A Short Admission of Failure in a Random Blog Re-launch

Approximately a year on and it’s time to deal with the elephant in the room, and I don’t mean my shadow. My keep fit efforts have gone from bad to worse. I’ve done no running, forgotten how to use the gym locker, gone from outfield to in goal in my increasingly rare appearances for the Mighty Mierda and played cricket twice. The application forms I was going to apply for remain either gathering dust or un-applied for. To be honest I enjoyed writing about keep fit way more than I enjoyed doing it but then I suspect you all know that already. I had not factored in how hard it would be to get 5 minutes to train with two children. I mean, I expect it’s easy if that’s what you really enjoy, you make room for it the way I do for cooking, reading, watching football and deciding who would win a fight between Sid the Shark and a man-size pork scratching, but when it’s the least favourite of your daily activities it’s the first to go.

So first it’s time to pay huge respect to some real amateur sporting heroes. Firstly there was my friend Mark. Not only older than me but arguably as large at the outset, Mark really did do this year’s Brighton Marathon and in doing so raised thousands for the Martlet’s Hospice. The Marathon happened to be on one of the hottest days so far this year and I was sweating just walking to the New Church Road turn round point with Amy in the buggy. Mark looked quite fresh at this stage though I gather it all went wall-like soon after. However, he pushed through and did it. Massive respect. Now others of our loose gang of Brighton supporting drinking buddies known as the GDC (for Gentleman’s Drinking Club) are being inspired to their own version of the Olympics for the same very worthwhile cause. It’s a massively happy time for us Brighton supporters as we prepare to move in to our swanky new stadium and play against the likes of Palace, West Ham, Leeds, Portsmouth and Notts Forest, lead by the world’s coolest Uruguayan. But it’s tinged with sadness for those who will never see it and some of those were helped by the Martlets so it’s a cause very close to the GDC’s hearts. Have a look at http://www.justgiving.com/BHA-Martlets if you have a spare 5 minutes.

So what have I been up to if it’s not training? Well apart from lots of time in the kitchen (see I told you I wasn’t taking it seriously) the Brighton Festival has just been and gone and the literary part has inspired both me and oldest child Owen. We got tickets for workshops with two illustrators and an author (Guy Parker-Rees, Bruce Ingman and Sean Taylor respectively). Sean wrote the brilliant “BOING!” and Bruce illustrated it and it has become our favourite childrens book ever (way better than The Gruffalo)! Since then Owen has been drawing non stop. The local Green Party are going to send the heavies round soon the amount of paper he’s going through and it’s all good stuff too. But it finally got me off my backside on another mini project I’ve had kicking about for a while. I have, from time to time, especially after lights out (when you can’t see a book), made up stories for Owen. Since he doesn’t tell me to stop and has been known to request them, I thought them mildly entertaining but with inspiration from the Festival and lots of prodding from N I finally wrote one down to send off to a literary agent. Having finally found one I both liked the look of and who was taking debut submissions (a process that took as long as writing the story down and editing it) I emailed it off and it is currently sitting in the ‘slush pile’. Whether anything comes of this other than a slew of rejection letters only time will tell, but at least I don’t have to disappoint myself surrounded by pink lycra, sweaty muscles and hi-NRG Kylie remixes...........   

Amy

In the race for fitness, weight loss and generally better health I have fallen at the first hurdle. It was, depending on how you view it an enormous hurdle of record proportions or one quite tiny weighing 7lb ish (actually 7lb 9). I haven’t been to the gym for 2 weeks or played football for 3 and the reason is my beautiful new daughter Amy. As I type she is lying in her bed, out cold, a look of pleasure on her face that is known in the Thackeray household as ‘milky drunk’. Honestly, I have no idea where she gets it from.

I won’t go in to medical details, far too unfair on my wife. Suffice it to say that she needed to be induced and Amy was not immediately forthcoming. Two days were spent, on my part at least, hanging round the Royal Sussex County Hospital Maternity Ward listening to a cats chorus of labouring women. Still, in that time I got to read four chapters of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, three newspapers, fifteen different posters on breastfeeding, many of which had survived the 1970s and the somewhat confusing instructions on N’s combined telly and telephone contraption. So at least I was fractionally better educated when she did make an appearance compared to when said appearance was due.

Since we got her home I have been enjoying some paternity leave, not very much sleep and re-acquainting myself with baby signals. Roughly these are ‘I took a dump’ (red face and smelly bottom), ‘feed me’ (eating of hand and bobbing of head) or ‘windy’ (beatific smile). Anything else can be translated as ‘I am generally displeased’. Or ‘I am about to become hungry / take a dump / have wind’. Owen has been – seriously for a minute – a wonderful big brother. Aside from trying to climb in to the Moses basket to hug her. There has not been a moment of resentment (so far) and at times he has been almost mawkishly soppy. He has also been a great help. I am really hoping this lasts as going from one to two just adds another sibling-rivalry-type dimension of stress to the average middle class parent already worrying about everything from school placements to whether he was being deliberately nasty to little Jimmy last week at toddler art and craft when he hid the purple crayon in his pants.

The other thing paternity leave gives you a new awareness of is daytime TV. For instance there’s Escape to the Country in which a couple with great faces and fashion sense for Radio get to see lots of houses with Agas in that they can’t quite afford. Then there’s Bargain Hunt in which couples with faces and fashion senses designed for Radio buy some stuff then sell it for a loss at auction. I once caught Owen playing a game of Bargain Hunt with his stuffed toys and was minded to reprimand N for the amount of daytime telly he was watching but actually you only need to see these shows twice to understand the format. The rest is just a variation on a theme using people and places and the overall effect is as trance-inducing as meditation or good Scotch. It’s television you can dip in and out of, sometimes days apart, and given what knowledge sponges three year olds are it’s little wonder Owen fantasises that Happy Monkey was trying to make a profit selling a three day old Smartie to the blue team.

But where was I? Ah yes. Weight loss. Haven’t lost any. Starting again this week. Honest. I have been eating healthier (yes really, lots of fish, salad, roasted veg and fruits). I have cut down on the booze too (sleep deprivation and St Emilion do not mix). So next week it’s time to get back on the treadmill and see if it’s helping. Great South Run is T minus one year and counting.

Rant number 1. Kindle is Evil

This week I ate lots of take away, football got cancelled and I didn’t make the gym. However I did nesting, running and swimming. I have no idea how much weight I have gained (lost isn’t an option) as I haven’t got to my ‘baselined’ scales. I did gain 60 pounds but they were pounds sterling on a dubious flop that had me dealt 4 bullets on the river (now go and look it up). I celebrated maturely by cutting cards for shots of Polish Bison Grass vodka. All in all, health wise I’m a mess. So instead of the normal here’s a rant about new (ish) technology instead.

Anyone watching UK television recently will have noticed a mass advertising campaign. A man has what looks like a giant iPhone in his hand and a close up reveals he is reading a book using Amazon Kindle – an e-reader. Cut to long shot of a man and woman on deck chairs on the beach both with said machine. As these things become more popular a dissenting voice (mine) must be heard.

I’m far from a Luddite. My job involves selling software upgrades and the improved business processes that result to one of the most intransigent industries on the planet. I was an early adopter of Social Networks. I deal daily in change. My objection to Kindle is not, therefore, based on progress but rather on snobbery and a love of people watching. I admit this up front.

Commuting by train as I do 3 or 4 times a week can be immensely revealing about people. It’s not just the polite versus the selfish, the suited versus the dressed down or the chatterer versus the introvert (or sleeping). A broad sense of people’s tastes and views can be gained by a small amount of careful observation of what is pulled out to read. On the way up to Town it could be a free Metro (too stingy to buy the Express), the Daily Mail (likely to be scared every time an Asian male boards the train), the Telegraph (senior manager or board member / partner with the tolerance level of a Rottweiler), The Guardian (sandal wearing GLBT on a muesli comedown) or the Sun (likes pictures of tits in the morning, and I don’t mean small winged animals). You see what I’ve done there? Managed to attribute a lazy stereotype* to everyone on the train based solely on choice of newspaper. How the heck am I supposed to do that if everyone starts reading a homogonous black tablet that looks like a giant i-Phone? I’ll actually have to start reading my copy of the Times (intelligent and politically balanced of course!) instead of people watching.

If not a paper then many commuters reach for their book at some point during their round trip. Books expand yet further upon a person’s tastes and views. It’s possible to observe the mainstream shift from Dan Brown to Stieg Larsson or find a kindred spirit buried in a De Bernieres, Dalrymple or Bourdain. Is the guy in the rumpled suit a commuting professor or down on his luck? If he’s reading Dostoevsky it makes my observation far easier. Look at Mr Cool with the shades, Blackberry and Armani. Why is he reading Harry Potter?! And there seems to be a law that states every commuter train in the South East of England must contain at least one John Grisham paperback or the train will be stopped and made to go on the slow line.

That may be as far as it goes in uptight repressed England but to see the true impact of Kindle think about somewhere altogether more literary and less repressed. Like, say, Dublin. I worked there for 3 months and one Friday checked in early for my flight home as was my wont. With a couple of hours to kill I naturally headed to the bar. Not for a Guinness – the last bar you’ll drink at in Dublin doesn’t serve it (or didn’t in 2007) – but I had a pint of Beamish and pulled out my copy of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. The bar was quiet and before I knew it the barman had noticed the book and sidled over for a chat. “That’s a great book” he said (or something of the kind) and before I knew it we’d had a long conversation about growing up in Ireland in the 50s, the quality of Bryson’s writing, Americans and why you couldn’t get that last pint of Guinness. A solitary pint turned in to a genuinely interesting and engaging conversation. Would that have happened if I had pulled out an e-reader? “Aha I see you have the new E21C with extra RAM” he might have said, resulting in me heading for the far corner of the bar and downing my Beamish in 10 seconds flat.

I’m not strictly a bibliophile. Though I can see the value in first editions, cover art, the smell of a book etc they are not in themselves obsessions. However, if we are all to Kindle, how an earth can I make a snap judgement about peoples intellectual capacity or find out how the barman serving me seduced Mary from Navan in 1958?

*of course I know these are lazy stereotypes. Lots of different people read the Sun, Telegraph, Guardian or Mail. Everyone picks up a Metro now and again. But how would I know even that if they Kindled, huh? Huh?

How to Lose Weight Eating Take Away

Wow. I have defied science. I have beaten the best brains in scientific academia (and the creators of the beer, ice cream and pizza diet). Yes this week in The Observer came this report that out and out exercise has virtually no effect on weight loss. And yet, and yet I have lost a whole pound. I checked twice as I was in shock but each time the needle came in one tiny notch below 15 stone. Now I could have done even better but that would have involved removing my gym kit which, given the scales are in the main exercise area, would have had me dragged outside and beaten like Wayne Rooney at a feminist rally. But that is a miracle pound for not only have I been somewhat remiss in the cutting down booze department but I have eaten absolute crap for a week.

Tuesday brought the builders who with no further ado demolished the kitchen. It also brought football and with Gordy the Cat back in between the sticks I resumed my role as occasional outfield substitute and the team resumed living up to our name. To be fair we were playing a side that regularly challenged for the title in the top division while our usual fate was to play for mid-table respectability in the 2^nd division but the unbeaten record is gone. We might not even be top. Luckily the website has been down for a week so I can’t check (although neither can anyone verify my top of the league claim either). Exercise wise it has been a very good week in fact with football, trips to the gym on Thursday and Sunday, lots more nesting and toddler carrying. Actually they should make this an Olympic Sport. Format is this. Take a large 3 year old and add a legs worth of plaster. Said toddler has to be carried upstairs and placed safely in the bathroom in exactly 5 seconds or less, and the clock starts at the first syllable of the first request. Winner gets to feel like father of the year. Loser gets peed on. I actually ran for 15 minutes solid on Thursday after a row (that’s a warm up on a machine, not an unfortunate result of looking at someone’s bird funny). I feel like Daley Thompson. Except white. And in pain.

But no kitchen has meant take away and take away means high fat large portioned tasty but not too tasty food. We’ve had so many cars round with packages and money changing hands I was planning erecting a sign along the lines of ‘hello CID, it’s food honestly, the kitchens being done. And I’m sure all these guys are here legally’. *cough*.

I have made a small concession food wise in that at lunch time I’ve swapped baguettes and crisps for salad, fruit and water (yes really, and it’s cheaper). And it seems that, plus football, plus gym-ing, plus holding the world toddler carrying record has been enough to lose one tiny but satisfying pound. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to do the first take of my new DVD ‘How to Lose Weight Eating Take Away’. This time next year we’ll be millionaires.....

Week 1 - am I the biggest loser? Or just a loser?

Tuesday: Football day for the wonderfully (and at times aptly) named Mierda F.C. We are kicking off at exactly the same time as England do in Switzerland. We just scrape together a side though our struggles are down to holiday, injury and football watching rather than News of the World Exclusives. Our regular keeper Gordy the Cat is one of those missing so I am between the sticks all game. Surprisingly, despite having no subs and playing a side who turned us over a few weeks ago we play brilliantly and win 10 – 2 to go top of the league.* I celebrate with a huge bowl of pasta and a nice Pinotage, both consumed after 9pm. So despite the footy and spending the hour or so before it moving furniture, pans and a hobbled toddler I still probably put on weight. Too scared to weigh myself. In other news I’m allergic to Reigate**. My legs hurt when I sit in my work chair.


Wednesday: Take away and wine. I’m really not taking this very seriously.

Thursday: I forgo the gym in favour of shopping unloading and baby organising. No cardio but I do carry a crib and 6 heavily packed shopping bags.

Friday: This was so nearly a moment that UK viewers of Dragon’s Den might understand as a ‘dog ate my trainers day’. I have my gym kit packed but the trains conspire to leave me a 20 minute walk from it and I have to pass the house to get there. A herculean effort gets me to the gym but after walking there I’m shattered. I do a 5 minute row to warm up fine but spend too much time walking when on the treadmill. A long rest then 15 minutes on the cross trainer and I’m done and I still have to walk home. No weights. I am going to be lugging furniture, kitchen equipment and a toddler all weekend. At least I get to weigh myself. 15 stone, 95kg in metric. Fatter than a footballer but slimmer than a prop forward.

Saturday: We spend the day ‘nesting’. Which roughly translates as me moving every piece of heavy furniture in the house under directions before moving anything deemed not worthy up in to the loft. A definite weight loss day. By evening I’m exhausted.

Sunday: This on the other hand was a definite weight gain day. We are having the kitchen done starting tomorrow so there is little in the fridge. Consequently a take away lunch is followed by a polite slice of cake as we drop in to a children’s party (Owen’s still in plaster and doesn’t want to stay long) before it’s off to Burgess Hill for Sunday dinner with the Scholfields. N puts the Jackson 5 on in the car and I attempt some subtle chair dancing to Rockin’ Robin but it’s all in vain weight wise. I have the most wonderful time but I’m 2 helpings of lasagne, several profiteroles, beer and wine to the good before we go. I clear the kitchen to Jeff Mills when we get home but when I sit down I feel like Orca. The biggest challenge is about to come however – a week without a kitchen. This means microwave meals, take away and eating out for a week. Yikes!

* true at the time of writing. If you click the link after the evening of 14 Sept 2010 we could be literally anywhere!
** I have actually been allergic to every office I have ever worked in.

Fat Man attempts to Slim (Alt title - The Gym Sucks, but....)

Those regular followers of my facebook status updates (thanks both of you) might be aware that I have a love / hate relationship with the gym. Actually that’s not true, I have a hate / hate relationship with the gym. It’s not just the smell and the grunting and the way they look at you when you put your Special Brew in the drink holder on the treadmill. The fact is that gyms are stupendously and unbelievably boring. You see I don’t have a problem with sport or exercise. I love playing football and cricket because they are everything the gym isn’t. Social, team based, tactical and skilful – and you can have a pint with your team mates afterwards. Team sports are the antithesis of the gym. The gym, broken down, is just you, an LCD screened automated torture implement and a soundtrack so gay Club Revenge would consider it stereotypical. I had a more interesting time watching Titanic, during which I had to be woken up four times and physically restrained from yelling “the boat sinks!”.


So why am I going more and more? Sadly, I have reached that age where if I want to keep playing the fun stuff like football and cricket I have to train. Gone are the days where I could go clubbing all night on Friday, smoke myself silly on Saturday and still play a full cricket game on Sunday. Clubbing till midnight would have me confined to barracks for a week. I get wheezy looking at the stairs. So if I am to continue playing the sports I love with people I like very much the gym is becoming a necessary evil.

Also I noticed (unfortunately) on my last visit that the gym has scales and stupidly I got on them. I am not what you would call my target weight. Not even in the same postcode. I’m not quite at the stage where I’m ruling out ever returning to Tokyo in case I get harpooned but it’s not far off. So I need to lose weight. Recently I received very sage advice on exactly on this subject from a man I actually consider to be a sage. But it won’t work fast enough. I will have to combine the beer, pizza and ice-cream with gym attendance. Win / win.

So why this blog? Call it public shaming. I want to lose a stone and a half and I’m employing every tactic going. Dropping the equivalent of a bottle of Chateau Rauzan Marguax every month for gym membership was a start. But succeeding – or failing – publicly is a bigger drive.

And there is a serious end game. At a friend’s 4th July BBQ this year the host was wearing a Brighton Marathon finishers t-shirt. Strangely I wasn’t thinking ‘nutter’. I was admiring it. Now I know what you’re all thinking. If I liked it why didn’t I just steal it? Well Richard’s bigger than me. Actually that’s not true, he’s taller than me. But I’m not about to take up marathon running. Luckily part of the training regime is lots of sleep and with baby number 2 due in October I’ve given up on the idea of sleep till September 2029. Plus the buses would start running again before I finished and I’d be far too tempted to hop on one in the direction of the nearest Gin Palace. However, I am going to aim for the Great South Run in 2011 (not the one in a months time!!). This seems like a realistic target – at least from the comfort of my armchair.

So to keep me on track for both aims I am going to blog my progress, weight lost and training progressed. Of course there will be other stuff as well. I can’t imagine that in an autumn that will include a new arrival, football matches and my continuing fascination with just how ugly the panellists on Question Time really are that I will keep totally on topic. But I’ll try – when I’m not busy working out.