I woke up much too early with a bit of a hangover, not really feeling in the mood for anything. It was perhaps a bad day to attempt a detox, but my wife had got a box of smoothies and strange powders on an offer and though I am sceptical that such things make any difference I had agreed to give it a go. And I had loaded a lot of tox into my body. It's a three day course with all your meals accounted for - we had wanted to do it earlier in the week, but there had been a delivery error. They had then promised to deliver the stuff on Thursday, but instead came on Wednesday night when we were out and left the stuff by the bins. I was not massively impressed with them and I hadn't even drunk a smoothie yet.
It promised that the first two days would be difficult, but that on the third day we'd feel the benefits. I suspect they can promise that though because no one ever makes it to the third day. It's a weird and unpleasant regime. The smoothies are all right up to a point, but there are sachets of powder which are meant to cleanse your colon (seems like a fairly thankless task - that colon is going to get uncleansed pretty quickly and can't be that easy to get cleansed in the first place) and they were pretty horrible. But to be fair to the nutritionalists/charlatans who put this stuff together I was already feeling bad enough, having not slept enough and having drunk a little too much. I suspect that had I had proper food my hangover would have gone away quite quickly, but it lingered and my body then had to contend with this severe new regime.
I was pretty determined to see it through though. I was cynical but prepared to be confounded and I wasn't getting hungry. I wasn't getting any work done though. My brain was empty. I sat staring at my computer trying to think of something to write about in my blog and my Metro column, but got nowhere.
So I went down to the Westfield to buy some accessories for my new phone and the world seemed dulled and my vision slightly less colourful than usual. I didn't feel great, but you don't feel great until day three. My so far wasted day was compounded by the fact that the Apple Store seemed to have been caught by surprise by the laucnh of the iPhone 5 (which was some time ago) as it had no phone cases, nor any of the expensive adapters that will allow my iPhone 4 leads to work with the new phone. I think it might have been good customer relations if Apple had given every purchaser of this new phone a couple of these adapters for free. It would have been like saying, "Hey, look, we had to upgrade stuff but we don't want to take the piss. Thanks for being a loyal customer." As it is they are charging something like £25 for this tiny connector and even then they don't even have any. Come back Steve Jobs. Your company needs you.
And not to even have any phone covers seems to be a dumbass move. I was going to buy a few things from the store today, but instead went home and found cheaper (and hopefully available) versions on the internet. Apple aren't even any good at milking the massive money cow they have created. They have brand loyalty from unthinking idiots like me and they don't even have the foresight to prepare in advance. Surely they knew this phone was coming out?
I managed to resist the urge to grab a coffee or some food and in fact felt so disgusted by the stuff I had eaten up to now that I wasn't sure I ever wanted to consume real food again, but my wife had cracked and had some egg on toast. And if she wasn't going to put herself through this hell then neither was I and I had some toast too. And then felt a bit better and managed at least to finally write my blog (though for most of the day it had really felt like I was going to fall at this late hurdle, so close to the ten year goal line). I didn't get a Metro column written though. I'd kind of hoped I might get two or three done. Let's blame the detox and not my hangover.
Then we decided to go out for dinner and ended up having a curry and beer. The detox hadn't gone too well, but I felt much better. But alas I can't say that I have proven that the whole idea of a detox is bunkum because I didn't stay the course to day three. I wonder how many people make it through. I wonder what proportion of smoothies get drunk and how many get binned. Either way the people making the smoothies are laughing. Laughing at the people who think their colon can be cleansed.
Then to really put the boot in I went to the pub for some birthday drinks with a friend and had a pint and a half of Guinness. My body sure seems to prefer the poisons to the anti-poisons, which is stupid of it. Dan Tetsell was there. He's landed himself my dream job in Hollyoaks, playing a middle-aged man who for some reason gets to hang around with all the young people. He couldn't tell me anything about the plot so I don't know if he gets off with them all one by one, but if he does I am going to be very annoyed indeed. It should have been me. His first appearance is on November 30th if you want to see him. I hope he does some asides. "Of course I love you Mercedes (aside) I don't love you. You're clearly an idiot." And so on.
Emma Kennedy wins Masterchef, Dan Tetsell on Hollyoaks. It was me who wanted to be on the telly. If Christian gets to be the new anchor of a revamped Newsnight (with a topical song) I am going to be very annoyed.
