Please, do yourself a favour. Please do me a favour. Do everyone reading this column, their relatives, chums and neighbours a favour, and do the ailing NHS a favour. Do as I have done. Nip speedily to your nearest chemist and get yourself a flu jab.
If you are over 65, pregnant, have a listed medical condition or are over six months old and under three years of age your jab will be free. If you are not eligible for a free vaccination, you’ll have to pay between £10 and £20 depending on the pharmacy. You may not have a spare 20 quid knocking about but think of it this way – for the price of a couple of takeaway pizzas, you might just be buying yourself a few more decades of happy life.
Carrie Johnson, campaigner, crusader and wife of Boris and mother of Wilf, 4, Romy, 3 and baby Frank has been disarmingly honest. She admits that being inoculated against influenza “totally slipped my mind this year”. Carrie’s 36. She’s not part of a high-risk group. Like many people, she probably thought of flu as a brief brush with high temperatures and horrible headaches. She didn’t prioritise organising a jab because she didn’t think it mattered much.
After 18 days battling the infection at home and a week in hospital with a debilitating combination of flu and pneumonia leaving her “struggling to breathe properly”, Carrie says, “My strong advice is to get the bloody flu jab”.
Mine too. Two years ago, my 35-year-old slim, fit daughter Allegra was admitted to hospital after more than two weeks fighting a worsening illness at home. Unable to keep down food or water she lay on a drip, too depleted to talk and too weak to raise her head.
I was frantic. What hideous lurgy could be attacking her so virulently? I could hardly believe it when the doctor announced a definite diagnosis –flu. “But doctor,” I protested, “she’s had the flu jab.” He replied: “Only think what could be happening right now if she hadn’t.”
Like Carrie, my daughter took weeks to recover fully. We barely cared. She was alive. Influenza is a killer disease. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, more than the First World War.
Wishing lovely Carrie – I have a great deal of time for her – a speedy recovery.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Divorce is so common we’ve become blasé about it. Your spouse has scarpered. You are blindsided. You’ll have to split assets, give up your home and turn your devastated children into “suitcase kids”, shuttling frantically between households.
Your heart is so violently broken you wonder if you have takotsubo cardiomyopathy: a temporary heart condition that occurs when shock weakens the organ’s pumping system.
Yet all about you remain unmoved. Sure, you’re hurt and sad, but hey, that’s just the way things roll and frankly, who isn’t divorced these days?
A quarter of a century after my divorce, I still don’t get that attitude. Who cares if everyone in your street is divorced? When it happens to you, the blow is pulverising. That’s why my sympathies cascade towards Lily Allen who is so riven by grief following the unexpected collapse of her marriage to actor David Harbour – it’s said she discovered he was cheating after turning detective and stalking him on dating app Raya – she has checked into a clinic to help deal with her trauma.
Yes, I know seeking solace in an £8k per week sanctuary isn’t an option open to most of us, yet I feel for forlorn Lily, so tortured by grief she says she’s “spiralling” out of control. My heart goes out to all 2025 new divorce casualties. Lord knows, the road ahead is tough.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Just a timely reminder. Even with the best will in the world and a tireless campaign of 24-hour vigilance, parents can’t control everything. You can keep your children away from screens, refuse to give them smartphones and ration their TV viewing, but fate has a way of making mischief.
An uplifting pile of wholesome books was purchased from Amazon’s second-hand book store for my grandson’s 11th birthday. His nine-year-old sister was tasked with wrapping the volumes. An eerie silence descended. Upon adult investigation, one of the books turned out to have been used as a repository for 20 clippings of florid 1970s porn!
We don’t think unexpected exposure to pictures of naked people with abundant bushes of untrimmed pubic hair will cause long-term psychological damage.
At least, we hope not.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My nominations for most delightful couple to invite to a dinner party go to Dominic and Nikki Holland, proud parents of Spider-Man actor Tom, recently betrothed to superstar Zendaya.
Comedian-turned-author Dominic charmingly compared his somewhat bumbling wooing of his wife of 30 years with his son’s polished proposal. Describing his own attempts as “woefully unprepared”, ringless and shambolic, as opposed to son Tom who knew “where, how, what to say, what to wear”, Dominic comes across as humorous, supportive and a self-effacing bastion of unconditional love.
As Mr Holland senior says: “Even though showbusiness is a messy place for relationships and particularly so for famous couples as they crash and burn in public… with us as an example… and a study in getting things mostly wrong and yet somehow right at the same time, I am completely confident they will make a successful union.”
I believe him.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scientists have discovered that a generous slurp of red grape juice, swigged pre-boudoir activity provides a drug-free alternative to Viagra. The beverage is relatively cheap at £2.30 a litre and does such a creditable job of putting lead in a gentleman’s pencil it cuts the risk of erectile disfunction by up to 80 percent.
Researchers hasten to add imbibing other fruit juices won’t provide the same effect, so for heaven’s sake, don’t confuse your ruby grape for purple pomegranate or magenta plum juice, for fear of disappointment on the chaise longue. Frankly, this ravishing revelation gives a whole new resonance to Mae West’s unforgettable command: “Peel me a grape!”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you’re marooned in chilly Blighty craving escape, I recommend a headlong plunge into Diva, Daisy Goodwin’s seductive saga about the tempestuous love affair of stellar operatic goddess Maria Callas and obscenely wealthy Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis.
I am so blissfully cocooned deep inside this glamorous, globe-trotting tale that I emerge blinking into freezing January 2025, to a raft of unread “urgent” messages and the glaring fact that no billionaire has made any effort to festoon me in egg-sized diamonds or whirl me around the world in pale suede upholstered private jets. If you have any idea why these gestures have not featured in my life, please don’t even think about explaining.