Sugar: It’s a kind of food, you know?

Once when I was a child I had a sugar sandwich. Two slices of buttered bread with a layer of sugar in between. Much to the disgust of every one of my relatives, and even though it was actually pretty horrible, I ate the whole thing. I’d asked for it, was given it, and have never been able to back down from a challenge. Especially not one I’d set myself.

It was a one off. I never asked for another and couldn’t even think of eating one now. Don’t try this at home, it’s really not worth it.

People say there was less sugar around in the ‘old days’. Cobblers. There was loads of it. Real sugar was easy to get and desserts were pretty much made of it. Candy floss and sugar mice – yes, a mouse shape made entirely from sugar with a string tail. I remember those. Probably cost me a couple of teeth later, but worth it.

Aniseed balls, blackjacks, fruit salad sweets that had not been so much as introduced to a fruit or a salad, even sweet cigarettes. Toffee slabs that came with a hammer so you could crack the damn thing to make a start on it, and then we kids got the hammer afterwards as a play tool or just for throwing at each other.

There was plenty of sugar around. Everyone took sugar in tea, a friend of mine liked five spoonfuls in each cup and he developed into something that resembled the Hulk. I mean the Lou Ferrigno Hulk, not the Cyril Smith melted version. Didn’t do him any harm.

Plenty of fat in our diets too. Everything was deep fried and not in vegetable oil. In a big pan of melted lard. Chips did not go in the oven. The slices of fresh potato went straight in the hot lard. Then we covered them -and I mean covered them – in salt and a sprinkle of vinegar.

I still drink a little vinegar now and then. I like it, always have. Malt vinegar, naturally, not that clear crap.

There were a few fat kids around, but not many. There might be a few more around now but really, not many. When I start work at 4 pm, I run the gauntlet of feral groin fruits as they emerge from school and lose all the civilisation and obedience the teachers spent so much effort instilling in them. They are mostly wiry and fast and hard to hit on the road. I need a better car.

Maybe a tractor with bale spikes. Hey kids, kebab time…

I don’t think this childhood obesity is a real thing at all. If it was half as bad as claimed, the planet would have tilted on its axis by now. They skew it by testing the 10-11 year olds. I was a seriously chubby 11 year old. By the time I was 13 I could have rivalled catwalk models for being the closest thing to being alive and not actually visible edge on.

I have to find that photo of me on holiday in Spain at 13. Dressed in Goth black with a black sombrero, I looked just like a carpet tack.

Kids are supposed to chubby up between 9 and 11. It’s the body loading up for the puberty growth spurt. I suspect the anti-food brigade are well aware of this and they probably realise that by keeping kids skinny at that age, they will stunt their growth and make them into feeble and easily controlled worker drones for the future.

Maybe parents now hide their fat kids in basements and attic rooms, safe in the knowledge they can’t leave until they are slim enough to get through an average sized door.

Yes, okay, kids now spend more time developing thumb callouses with their phones and playing video games that make them think they’re tough while they’re really getting weaker. Okay, they aren’t allowed to do the things we did like climbing trees and wandering the woods and bringing lizards home in jars and tadpoles in our wellies. They aren’t allowed to hunt each other with airguns or throw toffee hammers at each other while shouting ‘I am Thor!’

Must be dull being a kid now. Even the comics are sanitised. I saw a Beano recently. What the Hell happened to that?

You would think Gubblement would have realised by now that ‘childhood obesity’ is entirely their fault. They won’t let kids do anything any more. They reduce the waist size they consider obese and they refuse to let kids do what kids have always done – burn off energy by being little buggers. They’d burn off a lot of energy a lot faster if I had a tractor with baling spikes but that’s unlikely to be allowed, I feel.

We burned off a lot when adults chased us. They used to chase us all the time, usually shouting something, but adults dare not chase kids now. They’d be shot by armed police.

The solution is, of course, ban something. Regulation of people’s private lives. The commenters on that article agree – with nothing at all to back up their prejudices. They think it won’t affect them. Gradual encroachment into your private life is fine, they cannot extrapolate to where it goes from there. These idiots will call on us one day to save them.

No.

As for the Spiteful Nannying Party, well, if you’re in Scotland and you vote for them, consider this.

They do not consider you an adult. They consider you a dolt who must be controlled for your own good.

Is that how you see yourself? Is that really – I mean really – what you want to happen to your life? You really want someone telling you every detail of how you must live?

Then keep voting SNP.

You know it makes no sense.