Never mind getting your five a day, follow my top dinner tip and you’re guaranteed to live forever

WE’VE been told for years that if we want to live long and healthy lives we should all do 10,000 steps every day.

But now it turns out this number is a myth, dreamed up back in the Sixties as a marketing gimmick by a Japanese company that had just made some kind of indoor running machine.

In fact, a major new European survey has found that, actually, we only need do a weirdly precise 2,337 steps a day to keep the Grim Reaper at bay.

That’s excellent news for me because it would take me five hours to do 10,000 steps and I just don’t have that much free time in a day.

And there’s more good news, because it also turns out you don’t need eight hours of sleep every night and nor do you need eight glasses of water every day.

I know that everyone under the age of 25 doesn’t feel dressed unless they have a bottle of Evian about their person, but it’s all nonsense apparently.

I’ve suspected this for some time. I never drank a glass of water as a child.

We had pop and Ribena and tea but never plain water. It would have been unthinkable. And it’s still unthinkable today.

Even when I’m in a hot country and my urine is coming out like a stream of hot dark sand, I still won’t touch the stuff. Unless it’s got grapes in it, or barley.

Other stuff which turns out to be unnecessary is doing press-ups or holding a plank. I’ve no idea what that is or why it might be beneficial, but it seems you don’t need to do it. Unless you’re a scaffolder, obviously.

And there’s another commonly held belief which is wrong: That you need to eat five portions of fruit or vegetables every day. It turns out you actually need to eat more.

You can do as many steps as you like and hold planks from dawn till dusk, but you’ll never fit in an aeroplane seat again unless you replace your daily intake of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut chocolate with an apple and a potato.

I’m happy with this because in recent years I’ve become completely addicted to tomatoes, which in my mind are fruit and vegetables all at the same time.

I eat them raw, with a spoonful of Branston Pickle, and there is no taste sensation to match it. I also love radishes and will happily get through 200 in a single sitting.

Then there’s raw turnip, plums, raspberries, gooseberries, spring onions and asparagus. All fantastic.

But best of all is marrow. Just peel it, remove the seeds and boil it for five minutes.

Then serve in front of the TV, on a bed of meat with five buttered potatoes and lashings of thick gravy, and wash it all down with three pints of lager.

And you’ll live for ever.

Lame law so scary

THIS week, two burly looking gentlemen from Eastern Europe arrived in my farm shop.

And while one of them engaged the girl on the till with general chit chat, the other wandered around, slipping various items into his jacket pocket.

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Police, it’s said, are investigating.

But they probably aren’t, because I’m not sure shoplifting is even considered to be a crime these days.

There was a time when it was the preserve of teenage boys who were too embarrassed to take a copy of Men Only to the till.

Now, though, people are encouraged on social media to descend on London’s Oxford Street and help themselves to whatever takes their fancy. “Don’t come if you can’t run,” say the adverts.

But they don’t need to run because today the average policeman and policemanwoman is so weighed down by health and safety equipment and high-visibility clobber, they couldn’t keep up with an earthworm. Or even a Somalian 100m lady sprinter.

In California, it’s even worse. Shoplifting has essentially been decriminalised so that now, you simply ride into the supermarket on your bicycle, take what you want and then ride out again.

Paying is considered weird.

I wonder what will happen when we reach that sort of level here.

When large numbers of people simply pay no attention to the laws of the land.

When shoplifting is the norm. When pubs burn down and get demolished before anyone has a chance to even say “arson”, and everyone’s bicycle is nicked, and every Range Rover.

And nothing is ever investigated by the police because they’re either standing around watching people with pink hair who’ve glued themselves to the road or they are issuing a ticket to someone who’s driven in a cycle lane.

It’s a terrifying vision of the future that doesn’t bear thinking about.

Myleene’s left men behind

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MYLEENE KLASS, who is famous for many things, none of which spring instantly to mind, said this week that “we have reached a time in our lives when women are front and centre”.

That’s excellent, of course, but I wonder, where are the men?

Behind, and slightly to the left, behind a pillar?

Attack lacks logic

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LAST month, there was a tragic accident.

A Land Rover somehow left the road and careered into a school playground, killing two eight-year-old girls.

We don’t know what on earth caused such a horrific crash.

But somehow, a bunch of eco-activists decided it was the car’s fault.

So to pay it back, they paid a night-time visit to a Land Rover dealership in Exeter and punctured the tyres on 60 cars.

Which is a bit like burning down the Sabatier factory because someone was killed in a knife attack.

It’s not logical. And it gets worse when you read the eco-ists’ statement, which says that 4x4s are so big they are inherently dangerous.

And as a result, they want to stage so many attacks that ownership of an SUV becomes impossible.

Which brings me on to a story this week about a frail old lady in her eighties who was killed in Malvern when a car mounted the kerb and ploughed into six pedestrians on the pavement.

And what was the car? A Hummer? A G Wagon? Nope. It was a Fiat 500.

Phoney panic

IN yet another example of bungled bureaucracy, it seems hackers have stolen the names and addresses of 40million British voters.

Everyone was very shocked by this and ran around in circles, waving their arms in the air.

But me? I just thought that if you wanted the name and address of everyone in Britain, all you needed to do was pick up a phone book.

THE sales of meat- free burgers are collapsing and experts cannot understand why.

I can. I tried one once and it was like eating a used breast implant.

A 118-year-old teddy bear found at a car boot sale is expected to fetch upwards of £6,000 at auction.

This might seem steep until you read the blurb, which says the toy has a “handsome face with a shaven muzzle”.

I didn’t know that was a thing back then.

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