Thursday 22 July 2010

The virtues of the morbidly obese

Once upon a time, not so long ago, the world was a happy, jovial place. The British Broadcasting Corporation aired only the crème de la crème of entertainment and licence payers could rest assure that their fees were being put to the best of use.

But one fateful afternoon a child entered the world. A very fat child and the fate of the future of British entertainment was sealed.

As a foetus, the child’s appetite was so advanced that his mother, one Mrs Corden, could not satiate his needs. To make matters worse she developed cravings for bacon sandwiches during the pregnancy.

Now everyone knows the smell of fried bacon is, not only irresistible, but so powerful a smell that it can be detected from far and wide. The unborn babe was daily tempted by the continuous whiff of porky goodness, which carried all the way up in his womby cocoon.

One day the urge became so unbearable that the tot made like Pacman™ and chomped his way right through Mrs Corden’s stomach and out into the open, snatching the bacon treat straight from her ravenous hand.

Mrs Corden died almost instantaneously, but not before begging her son be called James after her great, great, great, great, great grandfather thrice removed. Who was also rather fat.

Being born drastically overweight and three months premature, James was something of a medical phenomenon. Some said he was the largest newborn baby since records began.

This disposition set him in good stead for life. Several food manufacturers, seeing the potential financial benefits of this unexpected “celebrity,” took to sponsoring him, giving him free snacks for as long as he may live.

And so fat James got fatter. And fatter. He wasn’t expected to live past nine-and-three-quarters. So on his tenth birthday, his stepparents threw him a huge surprise party to celebrate his reaching double figures.

The child stared agog when the blindfold was removed and he clapped his piggy little eyes on his village hall, decked out in banners, bunting and balloons and filled with presents and more food than even he could ever imagine. What a feast it was, with all his favourite snacks laid out on a table big enough to fill a football stadium. Pickled eggs, fried chicken, jam doughnuts, cream cakes and a mountain of cheesy puffs.

After gorging on such a rich selection of delicacies, James simply wanted more. But even his gargantuan belly could not accommodate it all.

It was then that James spotted some youths from his year in school. They were each taking it in turns to suck the helium from his party balloons, which decorated the village hall. Through utter desperation, and for the first time in his life, James put two and two together and came up with an almighty four.

“Helium makes balloons expand and rise,” he thought to himself.

“And stomachs are kind of like balloons………”

So by inhaling vast quantities of the gas, he too could expand so much so that there would be room to eat and eat and eat without ever feeling full in the slightest.

And so on his 10th birthday, James’ helium addiction began. Luckily the amount of food he consumed on a daily basis kept him well and truly grounded. However there was a flipside, he caused permanent damage to his vocal chords and was plagued with sounding distinctly like a hyena for evermore.

One day, some five years later, as he waddled down the street to his local fish and chip shop, James was approached by three members of the production team for ITV drama, Fat Friends. They had been hunting high and low for morbidly obese people to take part in their programme, talent regardless.

Forward thinking James snapped up the opportunity straight away.

“So what if I can’t act,” he squeaked between mouthfuls of battered sausage,“ “the royalties will mean I can buy even more Krispy Kremes.”

So his excessive weight gained him his first acting job and, from then on, for reasons unfathomable, James Corden has spread faster than HIV onto almost every single prime time television programme currently aired on national television.