I have tried to give up on numerous occasions with things like hypnotherapy, but none have worked so far. Didn't mean I was fit, mind you!Do you drink? Any celebratory champagne supped recently? Like everyone I enjoy a drink, but champagne is a bit poncy for me. I prefer a good cold pint of lager or a bottle of Merlot.Do you smoke? Yes - next question! For my sins I do - I always have and looks like I always will. Not me though, I had one of the best fitness records around regarding not missing matches. I'm not sure I would fancy playing these days mind you, apart from the money they are paid now of course!How did you used to keep fit when you played cricket? Ah you see that was my secret - never try too hard! A number of my fellow professionals used to train all day, eat and drink well, and then be flat out on the physio's bench most of the time.
Otherwise a few rounds of golf and a good swift walk to and from the pub! Do you keep to any specific diet? Not really. I eat what I fancy and fortunately it seems to agree with my metabolism.What are your thoughts on the modern technologies that cricketers use today to stay in shape? Well, you can't argue having seen the result of the Ashes series Whatever it is it seems to be working. He became a TV personality after winning the celebrity game show, I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here!, in 2003. His DVD Tuffers' Duffers, a collection of international cricketing gaffes, comes out next month. What do you do to keep fit? Last year I walked 500 miles in 30 days raising money for Macmillan Cancer Relief, so that wasn't a bad effort. Phil Tufnell, 39, was a spin bowler for the England cricket team, taking 121 first-class wickets in 42 tests. But the risk is that it will have solved a public order problem by creating a health problem..
These changes have resulted from the enthusiasm for deregulation," wrote Hall.If Britain changes its habits and become an easy-going "wet" culture then the government may have succeeded in its social experiment. Plans to improve habits through deregulation were doomed to failure."Epidemiologists see the key drivers of rising consumption as the reduced price of alcohol, its increased availability and its extensive promotion in British cities. Writing in the British Medical Journal this September, Professor Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland cited the contrast between Australia's 25 per cent drop in alcohol consumption since 1980 and Britain's 30 per cent rise.Government restrictions - such as lower taxes for low-alcohol beer and tougher drink-driving restrictions - had succeeded in changing behaviour in Australia, and could do the same in Britain. In fact, there's an almost direct correlation between income and alcohol-drinking, and the better-off you are, the more likely you are to be drinking too much.On every measure recorded in British government figures, people in managerial and professional jobs out-drink those in technical and manual work, drinking on more days each week and putting awaying more over the course of the week.Among those earning over £800 a week, around a third of both men and women have a drink five days a week; among those earning less than £200 a week, the figures are 18 per cent for men and 12 per cent for women.In households bringing in £1000 a week, the average man is falling just a fraction short of the medically advised limit of 21 units every week, while the average woman is doing a little better with 11 units against a recommended 14.Indeed, some researchers argue that Britain's problem is not that society disapproves of alcohol, but that our disapproval takes the wrong forms. One marker that sociologists use to distinguish wet cultures from dry ones is whether people drink mostly wine or mostly beer and spirits, and on that measure there has been a marked shift to the wet in Britain in recent years.The average adult in Britain increased the amount of wine they were drinking by 25 per cent between 1995 and 1999, so that he or she was now drinking 25 bottles a year.This should be cause for concern, because the pleasant image of Mediterranean-style drinking habits better reflects social prejudices than public health priorities.The stereotype is that binge-drinking and drinking to excess are the preserve of the underprivileged, but taking a look at the figures is a salutary shock.