Last call! A Xmas present for the miserable bastard in your life

Tidings of misery and gloom

Perhaps you have a miserable bastard in your life. All joy has fled. Nothing makes them happy. They shout at news programmes – and think that helps. They doomscroll Twitter and refuse to call it “X” because in their mind calling it “X” would mean conceding ground to Elon Musk.

And they hate Elon Musk and Donald Trump and, well, pretty much everyone in power everywhere

Maybe the miserable bastard in your life is a friend or relative. If you are very unlucky, they might be your partner.[i]

“What on earth can I give them for Christmas,” I hear you ask.

Good food will turn to ashes in their mouth.

Fine wine will taste like vinegar.

Well-cut clothes will hang like rags from their slumped frames.

As for novelty gifts, they will quite reasonably point out that every novel event this century has “just made the world worse”.

If you are in despair, may I suggest a gift subscription to Writing from London?

It will make them even more miserable and even more likely to shout at the news. And by increasing their misery you will increase their happiness.

It is not only that they will be happy to have their prejudices confirmed – although we all like that.

Reputable psychological research confirms the existence of a “negativity bias” that causes an amplified emotional response to bad news. The assumption is that evolution favoured humans who accentuated the negative. Those among our ancestors who were attuned to potential disaster were more likely to live and reproduce.

A subscription will not only make the miserable bastard in your life more miserable, and therefore happier, but it will also increase their very chances of survival, thus ensuring that the miserable bastard in your life has a longer life.

How can you deny them life? Especially at Christmas?

Readers with a full subscription receive access to all articles, archives, podcasts and debates. You also allow me to keep this project going as a journalistic concern without advertising or clickbait or any kind of proprietorial interference.

Annual subscriptions work out at £1.15 ($1.45) a week, which is hardly a high price to pay when you consider that your friend/relative/partner’s very life may be on the line.

Finally, I need to raise the awkward possibility that the miserable bastard in your life may, in fact, be you. If it is, why not give yourself the Christmas present of a full subscription? After all, as you may miserably have told yourself already, no one else will.

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[i] My wife questioned the use of the gender neutral “they/them” throughout this piece. Surely, she said, miserable bastards were, by definition, men. (Where she gets this idea from is beyond me.) A brief look at the comments section, however, shows that female readers of this site can be just as miserable as male readers, so I will refuse to bow to sexual stereotyping.