Fatness First

The dynamics of the gym never fail to perplex me. I was contemplating this earlier whilst panting away on a stationary bike watching Cash in the Attic which, unusually, was presented by the lovely Gloria Hunniford who spent the entire programme inferring via the medium of sniping sideways remarks when the contestants weren't listening that Milton Keynes is a hellhole. No flies on Gloria.

It's just that everyone else seems to (a) be fitter than me and (b) know exactly what they're doing. Whenever I'm on the stationary bike I have to glance at the person next to me to see if they're on a higher effort level than I am. If so, then I have to increase mine accordingly. Trying to concentrate on Escape to the Country when you're heart rate is 185 beats per minute is no laughing matter. On the rare ocassions when I am fitter than someone (generally a fatty) I get a barely controllable urge to turn to them and engage them in chit-chat regarding whichever daytime offering the BBC has on offer at the given moment, purely to demonstrate that I, unlike them, am still capable of conversation. The fusion of daytime television and gymnasia could be the subject of a doctoral thesis. I mean, as Homes Under the Hammer reaches its gripping peak am I burning more calories? A couple of minutes of Angela Rippon in a pair of fawn slacks and a piqué polo gets me far hotter under the collar than any cross trainer ever will.

Who are these people who work out in the day? There is a surprising amount of totty in there (for Shepherd's Bush) and they look like the sort of people who hold down regular jobs - which came as a surprise being that it is only Fitness First. And Shepherd's Bush. I knew there must be a reason it is so cheap. No membership limits. It's so woefully oversubsribed I spend half of the time in there loitering in between the leg abductor and the chin-up assistor trying to look as if I am casually stretching or engaging in some sort of yogalates manoeuvre, whereas in fact I am desperately waiting to pounce on any one of the three machines I need, all of which are occupied by either (a) men who look like Dolph Lungdren's slightly beefier younger brother or (b) the aforementioned fatty from the stationary bike who has excreted enough sweat on the shiny seat of the lat pulldown machine to make sitting on it about as appealing as spending the evening sellotaped to Jeremy Beadle (before he was dead). At least one gets the smug satisfaction of being able to move the weight up. On the flip side, if one follows Dolph Lungdren (who has just bench pressed the equivalent of Michelle McManus) one feels the need to overstretch oneself. I made the churlish move of attempting this with the calf raise machine last week and spent the best part of four days walking like I had just found a broom up my arse.

There is no point to this rambling. To end on a high, if unrelated note, here's the Postman Pat theme tune dubbed in to Norwegian. More amusing than it sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uLukpgDjOk&feature=related