I am not normally a man to complain... But... OW! This trapped sciatic nerve in my lower back is causing the most intense pain I've ever experienced. Even more than the time at school when Edmund Sampson whacked a cricket ball into a place where no cricket ball should ever go. Until now that was my number one... But no longer. It's been four weeks now since I trapped it while wallpapering my friend's house and it still hurts. When I say 'h ..

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Tomorrow I face one of the worst ordeals known to man. No, I'm not visiting the mother-in-law... or watching a video of the recent Lions rugby tour. It's much worse than that. You see, Lara has arranged a 'family day out'... to the dentist. Can you imagine anything so twisted? She says it's the only way she can get me to step inside one of those places, and I guess she's right. Truth is, I've avoided going to the dentist for years. It's som ..

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You may remember a story I told you a while back about my Dad forgetting where he parked his car… He found it hilarious, and to tell you the truth, we all did. It was one of those funny little things that happen to all of us from time to time (like me 'forgetting' where I put the key to the garage, thus foiling my plan to give it a good clear out). But just recently, things have taken a turn for the worse… ------------------------- The 12 h ..

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There's no nonsense today. No silly jokes or strange stories. (Big 'aaahhhhhhhh' from the crowd.) Instead, I'm going to get straight down to business and deal with my evergrowing email inbox. As you know, I can't give out one-to-one advice, but I can certainly publish my findings in these letters. So here goes… --------------------------- The fuss over pomegranates --------------------------- One Good Lifer write: “Can you please tell me ..

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A few weeks back I was telling you about a book by Mark Stengler called The Natural Physician's Healing Therapies. Well, it's a blinding read... full of fascinating information and most of it new to me. For example, I've never thought to cover the topic of varicose veins before. But when I read Mark's chapter on it, I thought: wow, this is a common problem that's rarely ever dealt with! So I got in touch with the publishers, and they've kindly ..

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If I woke up one night to find Lara digging a big hole in the garden, I wouldn't be surprised. Before you jump to the wrong conclusion, I don't think she's plotting to kill me. Sure, she might threaten to kill me from time to time (cue last week when me and the kids took apart Matt's bike and laid it out all over the kitchen floor). But she's only kidding. Isn't she...? Anyway, I don't for a minute think she's planning to bury me in the garde ..

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I've been wrong all along. Who really needs food, vitamins and a healthy lifestyle anyway? Come on, people, this is the 21st Century. It's all about inventing wondrous drugs! You can take the purple one for being too fat, the green one for being too thin, the red one for lacking energy in bed, and the yellow one for jumpy legs. Yes, they're synthetic. Yes, they're expensive. And yes they have sideeffects. But we all have many awful disease ..

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I was at my Goddaughter's house up in Sheffield a few weeks back. Matt, her dad and my old university friend, had set up a small trampoline in the garden. After bouncing for a while, she clambered off and said, 'You have a go, Uncle Ray.' Well, it looked sturdy enough. But I hadn't been on a trampoline since I was about 15. As usual, I immediately thought I was still able to turn a few tricks. 'Watch this,' I said, lifting myself into the ..

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I watched in horror as Lara edged the fork towards her mouth... 'Nooooooooo...' I shouted in slow motion, as I hurled myself across the dining room table, grabbed the fork from her hand, and landed catlike on the floor. I'd just saved Lara's life. Another second and I'd have been too late... Because I'd just stopped her from eating a mouthful of chicken, a source of that wellknown 'killer' vitamin - Vitamin B6. All right, this is a made up sc ..

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Here's another cruel fact of life you can add to the list, (alongside tax returns, baldness, the menopause, and toast always falling on the buttered side...) Our brains shrink as we get older. Experts reckon that the average brain shrinks 2% during each decade of adulthood. As a man in his early forties, I've lost just over 4% of my brain. By the time I'm 60, I'll have lost 8%... and if I get to 80, I'll have lost a whopping 12% of my brain. ..

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