Okay society you win- Diary of a fat boy

[boldie]

   Yep.  Yer covered now.  Cheers! 

+1... indeed

[Snatiramas]

Where there are sales teams, there are of course sales managers. Being a sales manager is of course a totally thankless task as you are trapped between the rock of senior managers and the hard place of your sales team. Now at Guinness as you know we had to book the first three and last three calls of every day and had to send them in on a journey planner so that there was a record of where you were going. This was so that your area manager could meet you at the first call of the day and either spend the day with you, or more ominously take all the call record cards from the previous day and mirror that days work.

Now the great thing about any job is that if an organisation want to get rid of you they pretty much can. With sixty three steps to the call, twelve calls a day, Guinness knew that it really was almost impossible to live up to the requirement. The company tell you that an audit day is there to identify training needs and of course it will. The flip side is that it also gives the company the ability to crucify you.

I arrive on this particular morning at a pub in Muswell Hill and there is Les my area manager waiting for me. Bugger it yesterday was a really bad day. Lots of decision makers missing and I only managed to do seven calls. Law of sod. Anyway Les takes my call sheets and after I explain to him what happened in each call, he disappears to retrace my calls. I spend the whole day thinking about what might happen. Law of sod two I have an absolutely electric day.

Les meets me at the last call and gives me some formative feedback. I don’t like it much but do what you have to in these situations.....keep your mouth shut and take it on the chin. In fairness it was not a good day. The following day I turn up at my first call in Holloway Road and Les is there again. Back to back audit days was unheard of in the business. Now I am really worried and the curse of imagination has me out of a job before the day is out. Could I have done this? I should have done that! Hang on a second, yesterday was a stonking day. Indeed at the end the day Les meets me and he is absolutely beaming, best mate stuff. No problems everything is great. So I have to ask “Les” says I, “why the back to back audit days?” and he goes on to tell me how Clive had been caught falsifying his workload and was sacked, and as he trained me, then they were worried that I wasn’t doing the job. Luckily for me I was doing the job.

So the job as a Guinness salesmen was going well. So well in fact that I get a promotion to become a business development salesman. The job of BDS was very different to that of field sales. Let me explain. Guinness does not own any pubs so their customers are all the major brewers. Now a lot of the pubs that other brewers owned at the time had so many restrictions as to what you could do in call, that it was not honestly worth visiting them except to get your call rate up. Can I walk into a Whitbread pub and put up a Guinness sticker......no I cannot. Can I put up a dummy fount?..............no I cannot. In fact all you could really do was take the temperature and give a quick presentation on the benefits of stocking Guinness.

Well Guinness realised that there was an opportunity here to influence managed houses by having teams working inside our major customers. It starts with Bass who were the most pro Guinness account. Bass did not produce their own stout so were considered a friendly. Whitbread produced Murphy’s at a brewery in Magor in Wales and Courage brewed Beamish in Ireland. Everyone wanted a bit of the Guinness pie. I was selected as one of two trial BDS’s for Bass. The trial went exceptionally well. At the end of six months it was extended to all of our customers including the most hostile one......Whitbread.

I was asked where I would like to work. I chose Whitbread. I like being in a hostile environment, somehow it makes me produce my best work. Now my boss was a guy called Vijay and we had an absolutely astounding year. We got Guinness back into over 150 Whitbread managed houses and really set back Murphy’s a long long way. It came to the end of the year and there was a review meeting with the main Guinness board for all the BDS’s and it was in this meeting that I came up with my favourite opening salvo for any presentation that I had given before or since. It went like this.....

“ So you would like to know how the business is doing? You have an Asian and a Jew selling an Irish beer brewed in England to a hostile brewer who brews their own Irish beer in Wales, and you want to know how it is going?”

Well nobody had ever come up with an opening like that and in this meeting I got absolutely every single one of my requests met. A golden time indeed. Now it would be logical to go on and talk about the football but I am my own man and I would rather give you this week’s Terry and June moment.

I got a phone call that meant I had to go to Preston at short notice. I knew it was going to be a weird day on account of the fact that it was chucking it down as I left London but as I pull into Preston there is bright sunshine. I am early for my meeting so I decide to do a little shopping. I park in the Fishergate car park. I have a look round TJ Hughes and buy a new pair of jeans............ooh I love clothes shopping right now. Then I pop into Argos and pick up a couple of USB memory sticks and a Maximuscle drinks shaker/beaker. It is brilliant and means I do not need to take my blender through customs any more, always a good laugh. I decide to pay for my car park and go over to the machine.

Now as I came into the car park I was furnished with a small blue plastic coin. I start going through my pockets looking for it. No joy. Go through my pockets again. Still no joy. Fifteen minutes fumbling around with shopping and pockets and find it has slipped into my wallet. Panic over. I pay. Stroll purposefully back to my car, raise my hand to operate remote control at which point the little blue coin slides out of the back of my hand and straight into the drain. Honestly I wanted to cry. Can I lift the drain?..........no screwed down tight. .bugger, bugger, bugger. I can see it but I cannot touch it. I have a receipt to prove that I paid. Time is now running short. I have driven for over three hours and I am now stuck in a car park. You just could not make this stuff up.

Back to payment machine. Press the buzzer. Explain the situation and ask if he will just let me pay for a missing coin. The meeting is worth hundreds of thousands, a missing coin will cost £12. No brainer. Pay the £12 and get out quick. At this point the good Lord decides to deal me the two of clubs. I am asked to wait by the machine and he will come down and help me...........I do not want his help. I want to get the bloody hell out. So I wait, and I wait and eventually matey turns up walking at a pace that you can only get away with outside of London.

I show him my predicament. He says “right I will just get a hammer and we will get it out in a jiffy.  Please let me out!!!!” says I. “No no don’t worry we will get the coin for you and save you the £12”.

Now at this point what I want to say is “I DO NOT GIVE A STUFF ABOUT THE £12!!!”. Instead I just thank him for his help. He gets his claw hammer. Totally and utterly bloody useless. It is bolted down tight. Can he not see this? Then his friend turns up. PLEASE LET ME OUT OF THIS NIGHTMARE!!!! Eventually we bend the drain back against the bolt and get the coin out and I get to the meeting just in time...........exceptionally harassed.

So to fat club. Or not as I am in Preston. I know this. I am now unofficially at 5 Stone of weight loss........5 STONE!!!!!!!  5 STONE!!!!!!! Just loving it!!!!!! Well right now I am but in five minutes I will probably fancy a bagel. I wonder if it is sunny in Preston today.

[Laxie]

This.........

“ So you would like to know how the business is doing? You have an Asian and a Jew selling an Irish beer brewed in England to a hostile brewer who brews their own Irish beer in Wales, and you want to know how it is going?”

and this..........

At this point the good Lord decides to deal me the two of clubs.

Had me in stitches!!!!!   

You are doing sooooo good with the weight loss and your diary.  Keep it up!!

[Snatiramas]

So whilst watching my son captain his rugby team on Saturday the following happened. Adam plays for OA's and they were in Luton playing in a curtain raiser before the game between Luton and OA's first fifteens so there were a couple of hundred spectators watching.

OA's kick off high into a late summer afternnons sunshine, the ball flies in a big arc towards a Luton player who in honesty does not look as though he is going to catch it. Well he does catch it but not with his hands but with his face. It bounces forward staright into Adams hands who raced forty yards to crash over the line for the first score.

The final score was ten points all in a hard fought game................ and those rare moments when everything just falls right for your son make parental watching just magical..........all the players came into the bar for a meal after the game. They mingled and talked rugby, Luton in shirt and club tie and OA's in the club Polo shirt........this is how sport should be played. No leagues until 13. Just skills training and matches. Competitive matches you can be certain but not the pressure of leagues. When will football learn.

[Snatiramas]

A couple of weeks ago I was severely castigated by master Snat. He stormed into my bedroom and demanded to know why I hadn’t told him that I had met Ian Wright and Les Ferdinand……”Sorry says I…..must have forgot.” Well actually I had forgotten all about it.

What had happened was Kaliber had become one of the sponsors of the England football team. As such we had access to a number of players for personal appearances. Well miraculously I managed to get Les and Wrighty for two of my bigger Whitbread houses. I have to tell you they were both magnificent . Talked for hours to younger supporters, signed autographs until their hands must have ached and generally couldn't do enough. Now these were big stars at the time and yet there was no attitude at all which just goes to show you can't paint all footballers with the same brush. I attach the photos purely as a means to verify that this is not some weird part of my brain, that having been starved of carbohydrate (or not) for quite some time, has decided to rebel and make me hallucinate.

I have so many stories of meeting sports people at various functions paid for by other people that if I were to list them all I would definitely be in the realms of mad stalker. My all time favourite though was meeting Will Carling. Now I didn't like Will Carling from afar. He was young successful and captain of the England rugby team at an unfeasible age. Not only that he made a success of it. Well I was at an Epson event and Mr. Carling was the guest speaker. He had retired from rugby at this point and was doing the circuit.  After he had delivered his address which had me crying with laughter, I went up to him and asked him why he hadn't picked Dean Richards for the final in 1991.

Dean Richards was/is my all time rugby hero. He hated training, pointedly refused to do any conditioning work and yet when he was on the field was an absolute colossus. The ball was drawn to him like a magnet and he had an innate sense of where to be. It made it incredibly hard for the games administrators that their best forward didn't give a stuff for the new training methods. To refresh a few memories and to teach a generation who may not know, England had reached the final in England playing a particular brand of rugby. They had the best pack by a mile and simply squeezed the life out of the opposition. To the uninitiated it would have appeared boring. To the educated eye it was forward play of the highest order. England only had to reproduce it one more time for the final and the RWC was theirs. Australia were scared. Their pack was weak and they knew it. In football you may only get 20% of the ball and still win 3 – 0. In rugby if you get 20% of the ball you are on for a right stuffing. So the papers were quoting Australian officials all week  about how boring England were and how it would be terrible if they won playing such one dimensional rugby.

The last England forwards session before the final was by all accounts particularly feisty. Richards at one point had picked up Brian Moore, he played at hooker and was the pack leader, and threw him backwards onto his arse. It was fairly well known that the two players did not like each other much and I am led to believe that Deano thought that it was down to Moore that he had not played in all the matches. So I asked Mr. Carling and in fairness he said that he had got it wrong. His own gut instinct was to go with Richards but he was swayed by other peoples opinions.

Well England decided that they were going to win the final by throwing the ball around. They duly lost playing a game that the team had not practiced and their best forward was sitting on the bench. Dean went on to coach the Leicester Tigers and led them to four successive league championships and two Heineken European cup wins. The first one of which is still my favourite game of rugby of all time. He was regarded as a rather dour man by those who did not know him which makes this story that Mr. Carling told me all the more remarkable.

The story goes like this. After one of the training sessions some of the players had retired to the pub for a little liquid refreshment. They were in London and who walks into the pub but  Ross Kemp aka Grant Mitchell from Eastenders. Now Ross was bit of a rugby player, he played for one of the Essex junior teams at the time and his big hero apparently  was none other than Deano. Well Ross gets a drink and sits down at a table nearby. It was described to me that he sat there with his mouth open in awe of the people around him and staring at Deano. Well the England players finished their drinks and got up to leave when Deano walks straight up to Ross Kemp, puts a huge hand either side of his face, grabs his cheeks and says the immortal line “Not so hard without your brother are you!” and promptly walks out the bar. What a man.

The worst moment of sports corporate entertainment happened at an England  football match when I was with Guinness. We of course were wearing our ties. As we were approaching the turnstiles there were a group of youths of questionable intelligence singing at the top of their voices “No surrender to the IRA". Anyway one of the group spots the tie and surges towards me screaming vitriol. Now normally I would diffuse a situation with the classic line of how on earth can a Jew be a member of the IRA. This particular  member of the Hitler youth was not going to buy that  and just at that moment a plain clothes policeman drops this guy from nowhere. Blessed I tell you.

I think we have reached a seminal moment. The moment of glorious failure. The moment that every Brit strives for and somehow manages to achieve. I fear that the diet may be terminally off the rails and the use of the word diet now may be a misnomer. It feels very strange. On the one hand loads of people have come up to me in the last two weeks and told me how fabulous look. On the inside I am just a mess because I have not stuck to the diet. When I weigh in tonight I expect my weight not to have changed from my last official weigh in. 17stone 9 lbs or thereabouts. So in my head now I am working out if this is success or failure. I have not reached my own personal target. Failure…... I have lost 65 pounds. Success. …..I have not followed the diet strictly. Failure…… I can lower the tray on an airplane. Success.

As you can see right now mentally I am totally screwed up. I don't want to give up yet and somehow I feel like I am stringing all those around me along by not sticking to the diet and losing the weight…………more after fat club......maybe

[boldie]

A great tale there Snatty...as usual.

65 pounds?..that's an awful lot....I understand that setting a target wasn't what you'd like to do..but..if you're happy with your weight and only need to tackle the extremes of your...let's call it "problem solving eating" then it should just be a matter of keeping fit and going back to eating proper food, no?..Otherwise, when are you gonna stop with the diet?

[Snatiramas]

Well I had a long long chat with one of the other guys in the group. I will let you know after this week as regards my plans for dieting going forwards. I feel a bit calmer than I did earlier.

I have absolutely no doubt that I will be fighting food abuse for the rest of my life in some way.

At official weigh in it was 67 pounds............

[Karabiner]

I'm not that much of a rugby afficionado although I do enjoy some of the international matches, but Dean Richards was always one of my favourites.

It seemed like every time there was a loose maul he would somehow emerge with ball as though by magic.

[Snatiramas]

Now listen up you lot. Is there anything more annoying than somebody listening to an ipod too loud? No I tell a lie there is one thing. The start of a new relationship for a co worker. Right now my colleague and mate Guy is doing both at the same time and on top of which he is happy about it. He has just accused me of pissing on his parade but you know even I get grumpy occasionally.

Actually on the diet I get grumpy quite a lot. I get grumpy when I follow the diet as I hate the carbohydrate withdrawal. I get even more grumpy when I do not follow the diet as I feel I have acted in a weak way. I get grumpy when the kids argue. I get grumpy when Anne Marie asks me to tidy my clothes up. I get grumpy at work. I get grumpy when playing poker. There can be no doubt THINNER PEOPLE ARE MORE MISERABLE. Of course that just isn’t true, but it feels like it sometimes.

One thing that isn’t making me grumpy right now is the plan for Ads Bar Mitzvah. It is going well. The invitations were selected and printed some time ago. They are deep orange in colour. Why deep orange? No idea other than we have decided to go for an orange and black colour scheme. It looks cool and the little orange reply cards are rolling in. Everybody is logged on a spreadsheet with little ticks next to which part of the event they are coming from. Some are coming for Friday night and Shabbat lunch as well as the party on the Sunday. Loads of family are coming from all over the place but unfortunately the Israeli contingent can’t make it as one of my cousins is running for mayor in his town. I have not been to Israel for about fifteen years. It is too long. So in January we are all going over for a long weekend. Taking in the Barmitzvah of the son of our oldest friends in Jerusalem and then going to visit my cousins in Netanya. I just can’t wait.

So there I was watching the telly on Tuesday night. When Anne Marie comes out of the office looking paler than pale. Phil we have a problem. Oh says I, whilst still trying to concentrate on the acting genius that is Owen Wilson in You Me and Dupree. Unfortunately Anne Marie will not let it lie. “Phil I am serious we have a problem. The venue can only seat 200 and we already have acceptances for 210”. Head snaps up for a millisecond. She is genuinely concerned. I am totally ambivalent knowing it has to be an excel issue. Indeed it is double counting the numbers for lunch. I put the formula right. The colour returns to Anne Marie’s face but we are up to 160. It promises to be some party. The band we have booked is absolutely awesome 7 piece plus three singers. Secret news for my Blonde followers is that I have organised for Addie to play with the band. He will be playing Love me do and Get Back but only if he practices hard.

His life is a bit over full at the moment. He now know his Maftir (Maftir informally refers to the final section of the weekly reading of a torah portion from a torah scroll on Shabbat and holiday mornings and is normally about three sentences of hebrew long) and Haftarah (The haftarah "taking leave") consists of selections from the Hebrew bible specifically from the books of Nevi’im ("The Prophets"), and it is read publicly in the synagogue after the reading of the Torah on each Shabbat , as well as on Jewish festivals and fast days. The haftarah usually has a thematic link to the Torah reading that precedes it. The haftarah is sung and has related blessings before and after it.)
He is now working on Musaf. The Musaf service starts with the silent recitation of the Amidah (If you want to know all about Amidah go to Wiki it has a definitive entry). It is followed by a second public recitation that includes an additional reading known as the Kedushah. He is doing the public version.  He is playing rugby twice a week at OA’s. He is practicing guitar. He has been moved up to the top set in all subjects bar two at school. I fear my son may turn into a rather good leader of men. He can walk into a room of total strangers and captivate them instantly. He is 12. You would think he would be shy and awkward at that age but he is mature way beyond his years. I worry about the pressure but he keeps embracing it and pushing himself further. He has been asked to give the best friends speech at two other Bar Mitzvahs and has written them pretty much on his own. His writing is far in advance of mine or Anne Marie’s for his age.

Rachel is an academic hooligan. She picks out concept faster than anybody I have ever met. Knows all her times tables. She reached the final of the National memory challenge last year. She is a Sixer at Brownies. She plays football at school, is a member of CoSTA (City of St Albans swimming club). She is the tallest in her class, including all the boys which does make her self aware. She is very sensitive but very sharp. Oh and of course she is stunningly beautiful. Whilst Adam is wowing the room, Rachel just sits there weighing everybody up. Very accurately.

Then of course Anne Marie. The rock on which each of our successes is based. Not only does she hold down a senior position within BUPA but drives us all forward. She was a member of the board of management for the synagogue for nine years. She is strong in mind and to my eye radiates an inner strength and beauty that is quite captivating. We met on a blind date and to this day it was the day that changed my life forever. Truly a life partner.

Then there is me. The rascal. Well if you have read this diary you all know lots about me already so I think we can leave me to one sentence.

Then there are all of you. My poker mates. People who I genuinely like. I became a Blonde after meeting this chatty bloke down in Southampton at the South of England Masters. It was the first time I had paid the full entry of £500 and I was scared as hell as it was half my bankroll. Not great bankroll management I think. It was also my birthday. I final tabled and the chatty bloke got me interviewed. He also told me about this site called Blonde poker. I haven’t looked back.

I then happened to go to Walsall. I was in the hotel and went for some lunch and there was this big bloke sitting there. I had seen him around Luton but didn’t know him that well so decided I would go and have a chat. Tighty is somebody I am totally in awe of but please don’t tell him. Look at all the things he has done. Read his diary it is truly amazing.

I posted more on the site and met more Blondes. I went to my first BB in Walsall and won it. To this day it would have to go down as a modern day miracle. This site and the lounge area particularly are everything I am looking for in the eclectic mix of topics discussed, but more than that the support given by members to members is what my kind of society would be like. It takes on difficult topics and discusses them openly but with consideration of others. When Brendan passed away you could feel the collective sadness and Glenn’s speech at BB7 was beautiful and left many of us with a glistening eye. I love the bashes but do find myself torn between wanting to play poker and wanting to just sit and chat. It was so good to catch up with so many people.

I can’t invite you all to the Bar Mitzvah. I wish I could. You will of course be there. You will be there in every photograph of me. I could not possibly have got to where I am now without the support of all of you or this diary. The pm’s, the posts and all the positive comments last weekend made me realise how blessed I really am. I not only have my immediate family but I have this wonderful massively supportive super family with experts in subjects as diverse as horses, trains, the City, American football, colonic irrigation and the Gypsy way of life. You will all be there with me, even those who do not know me yet. You will be with me in the build up, through the up and coming Jewish holidays to the actual day itself and then my friends this diary will move on or rather drift away into the ether. I never meant it to go on for this long to be honest with you. It is a bit like the old comment about Bournemouth. You know the one about the retired person who goes down to Bournemouth to die and then forgets to.

So to fat club. No music this week as I am listening to five live on athletics. The way our athletes have been treated in the last four years if the radio is to be believed is shoddy. Poor administration and lack of consistency seem to have been the order of the day.
Up onto the scales. Total weight loss is now seventy one pounds. 32.2 Kilos. Shed loads. Starting weight 22 stone 4 pounds. Current weight 17 stone 3 pounds. This week I increased my walk from two miles to five. No stopwatch now. No need. Grinding my way to the money.

[Rod Paradise]

You will be with me in the build up, through the up and coming Jewish holidays to the actual day itself and then my friends this diary will move on or rather drift away into the ether. I never meant it to go on for this long to be honest with you. It is a bit like the old comment about Bournemouth. You know the one about the retired person who goes down to Bournemouth to die and then forgets to.

Haw Slim!! - that may be the point where you find out the bad side of blonde 

You write too well and have hinted at too many things we want to hear more about to stop now.

[Wardonkey]

You will be with me in the build up, through the up and coming Jewish holidays to the actual day itself and then my friends this diary will move on or rather drift away into the ether. I never meant it to go on for this long to be honest with you. It is a bit like the old comment about Bournemouth. You know the one about the retired person who goes down to Bournemouth to die and then forgets to.

Haw Slim!! - that may be the point where you find out the bad side of blonde 

You write too well and have hinted at too many things we want to hear more about to stop now.

Agreed, we'll miss it if you stop!

[Claw75]

You will be with me in the build up, through the up and coming Jewish holidays to the actual day itself and then my friends this diary will move on or rather drift away into the ether. I never meant it to go on for this long to be honest with you. It is a bit like the old comment about Bournemouth. You know the one about the retired person who goes down to Bournemouth to die and then forgets to.

Haw Slim!! - that may be the point where you find out the bad side of blonde 

You write too well and have hinted at too many things we want to hear more about to stop now.

what he said!

[turny]

great writing as usual phil.

was great seeing you last sunday mate, you looked fantastic hope we get to share a table soon

[cia260895]

woooohoooo on the weight loss snatty keep it up up m8 up phenomenal

[Laxie]

You will be with me in the build up, through the up and coming Jewish holidays to the actual day itself and then my friends this diary will move on or rather drift away into the ether. I never meant it to go on for this long to be honest with you. It is a bit like the old comment about Bournemouth. You know the one about the retired person who goes down to Bournemouth to die and then forgets to.

Haw Slim!! - that may be the point where you find out the bad side of blonde 

You write too well and have hinted at too many things we want to hear more about to stop now.

what he said!

I'm with them!

PS  Doing brilliant with the weight loss!  Couldn't believe my eyes...then I looked down and saw the shoes.