Death of the Snack Attack

In my job (or should that be ‘job’) I spend a lot of time schlepping around town. On a fairly typical day, I’m likely to visit a couple of students’ houses for a lesson, then travel to a gig in the evening, so naturally that involves a few uses of public transport every day.

This isn’t an entry to attack the public transport system in London (which incidentally, I love) though. This entry is about the terrible compulsion to snack.

It started with the occasional can of Dr Pepper for a bus journey and the odd nostalgic Mars bar to keep me going in place of a proper lunch but then, as work got more frequent turned into an unthinking bee-line made for a newsagent whilst waiting for the bus.

What was once something to look forward to quickly became a dutiful ritual: Click, fizz, gulp, crush. It’d be a self-indulgent exaggeration to use a word as severe as addiction where this particular vice is concerned, but the compulsion is undeniable; That instant sugar spike induced by a can of coke quickly establishes itself as a necessary part of a journey from one place to another.

Anyway, having realised the plain absurdity of drinking several unwanted and unhealthy cans of fizz every day, I’ve banished all needless snacking from my daily routine. If I drink anything on the go, it’s a bottle of water and, if there are soft drinks available at a gig, I take the diet option which, incidentally, isn’t quite so inferior and off-putting as I remember. Not only am I saving money but, excluding the first headache-filled day, I’m actually feeling far healthier generally. It may be a placebo, but I don’t mind.

Anyway, in the absence of anything properly significant to talk about, here’s the JJs playing in a pub with The Pogues(ish) earlier this year.