To many of my readers I am sure that I have given you the impression that I am a lazy, good for nothing old writer of nonsense who slumbers away most of his day on his old rickety sofa. Then finishes the spectacular lack of any physical activity during the day by drinking beer and wine every evening until standing up is an impossibility.

Well in fact a lot of this is perfectly true. I have never been one for putting too many miles on a car as I believe it will last longer. Also in the same vein, a little regular lubrication will certainly give better performance in the long run.

However, shock, awe and very early mornings have made a very sudden and almost sea change appearance in my daily routine. I now walk! And not just a few steps from the sofa to the refrigerator, but outside, from point A to point B with quite a few miles in between. Then later from point C to point D and more miles. And get this. Then in the evening I do point E to point F! Roads, parks, gardens, forests and woods. Streams, lakes, rivers and ponds.

Then there is the unbelievable. Waking very early on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Eager for a walk and a run. If you have read this far you will know that this news is absolutely cataclysmic. It would be easier to believe in the Tooth Fairy.

The sudden change in my routine is of course my new L’il Pup. The cutest little guy who just loves a run and a swim and chewing on anything at all. With his little nose to the ground he is off, leading me on to the next extremely interesting twig or pebble. Or possibly a futile yet very energetic run after some tasty looking birds. Sometimes he allows me a rest while he ‘reads the news’ left by some of his friends but he is a fast reader so I don’t get much of a break.

Then when it is time to head for home, his little nose picks up the scent and we are off at great speed as he skilfully retraces his path back to his food bowl. Back home, we both puff and pant for a while and quench our thirsts. His with water and mine with beer of course. Well, you didn’t expect my world to tip completely upside down, did you?

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I couldn’t believe my luck when I read this story about Barack Obama. Fancy having the most powerful man in the world on my side for a change. Alas I am not an American so I really will not have the opportunity to lobby him to bring smoking back to restaurants and bars, but it still gives me optimism that the world has not yet been totally purified and sanitised.

The other point that came to mind when I read the article was that I now understood (but only a little) the debate about health care reforms in the US. I must admit, being from Europe, it had not made much sense to me. Until now. Good old Barack is wielding his power for that other minority voting block. Smokers! What a coup for his re-election campaign. I bet the Republicans will be spewing in their soup, as they will now have to play political catch up.

All I need to read now is that Mr Kool (or is he Mr Camel or Mr Marlboro?), drinks beer! But there was no mention about ‘Bud’ in the article. Rather unfortunate, or perhaps it was just an oversight.








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We had the experience recently of having someone stay with us for a few months. All was nice, no problems, had a wonderful time and enjoyed the company. Now we have some great memories of the time and of course a bundle of photos to prove it.

The only issue that raised its head was that of food. If you have read my blog for a while, you will know that my wife and I live in the French part of Switzerland. Our guest came from the so called 51st state. Australia. In food terms this is so very true. Australia like the US is fast food, frozen food, microwave and away food and certainly nothing sold or served with the head still on!

So our first scream of fright came when I asked if fish was ok. Yes was the answer. Until, “Eeeek! Its mouth is open! I can see its teeth! Its looking at me! Oh I just can’t!

I tried explaining that the meat at the back of the head and in the cheeks is considered the best. To no avail. I did the only thing I could do. I went to the kitchen, decapitated the beautifully fried creature, and snuck the extra head onto my plate.

A trip to the market had our guest close to nausea as my wife selected a chicken for dinner. Well, of course the head and feet were still on and the fowl needed to be gutted by the vendor. That’s how we get all the prized pieces for making the sauce. It’s obvious really.

“Why do you wash your lettuce and tomatoes?”
“To get the sand off!”
“Sand? Why don’t you buy it washed and in plastic?”
“Sorry?”

You can see that we were having a time of it. No need to go into the stories about the rabbit, the horse steaks or the snails.

“Why is all your food here, so, so...so real!”

This explained everything. Real food is becoming a turn off. No one wants to know that it really had to be killed. Animal or vegetable. Big guilt trip. It is better to just believe that the food you eat, magically grew inside a plastic bag in a freezer.

In my view, I am certainly much happier to buy and eat food I know is fresh. I can look at the clear eyes of a fish and tell that it is fresh. A chicken, rabbit or steak prepared or cut in front of me allows me to know exactly what I am getting. I can see both sides for a start. Equally with fruit and vegetables. I want potatoes with the clay still on. They keep fresher longer. I want to see a few small insects in my lettuce. Proves it has not been sprayed with toxins.

Our guest has left and returned to the world of ‘unreal’ food. And we are still here, enjoying our ‘real’ food and our luck in being able to buy it. Heads and all!

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My blog entry, I Don’t Wanna Die Your Way, caused some people to comment on my hostile ravings about my attitudes towards my health. I have received some via Twitter and other sites where my blog is syndicated. However, I have received one particularly long comment, giving me very particular advice. I would like to share Serendipity Jane’s thoughts with you. And of course, my response.



Dear Derek,

Health is a choice! Your doctors do not tell you this: You're paying their life-insurance, vacation, big cars, villas, swimming pools, retirement. What have they  done for you, lately? No, no, no, don't dare changing their pension plans! They count on your money!
Fuel their enthusiasm! Add a few aches and pains! In your life time, who can make a real difference for YOU?

Everything you choose is entirely up to what "free" will is dictating you to do. Yes, free will (or what you perceive it to be) is a dictator! You're only its loyal servant!! If you believe in the illusion of freedom, believe also in the counter-truth of imprisonment to limiting beliefs. So many frogs will happily boil in their own pond water and die because they do not want to change; although they KNOW the risks they are taking and the definite consequences their often deadly choices bring. When they are as young as you are, they still think they can defy gravity, reverse time. Although they choose all these things based on what they have believed to be their "own" choices, they know also that their subconscious mind is driving them with what they were conditioned to believe; and it's driving them insane. So, what is free will?

If health advice does not make you happy, we seriously need to talk, Derek! You Derek, YOU ARE the most selfish man in the world if you do not choose health! All these people who love you want you around in good health as long as possible, so don't spoil it for them, DO YOUR PART! Life is what you make of it! But again, who am I to pull your ears and say "Be healthy!" when you indeed really just want to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

Not sure I can help you with that objective and equally I'm not certain as to the influence you have on your connections to the distributor of after-life. Let's think positive, will we!
Perhaps your dream will come true and you'll come back as a monkey...  long live the banana fetish!

I'm a true believer that life is best lived alive.

It's not too late to change, Derek!

Serendipitously,

Serendipity Jane

(Hope this was acerbic enough for your taste ;-))



Dear Serendipity Jane,

Firstly, with regards to acerbic, I really think a little more effort could have been made to personalise your attack on me. I really think you held back. I agree wholeheartedly that I am the most selfish man in the world. That’s because I am a man. This is what men do. Especially with regards to health. We all hide behind our bravado as protection against anything to do with health. Especially doctors, syringes, pain and concepts of mortality.

Now I’m not a masochist, so being hanged, drawn and quartered is not on my list of fun things to do this weekend, but I do want to live my life doing what I want to do. And that will certainly not include un-fun things like running 5 miles a day, drinking vegetable juice or eating lentils. No, I’m going to have laziness, beer and sausages. Because these make me happy.

I sense that my living a long time is a goal. As my dental hygienist always says, “I want you the have perfect teeth when you’re ninety.” My response is always the same. “My teeth will need to come and see you by themselves. Because I’ll probably be long dead by then!”

I totally agree that life should be lived alive. But only while it’s enjoyable. So it would seem that your request for me to change will fall on my selectively deaf male ears.

But it is nice to know someone cares.

By the way. Did you know that if you kiss a frog, you have an outside chance of creating a prince? Especially one boiling in his own pond I would reckon.

Idiotically,

Derek

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No matter how hard I try, I cannot avoid health advice. Well, I expect it from my doctor, otherwise he would be out of work. It bombards me daily from all angles. Television, radio, newspapers, spam emails, Facebook, Twitter, friends, relatives and total strangers at bus stops. So I would like to make it abundantly clear, once and for all. I do not want to die in absolute perfect health. So stop it!

When I die, I want to wake up the next morning and know exactly why I died. Not just from healthy old age, but for a non negotiable, tangible and attention seeking reason. It would be great if I could emulate a few of my bygone heros and fall off my perch in a place crash, drug overdose or motorcycle accident. These might be a bit hard as I can’t afford to fly, don’t know where to buy LSD these days and I am scared of motorcycles.

Regardless of this, there are of course classics like alcohol poisoning, drowning in a friend’s swimming pool at three am or being shot by a fan. (This last one really might be stretching my hopes a bit.) I would however try an avoid choking on a ham sandwich. It didn’t really give Mama Cass the afterlife fame she deserved.

Then there is just the plain old friends, Nick O. Tine and Al K. Hole. These guys really did it for Dean Martin and the rest of the Rat Pack. Sent them off with eternal fame. Well, except for Peter what’s his name? Oh please bring back movies and television shows where everyone who is anyone is black and white and dragging emotionally on a filterless Marlboro or Camel and sipping whiskey while they mime their one and only hit.

Ordinary unhealthy diet regimes are also top of my list. Along with extremely moderate, if hardly ever at all, exercise. Plus my daily requirement of fat and grease topped of with anything sweet an gooey. I’m having a whale of a time with this and can only hope for a King type collapse in the bathroom.

I am careful not to use yellow or white pedestrian crossings though. I read recently that eighty-five percent of pedestrians are killed on those damn things. So I cross well away from them. What? Do you think I have a death wish?

So in conclusion I would just like to say if you have any notion of helping me live to a ripe old boring age you can shove your health advice firmly and squarely back from where it emanated and leave me be.

I wanna do this thing my way!

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Since I started my new career as an Author, Songwriter, Poet and Idiot and being never too old to rock and roll and vandalise words and music, I have noticed that I spend a lot of time alone. Now this is good in a lot of respects. I need time to think, concentrate, imagine, create and generally be as lazy as possible. With no one around most of the time to tell me to get off the sofa and get some exercise, I don’t.

At least in summer I sit on café terraces and watch the world go by. Walking from one terrace to another is good exercise I think. But as it is winter now, I prefer to keep warm and watch the world freeze from the comfort of my closed windows.

This got me to thinking about something, again. Pets.

I started with the thought that a cat might be a good idea. Something to say hello to and be completely ignored by. Something to pat, until it scratches you, to indicate its had enough and is perfectly content. Something to put food into, and then collect it back in a nice smelly plastic kitty litter box. Something to get under my feet and annoy me while I’m washing the dishes. Sounded great! However, I live on the top of very tall building, and as far as balconies and cats go, it didn’t sound like a good match for a long and healthy free from falling to one’s death kind of cat life. I wasn’t all that keen on a smelly kitty litter box anyway.

Of course I love dogs. That would have to have been my first choice. A nice big dog with real big dog attitude. A friend who would react to my affection by returning it in spades. A true companion to talk to and not be bothered by their problems. Dogs are renowned listeners. A dog would be really useful in cutting down on wasted food and leftovers. Keep the place safe when I wasn’t there. Would need a walk five times a day in the freezing cold ice and snow. Whoa, hold on a minute. That really doesn’t sound like my idea of fun. Summer, spring and autumn are ok, but freezing myself to death five times a day for half and hour or more sound a little masochistic for me. Man’s best friend or not.

So, then there were fish, canaries, rabbits, lizards, crabs and snakes. None of these took my fancy at all. Not enough animation for me. I had a passing notion that a chicken might be a good idea. You know chickens are very smart, loyal and affectionate. Plus you get an egg or two. They tend to be difficult to house train though. But on the other hand, they are very practical pets for someone who goes on holidays. Just chuck ‘em in the freezer and your dinner is nearly ready when you get back home.

Well, back to the drawing board on this pet and healthy exercise idea I think.

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Yes, I know all about an unhealthy lifestyle. I should. So far, my whole life has been totally devoted to it. Every single day, I do my best to ensure that I will not die in excellent health. Unlike some, who suffer a life of misery and lettuce leaves, just to compete with me in the existence race. To me it’s not about winning an extra day, week or year or two. It’s about having fun and then dying for a very good reason.

As a young boy, my mother would send me out into the blazing Australian sunshine in plus one hundred degrees, covered in suntan oil (aka olive oil) for a few hours so I would get some colour. Without this determination on my mother’s part, my dermatologist and I would not be such good friends now. He likes me. Probably because I’m good for business, but I think he likes me all the same. I have my next appointment with his scalpel next month in fact.

From this humble start of being baked into a guaranteed cancerous skin future, diet became the next hurdle to clear. Mutton. If you haven’t heard this word in a while, it’s probably a good thing. Mutton is a very old lamb. Well, old sheep in fact. The meat is fatty and smelly, and when cooked in a stew it is chock-o-block full of high octane cholesterol, fat and grease. Just add vegetables that have had every vitamin boiled out of them over the course of an afternoon, and you’re on your way to a nutritionist’s nightmare.

Once out of my mother’s impassioned care, I independently added the necessary alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, pesticides, poisons, fat, sugar, salt and adopted the mandatory couch potato exercise routine to carry on her good work.

So where do I stand now? Well, apart from a few small scars where my dermatologist has been playing with his scalpel, not too bad. I have survived the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s 80’s 90’s and into the 00’s now. Avoiding all medical, scientific and news worthy health warnings along the way. And quite remarkably, I am still very much alive.

Getting to an age now where doctor’s appointments, medical procedures, heart pills and medical tests occupy a great deal of conversation time amongst my friends and myself, I have noticed something. My health freaking, non-smoking, non-drinking, no caffeine I won’t sleep and I run everyday friends are doing no better than me. They are all getting on, and suffering the effects of age. Three score and ten I say.

Doesn’t matter what you do, you’re not going to live much past your pre-destined use by date.

Cough, cough, splutter, splutter, wease, wease, ache, ache, creak, creak, ha, ha, having fun!

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Have you ever noticed that you just can't go to a doctor once. Maybe they're like peanuts!. Even if you are feeling fit and well, and haven't had the need of a doctor's services for 5 years, they will always find a reason for a return visit.

I made this fatal mistake a couple of years ago. Just a little check up to put my mind at rest from the trauma of turning fifty. So guess what? I think one or two more visits and we will be on a first name basis.

But there is a bright side. Apart from the increased health insurance premiums and non-covered ancillary costs that always seem to change every time I look at my policy. (This DOES prove that insurance companies can actually travel through time and change what you thought you signed and agreed to two years earlier, but that is a digression and a subject for another day.) The real bright side is that I now have the reassurance of knowing exactly what I don't have. No progress on what I do have, but that seems to be for another day also.

I was so excited today to find out that I really don't have bone cancer, leukemia, pancreas cancer or liver disease. All this wonderful reassurance came about because I had a sore rib after vacuuming the car, and my doctor was very thorough.

Well, you may not be as excited as me about this news, but is does give me confidence that I will enjoy my beers tonight without guilt about its affect on my liver.

A clean bill of drinking health for a few more years yet. Oh, I'm so excited!

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