Sunday is a reflective day, so my thoughts naturally turned to the three resolutions I made back in March — New Year is the worst time for resolutions, I find, because the weather is so dismal it’s easy to be tempted away from them.

Here they are again :

1. Give up politics — news junkies are always neurotic nerds.
2. Fatblogging — lose 12lbs of winter pudge before summer (or was it Easter?)
3. Make time for writing offline.

So how have I done? … DABYL.

That’s an anagram because I can hardly bring myself to write the word. Clever clogs among Syntagma readers may be able to work it out.

Basically, #3 has been achieved. That was the easy one so I had to crack that at least.

However, #1 has been washed away because of a change of Prime Minister here in Britain. Not something you can just ignore, is it? Gordon Brown is rather dull though, so it should be easy to get that back on track.

The real failure is #2 — an easy one to fail at, I’m sure. The reasons are numerous. First, the weather has been so appallingly wet for months that I’ve not been able to venture out on my morning 5-mile photowalk except very sporadically.

Worse, my trampoline broke beyond repair and I’ve been wary about replacing it. It was only 3-feet in width so clearly not quite up to professional standards — but it was all that would fit into the office.

Mid-July and it’s still emptying down outside. Yesterday was St Swithun’s Day which means it will rain for the next 40 days and 40 nights. Why are these Biblical type prophesies always so depressing?

The result is that I’m starting again from scratch with a new scientific approach to fatblogging. I’ve made more room in the office and ordered an 8-foot trampoline with a guard rail to stop you bouncing off into thin air. A very easy thing to do on a 3-foot job.

I’ve also started on the GI program (glycaemic index) which is probably the most effective fitness programme ever invented (it says here). Miraculously, it has a cheat’s shortcut : eat 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon everyday and the rest takes care of itself. Well, that’s what the book says. I’m going to try it anyway.

My only regrets? Tesco’s “outdoor bred” pork pies — I never knew they bred pork pies — and Californian Merlot, which washes them down very nicely. But you can’t have everything.

Maybe the cinnamon will help? Hmmm.

Today is Day 1. I’ll write a fatblog here every Sunday. How can you resist?

Mind how you go.

I’ve noticed that a number of people are scheduling particular walks for taking photos of their town or city. Robert Scoble has named the idea “Photowalking” on the principle perhaps that everything should have a name.

The Quay, Exeter

I’ve been Photowalking — combining taking pictures with my morning five-mile walk — ever since I bought a digital camera last year. It’s a great way to add value to mere exercise. My project — I’ll call it PhotoExeter — is to photograph the city I live in through this summer, trying to capture the face and atmosphere of it when it looks its best, and is filled with tourists. You can see the results so far by clicking the Flickr logo at the top of the sidebar.

After a brilliant March and April, we’ve had six weeks of wet and windy weather here, so no Photowalking. In fact, the whole country has been under the cosh. As I write, people are losing their lives across the Midlands of England in the worst flooding for years.

Back to Photowalking. It’s really a great extension to Fatblogging because it keeps the interest up on what might be dreary rambles across familiar ground. As I walk, I find myself noticing things, large and small, that might otherwise have passed unseen. I also take many detours I’ve never explored before — maybe an 18th-century street straight out of a Dickens novel. The fact is, Photowalking insists you walk farther, if not faster, than you otherwise would.

As someone who used to run marathons, I know that interest is crucual to exercise. A date with a race a month or so ahead, seeking to beat your personal best, or a slightly better runner going along with you.

But Photowalking beats even personal ambition as a spur to distance travelled. For it drags in different parts of the brain. If exercise utilizes the left-brain — all those time calculations and forecasts along the way — then Photowalking adds curiosity, perspective, artistic appreciation of views and architecture, and delving into historical information. Classic right-brain stuff.

I’m only sorry I have to write about it today. The rain is beating down outside my window like stair-rods, and Photowalking is out of the question.

It’s back to blogging, I suppose. Oh, the tedium!

Well, it’s Saturday. I’m not Fatblogging. Be grateful.

Great one-liners have a couple of features in common : they are exquisitely wrought by the writer, and they inevitably contain a touch of the bizarre.

However, if you overdo the bizarre, they can die a Glasgow Empire death. Take this one by Peter Kay, which, incredibly, was recently voted the best one-liner in television comedy history :

“Garlic bread. It’s the future. I know. I’ve tasted it.”

Now that makes you wonder if intelligent life has finally abandoned the planet.

Chandler in Friends was always a source of terrific one-liners and is sorely missed. Fresh material is increasingly hard to come by these days.

All is not lost, though. The BBC, purveyor of the worst comedies in television history, especially on BBC2, has risen to the post-Chandler challenge and produced the finest source of great one-liners in television history the current dismal climate.

The show is called Life on Mars and it’s a police series set in 1973, seen through the eyes of a 21st century cop — don’t ask, but time travel is involved.

Star of the show is DCI Hunt, played with total relish by Phillip Glenister (pictured, right). Hunt is not politically correct. His motto is, “The first one who speaks is guilty.”

So here’s the one-liner of the week, from DCI Hunt :

“He’s as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.”

Wonderful.

If all the words expended on Fatblogging were reflected in results, we’d now be debating the horrors of Size Zero bloggers.

How is it, we would complain, that these skinny wretches can be allowed to practise Fatblogging when they look like matchsticks on stilts?

Well, the answer lies in human nature. Words are rarely turned into reality. The Tao Te Ching says : “He who speaks, does not know. He who knows, does not speak.”

Wise words indeed. It’s the motto of us Thinbloggers.

This is just a preamble to tell you that my Fatblogging efforts lost two whole pounds, only for one of my knees to give out. The result has been three days of keyboard bashing with virtually no exercise. Outcome? It’s all back on again.

Prospects : I still have 7 lbs to lose in 9 days. Will I succeed?

He who knows, does not speak.

Why do people make resolutions at New Year? January is a dark and dismal month and it’s always easy to break them.

Me? I make mine on my birthday in mid-March when spring has raised a tentative finger to the heavens. Yes, I really am two fish swimming in opposite directions. You always knew that didn’t you?

As for spring, here are two shots I took on my walk early this morning in the West Country of England :

So what are my resolutions this year? I only ever risk three. Here they are :

1. Give up politics — I’m a bit of a news junkie which, given the state of the world (especially Britain) makes me mad as hell. It then takes an hour to disperse the bad chemicals generated.

So no more newspapers, no IP channel hopping. Reading matter will be strictly books until further notice.

2. I hesitate to use the word Fatblogging, since this has become an obsessive cult in some quarters. See the originator : Jason Calacanis, and the pupil : Jeremy Wright. Not for the weak of stomach or faint of heart.

However, I have 7 – 12 lbs of winter pudge to shift before Easter, so it has to be done. Press ups and weights at 7.15am, followed by a brisk five-mile walk. Also, food that couldn’t be faulted by Mahatma Gandhi on a good day. Seriously.

3. Make more time for the two books I’m writing and stop getting caught up in the endless memeing and fizzy-pop of the blogosphere. Memeing? Well, Fatblogging for starters.

That’s it. I’m not going to be posting my weight every 10 minutes as some are doing, so you’re welcome to return to the civilized environment that is Syntagma — an (almost) Fatblogging-free zone.

Mind how you go.