On the matter of the ear candles, long ago, when my children were small, I had a bad back, I'm sure as a result of too much toddler-carrying. At the time I worked for the British Council, just off Trafalgar Square. Try osteopathy, suggested a colleague, telling me that the British School of Osteopathy was nearby and that, provided I didn't mind being practiced on, I could have a student treat me, under supervision, quite cheaply.
I'm a
Goldacre-ist when it comes to alternative therapies and back injuries, unless they require urgent surgical intervention, tend to get better of their own accord. Nevertheless I went along.
At my first session the student came in, a dazzlingly beautiful Frenchwoman, with something of the looks of Audrey Tautou. For several weeks I had to visit, strip to my underpants and lie face down while she manipulated me, murmuring a few instructions in her soft contralto voice.
Alas, she graduated, and I came one day to find her place had been taken by a sweaty young Australian man. I made my excuses and left.
Which goes to show that such treatments may not do any good, but if administered by a comely person of the appropriate gender can very well fulfil the Voltairean maxim that the role of the doctor is, 'to amuse the patient whilst nature takes its course'.
