5 minute routine on being fat.

Hello, my name is Mark Stringer and I'm fat. This is my first meeting.

See, sometimes when I say that, I get people saying “oh no! You're not fat.” Especially Americans, you've got to love them, well you don't have to, but I've decided it's safer, if you don't want a visit from a drone. Anyway, I know I'm fat. And I'm fat - from the air I'm a big target.

How do I know I'm fat? Well one way is that the doctors tell me I'm fat. Whenever I go to the doctor, the minute I get in the door he's saying “You fat bastard!!!”. You know when you go to the doctor and you've got your little spiel worked out what you're going to say because you know you've only got a few minutes. Well I get my foot in the door he's saying “You fat bastard!” Even if what I've come with has got nothing at all to do with being fat. You know, I could be coming in with a fractured skull and as soon as I'm in it's “you fat bastard”

“But Doctor, it's my head, I've hurt my head.”

“I'm not surprise you've fallen on your head, I'm more surprised you can stand up at all, you fat bastard.”

I don't think it would matter what it was. I could go in there with bubonic plague.

“Doctor, I think I've got bubonic plague.”

“You haven't got bubonic plague – you're just a fat bastard.”

“But I've got these bubons in my armpits.”

“You haven't got bubonic plague – you probably just accidentally ate some ping pong balls while you were stuffing your fat face, you fat bastard.”

So I know I'm fat. And thanks to the doctor, I know I'm very fat. My BMI (anybody know what BMI is?) sounds like a sofa showroom near Birmingham, but it's Body Mass Index. It's a ratio of your weight to your height. Yup, my body mass index is 37, and – anybody know what it should be? Less than 25 is good. So basically, what the medical establishment is saying to me is that half of me has to go. And this is one of the problems that I have, when I hear things like that. I don't think the doctors have come up with a special name for it, but I've certainly got this condition – I have a fat mind.

Let me give you an example, when the doctor tells me my BMI needs to be 25, first thing that comes into my mind is. Not, right, yeah, better start eating more sensibly and maybe do a bit more exercise, no, the first thing that comes into my mind is - “Maybe – chop off a leg? That'd do it, that'd get the old BMI down. I'd still be the same height – I'd be a lot lighter.” That's pretty fucking serious isn't it? I have a fat mind.

Let me give you another example. I had a job working at Cambridge University as a research assistant. Please, nobody think this was in anyway interesting or glamorous. It's exactly like working in a mental hospital – except the nutter is your boss, and you can't strap him down and make him take his fucking pills. Anyway one of the compensations of the job was that I worked next to the physics department, not that I'm passionate about physics, but it had a fantastic old-style canteen. You know, where you could get lasagne AND chips AND rice for about two pounds fifty, big dollops. And every “salad” they sold included a scotch egg and forlorn piece of iceberg lettuce. But fantastic puddings. Proper treacle pudding and jam roly poly with custard. See I'm starting to froth here. And when they had chocolate pudding they had chocolatey custard! Ah – it was awesome, it was hard doing that job without a Tazer and a sackload of Lithium, but the canteen was great.

So I was reading the Cambridge Evening Standard, the local paper – and there was this story about the Physics laboratory. Apparently some of the boffins there were thinking about doing one of these particle collision experiments, you know like they were doing in Switzerland, where one of the theoretical outcomes was a black hole would be created for a fraction of a second and swallow half the universe. And of course, in the local paper, they were worrying about what effect that sort of thing might have on property prices, whether any immigrants might get in through the black hole, that kind of thing. Do you know what my first thought was? THE CANTEEN!!! See? Fat mind. Although my second thought was I'd love to see the look on the faces of these nerds as half of the universe and all of Cambridgeshire disappears into a temporarily created black hole. It's like that moment when you press return and realise you've deleted the wedding video! But a lot worse. Although I don't think many people would miss Wisbech.

But this is a problem. Someday I hope it will be recognised as a medical problem. I have a fat mind. But seriously. Sometimes it really does cause me problems. I mean. Everybody feels this, fat or thin. You know when you meet someone and you realise maybe not straight away, but very quickly that this is someone that you want to spend a lot more time with. And you begin to recognise those signals in your body that let you know you're really attracted to them. I don't know it's different for different people. Maybe it's butterflies in the tummy. Maybe it's when you see them, they seem to be clear, more vivid, more brightly lit. Some people even here music. But you know. You know that this is the one that you have a special connection with, that you want to wrap yourself around. You want to keep warm and safe for the rest of your life. But if you're me. You have to admit to yourself that this (smacks belly) might get in the way. That this (smacks belly) might mean that you can't have this relationship, that it might be wrong. Even dangerous. And that's when you have to say to yourself - “Mark! It's just a pie.”

See. I have a fat mind. Thank you very much. Good night.

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