The Hippy Hippy...

...Socks

(earworm free of charge)

I've had this idea playing around in my head for a while now, thanks to owning some Noro Kureyon Sock yarn for which I couldn't quite find a place.  You know know how it is; they have great colourways, wonderful splashes of eclectically mixed hues (unless you get lucky and find one that's mostly all greens, or russets, or some such anomaly) that call holler your name in strangely hypnotic shrieks.  And so it was thus, with colourway 256.  A cheeky little number with what was originally thought to have a pleasant mixture of pinks, purples and blues, but with the discovery of a golden mustardy yellow and an altogether more in-your-face orangey-yellow, the cat was set amongst the pigeons.  Or the tigers amongst the macaws, if you will.  

But thus the paisley/60's-inspired Hippie Hippie Socks were brought into imagination.

Or, indeed, Flower Power, man! 

The Hippie Hippie Socks give you a daisy-chain coronet and a paisley frock, and, in keeping with the free-and-easy attitude of the 60's, you have a choice of four different paisley patterns for the main part of the sock!  You can use them all in any combination, or choose your favourite and just work that one for the whole sock!  But no matter how you make it up, this sock is absolutely perfect for those brighter shades of Noro or slow-colour-changing yarn! 

Psychedelic, dude!

Starting with Heidi Bear's 5-stitch picot cast-on, the base of the daisy chain is a simple 1x1 twisted rib.  I had originally started the sock with a turn-down cuff with a bed of daisy stitch, but  soon decided it was too fussy if I was going to add the bigger flowers on top.  A good move in the end as the i-cord daisies take all the attention anyway!

To try and imitate some of the paisley designs I've seen I decided to make four different paisley patterns for this sock - two with eyelets and two with teeny bobbles, to be used in any combination.

The heel is a peasant/afterthought heel, as when it comes to yarn like this, I like (if at all possible) to see fluency of colour from one end of the sock to the other.  Of course, as you can see, Noro does like to play tricks, the little scamp.  Using the 'Crayola 64' method of colour naming (circa 1958), we start with a warm Red-Orange, then slip daintily into Tickle-Me-Pink, touching on my very favourite, Periwinkle, then moving swiftly on to Magenta.  And then WHAM!  Goldenrod is in da house. Subtle as a brick to the temple.  There are hints of the yellow beforehand, but nothing really to prepare you for tactless  introduction of such disparate colours.  Yes, yes, I know the colours themselves are hardly shy and retiring, but at least one colour usually merges gracefully into the next without causing the need to administer emergency sunglasses.

But now, as I'm on a roll...  From Goldenrod, we smoothly transition into Salmon (see? SEE? Smooth transitions can be done with PINKS and YELLOWS!), which in turn melds intoOrange-Red, Yellow-Orange, Vivid Violet (okay, so I cheated and used an un-hippie 1998 colour...), and finishing up the graft on the heel with a touch of Blue-Green. (You'll note that the second sock had a much kinder transition between theMagenta and Goldenrod.  Noro: the Mercury of the yarn world.)

(That was fun!)

Anyhoo...  The foot is worked the same way as the leg, with another couple of sets of paisleys and the toe is worked quite simply to continue the last part of the pattern of the foot.  Should you wish to do a plain foot, you need to add some stitches to bring the circumference stitches back to a usable 16 or 17 stitches per needle, as the beginning and end of each paisley block is a smaller 13 stitches per needle.

But go with the flow, man!

The daisies are very simply made, either using a hippie French knitting dolly (the method I used) or by working an i-cord.  Either way, you need approximately 15 inches of knitting per flower.  I waited until the end of both socks before continuing with the daisies, but you can very easily make half the flowers before the second sock, or even choose a contrasting yarn for the daisies, afterthought heel and toe, for example. They're made by pinning the cord out into a 5-petalled flower (as shown in the photo below) and joining up the edges with one of the cast-on/cast-off tails. They are simple to attach by sewing the tail onto the cuff in the configuration you prefer  Try five per sock, or ten, or even just one - the sock equivalent of a flower behind the ear!

You can find the Ravelry pattern page HERE (available to anyone, not just Ravelers) or you can click the button below to buy the pattern now for just €3 (or £2.40 or $3.87 at the current rate of exchange).

Hampering Laundry

"Nic doesn't know what's more exhausting: one hour of cardio-boxing or changing one king-size duvet cover."

There's certainly not a Duvet Wrestling setting on any Wii fitness-type game, but you know? I'm pretty sure fifteen minutes of fighting with a heavy bedspread, and trying to escape from a cover that could swallow you whole is worth at least half an hour of  Wii baseball. Wii golf? Wii yoga, perhaps.  

I should contact the company. I reckon there's an untapped gaming population out there just aching to Iron their arm jiggle away, or have a satisfying game of Beat Your Carpet badminton. For the even more traditional we could have Washboard Scrub Rowing, marvellous for the upper arms, chest and back muscles; Pin The Heavy Washing To The Line Shoulder Press; or Scrub Your Floor Core. Primarily aimed at men and women who want to recapture those golden, precious times when life was unencumbered by modern, helpful, cheating technology, a time when you had to live by your wits and strength, and there was no opportunity for recreation because you were spending every waking hour trying not to die from starvation, the common cold, or overwork. For players aged thirteen or over, to be viewed on plasma screens of at least 42" for best all-round gaming experience.

But I'll stick with the late Twentieth-Century British adoption of the duvet, because as much as it's time- (but also, thankfully, calorie-) consuming to duel with a duvet and its second, it's still preferable to attempting Extreme Blanket Mountaineering, where the dangers include being buried from sheet avalanches, and contracting altitude sickness from sleeping on too many layers.

Battle Of The Waistbands

"Nic has just put on her favourite winter skirt for the first time in 7 months and it won't stay up! (Yes, it was already a bit loose by March, but still...)

This is both an epic WIN and a pain in the behind because there isn't time to take in the waist before she goes out!

Ah me! By such First World Problems are we troubled!"

I wish you knew to the extent I'm fighting an urge to whoop in delight and tell the world my news! (Well, the world on top of an already informed facebook elite!) STOP THE PRESSES! MY SKIRT IS TOO BIG!! Remind me when I get back that I need to have a quick shifty through my wardrobe to see what else might need taking in a wee bit! Hah! I don't think I've been this excited to try on clothes since my Mum made me a black circle skirt for my ballet exam when I was eight or nine! I remember watching every step of its construction; the fabric choosing, the drawing, the cutting, and seeing it all come together under the flashing needle of the sewing-machine! Man! That skirt was pirouetting heaven!

Don't mind me if I appear to acting a little... unlike myself this afternoon, for the chances are growing greater with every passing minute that I'll be channelling a delighted and twirly eight-year old, possibly scattering hastily-written handbills to the four winds, declaring that MY SKIRT IS TOO BIG! 

Twirling, scattering, and searching for shops that sell safety pins.

Every Cloud

"Nic knows stress and anxiety aren't the healthiest of fitness aids, but losing 3 lbs instead of the more usual 1 lb this week has draped a silver lining over the whole shenanigans."

I'm not usually such a vaguebooker (which is said to be basically any update on facebook that can be intentionally or unintentionally vague or ambiguous, and although primarily used by attention-seekers, it can be a useful tool to let people who already understand what you're talking about know that things are 1) okay, 2) worse, 3) the same, 4) ugh who knows - it's vaguebooking, and I should have known better) but sometimes a little cyber letting-off-steam makes you feel better! Plus, and I have to be honest here, most people knew what I was talking about anyway.

So, I hear you cry out in genuine non-vague-book interest, what was I talking about? Ah, 'twas merely the latest instalment of my ever-more bizarre history of bad neighbours, an epic of which has been shared for many years over the internet (and therefore was an already occurring theme by this update effort), and before that, the phone. (BEFORE THE INTERNET???)  I know. I show my age in that very telling of sentences.  

I don't know. It's the strangest of things. As single, fat, frightened, foreign female (oy) living in a beautiful eighteenth-century (converted) apartment block in the most-beautiful part of a medieval city, I tried my very best fit in - learning the language, and trying to be unseen and unheard by my neighbours (through years of allowing myself to be indoctrinated into the belief system that to be fat and female and single was shameful and an automatic target for hate derision) because who needs neighbour grief on top of everything else? It started well; the nine flats in my building were filled with families and working people, nice folk who were polite, friendly, and courteous. By the time I left, I was the only person in the building who wasn't a student, and most of the families and working residents had left the area, mainly because of the noise and the constant partying up and down the street. It was quite the transformation.  

I did try to begin with to courteously let my neighbours know that their noise was perhaps travelling further afield than they were aware, because sometimes people just don't realise how their noise penetrates walls and can be amplified so very easily by empty ceiling cavities. This was fine until there were more and more flats in the building being noisy night after night. It was like fighting a forest fire with a thimble of water. I became horrifically sleep-deprived, and dreadfully anxious all the time, and although the abuse from those neighbours is long in the past now (I even called the police a few times and I remember phoning during a particularly riotous party where the revellers thought it a good idea to pound on my walls and door continually for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, I was told first that they didn't understand my attempts at their language, then that the noise-makers were just students, and basically just to suck it up), it left an indelible mark on my psyche.  

So moving here to a flat at the top of a converted house of five flats that the owner assured me was filled with only working, professional women over the age of thirty, was balm to my troubled soul. And so it was until he died, his wife took over, and my quiet (only) downstairs neighbour moved out. The downstairs floor had long ago been converted into two separate rooms that would share their facilities, the stairs up to which were also the stairs to the door of my own flat, which sits in the hallway of their floor (I suspect the conversion from a massive house to flats was quite cheaply done) In came two male students, one nineteen, the other twenty-three and up surged my anxiety level. 

It was presumptuous of me to expect these blokes to behave in the same way as my previous tormentors, and I did have one week of bliss when there was only one of them here, and I found out that this one was actually working full-time to the point of exhaustion, and was not a student at all. Unfortunately that peace stopped when the real student moved in, bringing with him many friends, a love of Lady Gaga, which in itself is not really a cause for concern, and a penchant for late-night poker games, which was.  

He has never lived in a 'real' house before, so he tells me. He lived, up until becoming a student, in the basement apartment of one of his parents houses, and has his own front door so he can come and go as he pleases and party for all hours because no-one can hear him. (The other house is in the Dordogne, and he lives in one of the converted outbuildings when he goes there to ski in the winter...)

Ugh, this is all very gossipy. The crux of the matter is he doesn't like being asked to be quiet once the clocks hit midnight, and, technically, according to city ordnances, he's supposed to stop making noise that's loud enough to disturb the neighbours by ten. He was actually quite nice to begin with, but has taken against having what he considers to be his student rights to a party lifestyle criticised, and doesn't like to be reminded that he is not living in a student house, but actually in a place where he is surrounded by families, working folk, and pensioners.  

Anyway, it's time to contact the agency because being shouted at and verbally abused because I dare to complain about him holding noisy parties and boisterous poker games four times a week until three or four in the morning has gone beyond the thresholds of my patience. I feel ill. I'm not sleeping. I'm scared to leave my apartment because I have to walk through their hallway to get out.  

But I have lost three pounds this week, instead of the usual one.

Survival Of The Fittest

"Nic managed to give herself a bloody nose with an over-zealous right hook tonight, thanks to losing her grip on the Wii-remote. She has now vowed to stick to knitting, where stabbing herself is the only real danger..."

I think I've be de-selected by nature. Clumsiness in conjunction with throwing one's fists around one's face is just asking for trouble when you're me. Yes, it can be said that this evolution thing could not have foreseen the advent of pretend physical activity; of hurling oneself around a non-existent gym punching imaginary bags, but this clumsy gene? Humanity should have been rid of that a long time ago, in my humble option.

I am heartily glad this game (My Fitness Coach Cardio Workout [updated link to Amazon]) gives you the option of either using two separate Wiimotes, or one single Wiimote connected to the Nunchuck, because if it was the latter only, I'm pretty sure I'd be wearing welts around my neck and arms. Not this season's look for your Fake Boxer Around Town, I'll be the first to admit. But then, neither are blood-encrusted breathing holes. For the unbloodied rest, though, it's an awfully fun way to spend some cardiac time and perhaps I might venture into the world of reviewing once I've stopped my life-force flowing from my nostrils!

I should consider asking Santa for some spatial awareness for Christmas. And a jumbo box of Kleenex. I've a funny feeling they'll both come in handy.

Storm In A Teacup

"Nic found doing her Wii cardio boxing accompanied by a rip-roaringly spectacular thunder and lighting storm rather too invigorating, as now she can't hold her well-earned after-cuppa without her arms shaking from muscle fatigue!"

It's like making a workout mix-tape (ah, sigh) MP3 playlist, that includes 'Ride of the Valkyries', 'O Fortuna', and the Sacrificial Dance at the end of 'The Rite of Spring' and not realising that the chances are much greater of it making you punch harder, swing faster, or kick higher than the usual pop hits of the 80's and 90's that normally chaperone your workout. Stock, Aitken and Waterman ain't got nothing on Zeus, Thor and Jupiter!

Never gonna give you up? Hah. More like never gonna let you drink that tea down.

Right Angles Are So Passée

acute and oblique - new patterns by yours truly

According to the Oxford Dictionary, an acute angle is an angle less than 90°. The same source states that an oblique angle is one that it not a right angle, nor is a multiple of right angles.  

According to RedScot's Dictionary of Made-Up Words (OUP 2018), an Acute ankle sock is a very simple pattern that creates three very sharp less-than-90° angle points. AnOblique calf-length sock, on the other hand foot, uses the same basic pattern to create four very sharp angle points that aren't right angles, or multiples of the same...

My sister is again responsible, in kind, for the advent of these super-cute new patterns, as she keeps supplying me with DK wool in a myriad of colours and types for which I can never find a suitable sock pattern.   This time it was King Cole Riot DK in the 'Riot' colourway, a 'self-patterning' yarn that was crying out for some sharp zig-zags to show it off.  But there was nothing more pointy that my own Traffic Islands pattern to choose from, so I set about making a new and even spikier pattern.   And because I loved the first one with DK so much, I set about making a version for fingering-weight yarn, usingMunchkin Knitworks String of Pearls Plus in 'Hodgeberry Stain'.

Thus Acute and then Oblique were born.   Instead of a nice, calm 2x2 ribbed cuff, I thought it much more interesting to start off with some sharp angles, and to keep it from rolling down, made sure that there were some purl rows thrown in the mix.  3 points for Acute, and 4 for Oblique.

The heel-flaps, once these sharp chevrons had continued down the leg, were at once calming for Acute - a simple eye-of-partridge heel stitch was all that was required, but Oblique intended to be a little more cunning and the angles continued through to the heel-turn...  Not just because the stitch count needed to be brought down to make sure the sole wasn't too wide.

Cunning?  Oh yes, I think so!  

The angles continued down the upper of each sock and they both finished in a simple star toe.

I made the small size of Acute, for they may just be for someone whose fault they came into existence anyway (and my medium sock blockers were a tad on the large size for them, really...) but I made the Oblique in large for myself, and was so pleased with them I had to wear them as soon as they were blocked.

Both these patterns are being sold together as a pair, so you can make some angled socks for your selves whatever type of sock yarn you have!

Click HERE (Oblique) and HERE (Acute) to find the pattern pages on Ravelry (you can access the same pattern set from each page), or just click below to buy them now!  Oh, how much?  well, dang, but because they're so fast to knit up, I couldn't ask for anything! You can get them by clicking the links above!

The whole world needs this kind of cute!

A Scone In The Hand Is Worth Two On The Plate

"Nic has just worked off 3 scones-worth of calories and is wondering, after actually only having eaten one this afternoon, whether it's too late to have the other two now...?"

Ah, Green's of Brighton. Your scone mix is a thing of legend, an inspiration, the carrot AND the stick of my weight loss! Thankfully, though, I'm aware that après-workout snacking kind of defeats the purpose of the workout in the first place, if you eat more than you've worked-off! Which I probably would, 'cos those scones be tasty, tasty things!

And let's face it, one is oh-so much better than none at all!

Wii Less Fat

"Nic is grateful for two things today: the geniuses at Nintendo for designing the Wii; and her wonderful family, for getting her one for Christmas.

As of today she is 2 stones down, people! (That's one whole chin in layman's terms!)"

Never underestimate the power of a 'game' when it's combined with the will to change, the generosity of family, and a love of cake.

Cherry Ripe

cherry garni socks by yours truly

araucania ranco solid in pt 485

the yarn side walker merino in red lentil evenings

It's about time another cocktail sock pattern was added to the repertoire, so here's something a little fruity! Cherry Garni is a toe-up, heel-flapped, cherry-lace sock, with contrasting cocktail-skewer toe, heel and cuff.

Okay, these should really, technically, be called 'Cherry Garnish Socks', as 'garni' isn't foreign for garnish, but is only an attempt on my part to sound fancy!  I am nothing if not creative in the ways of language!  Or lazy...  Either or, the cherry is a massive part of cocktail dressing, and this new patterns is a natural progression from the Twist of Citrus homage to all things zesty in the cocktail world!

So, whether you're adding a rich red Maraschino cherry to a Manhattan, a green cherry to your Blue Lagoon, drinking a black cherry Mojito, or having your tequila sunrise adorned with a yellow ground cherry, I'm sure you'll agree that the cherry, no matter what colour, is truly a worthy addition to the cocktail sock theme!

The sock begins at the contrasting toe with a simple but effective cocktail-skewer rib pattern:

then moves on to the cherry-lace pattern (a rich, ripe cherry with its stalk and a leaves) :

and for something completely different, I've added a heel-flap.  I have to say I love the final appearance of this - the gusset pick-up is oh-so-very neat, but pay attention - you have to start the increases around 4 inches from the final edge of the heel.  (I've suggested adding a life-line if you aren't completely sure of the length you need - I measured 4 inches from a sock I had previously made and worked out where I needed to start the increases.)

Totally worth it - it looks fabulous!

And another plus: it looks great in different colours!  I asked my testers to use different colours - purples, greens, yellows for different coloured cherries, and they turned out looking fabulous - check out the pattern page for linked projects!  

So, what else do you need to know?  Oh yes indeed - the link to the pattern page and a lovely Ravelry button to click if you fancy investing in something fruity!

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe, 
Ripe I cry, Full and fair ones

Come and buy.

Cherry ripe, cherry ripe,

Ripe I cry,

Full and fair ones

Come and buy.

Sticks & String: An Introduction

I think that before I throw my latest knitting patterns into the mix, I should give you a brief run-down of the whole sticks and string thing.  

I knit. I knit for fun AND profit, as they say. Actually, pretty much just for fun, but it keeps me off the streets, and if I've got needles and yarn in my hands, it means there's less of a chance that I have food in my hands, too. 

A friend of mine introduced me to the gentle are of not garrotting or impaling people with twine and sharp spikes in the Summer of 2008 and I was hooked. Well, I was needled. I can't crochet to save myself. (Some of you will get that pun. And for that we thank you.) Not long after that I was inducted into the hallowed halls of Ravelry; a website for knitters, crocheters and other fibre artists that sounds a lot more dull than it really is. What it is is a treasure-trove of patterns, inspiration, community, friendship, and much more fibre-related wonderfulness. 

I was inspired to start a knitting blog, initially describing my attempts at fitting in, learning to knit, singing locations, and lots of stained glass windows. (I am nothing if not eclectic in my choice of subjects.) It grew in scope once I started designing my own patterns and although I make it sound much more grandiose than it really is, it's something I really enjoy, and I'm proud to share my creations.

What are these creations? Well, if you click HERE, you'll be taken to the afore-mentioned knitting blog's page containing all my blog pattern links. You can take it from there! What I will do, though, is add a cross post from my knitting blog to here when I have a new pattern up. I thoroughly enjoy knitting, it's a part of who I am, and I think it's right to include some of it here.

(I just have to point out that the inspiration for most of my patterns is alcohol in mostly cocktail form - you'll understand it when you see them. I know. Cake and alcohol. But all things in moderation, and all that!)

Muscular Antipathy

"Nic is knackered.  Truly knackered."

The things you do. The things you hope your muscles will do again, once they've decided not to hate you any more. Wii Fit ain't got nuttin' on this baby. Now please excuse me, my muscles won't let me sit upright for much longer...

Denim: The Great Leveller

"Nic tried on a previously un-try-onable pair of jeans this morning and managed to get them zipped-up and buttoned. Whilst she was wearing them, even! Just don't ask her to move..."

Or breathe.

But O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! There's nothing quite like the feeling you get when you can button/zip/close up an item of clothing when before such a meeting of edges was but a wild imagining.  

Size 26 black jeans from East Coast at Evans, bought on eBay for pennies a few years back, when the possibility of them fitting was quite high. Jeans are weird. No, that's not fair. Jeans are great! My body is weird. Which also isn't fair, but nearer the truth. I am a 'pear', which, okay, isn't so weird, (because we're talking about body types, not being actual pieces of fruit) and means my hips are much larger in proportion to the rest of my body, and for me that difference is about three, and sometimes four, dress sizes. And I go in in the middle rather a lot. I'm not talking a waspish waist, more like a natural fold in the... folds, but when it comes to jeans, pairs that fit me round my lower portions should come with it's own PA system to warn everyone to Please Mind The Waist Gap.

So really, it's not the buttoning, but the zipping. The button is already at the least wide part of me, but the zip, the zip always needs a bit of convincing. What I DO love about jeans, though, is the very unbiased nature of the beast. The squeezing legs into tight lengths of semi-stiff, kinda rough fabric, the tugging and shimmying and coaxing them up past your rear end, the lying down, the breathing in, the risking of the finger tips in trying to marry the button to the hole; it is a universal thing. You can be a size 2 or a size 32, but the Dance Of The Jeans remains the same and it's quite the equaliser! 

So HUZZAH! for the humble jeans, for not only do you bring us joy when you close, your very nature doesn't discriminate between short, regular, long, large or small, and for that we love you, just as soon as we can... get... that... zip... ... ... up.

Wii Fat

I lost the equivalent weight of half a bag of sugar last week. Where from, I couldn't tell you.  Probably from one of those areas that nobody would notice anyway.
  

Oh Frank, can you see? That spot behind her left earlobe? I'm SURE it looks less flabby.

But I did, after all, make the decision that I wanted to shift some of this superfluous gorgeousness, and when I was presented with a Wii Fit (second-hand - who can afford these things for new nowadays?) for Christmas I decided it would be worth a try.

Now, I say gorgeousness, but I know you can hear the steady drip of sarcasm. I have been told there are men in the world who like their women voluptuous and well-padded, but I have yet to experience the phenomenon. Or myth, as I prefer to all it, worthy of the greatest story-tellers. Probably the Brothers Grimm.
  
I do realise that I'll never be the 21st century ideal 'thin' and even Rubens would call me chubby, but it would be nice to get some contour back to the full moon I call my face, and have less wobble around my lower portions. So I'm trying my best. To be honest, I don't think that the current skeletal ideal is either healthy or attractive, but then seeing as I am neither healthy nor attractive at the other end of the scale (if you'll excuse the pun) I won't throw boulders...

It does help that I have no life (see, I knew being alone would come in handy one day), so I can devote an hour and a half every evening (except Sundays, because, hell, there's good telly on Sundays and although you can take the girl from the couch, but you can't take the couch from the girl for long) to stretching, punching and stepping my flab away. "This is YOUR fight against YOUR fat" as the boxing instructor informs me. Repeatedly. Really, self-abuse notwithstanding, if I could have punched my fat away, do you not think I'd have already done it? Hell, one of the bullies at school would have done it for me. That generous soul obviously saw the future when she decided my stomach would make a good punching bag.

Of course, the losing weight part is subjective, or at least it is to the balance board. Lean 2 degrees in any direction other than straight up while you're attempting to register your avoirdupois, and your 'weight' increases or decreases by pounds, so if your balance isn't up to keeping your centre of gravity dead-centre (which, when you're fat and using a balance board, ISN'T standing straight up, top-of-your-head-on-a-string-pinned-to-the-ceiling style, because your excess weight means that you have to lean forward/backwards (depending on where it's located) to make sure the red dot that indicates your centre of gravity hits the centre of the televisually-represented board.
  
Before I realised the force could be both with you and against you, I would come away from the weigh-in feeling either elated or utterly depressed, depending on whether left gravity or right gravity was being particularly strong that day. I've lost two pounds.  WOOHOO - this thing is a MIRACLE and I'm starting a new religion, complete with balance board altar and chocolate sacrifices!  Or, I've put on three pounds. Excuse me while I douse the fire of my hopes and dreams with the salty despair of my tears. So, I take several tries to get that middle balance... Better that than 'losing' 3 pounds only to find out the next day that you've put on those same 3 pounds again. Fickle. The board is fickle.

And talking of fickle, may I bring to everyone's attention the biased method of measurement known as BMI, or Body Mass Index. Yes, you can tell it your height and it'll spout out what your BMI should be according to how far away the top of your head is from the ground, but won't take the contextually important body build into account. So, if you're built like a brick sh*t-house, with broad shoulders and a pelvis that could comfortably birth a small whale, or, because these things are equally problematic for the small-framed amongst us, built like a rake, with narrow shoulders and equally fine bone structure throughout, then BMI isn't going to be particularly accurate. Or useful.

I believe it helps that I've learned to ignore the setting and go straight on to pounds lost (or gained, according to the wind direction and the rotation of the tides), because although I am fat and short, if my build is not taken into account to assess my ratio of portliness to health, then I'm not going to get a fair reading, so the whole BMI shebang is not deserving of my attention.

But please excuse me, I must go and say a small prayer to the Board of Boards, burn a few calories in lieu of incense, and hope for a following wind. It is time to sacrifice an hour in the pursuit of someone else's ideal me.

disclaimer: all being said, I've lost 16 lbs since the end of January, and I can now touch my toes without having to re-attach them to my feet afterwards. But, as always, it is much more interesting to write about the dark side of the board...