This morning I watched as my girlfriend practically burned a hole into our living room carpet with her legs trying to keep up with a YouTube video of Joe Wicks, Instagram star-turned-healthy eating author, on his morning workout.
Wicks has become something of an online phenomenon in the UK, the popularity of his Instagram profile ‘The Body Coach’ leading to the publishing of his Lean in 15 series of healthy eating and workout guides, with him now landing a show on Channel 4.
The show will see Wicks training a selection of people over 30, 60 or 90 days in order to get them into shape, with a casting call posted on his Instagram profile specifically asking for “uniformed public service workers”, adding: “You’ve been busy helping others, now it’s time to let me help you.”
So now cut to the image of me, sipping on my morning coffee, watching my girlfriend repeatedly jumping wildly into the air like a confused tree frog, with Joe on the TV hopping around with her in unison, his hair bobbing up and down like the ears of a particularly exuberant basset hound. Soon Joe will become omnipresent. Soon all of your girlfriends will be entranced by his rock-hard abdominal muscles and well-conditioned locks of a 17th century poet laureate. Soon you will all be me.
