Don’t get me wrong – I’m not denying that obesity is a problem amongst divers. But it’s hardly a new phenomenon. Back in 1979, we had to reinforce the chassis of the Branch van so that it would bear the immense bulk of our Diving Officer, Norman ‘Slim’ Arbuckle.
Norman continued to expand at an exponential rate until we were obliged to build a special trailer for him. It took four brawny Branch members, collaborating in an intricately choreographed manoeuvre, to unload him at the dive site.
It was after he burst the RIB by sitting on it that we reluctantly banned him from boat diving.
I’d like to report that he finally joined Weight Watchers, shed two-thirds of his body weight and ran the London Marathon in just over three hours.
I’d like to, but I can’t. Actually, he died in tragic circumstances, harpooned in error by rogue Japanese fishermen off Scarborough. They couldn’t even be prosecuted for breaching the whaling moratorium.
Quite the reverse, in fact – as a result of poor Norman’s demise, the protocol was amended to permit the killing of 1000 extremely fat people per year for purposes of ‘scientific research’. (However, it’s worth noting that in certain Oriental cultures, the buttocks of the obese are highly prized as a sexual depressant – a natural antidote to tiger penises and powdered rhino horn).
Norman’s widow even tried to have him officially reclassified as a walrus, which would have allowed his killers to be impeached under endangered species legislation. She failed – but only just. His DNA proved to be almost exactly the same as that of the walrus, even down to the tusks, facial hair and flatulence. It was only the eye colour that destroyed her case.
But where was I? I was arguing that the fat, like the poor, have always been with us. Yet in the diving community, the incidence of obesity has actually declined in recent years. This can be almost wholly attributed to the closure of Fort Bovisand, where the Full English Breakfast was once cited by UN weapons inspectors as a serious risk to global stability.
When Bovi was shut down, the kitchens were dismantled and by a team of experts from Chernobyl and encapsulated in glass. The half-life of cholesterol is upwards of 10,000 years and the safe disposal of the Bratt pan and deep frying equipment remains an issue of international concern.
Today, in the post-Bovisand world, I would submit that the gravest danger facing divers in emaciation.
BS-AC statistics reveal that last year, sixteen divers were abandoned on the sea bed at the end of their dives because their buddies mistook them for Pipe Fish.
Due to the increasing slenderness of divers, the world market for neoprene has almost halved with catastrophic effects upon the remote, rubber-growing communities of Malaysia.
Many divers’ waists are now so narrow that their weightbelts are too short to carry the requisite number of weights. This has prompted a foolhardy (and wealthy) minority to experiment with metals heavier than lead.
Hampstead Branch’s penchant for gold has caused a doubling of van insurance premiums across the nation. And the confiscation of 500 kilos of plutonium from Whitehaven Branch, not ten miles from Sellafield, has raised embarrassing questions about security at the UK’s foremost nuclear installation.
SDS (Shrinking Diver Syndrome) has not been accompanied by a corresponding reduction in the size of boats. So that hardboats that once carried ten, grossly corpulent passengers can now accommodate twenty skinny ones. Skippers and dive masters are stretched to breaking point. Sooner or later, they will snap.
Unlike Norman Arbuckle.
