Can I Speak Frankly, Just Between Friends?

Here in the UK, our students are revolting. Much the same was happening all over the place 42 years ago, largely protesting the war in VietNam (an era shockingly recalled in Liza Marklund’s latest novel – in English at least – Red Wolf). Today we find ourselves in a war that’s been going on for ever, and the only thing students find to protest about is the government daring to increase tuition fees.

Were students more idealistic and altruistic back in the 60’s, or were the protests more against the draft than against the war itself? Fortunate Sons were largely draft immune (you could get yourself a comfy gig as a Texas National Guard pilot and not bother to turn up, rather than get your ass shot off in a huey at Hue, know what I mean, Clyde?), while the poor stiffs who hadn’t made, or couldn’t afford, college were the ones who found themselves up by the DMZ enduring all the horrors that come down in Karl Marlantes' excellent Matterhorn.

Despite the fact that European students were not going to find themselves carrying on up the jungle, there was plenty going on all over the place: with no fear of finding themselves on the front line, students became Red Brigades, Angry Brigade, Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof), and the rest facing down and blowing up the man in the name of revolutionary struggle. The world seemed an inch away from changing. But it didn’t. Given time, Danny the Red became Danny the Green and an EU Minister, and Gerhard Schröder, who helped founding member of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group (and subsequent far right piece of work) Horst Mahler secure an early release from prison and the permission to practice law again in Germany, became Chancellor. Funny old world.

The news in the UK over the last few days has featured the Cambridge student step-son of Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour, who during one of the most recent barneys in Whitehall was filmed swinging from a flagpole on the national Cenotaph.

There was a time when I think I wouldn’t have minded seeing Dave Gilmour swinging – from anything, flagpole, street lamp, sturdy oak. This was largely in the wake of a 1969 Festival Hall concert when, among other sonic delights, the Floyd treated its audience to the sight and sound of the band members literally sawing wood on stage to demonstrate the brilliance of their new quadraphonic sound system. Only they called it music. I called it (and call it still) the most pretentious and tedious concert of any sort I have ever attended, and it took me years before I could ever listen comfortably to their records again. Interestingly the seemingly detailed fan review I’ve found of that April evening omits any mention of un-musical sawing. But it happened. It was horrible. I remember.

What else was horrible was Gilmour-fils, a student at one of the very finest universities in the world, and a product of the excellent Lancing College, about four miles east of where I’m writing (the family lives a few miles inland at Billingshurst), saying this: ‘I did not realise that it was the Cenotaph and if I had, I certainly would not have done what I did.’ Didn’t realise it was the Cenotaph? What on earth do they teach them, and what did he think all the wreaths were about, having been laid at the national Day of Remembrance a couple of weeks earlier? If he didn’t know, he should have known, end of discussion. It’s part of what living in this country requires, the arrogant prick. Mind you, being part of the protests, rather than getting on with a bit of second year history in the delightful precincts of Girton, was an entirely altruistic act on Charlie Gilmour’s part, so perhaps we should at least acknowledge that. If your old man’s worth £80million, the tuition fee increase probably need not actually worry you too much.

A final word on dashing, Byronic young Charlie. What did his parents by him when he got into Cambridge? A pair of Savile Row suits (I’d love to know which tailor), one of them a dinner suit because he would have to attend so many feasts. It wasn’t like that in his old man’s time, for sure, for sure.

Thus far and not a word about slimming. Well, I have been contemplating throughout how wonderfully thin I was back in 1969. Tall, slim, beautiful, with long, cascading hair. I was, of course, and as you will understand, immortal at that time, and the world, as Arthur Daly memorably expressed it, was my lobster.

There have been too many dinners in the intervening years, if not in the panelled halls of Cambridge colleges, and far too much wine has flowed under the bridge and down my neck. Certainly, I remember the first time anyone passed comment. I’d have been probably 23, at university, when a fellow student, happening upon me cleaning my teeth in the communal shower room, perchanced to comment in perfect Arizonan that ‘you’ve really got a but on you, boy.’ Stuck with me that did. The bloke that said it went on to be a grand fromage in the Bose Corporation, and that was only the beginning.

Spool forward about ten years and the next memorable comment was from the five year old daughter of some friends of my first wife. This is good. ‘Why does Tristan’s daddy wobble when he runs?’

Five years on and a few other gems come to mind. Colleagues started referring to me (always adopting an Ulster accent in emulation of the Reverend Ian Paisley) as The Big Feller. Being given, in a secret Christmas present thing, a pair of enormous boxer shorts with Christmas trees on them. 46” waist when I was maybe pushing 40. Like I was to know that one day I wouldn’t be able to fit that butt of mine, which I did indeed have and had developed assiduously (pun intended) over the years into a pair of 46’s. I had a five-X future up ahead of me. And having the outgoing jock prepare the expectant audience by announcing ‘…and coming up the other side of the news we have that all round entertainer, and I really mean ALL, ROUND, entertainer…’ Should have strangled that bastard with his headphone lead while I had the chance.

If you prick me do I not bleed? Well, just a bit, but I’ll have another drink and let’s have a look at the pudding menu. For decades.

I read a fascinating online journal yesterday from a guy calling himself Vandaley, not long started out in his weight loss, coming down from 420lbs, with which project I wish him well. He wrote that ‘The catalyst of my weight problem over the years has really been soda. I'm powerless over that sugary nectar! I'd love to be able to rid myself of it and caffeine all together. Hopefully I can.’

I know something he’s doubting right now: that he is already on his way to slaying this particular dragon, which will soon be twitching at his feet. Carbonated crap need no longer hold him in its thrall, nor need toxic syrups have dominion over him. Because he is becoming stronger than the hold they have over him, and it will only be a very short while before he grasps that worm and rends it in twain.

What do you call a guy spends his life thinking about soda all the time? A jerk. You have to close down the soda fountain, pull down and lock the shutters on that old fading drugstore and get your ass and the rest of you out of that ragged part of town. Butt me no butts. Do that and you start to get a handle on how come you ended up marooned there in the first place; that’s going to make the cure much more effective and you’ll really get that mojo woikin’.

Because, and I’m learning more and more that this is critical for anyone who is remotely serious about losing weight and leaping off the yo-yo diet treadmill, this is a time for absolute, brutal, surgical honesty and precision. You don’t do this by lying either to yourself or to others, you have to give it 100% commitment, look for 100% support and honesty from those around you, and approach the thing in a determined and diligent frame of mind, and that’s the way you’ll see it through.

And this is difficult for us, because, as fat folk we are all accomplished, consistent and long-term liars. We’ve spent years lying to ourselves about the consequences of what we’re doing, and as long lying to others about what it is we’re doing. ‘I can’t understand where this weight comes from. I hardly eat a thing. Hardly enough to feed a bird.’ A vulture or an albatross? Certainly a bloody gannet. Whatever happened to the jolly fat man of yore? I suspect he never existed. He was always screaming with pain inside.

I just want to pick up on one more point from Vandalay’s journal, because I think it’s something we can all identify with, and which we’ve all had to stamp down, and most of us repeatedly.

He was planning on telling his poker-mates that he was on anti-biotics, hence he couldn’t take a drink at the game that night. That’s not too bright because that's a lie he’d have to live with for a very long time.

It’s so much better to simply tell them the truth. He’s got nothing to lose (apart from 220 lbs - 4 less than I'm doing!). If his mates take the piss out of him now, so what? There is nothing wrong with owning up to recognising an issue that everybody else is already aware of. Look, I know for a fact that, if you’re 400lbs, everybody else has already noticed you’re fat. What you’re bravely saying is, ‘OK, I’m back on the bus and I’m getting this sorted now.’ Nothing wrong with that; admirable, in fact. Something to be proud of, burning pound by burning pound.

Or maybe it’s simple fear of failure. ‘If I don’t tell anyone what I’m doing, then I won’t look a fool if I fail.’ Allow me to correct that thought: it’s not if you fail. In that set-up, it’s WHEN you fail, because fail you will. If you’re hiding behind hedges like that, you’re not showing the world the commitment you need to succeed in your weight loss ambitions. In fact ambitions is too strong a word. More like dreams.

If you don’t tell people what you’re doing, then they can’t help you do what you’re doing. They will only, in their innocence, continue relating to that old you which you’re struggling to slough off like a massively podgy snakeskin. So they’ll put the drink in your hand, plonk the pizza on your plate, pour you the bucket of soda, and you will inevitably dip your beak, and keep on dipping.

In any event any derision you might endure (and you probably won’t) would soon enough turn to admiration when everyone started seeing the results, as you disappear before their very eyes. I'd hazard a guess that one or two of them have a bit too much lard themselves? Wait till they start asking how Vandelay did it.

At that moment, he'll feel like a king. Promise!

A fine English tradition from the middle years of the last century was the saucy postcard. They were produced in the millions, and the greatest seaside postcard artist, Donald McGill (a name worth googling and pressing the Images button if you fancy a few minutes’ good old fashioned vulgarity) alone produced over 5000 different designs, of which a decent handful were actually banned for being indecent. Here’s a link to an old favourite of mine, actually not by McGill – whose graphics were much better – but a classic nonetheless, and one which every fat bastard male reading this will be able to identify with.

It gives us another touching target to aim for!

Your old pal,

Fred