Miranda Hart - British comedian

A little awkward that the book is called "I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You".

 

Article in the Telegraph non paywall https://archive.ph/HvYM3 How Miranda Hart’s comeback fell flat

 

I’m pleased to share that the New Zealand Herald has just now published the Telegraph article on its website. Hopefully it will make any other local media outlets reconsider interviews that may have been planned. Not that I was aware of, but it would not surprise me if one was on the cards for Radio New Zealand.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1846854446577234123


Our open letter reaching out to @mermhart
It will be sent to her via her agent at @CBGBooks & to @MichaelJBooks
Statement below

11:03 AM · Oct 17, 2024

 

Long Covid Advocacy's longread letter here: https://www.longcovidadvoc.com/post/dear-miranda

Tales of the Unexpected: A letter reaching out to Miranda Hart to discuss her book and approaches to ME, Long Covid and Lyme.

Audio version in the Substack mobile app

 

I need to read it again, but on first glance it seems a useful response to the whole brain retraining idea.

 

It’s great, much longer than I anticipated. And for good reason.

 

Tale Nine

"We feel we want to conserve energy when fatigued, but actually the energy cells recover with movement, not without it. It can be very counter intuitive to go on a walk when you are lethargic, but if lethargy is often the repression of anger or grief rather than exhaustion, then movement mobilises, releases and therefore re-energises. "Miranda.

Oh how dangerous. Not just silly or mistaken but dangerous. "..if lethargy is often the repression of anger or grief......then movement reenergises". Don't the publishers have a responsibility of accuracy? Does she know anything about PEM? So Maeve just had to move to reenergise herself? Dangerous.

 

I didnt read all of it, but what i did was good. I'm not suggesting it shoudnt be sent, indeed it's necessary to have these things out there, but I hope no one expects her to respond other than in the way she already has.

Indeed the flak/'nay-saying', will only serve to 'prove' that our problem is with our own negative thinking.

 

I didn’t realise how bad it is until I just read Long Covid Advocate. It’s bad bad bad. She’s practically gone Paul Garner, but with a book deal and nice manner.

 

i agree.

I think Miranda is likely intending to refer to the mitochondria there, which AIUI do multiply with exercise. But hey if only it were that simple!

 

[Unprintable] off.

 

You should be feeling better now.

 

This, when I am in polite society, shall hence forth be known as

'Dear Little Off'

 

I’ve just skimmed the letter. The quotes from Miranda Hart are far worse than I anticipated. I’m really disappointed that The Times, which has been so supportive in recent years largely thanks to Sean O’Neill, put Hart’s book on its front page last week.

Really hard to know how to respond. As ever, it’s important to challenge the ideas not the person. I fear this book could be an absolute disaster for people with ME/CFS in terms of how we are treated by people we know.

 

I haven't read the book, just the quotes and some of the media accounts, but I think that if anyone were to raise it with me I would simply quote this example of her approach, which @Lou B Lou quoted from iNews :

And then I would point out what would go through one's mind about Dr Emoto's claim if one were to apply critical thinking.

I feel really badly for Miranda in all of this. Like all of us who are chronically ill, she's been forced to swim in a grifters' cesspit of misinformation, and without a scientific background it can be very hard to assess it.

I really hope that some of the genetic research that's going on will give us some decent pointers soon. Good science can't come soon enough.

 

I'm also thinking that the publication of her book is perhaps providing a teachable moment. Even the Daily Wail is applying some critical thinking.

 

Considering that the whole CBT/GET paradigm is considered "evidence-based", and so is the Lightning Process and similar quackery in a very rough sense, I think it's better to adopt a different term. I get that evidence-based is the paradigmatic buzzword, but it literally means nothing when harmful pseudoscience is also considered evidence-based. And it is. This is the problem.

Not that I expect lots to follow, but using science-based or a similar term would be more accurate. Because as absurd as it is, most of what she said would be considered evidence-based by, rough estimate, maybe 80-90% of MDs, at least in a general sense good enough for them to at least recommend it as worth trying. That's one of the main consequences of propaganda appropriating technical terms, it often removes all meaning from words that should have an important one. But that term has been thoroughly trashed into meaningless garbage.

In the end, the only thing in the evidence-based medicine paradigm that is based on science is whatever scientifically valid facts go in, but as a process it has nothing whatsoever to do with science, and is pretty much the opposite for all intents and purposes, what comes out is usually made worse than its input.