TOM JACKSON
The Times Magazine 67Although it’s actually not too painful this
morning. Just a mild throbbing in the big toe
joint of my left foot, which is red and slightly
glowing if I take my sock off (and probably
if I don’t, but you can take that one up
with Bishop Berkeley), but then if I try to
squeeze it into a leather shoe, or accidentally
stub it on a door or something, is suddenly
INCREDIBLY PAINFUL. So I try not to.
I know some people get attacks so bad that
it’s insupportable to lay even a cotton sheet
over the afflicted area, but I usually get away
with a few days of mild limping medicated
with large quantities of ibuprofen, many litres
of water to dilute the uric acid in my blood
(of which I have too much, genetically) and
dissuade it from crystallising in my joints,
and also as much cherry juice as I canEating out
Giles Coren
Detox Kitchen
ot that it’s your job to listen to my
health woes (or mine to tell you them),
but I’m having another gout attack.
I know, I know, the 18th century
rang and it wants its diagnosis back.
Yes, yes, I’ll get myself checked out for
scrofula, smallpox, leprosy, diphtheria,
the falling sickness and assorted
other hilarious old-fashioned ailments just
as soon as I stop laughing at your comedic
diminution of this really quite painful
affliction on the basis that it sounds like
something out of Blackadder.‘I don’t know why my gout
is playing up. It can’t be the
beer, wine and cocktails, so
it must be all the oily fish’