Mumbai is my kind of town, a party town. In my first weeks living here, I was out most nights with new friends half my age, inevitably resulting in many unproductive mornings. This culminated with me waking from my slumber as the sun rose, contorted uncomfortably on the back seat of an auto-rickshaw parked on the edge of a slum under the hostile gaze of an unimpressed cheroot-smoking driver. I was so inexplicably far north of my south Bombay apartment that it took me two hours to get home, which in itself was no mean achievement given my wallet was empty of cash and my phone battery dead. Still, in many Asian cities both items would have been gone rather than just depleted, and their owner likely to be the one who was dead.
After that incident I decided to limit my Bollywood nights to Fridays and Saturdays, resulting in a marked improvement in both productivity and health. Without any jabs I have lost 20lb this year – so just another 40lb to go. The trick is simply much less alcohol, fruit for breakfast and a predominantly vegetarian diet with a daily swim, twice daily if I am feeling particularly virtuous. Who knew?
After 20 years of editing Guido Fawkes I am now focused on a new digital business in booming India. Old habits die hard and Guido’s tweets still distractingly pop up via the app on my phone. I have yet to summon the will to sever that link. Cosmopolitan Mumbaikars are intrigued by my years spent observing British politics, asking questions about Rishi and Boris in particular.
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