Dear LPG,

We could be talking about any subject here but I got a little preoccupied…

Back pain is no fun, as I have learned.  I know that I am not the only person that knows this, and you don’t have to be older to know what I mean.  It is not funny and, even if we have managed to live without it when younger, as we get older we are more likely to learn this menacing fact.  I was fine until I got to my mid-eighties and then my hip and back pain began to dictate, and limit, how much I could do and how far I could go.

I have spent quite a bit of time trying foods, doing exercises and looking for solutions.  Predictably I ended up looking on the internet to see what was on offer there and there is quite a lot.  You tube is somewhere that, I find, always shows interesting things to try, but the other day I found something which drew me in and made me really experience even more pain, not because my back had got any worse, but I wasted so much time listening and waiting for the promised exercise that my head hurt.

I came across this promise of a simple short exercise which was going to make all the difference.  First there is the short paragraph which invites you to look at the video.  There seemed to be no harm in that so I clicked and found myself listening to someone who offered to show a simple back pain exercise which would cure all. The trouble was that I was listening and watching for what seemed like for ever while I learned all about this person’s life history, all the things that I have been doing wrong, what I should eat, what I should not do, what effect our lives have on our bodies; in fact, everything that the eighty-odd years that I have spent on this earth has already taught me. 

In the bottom right hand corner of the video there was the number 12 and, as any you tube watcher knows, that is where the number of minutes indicating the length of the video Is usually shown, but I was still waiting for the promised exercise which would take less than ten minutes after 46 minutes.  It was about 20 minutes after the video started that I realised that there was a downloadable DVD and book that I would have to buy in order to learn this ten-minute secret.  I also found it frustrating that it was designed so that you cannot fast forward or rewind and the only thing you actually can do is watch; and even though the promise is mentioned constantly, all you get in the end is an invitation to spend money.

There are many adverts like this which are designed to suck us in.  It reminds me of those presentations which you would see at places like the ideal home exhibition where the presenter would be advertising everything about the product, apart from how much it costs, or those early morning adverts that go on for at least half an hour before cutting to the chase. 

At forty minutes you actually get to see one of the exercises which I defy any average 80-year-old to try.

I will never know what the ten-minute exercise is all about but I think that its true healing property was that, for about fifty minutes, my back pain was superseded by the pain that was caused by amount of useless information I was willing to listen to and watch in order to learn absolutely nothing apart from how much money you could spend to learn about the one little detail that you thought you were going to learn at the beginning.  The presenter’s voice almost hypnotises you into shopping by telling you how much you are saving….

While I know that there are many similar videos promoting similar items and services in a similar way, I have, with LPG’s permission, left a link to this webpage just in case you want to see if the product will help you or the nauseating effect of the video will do the trick. 

GA, Mottingham

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