Are you familiar with Hypertension” the Doc asked. I gave this a few seconds of serious consideration before confirming that as a specky student of Battlestar Galactica, intergalactic space travel held no secrets from me. That’s hyperspace” she sighed wearily belying the fact that she was about fifteen years my junior and it was I who should be doing the weary sighing. On the not unreasonable grounds that I was the patient with a diagnostically troubling condition and she was the twenty something on a 100k per year.

There could be something in it though; I was feeling significantly tense having booked at 8:30 appointment which some fifty minutes later showed no sign of ever actually occurring. How can a surgery “ sorry health centre like there’s ANYBODY healthy in there “ open at 8am and be running an hour late an hour later? And, later that same day veins were significantly raised on my forehead as two thousand years of generic stupidity played out in front of me.

The women responsible for my blood pumping angst was an uncanny ringer for Mrs. Overall of Acorn Antiques fame. Three times she stooped to punch in a mathematically troubling four digit pin code and three times she hit cancel instead. Each time accompanied by a little oh get me, aren’t I silly” laugh clearly unaware of six potential bypass operations steaming in the queue behind here.

On finally cracking the Chip’n’Pin code, she then tweaked my own personal irritomitor by chattily extending her stay at the counter. She wondered if it would be ok to have her cash dispensed in unmarked small notes, brown coins and ration coupons. Why this wonderment had to wait until she’d painstakingly opened her cavernous bag, rooted round the boiled sweets for an ancient purse and deposited the money in its’ black heart I shall never know. And neither shall she, because I was forced to beat her senseless with a rolled copy of the banking charter before the NHS had six emergency heart operations on their hands.

Since the doctor was unimpressed with both my phantom symptoms and a treatment regime based on the healing power of beer, it seemed a good time to try something else. But that’s not going to be the Turbo Trainer on which five sessions has convinced me that only people with a boredom threshold of “ say “ a goldfish can endure them.

I tried spinning to MTB DVDs, favourite films, interesting porn sent to me by people I hardly know and finally staring at the wall. At the end of each session my worthiness at a personal creation of an inland lake palled in the face of such intense boredom. I was forced to down about 10 beers to compensate which someone bypassed the benefit.

So instead I’ve abandoned food and eaten the turbo.

But something must be done and in the dusty recesses of my DVD collection is a pirated copy of a horror cringingly entitled Beach Body“. It’s made up of pain segments focusing on abdominals, muscle sculpture and aerobics which could be better described as you’ll never sit up again“, you’ll never walk again” and you’ve died horribly“

The main protagonist is an ridiculously healthy American named Tony ably assisted by Dan and Julie both of whom are only slightly less honed than our Tone. Never will you see any three people so desperately in need of a good pie and a few pints. They don’t need exercise, they need framing with their cheesy smiles and perfect form. Tony performs a million arm curls before “ with not a hair out of place or a bead of sweat on his brow “ demanding that you feel the burn“.

I am not only feeling the burn but also the possible permanent damage of an old bloke attempting complex exercise routines. Honestly the aerobic section is lethal “ already the computer has felt the power of my vigorous arm rotation and a couple of times I’ve over rotated out of control and dangerously spun into the next room. I shall let your imagination roam free as you consider my wife’s response to a gasping, twirling beachbody wannabee as he crashes elegantly into something fragile and expensive.

Maybe it’s time for a stomach staple and a friend recommended that they staple it to my head so at least it’d improve the level of thatch. Kind words indeed.

I think I’ve glimpsed the future and it has cardigans in it.