Sunday, September 03, 2006

Boils or Breast Cancer?

No one knows what causes cancer, but there are a few 'risk' factors. And herein lies the difficulty. All these 'risk factors' essentially are about having quite a pleasant life. Take one 'risk factor'. Normal deodorant. I was using some rather innocuous 'Vaseline Intensive Care' roll on before the diagnosis. Then someone tells me, or I read on the internet or the Fulham Breast Cancer Cult tells me that that's a no-no. So I get some what is essentially crystallised salt from Fresh and Wild for ten quid. Not only do I smell, but I start to get boils on my underarm. Like Karl Marx used to on his bottom 150 years ago. Needless to say Ive reverted straight back to some strong men's stuff which Phil uses, and now back to nice and friendly Vaseline and no problems at all with the boils.

Then there's shampoo. I use shampoo that gets rid of dandruff. Now I'm on some seaweed stuff which brings on the dandruff. Dandruff is slightly better than boils and a lot better than breast cancer, but not as good as none of the above, so as a compromise with myself I'm using Head and Shoulders intercepted with seaweed.

Then there's tap water. I love tap water, it's virtually free and unless you get well-meaning people talking about possibly causes of breast cancer, 99% of everyone else says you can't go wrong with it. But then someone tells me, when I didn't ask for their opinion, that tap water has a lot of oestrogen which allegedly could cause breast cancer. So now what am I supposed to do? Shower in bottled Evian? Get a tank of Volvic installed in the backgarden attached to the plumbing system? It's all very well saying this and that causes xyz but it's a bit late now anyway. And even if I do start drinking bottled water with their ten zillion percent profit margins, how do these well-meaning cancer-free people suggest I deal with the side-effects of drinking £5 of bottled water a day - prostitution?

2 comments:

Jo said...

I went through the crystal deodorant thing, only to end up stinky and with noticeably bigger sweat patches than normal. But to be fair, antiperspirants are almost definitely evil, whether or not they cause breast cancer. So these days I decide in the morning how much I am to exert myself during he day. If the answer is 'not a lot' then I reach for the Neal's Yard Lemon & Coriander Deodorant (highly recommended). If the answer is 'quite a lot' (cycling, plumbing, summer generally) then I reach for the Nivea compact spray -- which is tiny and not pressurised so somehow feels ok...

tatton said...

good tips, thanks jo.