The Seven Year Itch

Cake cake cake cake caaaaaaaaaake!

No, not a craving, a memory of seven years ago this morning - which for those who are just catching up, was my wedding day. First job of the day for my Best Man brother and me was to schlepp from Gloucester Road in Kensington to Lambeth on a tube, pick up the wedding cake, carry it back down into the tube network, schlepp it to Richmond, be refused passage by a cabbie, walk it up to the hotel where the wedding would take place several hours later, set it up and then head back to Kensington for finery and the like. I've had many tense moments in my life, but, given my track record of falling over, twisting ankles, being a clumsy schmuck and the like - a record which extends faaaaar back beyond the remit of this experiment, incidentally - I'm not sure many of those moments come close to me and him carrying the most important cake of my life through the barriers at Lambeth North tube station, way before either of us was really awake enough to be entrusted with such a fragile wonder.

It was raspberry and raw gorgeousness, the closest we could get, given our limited time and budget, to something d would recognise as an American cake. None of your rock-hard fruit cake entombed in Royal Icing for us, oh dear me no. It was soft and yielding and scrumptious and fruity and melt-in-the-mouthy and damn, I said this wasn't a craving!

As it happened, we didn't end up having a lot of that cake. Most of it went back with a pal of mine called Natacha to the place where I'd stopped working just a week or so before the wedding. Wasn't until yeeeears after the wedding that d and I were watching Steel Magnolias (me for the first time), and the whole American tradition of a Groom's Cake  was explained to me.

Rassen-frassen-shoulda-had-my-own-damn-cake...

I'm kidding, of course. Once the day got going, the last thing I was thinking of was cake. There were things like cravats to bother about, and honeymoons, and crap, what was that!

My family broke at least one of the limousines on the day (There are a few of us who, when all is said and done, could do with a bit of Disappearing, and the axle couldn't take it). d wore gold, and Karen, one of her Matrons, wore white, which meant she was mistaken for the bride and given free drink, while the actual bride was charged for hers. I'd written vows, and, as you might be beginning to suspect by now, I'd banged on rather a lot, so the registrar had to cut them in half and dole them out to us, line by line. Once we'd both arrived at the venue, a bunch of my friends made it their job to keep us apart till the ceremony was about to start, which involved, on more than one occasion, shoving me entirely unceremoniously into closets. And, admittedly, due to a slight cueing malfunction, d walked down the aisle not to the traditional wedding march but to the Godfather Waltz.

Dawson White, aged five, fell in love with my friend Rebecca, because a) she had breasts and she was talking to him, and b) he was absolutely stoned out of his brains and high on cake. We terrified and mortified my friend Caroline, who was in a newish relationship at the time, with the American tradition of gartering. As it happened, her boyfriend Gedas got to do the honours, but her face was a picture of "I'll get you for this Fyler, you see if I don't!"

We didn't really have much imagination in those days, so our "wedding list" consisted of Argos vouchers - yeah, we're that classy - and by the end of the night, our friend Tig, who, in weird conjunction with Russell Crowe, had been responsible for our meeting in the first place, had gotten us our best gift - soothing minty foot-rub cream.

And the thing is, everything they tell you is nonsense - it's not the best day of your life at all. Least, not if you do it right. It's the beginning of the best phase of your life.

Seven years on, there's never a day without Something. Some look, some line, some mad private joke that we don't even have to speak out loud cos we're on the same wavelength. Most days, there are whole cavalcades of Somethings, from getting up to laying down, and often far beyond. Life is a never-ending parade of Somethings. If you find the person that makes them, for the most part, Something Good, you're onto a winner.

It's interesting that people talk about the Seven Year Itch as something that makes people antsy to get away from each other. You never hear the Other Itch mentioned. The Itch I have. The Itch for more. Just more of whatever comes, day after day and night after night. The Itch to hold what you have, careful and close but not close enough to squash it or crush it, and to take it forward into whatever comes, and bring it safely to wherever it's ultimately supposed to be.


Just like carrying a wedding cake on the tube.

Me - Cave-Boy!

Blood this morning was 4.7, though that's a bit of a false reading, because it actually took me three - count 'em, three, that's one, plus another one...and then a whooooole extra one on top of that, it's kind of like a wedding cake of hours to get into work this morning, due to tube issues and seven million other bastards clearly wanting it more. So by the time I took my blood sugar, normally, I'd have been in and working for at least the top-tier of my hour-cake...

OK, did I just get hopelessly lost in a cake metaphor? Felt like I had it for a moment, and then - I was lost. Anyway...

I met a personal trainer from St Louis today. Y'know, as ya do. Her name's Suzi - great name for a personal trainer, no? - and she popped up on Facebook saying she'd just started reading the blog. Now, I have no idea how a personal trainer from St Louis called Suzi finds the blog, but hey - all welcome. Suzi wanted to know more about the specifics of what I've been doing, so I basically filled her in on the last seven months.

I know, I know - why couldn't you get the annotated highlights, right? But Suzi mentioned a thing to me. I'd told her about what I'm trying to do, diet-wise - higher protein, fresh fruit and veg, low carb, low sugar, low fat, more water  yadda yadda yadda, and she nodded her e-profile sagely, and said
"Oh you mean like a paleo-diet?"

I blinked.
"Errrr....if you say so," I agreed. "What's a paleo-diet?"
"Y'know, the sort of thing we used to eat in pre-history. Before agrarian societies developed."
I absolutely hadn't thought of it like that, but I guess she's right. Me - Cave-Boy! Eat meat, greens, walk miles on plain, not chase down long-horned lasagne...

Of course, as she mentioned, the true paleo-diet is very much nose-to-tail eating, which, she said, there was a lot of resistance to in the States. Have to tell you - I'm with most Americans on this. I mean, I know the economy's well and truly shafted, but as far as I'm concerned, while there are still steaks available, while chops and shoulders and loins are still available from your local friendly butcher, there's zero freakin' reason to eat noses, tails, brains, sweetbreads, testicles or the goo from the middle of bones. So I guess I'm kind of an executive cave-boy...y'know, the sort who carved the first cell phone out of tree bark, and put pin-stripes on their loincloths.

Yeah, executive cave-boy, that's me.

Now d - she's a real cave-woman. I mean, she has fantastically refined skills in the science of baking, as any of you who've ever eaten one of her cakes will know, but when it all comes down, my wife's queen of the freakin' jungle, and anything with legs had better use 'em quick or they're dinner. I've seen her break down and dissect a chicken in under a minute, like the master-chef demonstrations you sometimes see on TV. She knows her animal anatomy for at least the basic handful of protein-providers. It's kinda scary sometimes, cos your brain does wonder what the Hell might happen if you end up stranded on a desert island with her and she's forced to go all Jeffery Dahmer on your ass.

Now that I think about it, she watches an awful lot of Survivor too...Hmm...maybe my position in the tribe is "provider of protein that keeps d from having to spatchcock me over an open flame".

Mind you, it's been seven years, and she hasn't killed me yet. Most of the people I know still find that rather surprising.

Seven years ago right now, we were both reaaaaaaallly freakin' tired. I was ferrying assorted necessary wedding-and-honeymoon stuff from our flat in Stratford over to the Bailey hotel on Gloucester Road, Kensington, where for reasons of centrality and a really nice staircase, we were basing everyone who was coming in for our wedding. Looking back on it, that was an insane decision, because the wedding itself and the meal that followed it was held in Richmond, way out west. But I was still ferrying. At this point, from memory, d was with 'her girls' - Lori, Karen and Renee, her Matrons of Honour, over in Richmond, setting tables, arranging favours, getting everything the way she wanted it. Later, we'd convene back in Gloucester Road, in time to be completely exhausted together with friends for a while, before going to our separate rooms (mine was a broom cupboard, where you had to actually stand outside the bathroom in order to pee like a man). Then, seven years ago tomorrow, we became a married couple, later and more complex in life than either of us really thought was viable, or even possible, until we met.

They've been seven good years, and I'm really looking forward to the future with my favourite cave-woman. That remains pretty much the whole point of this Disappearing Caveman thing - to get to spend the rest of my life providing protein for my beautiful girl.

Right...this is me, picking up my limited edition protein-club and heading out the door. I'm sure I saw a squirrel in the park that would look perfect in a bun...

The Treacle Diaries

Alrighty - blood of 5.1 this morning, and the weigh-in news is:
17 stone 3.75 pounds.

Yep - one more week, one more pound in the right direction, while having actually done verrrrrry little in the way of exercise. Happy enough it's still going in the right direction, even if these weeks are turning all sorts of treacly - Seem to have been creeping towards the 17 stone barrier now for practically ever.

But - the good news of course is that I actually managed to do five miles on the bike last night. Could have gone on, but in the spirit of these new baby-steps to sanity, and mainly cos I promised d I wouldn't go nuts, I did the five and just the five - worked out I burned enough calories to make my morning porridge cease to exist...which from certain viewpoints was no bad thing.

This means I'm going to start, gently, re-introducing exercise into my daily - that's daily routine until the toe is absolute A1 again and I can start abusing the poor thing properly from scratch.

Oddly enough, forgot my pills this morning when I left the house, so have had a day of digestive peace. Am trying to not have also had a day of off-the-meds fretting, and frankly, succeeding. Too much else to think about and do, which is always good.

Am out of here now - tonight I see my first ever show at Shakespeare's Globe. And it's Doctor Faustus. Yes yes, I know I went to see Faustus at the Rose just a little while ago, and it was pretty damn cool. This is kind of a 'compare and contrast' deal, alright?! Plus, it's got Arthur Darvill (for me, the highlight of Moffatt-era Doctor Who), as Mephistopheles, which is very much against the public perception of his type, so I'm really looking forward to seeing him get his teeth well and truly into demonhood. Will let you know how it goes. But for now, this is the Disappearing Man...Disappearing!

Withdrawal Symptoms

Blood this morning was 4.8, which was promising.
Walked up to Plaistow Station this morning, and did some up-and-down-the-stairsiness during the return of a bunch of stuff from a show at which we were exhibiting. Fortunately, not wincing in pain, so the toe is clearly behaving itself a heck of a lot more than it has been.

Which...and yes, I know I was talking about baby-stepping towards normality, but whaddaya want from me, it's Monday night...which makes me long to do a thing.

So far in this experiment, I've had withdrawal symptoms of so many things - sugar, chocolate, enormous pans of lasagne, whole packets of pasta, the rich slick dark gorgeous bubbles of Coke, the habit of fullness, the habit of generosity of spirit, the habit of...hell everything but intra-veinous drug use, smoking and alcoholism...

Right now, I'm looking across our living room at my traditional Monday-night saviour, the home of hope, and yes, pain, and bitching, and I'm getting bike-wthdrawl.

It's been so long now since the bike was a daily part of my routine. Feels like forever, or a whole revolution ago. As I write this, it's gone nine at night - doing an hour of biking will make it past ten, plus the need to shower. Makes me wonder whether it's genuine withdrawal, or simply Monday-night panic.

Probably both, if I'm honest, but dammit, I want to get back on that evil sneering bastard and peddle my ass off...

So forgive me for the brevity. Sometimes, you actually have to do something in order to have something to write about, and feel right with yourself. This is me, about to do something that may be stupid. I daresay you'll hear the whinging that results tomorrow.

Beyond Perspex and Willpower

Now, firstly, pin back your lugholes, cos it's rare I print retractions or amendments.
Went back to Westfield this morning for breakfast. On a Sunday morning, before any other bugger is sad enough to be awake and make the journey over here, it's not Hell. What's more, when there's room to move, we discovered there are a sweet handful of independent-feeling food outlets, where you can pick up everything from Indian deserts to Moorish cuisine, to Japanese provisions and Italian deli outlets. So - in the right light, and void of practically everybody, it's OK.

Now, I learned a thing yesterday that's taken until today to really sink in.

Most of you will know that I've always worked this experiment on the principle of not breaking perspex walls - in other words, not eating what for me would be 'gateway foods': not eating diet yoghurts, because it's in my addictive (and frankly deceitful nature), to upgrade them from diet yoghurts to full-fat yoghurts, to custards, to eclairs, within a matter of days. This is not someting of which I'm proud, but it's a definite marker of my personality - I have never been able to function in grey areas, I either do a thing, or I don't do a thing. I have a feeling that Yoda and I would very much get along.

Well, I'm not about to reveal a Road to Damascus moment or declare myself cured of my addictive nature or anything so foolish and brim-full of hubris. But I have to report that yesterday, I had something fried. Something well within my perspex boxes of "Stuff not to touch". And I enjoyed it, but so far, I haven't crossed the divide from sweet potato fries to chips, to cheese fries, to banquets of raw grease and sugar. And the point, probably, is that I have, as yet, no desire to do so. So while, as I say, there's no Road to Damascus here, it sort of feels as though my rigid dependence on avoidance of temptation might be lessening, and as though there may be some equalising, normalising influence at play. I may be baby-stepping towards an altogether more normal relationship with food, if you'll excuse the nauseating encounter-group terminology. Which I suppose, while not exactly much use right now, might be useful once I'm done with this phase of my life, and I have to push forward with a more ordinary day-to-day life - being able to have little bits of what I like, and not regard them as diving boards into extremity and chaos...that might be very useful, not to mention comparatively restful, compared to the vast majority of my life, lived in black and white and screaming beautfiful madness.

Blimey...is this what normal feels like?

Right Next Door To Hell – or the Ultimate Temple of Ass-Suckery

Did an unofficial weigh-in this morning, expecting, after my second week of doing practically no exercise thanks to the broken toe, to be heavier. So far, notsomuch.

Then we decided to bite a speeding bullet, and pay our inaugural visit to Westfield, Stratford. For those who don’t know, one of the biggest chains of mega-malls in the UK, is called Westfield (perversely, also the name of the town in New York State from which d came seven years ago). While we were in Wales at the sea shore, Westfield opened what is actually the biggest mall in Europe…riiiight here in Stratford, East London, where we live.

Now, the boys at CERN are all thrilled with themselves at the moment, over the idea that they probably haven’t, but conceivably might have, discovered faster-than-light particles. Well I’m here to tell you that right here in the east end, we have time-and-space-folding technology down pat – Westfield appears to have taken Christmas week on Oxford Street for the years 2005-2010, and shoved them onto five different levels of one building. It’s insane, and there’s shuffling room only for layer after layer, and what feels like mile after mile. I wouldn’t care, particularly, if it wasn’t all so anodyne and antiseptic, so ultimately dull a parade of the stores and restaurants available in Britain today. We stopped off for lunch in one of its cavalcade of restaurants, which was very pleasant overall, but probably shot the bejeesus out of my positive weigh-in(!). On the other hand, walking, or shuffling, around Westfield for a couple of hours probably burned off several calories I sheer frustration and monotony.

So…this is us, living right next door to Hell. Or at least to the ultimate temple of ass-suckery. Feel like I should shower to get the commerce off my skin, and get on the bike to burn up the rest of the lunch, but, if I’m honest, probably won’t do either.

Just Because…

The Million Dollar Question

Nominations are in for today’s Weird But Pleasing Moment award. And the nominations are:

1)      The interaction with Little Nicky (or conceivably Nikki), guard on Cardiff Central train station, platform 1. Everyone else had told me, when I tried to get an early train back to London, that I was deeply screwed and would have to wait for the 5.25, my ‘appointed train’. Nicky said that there were huge delays up ahead, so she could let me get on the fast train. Am I nuts, or does that just mean I’ll hit the trouble that much faster?

2)      The interaction with the cabbie, who explained my delay last night. “Oh aye, they nick the copper from the railway lines. People are getting desperate, they’ll nick anything. Mind, coppers fetching a good price at the minute…” #suspiciousofacabbiemuch

3)      My dad, with whom an interaction wasn’t directly had. Having surrendered the Tudor pants to my mother, I got into my new Master suit for a bit, just to see how it felt now we’d committed to it and brought it home. Later, one I was on Little Nicky’s train, my wife forwarded me an email from my mother, relating a phone conversation she’d had with my dad, in which apparently he’s said, and I’m quoting here, “Anthony looked like a million dollars, and I’m so proud of him.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled I could bring him a bit of happiness today. Was good to see him with his stitches out after his surgery last week, and I swear he’s hearing more. Or I’m unconsciously raising my vocal register, one of the two. But…what?

I mean, I beggared about the house a bit. In a suit. Is that what made him proud of me? Could be – he likes a smart suit, does my dad. Or at least a collar and tie – when we went to pick him up after his surgery, he was sitting up in bed, in a collar and tie with a sweater over top – the most perfect definition of ‘smart casual’ I think I’ve ever actually seen in real life. But it seems a little weird that my wearing a suit would be a source of pride to him – after all, it’s not like he hasn’t seen me in a suit before; I wore one of my very first suits to his wedding to my mother two and a half decades ago.

Was it the Disappearing that made him proud of me? The compulsion not to die quite yet, but avoid future health problems by taking on the weight? Again, could be – he’s nothing if not indomitable in the face of health grimness himself. Eleven years ago he went I for a Whipple’s Procedure – you’ll find it in Wikipedia under Surgeries, Bloody Gruesome, and while he was having big chunks of fairly vital innards removed, they discovered he also has Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Wikipedia, Diseases, Insidious Bastard. Plus, the gubbins he had removed were significantly important, and without them, he’s become an insulin-dependent diabetic. Annnd he has some level of asbestos I his lungs, from years ago when as an apprentice gas fitter, he used to beggar about with the stuff.

I won’t say he bears all this with silent fortitude, cos I mean, after all, he’s a bloke, but considering his multiple licenses to whine and bitch, he’s a good, solid, old-fashioned shut-the-Hell-up-about-it man. One day, I’d love to be that strong. Donnnn’t hold your breath though, I’m still whinging about a broken toe!

So – could be that he hadn’t properly registered the Disappearing at its current level till today, and the knuckle-downiness of it hit him today, and made him proud?

Thing is, it’s not like you can ask, is it? Not like next time I see him I’ll be able to go “Hey dad – heard you were proud of me…What’s that about then?” Blokes like my dad don’t work like that, wouldn’t even really understand the question, and it would sort of spoil the whole thing, so I’d never even raise it. And I guess, really, it’s not remotely important – I’m just feeling a bit privileged to have heard what he said, even at three removes. So…Yay!

Oh incidentally, the proper conductor on this train has just been by. I said “I spoke to Little Nicky at Cardiff…”

“Ohhhh yes sir, she did mention she’d spoken to a flustered gentleman…” he said, stamping my ticket with a smile.

Flustered! Humph. Just because when Nicky asked to see my ticket, I showed her a seat reservation…then yesterday’s seat reservation, then my receipt, then my ticket from Merthyr to Cardiff, then put my bag down, getting it caught in the earbuds of my iPod, and dropping my book. I picked up the book.

“Sir, the train’s coming in,” she said, kindly.

“Christ, I can’t have left the ticket on the kitchen table,” I said, “that would suck.”

She laughed, and signed my seat reservation. “Just tell ’em I’ve seen both bits of your ticket,” she said, making it sound oddly rude somehow. I bumbled onto the train, realised I’d taken out the ticket to get through the barrier, dug it out of my trouser pocket and waved it to her, impeding other passengers from getting on.

“Flustered gentleman” indeed!

Still, my dad’s proud of me, so nehh!

Tudor Pants and Strangers On A Train

Blood was 5.5 this morning.

This has been a weird week all round. Feels like I’ve been too busy to breathe, but if you were to nod sympathetically and ask me what I’ve achieved with all that busyness, I’m not sure I could really tell you.

Today, I’m on a most peculiar mission to return some Tudor pants.

Pants, I should say, in the American sense. Some of you will remember the saga of the Master suit, and why it was necessary – the previous suit I owned, I bought before starting this Disappearing lark. Took most of it to Wales with us before setting out for Amroth, but the ‘Henry Tudor’ pants – named for their size, rather than their age - were stuck somewhere in the darker recesses of our wardrobe, and we couldn’t have carried them if we’d wanted to.

So I got into them this morning. That was weird. d rummaged in the cupboard – she’s a good rummager is my wife – and then pulled this enormous swathe of material out in one hand.

I blinked, opened my mouth.

I shut it again. Then I blew out some air.

“Blimey,” I said.

“Yeah,” she agreed. She held the pants out to their full width.

“Christ alive,” I murmured.

“Yyyyyeah,” she said.

They were wider than our doorframe.

“Did I…erm…?”

“Fill ’em dear? Yyyeah, kinda.”

I blew out some more air.

“That explains a lot,” I acknowledged.

“Yyyeah,” she said. I looked at her skewiff. Considering it was just one word, she was getting a whole world of meaning and definition into her “Yyyeah”s.

“You never said anything,” I said.
“What was to say?” she asked, not unfairly. “Hey, lardass, you’re lookin’ like a blimp and you’re gonna die?”

I nodded.

“Could’ve said something,” I said. I took the pants from her, pulled them up. They fell down. I pulled them up again. They fell down. I mean, no sidling, sliding down, nono, this was just gravity, doing its immediate, ‘ya cannae change the laws of physics’ thing.

d pulled a belt from…somewhere. It’s another of her skills. She threaded it round me, and I did it up.

They fell down.

I muttered a couple of dark words against the memory of Henry Tudor, just because I could – it wasn’t like he was gonna talk back to me. I’m not entirely sure what d did next. Something altogether complicated involving threading the belt through the hooky-bits. Essentially, she was knotting the trousers and the belt into one complicated arrangement, like a tramp with a rope-belt.

I’m now on a train heading back to Merthyr, to deliver the Tudor pants to my mother. She took up Ebaying when we were home last, and I have a nasty suspicion she’s going to get Rather Good At It.

“Oh, bring the trousers home,” she said, “I’ll put the whole suit on Ebay…”

Can’t wait to see that advert.

Suit for sale. Would suit medieval monarch, or chronically out-of-control fat fuck. Cheap at the price. So if you’re almost comically huge and in need of a sharp outfit, buy it now!

Meanwhile, this has been the most entertaining train ride I’ve had in a while. I swear sometimes, the best British playwrights – and, if they’ve got any sense, the best British soapwrights too – are buggering about riding up and down the country on trains and buses with their lugholes open. I’m travelling without d (seemed a bit much to ask her to take a day’s leave just to deliver some pants), but am on a table with three fantastically entertaining ladies, who, if I’m honest, I’ll be sorry to leave at Cardiff. I’d tell you some of the things they’ve said, but they’ve told me not to, and I’m trying to pull off the ‘gentleman’ schtick. If I say this is pure Alan Bennett though, at least some of you will understand what I mean, and the rest can Google it or Youtube it.

Got delayed for fifty minutes before we hit Reading, but in all honesty, it’s all in how you look at it. Most people see a fifty-minute delay. I’m thinking of it as “My First Play.”

Oh go on then, one tiny example:

“I think I’m gonna brave it and go for a drink…I think you’ll have to come with me, in case I get hijacked.”

A beat.

“They’d have to be brave to hijack you. (sniff). They’d want their money back!”

I mentioned that that was gonna have to go in.

“What the Hell are you writing, mate?”

“He’s writing about us!”

“He’d better not, I’ll sue ’im, and I’ve got a really good lawyer.”

See the risks I take for you lot?

Oh and I know what you’re thinking by the way – going all this way, just to deliver a pair of pants? In case you’re wondering, yes, I have heard of the Post Office. Longer-term readers will know though that the Post Office is where Bad Things happen to me. I lost one stone and went to the Post Office and a 45-year-old male Trekkie with a uniform fetish tried to pick me up. I can’t, and don’t want to, imagine what might happen if I try my luck at the Post Office after three stone! I’ll brave the wrath of three fantastic ladies for ya, but thus far and no further…

RIP Thermoboy

Blood this morning 5.2. Yesterday, by the way, 5.3.

Now, I have to report another death.
When d arrived in this quaintly piddling little country seven years one month and one day ago, we both knew where we stood. She always freezing, and I was Thermoboy, the roasty toasty hunka hunka burnin' love (her words, not mine, so don't even try to blame me!) who could be relied upon to warm her frozen toes in an unfamiliar, culinarily challenged country.

Now, I'm not claiming this is a result of seven additional years in her case and this Disappearing lark in mine, but somewhere along our story so far, something about sharing a life, a house, and everything that comes with it, we appear to have done a polar flip. I woke up this morning in my Edwardian nightshirt, underwear and socks, under a pile of blankets laying like an IHOP wonderland (Brits - it's an American thing. There's a procedure. You look it up. You drool. You take to the streets in a towering, sugar-deprived rage and then you smash Downing Street to smithereens till there's a franchise over here). I was shivering like a terrified snowman with St Vitus' Dance. When I opened my eyes, d was already awake, playing Angry Birds on her phone, having flung every last remnant of blanketage off herself.
"How..." I shuddered. "How l-l-long've you been awake?"
"'bout half an hour," she said. "Too freakin' hot..."
"H-h-h-hot?" I chattered, disbelieving. "H-h-h-how?"
"Freakin' roasting in here," she said, with the kind of certainty usually resigned for lines like "Let There Be Light!"
"Ah-h-ha," I shuddered, pulling the blankets up over my head. Then I thought better of it, pulled them back down again.
"You're a freak, you know that?" I managed, without my teeth chattering once.

There are days of course when you spring out of your bed and walk five miles. Then there are days when even the thought of getting out of your (actually inside-out) Edwardian nightshirt and socks. The underwear, you'll be thrilled to learn, I changed. But that was my only concession to cleanliness this morning (one of the benefits of having one part time colleague, and another who's pissing about in San Francisco and all parts eastern). I pulled a T-shirt over my nightshirt got dressed the rest of the way, and headed out the door...

Thermoboy is now officially dead (it was hypo-bloody-thermia), while Inferna, Mistress of the Flames has been born to take his place.

Thing is, something else occurred to me on the tube into the office, which is sort of a consequence of the death of Thermoboy. I was sitting there, in my inside-out Edwardian nightshirt, with a T-shirt (with a line drawing of the Tardis on it, cos, y'know, I'm just that cool), with my iPod on, actually laughing till tears rolled down my chipmunk cheeks - I was listening to stand-up by Craig Ferguson, a Scottish comedian who, oddly enough, I'd have to explain to the Brits, but probably not the Americans, if I was gonna explain him to anyone, which I'm not. As I opened my eyes after laughing hard, I spotted something else. My flies were open, my bulgy fat-rolls more visible than noral. I did a quick re-run of my morning, remembered peeing before I left the house...didn't remember zipping up.

Y'know every now and then, I get accosted by nutters, whether they're Trekkies looking for a date or grizzled old blokes with young Chinese wives?

Struck me this morning I have buggerall to say - I was a still-fat fuck, beardy and bleary laughing till I cried in the middle of a packed tube train, with an inside-out nightshirt on, a Tardis T-shirt and gaping flies. If I wasn't still so fat, my too-cold-to-be-dangly bits could have been saying hello to the carriage and I could have been the subject of a citizen's arrest.

Weird is as weird does, I guess.
Going away now. Too bloody cold to sit here any longer.

Ready For This?

So - after three weeks away, some walking, some twisting of ankles, some breaking of toes, some slightly foolish early re-commencement of jumping back on a bike, some chastened, slightly wiser jumping off again and sitting down, the scores are as follows today:
17 stone 4.75.

Yep, that's right - a quarter-pound. But - check out the mature positivity on this guy - this is fine, this is good, this is moving in the right direction, and for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with mathematics or logic, 4.75 pounds seems somehow more achievable than five pounds. Madness, I realise, but positive madness, so leave me be.

So here we are - verrrrry freakin' nearly five pounds away from the 3.5 stone barrier, spurred on by them as are already 4 or 4.5 stone down, knackered toe for a while, whaddawe do? I reckon it's actually time to start doing that nonsense I keep talking about - there's no other bugger in my office at the moment, so this is me, taking half a lunchtime to do sit-ups and other assorted shite. My pal Mae sent me exercises you can do while barely moving a good long while ago, might be time to crack that puppy open and actually read it. Hell, if I could afford a big round medicine ball right now, I'd schlepp one of those in and start doing this pilates malarkey round the office (which would be interestingly bizarre, since half my office is taken up by a library of dusty shit no-one had ever looked at in the history of the world). Kind of an odd image anyway, if I'm honest, Orca the Whale-Boy rolling round on the floor, entirely at the mercy of a medicine ball. I'd look like one of those annoying little neon ferret toys you can buy on the street, that seem to move independently, chasing a big ball bearing or somesuch thing...only probably less controlled and graceful.

Right...sit-ups then...
Although maybe I should take it slow. maybe I should try some sit-downs first...y'know, just to make sure I've got that part really well and truly sorted out...
Yeah, that seems like a plan. This is me...sitting down.

Lead On, MacDuffs

Blood this morning was 5.2.
Walked up to Plaistow Station. Our survey says this was neither a) big, nor b) clever. Tried to keep the food intake fairly low today, but had a chicken curry and rice for lunch, as the soup was dodgy. Ended up as a kind of human luge-track...so that was pleasant.

Tell you what was pleasant about today. d mentioned that Abbie (previous star of this blog, haver-of-celebratory-hot-chocolates-for-weightloss-target-hitting) has reached her four-stone marker. Thrilled by this news. Haven't checked with some of my close Disappearing friends recently to see how they're doing, so getting despatches from the front - and from those who are technically in front, is a great morale booster, especially on days when attempts to walk and/or bike are no-go.

Then, later in the day, heard via Facebook that another Disappearing Woman I know, called Donna, has cracked the 30kg barrier (that's over 4.7 stone - I did the conversion!). So, big shouty woohoos to both of them, and loads of thanks to both of 'em too, for reminding me of goals to come, successes to come, happy dances to come, on a day otherwise spent racing through stuff on my computer, and then wanting to kill human beings on the journey home - human beings with strollers who aimed them over my toe, particularly. And of course a day before my first official weigh-in in weeks. A day when my earlier words about hopefully, indeed probably being into the territory of 16 stone by this point come back to haunt me, and bite me in my big fat hairy ass. It's great, on days like this, to see people ahead of you, to give you markers, to give you hope, and to make you believe in the journey again.

Thanks, you inspirational folks!

Ten Mile

Blood spiked high this morning - 5.9. Of course it's not lost on me that these days, that's a high spike for me, whereas when I started this thing, I'd have been thrilled to get a 5.9, but that's by the by. Weighed this morning too, and as I suspected, the potential loss of yesterday was down to the half-a-cow diet. Nevertheless, I'm happy enough.

Have practically not moved alllll day long, been kinda glued to my computer, doing Stuff. Lots of Stuff in fact - I've been invited to be an author on another blogsite, which is kinda fun, but involves much rope-learning. So that's been me today - Rope Boy.

This evening though, I decided that the toe was good enough to test out on the bike. Not mad, pelting, time-trialled biking to hard rock music, as is my norm, but hard-enough, long-enough biking to catch-up shows of The Great British Bake-Off. There were moments of pain, but they were mainly when I did that thing...y'know that thing when you get a mouth ulcer, or a tooth abscess, and every instinct in your body shouts at you not to touch it, but you just have to? I had that on the bike, with the instinct to bend the toe. Other than that, ten miles with the toe, notsobad. Will have to see how the wretched thing feels in the morning of course, but encouraging signs so far.

Tomorrow's going ot be the killer of course - probably walking, plus the great hordes of the London rush hour. Feel like I want to erect a low-level force field around my foot, just to stop a parade of nitwits stomping on it like a squad of cybermen on parade-ground practice. Then I remember that I live in the early 21st century, and personal force fields haven't been invented yet. Then I shake my fist at the sky and curse a scientific community too busy fannying about with climate change to take care of the really important stuff.

Then I sigh for the primitive age in which I live, have a bowl of consolation oatmeal, watch the rest of Downton Abbey and snore.

Half A Cow

Blood was 5.2 this morning, so coming back down nicely.

Did a probably-stupid thing this morning, before getting on a train from Merthyr to Cardiff, and Cardiff back to London. I had a shower.

Now don’t get me wrong, that in itself is not a probably-stupid thing. I daresay fellow passengers, and indeed fellow humans in general, would probably come together to sing in praise of the all-round sensibleness of such a move. But having a shower put me, all sorts of naked, in the room with my mother’s scales again.

I was gonna leave it be till we got home, you see, and finish our holiday on a high-note of glorious ignorance. But as you probably know by now, while my food-related will power appears fairly strong if allowed a good solid bitch here and there, my impulse-control in other areas remains feeble and jelly-like.

Mmmm…jelllllly….

Ahem.

I got on the scales. They were kind to me, chalking up 17 stone 5 pounds. Those of you with long memories and more time on your hands than is healthy will recall that this is what I weighed on our home scales before we came away, which was interpreted by my mother’s scales as 17 stone 8 – a three-pound discrepancy. By that reckoning of course, I should be 17 stone 2 in real terms, but somehow that seems altogether too positive a result, and I’m refusing to believe it till I get confirmation from the home scales. What I think is responsible for this freak positive result is yesterday’s half a cow.

Don’t blame me, it’s my jet-setting pal Rebecca’s fault. By the time I met up with her yesterday, I’d already drunk a mug of de-caff latte the size of a human head in Culverhouse Cross. Then, with Reb, I had another two large de-caff lattes. Plus an ennnnndless stream of de-caff at home with my folks. Drank a lot of de-caff yesterday, to the extent that Rebecca, when describing my situation to our mutual friend Lee (who was at home with Chickenpox, but who hadn’t been to see the doctor yet – lovely bloke, Lee, but he will die one day because something simply hasn’t occurred to him….like turning the gas off or somesuch), she used the phrase “Oh he’s drunk half a cow today…”

I like that, it has a Charge of the Light Brigade feel to it, doesn’t it?

Half a cow, half a cow, half a cow onwards,

Into the valley of cream rode the Disappearing.

Sweet shops to the left of them,

Cake shops to the right of them,

Pizzas in front until

Some of them chundered…

Two things strike me about my half-a-cow diet yesterday. Firstly, none of those de-caff lattes were even remotely skinny. While I’ve pretty much swallowed my pride about ordering what I still think of as the ‘bucket of pointlessness’ that is a large de-caff skinny latte with sweeteners in London, I still don’t seem to be able to bring myself to do it in Wales. This, I think, is because the sense of self-disgust I feel at ordering such a pretentious, pointless beverage speaks inside my head with a distinctly Welsh accent. I feel as though, if I push my luck in Wales, I’ll get a blank look and a “You wha-?”, followed by a disbelieving “Ohhhh, that a London thing, is it?” – the implication being that you, the Londoner (and incidentally, by association, that most despised of entities, the Englishman) “think you’re something”. With the exception of being English, there is no more damning judgment in Wales than “he thinks he’s something”.

This of course is a particular minefield for egomaniacs like me, who frankly have always thought we’re something, even though, as plenty of people would be only too keen to point out in the Valleys, we’re not, really, anything at all. Humility is not only (generally speaking) one of the best national characteristics of the Welsh, it’s a social code that is rigorously, indeed often venomously enforced. Any success must be downplayed, any idea of excellence must be hammered down, and flattened out or you stop being “one of us”. I found myself doing it yesterday at the hairdresser. She asked me what it was I did again, and I told her. There was a pause, while she looked at me in the big mirror, assessing my big furry face.

“Are you really incredibly intelligent then?” she asked, with that strange mixture of potential pride and vague threat.

“Noooooooononononono,” I assured her. “I’m just a journo, I don’t understand any of it…” She laughed, and carried on cutting my hair.

Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression of the Welsh here. They are proud of their successful sons and daughters. Truly, madly, deeply fact-obliteratingly proud, they’re a nation of doting mothers and fathers – AS LONG AS the successful sons and daughters give credit where the Welsh think credit is due: to their roots, their home, their intrinsic Welsh superiority. If on the other hand, the sons and daughters don’t pay homage, which essentially means saying that other places are better, at anything, than Wales is, they run the risk of “thinking they’re something” when they go home, and that can be the coldest of shoulders to come up against.

Ahem…

Which is why, to this day, I can’t order a de-caff skinny latte in my home town. I daresay I’ll get there, but I haven’t…yet.

And secondly (err yes, that whole rant was just point one), drinking a lot of coffee yesterday meant I felt full. Feeling full meant I skipped at least the middle meal of the day, and any-and-all associated fruity nibbling throughout the afternoon and evening.

The De-Caff Diet? Yyyyeah maybe. Half a cow=a meal and a half? More than likely.

As I write this, we’re on our way back to London, and I’m probably going to give the bike a go this weekend. If it’s a no-go with the toe, then it’s a no-go – I’m not gonna be stupid about it. Sit-ups and weight-work will then become a part of my short term future. Actually, when we popped in to see our friend Brenda yesterday, she mentioned something that’s “good for the core muscles”…Pilates.

Now I’ve always had this vague understanding of Pilates as “pissing about in lycra with medicine balls doing low-impact crunches”. But hey, if it’ll help me Disappear, strengthen or perhaps even gain the courage to order a de-caff skinny latte in my own home town, I’m game.

Suits You, Sir...

A very good day, from a Disappearing point of view.

Started with the bursting of a bubble though. Blood was a fairly chunky 5.7 this morning. So much for my run of low bloods. Humph.

However, that all changed at Culverhouse Cross. Culverhouse Cross is a place near Cardiff where there's a big Marks & Spencers store. We went there this morning because, when all is said and done, I needed a suit.

Now, two things are important here. Firstly...I hate wearing suits most of the time. I'm the kind of man who, to steal a well-worn description of British comedian Tony Hancock, "can make a suit crumple just by looking at it." A scruffbag, to use less poetic language. I take this as a kind of badge of honour, really - the ability to look like a scruffbag who's slept the night in a bramble hedge nad been pissed on by some indiscriminate local dogs and still do the job was at least half the appeal of becoming a journalist in the first place! So when I say "I needed a suit," I don't mean that I personally had a fundamental urge to go out this morning and buy a suit. I mean I have some meetings coming up in the next couple of weeks, for which it is apparently required that I wear a suit. I find this funny. These meetings include a couple of book launches at a well-known and popular maritime organisation, where I once turned up for - let's not forget - a book launch, dressed in civilian clothes, and caused dark mutterings to my boss. The next press invite I received from this particular well-known and popular maritime organisation stipulated a formal dress code!

Yep, I'm the one who ruined it for everyone, right here.

So, as I say, when I mention that "I needed a suit," what I actually mean is that "other, more tight-assed people need me to have a suit." That's point one.

Point two is this: I already have a suit.

A damned expensive suit, too - the last time I needed one was back in February, and I needed it in a hurry for...something or other. I honestly can't remember what now. Possibly it was to go and interview an MP about faith schools, on the day that a brand new pair of shoes disintegrated into tar-like mush under me with every step I took...Anyhow, the upshot is the last suit I bought was just before I started this experiment, and it's the subject of the experience that long-standing readers have heard me reference a few times now - when I had to go beyond the realms of my usual Big Fat Bastards store, because I'd gone off the top end of their rack. The suit is actually called "The Henry Tudor", which, given what else Henry VIII was famous for apart from divorcing wives with extreme prejudices, setting up a whacko church and burning all the monasteries (trust me, I'm a historian!), is not really conducive to a positive self-image.

The last time I put on the suit was just last week.
"Oh honey," said d, covering her mouth. "No...Just...worlds of no..."
She had a point. I looked like a kid playing dress up in his daddy's suit, if daddy was a professional masked wrestler going under the mysterious nom de guerre of "The Mysterious Masked Big Fat Bastard."

It looked more than a little silly. Now again, I think most suits, on a body like mine, look more than a little silly. So I guess you could say this looked more than more than a little silly. So - it's time to buy a new suit.

I approached the whole Marks & Spencers trip with some degree of skepticism, it has to be said. Three stone is three stone, but it seemed inconceivable that I could have gone from "off the far end of the Big Fat Bastard range" to "high street store" off-the-peg shopping. But I went, because...well, a) because I "needed" a suit, and b) because, as I may have mentioned, my wife and my mother together are something of a tsunami of personality, and It Was Easier.

I have of course at some point, on one of these trips, already picked up smaller trousers, so I figured we could cut to the chase, just get a jacket (at best) to match the smaller trousers, and be done with it. Getting a jacket, I thought, might be jussssst about conceivable. But there was no way I was gonna be able to get a shirt that did up at the neck.

I have a big neck. It's like all my chins conspire to get together in a big huddle at the base of my swallowing-tube and sit there, smirking at my efforts to find a collar that can go round them. I left off-the-peg shirts behind yeeeeeears ago. I mean, literally, about a decade ago.

Then we got there, and I saw The Suit.
Now, as I say, really, when I walked in, I had no intentions of getting A Suit. Maybe a jacket. But I still had the Big Fat Bastard shirt from the last suit, which happens, incidentally, to be purple (you can make me wear this shit, but nobody says it has to be tasteful!). The Suit was pin-stripe.

Now, on another little diversionary side-note, I've always hated pin-stripes. There's something about pin-stripes that smacks of inherited wealth and diminishing numbers of brain-cells, or braying city-boys and Ascot Yahoos who have absolutely no clue about the real world and its hardships, and I might be middle-class as all-get-out, but I'm Welsh goddammit, and no-one's gonna steal away my entitlement to think of myself as having come from a background of grinding grim coaldust poverty and grime.

But ohhhh The Suit...
The Suit called to me in all its stripey fabulousness. "C'mon..." it said. "Try me....you might like me if you get to know me."

I tried on the jacket, even while d was saying "You? In pin-stripes? Yeah, I don'thinkso honey-"
She stopped. She blinked. She grinned.
"Damn," she said. "Come back all I said...Suit looks goooood, baby..."
She was right. it did. The jacket looked all kindsa good, and, oddly enough, I looked better in a smaller version than actually could be said to fit me. Then there was the lining.

It was dark red.

Now, this is where things get really stupid, because I have a very weird reason for being attracted to red suit linings.
Many of you will have picked up on the fact that I'm a huge (in every way) Doctor Who fan. Now, back in the 70s, the Doctor's arch-enemy, The Master, had a neat line in flowing black cloaks with red lining, and when they brought the character back just a few years ago and brought him screamingly up to date, they put him in a simple black suit...but they made a particular point of having him show off its dark red lining...

The Master-Suit possessed me. I went to try it on, and it was beeeeautiful. The only thing is....it had red lining. A purple shirt, with that, is a little lurid even for me. Clearly what was needed here was a plain white shirt with a matching red tie.

Red tie - no problem.
White shirt...well they had plenty, but again, I've not been able to wear off-the-peg shirts for more than a decade. I could sense the Master-Suit disappearing from my life as quickly as it had arrived, its promise snatched away from me by the huge flab-folds of my bloody neck...
"Why not at least try one?" said d, and I, rather sulkily as the love of the Master-Suit was being cruelly ripped from me, stomped back off to the changing room and got the attendant to unpack it for me.
I took the white testament to disappointment into the cubicle, slung it over my shoulders, slid my arms through, did up a few of the buttons, putting off the moment of having to try the top button. Then I yanked.

Close! So damned close. It was a stubborn button, brand new and brash with its own immovability. I moved it, the Master-Suit egging me on.And, after about a minute and a half, the wretched little pale plastic thing slid through its hole and sat there, fuming.
"Fine!" it said. "If that's how you feel about it..."
It was done up.

IT WAS DONE UP!!!!

I blinked, looking at myself in the mirror. I was wearing off-the-peg. A whole thing, a whole suit, including the shirt, off the Marks and freakin' Spencers peg!!!

Fat Man Happy Dances ensued.

And the Master-Suit came home with me. I didn't, really, want to take it off.
Now, don't get me wrong - the trousers are still tight, and would be much happier if I lost some more weight. But that's the beauty of the Master-Suit. Looks good now, will look even better if I disappear a little more - this is a suit with a good chunk of Disappearing left in it.

We like that. We like that a lot.

Other grace-notes for the day - we went to see a family friend called Brenda. She may well have been high on some high-quality private-healthcare drugs, cos she was in surgery herself yesterday, but bless her, she wouldn't shut up about how "there's hardly anything left of you!". My hairdresser, again, raved about the amount of Disappearing I appear to have done. Even my globe-trotting journo pal Rebecca was kind enough to retort, when I mentioned my Buddha-like physique, "Ach, you're getting less bloody Buddah-like every time I see you!"

So, as I say, a good Disappearing day. Make me wear a suit will you, ya pompous buggers? Wait till you see the Disappearing Pin-Striped Bastard, I'll make you sorry you were even BORN!

Bwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa.....!!!!

(Ahem...just checked the label on the Master-Suit. Appears to have a disclaimer: Customers are advised that this suit comes with occasional homicidal tendencies and a desire to rule the entire universe. And on occasions, a silly evil laugh...)

Homecoming

Blood was 4.9 this morning...which is beginning to be interesting - I'm doing precisely buggerall in the way of exercise at the moment (Talk to the toe!), but I'm getting relatively consistent 4.some-odds. I'll see how it goes getting into the start of next week, and if I'm till recording blood levels like this, I might experiment with dropping the diabetic meds down again (yay!).

In another quick entirely unscientific sub-experiment, we all know that only weigh-ins on my home scales count, but I couldn't resist before we went away to Amroth, and weighed on ma's scales here - and the 17 stone 5 at home came out as 17 stone 8 here. Weighed on the same scales this morning, and registered 17 stone 7. So I may still possibly have lost a single pound (we'll see of course, but the logic seems to suggest as much). Technically of course by now I should have lost four pounds, but what with the ankle and the toe, I'd be amazed and still pretty thrilled if that's what Tuesday's result confirms.

Now onto the real business of the day. Dad came home this afternoon. Seemed fine and dandy when he arrived, though he got a bit tired as the afternoon wore on. Earlier in the day, we'd had a visit from Macmillan Cancer Care, or rather their representative in the local authority. He was very nice, and very mystified that we hadn't had any proper previous liaison...so that was good - like to mystify people on a daily basis if possible.

The rest of the day was busy but busy with relatively ordinary stuff - lots of people calling to ask how my Dad was, either on the phone or in person (he's one of those sociable, popular blokes. Note to self - should probably use the next twenty years to become one of those...Second note to self...that sounds like a shedload of effort and trying to like human beings...bugger it, will be a crotchetty old sod, seems more natural somehow). Couple of trips around the town - toyed with the idea of going to the movies, but there was buggerall on that we wanted to see. Actually did some Work Work, which feels intensely wrong while still on holiday, but I kinda need to get a jump on the situation when I get back, cos I'm anticipating it taking a bit longer than normal to get to work...

Now, tomorrow I have all sorts of whizzing about to do - apparently, there's popping to Cardiff to do. I forget why, honestly. There's probably Stuff. I tend to sort of drift along while I'm in Merthyr, cos you get my wife and my mother together in the same environent and you end up with a supernova of Personality, out of whose way it's just wiser to step. Guess I'll find out tomorrow, so...onward!

14th September - Wednesday - Back To The Future

Blood this morning was a low low 4.2. We woke up to a phone call we had no intention of answering - my mother was calling from Merthyr to tell us she was leaving the house, and we had about an hour and a half to finish packing up the Amroth cottage and get our asses in gear to come home to Merthyr. We packed. Our asses were got. Ma arrived, we loaded up the car, had a farewell coffee in the Pirate, and got out of Dodge. This met two completely separate deadlines. Firstly, as we were heading back to Merthyr, we were leaving the cottage for Ann, Paul and Ryan (aged 3). Ann works with d and they'd planned an Amroth holiday this year until the economy kicked them, like it's kicked a bunch of people, squarely in the ass. So it seemed only right to at least give them a taste of the Welsh seaside for a handful of heartbeats. And secondly, we were heading back to Merthyr because my dad was scheduled to go in for surgery this afternoon.

Before going home, we went to the local ASDA store (Wal-Mart, for any Americans still reading), to pick up some ready meals for our dinner. I got separated from d and Ma, and, while trying to find them, a flash of familiarity scooted past the bottom of the aisle.
"Joy!" I yelled. She didn't hear me, so off went Limpy McScuttlefoot, stalking the figure from the past.
Joy Jenkins is a legend in my own lifetime. She was one of two fantastic characters who came into my life when my mother started work in the National Health Service 31 years ago. Joy was shortish, and funny, and always laughing. Jen was long and tall, and the perfect straight-woman, always there with a bone-dry retort that doubled down on Joy's funny and cracked me up.

Joy in particular had always had a sense of humour like my own - when I was still only in single digits, I made plans to marry her, though quite what her partner at the time, Eileen, made of that, I'm not entirely sure. She was also, famously, the only adult who would never let me win, never let me cheat at games when I fancied getting one up, and who never pulled her shots in the 'table snooker' game I had. Now that I think about it, she's probably responsible for my highly belated development of a conscience as a twentysomething-year-old, and her influence was also apparent as I turned 30, and decided it was time to Go And Save The World...When it comes to Joy Jenkins, accept no substitutes.

Joy had whizzed past, and, while we're back in Facebook touch, I hadn't had a chance to actually talk to her in years. So much so that she's still never actually met d, though each is now fairly legendary to the other. So I chased her down, and we had a good few minutes of conversation - she's not had a good time lately, has our Joy, but she's coming up and out of it, and when she fully surfaces, I daresay the world had better watch out. I planned ot finaly introduce her to d, but Joy was on her lunch-break (hence the whizzing). She's so very much a part of my past, but during our talk, I told her a couple of things that mean, if I have my way, she'll also be a very big part of my future. I hope my way is had, cos Joys are rare, and groovy, and almost unspeakably cool. You shouldn't let 'em go in the first place. But if you do, and you get a chance to re-connect with 'em, you should grab it with both hands.

My dad had his surgery, and we were told we couldn't go and visit him till about six o'clock.
"I know," said Ma, relatively out of the blue. "Let's go and have a look at Rhydycar!"
Now...Rhydycar, in my experience, was a leisure centre. My experience though was back in the late eighties and early nineties, when leisure centres were the pinnacle of naffness. Nevertheless, Rhydycar is hugely significant in my own personal history - it's where I first met some of the people who today count as my longest friends - one of my Karens (Karen Pulley), and the first 'girl' of my own age to whom I wasn't afraid to say boo, my mate Sian (yes, she who is the mother of my god-daughters). It was also the training area where I learned to be a social creature - my step-brother Geraint introduced me to his friends (including the two above) there, I introduced some of my friends (including Karl Herbert, who became one of Geraint's Best Men at his wedding). It was the place where our worlds met, drank, had fun, occasionally had far too much fun to be good for themselves, and exorcised some of the demons of teenagerhood. Of course in time it gave way to other, altogether more grown-up venues (Can I get a Hellyeah for the Brandy Bridge, anyone?), but I spent most of my teenage Saturday nights in Rhydycar, and several weeknights there too, doing archery with Sian and her mother.

Rhydycar...
Erm...
Rhydycar has moved on and grown up too. We had a look around it's three swimming pools, its fully equipped gym (which appeared to be full of normal-looking people - a great bonus in a gym, frankly), its steam rooms and great halls, its coffee shops and saunas. Like I said, Rhydycar's another great big chunk of my past, but now I've seen it, I'm determined on future visits to make it a part of my future too.

Then, finally, we went to see my dad. We weren't at all sure how it would go, because when it was described to us, the operation sounded fairly major, involving the removal of a couple of cancerous lymph nodes that were inconveniently placed, and might involve the cutting of facial nerves in order to properly excise them. So we braced ourselves for grimness.

Grimness be damned! He was sitting up, looking pink and smiley! He'd eaten a meal, his doctors were happy, and he had a good prognosis - tomorrow, he's likely to have the drain out of his neck, and come back home to us.

So clearly, while he's been a huge part of my past and my development, we can delight in the fact that he's gonna be a huge part of my future too. Yay!

Lots to do in the next few days, before a return to London and its chaos, but today was a perfect kind of day - a perfect mixture of that which is comfortable and positive in my past, and that which, with any luck, will be comfortable and positive in my future too. A good day on which to shut one's eyes.

13th September – Tuesday – On The Other Foot

Day four in the Big Bro-Toe House…

Hmm. Taking Co-Codamol, I’ll be honest with you, today feels much better – I got up around 11 (loooooove that Co-Codamol snore-buzz), and found it was easier to get around, as though the fiery pain of the break had kinda lost interest and pissed off to get itself a beer somewhere. I was shuffling and limping, to be sure, but shuffling and limping at something like a respectable speed. Which in itself was a positive sign, because today – our last day here by the seashore, and the last day of my blogging hiatus – was glorious: blue sky, puffy white cloud, a low tide point during daylight hours, and a warm, beautiful sunstreak to get stuck in inbetween the Welsh gusty breezes. Also of course, since it was our last day here, there was packing and tidying and straightening and the like to get done, and it felt good to be able to do something to help out with that, after several days of sitting on my ass like a Maharajah. Yesterday we actually made it to Tenby, me with only a thick sock on the left, broken-toed foot, and I was Stumpy McSlowFuck. Today, the pain had receded enough to allow me to get a vaguely laced shoe on the left foot, which meant I could get properly dressed again and feel more like a bloke-with-stuff-to-do than a hospital in-patient. Once we were fairly satisfied with our progress in packing up the cottage, we went walking down on the beach, and again, it was good to feel like I was getting back to Me.

Tomorrow, we’re heading back to Merthyr, cos my dad’s going in for an operation which should make him a lot more comfortable, and we wanna be there to make him endless cups of tea and laughter. So that was Amroth 2011. Am still fairly dedicated to this ‘extra couple of months’ thing, because while it was lovely to be able to get about a bit, and walk on the beach, I’m under no illusion I could walk for miles on this thing for a while, or do much of any good on the bike. In fact, I’m still pretty nervous about going back to London, because here in Amroth, nobody wants to push you over, step on your feet or indeed, kill you stone dead. In London, with the tube, all bets are off and it’s kill or be killed. Not looking forward to that at all.

Oh yeah – had A Thing today that’s completely unrelated to my Disappearing. We saw Hugh Laurie advertising L’Oreal Men’s FaceGoop Extraordinaire, and a little bit of my heart died. The thing is, I’m no longer sure why. Or rather, I understand why I have the reaction, but as I hurtle towards 40, I’m no longer sure the reaction is valid.

See, I always used to work on the Bill Hicks principle that “once you do a commercial, your name is off the artistic register forever, cos how can anything you say be anything other than a giant steaming turd of worthlessness…?”

That made sense to me as a 20-and-early-30-something. But the older I get, and the more of my heroes and people I respect do commercials, the less I find I actually give a toss. Hugh Laurie’s a particular favourite of mine, and has been for years – From House, back through the Jeeves and Wooster years, the Three Men In A Boat audiobook, the Blackadders and Fry and Laurie, all the way back to early movies like Peter’s Friends, and the weird but compelling All Or Nothing At All. More specifically, he wrote one of my favourite, top five novels of all time – The Gun Seller – which for an aspiring writer makes him one of those special heroes that you hold in extra special regard. Does it make him less compelling as an actor, less realistic or funny as a writer, that he’s flogging horseshit facegloop on the TV?

Actually, Bill…notsomuch.

Of course, it’s possible that this is just rampant rationalisation on my part, because more and more of the people I like do commercials for crappy products or services – I mean, Julie Walters advertises Lloyds TSB for Christ’s sake, Victoria Wood and Jane Horrocks are flogging the Murdoch-a-thon that is Sky TV, Mark Addy (and again, Jane Horrocks) have pushed Tesco down our throat, Maureen Lipman is famous for trying to make British EvilBastards Telecom palatable to the great British public,  Billy Connolly sold Kaliber alcohol-free lager and the Lottery, Laurie’s classic counterpart Stephen Fry sells tea and insurance, Denis Leary sells beer and trucks (perhaps the best match of product and celebrity ever), Garrison Keillor sells cars, David Tennant sells (dammit, it’s them again) Tescos…and so on, and so forth.

The thing is, while I still get the learned-instinctive crunch of disappointment when I see celebrities selling stuff (or “selling out” as my brain insists on calling it), I no longer feel the urge to get on my high-horse and boycott their work because they’ve done it. Their endorsement doesn’t make me any more likely to try the products they’re selling, but neither does it make me less inclined to experience what they’re really good at. And of course it occurs to me that, while unpaid, I’ve done sort-of-adverts myself – raved about Cwtch, raved about the Pirate, raved about Walk-It.com and the Graze boxes. Like I say, I wasn’t paid to say any of those things, but if any of them approached me and said “Oi you, here’s a sackful of cash to say that stuff,” would I? Well clearly it would depend on the location. I’d no more do it here at the Disappearing Man than Tennant would break off in the middle of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy to sell you a Tesco mobile phone, or Laurie would drop out of character in an episode of House to mention that he’s worth it too and smear his face with gunk. But in a proper advertising setting, sure, why not?

So…fine. Go ahead Hugh, smear your gob with gunk. Go ahead Billy, sell us beer-free beer. Go ahead Stephen, make yourself the equal of an animated Meerkat or an annoying tenor. Just keep on doing what you really do as well, eh?

Oh – blood was 4.9 this morning incidentally, which was pleasingly low.