The Wind Beneath My Bingo Wings

I had another warm and fuzzy internet moment this week when a reader of this blog – let’s call him Frank – got in contact, observing that my fitness regime seems to be falling by the wayside and offering to help me out. ‘I’d be happy to take you out running,’ he wrote. Obviously, I was a little hesitant. When a strange man writes to you out of the blue offering to get breathless and sweaty with you, you do well to be a little circumspect. So first of all, on Tuesday evening, we met for a drink.

Tall like a tower block and bald like a blade, turns out Frank is actually a rather splendid chap. A splendid chap who happens to have the body of a Greek god. Now I’m not what you'd call a gay man, but I do know a top-notch piece of masculine ass when I see it, and Frank just happens to have a bod to die for. Happily, he didn’t get that bod by chance – that would just be annoying. No, Frank works hard to keep himself in shape, playing football and squash, and going to the gym three times a week without fail.

But there’s more to Frank than just his height, pecs and glabrousness. Here, let me break it down for you.

10 Frank Facts

1. Frank drives a mint condition Lancia Fulvia.

2. Frank wears very expensive suit, but no tie.

3. Frank looks a little like Neil Strauss of The Game fame, but unlike Neil Strauss, he is not a complete tool.

4. Frank gets up at every morning at 6am, meditates for 20 minutes and then prepares breakfast for himself, his wife Emily (beautiful) and his little girl, Abbey (precocious), before driving to work, where before he does anything, he spends an hour pumping his body into a state of masculine perfection in the office gym.

5. Frank has run 12 marathons, including the London marathon last month, which he finished in exactly three and a half hours.

6. When he was 15, Frank became a Satanist and frightened his friends by speaking in tongues and etching an inverted crucifix into his forehead. He is now half-Buddhist, half-Zoroastrian.

7. Frank rarely watches films or reads books because ‘Life’s too short. I could be wind-surfing!’ (Actually, I’m tempted to take back Frank Fact #3.)

8. Frank has six hearts.

9. Frank was born in Bermuda.

10. Frank has a minuscule penis.


OK, this last fact is not literally a fact. It’s actually more idle conjecture, inspired by ugly, ugly envy. (Oh, the heart thing isn’t true either.)

....

So we met again yesterday in Brockwell Park, and we went running together. Now I usually run for just 12 minutes before collapsing. I have a little circuit around the park worked out and I’ve been running that same route for three months now and nothing has changed. It hasn’t got any easier and I haven’t got any quicker. Frank said, ‘It never gets any easier. But you have to push yourself. It’ll still hurt – it’ll hurt more in fact, but the more you do, the further you’ll get, the quicker you’ll recover and the fitter you’ll get.’ We were already running at this point. I had started wheezing, which is customary around the three-minute mark. ‘Today you push yourself,’ he said. And he sped up.

I was in quite a bit of pain by the time we finished, and it took me a little while to recover. I’d definitely run a lot faster than I do on my own. I felt well pushed.

Frank said,’ OK, let’s go.’

I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’, genuinely curious to know what he could possibly mean.

‘One more time around,’ he said. ‘That was just the warm-up. Now you need to start burning some calories.’

I laughed in his face. ‘Ha ha ha.’ Like that.

‘Come on,’ he said, unimpressed, and off he went. I suppose it was a lot to do with pride, which is apparently not a good thing, but I couldn’t just give up. I had to give it a go. So there I was, running again.

Probably around halfway through the second lap, the rain came, hard and cold. It mingled with my sweat and stung my eyes. As I half-ran, half-stumbled along, I found myself grabbing at my sides in an attempt to hold off the stitches which were coming now in gangs, like a girdle of pain. I stopped, bent double, gasping, ‘Stitch. Stitch.’

Frank stopped and said, ‘Catch your breath. Then we’ll carry on.’ He said, ‘Breathe into the stitch. Deep breaths. As deep as you can, and guide that breath to where the stitch is.’

Then I was running again. A minute later, desperate to slump to the wet earth and die, I began to wonder how anyone could possibly run non-stop for three hours. ‘They push themselves,’ said Frank. Whoa, that was odd. Had I said that or just thought it? I looked up at him as we ran. He was looking straight ahead. Did that actually just happen? I thought. Or did I merely imagine it? ‘You merely imagined it,’ said Frank. ‘Keep going. Sprint the last stretch.’

I did as I was told, to the best of my ability.

Lying on my back in the mud, I felt a strange sense of achievement. If I survive this, I thought, I’ll probably end up feeling better for it.

I survived it. And today I can barely walk. My calves are bleating like Christians.

But it feels good. It’s a healthy pain.

....

So as may be obvious by now, Frank is my new hero. He is also my adopted Life Coach. I’ve never had a Life Coach before, as the whole idea is anathema to me, but what the hell. Frank is perfect Life Coach material because he says things like, ‘You can do anything you want to do, be anything you want to be’, and he really seems to mean it.

He means it because he's one of those self-made swine. He was a bank manager in his 20s, but then he got bored, so he changed direction. ‘When I first started out in banks, it was different. Banks were banks in those days and customers were terrified of them. Then it all went soft and people realised they had rights and dignity.’ He spat the last word out like a fishbone that had been trying to choke him.

Frank is either deliberately outrageously amusing, or he really is a ginormous arse. At the moment my money's on the former. But we'll see.

‘Today, technology is the new religion. Still fresh enough, and powerful enough to be feared by the ignorant. So I learned technology. Now I’m a member of the digerati.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’m a digital strategist,’ he said, ‘and I’m one of the best.’

He explained what he actually did. It sounded like marketing to me. And we all know what Bill Hicks said about marketing. ‘No, Stan,’ said Frank. ‘It isn’t marketing. I’m a digital guru.’ He said it like he meant it too, which I really admired, and he even pronounced ‘guru’ so that it chimed not with ‘voodoo’, but with ‘Baloo’. The man has balls of reinforced concrete.

So I asked him, ‘Why did you get in touch with me, Frank?’ And he told me, ‘Because you’re putting yourself out there, you’re trying to make a difference to your life, and I like that. Plus I like what you write. And I think I can help you. And that’s that. Isn’t that what life’s all about?’

I just stared into his steely blue eyes and nodded, like a big breathless simpering gay freak.

(I'm not gay.)

....

Now I find myself seriously considering joining a gym. I’ve always hated the idea, and instinctively loathe the kind of people that go there, considering them horrible, vain, vacuous vermin. Ab rats. I’ve always thought that they have their priorities in life all wrong. But look at Frank. He might not watch as many films as I do, or read as many books, he might work longer hours on the whole and spend 10 hours a week stuck in traffic, but just look at his biceps.

I want biceps like that.

I’m going to look into it.

(Ugh. Tip: never do an image search for 'weightlifter'. Unless of course the sight of giant hernias is what you're into.)

Now I must lie down and eat chocolate. Adios.

Feedback Friday: The Good, The Bad and The Bag Full of Urine

bulk :: 19st 1 (excellent. Finally I seem to making real progress. That’ll be the exercise. And the bananas.)
cigarettes :: 6 (I know, I know, I know. I’m sorry. I feel bad. Will explain and give excuses in a short while.)
alcohol units :: 19
bananas :: 17
runs :: 3
minutes run without stopping for cigarette rest :: 12
bottles of wine stolen by over-zealous airport staff :: 1
new Davids :: 3

So, my friend Keith has moved to Peckham. Ten minutes’ walk from the heart of Peckham Rye. Now, I’d always thought Peckham was the armpit of London, if not the scrotum, and for most of my life I have studiously avoided it. Indeed, the time I have spent there this week has done little to disabuse me of this, but also – despite the gobby teens, the astonishing amount of rubbish in the streets and the intoxicating, god-awful stench – it does have a certain charm of which I was hitherto unaware. Lots of fruit and veg stalls, for example, a preponderance of large African men singing religious songs in the street and yesterday I saw a steel drum trio, just playing in the street seemingly for the sheer joy of it. It’s kind of like Brixton in fact, but without the rather unpleasant drug culture and concomitant sense of impending violence. Plus, no one can deny the inherent charm in this shop sign…



Anyhow, Keith’s new house is in a little disrepair. It needs a lot of work, so for the last couple of days I’ve been helping him repaint his living room. I tried to make it into a fitness thing, applying the principles of the Mr Miyagi School of Fence Painting. So that was good.

However, speaking of unpleasant drug culture, I’m disappointed to have to confess that Keith recently purchased a large bag of stinky green. For smoking. So after an hour or two of the Miyagi Dulux Workout, the last two nights have dissolved into a predominantly workless haze of sickly sweet smoke, silly talk and giggles.

This is no bad thing of course - it was actually fantastic fun - except of course it meant that I found myself smoking tobacco for the second time in a week. Yes, as I mentioned in passing the other day, I also weakened in Istanbul and allowed a couple of low-down dirty Turks to persuade me that Turkish cigarettes are actually good for you. (If ever a Turk tries that tack with you, give him short shrift – Turkish cigarettes make Benson & Hedges taste like the elixir of life.) As a consequence of all this, I woke up this morning – cue blues riff - feeling like Death - cue clues riff - a cough like a convict - cue blues riff - and tar in my chest. So that’s bad. Very bad. But don’t worry, I don’t intend to make a habit of it. Plus I have already said a dozen Hail Marys, three Apostle's Creeds and half a handful of How's Your Fathers. So I’m sorted.

And the fact is, I don’t really feel that bad about the smoking because everything else is going so well. I’ve lost 10 pounds so far this month, and without wanting to turn into a weight bore (DAMN YOU, BRIDGET JONES!!!), I’m really really pleased about that. The running is obviously the key. It seems what they always said was true: bit of exercise, bit of fruit and veg, and suddenly everything’s coming up roses.

Except one thing. Keith told me this thing last night. He told me that for a couple of weeks now he’s had this sensation in his right hand, a little like pins and needles, and when it comes he finds it difficult use the hand. It’s been getting more and more regular and is now as frequent as every half hour or so. The fact that it’s so regular and has been around for so long worries me. A lot. I am a hypochondriac however. Keith is not. So I don’t want to infect him with my paranoia. But I am very concerned. I have convinced him to go and see someone. So, that's something. I know he’s scared, more scared than he’s making out, because he hasn’t told Patricia yet. Anyhow, fingers crossed, Keith (while you can still cross them!).

In other news…

1. I’ve just finished reading The Game and am now considering becoming a chick-a-day, finger-clicking pick-up artist. A dark little Fonzie, that’s what I’ll be. Give me a month.

I jest of course. But on a serious note, as well as being rather repugnant and an enormous cringe-fest at times, it was really rather fascinating. I intend to spend some of this weekend figuring out what I really thought.

2. I’m considering buying a lottery ticket. One a week for the rest of the year. Same numbers. What have I got to lose? Apart from £50 though, what? I know it’s lowest common denominator gambling-cum-cock tax but on the plus side, I’ve been thinking of all the wonderful things I could do with a few million quid. Selfless things too. I want to help people. The poor and the needy. I really do. In many ways, I am a latter day saint. Plus, even when you lose, it is for a good cause. Oh, God, I hate myself for even considering it. But I am…

3) If I can keep up the running and the weight loss at the same rate I managed this week, I reckon I should be down to somewhere in the region of 17 stone by April, which although by no means slender, is three stone slenderer than I was three weeks ago, and by that stage I reckon I’ll be ready to go speed dating. That’s right, speed dating. I have to give myself these hideous, terrifying goals, otherwise I’ll just stop and turn into a pork pie again. And I reckon speed dating is just the kind of baptism by fire that I need. So that’s that. It’s a decision I’ve made.

4. Give blood. Keith’s hand-spazzing and a conversation we had about how a blood transfusion saved his dad’s life – I like Keith’s dad much better than I like my own, I might add - I have decided that the least I can do is hand over some of my blood. It's the saintly thing, after all. Plus, I must have at least 12 pints of the stuff pumping through this hefty frame. I reckon I can spare an arm or two. I’m going to make an appointment.

5. Last night at Keith’s I met a workmate of his, a bloke called David. In the course of a (rather stoned) conversation, David told me about two other Davids I’d never heard of, both of whom were – in many ways – even better than the first David. These Davids were a) David Sedaris, and b) David Shrigley. Excellent Davids all.

That David Sedaris clip is really lovely. And just in case you were in any doubt – as I was – it actually exists.

Ooh, and one for the ladies too.


That’s nice.

Oh, and they do other equally tasteful products.



Jesus God, look at this: ‘Since 9-11 security has become a little tighter at sporting events. No longer can you sneak in your six pack of tall boys in a gutted out boom box. “The Beerbelly” saves the day.’

Wow. No matter how fat, ugly and sexless I may be, at least I will never ever be sad enough to either a) wear a Beerbelly, or b) use a terrorist atrocity to help me market one.

Now, time for my run.

So long.