RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Life’s too short for healthy eating

And the award for stating the bleedin’ obvious goes to Public Health England, which today unveils a new TV advert warning that smoking cigarettes gives you cancer.

Well, knock me dahn wiv a fevver, Clever Trevor. Who knew?

The first time I stumbled across Public Health England (PHE) was when they published a fatuous guide called ‘Heatwave 2014’.

It advised: ‘As a result of climate change we are increasingly likely to experience summer temperatures that may be harmful to health.

‘If you have to go out, walk in the shade, apply sunscreen and wear a hat and light scarf.

‘Eat cold foods, particularly salads. Take a cool shower, bath or body wash. Sprinkle water over the skin or clothing or keep a damp cloth on the back of your neck.’

As if this wasn’t sufficiently insulting to our intelligence, PHE also told us: ‘Close curtains that receive morning and afternoon sun. However, care should be taken with metal blinds and dark curtains, as these can absorb heat. Consider replacing or putting reflective material in between them and the window space.’

I observed at the time that covering your windows with Bacofoil is the kind of madness we associate with paranoid lunatics convinced that they are being targeted by invisible death rays from alien space ships.

This is all part of PHE’s anti-obesity strategy, which includes badgering confectionery companies to cut the size of chocolate bars and urging restaurants and coffee bars to slash portion sizes

Under normal circumstances it would be grounds to get someone sectioned under the Mental Health Act. Now, it’s official government policy. The guidelines were cut and pasted by local council ‘safeguarding’ teams and distributed to every home in the land.

Goodness knows how much all this drivel cost. But Public Health England controls a budget of around £3.5 billion, so it won’t have come cheap.

For all the constant bleating about ‘austerity’ and the ‘savage cuts’, PHE doesn’t seem to be short of a shilling. It employs 5,500 people and they all have to be kept busy somehow.

This week it emerged they now think we should limit our three main meals to just 1,600 calories a day.

If prisoners were restricted to that amount, the usual suspects would be screaming about starvation rations. It’s barely enough to feed a budgie, let alone a strapping chap with a healthy appetite.

This is all part of PHE’s anti-obesity strategy, which includes badgering confectionery companies to cut the size of chocolate bars and urging restaurants and coffee bars to slash portion sizes.

Minimum prices for alcohol and a ‘sugar tax’ are also in the pipeline as the Government aims to tackle the explosion in weight-related illnesses. All these measures will have a disproportionate impact on the less well-off and could put some manufacturers out of business.

But rather than target the morbidly obese when they waddle into their doctor’s surgery, because that would be ‘judgmental’, we all have to be subjected to impertinent lectures.

How much porridge we eat for breakfast is none of the Government’s business. Nor do we need to be told that we should eat skinless salmon fillets for dinner rather than steak and kidney pud.

We’ve got far too many interfering quangos, poking their noses into our lives on the pretext that they are saving us from ourselves. We could cut the deficit at a stroke if all of them were shut down tomorrow. Most of them are worse than useless. In 2015, Public Health England ordered supermarkets to stop selling bunches of daffodils alongside fruit and veg.

This ridiculous edict came about because one family in Bristol, whose first language is not English, became ill after eating daffodils, which they confused for Chinese spring onions.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Nothing a bottle of Milk of Magnesia wouldn’t sort out.

Anyway, I caught five minutes of MasterChef by mistake the other night and it seems edible flowers are all the rage these days.

So why the hell did PHE think this isolated incident of daffodil-induced diarrhoea gave them the divine right to tell supermarkets how to display their produce? It’s not as if they’ve got a great track record. A couple of years ago they blew £100 million on a flu vaccine which was only effective in three per cent of cases.

Why do we even need Public Health England and its equivalents in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales? We’ve already got the NHS. Why are we spending £3.5 billion employing 5,500 staff to treat us like idiots?

Admittedly, obesity is a problem. But no one’s going to take any notice of these so-called healthy eating guidelines, any more than we do of the arbitrary number of alcohol ‘units’ we are not supposed to exceed. Especially at Christmas, for goodness sake.

Life’s too short to measure out exactly ten almonds or try to guess how many boiled spuds add up to 180g. Have you any idea what 33g of bread looks like? Me neither.

Fat people know they eat too much. They don’t need patronising menu plans or free gym memberships on the NHS, which is the latest madcap scheme. They just need the willpower to stop stuffing their faces with junk food.

Surely it would be far more effective to make them pay for their self-inflicted, obesity-related treatments, such as gastric bands and the like.

That might force them to think twice about ordering a second deep-fried pizza, washed down with a gallon of sugary pop. If not, it’s their funeral.

Let them smoke daffodils.]

Kiss me goodnight Sergeant Major…

The Army is introducing a new gender-free vocabulary designed to be more friendly to women, gays and transsexuals.

Out go ‘mankind’, ‘sportsmanship’ and ‘gentleman’s agreement’.

The heart sinks. Why would women, gays and trans- sexuals object to any of those expressions?

What’s especially depressing is that the Army brass have gone along meekly with this nonsense. Heaven help us if we ever have to fight another proper war. How long before our soldiers have to march into battle carrying a rainbow flag?

Elsewhere, Network Rail have stopped their maintenance crews calling themselves the ‘Orange Army’, after the colour of their hi-viz jackets.

I naturally assumed this was a sop to Sinn Fein. But no, it’s nothing to do with Northern Ireland. It’s because rail chiefs think women will be put off joining anything called an ‘army’.

What, you mean like women don’t join the Salvation Army? Or the Army, for that matter? Which is where we came in.

It’s only a matter of time before the word ‘man’ is made illegal altogether. I’m sitting here coughing my Christmas cold into a box of tissues, labelled ‘Man Size’.

My wife bought them to stop me using up all her kitchen roll. Hurry, hurry, while stocks last.

This time next year, anyone asking for ‘Man Size’ tissues will be arrested for a hate crime.

Detective Superintendent Sean Memory

Here’s another one I don’t know whether to file under Mind How You Go or You Couldn’t Make It Up.

The copper at the centre of the Grocer Heath historic sex crimes fiasco is retiring on a full pension for ‘medical reasons’.

Detective Superintendent Sean Memory is the senior officer who was filmed outside Heath’s house in Wiltshire appealing for ‘victims’ of the former Prime Minister to come forward.

The £1.5 million, two-year inquiry was a complete waste of time and money and attracted fierce criticism. Supt Memory was signed off sick last January, suffering from stress.

It has now been revealed that he is retiring before the conclusion of a misconduct investigation into allegations that he had an ‘inappropriate’ relationship with a woman involved in a separate case.

Is it too much to hope that Wiltshire police will stage a press conference outside Supt Memory’s home, appealing for his other ‘victims’ to come forward?

A Polish sailor and his cat have been rescued off East Africa after claiming to have been adrift at sea for seven months.

Their pea-green boat was found to contain some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note. They had been hoping to sail away for a year and a day, but suffered engine failure.

Both man and cat were taken ashore, where they dined on mince and slices of quince.

A third member of the crew, an owl, was still missing last night. 

Both man and cat were taken ashore, where they dined on mince and slices of quince. A third member of the crew, an owl, was still missing last night

This is my last column of 2017, so let me thank you for your letters, emails and invaluable contributions, particularly to Mind How You Go, You Couldn’t Make It Up and Here We Go Looby Loo.

I’ve said it before, but this column really wouldn’t be the same without you. Happy New Year.