I never go anywhere without a small, hard ball about my person. Sciatica, you see. In my case it involves a shooting pain originating somewhere in the depths of my left bottom cheek which, well, shoots down my leg. Something to do with the sciatic nerve being irritated or compressed. Most unpleasant, I tell you, and the longer I sit, the worse it gets.
I have only three routes to relief. One is to never sit down, which is impractical. The second is to be brutalised by a softly spoken Bulgarian masseur called Vlad, which is a wonderful if challenging experience, but too expensive to indulge in more often than every other week. The third is to sit on a hard ball. I was advised to try this by a physio friend, although I think it may sit outside the physiotherapeutic mainstream as it doesn’t come up on the internet. So proceed at your own risk. It was a hockey ball my physio advised me to use, while driving. So next time the pain kicked in, two hours into a 10-mile journey on the M6, I reached for the ball, slipped it under my left cheek and, by God, did it do the trick. The relief was so intense that I was almost glad I had sciatica – if I hadn’t had it I may never have known this joy.
Over the years I have become something of a connoisseur of balls for bum cheeks, as it were. There are a number of variables to consider, such as the softness of the seat you are sitting on. For most car seats, I have found the hockey ball and similarly sized baseball to be ideal. For harder seats, such as the kitchen chair I’m sitting on at this moment, a ball of that size wouldn’t work as, apart from anything else, it would tilt me my whole body to the right, doubtless throwing some other aspect of my structure out of kilter. So I’m presently working a mere golf ball in the critical cheek spot. Just the job. Nice.
Back in the car, my ball of choice is now a cricket ball, which for added interest has a substantial seam that gets it into new, hitherto unexplored areas. I’ve found a smaller, junior-sized Kookaburra to be just the job. And, in a new development, having flown to Ireland without a ball, I bought a sliotar, which is used for hurling. Good and hard, with a promisingly pronounced seam. I’ve got a good feeling about it.
An evening with Adrian Chiles
Join Adrian on 10 October 2024, 7.30pm-8.30pm, where he will discuss with fellow columnist Zoe Williams his brilliantly bemused tour of British life as captured in his new collection of Guardian columns. Book tickets at theguardian.live.com
• Adrian Chiles is a Guardian columnist
