Pumping irony

Nick Cohen says you don’t need to join a gym to get fit

Just as old testament prophets rarely said, “You know what, I’m not sure that voice I heard was God’s, after all,” so columnists rarely admit to be being wrong. As soon as the pundit’s air of infallibility vanishes, the project collapses as fast as stage scenery when the curtain goes down.

But the Nick Cohen Health and Beauty Workout™ is nothing if not bitingly honest. On the assurance of the editor that he will collect and burn every copy of this magazine, I am prepared to say I may be wrong about gyms. Not wholly wrong. Indeed, my wrongness, if it exists, which you are entitled to doubt, is so infinitesimally small you may need an electron microscope to see it. Still, the possibility must be faced, so here goes.

When you run, walk or cycle you connect to the environment. You see the town you may have lived in for decades afresh. You feel the changing of the seasons and check the forecasts with the interest of someone who has learned weather isn’t just something that happens in the time it takes to walk to the garage. You become a part of nature: not the awesome nature of Alps and deserts, but your quasi-natural world of municipal parks and canal paths, cut-throughs and residential side streets.

Gyms, by contrast, are as unnatural as Liberal Democrat landslides. The windows don’t open. The light is artificial. The owners pump perfume into the air to disguise the body odour.