Healthy Eating

www.paulcoia.com

As I sit here, bloated from the massacre of chocolate Easter bunnies and tired from undoing my trousers to let my expanding gut out to meet the neighbours, I’m reflecting on the fact that we live in health obsessed times.

I quite like living in this millennium because unlike when rickets, scurvy and the workhouse meant you were dead before your father had hitched up his baggy pants and returned with his flat cap from the fields, we will all live now to be one hundred and eighty, have skin that glows like a saint’s halo and our regular visitor, Mr Constipation, will be so yesterday. At least that’s if the diet devils are right.

No one can escape the all pervasive advice on what’s good and bad for health just now, and it’s made communal meals a nightmare. Host a dinner party and one friend will be avoiding red meat while another will be going cold turkey on starch – that’s cold, organic and corn fed, turkey of course. A further mate will want low carbs whilst yet another will be on some diet that means they can only eat buffalo that grazed on a west facing slope and must be washed down with Holy water bottled by Evian at Lourdes.

These supposedly good food days have spawned the likes of Gillian McKeith, the woman who definitely isn’t a doctor but is allowed to poke around on TV in other people’s poo. Funnily enough, when her name comes up I always think of back passages as I’d love to lure her to a dark one and send in the boys to sort her out. I can’t decide whether she really does get people to live longer or it just seems long because of her being so relentlessly annoying. Don’t you just want to smack her chops with a sackload of organic peaches, preferably still in the tins?

Even the less ghastly health witches in her coven make me feel life’s not worth the effort.

This week I read one of them giving some advice for how to tackle Athlete’s Foot. She wrote in a national newspaper, The Daily Mail since you ask, that we should crush cloves of garlic, smear them between our toes, and then wrap our foot in a cloth before going to bed. Now just stop for a moment and think about this. Can you imagine the smell or the comments from your bedmate? It would be a great form of contraception but just picture the dreams you’d have as giant Italian sausages, dressed as Dracula, chased you through town. Unless you work in a pizzeria might the pong hovering around you next day cause problems much worse than Athlete’s Foot? Perhaps it would clear a seat or three on the train to work, but what a completely useless, impractical, idea.

Another guy I interviewed on radio, after asking me to move our chairs closer to the window to let in good vibes, demanded to know what medical problems I had, saying he was going to use his powers of ancient herbal remedies to cure me. Despite knowing better and realising these happy clappy, dippy, hippies are a con, I mentioned my sinuses and, of course, he said he had already guessed that was the problem. His internet bought certificate presumably boasted a degree in Herbology, Feng Shui and Mind Reading.

He decided that my cure was contained in a jar of supermarket beetroot juice. I wasn’t to drink this red vinegar but, rather, gargle with it and instead of spitting the stuff out, I should expel it by forcing the gunk down my nose. Stupidly I tried and it not only blew my few brain cells to smithereens but for weeks I had a red tip to my nose that looked like I was on a permanent bender.

If you think it’s difficult to set yourself up as a health and fitness expert, think again because the papers can’t get enough of this rubbish. One of them printed this week the following tip. “When mixing ingredients in the kitchen, don’t use an electric blender but do it manually. This will use four calories per minute and give your wrist muscles a workout.” When I read that, I wanted to find the writer and give my wrist muscles a workout by making a well known gesture right under his nose.

But this modern day witch doctor stuff continues to gain momentum and take hold. My well meaning pal at the gym has been studying food intake and allergies and despairs at my belief that good food went down hill after school dinners. He reckons we are all either Protein or Carbohydrate people. Find out which type you are, he says, then stick to your food type and you’ll live forever, fly like Superman and all your kids will become beautiful millionaires.

I filled in his exhaustive questionnaire only to find I’m exactly half way between the two types. The last thing these people want is to be stuck without an answer so, after admitting he’d not come across this before and, after careful examination of his books, he advised that I should only eat porridge - for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So, if you’re thinking of inviting him and me over for dinner, don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Mind you, invite me on my own and I’ll eat any old shit you serve up. Unless, of course, Gillian McKeith’s been poking around in it first.

Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Mel

www.paulcoia.com


I had a dream last night about Mel Gibson.

Now this wouldn’t normally be noteworthy as we would be just racing round the streets with our feet up on the Chevvy dashboard, sorting out the baddies and admiring each other’s haircuts. As heroes we would tend not to notice the impossibility of the car accelerating round corners while both of us had our feet up on the front window.

I’ve met Gibson before and he seems a good bloke in a not very tall guy kind of way, but in my dream he was standing on stage in a tuxedo and towering over me. He was announcing on TV “And the Award for the best Award awarded at an Awards show goes to………..”.

I woke up in a sweat, relieved to find, firstly that I hadn’t shrunk, and secondly that the awards season seems to be over for another year. With the Empire Film Awards last week following the Oscars, The Grammys, Baftas ,The Brits, Golden Globes, Emmys and all the others, the beginning of the year seems like one prize giving day after another. I’m the only person I know who hasn’t won anything, although I still have hopes for the Scots Italian Paul of the Year Awards.

I thought The Brits were the most entertaining of the ceremonies, hosted by Sharon and her litter of Osbornes in such a hopeless, bad audition, style way that it was addictive. Ozzie, who is the Prince of Darkness and the King of Confusion, was given just six words to say all night - “Ladies and Gentlemen, Sir Paul McCartney” – and he even got that wrong, saying them at the wrong moment and getting stopped half way through. Now that takes some doing.

But at least the speeches didn’t go on too long. Gwyneth Paltrow started it at the Oscars a few years ago by thanking everyone in the Chinese Yellow Pages – or are they known as White Pages over there? – and then bursting in to tears. Now, to quote the spam emails I get, length wins every time. Last month, when I hosted a ceremony for those working behind the scenes in cinema, one acceptance speech went on so long I thought I would miss the plane – for my summer holidays next August.

Awards ceremonies, of course, should recognise achievement, but looking at the Royal Television Society Awards and The Radio Industry Awards of this week I noticed newscasters John Suchet and Fiona Bruce receiving trophies for reading the news on TV. Now I’m sure they’re both top people who buy The Big Issue, chant for peace and spend weekends giving swimming lessons to endangered polar bears, but come on! An award for reading out loud? My ten year old daughter just gets a gold star.

I think my favourite award ceremony of the past few weeks has to be the Photo Marketing Association of America who held their function in Florida to celebrate all that’s good about American photography and, after careful consideration, gave one of their top prizes to a Photo Kiosk!!! Yep, the winner was an inanimate booth made of steel and plywood that sits in a shopping mall. As I wasn’t invited along I don’t know if the booth got up on stage and thanked the carpenter who made her what she is today, but I hope she found space to complain about the number of people who have entered her over the past twelve months.

I must here admit to my shame that I’ve compered my fair share of these awards ceremonies, some good, some laughable, and I think the silliest award ceremony I’ve ever hosted was for The Most Comfortable Shoes of the Year, sponsored I seem to remember by Odour Eaters. To watch winner after winner thank buckle makers, machinists and shoelace manufacturers was sole (cheap gag) destroying.

Later, at the charity auction, I tried to raise money with a pair of boots worn by England’s centre forward who had played badly in that week’s international soccer game. I opened with “as worn by Gary Lineker, so almost unused.” It was met with stony silence.

And that’s the problem at these ceremonies as humour tends to be in short supply, especially after a few drinks. Those who win get drunk and those who are unsuccessful fix a grin, seethe underneath and then go home and stick photos of the winners on their kids’ dolls and push pins in.

But who needs a trophy anyway? When you’ve been given your award there’s always the problem of what to do with it. If you modestly put it in your toilet out of the way, visitors think you’re deliberately playing it down in a show off way. And if you put it away in a drawer then what’s the point of having it?

So, when I get awards, I proudly show them off in my display cabinet at home for all to see. If you want to come round to look at my First Communion medal, my Scouts Skills badge or my Highly Recommended pennant from the Glasgow Under Tens Elocution Festival, you are more than welcome.

Just don’t tell Mel about the Scouts badge. Heroes don’t do cookery.

Here Comes The Mirror Man

www.paulcoia.com

I often end up talking to myself and even though the company’s boring I always win any arguments. I don’t do this just because no one else wants to talk to me - well most of the time anyway - but I caught myself at it again this morning whilst looking in the mirror.

Now it would be pointless for me to get in to a bragging contest about my problems being greater than yours but, whatever your worries, at least you don’t have to see my reflection first thing in the morning. I have one of those faces that look fine in real life but wonky in the mirror, what maths teachers would call unsymmetrical but I like to call Shrek like as I always wanted to look like a movie star.

I did think that my Hollywood looks were getting the recognition they deserve on Wednesday when I took a window seat in Marble Arch and sat with a sandwich. The sandwich wasn’t a great conversationalist so I ate it and noticed a girl looking at me through the window and smiling.

Another two girls did the same and my ego started to inflate but was soon punctured as a hairy builder in a safety vest followed suit. I then realised that the window was tinted, acting as a mirror outside, and they’d been admiring themselves instead of me. Serves me right, but apart from rare occasions like this I’m no vainer than anyone else who looks at their reflection fifty times an hour. On Wednesday, however, I admit I went to see a plastic surgeon.

Before you make assumptions, this has nothing to do with my generous nose which made me hide away in my teens as it grew and now ensures my shoes never get wet in the rain. Nor was it to fix my ears which seem to be getting bigger each day and now receive Freeview and a couple of dodgy German porn channels. If we meet and my ears suddenly prick up you’ll know why.

But I did go for plastic surgery this week and the result of my visit has been a bit problematic as inwardly I still feel like James Bond but outwardly I look as if Oddjob walked all over my face wearing stiletto heels. Each time I look in the mirror at my face full of sticking plasters my wife tells me there aren’t enough of them as she can still just about see me. I think she secretly hopes that when the plasters come off, just like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man, I’ll disappear.

I’ve been stared at in the street and pointed at on tube trains, and to everyone who’s asked I’ve simply said, very quietly, “Face Lift!” That soon shut them up.

The truth is much more mundane of course as I simply had moles removed. Three of them have been sitting on my face since I was little so it was like seeing much loved family pets getting put down. I don’t know what I was expecting but the treatment was as painless and straightforward as life threatening, emergency, surgery can be. Unfortunately they didn’t remove my exaggeration gland at the same time.

I had sat in the waiting room with all sorts of people, some normal others barking mad, and there was the expected sprinkling of lilo lipped Wimbledon Wives dropping by for a bit of plumping, whilst the Botox fairy had obviously been drunk when visiting some. I spoke to a poor soul who was there for his first consult and had eye bags so large even British Airways couldn’t lose them. God help his patients!

Then, after ten minutes, I was shown in to a small room and asked to lay down on the bed. The surgeon, a nice straight talking South African named Fleming, arrived soon after. “Take off your shirt Mr Coia, we don’t want blood all over it and ruining the pattern.” What?

Blood? I hadn’t thought of that. This was starting to get serious. I imagined he’d have a magic rubber which would just erase the moles, but here he was getting scalpels ready. I noticed a crack on the wall above my head. “What about your ceiling?” I asked to change the subject. “Don’t worry”, he said, “it won’t spurt that high unless I make a real mess of it”. I think he was kidding.

After a few minutes with a marker pen, he gave me some local anaesthetic and then proceeded to scrape away. It was over in a few minutes, job done and patient survived, although patient nearly fainted when he was shown the removed moles. I don’t know what I was expecting but these things looked like large M&Ms and I’ll never eat another one again - that’s the M&Ms I mean, not the moles.

I left with instructions on how to change my plasters and smear stuff made from seaweed on my skin which speeds up the healing. So I’m fine till the tide goes out.

The reason I had the moles removed is that they were getting bigger every week and were headed for meeting somewhere around my chin leaving me looking like a chocolate button. So I like to think there were valid, medical, reasons for my visit to the surgeon rather than just my vanity.

But hang on. Writing about it in a blog? Now that really is vain. I must discuss this further. Just me and my mirror.

God Save Our Anthem

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I am not one to jump to conclusions and brand people as stereotypes, but I do make exceptions now and again. I firmly believe, in my caring, non judgemental way, that anyone who rings a TV or radio station to complain is a sad, lonely wallflower who is hated by their neighbours, has too many cats, probably owns a shopping bag on wheels and eats out of Tupperware on park benches.

I read this week that the Colonel and Mrs Angry brigade have picked up their telephones and complained to the BBC about wall to wall coverage of this season’s Six Nations rugby. This, of course, is what happens when the older technophobe generation can’t let off steam by writing a blog each week.

The nub of the complaint is that the Home Counties homeys feel Saturday afternoon TV should be sport free and filled with old black and white movies, although personally I’d rather eat slug pellets off a sweaty wrestler’s bum than watch Bette Davis do her eyebrow acting for ninety minutes.

However, at the risk of sounding as if Mr Tupperware is my best friend, I want to make a complaint too. Even if you hate rugby you’ll recognise my feelings here as my issue is that my team, Scotland, are so bad we couldn’t win a match if the other team were blindfolded and drugged, then bound hand and foot with barbed wire and allowed to play only one half. We are so woeful our players couldn’t find the line if it was made of coke and there was a police sniffer dog strapped to each player.

It’s become so bad I’m thinking of changing nationality. Not to English you understand – after all, I’m annoyed rather than mentally unstable. No, I’m thinking of becoming a Kiwi. A bit of a thigh slapping dance before the match, stick your tongues out at the opposition, grind their faces in your tattoos then home to wander the mountains with Master Frodo. Sorted.

But until my nationality application is heard I’m left wondering why we, the Scots, are so awful at sport. Our football team didn’t qualify, again, for the European Championships this year and it’s a given that we have no tactics, skill, speed, communication, flair or inventiveness. But other than that we’re fine.

I think, however, I’ve identified a reason for our disasters that the commentators have missed. It’s not just the strips which look like my ten year old daughter put them together from off cuts in her dressing up box. I think the real reason we’re losing every game is that we have such a boring, useless, uninspiring national anthem. At the risk of sounding treasonable, it’s time to say The Flower of Scotland is pants. If it’s a flower then it’s a pansy!

As Scottish fans singing God Save The Queen seemed more and more stupid with our resurgence of national identity, we turned a few years ago to a folk song from The Corries about sending the English home again to “think again”. Which is fine when you’re winning, but when you can’t even send the Lichtenstein Over Sixties Ballroom reserves back with a few things to think about then it’s empty posturing. Add to that the sight of Ronnie Brown of The Corries singing it before matches with his ad libbing of “Come On” every few lines and you expect he’ll soon throw in “Get In There”, “You Beauty” and “The referee’s a Hun”. You can see why we’re a laughing stock.

To listen to the Welsh anthem is to be moved to tears by passion and pride. The Italian one seems to me to have the right dose of military sounding noise and the French one might sound like an old Beatles song but is stirring and unassailable.

Because of religious issues over a united North and South team, the Irish get two anthems. One is the traditional one that is even available as a download sung by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers (how cool is that?) and the other is the result of a competition won by Phil Coulter, the man who wrote Shang A Lang and Puppet On A String. Now that’s class.

Billy Connolly pointed out that the English anthem was a dirge and should be replaced by the theme from The Archers and even Lord Goldsmith announced two months ago that God Save The Queen needs updating for a modern, integrated society – perhaps to the catchy God/Allah/Jehovah Save The Queen (Whoever He Is).

I reckon that if Ireland can choose their anthem with a contest then so can we. Let’s have a national X Factor style show to write new anthems for Scotland and England. We’ll get hold of some talented song writers and ask them to write something inspiring we can all sing with pride. Terry Wogan should act as host and we’ll have the English ones sung by folkies in pullovers and the Scots ones by The Proclaimers in kilts. Then we’ll throw it open to a telephone vote.

The passion of the Welsh anthem and the ferocity of the New Zealand Haka must be worth ten points as the opposition get scared even before kick off so, whichever song wins for Scotland, we have to have the fear factor too.

Perhaps we could get Ronnie Brown to sing in tune. It may not scare anyone but at least it would confuse them.