Want to lose weight and have sex? Do the housework

I then wash it all over again, which only serves to move the swirls from one place to another. Maybe I’m using the wrong section of the Herald.

Later I’ll sweep the house, creating a pile of dog hair so unfeasibly large that I wonder if there’s anything left of the dog. What’s he been doing? Applying Nair? Maybe I could sell his hair for wigs and turn a profit.

The British writer and eccentric Quentin Crisp famously claimed that if you don’t dust for four years, further dust will not accumulate. I don’t know if this is entirely true. I have memories of student houses where the nature of the floor covering was uncertain, so complete was the coverage of motorcycle parts, pizza boxes and general filth.

I remember the moment someone moved a pizza box, and exclaimed: “Hey, there’s a carpet under here.” Nature abhors a vacuum and so did these young men.

The toilet was worse. Every time I hazarded a visit, I remember optimistically wondering whether “Putrid Black” was just another colour in the Fowler Ware range.

Later, I hope those chaps realised one of life’s great truths: romantic partners tend to respond best to people who perform an equal share of the household tasks. Certainly, Jocasta’s erogenous zones have long included the kitchen floor, the back bathroom and the lint filter in the dryer.

In fact, after ironing her shirts, I always spray a bit of Fabulon behind my ears, which I find works better than those pheromones they used to promote in the back of magazines. Just as promised in the pheromone advertisement, she falls into a swoon without quite knowing why.

Yet now, courtesy of the Singaporean research, there are even more reasons to throw yourself into the housework, becoming healthier and more acute with every task.

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Reordering the Tupperware drawer might be a good start, as it tends to involve a lot of crouching, standing and then crouching again. Afterwards, there’s the moral and intellectual tussle of whether to throw out the lids that have no bottoms, and the bottoms that have no lids, or wait to see if they turn up.

Better still, the Singaporeans could include a few outdoor tasks.

By never having the lawnmower serviced, I have cleverly created a system in which start-up involves two hours of sweat-inducing cord-pulling each Saturday morning. Even better, by making sure all my tools are blunt, rusty and ill-maintained, I manage to turn the simplest household repair into an all-day nightmare involving shouting, swearing, and the puncturing of at least one high-pressure pipe.

That’s the thing about housework. As the Singaporeans know, you’ve got to use both your body and your brains.

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