The shop has been selling out of oat bran since Kate Middleton got thin for her wedding by following the Dukan diet. What I didn't know, but do now a friend has informed me, is that essences of all the foods banned on the regime are available so one need never yearn in vain for cheese, or chocolate, or fruit because the flavour is available. To those like me who self medicate with food, and flavour is what it's all about, it now makes perfect sense. Nothing can quite convince me that I wouldn't miss a nice bowl of sloppy polenta of a chilly evening but I suppose there has to be some self sacrifice involved.

I shan't be doing the diet, too expensive and I really cow
Don't cut out fruit -seems daft- but yoga, oat bran porridge with blueberries for breakfast, plus some costly slimming pills loaded with seaweed and pomegranate oil have finally begun to make a difference. Mainly it's the yoga I think, but I keep up the pills.

I don't look slimmer but I do feel better. The moment I started to feel less lumpish and sluggish I also found I didn't want to eat so much!

Really it's as well to sidestep the NHS or at least do what one can without them. I heard today of a chap who tried to top himself over the weekend. Luckily he botched the job and was admitted to hospital overnight but released on the morning with no follow-up suggested because a psychiatrist had had a quick word with him and declared him not to be suicidal!