The 'Mediterranean Diet'

I started the Mediterranean diet years ago but I never actually new I was on it, until recently.

This wonderful diet can help treat the onslaught of midlife crisis disease. In fact for a while, usually for a few hours each evening it can dispel all symptoms completely. Most importantly, the so-called ‘Mediterranean Diet’ includes a large intake of red wine, and has been credited with lower rates of heart disease in those countries that drink tons of it.

So, this is not only good news overall, but apart from the odd Bordeaux drinking tramp, I must have the smoothest free flowing arteries in the Kingdom.

I’ve always loved red wine and it’s great to know that the more I drink the healthier I get. The boffins at some small Midlands University, no doubt funded by a California grape-growing consortium, say it appears to interfere with the production of a body chemical, which clogs up arteries and increases the risk of a heart attack. Phew!

Now having entered my forties, this information is very important to me and I’m not about to take any chances with this ‘moderation crap’. Let’s get stuck in and free up those veins.

For me, the benefits of red wine out-way the risks completely. The first glass tastes great and makes my wife bearable and my kids tolerable. By the second glass, the kids are in bed and my midlife crisis disease symptoms are easing away nicely.

The third glass, my veins are almost cholesterol free, my wife is marginally attractive to me and I’m starting to think maybe my boss does have a personality and I should try harder tomorrow.

If there is a fourth glass, and there usually is, it can go either way. I could start chatting happily away to my wife about the day’s tribulations like we were happily married (she needs to be pissed too). Alternatively, and more often, my wife becomes the most annoying creature on the planet (it’s not a huge metamorphosis), I’m suddenly paying for a black sports car by credit card on Autotrader, trying to re-live a time in youth when I couldn’t have afforded one but would have looked a lot less stupid sat in one, and I’m struggling to spell mid-life crisis.

I love drinking red wine and I’m only prepared to stop when the experts say it’s bad for me or I tell a complete stranger that I love them and start crying.