But did you check?

A colleague of mine spends a great deal of her free time rehabilitating injured native animals. It's a worthy pursuit and in pursuance of that pursuit she recently bought 2000 worms to provide as food for an injured plover - which I'm led to understand is some kind of bird and not, as I first thought, an assistant tractor driver. And I asked her, in a moment of "oh God, it's still only Tuesday" ridiculousness whether she had, in fact, actually counted the worms to ensure that she'd been given full measure for her money.

And she vouchsafed to me that she had not, in fact, counted the little fellas but had estimated, based on the fact that the quantity was about twice as many as she'd been previously sold as 1000 worms, that she'd got what she paid for.

The obvious failing in that check mechanism will be immediately apparent.

As we discussed these weighty matters, it occurred to me that worm vendors are probably not the only people counting on the fact that we don't count. Or measure. Or check a before and after state to see if we have, in fact, gotten the benefit that we paid for.

Are your teeth noticeably whiter in only 14 days? Did you take a photo at the start of the treatment and then, in comparable lighting conditions, take another photo at the end of the fortnight to check? Or, have you, like most of us, kind of done it most days in the two week period then stood, turning to catch the light, in front of the mirror so that you can delude yourself that the caffeine and nicotine stains are half a shade of putrescense lighter?

Or, even more likely, did you go one step of self-delusion further an ask a person whose sex life depends on being supportive and sympathetic about it?

While we're on "noticeable", what about those abs? Only 15 minutes a day. Are your abs noticeably firmer? They're certainly noticeably completely unlike those on the man with with the rigor mortis smile who was using the thing on TV,. but are they noticeably anything at all other than that? Did you take some photos to support you claim for your money back (less postage, handling and shipping to the warehouse in Zaire)? Hmmm

Of course, there are times when not checking is a self-preservative - such as when you give a gift. On the rare occasions when we select a gift carefully - and don't grab the least inappropriate object at Target and, post purchase, convince yourself that the receiver will love it - you don't really know if it's something that they will cherish.

The conveyed first impression is no guide as I've yet to come across a person who tore through the wrapping and greeted the contents with an honest "Well, I hope that didn't cost you much." They say it's wonderful, we feel the self-righteous glow of giving. We do not need that glow to be diluted by the reality that the receiver's life has not been transformed by a kind-of-hand-made bright red coffee mug with Santa bells on it - so we don't go back and check.

Government grants programs work in a similar way. The minister announces something - a nice big headline number with the word "millions" after it, there's a launch and the relevant rent seekers stakeholders are there for the photo op. No one but no one wants to know if the money achieved what it was earmarked for. That wasn't the purpose of the program.

We don't check because we don't want to know. Subconsciously we fear that most of the things we spend money on are pointless, useless, ill-received, misguided or rip-offs.

Better not to know.

Juvenalia

Peter Pan was the eternal child - much like Jack Sparrow. In fact it seems that the whole pirate milieu is pervaded by the quest for eternal youth, or at least eternal immaturity. The evolutionary benefit of this approach seems to be that if you take nothing seriously then nothing serious will happen to you. The sword will always be a miss and your one-liners will always be a hit. Perhaps it's unsurprising that the pirate genre would be pervaded by this surreality, as the rose coloured glasses of narrative peering through the celebrated mists of time appear to have transformed rapacious, violent, marginalised criminals into rollicking, witty, just slightly salacious ratbags. The passage of time and the magic of the story teller are amazing in that regard; just ask Ned Kelly.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day is an intrusion into the 'real' world (and I use the inverted commas advisedly - just check out the title of the blog) of this fetish for eternal and protective immaturity. But it's only one of many manifestations of this phenomenon.

One of things that has surprised me most over the last couple of decades has been the rise of adults who take themselves seriously and also give themselves the title of "Gamers". Computer games are - or at least were - for children and adolescents who hadn't, as yet, developed the social or intellectual skills necessary for things like cards. It's a kind of eternal backyard in which you run around with your friends pretending to be soliders or ninjas or car thieves or whatever. This kind of thing for adults used to be limited to "Historical Re-enactment Societies" who, at least, had the decency to try to make what they were doing sound grown-up and meaningful. Calling yourselves "Gamers" is just shameless!

And cosplay. Don't give me "cosplay", it's dress-ups. The only difference is that you, as an adult, are hoping that you look kind of sexy in the Catwoman outfit. And getting yourselves together at a Comicon, dressed up like storm-troopers and getting a selfie with or your butt signed by the actress that played the engineer on Firefly is just a dress-up party taking itself way too seriously.

The final surrender appears to be colouring in. I'm now being told that there are protective benefits to my mental health - in the form of mindfulness - from making sure that my sky is blue, my grass is green, my house has a chimney and I stay inside the lines. Sure, you're trying to make it feel like something meaningful by throwing in some kind of Tibetan mung-bean, organic, vegetarian mandala thing but it's still colouring in. What's next? Join the dots.

It seems like it would have been better not to have graduated from primary school.

And the trouble is that none of it is giving us the real benefits that we want to bring back from childhood The clothes I dropped on the floor of the bathroom are still there in the morning, my shirt doesn't appear magically ironed next to my bed in the morning, I don't get to just scream and yell when I have problems and, worst of all, I can't just curl up and take a nap anytime I feel that it's all a bit overwhelming. 

Which I think would be the thing that would provide me the most mental health protection of all.

Just give up

I'm not a great one for quitting. Keep trying until you get there, all that sort of thing. But there is a limit and I think there are some things that have gone beyond that particular pale and which we should all just give up on.

The office kitchen

No, my mother doesn't work here but nor does my wife live here. I don't have to start washing it up ten seconds before I start thinking of using it. The place doesn't have to be ready to pass royal inspection at any point. And some of the other guys that work here with me are still living at home with their mothers - who take care of it for them - or in share houses with other blokes who think that nothing needs cleaning until it is actually condemned by the health authorities (aka one of their girlfriends). There is absolutely no way that people are going to wash, dry and put away every teaspoon they use, as they use it. Frankly, I don't do that at home either. It just builds up on the sink until my wife gets sick of it then I pack the dishwasher. Why does anyone think that work is going to be any different?

Toilet paper

Sarcastic little internet videos of girlfriends showing their boyfriends how easy it is to replace the loo paper after use are going nowhere. It is up to the person taking a seat to make sure that they have all the accessories in place. And, in all honesty, how many times is a person really leaving a completely empty roll? The coincidence - that there was just enough left on an almost empty roll for my needs - is a little difficult to credence. What you're probably really complaining about is that there wasn't enough left for your needs; that I didn't anticipate your wiping requirements. Which seems to suggest that you want me to spend time thinking about your toilet use. That's taking empathy WAY too far!

Toilet seats

While we're talking toilets , no I'm not putting the seat down. Do you honestly walk in and sit down without looking? Are you incapable of pulling the seat down yourself? The way you go on about toilet paper and seats, it's like you walk in and sit down with your eyes closed. I might do the same thing, if you like, but don't blame me for the aim-related consequences of that.

Reading your ads

I, like many internet users, am a sucker for lists. The top 10 things not to do when building your own rocket. The 25 funniest real estate agent photos. Love it. So I'll click through ... and I might read ONE ad as payment for your services in providing 30 seconds of relief to my day. Loading 9 ads for Filipino singles and two for things that will shock me when I see what happens next then, after thirty seconds, loading the first photo in the series is not going to get me to read any of those ads. I'm out of here. It's made worse by burying the "Next" button below the digital fold, right under the first row of ads. I now hate you and your advertisers. I will avoid any Letterman Lists with your URL attached.

And, for the love of the almighty, I'm an adult of the internet generation. I'm not shocked by anything!

I am the Doctor

I have come to a startling but flattering realisation: I am the Doctor. Not "a" doctor, "the" Doctor. As in the man with the Tardis.

How do I come to such a conclusion? Have I been drinking too much or not getting enough sleep? Has the mind numbing tedium of Minion Memes finally driven me over the edge? Well maybe, but the justification I'm giving myself in my head is that I am a father, ergo, I am the Doctor.

Start with the screwdriver. Fathers are never without one. It should be something you're given at the hospital when your kids are born. The first thing you realise, as a father, other than that you never want to see the woman you love go through that again, is that you need a screwdriver. The first toy your kid gets will need batteries - not included, of course and needing to be replaced every half hour or so - and you can't get at the battery case without a screwdriver. I can understand why in the case of those little lithium things but when it's a D size,  I think the chances of junior imbibing it are fairly low. Nonetheless, you need a screwdriver.

Then there's the toy you have to fix. Usually about an hour after it was unwrapped on Christmas Day and the shops aren't open to get a refund. But it's my favourite Santa present, dad! Screwdriver again.

I just wish I had the "twiddle the end and it will do everything" model. Who came up with those triangular headed ones? And the little cogwheel ones? Listen, you toy engineering people, when it's 10.30 on Christmas morning and my kid is upset, there are always user serviceable parts inside!

What else convinces me that I am the Doctor?

Well, I have a Tardis. I guarantee that my house is bigger on the inside. It's the only way I can account for the quantity of stuff that seems to find a home in it. Under the couch, behind the toilet, up one of my offspring's nose. And the space under the kids' beds is in another set of dimensions entirely. No matter how often I clean under there, I can still reach in and pull out two school shirts, a left shoe, a friend we thought we'd lost last time they slept over and about three and a half tonnes of Lego pieces that "are lost forever Dad, we'll never find them!"

The final things that convince me that I am the Time Lord are my nemeses; aka my children.

My three year old is a Dalek. There are two things that are known constants about Daleks:

1. They have no facial expressions so they have to articulate every single thing that they are thinking about, planning to do and actually doing "You are a huuman. You will be exterminated!"; and
2. They will go on and on in the world's most annoying voice until you pay them the attention they want.

That's my three year old. He can't even defecate without giving me a running commentary about what's happening and how noisome the production thereof is. And as for nagging ...

My next two boys are Cybermen. Obsessed with upgrades - in their case of the versions of the apps on their tablets - and warfare. All they want to do is create chaos and delete each other. Every opportunity to sneak in a quick fraternal deletion in the form of a punch to the stomach, a kick up the bum, a dob-in or a filling your house on Minecraft with lava is taken. They might have been human once but now ...

And finally my teenage daughter. She's The Silence. You don't get much communication from her when she's in the mood but you can sure get the look. Parents of teenage girls, you know the one? The one that follows a suggestion that she might not wear that pair of shorts or she might just tone down the use of Netflix a little and, perhaps, just perhaps, do some more study for her upcoming exams.

And, after you get the look, you know that Silence Will Fall.

I only wish that I could manipulate time the way the Doctor does. I might get an extra hour or two to myself during the day!