Mental Health – David Bradley

In time, we discover ourselves

I was discussing, with my photographer friend, Andy, the endless and inevitably futile task of chasing likes and shares for one’s creative output online. He’s a relative newbie to social media and this quest for some kind of validation having only taken up photography and joined social media several years ago.

Me? I’ve probably wasted decades chasing something that doesn’t exist, posting endless photos to some, but ultimately insufficient acclaim, sharing songs and instrumentals on all kinds of platforms and reaping scant reward in terms of listens and that zero-probability chance of being discovered.

I suppose I am reasonably Zen about it all, especially after so long. There was a time, at least, when my science writing had some traction. This website was getting 20000 unique viewers every day at one point. I had 54000+ Twitter followers back in the day, and it helped my book Deceived Wisdom reach the giddy heights of an Amazon bestseller for a couple of weeks, ranking higher than contemporaneous publications from Prof Brian Cox and Sir David Attenborough, which was certainly gratifying. You will notice, it’s something I am still talking about more than a decade later.

I’ve ranked fairly well for some of my photos, songs, websites, and writing, have even won a few awards for all of those things, with the exception of the music, admittedly. I’ve had reach and traction, and I’ve had those much-vaunted likes and shares. If this were a working-life sentence, you could say I’ve done my time. Well, not quite, I’m still working and still hankering for more of that elusive acclaim, hankering to somehow be discovered. But, by whom and to what end?

My photographer friend had something quite profound to say, it was rather philosophical, although in his response during our discussion, he shrugged it off with a flippant lol. But, it wasn’t a thought to be shrugged, hence this blog post. His comment in the context of this vain hope of being discovered got me thinking…this is what he said:

I think over time we discover ourselves

After I’d drafted this post, Andy and I talked a little more. “We all like validation,” he said. “Social media exists because of it. But is it a hunger that can ever be satisfied? The question I ask myself is what’s the real joy in photography?”

For me, the joy is in being there, trying to get the shot. The selection and editing is a secondary thing. The sharing a nice shot and getting a few likes is tertiary. While we were chatting, Andy chipped in with an update on his garden birds. “Just saw a Goldcrest in the magnolia tree,” he told me. “I resisted the urge to grab the camera and rush outside in the vain hope of a picture, but instead enjoyed a few moments watching it through the binoculars.”

Andy added that a moment like that in photography helps bring some Zen into one’s life. “When you look through the viewfinder and all that exists in the world is what you can see. That’s totally in the moment,” he told me. He added that then there are all the awful failed photos and missed opportunities with Goldcrests, for instance. “That helps you deal with disappointment and also helps instil a sense of patience.”

Speaking of patience, patience is an inbuilt app that can help with your photography, as I wrote here some time ago.

I must claw back some of my integrity here. I have not spent the last twenty years solely craving likes and shares for my creative output on social media. I have been enjoying the creativity, the learning, and, of course, the earning a living through some of it. And, more to the point, regarding the more arty stuff, the photography and the music have been unpaid hobbies, as opposed to the writing being a paid one. And, in addition to that there has always been the fun of chatting with so many different people online over the years, when you’re a freelance working from a home office, that feels kind of important when there’s not so many opportunities to chat offline during the working day.

They’re hobbies with an output, you might say, an image, a tune, but critically they are hobbies that have led to great friendships. Friendships with fellow photographers, such as Andy, with my singing mates in choir, with the people in my band, and with several others that I’ve shared a stage with over the years or performed alongside from the theatrical pit. It’s still all happening, it’s always a blast. People sometimes even tell me they like it, amazingly…in the offline world. The fun and friendships are far more important than the ephemeral accolades of online.

Is it time? Have I discovered myself, Andy?

Careers advice from ChatGPT

TL:DR – Is it possible to get career advice from a language model? I prompted ChatGPT to help me out.

I’ve been in science communication for more than 30 years, you could say I’m in the late stages of my career, so I am seriously thinking about the next few years of my working life, but not entirely sure in what direction to go or indeed whether I shouldn’t just retire at this point (if only!). So, I gave ChatGPT the following prompt to see what it would come up with:

You are to act as a careers guidance counsellor with many years experience.

I added some personal career history and hobbies and asked it to come up with some advice for what I should do in the latter part of my career. This is what it had to say:

It sounds like you have had a very successful and diverse career as a freelance science journalist over the past 30+ years. Given your current situation and interests, there are a few different options you could consider.

Diversify your writing topics: Since you are already a skilled writer and journalist, you could try expanding your repertoire and writing about new topics. Perhaps there are areas of science that you haven’t explored before, or you could branch out into other areas of journalism such as arts or culture. This could help keep your work fresh and engaging, and could also potentially lead to new clients and opportunities.

Combine your interests: You mention that you are also a singer-songwriter and photographer. Perhaps there are opportunities to combine these interests with your writing. For example, you could write articles about music or wildlife photography, or even use your writing skills to promote your own music or photography. You could also consider exploring other creative outlets, such as podcasting or video production.

Explore new career paths: If you are feeling like you want a bigger change, there are many other career paths that could be a good fit for someone with your skills and experience. For example, you could explore teaching or mentoring, either in science or journalism, or even in music or photography. You could also consider starting your own business or consulting firm, using your expertise to help others in your field.

Prioritize your well-being: It’s clear that you have been through a lot in recent years, and it’s important to prioritize your well-being as you consider your next steps. This might mean taking some time off to recharge, or finding ways to work that allow for a better work-life balance.

It’s not really anything I hadn’t thought of myself, but if I hadn’t it would be nice to see it spelled out. The final suggestion is perhaps the most important for me though. I’ve never really taken much time off over the years. I do feel like I could do with a proper break. Just need to get my passport renewed, fix this Achilles’ tendon injury and get my walking boots packed for a butterflying trip to Greece, ASAP…

Mindfulness. Is there an app for that?

TL:DR – The idea of an app for mindfulness is inherently contradictory, but they may have some use if used mindfully…

The notion of mindfulness is often discussed in light of an apparently epidemic of mental health crises, anxiety, depression, phobias, addictions, and other problems. It is considered a state of being where one is fully present in the moment and aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. The aim of mindfulness is not to exclude external stimuli nor to ignore one’s memories and preclude predictions of the future, but rather to live in the moment, to try to feel satisfied in the moment and to ultimately achieve a comfortable mental state.

A MidJourney image generated by prompting with the following: Can you create an image that visually represents the balance between the benefits and drawbacks of using mindfulness apps? The image should convey the idea that while mindfulness apps can be helpful tools, they also have potential negative consequences. Think about how you can use contrasting colors, shapes, or imagery to represent these opposing forces. — The pros and cons of mindfulness apps

Apparently, there are mobile phone apps that purport to help with mindfulness. The problem with that notion is that mindfulness requires a deep level of self awareness and attention that cannot be achieved through an app or device. In fact, using an app could be a distraction and prevent a person from being fully immersed in the present moment. Bells and whistles, bleeps and beeps are not conducive to mindfulness, it must be said.

The practice of mindfulness involves developing a non-judgemental attitude towards one’s experiences as well as non-attachment from cyclic thoughts and other distractions. It underpins many forms of philosophy and what we might refer to as spiritual practice, such as meditation, yoga, and even some religions including Buddhism. But, it also underpins the practice of what we do not normally consider to be spiritual in the conventional sense, such as taking a walk or indeed any form of exercise or other hobbies and tasks.

One of the big problems with using an app for mindfulness is that the whole practice succumbs to the expectation of achievement or success, which can be counterproductive to the development of non-attachment and a non-judgemental attitude. Instead of focusing on the present moment and accepting one’s experiences as they are, the use of an app can create pressure to meet certain goals or expectations, just as is experienced with fitness tracking apps, social media metrics and similar distractions.

Perhaps more worrying, is the idea that as with fitness apps, an app for mindfulness could reinforce the idea that there is a quick fix for mental health and becoming mindfulness. Mindfulness is not a technique to be mastered, but should best serve your mental health if it becomes a way of life. The practice of mindfulness involves a long-term commitment to being present and aware in one’s daily life. An app can give the impression that mindfulness can be achieved through a few minutes of practice each day, rather than a continual effort to develop a more mindful way of living.

There are other issues such as a person becoming dependent on the technology to achieve a state of mindfulness. Almost inevitably, this is likely to lead to detachment from the present moment and a reduced ability to be mindful without the artificial assistance of an app.

Another issue is the lack of personalization. Mindfulness is a highly personal practice that requires an individualized approach. An app cannot provide the same level of personalization that one might gain from a trained mindfulness teacher who can tailor the practice to an individual’s specific needs and circumstances.

Overall, while phone apps for mindfulness may seem convenient and accessible, they can create a number of negative consequences that can limit an individual’s ability to fully develop their mindfulness practice. It is important to approach mindfulness as a personal, long-term practice that requires a deep level of awareness and commitment, rather than as a quick fix or technique to be mastered.

Having said all that, there are perhaps a few benefits to mindfulness apps that might help a person begin their practice when time, access, and other factors are limited. For instance, an app could fill the gap when access to traditional mindfulness training is unavailable or when commitments and busy schedules make it impossible to attend in-person classes.

An app can act as a guide at any time and in any location, perhaps it is useful that it can prompt someone to carry out their practice and make it easier to incorporate mindfulness into their daily routine in a flexible way. The various apps usefully offer guided instruction and mindfulness exercises that can help individuals develop their mindfulness skills. In addition, tracking progress is not always a bad thing, provided the goals and targets do not themselves become a distraction.

How real is artificial mindfulness?

TL:DR – In a perhaps contradictory experiment, I have used ChatGPT to offer readers some advice on mindfulness.

The chat about chatGPT is endless and intriguing. I caught sight of a debate on social media involving ministers and other churchy people about whether they could use the AI language model to write a sermon…or even a prayer. There was recognition that it was almost certainly happening. So, I thought…I wonder if chatGPT could produce something on mindfulness, a guide for those who wish to find some kind of enlightenment.

Mid Journey image: "A photorealistic cartoon of a seated woman in yoga attire in a peaceful natural, sunny setting by the sea surrounded by flowers and being mindful" — Mid Journey image on being mindful

This is the prompt I used:

You are an experienced mindfulness practitioner with a lot of wisdom and knowledge about the human condition. Give me some line by line advice for a novice who could use that advice as a guide on their life’s journey

This is how the bot replied:

Start small and be consistent: Begin with simple mindfulness practices, such as focusing on your breath for a few minutes each day, and make sure to stick with it. Consistency is key.

Notice your thoughts and feelings without judgement: Observe your thoughts and feelings without getting caught up in them or reacting to them. Simply acknowledge them and let them pass.

Find a balance between acceptance and change: Accept the present moment as it is, but also strive to make positive changes in your life.

Cultivate self-compassion: Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you would offer to a good friend.

Connect with others: Nurture positive relationships and build a support system.

Practice non-attachment: Let go of attachments to material things and focus on what truly matters in life.

Find meaning and purpose: Reflect on what gives your life meaning and strive to align your actions with those values.

Cultivate gratitude: Regularly practice gratitude and appreciation for the good things in your life.

Learn to live in the present moment: Let go of regrets about the past and worries about the future.

Remember that growth is a process: Mindfulness is a journey, not a destination. Be patient and kind to yourself as you continue to learn and grow.

I then asked the bot for an executive summary of the above:

Mindfulness is a journey of self-discovery and growth. By practicing consistency, non-judgement, balance, self-compassion, connection with others, non-attachment, meaning and purpose, gratitude, living in the present moment, and being patient and kind to yourself, you can cultivate mindfulness, gain insight into your thoughts and emotions, and improve your overall well-being.

The image in this article was created by AI Mid Journey using the following /imagine prompt

“Photorealistic cartoon of a seated woman in yoga attire in a peaceful natural, sunny setting by the sea surrounded by flowers and being mindful”

This post almost ties in with a recent post I wrote without the assistance of the ChatGPT tool about using one’s internal patience app to improve one’s wildlife photography.

What is trypophobia? #TriggerWarning

TL:DR – Trypophobia is a fear or aversion to seeing clusters of holes.

Trypophobia is the name for the phobia (intense and apparently irrational fear) of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps. The term was coined by a web user back in 2005 on an internet forum. I always assumed its etymology lies in the word tripe and the Greek work for fear, maybe that is what she was thinking of. I find tripe repellant to look at (and eat, come to that).

trypophobia-trigger

It’s a weird one though isn’t it…why should anyone be scared of holes or bumps? Well, food full of holes might be rotten, whereas bumps might be present on food or skin because of disease. So, it could be that is the explanation. A subconscious response to seeing something that might cause harm.

But, as with lots of so-called irrational fears, nobody really knows. It seems like it’s not irrational to shy away from rotten food or snakes, or potentially lethal spiders, or being up high or trapped or exposed or whatever.

Me, I remember I had a dream as a child where my grandmother had a hole in her face from which were emerging lots of tiny flies, it was just a dream, but I still recall it and it makes my face tingle thinking about it. As does looking at some of those trypophobia triggers people post on the net, pictures of seed heads with holes, or photoshopped faces with lots of holes peppered in the skin. I’m not scared of any of these things as such, they just make my face tingle when I look at them or even just think about them.

I have a friend who has trypophobia who doesn’t like to see clusters of holes either, but she is also perturbed by seeing lots of the same animals, like insects or even flocks of birds. Again, the irrationality of it can be explained as perfectly rational if you think about the threat from certain insects or even birds.

In 2013, researchers Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins did a spectral analysis of visual trypophobia triggers and recognised that the same characteristics in those images are present in images of the skin and fur patterns of dangerous animals. So, maybe that’s part of the origins of this irrational fear too.

Trypophobia is yet to be officially recognised as a real condition, but for those of us who recognise the symptoms, it is very much a real condition, we just have to wait for the rest of the world to catch up. Some people have an extreme response to triggers while it is a very mild condition for some of us trypophobics.

The converse effect of the skin-crawling feeling of trypophobia is perhaps that pleasurable ASMR (Autonomous sensory meridian response) that certain sounds and images trigger. I first knew of the ASMR response when I listened to the Mike Oldfield album Platinum on headphones back in 1979. There is a track, Charleston, on that album which has a whispering scat section that flips back and forth through the stereo field and gives some listeners an ASMR type frisson, me included!

I originally wrote this post for my Sciscoop site back in May 2016 but noticed a lot of people reaching Sciencebase looking for trypophobia information and images. If you want to find images, any search engine prompted with the term trypophobia triggers, will do the job, there are so many real-world examples as well as artistic images that have been created as triggers. But, be warned, they could make your flesh crawl or give you goosebumps.

The correct spelling is trypophobia, but people are searching and landing here using misspellings including tryphobia, typhobia, thripopobia.

Your virtual therapist

TL:DR – Using ChatGPT to generate an artificial therapy session.

None of the following should be taken as a substitute for professional, expert help where it is needed. It is merely an exercise in testing the limits of so-called AI. Please speak to a professional if you need mental or physical health guidance or treatment.

ChatGPT is a language model, it’s basically predictive text on steroids. You feed it a line and it comes right back at you with a retort. Feed it the right line and it will write you a sonnet or a limerick, a few more lines with the right prompt and it will analyse a piece of prose, you can then ask it to generate a new piece of prose on a different topic with the same tone, style, and voice. I’ve mentioned it a few times before.

The system was launched to the public in November, but I had work and music commitments to cope with, so didn’t take more than a cursory glance at it at the time. It’s become a bit of a distraction for me in January 2023 as it has for at least a million other people, apparently.

There are some very intriguing ways to prompt ChatGPT, you can tell it to “act” as a particular professional: a songwriter, an author, a scriptwriter and prime it to generate replies on which you might build up your own creative writing output. You can ask it to tweak your social media bio to improve engagement, you can ask it how best to answer job interview questions and so on.

Today, I thought I’d see how ChatGPT fares as therapist. I told it I wasn’t feeling particularly happy with my lot, despite the cliched efforts of “counting my blessings” and asked it for advice, it came back with an eight-point plan that anyone might follow to improve their mental well-being.

First, it told me that there are many things you can do to increase your mental well-being, in addition to taking part in the activities you already enjoy.

Prioritizing self-care: Make sure you are getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular physical activity.
Connecting with others: Join a group or club that shares your interests or volunteer for a cause you care about. This can help you build new friendships and expand your social support network.
Exploring new activities: Trying new things can be a great way to challenge yourself and find new sources of enjoyment.
Finding ways to give back: Helping others can be a powerful way to boost your own mood and sense of purpose.
Practicing mindfulness: mindfulness techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises or yoga can help you to be present in the moment and reduce stress.
Working on your mental health: it may be beneficial to continue to work with a therapist or counsellor to help you manage feelings of loneliness and improve your overall mental well-being.
Keeping a journal: Writing down your thoughts and feelings can be a helpful way to process your emotions, reflect on your experiences and track your progress.
Remember, what works for one person may not work for another, so be open to trying different things and find what works best for you.

I wondered “out loud” what else a therapist or counsellor might add to that list…It came back with this response and seven more tips.

It’s worth noting that, therapy is a process and requires time, patience, and dedication, it may take time to see the results, but with consistent effort, you can make progress towards a more fulfilling life. A professional therapist or counsellor may have some additional recommendations for you, based on your specific needs and goals. Some possibilities include:

Setting realistic and specific goals: Setting clear and achievable goals can help you to focus your efforts and make progress in areas of your life that are important to you.
Addressing any unresolved past issues: If you have any unresolved past issues that are impacting your mental well-being, a therapist or counsellor can help you to process and work through them.
Building resilience: A therapist or counsellor can help you to develop coping strategies and build resilience, so you are better able to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life.
Improving communication and relationship skills: A therapist or counsellor can help you to improve your communication and relationship skills, which can help to strengthen your connections with others.
Managing feelings of anxiety and depression: If you are experiencing feelings of anxiety or depression, a therapist or counsellor can help you to identify the underlying causes and develop strategies for managing these feelings.
Reviewing medications: If you are taking medications for mental health concerns, a therapist or counsellor may work with you and your physician to review the medications and make adjustments, if needed.
Exploring alternative therapies: A therapist or counsellor may also explore alternative therapies, such as art or music therapy, or equine therapy, with you if they feel it might be beneficial.

I don’t think any of the suggestions are beyond the wit of anyone trying to look at their well-being, but it’s interesting to see them grouped and presented in this way by the AI.

One additional exercise, I asked the bot to take stock of all the advice and to extract the three most important points from all that it had presented. This is what it added:

All of the recommendations above are important and can be beneficial to improve your mental well-being, but the following three are some of the most crucial suggestions. Remember, it’s important to be patient with yourself and not to expect immediate results. It’s a process, and it takes time, effort and commitment, but with a consistent approach, you can make progress towards a more fulfilling life.

Prioritizing self-care: Self-care is essential for maintaining physical and mental well-being. This includes getting enough sleep, eating well, and engaging in regular physical activity. By taking care of your physical health, you will be better equipped to handle the stressors and challenges of daily life.
Building and strengthening connections with others: Building and strengthening connections with others is important for our mental well-being. This can include connecting with friends, family and loved ones, joining a group or club that shares your interests, and volunteering for a cause you care about.
Finding ways to give back: Helping others can be a powerful way to boost your own mood and sense of purpose. Giving back to others can bring a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, and it can also help to strengthen your connections with others.

Here, you can find additional Sciencebase content on the subject of artificial intelligence, AI here.

Being a ray of sunshine even when it is dark and dull outside

TL:DR – Tips on how to cope with feeling gloomy when the weather is dull.

A friend over on Mastodon was telling us how it’s been dull and gloomy in her hometown for 15 days on the trot. That’s miserable, it’s not easy jumping out of bed with any kind of enthusiasm when the day ahead looks dull and grey. She wanted some advice on how to break through the gloom.

I don’t like it when it’s dark either, only thing I could suggest is to set an alarm and have some specific small task to do each morning. Switch on the lights, throw the curtains wide, jump to your feet, make a start on the task, get it done and dusted quickly and then get on with the rest of the day!

Tasks could be something mundane like cleaning, reordering a bookshelf, swapping pictures and photos from room to room doing the NYT mini, Wordle, Heardle or some other puzzle as fast as you can, tuning the radio to a station you don’t normally listen to and dancing to the first song that comes on, maybe even , descaling the kettle, bundling up the laundry and getting it in the machine, doing a couple of sets of crunches and press-ups, a quick sun-salutation (one can always hope). Just a few ideas, anything to give you the initial kickstart that gets you going and moving more sprigtly through the day.

I confess that the only time I feel enthusiastic about getting out of bed especially on a dull day, is if I a big writing project to start, I have a song on the go that needs new parts added or a mix redone, or there’s a bird species in the neighbourhood that I haven’t seen before, and I want to photograph…but that can be enough. I need to take my own advice, now that I’ve typed it up!

Supplementing physical and mental health

TL:DR – Anecdote is not evidence, but I feel like I gained some benefit from taking a multivitamin supplement, it probably compensated for poor absorption of iron and perhaps other vitamins caused by one of my prescription medicines.

I’ve always been wary of taking vitamins and other supplements. There are good reasons not to do so, if you have a reasonably balanced diet. Excesses of some vitamins and minerals can lead to problems like kidney and liver damage, kidney stones, and some can interfere with the absorption and activity of prescription medicines.

However.

I have been feeling rather tired in recent months, becoming unaccustomedly exhausted after even light activity. I’m talking after a short walk, but sometimes even just after a shower. Was it long-COVID, was it my medication, was it just me getting older?

Mrs Sciencebase had an iron and vitamin supplement for an unrelated reason and suggested I try it, see if it would help.

Well, I took the recommended dose for a few days, not expecting to experience much improvement. Amazingly though, I felt a remarkable change in what people commonly refer to as “energy levels”. Activities that had started to become a tiring chore became a lot easier, I hopped on my bike and did a decent half an hour’s cycling without breaking a sweat, a couple of days after that I did an hour, at speed, and aside from being thirsty when I got back to base, I was fine.

I know anecdote is not evidence, but honestly, it seems like too much of a coincidence that I felt like I had recovered from apparent chronic exhaustion within three days or so of taking the supplement. Moreover, when I look at the side effects of one of my medications, it does suggest that tiredness and various other side effects are associated with reduced absorption of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). So, I’m sticking with the supplement for a while longer.

Intriguingly, the effects do not seem to have been wholly physical though. Most people have had a tough few years, but there has been significant family loss and stress here that happened in the middle of covid, is ongoing, and I have not been what you might call the happiest bunny in the warren, for a long tim, I must confess. Stuff that I usually really enjoy has not, on too many occasions, brought me much joy in recent months. I shrugged it off as being the grief and worry…but…a few days ago, I felt like the proverbial cloud had lifted, and even though it was a drizzly day, the sun seemed to be shining again.

Could this too have been a supplement fix? Well, there are many, many biochemical pathways that are linked to mental health, disturbance in some of those are known to be connected to depression. These various pathways need various micronutrients to work properly. Might I have been deficient in an essential biochemical component? Have I now replenished my supplies and rebooted those pathwats?

Perhaps the brain, when faced with deficiency, goes into some kind of lockdown to make you mope, reduce motivation, and so activity? And, when that lockdown is prolonged and deep, could it also begin to impinge on other pathways to the detriment of mental health. If so, I wonder if this is exacerbated in the wake of a double-dose of grief accompanied by a lot of not unwarranted stresses and anxieties.

I don’t know. Like I say, anecdote is not evidence. I’d rather not take the supplements for a prolonged period of time, so I will be having a chat with my doc at my annual review about my current medication. I will tell them that what I do know is that I’ve been taking a daily dose of micronutrients and feel physically much fitter than I have for a long time and mentally far brighter.

As a footnote, I shared this post on my Mastodon and a couple of people suggested that my experience may be due to my “taking control” or simply a placebo effect. Well, that is a possibility, of course. However, I’ve had symptoms for a long time that coincide with several mentioned on the documentation accompanying one of my medications and I feel that reversion to the mean/norm (basically, the placebo effect) was so sudden and coincided with taking the supplement that there must have been a physical effect of doing so rather than my spontaneously recovering…but, again, anecdote is not evidence, either way. One cannot do double-blind, placebo-controlled studies on oneself.

Word confusle

Many years ago, the ceiling lights failed in our kitchen. They were relatively new devices, installed when we had the kitchen updated from the tatty 1970s awfulness we moved to in the late 1990s. Anyway, I phoned the kitchen company and mistakenly said the word “bathroom” when I meant to say “kitchen” in referring to the lights and requesting that they remedy the problem. It took a bit of explaining and I still don’t know why my brain did that.

It still happens occasionally in conversation, I’ll interchange kitchen and bathroom. I’ve noticed I’ve done it with the words shed and garage too…and this morning…just now…panier and hamper.

Is this a brain glitch that comes with middle age? The pairs of words I inadvertently switch are in the same clades. Kitchens and bathrooms are functional/utility rooms, after all. Sheds and garages are external storage buildings. Paniers and hampers are portable basket-type containers. I’m sure there have been other examples over the last ten years or so.

Anyone else? Just me?

How I met David Bradley

I tell this tale over and over again, I think most friends and relatives have heard it at least three times by now. Still, my Dad kindly laughs every time he hears it. Mrs Sciencebase just rolls her eyes…and not in a good way.

Anyway, we were on a camping trip to one of our favourite spots, Stiffkey, on the proper North Norfolk coast. It’s pronounced Stoo-kee by the locals although incomers and posh residents prefer it to be pronounced as it’s spelled. We were pitched just around the corner from the Red Lion pub, on the High Sands Creek campsite, where a couple of years later myself and artist friend Rog would almost drown trying to get that last rising tide photo. So, supping a Stiffkey Brew or too, erstwhile backing singer with my band C5, Jo, says, Oh look it’s that actor!

We all turned in concert to look where she was looking. Thankfully said actor had his head buried in his iPad and didn’t notice our less than discrete mass manoeuvres. That’s not just any old actor, Jo, I whispered loudly, that’s David Bradley, you know the guy who plays Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films?

Really? the others asked surprised. So, up I get, leaving my brew on the table, and head over to say hello to my namesake. Excuse me, I say, I’m David Bradley, just thought, I’d say hello to the more famous David Bradley. The far more famous DB stands up grabs my hand to shake it, looks me squarely in the eye and says, I know you, I’ve got your book! I was shocked, we both laughed, we didn’t do a selfie, proper famous people didn’t do selfies back then. But, I asked, might I have your autograph, it seemed the right thing to do. Certainly, of course, yes…but…only if I can have yours, David Bradley says to me.

So, we swapped autographs, said “tara”, like fellow Northerners do, and I went back to my friends waiting expectantly at our table with their brews (I think the ladies were drinking Hendricks G&Ts with slices of cucumber). I tell the tale, show them the autograph and they’re all fairly well stunned and pleased that I’d had a celeb encounter of that kind. I could almost hear Mrs _Sciencebase’s eyeballs rolling in their sockets in anticipation of years of repeated anecdote.

I should’ve asked him though whether, having had a copy of my book Deceived Wisdom, whether he’d read it or enjoyed it or even both. I doubt he’s the sort of fellow who posts on Amazon, and even if he did, there are so many other David Bradleys out there how would I know which…

David Bradley the actor is probably best known for his roles as Filch in the Harry Potter films, as William Hartnell in the Doctor Who biopic he plays alongside Brian Cox as TV producer Sydney Newman in An adventure in space and time. He’s also Walder Frey in Game of Thrones, he’s in both Hot Fuzz and The World’s End. Plays Jack Marshall in Broadchurch, he was Eddie Wells in Our friends in the north. Have a look at his IMDB page, he’s done masses. Not to be confused with Dai Bradley (formerly David Bradley) who plays Billy in Kes.

There’s an odd antefootnote to this tale. Before Mrs Sciencebase was Mrs and before Sciencebase even existed. She went with friends to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the RSC (not that one, the other one) performing Doctor Faustus with David Bradley as , Mephistopheles. They’d all had tickets in advance, I tagged along for the ride, but did a walking tour of the town while they watched the play.

So, second encounter with a David Bradley from the RSC after this DB from the RSC for the pre-Mrs Sciencebase.