The children are back at school today, and it’s time to catch up on all those tasks I’ve neglected over the past few weeks. Like exercising. And making tiny people out of fruit to demonstrate just how atrophied my body has become.
This is me…
… a Conference pear balanced on Brazil-nut legs, with parsley-stalk arms waving helplessly in the breeze.
I want to bulk up my top half, and re-hone my bottom end – I’m aiming for ‘sweet potato balanced on a couple of Cheestrings’. And I’m going to do it with the help of Hannah Waterman’s fitness DVD, the alarming-sounding ‘Body Blitz’. In which Hannah is bombarded with high explosives dropped by Heinkel He-177 bombers until her body weight has been more than halved.
Oh, not really. There’s lots of ghastly star-jumping and the whole thing is very unseemly and painful. I’m amazed Hannah has the strength to get through it, actually, given that she’s a Ladybird Age 5-6, and looks even more tiny than that flanked by her two minions: Elia – who is the size and shape of a walk-in wardrobe – and baby-faced Adam. Adam has the grace to look buttock-clenchingly embarrassed by the whole affair, while Elia, conversely, appears to have had his shame glands removed and embraces every new move, however demeaning, with Barrowman-esque enthusiasm.
The good thing is that you get to lie down between some of the more punishing bits, which means the PWY (Possibility of Wetting Yourself) factor is fairly low. Or at least lower than my other DVD: ‘Ministry of Sound: Pump it Up!’ (Why did I buy this? Why? I’m 41.) It features the ‘cast’ of that porny Eric Prydz video for ‘Call on Me’, ie, 10 amazing-looking Barbie dolls plus one token bloke in green satin hotpants. There’s lots of hip-thrusting, hair extensions-flicking and akimboed legs. The dancers all appear to be wearing tights underneath their leotards, which makes me worry, what with the hot studio lighting, they’ll all get thrush. (Actually, that would explain most of the moves.) The whooping is incessant: ‘Let’s pump it up! Whooh! Yeah!’. On the few occasions I’ve done it all the way through, I’ve WANTED TO KILL SOMEBODY. And that feeling has only intensified since I read recently that 20 per cent of the population are what sports scientists call ‘non responders’. Meaning they can exercise and exercise, and they won’t get any fitter. I’ll bet that’s me. I’ve wasted all those hours grapevining, box-stepping and press-upping, for nothing. When I could have been making fruit people instead.
Not waving but ironing 