More of that healthy wine...

In these troubled times, we are all looking round, I think it is fair to say, to find ways to get us through the night, whether it is the contemporary equivalent of the Night of the Long Knives or that part of the daily round which is darkest before the muchneeded dawn.

So imagine my joy when yet another scientific study, looking at the consumption habits of thousands of people living in the UK, US and the Netherlands, gave the thumbs up once more to the beneficial effects of red wine on the infernal organs.

One Dr Caroline Le Roy opined: “If you must choose one alcoholic drink today, red wine is the one as it seems to potentially exert a beneficial effect on you and your gut microbes, which in turn may also help weight and risk of heart disease.”

But the vin rouge does not come with carte blanche, obviously. A glass a fortnight was enough to make a difference, it was reported and researchers were quick to point out that such findings are not an excuse to binge. Polyphenols, the micro-nutrients that seemingly act as a fuel for useful microbes living in the depths of our interiors, are also found in many fruits and vegetables, they said, wagging their fingers somewhat primly. I surmise from such timely reminders that said boffins are unlikely to turn round and admonish us not to go overboard on the artichokes or beware of stockpiling chicory, red onions and spinach.

Perhaps it is thus churlish to mention that, in my experience at least, it is much easier to get into a bottle of screw-top red than it is to unwrap an artichoke. But, of course, moderation in all things – including moderation, presumably – is the watchword. We

can get all these wonderful polywotsits from cloves, dried peppermint, star anise and other household essentials. And cacao derivatives, the darker the better. I should cocoa, indeed.

But it does seem to me that there is a bit of an anecdotal flaw in this kind of thinking. Strawberries and raspberries are just bung full of this kind of gut-pleasing goodness. Now, Scotland produces some of the best soft fruits in the world, bar none, from which these research fellows might reasonably deduce that the general population should, therefore, be fair bouncing with health. Which, without putting too fine a point on it, is manifestly not the case.

Perhaps we should try manufacturing more fruit wines like some of the excellent stuff produced in this very area but that might not quite cut the mustard, or any other kind of appropriate comestible. It reminds me a bit of a supposed quote from the composer Rossini, who said he didn’t eat grapes because he didn’t like his wine in pill form.

He was a man who effectively stopped producing cheery and popular operas at about the age of 38, apart from a few dilettante compositions to keep the neighbours amused and spent the rest of his days (about four decades’ worth) hosting lively parties and indulging in food and drink.

What is not to like? I’ve always thought he should be an honorary Scot and now I am more certain than ever. And speaking of Scots… Further to my wordsmithing musings last week and subsequent ponderings over the past few days on Scotland’s role in current events,

I feel particularly vindicated as, after my thoughts in the final Wry and Dry for the month of August, it was pointed out to me that this year alone, many Scots words have found their way into the hallowed pages of the Macmillan Dictionary, no less.

Having said that, do we really need some of the more obvious inclusions? Take “sprucey”, apparently a recent addition to at least one respectable book of words. “Pertaining to the spruce tree; resembling or having the characteristics of the spruce.” It’s like that old joke. “What’s brown and sticky?” “A stick”.

But rich, strange and far more descriptive terms such as bawbag, bampot, Weegie and baffie made it in, albeit with the first described as “a Scottish term of endearment”. Ahem. In the words of that other great Scottish phrase highlighted in these paragraphs only recently: “Aye, right…”. Although if you look at those words in that order, they do sound more like a firm of rather dodgy west coast solicitors than a linguistic embarras de richesse.

The Scottish tongue, from moger to boorach and back again, is definitely one which somehow manages to encapsulate, pithily if I can put it like that, much of the mood and style of the last week. That’s a unit of time described as “a long time in politics”, as Harold Wilson once sagely remarked, and it’s not over yet, more’s the pity. He didn’t know the half of it, one suspects. An hour seems like everchanging eternity these days, especially when spent in the company of politicians.

Let sleeping Moggs lie, I say, whether it’s in their teeth or flat out on the House of Commons benches. Scunner doesn’t quite cover it.

But the vin rouge does not come with carte blanche, obviously

Picture: Mhairi Edwards. Strawberries are also a good source of polyphenols – and won’t leave you with a hangover.