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I have been paying a great deal of attention to my body this morning. What an awfully difficult, lumpy thing it is.

First I walked the dog, wearing within my wellies one of the new pairs of socks I was given for my birthday (yes, sad, isn’t it? I remember what I used to be given for my birthday and it was nothing to do with socks, I can tell you).

Anyway, yes, the socks. So I dropped the kids at school and did the outside jobs and came in for a shower and peeled off the new socks and my feet had become hobbits’ feet. Covered in fluff. Musing a moment, I thought of how I staggered into bed last night, the gin and red wine levels bubbling nicely just beneath the pupils. I’d peeled off a pair of new socks then, too.

I lifted my duvet. And there, at feet level, was enough fur to make a passable scarf. Sigh. Why do they make new socks so fluffy? And why do they make feet so attractive to fluff? It’s all a terrible worry.

Anyway, having done that, and having removed the hobbit-hair from my feet, I attended to my toilette. What you might call my beauty regime, if I did not now look like the lovechild of Ernest Borgnine and Anne Widdecombe.

Fortunately, I have long since passed that golden moment in life where you no longer care a jot what you look like. So I now attend to my head and face with a savagely wielded set of barbers’ clippers. Once, I forgot to put the Grade One plastic guard over the metal blade  and ended up looking like a bloodied badger afflicted with the mange. Anyway, I applied the guarded blade to my bonce this morning and then spent a good half-hour chasing the resulting bristles around the house.

Since then, I have been trying to come up with some sort of Heath Robinson affair to help the home couturist: because what a toil it is, clearing up. Bristles get everywhere, defying the Hoover. Every time I stow that bastard Henry back in his cupboard, I notice a fresh scattering and have to get him out again.

I’ve come up with a sort of backpack containing one of those lightweight car vacuums, but with a double nozzle suspended just behind and beneath each ear. Fire this beauty up at the same time as the clippers and the suction should automatically get rid of the bristles. I think this could really catch on, by the way, so I’ll be brief today as I have a patent to file.

Having removed fur and bristles, I repaired to the dentist, where I had an appointment with the hygienist.

I do not like dentists, not at all. I am in fact phobic about dentists and hospitals. Somebody who once played rugby, who has driven rally and racing cars at prodigious speed, who fears not heights nor depths nor spiders nor even the amorous advances of Mike Tyson, should he have paid enough money, turns into a snivelling whining coward in the hands of people in white coats.

This morning, two very attractive young ladies were extremely kind to me. One even had a beautifully mellifluous Geordie accent, one of those very subtle ones, and they spoke kind words softly as they pinioned me, helpless, on my back…..

Sorry, where was I?

Ah yes, the dentist. The body being an awkward lumpy thing, something called the pockets in my gums needed hoovering out with the assistance of sharp implements and foul-tasting mouthwash. Dear me, how I shook. I am not proud of myself. But my gums are debrided, apparently, which is not something I ever thought I’d say.

Anyway, if my body is a temple then I’ve had enough of it and I hope it bloody well falls down before I get rodents in my basement.

Who to believe?

Another difficult day. Who to believe? An international team of highly qualified, independent scientists free from corporate payrolls peer reviewing all available technical evidence, or some businessmen and right-wing Americans and third world nouveau riche?

Hmmm.

Do you know, as far as the future of our world is concerned, I think I’m more inclined to listen to the scientists, who stand only to be pilloried for their advice, than to the businessmen and arrivistes, who stand to become exceptionally rich (or exceptionally richer) if we ignore the scientists. Somehow, I have an innate inability to believe that businessmen and Americans have the best interests of the world at heart.

Who’d have guessed it?

Now then, brothers and sisters, welcome to who’d have guessed it corner.

Who’d have guessed that when this government cut housing benefits to social housing tenants who dared have the debauched effrontery to have a spare bedroom, more and more people would end up in debt, costing housing providers their income? Well, most experts in the field guessed it, obviously, but this is not a Government that likes to listen to people who know what they’re talking about. So on with the bedroom tax it went and guess what? Debt’s risen dramatically and incomes have fallen.

Next in who’d have guessed it corner, I see that the newly-privatised Royal Mail is to try to sack 1,600 workers. Who could have seen that coming, eh? Well, anybody who knew anything about the stupidity of privatising a successful state concern, obviously, but when did making enough money to be going on with while providing incomes for families have any truck with this Government? No chance of that when their rich friends could get richer, eh?

Here’s another one for you: go on, have a go. Did rail privatisation deliver a) a better deal for the consumer or b) a worse deal? What’s that? 245% of you say privatisation delivered a worse deal? Well congratulations – you’re right! And coincidentally, 245% is precisely the amount up to which fares have risen in the 20 years since privatisation. Another triumph!

Next in who’d have guessed it corner, the ongoing privatisation of the National Health Service, forced into false competition, then re-re-re-reformed to create more false competition. Now then, hands up all of you who are surprised to hear that some of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors also happen to stand to profit from the NHS? Oh. None of you.

Perhaps just offer a round of applause, then, to the Daily Mirror for exposing such as Lord Nash, Tory peer and chair of Care UK, who donated £247,000 to the party; oh, he became a peer after those donations, by the way. Who’d have thought that? Care UK has £102.6million worth of NHS contracts.

Next in who’d have guessed it corner, who’d have thought the Conservatives would somehow fail to get their hands on all the tax their big business friends avoid paying? Yet in 2013, less tax-dodged money was recovered and fewer orders were made for its payment than in 2012. It’s almost as if George and his friends would sooner bully the poorest for their money than chase the rich, who can afford it.

And finally…

I know he will have enjoyed the last item especially, so it seems a good moment for us all to wish a very happy milestone landmark birthday to our Stormin’ Brother, this place’s honorary representative of the Dark Side. It was a delight to see him celebrating with family and friends on Saturday. Many happy returns, brother.