There is only so much a government can do for its people. “Move! Live!” is the message of new Labour’s latest expensive campaign directed at its dissolute and feckless electorate. Next there will be continual television adverts urging us “Breathe in, you useless monkeys! Now breathe out! Now breathe in again!” They think that without their help, we will all die, suffocated beneath a brown mountain of fast food, our poor arteries clogged and our guts about to burst. They want us to eat less.

This campaign, unveiled with great cruelty on January 2 when most of us have eaten and drunk so much that we do not much want to live any more, still less move, is called Change4Life. The mere presence of that numeral in the middle made me want to head for McDonald’s and order a triple cardiobypassburger with cheese and extra fries - but hell, kowtowing to the most cretinous aspects of our culture is seen as obligatory by politicians of all parties, so one shouldn’t be too hard on the government.

Using a number “4” in such a manner may mean that the kidz on da street get the message, whereas spelling out the word “for” might prove alienating, if not oppressive and borderline racist.

According to the more high falutin’ blurb accompanying the advert, we live in an “obesogenic” society, which means - I think - that our hospitals are full of morbidly obese chavs with kettle chips poking out of their nostrils, their vital organs entombed in gallons of hydrogenated blubber. People who cannot watch X Factor without reaching for the KFC Party Death Bucket; slabs of lard who move only when the remote has fallen down a crack in the sofa. Well, I don’t doubt it.

Supporting the campaign is an organisation of which I had never previously heard, the National Obesity Forum - a group of “professionals” (the usual bloody doctors, I would guess) who are opposed to obesity, rather than in favour of it as their name might imply. Its honorary chairman, Tam Fry, stated that this was the last chance the government had to persuade people about the dangers of obesity before “food regulation” would need to be introduced. Tam is so worried that he is considering changing his name to Tam Poach, or Tam Lightly-Grill, out of solidarity.

Here’s another organisation which, like the harridans at Ash, will tell you to do things you don’t want to do. Trust me on this; nothing the government does about obesity will be good enough for the National Obesity Forum, because that would mean they would be out of a job. They’ll still be banging on, demanding our jaws be wired shut even when we all look like Victoria Beckham.

I don’t doubt that we are, as a nation, getting fatter, especially the children; nor that a little public education might not, in some way, be helpful. But the problem is that this obesogenic society has been created by a confluence of three factors which will, I think, prove resistant to even the most well-meaning government advertising: namely, affluence, laziness and stupidity.

People walk nowhere, because they can afford not to, so they go by car. They do not prepare meals consisting of lightly steamed fresh ingredients because, again, they can afford not to - they buy prepared foods or takeaways which involve a minimum of effort.

We were at our healthiest as a nation in recent years during the second world war, when we were all forced to move about a bit and food - especially sugary, fatty food - was desperately hard to get. All the government propaganda and Jamie Oliver-style exhortations will not work when matched against abundant money and short-term ease. Tam Fry is both right and wrong; you either whack up the cost of convenience foods and snacks or decide that we are our own masters and if we wish to chomp ourselves into an early grave, it is our lookout.

+ The average amount of time it takes women to get ready to go out for the evening will, in 2009, stretch to a record 9 hours and 42 minutes. This is the consequence of a new device described, somewhat disingenuously, as the “answer to all women’s prayers” - the 360-degree mirror.

This contraption - seven lenses mounted at cunning angles on what looks like a giant hatband - will reveal to the girls all sorts of previously untold miseries. It will suddenly become clear to them that they have bottoms the size of Hampshire which are pitted with cellulite, like white mould on week-old turkey meat. For the first time they will see that peculiar tuft of sharp and dangerous dark brown bristles which has sprouted on a long forgotten mole at the bottom of their necks. They will notice, with unhappy surprise, that just below the coccyx they have the beginnings of a pretty impressive tail and that a backless dress is a bad idea on someone who looks as if they are recovering from smallpox. It is possible that they will decide never to go out again and stay in their rooms, with those mirrors flashing cruelly, keening at the unfair imposition of truth.

Who’s a friendly boy then?

The latest contribution from science to our understanding of the world comes from a research institute in Florida which has proved, beyond all reasonable doubt, that sharks are totally useless at biting things.

Oh, obviously they try, the sharks - but there’s just no force in those puny jaw muscles. Also, they have a much underestimated sense of humour and like nothing more than a good giggle.

Okay - off you go for a dip then, chaps, and leave your colleagues to get to work proving that contrary to public belief, tigers are consensual and conciliatory beasts, elephants are actually very small and bears tend to use council-run public conveniences in urban conurbations.

Taking a dim view of Gaza

As the horrible, big Israeli missiles landed on Gaza, the BBC grabbed an interview with one of the terrified foreign nationals fleeing the place. Just how appalling was it, the young woman, dressed in one of those I’m-a-Palestinian-Really scarves, was asked.

“Oh, not too bad, really,” she said, grinning.

Um, well, what are you going to do now?

“I’m going to my grandmother’s house in Russia. It should be really lovely, with all the snow, at this time of year.” There was a nonplussed silence from the interviewer, an absolute silence. “Also,” the woman continued, oblivious, “I’ll be able to improve my foreign languages. So all for the best. Bye. Happy new year.”

And thus was the third world war ushered in, on the British media - with neither a bang nor a whimper, just the cheerful, typically solipsistic, mind-numbing babble of a gap-year student, off to wallow in misery somewhere else.

It is, of course, an outrage that so few members of Britain’s paralympic team have been recognised in the new year’s honours. In a typically discriminatory “ableist” fashion, only those who won medals have been so lauded. The more conservative commentators have argued that all who competed should have been recognised; others go further and insist that anyone with a bit of a limp should be in line for a CBE at the very least - regardless of whether or not they competed in Beijing. Instead we see the same old Establishment roll call - Robert Plant, for selfless devotion to Britain’s groupie community, and Terry Pratchett for his tireless work with elves.

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