I have had a fight with alcohol all my life and usually I've won it. I've always earned enough money to be able to find my next pint.
More recently alcohol has decided to change the battlefront. When I was a kid I just needed to save up enough money to get blotto. When I was working I had to wait until I was finished to get blotto.
But now the rules have changed and I am a fat bloater.
Alcohol is reallysneaky this way in that you start out just needing cash for your habit then all of a sudden it's all about running for a bus.
My latest battle is being fought out against the background of lockdown for covid 19.
I'm not really a hoarder of drink so there are no tins of tennent's in my house or even in my mother's house or my fathers house or my wife's house. There's not even tins of tennent's in the shops!
When I started doing caminos I became a big fan again of the vino tinto. I guess it's a bit lower calorie as I always lost weight on wine.
We entered the phase of social distancing on 18 stone and 10 days later I find myself on 17 three.
Quite simply I have gone without tennent's lager or without 40 pints of tennents lager and this has produced the corresponding reaction to my liver, belly and weight.
We haven't reached April yet but at the current rate I may fall below 17 stone for April the 1st. Ha ha!
So what I hear you cry.
Well for me this is very important self isolation has ensured that I don't feel compelled to go to the pub, watch some shit on Sky sports and slaver shite to my comrades in arms.
An epiphany indeed.
What always interests me is the opportunity we get to gaze into the near future. Unlike the cold war where there was no let up until the perestroika and the Berlin wall came a tumbling down, the departure of Covid-19 for new shores will be in the summer months and the impact is being scripted already as the end of a war.
The whole rollercoaster of fear, oppression, despondency, death, despair and sheer jubilation when society eventually settles on a new normal. This will be a new normal. Football players and professional sports people have already started calling it. The entertainment industry realises the gulf its found itself in between food bank reality and make belief. The treatment of employees from Restaurants & Pubs, football clubs to Britain's Got Talent highlight a mixed message that those guilty of abuse in the court of public opinion will find themselves recovering a lot slower than others.
Some brands will go forever. Britains Got Talent could well be one while, restaurant, pub and sportswear chains similarly disgusting attitude to employees may see the brand tarnished permanently. Many of these businesses are highly geared and need very little to push them into the hands of the receiver.
What always interests me is the opportunity we get to gaze into the near future. Unlike the cold war where there was no let up until the perestroika and the Berlin wall came a tumbling down, the departure of Covid-19 for new shores will be in the summer months and the impact is being scripted already as the end of a war.
The whole rollercoaster of fear, oppression, despondency, death, despair and sheer jubilation when society eventually settles on a new normal. This will be a new normal. Football players and professional sports people have already started calling it. The entertainment industry realises the gulf its found itself in between food bank reality and make belief. The treatment of employees from Restaurants & Pubs, football clubs to Britain's Got Talent highlight a mixed message that those guilty of abuse in the court of public opinion will find themselves recovering a lot slower than others.
Some brands will go forever. Britains Got Talent could well be one while, restaurant, pub and sportswear chains similarly disgusting attitude to employees may see the brand tarnished permanently. Many of these businesses are highly geared and need very little to push them into the hands of the receiver.
As soon as the pubs opened I will of course return to type because I am a product of my environment.
When I return from caminos when I have lost weight and feel very positive, I possess a new zest for life, a joie de vie.
I then find in my nature a requirement to return to my habitat. My nature sucks me back into that environment. It's why I've always returned to this city and always found my way to the Southside, I'm rooted here and it's what I call home.
I now live 100 yards from the aunt's house that I grew up visiting when I was 8 and 9. I'd cycle over 2-3 times a week and have my tea with them, away from the 4 siblings. Tranquility itself and you always got sweets!
I feel life's journey is complete but with the tennents free zone extending to April I would imagine that obesity in Scotland is taking a tumble and I might see 16 stone before the month is out.
Last year I went gluten free owing to an intolerance and got down to 16/4. It also involved giving up tennents as part of a gluten free diet. The golf club introduced many gluten free drinks and Estrella was very good!
As soon as the green light came on I was back on the tennents. The social experiment saw me reach 18/4 before the current situation.
This needs a lot more work to make it funny, but there's a joke somewhere!
