I’ve long thought that Jay Rayner is a top writer and very decent man (he showed great
kindness to a friend of mine who was stricken with cancer).
Having said, that, I’ve never thought that Rayner’s life and mine resembled each other much, but now I discover that he and I both suffer from the curse of osteoarthritis. Just like John Cage, as I said in a blog post a couple of weeks back.
Whereas my own version is in the knee, Rayner’s is in the hip, which may or may not be worse, but at least his gives him the opportunity to make a good wise crack, when, in the Observer a couple of weekends back, he described his own walking as ‘limping about the place, like a broken slinky.’
But even in our pain, our lives diverge again. My own osteoarthritis revelation didn’t cause much of a reaction (though one person did recommend turmeric), whereas young Rayner has been deluged with unsolicited wisom wanted advice from ‘concerned readers,’ a lot of it about plant-based diets. One of them also told him to lose weight. This is in fact fairly standard advice for arthritis sufferers but as Rayner asks ‘Who reads about somebody else’s injury and thinks, “You know, what I really need to do now is send this stranger an email telling them they’re fat”?’ Well, who indeed?
He did however receive an offer of a 20 per cent discount for surgery at a private hospital. He wasn’t tempted by this, but you know, I think I might have been.
