“We don’t pal around in the nip together enough”

A FRIEND of mine — a strapping man even at his leanest — announces recently that he’s put on the bones of a stone.

Pulling up his t-shirt, he grabs his stomach affectionately in both hands, saying ‘woo-hoooo!’ while he wiggles it about. After yanking it up, down and side to side for a while, he says distractedly, ‘must tackle that,’ before tucking himself back in. Then he pats his stomach twice- again fondly — and offers me a glass of wine.

It strikes me (a) that a stone is a conservative estimate, (b) that I — and any other woman I know — would never be so sanguine about putting on a space-hopper-shaped amount of fat unless there was a baby inside it, and (c) that if I did, I’d never, under any circumstances, bar my life depending on it, pull out fistfuls of this fat and display them.