Bad news is the only thing that travels faster than the speed of light

And February lets you sacrifice whatever you like for febfast, as long as it’s important to you (like sugar). For a good cause.

I was a bit slow to take up February’s offer, so I’m lumping for March.

I’ve designated it No Bad News March.

Yes, I know it’s not very catchy and I’ve already missed half the month. So it looks and sounds a bit pathetic.

But I am doing it for a good cause. I’m doing it for my personal wellbeing and mental good health.

And it’s certainly a sacrifice.

Because I am a news junkie. An addict. I can’t get enough of my drug.

I wake up to the news on the radio as my alarm.

I have a plastic-wrapped, old-fashioned print newspaper thrown onto my driveway every day.

I have streams from news services coming into my phone and computer all day while I work surrounded by news in my job at The News.

At night I top it all off with a television news service (or two).

So yes, I’m obsessed with news.

And I can usually cope with the bad alongside the good.

But right now, I’m feeling ground down by all the bad news, so I’ve decided to call a halt.

Not for forever — that’s too big an ask. Just for a couple of weeks.

For the rest of March, I plan to skip the bad news and only read/listen to/watch the good news.

It won’t be easy, but I’m going to try.

What was the final straw?

After a year of unrelenting misery of coronavirus deaths and restrictions, insane US politics and mayhem across the globe, how could right now be any worse?

It’s the outpouring of despair from girls and women across this country — who are fed up with being harassed, discriminated against, assaulted and killed — that has finally seen me say I’m overloaded. I’m switching off.

I’m incredibly empowered by women coming together to say enough is enough, we don’t deserve this. Fix the system and fix it now.

As Helen Reddy sang, we are women and we are roaring. And that’s fantastic.

But my soul is weeping and my heart is breaking that in 2021, we need to be saying any of this.

That in 2021, women are still being subjected to all this inequality and pain and it’s not getting any better.

So I watched and applauded every woman who marched through our cities and towns on Monday. I agreed with every speaker and every placard, and I cried at every victim’s story.

I watched and I prayed that this was a turning point — that our leaders, bureaucrats and police were all listening and finally something would be done to stop it.

I watched and hoped that our schools, businesses and workplaces, streets and homes could become safe places for women to live their lives in whatever way they choose to.

And then I turned the news off.

I didn’t wait to see the latest death toll in Myanmar or in COVID-19 hotspots around the world.

I turned it off.

And I turned YouTube on (aren’t smart TVs marvellous things?) and I watched (again) the Wiggles perform Tame Impala’s Elephant for Triple J’s Like a Version — complete with ‘old’ Wiggles Murray and Jeff and a Fruit Salad mash-up.

If that’s not an antidote to despair I don’t know what is.

Wiggles songs were always on high rotation in our house when the kids were young, and here they were singing one of my favourite songs.

Alerting me to its existence early on March 5, my now 21-year-old son texted me: “Easily the greatest thing I’ve ever heard”.

Since then it’s had more than 1.4 million views and loads of online chat about voting for it in the next Triple J Hottest 100. It gets my vote.

The night after the Wiggles broke the internet with Elephant, I was at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl with my kids watching our favourite band, The Cat Empire.

In my news-free zone on Monday night, I thought about the lyrics from the song they always close their concerts with — The Chariot.

“This is a song that came upon me one night, when the news it had been telling me ’bout one more war and one more fight and I sighed. But then I thought about my friends and I wrote this declaration just in case the world ends.”

It’s a song about joy and hope and music in a bleak world.

So, here’s my declaration to my friends — solidarity all the way, sisters. But excuse me if I give myself a break from the fight for a little while.

I AM IMPRESSED

With how the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne has transformed itself to meet COVID-safe rules. While live music struggles to return to the city, the music bowl has turned into the perfect venue for these troubled times. It’s always been great — I remember being on the grassy hill for REM in the 1980s — but it’s completely different now. The grass has vanished beneath many private ‘decks’ holding up to six people, and the stalls seating has been replaced by tiered rows of tables and chairs for two or four patrons. We had a brilliant night there for The Cat Empire. It’s great to be back.

I AM WATCHING

The two Harry Potter and the Cursed Child plays in Melbourne. I went with my daughter, both of us big Harry Potter fans, to the marathon session — one play in the afternoon and another at night, more than five hours in total. I’m not too effusive in my praise. When you’re in the Princess Theatre and caught up in the Harry Potter world and amazed at the stage effects — which are UTTERLY INCREDIBLE — it all seems wonderful. But afterwards you realise the plot has holes you can drive a truck through and could have been told in one play only. But worth it just to see the Dementors!