RICHARD ORD: Sniper Alley claims another with barrage of mince pie grenades

Negotiating a Sniper Alley littered with festive leftovers like bad health landmines is no easy task.

By the experts’ reckoning, I’m just a commando roll into the tree line away from dodging the sniper’s bad health bullet.

With my 60th birthday approaching like a dribbling, swivel-eyed loon who has just spotted a seat next to me on the bus, I am on the verge of escaping what is grimly known as Sniper Alley - that being the decade between 50 and 60 in which health problems that can define the rest of your life usually strike.

It would be nice to say I’ve got this far unscathed, but I’ve copped a couple of flesh wounds along the way.

A dodgy disc means that my metaphorical ‘commando roll’ will, in reality, be more of a groaning shuffle leading to a ‘roll’ as graceful as a bin bag of recycled baked beans tins and wine bottles being heaved into a skip.

I’ve also been clipped by the Ninja of middle-age health attacks - rising cholesterol. The irony of that stealth assault is that it happened at a point where I was exercising more and eating better than I ever had. With my eldest son having borrowed (stolen) my car for university, I am forced to walk everywhere and my current life partner is a non-meat eater which means my diet has never been healthier. So how can my cholesterol be rising?

‘It’s genetics,’ my doctor informed me without looking up (he told me over the phone, but I could tell he wasn’t looking up, probably doing Sudoko), ‘it’s nothing to do with your lifestyle.’

So, as if keeping healthy wasn’t hard enough, my body is trying to kill me. I get the pain of rising cholesterol without the pleasure of cake.

Doctor Downbeat prescribed me statins. I told my mother. ‘How much are you on?’ she asked. ‘20mg’ I told her. ‘Pfft,’ she sneered. ‘Is that all?’

It’s not a bleedin’ competition, I protested. We’re quite a competitive family, but topping the Ord Pill Popping Premier League is not one of my New Year goals. If I have a resolution, it’s to emerge from Sniper Alley intact.

And that involves keeping healthy for the next few months. Easy enough, you might think, but what about the Christmas leftovers?

I feel like I’ve tunnelled my way under Sniper Alley, only to emerge 100 yards from the safety of the forest with searchlights scouring the terrain ahead to reveal Christmas mince pies, booze and festive chocolates littering my escape path like artery clogging landmines.

Wish me luck negotiating that path. I’ll let you know how I get on. If you hear nothing… it was probably the Chocolate Orange that got me.