A few weeks ago Weighing
up the Enemy was launched on Channel 4. This was a programme that had the
original working title of Fatonomics
and I was asked to take part in it myself... I declined. I review the first
episode here: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/weighing-up-enemy.html.
At the time I suspected that if I'd agreed to join the cast they'd have put me
up against an overweight Skeptic; they would have. His name is Kev and he
competes against a man who is clearly my replacement, a practicing psychic medium
named Kevin. It's spooky to watch my alter ego do battle with the powers of
calorific Skepticism, as if I'm watching the programme from another dimension
in which I'm in his place, as I so very nearly was.
It's currently
available on 4OD, see: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/weighing-up-the-enemy/on-demand/59354-004.
(This link will only be live for a
limited time; if a more permanent link becomes available I'll edit it in; keep
checking back.)
Kevin is a portly and softly-spoken former Kentish police
detective whose passion for stir-fry meals, beer, wine and curry has caused his
weight to blossom to twenty-three stone. His enemy in the pound-shedding wars
is a Skeptic from Northern Ireland
called Kev; did he shorten his name to avoid them being confused? He's a
photographer by trade and not a professional scientist, but many Skeptics I
know are also self-taught amateurs. He has several children and wants to be
healthy so he can live to take care of them. If he wins, his woo-woo rival's
money will go to Ciaran O'Keeffe who, unknown to me, is apparently a
representative of the Irish Skeptics Society. O'Keeffe is of course very famous
for being one of the presenters of Most
Haunted. I've met Dr O'Keeffe, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/weird-10.html,
and wouldn't describe him as a Skeptic. In fact he is kind of standing on the
bridge being shot at from both sides. He's that bane of the Skeptisphere- an
academic parapsychologist, but he has also been accused of faking many of the
scenes in his TV show by fellow paranormal researchers. Kevin plans to rub
Kev's nose in it by spending his winnings on hosting a psychic event at a
theatre. The belt-tightening battle commences with the identical monotonous rigmarole
that I detail in my review of the first episode. As a Skeptic about nutrition
as much as he is a Skeptic about everything else, Kev believes in the simple calories-in-calories-out
model and is eating the same food he normally does, but is reducing the
portions. Kevin is more traditional. He's going all out in a very determined
way, eating fresh salads and vegetables, working out at the gym and going on
long brisk walks. However being too zealous can let cravings creep in. It takes
a lot of willpower to beat them. In the end my prime time shadow Kevin the
psychic wins by a big margin; would I have managed to do the as well as he did?...
Do I give a shit?... I've made some bad decisions in my life, but refusing to
be featured on Weighing up the Enemy
was not one of them. As I said in my original review, I detect no direct
conformist propaganda in this programme, but all the same, it is still distracting
the people from what's important and focusing our minds on matters of no real
importance, to quote Silent Weapons for a
Quiet War. However I think there was an attempt at anti-benefit claimants incitement
in Episode 3, but it didn't work. Debs ended up finding common ground with
Wendy and they became close friends, see: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/weighing-up-the-enemy/on-demand/59354-003.
I wonder who'll be in the fifth episode, probably a Glasgow Rangers supporter
vs a Celtic fan; or is that the end of the series?
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