He's got it, our daughter's got it, my best friend's got it and the newsagent has too... Everybody's got the flu. It's vicious, debilitating, gut-wrenching stuff and it laid me low for three weeks. It also showed me how 'alternative' Britain has become. A description of my symptoms - fever, fatigue and sinus congestion - elicited a barrage of cures from friends, acquaintances and the newsagent's wife. Acupuncture, reflexology, Ayurvedic medicine, aromatherapy, yogic breathing, flash-dried fruit and vegetable pills... they were talking like Prince Charles and I felt like a spoilsport for planning a visit to my NHS surgery.
Even there, the GP shocked me. I wanted antibiotics, pronto; she suggested I try eucalyptus inhalations and relaxation exercises. I should try to boost my immune system, she explained, rather than 'set it back'.
When even the doctor tells you antibiotics are a setback, who are you not to listen? I joined the ranks of the one in five Britons who experiments with alternative therapy. I had plenty of therapists to choose from: more than 40,000 practise, many in the NHS, and the private element of the industry is worth £200m a year and growing.
I tried the Hale Clinic, London's largest alternative medicine centre, the place favoured by every celeb from Princess Di to Bianca Jagger.
There is something seductive about massage, scented oils and burning candles. The experience is sensual - my feet were stroked, my forehead anointed, my sense of smell titillated. Compared with this, the NHS surgery, with its ever more impersonal treatment, seems a circle of the Inferno.
Alternative therapy, too, is wrapped in cultural associations that are at once 'natural' and exotic: when the therapist I saw at the Hale Clinic told me that Ayurvedic medicine had been practised for 3,000 years in India, I felt I was stepping into 1001 Nights rather than submitting myself to an invasive procedure.
Perhaps most important, the alternative therapist has time. My consultation with our local GP lasted about eight minutes, during which eye-to-eye contact did take place, but there was no question of laying on of hands or emotional confessions.
At the Hale Clinic, I was allowed to rabbit on about burn-out, moving home, the toddler's nursery. The gentle Indian therapist nodded sympathetically and gave me an hour-and-a-half of massage, needles, ointments and advice. He gave me stress-busting tips, a 'soothing tea' to drink, a diet to follow. This was a life class, not a clinical visit, and I felt relaxed and rejuvenated afterwards. Here was someone rooting for me, and wishing me well, literally. It was well worth the £90.
But will it ward off the flu?
The Brotton line
Poor old Daniel Craig. Everyone's been so hard on him because he lost his sense of humour at the Bafta awards (he told a hack to 'fuck off'), but awards nights bring out the worst in everyone. And even when someone does behave beautifully, they are suspect. This was the case last year at the awards night for the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. The prize is a big literary event: Carmen Callil and Tony Judt were in the running. The climax of the evening was when the chairman, Robert Winston, announced the winner: James Shapiro, for his book on Shakespeare, 1599. But my fellow judges and I gasped with horror as we saw another runner-up, Jerry Brotton, jump up. Had he misheard? Everyone looked worried. But no, Brotton was simply jumping up to congratulate Shapiro for winning the £30,000 prize. 'He's still young. That kind of generosity will soon be knocked out of him,' murmured one of my fellow judges.
