Mean Designer Genes

I'm quite happy with the thought that "I" have been put together by a load of selfish genes bombing around pursuing their biological business but it seems to me that some of these selfsame selfish genes are beginning to reveal what could be interpreted as a nasty streak.

Maybe it's to do with passing the 50 mark but one little group of genes has activated itself with the intention of giving me a strange protuberant stomach. Being something of a fitness-challenged, beer-swilling git I have always had a tendency to put on a few extra lbs and ozes (for any of you who are sadly unfamiliar with the grand old British avoirdupois system of weights, that is something like the boring kilos and grammes) around the midriff - and everywhere else come to think of it - but this particular sticky-out tum is different. For one thing it's firm, taut like an inflated football; in fact it's the nearest thing I have ever had to a six-pack even though it looks more like a one-barrel. It pokes out to the front almost enough for me to be able to rest my pint on it.

Anyhow, TM tells me that this is the worst kind of fat belly you can have - something to do with fat under the muscle and strain on the heart and all that - so I am going to have to fight the fight, splat the fat and retard the lard.

This does not mean, by the way that this blog will now turn into one of those tedious "Day: 603 of my Boredom Diet - lost 1 and a half ounces - rewarded myself with an extra lettuce leaf...later went and made myself throw up" type blogs. I am going under cover with my struggle so for you lot it's a question of weight and see.

Another little treat my mean genes have had in store for me is hair loss. I have always had an abundance of hair on my bonce. In the old days whenever I went to the hairdresser's there would usually be enough hair on the floor after they had finished with me to supply half the monks in Europe with linings for their shirts, but now the hairs are coming out by themselves. My dad, who went bald in his twenties, always said he first realised he was losing his hair when he felt the raindrops splashing on his head - well, I too have now felt this fateful splish-splash of the rain on my cranium.

So where is this dozy Intelligent Designer - so beloved by many in the States - when you need him/her/it? Surely a clever bugger like him/her/it could tweak things a little so that instead of weight gain you get weight loss and instead of hair loss you get hair gain.

Maybe even he/she/it is afraid to contravene the mean designer genes.

Any Dream Analysts Out There...

...so, after moaning about not sleeping, I am now going to moan about dreaming. If I finally do get to sleep, I have all sorts of weird dreams... for example on Tuesday: a fat black rat is running across the floor, I swipe at it with my right hand and it buries its teeth into my index finger, I manage to get it off by vigorous shaking of the hand but it leaves a bloody hole in my finger.

Come on, Freudians, Jungians, Oldians ... what d'ye reckon?