New to blogging and tweeting. Readership increasing nicely. But how to attract more readers? How to encourage people to leave comments? Thought of tweeting, 'Peter White cured my ME!' or '' Simon Wessely is my hero!' If I did that, I'd invite Jo Marchant* to join me in Scotland's Secret Bunker* in Fife (never been, but hear it's well worth a visit) and we'd take a year's supply of Maltesers and tea bags. (Marchant wrote an extremely unpopular piece of ME/CFS science-fiction in Sunday's Observer or in quoting a South African 'healer' it became science fairy-tale.)
I'd really rather share a year in the bunker with ... George Clooney ... or... who else? ... Ben Stiller ,,, or ... for conversation ... Andrew Marr.
Not sure my fellow tweeters would appreciate the irony in such tweets, except maybe Nasim Marie Jafry, writer*, who made me laugh out loud yesterday with her tweets about Marchants knowledge - that would be lack of - about ME/CFS.e
I'd really rather share a year in the bunker with ... George Clooney ... or... who else? ... Ben Stiller ,,, or ... for conversation ... Andrew Marr.
Not sure my fellow tweeters would appreciate the irony in such tweets, except maybe Nasim Marie Jafry, writer*, who made me laugh out loud yesterday with her tweets about Marchants knowledge - that would be lack of - about ME/CFS.e
"I think my next book will be on a controversial subject I know nothing about, but I'll just include influential and bogus science. Sorted."
Marchant, writing about the cured patient:
" as a creative person, she found the total lack of spontaneity hard to accept. But the perfectionism that she feels contributed to her condition helped her"
Jafry:
: 'Happens all the time when I'm pacing ... I think, oh my god I'm so creative , This is hell!'
I can understand that many ME/CFS sufferers may find it hard to join in the laughter because there is too much suffering and it is made worse when uninformed journalists write poorly researched pieces on a subject they know little about.
I don't object to people writing on topics they are ignorant about but lack of research is glaring. I remember years ago reading Rose Tremain's captivating novel, Restoration, and being hugely impressed with her informed descriptions of life in the 17th Century (no witch-burnings, if I remember - that quote still rankles!) Tremain is an impressive example of a writer who always puts a huge amount of time into study and research, whatever topic she approaches. Lack of research is all too evident in today's media. Impressive, it's not.
I will never again read a medical piece in The Observer - or The Guardian, who owns The Observer - and believe that it is telling the whole, truthful story. It's surprising that nobody in editorial thought to check the evidence base for Knoake's and White's assertions before printing them for a wide and already largely biased readership, who have been fed Yuppie Flu and 'get more exercise' stories for years.
Marchant's Observer article on what she called chronic fatigue was a lengthy tome on a very narrow, one-sided view. I can't believe that a paper as highly regarded as The Observer would miss the chance to report on the real ME/CFS situation and on the national and international controversy that is the PACE Trial. It involves intrigue, disagreement, upset, questionable morals, cronyism ... I could list another fifty words to take me up to 500 ... torment, tragedy, beating down of the underdog by the powerful ... good enough for an Ian Rankin novel. But nobody in the media is picking it up! What a scoop to miss!
Could The Observer perhaps ask Rose Tremain to write a piece on ME/CFS? Or maybe Ian Rankin.
I don't object to people writing on topics they are ignorant about but lack of research is glaring. I remember years ago reading Rose Tremain's captivating novel, Restoration, and being hugely impressed with her informed descriptions of life in the 17th Century (no witch-burnings, if I remember - that quote still rankles!) Tremain is an impressive example of a writer who always puts a huge amount of time into study and research, whatever topic she approaches. Lack of research is all too evident in today's media. Impressive, it's not.
I will never again read a medical piece in The Observer - or The Guardian, who owns The Observer - and believe that it is telling the whole, truthful story. It's surprising that nobody in editorial thought to check the evidence base for Knoake's and White's assertions before printing them for a wide and already largely biased readership, who have been fed Yuppie Flu and 'get more exercise' stories for years.
Marchant's Observer article on what she called chronic fatigue was a lengthy tome on a very narrow, one-sided view. I can't believe that a paper as highly regarded as The Observer would miss the chance to report on the real ME/CFS situation and on the national and international controversy that is the PACE Trial. It involves intrigue, disagreement, upset, questionable morals, cronyism ... I could list another fifty words to take me up to 500 ... torment, tragedy, beating down of the underdog by the powerful ... good enough for an Ian Rankin novel. But nobody in the media is picking it up! What a scoop to miss!
Could The Observer perhaps ask Rose Tremain to write a piece on ME/CFS? Or maybe Ian Rankin.
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