Cakes and ale

"Let me have men about me that are fat," as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar famously declared. Now we know what he was on about. It is not just that the thin men are the one who will stab you in the back (memo to Mr Blair: don't worry about Gordon Brown, watch out for Alan Milburn), but the fat men will fade away of their own accord.

That, at any rate, is the latest finding of medical research, which would have us all eating lettuce and running 10 miles a-day if we are to survive into our old age. The slim and the fit will inherit the earth. But what kind of earth will it be? "Dos't thou think because thou art virtuous," to quote the bard again, "there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Winston Churchill didn't do so badly, nor did Orson Welles. Two cheers for John Prescott. And three for Ricky Tomlinson and Robbie Coltrane.