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Monday 3rd May 2004

All the good work I have done over the last six months to increase my fitness has been undone. Just a week of dates and I am dried out husk of a man, scarcely able to perform my own ablutions. It is certainly a year of extremes and I just hope I can get through it in one piece.
I was at the Science Museum with my date today. It's not a great place to be with a hangover on a Bank Holiday Monday (packed with screaming kids), but the appalling weather had washed out my planned excursion to Kew Gardens (I wanted to lie under a tree and have a picnic and possibly wear a pair of glasses with false open eyes on the lenses, so my date could talk at me whilst I had a sleep).
In fact I did end up wearing glasses, because we went to the IMAX theatre first to see a film about insects. It's the first film I've seen for a while where one of the leads is eaten by one of the others (well, "eaten" in a literal sense, anyway). But I might have nodded off, had I not been amused by the tiny child next to me who seemed intent on trying to catch the butterflies that were apparently flying in front of his face (I wasn't stupid enough to even bother trying that, like that childish idiot. Anyone could see they were flying much too fast).
Later as we climbed two flights of stairs, I found myself completely out of breath with my heart beating out of my rib-cage as if I was some love-lorn cartoon character (oh the delicious irony, that we were searching for the interactive sports exhibition).
I ran a Marathon 15 days ago and now I can't even go up a couple of floors on some stairs without feeling like I am about to die. I wish I could say that I am this knackered because I have spent the last seven nights impregnating seven different women, but I've only been talking to them. And I'm still at death's door. I have increased respect for Hercules. He may never have existed, but his stamina was still incredible.
This is definitely the most difficult task I will ever have to undertake.
As we looked at the map to decide which exhibit we wanted to see next, my date said she didn't care as long as we didn't have to visit "The History of Mathematics" section. I had to agree that it didn't sound promising. But I am contrary and wilful and sometimes when a girl says she doesn't want to visit "the History of Mathematics" section, she really does want to visit "the History of Mathematics" section. So I am sorry to say that I insisted on taking her up the "History of Mathematics" section.
She had been right to eschew it. It was rubbish. Mathematics is dull enough on its own without having to look at historical artifacts relating to it.
One case contained some extremely boring looking mathematical implements, that looked like compasses (the spiky kind, that have only ever really been used to stab other children in the limbs) but more boring.
A sign amongst the dull items read, "Please do not photograph the contents of this display case."
I assume this was some kind of sarcastic joke. I saw no such sign anywhere else in the museum. And I can't imagine that anyone in the world would want to have a photograph of what I saw before me now. Unless there is some kind of competition for the most boring photograph ever taken, in which case this would be the ideal subject matter. Maybe they've had to put the sign up because so many people had entered that exact photo into the competition and they wanted to get some variety.
My date felt she had been justified in not wanting to come to the "History of Mathematics" section and she was right, it was shit. I knew from the way she looked at me now, that we were never going to be anything more than friends.
Which was my exact plan. I had to make sure that she didn't start to find me attractive and get any amorous ideas, because even a passionate kiss might be enough to destroy my worn-out body.
"The History of Mathematics" section of the Science Museum is officially the ultimate passion-killer on this planet. Most of you may see this as a reason to avoid it, but if you are dating 50 women in 50 nights (or even just one for the last ten years and you don't know how to shake her off), the "History of Mathematics" section of the Science Museum is somewhere you will end up coming to quite a lot.

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