ALTHOUGH I didn’t see Tuesday’s television programme about Wim Hof – it clashed with the football – I am able, or at least willing, to comment about the subject authoritatively and perspicaciously.

It’s odd seeing something you’ve known about for years become mainstream. I say “known about”, not “followed”. No, thank you.

Brother Hof, known as the Iceman, believes in the virtues of exposure to the cold and breathing. In general, while broadly in favour of breathing, I deplore exposure to the cold.

The alleged Dutchman once stood in a container full of ice cubes for 112 minutes. Well, it’s nice to have a hobby. He also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro wearing only shorts and, as someone who believes shorts-wearing should be restricted to the privacy of one’s own home, you’ll understand how much I deplored that feat.

The theory behind cold immersion is that, through woo-woo magic, it strengthens the immune system, and also sets off endorphins in your heid like fireworks.

My favourite YouTube vlogger Jonna Jinton – best thing on the entire internut – is a fan of yon Wim’s. She cuts holes in the icy lakes of her native Sweden and bungs herself, and sometimes her husband, thither. She looks well on it, but I’d be a shivering wreck, and could only be revived by someone pouring a small vat of whisky down my throat via a funnel.

True, I do have a very brief – several seconds – cold shower twice a week after my sauna, but lately I’ve found this experience a damp squib. I’ve been uncharacteristically (shut up, youse) gloomy after the sauna, probably because no one else goes now, after Covid, and it used to be the only chance I got through the week to speak to anyone.

Also, I look unnaturally shiny afterwards. I have to sit in the car for 15 minutes blasting my coupon with cold air before any semblance of normality, relatively speaking, returns.

Immersion in the cold encompasses wild swimming, which I tried recently, emerging from the briny deeps with my feet and knees bleeding, having chosen a peculiarly unsuitable shore for the exercise. Also, you know how they say you never forget how to swim? Not true.

In the meantime, the “Wim Hof Method” has become a hit with celebrities such as Gerald Bieber, if that is the name. I cannot think that a great recommendation.

Here’s what I recommend for a mercifully short life: Stay warm. Stay dry. Remain on land at all times. Maybe once a week try breathing. If you’ve forgotten how to do this, there are videos on YouTube.

False alarm

UNBELIEVABLE that at a time when the cost of living is going through the roof that the Scottish Government is insisting we spend substantial sums of money on supposedly compulsory replacement smoke alarms.

Every other time I watch a YouTube video, it’s prefaced by an ad telling me I’d better do this. So I consult a leaflet that came through the door. Cost: £160 quid for a system you must set up yourself.

At a time when we’re getting £150 council tax rebates to alleviate financial hardship, they want us to spend £160 on a swanky alarm system that’ll doubtless go off every time you gently brown some toast.

I don’t know anyone who’s installed this. Compulsory? Is it, aye?

On the house

THE busy and important man of affairs has no time to watch TV shows like Bridgerton. And I haven’t watched it either.

Lurid stories in the public prints report that it’s about toffs bonking, which I cannot say is anything the leading intellectual like your correspondent would find interesting. Why can’t they produce drama shows about philately, if that is the word? Is it philosophy? What was Plato? Was he philately?

At any rate, one side-effect of Bridgerton has been an uptake in interest shown in historic houses by young persons, according to that National Trust of Englandshire.

Such enjoyment is usually attributed to older people in gilets and flat caps, but I’ve taken an interest since I was young. I thought it would be a good way to meet girls.

It wasn’t. But, anyway, I cannot pretend I was ever comfortable in historic houses or stately homes. I felt like a proletarian imposter.

But one I did like, and return to every year, was Lauriston Castle in yonder Edinburgh. Its owned by the cooncil, who were bequeathed it by a Mr and Mrs Reid, a bohemian couple who lacked issue.

Mr Reid collected artworks, not just proper stuff but the popular mass-produced artefacts of the day, resulting in a unique collection. He also made part of his fortune in doing out sumptuous railway carriages, and this warm, cosy material is also used to good effect in the house.

There are also beautiful gardens, including a pond with a statue of that Artemis, or Diana, in the scud. So my visits have not been entirely devoid of female company.

Actually, I’ve taken several lassies to Lauriston. All left me shortly afterwards, due I think to my personality, which they found too dazzling.

Six is the cell-by date

The number of brain cells reaches its peak when we’re six then declines rapidly, says new research. How is that possible? If you’ve ever met any children, you’ll know they’re exceptionally dense. We can only conclude that brain cells are no use to intelligence. If I could put my two on eBay I would.

Phallus, eh?

At last, the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster has been solved. It’s a whale’s penis. Thought so. Professor Michael Sweet of Derby University says that, during mating, a male might pop his “tentacled and alienesque” appendage out of the water for “a bit of fun”. Well, we’ve all been there.

Perchance to eat

Now they’ve found another aspect of my lifestyle that’s bad for you. This time it’s sleep. Or, rather, sleeplessness. Apparently, it makes you fat. Eh? Just because we get up and eat that pie in the fridge? The reason I can’t get to sleep is because I worry about insomnia. Studies like this don’t help.

I don’t

You’ll have read in your Journal of Family Psychology that folk daft enough to get married suffer a slump in physical and mental wellbeing shortly after saying “I do”. They also drink more to cope with the distress. So, if some twerp ever asks you if you take someone, just say “naw”. Stay free.

Avoid Norwich

Ilkley, in Yorkshire, has been named best place to live in the UK, followed by Norwich. I do not recommend the latter. When I was there, someone threw a boiled sweet at my head in the cinema. At a wedding we attended, someone had named their child Botticelli and kept shouting its name. Weird place.

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