Checking The Nuts

I've never been a particularly sporty person.

When I was younger, I did play football, badly. My style was more rugged midfield enforcer/hatchet man full-back, than silky midfield play-maker, or dashing goalscorer. I did enjoy it, just wasn't any good at it.

For some reason I got into table tennis, and was pretty decent in a peer comparison sense, but my aptitude for that faded along with my eyesight.

Since then I've just toddled along, with only intermittent bouts of physical endeavour. I'm one of the fortunates for whom weight has never been a real problem.

My occasional bursts of gym going were aimed more at building up, than slimming down, and needed the assistance of copious amounts of protein supplements to have an appreciable effect.

Walking to and from train stations is the height of my current exertions, and poker isn't likely to have me in peak condition.

All that said, I do worry about my health sometimes. More from the perspective of will I be around for my family as they grow up, rather than 'I don't wanna die!!!'

So, I have started paying attention to things like cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body fat ratio, etc.

I'm also conscious of quite a few heart attack or cancer victims within the family gene pool. The dual curses of the Scottish NHS.

So, I am inclined to pay attention to issues such as getting regular check ups, looking out for signs of disease, etc.

Which makes it all the crazier to me that this campaign caused such a furore...

You can check the link if you wish, but the executive summary would be that Ricky Gervais (of The Office fame) has done a fabulous campaign to support prostate cancer treatment, yet the idiotic radio regulators initially wanted to restrict it's broadcast on some sort of decency grounds.

It's fine to have all sorts of crap about sex, guns, violence, or just general idiocy and banality from presenters, broadcast at any time of day or night, but a campaign by an award winning star, which could save lives, was supposed to be a post-watershed event?

Fortunately common sense has prevailed and the regulators have backed down in the face of public ridicule. You can listen to the ad here.

Office chat about this issue reminded me of an earlier men's health campaign, which I think may be of interest to some of you out there.

Rachel Stevens, a UK singer/actress did a campaign to promote awareness of testicular cancer.

As a sort of UK Lindsay Lohan, the idea of Rachel encouraging males to touch themselves is nothing new (as the ad slyly acknowledges). The target demographic may have been slightly older though.

I thought the campaign was very well done, and worth sharing with you.

So, if you are a male poker player, do as Rachel says, and check your nuts.

Let's face it, after all those Party Poker inflicted kicks to the junk, there's a severe risk of damage down there!