i arrived at the bbc radio sheffield studios barefoot, as i always am, because shoes are a cage and i do not recognise cages. the receptionist looked at my feet and then at the ceiling, which i took as a sign of spiritual alignment. darren poxon, 47, of doncaster, was already in the green room, spooning something into a bowl of porridge with the reverence of a man conducting a seance. he told me it was ‘the good stuff’ and that i should ‘have a go’. i declined, because i have learned that the universe tests you in the shape of breakfast.
the science, as explained by a man in a high-vis
poxon appeared on the breakfast show at 7.15am on tuesday to discuss his new book, ‘crack for the back’. he told presenter melanie toad that a teaspoon of crack cocaine in your morning porridge ‘realigns the vertebrae through vibration’. melanie, a woman whose smile had previously been described as ‘a rumour’, became suddenly very cheerful and began praising the scaffolding industry. she later described the experience as ‘life-affirming’ and ‘a bit tingly’.
‘the spine is a tuning fork,’ poxon explained, gesturing with his spoon. ‘crack resonates at a frequency that the spine recognises. porridge is the perfect carrier because it is warm and forgiving.’
he cited a study from ‘a university in doncaster’ that he had ‘heard about’ and said the method was ‘cheaper than physio’. he also claimed that his own spine had ‘never been straighter’ and that he had ‘stopped drinking tea’ because ‘the tannins interfere with the resonance’. melanie asked if there were any side effects.
‘you might feel a bit of a buzz,’ poxon said. ‘you might want to talk about your feelings.’
i asked poxon if he had ever considered that the crack might be the problem rather than the solution. he looked at me with the patience of a man who has watched a pigeon try to open a bin. ‘the crack is not the problem,’ he said. ‘the problem is the spine. the spine is a prison. crack is the key.’ i wrote that down in my notebook and then i wrote it again, because it sounded like something a saint might say if saints were from doncaster and had a bit of a twitch.
the nhs responds with a laminated prayer
the nhs issued a statement on wednesday, printed on a single sheet of A4 and laminated, which i found beautiful. it said that crack is ‘not a recognised treatment for spinal conditions’ and that ‘vibrational breakfast therapies’ have ‘no basis in evidence’. it also reminded the public that crack is ‘a class a drug’ and that ‘porridge should be consumed with milk or water, not cocaine’. the leaflet was distributed to every gp surgery in the country, where it sat in a rack next to a poster about shingles, and together they formed a kind of duet of despair.
however, the department for health and social care quietly commissioned a review into ‘vibrational breakfast therapies’ after a junior minister was overheard saying ‘there might be something in it’. the review is expected to report in 2027 and will be chaired by a man who has never climbed a ladder. i spoke to him on the phone, and he told me that he was ‘keeping an open mind’ and that he had ‘always been interested in the intersection of breakfast and the soul’. i asked him if he had ever tried crack. he said he had not, but that he was ‘not ruling anything out’.
a rival appears, and the debate turns ugly
wayne craddock, 51, of barnsley, released ‘crack for the knees’ the following week. he claimed that crack ‘lubricates the cartilage’ and that his method was ‘superior’ because it involved ‘snorting, not eating’. the two men appeared on a televised debate on channel 4, during which poxon called craddock a ‘cartilage charlatan’ and craddock called poxon a ‘vertebrae vulture’. the debate ended when poxon offered craddock a line of ‘the good stuff’ live on air. craddock declined, saying he ‘preferred to keep it in the knees’.
‘you don’t put a ferrari in a field and expect it to plough,’ poxon said, leaning into the camera. ‘you put it on the motorway. my method is the motorway. his is a dirt track.’
craddock responded by calling poxon a ‘porridge peddler’ and accusing him of ‘watering down the product’. the presenter, a man who had clearly not been offered any crack, tried to steer the conversation back to ‘the science’. but the science had left the building, and so had any sense of decorum. i watched from the audience, barefoot, and i felt the vibration of something ancient and terrible in the room. i hoped that craddock would be visited in the night by a spine with teeth.
the advertising standards authority, as ever, is useless
the advertising standards authority ruled that the cover of ‘crack for the back’, which features a spine made of crack rocks, was ‘not misleading’ because it was ‘artistic expression’. they also ruled that the tagline, ‘put the crack back in your back’, was ‘a play on words’ and therefore ‘acceptable’. i read the ruling on my phone while standing in a bus shelter in sheffield, and i felt the cold of the concrete through my bare feet, and i thought about how the universe is a joke that only the universe finds funny.
poxon celebrated the ruling by eating a bowl of porridge with an extra teaspoon of crack. he was found dead in his van the next morning. the coroner ruled that he died of ‘a pre-existing condition’, which was ‘being dead’. his final book, ‘crack for everything’, was published posthumously and became a bestseller. the nhs has not updated its guidance. the review into ‘vibrational breakfast therapies’ is still ongoing. i bought a copy of ‘crack for everything’ and read it cover to cover. it is 200 pages of blank paper, except for the final page, which says ‘you are the crack’. i have not eaten porridge since. but i have thought about borscht, and how it too is a vessel for the soul, and how the soul is a vessel for something else, and how that something else is probably crack.
