What Kati Did Next

We’re all gripped by bikini madness

DIDN’T Helen Mirren look great? Splashed on the broadsheets at 62 in nothing but an itsy bitsy teeny weeny bright red show stopper of a bikini.

Country wide, women pulled their collective cardigan round and felt the bitter wind of resentment blowing in.

I thought she looked great but then she has cash. Lots of it. Come on, its simple, when one has cash, stylists, personal trainers and chefs are all on hand to make you low fat, lose fat and not look fat. Didn’t they do a good job?

However I, Miss Average, don’t have that amount of cash to splash about and so have to turn to celebrity magazines for tips on how to look great in the sun.

For the past six weeks they have all relentlessly covered the “it’s bikini time, lets get on that diet” story.

I shudder at the thought of another summer starving myself, going crazy for toasted white bread smothered in butter, chocolate hob-nobs and fishfinger butties.

However, against all my better judgements, I’m right back there again. Do any of these diets work? Do they billy-oh! The grapefruit diet. The Hay diet. The Atkins diet. All you really get is flatulence and at the end of the day it won’t matter if you look like Elle McPherson, if you’re firing like a jet engine, no-ones going to want to know.

My diet runs thus; I don’t buy any “bad” foods. When I say “bad” you know I mean tasty, don’t you?

This means everyone in our household is on this “drive yourself bonkers dreaming of cream cakes” diet. Apart from the baby, who still gets to eat pasta and sausages, cheese and chips.

I’ve found myself drooling over his every meal-time. I have to throw his lunch remains straight in the bin so I don’t devour them. I’ve started sniffing his food rather than polishing it off.

He thinks I’m crazy. I know I am. All of this just to get into a bikini. It’s definite madness is this. But when I’m strolling along the beach looking like a younger Helen Mirren, I’ll be the one laughing.

Hang on, we’re not going to a beach this year. We’re off to the lakes. Bikini’s at Bassenthwaite. I think not. Quick pass the biscuits!

Ms Mirren then puts us all to shame and suddenly we are scabbling round for the back copies of Diet Now magazine.