The Penguin

Those of you with a nervous disposition should stop reading now.

Those brave fools who have chosen to continue, be warned: there is a photograph of me at the end of this post.

Why have I chosen to do this now, after a couple of year’s blogging?

Mrs PM thinks that the image you are about to see is “nice” and has encouraged me to share it with the world. I think she must have an ulterior motive.

Personally, I have a problem with the picture. It’s nothing to do with the fact that it might leave any readers distressed. The problem is that I look like James Bond – not the real James Bond, obviously.

Imagine if you will Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond, otherwise known as “James Blond”, a very good looking man (so Mrs PM says) with a lot of sex appeal and a “magnificent body”. I wouldn't know!

Consider what would happen if this James Bond caught a nasty virus that mutated his hair into an uncontrollable mop of straw.

Imagine him ageing twenty years and letting his superlative body transform into a blubbery mess.

Add into the mix a flock of rabid parrots bent on savaging his handsome countenance, followed by botched reconstructive surgery performed by an inebriated Z-list cosmetic surgeon who is high on crack.

Add a pair of spectacles stolen from Harry Hill.

Finally, imagine 007 giving up his vodka martinis in favour of several gallons of Monster Gut Wobbling Brown Ale and Guinness.

You now have “The Penguin”, i.e. me.

Why am I calling myself “The Penguin” (as opposed to an orang-utan in a suit)? Allow me to explain.

I’ve never understood why I certain functions demand that guests dress up like a dog’s dinner. In short, I have a problem with “dress codes”.

As a young buffoon in his twenties, I used to hate dressing up in order to enjoy a night club experience with my friends.

“Why can’t I just wear jeans?” I used to wail.

“Because the bouncers won’t allow you into The Ritz, you moron,” my friends would reply.

In the 80’s, we used to go to The Ritz, a cheesy night club where foolish young dolts like myself would end up on the odd Saturday night, the aim being to we could drink ourselves stupid, dance into the wee small hours and at the same time trying to attract the attentions of any female drunk enough to take an interest in us. Beer goggles were the order of the day and some of us had a modicum of success (even me). There were numerous other similar establishments whose doors were manned by Neanderthals with the IQ of a retarded slug. These creatures were known as bouncers and had one single instruction: “No jeans!”.

Most of them dressed in tuxedos and bow ties and, to me at least, looked like gorillas. None of them had necks and were blessed with the charm of an angry grizzly bear. Diplomacy was absent (most had never heard of the word let alone being able to spell it).

Being a bit of an anarchist, I used to challenge these people by purposely wearing jeans.

Meathead: You can’t come in.

PM: Why not?

Meathead: No jeans.

PM: Why can’t I wear jeans?

Meathead: No jeans.

PM: Hello! Is there anybody in that colossal bloody skull of yours? Why can’t I come into your establishment with jeans?

Meathead: No jeans.

PM: Do you think that jeans turn me into a hooligan who is going to destroy this crappy night club?

Meathead: No jeans.

PM: So if I go home and change into my best trousers and shirt and then return here, will you let me in?

Meathead: Yes

PM: Why?

Meathead: No jeans.

On one occasion, I actually went home, changed into clothes that satisfied the dress code and then returned. And the meathead bouncer refused to let me in, because I had had the nerve to question his mantra in the first place.

Looking back, I was an idiot because I could have ended up on the receiving end of a savage beating. My problem was that I simply wanted to challenge these idiotic rules; I was an anarchist and I hated bullies – I still do in fact.

Weddings and funerals had the same effect. There is an unwritten rule that all those attending weddings must wear suits and ties (apart from the ladies of course). I have complied simply because I respected the decisions of the bride and groom and didn’t want to offend them. When I got married way back in 1988, I actually suggested to my ex-wife that we defy tradition and turn up with jeans, trainers and T-shirts. You can imagine her response – suffice it to say that I almost ended up dumped before the wedding took place.

Funerals too are similar. Not only must you wear a suit, out of respect; you must also wear black. I hate funerals because they are such awfully depressing events. I can to a certain extent understand that we are mourning the loss of a loved one, but surely a funeral could be seen as a great way to celebrate the fabulous life of the person. Why wear black? Wouldn’t it be better to talk about how wonderful the dear departed was and enjoy great stories and memories? Of course, people will be sad but it would be nice to recall happier events and make the occasion a colourful one.

Maybe I am just weird in that respect, though I have heard of funeral attendees being urged not to wear black and to try to make the event a celebration of the person’s life. These days, particularly at football matches, when a famous icon dies, like Sir Bobby Robson for example, we no longer have a minute’s silence before football matches; instead we have a minute’s applause. I welcome such sentiments and I would love my funeral to be an event that involved laughter as well as the inevitable tears. Maybe some of my crazy blog posts could be read out by friends.
Another aspect of dress code that annoys me is the written rule that employees of companies must wear suits.

Why must we wear suits?

I am a software engineer, somebody who sits in front of a PC all day trying to persuade computers to behave themselves. I sometimes have exposure to customers but the majority of the time I am working like an angry beaver, swearing at my screen and pummelling my keyboard like a man possessed, cursing my own incompetence and questioning the parenthood of the software.

I feel comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt, as do most of my fellow employees; why should I have to wear a shirt and tie? Most of the time, I have absolutely nobody to impress. It is craziness personified. Recently, thankfully, my company has relaxed the dress code – but not sufficiently in my opinion. We are allowed to “dress down” on Fridays, paying a suitable sum to charity. However, there is a “dress down” dress code, which means that, for example, I cannot wear a football shirt and, strictly speaking, I am not allowed to wear a T shirt with the logo of a rock band on front, for example. Why not? It is utter madness. Sadly it is typical of the corporate nonsense that surrounds us all.

Am I alone with these anarchistic views?

Anyway, back to the Penguin.

In the past couple of years I have been invited to a couple of events that require “black tie”. The first was a New Year’s Eve ball and when Mrs PM mentioned it to me, I said (like a total idiot):

“I’ve got a black tie, I think. If not I’ll pop out and buy one.”

After Mrs PM had stopped laughing, she explained to me, as if I were a five year old child, that “black tie” meant a tuxedo, bow tie, frilly shirt, cufflinks, cummerbund and trousers with silk braids.

“What the hell is a cummerbund?” I asked.

“One of those pleated black sashes that blokes wear around their waists.”

I had never heard of one and I simply do not see the point of them - unless it disguises beer guts.

I wanted to just wear a normal suit but Mrs PM forced me to dress up like a fat penguin for the first time. Rather than buying a suit, I rented one, convinced that this would be a one off.
It took me ages to get ready for this ball; I was so slow that Mrs PM beat me by a good hour and sat there tutting as I struggled with my bloody cummerbund and bow tie.

Unfortunately, I have been invited to several more of these balls since, the last one being on our recent cruise. This particular formal night was worse because had I refused to wear black tie for the formal evening I would probably have been forced to eat burgers on the deck because the dining rooms were instructed to only allow penguins.

Rather than renting a tuxedo for such formal evenings, I have invested in a penguin suit complete with all the trimmings and can now dress up like a slob in a tuxedo whenever I want to. I’m not happy about it but it is cost effective and Mrs PM insists that we continue to attend these formal events.

Consequently, my anarchistic tendencies are much less powerful these days, thanks to Mrs PM savaging any attempts at non-conformity and revolution by threatening to reshape my head with a cricket bat. I abhor violence so I tend to submit to her wishes.

Anyway, below is a picture of me, wearing a tuxedo on the cruise and once again I apologise to those of a nervous disposition. If you have nightmares you can blame Mrs PM.


Assuming you have returned from the toilet and are still reading, I can tell you that, while I do look like a fat and decrepit version of 007 in the picture, I did try to make a stand by wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt under my shirt until Mrs PM spotted Eddie’s insane face staring out and made me take it off.

Foiled once more by my missus! I would have got away with it had it not been for that pesky Mrs PM.

Thankfully she didn’t spot my Deep Purple underpants – so the moral victory is mine.

Bring on Batman – the Penguin is ready for anarchy!!

I'm Once, Twice, Three Times A Fatso

When I’ve been scared or worried in the past, people have offered me advice:

“Grow up, you sad arse!!”

“Why don’t you just grow a set?”

“Try typing How To Get a New Spine into Google.”

“Be BIG!!”

I’ve taken one of those valuable recommendations on board in the past two weeks – “Be BIG!”

Unfortunately, I have taken it quite literally; I am now twice the man I used to be. Let me explain.

I have just returned from a two week holiday to Canada and America. Mrs PM’s father suggested the trip to us last year. Mrs PM was adamant that we should go, so we did.

We spent a week on a coach touring the Canadian Rockies and a week on a cruise ship visiting a couple of places in Alaska. It is this latter part of the holiday that I want to focus on today.

I had never been on a cruise before and nobody warned me about the dangers until the day before we embarked.

The tour guide on the coach hinted that there would be a lot of food. Of course there will be a lot of food, I thought – it’s an American cruise ship. Unfortunately I didn’t appreciate exactly how much food there would be and, worse, I didn’t realise that it would all be free – absolutely totally free (when I say “free”, I don’t mean that the holiday company gave away the grub – the price of the cruise included the food) and absolutely totally freely available.

When I arrived in Seattle and saw the size of the cruise ship, I kind of got my first inkling of the gulf between my expectations and the reality of the situation. The ship was huge; it had 16 decks, several restaurants, even more bars, a fully seated theatre, two nightclubs, several swimming pools, a gym, a tennis court, a jogging track, a library, an art gallery, several shops, a casino, a spa, a simulated golf course, at least 2500 passengers and at least 1000 crew members.

It took me the whole day to explore the ship – it was like a floating town.

The cabins were smaller than your average hotel room – but only just. The one assigned to Mrs PM and myself had a double bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a TV, a bathroom with sink, toilet and shower and a safe. The shower was, shall we say, cosy but it was perfectly adequate for a slim person like me and my good lady.

On previous trips to the States, I have applied a measure of willpower and self control to my consumption of food. The sheer volume of food that you can acquire in America is colossal. In a restaurant, you can ask for a small portion and you still end up with a meal that would feed the population of a small country.

Take last year, for example. Mrs PM and I found ourselves in a restaurant in Boston and, feeling like a little piece of home, both opted for “Fish and Chips”. The meal, when it arrived, was gargantuan. It looked as if a trawler had been dispatched to the Atlantic Ocean and a day’s entire catch had been dumped on our plate. I have never seen so many chips in a single place. They were piled so high that there was snow on the peaks and I swear I could see a couple of skiers navigating the slopes.

Back on the cruise ship, I wandered around with my little guide, identifying the bars, restaurants and other interesting places and began to notice something strange; there were one or two people who, and I’ll be kind to them here, looked like walking whales. These guys were enormous.

Upon seeing them, my mind drifted back to the cosy shower in our cabin and a vivid scene began to form in my warped imagination; the walking whale trying to crowbar his bulk into a tiny shower.

I began to have serious doubts about the ability of these walking leviathans to crowbar their bulk into the bathroom, let alone the shower. One guy in particular was enormous. I suspected that he contributed to swaying of the vessel on the open sea, such was his bulk. Had he leapt overboard, the rest of the passengers would have mistaken him for a humpback whale.

My imagination began to work overtime. I began to wonder how this man would manage to have a shower. Here’s what I came up with:

(1) He strips naked in his cabin - I apologise for the image that this may conjure up but, believe me, I have had to live with this image for days now and I see no reason why you, dear reader, shouldn’t suffer with me.

(2) He asks his wife to wrap a rope around his colossal belly – this gives a whole new meaning to the question “How long is a piece of rope?”

(3) His wife pushes him into the shower with the aid of a crowbar, leaving the two ends of the rope outside the shower – perhaps she asks the crew of the ship for help.

(4) When the man has finished washing his bulk, the woman hauls his soapy arse out of the shower using the rope – again she might ask for help with this task.

I thank my lucky stars that I am not like this whale-human hybrid. I can still picture the distressing image of this man wearing shorts and a T-shirt that was a little too small for him, allowing part of amazing gut to spill over and say “Hello” to everybody. His legs were enormous and wobbled as he walked. I have rarely seen anybody so fat that their legs actually wobble.

I saw him on several occasions over the course of the cruise, once dressed in a suit. I wondered where he managed to find a shirt to cover his enormous belly – “Tents’R’Us” perhaps?

Unfortunately, the temptation to emulate the ingestion feats of the walking whale proved almost impossible to resist. Why? Allow me to explain.

On the first day of the cruise, we arrived at the restaurant in the evening and enjoyed a very rich four course meal with all the trimmings. I was stuffed. I felt like I had eaten a horse. As we left the restaurant I asked Mrs PM’s dad whether the meal was typical.

“Yes,” he replied. “There is so much food that you won’t know what to eat first.”

He wasn’t wrong. Breakfast the next day, for me, consisted of:

A melon slice, half a grapefruit and an apple, followed by a whopping plate full of scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, hash browns, two slices of toast and a yoghurt all washed down with two glasses of grapefruit juice and two cups of coffee.

As I ate this massive breakfast, one thought ran through my head – this food is paid for and I’m bloody well going to eat as much of it as I can.

Mrs PM, on the other hand, was sensible and suggested that we eat carefully. However, when I was wondering around the ship, I spotted a pizza outlet and simply couldn’t resist a big slice.

At lunch, the buffet was enormous and I helped myself to sandwiches, meat, vegetables, chips and cake with lashings of coffee and Sprite.

In the evening we indulged ourselves once more with a massive four course meal washed down with beer and wine (thankfully the beer and wine weren’t free, otherwise I would have taken full advantage of that).

And so it went on. Every day I had a massive breakfast, followed by a snack and a massive lunch with yet another four course meal in the evening. Had I wanted, I would have been able to get up in the middle of the night and helped myself to yet more food from the night menu.

At one point, I saw the walking whale eating. He was sitting at a table on deck next to one of the swimming pools, with a massive plate full of pizza and a cheeseburger and fries at the side. And this was at four o’clock in the afternoon, just a couple of hours before the evening meal.

And there were other people eating similar copious amounts of food.

And, worse, as the cruise went on, I realised that I, too, was eating far too much.

It was six days into the voyage when my greed finally hit home.

After a couple of days, Mrs PM had mentioned that I was eating too much and that, if I had a big breakfast, perhaps I should skip lunch. She was, as usual, very aware of the side effects of stuffing your face, and had been restrained in her consumption of food. I, on the other hand, had been a idiot, convinced that I was svelte even at the tender age of 47, and that I could eat as much as I could when I was 21. I actually started to listen to her and take heed when disaster struck.

The ship was struck down with an outbreak of Norovirus.

Norovirus is a particularly nasty little bug that basically gives victims eight hours of agony with vomiting and diarrhoea. And it is highly contagious. The captain and his crew enforced a high level of sanitation when this happened, making sure that the whole ship was napalmed with every conceivable bug killer every hour of the day as well as making sure that every passenger washed their hands repeatedly, particularly at food outlets. Every restaurant had hand sanitiser fluid, an alcohol based liquid that destroyed all germs and passengers were forced to clean their hands before entering anywhere that food was present.

Unfortunately, despite the precautions, Mrs PM fell victim to the Norovirus and, after eight hours of hideous noises in our little bathroom, was confined to the cabin for a further 48 hours. Incredibly, I wasn’t confined at all and was free to roam the ship, which I did. I wasn’t alone because I had Mrs PM’s dad and his wife to keep me entertained. Alas, Mrs PM’s dad didn’t care whether I mutated into a bloated mass of flab and when I began to consume lots of food, he didn’t warn me of the consequences of my over-indulgence. Mrs PM wasn’t there to make sure that my eating habits were constrained. Consequently I welcomed the freedom, driven not by common sense but some weird concept about value for money.

So I ate. And I ate. And I ate. And I ate.

In the meantime, Mrs PM, a prisoner in the cabin, was allowed to eat only bland food during her quarantine, food which was so unappealing that she lost her appetite.

I am still puzzled by the fact that Mrs PM was quarantined and I wasn’t. During the quarantine period, a “hit squad” of cleaners came twice a day and napalmed the cabin with detergents and chemical bug killers and I was requested to wash my hands every ten seconds. By the end of the quarantine period, we had the cleanest cabin on the ship and I had the cleanest hands on the planet.

Even more incredibly, I didn’t fall victim to the virus at all. I remained in full health for the duration of the cruise and ate accordingly.

After six days, my greedy excessiveness came back and slapped me in the face because I had to wear my penguin suit for the second of two formal evenings on the ship, the first evening being on my first full day.

How did my greed slap me in the face? My trousers were too tight, telling me that I had added unwelcome inches to my waistline.

Thankfully, I was able to make the necessary adjustments but such was the shock that I took a closer look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t like what I saw. My belly, already increasing with age, had had a visible growth spurt and my boobs seemed bigger.

I am not a whale by any stretch of the imagination but my pot belly has definitely grown, nuking all my previous attempts to beat it into submission.

Damn you, cruise food, damn you!

Damn you, will power, damn you!

Damn you, bloody Norovirus, damn you!

Mrs PM has now put me on a diet. I have returned home and Jasper, my overweight fat bloater of a moggy, is now my kindred spirit. We cry into our empty plates each night.

Looking back, I should have known better.

Anyway, apart from over indulgence and Norovirus, the holiday was amazing and I shall, in due course, be posting lots of photos on The Plastic Mancunian’s Eye as well as mentioning a few other choice observations in future posts.

In the meantime, Mrs PM, now fully recovered, will be keeping me in check. She’s just gone out to do some shopping. Hopefully a crowbar and a rope aren’t on her list.