Off my picnic...

There are people out there (you know who you are) that think I'm a bit mad. To be honest, I can easily understand why they (yes, even you) might think that. Some of my views (most, even) are quite bonkers and sometimes even I think I'm a trifle eccentric (away with the fairies as they used to say - when fairies had wings and not handbags). Of course, I put it down to my artistic nature, my drinking, my childhood, society in general, bullies at school, bullies at work, bullies at home, the seventies, the eighties, the nineties, my relationships, my ex-wives - you name it and I'll blame it.

I may be a sandwich short of a picnic, an apple short of a fruit bowl, scrambled, crackers, nutty, a fruit loop, a fruit cake, bananas, a fruity trifle, and other food-related expressions appertaining to being a bit unhinged (including as mad as a chicken sausage) but I prefer to think of myself as 'as bonkers as conkers' or 'an acorn short of an oak tree'.

I love the words we use to describe lunacy. Mental illness isn't a very funny subject but being a bit loony is quite a different thing. At it's best it's amusing and entertaining, loveable even. A bit of vaguery, a dithering, a riddler talking in riddles, it's so eminently English - whether you be a crazee cat lady or a pleasantly confused chappie in plus-fours and a tartan waistcoat. It's positively potty. Yes, If I was down in Acapulco I would definitely be going loco, a little moonstruck, gongoozled, a bit whack job, dizzy and dazed, batty, ga-ga, off my rocker, three fries short of a happy meal, whack-a doodle, coocoo even, I'd be in but my lights would not be on, I'd be tuppence short of a shilling and not the full shilling, I'd be mad as a box of frogs, my marbles would all be lost and I'd lose my grip as they rolled away. 

I think you get the idea. 

Of course, this type of madness is more Spike Milligan than Hannibal Lecter, more George the Third than Adolf Hitler. It's a soft gentle madness, rather than a destructive one. 

Issac Newton (apple falling genius and one of the most influential minds in history) was, by all accounts, a bit of a headcase who worked obsessively for days at a time without eating or sleeping. Sometimes he'd have hallucinations and speak to imaginary friends - which to my mind is perfectly normal (surely we all have a six-foot white rabbit as a friend).

Nikola Tesla (lightning making genius and one of those chaps that could communicate with extra-terrestrials) churned out over 200 inventions in his life including the first electric motor, the first remote control, a more efficient electricity than Thomarse Edison could ever dream of (cheating worm that he was), radio, X-ray photography, and was well on the way to a free energy system harnessing the power surrounding the Earth before 'THEY' had it all destroyed and ruined him. He also had an intense phobia of germs and dirt and an obsession with doing everything in threes (apart from sex as he believed that relationships of any sort were an unnecessary distraction). He would compulsively calculate how many centimetres of food he was about to eat, how many meters he walked to get to the loo, and he hardly ever made a drawing or wrote much down - it was all stored in his mind which was the size of a planet.

It would seem that a disproportionate number of artistic and scientific geniuses throughout history have all been just a tiny bit loony tunes (that's all folks!). Many of the greatest literary figures of the past 300 years were bonkers and either drank themselves to death or put a bullet in their mouth. The heroin-overdosed musician is almost a cliche at this point, it’s so common. Hell, you’re almost not even considered a real rock star unless you OD’d at some point - and as for painters and fictitious Victorian detectives, well let's just say black crows and violins are de rigeur ear...

The Roman philosopher Seneca once wrote (with his left hand and in chicken blood on his toga), “There is no great genius without a tincture of madness.” We all kinda know that people who are geniuses are so often a little bit crazy (sometimes a lot). We mainly accept it, even if we don’t know exactly why they are completely not on this planet.

Mental difference (what we now call illness) has become a dirty word or two (despite all the 'open' talk about it and worthy Princes and footballers), an obsession in itself. Everyone is looking for a cure, a way to make everyone 'normal' and in doing so they have invented a new less interesting madness. Well, I say BUGGER that. Embrace your bonkers, your battiness in your belfry, go tip your lance at windmills, it's what makes you unique - even if you are up the bloody tree.