London today. Nightmare commute home. But viewed the day as a kind of Farewell Tour to all things yummy. Had four Starbucks, mostly of a creamy nature, one cookie, one chunk of mammoth choc-chip shortbread, and...due entirely to the need to have somewhere warm to sit for an hour at Cardiff at 11 o'clock at night, a late night Double Rodeo Meal.
This means that of course, tomorrow's re-inaugural weigh-in is going to be dire, a kind of hangover-cum-punch-in-the-face.
I wish I could say I enjoyed the farewell fanfare more, but to be honest, much like birthdays once you've had four decades of them, I felt I was being decadent and celebrating...more for the look of the thing than for any real enjoyment.
Which I suppose is probably the right mindset in which to embark on the brand new installment of the Disappearing Man tomorrow...
Right?...
Tuesday 8 October 2013
The Trifle Neccesity - 6th October
Still lurgied. Went to Ma's today for big traditional roast dinner. So far, so filling. Then she brought out dessert.
Desserts, excuse me. Strudel, a whole big trifle, and a whole big put of cream for whipping.
I thought about resisting, and then gave in with what it would be politic to call grace, and accurate to call gluttony.
The thing is, in my mind was the mantra of off kids who grew up in the 70s.
It'll only go to waste if no-one eats it. Followed closely by the number two hit in the psychological charts of the time:
There are people starving in Africa...
How and why this second mantra never translated into the logical further thought - so stop eating everything in sight, ya greedy bastard, I suspect I'll never know, but it's certainly true in my case that the programming of youth was that you finished your plate, both for domestic convenience and wider-scale socio-political responsibility...I ate that trifle for Ethiopia, don'tcha know? I think, in some messed-up dark little part of my brain, I expect smiles and brownie-points from (the let's not forget, stick-bloody-thin) Sir Bob Geldof for this act of demented gluttony...
They always say that inside every fat person, there's a thin person trying to get out. What no bugger tells you is that they're stark raving mad...
Desserts, excuse me. Strudel, a whole big trifle, and a whole big put of cream for whipping.
I thought about resisting, and then gave in with what it would be politic to call grace, and accurate to call gluttony.
The thing is, in my mind was the mantra of off kids who grew up in the 70s.
It'll only go to waste if no-one eats it. Followed closely by the number two hit in the psychological charts of the time:
There are people starving in Africa...
How and why this second mantra never translated into the logical further thought - so stop eating everything in sight, ya greedy bastard, I suspect I'll never know, but it's certainly true in my case that the programming of youth was that you finished your plate, both for domestic convenience and wider-scale socio-political responsibility...I ate that trifle for Ethiopia, don'tcha know? I think, in some messed-up dark little part of my brain, I expect smiles and brownie-points from (the let's not forget, stick-bloody-thin) Sir Bob Geldof for this act of demented gluttony...
They always say that inside every fat person, there's a thin person trying to get out. What no bugger tells you is that they're stark raving mad...
The Lurgification Swamp - 5th October
Joy of joys, all joys excelling...Lurgied.
Lurgied like a lurgied thing. Me. d. Ma...all bloody lurgied...d, bless her, coughing all night for about three nights now. Have tried dosing us up with stuff. Reckon the only thing left to do is paint a big black cross on the door and have done, to be honest...
Unff...
Lurgied like a lurgied thing. Me. d. Ma...all bloody lurgied...d, bless her, coughing all night for about three nights now. Have tried dosing us up with stuff. Reckon the only thing left to do is paint a big black cross on the door and have done, to be honest...
Unff...
The Starting Date Amendment - 4th October
Ah. You know I said I begin Disappearing again on the 6th October?
Yyyyeah, that's not happening. The 8th...that's the proper date to begin this whole thing again. Weigh-in day.
Besides, am going to Ma's on the 6th for something of a slap-up lunch...
Yyyyeah, that's not happening. The 8th...that's the proper date to begin this whole thing again. Weigh-in day.
Besides, am going to Ma's on the 6th for something of a slap-up lunch...
The Beeblebrox Imperative - 3rd October
I turn 42 soon. Been an...interesting...few years.
Thing is, Sian and I have determined we're not going to call it "turning 42". We're going to call it "Joining Team Beeblebrox". Fans of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy won't need that explaining to them. Non-fans of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy...probably, in all honesty, don't read this blog, but the short answer is there's a book called The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which involves "The Answer To The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything".
Which is 42.
The action of the book surrounds a bunch of characters, one of which is the supremely cool but not terribly bright two-headed galactic president and spaceship-thief, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hence, Team Beeblebrox=people who are 42. Clear? Good, right, moving on...
We're challenging each other to Do Stuff with this Beeblebrox year, for no better reason than "we do that, sometimes."
The return of the Disappearing Man is not a Beeblebrox thing. It's a just a Me thing. Nevertheless, there are things that I've sort of agreed to do as part of Year Beeblebrox that will change utterly what people (including me) know about me. Have decided to try and spend a year "digitally dead for temporal reasons" - my personal use of Facebook, Twitter etc will die for a year beginning on October 22nd. I'm guessing this also means sharing this blog on Facebook, which I routinely do, has to die a death for a year. I will still be on social networks for various jobs - Jefferson Franklin, Dowlais Male Choir...my day-job etc. But the personal stuff - not for a year.
What's more...sigh...not at all sure about this one, I have to tell you...I'm giving up Starbucks for a year.
I'll still be allowed to support small, non-chain or local coffee shops, but none of the big boys - no Starbucks, no Costa, no Tescos cafe...
I'm also thinking about trying to take my coffee black, and unsweetened for a year. That way a) I'll grow accustomed to not having half a gallon of milky froth in it, which can only be good from a Disappearing standpoint, and b) I'll also stop treating coffee as a sweet treat, which I think - and this of course will surprise no-one - is what it's become to me, a kind of backdoor, surrogate dessert option.
So...yay...(waves tiny flag). Bring on Year Beeblebrox...
Thing is, Sian and I have determined we're not going to call it "turning 42". We're going to call it "Joining Team Beeblebrox". Fans of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy won't need that explaining to them. Non-fans of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy...probably, in all honesty, don't read this blog, but the short answer is there's a book called The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which involves "The Answer To The Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything".
Which is 42.
The action of the book surrounds a bunch of characters, one of which is the supremely cool but not terribly bright two-headed galactic president and spaceship-thief, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Hence, Team Beeblebrox=people who are 42. Clear? Good, right, moving on...
We're challenging each other to Do Stuff with this Beeblebrox year, for no better reason than "we do that, sometimes."
The return of the Disappearing Man is not a Beeblebrox thing. It's a just a Me thing. Nevertheless, there are things that I've sort of agreed to do as part of Year Beeblebrox that will change utterly what people (including me) know about me. Have decided to try and spend a year "digitally dead for temporal reasons" - my personal use of Facebook, Twitter etc will die for a year beginning on October 22nd. I'm guessing this also means sharing this blog on Facebook, which I routinely do, has to die a death for a year. I will still be on social networks for various jobs - Jefferson Franklin, Dowlais Male Choir...my day-job etc. But the personal stuff - not for a year.
What's more...sigh...not at all sure about this one, I have to tell you...I'm giving up Starbucks for a year.
I'll still be allowed to support small, non-chain or local coffee shops, but none of the big boys - no Starbucks, no Costa, no Tescos cafe...
I'm also thinking about trying to take my coffee black, and unsweetened for a year. That way a) I'll grow accustomed to not having half a gallon of milky froth in it, which can only be good from a Disappearing standpoint, and b) I'll also stop treating coffee as a sweet treat, which I think - and this of course will surprise no-one - is what it's become to me, a kind of backdoor, surrogate dessert option.
So...yay...(waves tiny flag). Bring on Year Beeblebrox...
The National Obsession - 2nd October
My new pal Joe started reading some Disappearing Man yesterday. Didn't particularly ask her to, but did share a link with her. One thing she said about the very first entry, all that time ago, struck home.
"The chances are, you're not as fat as you think you are," I'd written, or something like it.
She messaged me back almost immediately. "Most people who think they're fat...are fat, you know," she said.
I wondered about that. With a society that obsesses about how people look - how women in particular look, what happens to their bodies, and in particular, what they weigh, I was skeptical. Have a feeling that, coming to it new, Joe may well have got the wrong end of the two-ended stick of weight perception. I'm under no illusions of course that fat people think they're thin. You can't, I suspect, be fat in the modern world and not know it - because if it wasn't enough to get body images of what beauty looks like to the half-dozen people in the world who get to decide what beauty and fashion are these days flung at you mercilessly from every ad campaign - with the none-too-subtle underlining that "you must look like this or you're not beautiful, and therefore not worth anything - particularly not worth anybody wanting to love or have sex with, ya fat fuck!" - people will come up and tell you. They really will - apparently concerned folk will come up to you and tell you you're fat. Young people (some of whom the old reactionary in my soul wants to ban) feel it incumbent on them to point and laugh, and feel that society is probably on their side, so don't particularly hide their intent. It is surely beyond a shadow of doubt that fat people know they are fat.
But the point is that in this body-obsessive society, not-fat people also know they're fat. Because the goalposts of fat are frequently set by the insane. Which is to say the fashionmasters, who design, as I've heard it described, clothes for pre-pubescent 12 year-old boys, and then sell them to women. You can be by any rational definition significantly not-fat and still think, be told, be blackmailed and brainwashed by an advertising and celebrity culture gone entirely round the bend, that you're not not-fat enough, not thin enough, not perfect enough.
I was mulling that as I wandered through the magazine section at Tesco tonight. Normally of course, I avoid the gossip magazines like the plague they are, but tonight I looked up. Dawn French - Heavier Than She Was was the headline on one. Beach Body Epic Failures was the headline on another. Some C-Lister Whose Name I Can't Remember - Friends Worry As Weight Balloons was very nearly the headline of a third.
Just a couple of years ago, we had a scandal in this country because journalists were crossing the boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour, hacking people's mobile phones. How, then, is it still acceptable to peddle body-image neurosis to a largely female readership, and get them to pay for the privilege of having fingers pointed indirectly and through the avatars of the famous or allegedly famous, at them, telling them what's wrong with their bodies on a weekly basis? Can we maybe, just for once in our lives, be a bit freakin' nicer to women, please?
"The chances are, you're not as fat as you think you are," I'd written, or something like it.
She messaged me back almost immediately. "Most people who think they're fat...are fat, you know," she said.
I wondered about that. With a society that obsesses about how people look - how women in particular look, what happens to their bodies, and in particular, what they weigh, I was skeptical. Have a feeling that, coming to it new, Joe may well have got the wrong end of the two-ended stick of weight perception. I'm under no illusions of course that fat people think they're thin. You can't, I suspect, be fat in the modern world and not know it - because if it wasn't enough to get body images of what beauty looks like to the half-dozen people in the world who get to decide what beauty and fashion are these days flung at you mercilessly from every ad campaign - with the none-too-subtle underlining that "you must look like this or you're not beautiful, and therefore not worth anything - particularly not worth anybody wanting to love or have sex with, ya fat fuck!" - people will come up and tell you. They really will - apparently concerned folk will come up to you and tell you you're fat. Young people (some of whom the old reactionary in my soul wants to ban) feel it incumbent on them to point and laugh, and feel that society is probably on their side, so don't particularly hide their intent. It is surely beyond a shadow of doubt that fat people know they are fat.
But the point is that in this body-obsessive society, not-fat people also know they're fat. Because the goalposts of fat are frequently set by the insane. Which is to say the fashionmasters, who design, as I've heard it described, clothes for pre-pubescent 12 year-old boys, and then sell them to women. You can be by any rational definition significantly not-fat and still think, be told, be blackmailed and brainwashed by an advertising and celebrity culture gone entirely round the bend, that you're not not-fat enough, not thin enough, not perfect enough.
I was mulling that as I wandered through the magazine section at Tesco tonight. Normally of course, I avoid the gossip magazines like the plague they are, but tonight I looked up. Dawn French - Heavier Than She Was was the headline on one. Beach Body Epic Failures was the headline on another. Some C-Lister Whose Name I Can't Remember - Friends Worry As Weight Balloons was very nearly the headline of a third.
Just a couple of years ago, we had a scandal in this country because journalists were crossing the boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour, hacking people's mobile phones. How, then, is it still acceptable to peddle body-image neurosis to a largely female readership, and get them to pay for the privilege of having fingers pointed indirectly and through the avatars of the famous or allegedly famous, at them, telling them what's wrong with their bodies on a weekly basis? Can we maybe, just for once in our lives, be a bit freakin' nicer to women, please?
Tuesday 1 October 2013
The Disappearing Countdown
Bum, quite frankly.
Bum bum bum bum bum...
Been a rotten couple of weeks, Disappearingwise. Been eating more or less what I like - and we all know what that is. Been throwing the occasional walk or biking session into the mix to try and persuade myself that I'd restarted, but last week saw me at 17st 11, and today...unff...back up to 17st 13.
Been down in all sorts of dumps. Work dumps, metabolic dumps, choral dumps (best kind of dumps, those - they come in four-part harmony, which is pretty at least, even if they do come with a range of amens at the end...). This week in particular, I've had my Disappearing teeth kicked in. Went to a big choral bash, for which formal dress was required. Last time I had to wear that, it did up. This week, it dangled from my once-again prodigious man-breasts, making me the extremely odd one out.
This weekend was our ninth wedding anniversary, so I hired a car and we pootled to Saundersfoot and Amroth (longstanding readers, if any such still exist, will know of course that this is our traditional holiday spot). d, for reasons best known to herself but probably connected to what it would be kind to call my natural inclination to physical comedy, and more accurate to describe as my klutz-footed, cack-handed ability to fall over while standing still, has for some years harboured a not-so-secret desire to see me ride a horse. I have of course largely dissuaded her from this foolish notion, but this year, I thought "bugger it, we have the car..." so we went to the Marros riding stable.
"Rough height and weight?" asked the schoolgirl there.
"5ft 6 and about 17 and a half stone,"I admitted. She sucked her entirely unhorsey teeth.
"Sorry," she said, "no can do...maximum weight's 16 stone, I'm afraid..."
There's a natural temptation, meeting such obstacles, to go into Angry Fat Bloke mode, and go "stick your wimp-ass horses where the sun don't shine, beeeatch!" Into which temptation I did not give, but still...
I'm intending to really rev the hell up and start the Disappearing thing pretty much from scratch again. In fact, it was supposed to have started today. Failed, failed, failed. Not...hugely...I mean, I haven't spent the day cramming cream cakes down my neck washed down with lard and Coke smoothies. But haven't exercised at all, haven't taken the slightest care of my metabolism...hence failed.
Now tonight, have been talking with Joe Bartholomew. That's right, the Joe Bartholomew.
Sigh...you're going to pretend you don't know who Joe Bartholomew is now, aren't you? A tedious fiction, to be sure, but anyway - Joe Bartholomew is an author, and a damn fine one at that, whose debut work will I daresay ring bells and pull heartstrings among Disappearers everywhere - it's called Three Fat Singletons...I could go on, but the point is probably made. To find out more, go here. I met Joe at the York Festival of Writing...what seems like an age ago now, but was really only a handful of heartbeats...and we've been corresponding since. Anyhow, she too was supposed to have started a new dietary regime today...but, y'know, there was angel cake and stuff...
I'm feeling increasingly wretched and lurgified as the night goes on, so am thinking of doing a Starbucks day tomorrow. Which means no early morning walking...So we sort of made an agreement. Disappearing Proper begins again, ladies and gentlemen, on October 6th. That's old style Disappearing - Walking, biking, carrot sticks, fruit, protein, all that schtick - plus of course all the no sugar, no fried, limited carb, calorifically counted malarkey.
Five days, people. Counting down as of....now!
Bum bum bum bum bum...
Been a rotten couple of weeks, Disappearingwise. Been eating more or less what I like - and we all know what that is. Been throwing the occasional walk or biking session into the mix to try and persuade myself that I'd restarted, but last week saw me at 17st 11, and today...unff...back up to 17st 13.
Been down in all sorts of dumps. Work dumps, metabolic dumps, choral dumps (best kind of dumps, those - they come in four-part harmony, which is pretty at least, even if they do come with a range of amens at the end...). This week in particular, I've had my Disappearing teeth kicked in. Went to a big choral bash, for which formal dress was required. Last time I had to wear that, it did up. This week, it dangled from my once-again prodigious man-breasts, making me the extremely odd one out.
This weekend was our ninth wedding anniversary, so I hired a car and we pootled to Saundersfoot and Amroth (longstanding readers, if any such still exist, will know of course that this is our traditional holiday spot). d, for reasons best known to herself but probably connected to what it would be kind to call my natural inclination to physical comedy, and more accurate to describe as my klutz-footed, cack-handed ability to fall over while standing still, has for some years harboured a not-so-secret desire to see me ride a horse. I have of course largely dissuaded her from this foolish notion, but this year, I thought "bugger it, we have the car..." so we went to the Marros riding stable.
"Rough height and weight?" asked the schoolgirl there.
"5ft 6 and about 17 and a half stone,"I admitted. She sucked her entirely unhorsey teeth.
"Sorry," she said, "no can do...maximum weight's 16 stone, I'm afraid..."
There's a natural temptation, meeting such obstacles, to go into Angry Fat Bloke mode, and go "stick your wimp-ass horses where the sun don't shine, beeeatch!" Into which temptation I did not give, but still...
I'm intending to really rev the hell up and start the Disappearing thing pretty much from scratch again. In fact, it was supposed to have started today. Failed, failed, failed. Not...hugely...I mean, I haven't spent the day cramming cream cakes down my neck washed down with lard and Coke smoothies. But haven't exercised at all, haven't taken the slightest care of my metabolism...hence failed.
Now tonight, have been talking with Joe Bartholomew. That's right, the Joe Bartholomew.
Sigh...you're going to pretend you don't know who Joe Bartholomew is now, aren't you? A tedious fiction, to be sure, but anyway - Joe Bartholomew is an author, and a damn fine one at that, whose debut work will I daresay ring bells and pull heartstrings among Disappearers everywhere - it's called Three Fat Singletons...I could go on, but the point is probably made. To find out more, go here. I met Joe at the York Festival of Writing...what seems like an age ago now, but was really only a handful of heartbeats...and we've been corresponding since. Anyhow, she too was supposed to have started a new dietary regime today...but, y'know, there was angel cake and stuff...
I'm feeling increasingly wretched and lurgified as the night goes on, so am thinking of doing a Starbucks day tomorrow. Which means no early morning walking...So we sort of made an agreement. Disappearing Proper begins again, ladies and gentlemen, on October 6th. That's old style Disappearing - Walking, biking, carrot sticks, fruit, protein, all that schtick - plus of course all the no sugar, no fried, limited carb, calorifically counted malarkey.
Five days, people. Counting down as of....now!
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