Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Some people think I’m bonkers…

This week we've seen the words zany, weird, wacky, outrageous and troubled used to describe someone who apparently has mental health problems and who wanted to be on the X-Factor TV show. As I said the other day, the one word avoided by the Sun was 'bonkers', which may have been in the wake of their previous atrocity regarding BONKERS BRUNO, bi-polar former heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno.

Today's Star doesn't worry about such problems though:

Ah, there we are. Someone's 'bonkers' because they 'cracked up'. In a way, I suppose, you can link it with the discussion of the cat/bin lady: if someone behaves in any way other than an orthodox one, they must be classified as somehow pertaining to mental illness, insanity, madness - whatever you want to call it.

Of course you could look at it another way - anyone who would willingly be slung into a house broadcast live on television 24 hours a day in which their every cough, grunt, fart and poo is available for scrutiny by the general public could be argued to have a degree more strange behaviour about them than someone who, when put in that situation for 70-plus days and has £100,000 waiting in their bank account as well as the person they're in a fledgling relationship with, decides to get the hell out of there and return to "real life" through the fire exit.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's a bit oversensitive of me, I don't know. There's nothing really inherently wrong with calling people 'loons' or 'nuts' or whatever; but the point is, I think, not to focus on language, but the tone of what's being put across. Saying someone's 'bonkers' for walking out of a TV show is probably quite wrong; saying someone's 'cracked up' because they've decided to get the hell out of reality TV isn't right either.

I wish it could be possible to imagine that outlandish, unusual or unorthodox behaviour isn't just the sole preserve of people with mental health problems - we're all quite capable of needing a break the ordinary madness from time to time.

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