It is good to think about those poor souls who have been cast aside and forgotten at the start of this, yet another new year. I have one such person in mind as I write this.

As I speak to people I realise that the world and his dog are starting 2016 with resolutions to be healthy. I see colleagues overlooking packs of biscuits that would have been devoured within seconds, before, during and just after Christmas. I watch them peeling clementines and satsumas and unwrapping again the taste and aroma of the festive season. There is one difference now though. A few days previously these would have been consumed unnoticed and taken their place alongside cake and cheeses and tins of sweets and biscuits, travelling on a one way conveyor belt to the middle of their guts. Now they are “one of my five a day.” There are copious salads with green leafs and caffeine free, green tea, herbal tea, “no tea for me, Lee.” Some will even go meal free, in a desperate attempt to make this the year when the resolutions don’t flounder before the first month of the year has gone. The runners are out in force too, huffing and puffing and dragging their turkey and stuffing bodies along the hard pavements and roads of the city. But do the resolutions of today not point with glee towards the knee and hip replacements of the future?

So who is the poor old soul who occupies my mind and troubles me so? He was once the most important person on the planet, a kind man, a goodhearted, gentle, giving man, revered and celebrated across the globe. But now he is an obese and lonely man, sitting there on the dole, forgotten and cast aside in his state of unwantedness. He has health problems. He is diabetic. He is suffering from exhaustion. I feel for him. Well you would be an overweight diabetic with dangerously high cholesterol if all you ate were cookies and mince pies in every house you visited. Poor bloody Father Christmas. Why not feed him some of your five a day?  I doubt he will be alive for next Christmas. Just thinking!

©Cre8ivation