The odd ers and ums in his introduction to the first part of his series, False Economy (C4), imply spontaneity, but in fact the programme is carefully stage-managed to promote Hutton as much as his ideas. Whatever, he has been sneering to friends: “What have the Belgians ever produced? Only Hercule Poirot, and he is a fictional character!” Memo to PM: Eddie Merckx, cyclist And quite a few more. Now name me 10 famous people from Worcester Park.
BUT, those Germans. And all the ridiculous stereotypes, too well known and tedious to need any more rehearsal from me I, on the other hand, have hot news about water. Perhaps there was an unfortunate encounter on a day trip to Ostend. You thought the focus of the Prime Minister’s righteous rage in Europe was Germany, didn’t you? Fellow Kohl comes over, smiles, eats beef, still does the dirty, that sort of thing. Wrong! The nation against which Mr Major harbours real hatred is…

Belgium! True, the lowlanders have not behaved in a tremendously friendly fashion in the jellybaby imbroglio, and there was that refusal to stump up ammo at the time of the Gulf War, but it seems that the Major Belgo-hatred goes much deeper Perhaps he doesn’t like mayonnaise on his chips. Willpower, I hear you ask? Well, this is not so much of a problem for my generation, but I will pass on one tip (write in for a full service and fee scale): buy some clothes several sizes larger than your present outfits: you’ll be amazed how many people ask you if you’ve lost a lot of weight Next!

Battlefront Update.. Battlefront update. First, doctors, in general, if really pushed, seem to agree that, as a rule of thumb, in most cases, research seems to bear out that if you want to lose weight, you should eat less food. My startling breakthrough was to take this a stage further and ask only for food I didn’t like The weight loss, I can assure you, was phenomenal. Indeed, after a while, I found I could just look at, say, a picture of a cucumber, or the outside of a tin of tapioca to achieve the same effect, but I must stress this is best left to advanced Moonlight Non Munchers.

Here follows Lose It With Captain Moonlight, sub-titled Yes It Hurt, Yes It Worked (for I was not always the sylph-like figure you see above). Crowded House are located in the same melodic-adult-rock neighbourhood as REM and Teenage Fanclub (both of whom are exemplary patter merchants themselves), even if they’re not in quite as fashionable a street. And the Best Of compilation, Recurring Dream (Capitol), comes with a bonus live CD. Assuming that it includes some between-song chat, it could be one of the season’s best investments..

Dieting is in the news a lot at the moment, isn’t it? Lord Lawson, Luciano Pavarotti, all those schemes and plans and charts to get you looking good on the beach this summer Naturally, I can help. On record, their sweet and spiritual songs can be too polished for some tastes, but on- stage Crowded House music has rougher edges, tougher guitars, and the resourceful multi- instrumentalism of band dreamboat Mark Hart.Even on vinyl, “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, “Pineapple Head” and “Weather With You” are nothing to be ashamed of. When a request was called out from the floor, Finn admitted: “We haven’t rehearsed that one. Mind you, we haven’t rehearsed anything else either …”For once, he wasn’t joking – but we weren’t complaining.