I really like Yoga and did 3 hours over the weekend in the Green Fields. I basically look at it as cheap physiotherapy that you actually spend an hour doing rather than lying that you have done – most of the postures are very similar to those that physios give you. The spiritual/meditation element doesn’t do much for me but it’s actually really nice lying quietly focusing on thinking about nothing for 10 minutes.

On the VIP area Charlie Brooker’s piece in the Grauniad was interesting – he reckoned the only advantage was that it gave you a shortcut between the two main stages. Given that the stages are low down, on the flat, and the area in front of both was under about 4″ of mud slurry I can’t imagine it was one of the better places to be camped.

No doubt Ben was in some posh corporate suite somewhere…..

Weather, the river card, the roulette wheel have one thing in common.

They don’t have a memory!!

(No real offence intended.)

Dubby.

The problem wth most woos is that they bullshit themselves to the severe detriment of the public understanding of science and the health of their patients/victims.

Andrew.

… no I don’t mean the woos, but still…

However, the problem is if people are offering medical treatment and you want it to be beased on informed consent. To do that the ‘woodoctor’ will have to tell the patient that there isn’t any sound evidence for the treatment. The upside is that he can tell the patient that there are no side effects, becasuse the treatment has no physical effect on the human body.

But would any woodoctor be willing to do that? I think that that level of honesty would cause a lot of them to be put out of business.

The same goes for psychics etc. If they had to tell people that numerous studies had shown that they had no ability to contact the dead, would anyone visit them?

I find that attitude repulsive.

Edmund Burke – All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.

There seems to be a world of difference between the esoteric fun of the Green Fields and exploitive lies that come from Holford, et al. I can’t imagine sitting wasted, as the sun comes up and discussing the spiritual energy of Avalon with Gillian McKeith (Jeez, what a horrid thought).

When I’m at my yoga class I’m perfectly happy to be told about chakras and internal snakes and flames producing and eating waste (I paraphrase a little there…).

I allow for the fact that yoga has been around a while, and builds on ideas that have more in common with the four humours than modern exercise physiology.

However, my core muscle stability is much better now after two years of yoga than it was before, and I suffer much less back pain as a result. I also feel that the meditation part of the sessions is probably good for me too, though in a less specific way.

On the other hand, if I were to visit my doctor and she talked about a need to rebalance my chakras to treat my (hypothetical) chalmyda infection I’d be very unhappy about it indeed; in that context, give me the clinically tested drugs! Big ones! Now!