A fog of panicked motivation has descended on me of late. You know it’s serious when you don’t even open up the bookmarked blogs of a morning. Also, I’m moving house, the academic year is re-starting, and what is my name and why am I here?

Back when there is calm.

Until then, a quiz on the weird world of allergies.

The Beeb report on the hitherto-undisclosed waiting-times for diagnostic tests in the NHS. Waiting time has usually referred to waiting for treatments (such as operations); this is the first time it has been made public how long people have to wait to get things like, for instance, scans. The revelation here is that people are waiting up to six months, sometimes longer, for diagnoses.

LIKE FOR INSTANCE ME.

I am at present waiting for an ultrasound scan on some painful girly-bits, and when I mean painful, I mean “double-over and feel like passing out” painful. The scan is at the end of this month.

I just checked my diary, and I’ve been waiting since January 27th. Mmm-hmm.

In random discussions recently I’ve realised that the whole concept of “detoxing” throws me into a fit of undefinable rage. Most of this has centred around the utter lack of scientific reasoning and/or proof inherent in this whole strange concept that we should purge our bodies of stuff we willingly put into it, usually for a fee; the idea that our bodies are some sort of dirty saucepan that just needs to be scrubbed and then will be as good as new.

I mean–what? Does this actually make sense to people? That you can magically alter the composition of your (many-years-old) body (including your brain!) with a three-week regimen of elderhipkokolarkenberry tea or having chinese water torture in your rear-end?
The other thing that drives me incandescent is that “detoxing” is the new guilt paradigm in which we feel bad about our bodies and buy stuff to achieve some non-existent “untoxed” state.

Today I read Maia at Alas, and I think she articulates this much better than I, with a broader remit of annoyance at the “health”/beauty industry.