A little bit of what you fancy is healthy, says Virginia Blackburn
HERE we go again. Yesterday came a host of different stories involving alcohol. Some people apparently consume their week’s worth of units every night while elsewhere it has been revealed that better-off people drink more than the badly off. Well, there’s a surprise.
Some people consume their week’s worth of units every night
Odds on they take more holidays too, thus incurring their risk of contracting nasty tropical diseases, but you don’t hear people getting wound up about that.
The attitude towards drinking in this country is getting increasingly bizarre. On the one hand you have that laugh-a-minute health chief who says she can’t even look at a glass of wine without ruminating on the increased risk of breast cancer, on the other you have our motley crew of lads and ladettes drinking themselves into oblivion in city centres.
Periodic stories arise about yet another British stag night in some unfortunate European capital that ends with mass arrests or diverted planes, while various resorts around Greece and Spain complain loudly about the annual influx of drunk Anglo Saxons – all the while salivating at the fact that financially they’re about to clean up.
Never let it be said that we don’t do our bit for Europe. Our young must be solely responsible for keeping places such as Magaluf afloat.
And then there are the rest of us, the vast majority who like a glass of wine or three but tend not to run amok or pick fights on aircraft and yet are still constantly berated for a nighttime snifter.
Here’s another fact you won’t find the health chiefs coming up with. The rich may drink more than the poor but they also tend to live longer. Give up on the scaremongering and accept what our parents always did: a little of what you fancy does you good.
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John Lewis who asked a woman to leave its café when her toddler (not pictured) was having a tantrum
THREE cheers for the staff at John Lewis who asked a woman to leave its café when her toddler was having a tantrum.
These baby tyrants make life a misery for the rest of us. I was once on a plane when an infant entertained itself by running around slapping the people trying to sleep.
Homicide was narrowly averted but personally I think those ghastly, selfish parents should be banned from all public transport, cafes, restaurants, everywhere they can be a nuisance.
Monsters, both the parents and children alike.
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Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie at Guadalajara book festival
MANY years ago, for reasons that are now lost in the mists of time, I was a big fan of Salman Rushdie.
Disillusionment set in big time and the revelation from one of his wives, Padma Lakshmi, that he tried to pressure her into sex when she wasn’t well and then complained she was a “bad investment” was not as earth shattering as it might once have been.
His book Fury was about an Indian intellectual living in New York (no prizes for guessing where Rushdie lives) and contains a sentence along the following lines (I paraphrase): “The sex was great. But then it always was.” Go figure.
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Tom Hiddleston is in line to be the next Bond
MAY I add to the great duvet debate? If you want to avoid rows with your partner, dispense with them all together. I hate duvets, nasty foreign things. I always overheat underneath them but when I stick a limb out to cool down promptly risk contracting frostbite. Use sheets and blankets. It makes it much easier to regulate the temperature.
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TOM HIDDLESTON is at serious risk of not being the next James Bond. The reason? He has let it be known that he wants the role.
Becoming the next Bond is a bit like becoming prime minister. You have to perform a complicated Dance of the Seven Veils in which you point blank deny that it even occurred to you that you might be considered for the position, before being backed into it by the clamour of your supporters who are insistent that only you can fi t the bill.
Pretend that you’re far more interested in art house, Tom – and all may not yet be lost