The John Griff Column: When every day is a learning day – and should be.

I suppose that it is for the very simple reason that nobody can be all knowing that we have news reported from around the world, and, of course, far beyond it. I am a fan of documentaries and will happily consume programmes about subjects that I have no particular prior knowledge about, simply because doing so broadens my experience and my general awareness. It also stimulates my brain and its thirst for knowledge. Last week I spent a couple of hours marvelling at the labour, ingenuity and sheer audacity which saw the James Webb Space Telescope strapped to a rocket and hurled into the sky, to be eventually stationed about a million miles from planet Earth, so that it could look anew not at the heavens, but instead back in time to the first origins of the universe and the so-called ‘Big Bang’. Light takes time to arrive with us and nothing travels faster, unless it is at the warp speeds of Star Trek’s Enterprise. By observing light from billions of years ago reaching us now, the James Webb Telescope is looking back in time – a true time machine. Replacing its predecessor the Hubble Telescope, which was delivered into orbit aboard the Space Shuttle, Webb should be able to help scientists for years to come not only in their quest to learn about the stars, galaxies and planets of which we are a microscopic part, but also, perhaps, the very simple but age-old question which has enthralled and challenged so many people for so long – are we alone? The bounds of mathematical probability would have us believe that we cannot be and that life must exist elsewhere. But until it is proven by observation we can only surmise and put forward our beliefs. Will James Webb prove things definitively? Only time can tell and when that time arrives it might cause further cataclysmic question for religion as well as science. What existed before The Big Bang? And what – or who - caused it?

If that one documentary got my brain engaged – and it did – it wasn’t the only one. Last week Lois and I went to see the new ‘MJ’ stage show at the Prince Edward Theatre in London. Literally around the corner from the Tottenham Court Road tube station and Ronnie Scott’s Club, the show charts Michael Jackson’s life up to the start of the ‘Dangerous’ tour. It examines the relationships within the Jackson dynasty, headed up by father and patriarch Joseph, who ruled the roost with an iron fist. It is a brave enough piece of theatre to show Michael carrying on at least some of his father’s traits in his obsession to deliver the perfect show for the paying public but knows well enough the wisdom in bringing the curtain down before some of Jackson’s more sensational and less entertainment-centric activities come to light in the biographical narrative. Do we learn much about the man and his music from it? Maybe, maybe not – but with 42 songs in the running order it is a piece of high quality entertainment for those fans prepared to pay the not inconsiderable price of admission. Back home, I watched the new documentary charting America’s 1985 alternative to the Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s Band Aid – We Are The World. And there, right at the centre of things, was Michael Jackson, quietly nudging things along.

They say that every day is a school day – or that it should be. It certainly was the case for me on Monday. I was in Thrapston – somewhere where I have been before but not too many times. Most notably I was there during the easter floods of 1998 when I reported from the Nine Arches Bridge adjacent to the town as the River Nene surged underneath it, threatening to wash it away. On Monsay it was raining again, but the drizzle threatened nobody. I was at a ceremony where I was obliged to address the audience, so wanted to make my comments relevant to the area as well as those attending. Did you know that Thrapston once had not one, but two railway stations, or that Sir John Washington, a relative of America’s first President, George Washington, once lived there? Neither did I. What’s more, thanks to the practices of my career and their imprinting tendencies on my brain, I know that I won’t forget either nugget of information anytime soon. Using small bits of information like that tends to cement them in your mind. Leaving the North Northamptonshire Council Chamber I was struck by the Nene Centre directly opposite it. I’d never seen or heard of it, so when I got home, I looked it up and found it to be a fantastic asset to the people of the area and the wider county, championing wellbeing in all ages and helping to reduce costs to the NHS in the process. How many similar facilities go unknown and unused by the wider community?

The quest for knowledge is at the core of our being – heaven forbid that that should change. As humans we use only a tiny proportion of our mental potential – possibly no more than about 10 per cent. It follows, therefore, that we have vast reserves of brainpower within each of us. What’s more, if we don’t use those parts of the brain which are tasked with memory, reasoning and debate, they will atrophy, declining from underuse – truly ‘use it or lose it’. The illness of dementia notwithstanding therefore, we could be doing a lot for ourselves and our future wellbeing by doing a spot of tuning up – even something as simple as being aware of the news of the day would be a start and plenty of us are blissfully (or deliberately?) unaware of what’s going on around us. And when we see something reported in the news, do we challenge and debate it? Or blindly accept it?

Maybe there’s a trick or two that we should be learning.