Church of Pfizer – Breaking the First Rule of Fat Club

For the last decade I have carried the clinical label of “Morbidly Obese“.

A decade ago I weighed in at over 20 stones; I had been piling on the pounds since the age of 25. A combination of living a lush lifestyle, holding down a sedentary office job and thriving on cortisol-inducing stress all culminated in the climactic crescendo of endocrine crash.

By October 2003 I had dropped 3 stone and suffered what were described later as “Osmotic Symptoms” – between you and me these were simply body-wide agonising muscle cramps caused by essential salts being flushed from my body as it tried to handle a fasting blood glucose level of 32 mmol/L (6 mmol/L is the norm).

I was rushed into hospital and diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (meaning that I rely on regular injections of insulin to survive).

For the last decade I have managed my condition as all diabetics must do – day to day and sometimes seeming to pull through by will alone.

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

Since then my weight has fluctuated between 17 and 20 stone, erring more towards the latter over the last year or so. Th weight dropping off as I exercise and then piling on when I stop.

Of course, medicine has played a large part in the management of my condition. As a Type 1 diabetic I have prayed at the alter of The Church of Pfizer for almost a full decade now. Insulin to make up for insulin I am not producing, Metformin (Glucophage) to help my body use the insulin and Pravastatin to deal with my high cholesterol.

Over the past couple of years I have endured an ongoing battle with my health care team over my condition. My health care team believe I am not a Type 1 diabetic at all but Type 2 (meaning I am producing some insulin but my body cannot use it). The only evidence given for this seeming to be my inability to maintain a healthy weight.

The battle peaked towards the end of 2012 when my diabetic “specialist” decided to put her money where her mouth is and put me onto a trial course of GLP-1 (Glucagon-like-peptide).

Pitched as some kind of Panacea, GLP-1 is a weight loss medication with the surprising side effect of increasing insulin production in Type-2 diabetics. Type-1 diabetics may benefit from the weight loss side of the medication but would see no other benefits.

At the same time that I started the process of titrating up to a full dose of Victoza-Liraglutide (the trade name of this new sub-cutaneous Sacrament) I also signed up to the local Weight Loss Program – Kirklees Weight Management (lovingly referred to as Fat Club by my fellow losers).

I started the full course of Victoza 3 weeks ago and Fat Club 2 weeks ago and frustratingly enough the Victoza seems to be working – I must be Type-2, the priests were right all along.

I have reduced my insulin intake by more than 50% and appear to be losing over 2kg a week. The Victoza isn’t pleasant but I’m accustomed to the nausea and other gastric symptoms that arise from the daily injections.

So far the fat club appear to be offering sound advice but I have to admit that I am eating smaller portions mainly because the Victoza helps me feel satiated and slows my digestion down so that I am not hungry.

I haven’t felt this good since I tried the hypno-band the other year. Fat Club have given me a target of 6.2kg to lose over the 12 week period; 2 weeks in and I’ve lost 4.6kg.  I’m out walking more and seem to be energised towards losing more weight.

I’m sure this will level out at some point – at this rate I’d be looking at being back to 16/17 stone by the end of the 12 weeks, something my GP has advised against.  Not that the process stops there.  This isn’t some kind of Slimming World fad diet – it’s a total change to my way of life – again.

That being said, I do feel like I’m cheating somehow, there should be rules about the use of performance enhancing drugs at Fat Club.

Travelodge Feedback – Does Anybody Actually Read It?

I stay at budget hotels quite a lot.

Not so frequently that I could class them as a second home.

Through the winter I may stay at one at least once a month, maybe more.

Over the festive period I’ve been known to book whole weeks at a time, whilst visiting family and friends.

My budget hotel of choice is Travelodge.

Many of these Travelodges are poky and run down but some are quite new, modern and comfortable.

The great thing about this chain of Hotels is that they often run promotions where rooms that are booked months in advance.

For example, this Christmas just gone I stayed in Hellingly, East Sussex for a mere £12 a night.  The room was comfortable and it proved a good base for visiting family in the area. (I wrote my Windows RT post in the Hellingly Travelodge).

I tend to stay for one or two nights as a rule – Friday and Saturday.  The frequency and duration of visits is largely dictated by the reason for staying.  Quite often we’ll stay at a Travelodge whilst attending a LARP event; rather than camping in the winter weather.

Sometimes (but not always) I receive an email from Travelodge after the visit, asking me to rate my experience.  Before this year – over the last few years – I’ve completed one or two.

This year I’ve been asked after each stay and unfortunately I’ve felt the need to actually voice complaint.

In February I stayed at the Wolverhampton Travelodge whilst visiting friends for the weekend.  My experience was atrocious.

Here’s what I had to say to them then.

This has got to be the single worst Travelodge I have ever had the displeasure to sleep in.  Neither my partner or I were able to sleep either night through a combination of the constant noise of traffic and drunken denizens of Wolverhampton and worry for the car.  The staff were also disinterested – not exactly unhelpful but certainly not helpful.

Don’t get me wrong, the staff were pleasant and polite enough, just unhelpful.

Let me share some of our experience with you.

After spotting the Travelodge on Wolverhampton ring road, we spent the next 30 minutes trying to find access to the Travelodge by car – the online information was next to useless and Sat Nav only takes you to the front door (which is not accessible by car).

On arrival we were harassed by a disgruntled patron who was unable to find himself a parking space in the meagre Travelodge carpark.  Finding ourself in the same position, the only positive thing i have to say about the small carpark is that we didn’t have to pay the extortionate parking fees it would have charged.

We back-tracked and found a space to park opposite Wolverhampton baths.  I was somewhat vexed by the sparkling array of safety glass fragments strewn across the pavement from previous attempts by the locals to break into cars parked there.

What choice did we have though? The other parking on Wolverhampton was closed.  If we had known the parking was this poor we would have paid extra for a Premier Inn.

Once we had cleared the valuable looking objects from view, we reached the Travelodge itself.  Eventually we convinced the bored voice over the tannoy that we had a room booked and were let in.

We mentioned the lack of parking to the lady on reception.  She asked where we had parked.

Our response illicited a look of horror and the response:

“You haven’t got any valuables on view have you?”.

No advice on where we should park, just a look of horror at the prospect of our future car-violation.

The room was an oven when we entered.  Other than the heat though, it was what we would expect from an older Travelodge.  I went to close the window to shut out the traffic noise but it was already closed.  We turned down the heat but the damage was done for night one, a combination of heat, noise and worry about the car kept my partner and I awake until it came time for us to leave for our Saturday with friends.

Saturday night we had to park in the same place, a space down from the collection of broken glass.  The room wasn’t as hot but the noise was the same - another night without sleep.

When we checked out I would have liked to say something to someone but there was nobody on reception – so I dropped my key cards into the allocated slot and went home.  The car was fine by the way but that didn’t stop us worrying.

I have to say that this was atypical of my experience of Travelodge, which is why I felt the need to be so verbose in my response.

I have never received a response, which is strange as I am sure that my first ever feedback was responded to… maybe I suffered from a little

TL:DR

That being said, my recent visit to a Travelodge in Burton was marred by a constant cloying massive miasma of marijuana.

So this time I’ve kept my feedback brief; I won’t hold my breath for a response.

Apports from the Front – or – Manna From Heaven

I have recently decided to downsize my corporeal establishment.

I have signed up to local weight loss initiatives, joined a gym and begun a steady reduction in all my unhealthy intakes.

My efforts won’t start in earnest until I get to the front of the waiting list for the Kirklees Weight Management programme but I am assured that I will reach the front of that list at some – as yet indeterminate – point in the future.

The programme runs for 12 weeks and my first goal is to lose 5% of my current weight… just under a stone.

Imagine my embarrassment then, when I admit that last night I planned on having a popular tinned pork/ham product for my evening repast… the “lite” version but still, not the healthiest of meal options.

On our last trip to the so-called “super” market, there was an offer on a well known brand of tinned pig product – I am avoiding naming the brand as it has damaging connotations when named in online communications.

Spooneristically, I was sucked into a two-for-one offer on tins of Lam Spite.

Last night, my partner was working late – an opportunity to revert to lazy catering choices and the Python promoted pork product was my intended route to idle eating.

It was dark when I returned home, as it usually is that late in the evening.

I fed the cats and provided them with entertainment for a while.

After coddling the cats, I set about looking for a tin of processed ham – and that’s where things get a little spooky.

I searched high and low for the tins of processed pork; every item purchased at Toryburies the day before was accounted for except for the two tins I was looking for.

I quickly reached an emotional decision point, a point at which I decided to not give into the seething torrent of rage that this kind of fruitless searching often leads me to.

I texted my partner to see if she could tell me if she had put them somewhere but my SMS messages would not send… still I refused to give into the rage,

There were other things to eat in the kitchen and the tins would turn up later… the threatening wall of rage subsides from my sub-psyche and I decide to have one last look.

I enter the kitchen, scanning the sideboards and heading to the furthest cupboard.

CLUNK

A sound from behind me and a dull vibration through the floorboards and up through my foot to my left ankle.

I turn and look down to find a solitary tin of porcine mash half an inch from my heel.

It could have fallen from my trouser leg or from the washing machine next to me but by all appearances had simply apported in my wake – like a reward for not giving into rage.

I must have simply not seen the tin teetering on the precipice, as it must have been.

Don’t get me wrong, I one hundred percent accept that paranormal experiences can and do happen but in this case I think I must have developed a blind spot for what I was searching for – it would not be the first time.

I also didn’t get any kind of sensation of weirdness - the “bad feeling” that often accompanies paranormal events. Just a slight vibration as the tin hit the floor behind me, seemingly from nowhere.

I still haven’t found the second tin but the first was as delicious as salty spiced pig cuts can be.

Hunting Arachne Gigans – Singing Spiders of Paris

WARNING – MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF SPIDER

A few years back I read an article in the Fortean Times that piqued my interest.

I’ve subscribed to FT for years, having been sucked into its pages by Mother at an early age.

Originally my interest in the magazine followed strictly supernatural or occult interests, leading me to shrug off trivial nonsensities such as UFOlogy or classic forteana.

That being said, I always had a passing interest in the articles on cryptozoology.

I love the idea of undiscovered species and forgotten creatures living under our noses.

From an outside perspective most cryptozoology seems to surround either Alien Big Cats (ABC), missing link hominids (like Bigfoot or the Yeti) or lake monsters like Nessie.

The article that piqued my interest centred around something that was both more and less fantastical – giant spiders.

I am in no way arachnophobic, I don’t particularly like picking up large house spiders but I will if I have to (you know, when encouraged by an arachnophobe).

The article touched on a couple of early twentieth century sightings of “giant” spiders (puppy sized), these were based on an article in the North American BioFortean Review (Volume 3, no. 2, issue 7 – on page 28).

What piqued my interest though, wasn’t the plausible existence of dog sized spiders (the largest pre-historic arachnid found in fossils had a body around 16 inches in length with legs around 20 inch in length – of course, scientists put this down to high oxygen levels in the atmosphere); what piqued my interest was the accompanying tale of a Parisian singing spider.

I have been searching the internet on and off for a few years now, looking for details of the story to either inspire one of my own writing or maybe to use as plot for a Live Roleplaying event; the other night had an epiphany.

I am a serial horder; if I can track down the issue of the Fortean Times that the article was in, I’m likely to find that very same magazine at home – or at the very least be able to order a back issue  and use that article to find out more information.

Sure enough, on page 49 of Fortean Times issue 242 the article stands for al to read; The Monster of Issoir.

The original article from the Ann Arbor Argus, September 14, 1894 can be read here, although I will give a brief synopsis.

The story told is wonderful; Poe like in its simplicity and utterly plausible for the era of its telling.

Set during La Belle Époque (the closest French equivalent I can find for our own Victorian era) the brief article describes an area of Paris known as the 14th Arondissement. – enchantingly referred to as The Tomb of Issoir.

People are said to have vanished over an unspecified period of time.  People of all adult age ranges and social standings have just disappeared around the end of March.  Only children appear to be free from the cause of these disappearances, although this is attributed to the late nocturnal occurrences of these disappearances.

After several years of these regular disappearances, the local Police Chief orders strict surveillance of the area and a close vigil is held by his best officers.

Around 3am (the best time for this kind of story) hears a distant musical song that seems to be coming from beneath the ground.  The melody seems to come from a hole in the ground, next to a large rock marking the alleged tomb of the mythical giant Issoire.

As he investigates this hitherto undiscovered crevice, the policeman spots a young man approaching, moving to the rhythm of the mysterious singing.

As he gets closer, this seemingly mesmerised young man picks up pace, eventually dashing towards the rock and plummeting into the crack in the ground.

Heroically the policeman follows, using his whistle and gun to signal his colleagues.

When his colleagues descend into the catacombs, following the policeman they find a grizzly sight indeed: the young man savaged by a spider with a body the size of fully grown terrier, devouring his face and throat.

The first policeman is somewhat injured by his fall but his colleagues shoot the giant spider to death in a hail of lead and green ichor.

The story wraps up with a note on the disposal of the giant arachnid corpse with the Museum of Natural History and its identity as Arachne Gigans – a Giant Spider.

I find this story fascinating on so many levels.

Firstly, the period it is set in; Victoriana seems all the rage at the moment, with the vibrant Steampunk of today replacing the maudlin Goth subculture of my youth.

This tale could very easily spring up in the France of Adèle Blanc-Sec or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

I remember reading the article for the first time back in 2008; I felt like Bram Stoker reading about Vlad Tepes for the first time.

Even the location of the story is Mythic; The Tomb of Issoire, now La Rue De La Tomb-Issoire, is said to be the burial place of a pre-Christianity Giant and Highwayman named Ysore, Isouard, Isoré, Isoire or Issoire.  The street is a main throroughfare in Paris but is also near to an entrance to the famous catacombs of Paris.

The alleged giant was said to waylay travellers on the route to Orleans.  Other legends say the giant was a Saracen leader who marched on Paris.

When the giant was slain (presumably be a proto-adventuring party looking for XP) the body could not be moved, so he was buried where he lay.  Other rumours state that he was just buried in the catacombs because they were convenient.

A large sculpture of Issoire hangs on the street now, marking the legend for all to see.

The catacombs have certainly been used as a kind of corpse archive since the 18th century and are now locked down from trespass with their own police force.

Just as much as the idea of hidden and undiscovered flora and fauna, I love the idea of catacombs, despite being far too big to illegally explore the Parisian catacombs.  There are catacomb legends local to me also, albeit all hope of investigation being void since the Thandi Partnership demolished and concreted  over the pub at Castle Hill.

It is very easy to see how a previously undiscovered crack in the ground could lead into a subterranean nightmare – but where did the tale of the spider come from?

Could there have actually been a mesmerising eight legged diva down there, singing for its supper?

Stephen King’s subterranean boogie man monster in IT turned out to be some kind of giant psychic spider (as far as I recall anyway, I’m no fan of King’s work and only vaguely remember the film).

King’s monster preyed on children though and the monster of Issoire is cited as keeping clear of infants.

There are Trickster figures in certain mythologies that are based on the spider; Anansi being the most famous of these, followed by the Iktomi of dream-catcher origins.

It may well be these that inspired King and maybe even the tale of the Monster of Issoire.

It’s possible that King was inspired by this very same story.

Whilst a Trickster figure can certainly be associated with mesmerism and the duping of victims, mesmerism in nature is usually associated with snakes rather than spiders.

Also, whilst there are insects that appear to sing or at least produce music, I’ve not found any evidence online of arachnids that do likewise.

I remain intrigued by the whole tale, it is certainly inspirational – a real nightmare for arachnophobes.

So where do I go from here?

To start, it would be nice to visit the area in question and maybe track down the Natural History Museum – if there is one – in Paris.

2012 (This Blog) In Review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

They have created this annual report for me every year, ever since I first started blogging with WordPress.com.

And so I share their report here… and this really is likely to be the last entry for 2012.

Happy New Year everybody, apologies to the trisdecaphobics for whom it’s going to be a terrible year.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 24,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 6 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Microsoft Surface RT – First Look

I’ve been in need of a tablet PC since my old Windows XP Netbook met with a sad demise years ago.

Well, not “need”… “lusted for” would be a better way of expressing it.

For years I’ve used a variety of HTC smartphones to meet my portable browsing, reading and gaming needs and during that time I’ve drooled over the ever more powerful tablets that have become available.

With the release of Windows 8 – a dreaded down-powering for the power user or techie – came the announcement of a new Windows 8 based tablet to accompany the Windows 8 phones… The Surface.

Working on rumour alone, a Windows 8 phone or tablet would let me control my XBOX with new SmartGlass technology and would do everything that any other branded tablet would let me do.

Except Flash, of course, and I’d be locked into Microsoft Apps instead of Google Apps or the maleficent iStore.

And so I decided I would get a Windows 8 device.

I quickly ruled out the Windows 8 phones available; except for the HTC 8 S the windows phones seemed to be far too expensive and couldn’t meet every requirement left by losing my GPS crippled HTC One X.  Google is still King (or at least Republican leader) of the smartphones.

That left the Microsoft Surface; the device I am writing this on right now.

The first barrier I had to overcome was price.

It is a common opinion that Apple overprice their iPad devices and this is reflected by the relative affordability of Android equivalents.

Microsoft seem to have flown in the face of this opinion and matched Apple for their pricing strategy; then again, so have Samsung with their Android offerings.

The second barrier was availability.

I can purchase almost every kind of smartphone or tablet through my employer but not the surface. Until a few weeks ago, the only place you could buy a Microsoft Surface was via the Microsoft website.

This frustrated me immensely; why would a seemingly astute corporate body shoot off its own digits by limiting retail availability of its latest venture?

Fear of failure maybe… or perhaps lessons were learnt from XBOX360′s release.

Mid-December the device was made available through a retailer called John Lewis; not a retailer I am familiar with as I reside in the impoverished North where you are more likely to find a Lidl than a Waitrose.

I decided to chance my arm and pay heed to the rumours arising from this and on Boxing Day tried our local Staples and Currys/PC World, both of whom were rumoured to be stocking the Surface.

Frustratingly enough, these two popular tech vendors were not stocking the device and didn’t think they would be able to until mid-January.

Lucky for me, John Lewis have a Buy & Collect service and so I ordered a Microsoft Surface and Touch Cover from them, opting to collect from Eastbourne’s Waitrose during my year end visit to family and friends on the South Coast.

Collection was relatively painless, requiring that I prove my identity by passport and pretend to be affluent enough to grace the store’s doors.

And so, last night I set the device up.

Neatly packaged and Spartan, the device was a breeze to get set up, although it required wireless access to the internet, easily provided by my satellite-deficient HTC.

Once sync’d with my Microsoft account I managed to have a good old root around before bed and have picked up again the morning.

Whilst the device lacks the tingling electric arousal of an iPad – in both handling and touch-screen usage – it does have a simple and elegant feel.

Sturdy and bright, the Surface’s 10.6″ screen is perfect for my browsing, reading and gaming needs.

The touch cover is wonderfully tactile, felt keys ever so slightly raised and yet super responsive to my touch.

The only downsides to the typing are that I occasionally tap something that takes the cursor out of the text window, or worse tap ‘n’ instead of space.

The apps are great but lacking; games connect via my XBOX Live account and allow me to increase my Gamerscore from the Surface.

I think the Surface needs a DropBox app along with apps to wrap up Facebook an Twitter – the built in People/Social app is great for reading social activity feeds but less so for responding to notifications.

I could also do with a handy Gmail app; I moved from Hotmail to Gmail years ago and frankly can’t see myself going back. The Google Search app is supposed to handle that for me, so that’s the next stop.

Still to evaluate are the battery life and SmartGlass functions but I won’t be able to write about those until 2013; this may be the last post of 2012.

Eschatology or e-Scatology

As I write this it’s 21/12/2012 12:02 (GMT) that’s a good 51 minutes after the most recently predicted Apocalypse – The 2012 Mayan Apocalypse.

The most striking thing about this little nugget of eschatology has been the social impact.

This time, more that any other, I have noticed widespread uptake of the prospective apocalypse by the people around me – both physically and virtually.

There have been many previously failed apocalypses.

Earlier in the year, Harold Camping apologised for the errors in his prediction of an early 2012 apocalypse and the media covered this quite well… but Camping’s eschatological FUBAR had nowhere near the impact that the Mayan prediction did.

Don’t let them immanentize the Eschaton!

Water cooler discussions, internet forums and social media sites have been buzzing with tales of the world ending this morning (at 06:11 EST)

Don’t get me wrong though, these aren’t true believers in a blind panic.  Pretty much every statement has held both light hearted derision combined with a healthy acceptance of the belief systems that others follow.

Maybe that’s a sign of the true Eschaton?

Maybe the world is ending and a new world, full of open minded, non-judgemental individuals is being born… or maybe I’m confusing eschatology with scatology.