I’ll get to the bit about rape later, so please be patient – a word which you could say is my theme today.
One of my heroes is Dr. Vernon Coleman, who writes his own books – and magnificent advertisements to sell them.
He is a better copywriter than I am and hugely cynical about many things, a sample being this on that rapacious shit Tony Blair:
- We’ll negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC which has drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs.’ – Tony Blair, 1983
- `On the day we remember the legend that St George slayed a dragon to protect England, some would argue that there is another dragon to be slayed: Europe.’ – Tony Blair, 1997
- I am a passionate pro-European. I always have been.’ – Tony Blair, 2005
Dr. Coleman’s approach seems to work pretty well: so far he has sold around two million copies of over 90 books – all of which he published himself. The key to selling a book is a good title, and one of his best is How to Stop Your Doctor from Killing You.
From that you may gather that Dr. Coleman – well-qualified to have an opinion – is utterly cynical about doctors; and please don’t knock cynicism: Jesus Christ uttered one of the most cynical lines ever: “Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone” when a woman taken in adultery was about to be stoned to death.
Anyhow, all this came to mind when in my morning free paper the front page reported that a Dr. Claire Wilson, combining arrogance, insensitivity and stupidity in equal proportion, told a rape victim she can’t have therapy because the poor woman found “talking about it was very difficult and anxiety-provoking”.
What a surprise! If a large violent man raped Doctor Wilson would her medical training enable her to discuss the matter with ease in a calm, reasonable manner unsullied by any frissons of anxiety? Would she feel the need for therapy – or pass the whole thing off as part of life’s rich tapestry?
What do you think?
Sounds as though the good Dr. Coleman and prison Dr. Theodore Dalrymple might be a twin. Loved Dalrymple's column in the Spectator, and am sure he holds the same opinion of Blair as does Coleman – and Dr. Bird.
Regrettably, the cynic's sword can be wielded by the fools as easily as by the wise. In our local medical school a student who said he was entering medicine because he wanted to relieve suffering was mockingly referred to by other students as a “Schweitzer”.
Those other students were clearly entering medicine for the right reason … the money. I think the problem with a lot of doctors is that they have no soul, or perhaps what soul they had as children has shrunk to the size of a pea.
Maybe it's having the authority to order other people to take off their clothes that makes these medical creatures such conceited twerps. Just thank God that God didn't make Blair a doctor!
For seven years I lived on Harley Street, and a friend of mine who lived nearby said “I never knew a doctor that wasn't more interested in money than in medicine”. Mind you, he was a lawyer – and I believe the doctors made the same joke about his lot.
I read that story and actually felt like slapping that doctor around to see how she feels.
On Dr. Coleman: I remember first watching him on an Asian Sunday morning show in the 1970's. I always enjoyed listening to what he had to say… even at that age.
Just goes to show, when you talk sense, it doesn't matter who you're talking to. It just makes sense.