Water, Prozac, management consultants: all completely useless

Rod Liddle

8 March 2008

So many of the things we are told to do are a total waste of time or money, says Rod Liddle, who has just completed a failed two-year course in water-drinking to make him a better person

This is the real problem, of course; the revelation that Prozac and the like is a complete waste of money will have made an awful lot of depressed people even more depressed than they would usually be. The clever ones will have worked out that if Prozac has no medicinal effect, but it does in fact serve to cheer them up, then their depression is also entirely illusory. ‘I thought I was depressed,’ they will be muttering to themselves, ‘but it turns out it was all in the mind.’

What they needed to alleviate their depression, these people, was the notion that they were being taken seriously by the medical profession, a transactional process that occurred when the prescription for Prozac was written out. Now all of that charade has been destroyed for ever by an inside-page news story. What shall they do? They will probably exist like the rest of us, in unalleviated depression, harbouring the suspicion that nothing works, that nothing is real.

Not even water; for the last two years I have dutifully swallowed glass after glass of water during the day in order to detoxify and lubricate my beleaguered system. This swallowing of a deeply boring substance I considered an imposition, but I did so anyway partly because I wished to be part of the modern Western world, in which everybody continually sips f****** water and also because I was gulled into believing it might stop my liver from exploding, lower my blood pressure, make me a better and more caring person, etc.

I do not know why I fell for this; I am usually well-attuned to the jackboot approach of the health fashion police. Now it turns out that drinking water all day has exactly the same effect as taking Prozac — i.e., none whatsoever. You do not need to take so much as a sip. You can get all the water you need in any other liquid, fruit or vegetable you care to mention. I look back at my days of dolefully pouring a glass of tapwater at 11 a.m. as being a kind of practical joke played upon the participants of an endless, boring and spectacularly witless reality television programme. ‘Now we’re going to make Liddle drink water for TWO YEARS. Ha ha ha, come into the diary room, Liddle.’

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john problem

March 6th, 2008 10:44am Report this comment

As a member of the Management Consultancy Defence Association, I say to you that it is clear you should have consulted a management consultant about your water intake issue, first.

Delboy

March 6th, 2008 5:33pm Report this comment

I can just imagine the TV show. They would have to invent an older brother character to be played by David Jason who'd call you 'Rodders' all the time.

Tom B

March 6th, 2008 6:13pm Report this comment

I, as well, took to consuming great quantities of water in the belief that it would certainly cause me to live forever. I don't care to be reminded of my stupidity in this regard.

Brian D

March 7th, 2008 12:10pm Report this comment

'Management consultants are absolutely useless'. What took the NAO so long?

mike numan

March 10th, 2008 6:46am Report this comment

"there is very good money to be made from smoke and mirrors." Yes, you'd know. Your journalism has demonstrated this truth for a long time. Why doesn't the spectator simply send a secretary to a pub and copy the outporings of the biggest bore at the bar?

rod liddle

March 11th, 2008 9:52am Report this comment

You a management consultant then, Mike?

Philip Ley

March 12th, 2008 7:27am Report this comment

Hi Rod, You had a bit of bad luck. See the following. What a pity it didn't reach you before your piece on Prozac etc. Commiserations Low-Level Drug Contamination Common in Drinking Water Trace amounts of medications are present in the water of many metropolitan water supplies, according to an investigation conducted by the Associated Press. Although water is often not checked for pharmaceuticals, the AP says drugs have been found in the water of at least 24 of 28 major systems where testing has been performed. Drugs detected include antibiotics, anticonvulsants, analgesics, statins, and sex hormones. The federal government does not set safety limits for drugs in water and does not require testing. However, the AP quotes an Environmental Protection Agency official, Benjamin H. Grumbles, saying, "We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously." Little research has been done on the potential health effects of low-level pharmaceutical contamination, but laboratory work suggests effects on embryonic kidney cells, breast cancer cells, and blood cells, the AP reports. Associated Press story (Free)