'We're going on a blender hunt'

Today I'm off to buy a blender because this evening I'm going to start working out...yes working out...and I'm going to drink a muscle building smoothie afterwards. Check me out. This time tonight I'll be in the local gym surrounded by muscle bound and long blonde-haired beauties crawling around on all fours looking for a lost contact lens. I've never had a good run in with sport. My mates tell of the first time they met me. A primary school kid dressed from head to toe in white. White trainers, white socks, white shorts, white T-shirt and whitish wispy blonde hair. Oh, not to mention the pale white face. My future friends must have thought the worst until I opened my mouth and said 'I'm a squash player at heart. Not much of a runner.' After that I think they thought I was alright. They definitely thought that once I huffed and puffed my way across the finishing line. A whole two minutes behind everyone else. But my brush with exercise didn't leave me broken and bruised quite the contrary. I kept plucking away. I played rugby, volleyball, basketball, tennis and, on one mind-warping inter-tutor championship gone wrong, netball - frilly skirt and all. So, no, I won't be bringing a medal home in 2012. Unless they introduce smoothie making. Now there's a sport I'd be good at. As long as my whites don't get muddied that is.

'Next up on BBC Belfast. - Mummy's boy Gareth May'

In seven days I've experienced more snowballing than Dartmoor in the 1980s, and just as much fun. Swishing down a glacial hill top on a dinner tray is not usually compared to radio interviews but I'll give it a go. The ducking and diving, thinking on your feet and stumbling before crashing into a tree...OK the analogy doesn't really work but at least I tried. My first interview was on Tuesday for Three Counties BBC Radio. I held my own. Cracked a joke involving a can of Carling, a massage and Red Rum - it would take too long to explain - and got accused of being 'great fun to go out with.' I'm guessing the host was being sarcastic with that comment. My heart may have been beating faster than a teenager's whose just seen his first nipple on Eurovision but the nerves only spurred me on and before I knew it the producer was thanking me and placing the phone back down with a sudden 'click.'

Thursday came and I had an interview with Alan Jenkins at BBC Ulster. A lovely chap indeed. Telling me he couldn't spell DIY and always 'placed a bucket under a gas leak' he made me feel very welcome and drew a cackling laugh from my lips at least twice during the fifteen minutes of converse. I hope my shrieking didn't send too many 9-5ers veering into the central reservation. I was more concise and articulate. Things, I told myself in true D-Ream style, can only get better. How wrong I was.

Friday morning I was lined up to take part in a debate on BBC Belfast with Stephen Nolan and a builder named Brodey, Bodley, or Barkley. You'll be pleased to hear I called him all three of them, well one out of three isn't bad is it. Anyway, I was prepared with a light-hearted exchange and started off the debate in an earnest and polite way. He on the other hand, went straight for the jugular. 'I think yer man there is pampered. Still hanging onto his mummy's apron strings.' For a minute I thought they'd invited my dad on. I tried to calm the situation by appealing to him personally and stating that 'yes, some of my generation are lazy.' He was on it like a cat to a rat. ' He's talking about himself there. Lazy that's what he is.' This guy was a real charmer. A true gent. I had to stop myself asking him if he did children's parties at one stage.

All joking aside, once the dust had settled and I'd had the final say I felt pretty pumped up. If you stick your head above the parapet you've got to expect to get shot at and that's exactly what happened. I dodged a few, took a few for the team but caught at least one bullet between my teeth. It was heartening to find myself defending what I believe in in the face of, well absurdity, rather than adversity. There was no doubting the guy was after me. Well, good luck to him. I'm not turning around now. Snowballs don't stop for nothing. Even angry builders with a strange interest in apron strings. Although, having said that, pinnies can be quite appealing, in the right light.

'Oh, look who it is...'

This week I have found myself somewhat of a celebrity… amongst my friends that is. Having appeared in The Independent on Sunday on, well, ah, Sunday I received a litany of text messages and emails – and by litany I mean about 10 – stating how well the article read – thank you to Kate the editor for that one! – and how pleased they all were that I actually did something with my life. Or more to the point did something. You’d expect these moments to implant a Messianic complex in my psyche but, in fact, the opposite occurred. I felt shy. Embarrassed. I held off telling the people at work in case they should think me arrogant, up myself, conceited. But when I finally told them yesterday they seemed pleased, earnestly chuffed for me. I was beginning to feel content. And then came a phone conversation with my best friend Katie.

‘Really liked the article.’

‘Good. I’m pleased.’

‘The photo makes you look a bit…’ She tailed off.

‘A bit?’ I prompted her.

‘Well, a bit smaller. Yeah a bit smaller. Smaller and…’ She tailed off for a second time.

‘And…’

‘Well it looks like they’ve forgotten to hold down shift when they’ve readjusted the photo.’

Having not recently flicked through my Dummies Guide to Photoshop I inquired what she was implying.

‘You look fatter.’

‘I am fat.’

‘Overweight. Not fat. And certainly not that fat.’

‘Alright,’ I said. ‘Take the wind out my sails why don’t you.’

‘I was just…’

Once the seal was broken, the comments came flooding in. ‘Nice article, even if you do look like a fat bastard!’ ‘Good one mate, or should I say porky?’ ‘Hey Impostor. What have you done with Gareth? Eaten him I presume?’

I found myself ignoring phone calls and emails. ‘Oh I see,’ one lifelong friend wrote after a day of no reply ‘now you’re brushing shoulders with those London media types you haven’t got time for the likes of me. Well, just remember who got you out of that mess with Barry McGuire. I wish I’d never given you your pants back!’

Within in the span of a day I’d gone from ‘my famous friend’ to ‘to an ignorant bastard with no back bone, no home, no real friends and no stereo.’ The stereo bit threw me if I’m honest. I decided to cosy up to them all, and sent them a thank you letter informing them that I’d been at work and didn’t want to reply in a rush. They seemed to accept my apologies. But the next time I see them, I’m going to cut them off mid-sentence, answer my mobile phone and shout at the top of my voice ‘Kylie darling, so kind of you to call!’

"He's got sweaty what?"

Seriously, there is no deodorant good enough for me. Who else do you know that has sweaty eyebrows? Now it’s the summer I seem to spend half of my time lifting the sleeve of my T-shirts up to my face to mop my brow, or eyebrow to be more precise. That gets me some strange looks. Not half as strange however when I don’t dry them; my face becomes awash with sweat so that I look like someone’s turned the heating up in Madame Toussouds. A melting wax countenance is not attractive by any stretch of the imagination.

Wearing glasses also exaggerates the dilemma. The frame that rests on the bridge of my nose gets slippery and slides down to the edge of my nostrils so I look like I’m doing an impression of a disapproving librarian who’s just seen someone put a book back on the wrong shelf.

Maybe I’m cursed. Born with sweat glands in all the wrong places. Afflicted with a sweating syndrome which will see me ingrained in the annals of the Guineas Book of Records – Freak Special. Although I rather fear I might be making my way into that one without the aid of a sweaty forehead and a soaking wet T-shirt sleeve. How many people do you know that not only have sweaty eyebrows but divulge that information to unsuspecting strangers? I thought as much. Freak Special here I come.