I used to be a growing boy, now I'm just a greedy man

I am not a tall man. I am not an abnormally short one either, but I definitely sit a tad lower than the average. This prohibits me from ever looking classically handsome, receiving good service at a crowded bar or being selected to help old ladies reach stuff from a high shelf - I've come to terms with it, you must too. My Mother, bless her, has until relatively recently, clung to the desperate belief that I would enjoy a 'growth spurt' late in adolescence and spring to the lofty heights of her two brothers - who both grew to over 6 foot aged 18 (I am 24). Now, most of this can be forgiven as parental exuberance - she is still convinced I could have bagged a place at Oxford with my unquestionably average A level haul - but there has been another casualty, more easily startled than silly, fanciful hopes or dreams: my stomach.

You see, I grew up with the words 'eat more, you're a growing lad' as a kind of mantra. I had a metabolism that made FAT ladies at work SOB - 'I wish I could eat like you and not get fat(ter).' It was lovely. Boom time. I ate and ate, rarely moved, and yet somehow still enjoyed the figure of a pubescent choir boy. But now the boom is over. A great depression is setting in. My diet of beers, second dinners and blocks of bedside cheese is taking its toll. My stomach, once firm and innocent wears the remnants of a tough winter like a vagrant's sleeping bag. My face is now 'fuller' and, although the stages are early, there is little evidence of any drive to reverse the trend. My only hope is that I somehow, through no effort whatsoever, become one of those hard fat men - like James Gandolfini, or Dave Benson Philips - and am able to bury my inner turmoil under a festering slag heap of hearty breakfasts, violence and sexual oppression that will keep my tormentors at bay.

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