Let them eat cake

It’s been a busy morning and after a light snack (training tonight, no doughnuts for yours truly) I spend a few minutes watching the planes land at London City airport. In this break from things I relax my mind and off it wanders to who knows where.  Today is no exception. I quickly pass by the French and the religion and mosey on past stupid people and popular culture. Then before you know it I’m sat on a park bench just outside the fat and the poor. Now I know there’s a thing called political correctness but its complete bollocks, lets be frank, political correctness is politeness that’s got out of hand. It’s like America, something simple, something that looks nice from a distance, on paper seems like a good idea, but we’ve not paid it enough attention over the years and now it’s just become too big for its own boots and now no one likes it.

So the sign says poor and fat, it doesn’t say fiscally challenged or horizontally challenged, no one says those things out loud unless they’re taking the piss. So let’s say it how it is and if you don’t like it then blame me and have another chocolate éclair. I’m the one going to hell; you were only watching (thanks Billy). Man has been recording history for getting on for 10,000 years; this is quite a long time and in all that time, except for the last 40 years or 0.4% of all recorded time if you were poor you were skinny, it’s called starving and if you were rich you could, if available food stocks were to hand, get very fat. This lies at the nub of the problem. We are simply greedy by nature, we like to eat and we have to make a conscious effort not to. People are fat because they are following their basic instincts to eat, because eating keeps them alive and makes them feel good. The problem is the eating part of the brain is far heavier and sits on top of the common sense gland. This causes the greedy bastard part of the brain to swell, which in turn pushes down on the jaw, forcing the mouth open and allowing the highly developed pie arm to deliver yet more food.

But it’s okay, at least when you are poor you can’t afford a lot of food? Wrong in this country almost no one is actually so poor they can’t eat, they are in relative poverty. Currently that means they can’t afford an IPod, go to the pictures or have their nails done. We eat because there is no one there to tell us not to. Look at Labradors, look how fat they get when we look after them. When we get a puppy its cute and cuddly, full of energy, you can’t stop the thing nicking your toilet roll. By the time it’s 6 it can’t walk to the end of the garden path because its spindly legs can’t manage is gargantuan sausage shaped body. Food is so cheap that we can have as much as we like, in fact things have now flipped around and the richer you are the more likely you are to spend more money on more expensive health foods and so you will be thinner. Truly twisted.

Ok, but poor people work hard every day in the fields and factories, this should keep them svelt and athletic? Wrong again in modern society more people work in the cities than in the country and most of the manufacturing process is done by machines. All it takes is one fat git (Homer Simpson) sat in a control room pushing buttons. Anyway all the manual menial jobs are done by foreigners and students; they’re the only ones that will work for minimum wage.

But better jobs and working conditions mean more free time and leisure time where we can do more things to keep fit? Also wrong, you would think that people would want to be active and look after themselves, but really if you spend £1500 on the latest 60” TV you’re going to use it no matter how nice the weather is outside. Plus you can’t watch X Factor whilst playing football, Simon Cowell (aka the devil) has a lot to answer for.

But my parents and grandparents aren’t fat I hear you cry? Of course they’re not, let’s look at the facts. Let’s go back about 100 years. In 1910 a lot of people were very poor and most of us were building big metal ships because we knew a war was coming, then there was a big war and we all spent our time building tanks, we only had coal and dandelions to eat. After the war there were a few good years when the rich got really rich and the rest just watched them in silence and in black and white. Coal was off the menu, but most small boys lived on a diet of Hovis bread and whippet poo pie. Then at the end of the 20’s we had the great depression and everyone, even the rich went hungry. The poor survived on toe jam and dandruff rissoles. Things picked up through the 30’s but just as we were getting somewhere along came Hitler and it was back to tanks, coal and wild flowers. The war ended, but rationing didn’t and before you know it we were nearly at the end of the 50’s. No one bothered with food in the 60’s everyone was so stoned they didn’t care about food just peace, love and rockets to the moon. Food supply was better in the 70’s, but you could only eat so much of the same beige cardboard food. There was nothing on the menu, all the good food was hidden in France (damn them). Everyone lived on prawn cocktail, steak and ice cream (usually on the same plate). In the 80’s fast food took off and it all went to shit from there.

So in conclusion, we’re not really that poor, people who are starving and have no home are poor, but we are fat bloaters because we haven’t got the will power to say no. We would rather watch talentless wannabes on TV rather than go for a walk in the park. I’m off for a run tonight because although I hate Simon Cowell I can’t resist doughnuts, coke, chocolate and curry. My time is up and this bench is becoming uncomfortable, back to reality and the rest of my fairly average Tuesday.