HEART BEAT:I have just been told I am fat – just like that. Straight in the gut, shock therapy, writes MAURICE NELIGAN.
THIS CAN’T go on forever. I am talking about the weather. As I write I cannot see across the bay and an unbroken blanket of rain sweeps in from the Atlantic driven by a force 7 or near gale.
It has been like this through most of July with depression after depression making landfall around here before moving on to greet the rest of you.
I feel for people in holiday houses, especially those with young families in caravans or mobile homes. It’s not easy for anybody. To make it worse some humourless bore will start prating to us about global warming and saving the planet and explaining to us how some penal carbon tax will make us all feel better.
Such lectures had better avoid our holiday centres as anybody coming out with that doleful rubbish would run a high risk of being run out of town on a rail. As it is we’ll have to wait for the next election for that satisfaction. In the meantime, get the rails ready.
There is a small piece of good news here. It appears that we can import our goat from Ballycastle to do the honours at Puck Fair. That is assuming that the rain stops and he is not recruited for some modern day Ark. The Northern goat is an example of hands (horns) across the border and will do much to make us all love one another.
There was some erudite discussion in the golf club as to whether it was to be an orange or a green goat. We are an ecumenical group and the consensus was that it hardly mattered as goats are not noted for throwing rocks or petrol bombs at each other.
It’s that time of year again and the fair is almost upon us. It seems quieter than usual but that’s hardly surprising. However, as the days slip by, the festival spirit takes. There has never been a miserable Puck, even in the worst of times and this year will be no different.
There is an outside chance of a small fly in the ointment but in the next few days we’ll know one way or the other.
I refer to the remote, long odds possibility that Dublin might beat Kerry in the All Ireland quarter final. Such unlikely happening, akin to a blue moon, could throw a slight shadow over the proceedings, but my local friends assure me that this will not happen. I refrained from quoting GK Chesterton’s “hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances we know to be desperate”. What did he know about Kerry football anyway?
Right now I have a serious problem. The Highest Authority, claiming the support of the Lesser Authorities, told me straight out, without any preamble, that I was getting fat, just like that, out loud and out of the blue. There was no gentle introduction, like wondering if by any chance I had gained a little weight or “is that shirt a bit tight on you”. This was, straight in the gut, shock therapy.
I feebly denied it but my denial was compromised by my refusal to stand on the scales. My assertion that it was well known that weighing yourself in the evening was notoriously unreliable was greeted with derision.
Incidentally as I write, and as God is my judge, this is true; the H.A. has just asked me if I would like “a glass of water or something”. I thought maybe a few chocolate biscuits would go well with the water but on reflection I kept the thought to myself. Any logical input on my part to the planning of this penitential programme was dismissed peremptorily. I was to be fitted for a slim line hair shirt.
In truth, you always know that the weight is slowly accumulating. You ignore the inner voice that is telling you this, or you set some distant date to take the problem in hand. “After the holidays” was an earlier mantra, but I’m not sure that it applies in retirement.
I have written about this before. I bored all and sundry by recounting my dieting, weight loss and willpower. I lost two stone and felt great. Then I ran out of willpower and everything fell apart.
Much to my chagrin I am back to square one, or even off the board; so here I go again facing dietary deprivation and feeling sorry for myself. I pointed out to the H.A. that in the Talmud it says that “until the age of 40, food is more beneficial; thereafter drink is more beneficial”.
I might have saved my breath. She told me shortly that I was not Jewish and that all forms of calorific intake, liquid or solid, would be covered by the new regime. I obtained one concession; it was agreed that we might get a new weighing scales to replace that lying piece of crap that we currently possess.
It’s still raining and I’m hungry but I’ll try to put a brave face on things. Maybe I won’t need those new shirts and trousers and maybe picking up the golf ball will be that bit easier. I’ll let you know.
Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon