That ticker thing on BBC News 24 started to roll around the screen.

... With my glasses off, I’m not much cop at reading it, so I rely on my early-morning headline fix from my eagle-eyed and snake-hipped Other.

“Oh, someone’s got bulimia… must be someone important to make the serious news,” he said at just a nod after 8.30am on Sunday.

“I think it said they had it for 10 years, or something like that. It’s gone on for quite a bit, then.”

Thinking that it was going to mention some starlet or other, I slipped on my goggles and waited for the tracker to run around again.

And when it came on that John Prescott was the one who had come out and declared he had an eating disorder, I nearly choked on my tiramisu.

Yes, tiramisu. Lodger Hiya Love couldn’t find strawberries when he went shopping on Saturday, so bought me tiramisu as a treat – in the same way that you’d by an alcoholic a vodka treat. It’s not advisable.

There was some left over from the night before, so I sneakily went into the kitchen, ostensibly to get a cup of tea.

But when I opened the fridge for the milk, the Italian stallion of a dessert started winking at me and it packs quite a punch, even at 9am.

So I’m secretly eating it while my toast, well, toasts, and my slimline, controlled, lovely Other is in the living room with a bowl of muesli and low-fat yoghurt (freak) listening to the story about Prescott’s problems.

I couldn’t help notice the irony as the newsreader babbled on about the former Deputy Prime Minister’s “odd” eating habits while I’m licking coffee- soaked sponge from the corners of a plastic container behind the kitchen wall for breakfast.

But I’m nothing if not original.

Anyway, back to the big P. It takes a brave man – a brave anyone – to admit that they have a problem with food. It’s so readily available, isn’t it?

You HAVE to have it. It’s everywhere. It’s a necessity. It’s necessary. And then it becomes a necessary evil. Just ask John.

He joins a long list of big names who have spoken out about their troubled relationship with grub.

Princess Diana was perhaps the most high-profile bulimic but others in the public eye, people who you’d probably label as “sorted”, have admitted it’s been an issue for them.

Stand up and be counted Sharon Osborne, Russell Brand, Paul Gascoigne, Geri Halliwell, and Elton John. All over- achievers who appear outwardly confident and successful but who are out of control around kitchen cupboards.

“People normally associate it with young women – anorexic girls, models trying to keep their weight down, or women in stressful situations, like Princess Diana,” JP writes in his autobiography, which is called Prezza, Pulling No Punches.

“Then, of course, with my weight, people wouldn't suspect it.

“You could say I wasn't a very successful bulimic, in that my weight didn't really drop.”

Mr Prescott, who once poured baked beans onto a curry – like who hasn’t done pregnancy cravings without a bun in the oven? – said eating became his “main pleasure” (tick that box, Han) and at times of stress he would seek comfort in eating vast quantities of food (and off she goes again).

He said that until a year ago he would “stuff his face” with packets of digestive biscuits, trifles and fish and chips, and would wash it down with condensed milk (strike three, but strawberry milkshake is more my pleasure).

When the pressure really got to him, he would drink bottles of vodka (thank God I’m teetotal or I fear my liver would be pickled).

On trips to his local Chinese restaurant in his Hull constituency, he said he could eat his way through the entire menu.

(I can’t stand duck or sweet‘n’sour, so we’re OK here.)

And then he would vomit it all back up to purge his body.

And that’s where the similarities end for me.

I’m sure I’m not alone when I admit to giving head room to the idea of bingeing and then making myself sick, as if sticking two fingers down your throat is like pressing the rewind button on your stereo.

As if by doing it, the last curry/baked bean combo for breakfast doesn’t exist.

My admission, therefore, is that I feel bulimic, but without the retching. I simply couldn’t do it.

I bet many of you reading this have mild forms of bulimia too, and have also succumbed to serious comfort eating, or getting into the habit of de-stressing with a Mars Bar.

So don’t feel too judgemental of old Prezza.

Because if I liked baked beans or curry or condensed milk, things could be very different for me today.

A TEXT came through on the train ...

... It was from Justin, my former best friend, brother-like figure, the one who I could stuff for Britain with and not give a damn.

Do you have a friend like that? You know, one that allows you to be yourself, in all your colours, no matter how dark and shady and self-destructive they appear?

Justin was my FBF, my Fat Best Friend. We shared everything, just not chocolate, the two of us coming to the conclusion from a very early age that we are both weak around any M&S food halls, and rubbish at portion control.

It started with chicken in a basket in the ’70s, and we’ve never looked back (or over our bellies).

We ate fast and lived precariously when it came to Sunday dinners on other days of the week, pizzas from Geoff’s in Ebbw Vale and extra onion rings down the country (that’s valleys for a posh meal in a Crickhowell pub, for those north of Abertillery).

But unlike our love for carbs, we drifted apart.

One thing has remained steadfast though, and that’s our battle with ourselves and our honesty with each other when talking about it on the rare occasions that we chew our respective fat.

Justin is the only person I know who would never, ever, ever judge me about my take on body image, the notion of which is wrapped up like a hot chicken fajita with how I feel I look.

On the text the other day, he said he was once again trying to stay on the Straight and (let’s be frank, it’s never gonna happen) Narrow by watching what he ate.

Bemoaning the fact that I feel so unsightly that I now measure 38-26-36 (and that’s just the left arm) and therefore eat to comfort my unease, my FBF was able to top it.

No, not with melted cheese and a side of nachos, but honest to goodness fast fat facts.

“That’s nothing,” he said.

“You’re talking to someone who can’t walk up Queen Street without having two breakfasts. One in McDonald’s and then a bacon bap in BHS. I was so depressed by my lack of will power by the time I got to work, I self-medicated with M&Ms.”

Oh, how I know the feeling.

It turns out, though, that up until this slide into the calorific abyss he had been trying to be good, as per his second text.

“So I went home and did some lunges, at least tried to do them anyway.

“In my pants, as you can’t get Jabba the Hutt sized pantaloons in JB Sports.

“I managed three before my back gave out. It took three cans of Deep Heat to get me out of bed the next morning.”

So Justin, like every failed or yo-yoing dieter I know, thought to hell with it and the difficulty or trying to be good and nose-dived into a nosebag of breakfasts.

I may have trouble counting how many pieces of bread I’m allowed a day, but I don’t have any trouble relating to this story.

When we were little (there’s a laugh) we used to spend hours drawing up diet and exercise plans, convincing ourselves that if we were thinking about it we were one step towards sorting it out once and for all.

Thirty very odd years later, we’re both bigger than ever, and still talking about it, still trying to come up with some plan we can follow.

But for all our brains, we don’t seem to realise that it kind of defeats the object to ponder the uphill challenge while dipping garlic bread into bolognese sauce.

Another text came through yesterday morning which read, “Awful day so far. So hungry, I ate dessert from the bin lid. Fancy going to the gym? We can do it this time, Han.”

Yes, I thought to myself, we can. If only we were just that little bit smaller and that little bit smarter to get out of our own ways.

And just like I imagine my scales would say if it was able to talk back at me, I think our story is forever To Be Continued.