While lolling in the bath earlier this evening, my tummy stuffed with sausages, red onion gravy and a fabulous mashed potato oozing butter, it gave me great pleasure to recall my mother would be furious.

'You must not have a bath on a full stomach,' she used to shout at the back of my head as a teenage me floated round the house oblivious to the noise she made. I can't remember what was supposed to happen to me if i did(because I was floating around being oblivious, obviously) but it certainly doesn't seem to be doing me any harm today.

I'm pretty sure she had declared swimming on a full stomach led to instant death and so me and my brother spent many a summer afternoon looking longingly at the breaking waves along Bigbury Beach waiting for the moment she would judge our lunches had sufficiently 'gone down'.

Then there were all the other don'ts:
* don't swallow apple pips, they grow in your stomach,
* don't swallow chewing gum, it will get mangled in your stomach/kill you,
* do eat your crusts or your hair won't curl.

I am sure there are a hundred more...