Dahling, indoors are the fabulous new outdoors.

When I was a mere twinkle in my Dad's eye, kids spent all day outside. Dawn to dusk, only coming home for tea and then going out again to see if they could catch owls with fishing rods or something. And fat kids were fat because they ate too much. But they didn't have a lot of food to eat. Rationing was rife, and they could all sit up trees on thin planks of wood with catapults and slingshots without fear of snapping the 2x4.

I'll be honest, as a nipper, I wasn't exactly likely to be on the front cover of Weight Watchers as something to strive for. Bluntly, I was a fat biffa child. I was unhappy, blah blah, I was the cliche. And I like chocolate.

Because I was fat, and children are cruel little gobshites at the best of times, I became a touch reclusive and sat in my room playing computer games, eating biscuits and getting fat. And then getting fatter because I was eating more biscuits and getting taunted more and more.

I used to be fairly active as a podger. Always doing P.E and stuff at school. Even to an extent, playing football after school. However, I was still throwing the pies down my throat faster than I could waddle them off.

And so, Fatty Arbuckle over here began to retreat into his room. Deeper and deeper into solitude when a miracle happened. At Christmas.

FIFA 2001.

A FOOTBALL GAME! I played it religiously. Completing season after season(in amateur mode, natch) and it sparked my interest in going out and socialising again. "Fuck the hatahs" thought I, "no true friend would take the piss out of me for my shape" and other such Trinny and Susannah crap.

So my next door neighbour and I would play tennis. Hour after hour of tennis.

Then I discovered skateboarding. Which was far more rewarding for me. Easier to control, made walking downhill an even bigger doddle, and ultimately, pulling off a trick gave me an enormous buzz. I had to strive. I found a sport I enjoyed, and could easily improve at.

And I was progressing nicely, when I discovered that despite my best efforts, I am not a natural sportsman. Average at lots, good at none.

So that put the kibosh on that one. Which was a shame, because I really enjoyed it. Still do on a rare occasion.

And despite all of the sweating, effort, grunting, blood, tears and pain I went through, I hadn't lost an ounce.

Again, this was due to my love of pies and biscuits.

And then a few years past with 0 effort on my part. I move to opposite ends of the country twice.

I return to Londinium's outposts and begin an illustrious career as a window cleaner. Ya, Lumpy was a glazing hygiene technician. In the height of summer. The flab pisses off me. "This is great" think I, "I'm finally losing lbs hand over fist."

But then I stopped being a Visual Sanitation Engineer and got a job as a beverage refreshment consultant. And still the weight pissed off of me. I begin to worry.

I head to the docs.

Diabetes? Hepatitis?

No. No.

Eating well?

Yes.

Epstein-Barr Virus?

Wassat then, quack?

"Well basically..."
*lengthy medical jargon which I failed to comprehend*
"...and that's what we suspect you may have."

Oh.

Bugger.

It has been more than 6 months since my diagnosis, and STILL I'm heamoraiging weight. Nowt to be done apparently.

I spent years indoors, getting fat because I wouldnt go outdoors. Then I get ill and all my issues go away?

Fuck it.

Unhappy teddy.

Wankers.

I still eat more shit than perhaps I should, but I cannot put on weight. Quack is totally baffled with it.

Useless sod.

Last time I go NHS.

I worry too much, I reckon

I found myself worrying about my rubbish in my bedroom this afternoon. How much I produce in a fortnight, and how much I can get away with taking out without people wondering what on earth I'm doing.

I find myself worrying about wether I'm going to miss the bus to work, but this blows over rapidly because I dislike my job.

I often worry about my dad, because he is a diabetic. Anything goes wrong, and I'm 400 miles away, and can do precisely 0.

I worry about my sister, because I do.

Recently though, my biggest worry has been my impending relocation to South Africa. Mainly because its a big scary thing and I know almost nobody out there. My entire life has been spent moving from house to house, so moving isnt the issue. Its the distance. My dad and my sister are staying put in their respective locales, and I'm flying further and further from the nest.

I have raging paranoia about being stuck out there and commiting some tiny felony whilst there and being imprisoned on Robben Island (Free The Swandanavian One!) for 37,000 years or so. I've read horror stories of the notorious "Numbers" gangs in the jails in S. Africa, and this has failed to cure my fear.

Couple this with heading almost blind into a field I know nothing about, and the odds of me succeeding are dwindling faster and faster with every passing thought to it.

HARUMPH.

I think I shall be forced to find solace in games of Mornington Crescent or GTA4 until I actually leave for the Dark Continent.

Shit.

Dark? I'm afraid of the dark...

Contact Your Inner Caveman, For The Greater Good

The METROSEXUAL. Not the hidden sexual perversion it may seem. It is fast becoming the pretender to throne of The Alpha-Male.

Once upon a time, it was considered the norm(if not expected) to be dirty, sweaty, smelly, unkempt and rude. If these glorious qualities didnt get you a mate, you found the nearest female, clubbed her over the head and returned to your patch of the cave and kept her there until she developed a type of Stockholm Syndrome.

These days, in order to aquire something relating in status to a wife or girlfriend, you need to be clean, tidy, well dressed, witty and intelligent. You have to earn decent money, be able to look after yourself, as well as the lady in question, and any potential children which may appear in the future.

Gone are the days when you could stroll around wearing scant more than a smile and your own back hair. A chap walking around like that in those heady fays of 10,000 BC would be a stunning candidate for the procreation of the species. Walk around like that these days and you'll be locked up in a padded cell with a straight jacket for warmth.

I'm almost certain that I was born out of my time. If I dont have to be seen in public, I'll often choose to not even get dressed, let alone shower or comb my hair. The moment I know I have to step outside, I'll bow down to the socially acceptable appearance that the casual observer sees. I'm more than happy to sit in my own squalor, provided its my squalor. Were I born in my true era, that filth would be brushed into the fire at the cave opening to keep me warm.

Dont take all this to mean that I am a disgusting person. I am. But for all intents and purposes, I keep my social spaces clean and tidy so that other non-caveman types wont turn their noses up. Its not an acceptance thing, its just easier.

I often find myself thinking in Neanderthal man ways(I'd like to think so, not just I have an under-evolved brain) about how things can be done. A lot of the wise-arse remarks made to people about sexual practise involve clubs and caves. Far more than is natural.

If I encounter things which I find difficult(physical tasks, not crosswords and sudokus) then I furrow my brow and grunt. Sometimes emphatically. I quit often beat my chest one or two times in triumph. I genuinly cannot envision myself living past the age of 40, the average Neanderthal's life expectancy.

I often create tools out of other ojects in a vain attempt at making my life easier, but they are often clumsy. I dont care for jewellery, or other such flashy objects. I can make fire from sticks, pieces of flint and other such fun shit.

Am I a caveman, or am I just very odd? I find it increasingly hard to distinguish one from the other. I havent actually clubbed a lady over the head and dragged her back to my cave, mainly because I'm too lazy for the dragging, and its not a very easy thing to explain to the police, one imagines.

Sod it. I might go out and create fire, skin some animals and go live in a park. Best make sure the park has wi-fi. I'm a caveman, but I have to be in touch. I suppose plug sockets wouldnt go amiss.

Best bit of all that would be I would be able to start my own caveman tribe. I'd be the tribal elder, I could command my peaons to gather me things.

I am the Swandanavian Alpha-Male, and The Universe is right within our cave.

The trouble with advertising today

Here in the UK, television is shit. Mostly, anyway. And most of what isn't shit, is imported(I'm thinking Neighbours, Diagnosis Murder, Heroes, The Big Bang Theory, the rest is sports. A lot of which is imported.)

Shit TV I can handle, I have the power to ignore, switch off or change the channel. All from the comfort of my fat arse sitting on my sofa. What I cannot accept is shitty advertising.

Now, I love watching adverts. Some are really clever(see: Guinness' "Tipping Point" and the Sony "Colours" series for Bravia TVs*), others are not. My trouble is, I read too deeply into them. FAR too deeply.

I've noticed recently an influx of Thunderbirds on my telly all of a sudden. Two separate companies selling two very different products are both utilising the puppets of my childhood in order to try to get me to use/buy their product.

Drench sells bottled water. Drench advertises bottled water with Brains dancing to some crap song in front a pink stage. Not just any dancing, body popping. A puppet, nay, MARIONETTE should never ever body pop or break dance.

Also, Specsavers. Your friendly neighbourhood optician(not including vision express, et al) are using the remaining 'Birds to peddle their wares.

Brains was the only one of the Tracys to wear glasses. Brains does not sell glasses. Brains dances for water companies.

Where is the logic, exactly?

This leads me to think that Brains has gone renegade and that he is about to go all solo on us. Releasing cd singles and download only albums of lowering standards in order to feed his escalating cocaine habit(he always was the flashy one, on the quiet) until he's eventually found by some low-level journo at a piss poor supermarket tabloid selling his body and song rights to feed his (now) varying drug habits. In the article, he is likened to a John Frusciante type of character.
Eventually, Brains will see sense and return to the fold, but only after selling his story as a serialisation to the Sunday Mail "My Fight Against The Daemons," in 17 weekly installments adding up to the price of his 2nd auto-biography "How I Learned To Stop Using, And Learned To Love Your Mom." Allegedly, this caused a rift with Duck Tracy, who believed it to be a snide remark after Brains' supposed affair with Duck's mother. Despite her being both 78 years old and a duck.

This is, however, irrelevant. We all know that marionettes are asexual by Law. Therefore, Duck Tracy's allegations have no basis.

Actually, maybe I dont read too much into them after all. Maybe I'm like an advertising Nostradamus.

*Memo to both Guinness and Sony, dont feel obliged for the free advertising, but if you feel like sending me a shitload of free stuff, go ahead.