Homeopathy (or There's A Little Of Me In All Of You)

Pilules, little pilules, and they're all made out of hokum

Today, I have been mostly ranting about homeopathy.  To myself (and anyone who'll listen, but I live with people who don't really pay much attention to my bangings on any more - I really must get a cat for Proper Ranting Audience purposes, but until then, you're stuck with me).


Anyway.


Homeopathy, for those of you what haven't heard of it (ALTHOUGH - no, hang on, will define it first), literally means "like sickness" and is the theory that giving patients highly diluted preparations of substances that are believed to cause similar symptoms to the ailments they are intended to treat will cure them.  HOWEVER, the mere fact of this existing as a definition must homeopathically mean that you are aware of it.


Because the whole thing is bunk, surely, as Jennings or perhaps the Famous Five would have said.  Bunk as in "rot" or "poppycock" or "load of ol' shite" (all phrases you'll find in the Buckeridge and Blyton novels).


So, homeopathy works on the principle that you take little pilules of stuff that contains something that once was a first cousin three times removed of the thing that you might have.  Only it isn't the thing you might have, it's something like it.  Clear?


The problem with this being SO dilute thing is that, for instance, the water we drink has been through numerous kidneys before we drink it (I was told 11 times when I was a child, which was in nineteen-hundred-and-frozen-to-death, so it must surely be many more times by now).  Does this mean that it has essence of contraceptive, eau de chemotherapy and whiff of beta-blocker about it?  Actually, the Daily Mail, which can always be relied upon to be level-headed and non-reactionary, says that, indeed, fish are all female these days and men soon will be ladies if they keep on drinking water, because of the homeopathic contraceptive effect (I may be paraphrasing wildly).


So, what does this mean for us?


I'm thinking of launching a new range of homeopathic lifestyle solutions.  These include:

• the homeopathic diet, which means that because someone else near you is eating celery, you will lose weight.  Huzzah!
  
• the homeopathic birthday card, which means that because someone else sent one, you did too.  Never feel guilty for missing a birthday again!
  
• the homeopathic pay packet, very useful for employers, who will be able to claim that paying £1 is exactly the same as paying £1k, because that £1 has TOUCHED other money in the course of its history.  You're rich, beyond your wildest dreams!
  
• the homeopathic buffet, which consists of one sausage roll and one cocktail stick cheese/pineapple combo, from which you must imagine a whole "Mum's Gone To Iceland" spread of beige processed semi-digestible comestibles and entire cheese/pineapple hedgehog.  Tuck in!

And some others, which I have already thought of, homeopathically, and which you have already found funny, homeopathically.

In fact, my husband told me some Interesting Facts about Charles Dickens earlier, so I am now, homeopathically speaking, a famous novelist.  And so are you, because you've read this.  Well done.  Well done, you.

I have a horrible feeling that I will be stabbed to death by a homeopath for posting this.

Well, I say stabbed to death.  They might make me look at a photograph of a knife.  Because that'll learn me, won't it?

Corwumph, Jennings!