With mackerel and SpongeBob my brain is doing just fine

Always anxious to improve my brainpower, I take the usual tried and trusted measures.

I eat fish, and no breakfast is complete in our house without the whiff of smoked mackerel seeping out of the kitchen. Mrs X and the brat stay off the ground floor until the aroma has been cleared by our efficient throughflow ventilation system. In other words, I have to open a window.

So I was interested to read that some boffins reckon that watching 3D movies is also good for the old grey matter.

I don’t know what made neuroscientist Patrick Fagan and Professor Brendan Walker do it, but they tested filmgoers after they had been watching films in stereoscope, to give the 3D effect its right name.

They showed a 23% increase in cognitive processing ability after watching a 3D movie. Reaction times improved by 11%, and they experienced a so-called brain boost for about 20 minutes after viewing. The improvement in reaction time was five times that experienced by those watching a 2D movie.

Sadly, there was no mention of how that compares to scoffing a plate of mackerel on toast.

They have decided that all this could well result in halting, or at least slowing down, the natural decline of our brain function. Yep, sitting there wearing silly glasses could be helping your brain to go on and on.

And, as it happens, I have some recent experience in testing the phenomenon myself.

As a birthday treat, someone not a million miles from here decided that we should all go to the flicks recently. Not to see just any movie, but some very weird celluloid presentation by the bizarre name of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.

It was described as an American animated and liveaction comedy film based on the TV series SpongeBob SquarePants. Obviously.

On our way in, we were handed pairs of sturdy spectacles. Ah, the NHS optometrists are working late. I forgot about the eyewear until the movie started and it looked badly out of focus with intensely colourful tinges.

When I looked and saw that everyone else had put on the specs, I twigged they were 3D glasses to be worn during SpongeBob for the viewing thereof.

Instantly, everything on screen was clear. The three-dimensional effect was particularly powerful, so that the action seemed to leap off the screen. When a seagull swooped at the camera, we all ducked. The sound got louder, or so it seemed, and soon we were all caught up in a strange world – sometimes cartoon, sometimes realistic.

It was a bizarre and hypnotic experience, or it was until some screeching sound effect shattered the dreamy state and made you put your hands up to avoid some missile or airborne octopus seemingly flying past your face.

Maybe I should tell you a little about the storyline. It’s just a normal, everyday tale about Burger-Beard, a pirate, who steals the Krabby Patty secret formula using a magical book that makes any text written in it come true. It’s a bit like the notebook in which I write down all my New Year resolutions, except none of them has come true. Ever.

We then met the famous SpongeBob SquarePants himself. Basically, he is a big pink blob. However, he doesn’t have spots, so Noel Edmonds can rest easy.

We were also introduced to his companions, who are Mr Krabs, Squidward, Patrick, Sandy, and Plankton.

SpongeBob and his pals live under the sea in a village called Bikini Bottom, not Crinkly Bottom. Not a yellow submarine in sight, either.

Going to the flicks to see these weird animals at the bottom of the sea brought back happy memories of some great animal movies. Remember Ring of Bright Water about the otters? I saw The Magic of Lassie. No, no, that wasn’t a naughty one. It was about a very clever sheepdog.

How I loved these films about animals. However, how could you know which was what? It was always difficult for me trying to work out what a film was about from the title. The problem is that if you got it wrong, you could end up sitting through a very naughty flick, and that would never do.

Ah, I was just so innocent back then. So much so that I shudder when I remember how I ended up in shock for a week after somehow ending up at one of the rudest films ever made.

Not that I went to see that sort of thing deliberately, you understand. For some reason, I thought Deep Throat was a film about giraffes.

“It was a bizarre and hypnotic experience, or it was until some screeching sound effect shattered the dreamy state and made you put your hands up to avoid some missile or airborne octopus