I had a call from my clerk a while ago. “I see you’re running in the NY Marathon”.
“I am?”
“Your wife has booked the time free in your diary. Apparently you told her you would do it.”
“I raised it in the bloody abstract”.
It is one of P’s missions in life to keep an eye on my doughy middle-aged form and to intervene in the entirely subtle and diplomatic manner so favoured by George W Bush. I stumbled into the house with a vague intention of going for a run when a magazine left casually on the coffee table caught my eye:
I racked my brain. Had I bought it? It’s not my kind of thing but I do sometimes feel that senility may be quietly nibbling at the corner of my mental carpet. Then it dawned on me: P had bought it. So which of the many banner headlines was aimed at me?
It’s possible she just thought I would be interested in the Mourinho article. Or was she anxious I should “smell sexy” or, more disturbingly, “master the quickie”. “More sex less begging” rang a bell – wasn’t that one of my New Year’s Resolutions? But did she really think that I was going to develop rock hard abs?
As I leafed through page after page of gel haired 20 year olds with polished pecs and shaven nipples misery fell upon me.  I longed to be outside a pub with my fellow balding weebles; our centres of gravity merely inches above our shoelaces. Why can’t someone publish “Indolent Fat Fuck’s Monthly”? I’d subscribe. P came through the door and I challenged her. “Oh it had been bought for the jury at Portsmouth Crown Court and the usher was throwing it out.”
“Yes but what are you trying to tell me woman?”
“That Jason Statham is gorgeous … can I have it back now please”?
