How small tasks can benefit our state of mind

For Anna McGovern there is a satisfying, sensory pleasure to be had in rinsing milk bottles: “The very best thing about getting your milk delivered is ‘rinsing and returning’. Don’t cheat by putting your bottles in the dishwasher. Wash them, by hand. Put a small amount of water in the bottle, slosh the water around, put your hand over the top, shake it up and down, upturn the bottle, glugging the water out, then head for your doorstep and put out the bottle with a ‘plink’”.

This is one of many meandering, seemingly mundane tasks that McGovern delights in describing in her new book. Another is pegging out the washing (“Pull it out of the basket in a long, sweet-smelling, damp lump.”) In fact, when we speak about pottering, McGovern tells me she has done just that to “help order her thoughts”.

Would you harm yourself just to get at someone else? Spite is in us all, but there are unexpected benefits to it

On a memorable episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the curmudgeonly protagonist Larry David is angered by the lukewarm lattes at his local café so he opens a “spite” café. It is an identical coffee shop and right next door, but everything is cheaper. He runs it at a personal financial loss, but is driven by the thought of putting his neighbour out of business. It is magnificently mean-spirited, petty, spiteful – and humorous.

A murkier question is can spite be good? It seems counterintuitive to put an optimistic spin on behaviour that, by definition, involves hurting others while incurring harm to yourself. But a new book by Simon McCarthy-Jones explores its benefits. “Spite came from the darkness… It seeks to harm the other and to bring about changes in dominance. Yet it can help us into the light,” writes McCarthy-Jones, an associate professor in clinical psychology and neuropsychology at Trinity College in Dublin. “Spite is a sword of Damocles dangling over our interactions. It has made society fairer and more co-operative.”