Eddy Says

Eddy Says: Dieting with Jimmy Mofo

By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Monday 7 December 2009

Here’s something that has amused and amazed me recently. The other week, Jimmy Mofo of the Beat Assassins came in to the studio for the All Time Top Ten, with an encouraging and bouncy mix, very nicely put together.

When he came in, the first thing I said was: “You’re looking good, Jimmy”. And he was, devilishly handsome, and much more svelte than I recalled.

I asked him, without wanting to sound cheeky or negative in any way, if he had lost a lot of weight. He smiled and said: “Yes, a lot… I’ve been quite a lot bigger in the past”. So, I asked him what the secret was to his new look and he told me: “The shish kebab diet”, without a hint of irony.

I almost collapsed laughing, inwardly, and suggested that he might be pulling my leg. But he was deadly serious. “The shish kebab diet”, he repeated, with a little more stress on the words ‘shish’ and ‘kebab’. I was incredulous, and asked for a little more detail.

“Think about it”, he began, calmly and authoritatively. “A few pieces of chicken breast, flame grilled over charcoal, then put in a pitta bread, with a load of salad, a bit of chilli sauce… where’s the fat?”

“Erm, there is none…” it dawned on me.

“Exactly! I just eat shish kebab every day, no fat, nutritious food, I lose loads of weight and I’m really happy because I like Turkish food. And it’s cheap too”.

Brilliant. I laughed like a drain. It was so beautifully logical and surprising at the same time. I’d never thought of a kebab as being a diet food, but in that context I suppose it is. I’ve always been of the opinion that kebabs are a great fast food, hand made in front of your eyes from fresh ingredients. So much better, and more for-real than a homogenised burger or chicken that tastes the same wherever you are in the world, and is packed full of additives and enhancers. It’s honest food made by an artisan with some love, not churned out by a love-less automaton with a name badge and a look that tells you they are dead inside.

As well as Jimmy Mofo, I’ve met and hung out with some other really interesting and nice people this past week or so. Calvin Harris, for starters. I got to interview him (as you may have heard on the show) before his blinding set at Big Reunion main stage.

You know I love his music, and that I think he’s stepped up to the plate with album two and hit the ball clean out of the park… but I really like him personally too. He exudes a sense of high intelligence when he speaks, like you really know that his brain and mouth are well connected (something I’m jealous of myself) and he has a quality I find most endearing, and quite rare. It’s an almost painful sense of self-awareness. You could see it on the first ever Jam TV, when that Scottish journo pulled the jam jar stunt on him. Some could find it a bit awkward but I feel quite the opposite. I think its a sign of super-cleverness and again, I feel quite envious, in a nice way.

And boy does he know how to get a crowd going off. He had me and Black Peter Group smiling, laughing and dancing our tits off through his entire set. Me, properly dancing like a lunatic. It’s a rare thing.

I also saw Tom Findlay from Groove Armada a few days later. It was lovely to see him. He’s fond of Calvin too, both professionally and personally. He made an interesting point that Calvin is an awesome front man, but that his band could be cut loose a little bit, to play more organically, to take it to the next level. I know what he means, and it’d be an interesting move, although it may not be better, just different.

Both Tom and Calvin share another quality I admire. It’s a kind of modesty, being really good and successful but still ‘for real’. They embody what I call the ‘Loser ethos’, underdogs made good, heroes unsung and happy to just be in the game, unobsessed with the tackiness of celebrity. I wish there were more like them, I really do.

X eddy

Eddy Says from this edition of the CMU Remix Update.