Sometimes I Go Over the Top
Friends sometimes accuse me of being a bit boring as I keep banging on about gluten.
But then I read this at Gluten Connection, which advertises a new book. This is an extract.
Millions of Americans are enduring painful and chronic conditions. Most doctors are mystified. Drugs usually offer little help. Most of these conditions have one thing in common… It’s called gluten sensitivity. It’s caused by a widely used food ingredient. It can lead to a wide range of serious health conditions and…it can affect up to 81% OF ALL AMERICANS!
If you are gluten sensitive, your body does not have the ability to break down and digest gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. Your body reacts to gluten as if it were a virus. It launches an immune reaction that can cause or worsen a wide range of chronic health problems.
So perhaps I’m a bit understated.
Shoe Cleaning
I have expensive shoes. I always have done ever since I could afford them. Partly, it’s because my feet are small and fairly wide and size six shoes are difficult to find, but mainly it’s because I always try to dress well and good shoes don’t come cheap. You may be able to find a decent shirt in Marks, but decent shoes never!
I tend now to get my shoes in Busy Bee in Newmarket as there my size six are not the smallest. Jockeys have surprising consequences for others! I posted in an earlier blog how I bought a pair of John Spencer shoes there in February.
But I hate shoe cleaning and more than once I’ve ruined shoes by not cleaning them every time I’ve used them. My late wife always did that and when she died she had an immaculate collection of all the most expensive makes.
I still struggle to follow her example.
Sathnam Sanghera
Sathnam Sanghera is one of The Times columnists.
He is also someone who I try to read each week. I suppose that despite his background from an Indian family in Wolverhampton being very different to mine of a group of London mongrels, that we have a lot in common. He usually makes me laugh a bit and always makes me smile.
Take this first paragraph from his piece yesterday which was ostensibly about cats and their relationship with men.
If you’d asked me, at the age of 10, what my life would be like at the age of 33, I would have probably mentioned a semi-detached in Wolverhampton; the 2009 equivalent of a Ford Orion on the drive; a Punjabi wife of ten years or so; a couple of spoddy kids who, like me, were good at maths, but crap at English and sport; a job at a local building society; a garden; male pattern baldness, and a cat. That I have none of these things is not a cause of distress or concern — they might still come and, besides, more thrilling things, such as houseplants, have taken their place. But it does puzzle me that I still don’t own a cat.
If you’d asked me the same question at about the same age, I would have probably thought something similar, except that I’d be running my father’s printing business in Wood Green.
So we do have a lot in common.
The most interesting thing is that Sathnam says, that he was good at maths, but crap at English and sport. And here is Sathnam writing well-crafted articles in one of the world’s premier newspapers. In fact, as his column is probably syndicated, then it might be several.
I was the same! Maths good, English bad. But now, even if I say it myself that is not true. The maths and its usage is still good and that of those around me sadly gets worse. Does teaching not instill the joy of maths, physics, chemistry and the other sciences into students any more? But it is my English that has improved so much!
Why? I don’t know. Perhaps, Sathnam could tell me, as it’s probably the same reason his has improved.
I was crap at sport too. But now I play a lot of real tennis and was actually a National Champion a couple of years ago. Don’t tell anybody, that it was in my handicap group and only five people entered!
So there is hope for Sathnam’s sport too!
The Anonymous Widower 