There was a drive recently by mental-health groups for people to stop using mental-health labels metaphorically, which was thought to trivialise serious problems. A press release from one of the organisations had a quote from a doctor about a patient’s mother bursting into tears when someone said, ‘The weather’s being a bit schizophrenic today.’ Of course, the idea that anyone could tell that woman she was over-reacting is ridiculous. I actually think that words for mental-health problems might function better as metaphors than as clinical diagnoses. Schizophrenia, OCD, autism – the kinds of words that have found their way into everyday conversation – are actually quite nebulous terms used to define disorders with wildly different symptoms. As a basic metaphor for behaviour, someone describing themselves as ‘a little bit autistic’ is probably a realistic way of opening up to their anal side or to their emotional blocks. It might well be helpful that people actually now identify themselves with those who have such disorders.
‘Autistic’ as a clinical definition of a person is quite dehumanising. It places a label on to a human being, one that can’t really describe them because it covers a whole spectrum of dysfunction. Of course, this has no place in our current discourse. It’s easier to be silent. Easier for whom? For some mythical normal majority? Clearly, making a word taboo unless it’s used with the utmost seriousness cannot be good for those people labelled with the disorder. Why does everyone think things will improve if their issue is viewed as ‘serious’? The public already probably views schizophrenia as more serious – and more negative – than it sometimes actually is. Lots of people with schizophrenia lead a perfectly normal life – even though there’s no such thing. Maybe people being more light-hearted about schizophrenia, autism, Down’s syndrome – whatever – would actually be better. Sure, these conditions might be part of who you are, but a schizophrenic’s biggest problem at the time you meet him might well be that his football team just got beat.
Jokes have various social functions. Sometimes they’re there to remind us of the hideous nature of reality, sometimes they help us to escape it. There was an interesting thing with the film The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! It was an Aardman kids’ animation and somewhere in the trailer the pirates meet a ship of lepers. There were some childish jokes about bits of lepers falling off and this sparked a spot of outrage, with some people saying it was giving kids a stereotyped, untrue view of the disease. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant starts with a writer getting leprosy and going to a sanatorium to see some sufferers. He’s welcomed in to a patient’s bedroom, where a kind of living stump hisses to him, ‘Kill yourself! Better than this!’ It takes the whole thing appropriately seriously and gives a much more clinically accurate description of late-term leprosy, but also a more damaging impression of the disease. I know, because I read that as a kid and I actually dropped the book.
Nobody’s saying it’s particularly helpful for The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! to knock out a couple of cheap gags, but in that film could they have reasonably come across a ship filled with realistic late-term lepers? It would harrow an entire generation. So what’s the implied alternative? Leave the lepers out. Ignore them. This is a big part of how groups are marginalised in society, right the way up to a whole sex.
My idea is that if things like leprosy are symbolically charged anyway, why not choose a way of charging them that might be more helpful? It’s not very helpful to portray people’s hands suddenly dropping off, but what about portraying leprosy as not a huge deal? About portraying Down’s syndrome as not a huge deal? Or physical disability as not something that defines someone? Ideas and words are just symbols, and you decide what they mean. Let’s go for some meanings that might actually be of some use, rather than just ignoring people. Let’s update this shit to a point where it works.
What will equality look like when we get there? It surely won’t look like a stultifying inability to talk to each other. It’s odd that people get so wound up about people joking about a serious subject. Nobody would ever say there shouldn’t be a song about rape. And rhyme is pretty trivial-ising in its own way. Two verses in, someone’s wearing a cape and the whole thing loses gravitas. Comedy, with its roots in the history of classical thought is shepherded towards uncontroversial areas, while there is no subject that people wouldn’t happily see dealt with in art’s lowest form, the ITV two-part drama.
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So they reckon we should have two days off drinking each week. It’s common practice up here – the trick is to sink so much on Friday night that you don’t come round till Monday morning. Of course, drinking isn’t just bad for the liver. There are also the one-night stands. We’ve all woken up the next morning and glanced over at the other pillow, to see her lying there – the little knitted lady off the toilet roll.
Alcoholics and drug addicts are to be stripped of their dole money if they refuse rehabilitation orders. Because history has shown us that when addicts don’t have money in their pockets they simply quit. Experts say 200,000 people could die from alcohol-related diseases in England and Wales in the next twenty years. No figures were included from Scotland, as currently they come under ‘death from natural causes’.
A study has found that the north-east has twice the national average of teenagers with drink problems. It makes me angry that there are teenagers suffering like that when they could easily move somewhere better. Perhaps they could be enticed out of the north-east with some sort of drinks promotion? The survey also revealed pierced people drink more. Although I reckon that could have just been a misprint.
To combat this problem, David Cameron is putting the price of booze up. And they say Cameron is out of touch with the public. The only thing that will make people drink less alcohol is if someone suddenly un-invents it. Cameron thinks the price rise will reduce binge drinking. No, but it might make a tramp sit outside in the cold for half an hour longer to get that extra 40p. There are also calls to end two-for-one offers. Or, as drinkers know them, four-for-two offers. The drinks industry say it’s actually an issue of free choice. They’re right. The way these do-gooders go on you’d think the stuff was addictive.
Some counterfeit booze being sold in shops and pubs contains industrial cleaning products. People could go out on a Friday night and wake up in a kebab-shop doorway smelling better than before they threw up over themselves. Instead of the streets of Cardiff being covered in urine on a Sunday morning, they could end up looking like they’ve been power-washed.
But I’m being unfair. A lot of work has been done to give Cardiff a makeover. It’s actually quite an attractive city, with a river running through the middle of it. It’s just a shame it’s a river of urine, vomit, semen and tears.
Two-thirds of voters don’t want the nanny state telling them what to eat and drink. I agree. I’d much rather be free to make these decisions myself, based on the impartial advice to be found in the pan-media endorsements of mercenary celebrities and sportsmen.
A study revealed that people who are uninterested in food are more likely to take cocaine. Which explains why I’ve always had to be off my face to watch The Great British Bake Off. It makes sense, as when I’m snorting gak off a filthy toilet seat in a piss-stenched cubicle the last thing I’m thinking about is poaching a sea bass.
Half of all food in the world is now thrown away. The other half is stored and cooked using finite resources and then shat into the ocean. It’s surely better for the environment if you empty your shopping trolley directly into the sea and take a shit in a bin. When you think about how unhealthy the food is, throwing half of it away might be the only thing that’s keeping us alive. In an attempt to reconnect with what we eat I recently went out hunting moose. The fog came down and another hunter shot me by accident. It was just a flesh wound – good job I was carrying my lucky hat stand.
A study has revealed meat is to blame for one in thirty deaths. Of course, it’s not just meat eaters whose health is threatened by this report. Thousands of vegetarians risk literally bursting with smugness. There’s a lot of bad things said about your arteries clogging with cholesterol – but what with the Scottish climate, not being able to feel your legs can be a real bonus.
The Australians have warned people about eating meat over here – that surprised me. I thought the only things Aussies objected to were full-length trousers and taking a train ride without doing chin-ups on the baggage rail.
Lamb, pork and chicken dishes have now been implicated in the horsemeat scandal. Is it just me who feels sorry for those who actually wanted to eat horse? There can’t be any of it left. I’d like to see a DNA test done on a haggis. That thing is essentially Noah’s Ark in a bladder.
Restaurants run by famous chefs were slammed by health inspectors, who found evidence of mice in Marco Pierre White’s, undercooked meat in Raymond Blanc’s and out-of-date food in Jamie Oliver’s – but I think it can only be a good thing that they’re trying to get more British cuisine on their menus. Last week I was in a restaurant and spotted the waiters surreptitiously chasing a mouse and then stamping on it. I complained to the manger and said that I’d call the Food Standards Agency unless the entire restaurant was disinfected from top to bottom. He assured me it would be, was very apologetic and gave me the meal for free. Well, I say free. I had to buy the mouse from the pet shop.
A man died after eating twenty-eight raw eggs in a row. His mate bet him he couldn’t eat thirty. That’s egg on his face. And in his lungs and in both chambers of his heart. I’d like to see him being cremated in an open casket just to watch the fluffy soufflé rise from his mouth as the heat increased.
A study has revealed that food from many high-street chains contains worrying levels of salt. Is this such bad news? I know too much salt is bad for blood pressure but it has kept me consistently free of black ice. We’re full of salt up here. The fact is, however, that I’d rather die of a heart attack or a stroke than be brought down by a gang of slugs. Research has shown that junk food can make young men infertile. After a drive past my local Burger King I’m guessing this is what’s called a good-news story. Does it really damage their sperm? Or is it just harder to pull when your burps smell of gherkins and cheap mince?
Burger King launched Britain’s most fattening burger. The Smoked Bacon and Cheddar Double Angus contains 966 calories, twice as many as a Big Mac. It’s their version of the Happy Meal, as the stroke it can induce often leaves the corners of the mouth permanently upturned. Its principal nutritional content is apparently in the sesame seeds on the outside of the bun, ironically only included for grip. Health experts claim it’s doubly dangerous, as the torrent of meaty burps it causes will also discourage mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Of course, it’s garnished with the usual bedraggled bits of shredded lettuce – which in this case has to be the equivalent of deferentially lifting your hat before committing a serious sexual assault.
McDonald’s claim their new Fruitizz drink is a healthy option, despite containing twelve teaspoons of sugar. They did stress it should form part of a lifestyle that includes physical activity, such as walking to your dialysis appointments. Many organisations are calling for a tax on sugary drinks to tackle obesity. Kids need to have soft drinks, though – otherwise they’ll be drinking their vodka neat. Putting the price up is an admission that Brits are too fucking stupid to stop doing something, even if it’s killing them – if guns weren’t so pricey these people would be cleaning their teeth with a revolver.
Teenager Zoe Cross was left in agony in hospital after an addiction to Coca-Cola led her to drink eighteen pints of it every day. Interestingly, when she was interviewed for a job at Subway she answered the question ‘Where do you see yourself in five years time?’ with ‘In a hospital on a drip with diabetes and spinal damage.’ Zoe’s now keen to raise awareness of her problem with other people who are fucking idiots. She’s got severe kidney damage – luckily though, Gazza’s stepped forward as a possible donor. Zoe was rushed to hospital and put on a drip by doctors – unfortunately it was full of 7 Up. It’s going to be difficult to take fizzy drinks away from people. If they have to they’ll just fart in an apple juice.
Fifty-four-stone Susanne Eman from Arizona has married a chef in her bid to become the world’s fattest person. It’s a great record if you can get it, as it also comes with the one for having the world’s most unwipeable arse. I hope their marriage lasts. With a woman that size it would be very easy to start seeing someone else behind her back. There were rumours an ex-boyfriend was still on the scene – but they’ve checked all the folds and found nothing. I wish them both well, although they must remember that being that big will seriously reduce their chances of having children. Let’s face it, he’s only got a cat in hell’s chance of finding her fanny.
But this isn’t just an American issue. Doctors have warned that half the UK population will be obese by 2030. It’s great to hear that so many people will have slimmed down by then. Britain is leading Europe in smoking, obesity and depression. Smoking, obesity and depression – that’s what most Scots put in the hobbies section of a dating website. The good news is that there’s an easy way to tackle this. Keep eating and soon you won’t be able to reach your trouser pockets to get your fags. That should cheer you up.
There was the story of Rob Gillett – who’s 35st 10lb – a rare example of someone whose waist measurement is greater than his height. Rob’s nicknamed ‘Doughnut’, as in the phrase ‘Doughnut eat any more or you’ll die.’ Also, he’s always totally covered in sugar and can usually be found lying on the pavement outside Greggs. He’s tried everything to remedy his condition, but no matter what he does he just can’t seem to put on any height. He needs to take a good long look at himself in a really, really big mirror.
More men than ever are asking for moob operations. ‘Moob operations’ sounds like it would make a great Sade song. It’s weird, because after all these years of men saying if they had breasts they’d never go out, it’s turned out to be true. But not for the reasons they thought.
Research suggests that sitting for long periods increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and death. So keep that happy thought in mind the next time you have to listen to a taxi driver talking about immigration.
Then again, too much exercise can be bad, too. Andrew Marr revealed his recent stroke was down to a rowing-machine work-out. Please take it easy on those things. I just lie back and drift, my hand trailing dreamily on the gym floor. By speaking out about the dangers of intensive exercise, Marr has helped a lot of people. People who were about to start exercising and were looking for an excuse not to.
Marr’s recovery was a good news story for the NHS at a time when patients are being left on trolleys for up to twenty-four hours because of spending cuts. This is causing major problems in hospitals, as junior doctors no longer have anywhere to sleep. A survey revealed that public confidence in the NHS is at an all-time low. Not here in Scotland. It’s been rising ever since they fitted teats to those alcohol hand-gel dispensers. It’s not a concern for me as I go private. I’m comfortable in the knowledge that if my doctor underperforms, the newsagent will take his card straight out of the window. It’s led to calls for more respect for patients. Quite right. My nan recently spent two hours on a trolley in A&E. Then another three on the floor when the nurse decided to return it to Tesco so she could get the pound back.
A new government plan calls for all foreigners arriving in Britain to pay hundreds of pounds up front to cover the cost of any healthcare they might receive. Typical bloody government, sponging off our foreigners. A record number of foreigners are getting free NHS treatment. It’s because you need relatively few documents to sign up with a GP. Then again, I’ve never asked mine for any of his documents, something that occurred to me during my prostate exam when I noticed the latex gloves were still on his desk. I confess I was a little suspicious when he took the run-up. Still, I’ve got his watch now.
The government’s launched a GP-recruitment drive. It’s not easy to become one as there’s a gruelling written exam. And if, when you’re done, any of it’s legible, you can forget it. Recruiting extra qualified medical staff surprisingly often leads to worse patient outcomes. But only in the parts of the Third World we lure them from, so no matter.
The government wants new measures to reduce NHS sick days. I’d suggest clearing the hospitals of all those people with diseases – that can’t help. Figures show that NHS staff have an average of fourteen sick days a year, three times the national average and, more crucially, infinity times as many as their microbiological foes.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt believes in homoeopathy. The joke’s on him. If he believed in Batman he’d now be Justice Secretary. It seems strange that he’s getting a hard time for believing in homoeopathy when the Education Secretary believes in God. I’m looking forward to Hunt running the NHS – at least we can be sure every waiting room is going to have Sky. He always looks like he’s just come off a fifteen-hour shift selling vacuum-cleaner attachments on Bid TV. I’ve never understood reshuffles. Cameron changing which cabinet ministers are going to give you bad news is like asking for a different postman to bring you the results of your AIDS test.
Complaints about doctors have jumped in the past year. Most relate to poor communication skills. I say, cut them some slack. If I’d my own prescription pad I’d be unable to string a sentence together, too.
NHS surgeons made 230 major bungles last year. Mistakes included sewing up incisions with foreign objects in. That happened with my appendectomy. When the doctor put his stethoscope to my stomach in the post-op examination it turned out he was just checking his voicemail.
Surgeons put my nan’s artificial hip in back to front. On the plus side, now no one in the care home can touch her at Twister. It’s a great game for the elderly as it removes the stigma of having to spend the day crouched over a plastic sheet. Artificial metal hips have been linked to a host of health problems but they did mean that my nan was flexible enough for her care home to store her in a filing-cabinet drawer when her direct debit ran out.
The government plans to introduce annual Ofsted-style inspections for care homes. This should be a huge improvement, as residents will be assured of proper treatment for at least one day a year. The public will be able to compare care homes in league tables, with any that repeatedly fail checks being relegated into the prison system. It’s sad the way we offload our elderly now. When I was a kid my granddad lived with us and every Sunday my dad would take us all out for a drive in the country. It helped keep my granddad’s mind sharp; right up till 92 he could find his way home again, though only because his colostomy bag had sprung a leak. Even now if I shut my eyes I can see him receding in the mirror. Or using his hooked stick to crawl up the boot like T-1000.
Care-home residents might be getting personal barcodes with details of the drugs they’re on. It follows an increase in the number of residents being given the wrong medication and waking up before it’s time to put them to bed. I’m not sure about barcoding them, though. Those things never read properly when they’re all wrinkled. We don’t want care workers who fail to get a beep holding them up and shouting, ‘Trace! Trace!! How much valium for this one?’
The world’s oldest man died aged 116. How do you get to still be alive at 116? Well, step one is to do something that makes God really hate you. Guinness World Records named Tao Porchon-Lynch as the oldest yoga teacher in the world. She’s ninety-four. She said, ‘I love yoga. It brightens my day and makes everybody smile.’ What she’s failed to grasp is that she’s upside down with her head between her knees. That’s not a smile on her daughter’s face, it’s a frown. She wants to convert her mother’s room into a conservatory but she just won’t die.
An eighty-year-old ex-RAF officer is to become the oldest person in Britain to have a sex change. It means before he goes to sleep at night he can put his willy in a glass beside his bed. I don’t know why they don’t wait a year or two more and let it drop off on its own. He’s already changed his name by deed poll. Which is, coincidentally, a Scottish medical term for a penis after a sex change – a ‘deed poll’. In 2009 the NHS in England conducted 154 sex-change operations. You’re probably wondering what happens to all the penises that are cut off. They were all put together in a mould, compressed and used to make Louis Walsh’s model in Madame Tussauds.
This Morning was hoaxed by Dan Richards, a guest who claimed to run a new sperm-donor website called Fame-Daddy that offered celebrity-obsessed women the chance to have their babies fathered by a star. They had some ex-footballer sperm on offer, apparently gathered off the side of Imogen Thomas’s face. Having a Premier League footballer as a surrogate makes it a very realistic situation as the mothers will be single mums and the child will never see their father.
Richards said that prices started at £15,000, which seems steep when you can get the same result by turning up at the Chelsea FC Christmas party in a miniskirt. At sperm-donor clinics they usually have magazines to help men get in the mood, but as this one claimed to appeal to footballers they’d have to get six of his mates in the room and the sound of a girl’s tears piped in.
It’s a great idea, really, because women get to pick the qualities they’d like their children to inherit. For example, you might pick sperm from a TV presenter if you wanted your child to be quite good at reading an autocue but have crushingly low self-esteem. Even though it turned out to be a scam, Russ Abbot was quick to say that for five hundred quid he’d come round and quickly knock one out through your letterbox. In case you get them mixed up, Ant’s is always the test tube on the left and Dec’s the one on the right. Richards also claimed all the sperm is tested for venereal disease. To ensure it does come from a real celebrity.
A Chinese hospital has introduced a special machine to collect sperm ‘automatically’. I suppose sticking your penis into something lifeless and mechanical will give us all an insight into what it’s like to be Amanda Holden’s husband. I can’t help thinking that one day this will be used in evidence as to ‘why all humans must be disintegrated’ at the Intergalactic Court of Robot Law. It sounds like an amazing technological advancement, but let’s be honest – a robot you stick your dick in is just Henry the Hoover without the face painted on.
Two women in Sweden have been given their mums’ wombs so they can have a baby. They’re brave. I don’t even like borrowing an old carrier bag off my mum in case the handles go while I’m out.
The number of teen pregnancies has plummeted to its lowest level since the 60s. Ending any remaining doubt about Jimmy Savile. Nonetheless, this year’s expected to see the most UK births since the early 70s. Pregnancy can happen so suddenly. If you’re a man you must prepare for it. At the very least get some fake ID for when you’re out on the pull. Our midwife was marvellous. She not only let me film the birth, she helped me stuff him back in for the retakes.
New research shows breast feeding can lower the risk of depression. Especially if you try have some fun with it! My suggestion – start off hunched up, then slowly unfurl and start widening your eyes. Then the more easily offended can kid themselves your child is just inflating you.
Babies. The ultimate blank canvas. I often wonder, if you could keep one inside a totally empty big white ball, just leaving food for it while it slept, would it by itself conceive of a God? Or even of parents? I guess we’ll never know. Someone tipped off social services and they did a raid.
The word ‘dad’ is to be removed from an NHS pamphlet about childbirth. It’s about time. Having gone through it twice myself a more appropriate term than ‘dad’ might be ‘horrified bystander’. The word ‘dad’ was removed from Glasgow pamphlets years ago and replaced with ‘It’s complicated. Just call him your uncle.’ The booklet is called Ready Steady Baby, which coincidentally is what I like to shout just before climaxing when having unprotected sex. Ready Steady Baby: the ideal name for a porn film hosted by Ainsley Harriott. The man gives jolly nicknames to salt and pepper grinders. Imagine the fun he’d have naming a bag full of dildos.
If there are any men out there worried about fatherhood, well, what can I say? When mine was just a month old I looked down at him clutching my finger with his tiny trusting hands and thought, ‘I would gladly feed my cock through a mangle, just for a half-hour’s sleep.’ Amazing to think that you need a licence for a dog and by all accounts even a TV, but not for a baby. You need a licence for a car, a moped, a licence to sell hot food from a cart . . . a licence to kill . . . a licence to fish . . . sorry, I’ve sort of lost my thread. So tired . . . son off school all week. So very tired.
Women considering abortions are to be made to have counselling to ensure they’ve thought it through. It’s an emotive subject. I’d an argument about it with my gran the other night. In the end I just said, ‘Shut the clinic. You don’t know what you’re doing.’ It seems the government wants to reduce abortions by a third. Is there any evidence that a third of abortions are unnecessary? No, they just think it sounds like a nice figure. Essentially, they’re haggling with reality.
Pro-life guys get a hard time but there are good reasons to be Pro-life. For example, you might fear women or hate women or be dumb as a rock. The thing about anti-abortionists is that they’re generally a fairly compelling argument for abortion.
New research claims babies born to smokers can weigh eight ounces less. You don’t need to tell me that smoking while pregnant can be dangerous. When my little boy started kicking he used to knock the ashtray clean off my girlfriend’s tummy. He’s still paying for the new carpet out of his pocket money.
Half of Britain’s shopkeepers sell cigarettes to adults buying them for children. I confess I’ve sometimes agreed to buy fags for kids. Split their money with the shopkeeper and they’ll always let you out the back door. A lot of kids in Glasgow ask you to buy fags for them but I always refuse. I worry about them handling matches when they’re drunk.
The government’s decided people shouldn’t buy cigarettes from display cabinets in shops. We’re way ahead of you – we buy them from a Polish guy down the pub.
It appears that nicotine patches might combat Alzheimer’s disease. They certainly helped my nan from going off on her wanders. It took about two hundred to stick her to her armchair. They could soon be available on prescription, so Alzheimer’s sufferers will just have to make the short journey from doctor to chemist before asking for half a pound of sausages. Forget patches – my family have long known that cigarettes prevent Alzheimer’s. They all smoked forty a day and were mentally sharp right up to the end, as they were dead by their mid-fifties.
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Reports reveal a huge rise in the number of student medics becoming prostitutes to pay their way through university. Not sure I’d fancy a medical-student doctor as a prostitute. Can you imagine if you asked them to whisper something naughty in your ear and what you got was, ‘I once prescribed barbiturates for a patient but instead of 2.5ml I wrote 25ml and it killed him.’
An outbreak of syphilis is threatening to shut down the porn industry in America. They tried to stop the outbreak but unfortunately every time someone in a nurse uniform showed up, they’d strip and join in the scene. The medical authorities are hoping to find the porn star who’s spreading it, so they can tell her step-father he’s the source.
An Indian company launched a cream that claims to make a woman feel like a virgin. I’ve tried it, and it really does tighten vaginas – I slipped a little into Robbie Savage’s drink, and he immediately refused to get the next round in. It’s clearly more about that stupid male thing of wanting to pretend you’re a girl’s first partner. I’d the same silly feeling when I met mine, but it was never going to happen. Not after I pulled that number 19 ticket from the tombola. It took the enjoyment right out of things, not least as I couldn’t stop worrying if I’d put enough money in the parking meter.
Two-for-one deals on cosmetic surgery could soon be banned. This would be bad news, particularly for women who can only afford to get one tit done. The government wants to put a stop to deals that encourage women to go under the knife for cosmetic reasons, as opposed to them doing it for peace in the Middle East.
Health chiefs have ordered a major crackdown on cowboy plastic surgeons. So this is why Amanda Holden always looks like she’s crying – her surgeon’s got the dosage wrong and the Botox is overflowing out of her head like someone’s left a tap on. It seems pretty much anyone can do these fillers without qualifications – and an enthusiastic butcher doing it would certainly explain why Donatella Versace looks like something out of The Lord of the Rings having a dump. I’m not sure she even got as far as a cowboy cosmetic surgeon – it looks more like she’s gone to a shoddy mechanic who’s filled her with newspaper and given her a re-spray. Still, men shouldn’t judge women by how they look. Let’s leave that job to other women. I’d never have some op to make me feel better about my body. Not when I can achieve the same for just the cost of a return ticket to Coatbridge.
Women who have massive boob jobs are just divorcing themselves from real life; having them removed will be like coming down from ecstasy to find yourself living alone in a slaughterhouse. Dr Andrew Jones of Nuffield Health clinics has asked all bust-enlargement patients to send him photographs of the work they’ve had done. At least, his Facebook page says he runs a clinic. The head of British Association of Aesthetic and Plastic Surgeons is contradicting the government’s findings. I know who I want to believe – the man from the organisation called BAAPS.
It’s a sinister story. All the perpetrators are rich men, all the victims women who will now have to have their breasts cut open. It’s like a Europe-wide Jack the Ripper flashmob. Ironically, the last time Britain was full of women with their breasts bandaged up they were disguising themselves as men to get into universities. How time moves on.
The NHS has also been told to spend less on tattoo removal. Please not before I talk my girlfriend into having hers done – she has lines radiating upwards from the buttocks, in the style of a shotput field, with points marked at varying distances, a man’s name written alongside each.
Experts say that taking sleeping pills makes it five times more likely you’ll die young. Indeed, the report says many users of heavy sedatives won’t reach old age. To be honest, up here in Glasgow a lot of them will be lucky to reach the weekend. Taking a high dose dramatically increases your chance of getting cancer. There you go insomniacs – something to think about while you’re trying to drop off tonight. Do go to sleep, though, because lack of sleep has been linked to heart attacks. Just go to sleep.