vikings, unwieldy feats of strength, mobile phones and an abundance of testosterone

k. wasn't well yesterday and sprawled across the sofa with a sore throat (it's very unprofessional of shops to sell furniture with medical conditions)

his suffering was temporarily alleviated by 'the world's strongest man' on mid-morning tv to which he was soon giving his full attention - funny that - for some reason the 'homes and gardens' channel suddenly lost its appeal for a while - so we spent half an hour watching a gaggle of huge scandinavians (plus one american and a five feet three inches tall brit) performing feats of physical strength and endurance such as towing lorries with their teeth, balancing boulders the size of houses on both of their pinkies and conceding defeat to superior displays of strength by slapping each others' man boobs in that manly bonding way which definitely does not betray the slightest undercurrent of sexual attraction - guys who closely resemble the incredible hulk without the green tinge but fiercer looking, with muscles in places that most of us can only dream of, pumped so full of steroids that if their urine samples were immediately injected into a team of young athletes today, they would still fail the drugs test in the next london olympics - these muscle-bound heavy weights exude so much testosterone through their pores into the air that any unfortunate female standing within breathing distance would be shaving off a five o'clock shadow by the end of the day

at the end of the contest, the winner jumped into a swimming pool, grunting and clasping his hands over his head, later telling the interviewer that his girlfriend would be so happy with his victory - at this declaration k. and i looked at each and burst out laughing, with cries of 'you're not kidding anyone but yourself, honey'

scandinavia seems to produce a lot of these bulging-out-of-tight-lycra-in-all-directions powerlifters - must be due to the healthy outdoor lifestyle and all that clean air (and the fact that it's such an expensive place to live that people have to make their own entertainment using cheap natural resources such as logs and breeze blocks) - these men's men all have names which sound like the viking kings of england who kept overthrowing the saxons before the normans invaded and made us all french - sven jorickson, jorick svensson, magnus johansen, johaness magnusson, erik svenson, sony erikson and mobile phonikson - i can imagine them running naked through the snow to jump into super-heated pools of natural spring-water, without the need to worry about the sight of their genitalia shrinking in the cold air because all the supplements taken over the years of training have already shrunk their individual manhoods to the size of a baby carrot and two petit-pois

it reminded me of the only time i've ever been on steroids when i contracted epstein-barr virus* a few years back and a power-lifting colleague advised me to go back to the gym and start on the heavy weights (the ones in the gym, not the ones reclining in the steam room with towels loosely draped over their groins) - i don't think he knew that the disease causes extreme fatigue and incredibly high and low mood swings and was the reason that barbara windsor took a year off eastenders when she contracted the condition - so now, in addition to a saucy laugh and big boobs, babs and i have something else in common - now i should go back to london and form dubious friendships with psychotic east end villains who love their mum and nail their associates heads to snooker tables

* the e.b. virus was named after the beatles manager, brian epstein, as he was the first to notice the symptoms in his loveable mop tops, the first known and most famous victims of the disease, which many experts believe they picked up in the crowded, germ-laden environment of liverpool's famous club, 'the cavern' in the early sixties

this condition led to the recordings of some of their early classics such as 'twist and shout', inspired by john lennon's painful reaction during his endoscopy, 'please, mr postman', recorded while the boys were waiting for the results of the medical tests, and 'from me to you', their first uk number one, often mistaken as a love song, but really a clever, knowing reference to the virulent spread of the virus