| Give and Take |
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Had I not been robbed of my collection, I would to this day have been the proud owner of a diverse gallery of antique cast iron cisterns. It isn't that I bemoan their absence, for instead I now regularly feast my eyes on the collection of "Week of the Book" editions *) I once compiled, and which I've stashed away so thoroughly as to ensure that only woodworm or mildew could transform them into altogether differently valued matter. Please don't think there's more to this than meets the eye. This is how it works scientifically speaking: chuffed as you might feel at having come up with something or other, no matter how plausible it may sound to you, rest assured that the scientific community usually knows something you don't. I would therefore advocate the inclusion of a standard advice in medication leaflets to the effect that in so far as you were to expect the product in question to enable you to regain your health, this by definition would qualify as a strictly personal as well as non-professional observation on your part the scientific value of which can only be nil and which moreover must not be communicated to third parties, at the risk of your being arrested for practising medicine without a licence. This would act as a double-edged sword in that it would put an instant stop to commercials featuring actors pretending to be laypersons propounding positive views. And if all advertising communications aimed at children were banned while we were about it (the kids' happiness being the last thing on the advertisers' minds, focused as they are on extracting as much money as they can from the little darlings' folks) there's a chance that the remaining field of operation, of which the topics of smoking and drinking have more or less been outlawed anyway, would henceforth be canvassed with a proper sense of proportion, as I assume only true idealists would be left. Wanna bet? *) Each year in the autumn the "Week of the Book" takes place in the Netherlands, during which those who spend a minimum amount on books that week are presented with a complimentary copy of that year's specially commissioned "Week of the Book" edition. |