Truth is I managed, during a state of mild inebriation, to sprain my ankle rather unpleasantly way back in August. This was following a terribly entertaining afternoon spent at the Ben and Jerry’s festival on Clapham Common – an event which was officially about seeing the Human League (aka the Holy Trinity) but ended up being more about the Merry-Go-Round.

But anyway, after a few jars at the Two Brewers I headed off home thinking “it’s a Sunday, school night, best get a good night’s sleep in”. I then proceeded to bolt across the road, trip over a crossing-slab, vault into the oncoming traffic and then out of it again, crunching things unpleasantly as I went.

Seriously I was like an action-hero.

A drunk and slightly crap action hero.

But after a couple of days of no-movement, the doctor still refused me Physio and so I had to get better slowly under my own steam. And it’s been mostly fine since then; a bit throbby once the sadist has had his wicked way at the gym, mind, but otherwise fine.

Until the current cold snap. And by God it’s irksome at the moment. It starts to ache on exposure to the cold and barely lets up for ages. I’ve gone from being an action hero to the sort of ancient army sort who copped a bullet in the Crimean war and finds it always flares up in the cold and damp.

Someone fetch me some tweed. And a walking stick.

And a comedy moustache…

Of course when I am with the sadist I have to listen to him (not that he believes for one minute I do) so I get subjected to the music from time to time.

On Thursday though, to my delight and surprise, somehow someone had sneaked Kylie’s version of “the Locomotion” into what was otherwise a painfully hip LA TV playlist.

Not only did I laugh out loud when I first heard it, but it put a grin on my face for ages.

I raised how unusual such a track was with the sadist and how I was surprised to find something so out of character blasting through the club.

“I think,” he muttered, bitterly “we just have to face the scary fact that there are probably other people out there in the world who think like you.”

And, as if he could somehow punish the world through me for this, he set me up some deadlifts.

Poor chap. He has to listen to that station on repeat all day…

My existing one doesn’t quite fit across the shoulders or chest in the way it used to. In fact it quite seriously inhibits my ability to move.

I may have to start taking these sorts of expenses out of the sadist’s payments.

I wasn’t keen to be honest. I was feeling uncomfortably bloated as it was (well done, coffee) and didn’t think this was a good time, but there we had it. (He seems to have learned that taking me by surprise is the way to stop me protesting as much as normal.)

But I was somewhat surprised – not to mention thrilled – to learn that in I’ve dropped 3 centimetres from both my waist and my hips over the last few weeks, most of which we can attribute to fat loss (since my saddlebags are pretty much where I store it).

I’d kind of noticed I was reducing a bit but to see it in that sort of figure really thrilled me.

Sadly my suggestion that he should be made to pay for the new jeans I’ll need in a month or so met with outright refusal.

Oh well… can’t have it all I suppose…

I noticed over the last couple of days that I have been tripping over the bottoms of my jeans. Not in a major way, mind, just finding that they catch my heel occasionally.

And, after a day or so of this, I have finally realized that the problem is they are sliding down because there is now, without a belt, quite a sizeable gap between my waist and that of the jeans.

Now, you’d have thought that – for someone as obsessed with their weight as I am – I could take this as a good thing, a sign that I am well on the way to becoming a buff beach-bronzed Adonis and that maybe I could give myself a pat on the back and adjust my self-image accordingly, wouldn’t you?

But no. My first thought was “oh, bloody hell – I have to buy more sodding jeans”.

On Planet Rob, it seems, every silver lining has a cloud.

Because if you don’t, you don’t so much hit the gym as it hits you.

Not that I have any personal experience of this you understand.

(Whimper.)

Sadly, since it has so far been 13 times more prevalent in gay men in San Francisco than in other people, it’s something that seems to be getting known as the “Gay MRSA” which is really annoying – although thankfully BBC News is a little more balanced in its reporting.

I think the thing which annoys me most with the “Gay MRSA” tag is the fact that – like with HIV’s previous status as “the gay disease” – it creates a feeling of complacency in the straight community. And as we all now know, although in HIV’s case the initial stages of the epidemic in the “developed” world were largely restricted to gay men, the reverse is now true. (Interestingly, the earliest cases are now believed to date from as early as 1959 and involve straight people).

But no, calling it “Gay MRSA” is a nice easy piece of tabloid shorthand – no matter what the dangers of lodging that idea in the public consciousness might be.

To be honest, I’d even argue it’s not technically an STD since it’s transmitted through any form of skin-to-skin contact. This means that anyone who has physical contact with anyone is actually at risk. Wrestlers are mentioned in the article – for a spot of balance you understand – but you do have to ask the question: do straight people not shake hands?

There are times I think we should bring back public information films because people seem to be getting increasingly stupid. Trouble is, in affairs like this it’s common sense really that leads the way, so any advice is likely to be a bit KYTV in its content:

If you are a sexually active gay male, or a wrestler, or sexually active gay wrestler, and you are concerned about Gay MRSA…

DO!

• Shower after sex with a good supply of hot water and an antibacterial shower gel.
• Avoid having multiple partners in the same period without washing.
• Check yourself regularly for boils and signs of infection.

DON’T!

• Lie face down in a sauna for three days letting hordes of sweaty strangers have their wicked way with you.
• Take part in a game of Naked Jelly Twister with anyone who has a suppurating skin condition.
• Marinade any boils or sores under a poultice of stale urine and a protective layer of cling-film.

Forewarned is Forearmed!

(That was a blisteringly patronising Public Information Film.)

Needless to say the Christian Right have seized upon this in a big way, missing the point totally.

Bless their little cotton brains.

Between the Nurofen (oww!-ey back), Beechams (a cold is determined to bring me down, I can feel it forming), 5-Hydroxytryptophan (my SAD syndrome kicked in majorly two weeks ago and really left me feeling utterly depressed until I started taking it again), Conjugated Linoleic Acid (fat burner), Milk-thistle and Artichoke (system cleansing) and Fibre-sure (well, guess) it’s a wonder, frankly, I don’t rattle when I walk.

It’s a slippery slope, this supplements lark, I tell you.

Obviously I’m stymied in the reproductive stakes by the complete lack of interest in breeding and rearing (in any sense) children at all, but it’s nice to know all the same.

And every morning I suffer the onslaught of offers you can get from around the till-point. At the moment I am declining, on a daily basis, the offer of a pack of Haribo at half price. This is not, you understand, because I don’t like Haribo, but simply because at the moment I am trying to eschew sweets and anything too dangerously calorific.

Today, however, there was an additional trap. Having picked up a copy of some random periodical I also got an offer of a tube of Pringles too – again one which I politely declined for the sake of my somewhat amorphous waistline.

It does occur, however, that WHSMith’s current desperate touting of sweet and potato-based temptations is maybe not entirely in line with the current Government panic about obesity and making sure you get your five a day and so on.

Surely they should be pushing apples and bananas instead? Or just not be so heavy handed with the promotions?