I've
been hammering the hand-bike recently, a machine for upper body
toning. My original PB- recorded in August last year- was much higher
than the attempt I recently made on returning to it. My guess is that
I'd not paid attention to the level of difficulty I'd set the machine
to on my first attempt, so I've started the process again at Level 5,
and hit a distance much higher than the original from 13 months ago.
Away
from the gym I finished reading Dom Joly's The Dark Tourist, a
first-hand account of the comedian's tour of the world's most
unlikely- and most uncomfortable- holiday destinations. I read a
large part of this on a gym workout project (see here).
Coming back to the book, I found that the content was quite
interesting. After all, where else have you heard of 3-hour
North-Korean stage plays or acid-ingesting cocktail barmen in Beirut?
Eventually,
though, Joly's excursions take their toll- you get the feeling he's
doing these trips to be zany, rather than because of a genuine
interest in the countries he visits. Yes, you could go skiing on the
segregated slopes of Iran, but why would that be enjoyable? What do
you hope to gain from this? Although interesting- and funny- in
places, Joly's pompous ramblings and over-wordy phrasing becomes
tiresome. Too many sentences started with “It was” followed by an
adjective that we can work out for ourselves. Yes, Dom. I'm quite
sure that passing a 12-year-old girl “energetically conducting”
an orchestra of pioneers on a Pyongyang high street under an enormous
poster of Kim Jong Il would be “totally surreal”. I can gauge
that from your description.
An
interesting book, but Joly's obsession with himself is too evident,
something publishers Simon & Schuster should have reigned in to
make shorter.
Moving
on. Guess how long I have until I'm gracing Ibiza with my awesome
presence and stunning dance skills? I'll let the fat woman from Total
Recall give you a hint.
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