The key objective of my recent holiday was to get some ‘r and r’ and come back feeling less knackered then when I went. Mission not accomplished, and I have come home with a host of ailments that make my 97-year-old grandmother look sprightly.

All of which means that I have not touched a drop of wine for quite some time and the collection of samples for tasting are mounting in the hallway and I feel forlorn at my lack of enthusiasm for the task ahead. I am a rubbish patient.

A little reprieve did present itself yesterday in the form of a slim and cheap-looking book called Guilt-Free Drinking by Robert Beardsmore.

It caught my attention not because of the title (I have never once felt guilty about moderate and sensible alcohol consumption) but because of the introduction’s final sentence: “One overarching measure of whether something is good for us or not is whether it helps us live longer . . . on average, drinking in moderation lengthens life.”

Well, wow! That is quite a bold declaration in a time when a not insignificant number of our social problems are being blamed on the demon drink.

The key word, clearly, is moderation and I am the last person to deny that when alcohol is abused it can cause a huge amount of damage. But, for now, let us consider what Beardsmore has to say.

He is clearly wary about appearing irresponsible or gung-ho in his attitude and the book is peppered with common sense observations about those who abuse alcohol.

His research reassures sensible wine-drinkers that the benefits to the heart and circulation will help us live for longer but the cheer is short-lived with the news that we may be putting ourselves at a modest increased risk of cancer.

Undaunted, he has his own unproven hypothesis that the latter may not be the case and, once again, we can breathe easy about our love of wine.

Beardsmore tells us that moderate drinkers have a 30 per cent lower risk of type-2 diabetes than non-drinkers and provides data that suggests that we are less likely to suffer from dementia and gallstones too. The good news, it seems, is endless.

I have no problem with Guilt-Free Drinking. To read anything with scientific research at its core that does not paint a doom-and-gloom image of alcohol is tonic in itself.

However, it does not tell me anything that I did not feel I have instinctively known all along; that a little bit of everything in moderation probably will not do me much harm.

I feel sad that Beardsmore has felt so worn down by the daily news bulletins on alcohol that he has spent as much time as he has reading, analysing and exploring a myriad of professional research documents to produce his book.

I fear the stress of it all may have knocked a week or two off his, hopefully, very long life.