I never thought I would willingly go into gym unless carrying an Uzi and a petrol bomb. Truth be told I have always had rather a horror of the places. At Eton we were always told that a healthy body meant a healthy mind and that physical exertion would defeat the siren cries of Onan and preserve our eyesight for work in Bomber Command or the KGB, whichever approached us first. So it was that we would be whipped into the gymnasium twice a week, our thin pale bodies clothed in voluminous shorts and on our feet what used to be called plimsolls.
My particular hate was for the climbing rope. One was shown that by using the feet in a rather complicated way it was possible to rest the arms while ascending. The Holy Grail of the activity was to touch the metal hook, which suspended the rope some two hundred feet above the floor (as it seemed to a small boy). The rope itself was made from a material that managed to be both rough and slippery at the same time. My technique, when captured and brought back from my hiding place behind the cloisters, was to run full tilt at the rope, launch myself as high as possible and then cling on desperately, neither ascending or descending. This would last about a minute before I would fall gasping to the coconut matting below.
Since that time I have never felt the need to re enter a gym. However just recently I have been on the receiving end of hurtful and frankly unkind comments about the size of my stomach. Additionally the editor of London-eating has questioned my entitlement to private health insurance on the company. My argument that it is no different to a laboratory issuing safety goggles, in other words simple protection for the job, was cutting no ice. He even questioned the need for a ‘crash cart’ on permanent 24-hr standby, even though we had already trained the staff in the use of the paddles and how best to shout ‘clear!’ in authoritative tones. No, he informed me that I must go to the gym. The company’s insurers demanded it.
So it was with heavy heart and heavy stomach I approached our local gym, or health centre as it prefers to be called. The first hurdle to be overcome was the male changing rooms. Despite having been to a private school I still find the sight of naked men unpleasant, God knows what the fairer sex see in us, and this place was full of men as nature intended. Many seemed to positively flaunt their nakedness in the homoerotic way beloved of Rugby clubs. On was walking up and down, naked of course, vigorously slapping himself for no apparent reason. Another was towelling his private parts with a vigour that suggested that he was doing more than simply getting dry.
By dexterous use of my own towel I was able to preserve my dignity but once upstairs in the gym proper all my old horrors came flooding back. First the smell, impossible to describe and impossible to ignore. Then the people. Unhappy looking women who grunted most unattractively as they pounded away at machines, men stealing appreciative glances at themselves in the mirrors as they flexed and strained and shook their heads vigorously to release showers of perspiration in all directions. On the walls large television screens offered a choice of Sky News, a channel showing videos of identical young men covered in tattoos and making bizarre hand movements, indicative of their desire to shoot one another, and one screen endlessly flaunting young women making unambiguous pelvic thrusts on a beach somewhere. This I was told was the motivational video – it motivated the men to exercise in order to attract young women and it motivated the women to try and look like these fantastical creatures. It motivated me not one whit and when I tried to change the channel to something more soothing I was quickly led away.
The indignity of the machinery I prefer to draw a veil over. The walking machine threw me backwards off of it, the rowing machine I was unable to use as I could not reach over the bulge of my manly stomach and I rolled helplessly along on the medicine ball, down the stairs and into the ladies’ changing rooms whereupon some woman with a moustache threw me out. Quite frankly I shall be going back only under protest, as it was I felt so shattered on leaving that I had to immediately order a double decker foie gras club sandwich to restore my equilibrium.
What is health after all? My mind is healthy even if my stomach is fat. I am able to eat the size of dinners that would kill lesser men. If there were an eating Olympics I would be on the podium all the time. I am a winner and an example to all of the power of food to transform lives. It has transformed me into a 16 stone barrel of fun. Who would not rather be Falstaff than Henry V, or Sir Toby Belch to Andrew Aquecheek? While younger readers go off to find out who those exciting characters might be (hint: they do not feature in Buffy) I will go and prepare lunch. I rather fancy a pigeon or three.
