What happened to all the leg-warmers? I don’t mean ‘why aren’t they available?’, that’s fairly obvious. They were about as useful as a wind-deflector on the boot of your Vauxhall Viva. I mean where did all the old ones go? There were millions of pairs knocking round the world, always within 3 metres of a Jane Fonda Workout video. So what happened to them? Were they recycled into… other things? Were they ceremonially burned along with all those hair bands? Or did they go to Oxfam? So they could be sent to warm the legs of starving children in Ethiopia, where its 45 degrees most of the year? And one single leg-warmer donated by a great big yenta from Golders Green could warm an entire family for a year. I simply don’t know…

But leg warmers were around at the time of the ‘fitness video’. A large and lumpy plastic cassette filled with tape which pushed into a machine attached to the tv and which basically evolved into Joe Wicks. It was just a primitive method of ‘getting fit’ by leaping around and sweating. But whereas now, due to ‘elf-n-safety’ there is a duty of care and consideration for the perspiring masses, back then the motto was ‘no pain, no gain’. You lunge til heart attack, you squat til something rips, you push up until you fucking DIE! Anything less committed and they confiscated your leg-warmers. Which brought shame upon your whole family.

I have my own motto: ‘No pain’. The end. Why torture yourself? Why put yourself through misery and suffering for an illusion? For a ‘dream’ that you might end up with a body like La Fonda, who got hers from the collective attention of LA’s finest surgeons and two million dollars.

And these thoughts arose because yesterday I went to the physiotherapist. The direct descendents of those Spanish Inquisitors who wore masks and held pliers heated in a fire, used a ‘rack’ and who made waterboarding seem like a carnival ride. But you get a new shoulder, you need ‘physio’. Because the new shoulder doesn’t know what to do. So to become a fully-fledged cyborg, I need physio. And with the mindset of a man facing the gates of hell, that’s how I entered the session. Ready for pain, for suffering, for agony, all for the cause. But it didn’t happen. We both adhered to my ‘no pain’ imperative. And she was gentle. Tender, even. I was ready for a walk through Mariupol and I got a stroll in the hanging gardens of Babylon. All I have to do is shrug. I’m Jewish. I was born shrugging. Few other gently, gently movements, and more shrugging.

I can handle that. Things may change.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx