Xmas comes early

Scientists hail the polymeal: the recipe for a long and healthy life. I love it. Turns out a lot of my favourite foods are going to prolong my life. I need no longer feel guilt every time I scarf down a bar of choc. Lindt heaven awaits.

Almonds are good, too. I sit in the evening eating medjool dates and drinking red wine as it is; now I can add almonds to the pleasure.

We were talking about how Christmas cake contains key ingredients: fruit, almonds (marzipan), and it put me in mind of my gran, who once made a cake decorated with whole hazelnuts. As we were all eating it, she explained that she'd got the hazelnuts from a bar of Cadbury's Whole Nut. She'd sucked off the chocolate as she didn't like nuts... thought she'd use them to decorate the cake. Picture a room filled with people pausing in the motion of bringing the cake up to their mouths.

It was that kind of ingenuity won us the war.