Dancing on St. Patricks Day - I didn't know he had it in him!

The multi-talented writer Mark Rice shows a clean pair of heels on St Patricks Day in the video released today. Ahead of the release of "Murder On Board" his crime thriller he was spotted in Crosses public house, Kilmuckridge, Co. Wexford last night tripping the light fantastic.

Substitute failure

It finally happened. Our Sam missed a class. We’d left home and driven 120 kilometres to catch her class every Tuesday for the past 8 weeks. We could have attended a class 20 kilometres away but, without beating about the bush, the consultant in that town was n’t a patch on Sam so on we drove, week after week.

The class felt so strange without her. Our brilliant “ever up” motivator was absent and in her place was a mere mortal. We were all a bit thrown. No one had known prior to the class and I suppose if Sam had let it slip sooner many, including us, would have skipped turning up at all.

You really don’t appreciate someone and their skill until you experience someone else giving it a go and suddenly the difference is immediate and hugely apparent. It’s not what the substitute consultant didn’t do as much as what Sam did.

We’d arrived about 10 am and to my right a queue of, in the main, women were waiting to pay their €9 fee & move on to be weighed & then be seated while to my left at the new joiners table an animated auburn haired women, early 40’s was holding court walking newcomers through the concept, the books and how the plan worked.

Shortly the beginner's table would empty, all the slimmers would take their seats and the class proper would commence. I say all but everyday about 40% of those weighed leave immediately and miss the class which as Sam put it, is like going to the cinema, buying your ticket for the movie and leaving before it starts. The key to weight loss is turning on a switch in the brain, to change your approach to food and to plan your meals for the week ahead. It’s all in the head and that’s where the class comes in.

I grabbed a chair and shortly after my wife sat beside me. We exchanged looks, I fashioned a raised eyebrow “How much down?” and she replied by giving me the two fingers. She’d hoped for two and a half but two was still good. I nodded and took out my notebook.

I always took notes of what is said at these meeting for a couple of reasons. Firstly my wife is a bit deaf and misses a lot of the verbal exchanges so I capture the essence of what’s said for her. Secondly, useful information is exchanged, ideas, new products, recipes, ideas for exercise and I don’t want to miss any of them. Thirdly I do feel I remember things better if I write them down.

I glanced over at the consultant. I could see she was nervous but she was an experienced woman and this class was going to happen one way or the other. I watched as she pumped herself up behind the registration table before bounding out into the middle of the room and delivered a loud “Good morning” accompanied by a broad flash of pearly white teeth.

The loud buzz of conversation amongst the thirty or so slimmers faded to silence and the consultant started her work. She turned to her left and began by asking each person there to state their name and whether they were up, down or unchanged with their weight this week.  It sounds a reasonable approach but wasn’t.

Why you ask?

Well if the slimmer, was down the consultant was on sure ground and led the applause. The beaming slimmer was then pressed to reveal what had led to the loss in weight and most said “I just stuck to the plan” but some revealed they’d increased their salad intake, drank more water, cut out the chocolates or simply been ill and unable to eat.

But if the slimmer was unchanged or worse still up in weight the class didn’t know what to do. Applaud someone for putting on weight? Failing to lose weight? It presented us with a moral dilemma and a few pregnant seconds of silence followed the slimmers negative news.

I thought back to earlier classes. What did Sam do? And then it struck me. She didn’t ask the question.

That’s what she did. She had her tablet open in front of her and she knew that this slimmer had had a bad week and was up a few pounds so rather than asking the question and publicly embarrassing the person she ‘d say “ Well Doreen, you’ve lost 2 stone 4 pounds to date.”  And she’d lead the applause. She’d ignore the bad news this week, for now, and the applause would ring out for Doreen.

Only then would she gently say “Well Doreen, you were up two pounds this week, do you know why? Is there anything I can help you with?

Today’s substitute consultant continued to work her way around the room, without the tablet, never quite finding the correct response to the slimmers with bad news who got a belated splattering of nervous applause. There was a feeling of gloom gathering as the consultant closed in on each attendee.

Men are rarities at weight loss meetings. I’d say 5% of the slimmers are men. Astonishing isn’t it? Shame it’s not a reflection of the real world.  In my opinion there are just as many obese and overweight men as there are obese and overweight women but the men generally lack the balls to acknowledge that they have a weight problem.

However, the light relief our sub badly needed was just a seat away and came in the form of two middle-aged men who sat next to each other. Ken was up 4 pounds and Brian was up 3 pounds. Between them they’d added half a stone in one week!

“Do you know how?” the sub asked Ken. He adjusted his black spectacles perched on his nose and replied at length and in detail. “Six pints on Sunday night was followed by a bag of chips and chicken balls at midnight, not to mention the tub of curry sauce”. Saturday wasn’t much better when his brother in law twisted his arm to slip out to the pub for a few bevies before dinner and they spent the evening there before staggering home after 11.00pm. There was an audible collective gasp from the throng of women who probably chastised themselves for having that second slice of bread with a knob of butter at breakfast. The off diet being recounted here and now was of epic proportions!

Brian’s story of woe was equally off the diet and acknowledged as such by him but he then made a rousing declaration that he was up to a “weigh-off” challenge with anyone for this coming week. “Are there any takers for losing 4 pounds by next Tuesday?”His challenge was taken on by Pete and they rose from their stools, like gladiators and cheerily shook fists at each other. The challenge was accepted.

Finally, the sub completed the personal enquiry exercise and without any fanfare announced the class over and people got up and left. I had my pen in my hand hovering over an empty page. No tips for losing weight, no recipes for free food, no news on the latest finding in the food world or special offers for low-fat food in the local supermarkets.  The Sam bonus, the added value she brought to meetings was missing. I slipped the notepad back into my man bag while remembering Sam’s last nugget of wisdom

Her 5Ps ……………“Perfect Planning Prevents Piling Pounds”

See you next week!

Fairy Stories should carry an age certificate

We arrived at the house about noon and I was captured by the grandchildren, aged four and five. “Will you play with us?” The big eyes look so appealing. How could I say no?

It gave my wife and her daughter some time to catch up with each other, adult to adult (without constant interruptions from the kids and me!).

So there I was sat on the settee in the playroom, a room filled with toys, figurines, Lego, cars, plastic kitchenware and a wall of books, activity material, DVDs and a TV/DVD player.

For the boy, his hero has been Fireman Sam for the first two years of his short life followed by WWE Wrestler action figures and now this past year Spiderman. A Batman figurine also gets playtime but for too many reasons to go into right now, he’s a secondary figure to Spiderman.

The five year old is a girl and is so different even now to the boy in many ways. Her hero figures are female and fly round with magical wings. Early year figurines were lots upon lots of My Little Ponies, each unique, some with light up pink hearts, some with pink tails.

But you know, both still enjoy the things that I enjoyed when I was their ages, stories. “Will you tell us a story?” I was asked and as I always felt I had a voice for radio and was flattered to be asked, I said: “of course but can you find me a book of stories?”

The girl returned a short time later with a massive tomb which I recognized as a Christmas present we had bought FOR them one year. As I opened the book of fairy stories I noticed it had been first published back in 1812 by brothers Wilhelm Grimm and Jacob Grimm. Though it was a book we’d bought I had never read it myself so I began to look forward to the stories we’d be reading.  I let the pair of them flick through the pages until they found a story they wanted to hear and off we went.

First up was the story of The Three Little Pigs who run away from home. No reason was given but you could assume a degree of social deprivation existed in pigsties back in the 19th century. Well each pig sought to build a stronger house than the previous pigs to live in and seek protection from the hungry wolf who, in this book, ate the two pigs that had built houses that failed to comply with NHBW (National House Building Wolf resistant) standards and those pigs paid the ultimate price, death by wolf attack. I managed to gloss over the more lucid details in the book but it was total carnage. The surviving pig was in therapy for years.

Next up was the story of the Gingerbread Boy who escaped from the oven having been baked by an elderly woman and her husband. Apparently not sufficiently pleased with his timely escape he proceeded to bait and abuse the slow running pair and anyone else that crossed his path which, by the time he reached a river bank was quite a horde of angry people, all now in hot pursuit of Mr “Big Mouth” Gingerbread.

Caught between a wet river and certain death at the hands of the mob he takes the offer of assistance from a passing fox who places him on his tail and keeps him dry while they cross the river together. At least the fox did that initially but as the tail sinks lower in the water the Gingerbread Boy has to move onto the fox’s back to remain dry. Then soon he’s forced to move again, this time onto the tip of the fox’s nose. The moment they reached the land on the other side of the river the fox tossed his head back and the gingerbread boy flew briefly into the air before falling in the open mouth of the fox! Granted, it was death again but I felt the biscuit did  n’t suffer long and I’m partial to the odd one myself.

I felt increasingly uneasy about the ending of these stories and hoped I was on firmer ground with the last story chosen Little Red Riding Hood which I recalled had a happy ending. While we three ploughed our way through the story I really got into it and threw in a few silly voices while asking the kids questions so I got them thinking.

Why did the little girl go into the woods on her own?

Where were her Mum and Dad?

How easy is it to get lost in the wood?

Why did Granny need her lunch brought over to her?

I suppose I really got into it and failed to spot my wife and stepdaughter slip into the room to listen to the story. They arrived just as it took some gruesome turns with the wolf deceiving and eating the grandmother and then taking her place in the bed, then subsequently eating the little girl too!

Holy Shit! I wasn’t expecting that! I couldn’t think of an alternative story line and so stuck with the book to see how it manufactured the happy ever after ending I was now so desperate to find. I felt a small blob of sweat develop under my shirt collar and a stream of water ran from behind my ear. I turned the page to find the end was in sight! However, my joy was short lived as the happy ending was achieved by a passing huntsman who entered Granny’s house, spotted the sleeping wolf in Granny’s clothing and produced his very long sharp sword. He then killed the wolf and slit open its stomach to reveal a still alive Granny and Little Red Riding Hood who hopped out and lived, well,……. happily ever after.

Now I am the first to acknowledge that the bedroom must have been a blood splattered mess but you know the kids seemed to enjoy the story and I think most of the gore and violence just passed over their heads. At least I hope it did.

The look on my stepdaughters face as I finished a story was priceless and never to be repeated. It’ll teach me to pick up and read a load of stories I haven’t read before. Kids back in the 19th century were obviously made of sterner stuff.

We all met up again a few days later and strangely no one mentioned my story telling so maybe it’s been parked, forever, period.

Why do men get more?

Lunch

I’m just back from lunch in a local hotel restaurant and it was proven again to me that men are always given more on their plate. I didn’t believe it at first when my wife told me so about 2 years ago. Right then and there we tested the theory and its 100% true. Go on give it a try and prove it to yourself if you don’t believe me.

Stand in the carvery queue and you, the male, order as if for yourself, the food your female partner wants. Just say it, as if it's for you. “I’ll have the lamb and all the trimmings” and see what happens. The plate is stacked high and she gets about double the meat she would have got if she’d ordered it herself. Then pass her the plate and order your own. Your plate is full and there’s a good chance your eating partner will either need a doggy bag for the leftovers or pass the surplus to you. It’s a win-win result!

I would also end by saying that if the counter staff/ cook is female my partner is more likely to receive a smaller portion if she ordered for herself that if a male counter staff/ cook is serving.

Equality is still a servings away!