Nearly got run over half a dozen times running across the top of Cricklewood Lane as I crissed crossed between the traffic hoping to make the 28 bus I could see coming up the Finchley Road from Golders Green station. Those Bobby Burgers must have taken their toll as I was wheezing by the time I got to the bus stop although I did make it before the bus came.

Well, when I say bus it was more of a van really. You know, like an old bakers van painted red with too many deck chairs thrown in.

“A single to West Hampstead Tube please” I said to the driver via what looked like a bullet proof screen but he didn’t so much as look at me.

“How much is it to West Hampstead Tube please?” I said raising my voice slightly.

“What does it say there” said the driver looking dead ahead but pointing behind him.

I turned and saw a sign that said a single cost a pound so I put a pound coin on the tray and waited for my ticket but nothing.

“That's a pound!” said the driver.

“Yeah, I know. That's how much the sign says it costs.”

“It's gone up. It´s one pound ten.”

“Well I'll go to the foot of the stairs “I said mockingly dropping the extra ten pence into the tray but still no reaction from the driver.

After what seemed like an age he took the money off the tray, printed off the ticket leaving it hanging out of the printer flapping as gusts from an air conditioning vent lifted it up and down and then he hit the accelerator pedal and we were off at Mach speed.

As I ripped the ticket off I felt the bus sway to the left and then quickly to the right and losing my balance I reached for the nearest pole. Not as easy as you might think as half the bus was holding onto it like a badly rehearsed group of maypole dancers who'd been on the cider.

Seemed like the longest journey of my life although it lasted all of ten minutes.

When I got to West Hampstead Tube I could see Frank waiting and shouted out “hey Frank, you'll never guess what's just happened to me.”

I was bursting to recount my story of how I'd survived a Stonker but no sooner had I shaken Frank´s hand when I heard “Frank how is you man?” from over my shoulder.

I turned around and saw this black guy who made Lee Haney look like a stick insect. He had braided hair cornrow style and sparkling gold teeth in the front of his mouth. His walk was very deliberate which made people get out of his way and when he got over to us he shook Frank's hand and said “so ya want to be a body builder Frank?” and shrieked out a big belly laugh which could have shattered reinforced glass.

“A bit of weight training isn't exactly body building Ossie now is it?”

“Ya know what I mean Frank” said Ossie letting out another shriek and then turning to me said “and who ya brought wid ya Frank?”

I said “my name´s Jack” but he ignored me until Frank said “this is Jack” at which point he grabbed and shook my hand like he was squeezing a lemon onto a limp squid and said “hello Jack man. So ya's a friend of Frank hey? “and stopping briefly to shriek continued with “ I´m Osvaldo but everybody call me Ossie Jack” and then turned away from me, put his arm around Frank and said “OK Frank, I show ya man.”

He led us up the steps of a bridge over the tube lines all the time chatting to Frank pausing only to shriek with laughter and it was like he always included the person's name when he spoke which started to get on my nerves a bit although I wasn't about to tell him.

When we got to the other side of the bridge it was as if we'd arrived in some crap place a million miles from West Hampstead.

Well, in fact it was crappier than a crap place with line after line of identical prefabs with every window bar none coated in so much dust you couldn't see inside. Couldn't really imagine why anyone would want to be inside any of them anyway mind but we carried on following where Ossie led.

When we got to a particularly grim looking one Ossie led us up some more stairs to a plain door which had a sign over the top which was barely readable because of the dust which said “Muscle Beach.”

“Ah well, the owner must have a sense of humuor” I thought as Muscle Mud Flat would have been more appropriate.

Ossie opened the door which let out a waft of old sweat which made a brass´s gusset at five o´clock in the morning worth a sniff and I started to think if this gym stuff was such a good idea after all.

I mean when Frank mentioned the word gym I thought it was gonna be like one of those places you see on the telly with lots of computer controlled running machines with tellys hanging on the wall in front, loud music and wall to wall Jillian Michaels

look-alikes in skin tight leggings which left nothing to the imagination but alas it was drab and well in need of a lick of paint, not a machine in sight, packed to the gunnels with rusty weights and as for Jillian Michaels look a likes!

The nearest thing resembling a woman was this short muscular girl with badly dyed blonde hair with jet black roots who looked like she’d been in a dwarf throwing contest and copped for a googly and ended up head first in a bucket of bleach.

We made our way to the changing room in silence like we were in church and I could feel myself start to tiptoe like I did when I'd arrive in mass just before the consecration as a lad hoping I'd avoid the priest's glare.

The only sound you could hear was of the weights chinking and puffs of air being exhaled from large torsos in sync with the weights rising. As we progressed through the weight room I looked left and right out of the corner of my eye for fear of catching someone's else's and what struck me was that no one talked.

When we got to the changing room the smell of sweat was even stronger and from the look of the showers it was more than obvious that no one had ventured inside for many a long year unless maybe to plant something.

Luckily there was no one else in there so I found a corner where I thought I'd be safe from any unwanted conversation and while I undid my bag and laid out my kit Ossie took off his t-shirt to reveal a marble like torso ripped so much you could see each individual vein in his arms.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a bag full of different coloured pills and started swallowing them and stopping briefly to drink water said “ya got to take ya vitamins man” winked and let out a super shriek.

After putting on my kit I sat down on a bench to tie the laces of my trainers whilst Ossie and Frank chatted away about people I'd never heard of. When I finished tying the last knot I looked up to find Ossie naked in front of me in all his glory but it wasn´t the size of his muscles that took my eye.

He had a dick so long that it'd frighten an anaconda and it seemed to be longer than his legs which made him look like a badly designed bar stool. Feeling embarrassed I said “how long have you known each other then?”

Ossie said “ah me and Frank goes back long time to days in south London Jack” putting on a jock strap and then Frank added “yeah, worked the door in Isabella's together but that’s not Ossie's day job” at which point Ossie shrieked again.

I was waiting for one of them to tell me what his day job was but all Ossie said was “OK my friends, let's get started “and shrieked like he knew something we didn’t.

He led us out into the gym and as we walked over to a bench he nodded to the other members who nodded back whilst looking me and Frank up and down but more in disdain than anything resembling a greeting.

He showed us some basic chest exercises and then said “today's legs so I´ll be over dere if ya needs me Frank” pointing to a corner with so many weights it made you wonder how the floor didn't collapse.

Me and Frank took it in turns to lift dumb bells counting each other's sets and every now and then you'd hear one of the regulars scream “three more. Yes, yes, yes, yes! Come on, come on!” whilst standing over a training partner with their hands cupped under the bar.

Lying down on the bench I looked up and said “Frank, have you noticed how my left arm doesn't seem to move?” I thought the idea was that I'd press the weights with both hands moving up and down in unison but my left one either wobbled all over the shop or just got stuck with me looking at it as if to say “come on hurry up, there's people watching.”

“Don't worry, it'll get better as you get stronger” said Frank.

“Get stronger!” I thought. “Is he expecting me to come again?”

I'd never felt such a wimp in all my life not even when playing rugby in school stuck out on the wing in a December down pour and I couldn't help thinking that the weights I was using must have been for the others to train their eyelids or their foreskins on coz the ones they were using resembled small cars with handles.

We'd been hard at it for about half an hour when Ossie came over and said “OK, if yas twos alright with the pecks let's do some legs man” and led us over to a metal frame with different notches on it and a bar perched on one going from side to side.

“I show ya first and then ya do it widout the weights and den we add some ” he said and stood under the bar so it was perching on his shoulders and then dropped his body with his arse almost touching his calves and then came back up to his starting position.

“Ya does ten reps and when ya come up look up to the ceiling.”

We both did a set without weights and then Frank went first putting ten kilos on either side of the bar. He made it look so easy I even started to look forward to my turn. Now's my chance to show my credentials I thought.

I ducked under the bar to get underneath it and moved my body up to take the weight and then felt the pain of the weight on my neck.

“Don't think I'm doing this right Ossie. It's wrecking my neck.”

“Let the bar rest on ya shoulder muscles man.”

“Shoulders muscles! I haven't even got any shoulders” I said grimacing with pain.

“Stop, stop will ya man” shrieked Ossie as Frank laughed and as I looked around I could see the whole gym was looking over amused at the spectacle of the wimp trying to do squats.

Ossie took a towel and wrapped it around the bar at the point at which it rested on my neck and said “ya OK now man” so off I went with my ten and I have to say it worked fine as all that wrecked now was my legs.

Ossie kept increasing the weights and would stand behind us and when he'd sense we were struggling to do more would place his arms under our armpits and shout “three more” squatting up and down with us.

When we'd finished our sets I didn't feel too bad although I was convinced I must have done myself a serious mischief which would rear it's ugly head later.

“OK, I'm gonna need yas to help me now as I'm doing squats with separators.”

Ossie picked up what looked like a handful of metal rings and told us to go each end of the bar with me one side and Frank the other. Then he told us to put a five kilo weight on the bar and then a ring and then a twenty kilo weight with a ring and continue with the rings and the twenties until there was hardly any room left on the bar.

In fact, by the time we'd finished the metal bar was bowed with all the weight.

“Hey Gerry can ya help me over here man” shouted Ossie.

Gerry as it happened was enormous. If you can imagine a tree with a ginger pony tail, big ringed silver earrings and erect nipples poking out of Gold’s Gym vest then that was Gerry.

He came over and stood behind Ossie with his trunk like arms ready to take the strain if necessary.

Ossie moved under the bar took it off the frame so he had all the weight on his neck and shoulder muscles and started off and after he'd done ten Gerry shouted “right take off the weight” and me and Frank took a weight off from each end of the bar trying to do it at the same time so as not to unbalance the bar.

I felt stressed out as you had to do it quickly as Ossie's face was contorting and Gerry was starting to get closer standing behind him like Ossie had done for us.

Gerry kept shouting, me and Frank kept taking the weights off and Ossie kept going up and down but slowing noticeably with every rep.

We took the last twenty kilo weight off leaving only the five ones on each end which would normally be like lifting an Aero bar for Ossie but after all those reps he looked well and truly spent.

“Nah, can't do no more Gerry” he said sounding more like a whimpering dog than the brick shithouse he was.

“Ten more” screamed Gerry.

“Nah, nah, I can't Gerry.“

“Ten more you fucking wanker!”

Gerry's idea of a pep talk seemed to work wonders and Ossie started to go down again only this time the whole gym was counting with him and shouting “come on Ossie.”

He was going down so slowly you could have watched “Coronation Street the Early Years” box set during each rep and the expression of pain on his face which was dripping with sweat made me feel for him.

When he went down for the last one he seemed to get stuck and the noise was deafening as everyone in the gym shouted encouragement. I thought we'd have to take the bar off him and help him stand up but he started to rise. Ever so slowly but he was rising and by now even I was shouting on the top of my voice “come on Ossie you can do it!"

He was shaking on his feet and Gerry was ready to catch him but in one last momentous effort Ossie stood up and almost threw the bar back into the frame which made one hell of a clatter.

The whole gym went potty shouting, clapping and doing the dreaded high five which I have to say I drew the line at.

Ossie was by now surrounded and looked like he needed a lie down with a few litres of oxygen more than getting his back slapped by umpteen Schwarzeneggers which was what he was getting.

I sat down on a bench feeling exhausted by the whole thing but feeling happy that I'd been part of it.

The small blonde girl came over, sat next to me, put her hand on my thigh, smiled and said “that's what you gorra do. Get that extra bit out.”

The touch of her hand on my thigh and the sight of her firm hard muscles bursting out of her body hugging leotard started to give me the pop even though she reminded me of Charlie Drake.

“The bit extra?” I said.

She looked at me all serious, looked around as if to make sure no one else was watching like she was gonna share a Bounty bar with me in a Weight Watchers meeting and said

“You know when you go for a shit and you can't get that last bit out?”

“Uhhh.. yeah” I said rather slowly not knowing what was coming next.

“Well , there's those who'd wipe their arse there and then leaving a piece inside and there's the champions like me and Ossie who'll stay there pushing and pushing until they get the last bit out. Which one are you?”

Didn't have the heart to tell her I was more of a pebble dasher but feeling uncomfortable said

“Oh I'm like you. You know, they'd have to bring forceps before I'd throw the towel in.”

She didn't seem to get my wit and said “that's the way to get the extra bit out,” patted me firmly on the back and walked off to join the happy back slappers who were celebrating Ossie's success in a cloud of white chalk.

You know. I can safely say that was the most effective way I'd ever come across of reducing a raving boner into a Smarty sized button in less time than it takes to say castration and wondered later if that was her intention.

After a while the excitement died down and everyone returned to their weights bar me, Frank and Ossie who'd finished for the day. As we made our way to the changing room Ossie turned towards us and said

“Well, what ya think guys? Yas coming again?”

“What do think Jack, we coming back?” said Frank putting it right on me.

“Yeah, yeah Frank. Try keeping me away.” I said thinking “wasn't he looking at you when he asked” to myself.

In the end I never did go back but it wasn't the last time I´d see Ossie.

Not by a long shot!