I’m staying with my friend in California, home of the body beautiful, so we’re doing a lot of exercise – mainly running, and mainly to the bathroom. You see, that’s where the scales live. So when she’s not in there, wailing that she’s gained a couple of ounces, I’m on the Tanita Inner Scan Body Composition Monitor, wondering where five of my pounds have gone in the last fortnight. Five pounds! I’m coming in at ten stone two, for God’s sake, and in someone pushing five-eleven, that can’t be right. If you put my picture in a magazine, Alexandra Shulman would complain that it was setting a bad example to healthy normals.

Actually, I always think those waif-like models look rather wonderful in a different-planet sort of way. But they’re young. When you hit 51, after decades of smoking and moderate dissipation, the skin on your face is like Izal paper. And as you begin the long shrivel towards death, the flesh no longer fills out the skull, but begins to fall back into it. The answer, obviously, is to eat more, so I’ve tried eggs and bacon for breakfast, burgers for lunch and kebabs between meals. The result? Zilch. Nada. Still ten-two, and all I can report is that, as my friend says: ‘the high protein diet really works’. The solution must be to eat to more bread and cakes, but the local varieties seem so listless that I can’t be bothered.

No matter. A week or two in doughy England, and I’m sure my paunch will reappear. Meanwhile, my friend keeps fretting about hers. What a silly, She’s never looked more attractive. Those curves, that silky skin, that full ripeness – suddenly I can see why my peers have stayed faithful to their first wives as they accumulated the avoirdupois. It may have taken half a century, but my palette has literally widened. Skinny birds, broader broads, they’re all fine by me. I only wish I wasn’t heading towards size zero myself.

PS: If you want to follow the Willis rapid weight-loss programme, simply develop a neurotic disposition, then worry yourself sick about something…

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