Grumpiness is Good for You

I KNEW it! Being grumpy is good for you! While trawling the net the other day I came across an item on the BBC news site which revealed: “An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly.”

Miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, according to Professor Joe Forgas, a researcher at the University of New South Wales. His experiments showed that while cheerfulness boosts creativity, gloominess improves attentiveness and careful thinking.

Grumpy people are better able to cope with demanding situations than happy ones, he told Australian Science Magazine. And he explained that it’s all down to the way the brain ‘promotes formation processing strategies’.

It’s good news for people like me, who enjoy moaning and groaning.  Now, instead of being regarded as ill-humoured and cantankerous, I can legitimately claim to be clear thinking and good in a crisis - although my nearest and deartest may deny the truth of this.

It is a well known fact that the British love grumpiness. Grumbling is a national pastime and, given half a chance, most people will complain about something - the weather, other drivers, queues, prices, roadworks, automated phone responses…

The Grumpy Old Women  stage and TVshows attract huge audiences, as do Grumpy Old Men and Room 101.

And some of our best loved heroes were grumps: Winston Churchill, for example, was regarded by many as more than a little curmudgeonly. And some modern politicians can be just as grouchy:  Ann Widdecombe has become a national treasure as a result of her uncompromising views on modern life.

Princess Anne and Prince Philip have both built a repuation for being irritable, while the disgruntled questioning of John Humphrys, and Jeremy Paxman has produced some outstanding news interviews.

Some comedians have built their careers on their crotchety personas: Les Dawson, Jenny Eclair, Arthur Smith and many others found their humour in railing against society's ills.

The same technique stood actor Richard Wilson in good stead when he played the iconic role of Victor Meldrew on BBC television’s One Foot in the Grave. 

Who hasn’t felt the pain of that anguished cry ‘I don’t believe it’ as he battles against the fact that life always seems to be against him.

Other fictional grumps include Eeyore, AA Milne’s gloomy donkey, who never knowlingly looks on the bright side of life - with good reason, for his home is stolen, he is bounced into a stream, and people rarely visit him.

Then, of course, there is Gumpy, the scowling dwarf in Disney’s classic animation of  Snow White, which has become as much a part of our cultural heritage as the original tale from the Brothers Grimm.

Finally, there is Samuel Johnson, one of the wittiest and most erudite grumps.  Best known for compiling the frst comprehensive English dictionary (published in 1755),  Johnson was a man of letters, an essayist, a critic, a novelist, a poet and a journalist.

His outlook was prolific and he expressed his opinions on a wide range of topics, including this, which is as good a description od grumpiess as you are likely to find:  "Writing about complaining he said:  "Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection."

And he also had some words of wisdom for those who get fed up with us whingers.  "To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship," he wrote.

Parking Problems

WHAT kind of maniac insists on driving their car forward while I am trying to reverse into the space outside my house?


You would have thought the fact that I am indicating left, moving backwards (very slowly and at a very odd angle), with the reversing light on would be some kind of clue that they should stop. After all, we cannot both occupy the same patch of road at the same point in time – not without disastrous consequences.


But no, they ignore all these warning signs and continue to advance, often without slackening their speed.

Given that cars line either side of the road (there is no off-street parking) and there is not  space for two vehicles to pass, this is an alarming experience.

Time was when, scared of being hit, I too would pull forward, then drive around several neighbouring streets to negotiate my way back home, desperately hoping that this time there would be no-one behind me…

These days I am older and grumpier, and I think I have as much right to park outside my home (assuming there is a space available) as they have to drive past it. But they cannot do that until I have completed the manoeuvre technically known as parallel parking.

Ideally, I would like a neon sign to light up in the rear window, announcing my intentions clearly and concisely: I am backing into this space – keep off my tail.

But I doubt even this message would have got through to the driver who, finally accepting that he couldn’t drive through me, slammed his brakes on, screeched to a halt a hair’s breadth away from my bumper and sounded his horn.

He got out of his car, strode towards me waving his fist and yelled: “Do you realise this is a public highway?”

What a prune, I thought. But I kept my temper, smiled sweetly and explained that a public highway is not merely the reserve of internal combustion engines, but can also be a residential road, with houses, where people live and park their cars.

Then I began reversing again, which focused his mind wonderfully – so much so that he leapt back in his car, and shifted it fairly smartly!

ChRis