MY CONFESSION

Booze.

Within our culture it is everywhere.

Since we are born we are force-fed the idea that this is what makes us fun and likeable and tolerable for other people to be around us.  It is a thousand great nights out and turns every party into a joyous wonderful experience, a barbeque into a triumph, a quiet get-together between friends into an intimate tete-a-tete and a night out into a thousand memorable moments still to come.

Being a non-drinker I have seen a lot more of the other side than I have of that one.

I have seen the vomittous side, I have seen the angry arguments side, I have seen the doing stupid things and regretting it forever side, and I have seen these, as much, if not more than the media-painted-rose-coloured side.  I have enjoyed defying convention and laughing in the face of normalities and said “I will do things my way”, and looking at the health side of things I’m glad I have.

Because that’s the thing.  What I have also always been aware of is the health risks associated with drink.  The damage to the liver and brain are well documented, this alone always made me wary of it, and then add to that the other organs that are damaged as well such as the kidneys and the blood and the heart and for me alcohol was always a no-brainer.  

I always said that the little box on top of your shoulders contained everything you were, everything you are and everything you will be ...Probably best not to fuck around with it.

So what was my vice you might ask?  I mean everyone has one so what was my weakness, my itch that I just had to scratch?  Chocolate.  That’s all it was.  I loved chocolate.  If you want me to be more specific about it I will be, specifically almost all of it except white chocolate and Hershey’s, because white chocolate technically isn’t chocolate and Hershey’s is vile, it’s just too sweet and tastes like vomit, in my opinion, but that’s just my tastebuds for you.

Anyway, that was what I longed for.  At Christmas and birthdays it was easy for people to get me what I wanted because everyone knew what I craved.  I was easy to buy for and I got what I wanted and a lot of it.  Every celebration or anniversary I would feel like a very young person in some sort of confectionary store.

Life was good.

But it wasn’t.

You see while alcohol side’s effects and long term repurcussions are visible in people’s stance, walk, face and general behaviour, excessive amounts of chocolate’s effects are not visible, they are entirely invisible, and I didn’t realise until way later just what damage I was doing to myself until recently.

 A routine check-up and check out revealed that I was what is known as pre-diabetic, which means that you’re about as close to being diabetic as you can be without needing regular shots of insulin, however, it also meant something much more sobering ...I was going to have to give up chocolate.  

Before now I wouldn’t say I thought I was better than all the other suckers out there with there enjoyment of alcohol that ...Actually scratch that, I thought I was WAY better than everyone else.  I stayed away from everything that was harmful for you because I valued my smarts over everything else, but it turns out that my replacement crutch was killing everything else except my smarts.

It was a failure of a spectacular nature, and my love affair with chocolate is now over, which has left me searching for answers where there aren’t any questions. 

So what I thought I would do to draw a line underneath all of it is write an official goodbye to one of the most pleasurable things I have experienced in my life, my vice that hits me in the same way that drink does for everyone else after a tough day at the office or after an argument with a loved one.  It’s my goodbye to chocolate.

Dear Chocolate,

  You know, we’ve had some fun times over the years.  When I think back of all the moments I have enjoyed with you, Christmases, Birthdays, Anniversaries, Job starts, Job finishes and pretty much everything else in between.  You’ve always been there and you have provided me with some of your finest works over the years, always consistant, never a disappointment.  Your flavours have provided me with so much joy and so much delicious textures that it fills me with sorrow to have to let you go.  

  Bourneville was one of your greatest creations, for me it’s a reflextion of life itself, it is bitter and sweet all at the same time, as for Orange Aero, I now love the fact that it disappeared from the shelves for ages, unike its more popular mint sibling, because when it came back it was like re-watching a favourite film that you forgot just how damn good it was.

As for Kit-Kat, it is what it is, a moment of wafer and chocolate combined in a blissful twin moment, that sometimes, just sometimes, when you bit into it and it’s pure chocolate only, reminds you that life is also full of pleasant little surprises.

  And as for Terry’s Chocolate Orange, you know what the best thing is about that?  That’s right, that sliver of pure orange chocolate in the middle.  It’s to Chocolate afficados what the remains at the bottom of a bag of dry roasted peanuts are to nut fans, and lest we forget, the Wispa, which was Cadburys take on an Aero, but, was different to an Aero (I still can’t figure out how?)

  And then there’s all the delicous boxes, the after-eights, the dairy milk, the black magic and the Thorntons.  Mmmm, Thorntons, and now we have the Aldi brands too, the exquisite Moser Roth’s and all those other little mixes that you only get from that store.  

For all these things and more that I can count, I thank you.  It’s been great, but you’re killing me, and so it’s time to ease you out of my life.  It won’t be easy and I miss you soooo much already, but so long.  

Fondest memories

Mike Lambert

But that isn’t the end of it.  It is merely the beginning, you see there’s a Diabetes timebomb that’s going on across the country, it’s affecting a lot of people, and we, as a society should probably be doing more about that.  I mean this is a condition that is potentially lethal and yet there’s very little being advertised.  I mean you have to really look and notice to actually see what is going on.

http://home.bt.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/diabetes-a-uk-health-emergency-11363917705967

http://home.bt.com/news/uknews/over40s-given-diabetes-warning-11363881911111

  Maybe chocolate should have a government warning on the wrapper.  Maybe every-time there’s an advert it should include the words “Enjoy Chocolate responsibly”.  Of course it will have no effect at all but at least it would acknowledge the problem, something that currently we don’t appear to be doing, in spite of certain quarters attempts to prevent it.

  And all of this pains me.  It’s sad that one of the things that I still crave now, that I feel a burning hunger for deep inside every time I walk down those aisles in the supermarket, every time I venture down that end row in home bargains, and every time I get to the second row in Aldi is damaging me so much inside, and hurting so many others also.

I've been MrChatable, I am pre-diabetic and I miss chocolate.  :(

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/bottles-booze-liquor-alcohol-bar-tavern-24525293.jpg

http://www.chocablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cadbury-bournville-orange-2.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAiBTiG67oFRMJfd_ymoTmVIPjeq9EXBG_7NTx7MzhHGr4oWaQ3ZxZInnCE_XA4ukEhXoJ9yXwGXuDUJgH-mQSgCSqGtJ7t4tbgQcxcMsBwTypkDgXljFVee99oRa039MnnYQauwq34UgT/s1600/aero+orange+chocolate+bar+inside.JPG

http://www.kaveyeats.com/files/2013/06/moser-roth-1.jpg

LET’S BE HONEST, IT IS POSSIBLE FOR ENGLAND TO WIN THE WORLD CUP.

But it’s not going to happen.  Yep.  I’m hitching my colours firmly to someone else, not because I’m not an England fan and not because I like saying “I told you so” to everyone when I’m right and they’re wrong (even though I do enjoy doing that!)

You see Football is a game of narrow margins, it is a game not about the strongest links but about the exploitation of the weakest, and the World Cup is the cruelest chalice of them all where great players such as Cruyff, Zico, Yashin and Platini have all seen their dreams of lifting the greatest trophy on earth crumble to dust.  The World Cup is an incredible spectacle of skill, organisation, patriotism and luck but it is also something that comes around every four years only.  It is special because it is rare, few teams win it but through fair means or foul some teams do.

However one thing that you do need to win the world cup is between 7 or 8 World class players and NO WEAK LINKS.

As we’ve seen from the Champions League teams with weak links tend not to win and the World Cup is an amplification of this 100 fold.  Back in 2002 and again in 2004 it could be argued that England fell into the above illustrious category.  They had a slew of great players all coming together at the same time and while it was easy back then just to accept England not winning (as usual) now, when we look back, it seems hard to understand just HOW they managed not to win anything.

How long ago do these games seem now, how long ago is it since we saw David Beckham;s wonder free kicks, since Joe Cole’s amazing goal against Sweden, Rooney tearing through Croatia like a dog shredding a chew toy and since Owen’s blistering hat-trick against Germany?

One would have thought that this new breadth of English talent that came through in the early 00’s would have spurned the FA on to not just find more of this talent but nurture it so that the great drop-off of talent and ability did not occur as it does do in the English game due to untold distractions such as dames, injuries or laziness. 

So while Trevor and the rest of the head honcho’s at the FA say they are targeting the 2018 and anything now would be a bonus but from what we’ve seen in the astonishing drop-off in quality over the last 8 years I would not expect England to trouble the upper echelons of a major final for another 20 years, with the exceptions of Hart and possibly Barkley, there isn’t anyone from now who could squeeze a place into that amazing squad fro then.

So are we looking back to the dark days of the seventies when the England squad failed even to qualify for international tournaments?  Well, no, I don’t think so, but in spite of two under 17 victories at youth level the lack of opportunities for these players at the highest level has caused no end of problems for the senior squad.

However in spite of this plummeting of standards this will not stop me from watching the world cup when it’s on and wishing Ray and the rest of the squad all the luck in the world

After watching the Netherlands last night, they will need it.