So apparently I'm eating too much saturated fat, as are 75% of us. This means I am, apparently, driving headlong to an early grave, which will somehow be prevented if I skip my lunchtime cheese-and-pickle sandwich.
This staggering fact is behind the latest Nanny campaign to make us eat less cheese and butter, eat leaner meat and so on. Apparently these changes will result in around 3500 fewer deaths per year.
Or, in other words, 3500 more miserable people, eschewing any enjoyment of their sustenance in favour of a few more years of a joyless existence.
But if you listen to the words of Nanny, you won't eat red meat, drink alcohol, have butter on your bread (actually, you won't have bread as it's starchy), won't have a dessert, won't have a cigar to celebrate your child's birth. No salt on your food, no sugar in your tea - and $DEITY help you if you use sweeteners instead, they'll give you Cancer. No port with the cheeseboard - no cheeseboard unless it's low-fat cottage cheese. You going to eat that Big Mac? Tut tut.
You won't ever drive fast, take your children sledging, eat that second helping, have a Sunday roast, have a second pint, have a one-night-stand, go out in the sun, ride a motorcycle, try a recreational drug, play rugby, enjoy a good single malt, do anything Nanny deems silly, high-risk, dangerous or hazardous to health.
No fun. No joy. No experiences. NO LIFE.
It's life. Our life. We only get one of them, and it's too short not to enjoy it.
Do these people seriously believe that death can be somehow abolished if we all eat nothing but curly Kale? Will I be immortal if I get my 5-a day? Does longevity count for all, no matter what pleasures are foregone in the pursuit of those elusive few extra years? Should I enclose myself in a hermetically-sealed oxygen tent in the vain hope that pure air will see me to a ripe old age?
I think not.
Leaving aside the additional drain we're told an aging population puts upon the pension and healthcare systems, a life lived without experience, joy and pleasure is not a life lived. It is a life wasted.
I would sooner die at 50, having filled every minute of every hour of every day with good food, good experiences and a good life, than die at 100 having missed out on everything this world has to offer.
I will eat what I wish to eat, when I wish to eat it. If I fancy an occasional smoke, I will do so. If I want to do a parachute jump, or ride my motorbike in the rain, or eat deep-fried Camembert, or get smashed on Scotch, you know what? I'm going to do it. And you can bet I'll do anything else that's interesting, fun and enjoyable.
So Nanny - thank you for your opinions, your chiding television advertisements, the constant reporting from the sandalistas at Pravda. But I, and most right-thinking people, don't need the enjoyment of our lives intruded on by your constant, hectoring simper. I'm a big boy, thank you, and I can (and will) make my own decisions about how to live my life.
And Nanny? Trust me on this. You may outlast me - but you won't have outlived me.
This staggering fact is behind the latest Nanny campaign to make us eat less cheese and butter, eat leaner meat and so on. Apparently these changes will result in around 3500 fewer deaths per year.
Or, in other words, 3500 more miserable people, eschewing any enjoyment of their sustenance in favour of a few more years of a joyless existence.
But if you listen to the words of Nanny, you won't eat red meat, drink alcohol, have butter on your bread (actually, you won't have bread as it's starchy), won't have a dessert, won't have a cigar to celebrate your child's birth. No salt on your food, no sugar in your tea - and $DEITY help you if you use sweeteners instead, they'll give you Cancer. No port with the cheeseboard - no cheeseboard unless it's low-fat cottage cheese. You going to eat that Big Mac? Tut tut.
You won't ever drive fast, take your children sledging, eat that second helping, have a Sunday roast, have a second pint, have a one-night-stand, go out in the sun, ride a motorcycle, try a recreational drug, play rugby, enjoy a good single malt, do anything Nanny deems silly, high-risk, dangerous or hazardous to health.
No fun. No joy. No experiences. NO LIFE.
It's life. Our life. We only get one of them, and it's too short not to enjoy it.
Do these people seriously believe that death can be somehow abolished if we all eat nothing but curly Kale? Will I be immortal if I get my 5-a day? Does longevity count for all, no matter what pleasures are foregone in the pursuit of those elusive few extra years? Should I enclose myself in a hermetically-sealed oxygen tent in the vain hope that pure air will see me to a ripe old age?
I think not.
Leaving aside the additional drain we're told an aging population puts upon the pension and healthcare systems, a life lived without experience, joy and pleasure is not a life lived. It is a life wasted.
I would sooner die at 50, having filled every minute of every hour of every day with good food, good experiences and a good life, than die at 100 having missed out on everything this world has to offer.
I will eat what I wish to eat, when I wish to eat it. If I fancy an occasional smoke, I will do so. If I want to do a parachute jump, or ride my motorbike in the rain, or eat deep-fried Camembert, or get smashed on Scotch, you know what? I'm going to do it. And you can bet I'll do anything else that's interesting, fun and enjoyable.
So Nanny - thank you for your opinions, your chiding television advertisements, the constant reporting from the sandalistas at Pravda. But I, and most right-thinking people, don't need the enjoyment of our lives intruded on by your constant, hectoring simper. I'm a big boy, thank you, and I can (and will) make my own decisions about how to live my life.
And Nanny? Trust me on this. You may outlast me - but you won't have outlived me.
7 comments:
When they start banning dairy products and sugar, get back to me. So long as they're telling the truth, I have no problems with hearing it and making my own judgement.
Cigarettes and driving fast are different issues, as I'm sure you know. The message of 'please don't kill those around you' is not the voice of an overprotective nanny. You want to have a cigar in a maternity ward? I want to tell you where you can stick it.
I'm beginning to think that the Esat germans must be beginning to regret knocking that big wall down.
Now we know where the Stasi buggered of to...Westminster.
Fommandian: "You want to have a cigar in a maternity ward? I want to tell you where you can stick it."
Now that's just being a tad disingenuous, don't you think? Besides you are no more likely to get cancer from second hand smoke than you would diarrhoea from someone's fart.
Henry Crun: "Besides you are no more likely to get cancer from second hand smoke than you would diarrhoea from someone's fart."
Tell that to Roy Castle, the medical establishment & common sense.
And your rapier like wit is amusing as always Dungeekin - but there's a massive (in all senses) slice of society who are seemingly incapable/unwilling to manage their own lives and getting their balances so wrong it's costing us (as tax payers) a fortune and making our economy lame in the process. Should the Govt. stand by as the saturated fats and processed sugars do indeed "do for the country"?
Keep up the commentary - but hope you don't mind the odd push back when maybe you get a little too Jeremy "all's OK in my short term world so f*ck the rest of you" Clarkson on us.
:)
Alex
Your comments are, as ever, appreciated and welcomed. And will always be so.
And comparing my attitude to that of Clarkson? I'm grateful and flattered. Long may my attitude ever remain thus.
Thanks for reading
D
Henry: Maybe you're right, I was forcing together the concepts of 'cancer' and 'babies' to make a point. That seems to be what this blog does. For example, the whole article above.
The truth behind what I was saying is: There is no harm in being informed of a risk, and if you choose to take that risk anyway, be mindful of others. Is that really so bad?
Alex: "Tell that to Roy Castle, the medical establishment & common sense."
Would this be the same medical establishment that tells us how much to drink, what to eat, what not to eat and falsifies data relating to the after effects of MMR vaccinations?
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