It's not easy being an armchair warrior...

People think it's easy being an armchair Internet warrior but the costs are high.  I received this email a year ago yesterday (name & address withheld) from one of my more right wing correspondents and felt I should share it withe the rest of you in the interests of health & safety:

It is 20 years this months since I last went to work. In that time I have put in several tens of thousands of hours campaiging to leave
the EU, against speed cameras.

I had vowed to give up on politics after the referendum, whatever the result but the uncertainties that remain meant I didn't do so.  Unfortunately the many thousands of hours I have spent sitting on this settee using a laptop have taken a toll, and not just then increasingly common one of a stiff neck.

It now seems highly likely that the severe pains I have suffered for the past month or more, in my left side and lower back, are due primarily to trapped wind arising from hours of inactivity in the same position. I therefore have no alternative but to cut down drastically and spend more time on my feet, moving about and perhaps
feeling less stressed will help too.

I mention these problems not to seek sympathy but warn others of the damage they too might be doing to their health by spending too much time in these ways.

Acordingly I must ask all of my contacts not to send me any emails about politics or news in general. I have unsubscribed from
Conservative Home and will therefore not be circulating its newsletter.

My work on speed camera analysis, now almost complete, will continue for a few months, so emails and news on that one subject will still be welcomed.

All the best to those who have fought the good fight

~~~~~

.... I was wondering why my spam box hadn't been filling with more dubious misunderstandings of Newtonian Physics recently when I googled Idris Francis to find he died earlier this year aged 79.  Seems his bowel problem wasn't just wind after all...