Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
I knew in advance that Adam Kay might seem shy. In the new book, he writes: “Elton John was wrong about sorry being the hardest word – for me, it was ‘hello’. “How are you doing?” he asks hastily, as if wishing to skip the introduction altogether. He is 42 with an intelligent face and toffee-brown eyes with a dogged, anxious expression – he looks like a rather stressed cherub. He is immediately funny but it is not clear to what extent he amuses himself. He wears a T-shirt the colour of raspberry sorbet upon which is flirtatiously written, Not from Paris, Madame. He is from Brighton, born into a Polish Jewish family of medics (original name Strykowski) and grew up in London. And although he returned home on a delayed flight from Edinburgh at 3am (he has been trying out material there for a new touring show to be called: This is Going to Hurt … More), he shows no sign of fatigue. An old hand at sleeplessness, he denies himself coffee (explaining he has just given up caffeine). There are plenty of obvious adjectives one might apply to Adam Kay – clever, entertaining, articulate – but, as I listen, the one that keeps resurfacing is vulnerable. When I was writing her dialogue, I had Harriet Walter in my head. I didn’t actually think that Harriet would say yes, because she’s Dame Harriet Walter!’
It’s difficult not to despair but is there anything in the current situation with the NHS that gives you hope?
Customer reviews
When secondary school came around, I became a wide-eyed, wide-beaked gosling, force-fed the corn that would eventually lead to its starring role in a foie gras starter. My evenings, weekends and holidays were stuffed with exam revision, interview practice, work experience and med-school-mandated extra-curricular activities. There definitely wasn't any time for spare socialising. [...] Sometimes, the loneliest feelings of all don't come from total isolation but from being on the edge of the cword, watching the rest of the world live its life, as if it's happening on television and not three feet away from you in the canteen. But I told myself that maybe this was just what adulthood was like sometimes. Iodine protects against or can reverse fibrocystic breast disease. Fibrocystic breast disease, believed to be a precursor to some forms of breast cancer, occurs to greater degrees in women with iodine deficiency and can be reversed in many women with iodine restoration. b) doctors aren't trained in this kind of health information. They are trained to treat symptoms, but not causes. He argues that the health system is an economic one, not nearly as altruistic as it claims. Though practitioners may be in it for the right reasons, their training doesn't allow them to think in terms of eliminating the cause of illness; they are all about managing symptoms. You will find that by eliminating wheat and grains, by not limiting fat or calories, by avoiding processed foods, and by gravitating to real, whole foods, many of the elaborate rules advocated in dozens of diets become unnecessary. We will not get bogged down with elaborate swaps, point systems, or dietary phases or other complicated rules.
It’s a major roll of the dice asking for medical advice, I’ve been out of the game a long time. All you would get are half-remembered semi-facts. And people are always disappointed when they ask about Ben Whishaw because he’s such a lovely man I can’t offer anything approaching a juicy anecdote.
I'm Interested!
It also means that the nice dietitian you’ve been told to see by your doctor has, in effect, had an education bought and paid for by the food industry. You can no more expect to obtain unbiased, unscientific advice from a conventionally trained dietitian than you can from a salesperson from a soda company—because, in many ways, they are essentially one and the same. Adam Kay is at the top of his game here. Even his footnotes are funnier than most comedians' best gags. But there is darkness here, too, and he handles it so well I had to lay the book aside until my heart was ready for the rest. Do you feel any guilt about leaving the NHS and finding fame by monetising the experiences that all NHS doctors live through and still experience on a daily basis, despite not working as an NHS doctor for more than a decade?
Great Deal 
New Comment