A great deal is written, and believed, about the healing power of crystals. According to the experts (doubtless all qualified geologists and crystallographers) crystals are capable of healing just about every disease from cancer to ear infections.

Far be it from me to disagree with these experts. Admittedly, if you believe that prevention is better than cure, you might find yourself festooned with enough jewellery to make the average gangsta rap artist look like a 16th century Calvinist, but if the experts say that bloodstones can cure cramp, who am I to disagree?

The problem that I have with this is not whether such therapy is effective – if they say it’s effective, I believe them – but just that it’s a bit too focused on bling. Why do the healing crystals have to be bright, shiny and twinkling? Are we to believe that there’s some sort of hierarchy of inanimate objects? What happened to the lesser minerals? Like mud. Arguably, mud may contain traces of just about every healing crystal you could name but just because it’s brown and sort of sludgy, it’s totally and quite unfairly overlooked.

It occurred to me in the shower one day, where I seem to get most of my 22-carat ideas, that I should consider doing my own, independent and totally unbiased research into the properties of less fashionable minerals. So I chose bricks.

Why bricks? Well, obviously bricks have not featured in crystal healing to any appreciable extent. I’ve heard of people wearing crystals next to their skin to cure this and that but never a brick. This leads me to conclude that most people who espouse crystal healing get rather seduced by the Dark Side – that’s to say the fact that crystals look nice and are, in some cases, valuable. In other words, they are possibly prejudicing their health by a desire to look good and play with pretty objects.

Potentially, a brick can contain more health-promoting minerals than the average jeweller handles in a day. All in one neat package. Admittedly, it’s a bit hit and miss since your brick might not contain anything even vaguely health-giving. But then, what the hell – bricks are cheap enough and if the brick that you’ve got doesn’t work, use it to build a house and get another one. You can’t do that with diamonds.

Another aspect is that in the world of health-giving crystals, size certainly matters. The bigger the stone, the better the effect. So it goes without saying that the standard British house brick ( 203 x 102 x 57 mm), not to be confused with the American house brick (215 x 102.5 x 65 mm)) must be a whole lot better for you than some puny little crystal only 5 mm in diameter.

So what can a brick actually do for you? Well I have to be honest here – unlike many other researchers – and say that I have found no evidence so far to link close proximity to a brick with a cure for cancer. Or for any other disease come to that. However, this is to ignore its prophylactic qualities, of which my research indicates that there are many. Take for example the fact that most people, in the western world at least, live in houses that are actually constructed from bricks. Not one brick but hundreds! And statistically only a relatively small proportion of these people are sick – or at least sick in a meaningful or life-threatening way. Take away those brick-built dwellings and replace them with houses made of wood, or paper, and you’d have a lot more sick people on your hands – mark my words!

An extremely large group of young consultant bricks conferring at a medical conference (click to enlarge).

And the world is also full of examples of people who were discharged from hospital as sick and then went home and got better. What more proof do you need?

When it comes to overall well-being, I’d recommend filling your pockets with bricks before going to work in the morning. In fact, why stop there? Empty all of those useless papers out of your briefcase and cram it full of bricks (American bricks - they’re bigger). Now you’re going to find this pretty heavy but health does come at a price. Carry out your normal day-to-day activities but make sure that you have your bricks about you at all times. Finally, when you get home at the end of the day, take the bricks out of your pockets and put down your briefcase. You’ll feel great.

Retired bricks on a day-out to Blackpool.

But a brick really comes into its own when dealing with psychological illnesses and interpersonal relationships. There are many people out there – some would include me in this number – who have severe psychological problems. To use the vernacular, they are loonies and should be locked up. The fact is that they are running about, or squawking and pretending to be chickens, in the midst of our society. So how do we reasonably convince these people that they, and more particularly the rest of society, who are not mad at all, would be far better off if they were taken at least into sheltered accommodation? The answer is quite simple. Don’t even try to convince them. Just give them a brick, persuade them to wear it for the benefit of their health, or even better get them to kiss and fondle it, and let the usual procedure take its course. I’d give them about 48 hours tops before the men in white coats come to take away the brick-wearing loony.

Again, you can’t do that with a piece of polished agate.

Most interpersonal relationships can be neatly solved by simply throwing the brick. This involves an elegant transition from potential to kinetic energy, resulting in a heavy impact on the side of the cranium. Guaranteed to resolve most interpersonal disputes.

However, as in medicine, prophylaxis is infinitely better than cleaning up afterwards. Assuming that it’s far better to avoid or prevent an interpersonal dispute than having to go through an unpleasant court case later, I would recommend suspending the brick on a heavy chain around your neck. I mean, is any mugger in his right mind going to mess with someone dressed like that? Of course, there’s always the risk of being carted off as a brick-wearing loony but no solution is ever 100%.

And finally, if you truly believe that intimate contact with bricks has not improved your health in any way, you can always build a wall. And hide.

When I was about 1 year old, my aunt and uncle, who by that time had got a good look at me, decided to emigrate to Australia. Fifty-seven years later, I have a considerably large family down under.

Typically, my family ignored conventional destinations like Sydney or Melbourne and headed for the back of beyond. This is quite understandable if you come from Yorkshire, which has always been a somewhat idiosyncratic county. So my aunt and uncle ended up in a place called Whyalla, now the third most populous city in South Australia (pop. 22,000) and famous for its blast furnace and the school that opened in 1905.

I’ve never been to Australia to look up my family (I can take a hint) but the place has never ceased to fascinate me. For one thing, it’s very very big (7,686,850 square kilometres at the last count) and it contains very very little. Which is the sort of paradox I like. I realise that many Australians will probably take issue with my statement about their country containing very very little, and, of course, this does depend on how you define “little”, but it has certainly escaped the perils of overpopulation quite successfully. In terms of population density, it ranks 232nd in the world. Only 6 other countries can better this position, and one of those is Greenland.

Australia

Naturally, we’re talking about human population here. If we turn to rabbits, it’s quite a different matter. An estimated rabbit population of about 300 million gives a density of about 39 rabbits per square kilometre, thus beefing up the figures to put Oz in 167th place, at the same level as South Africa.

Because there’s so very little going on in the middle – at least if you’re not a rabbit - the Europeans very wisely cling to the coastline. However, this fascination with looking at sea-views is not something that’s shared with the aboriginal inhabitants. These people – cunningly called Aborigines – are quite at home in the middle, as well they might be having had at least 40,000 years to get used to it. Personally I think that the first time the Aborigines were cheated was when, having migrated to Australia, they found no way of getting back. I can just imagine the conversation.

“Well, mate. Looks like we’re here for the duration. Wha’dya think?”
“Could be worse. Plenty to eat. Look at them big rabbits bouncing up and down.”
“What are they called?”
“What are what called?”
“Them big rabbits.”
“Dunno.”

Which is an ignorance that seems to have persisted to the present day, for when the first Europeans encountered one of them big rabbits and asked the locals what it was called, the answer was still “Dunno”. Or, in the local dialect, “Kangaroo”.

A particularly bouncy rabbit.

But the local fauna doesn’t stop at rabbits and kangaroos. There is, for example, the koala. This looks a bit like a bear but it isn’t a bear. Its main claim to fame is that it’s totally cute, so presumably it was designed for its photogenic qualities. Like many Australian animals, it comes equipped with a pocket. Isn’t it just like nature to fit you with a pocket to keep your change in and then plonk you in the middle of nowhere where there’s nothing to spend it on?

And there’s the duck-billed platypus – a creature so strange that when the first example was brought back to Britain, it was generally thought of as some sort of fake cobbled together by a frustrated naturalist. I feel sorry for the animal. I mean, being called a platypus is bad enough without the added insult of being called duck-billed. It also has a pocket, presumably for underwater use.

But my favourite Australian animal has to be the wombat. Why is it my favourite? Well there’s the name first of all. It rolls off the tongue like a cowpat hitting a pavement. Secondly it seems to be halfway between a hamster and a mole but appears to have good vision and is too big to run in a wheel. It’s also wonderfully stupid. Its main form of defence against attack is its bum, which is apparently very difficult to chew. So when attacked it will dive into its burrow and use its bum to block the entrance. Now why didn’t we think of that?

It takes a wombat 2 weeks to digest a meal and its droppings are cube-shaped.

The very rare Norwegian wombat.

The emblem of Oz is the wattle, of course. Understandable really. They look nice, have delicious-looking seed pods that you can just about eat and they’re covered in thorns.

In fact, Australia seems to feature lots of things that are beautiful and that are armed with metaphoric thorns. It has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, guarded by sharks, saltwater crocodiles, sea snakes, box jellyfish, stone fish and other delightful creatures. Inland, some of its most charming countryside hosts red-backed spiders (with an equally charming neurotoxin) and the delightful inland taipan – the most venomous snake in the world with enough poison in one bite to kill a hundred adult humans. Not that it’s easy to find a hundred adult humans in central Australia.

To continue the paradox even further, you have Australian culture. For most Aussies, this focuses on sport, exemplified in the Barbie. No, not the doll. The Barbie can take many forms but what it has in common with barbecues the world over is that it’s dominated by alpha-males who couldn’t cook to save their breath. And like other more conventional forms of sport, it’s really an excuse for a booze-up.

An Australian alpha-male relaxing.

So it’s not surprising that Aussies have even devised their own way of marinading the meat – you marinade your stomach and then swallow the meat. In fact, Australians and drinking have had a merry relationship ever since the day when Captain Cook had that unfortunate accident with the fermented coconut. Foster’s Lager, well known for being…er…cold, is sold the world over and Australian wines have even won prizes. Mind you, to be honest, it must have been a great day in Oz when someone found out that it was a perfect climate for growing grapes. A bit like a chocolate addict inheriting a controlling interest in Toblerone. And it probably did wonders for the Aussie drinking culture which, up to the introduction of wine, consisted mainly of downing as many pints as possible before the cleaning squad came in and hosed down the bar.

But there’s something wonderfully down-to-earth about the Aussies, which you have to like. Even their wine labels have none of the pretentiousness that you find in France or Italy. So no Chateau La Grange Cadet or Dolcetto di Dogliani for them. Nope, it’s names like Ken’s Creek, Dog Ridge, Two Hands and Cleggett Wines.

And perhaps that’s the real charm of Australia. It’s a country of paradoxes that refuses to take itself seriously. Well, I don’t take it seriously.