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evil medical establishment, to tell doctors that I wasn’t
fooled by their fake radiotherapy statistics when everyone
knows that radiation kills, and to put my faith
in the Bessarabian radish, the desiccated root of which
has been used for centuries by Tartar nomads to cure
athlete’s foot, tennis elbow and cancer, as detailed in
their book Why Your Doctor Hates You And Wants You
To Die, review copy enclosed”.
Currently cancer-free, Diamond would shy away
from any suggestion that his illness has been in any
way a positive experience. There is, however, a positive
message to his story which is best illustrated by one of
the book’s most poignant and telling scenes: Diamond
is in his car, not long after the treatments that removed
most of his tongue and destroyed his taste buds. Listening
to a familiar show he hears a voice he can’t place,
then realises that he’s listening to his own voice on a
BUY John Diamond books online from and
programme recorded a year previously. Diamond is
struck by the difference between the man he is now
and the man whose voice is broadcasting through the
ether: “he was the one who didn’t realize what a boon
an unimpaired voice was, who ate his food without
stopping to think about its remarkable flavour, who was
criminally profligate with words, who took his wife and
children and friends for granted – in short who didn’t
know he was living”.
Rather than denying mortality, C suggests that it’s
only when you understand the fragility of life that you
can fully appreciate just how magical and wonderful
day-to-day existence can be.
Coda: John Diamond died on 2nd March, 2001. The
Guardian obituary has the full details of his remarkable
life. �
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