Baldyman

In recent news Jeremy Clarkson was cancelled for being rude, insensitive and misogynistic, (hasn’t that been the basis of his whole career?) Nicola Sturgeon resigned as first minister of Scotland (presumably to concentrate on Pantos with the Krankies), Gary Lineker compared the Tories to the Third Reich (an own goal not even VAR could overturn) and S Club 7’s plans to tour again after 25 years were thrown into turmoil when two members put their backs out attempting to ‘Reach for the Stars.’ There were flashbacks to the nightmare of lockdown home schooling as teachers went on strike, salad lovers turned to the black market to score some cucumbers and tomatoes and teens across the country went crazy over the new energy drink ‘Prime’.  With demand exceeding supply, fights broke out in supermarkets and bottles changed hands for over ten times the retail value. This was a lot different to my youth when we were more than happy with a can of Lilt or Top Deck (0.001% alcohol so we could pretend to be drunk) and if we were feeling particularly adventurous, a carton of Um Bongo (“they drink it in the Congo” – probably wouldn’t be allowed to say that anymore).

Sam Smith has also been in the headlines with his ‘flamboyant’ fashion sense called into question during a period in which he;

• Dressed as a red latex devil at the Grammys (as you do).
• Released photos wearing a snug fitting string vest (which bore an uncanny resemblance to a butcher’s tied pork joint).
• Arrived at the Brit Awards in an inflatable outfit (which can be best described as an inexperienced children’s party entertainer’s failed attempt to construct a balloon animal).

Christmas and New Year are now merely a distant memory and January seemed to finish quicker than Prince Harry when he lost his virginity in a field behind a busy pub. Claiming he was treated like a stallion, (I assume this didn’t include being brushed, given fresh straw and fed carrots) his mystery acquaintance was described in his memoirs as ‘an older woman with a love for horses.’ With early contenders including Katie Price, Clare Balding and his step mum Camilla Parker Bowles, there was a degree of disappointment when she was finally revealed as an unknown 40 year-old digger driver from Wiltshire who I would almost certainly lose to in an arm wrestling contest. Other fascinating revelations from everyone’s favourite ginger royal (well at least since Fergie was forced out) were that he took drugs, drank heavily (both of which I suggest he continues with if he has to live with Meghan) and attended his brother’s wedding with a frostbitten penis (ideal if Kate had forgotten to bring anything blue). The backlash from ‘Spare’ saw him evicted by King Charles, with the initial delight of their Frogmore Cottage neighbours soon dampened with the arrival of non-sweating sex pest Prince Andrew.

New Year’s Eve is traditionally a time where I would spend the night playing a number of classic old school board games with my children. But with the world now increasingly running to a different set of rules, the evening was brought to an abrupt end when;

• ‘Mouse Trap’ and ‘Buckaroo’ were stopped due to allegations of animal cruelty.
• ‘Operation’ was delayed due to a nurses’ strike.
•  ‘Monopoly’ ended on the discovery that Old Kent Road had been demolished and replaced with a Starbucks.
• ‘Twister’ was abandoned due to 15 counts of sexual assault in the opening 4 minutes.

Worst of all though was ‘Guess Who’ which used to be a fun, rapid fire game of person identification. It was soon clear though that it would now take considerably longer to complete when my son posed his opening question, “Does he/him, she/her, they/them identify as a wearer of a hat?” I eventually correctly identified the mystery character as Richard but by the time I’d come to this conclusion, he was no longer bald with glasses and a beard but had transitioned into being Maria with a beret, earrings and shoulder length brown hair.

The pronouns that people choose to use is a hot topic of conversation at the moment and I for one believe that everyone should be able to call themselves whatever they want and  live their lives however they wish. I ultimately decide what I do and don’t do and for example have just had a very busy weekend during which I;

• Baked some Gingerbread Them.
• Watched Liverpool play Themchester United.
• Read some chapters of John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Them.’
• Listened to music including,’ I kissed a Them and I liked it’ by Katy Perry and Shania Twain’s classic, ‘Them! I feel like a Them.’
• Remembered to put the recycling out before the BinThem came on Monday.

There have also now been calls to ensure that there is no misgendering of any of our children’s favourite TV characters.  So with this in mind, it has been confirmed that from now on;

• Peter Parker will turn into SpiderThem.
• FireThem Sam will deal with all emergencies in Pontypandy.
• Skeletor will battle ThemThem.
• All letters in Greendale will be delivered by PostThem Pat and his non binary cat.

A New Year is often a time for new beginnings and this year I decided to make a resolution that from January 1^st I would go on a diet and exercise more in order to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle. Although from the outside it seemed an admirable plan, it did upon further investigation turn out to have a number of major flaws which included;

1. I have had the same idea for at least the last ten years without it ever having come to fruition (despite the ever mounting statistical evidence that failure is a near certainty, part of my foolhardy self always believes that “this year is going to be different.”)
2. I have little or no willpower when it comes to food  (a fact further cemented on Christmas Eve when I came close to falling into a ‘party snack’ induced coma after consuming a family sized bag of onion ring crisps during the first 20 minutes of ‘Home Alone.’)
3. The ridiculous volumes of snacks bought for Christmas week would almost certainly remain as an unfinished temptation until at least March (boxes of After Eight Mints and Matchmakers were piled so high that edible Jenga was considered and if Jesus fed 5000 with just a few fishes and loaves, I dread to think what he could’ve achieved with my twiglets, chocolate coins and luxury Scottish all butter biscuit shortbread collection.)
4. As the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, this was technically speaking January 1^st and the supposed commencement of my life changing fitness regime (in reality I had a can of Thatchers Cider in each hand, was continuing to try to eat my body weight in cheese and crackers and was plotting an ambitious plan to create a large batch of pigs in blankets, brie and cranberry sauce toasted sandwiches.)

It can also be a time of reflection and a chance to look back at what you have accomplished over the previous 12 months. My biggest achievement by far was completing the Brighton Marathon back in April, a feat made even more remarkable by the fact that just last week I found myself severely out of breath attempting to change a duvet cover (it was a double). I have regularly documented how I always seem to find myself in embarrassing situations and you’ll be pleased to know that my running experiences were no exception to this.

My first misfortune occurred during one of my final long distance training runs only a few weeks before the race. With 18 miles to cover, I had calculated a 4.5 mile route that I could loop 4 times to enable me to sensibly take on water outside my house each time. So for this reason and to ensure I covered the correct overall distance, it was paramount that I didn’t deviate from the course I had planned in advance. Things were all going well until I had covered about a mile and started to make my way along a narrow track through the middle of a local public park. As I turned a corner, in the near distance I could see at least a hundred schoolgirls, who were participating in a hockey tournament, sat in large groups close to either side of the path I had to run through.

Now if I only had to run past them once then it would not have been an issue at all, but as I previously explained, this was not an option. As the park approached again on each loop I prayed that the tournament would have now finished and that the girls would have dispersed. Unfortunately this was not the case and so with every passing lap, due to the physical exertion I was undertaking, I became slower, sweatier, more out of breath and increasingly more recognisable. By the time I got to the fourth time through, I fully expected officers from Operation Yewtree to be waiting for me and I couldn’t have made myself any more conspicuous if I had been wearing a shell suit, smoking a cigar and handing out Jim’ll Fix It badges.

The second incident actually happened during the race itself. From 21 miles onwards I was a broken man, had been passed by a rhino, a Peppa Pig (both of which I assumed were costumes unless I’d started hallucinating) and countless pensioners, and was barely able to break into anything more dynamic than a pedestrian jog. At Brighton the finish is along the beach front so there is a great atmosphere with huge crowds cheering you on. As I approached the final stretch I noticed an inflatable archway in the distance that I recognised as the finishing line. Keen to uphold my macho credentials in front of the public masses, I mustered all my remaining energy to put on a finishing burst reminiscent of the dramatic scenes depicted in 1982’s ‘Chariots of Fire.’

As I soaked up the adulation of people calling out my name (it was printed on my vest, I am not in any way popular) and prepared to duck over the line, I was suddenly hit with a very stark realisation. The previously identified archway was merely for advertising purposes and the actual finish could quite clearly be seen about a quarter of a mile further down the road. Let’s just say that these remaining metres, which were of course lined with countless official photographers, would see me produce a far less dominant, elegant and physically impressive performance.

Fitness levels  can diminish at an alarming rate when neglected and  just 8 months on from running 26.2 miles I have found myself in such situations where;

• I got my forearm and fat fingers stuck in a tube of Hot & Spicy Pringles as I greedily foraged for broken remnants at the bottom.
• I seemingly need the aid of a winch, talcum powder and Big Foot’s shoe horn to successfully manoeuvre myself into any pair of more snugly fitting jeans.
• I suffered a near death experience trying on an old football kit (see below).

I was going to watch the team I support for the first time in many years and thought it only fitting to wear suitable attire to mark the occasion. Searching through my wardrobe I located one of my old team shirts and without a second thought proceeded to start putting it on. It went over my head and shoulders okay (these I later realised don’t tend to enlarge that much throughout adult life) but it then became increasingly apparent that I was likely to have some serious issues. I could barely pull it down any further than my nipples and because of this, my arms were fixed in a slightly raised position that you might more usually associate with a farmer’s scarecrow.

I could make comparisons with attempting to remove a cucumber from its shrink wrapped cellophane but this would not do justice to the close proximity the material was keeping to my skin. Having briefly contemplated the humiliation of having to ask one of my sons to cut me free with scissors, I then began an escape attempt that if successful would be far greater than anything Steve McQueen had ever achieved. My movements closely mimicked those of a wriggling escapologist but while they are usually up against a straitjacket, buckles and padlocks, my nemesis was merely an ill-fitting football shirt.

With all the grace of a caught fish floundering on a riverbank, I somehow managed to contort myself into a position that finally freed my, by now, severely blood starved arms. In my moment of triumph it dawned on me that it had been 18 years since I had last worn the shirt in question and even more ludicrous was the fact that it was a size ‘medium’. Now I’m not quite at the stage just yet where I’m giving Brendan Fraser in ‘The Whale’ a run for his money, but I’ve not been that clothing size for a while. In fact the closest I’ve come to a medium in recent years was when a mysterious old lady grabbed my hand in the frozen aisle at Aldi and told me I was due to come into wealth (in fairness she was correct as I collected my pound back from the trolley soon afterwards).

If you have got this far I can only congratulate you and I will now bring proceedings to an end with a joke.

A man is walking next to a canal with his dog when without warning it suddenly jumps off the side and into the water. Unable to swim and with his four legged friend beginning to struggle to stay afloat, the dog’s owner starts to panic. Luckily on the other side of the canal is a visiting German tourist who, in his broken (but highly commendable and perfectly understandable) English, shouts across, “Don’t vorry I vill save ze dog” before jumping into the water.

He makes his way to the dog, puts it under his arm before completing the rescue by swimming to the opposite side and getting out. Approaching the dog’s owner he says, “If you get ze dog dry, varm and a good meal it vill be fine.” “Thank you so much for your help and advice,” says the man, “Are you a vet?”

“Vet?” replies the German tourist, “I am f**king soaking!”

Thanks again for reading.