'I am the human Tamagotchi... and I don't like it'

​Kids of the Nineties will remember the hand-held electronic pets you had to feed, water and exercise to keep alive. Now I am such a creature.

Courtesy of an impulse-buy Fitbit watch, I am, by proxy, the human version of the Japanese toy craze of the 1990s.

This time, instead of a soulless bundle of chips and wires emitting whistles and beeps, you’ve got a sluggish lump of sinew and veins emitting grimaces and bleats!

When my new sports watch says ‘walk’, I walk. When it says ‘drink water’, I drink water. It is constantly on my case over steps taken, sleep achieved and activity levels logged. It wants to keep me alive, while I’m pretty indifferent to its cause.

Buying this marvel of technology is like splurging on a titanium stable door latch - just after the horse has bolted.

Fitbit is also a bit of a stretch. BitFit, maybe. FarFromFit is more like it.

Why, you might ask, do you need a watch to tell you when to drink? Because I’m bad at it, that’s why. But only water. Guinness, wine, coffee or tea are not a problem. Water? Bleurgh!

One of my cricket buddies pulled me up on it: ‘How can you not like water, it doesn’t have a taste?’

Would you be so strident in a restaurant?

‘Excuse me, but this curry has no taste.’

Waiter: ‘Thank you sir, I’ll pass your compliments onto the chef.’

I can, however, confirm that my new Fitbit watch has got me fitter. My steps are up. Mainly because, thanks to the water consumption, I’m forever traipsing back and forth to the toilet.

Weak bladder, I’ve been told. It was particularly prevalent in the days of the Tamagotchi (circa 1996) when my pub drinking was at its zenith. My mild hayfever and weak bladder meant I was often mistaken for indulging in the excesses made vogue by the Oasis brothers. Why else would he be nipping off to the Gents with unnatural haste and emerge sniffing? That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, it’s not a weak bladder, it is, in fact, a very efficient bladder… but I digress.

Employing the finest sport technology the world has ever clapped eyes on just in time to mark the steepest part of my fitness decline may not be my finest move.

It’s a new form of doom scrolling. Instead of monitoring the decline of civilisation on my phone, I’m now keeping daily tabs on my rapid decline in health.

The Tamagotchi used to die if you ignored it. So far, the feeling’s mutual…