Chiropractores ite domum

It really grates that I’m not better at parodying Monty Python sketches. I tried a riff on the Cochrane Collaboration a while ago, inspired by Crispian Jago’s superb take on burning science writers. Then he came up with another equally brilliant piece about the BCA’s “plethora” of evidence (“I told him we’ve already got one!”), and it made me want to retort in kind again. Because not being funnier than I am is what really bugs me in life, apparently.

I made a start on the Alternative Medicine Twit of the Year, but I’m not sure it’s going anywhere. Perhaps I’ll eventually finish putting it together by the time nobody cares any more. But I don’t have anything else to say tonight, so here’s another idea I spent five minutes on, which is about what it was worth.

“Spare a talent for an old ex-asthmatic?”
“Did you say… ‘ex-asthmatic’?”
“That’s right, sir. Sixteen years behind the inhaler, and proud of it, sir.”
“Well, what happened?”
“I was cured, sir.”
“Cured?”
“Yes, sir, a bloody miracle, sir. God bless you.”
“Who cured you?”
“Chiropractor did, sir. I was wheezing along, minding my own business. All of a sudden, up he comes. Cures me. One minute I’m an asthmatic with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone. Not so much as a by your leave. ‘You’re cured mate.’ Bloody do-gooder.”
“Well, why don’t you go and tell him you want to be an asthmatic again?”
“Ah, yeah. I could do that, sir. Yeah. Yeah, I could do that, I suppose. What I was thinking was, I was going to ask him if he could make me a bit short of breath during the middle of the week. You know, something beggable, but not asthma, which is a pain in the arse, to be blunt. Excuse my French, sir.”

Well, maybe something could have come of that. If I had, like, a work ethic and an attention span.

Original context here, about a quarter of the way down (search for ‘ex-leper’). Oh, or watch it here.