Traditional remedies for diabetes

I've recently been diagnosed with diabetes. Since Wilson does all the food shopping and the cooking I thought I'd better tell him about it, and this morning I did. 

'My mum, Mrs Vermilingua, used to get diabetes a lot when I was little,' he replied. 'She used to treat herself and it would go away in a couple of days.'

'Really?' I asked, 'How did she treat it?'

'Well, she'd drink a lot to keep her fluids up. Gin mostly. And she'd eat some ant yoghourt and take a lot of rest. She'd go to bed for days, eating only iced buns with butter and ants. Then she'd get better.'

This sounded much better to me than drugs, a restricted diet and constant blood tests, so when W offered to bring me some yoghourt and gin with a buttered iced bun I agreed immediately. 

Just as he was leaving the room he stopped and thought for a moment, before suddenly announcing, 'No!'

'No?' I asked. 'No what?'

'No, it wasn't diabetes, it was diarrhoea.'

Wilson's World Record in doubt!

Wilson is having a hard time today -- he's on the phone to The Guinness Book Of World Records, trying to get them to recognise his World Record of Number Ants Eaten in One Minute. 

Guinness say that they don't recognise eating records 'because they can be dangerous', and in any case they need an official Guinness observer present during any world record attempt, to ratify it. 

Wilson considers this latter to be an attack on his integrity, and keeps shouting, 'Let me speak to Mr McWhirter! Or Mr Guinness! I don't even care which!'

I don't think he's going to win this one...

Wilson: Officially Amazing!

Today, according to Wilson (and he has research to back this up) is International Guinness World Record Day. He decided to mount an attempt on the Most Ants Eaten in 60 Seconds record, and when I came down to breakfast this morning I found the kitchen awash with ants and Wilson wielding a stopwatch.

He handed me the stopwatch, shouted 'GO!' and started eating for all he was worth. After 60 seconds I cried 'STOP!' 

'So, how many ants did I eat?' he asked me.

'I've no idea,' I replied, 'I thought you'd be counting.'

'Oh, do I have to do EVERYTHING? Eat AND count? I am an elite athlete, you know. Well, as it happens I was counting and I calculate that I consumed 499,999. Oh, excuse me,' (he swallowed noisily) 'as you were, 500,000 ants.'

I asked him whether that broke the current record, and he told me that there is no current record for eating ants, so he has set the benchmark for others to follow.

I remarked that half a million was a very round number, but W was in no mood to have the accuracy of his count challenged; he was off and dancing round the kitchen doing 'The Wilbot' and shouting, 'I Am Officially Amazing!'. 

The Wilbot is something he invented during the Olympics, but until today he's not had the chance to use it.

'Excellent Little Anteater'

As I said, we ate at an Italian restaurant. Wilson drank a little too much vino rosso, but generally behaved very well, and with impeccable table manners. 

The waiters enjoyed his efforts to speak Italian to them, calling him their piccolo mangiatore magnifico della formica! 

Wilson blushed a little at this, and said he would have that printed on his business cards.

Best Ever!

The Table Tennis certainly gave Wilson an appetite! We popped into The Laughing Dog Café and drank what he declared was 'the biggest and best Hot Chocolate with Cream and Marshmallow I've ever had! Brilliant!'

There was a gallery attached to the café with lots of screen prints and neon tubes. Wilson loved these, and resolved to take a course on screen printing. And neon tube making.

Ping Pong

I took Wilson to Brighton Marina yesterday; it was a sunny day and I thought he'd like to see the boats.

We did a bit of shopping, went to a café/gallery, looked at the boats and had an Italian meal in the evening, but the thing he most enjoyed was when we came across a plaza with several ping-pong tables. 

Bats and balls were provided and we had a couple of quick games. W said he'd never played before, but he still managed to beat me quite convincingly.