Claire E Fitzgerald reacts with customary violence to Boots's Change One Thing campaign.
1. Ask everyone you know what their New Years' Resolutions are and if they're still sticking to them. Repeatedly. If they tell you that they haven't made any, act as if they have smacked you round the head with a deep fried bottle of nicotine flavoured WKD. The fact that someone else believes their life is fine the way it is must be taken as a personal affront at all times.
2. Watch more television. It's full of great information about all the things that are wrong with you, and helpful celebrity tips on how to be perfect. Without wishing to spoil the ending, the tips usually involve not eating things you like. If possible, get yourself onto one of the programmes as abrainless gurning peon ordinary member of the public: if you're lucky then some obnoxious women will come to your house, steal all your food and make you cry. If you're not lucky, get in touch! I can do all three for a very reasonable rate and at your convenience, and I'll even drink all your alcohol and smoke all your fags while I'm there as an extra free bonus. It won't be on telly, though.
3. Learn a new skill. Some of the most popular include nagging, hectoring, collecting millions of empty plastic water bottles in the back of your car, and kvetching on and on and on about how you really want a Chinese but you're only "allowed" a cup of black tea and half a grapefruit. Alternately, stuff a nice crispy won-ton in that yapping whinge-hole of yours and rejoin the real world it's up to you.
4. Trust Boots. They are, after all, practically a department of the NHS, and their handy leaflets are a selfless gift aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of a grateful nation. Nothing to do with making you feel like a hideous freak who's disintegrating daily into a heap of intolerable ming so they can sell you more face cream. No no no, not at all.
5. Avoid places where you're likely to encounter temptation: pubs, take-aways, off-licenses and sweet shops. In fact, you'd probably better just keep out of my way altogether, OK?
6. Join your local gym: you'll look and feel great. Especially when you're dressed in your old tracksuit that looks like one of Viki Pollard's cast-offs and turning purple with the effort of running a kilometre on the track machine without passing out or puking.
7. Team up with a friend and be a diet buddy! That way, you can happily bug the living probiotic shit out of each-other, and leave the rest of us alone.
8. Be aware of what triggers your cravings. If you find it difficult to eat a meal without adding salt, stop eating. If you're at your weakest when it comes to the first cigarette of the day, don't get up.
9. Focus on one thing at a time. Maybe you want to cut down on breaking into little old ladies' houses in the middle of the night and stealing their pension books to pay for your benzies, and you're also keen to control your cholesterol. Work on the easiest changes first.
10. Never, ever, EVER pass by a list of 10 tips. Read, Learn, Obey.
2. Watch more television. It's full of great information about all the things that are wrong with you, and helpful celebrity tips on how to be perfect. Without wishing to spoil the ending, the tips usually involve not eating things you like. If possible, get yourself onto one of the programmes as a
3. Learn a new skill. Some of the most popular include nagging, hectoring, collecting millions of empty plastic water bottles in the back of your car, and kvetching on and on and on about how you really want a Chinese but you're only "allowed" a cup of black tea and half a grapefruit. Alternately, stuff a nice crispy won-ton in that yapping whinge-hole of yours and rejoin the real world it's up to you.
4. Trust Boots. They are, after all, practically a department of the NHS, and their handy leaflets are a selfless gift aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of a grateful nation. Nothing to do with making you feel like a hideous freak who's disintegrating daily into a heap of intolerable ming so they can sell you more face cream. No no no, not at all.
5. Avoid places where you're likely to encounter temptation: pubs, take-aways, off-licenses and sweet shops. In fact, you'd probably better just keep out of my way altogether, OK?
6. Join your local gym: you'll look and feel great. Especially when you're dressed in your old tracksuit that looks like one of Viki Pollard's cast-offs and turning purple with the effort of running a kilometre on the track machine without passing out or puking.
7. Team up with a friend and be a diet buddy! That way, you can happily bug the living probiotic shit out of each-other, and leave the rest of us alone.
8. Be aware of what triggers your cravings. If you find it difficult to eat a meal without adding salt, stop eating. If you're at your weakest when it comes to the first cigarette of the day, don't get up.
9. Focus on one thing at a time. Maybe you want to cut down on breaking into little old ladies' houses in the middle of the night and stealing their pension books to pay for your benzies, and you're also keen to control your cholesterol. Work on the easiest changes first.
10. Never, ever, EVER pass by a list of 10 tips. Read, Learn, Obey.
