure what direction to take my Substack in, but I’m fairly confident that my niche obsessions aren’t going to help me sell more novels, and apparently people are bored of reading about writing. So, I guess what am saying is: stay tuned for my newsletter about my childhood traumas!

That is a joke (although I reserve the right to occasionally mine my pain for content, like any self-respecting creator). What I am really saying is, please feel free to email me or leave a comment and let me know what you would be interested to read.

In the meantime, here are some links and things I’ve been watching and reading. I’ll leave you to decide if any of them are boring.

Links etc

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Was I in A Cult?

By pure coincidence I’ve been going deep on Mormonism recently. I am a big fan of the Was I In A Cult podcast, partly because I am pretty sure I spent my twenties and early thirties in what was a borderline yoga cult, which I then REJOINED in my forties like a total loser.

This week listened to host (and filmmaker), Tyler Measom tell his story. After, I tracked down his documentaries about Mormonism. The first is Sons of Perdition (free on Roku), which is about the young boys kicked out of fundamental Mormon households, abandoned to live without money, possessions, education or basic human decency. The second is Murder Among the Mormons (Netflix) is an eye-popping tale that it’s better to know as little about as possible going in (I spoiled it for myself after episode two so I urge you not to do the same). By coincidence, I had already watched Tyler’s brilliant documentary about The Great Randi, who spent his life debunking psychics.

I also listened to Tal Bachman discuss his exit from Mormonism. This episode is amazing for music fans, since it features a reminder of one of the biggest One Hit Wonder songs of the 90s (which I had totally forgotten) and Tal’s dad Randy (another Randy!) who wrote some massive hits in the sixties and seventies that you will definitely have heard.

And finally, we are watching Under the Banner Of Heaven (Netflix and ITV X), starring Andrew Garfield, which is so far brilliant. Andrew does some lovely acting with his tie and makes a perfect Mormon, and there’s a Culkin in there who frequently looks so much like Kieran it’s confusing, especially as he has a much deeper voice.

As you can imagine, I’m feeling very Heavenly Fathered out right now.

PS. Still on the theme of cults, did you know that Jessica Sutta from the Pussycat Dolls claims to have been in a cult run by Phil Silvers’s daughter? She did an episode of Was I In A Cult about it.

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On Pain

Sarno identified a disorder called Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) that describes how the brain orders a reduction of blood flow to a part of the body, resulting in mild oxygen deprivation, which causes pain and other symptoms. Essentially, Sarno revived the Freudian idea of hysteria, pointing out that disorders spread in epidemic fashion, and that the mind prefers physical pain to confronting unconscious emotional pain.

Still on the theme of Yoga, here is a fascinating piece by Neil Scott about yoga injuries, pain and a man called Dr Sarno, an early proponent of chronic pain being in the mind, often caused by trauma. Perhaps this is why I suffer chronic pain from an injury that MUST have healed by now but which I got from my very cult-adjacent yoga class while I was also struggling with the stress of a troubled business partnership.

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Being bendy is not the blessing you think it is

“No other condition in the history of modern medicine has been neglected in such a way as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.” Grahame, a now-retired NHS rheumatologist, specialised in hypermobility and connective tissue disorders. He was pivotal in advocating the view that EDS is likely to be far more common than we realise, and that it is significantly under- and misdiagnosed because its signs are missed.

Still on the theme of chronic pain and being a very bendy person. This piece about hypermobility – specifically EDS – made me feel quite angry. I don’t have EDS and I only rank 7/9 on the Beighton Score (a test I absolutely HATE doing and would like to argue about with someone because I think it’s bs), but I have suffered CONSTANT problems with hypermobility all my life.

Daisy Lafarge’s account echoes so many of my own experiences it’s crazy.

I was 25 when I first got the sense that my head might not be securely attached to my body. I got home from teaching my undergraduate students one day, sat down, turned my head to one side, and screamed: an indescribable, apoplectic pain shot through the base of my skull. It left me flat on my back, unable to move or hold my head up for four or five days. What I thought was a freak episode soon became regular, recurring three or four times a year, usually if I had been sitting for extended periods or walking with a laptop in my bag. I learned to normalise it.

I was about 10 or 11 the first time I “cricked” my neck. I turned and felt a burning agony down the whole side of my neck. I remember I had to jump 180 to check there weren’t any rapists behind me as I walked alone down a path near my sister’s house. It has happened regularly ever since – during lacrosse matches, right as I wake up, sitting in a chair minding my own business. My daughter had her first experience of it a few months ago too, so that’s nice.

When I told him I was hypermobile, he almost cartwheeled. “Wonderful!” He exclaimed. “It just means you are beautifully flexible.” He was even, I recall, “envious” of all the tricks I could undoubtedly do.

Did Daisy and I see the same doctor? The GP I saw after my yoga-induced whiplash injury told me I should be grateful I can put my leg behind my head since it’s a wonderful trick to be able to do. At this point I couldn’t move my neck at all without agony all the way down to my chest and back.

Honestly, everything about this article spoke to me. So much so that I have taken about five goes to read the whole thing.

I should add that Daisy makes a point of saying her illness is often disregarded as “hysteria,” but I don’t think her experience is mutually exclusive with Dr Sarno’s theories on “hysteria” in that context. I am perfectly able to believe my hypermobility is causing me grief, but my brain is hanging on to that grief in ways that aren’t helpful. Chronic pain is a weird thing.