Hyde And Seek...

I’ve been doing martial arts for a while now and as part of my studies I do a bit of ki meditation. This involves me adopting the lotus position and focusing on my breathing until I clear my head and zone out.

It’s good stuff and, even though various visiting family and friends have found this hilarious when they’ve chanced on me meditating in the garden, it is something that is good for my equilibrium as it makes me want to assault people less than I once used to. The flip side of this, though, is that if I drop out of the ki habit I can turn from Jekyll to Hyde in a matter of weeks...

This transformation is currently under way and the first signs manifested themselves at the weekend at a pool tournament. The ongoing decline of my once-aggressive eightball game has been a matter of concern for some time but it hit rock bottom on Saturday with a performance so abject that Stevie Wonder would have beaten me on the baize. It was then the twitch started...

The twitch occurs when I’m really hacked off and it feels as if all the muscles in my neck are trying to slant and turn my head 180 degrees to the right. My eyes also start to go dead and my mouth starts to snarl. Imagine Jim Bowen having a stroke and you’re about there.

I managed to control the twitch by the time I got home on Saturday but I have chanced upon Big Brother twice over the past few days and it sent the twitch into spasm mode. I also saw adverts for Rock Around The Block on ITV1 and this triggered the twitch too.

I was getting worried about this until I saw the potential for life as a telly critic on GMTV (twitch, twitch, twitch...) where I’d sit on the sofa next to Kate Garraway and John Stapleton (twitch, twitch, twitch, neck spasm, neck spasm...) and they’d show me various shows and gauge their popularity from my body language.

So the currently excellent Corrie would get no response and be deemed a hit while EastEnders with its Supermarionation-style actor Nigel Harman would send me into total body spasm mode.

It make sound a tad distasteful but it’s no sicker than the House Of Obsessive Compulsives (twitch, twitch, twitch, neck spasm, neck spasm...) on Channel 4. I’d actually like to review this on the GMTV sofa while sat next to simpering telly hack Richard Arnold and start with a few twitches then have my head explode all over his suit. I'd like to see him quip his way out of that.

Time for some meditation methinks...