First World Problems - Part 2

Written April 17^th 2011, 6pm

In the summer of 2009, my 5’ 10’’ frame was supporting around 14st 7 of chunky goodness. If you’re wondering what that means in terms of BMI, it placed me somewhere between overweight and Eric Cartman.

With a 14 hour a day sedentary desk job and a weekend schedule akin to an episode of “Booze Britain” my waistline was headed only one way. Clearly something had to change.

Being a consultant, I obviously began setting out and subsequently ruling out a set of strategic options.

(1) Healthy diet?

Nope. Like food.

(2) Exercise?

Nope. Lazy.

(3) Surgery?

Nope. Stupid.

(4) 6 months travelling around the world?

Bingo.

OK true, weight loss obviously wasn’t the only factor that helped me to decide on a 6 month global jolly with the future missus but nonetheless it was a happy side effect. Walking around looking at beautiful / interesting things, eating loads of foreign food, drinking less and, probably most importantly, sweating more than a Gaddafi body double (Zing! Bursting with topical content right here) for the best part of six months led me to return at a waif-like 12st 10.

I’m not going to lie, I quickly grew quite fond of this new bloke - less sweaty during everyday activity (damn you Piccadilly line!), happy in non-baggy clothing and with boundless energy. The sub-13st fine specimen of a man stuck around for almost the whole of 2010. Almost.

Damn. You. Christmas.

2011 started and the scales starting tipping the wrong way. 13-2, 3, 4, 5 – and that’s where they settle today. Sadly, when I looked back at my options, (3) and (4) are totally off the table due to financial constraints. Leaving me with salad and running. The target has been set – 12st 7 by the wedding, let’s see how that goes…

First World Problems - Part 1

In an pre-blog effort to commit some memories to digital eternity, I began to scribble a couple of entries into my iPhone. I figured it would be worthwhile to put these in one place. Here.

Written April 15^th 2011, 8.15am
 
As I write this, I am sitting on the 141 to London bridge. Apparently stuff went down last night and my head is telling me all about it.

Last year, I had a small health scare after a particularly punishing stag weekend. For a man who used to pride himself on his ability to put away far more than his fair share, a painful recovery led me to drastically cut back on my alcohol intake.

Thankfully it turns out I'm fine, or not actively dying for the moment at least. Still, this has led to somewhat of a lifestyle change – healthier food, more exercise, less beer.

The problem is that boozing is fun. Or at least feels like fun at the time. Currently, my head would disagree…
As a slight distraction from the tribulations of my head, the annual European weekend looms on the horizon. Armed with matching T-shirts [although thankfully this did not actually end up transpiring] and a “foreign money is monopoly money” attitude, six of England’s finest embrace the British way and impart our culture on the wider EU through the medium of debauchery.

This year, lucky Munich got the nod. I know very little of Munich save for the prevalence of the local instrument of torture. The Stein. Obviously, lederhosen clad stein drinking for 20 hours a day is not 100% consistent with my straight edge lifestyle. It is time to make a choice: to beer (heavily) or not to beer (heavily)

This brings me neatly back to last night. I had genuinely not consumed more than 5 pints in one sitting for around 7 months, leading to uncertainty around my body’s reaction to good ol’ British binging .

Any difficult choice (such as the Munich question) should be an informed choice. Any informed choice should be based on evidence backed experiments. Last night provided 7 pints, 3 shots and a Jagerbomb’s worth of experimentation. Evidence collected includes one mother of a headache and the timeless smell of Eau de San Miguel flowing liberally from every pore of my body.

Thankfully, thus far the evidence does not include death, or in fact anything abnormal (when compared to around 50% of my time at university). Experiment 2 begins this evening…

Lethargic Invective - A Disclaimer

I sit here faced with a moral dilemma. I have always, and continue to pride myself on fighting the good fight against pretention, self-indulgence and unfounded delusions of grandeur.

Having spent three years at a well known university before embarking on a career in the city I have been exposed to more than my fair share of these aforementioned pet hates. From spending my days walking past numerous “Tarquins” dressed in sub fusc as they quaff Lanson straight from the bottle I graduated into a world where everyone (ranging from these same “Tarquins” to budding “Sir-Alans”) resorts to mutual dog eating in order to receive recognition for their very own brand of pompous.

Don’t get me wrong, I am extremely fortunate to have fluked my way into and through higher education and then into a job that allowed me to survive a fairly chunky recession without adding to the unemployed statistics. I would not change a moment of my time so far and have numerous happy memories and no doubt many more which I have forgotten.

I have, however, made it my mission to never overestimate my own importance.

Herein lies my dilemma. Pretention, self-indulgence, pomposity – blogging absolutely ticks every one of these boxes and provides a side order of narcissism to boot. However, I am at an age where I know I will want to remember what I will soon forget and would like an opportunity to write in English rather than the bastardised version that is liberally spattered across PowerPoint slides.

As such, the only way I can see to both achieve this goal and evade hypocrisy is through a chunky disclaimer. This page is written by me, for me. Others are more than welcome to read it, but I don’t expect you to. If you do, I do not expect you to enjoy it nor do I expect even the slightest thing in the world to change as a result of you doing so. In fact, I apologise for wasting your time if you have read this far. But no, you don’t get those 2 minutes back.

My friends and my fianceé and would no doubt place me on a sliding scale somewhere between lazy and bone idle. In many cases I would argue that it is efficiency rather than apathy - doing the minimum needed to get a good result - but in other cases I would have to agree.

I no doubt expect the theme of lethargy to run throughout any future posts I can be bothered to make here, or at least be reflected in the infrequent nature of postings. I would also not be surprised if “decnunciatory or abusive discourse” (such as that directed at my imaginary friend Tarquin) were to appear more than once in the future.

Based on all this, “Lethargic Invective” seems like a sufficiently pretentious title for these ramblings.