Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(April 2005)
An ex-Brit gives his views - (without
fear or favor) - of the American Scene
Readers Letters
- Page Two.
Syd writes from the UK:
Love it - that’s the stuff your reader’s want, as they don’t
know, or want to know, the difference between a Texas Bush and a Gooseberry bush,
and what’s more don’t really give a damn as the younger generation
care more about I-Robot than the war in I-Raq.
Syd goes on to say, I reckon that many of your readers would appreciate an article
comparing obesity in the UK and the USA, or even a story as to what the Americans
know about cricket.
Always a humorist, Syd goes further to say: "About the weight thing, (referring
to an answer that I provided), when people talk about the Atkins plan or
some other weight reduction plan I usually ask them if they have tried the Belsen
plan". (No offence or disrespect implied or intended to the unfortunate
people who suffered so much), No they say, "What’s the Belsen
plan".
I then say "The f---ing stop eating plan".
As I said, Syd is not a person who can resist a humorous comment even if it is
slightly profane.
The 300 lb plus club:
This was my reply to correspondent Syd’s
request for an article on obesity.
With respect to the obesity question, I don’t know if I can give you a
UK/USA comparison as I’m not completely cognisant of all the facts, but
I can give you an example.
 Cruise ships that I have travelled on appear to be
prone to attracting large overweight people who have
often been referred to by fellow travellers as members
of the 300lb plus club.
They waddle on board and hardly ever leave the ship
during any port of call - but - they never ever miss
a meal.
Breakfast, mid-morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, midnight buffet,
and any other snacks that are available in between, they can be seen feeding
at the trough and gorging themselves on huge amounts of food at most times
of the day and night. You can hear them approaching, even when you have your
back to them, by the swish of their overweight thighs rubbing together as they
stumble their merry way to wherever food is being served.
The answer in general
always given by grossly overweight people to any question appertaining to
the reason for their obesity is, "it’s in
the genes" which is
rubbish as, "you are what you eat", and the evidence bulges out
over the side of their jeans and every place else.
These days they are very
apparent in exceedingly large numbers in most of the  more affluent countries
of this world and can be seen mostly in junk food places eating such things
as large quantities of double cheeseburgers and large fries or other delicious
fat forming morsels.
They can be seen in many major airports staggering between
airline terminals picking up food on the way to sustain them through their
next connecting flight and what is more annoying is sitting next to one of
these overstuffed individuals in economy class accommodation, (cattle class),
with its small and mostly uncomfortable aircraft seats when the midriff of
the person sitting next to you overlaps both sides of his or her seat and
the flabby flesh encroaches into your small space. Then of course there is
the struggle especially on a long flight when the person wishes to get out
of their seat to go to the toilet - how on earth they manage to get in and
out of a cramped aircraft lavatory has always been a mystery to me.
One never saw such obesity in World War Two Britain
due to the obvious reason of the stringent rationing
of every scrap of food that was available, which made
ones intake of nutritional food extremely limited - so
limited that the British people could never be referred
to as being fat at any time during that period - you
never ever see a fat prisoner of war, or fat people in
refugee camps, concentration camps, or currently in war torn Africa - so
I rest my case.
With respect to Syd’s "Belsen plan" comment,
I had the opportunity to visit the notorious concentration
camp at Buchenwald, shortly after it had been liberated
by American forces on the 11 th of April 1945, and saw
for myself the terrible atrocities committed by the German
guards and other camp staff against humanity.
Buchenwald
was set up in 1937 as one of the largest concentration
camps in Germany and held as many as 20,000 prisoners
at any one period of time, and these unfortunate people
were used as slave labourers and experimental guinea
pigs for medical experimentation to test for vaccines
against the dreaded typhus disease. Buchenwald was a
series of camps located approximately 50 miles south
of the cities of Halle and Leipzig and to the north of
Nuremberg. I believe that I wrote a paragraph about how
I managed to visit Buchenwald in Bill’s
war story, which can be found on www.huddersfield1.co.uk
Getting back to losing weight - during my nearly twelve
month sojourn as a guest of the German Government, on
a weight reduction program, I lost nearly 70lb in weight
- if you don’t eat you lose weight. There,
I told you it can be done.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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