The Sunday Times, 19 Nov 1972, carried an article of the cocktail circuit "demands" made on him as Vice Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps and how -
"....Mayall has come through it unscathed. There was a time when his waistline was beginning to surrender to the onslaught and he ruthlessly went to work on it. He's not only slimmer than when he became Vice-Marshal in 1965 which out to be encouraging to those of us unnamed who are in danger of writing their stories arm's length from the typewriter".
Lesson for many of us.