STUPID!!

Colonic hydrotherapy.

I think that’s the bit that makes me really, really angry.  Every few days I get emails inviting me to go to the theatre on the cheap, have an over-indulgent meal at half the price, take out a not-very-cheap couple of sessions at the gym, or have a haircut.

But mostly, what the email suggests I do, is experience colonic hydrotherapy.  Because what I really need is a hosepipe up my bum.

This is accompanied, invariably, by pictures of serene looking people against a warm background, their lives restored, improved, enhanced by this altogether absurd, medically disproven and scientifically unfounded practice.  Not even scientifically unfounded – scientists have had a rare moment of unity on this one and declare without  hesitation that not only is it unbeneficial, it can be actively harmful and has serious risks of long-term side-effects.

When did we get to this?  I mean, I understand the bliss of relaxing as much as the next girl, and as soon as I’m earning enough money and have enough time, I’m sure I’ll rush to spend a long day in a hot bath eating fresh fruit and getting my feet rubbed – it simply happens that right now I’m not, and I don’t.  But how did this perfectly understandable human yearning evolve into something as mind-numbingly STUPID as the emails that land in my inbox?  And worse!  How is it that we let it be so?  Why isn’t there shouting from the rooftops, why aren’t people being informed, why isn’t information available, why – in short – WHY do we let ourselves get so stupid?!  I would have thought that the internet offered us a chance to get smart, for lo, a click away are scholarly papers, judicious articles, years of journalism and medical research but no!  The desire to believe appears to trump the need to know and this, more than anything else (and sorry, I did just pick on one of many bugbears there) is what makes me fume.