Well, have you been sticking to those resolutions you made when the new year birled in? C’mon, tell the truth.

You’re probably hiding a packet of Bourbon Creams under this sports supplement and hastily flinging a couple down your thrapple when your other half goes out of the room. Look at the state of you. There are crumbs all over your jumper. Brush them off, for goodness’ sake.

Don’t worry, though. I’m not here to judge. A disciplined, dieting, dry January, during which you lock yourself in a joyless prison of abstinence and basically eat twigs and steam for a month, is not my thing either despite the hectoring insistences of others that I should cut back on this, reduce my levels of that and ca’ canny on gulps of the other.

At this time of the year, when tut-tutting, handwringing, healthy-living zealots are out in force, I’m always reminded of the fellow who was advised by his doctor to do something a couple of times a day that got him out of breath. So, he decided to start smoking.

Alternatively, he could’ve have started covering golf because it’s been a pretty breathless spell of late. There seems to have been so many bombshells recently, I wouldn’t be surprised if press releases start getting delivered by a squadron of droning B-52s.........

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