A strong case for research

MEET three-year-old Liam Hoekstra, the toddler with a six pack and bulging muscles. This is a child who scales the side of the fridge like an experienced mountaineer and climbs the rope in the school gym without any help.

He lives with his parents and 16-yearold sister in Musekgon, a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan, in the American Midwest. At the moment he’s a medical mystery. He has a muscle-enlarging condition that can also be found in a breed of cattle – Belgian blue cows – dubbed “supercows” because of their muscular physique.

Super-strength apart, he’s like any other little boy. He likes basketball (although plays with a real, heavy ball, not a foam one like others his age) and has energy to spare.

Born five weeks premature, he was standing at five months old and climbing the stairs a month later. Keeping up with him wears out parents Neil and Dana, who have to spend a lot of time playing with him to try to wear him out.

He’s always hungry, always intensely active. At school, he’s allowed snacks between meals because of his appetite. He can’t store body fat, which is a potential health risk because that helps the brain and body develop properly.

The good news is that it could make him a future Olympian. His strength makes him a good swimmer, for instance.

His parents allow him to undertake tests not normally carried out on children under six. Another child his age, Owen, does the tests too so they can be compared. Liam does 17 sit-ups in a minute, while Owen can barely manage one.

During push-ups he casually takes one hand off the floor and turns to his parents leaning on just one arm. Everyone is astounded. The results show, unsurprising, that he has more strength than other boys his age.

The Extraordinary People documentary has his mother saying, “I just want Liam to be happy”. There is a chance he may make a lot of people happy. If doctors can understand his condition, they might be able to offer a cure for lethal muscle-wasting diseases.

THE Apprentice begins its sprint for the finish with a hat-trick of shows tonight, another on Friday (The Apprentice – Why I Fired Them) and the final on Sunday.

After profiles of the remaining hopefuls – Debra, Kate, Lorraine, Yasmina and James – in The Final Five, they are subjected to a grilling in The Apprentice.

Not from Sir Alan this time but his trusted business colleagues. They’re a tough bunch who cut through the BS on the apprentices’ CVs and put them on the spot. Lee McQueen did his impression of a pterodactyl at this point last year, so who knows what tricks the five have up their sleeves to impress interviewers this time.

RIVER Cottage chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is back and sheep-shearing is looming. Our host reckons this is the ideal time to throw a bash to celebrate. But what drink to serve? He joins forces with foraging buddy John Wright to make a prickly gorse flower brew.

He’s also on a mission to re-educate the nation about one particular variety of meat – veal. He’s convinced there’s more to this foodstuff than images of doe-eyed Friesians. He visits a local farm that produces welfare-friendly animals, before rustling up a few tasty recipes and putting them to the public’s palate.

And if you’re wondering if there’s anything that he doesn’t like, all is revealed on his website. “I certainly wouldn’t eat the white on top of a fried egg if it was still transparent. ’d have to either flip the egg over or keep basting it with hot fat until it sets,” he says.

As for that vital ingredient that he simply couldn’t live without, he admits: “I’ve just spent a couple of days without any butter in the fridge and I must say it did seem like a bit of a crisis. I didn’t realise quite how dependent I was on it.”