A MAN who has eaten Christmas dinner every day for the past five years is going on a diet after gaining almost four stone.

Forty-one-year-old Andy Park is seeking "urgent" medical advice on ways to combat his addiction to an all-day menu of festive treats, which includes mince pies, roast turkey and sherry. He now weighs 16 stone.

"I love living Christmas every day but I have got so big that I know I need help.

''I just want to cut down; there's no way I can give it all up altogether," Mr Park said yesterday.

The self-employed electrician, from Melksham, Wiltshire, first put up Christmas decorations during the summer of 1993 to "cheer himself up".

He now spends over £300 a week on Christmas food and at 3pm every day, watches a video of the Queen's speech. He wraps three presents for himself each night and leaves them under the tree in his lounge.

Each year, Mr Park consumes 104 turkeys, 200 tins of Quality Street and 260 Christmas puddings. He buys cut-price Christmas goodies in January and makes deals with his local butcher for cheap turkeys, which he cooks every three days. "Brussel sprouts are my favourite. I could eat bowls of them," he said.

His daily menu includes:

Breakfast: Two mince pies, one bowl of Christmas pudding and orange juice.
Mid-morning: Three mince pies and a glass of sherry.
Lunch: Turkey sandwich and chocolates.
Afternoon: More mince pies and a glass of champagne.
Dinner: Roast turkey dinner with all the trimmings and Christmas pudding.

A spokeswoman for Weightwatchers urged Mr Park to join his local slimming group, saying he needed to eat a more "balanced diet".

If Mr Park - who is hoping for singing stardom with a song about his unusual hobby, called "The Christmas Man" - starts dieting now, he could be back to his original weight by the millennium, she added.

Well, koalas eat only eucalyptus leaves, so why can't a human eat Xmas dinner all the time?

  Thursday December 3

A MAN slaughtered his estranged wife and her elderly parents with what is believed to be an axe then shortly afterwards died in his blazing, barricaded home a couple of miles away.

The body of Philip Heyward, 64, a tree surgeon, was found yesterday at his razed house in St Blazey Gate, Cornwall. It is believed he hanged himself.

The bodies of his wife Phyllis Heyward, aged in her fifties, and her parents, Albert and Myra Spring, both in their eighties, were found by Mrs Heyward's sister, Shirley Solomon. They had been beaten to death, and had severe head injuries inflicted by what appeared to be a blunt instrument. An axe was recovered from Mr Heyward's house, but police would not say whether it was the murder weapon.

Detective Inspector Dave Rowe said last night no one else was being sought.

Mrs Heyward had left her husband six weeks ago and was staying at Ms Solomon's house in St Austell.

I just love Axe Murderer stories.

  Wednesday December 2

Chris Ofili, who paints with elephant dung, won the £20,000 Turner Prize last night. He was the first painter since Howard Hodgkin in 1985 to win the visual arts' most prestigious award. Recent years have seen the award going to installation and video artists and sculptors.

Ofili, 29, the odds-on favourite,was praised by the jury for "the originality and energy of his painting and his dynamic use of colour". Born in Manchester, he studies at the Royal College of Art. The Turner Prize exhibition contains one of his most topical and powerful paintings, No Woman No Cry, a black woman crying, with every tear containing a picture of the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

It was intended to portray universal grief and suffering, with particular attention to the black community. But as he worked, he became increasingly aware of the Lawrence inquiry and, according to the Tate curator Virginia Button, aware of the image of Doreen Lawrence often in tears, and brought this into his painting.

"Chris followed the coverage of the inquiry and Mrs Lawrence would always be there, weeping, and this is Chris's tribute." The figure, who wears a pendant of elephant dung, was inspired by Mrs Lawrence, although it is not a portrait.

Another of Ofili's works, The Adoration of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars (Part 2), is described in the Tate exhibition catalogue as being made of acrylic, oil, resin, glitter, paper collage, map pins and elephant dung on canvas with two dung supports.

Ofili beat a shortlist of Tacita Dean, 32, Cathy de Monchaux, 37, and Sam Taylor-Wood, 31. Dean's work included a video of Hungarian women in a steam bath; Taylor-Wood used video with a split-screen view of a couple arguing in a restaurant; de Monchaux had wall sculptures of metal, pink leather and suede, and a group of lead structures resembling tombstones.

The jury, chaired by the Tate Gallery director, Nicholas Serota, comprised Ann Gallagher, exhibition officer at the British Council, Fumio Nanjo, curator and critic, Marina Warner, author, and Neil Tennant, member of The Pet Shop Boys and representative of the Patrons of New Art.

Knew that stuff had to be good for something. Where does he get it from? It's not likely to be in your normal arts supply store.

  Friday December 11

IT MAY be dung, but is it art? Ray Hutchins, an artist who launched a dramatic protest against this year's Turner Prize winner by dumping a wheelbarrow of cow dung on the steps of the Tate Gallery, clearly thought not.

Mr Hutchins delivered his protest after learning that the winner of this year's Turner Prize, Chris Ofili, had decorated his canvasses with elephant dung. "I've been waiting to do this for years," he shouted, shovelling the muck out onto the entrance of the Tate, in London, where Mr Ofili's work is being exhibited. "It's time somebody made a stand against the idiocy of modern art. The general public on the whole dislikes it. Dead sheep and cows are one thing, but the elephant dung was the final straw for me... A real artist who can paint should have won the Turner prize."

Mr Hutchins, 66, a professional illustrator of books, mugs and pottery, from Huntley, in Staffordshire, borrowed his materials from a neighbour's farm. But the effort of collecting the dung from the field landed him in hospital with a heart attack. His wife pleaded with him not to go to London - to no avail.

Mr Hutchins finally planted a placard in the excrement which read: "Modern art is a load of bullshit."

Another bullshit story.

  Wednesday December 2

A GIRL who started life registered on her birth certificate as a boy has won an eight-year battle to be officially recognised as female.

Ten-year-old Joella Holliday, whose cause was championed by the late Princess of Wales, has convinced the Office of National Statistics to change her birth certificate, after a rare disfiguring illness caused her to be identified as a boy.

Joella was born with a medical condition affecting 1 in 150,000 and her chances of survival were thought to be slim. But after an operation at 17-months, surgeons were able to help her lead life as a girl.

Now, the Statistics Office has relented and has taken the unusual step of allowing a birth certificate gender entry to be reversed.

This was after it was presented with a 47-page report from medical experts and testimony from the chaplain who christened her Joel David.

The family are planning a second christening in her village church in Pinchbeck, near Spalding, Lincolnshire, before Christmas.

The ruling will not affect hundreds of transsexuals who want their gender officially changed, as the law does not allow them to change their birth certificates.

The official change of sex, which the family believe is a first, came after a crusade by Joella's mother, Julia Farmer, 30, who gathered medical evidence about her daughter's birth. Mrs Farmer enlisted the help of the Princess of Wales in 1996, who sent the family messages of support.

Yesterday Joella's words on hearing the news were: "Does this mean that I can get married, mum?" Joella added: "It's really good. I can look forward to getting married. It means a lot to me."

Mrs Farmer said: "There were that many obstacles in the way right down to us being refused legal aid that they must have thought we wouldn't carry on. It was our persistence that won out. When the letter came from our solicitors I couldn't open it. I just thought it was another delay.

"But when I read the first few paragraphs I couldn't believe it. I stopped and went back to the beginning to check there wasn't a catch.

"I don't think I will believe it until the birth certificate is in my hand. We are still waiting for a copy to arrive.

"I also feel annoyed that they put us through all this and they can only tell us in a letter.

"We knew the Office of National Statistics was discussing it and it would only have taken a 'no' and we were ready to go to the High Court."

Joella has already undergone dozens of operations for her condition, called exomphallus ectopia vesicae and hemi-bladder.

It meant that her bladder and intestines were outside of her body, there was no abdominal wall and she had an unformed phallus in two parts.

The Office of National Statistics confirmed yesterday it would be issuing a new birth certificate for Joella.

A spokesman said: "There must have been an error at the time of registration and evidence would have had to have been supplied corroborating that."

A rather exotic birth defect. Never heard of this one, but I love the name for it: exomphallus ectopia vesicae and hemi-bladder.

  Wednesday November 25

After centuries of quack remedies - ranging from witches' potions to transplant surgery - scientists have made a breakthrough in the search to cure baldness.

A team of biologists from the University of Chicago announced last night that they have grown shafts of hair where no hair has grown before.

The researchers believe they may have stimulated adult skin cells to revert to their embryonic condition from which they developed into fully functioning hair follicles, the hair-producing cells which become dormant in bald men.

In an experiment on laboratory mice the scientists were able to stimulate the growth of hair in the spaces between existing hair follicles of the skin to create a breed of super-hairy mice.

Although the scientists, led by Professor Elaine Fuchs of the university's department of molecular genetics and cell biology, emphasised that they had not as yet found a cure for baldness, they are in little doubt that their research is a major step forward.

"This is exciting because current treatments for baldness only work if there are living follicles left, or if the patient undergoes hair-transplant surgery," Professor Fuchs said.

"Our research shows that new follicles can be created from adult skin cells if certain molecular players are induced to act."

The key molecule in question is beta-catenin, a protein which plays a vital role in gluing skin cells together. It also, however, acts as a signalling system in the womb for instructing embryonic cells to become hair follicles in the skin.

"Beta-catenin can cause adult epithelial [skin] cells to revert to an embryonic-like state where they have the ability to chose to become a hair follicle," Professor Fuchs said.

Scientists discovered that beta-catenin binds to another molecule called LEF-1 which is usually found only in the cells that are destined to become hair-producing follicles. When the two molecules form a marriage, a new hair shaft is born.

Dr Uri Gat, a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Fuchs' laboratory, found a way of stimulating a form of beta-catenin that is not broken down in the skin, thereby creating fresh hair growth. The results are reported in the journal Cell.

"What we've shown is that we can induce hair development in adult mice when usually hair follicles only form in the embryo," Dr Gat said.

A lotion containing a substance which stimulates the production of beta-catenin in the scalp could theoretically generate the formation of new hair follicles and so cure baldness, he added.

Professor Fuchs warned, however, of unwanted side-effects in some of the mice, which developed benign tumours of the skin as a result of overactive hair follicles.

"If we can find a way to transiently express beta-catenin in these skin cells, just until new follicles are established, and then turn it off, we may be able to prevent tumour formation and still allow hair follicles to form."

The research also showed that blocking the activity of beta-catenin instead of stimulating it might prevent the growth of unwanted hair. This would be useful for women.

I don't have any hair on my chest, which always embarassed me. Will this work for that, and is it covered by my Health Plan?

  Tuesday November 24

THE CASE of the mutineering rowing boat took a new twist yesterday when it was claimed the crew jumped ship after the skipper was caught with a prostitute when he should have been overseeing repairs. Crew members of the Atlantic Endeavour were returning to Scotland last night after abandoning their attempt to break the record for rowing across the Atlantic.

It had been reported the crew had decided not to continue with the bid because of skipper Roy Finlay's iron-fisted discipline and because of safety fears. But yesterday it was suggested the crew had quit after Capt Finlay enjoyed a traditional port-town pleasure in Mindelo on Sao Vicente in the Cape Verde Islands.

Mr Finlay was yesterday still believed to be on the island but was unavailable to comment on the allegations, made in a Scottish newspaper. However, the Ocean Rowing Society, speaking on behalf of Capt Finlay's father Bob, said yesterday it "seemed that the story about prostitute is true".

The crew of 18 had managed 700 of the 3,000 miles when it decided to give up.

Row, row, row your boat....