Getting A Kick Out Of Life

But a lurking suspicion flares in the evening after a hard day at self-improvement. What if it doesn't work? What if the whole world comes down around our ears because we've believed too much in self-improvement and machinery? Why, then, of course, we'll just head into the hills in our machine-produced, rip-stop nylon survival gear. We're hanging on by sheer belief, and it had better work.

For us dreamers who yearn for self-improvement in sport, the back pages are a cathedral of the imagination. And the discovery to which I came after so much panic and heartbreak is that I am not the kind of person who automatically leaps from bed and does push-ups. I need machines to spur my spirit. Highly unmotivated, lazy, adamantly static, many of us need machinery to get us going, to provide the impetus to improve our games and ourselves.

We can't bear to go out and jog, so we submit to crash diets; we can't stomach raw exercise because it's too boring, so we order Bullworker; our golf game is a disaster because we don't concentrate, and we think that Auto Shag will fix what is a defect of the brain. It's enough to make you want to can the whole thing, to wage war on Bullworkers, Mark Eden Bust Developers, yogurt-makers, weird British books on how to make yourself taller and tennis racket handles that click. And yet, there's something that draws us back to those advertisements. Why, just the other day I saw an advertisement for a device that might save my life. It's this safety belt (fits any size) for cyclists, with electric-battery-operated turn signals that flash, side lights and reflecting material. It's only $10, and it doesn't matter that I don't own a bike....