Life's Sick Joke

Life is great.

Life is a gift that we should all take full advantage of, something we should grasp with both hands and squeeze as much fun and enjoyment out of before fate decides to whisk it away from us.

However, we all know that there are constraints that stop us from acquiring all of the pleasure and delight that life offers.

I hear a little voice from time to time warning me of the consequences of overindulgence, usually in tabloid newspapers, on the news or in the rhetoric of self-obsessed megalomaniacs who seem to think that life should be lived their way instead of mine.

And of course, there is nature itself that seems to delight in playing one almighty sick joke on the whole of humanity.

It is this latter constraint that I wish to bring to you attention, dear reader (even though you know all about it and will no doubt agree with me).

Mother Nature is a wonderful thing but rules us with a rod of iron, applying all manner of rules that are punishable by curtailing the gift of life.

Here are some examples:

Fatty food is divine. There is nothing more satisfying that waking up in the morning and devouring a full English breakfast of bacon, sausage, egg, black pudding, beans, toast covered in butter, all washed down with a massive cup of strong tea or a potent brain boosting cup of extra strong and delicious coffee.

Yet if I were to have that breakfast every single day of my life, I would grow fat and the dark figure with the scythe would almost certainly call for me a lot earlier than his original plan to. Fat is bad for you, caffeine is bad for you and endless bacon and sausage is bad for you.

The same can be said of burgers and fries washed down with fizzy soft drink. Eating such food on a regular basis will turn you into a huge monster and Mr Death will come calling sooner rather than later. Sugar and fat are simply killers in disguise.

And what about chocolate and cream and monstrous desserts? People love them yet if they overindulge the same thing will happen; they will look like a walking whale with the scythe-carrier marching behind and looking at his watch with a knowing grin on his face.

Smoking and alcohol are the same. There is nothing better than a pint of ale after a tough week but if you choose to take it to excess, you will pickle your vital organs.

You can’t even spend your life sitting in front of your tellybox. Watching too much television, so experts say, dulls the brain and at the same time stops you from exercising to keep your body in shape.

And while exercising helps, keeping Mr Death at bay, you can even fall foul of that if you overdo it.

Thrill seekers who like to hurl themselves off cliffs have the Grim Reaper as a constant companion, waiting for a burst of adrenaline so great that the scariest adventure might result in premature demise.

It’s a sick joke, dear reader.

We should be able to live our life as we want to without Mother Nature stepping in and applying certain rules to it.

“Yes, Mr Mancunian, you can stuff your face with steak every night for the next ten years and wash it down with the finest red wine from France – but it will cost you twenty years of this most precious gift.”

“Yes Mr Mancunian, you can bungee jump off a high bridge in New Zealand but one day that bungee rope might just snap.”

“Of course you can drive a fast car around a track, Dave, but I can’t promise that you will not crash into a wall at high speed.”

But it’s worse than that. Some of these constraints are built into my brain. For example, I want to see as much of the world as I can and this includes the desire to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and other huge man-made structures, as well as Nature’s own constructs, to see the view and marvel at our beautiful planet.

But in my case, Mother Nature has said:

“Sorry Dave, I’m going to stop you from seeing the whole of Dubai from the top of the Burj Khalifa; you need a fear of heights to limit what you can see of the world.”

It’s not fair.

I’m greedy.

I want it all.

So while life is great, it could be so much better, if Mother Nature cut us some slack and allowed me to indulge in the way I want to.

Sadly, she won’t allow it – and  I, like you, dear reader, am powerless to resist.

I am certain that Mr Reaper is waiting in the wings (at least 200 years in the future with any luck) so now my challenge is to keep him at arm’s length while keeping old Mother Nature happy.

I can do this by indulging my desires – but limiting them.

I can enjoy an English Breakfast every so often, spend the occasional evening watching my tellybox all night, enjoy a pint or three down the pub occasionally and even get some half decent exercise with a daily two mile walk and the occasional six mile hike at the weekend.

Sadly, I think my fear of heights is here to stay so I no longer plan to climb any mountains or man-made structure higher than my own house.

Mother Nature’s henchman might be stalking us all but we should plan to make his life difficult.

Whisking us away may be his raison d’etre but like Mother Nature can play a sick joke on him by keeping him as far away as possible.

The truth is that if you don’t stuff your face with a huge slab of chocolate cake every day, it is certainly more enjoyable when you do allow yourself to have one occasionally.

And when you do, just address Mother Nature and her henchman:

“Screw you! This is MY divine cake and this is my divine day to stuff my face with it.”

That cake will taste so much better, I can assure you.

Beer Versus Chocolate

At work last week, we had a charity coffee morning. The idea was that members of staff buy or bake cakes, bring them into work and then senior managers take on the role of waiters and visit everybody in the office selling coffee and cake for a small fee, with all of the proceeds going to charity.

It’s nice to see a senior manager being a waiter – doing something useful for a change.

I like to do my bit for charity but I decided that I didn’t want to bake a cake because I hate cooking and I am sure that I would have inadvertently poisoned my co-workers. Instead I went to the local supermarket and bought a nice big chocolate party cake. I was convinced that there would not be enough cake for everybody; sadly quite a few others thought the same and in the end, so much cake was baked or bought that we had tons of the stuff left.

This has meant that for the past few days, we have been selling what’s left, again for charity.

Today, in the kitchen at work, there was a huge chocolate monster of a cake. I was urged to buy a slice and the temptation was almost overwhelming but I declined because I am trying to climb back down to a healthy BMI and a slice of this cake would have annihilated a week’s effort. Add to that, if I had had one slice I would have struggled not to go back for more and more and more.

All this got me thinking, which is a dangerous thing.

There one other thing that has the same effect on me as “Death by Chocolate” monstrosity that was tempting me – and that is beer.

For a bit of fun, I have decided to present to you a comparison of these two supposedly evil foodstuffs.

In the red corner we have chocolate; in the blue corner we have beer.

(1) Beer is addictive. If you have a pint at your local pub, you immediately think to yourself “Just one more for the road”. Before you know it you have had several for the road. Similarly, if you open a box of Lindor chocolate, you subconsciously reach into the box eating one after the other until you finally look down and realise with horror that you have eaten every last one – and STILL want more.

(2) Chocolate appeals to half of the human race – the female half. Beer appeals to the other half of the human race – the male half. Of course some men love chocolate and some women love beer – woe betides those who love both.

(3) Beer is brown – well the best beer is anyway. Lager is a kind of yellow colour whereas bitter has the same hue as a bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate. Chocolate is also brown. I am not talking about that disgusting white chocolate which is especially made for kids and weirdos. I am weird but at least I am willing to admit that white chocolate is like rhubarb – unpleasant, unnatural and belongs in Hell.

(4) Chocolate makes you fat. If you spend your evenings sitting on a sofa munching a box of Quality Street you will inevitably weigh more than your house. Equally, beer makes you fat. If you spend your evenings sitting in a pub drinking pint after pint of Old Stoatwobbler you will eventually have a beer gut so big that you can build a house on it.

(5) Beer is apparently bad for your body. In small doses it can have health benefits. Sadly by “small dose” the “experts” mean one pint a month. Any more than that and you are a binge-drinking boozer with a leather liver, red blotches and a beer gut you could use as an offensive weapon. Chocolate is also bad for your body. If you plough through box after box of Milk Tray, you will rot your teeth and be so obese that the only way you will be able to leave the house is via the window on the end of a crane.

(6) Beer makes you sick. An evening in the company of several pints of Guinness will eventually cause your body to say “ENOUGH!” and hurl the entire contents of your stomach into the nearest receptacle (the toilet, somebody’s lap, a fruit machine) in a bid to rid itself of the ale. Equally if you spend an entire day trying to eat a shop’s worth of Cadburys your body stomach will say “I don’t care if you like the taste of this chocolate – it’s being evicted”. The good thing is that with chocolate at least you will be compis mentis and have some control over the location of the ejected food matter.

(7) Chocolate makes you feel good. Beer makes you feel good. Why? Because both release endorphins in the brain. When I first heard that I asked Mrs PM why we don’t end up dressing up in weird vivid lycra costumes with a crash helmet and start kicking shit out of bad guys.. She said “Endorphins, you moron, not Mighty Morphin Power Rangers”. So what are endorphins? They basically make you feel good and full of energy. That explains a lot and may also contribute to the reason why beer and chocolate are addictive. Sadly, the endorphins seem to vanish when we over-indulge and start throwing up.

I love beer and I tolerate chocolate – but not together. Chocolate is too sweet and ruins the taste of a good pint. Besides, it’s probably a good thing that I don’t like them equally because I would end up being so big that Tories would start pointing to me and saying “That’s what’s wrong with Britain.”

They probably say that about me anyway.

It is possible to combine beer and chocolate in a bizarre way though. At a beer festival earlier this year, I spotted a “Chocolate Beer”. Mrs PM was with me and she said “OOH!! I have to try some of that.”

Me and my mates grimaced and thought that it was an unholy alliance. We weren’t so appalled that we didn’t want to try it though. Mrs PM obliged and gave me a swig.

At first I thought, yes – it really DOES taste like chocolate.

Sadly, that’s about as far as the positives went before being swamped by the negatives. After the initial chocolate buzz the taste of the beer burst through leaving a totally unpleasant bittersweet taste in my mouth that made me feel slightly queasy. Worse, the colour of the beer wasn’t the most alluring thing I have ever seen; a kind of dark diarrhoea brown.

Mrs PM struggled on and by the end of it, her verdict was “I’m never drinking that again.”

This just goes to show that two rights can make a wrong.

Leave the beer in the pub, to enjoy with your mates, and the chocolate at work to get you through the day – especially if served by senior managers with a nice cup of coffee.

Nothing is sweeter than that.