Home Remedies

Inspired by this site, which recommends holding a raw steak against your eye, or imagining cigar smoking women, I have decided to recommend some alternative home remedies of my own.

It’ll be nice to know I’ve made the world a better place.

Corns

Corns are useful for guitar playing, but only if you strum with your toes. They are normally caused by ill fitting shoes, so to prevent walk everywhere in slippers. It may also help to start using a plectrum as well.

Depression

Forget paying out for expensive anti-depressants or counselling. As Jean-Paul Satre could tell you, depression is ‘other people.’ Avoid them! Mix up 2 pints of larger with 6 shots of Vodka and soak your throat and stomach repeatedly. The depression should temporarily disappear within 30 minutes to an hour.

Hay fever

Hay fever is caused by breathing in pollen to which the body is allergic. Thus, to avoid hay fever, stop breathing.

Head lice

Head lice are parasitic creatures much like us, and can be killed the same way. Varying methods for removing Head Lice are lethal injection, firing squad, or hanging.
However, the most effective method is suffocation. Hold your head under water for an hour, or until all the head lice have floated to the surface.

Poor Sex Life

Go to your e-mail and open the first e-mail entitled ‘Do you want a Bigger Penis?’ Take with a credit card. Sex should improve within 6 – 8 weeks.
(May have side-effects if you’re a woman)

Tooth-ache

Toothache is caused by cavities formed by bacteria.
Detol kills 99% of bacteria. Dead.
Gargle 3 items a day until the symptoms disappear.

Previous Posts

• Addicted to Grub
• (Un)Intelligent Design
• Winning Friends

You're addicted to grub...

Food, like crack cocaine, is addictive.

I say this from first hand experience. I am not overweight because of a genetic disposition or a poor metabolism. I am not overweight due to a sedentary lifestyle or poor self-esteem. I am not even overweight because of global warming. I’m overweight because I eat too much.

If you put a plate of chips in front of me, and an ounce of heroin in front of Pete Docherty, the result would be somewhat similar, except Pete would probably know when to stop. If you give me food I will eat it until my belly fills, my heart panics, and people begin to ask me if I’m pregnant.

The other difference between myself and a heroin addict is that the junkie, a drain on society, gets free health care, free counseling, free morphine injections and a free appearance on Trisha when he is a ‘reformed sinner.’

The fat person on the other hand, who drive our economy with their purchases of custard doughnuts and Garfield Comics, get ridiculed, teased and a lifetime membership to Weight Watchers.

Something must be done to readdress the balance. So as it seems that only bad people get help for free, is the change the publics image of food addicts. I will have to beat BMI the bad boy way.

Locking myself away, I’ll gorge on takeaway and watch day time TV. This is pretty much what I do now anyway. But as my funds are swallowed up, and I can no longer fit in my work clothes, I’ll need alternative ways to fund my habit.

You’ll see me raiding the Post-Office on pension day, forcing old ladies to give me their snacks and sweets. Their pension money, will be exchanged for food at a ‘shady’ corner shop after sun-down.

The paranoia will build. I’ll hoard food in my bedroom, liquefying and injecting it directly into my upper bowel for an instant hit. In desperation I’ll lie outside Burger King, rummaging through the bins, threatening to sit on people unless they give me their take-away.

Before each meal I’ll snort salt, rub pepper into my gums, inject vinegar into my veins and smoke a rolled up sachet of tomato ketchup, then shovel the food quickly into my pre-condimented body.

And finally, in desperation when no other source of food can be found to satisfy me, I will grind up my leftovers, mix them with talcum powder and sell them by the ounce at a massive profit.

And then, after selling my soul, gaining 10 stone and earning an eternity in hell, the police will arrest me. In a court appeal I’ll be psycho-analysed and put back on the street with free counseling, free medical support, and free samples of slim-fast!

Fat is back. Viva la Revolution.

Deep Thinner

Encased in a pair of ear-phones that belonged to an 80's radio DJ before I brought them for £4.95 at Tesco, I laid back on the pillow, pulled the duvet up and pressed play.

All in all, there are more strenuous ways to lose weight.

It’s been noticeable for a while, even if only when I’m naked in front of a mirror, a situation I avoid as mirrors are expensive; I’m definitely gaining weight.

Now I’m never been slim, except maybe when I was born but I’ve repressed any memory of that, possibly because it involved female genitalia. Recently however, my waist line has been increasing faster than Bush’s Disapproval rating.

I tried to fight it. I went to the gym at least once a month. I drank diet coke with my McDonald's. I even gave serious thought to the prospect of considering the possibility of doing some sit ups.

Finally however, I’d had enough. Holding onto my stomach to keep my balance, I waddled to the book shop and brought McKenna's, 'I can make you thin,’ A book and CD full of ‘simple techniques to help you lose weight.'

The first technique goes like this

'Imagine in your head a picture of yourself as a thin person.'

I have several problems with this.

Firstly, I don't have the slightest idea what I would look like as a thin person. I find it hard enough to remember what I looked like two minutes ago.

I can picture my face thin based on a picture of myself some years ago, but as to the rest of me I can only look at other role models and mix and match. I imagine myself with Peter Andre's chest, Steve Irwin's legs, (a simple transplant) and Barbie's waistline

As I find it impossible to imagine myself with a thin neck I leave that part out.

The end result suggests I cut body parts out of a magazine and put them together with split pins. The thin me has a strong, manly, pair of legs tapering to a razor thin waist. On the hips sits a rippled torso straining to balance an oversized, but thin, neckless-head on its shoulders.

The instructions continue,

'Now walk into that new you. How does it feel?'

...like if I move too quickly my head will fall off...

'Imagine how you would go about your daily tasks at work.'

What? Are you suggesting that losing weight will mean I can enjoy my work more? Finally, I will be able to dial that phone without my 10lb of flab holding me back! Finally, I can make it to the water cooler without the use of two sticks and a forklift truck! A thin me would go about my daily tasks the same way the fat me does, perhaps with tighter trousers on to show off my firm 'Australianesque' butt...

'Take a moment to really enjoy this sensation...'

...then go back to your miserable little life you fat pointless drain on society. Stop sitting around cramming your face full of chocolate and day dreaming all day and get some exercise!

My mind tends to wonder during these exercises.

In the end I worry so much about getting the exercises wrong that I forget what I’m supposed to be doing and the mind programming fails. Instead of waking up feeling refreshed and alert I wake up feeling depressed and fat.

And so, to stop myself feeling that way, I nip to the kitchen and fix myself a sandwich.

I put the CD and book on EBay. The current bid stands at 29p. It's a good offer.

I'll keep the headphones for now. They have a good sound quality and are particularly good at bringing to life my substantial collection of internet pornography.

And all in all, there are more strenuous ways to lose weight...

Recent Weight loss Worries

• It's Life Gym
• The Gym week

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It's Life - Gym

The first time I went to the gym I had a panic attack.

Or at the very least I was short of breath, tearful and panicking which is probably the closest I will ever get unless I meet Shirley Bassey. I would like to say it was caused by overly aggressive treadmilling or lifting too much weight. But it wasn’t. It happened on the way there.

Gyms remind me of gym class and as such of pain, ridicule and my sexy gym teacher. Whilst I couldn't be sure he would be there, I was confident the pain and ridicule would. Luckily I arrived a minute late and my friend had gone in without me. Afraid to go in alone, I walked home instead, hoping that any one walking past, seeing me in gym wear with sore wet eyes and shaking limbs, would assume I’d just left a spinning workout.

I still workout in a state of trepidation though no one has laughed at me yet or slapped me with a wet towel.

It's not that I don't enjoy it. Once I get past the initial ‘can't be arsed stage’ and actually put on my gym clothes it’s quite fun. It’s more that the benefits are so wearyingly slow to materialize, taking many weeks to show up, that one can happily contribute them to some other, more satisfying, factor.

"I’ve lost so much weight this week and all I’ve done is eat fast food! Quick, order me three pizzas, two buckets of KFC, five chocolate bars, a diet coke and a book contract! The world must be told!"

There must be easier ways. I could get my stomach stapled, or my flab removed by a doctor posing as a chainsaw wielding maniac. For a hundred quid I could get the fat sucked out of me and sent to a third world country, but no, I have to do it the hard way!

So I sweat it out at the gym, along with the thin people sweating it out trying to gain weight, and the fit people sweating it out trying to stay fit, and the short people sweating it out trying to reach the treadmill controls.

Then at the first signs of weight loss I’ll go out for McDonald's to celebrate. The weight piles back on and, deciding the workout isn’t working, I’ll eventually quit and try alcohol instead.

But dissatisfied, bored, and demanding more looks from the fit boys in the clubs, I'll be back a month later, the sweat pouring off my face and collecting in a pool at the top of my over sized stomach. There I’ll be - panting for breath, wheezing, exerting every ounce of strength I have until finally, with a sigh of relief, I manage to do up my gym trousers.

And joining the rest of the self-flagellators, I’ll wait patiently in line for my turn on the treadmill.

Previous Fitness Foibles

• Gym Duracell Bunny
• The Duracell Bunny's Competitor
• Hunger Shock

Shear Paradise

I have a Britney Spears relationship with my barber.

I experience culture shock every time I go; being raised to believe £10 was the right price for a haircut, paying £7 makes me feel wonderfully white trash. The walls are covered in cut-throat razors, newspaper clippings and family portraits; the barbers speak to each other in Arabic (or something), whilst making fun of the customers; and the main clientele have just stepped off the boat.

I seldom go there, partly because I hate spending money and partly because I’m desperately scared of the place. Each time I do however, I ask to have my hair cut short. And for some reason my barber always seems reluctant to do so.

I thought it was communication issues. Being beautifully Asian, with an accent stronger than the average Bristolian’s blood alcohol level, he no doubt considers my Thanet accent (imagine the Queen’s English as spoken by cockneys) as impenetrable as his own, and so neither of us are particularly sure what each other is saying, the same way that you may not be particularly sure of the meaning of this rambling sentence and have to read the whole thing again to get the point.

But he had other reasons for avoiding my shearing desires.

This time I carefully explained the concept of “an inch” to him to make sure he understood and reluctantly, after much questioning, he acquiesced.

I noticed his hands running through my hair, his cold, smooth palms pressing against my scalp. It was exotic. His reflection seemed more handsome than normal; I found myself enamoured to him. Then I realised. He was unintentionally giving me a head massage, his hands sending a heated thrill down my body.

I’m gay. I may lose some of my slower readers for being so blunt, but frankly I can do without them. I’m pretty straight acting (finding camp acting an outmoded theatrical style) but some things, like wearing Pinky and the Brain T-Shirts, may give away my natural tendencies, especially to straight men who, I assume, are on the look out for such things.

And having my head massaged by a tall, dark straight man – well - it felt good.

And that’s why my young masculine barber, whose straight as a Muslim and can spot gay from 50 paces, makes me keep my hair long – so I can’t feel his hands pressing against my scalp, don’t get a strange rush from it, and he doesn’t have to deal with a homosexual’s unwanted and unexpected sudden attraction to him.

That’s why he was reluctant to cut my hair short. That’s why it was so hard to make him do it. And that’s why I’ll be going there more regularly from now on.

At £7 a go it’s the cheapest happy ending I’ve ever had.

---

I seem to write about the Barbers quite a lot possibly because it's the only contact I have with straight males. Here's an old article on the woes of haircuts from the now archived Freelance Cynic Site

Some Previous Feature Lengths

• The re-fitting of the Lord of The Rings
• The all new Agoraphobia
• A declaration of love
• Things that go Bump in the late Evening
• Don't. Imagine. Your handy