I often have Radio 4 on in the background when I am working, and Michael Mosley’s cosy ‘Just One Thing’ series became a regular part of the morning routine. It was on just the other day, I think, I had it on in the background and he was excitedly extolling the virtues of flax seeds, in that artlessly enthusiastic manner, a bit reminiscent of Richard Briers.
The jolly music, cheery tone – all very soothing. And so was the reassurance that adding some flax seeds to your diet or popping a couple of cherries into your granola every now and then would do you a power of good.
It was only when his death was confirmed today I remembered how much his work actually really helped me in the past. Years back, when he was banging on about the 5:2 diet, I bought the book and shed a good amount of avoirdupois when nothing else had worked.
I soon slid out of intermittent fasting, and back into eating crap and not moving around much. Then, some years later, I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I didn’t get far with the NHS supplied info, no real problem with it, but it didn’t really address my diet/lifestyle. Meanwhile Mosley was going hard on diabetes as he’d apparently been diagnosed as pre-diabetic.
He was doing a lot of stuff on this in collaboration with the scientist Roy Taylor which had pretty amazing results when people lost a lot of weight fast. I didn’t have the discipline to do that – thought I probably should – but I took on board some very helpful advice which, while not an 8 week sugar detox plan, was the much more manageable occasional 800 calorie/day fasting. Generally a lot of what he said helped me sort out and make sense of diet and exercise. And while I am still definitely built for comfort, not speed, I got into some good habits thanks to him, that keep the old diabetes more or less in check, albeit with meds.
Today, I got to thinking about the various topics I’ve heard him talk about over the years, with cheery optimism. His work on insomnia. His reassuring presence on TV during Covid. And the extreme experiments he would perform upon himself to test out theories.
That makes his death all the more sad and poignant. Reading about the circumstances in which he was found, I am so sorry that such a decent bloke died in that way. He did an awful lot of good for me and from what I’m reading today, many many others. Definitely one of the good guys.
There is a tourist path from Pedi (where he was last seen) over the hills to Symi, his destination. It’s not hazardous, and it’s the one he was expected to take. He didn’t – walking past it and heading east up a track that is described as dangerous, and in the opposite direction to the one he needed. Allegedly, he was seen in Pedi asking someone for directions – this hasn’t been followed up, but he could have been misdirected, or misunderstood. After what must have been a real struggle over rocky terrain down to a small tourist beach, he died within a few metres of the boats that could have taken him to Symi. His body went undiscovered for days.
And he left his phone behind, which would have allowed him to SOS even if no reception.
There was an idiot ‘explainer’ in one of the online news sources a couple of days ago: WHO IS MISSING TV DOCTOR MICHAEL MOSLEY? Quite a lot of people, not least his family.
It was, what, forty degrees? That’s “feels like” forty-five, or thereabouts. I know from personal experience (as I’m sure do others) that the brain does not function at its best while being air fried.
He should not have set out without a phone, shouldn’t have been trekking in that heat, shouldn’t have taken the wrong path. It’s hard to blame the search parties for the delay in finding him when he was so far off the track and so close to tourists sunbathing on the beach.
I went to Symi lo these many years ago, largely on the strength of a travel book possibly called “I Went To Symi” [citation needed]. Kind of charming, kind of boring. Terrible food, no really. Good olives, cheese, er, yogurt? Cockroaches the size of motorcycle sidecars, water delivered by tanker. Lying on a beach anywhere in the world is for undemanding lotus eaters like Gary, and has never appealed. Seems an odd thing to do. Swimming, larvely, but that’s the opposite of lying on a beach, innit.
Hot and with all the retained heat and glare of the rocks it would have intensified it all.
Someone on twitter said he struck them as sort of sad and I kinda agree so with that and his insomnia, I was kinda relieved when it was a plain old fell over on rocky terrain thing.
Let’s not pre-empt the autopsy, but I think he said in some of his pieces that he did his best to maintain a healthy lifestyle as men in his family had a history of dying young due to heart problems. It might be that he couldn’t escape his genetic destiny, especially ended the strain of the heat.
That heat sounded brutal and the initial examination coming back with “natural causes” would seem to confirm heart failure
I found myself very sad at this. Whilst we have long since slipped away from regular 5:2 we still use many of the recipes in the original 800 book (most of which were written by his wife) because they are delicious.
The circumstances seems very curious, walking at that hot time of the day, no phone, taking a dangerous if not downright stupid route but still very sad news.
Typically, the Red Top coverage of stories like this is clearer, as they don’t shy away from simple infographics, which can be really useful. Some great reporting from the Sun (no, really) brings us up to date:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/28420005/michael-mosley-cctv-greek-police-four-days/
Compare and contrast with the Graun’s frankly piss-poor latest piece:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/article/2024/jun/10/michael-mosley-almost-certainly-died-natural-causes-inquest
This whole episode has prompted me to play some Joe Cocker.