the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I was out taking my morning constitution earlier when across my path fell some men, who were clearly the three sheets everyone talks about in relation to the wind. They were going to see a flat in Shepherds Bush. Now, it may be just me, but they didn’t strike me as the sort of people who held down steady well paying jobs so it followed that the flat they were going to view wasn’t going to palatial. Secondly, it was hard to imagine any of them making a good impression on the ‘phone, so what third-rate lettings agency thought that their commission on placing tenants in the flat was worth more than they’re health, I really wouldn’t want to know

I was going to use them to illustrate just how complicit we all will be in our eventual extinction, how all this nonsense about ‘how things will change/we can never go back’ is utter tosh. Well-meant, sincere and genuine tosh, but tosh nonetheless, but I’ve just thought of a better example. One who also has the benefit of being someone whose been hailed as something or other by people who tell people on Twitter they’ve jumped on the hailing bandwagon. The man of the moment.

Joe Wicks.

Now I have nothing against Joe Wicks personally. I’m sure he’s a perfectly decent chap whom, if I was fortunate enough to know him, would hold in the highest regard. The fact that LMS had fooled Joe and I into believing he is Russell Brands brother is neither here nor there.

No, what bothers me – and I’m sure this is just a happy accident – is the fact that he’s reported to have signed a £1 million book deal on the back of his new found prominence the new Mr. Motivator, albeit with thankfully a less garish wardrobe.

Here’s what bothers me, and here’s why things will go back to not exactly, but very, very, similar to how they were before.

A book deal. That means books. That means cutting down tree’s to make the books. That means having the machinery to cut down the trees, and that means having the machinery to make that machinery. And people to make the machinery. And to turn the paper into books. And the lorries to deliver those books to bookshops. And roads for the lorries to run on and fuel to power them ….and oh you mean the book deal might not be an old fashioned one, but a modern, new fangled one,, an e-book!

It’ll have tips no doubt on healthy eating to assist one in doing more exercise. This will all be packaged as something anyone concerned about adopting a more balanced life, one that’s more environmentally aware, just better will want. But in order to get what you want you’ll have to buy the things that make up that package.

You’ll have to work to earn the money needed to buy them. You may have to travel to work. This will involve some form of transport, which means people to build the transport, which means people making the bits needed to make the transport and factories to make them in.

And the things you make other people will buy, which means they have to work. You see the cycle, don’t you? If they don’t want to buy them they can be persuaded to buy them in ways that don’t seem like persuading at all. And in order to buy them, those things will have to be transported to a shop. Some will be food things, some possibly from far away, some possibly not. Then you’ll need to buy the things that turn these food things into the things that’ll make you the envy of all the friends you brag about it to.

Only you won’t brag, you’ll do it in such a self-deprecating way that other people will only double the praise in protest. They’ll look at you, be all envious, and think ‘If only I had what they have, if only I had all those things I’d look like that. I’d be slim and toned, I’d have a body to be proud of and a partner to match’ And so they’ll buy those things and the cycle will endlessly repeat, a bit like ‘Q.I’ on ‘Dave’

It’ll go on and on until we’re extinct. Lets not fool ourselves things are going to change that much. Yes, easy jet may decided to keep some seats empty on their flights to help with social distancing, yes, yes, all very worthy and feel good. But how exactly can an airline promote social distancing? Isn’t that their raison- d’être, to reduce that? Or am I missing something? Yes, yes, we all want healthier food but we also want it to be healthy for our wallet so there’s a trade-off. Same with clothing. Yes, yes, we abhor sweatshops, are appalled by modern slavery but…well everyone loves a bargain….