SAUCY chef Nigella Lawson said this week that she’d become so happily de-socialised during lockdown that she was going on a 5:2 people diet: going out for lunch just twice a week and sitting in the hoose in her pants eating chocolate the other five days

As someone who only goes out for lunch twice a decade, at first I thought this risible, but then I thought that at least it was a start, and that it showed a new and attractive side to this arguably over-egged celebrity.

Indeed, wasn’t she once married to a bloke who ate nothing but eggs? Did the courts not grant a divorce on account of his “egregious and unreasonable farting”?

Perhaps my memory plays me false. I also seem to remember her dad, Nigel Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, writing recently that he was an introvert who hated noise. Sounds like my kind of guy. I’m sure we could get on well together over a pint, and he’d be paying, the posh Tory.

Back to Nigella’s new-found lonerism, and other burdz piled in agreeing with her, saying they too were “going feral” and becoming a-social.

I have words of encouragement and warning about this. In general, I believe that, if you don’t get involved with the world, the world won’t get involved with you. That’s what you want: keep the bugger at arms’ length.

The world is like one of those people who seem attractive and interesting on the outside, but who deep-down are toxic and harmful.

My advice? Don’t go out. Don’t touch anything. You say: “What about going for a walk?” Well, I’m even ambivalent about that now too.

I walk in the forest near ma hoose and, twice this week, I’ve found afterwards these ticks that can give you Lyme Disease (don’t worry, I’m fine; oh, you weren’t worrying?), one burrowing head-first into my thigh and one going into my stomach. It’s disgraceful.

But that’s the world: out to get you at every turn. Your only hope is to avoid it. People, animals, insects. Give them a wide berth. Be polite to them (apart from the insects: crush them all) but do not engage. It always leads to trouble.

I speak half in jest, of course. Regular readers know not to believe a word I say, apart from “the” and, approached cautiously, “mellifluously” and, for the foreign-minded among you, “chiaroscuro”.

The world, alas, cannot be avoided. We need it to deliver things. To make things that we cannot. To kill things for food that we cannot.

It has its uses. It’s a pain in the neck, butt and tonsils. But it’s also a cure. It’s all a big joke and, if you’ve any issue with it, take it up with Jehovah the Merciless, the cold and calculating sadist behind it all.

I’d like to poke him in the eye if I could get a hold of Him. But He’d probably just dematerialise Himself, reappear behind me and boot me up the bahookie. Wee swine that He is.

As for lunch, I seem to recall it’s usually an ordeal but can sometimes be pleasant if you put away enough flagons of ale without vomiting over anyone.

Avoid anywhere with waiters: they are rude and often sarcastic, particularly when you ask for broon sauce for your salad. Indeed, my favourite lunch venue is my car, where I like to eat supermarket sandwiches and get my shirt all messy from sticking my face directly into a carton of peeled fruit in juice that didn’t come with a plastic fork.

In the meantime, we wish Nigella well with her newfound sociophobia. Don’t become a recluse, sweetheart. You’ll end up talking to yourself and writing magazine articles.

Stay alert. Always carry your own bottle of broon sauce. As Debrett’s advises, don’t try eating with a mask on. Don’t have the eggs. Remember to spray your guest with disinfectant. Try to get a few pints down your neck. Vomit accurately.

Air heads

I WILL be quite candid with you here and confess that I have never inhaled anything from a balloon. Indeed, call me an old spoilsport, but I tend to eschew balloons in my daily life. I cannot see the point of them.

Accordingly, I’ve been bemused by frequent pictures of young persons at raves and suchlike, inhaling something from a balloon that gets you high. Is it cannabis? LSD?

Whatever, it’s the new fashion accessory. I know little about drugs these days. Of course, I smoked LSD or something when a student, but I only did it to appear popular and handsome (it worked!).

Later, I lived in areas that were supposedly drug hotspots and never noticed a thing.

Once, a newspaper sent me to that awful pop festival that used to happen in Fife every year, and the attending louts and misfits started to form a lynch mob under the impression that I was an undercover cop from the drugs squad (in retrospect, I think the necktie and baton were mistakes).

In the meantime, I do wish that, for the good of their health, young people would stick to wholesome beer and whisky.

It’s life, gym

THE nations were discombobulated to see their overall leader, Boris the Builder, doing press-ups this week.

Mr Johnson’s idea was to prove he wasn’t ailing, post-covid, but was “as fit as a butcher’s dog”. Wot, he’s living off offal and scrag-ends? No wonder he looks ill.

Meanwhile, the village gym hereabouts is planning to re-open on August 10, using a booking system and restricting numbers.

It would be better if they restricted young men. Everybody will have encountered specimens from that worst of all demographics breenging aboot the supermarket, as if to say: “Look at me, I’m right hard. No’ feart o’ a wee virus.”

This is incorrect. You are an irresponsible, hormonally saturated pillock who, even in normal times, shouldn’t be allowed to vote, drive or drink. Under the New Normal, similar restrictions should apply at the gym.

Baldies should also be prevented from attending. Hormonal deviation means they’re always grunting, sweating profusely, and hogging the same machine for ages because they’re too bovine to feel boredom.

Personally, I’m looking forward to a new era of prejudice and discrimination. It’s the only thing that’s kept me going in recent months.

Behave yourself

I’M a stickler for good manners, but all I mean by this is common decency, not rules about cutlery and nose-picking.

Accordingly, I’ve never approved of Debrett’s, not just because I’m prejudiced against the upper classes, but because it’s rude to tell people what they ought and ought not to do (see earlier). Accordingly, Debrett’s ought to shut up.

At any rate, my attention has been drawn – how I used to love when newspaper letter-writers deployed that beautifully pompous phrase with its implications of underlings having to peruse publications the writer himself would never stoop to reading – to an item highlighting a forthcoming volume called Debrett’s Guide to Hosting & Entertaining.

As I won’t be indulging in either of these satanic activities, I feel it only fair that this book should be burned. Apparently, it’s full of bilge about smiling with your eyes while masked and replacing your best china with paper plates.

Even in the unlikely event of my holding a party, the only restrictions would be having to drink your Tennent’s from a tin rather than a pint glass and that your mask should be tight enough to stop you talking.

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