Now it’s rather unusual to remark on this, I know I’ve had this issue for a number of years, but now it’s more accute.

To be fair, I’m a portly gentleman. OK, I’m a chubby f**ker who’s life involves not women, wine and a cigar as most people in this cosmopolitan slab would believe, but mounds of greasy bacon smothered in Angel Delight. We have a working relationship. I buy it in huge quantities, and in return, it lets me stuff it down my arena-sized gob. There’s not much talking, and there are no questions asked.

I’ve been this size for a large amount of time, pardon the pun, and therefore have been used to knowing which shops tend to stock items which fit, for example, the NEXT chain of stores in the UK are great for tops of all shapes and sizes. But if I were to try and fit into their range of trousers and jeans, I would cut off circulation to the man-sacks and proceed to walk funny.

However, it appears that either I have grown a full 20 inches around the waistline, or the sizes of clothes in the capital seem to favour those with less meat on them than a chicken nugget.

The same size shirt, which I bought up north, same collar size of 17 inches etc, of which still fits me today, I wear it often without any trouble, and when trying on another shirt at the store, I was a spitting image of the Fatboy Slim Album cover with the big man/small t-shirt motif on the front. It was unbelievable what had occurred in the space of 20 seconds. It was as if my stomach had been exposed to gamma radiation and then got very angry.

Upon checking both garments, both were the same collar size, but the shirt that was tried, was certainly missing a few inches.

It was dubbed “Slim fit” which as it appears, now means that the collar size which I used as a guide to know what shirts in the packet would fit, no longer applies. Looking all over, the fashionable attire all bore this label of doom, and only plain white shirts, the type you wear if you’re about to kill someone, were the normal variety you come to expect.

To add insult to injury, they wanted more money for the exact same fitting as well.

BASTARDS!

They have the same size as my current attire classed as XXXL, which in a roundabout way, is telling you, lose forty pounds, not only money wise, but weight wise and we can do business!

I began to look around other places on Oxford Street, and all of them are thinking about those with the 30″ waistline only, you will have no flesh on your body and large wavy hair, all hanging around girls you could use as a belt in case of emergencies. These models all appear to be one hour away from death if they don’t nibble on another piece of celery soon.

Why is this the desired image these shops which to project? If you want to be in, you have to look like this? Why does society only favour those who will be able to dress the same as those people on the posters?

The answer appears to be “You’re too fat, f**k off.”

Granted, there is another way to look at this: perhaps this was a wake-up call to get the backside down to the place where you only end up sniffing the women’s bicycle seat: The Gym, work hard, slaving away sweating my various body parts off, while others flex their non-existent muscles to catch attention, work off more under the aid of a personal trainer who seems to be unable to count properly, and then maybe, just maybe, nothing will change.

We’ll find out then when I go…. 🙂

But no, it really was disheartening that once again, if I want something like a shirt with the stripy bits, I have to go back north for it, to the exact same store?!?

I tried to get some trainers at a main store, Sketchers, to add to the two pairs I actually own which can be used out and about at various functions, murders etc. You see, this company appear to have the only trainers that last more than 3 minutes with me, and they have proven themselves time and time again. They earned my continued patronage.

But it was too much to have a size 10 pair in, well, anything. No matter what trainer you picked, nope, haven’t got that either. Are my feet now too fat? They said “try again next week” instead after failing at every turn. I certainly will, but back home.

In fact the only thing which could be considered a victory was a new wallet to replace the mouldy old one with the bee hive inside, broken down after 3 years of service and even that was a task in itself.

Do you use cash to pay for anything? Why? Credit Cards are where it’s at! Sadly, you can have 700 cards in a wallet that cost £115.69 but you want to put in some loose change, forget it. But if you are like me, and let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be like me (you can all put your hands down now), look hard enough though and you will find what you need of course.

London, the place with everything and yet, you can’t get what you want without something turning into the brown stuff. Maybe it’s just me then…