We were never allowed to use the word “nice” at school.  It was tantamount to using the word “lovely”, a lazy way of saying, well, “nice” things, when there was a whole world of adjectives out there just dying to be picked in its place.  ”Nice” was boring, when you could use, say “pleasant” or “delightful”, yet really these words wouldn’t do either because what we were actually, subliminally being encouraged to avoid was the mediocrity that niceness, pleasantness or delightfulness conjured up on the page.  To be “nice” was to be average, dull, unexciting, and why would anyone want to be like that when they could be racy, adventurous, spirited, or on the other side, fiery, mean-spirited, wicked, or nasty.

But lately I’ve been thinking it might be time to bring a bit of plain old niceness back.  First there was an interview  - months ago now, but it did stay in my mind - with Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair.  Asked by Polly Vernon what his advice would be to anyone starting out on a career in journalism, or magazines, he said,

“BE NICE”.

His point was that there are too many people out there who would cut your throat rather than see you do well, but that this somewhat 80s approach doesn’t really get you anywhere.  People can see through it, and at the end of the day they’d rather have someone around who was less prone to stab them in the back. Someone with good manners, a sincere smile, the ability to see the positive in life.  A half-cup full sort of person.

Then at the weekend, Shane Watson in her column in Style wrote about how desperate we are -  as a nation - to see others fail in life. It’s almost as if we want the marriages of the rich and famous to fail, so bitter are we about our own failings, so desperate to pull others down to … what level, exactly?  ”Gwyneth and Chris - nothing to go on as yet, but you know, it’s about that time, so watch this space,”  she jokes, calling on us all to “knock the negativity on the head”.

In the same magazine, I wrote a piece about a trip to Laos, with my son in tow, the intention to visit one of the Smile Train outposts and see the great work they do there performing surgeries on children with cleft palates.  Most of the reactions were favourable, but two people wrote to complain about an assortment of things, including my carbon footprint - why didn’t I just visit a UK cleft palate child?  (Answer; in the UK we have the NHS, the whole point of the article was to encourage donations for Smile Train so that kids who aren’t so lucky to have that operation for free, have the same start in life that our kids do).

Is this something peculiar to being British?   It does seem to be an offshoot of our otherwise rather fabulous sense of humour, this ability to cut people down so quickly with a witty one-liner, a sardonic tale of someone who fell flat on their face.  I’ve done it myself; and obviously been on the receiving end many times. And when I’ve visited the US I’m always overwhelmed by the way how in conversations people seem to want to ride with an idea, take you at face value, instead of looking for fault in everything.

I know I should listen to the great majority of positive people out there, whose reactions to the piece were so encouraging,  (especially from the Smile Train coordinator in Thailand)  but really, can the rest of the misery-mongers just lighten up?  Isn’t life tough enough as it is without wishing for other peoples marriages to break up, or looking for the cracks everywhere, or worrying about a carbon footprint when frankly the exposure the charity receives will hopefully outweigh the damage?

Hey.. it’s a beautiful blue sky out there, the swans were playful on the Serpentine this morning, it’s the 1st March and Spring, hopefully is here finally.  I’m going to make an effort to say.. er.. NICE things to everyone.  I’m not sure I’ll get very far, maybe the temptation to be sarcastic will be too much to bear, but I’m trying, okay?