I warned Jakarta24 readers recently of mass wizardry on the English high street and I hear from an elderly relative that things have got much worse.

He spoke of an entire country now besotted with magic and mystery: of workmen more interested in your star sign than fixing the plumbing; of milkmen refusing to deliver unless you have an auspicious address; of swarms of wizards everywhere, eager to take you on the great leap backward.

The English it seems no longer make a living by taking in each other’s washing. They get by now by giving each other therapy. There’s enzyme therapy, Alexander technique, Bach Flowers, chiropractic, kinesiology and colonic irrigation – and that’s just at your local fish and chip shop.

Same story at the chemist. Time was when you only ever bought Lucozade there because your nerve had failed yet again and you couldn’t ask nice Mrs Briggs for those condoms. Now, you leave with essence of dugong scrotum or some such snake-oil, and Mrs Briggs, who has changed her name to Siddhartha and has a tattoo, will not only sell you a whole box of condoms but probably let you try one out on her as well, in the interests of harmony and personal integration.

Then there are the ominous ‘talking wizards’. Preying on the legions of the lonely, these creatures charge just for a conversation and I’m told they’re very versatile. They’ll praise you to the heavens for ten minutes; then, when you’ve had enough of that, shout filthy and shocking abuse for the next ten (same fee). There are even wizards now, apparently, who claim to worry on your behalf. For large sums of money, these reptiles will mope around with a furrowed brow while you’re supposed to gambol and wiggle about without a care in the world.

Alright, I think you get the picture. Mr Miller takes a very dim view indeed of wizards and all their ‘re-balancing’ twaddle but ….. I still get those horrendous headaches I told you about, so when someone suggested seeing a dukun, I said….. well….. alright…..nurse.

* * *

The dukun lived in one of those areas of Jakarta that you think should be helping the police with their enquiries. So I decided to forego entry via my jet like that Gudang Garam bloke on telly and squeezed in there on an ojek. Then I hung around outside his house expecting him to fly out of a tree, do a mid-air double somersault and land at my feet in a blinding green flash.

Instead, a quiet, modest man invited me into his home and the following conversation ensued:
Do you drink? .....Yes, but only for the hangover.
Do you smoke? ...Yes, unless I’m asleep.
Exercise? ............ Not so you’d notice.
Diet................... Why, what colour is it now? (Oops, sorry duke)
Right, he said, I suggest you stop drinking and smoking, go on a strict fruit and vegetable diet and get plenty of exercise. That’s all, and there’s no fee. I never charge when I tell a patient what he knows already.

Well, I came out of there and I tell you I was incensed. No potions, no spells? No funny hat? No face east and whistle ‘Denpasar Moon’ on the third Friday of a month with an ‘r’ in it? What kind of dukun is this? And no fat fee either! Leave me some higher moral ground please! And the remedy itself! It’s not as if I expected him to recommend lengthy drinking bouts and all night humpty-dumpty, but this! This was ridiculous. I’d have to have a cigarette to even contemplate giving up smoking and as for abandoning the sauce.....why the very idea! I bet he didn’t adopt that rational modernist approach when the next Javanese patient came in with a fairy lodged up his nose. Cheeky devil!

* * *

I trudged home and it was no consolation at all when nurse pointed out that at least he hadn’t ruled out underwear. Then, brutally realistic as ever, she suggested I should, in fact, follow the dukun’s advice and she booked me in for a swim at the local sports club.

And I went. I didn’t actually swim because I can’t but I did do some splashing and then I went into the gym. I just waved my arms about in there because I couldn’t understand the machines and besides, the place was packed with hopelessly over-busy software sort of people – it’s no accident, I suspect, that the rise of the computer has been accompanied by the rise of the gym and one dreads to think what Microsoft has done to the state of the world’s buttocks. Anyway, after my ‘workout’ I had a glass of lime juice and that was all that passed my lips.....for the entire morning.

It’s now lunch time and as I sit here tapping out this month’s column I can hear you saying “Such self discipline. How’s it done Miller?” Well, it’s simple and it works like this. Just write down immediately anything you consume. This not only keeps you fully in control but also serves somehow to completely extinguish all desire. A bowl of cornflakes.

There’s no reason why you too can’t master your pathetic cravings and emerge as the captain of your soul. A Marlboro. There’s no iron law of stuff that must forever hold sway over your nobler self, hold you in thrall, fettered and afraid. A Kit-Kat. So, like me, follow the dukun and cast off those shackles. Rise from the dark valley of indulgence and ascend the sunny uplands of moderation — free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last! A shepherd’s pie, a slice of cheesecake, a Mars bar, three Marlboros, four Bintangs, a bag of crisps, a large scotch (enough already-ed).