Premium

The Left-Wing Bias of World Mental Health Day is Enough to Drive You Insane

Alan Partridge is back to promote World Mental Health Day. At least, that's how it appeared to Steven Tucker when he saw the 'Printable Affirmation Cards' produced by the Mental Health Foundation.

10 min read

Alan Partridge is back on our screens, but he’s not very well. The much-loved Norwich-based media personality and broadcaster has endured many well-documented mental health crises down the years, from the day he shot a man live on-air, to the day he drove all the way to Dundee in his bare feet, and now, in a rare new BBC series actually worth watching, How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge), which is billed as being “Britain’s first ever documentary about mental health”, he is dispensing his psychological well-being tips to the nation.

For example, should you ever be feeling suicidal, Alan has produced an online set of “Printable Affirmation Cards”, instructing users to cut them out (with blunt-tipped child safety-scissors) and keep them somewhere safe, in the event of an inevitable mental health emergency: “When you need a little lift, keep these affirmation cards nearby.” Keeping some Valium nearby might work better, but not for Alan. When bubbling memories of your bitter divorce, your children’s death in a freak air-crash, and your recent fatal brain-cancer diagnosis all get a bit too much to handle, simply staring at Alan’s hand-drawn Doodles of Immense Positivity will inevitably draw you back down from the windowsill. And how could they not, with profoundly uplifting and healing messages like these?

That last one sounds like one of those stickers dentists give you after a filling when you’re five. Exactly the kind of embarrassing nonsense you might

Keep reading –
Donate £5 monthly
(first month £1 for new subscribers)
or £50 annually

Subscribe today to get unlimited online access, as well as our Premium newsletters and podcasts.

  • Read paywalled articles
  • Comment below the line and connect with other users
  • Watch and listen to the longer Premium version of our weekly podcast
  • Listen to every article
  • Receive Premium version of our daily newsletter
DONATE NOW

Comments

This week across the site:

Email me alerts for this discussion
Notify of

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

24 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
11 months ago

Clear evidence that those on the Left suffer far mental problems than us on the Right

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Clear+evidence+that+those+on+the+Left+suffer+far+mental+problems+than+us+on+the+Right&t=brave&ia=web

Crouchback
Crouchback
11 months ago

Thanks for this dose of sanity.

Happy Odyssey
Happy Odyssey
11 months ago

I strongly recommend Bob Newhart’s sketch ‘Stop it’. On You Tube. Timeless advice.

We frequently use it when friends and their children are being ‘overwhelmed’ by their good fortune.

Epi
Epi
11 months ago

It’s not all right to spell all right alright.

Now that’s depressing!

Hound of Heaven
Hound of Heaven
11 months ago

The lies of this post truth age are the most pernicious ever experienced by mankind. Resist.

Hound of Heaven
Hound of Heaven
11 months ago

Great article btw.

AnneCW
AnneCW
11 months ago

The WHO saying ‘there is no health without mental health’ is very reminiscent of the obviously false slogan ‘no one is free till Palestine is free’. If they want to reduce irrational feelings of overwhelming doom, they could start by not broadening bad things that affect some people into universal experiences that are the responsibility of literally everyone.

Crouchback
Crouchback
11 months ago
Reply to  AnneCW

One Covid death is one too many. Nobody is safe until everyone is safe. They do have a recognisable twang, don’t they? Untruthiness. Oh and my personal bugbear: A society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members.

RTSC
RTSC
11 months ago

I cheered myself up quite considerably this week by spending 2 hours delivering leaflets for Reform UK.

Oh …. and I got the NHS to remove me from their automatic invitation to have Big Phama poisons injected into me.

So all in all, quite a good week.

For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
11 months ago

Doom scrolling, AKA looking through the comments on the Daily Telegraph or Guardian.

transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
11 months ago

Lockdowns did wonders for mental health, ditto being constantly lied to and gaslighted by government and the media

Dinger64
Dinger64
11 months ago

Is this real?

stewart
stewart
11 months ago

Munchausen syndrome at a mass scale

Arum
Arum
11 months ago

I think there’s a shadowy international organisation of HR departments behind all this. Without these ridiculous ‘days’, what would they have to fill their stupid emails with, therefore justifying their own existence?
If you are the sort of person who downloads and prints the ‘Printable Affirmation Cards’ then you don’t need them. What person suffering from a genuine mental health crisis would do that?

JAMSTER
JAMSTER
11 months ago

Superb. Wonderful article – it had me laughing out loud every couple of paragraphs. I became so cheerful that I forgot to be miserable about World Mental Health Day for a few minutes.

Arum
Arum
11 months ago
Reply to  JAMSTER

Yes this is the therapy I need. I am a bit dozy this morning and didn’t notice who the author of this piece was – until I burst out laughing, then I knew!

shred
shred
11 months ago

Just to cheer us up, my better 0.5 found that it’s World Menopause Day next week. I looked it up to see if there was anything I could do to help but only World Menstruation Hygiene Day had anything practical to offer

Hester
Hester
11 months ago

So sick of it, and there go William and Kate again off on one of their favourite bandwaggons mental elf. I just wish they would shut up and get on with opening supermarkets

shred
shred
11 months ago
Reply to  Hester

Mental elf sounds like the doom goblin.

CircusSpot
CircusSpot
11 months ago

Very funny and thanks for a cheery start to my day.

Ardandearg
Ardandearg
11 months ago

If I ever need a shrink, please let it be Dr Dix from the Jesse Stone series. Good straight talking, no waffle, an oldfashioned waft of cigarette smoke. Heaven protect me from empathy.

Grahamb
Grahamb
11 months ago

Parody and day to day stuff are so hard to separate nowdays!

mickie
mickie
11 months ago

There’s certainly much to be depressed about these days, starting with World Mental Health Day. I’m just off to commit suicide – I may be some time.

For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
11 months ago
Reply to  mickie

Dying for some good news?

Thank you for reading. Please help us keep the Daily Sceptic going by becoming a donor.