Get moving, fat boy!

Shock horror probe, screams the headline. People are not doing the recommended amount of exercise as defined by some random number generator on its day off from producing definitive alcohol unit limits and calorie rations.

Only a very tiny proportion of men and women actually do the amount of exercise recommended to keep them fit and healthy, a comprehensive study shows today.

Are we not men? We are Weebles!

When 15,000 adults were asked how much moderate exercise they had taken, 38% of men and 29% of women thought they had hit the target.

The magic word 'target' again. We must hit those targets, no matter how irrelevant they might be. Expect Japanese-style physical jerks before work in the near future.

"As a rule of thumb, it is moderate activity if it makes you out of breath or sweaty," she [Righteous Rachel Craig] said. "That indicates you are doing cardiovascular activity.

No, that indicates you are having a heart attack. From too much unaccustomed exertion.

Housework is also said to count towards moderate activity, but, said Craig, dusting and washing up do not count. Rigorous scrubbing may be physically active enough to register, but what the experts really have in mind is digging the garden, tilling rough ground, mowing large areas with a hand-mower and chopping wood.

Uh, Rachel, it's December. My garden is frozen solid and covered in cold white stuff due to global warming. I don't have a large area to mow and I have a petrol mower, thanks. I'd chop wood more often if I had a coal fire but I don't even have a chimney. A lot of people have no gardens at all. Should they till their window boxes, dig up their Yucca plants and mow the carpet once a week?

What Righteous Rachel describes as 'moderate exercise' sounds to me like the life of a crofter with a decent patch of land. Or, perhaps, a peasant. Yes, indeed, a Green peasant lifestyle with no powered garden tools and lots and lots of manual work and dead by thirty.

What's good for us, it seems, is a return to the Middle Ages. Which would be embarrassing for the Righteous since it was warmer then than it is now. It all sounds a bit, well, ultra-socialist.

How long before she wants all the academics rounded up and shot? Can't be that far away now.

What adults are really doing is sitting in front of the computer at work or at home, watching television, reading, eating, studying or drawing. This is how most of us occupy around 10 hours a day, the survey shows.

The Gorgon wants broadband in every home. She wants a scythe above every mantlepiece and pigs in every garage. Those naughty people are out there learning things and relaxing! How dare they! Those ploughs won't push themselves you know. Well, actually they do. They have engines attached to them these days.

I will exercise as and when necessary in order to get some specific task completed. I will not lift heavy weights that don't need to be moved, I will never have my BMI measured and I am not obese. I am chubby because I can afford it. I was thin when I was skint and I didn't like it all that much.

People don't exercise as much as they used to. There's a reason for that. Farms and factories are now run with far fewer people than they used to be. There's a reason for that too.

We have machinery that does the stuff we don't really want to do.

These people never stop. They want control over absolutely every aspect of life. If they continue to get their way, the next generation will work eight hours, play eight hours, sleep eight hours, day in and day out, to rigidly controlled timetables and targets that must be met. Not exceeded because that's elitist. The targets must be met exactly. By everyone.

What you eat.
What you drink.
What you say.
What you think.
Where you go.
What you learn.
Who you see.
What you earn.

All of it under central control. It's not Orwell's 1984. It's worse than that. It's not Terry Gilliam's Brazil. It's madder than that. In both of those, people had some small freedoms. In both, people could smoke indoors. That's right, even those dystopian visionaries didn't think it would go that far. In both, people could drink alcohol if they wanted to.

We now have 'official guidelines' on every morsel of food, labelled with traffic light symbols that have no effect. The response? Something more controlling is needed to make people eat what they must be made to eat. Otherwise they'll just eat what they like and that simply will not do. It's not sustainable. Even though nobody knows what a sustainable diet is, they're going to make it up anyway. Then enforce it. For us? For the planet? No. For profit.

The alcohol controls are all over the papers and the blogs already. Does anyone need reminding about the lunacy that is 'passive drinking'?

Who has seen the signs on buses that have a picture of someone with 'police line do not cross' tape over their ears? Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will get you a prison sentence. Be very careful what you say and who you say it to in this Democratic Republic of Airstrip One. Freedom of speech only applies if you say the right things.

What you think is determined by the news you hear. Who controls that? You really should consider that question because who controls the information you get, controls you.

I'll leave the rest for later. The viewscreen is demanding I do my daily bending and you never know when telly is watching you these days.