17th May

I’d woken this morning with a hangover, which was strange because I hadn’t had a drink for 3 or 4 days. I don’t drink much anyway, the odd glass of wine with a meal, a beer or two on occasional trips to the pub. So I wondered why I was feeling so bad. Perhaps I’d died a few times in my sleep and maybe the continual process of death and miraculous resurrection had been too much for my body and a headache was its way of saying it couldn’t cope. I don’t recall anything in the Bible though saying that Jesus woke from his death with a blinding headache. Although given the description of the crucifixion, which is probably the most hideous and painful death imaginable, a headache probably wasn’t even worth a mention in the pages of scripture.

I stumbled downstairs and found some paracetomol and took a couple along with my first blood pressure tablet and an Acia Berry extract capsule, which I’d read on the internet was good at increasing energy and helping with weight loss.  I then thought I should have read the blurb that comes with these things to see if there was any kind of conflict in taking them together. I unfolded the leaflet that came with the blood pressure tablets as I felt that this was the most important. It expanded to the size of a broadsheet newspaper. It had IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS MEDICINE – PLEASE READ BEFORE TAKING in bold letters written at the top of side one. It then went on to give this important, possibly lifesaving information in what I think was 0.5-point typeface. Impossible to read, even with my glasses. I resorted to taking my glasses off and whilst moving them back and forth to bring the words into better focus, began peering through one lens only with one eye tight shut and the other wide open in the way that used to make the astronomer Patrick Moore look like a mad scientist. Which was apt because that’s exactly what he was. I managed about two sentences before I decided it was too late anyway. Whatever fate awaited me due to taking a cocktail of tablets that were designed to bring pain relief and quite possibly save my life, but which might strangely enough, kill me would have to take its course. I thought about ringing Dr Longfellow for some urgent advice but he’d probably just say fat people, sorry, overweight people like me were going to die anyway, so why worry.

Exercise is the key apparently to good health and well being, although I’m led to understand a lot of people suffer serious injury, heart attacks and even die whilst exercising, which for someone like me about to embark on an intense get fit regime is a little worrying to say the least.  I’d planned an hour of intense high impact aerobics before work, which I’d complete whilst watching one of the digital TV music channels. What better way to get the heart pumping and the arteries unclogged than to work out to a little Gangsta Rap, RnB and Hip Hop at 7am. It didn’t work, Beyonce came along wearing a pair of tight fitting gold pvc shorts, some bling and little else and I thought I’d rather watch her work out than continue myself. It was really good for my heart rate though. In fact most of the music videos I watched featured scantily clad women dancing provocatively around rather overweight and I must say somewhat unattractive men with gold teeth, gold rings, gold necklaces and bracelets, who spoke in a language I didn’t understand. Yes it was English but generally undecipherable, although I did pick out ‘right there honey, uh huh, right there.’ which seemed to appear in all the songs I heard this morning.  I got bored though and after breakfast took the brisk ten-minute walk to work where I sat down in front of a computer for nine hours. I returned home at a little after 6 pm absolutely knackered and settled down front of the TV with a glass of red wine or two, which as everyone knows is really good for the heart, hence, progress made.