DIARY OLIVER PRITCHETT
How wonderful to go to a London NHS hospital for an appointment, to be greeted cheerfully, to be seen with no waiting and then afterwards to be thanked for coming. This happened to me the other day — as it does every time I go. I also get a Christmas card from the sisters in the clinic. The secret is not to be a patient or a visitor, but a guinea-pig. There are about 5,500 of us around the country 'participating' in a Lipids in Diabetes study. It is no trouble. We take an orange capsule at breakfast and a little yellowish pill with dinner, and we have a blood test and a check-up every three months or so. It will go on for at least five years. An appalling thought occurred to me the other night. Suppose the yellowish and orange things I am slavishly taking twice a day are just placebos? That wasn't my idea at all. When I started this. I pictured myself blazing a trail in medicine. If I discovered that I was swallowing placebos at breakfast and dinner, I would have the feeling of being duped on a long-term basis. It's a secret, of course. Probably the only person who knows is some Dr Big at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, where the study is being conducted. At this moment he is probably looking at my latest blood tests and my ECGs, and snickering.
How can my pride take it? I have decided that the answer is to become the world's leading authority on the unexplored subject of the placebo. Most people assume that the word comes from the Latin for 'I will please', but the dictionary says that it once meant 'flatterer' or 'sycophant'. I am working on the theory that a Dr Placebo actually existed and was noted as the hypochondriac's friend. I believe that he may have been called Philemon Placebo and was, perhaps, the physician to the Earl of Uttoxeter, one of James I's favourites. He was considered to be one of the great fawners of his age. It may well have been Placebo who remarked, 'If I may be permitted to say so, my Lord, on you a goitre is most becoming.' I am planning to write the biography of Dr Placebo.
At the hospital you have to fill in a form about your wellbeing. This is the tricky bit, as I am one of those people who are thrown into a pandemonium of uncertainty when people politely ask, 'How are you?' Why do I always end up saying 'Fine'? At the hospital, after you have decided to circle one statement to say whether you are extremely anxious and depressed, quite anxious and depressed or not at all anxious and depressed, you have to tackle the Health Thermometer. This is like a graph; you draw a line to the spot, between zero and 100, to indicate how you feel. I usually wobble up to about 80, because I don't like to swank, but this time I added five bonus points, because I knew that I would be writing this Diary, which has been my great ambition for a very long time. It has gone to my legs; I have developed an opinionated walk, as if I am stalking major issues. I have started saying things to my wife like, 'Have we British entirely lost the art of blowing our noses?' and, 'Am I alone in deploring the dumbing-down of marmalade?'
We went back to where we used to live in the country so that I could try out some of my new opinions on the chaps there. but they were all incommunicado. All the men were on their ride-on mowers, droning up and down their lawns, dreaming. One would be alone on his beloved Hayter Heritage 13130 with its adorable six heights-of-cut positions, its delightful Briggs and Stanton 13-horsepower engine and its easy grassbag-emptying and -removal feature. Another might be in bliss in the CAS TA 0
company of the Countax Series C, whose endearing qualities include the Interactive Blade System cutterdeck and Powered Grass Collector. It takes much longer to mow a lawn on one of these machines because there's no reason ever to get off. You can go over the same bit again and again. Most of them have natty little cupholders for refreshment, and headlights so you can keep going all night. After a slow start this year, because of the weather, annual sales of ride-on mowers are holding up well at about 30,000 in the UK. And the British Lawn Mower Racing Association (this is true) is flourishing, though its programme was curtailed because of foot-andmouth. Its next major event is the 12-hour race on 4 August at Pulborough in West Sussex. It starts at 8 p.m., so they will need those headlights. Blades are always removed from the mowers before they race, so no grass is harmed.
After this appears, we will know how well the opinion polls performed. Whatever happens, I vow to continue my crusade against surveys, questionnaires, market research and polls. I am planning to set up a Campaign Against Market Research — or Camar. Membership will cost about £20 a year, and every member will be issued with an official non-donor card to flourish at would-be interviewers. It will explain that the holder is opposed to giving his or her views on any product on conscientious grounds. This will help to overcome the uneasy feeling many of us have when we avert our eyes and dodge the clipboard ambush. There will be merchandise, of course, such as the attractive tie or headscarf with the Camar motif of lots of little unticked boxes. And there will be a newsletter called None of These giving the latest techniques in survey-avoidance. Camar will quickly become a wealthy and powerful pressure-group. Then a leaflet will appear in a bumper issue of the newsletter. Now that we are so rich and powerful.' it will say, 'it is time to ask you, the members, what you would like us to do next. What goals should we set ourselves? We are asking you to take a little time to answer this questionnaire.' To encourage people to do so, there will be a chance to enter an exciting prize draw.
While I am here, I'm wondering if I should take the opportunity to fulfil another of my life's ambitions. Should I seize the moment and name my choice for Book of the Year? Maybe not.
Oliver Pritchett writes for the Sunday Telegraph.
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