This is a true story

This is a true story but some of the characters and locations have been changed to protect the guilty...

It first dawned on me that I had overdone it when I started getting out of breath playing Mousetrap with my three year old son. Starting with the Bathavonton Tiddlers night out just two and a half weeks ago - at 2am after a lot of cider and tequila, I swear I was the best dancer in the club - and finishing with a the last of the Quality Street in front of the Test Match last night, it has been yet another Saturnalian festival of over-indulgence in the Gillings household. Who would have believed so much ham and clotted cream could be squeezed into a standard British fridge? Who'd have believed that clotted cream would taste so good with turkey curry on a bed of Black Forest Gateau? 

When I say Gillings household, I mean just me. My family - damn their accusing moderation have an unnerving habit of saying "no more for me, thank you very much." "Just eat a little of what you want when you are hungry", says my lithe wife. What sort of attitude is that? I want it all! It's a boom and crash philosophy of life. Peaks and troughs. Feasts and fasts. My general plan is to eat and drink whatever I like and always more than is strictly necessary, avoid the bathroom scales at all costs and assume that lifting mince pies to my mouth burns a surprisingly large amount of calories. The most important aspect of the strategy is to ignore any unpleasant side effects until they are absolutely unavoidable. Over many years this plan has been consistently ineffective. However, in the glow of medium term second helpings it feels worthwhile to keep taking the risk. 

You see, I am not totally stupid. I realise that I there is a faint chance that I will have to pay for my excesses at some point in the future, but why not enjoy myself for as long as possible? The most important thing is to ensure I get more than everyone else while the going is good. Responsibility? Well, that's for the other chumps. The strategy always seems to work much longer than any sane person would reasonably expect. This binge, however, even by my own standards got out of hand. By New Years Day I would expect our food credit at the Bank of Liebherr to be running low and my culinary desires to be tempered by a gnawing realisation that my health might be at stake.

For once, New Years Eve did not result in a temporary conversion to moderation in all things. The usual regulatory controls had broken down. Instead, lacking the expected hang-over, 1st January 2011 saw the start of a second 'Battle of the Bulge' with an Ardennes pate offensive over-coming the defences of home-made trifle and a luxurious French chicken dish. My belt, an effective alarm - usually moves from being a practical to merely ornamental object by Boxing Day and with each notch it becomes a slightly uncomfortable challenge to my vanity. This year my continued gluttony turned my belt into a life threatening tourniquet. 

This morning the scales in our bathroom presented me with irrefutable evidence that I have been badly let down. Through no fault of my own I have put on a record amount of weight. I am a victim. It is clear to me now that the Christmas eating strategy was misguided and probably over-optimistic in its assumptions, while, the regulatory framework designed to stop this sort of horrendous over-indulgence ever occurring again was far too lax to control the forces at work. Unfortunately, the complexity of the situation makes it far too difficult to place responsibility on any one person but as a human being paying the dreadful price for these failures I feel let down, by my family, the food manufacturing industry and the government. 

In response to these systemic failures I  introduced a series of 'easing' measures to come into force immediately. These measures have been formulated to recognise that this is not simply an individual's problem but one that affects the whole family. In order to help with the reduction in the trouser waist deficit crisis, I have insisted that my family go on an immediate diet. This will see a reduction in the average household waist figures back to pre-Christmas levels. The level of cuts to the rest of the family are, of course, easily enforced, since I do the weekly shopping. We are one big happy family and it would be quite unfair if I were to take on the entire burden. To show that we are all in this together I have agreed to a voluntary undertaking to not be quite as greedy as I have been, and, in the future, to only be as greedy as I can get away with in the climate of resentment and bitterness that will inevitably develop.

Did you guess who I was talking about?

Happy New Year!