It’s ‘New Year, New You’ time, and we are on a diet. After all, we are proud subjects of the second fattest, most bibulous nation in the world. As the US comic Reginald D. Hunter said: ‘You British drink like we Americans eat.’
So I’ve given up drinking – every single night, anyway – as on Exmoor, where we’ve been, if you ask for ‘something soft’ that is taken to mean you would like wine as opposed to Famous Grouse. My husband’s given up carbs as well as alcohol, and New Year’s Day was Ground Zero.
Back in London, we went to a Parisian-style bakery place for lunch. I had the soup. He had a ‘Salade Provencale’, a hearty, peasant assembly of goat’s cheese and roasted vegetables. It came with a roll, which he left.
After lunch – and I remind you, so far, the full extent of his self-denial had consisted of not having toast with his Full English, followed by not eating a bun, so not exactly a Gandhi-esque effort – my husband pressed ‘play’ and the running commentary on his regime began.
‘I feel as if I’ve been on hunger strike for a couple of weeks,’ he said, sipping black coffee.
‘Exhausted. Weepy. It’s tough out here, in Thinville.’
I am now on day five of my dryathlon and have a constant headache, a development I am attributing to alcohol deficiency, but also incipient despair: according to the latest thinking, this post-festive frugality is how it has to be for all of us, for ever – and jolly dull it is, too.
For I’ve caught up with this gloomy article by a doctor called Michael Mosley, tied into a series on the gloomy You And Yours Radio 4 programme last week, which claimed the Government guidelines on food and drink – ie the five-a-day mantra, and the number of units of alcohol advised for men and women – were not evidence-based, but plucked from thin air. Made up.
So public health experts in Oxford decided to come up with their own. They investigated the health risks of drinking different amounts of alcohol, and for those of us who like a drink the news is not good.
More... Guilt-free way to eat treats and lose weight... well it worked for us! Liked Bikram yoga? Try hot Pilates, where you'll sweat away troubles and strengthen muscles in a 35C hotbox‘The new evidence, much less well known, is that tiny amounts of alcohol increase your risk of cancer. If a woman gets through only a very reasonable one bottle of wine a week, her risk of breast cancer goes up by ten per cent,’ says Dr Mosley.
So there we have it. Basically, the safe amount of alcohol we can drink a day is a quarter of a glass of vino (ie none): anything more is bingeingly Rabelaisian and can cause breast cancer. As Sir Ian Gilmore, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, has concluded, on a high note: ‘The best evidence is that, taking [into account] all the risks and the potential benefits to older people, the best health option is not to drink at all.’ Oh yes, I forgot: as for solids, the news is this – if anything but vegetables passes our lips we are basically digging our own graves with our teeth.
Now, I should confess I am the lifestyle Taliban chez nous. Exercise is my religion. I would certainly dock the benefits of lardbutts who refused to go to the gym against their doctors’ orders, as Westminster council is threatening to do.
Sensible eating: While being healthily should be a part of everyday life, can it be right to take it to the extreme?
But even I am wondering whether this teetotal, veggie diet plan – no wine, no fruit, family meals of kelp/kale – can be right.
After all, there is medical research, and new studies like this Oxford one, and then there are people.
And we all know people who eat only pulses, drink coconut water, do Bikram yoga, and who get cancer. And we all know people who pickle themselves in drink, or kipper themselves with smoking and live lustily till they’re 100.
As James Le Fanu, the GP and author of The Rise And Fall Of Modern Medicine, says of the study: ‘The idea four glasses of wine a week raises your cancer by ten per cent is absolute nonsense: there is no way you can say that with such specificity.’
'Even I am wondering whether this teetotal, veggie diet plan – no wine, no fruit, family meals of kelp/kale – can be right.'
His scepticism is mirrored by the medical journal Science, which has opined: ‘The search for subtle links between diet, lifestyle or the environment and disease is an unending source of fear, but yields little certainty.’
Which brings us back to our domestic diet. My husband has pronounced himself ‘worryingly gaunt’ after barely a week of moderate consumption.
In my own irritable state of heightened sobriety, I can endorse only one element of the new Oxford study, which is that the road to hell is paved with Government guidelines. In fact, the only one that’s ever been worth a damn is our old friend Keep Calm And Carry On.
So I’ll have something soft, please. A Pinot Grigio would be lovely.
Wrinkly Hugh and a world of hypocrisyCan someone explain why Hillary Clinton, who has yet again been voted Most Admired Woman in the World, is now being deemed too antique to run for President, even though Hugh Hefner is considered uncrinkly enough to wed a Playboy bunny aged 26?
I don’t think any explanation would satisfy me. I know, as well as the next woman, that men can do what they like (and often do).
So it’s not that I find the concept, let alone the reality, of a Viagra-popping prune in congress with a loamy-loined lady his granddaughter’s age particularly disgusting.
It’s the double standard that makes my flesh crawl. Clinton is 65, Hefner is 86. I rest my case. Hillary for President, please people.
Octogenarian Playboy founder Hugh Hefner poses with his bride Crystal Harris and dog Charlie at their New Year Eve wedding PCs plod into action at lastNEWSFLASH: As you will recall, my son’s stolen laptop was loaded with tracking software that revealed its location and sent us a nice picture of the chap who was ‘taking care’ of it.
You will also recall that, despite The Force knowing the location and identity of the new owner, they appeared to do nothing.
But lo, since my piece about this appeared, a miracle – the police got a court order, executed a search warrant, recovered my son’s MacBook and apprehended a gentleman in Ealing.
The nice officers from the Met keep calling me to highlight this turn-up for the books.
‘Just to reassure you, that you continue to receive sterling service at all times,’ said the copper before adding, ‘and we don’t want to read any more about this in The Mail on Sunday.’
The Johnson family have now had their son's stolen laptop returned after her story appeared in the Mail on Sunday
