Ben Machell on health hipsters and resisting the urge to laugh

Our columnist's bit on the side
Ben Machell30 August 2016

For reasons I can’t explain, I’m attracted to local news stories that involve two distinct groups of people falling out with one another over how an area of land is used. I don’t mean actual gang wars, but more like when ornithologists and dogging enthusiasts end up having tense stand-offs by duck ponds. Ditto Pokémon Go players and graveside mourners. Or pyromaniac scouts and distressed farmers. You know. That kind of stuff.

What makes these stories all the more gratifying is that there’s usually one group who are so clearly in the wrong that you get the added pleasure of being angry and outraged. And last week I was pretty sure I’d stumbled across a classic in the genre. It involved residents of Primrose Hill complaining that, every week, dozens of fitness devotees arrive at the crack of dawn to take part in loud, exuberant exercise classes on Primrose Hill. These classes are part of something called Project Awesome and, according to witnesses, involve more than 100 ‘hipsters’ exercising to ‘pumping music’ and ‘constantly whooping’ while giving each other hi-fives.

Faced with these bald facts, I had an instinctive sense of whose side I was on. It also played into my preexisting prejudice towards health hipsters, those cheery, lean, enthusiastic boys and girls you see looking like a bunch of models who have just ram-raided the Nike store. I find them kind of creepy, mainly because they never seem to sweat or appear embarrassed to be seen exercising, which I always thought were two of the main things that make us human. So I was pleased that they were the villains of the piece.

But then I remembered something my dad told me, about how you must never demean people who are exercising, no matter how stupid and/or annoying they seem. Don’t snigger at the chubby Lycra-clad cyclist, don’t roll your eyes at the hi-fiving health hipsters because at least they’re out there having a crack and easing the future burden on the NHS.

So however much it pains me, I’m with Project Awesome on this.

The Primrose Hill lot are just going to have to suck it up, whoops and all.

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