WELL here's some wonderful news just in time for Christmas - especially if you are struggling to fit into that little black dress before the party season.

Slimming makes you sad. Plumper people are, indeed, happier. Scientists have proved it.

A study by psychologists all across Europe has found that skinny people can't cope as well with life's trials and tribulations. Skinny people, in fact, are more likely to kill themselves.

Well, who'd have thought it?

You'd think, really, that it's the fatties who would be miserable. It's fatties who get mocked. It's fatties who have to suffer the finger pointing, the moral outrage from their skinny sisters.

Self indulgence when it comes to drink or drugs is still, somehow, seen as acceptable - as long as you're skinny. But enjoy your food? Now that's a crime.. Kate Moss bounces back from cocaine scandal and is forgiven. Would we have been so forgiving if she'd got fat? Just remember all the criticism Fern Britton got for looking happy in a size 16 bikini. You'd think she'd been eating babies for breakfast, not just a few extra biscuits.

It's fatties who can go up and down the average High Street and not find a single garment that fits, never mind that flatters.

It's fatties who might not get the hospital treatment they need.

So you'd think, wouldn't you, that it would be fatties who would be more inclined to be morose and miserable, not these skinny little things who can eat what they like and still be spoilt for choice in any clothes shop, those perfect beings who can use a communal changing room without any embarrassment.

But no.

The Europe-wide study showed that for each 5kg per square metre increase in the BMI, the risk of suicide went down by 15 per cent. In other words, the fatter you are, the happier you are.

Maybe it's something to do with insulin and chemicals. Maybe it's because people who go on strict diets to change their lives, realise that, after all that effort, they're still the same person, just inside a smaller frame.

Maybe fatter people are already at ease with themselves and feel no need to change.

Whatever the reason, it is some small crumb of comfort to those of us of, shall we say, a traditional build.

So when I am next in a changing room, struggling to clinch a too tight zip, I shall console myself as I breathe desperately in.

No matter how cross and miserable I feel at trying to squeeze myself into a size too small, it's sort of cheering to know that those for whom it would be two sizes too big, would be even more miserable...

GORDON Ramsay's mother is a saint. He has said that she won't see her grandchildren on Christmas Day because she can't cook the turkey properly, so he won't be going there. What a pompous twit.

There are a number of fairly obvious solutions - like Gordon cooking the turkey as he's so clever, or inviting mum to stay with them so she can see how it's done...

Ramsey's mum may have been cut to the quick by his remarks and behaviour, but her comments were diplomatic. But maybe, of course, she's not so dumb.

Maybe the badly cooked turkey is her way of ensuring that her clever clogs, know-it-all son stays away and she can have a bit of peace at Christmas - and eat exactly what she likes and how she likes it.