Fat-shaming didn’t do me any harm

One of the genuine pleasures I always take in arriving back in the north-east after being in London is that I am suddenly transformed from being an aged fat pig with bad teeth into a youthful, lissome creature with teeth no different to anybody else. It is not the clean air or the glorious countryside which has this effect; it’s just that everything is comparative.

Giles Coren once observed that for every 50 miles you travel away from our capital, you go back in time about ten years. If this is true — and I suspect it is — then up here on Teesside we’re in the middle of that very agreeable summer of 1970, with hot pants, Ted Heath suddenly elected, Rivellino scoring goals for fun in the World Cup and The High Chaparral on the telly. Suits me just fine — indeed, it’s close to idyllic. But I think also that for every 50 miles you travel north from London, the weight of an average individual increases by one stone — and that by the time you reach Dundee you have entered the land of the unimaginably, fantastically vast; the land of Mr and Mrs Jimmy McBrobdingnag.