The stupidest thing I've read in the Guardian for at least a week or two

"There is no cure for synaesthesia, but next year's UK Synaesthesia Association conference will include a speaker who claims to be able to reduce its effects."

WHAT? A cure for synaesthesia? What? Oh, f*** off. Why does a bit of colour in music and the alphabet require an intervention? I like my synaesthesia, and I suspect that there's a lot more to it than atypical sensory experiences. I don't want to "reduce its effects", in fact I'd be afraid to try such a thing. FYI synesthesia is not "a medical condition". It is a neuropsychological variation. It is not diagnosed by doctors, it is identified by researchers. The journalist who wrote this inappropriate application of the standard cliches of journalistic treatment of medical topics in a way that has inadvertently caused objection and offense has no excuse at all for her mistaken approach, as she has herself quoted in her article a synaesthesia researcher who advised that she has "met very few synaesthetes who feel that" synaesthesia is a thing that one would consult a doctor about, but the heedless journalist Laura Barnett just ploughed on.

Synaesthesia: when two senses become one.
by Laura Barnett
Guardian
December 5th 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/05/synaesthesia-hearing-colours-mixing-senses