FAT MIKES

Many moons ago I worked as a fitness trainer in a health club which was attached to a hotel. It was a fairly small place, with about 350 members at most. I ran it together with my fine colleague Neil. At certain times of the day, particularly about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the gym usually got very quiet and we often found ourselves thinking up imaginative ways to amuse ourselves.

As the club had so few members, we got to know them all quite well and Neil and I had nicknames for many of the most regular attendees. Among them were Little Eric, The Dullards, Well Hard Lee and Fat Mike. One day we were discussing the fatness of fat Mike when we realised that we both knew a remarkable amount of Mikes, all of whom were rather portly. Not only that, but a number of celebrities prominent at the time also sprang to mind: Mike Gatting, Mike McShane, Mike Reid and Mike Harding to name but a few. It seemed to us that an unusual proportion of people called Mike were fat.



So, as we had nothing better to do, we decided to do a little research amongst the other club members to find out whether our hypothesis was correct. It turned out that an astonishing 80% of the members of the club who were called Mike were fat, compared with around about 30% for all other names. When we threw in all the Mikes we knew in our personal lives outside work, the figures remained the same.

Now, I am aware that a sample of about 400 is not likely to be accepted as conclusive proof that calling your child Michael will dramatically increase his chances of attaining porkiness. So I would like to extend the survey by inviting readers to do their own little bit of research into the Mikes that they know. All you have to do is write down all the Mikes you can think of in your life and then recall whether they are of generous proportions or not. Then add up all the jumbo Mikes and work out the percentage of the total who could do with losing a few pounds.

You can let us know your results in comments below.