'STALLED'

Aeeiii! I knew it would happen. After weeks of seemingly effortless weight loss, I have ground to a wobbling shuddering halt. Not an ounce was shifted last week. However you seem to think the way forward is to try and trick the body into thinking that I was going back to my old habits. A ‘Blow out’ was called for but not as long as a week as some of you suggested but maybe a day or so.

Well I’ve taken your advice. Last weekend was designated ‘48 hours of indulgence’. I can do this very easily and frankly, I like it a lot. Not sure if this meant it had to be all food and drink. Or would a lot of TV and no exercise help as well……I decided on the latter course for safety? I’ve also identified a sartorial goal….my leather trousers which are probably hideously discredited in the fashion stakes these days. I’ve not been able to fit into them for about 10 years so it would be interesting to see, if eventually, the weight loss means I will be able to pull them on and sashay into town all ‘biker chic’. Last time I wore them, I remember a couple of chavs in a Fiesta driving by and shouting "F!"%%@t at me. This wasn’t the effect I wanted to achieve.

First off, Friday evening down the pub for a few pints. Although to my disappointment there was no guest appearance by ‘Melody Layne’, a singer who along with her backing tracks, had the boozer enthralled the last time I was in. She certainly knew her audience, giving it her all with a load of country and pop favourites, and glad handing the old guys. Melody was so versatile that she was even able to text whilst singing - now that’s something you don't get at a Madonna gig!

After my liver waved the white flag it was up to ‘Wok U Like’ for a takeaway. Although I’d not been there for nearly two months, I was greeted like an old friend and, this time, they didn't snigger when I ordered my usual Special Foo Yung and Chips. However, I did hold back on the pancake roll this time. Then it was back home for food and ‘South Park’. That was a good way to while away a few hours.

Earlier in the day I’d attended another charity event. It has been quite a week for events. Janice Long had been a judge at the Mercury Music Awards where her faves - "Elbow" triumphed. The previous weekend I had drawn the raffle at St Michaels Hospice in St Leonards-On-Sea. Friday just gone it was another raffle draw, this time up at the Conquest Hospital, (It’s Hastings and it’s the law that everything has a 1066 theme to it) for Hospital Radio Hastings.

However, both Janice and myself were trumped by my old college friend Bill Shipton. On Saturday night he’d been giving an emotional and hilarious speech to the assembled masses at the ‘Erotic Awards 2008’ in London's Brixton, where he’d been given a lifetime achievement award. He not only got a rosette….presumably for ‘Best in Show’, but he also carried away, in triumph, h is trophy: This was a 10 inch high winged phallus in gold! Now that is a conversation starter. I suggested it was given pride of place on his windowsill so that passers by could see it and marvel. He said it was a bit difficult to pack and he had to carry it out of the venue in a bag as it would have looked a bit odd trying to hail a cab with it at 4 in the morning.

A further link to Bill came with a visit to the studio last week by Alice who is a student. She is doing a media course and wanted to see the programme. She’s nineteen and a total sweetie. She even feigned interest when I took her for orange juice and a croissant afterwards and bored her half to death with stories of my glittering career. I also pontificated away about the radio industry in general and the philosophy, such as there is one, behind the "Best time of the Day show".

She yawned a few times but apart from that seemed attentive. She was probably doing multiplication tables in her head in order to keep her mind active. How do I know Alice? I was also at college with her mother Lorna. Sometimes I feel so old!