My new bike

My beautiful wife and I went out at the weekend to buy her a bike (so she could come out cycling with me from time to time). Due to various posture and vertibrae problems, she plumped for a sit-up-and-beg type Raleigh road bike rather than the all-terrain type. After a day out on Sunday (to Broxbourne and back, quite an ambitious run for the first time out) she was beginning to regret the lack of suspension.

However, whilst we were in the shop (Highway Cycles in Ware - I wholeheartedly recommend it, particularly as I would always favour a local retailer rather that a big chain store, and also because the Harlow Halfords practically ignored us the whole time we were there) I spotted this Giant Terrago 2005 disc-brake model at a knock-down price and made moon eyes at the missus. Not being the major breadwinner of the family (at least until TV Cream Toys outsells Harry Potter), I ultimately decided that it wasn't something we could afford. Unbeknownst to me, Jo went back and bought it whilst I was riding her ladies' bike back home for her.

I just want to mention how bloody great it is. Already my average speed has gone up to 12mph (it's much lighter than my previous bike) and I am now planning long-haul trips into London, etc., to see if it will conk out before I do.

My old bike

As my diet progresses marvellously (I have managed to put on one kilo in weight since starting, although I am not adding that to my FitDay diary 'cos it might just be a result of my metabolism kick-starting and - hey - who says it's not muscle in any case?), I have managed to damage the saddle of my bike. This isn't too much of a problem as it is the one that came with the kit when it was delivered and I've never found it that comfortable. However, that means I need to do one more uncomfortable ride to the nearest bike shop and buy a new one. Which itself isn't bad, 'cos it means I'll end up doing nearly double my self-imposed requirement of cycling and my bum might feel better as a result.

I've managed to lose the photo I was going to use on the inside cover of the book. I've got this digital version but not the original, which is a shame as the clothes look hilarious (ahhh, do you remember the '70s?). I have a similar one of me banging a drum at an even earlier age which may have to do instead.

Finally, a question. As I won't be going to many fast food places over the next four months (at least, not until I get really drunk and blow the diet on a five-hot-wing blowout at Chicken Cottage in Seven Sisters), I'm wondering about a certain rule of etiquette re; the queueing there. I used to spend a lot of time waiting in KFC or Burger King, behind a line of people (usually there is a single line, even if there are two or more counter staff serving). There is an unwritten rule, as I understand it, that if there are people waiting in front of you, you do not duck sideways and go ahead of them just because another till is open. What you do is you politely alert the person in front that there is another server waiting to take their order, so they can go ahead. Don't you?

Apparently not. Twice in the last month whilst I have been patiently waiting for my Mini Fillets or Whopper Meal (honestly, how did I put on so much weight?), someone has entered the premises, ignored the waiting line and gone straight to the first empty till they saw. British reticence (and reluctance to get beaten up) usually means that no one says anything but grumbles quietly to themselves. However, both times I have said - as pointedly as possible - "Excuse me, there is a queue here. You need to wait in line." Both times, the person who has sneaked in front (and that is what they are, dirty, filthy sneaks) has confronted me and argued back, usually with something along the lines of "There's another queue here" (this, despite the fact that they are clearly the only people in that queue, have formed the queue unilaterally and have no one in front or behind them so the queue is only a queue in name alone). Both times I have said "No there isn't, mate, get to the back of the line", indicating with my thumb.

The result of this has usually been torrents of abuse from the party concerned and his/her friends (these queue-jumpers are clever and position themselves in as many queues as possible in order that whoever gets to the front of the line first can call over his or her other filthy, dirty sneak cheat friends and place an enormous order of burgers, fried chicken and diet drinks - indeed they often wait until there's a good four or five of them at the front before deciding even what they want to order, which always entertains the rest of the increasingly hungry and thus far patient punters). I have been called "wanker", "arsehole" and best of all "fat bastard" (hey, it's you who can't wait to get to the front and stuff your face with burgers, you drunken, pasty-faced fool), and accused by one extremely mardy North London trollop of "giving attitude".

Had it just happened the once, I might feel - quite smugly and self-righteously - that I was definitely not in the wrong and I am just unlucky enough to share queues (quite liberally) with drunken, impolite people. But 'cos it's happened twice, I need to know - am I imagining the unwritten rule of queueing conduct at fast food establishments? I appreciate it's often hard to tell what is a queue and what isn't in such places but surely asking people politely to join the queue shouldn't result in such violent reactions?

Or, is it as I suspect (given my reduced calorie intake of the past week) that hunger makes people more angry? It certainly seems to be unsettling my heavyweight championship opponent, Richard Herring. I note that he has been eating a lot of berries in his diet. I am wondering whether or not to consume some herring - perhaps this will reverse the obvious voodoo-spell he has cast on me which has caused him to shed two kilos and me to gain an additional one? I shall write some rules of engagement tomorrow and use of such black magic (the tricks, not the chocolate) will be forbidden.

A Tale Of Two Fatties

Having just returned from a week of full English breakfasts and clotted cream teas in Devon and Cornwall, I was horrified to learn that I am a full six kilos heavier than popular radio and TV (if your TV only picks up satellite channels about poker or programmes from the 1990s) comedian, Richard Herring.

Having met him, once, in 2001 (backstage at a weird Halloween party after his Christ On A Bike show, when I drunkenly told him I "just want to be your friend, Rich"), I'd always assumed that he was just that bit porkier than me. It seems that his undertaking of various Herculean tasks, marathon running, Edinburgh shows, stand up and writing in the interim (as opposed to my, well, erm... nothing) has led to him becoming not only increasingly more successful than me and, but also at the same time strangely less fat.

Thus, in an effort to prove that I can attain the status of "loser" in more than one sense of the word, I have registered with FitDay online in an attempt to beat Herring at his own game. You can (for the moment) follow both my and his dietary and exercise habits as we publicly battle it out to see who can lose more weight. Actually, the initial challenge I made was to become less heavy than him but he has a six kilo advantage over me from the start. However, this shall not daunt me.

I have two advantages over Herring. Firstly, he has over 1,000 people regularly reading his online blog (where I only have three) - thus he has more to prove. Think of it like Rocky IV with Herring in the super-fit Drago role and me, with little-to-no technology or support, as Balboa. Secondly, I have no career to speak of, whereas he has to spend long days in front of the computer writing scripts for his many TV and radio commissions. Thus, when I spend my entire day in front of the computer on my fat ass (as I invariably do), it's just a way of psyching myself up to lose weight. He has lots of things to distract him from this perilously obsessive task, I do not. All hail the empty life!

Herring has referenced this almighty battle on his blog already - and, in a callous attempt to throw me, said that my book is about '70s toys. Well, if you were hoping I'd get upset and run for comfort in a tube of Pringles, Herring, you are wrong. My book is about '80s toys too, so hah! One nil to the Berry.