Friday, October 28, 2005

Gym Members

Back to gym and back in pool. Without my glasses, without prescription goggles and, obviously, without talking to anyone, my fellow swimmers are blurs with code names such as 'blue helmet girl', assorted nondescript middle aged women in M&S swimwear and, this morning 'thrashing girl in red two piece'.

Also, there's 'hairy man who strides'. This is an old bloke who is thin on top but has body hair like a doormat and, instead of swimming, strides like Gulliver along the length of the pool. This is, I believe, a recognised form of exercise rather than, as it first appears, a display of lunacy.

Come time to leave the pool though he used the shower cubicle next to me, a clear breach of changing-room etiquette.

My miseducation may have taught me bugger all about art, literature maths or science but it did teach me how to behave naked in a changing room.

Such a severe breach of the code would not have been tolerated at school, bordering as it does on homosexualism. Why, I remember when, at scouts, a fellow admitted that on one occasion a Frenchman had kissed him on the cheeks. There was silence round the campfire and when the chap got back to his tent he found a bottle of scotch and a loaded revolver. He was posthumously awarded the 'doing the decent thing' merit branch, awarded to his grieving mother who accepted it, and his blood-stained woggle, with great dignity. The stain on character is less easily removed than the stain on the woggle.

Hairy man who strides compounded his disregard for all that is right, proper and Godly by making his way to the dressing table area of the changing room, where a chap normally curses his cuff-links and tries to do his own tie up before ringing for help, and using the hair driers to dry off!

Okay, so he has an excuse - he's covered with a pelt that any Klondike bear would be proud - of but that's not the point. The point is that if he was serious about getting his hairy self dry in a hurry he'd of used BOTH driers but more importantly - he's missing the opportunity of building character by conventional drying - that is, a rough towelling.

Rough towelling is the only way to dry oneself after the age of four. It invigorates, it exfoliates and removes dead skin. That's why whenever I send the gym towels to the laundry I make sure they don't use fabric conditioner. If I want to be pampered, I'll invest in the services of a mistress who knows how to make a decent gin and tonic.

Still, five minutes in hot tub this morning was most agreeable. Did feel a little like a poached egg at one point but sensation soon passed.

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