My trip to the important ZANE meeting in London was a success and I will report the implications in another blog at another time. Poor Jane and Moses were obliged to continue to walk through lovely country in slanting rain and mist. We spend the night with a friend I have not see since my time in the army half a lifetime ago. Most generous hosts so a joyous evening full of gossip and laughter.
The Wisdom of Moses
One of the many joys of this walk is Moses, our two year old “cockerpoo”, our third dog to accompany Jane and I as we totter around the UK. The previous couple of dogs were Staffies; although Jane and I loved them dearly they were not everyone’s favourite. Particularly Dinah, who although she looked as if Almighty had bestowed special favour in her in terms of her shape and her colour, she was as sharp as she was beautiful. She was run over near our house and it was all my fault. Soft old thing that I am I water up still when I think of her death.
What massively irritates me about Moses is that he regards me as a wholly dispensable
add-on in his doggy life, perhaps good for a walk or two , and an occasional pat… but he loves Jane to an obsessive degree. When I arrive home and Jane is not with me he rushes over, then stands forlornly searching for Jane. Then when her absence is obvious her slinks away giving me reproachful looks over his shoulder for not being his pride and joy!
Shedding the Pounds
Read any of the papers or glossies and you will be overwhelmed by the vast number of weird diet choices offered to a confused and desperately overweight public. They are all based on the proposition that if you follow this or that diet, or use this or that device, you will end up slim, happy and looking like the slender, sun-kissed model on show in the ad.
The latest enticement that caught my eye came from a very attractive and clearly up-market girl holding a 10-inch Perspex pipe and with a large carrot stuck in her mouth. No reader, it was not a sex invitation or one of Trump’s playmates on the pull, but she was selling a device that incredibly purported to remove fat from food. I am convinced that this is yet another confidence trick cruelly pulled by a dewy eyed, slim, privately educated posh girl seeking to make a fortune by persuading sad shop girls who gorge on sugary food, factory pies, McDonalds and fizzy drinks that – at not inconsiderable cost – if they follow the diet and buy the plastic device, they will end up looking just like Keira Knightley.
When – after losing half their body weight – these girls remain skinny versions of who they were before (and very definitely do not morph into Ms Knightley), reality dawns: they are still plain and poor. The misery backlash more or less guarantees they will end up gorging on junk food from sheer desperation and ending up the same size they were before they started – or possibly a few sizes larger. Then the cycle starts all over again.
The Benyon Regime
For free, I offer donors the Benyon diet plan, guaranteed to keep anyone slim and reasonably fit!
Don’t eat anything out of packet, and don’t eat in front of a screen – unless you are watching your favourite soap (and then only indulge yourself once a week). Don’t drink more than one pint of beer in the pub in an evening, and don’t drink port or any brightly coloured, sweet, fizzy fluid. Never eat while standing up and please don’t scoff hamburgers on public transport or in the street. Always use cutlery and don’t munch anything out of a box. Avoid eating anything delivered to your door by a man on a motorbike – and the same goes for food passed through your car window.
Don’t eat anything your dog would ignore. Don’t eat anything you “can’t resist” because you must; and don’t eat “because a little bit of what you fancy does you good” – because it doesn’t. There’s no point in eating food just because you saw it advertised on TV, particularly if it says it’s low in calories (it’s surely a lie). Never eat because you are bored or depressed.
And, last but not least, don’t eat anything your granny wouldn’t have recognised as food.