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Gym before work: seven f**king unhelpful tips on how you could exercise more

DON’T have time for exercise? Obsessive gym rats can help you with that, by making these unworkable suggestions and dismissing your objections as weakness: 

Gym before work

Gyms open at 6am. What’s more, at that time they’re quiet. And exercising actually gives you energy, so you’ll be powered up for work and still able to enjoy an evening of passing out from exhaustion during The One Show.

Get a standing desk

A fascinating phenomenon: any additional social credit you’ll gain from being fitter and more adherent to societal body standards will be cancelled by being known as that daft twat with a standing desk.

Sign up for a team sport

Want to be fitter to improve your quality of life and live longer? Then don’t take the field against a team of wildly competitive bastards in the Rawtenstall North Netball League, where steel-elbowed Donna will think nothing of crippling you for a match point.

Run while watching TV

You spend hours watching TV every night –  why not watch it from a treadmill? After all, you’re watching The Chase Celebrity Special from 2014 because you love it, not because it’s meaningless noises and flashing lights to slump in front of.

Get a bicycle

Nothing says ‘enjoy the de-stressing benefits of exercise endorphins’ quite like trying to navigate commuter traffic with no more protection than Lycra and a bellend’s helmet.

Go on activity holidays

Yes, the only fortnight you’ll have off all year should be spent mountain biking with a toddler. In heavy rain, in Wales, costing more than the Maldives.

Do burpees while the kettle boils

Oh f**k off.

'It's very jazzy': A phrasebook for the perfect backhanded compliment

WANT to undermine someone’s self-worth, while still sounding like a nice person? Try these phrases:

‘It’s very jazzy’

See also: ‘colourful’, ‘with-it’ or even ‘fun’ when used with the right tone. You haven’t explicitly said you hate their outfit and they look like a clown, but that is what they’ll realise you meant when they think about it later in the day. Then they’ll start crying.

‘Wow, did you cut it yourself?”

What’s the issue? This is clearly complimenting both their great new hairstyle and the impressive haircutting abilities you’ve assumed they possess. No other possible interpretation. Definitely not that they look like Donald Trump having a worse hair day than usual.

‘I wish I could be that carefree’

If they were carefree, they definitely aren’t anymore. Whatever they have done, it has clearly crossed some sort of line, but they don’t know how or why, and you aren’t going to specify. A genius comment which will keep them awake at night worrying.

‘It’s so cute and cosy!’

This one is specifically about their new house. They know it’s tiny, you know it’s tiny, and they know you are judging the tininess negatively, and yet what you’ve said sounds friendly and warm. ‘Thank you!’ they simper, while seething with hatred inside.

‘It just screams ‘you’’

A good one to use while shopping, when they pick up an ugly dress or pair of shoes for a joke. And it’s an efficient double-whammy, as they’ll be incredibly offended and also start to develop a crippling identity crisis.

‘How are you still single?’

On the surface it sounds like you can’t believe someone as wonderful and attractive as them hasn’t found a partner yet. But on closer examination it suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with them. Put lots of emphasis on the ‘still’ so they’re forced to think about how long they’ve been sad and alone.

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