TV as soporific?

At a very late stage in her life, my mother, always politically aware and with an interest in what was going on in the wider world, stopped watching the 10.00 pm news.

She was, she said only able to cope with disturbing news earlier in the day, and if she watched TV late at night she wouldn't sleep, or, if she did, would have nightmares.

I used to consider this a little melodramatic until a few years ago I discovered I was suffering the same reaction, so much so that I now never watch TV news after early evening and try to avoid dramas or films of a grim or potentially insomnia inducing nature.

The exception to this,for me, is that I have a fascination with holocaust stories.

The very best of these, like Schindler's List, or The Last Butterfly while intensely moving, have so much to teach that for me they are compulsive viewing.

This evening I have just watched "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", and while there was a sort of inevitability about the ending, and while the story was merely sketched in rather than fleshed out as well as it might have been, the acting was mainly good, and in the case of the two young boys, really excellent.  The brooding atmosphere of the whole thing was well portrayed and the confused thinking of the individuals caught up in events well beyond their control was convincing.

Not entertainment  by any standard, but another one to add to my growing list of WW2 required watching.

Another sleepless night awaits.