Why it’s nice to be ever so naughty

THERE’S a global pandemic so let’s talk about… Adele’s weight loss! Before your hackles rise – as mine did originally – and you bemoan the superficial folk taking time out of an international emergency to hold forth on the significance of the star’s seven-stone slimmathon, pause and rejoice.

This Adele hue and cry means we haven’t morphed into lockdown saints. That ongoing discussion about how coronavirus would “change us forever” has worried me: that we’d evaluate our priorities, abandon our sins, care for our neighbours more than ourselves and never again waste money on pricey coffee or having our toe-nails painted.

I can’t bear the thought of a world full of reformed characters, trudging along the path of virtue and renouncing fripperies. I quite liked us before. Yes, we may have been obsessed with “getting and spending”; yes we judged others by their shoes, cars or the hotness of their partners; yes, we jumped on planes to places in Europe we’d never heard of for £36 and had a ball when we got there – and what’s so terrible about that?

WE WERE flawed but fabulous, and I hope that when a vaccine is found, we’ll remain true to our gossipy, trivial, trite yet fascinating selves. To this end I was heartened by the calls asking me to declaim on the subject of Adele’s newly svelte bod. It didn’t matter that I’ve only met her once – at Sid Owen’s birthday party, since you ask – or that she hasn’t confided her diet secrets in me, or that I have no idea about her route to slimness.

I’ve been a FFP (Famous Fat Person) for years. I’ve yo-yo dieted for Britain. I have shelled out for a gastric band (it didn’t work) and a gastric bypass (seems to be fab) so I’m the ultimate authority.

I am perplexed by those who insist that when a woman shifts a few pounds she’s letting down the sisterhood. We don’t gain weight as a statement of solidarity with other plus-size women.We grow larger for all sorts of complex, emotional, genetic and social reasons. If we make up our minds to shed some of it, our motivations are just as personal.

Here’s the thing: Adele looked sumptuous and scrumptious before. She looks lithe and very happy now. I wish her the best of luck regardless of her shape and size, and I know that the fat and happy cliché is no more nonsensical that the thin and happy one.