‘Take a seat and make yourself comfortable,’ the receptionist at a prestigious back pain relief rehabilitation clinic told the strong-backed husband of a low back sufferer. He did - in a plush, leather chair whose rounded back defied all attempts to get comfortable. An hour later, when the doctor was ready to see the patient - who because of her low back pain had chosen to stand rather than sit - the husband was sorry that he hadn’t made an appointment for some lower back pain relief himself.

As every reader of my blog already knows, sitting is hard on the back. Most low back sufferers would probably agree that the problem is not that we evolved into creatures who stood upright but that we decided to ‘take a load off our feet’ and sit down at work, in the car and just about everywhere else.