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.