Set-point theory hypothesises that there is a control system built into every person dictating how much fat he or she should carry – a kind of thermostat for body fat that the body is determined to revert to despite efforts to become so skinny, only the one eye would be required. Studies using mainly dietary restriction have shown that weight loss is accompanied by complacency followed by the habits of old (TOTB et al. 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014). Severe caloric restriction has been shown to increase cravings for Curly Wurlys as much as 85% (Cadburys & TOTB 2015).

Scientists remain divided over the validity of the theory, but research findings appear consistent with evidence-based studies involving lesser-explored set-points including the following:

1. Sibling Set-point:  Despite reaching maturity, being able to retain a job, and convince bank officials to hand over the equivalent going rate for an internal organ on the black market for an upgrade to the garden shed, adults will naturally revert to their sibling set-point whenever they reconvene. This is most acutely determined by being present in the childhood home environment. Sibling set-point behaviour fluctuates from one sibling to another but “That’s not fair” in a high octane voice is a common refrain among most…40-somethings.
2. Music Set-point: If a person exhibited scant interest in music at an early age, they are most likely drawn back to the oeuvre of Florence and The Machine, and Ed Sheeran after several failed attempts to listen to The Paul McLoone Show. Adults who were early music fans will eventually seize up whenever they see Little Green Cars having momentarily been duped into falling for their pseudo musical credentials. They’ll not be fooled.
3. Internet-at-work Set-point: Having flicked straight to the internet use policy in the employee handbook with a renewed determination on the first day of a new job, workers will vow never to re-abuse the policy and risk a bollocking, or worse – risk exposure of the variety of bodily ailments giving them jip that they just can’t resist Googling . By six months, their favourites will include the 8-Ball Question & Answer site, and Medics R Us.
4. Teen Set-point: Irrespective of the distance between adult children and their parents, the former will revert to their Teen Set-point age whenever they learn that their parent(s) are going on holidays or will not be at the family home for a night. This usually involves a warm fuzzy feeling accompanied by a stare into the middle-distance to speculate on what one would do to pass the time in the family home if they were 15 again. Only they don’t imagine they are 15 again, their thoughts automatically revert to age-type, and more often than not include a cameo appearance from the drinks cabinet and an involuntary tapping of the right index finger previously deployed for circumnavigating the phone-lock.
5. Calm Set-point: The adult-man habit of gently placing a hand inside his pants is thought to derive from the unconscious return to child-hood self-soothing. Actually, I just made that up, but it sounds about right. Work with me here. For others, the sight of Bert and Ernie sends them hurtling towards a yearning to retreat to the bottom of a garden so they can talk to themselves without interruption. In lieu of either, the bathroom is a reliable garden simulator where day-dreaming can last for as long as you can get away with it, and you don’t even have to warn the next person in to give it a minute.
6. Coastal Set-point: Growing up in close proximity to the sea can be a challenge for an adult who later finds themselves landlocked between painful social conservatism, and that nice coffee shop that occasionally opens on Sundays. This can be harder to return to and the mind will invariably induce a variety of deviant behaviours until the adult’s discomfort finally washes up on the shoreline to which they eventually return. These have been known to include: being over-friendly to shop assistants, menu-planning for a fortnight ahead, almost buying a dog based on a single photo from a colleague, resurrecting the what-does-it-all-mean speech whilst in the car to visit the in-laws, and hovering around the non-alcoholic beer section in Sainsburys.
7. Group Set-point: Studious rule-abiding types in childhood are likely to carry this responsible behaviour into the work environment. The temptation to collude with their messing colleagues to hide one of their cars will test them, but they will scupper the carefully orchestrated plan by calm calls to reflect on the unfairness and potential shock the unfair and potentially shocking prank could unleash on the unsuspecting individual. The messing student who frequently sat at an annex of the teacher’s table will agree with the studious type. But not for very long.

M.y..t..h..u..m..b..s…h..a..v..e….g..o..n..e….w..e..I..r..d

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Research is on-going, and contributions from your good-selves are always welcome.

Few things strike fear more than the moment before my bank balance is revealed, and being invited to a hen party. It’s not the women per se, or the variety of them, or the number of them – I am one with innumerable personalities of my own after all. It’s just the women, the variety of them, and the number of them (according to one of those personalities).

You know how we all generally have different mates that draw out various aspects of our personality more than others? There’s the more serious you, the maggot-acting you, the riled-up you, the cheese-appreciating you, the yarn-telling you, the hyena-laughing you, the over-earnest you, the slightly-more-confessional you, the obsessive you etc. etc. Then there’s your best mate who you’re the nearest to being totally free with and with whom you can talk in euphemisms until she finally calls a halt and demands to know what the fuck you’re talking about when you say he likes his tea upside down?

Well, for the first few hours, a hen party is like going on a blind-date with variations of them on a school reunion for the class five years behind in a random pub with everyone pissed out of their heads on smiles. Consequently, they tend to make me very tired and lead to my premature escape. Just on the cusp of chaos before anyone can be accused of looking at someone “funny”. Oh yeah. There’s funny haha. Funny weird. And the final funny in the holy trinity of funnies – are-you-looking-at-me-funny? funny. Predominately found among the inland towns of the North, parts of Leitrim, smatterings of the Midlands, young people aged 13 – 16 everywhere, and there’s a higher-than-average propensity towards it among adults with surnames beginning with O’ and Mc.

Why, I’d just LOVE to go

All and all, they’re treacherous affairs best avoided. But as a carrier of one of the aforementioned surnames and first generation insincerity, I accepted an invitation recently with an enthusiasm so overbearing, I probably qualify as funny weird. No sooner had I donned the mandatory themed gear, when all my personae predictably made a bee-line for my big mouth smack in the middle of a group of strangers. These are confusing and dangerous occasions. They require a period of settling-down where one must await the conversational match-making gremlins to do their work.

Somewhere along the way the name-settings were switched. The over-eager-listener me got cornered by Sara who was in the middle of house-hunting, had a pronounced antipathy towards students, and a compulsion for revealing her bemusement at the number of cross-dressing customers visiting the second-hand shop she occasionally volunteers in. These Christian types. Their inclusiveness is a credit to fundamentalists everywhere. “Right”, I kept responding, which was probably too subtle a jibe.

Relief arrived in Michelle, who was about to make the leap into matrimony shortly herself but couldn’t find a fuck to give about it. Wahey. Within twenty minutes we were bent double with laughter at our respective examples of how we attempt to behave professionally in the work place. She surpassed herself by laughing uproariously at my worrying Mary Robinson claw predicament while I bent backwards under the weight of the guffaw at her method of listening to her boss. It was all going wonderfully until someone ruined it with the announcement that the Chinese had arrived. Off she went to freshen up leaving the maggot-acting me to grind the train of thought on everyone being a bit mental in one way or another to a halt with Tina.

But Tina was half-way through an emphatic rant on maternity welfare benefit. In the end I had to dig out the riled-up me just to stay awake. “It’s only going to get worse with the Tories back in!” My new get-out-of-jail response.

And so to dinner, and back pretending to be grown-ups. “So what do you do yourself?”, countered Anne to my enthusiastic dot-joining on how we knew the hen. Oh no, not the job question. The dull me was already shot to hell after enduring a monotonous exchange on the summer weather so far that ended in a cliff-hanger when Caroline (who I kept calling Catherine while apologising for doing so) was interrupted by an urgent need for me to have a wee. All the talk on rain didn’t help. Thankfully, Anne was usurped by the Mr. & Mrs. Quiz klaxon (fork on the wine-glass, polite at first before quickly reaching Gestapo levels of authority and fear).

The final question was my cue to leave. Specifically that moment when the bride-to-be was pressed for an answer on which famous person she reckoned her fella said she looked like. Always a tense moment.

*five seconds of tension*

Another doppelganger for Andrea Corr! That’s every black-haired woman in Ireland who may or may not keep their internal organs in their handbags.

Mounting the wagon, I could see Michelle stoking the fire while everyone pulled their seats closer and huddled together as the first round of shots was fired. As it happened, I did have to be somewhere else the following morning. But for a brief moment, the more sociable me regretted the risk of missing out on the action.

You looking at me funny? *eyes narrow*

Another summer, another attempt at a relaxing holiday. Here’s how it started out this time round: me squawking at a hotel manager intent on exporting us to their ‘sister’ venue on the outskirts of town.  The sister being the socially inept, bad-tempered, tuneless boring sibling of the fun-loving Mary Poppins. The call flashed on the screen as we pulled into the carpark with an alarming ease that should’ve really set my nerves on edge there and then. No-one gets a spot by the door in this life without paying for it. Certain the call was part of the soon-to-be-impressed-by sucking-up procedure to confirm our ETA and notify of us of the fresh cake awaiting us, I casually slipped the phone back unanswered in my bag; then gave it a nanosecond before anxiously fishing it out to listen to the voicemail as we waddled through the main doors.

A vision of indifference grimaced before us. I could hear my breathing rising an octave as details of a leaked pipe dripped forth from the lips of a receptionist a little too vacant looking round the gills. This conflicted with the checking-in tête-à-tête anxiety attack I’d been fearing but hoping to get through as quickly as possible. No-one encounters such arrival-by-numbers-chat without paying dearly for it in aches from rictus smiles and the distinct dirty feeling that one’s voice had a touch of helium throughout.

“We’re very sorry but the leak was just discovered this afternoon”

“The traffic wasn’t too bad, thanks”

“I’m afraid we’re over-booked for the evening”

“Ah it’s not that far now with the M50”

“Would you like to talk to the manager?”

“Coffee, black, no sugar.  This is great altogether”

*wincing on sounding like my Mother with that last response*

                                                         Separated at birth, apparently

Mercifully my sister anxiety took over. The one that’s borderline uppity assertive while being overbearingly unreasonable by frequently pointing out that “in fact” she’s being more than reasonable; fangs bared throughout.

*taking it back down two octaves*

“Thank you, Ms. Stepford. Yes, we will see the manager now”.

We repaired to the sofa of customer service. Weddings (and subsequent divorces) were undoubtedly planned from the very same sunken spot. Many a chin stroked over the merits of having the tea and sandwiches before or during the disco part of the reception, so I took inspiration from those who had hunched over before me and gathered myself for some heavy negotiations.

The following afternoon I overheard a young bloke on the same sofa enthusiastically regale a suit with the one about his Da sending him off to sell a car that had no tax or insurance. He was just about to close the deal when our one’s Da re-appeared with the sun-cream, scuppering my chances of hearing how he clinched it in the end. If his sofa experience was anything like ours, he’ll have bagged the job. The yarn was a response to a request for an example of when he used his own initiative, which till then out-performed mine.  I tried to sell a dilemma without any tact or assurance (that I didn’t pose a risk of going postal).

Surfacing from the silence he had reclined into under a baseball cap, my fella eventually leaned forward to “suggest, that in the circumstances, we take a double room for tonight, and see how tomorrow goes”.  And with that, and a handful of requisite head-scratches, we were given our keys. God, he’s so reasonable.. How I am meant to relax?

The whole good was taken out of the cake. So I ordered a pint.

When it comes to star signs, I’m like any other rational person with a healthy degree of scepticism. I curl my lip dismissively at the negative traits, before seizing on, and wildly accentuating, the positive. It’s probably another top Aries quality, along with those outlined below – a gift from a mate many spent candles ago that has followed me around each house I’ve inhabited ever since.

You can just imagine me over the years, pausing mid-ascent of the stairs for a sneaky self-regarding smile over at my leadership feats; reaching for the toilet paper and looking up to proudly reflect on my pioneering ambition; interrupting my quest to find clean underwear to admiringly gaze over at my confidence and dynamism above the laundry basket. The list goes on.

As the birthday cake pile-up gets out of hand, I’m finally more willing to square up to the truth lurking behind these images. Probably not a noted Aries trait, but by good luck I got out of the Pisces side of the astrological bed; the only time I’ve ever been early for anything. Apparently they hogged all the sensitivity and even get credit for it. Fuckers. No wonder us Aries are a demanding fiery lot.

Top of the pics apparently shows me whistling ahead of the pack leading them to the knock-down price cheese selection in Tesco. A leader with initiative? Or…a prophetic image sealing my inescapable fate that would see me back in the bloody North. Turns out that’s not me at all. I’m actually stuck at the traffic lights waiting for them to pass trying to stump up an explanation to requests from a two-year old in the back seat to tell her what these men in sashes are at. I can’t produce anything more entertaining than the truth. A low point for the competitive Aries.

Moving down to my summit-conquering triumph. Get me nearing the top of the mountain. Pioneering and competitive? Or…typically making work for myself when I could just have taken a flight over the mountain at half the personal cost. Or trained as an astronaut to fly my own spaceship over every mountain there ever was. That’s probably a Scorpio there by the rocket. Any I know tend to be over-achieving in something. Space travel included. They started out on acid and E; they ended up on Mars. There was a certain inevitability about it.

The next station of the cross reveals my apparent heroic life-saving tendencies. This was part of that team-building away day in Cavan a few years back. The crocodile had been deprived of food for the previous three days so Seanie threw it a battered sausage out of sympathy. It only antagonised it further. Courageous or daring? Or…thick and idiotic of me not to dive in front of Seanie to avoid wasting a perfectly good sausage? Predictably concentrating my energies in all the wrong places.

Catch me some time later leading a group lesson on how to do The Conga. A beginners class by the looks of them; the one immediately to my left clearly unimpressed with my Hitler joke. Confident and dynamic? Or…once again feeling very obviously exposed in public. I lie; it must’ve been well before the Cavan trip as my breasts are still in nifty enough condition.

Finally, there I am at school. I can’t remember exactly what the lesson was, but I’m guessing maths or religion.

I will do as I am told

I will do as I am told

I will do the Morcambe & Wise dance instead

Happy Birthday fellow Aries. May your new year of life bring you the sunshine you crave, and sometimes unreasonably demand.

(Aries art – Anna Nielsen)

Rural Ireland

The Virgin Mary follows me round the room every morning. She presides over the bath in stain-glassed judgement giving my vacant look a run for its money. The bathroom is next to the double-room, not quite en suite but close enough to save me the run of the cold stairs the other bedrooms would demand. I could have any one of them; the house is all mine. For now.

Above the hearth hangs a painting. A group of musicians with over-sized lips and an assortment of raven and red heads. In the centre a flute rises to the lips of a woman frequently mistaken for me but the extent of my musical prowess has not been bettered since the piano lessons grudgingly surrendered to in exchange for my parents’ satisfaction. This excludes the later air-fiddling I have been known to break into with a breadknife when I’ve had just enough beer to tip me into the moment of now. The moment when all that matters is sustaining the bonhomie ricocheting off the walls in the painting, and getting to bed by a then semi-respectable 4am.

The painting is an interpretation of a scene from my local, where your character is judged according to your ability to hold your own in conversation on a variety of topics, not what you do for a living, or the number of letters that trail your name.

The man who maintains he has made radio contact with the crew from the Mir satellite station sits at ease alongside the blow-in bank manager who has been crossing over and back the threshold of everyone’s finances for the last thirty odd years, occupying the status of half-bishop, half-counsellor.

I live here for three years.