my face, by Howard Hodgkin

My face has flared up again and I'm back on 87 antibiotics a minute. I look like a Howard Hodgkin painting gone wrong.

From now on, I intend to wear a veil or a paper bag over my head in public.

After a week of four elephantine antibiotic pills a day, and lashings of steroid cream, my face no longer resembles a cherry cake.

my face

I'm in hiding. I went swimming on Friday and now I look like something from Dr Who. Apparently, even private gym pools have bacteria which like nothing better than savaging your face with their ghastly fangs. I now have to daub steroid cream on my cheeks and pop four huge blue antibiotic pills a day. Each pill is the size of a grown Dachsund. My doctor says it's 'on the creep' but we'll hopefully have it in check by the end of the week.

I've just had a check-up at Harefield, almost three years after my op, and they told me my heart's 'in very good nick' (a medical term I believe). I even watched my new aortic valve opening and closing like a small door on the echo scan.

My brain's fine too, three years after my neurological drama. My sense of balance is still pretty terrible and I'd still look drunk if I didn't take extra care while walking. But there are worse things to worry about in life than being a bit wobbly.

The sporadic attacks of double vision are still happening and I had a scary one yesterday morning for a couple of hours. It didn't even get better after I had a sleep. Double vision is completely nightmarish. You open your eyes and see two versions of everything, wobbling vaguely in a sort of amorphous jelly. You just can't control it. Your brain's on the blink. The whole world's gone very wobbly and distant. You feel totally removed from reality, as if you're retreating into some kind of weird coma. And you can't help morbidly thinking this is what it all comes to in the end. Just fading away.

But I was seeing normally again by lunchtime. Hurrah.

My friends were fantastic and kept texting and phoning to see how I was. Thank you. I'm fine again now, apart from the odd fairy light flashing on the edge of my vision, but I've been told to lie low for a day or two.

I have a sore tooth and - because of my peculiar heart which is prone to wibblings and is easily influenced by my other parts - they've put me on antibiotic pills the size of sausages.

They've also booked me in to have the tooth removed in hospital next week. Just as well it's next week, as I'm doing a corporate voiceover this week and don't want to sound like a deranged person with random dentures.

I'll keep you posted on this exciting pre-Christmas drama.

I blame M&S. They started it with 'This is not just a carrot. It's an M&S Distressed Albanian Carrot from Tirana, smothered in richest Tashkent Gravy'.

Now Waitrose and Sainsbury's are at it. Even Asda, where the poor people shop. The latest outrage is the Sainsbury's Christmas Tart, hand-crafted by Scottish peasants in Ecclefechan. Ecclefechan? Ecclefechan?

Ecclefechan has haunted me for days, so I decided to research it this morning.

According to my Scotland guidebook - 'Ecclefechan has a slight feel of somewhere rather left behind by history, bypassed by both the A74 and the M74. Local people call it 'Fechan'.'

Robert Burns visited Ecclefechan once. 'I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked little village. In fact, I have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, to forget the miseries, or to hang myself.'

But Burns was inspired to write 'The Lass O Ecclefechan' -

Gat ye me, O, gat ye me,
Gat ye me wi' naething?
Rock an' reel, an' spinning wheel,
A mickle quarter basin:
Bye attour, my gutcher has
A heich house and a laich ane,
A' forbye my bonie sel,
The toss o' Ecclefechan!

It doesn't even make sense when you translate it into English.

Got you me! O, got you me!
Got you me with nothing?
Bobbin and reel! And spinning wheel!
A big quarter basin!
Moreover, my grandfather has
A high house and a low one.
All besides my lovely self,
The toast of Ecclefechan!

Other literary trivia? The writer Thomas Carlyle was born in Ecclefechan but sensibly left when he was 13.

Just when I was losing the will to live, I stumbled on a relevant fact. According to my guidebook - Ecclefechan is famous for an 'old Scottish tart, earning well in the market place.' I wish her well.

In fact it really is a tart. A bit like a cross between a mince pie and pecan pie. And apparently utterly delicious. I'm off to Sainsbury's to buy one and will review it at some point soon.

There's been outrage this week in Daily Mail circles at the trivial reasons people are giving to claim incapacity benefit. Over 8000 Brits apparently stay off work because of dizziness! The bounders!! How very dare they???

Well, I suffer from chronic dizziness - caused by cerebellar infarcts - and it's no joke. OK - I'm not in pain or anything and I'm thankful for that. But it is an effort to walk in a straight line, so a long walk's pretty exhausting. Imagine feeling extremely drunk all the time, even when you're sober. Imagine having vision like a wobbly amateur video film.

I fell over at the gym the other day. And I lurched sideways and fell over on the stairs at Chatham House last week when I was with someone important. Two years ago, the dizziness was so bad I had to use a stick.

Yes - I go to work and I'm learning to use my eyes to compensate. But I have every sympathy for people who feel just too dizzy to cope. I have less sympathy for the wobbly values of tabloid hacks.

I had a terrible crisis last night. I accidentally put a pot of fresh basil in the fridge and it died. This meant I had to eat my Waitrose vine tomatoes without basil, which no human being should have to do.

Basil is wondrous. The French call it the royal herb. Some Africans believe it protects you against scorpions. Greek Orthodox churches use it in holy water and around altars (according to tradition, basil was found outside Christ's tomb). And in India, basil leaves are placed in the mouths of the dead to ensure a safe journey into the afterlife.

Basil Fawlty

Basil Rathbone

St Basil the Great

Basil Brush

By the way, if you're American, please pronounce 'basil' as 'basil' and not 'bayzel', and 'herb' as 'herb' and not 'urb'. It has an 'h'. Haven't you noticed??? Haven't you?????

While I'm on this subject...

If you're British, please note - 'h' is pronounced 'aitch' and not, I repeat not, 'haitch'. You drop the 'h' in 'h'.

As for 'historic' - where you traditionally drop the 'h' - tricky one. I prefer 'an istoric' to 'a historic' but I think it's now up for grabs. I noticed the BBC used both on Monday.

I also prefer 'an otel' to 'a hotel', but I guess that's a bit old-fashioned.

But 'urbs' - no. This is wrong and deeply evil.

A happy ending to the washing machine saga, which I'm sure you'll agree has been gripping beyond belief.

It's all plumbed in and working, thanks to Pete - my only practical friend.

The house is now like an inner-city laundrette as I catch up on a month's washing. I've stocked up on Comfort Vaporesse and am looking forward to a glamorous evening's ironing.

Dr Gillian McKeith

I'm watching her on TV as I write. She's currently showing her sobbing victim a choc-ice in the shape of a coffin. She's the undead. She looks like a celery stick gone wrong. She ought to be locked in a MacDonalds, force-fed with burgers, impaled on a gherkin and then squashed to death by happy fat people - live on Channel 4.

My neurologist has discharged me. Good feeling. It's nice when doctors tell you to push off.

Cawthorne Cooksey sounds like a village in the Cotswolds, but it is in fact a type of exercise to help stop dizziness.

As you may know, my brain decided to switch off its mission control for balance last year (cerebellar infarcts affecting my vestibular system - to use the proper terminology) so my eyes do nearly all the work when it comes to keeping upright. As soon as I shut them, I'm swimming around in zero gravity and tend to fall over.

What I now have to do, using my Cawthorne Cookseys, is force the symptoms by standing and moving in ways which challenge my balance, and that's supposed to help my brain adapt and get its act together again. It does seem to be working, if a bit slowly, so I'd highly recommend the technique.

I now have a stash of zinc tablets in the kitchen drawer. I had a very nasty mouth ulcer recently and was referred to a consultant. He said I possibly had zinc deficiency. And, since taking the tablets, I've had no ulcers at all.

I bought some Activia yogurt the other day. Apparently, it contains friendly bacteria which boost your 'intestinal transit time'.

I thought this was a good idea, as I'm into healthy eating, even though I loathe Dr Gillian McKeith and would happily see her burnt at the stake, made into a Big Mac, and consumed by chavs, accompanied by high-fat chips with lots of salt and e-numbers.

So I had my first Activia yesterday - with Bifidus Digestivum - and it tasted like double cream with sugar in it.

I looked at the ingredients and sugar was third on the list, after yogurt (obviously) and prunes. Perhaps I'm a yogurt snob, but surely the point of yogurt is that it isn't sweet, and that there's a contrast between the yogurt and the fruit or honey you put in it.

Spider's web after it was given LSD

Spider's web after it was given caffeine

I went to Harefield yesterday for a heart check-up and the consultant declared my heart was 'perfect'. I was very pleased, and celebrated by visiting my friend's horse Ding and sitting on him - the first time I've sat on a horse for two years.

I'm now doing a daily physiotherapy exercise to stop the dizziness. This involves standing for a few minutes a day with one foot directly in front of the other, which is easy for most people but makes me wobble like a weeble. This should bombard the braincells and nerve endings in the vestibular part of my brain which has been on strike for a year. And I'll soon be attending a weekly class for dizzy persons.

As for my heart, I'm off to Harefield today for a routine check-up. By the way - 'Transplanting Memories' (Channel 4, Monday 26 June, 10pm) looks rather interesting. It's about heart transplant patients who appear to have inherited memories and tastes from their donors. Presumably this doesn't apply if your donor was a pig.

I found this grape in a Pret fruit salad this week (from the Pret a Manger on Marylebone High Street). Yes - it's half red and half green. I'm very excited about it and I've decided it's a good omen.

Gosh. This time last year, I was being rushed in an ambulance with a flashing blue light to Neurosurgery at the Royal Free Hospital. On arriving at acute observation, I was told I couldn't move, as I'd probably had a brain haemmorhage. I had double vision and had lost my sense of balance. It was one of the scariest days of my life.

Today, I'm sitting at home overlooking the garden on a lovely April morning, listening to a blackbird. After what turned out to be a cerebellar stroke, I still have a rather odd sense of balance, but my health and vision are totally back to normal and I'm just about to go for a walk down the river to the gym.

The moral of the story? Never give up hope. And if you're having a rough time right now, you'll probably look back on it in a year or two and wonder what all the fuss was about. Whatever happens, you will feel better - or at least more philosophical - with time.

Needless to say - carpe diem.

And if it really is looking bleak, you should still commit to being hopeful. As Goethe said: commit to it, and the universe will make it happen.

Me at the gym

My pal Henrietta is new to the curious, verging-on-fictional world of gyms and is mystified by the grunting in the free weights area. This could be explained by the fact that her gym is in Essex. But there may be more to it than that.

I decided to investigate. And, having vehemently denied grunting myself, I realised that I grunt, on average, three times per gym visit - usually while doing the bench press. Genteel, understated grunts, but grunts nevertheless. I was deeply unnerved by the fact that I did it without realising. I also hiss occasionally like a disgruntled cat.

I once went to a gym, in Cambridge of all places, which was full of male-menopausal and frightfully ugly bodybuilders - many with moustaches. They not only grunted but yelled Anglo-Saxon words such as C and MF. These ejaculations always occurred, I noted, when they were lifting, and breathing out.

You should of course always breathe out when you lift. But where do the grunts and C words come from?

Well, I've discovered that there's a natural tendency to hold your breath (the 'Valsalva Effect') to store oxygen when you're facing up to a big task. And the grunting, hissing and yelling is a vocal response to the sudden release of breath after this. Some trainers even believe a good old grunt can help prevent injuries.

But that doesn't solve the problem that it's nearly always men, of a certain age, who emit the most grunts. With my linguistic hat on, I'd say that the grunting is an indirect speech act, stating subtextually: "I'm lifting a very heavy weight, therefore I must logically be a young hunk and not a sad middle-aged Muscle Mary with a chest like Dolly Parton and legs like a budgie."

Peacockshock recommends: Muscle - by Sam Fussell (very funny book about an Oxford graduate seduced by the bizarre world of bodybuilding)

Good news. I'm going to get physiotherapy for the dizziness. The latest theory is that the dizziness was caused not by antibiotics but by my brain, which had cerebellar infarcts last April.

And I've now solved the mystery of the weird 'migraines' I had from 1995-2005. They were probably caused by embolisms from my aortic valve, which was probably wonky for about ten years or more.

Anyway - the main thing is that - apart from the balance probs - I'm now very well.

Someone told me I looked like a vegetarian today. I have no problem with vegetarians. Several of my best friends are of that bent. But I must admit I felt deeply shocked and mildly offended.

My programme about the cultural history of pineapples is going out again on Radio 4, on Boxing Day at 8.45pm.

Thank you to Shani for this very amusing Christmas card. It's by Edward Monkton who has an excellent website full of quirky things.

Man guarding banana

I was very excited to read about a new invention - the Banana Guard.

Here's an excerpt from the useful Banana Guard FAQ section:

Q: Not all bananas are the same size or shape, so how can the Banana Guard fit them all?

A: The Banana Guard was specially designed to accommodate the majority of banana sizes. Our testing indicates that over 90% of commercially available bananas will fit into the Banana Guard. Highly curved bananas can be straightened ever-so-slightly without harm to fit the Banana Guard shape. The opposite holds true of very straight bananas.

Me in Mens Health

A few people have complained that my Health Updates are confusing if you don't know the full story. So here it is, in one go:

I'm perfectly well now and I've been perfectly well throughout my life, apart from over the last year. I've always been a bit of a fitness freak (see pic).

A year ago, I wrecked my hip and glutes, probably on the hip-abductor at the gym, as I was doing maximum weights and hadn't warmed up enough (aka hubris). I ended up being rushed to hospital in an ambulance and was in bed for months.

I recovered after lots of physio and returned to the gym where, to all intents and purposes, I broke my hand and ended up in A&E again.

Then I had a series of cerebellar infarcts (mini-strokes at the back of my brain) which caused double-vision and zero balance. Back to A&E in an ambulance. Admitted to Neurosurgery then Neurology at the Royal Free. Recovered.

Came home. After a month or two, started getting feverish and shaky most days. Rushed to hospital again. Admitted to Harefield with bacterial endocarditis (heart infection - the bacteria had also caused the brain infarcts). Had heart surgery to get a new aortic valve. Spent seven weeks in the QE2 Hospital, having i/v antibiotics once every four hours.

Came home again. Well, but devoid of a sense of balance. Probably caused by the antibiotic gentamicin, which can poison your inner ear. Still have no sense of balance. This may be temporary or permanent. No-one knows.

Apart from the balance thing, I'm 100% fine now. Swimming and going to the gym most days, but avoiding the hip abductor for obvious reasons.

This fascinating history of pineapples has just been published by Chatto and Windus. My pineapple programme's going out again on Radio 4 on Christmas Eve.

I walked all the way to the gym today without my stick. Either my balance has got slightly better, or I've become slightly better at coping with the dizziness.

I'm aching all over today. That's because I went to the gym yesterday, for a sort of rehab personal training session with the excellent Warwick. (Myles has left). I did cross-training, ab crunches on those big ball things, and weights - but only very tiny ones. It was fantastic. I was so excited, I celebrated by buying a pile of cholesterol-lowering yoghurt drinks.

I've got hayfever. In October. It was caused by the new bag of hay I got for the rabbits. Instead of taking it straight out to the shed, I stupidly put it on top of the tumble drier, which warmed it up and raised the pollen count in the kitchen and my nostrils to dangerous levels.

I'm still dizzy, but I swam 20 lengths yesterday and felt fine.

I'm now visiting the exercise bikes at the gym most days. In the programming section, I put my age down as "60" when no-one's looking, then I peddle like an old person with my pulse at 124 bpm. It's very boring, but there are lots of vast widescreen TVs in the bike section, so I sit there watching various friends and acquaintances reading the news with very large wide heads. I know I'll have nightmares about this.

The dizziness is still terrible. Everything wobbles all the time. It's like being trapped in a home video shot by an alcoholic. I fell over backwards yesterday and smashed my favourite lamp. But I'm seeing my GP on Monday, so no doubt all will be well.

Is Cannabis Dangerous?

Hello. I'm back.

I've now been out of hospital for a month and I feel fine, apart from the constant dizziness. But I'm now on a new tablet for that. It's called Stemetil and it prevents balance problems - also psychosis and schizophrenia - so it's quite handy really. Since being discharged, I've visited Cambridge, Exeter, London and Liverpool and made three radio documentaries, which made for a very relaxing convalescence. I'm rejoining the gym in September (swimming and light exercise - no weights) and having several check-ups with consultants.

My sense of balance is still very wonky (except in the editorial sense of course). So I'm still using a walking stick outside the house - partially to avoid falling over, but also to avoid looking paralytic. People tend to be very considerate in Hertford - even in London - but not on the train or tube, where no-one offered me a seat this week. I'm actually considering falling over on purpose and yelling in agony just to shame them. I'm pretty sure it's temporary. And I'm 99% sure it's caused by ototoxicity (poisoning of the inner ear) rather than my brain. Ototoxicity's a well-known side-effect of the antiobiotic gentamicin, which I was on for six weeks during the heart palaver.

Dr Gillian McKeith, relaxing in the green room

I tried to watch Channel 4's You Are What You Eat last night, having never seen it before. But they'd inexplicably replaced it with a horror film, in which a hyperactive Scottish psycopath moved in with a fat person from the West Country and bullied her into eating avocados. The fat person, slightly thinner and with a new hair-do, was then forced to dance around inanely during the credits. It was a bit like Misery with vegetables. I can't think why they scheduled it in a respected healthy-eating slot, normally occupied by the kindly Dr Gillian McKeith.

I'm finally back home, after seven weeks in hospital, and feeling fine. Thanks for all your messages. Most kind.

My hands, typing on my laptop a couple of weeks ago. They look normal again now.

Please do not knock my Peacockshock.
I am not struck with writers' block.

(Nor am I being lazy,
nor indolent, nor hazy)

Please give me not a roasting
For my sorry lack of posting.

There is a reason for the lack
of entries by this careworn hack,

For I did have a little part
Which went berserk inside my heart.

The surgeons put a new one in
And put the old one in the bin.

But hospital is where I stay
To get injected every day

With penicillin, and take pills
To zap the bugs that caused my ills.

It's been four weeks, with two to go.
Then I'll be home with Boll and Flo
(Not forgetting little Mo).

And I will re-start Peacockshock
As I'll no longer be a crock.

Hello. I'm on a quick visit home between injections. Thanks for all the visits, cards and good wishes. More to come from 22nd July when I should be out. Ian :)

I just bought some Brazil nuts. They're very good for you by the way. And I'm 100% sure that my nuts are genuine. Here's what it says on the packet:

Whole Brazil Nuts

Ingredients: Brazil Nuts

This product contains nuts

This product is packed in a factory where nuts are handled

So I guess I'll have to accept that they really are nuts. And so, it seems, are the people who package them.

Voted Top Choice by the Radio Times, the weekend papers, and the Guardian, Times, Telegraph and Independent, my next programme Lady Curzon And A Pineapple (a cultural history of pineapples, producer Caroline Barbour) goes out on BBC Radio 4 at 9.30am on Tuesday 19th April. Here's an excerpt from the Radio Times write-up:

Lady Curzon And A Pineapple - Presenter Ian Peacock explains that the former was the ultimate in upper-class guests, while the latter was an icon of largesse and luxury. Radio 4 at its most eccentric and idiosyncratic: like the fruit it pays homage to, this is gloriously tempting and deliciously sweet.

The programme's only 15 minutes long and features everyone from Lady Lucinda Lambton to 10-year-old Ben, who says his home-grown pineapple is "more than a pet: it's like a brother, almost."

Radio 4

My professional website, including clips from radio progs

Me, indulging in a pineapple feast
in a Lake District cottage

For more, go to www.historicfood.com and scroll down the page.

The 'Dunmore Pineapple' in Scotland
(real pineapple personally placed by me)

Me, recording the programme in an
underwater pineapple-shaped studio

My producer Caroline Barbour

The pineapple programme is delivered to
Radio 4

A Hawaiian listener tunes in to
the pineapple programme

I've just read an excellent new book called The Joy Of Laziness which advocates being lazy to improve your health. I can't be bothered to review it. But I can tell you that it includes this shocking list of the maximum life expectancies of busy and lazy animals:

Busy
worker bee - 6 months
mouse - 4 years
lion - 10 years
polar bear - 10 years

Lazy
cat - 20 years
bat - 30 years
ostrich - 62 years
owl - 68 years
elephant - 70 years
turtle - 150 years

Peacocks can expect to live to the age of 15, which presumably means they're 10 times less lazy than turtles.

Me Leaving Hospital

Hello. Sorry to disappear without trace for two weeks. I was in hospital (Neurology at the QE2 and Royal Free) after having a funny turn. But I'm OK now, though still convalescing. And I'm back home, surrounded by loving pets. Thanks to all my wonderful friends for looking after me so well when I was 'inside'. And thanks for all the nice cards and emails.

Thanks to my recent hip and knee blips, I developed a small (temporary) limp today. I intend to call it a limpet.

This is my hand today: a photo taken on my new Olympus digicam. As you can see, it's a bit swollen and I apologise if it's made you feel sore afraid. Anyway, I hope it goes some way towards explaining why I've been a bit reclusive this week.

I went to the excellent A&E at the QE2 Hospital in Welwyn today and saw a consultant within ten minutes. It turns out I've torn my tendons and haven't actually fractured anything. So I'm using a splint and now look like some kind of robopeacock. It goes very nicely with the occasional hip-induced limp. I'm worried I'll make small children cry next time I hobble out in public. It's like being Camilla Parker Bowles.

it now looks like an elephant's paw. i've just been to the doctor's and i may have fractured or broken it, so i have to have an x-ray. i'm now on an anti-inflammatory pill called volterol (or folderol, as folk singers used to call it). lovely. but there is good news. it's less arctic today and that's nice for the rabbits. they've built nests in their hutch and run. florence seems fine and is ok about taking her antibiotics. moet is currently eating a carrot with quiet enthusiasm. and boll's asleep with a paw in the air. apologies for my ee cummings prose, but i can't be bothered to press the shift key.

i'm writing with my left hand today. that's because i think i've broken my right hand or my wrist. i'm off to see my GP now. what body part will go wrong next i wonder? it's not fair. i'm disintegrating like michael jackson. As Oscar Wilde wrote: "The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. The body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy." i'll keep you posted on this, if my left hand doesn't fall off in the meantime. i guess i could type with my nose though. or my... no. let's stop there.

Being the very "pineapple of politeness" (to quote Sheridan), I feel I ought to inform you that I'm presenting a programme about the secret history and quirky culture of...pineapples. Lady Curzon and a Pineapple features the story of the Dunmore Pineapple, interviews with Lucinda Lambton and a teenage pineapple enthusiast and a pineapple feast cooked by the brilliant Ivan Day. BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 19th April, 9.30am (producer: Caroline Barbour - it's not her in the photo above, but she does like pineapples)

An update if you've been following the sorry saga of my torn hip. Basically, I had a relapse on Tuesday and had to stay in bed and take painkillers. This resulted in some interesting dreams. In one, I was in a hotel in Bamburgh (Northumberland) which started moving backwards. "Don't worry," said my uncle. "It's only the space-time continuum going into reverse." I can now walk again and have even been out to see the rabbits today to give them a carrot and bit of hay.

New York novelist Tucker Shaw photographed every meal he had in 2004 and is publishing the pix in a book. Inspired by this, I decided to photograph every meal I had today.

Click on bottom to enlarge and get a close view of my annotations

A quick update on my injured posterior. I've now been discharged by my physiotherapist and my bottom is now in the capable hands of my personal trainer Myles. So...basically, I'm definitely on the mend. Thank you to all my wonderful friends for being behind me all the way.

I overheard the following conversation in a cafe this afternoon:

POMPOUS BUSINESSMAN: What's in the Lemon Meringue Pie?

WAITER: Lemon and meringue.

POMPOUS BUSINESSMAN: I see. Well I'll have the coconut cake then.

If you like accidentally-rude food names, I suggest you click on Rudefood.

If you're into cool and spank slang words, go to the totally fly Urban Dictionary Be warned. It includes the odd un-PC definition and mis-spelling, but it's open to all and well worth a click.

I'd also thoroughly recommend a trip to www.penisland.net (which is, you'll be delighted to know, 100% safe to view in public).

Having spoken about nothing but my hip and bottom for the last month, I'm pleased to announce that my buttocks are on slightly better form today after their trip to the excellent sports physio at the gym. She reached parts no other human has ever reached, put fuzzy electric currents through my gluteus maximus, and rounded it off with acupunture. I now have to move my bottom around a lot before my next visit. Apparently, I have quite severe "sacroileac dysfunction and inflammation, with pain in the sciatic nerves, sacroiliac joint and piriformis muscles." Please memorise this in case you ever end up on Mastermind. Until today, I thought Sacroiliac and Piriformis were characters in Troy. But obviously not. They're things in my posterior. Watch this space for further gripping bottom bulletins.

And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam
I don't normally quote from the Bible, but these uplifting words perfectly describe what happened to me when I tore my hip muscles to shreds at the gym a few weeks ago. This resulted in an exciting morphine-fuelled ambulance dash to casualty on a stretcher, and several weeks convalescing at Peacock Towers. Anyway, I'm now back in Hertford and have progressed from zimmer-frame to picturesque walking stick. Huge thanks to parents, family, friends, pets, NHS staff and the inventors of Vallium, Voltarol and the commode. And profuse apologies for my lack of peacockshocking over the last week or two.

Could this be the exercise that did my hip in?

I get very depressed seeing people doing sit-ups badly at the gym. I once wrote and modelled for (!) a series of articles on six-packs for Mens Health and I discovered:

(1) There's no point in trying for a six-pack if you're not very slim to start with. You should have a low-fat diet and do lots of fat-burning cardiovascular exercise as well as crunches. If you develop abs under fat, you'll just look fatter.

(2) Don't sit up too far. Just go up a few inches. And imagine you've got an orange under your chin

(3) Make sure you can feel your abs working and not your back.

(4) You've got to be very dedicated, even obsessed, for it to work.

(5) There's no point in doing sit-ups if you're just doing them to lose fat. You can target muscle gain but you can't target fat loss on specific areas. Aerobic exercise is the only way.

Yes...this is all very depressing. But there's no point in wasting your time at the gym, is there?

I've never understood why they put labels on fruit. It's like putting a label on your cat saying "cat", just in case you mistake it for a sheep. I also don't entirely get the point of these (real) safety labels...

"Warning: may cause drowsiness" (Nytol Sleeping Tablets)

"For indoor and outdoor use only" (Christmas Tree Lights)

"Product will be hot after heating" (M&S Bread Pudding)

"Do not iron clothes on body" (Rowenta Iron)

"Not to be used for the other use" (Japanese Food Processor)

and

"Do not attempt to stop the chain with hands or genitals" (Some Husqvarna Chainsaws)