I am still recovering from a weekend jaunt in the countryside, which felt like some of the toughest training I’ve done for a while. The reason: I had to go to the woods with my just-turned teenager and play war games for his birthday party treat. This is evolutionary biology at its most visceral.

Anyway, it mostly involved me screaming “Geronimo!” and running through the undergrowth toting a laser rifle at frightened (?) kids who proceeded to gun me down with great glee — so fulfilling the journalist’s combat charter: to be the first casualty of war.

Well I fell off the paleo diet too and am struggling to get back on. Today was a bit more normal. [For the unitiated, paleo mostly means avoiding bread, potatoes, dairy etc] I’ve been on it mostly since Christmas. And the reason for the lapse? A ritual requirement these days, apart from barbecue, is for the male adult to be able to make homemade pizza for a party.

It was struggle enough with battle-fatigue to muster sufficient grub for 8 kids high on soda, let alone think what a hunter-gatherer might eat as an alternative. The smell of freshly-risen dough, tomato sauce slowly simmered with garlic, oregano, basil, a few flakes of dried chilli, and garlic bread too, is enough to drive the strictest dieter crazy. So I declare, there were times when I was so lonesome hungry I took some comfort there.

Thanks to brother-in-law, Ivor, for the post title. And take a look here for a bit of an urban legend that could support a theory that war is correlated with excessive carb ingestion by policy-makers; a class action by peace activists against Domino’s beckons.

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