Got another insight into the decrepitude of old age today - usually I have to run a marathon to have my limbs ache and seize up and for every step to be agony, but yesterday I spent about an hour lifting boxes of Christ on a Bike programmes (that I will almost certainly never need, but can't bare to recycle just in case I am called on to do the show again at some point) up to my attic. I have a lot of steep stairs in my thin but high house and whilst I thought I was giving myself a work out, I was actually managing to do something horrible to my lower back. Oh yes, the irony that my programmes which collect funds for SCOPE might actually disable me is not lost on me.
But like a typical middle-aged man I tried to pretend that it wasn't an issue and set off for a run today, but didn't even get to the first mile mark before I realised I might be being a bit stupid.
Over the course of the day my back seized up a bit more and occasionally spasmed. I tried to get on with what I was doing, but the constant niggling discomfort made me grumpy and annoyed. Last time my back hurt like this it took about two years before it finally recovered. I am aware that the older I get the more likely things are to ache and the less likely things are to improve. Enjoy your young and pain free limbs and spine while you have them, younger readers.
I really wanted to spend November getting fitter and using my gym membership - I've hardly used it at all in the last two months (partly because I've been doing my running out in the free gym that is the world). Every month I don't go Ian Virgin gets £70 to spend on conditioner which may or may not have human faeces in it. I wondered today how much money a month is spent on unused gym membership. If you added it all together what kind of incredible benefits would it have for charity or the economy? Why are people happy to spend their money on nothing like this, but would baulk at setting up a £70 a month direct debit to a charity. I'd be fascinated to know how much money we're talking about here. I maybe went to the gym twice last month. £35 a visit is a little steep I'd say. So if you take into account the fully and partially unused annual gym memberships in Europe say, would that be enough money to bail out Greece without getting the Chinese involved? Would the UK unused gym memberships be enough to give every nurse an extra £70 a month? How many students' University fees could it pay for?
It's fucking nuts how much money I am prepared to give to Ian Virgin on the off chance of me wanting to and being fit enough to go to his gym and how unprepared I would be to give that £70 to someone who might do something useful with it.
But then it's also nuts that we have to pay to go to a special building to try and burn off the excess calories we have greedily consumed, when so much of the world is in need. But it's thinking like that that made me think I should burn up calories doing something vaguely useful and tidy up my house, which has got me into this trouble in the first place.
It'd be nicer if the world was more equal and fair, but would you be prepared to take the massive dip in standard of living that would inevitably follow for you. I think I am right in assuming that anyone who is reading this blog, however poorly off they might feel themselves to be, has much higher than the average world standard of living. We are wasteful and selfish and greedy and then complain if we have a slightly bad back or are lucky enough to live in comfort into our mid-forties and beyond. We're all part of the problem. Let's all just keep our heads down and pretend it's someone else. The bankers? Yeah, they're the cunts.
Anyway Ian Virgin will probably get to keep my money from the next few days as I am going to have to rest up a bit and start to accept that I am 44 or learn to lift with my knees. Or maybe, once recovered, go the gym a lot more, so that I become strong enough to carry heavy loads up massive hills with no ill effects.
