All pray at the altar of...

Reverend Food

Simon Bates: Please be aware that the following article contains language of a delicate nature, which could offend people of a nervous disposition. It also contains a number of sexual swearwords that are nastier than Poo-bum, Bogie-breath and Vadge-face.

I now have a new nickname: ‘Reverend Food’, which makes me realise that I’ve turned into my worst nightmare.. a terrible preachy annoying person who looks disdainfully at people who don't believe in what they believe in. It’s terrible as I know how annoying these people can be.

So I warn anyone who now comes into contact with me, that you’ll be getting a sermon. I can’t help it, and that makes it all the worse. Fortunately there are a few people who I can talk with endlessly about this, and I’m probably boring them as well.

The thing is, that since I’ve had my enlightenment and had my ungodly visitation by the crap food god I have been de-brainwashed. Much like someone who discovers god and wants to tell everyone about it, I’m the same – but about food and exercise. Much as I realise I’m like those annoying religious preachy types of people, I still hate those feckers, at least I’m self-aware at how annoying I’ve become. So next time you’re about to eat a massive bowl of spaghetti bolognase with pasta think of me screaming ‘No, White refined pasta, Terrible pasta sauce full of sugar + salt, Red meat – 2nd time this week..Nooooooooo’ and then enjoy it.

I know that I will not always be like this, but I see this process very much like someone finding god for the first time, or anything that can have devotees. Even though we all know that there is no white-beardy entity looking over us, but I do think that Monty Pyhton’s Life of Brian was pure fact, it has to be.

So initially you have the ‘enlightenment stage’ and euphoria of discovering all of this undiscovered knowledge that up to now has been missing from your life. You are amazed that you haven’t seen this before. There's often a glow about you, and people notice that you're going through some form of change. They often say things like 'What have you done with the real XXXX, but whatever it is, you're looking great.'

Then the second stage, which is ‘information gathering’. Once you try and find out as much as you can, you suddenly feel like you know more on the subject than anyone else that has ever existed, and that what you think and say is 150% correct (yes 50% more than is actually physically possible). The next stage is the one that everyone else dreads and fears, ‘sharing and caring’. This is when you think with all this knowledge and power (because knowledge is POWER of course in your weird twisted little mind) you can help save mankind. During this stage, anyone unfortunate enough to come within spitting distance of you will have to endure a 30 minute sermon on your specialist subject, irrespective of whether they have any interest whatsoever. You also get a bit annoyed when people suddenly get up and leave or get a glazed look on their face.

You now come to a fork in the road of your journey. This leads down two paths – one leads to the stage called ‘awakening’, the other to the more dangerous route called ‘arseholified’. They’re probably self explanatory but just to embellish. ‘Awakening’ allows you to take a step back and realise that actually you’re being a cock and can’t in fact change the world, and actually you do still quite like red meat, and the occasional steak and chips is not going to kill you. You also think back with embarrassment on all the cringeworthy conversations, and how you’ve been a complete twat. You still believe in what you’ve been saying, but now realise that not everyone thinks the same as you, and actually that’s ok. You can sometimes slip up, and appear to be in ‘sharing and caring’ or the ‘arsehole’ stages, but this doesn’t last long and you can generally snap out of it.

For those unfortunate not to discover ‘awakenings’, they find themselves in the irredeemable ‘arseholified’ stage. This is generally irreversible, and you can tell if you’re in this stage if people avoid you on the street, and if you suddenly find you have no friends. You think this is ok, as you can find new friends and people who believe in what you’re saying. I’ve known a few people who have gone down the ‘arseholified’ path, and it is a sad sight indeed.

So much so that some have been so ‘arseholefied’ that they’ve literally disappeared up their own one, due to the nastiness of the ‘arseholicness’ that has infected them. Sometimes, people that have gone down this route can end up on TV and become ‘famous’. Some you may have heard of include Anthony ‘GingerC*ntFace’ Worrell Thompson, Lenny ‘Premier Arshehole’ Henry, Andrew ‘Chocolate Starfish Starman’ Stone and of course Gillian ‘Hunchback Dogface’ McKeith (see previous post for reference). In fact there are too many to quote, and I think we all know a number of people that have suffered and still suffering from this ‘arsheholic’ pathway.

I only hope that we can try and help these people, and make them see the light. I am thankful that at the moment I’ve not gone down the route of the ‘arsehole’ stage, but that probably just means I’m a bit of a cock, so I apologise in advance if you’ve suffered from my enlightenment.

An 'arsehole' in the final and irredeemable stage