The situation (in the book) is this – lad fancies lass at uni, decides to start working out (which is of course no way related). So he goes to other side of town to check out the sports store…

While he’s there he decides to buy some dumb bells and suddenly realises a critical error in his plan, and having no money for a lift because it now all been spent, has to carry the insanely heavy weights up the hill back to his halls, using just a carrier bag, which of course breaks sending the weights sprawling down the high street.

He ends up pausing at intervals to gather his breath, upon which the lass he fancies walks up and offers a hand to carry them.

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My situation(s) were these:

1: On arrival at uni decided that now I was independant young gent I thought I’d purchase a big hi-fi, having never had the space previously and a mother who disliked anything that interrupted any of her favourite television programmes. I took the trip all the way over to Richer Sounds in Canton to buy some speakers, carried them all the way back, pausing in Queen Street to take a 20 min breather. No help given.

2: Not being able to have my decks in halls, I’d been pooling records I’d purchased in my room over the winter semester ready to take back for Chrimbo. Undeterred by my previous journey, I thought it would be a great idea just to bung them in a suitcase and tow it down to Cardiff Central, with a mate waiting to travel back with me.

Possibly the most painful experience in my life, I had to stop about every 20 metres to catch my breath, and swap hands. I took about 1 1/2 hours to do that journey to the train station, missed two trains going home and lost a layer of skin on both my hands. Suffice to say my friend was not best pleased; but still did most of the carrying of the case for the connections on the train journey.

“Loads of this is so close to the truth its scary, I’ve carried stupidly heavy things across Cardiff for instance, more than once actually, just to save a quid or so.”

What does the book say about carrying heavy stuff?