Japanese women live longer than all others. Fact. Scientists proved it. By, errr, counting how long they live. Probably. And they live longer than British women and even longer than the Italians, who are, apparently, ‘famously healthy’.

Maybe its to do with bound feet. Cutting off circulation at the ankles thus improving blood supply to other body parts. Maybe its all that nodding and bowing. A flexible neck is the path to long life. Isn’t that what they always say? No, actually they don’t. What they do say is, somewhat inevitably, ‘its down to diet’. All that raw fish, green tea and very low carbs and dairy in their food must therefore, increase their longevity.

Well that’s a lifestyle choice, and some of us would rather eat hamburgers and Easter eggs (not necessarily together, but now I think about it… hmmmm…) and die a little younger. With a smile on our faces. Rather than have your last words being ‘I’m fucking starving’. In fact I have no issue with Sushi, I quite like it. In a raw, fishy sort of way. But only as a precursor to a proper meal. A starter, an appetizer.

The Japanese eat about 25% less calories less a week than westerners; 96% less than Americans. Though they do a lot of karaoke. A hell of a lot. Therefore I think living longer has nothing to do with food, but singing really loudly, terribly out of tune, whilst sufficiently drunk to not be totally embarrassed by the abject misery you’re causing to others, may be more relevant.

Whereas my main concern is how Italians are described as ‘famously healhty’. They eat nothing but carbs and processed meats, heavy sauces, all washed down with pizzas the size of trampoulines and drink way too much. Yet Italian women lived second longest. Probably because most have murdered their husbands early in the marriage, or are Mafia widows, thus spend their lives enjoying stuff rather than looking after their men. Maybe its just that the Italian women look healthy; all gorgeously dark and olive-skinned and curvacious; all of them. Until they pass 30 and all that pasta comes back to haunt them and then they grow beards.

In an unrelated study, at Harvard, no less, they found that drinking 3 cups of coffee a day makes you 37% (and that is positively huuuuuuuuuge) less likely to develop type 2 diabetes. Amazing. I’ll never get diabetes because I drink at least 14 cups an hour. This study (sponsored by Starbucks… if only) didn’t mention whether ‘coffee’ included the high-fat, cholesterol-inducing, artery-clogging milk, that some people use, or whether the lack of diabetes is simply because this 37% of the subjects just died of coffee overdose thus, obviously, failed to become diabetic.

So the answer is: drink coffee with raw fish in it, instead of cream and sugar, and you’ll live to be 150.

Ok, that’s sorted, let’s just sort out Ukraine and Palestine and Bernie Ecclestone and we can all take the weekend off.

Happy, healthy, coffee-laden Friday

A xxxx