Shopping is secret to a long and happy life

A SURVEY says shopping is good for you, which I knew already. Itadds that shopping is especially good for men, which I knew already,and that it can be even better than going to the gym, which I didn'tknow already - but I believe it. Oh yes, I believe it.

According to the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health,five minutes in Markies gets your epidemes zinging. Mind you, Imustn't misinterpret yon august journal and make it sound like thePeople's Friend for white-coated folks. What it's saying is thatshopping gets you out of the house, lets you people-watch - thusmaintaining your interest in life - has social and mental benefitsand, crucially, is much easier than going to the gym, which requirescitizens to be motivated to an almost inhuman degree.

This is particularly important as you get older and find thedisco music at the gym disturbing, not to mention getting depressedat the bicep-jockeys on the weights benches lifting their eyebrowsin front of the mirror.

If you're really knocking on a bit, making the effort to go thatlittle extra way to find good vittles is better for you thansettling for the nearest convenience store's ready meals, many ofwhich contain enough salt to decapitate you.

I am a shopper: terrible thing for a man to admit. I'm thinkingparticularly of Saturdays. I used to go to the football, but couldno longer justify spending pound(s)22 to watch overpaid peopleendlessly pass the ball sideways and backwards. Besides, if I wantto be surrounded by angry people chanting abuse at me, I'll organisea family reunion.

I tried making myself go to art galleries instead of shopping,but the power of the mall was too much. Art galleries in Edinburghare unbearable, as you'll usually be the only Scottish person there.If you arrive and say to the person on the gallery desk, "Och ayethe noo, fit's daein', ya loon?", they look at you as if you weremad and, in extreme cases - ie they're from Sussex - might summonsecurity.

The mall, on the other hand, is for all creeds and races, evenScottish people. It's my club, my dating agency, my catwalk. Itneedn't be indoors either. My favourite is outdoors. It has a vastcar park, with a great view towards Arthur's Seat and vast openskies that, somehow, make me feel like a cowboy. Generally, would-be tourist destinations that boast of big skies do so because theyhaven't got anything on the ground. But here be shops and - get this- they've got stuff in them.

It can be a moral victory when you return from the shops empty-handed, but it often feels hollow, like a tennis win against a six-year-old girl with a broken arm who didn't have a racket. But,again, I don't think the epidemiomotrists are necessarily talking ofvacuous consumerism in malls.

Just going to the local shop for a paper can do. I see citizenswaddling down the street at the same time every day for thatpurpose, getting 10 minutes of fresh air and a sense of achievement.Certainly, I value my local shop, where sometimes there'sconversation. Often I overdo it, as I work from home and get out ofpractice socially. "Four floury rolls please, and what do you thinkof Libya?"

Of course, you can shop on the internut, but goods can take agesarriving and still disappoint. A T-shirt arrived for me today, andcompletely failed to make me look slim and muscular.

That said, internet shopping lies at the centre of my plans foran independent old age, where I avoid being bunged into a home onaccount of all my marbles having exeunted stage-right. My planinvolves somehow keeping that intelligence to myself, which willmean staying in rather than risking a trip without my trousers tothe shops, where I don't buy anything but just stand there in mypants, staring at the staff and burping.

But, while I still have courage, determination and a brainfunctioning like a woollen computer, I intend to shop until I dropout.