Navigation is a lost cause

Men overestimate their skills at navigating, according to an important new study by University College London. Women were less boastful about their abilities, and with good reason. But, as you can’t say anything about women nowadays, let’s not go there. We’d never get there anyway. Not if they were navigating.

Drink upside

Nearly 40% of Britishers want to quit drinking. The grim desire was more prevalent among younger people, particularly as a result of “hanxiety” – regret afterwards over their behaviour. The trick is to drink alone in the house. Your columnist was teetotal for 27 days recently, before deciding to experience once more what it feels like to be happy.

Ant Sally

This column’s idea of unhappiness is a week in Benidorm. Fighting over sunbeds there left one women close to tears. “They’re like ants scurrying for food,” she said. “It’s horrendous.” Thus the human race. Imagine if food really were running out. During Covid, the Earthlings fought over toilet roll. Pinnacle of evolution on this horrible planet.

Pile-on

Nearly half of Britonians confess to calling or texting on their mobiles while performing excretory abominations in the lavatory. Top experts advise they run the risk of bacteria on their screens or even getting piles (caused by sitting there too long). This column warned for years that portable telephones would cause haemorrhoids. It was always obvious.

Money sleeps

According to a study of 500,000 Britlanders – nearly everybody, surely? – the well-off sleep better than the poor. Though attributed to quieter environments more than earnings, it must help to know you’ll not run out of cash or toilet roll. The study was published in the journal Clocks and Sleep, the bible of horological somnolence.