Get smarter...don't read Sunday paper lifestyle pieces

(Picture left - brushing your teeth while winking increases IQ by up to 7.2 per cent)

An upcoming BBC programme Get Smarter in a Week was trailed in the Observer yesterday. The scientific thinking behind the programme is that simple changes to our lifestyle - combined with physical exercise - can lead to significant improvements in how well our brains function.

The contestants on the show spend a week following a 50-page Get Smarter Guide and the Observer printed a selection of get smarter tips (possible outcomes provided by the Thimble):

THE GET SMARTER GUIDE

Saturday
Brush your teeth with your 'wrong' hand and take a shower with your eyes closed.

Possible outcome: Toothpaste stains on your 'Saturday night going-out' shirt from inaccurate brushing prompt failure at evening's social event. Your date, taking the view that a man lacking the coordination to brush his teeth properly may not be the man to guide her through the intricacies of the waltz, goes off with your best friend, Dan, who doesn't even brush his teeth.

Go home. Have shower with eyes closed. Fall over, break ankle. Cue six hours in casualty spent with drunks and victims of violent assault. Forced to wait even longer due to a large group of people with severe eye injuries. Doctors conclude injuries consistent with being stabbed in the eye by a toothbrush.

Sunday
Do the crossword or Sudoku puzzle in your Sunday paper and take a brisk walk.

Possible outcome: Go to parents for Sunday dinner. Mum and Dad, learning of your new regime, suggest you are only allowed dinner if you have successfully completed the day's cryptic crossword and Sudoku puzzle. Thankfully you manage to download the day's solutions off the internet and can safely tuck into meat and two veg. Your Nan, unfamiliar with the internet as she is, fails to complete the task and is sent home without any dinner.

Monday
Have oily fish for dinner, and either cycle, walk or take the bus into work.

Possible outcome: Signed off from work with broken ankle. Against medical advice cycle to fishmongers to buy oily fish. Disappointed to find fishmongers has been turned into a trendy theme bar named 'The Cod and Chips'. Drink expensive Czech lager and pay ten quid for a selection of 'crustacean crudites' (crab sticks) before slouching in a corner with a copy of the Ancient Mariner.

Tuesday
Select unfamiliar words from the dictionary and work them into conversations.

Possible outcome: Decide to use the words 'feculance', 'micturate' and 'discombobulate' without bothering to look up their meaning in the dictionary. Cause medium to serious offence at the local swimming pool by outlining your plan to "swim with considerable feculance and grace" for the next hour and puzzle staff by declaring that you plan to 'micturate for some time before deciding to join up on direct debit'.

Popping into the local Starbucks to grab a cappuccino with double discombobulate doesn't seem to cause too much trouble. You still feel cheated, however, when you find you have paid three pound more for a coffee that tastes exactly the same as the un-discombobulated version.

Wednesday
Go to yoga, Pilates or a meditation class, and talk to someone you don't know.

Possible outcome: Going to yoga has an unexpectedly positive effect on your sense of well-being. Feeling upbeat and positive you decide to stop and talk to a stranger. Stranger turns around from the urinal and pisses on your shoes. No amount of meditation is going to get those stains out of your trousers.

Thursday
Take a different route to work; watch Countdown or Brainteaser.

Possible outcome: Decide to skip the tube and take the river bus to work only to find a whale has ventured down the Thames. The London Transport River Boat you are travelling on is commandered for the whale rescue. and you are forced to wade into the water, wearing your best Savile Row suit, to aid the effort to keep the mammal from dehdyration. After five hours of alternatively filling buckets and taking pictures with your camera-phone, you realise your suit is ruined and that Thursday is, after all, a 'home-working' day.

You return home in time for Countdown.

Friday
Avoid caffeine or alcohol; memorise your shopping list

Possible outcome: Learn a mnemonic ('DON'T FORGET') to remember the shoppping. However, things go amiss when you return not with the duck, onion, nectarines, tomatoes, oranges, foie gras (FG...) and thyme as planned, but a dog, an orangutan, Nescafe, the Times, 'Fools Gold' by the Stone Roses and a bottle of tequila. Realising this is not the menu you had in mind for the evening's dinner party you drink yourself silly on Nescafe and Cuervo Gold tequila and pass out around 7pm.