I entered through the portals into the Land of the Fit and immediately felt severely ill at ease. The room was full of murderous looking instruments of torture, people splayed, stretched, and entwined in their vicious coils. One big-boned lady on some sort of bike gave a tragic moan and slumped forward as if life had departed her quivering carcass. A few seconds later she was resurrected, furiously pedalling again; then, another moan, another lifeless slump forward, a procedure she repeated annoyingly often. I tried to catch the eye of a brawny youth whirling some weights around but he responded with a fierce glower and a belligerent gnashing of teeth; most people there were cocooned in their own isolation - 'the zone' I believe it is called - and interaction was kept to a minimum. Exercise is a very serious matter indeed. To aid our concentration, there are a number of screens on the walls, one showing scowling, dour Andy Murray being comprehensively thrashed by a Malawian plumber in the first round of the Kandahar Invitation Cup.
I began surprisingly brightly, pedalling away like an obese, drug-free Lance Armstrong; when I stood up, though, I suddenly became aware that my legs were made of pig-iron. I attempted to perform some muscle-loosening exercises, such as leaning against the wall, which seemed to do the trick. All was proceeding fairly, if maladroitly, well until I attempted to defeat a particularly sadistic implement called the Cartilage Rupturer 500i or something. It involved grasping two moveable upright bars with your hands and moving one's legs up and down as quickly as possible. I realised that establishing a regular rhythm was essential and swiftly and easily failed to establish one; very quickly I was simply flailing and gesticulating wildly with my arms, while my poor legs were jerking and bending randomly like the last, desperate spasms of an impaled frog. Sweat soon began to spray from my head and carpet the machine in a dazzling rain of iridescent globules - a nice present for the next participant. I realised that not bringing a towel was an error, as rivulets of salty water bypassed my redundant eyebrows and stung my eyes. When I realised I was weeping like a baby and breathing like a bronchitic, raddled walrus, I realised it was time to gracefully retire. The trainer quickly pointed me to the water fountain, murmuring something about "blood pressure" and "dehydration". From the look on her face, she clearly thought I was on the verge of a massive coronary; the distant wail of a siren seemed to imply she had already assumed I was doomed and had made the necessary phone call.
However, I survived to not go there another day, and left the scene of the atrocity feeling like a new man:
Meanwhile, it has been reported that former Beatle and Manchester United stalwart Ryan 'Giggs' Giggsy has erupted, spewing ash and lava miles into the air above Northern England. Volcanologists believe the eruption occurred when he was revealed as the injunction-happy footballer denying us our God-given right to know every detail about the activities of his groin. Attention-seeking MP and idiot, John Hemming, revealed his name in the House of Commons in order to safeguard the freedom of his silly face to appear in the press and on the news. I don't think that, back in 1689 the Bill of Rights, which guarantees parliamentary privilege, was envisaged as safeguarding this type of revelation:
"Verily, I hath heard that Sir Ryan of Giggs, late of the county of Wales, hath been dallying and rutting most covetously and lewdly with my constituent, buxom milkmaid and most grievous strumpet, Mistress Imogen Thomas. Every low-born peasant and churl in the land knoweth Giggsy hath been ploughing another furrow as it appeareth on ye Olde Twitter most every day ......."
(Imogen Thomas shows off her fantastic distress at Giggs revelations)
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