Spot the diet

Yet another sponsor came forward yesterday to support the launch of that much awaited, by me, of my second book, The Valbonne Monologues. Peter Bennett from Blue Water Yachting has joined the ever-growing list of people who are putting their reputations at risk to associate themselves with Valbonne’s forthcoming literary lack of sensation. There are however still some sponsorship opportunities and at this juncture I am disappointed not to have heard back from Dancing Greg Harris from Côte d’Azur Villas. Looks like I may have to publish that photograph of him unless he comes forward and does the decent thing. I do not like the word blackmail, I prefer to use the phrase “enlightened self-interest”.

I needed something to brighten my day as this was the first one of my days limited to 600 calories. Slash and burn Thornton Allan is to blame for having lost two stone in two months before we went skiing last week. My comments about his apparent anorexia were not well received and had the unfortunate effect of allowing the female contingent on holiday of making a very unfair comparisons about our respective shapes. I think they call  it bravado. Before I could stop myself I could hear myself saying “I could do that, easy”.

With that stupid challenge accepted, I suddenly realised the enormity of my blunder. That Nice Lady Decorator suddenly had a worrying and determined gleam in her eyes and it was all I could do to stop her from demanding I commenced the same regime there and then. It was only putting off the inevitable, and the inevitability came home to roost yesterday. For those of you who think that is a poor metaphor, we once owned a chicken called Inevitability, honest.

I tried everything to delay or cancel the whole idea. I even used this photo of Slash and Burn himself to show what could happen when undertaking fad diets. Nasty side effects can often result. This one needs a bit more than Savlon.

Man with nasty spot, wearing a house on his head.

And so I barely made it through the day. Even the joy of bringing smiles to the faces of several new Currencies Direct customers was not enough to take my mind off the enforced fast. Actually “fast” is a contradiction in terms; I can hardly remember a day that went by any slower, although I suspect that today I am about to find out.

To take my mind off this dreadful scenario, I need to focus on some good things that are on the horizon. The newly constituted Arundel Wednesday Luncheon Club’s second gathering will take place tomorrow, so just watch me eat and drink everything on the menu at the George and Dragon at Houghton. That is if I don’t expire before we get there.

Then on Sunday, the delicious prospect of seeing John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett at the Leicester Square Theatre in Covent Garden, having some dinner and meeting up with loads of old cronies. No doubt we will end up discussing Otway the Movie and the various guerrilla marketing techniques we have planned for the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Today will be much the same. I have not yet looked out the window as I know what it will be like; grey and cold, misty and damp. I also don’t have the energy to raise my head. 600 calories a day is not nearly enough to keep a mouse alive, let alone a man with a thrusting Adonis-like (actually in god like terms more Buddha-like) figure, one destined to be denied wine and beer again today. I now have first hand experience of what the term “nil by mouth” means.

Chris France
@Valbonne_News