Dawn

Dawn

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Several years ago – inspired by the latest diet of my then visiting sister – I wrote here that I was having difficulty in finishing a book I was writing. I had the title - The secret to losing weight: Eat less and Exercise More – but I couldn't think of what else to write in the body of the book. So I was pleased to see the Sunday Times catching up with me yesterday. The paper claimed someone had reviewed each and every diet of the last X years and come up with the only prescription known to work – Eat less and exercise more. Sadly, it doesn't look as though I'll be making any money from my prescience.

Talking of diets . . . The author of this article says he was surprised to learn that Spanish kids are the third fattest in Europe. So am I; I thought they were number 2, after Malta at number 1.

Well, the indicted nun may have died and the subject may largely have disappeared from the Spanish media but the case of the stolen-for-sale babies has reached the British press at last. This, of course, is because one of the cheated mothers is British. And, more than twenty years on, she's seeking to find the daughter she'd been told was dead. But not getting much help from the Spanish authorities, she says. Which is not awfully surprising, given the scandalous nature of this Franco-inspired crime.

Here in Britain we have the scandal of Mr Huhne and his ex-wife, Ms Pryce. Mr Huhne was a senior cabinet minister in the current government before Ms Pryce decided to end both of their careers and destroy the family by revealing that he'd “perverted the course of justice” by getting her to confess to a motoring offence he'd committed. Her motivation was revenge but the upshot is that both of these two allegedly brilliant people today started 8 month prison sentences. And the moral of this Shakespearean tale? As someone once said “If you seek revenge, dig two graves. One for yourself.”

Finally . . . Today was a day of roads. Driving through a village I'd not visited for a while, I saw the name Orchard Road on a wall and went cold. This was where I used to be taken to the dentist at the time when British teeth were not reared on fluoride and there was no anaesthetic when you had fillings. Seeing the nameplate prompted the memory that I had always complained that the dentist seemed to be the only person who never had a day off work. Whenever we went, he was there. The sadistic bastard. The second road was Trafalgar Road, which I discovered was were my father was born in 1922. So my Spanish connection goes way back. There was a third road but I've forgotten what it was.

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