The Biggest Loser: me

Something strange happened last night, I can only say I must have been sleepwalking hungry, after a rather early night.

Alas, The Biggest Loser (Mondays, 9pm), ITV1's recently primetime-promoted and jazzed up weight loss war against the fatty sprang up on the television and didn't cease to disappear for quite a while longer.

Think X Factor, but beefed up, literally. There's no live audience yet, but I expect that'll come in series 3 with a host of famous ex-lards worth at least one billion dollars:
"He's sold a trillion weight loss DVDs in Japan, and NOW he's here live in the studio to perform his latest WORKOUT to Celine Dion's MY HEART WILL GO ON."
Yes, we're talking about a sinking ship - the Beached Whale routine will come "ON NEXT WEEK'S SHOW", from another famous suctioned celeb.
At this stage I'm imagining the voice of David Lamb from Come Dine With Me, although, maybe that's a tad too ironic.

They're already half way there with the set, sort of - predictably oversized scales coinciding with a 'dazzingly' studio, which, coincidentally looks like it's been stolen from the Dancing On Ice ring. I imagine the dynamic structure was used as a task for the contestants to lose weight:

"GET ON THE ICE AND PULL THAT -123°C BACKDROP TO STUDIO 4." Because, after all, it's an ITV reality show, and it's got to be EPIC.

And well much like the singing talent show, I was expecting 'heart rendering' stories, but there's always next week: "Last summer, I collapsed on my dog, and he had to have heart surgery (visuals cut to image of dog with bandage around head)."

It's not long before we are reminded of the seriousness of the situation with a Clint Eastwood line, sorry, I mean quote straight from the heart :
“My life’s at stake here. If I leave here I’m a dead man walking”, says one male contestant as overweight viewers around the country panic about how they will survive without being on this show.

And then there's fitness guru to the people 'Davina Macall' presenting, and looking particularly concerned. Not because she's worried, but because her eyebrows appear to be plucked for a Star Trek audition. Think Spock, adressing his Enterprise crewmates after an expedition to earth and a miguided day trip to McDonalds.

Davina seems caring, at first, when asking one contestant, probably called Jan, to choose whether her or her friend leave the 'competition' after losing the least weight:
"Are you alright?" Davina says.....approx 3 second wait..."You've got ten minutes."

Primetime, it's a brutal world - whether you've had a gastric band fitted in Cuba or not.

The main problem with the show is 'The Biggest Loser' title and the repetition of the words regularly during the show. I'm sure the producers high fived with joy when they came up with such a pun. Yes, someone will lose the most weight, but surely there's that niggling bit of doubt in the winner's head about their cool factor (0).
They are, after all, The Biggest Loser.

Because for these contestants it's rather unlikley Simon will be on the phone with a 5 mill record deal, or OK! with their first photo shoot. They could join the post Christmas DVD fitness money-makers, but they'll have to fend of Davina for that market.

Gap YAAAH: A response to David Mitchell

A good gap year can be completely worthwhile, but David Mitchell's 'Beneath Borders Campaign' (as I'm naming it), in the Guardian, could mean as far as we get is the local Caravan site.

I remember my gap year or ‘yah’ before university as challenging and fulfilling in many ways. I don’t, however, remember thinking my carefully budgeted trip abroad "gadding around" like I was on some sort of passing visit with the royal family – me playing the role of a privileged Prince waving patronisingly at poor Ugandan children.

My travelling experience was far more involved, and very different from David Mitchell’s generalised view of a year out - it certainly didn’t turn me into a fantasist as he suggests, although I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dreaming.

If anything, my 5 months abroad gave me a clearer view of what lies outside of my small Essex town, and in a global economy where countries are becoming increasingly intertwined, knowing more of the “unreal world” I’d say is ever more important. Even if you are just eating Chop Suey in Beijing - I didn't, by the way.

A couple of my parent’s friends did suggest I may not return; that I could end up dreadlocked to my knees in Zambia and with skin so tanned I’d look like a homeless Crocodile Dundee. This coincides with the presumption A Level students are not ready to make significant decisions, and yet they’re often, shrewdly, grasping for that bit of freedom before being hoiked onto the next level of education, or a career ladder they're not sure about.

Before the 'jet setting' began, I worked full time for four months in a department store. I folded towels, and advised, badly, on bed sheets in the Home section. Home was in-fact where I wanted to be most of the time because it wasn’t a particularly riveting experience, but it was necessary.

I mean, Daddy sometimes gave me a lift to work, but he was never going to help me sponsor some underprivileged orphan from Kazakhstan. I had mum for that.

But seriously, it wasn’t a normal thing amongst my friends to go on a tropical travelling extravaganza, and it’s a shame that according to David Mitchell, the tuition fees increase means the year out before university will become a thing for "super rich kids". David, it’s sad you feel this is a “good outcome” – I’m sorry you ended up on some unsatisfactory InterRailing fun-faire to 'Bore-deaux', but for some of us it was a completely worthwhile experience.

I trekked through the jungle tracking ancient Mayan ruins and worked on a rainforest conservation project in Belize, and then took a month’s Spanish course in Guatemala.
It sounds cliché and a tad hooray henry but it wasn't - it was really quite eye opening. Who knows if I’ll ever be able to do anything like that again.

You’re right David, I never saw peccary (horned pigs), dodgy Guatemalan salesman, or worryingly sized rats during my three years at Bournemouth University, but if I had, I’d have been prepared. Yes, we had a few wandering addicts by my halls from the nearby homeless centre but nothing like the slums in India – I didn’t go there either.

When you’ve taken the opportunity to see more than what’s on your doorstep it’s that initiative which broadens the mind. The will to have an experience out of your comfort zone - I gained an independence which made me wholly more confident and helped me hugely at university, from the lecture hall to the union nightclub. I didn’t change the world, but I’m sure some people do.

David Mitchell is looking down at those who have thoroughly enjoyed themselves during a year out, and for taking a leap into the unknown.

It’s this sneering which makes him the snob, calling us the "vociferous" type for flinging ourselves full force into foreign cultures and enjoying every minute of it (maybe not the diarrhoea and vomitting).

And David, I didn’t buy ethnic ponchos or beaded bracelets, I brought back a hankering for black bean soup along with an aggressively coloured hammock, which, by the way, I still use.

When you’re young, who cares, you’ve got the rest of your life to be serious, I’m just annoyed the tuition fees rise means so many won't be able to afford the same leap into the unknown.