We leave home in 7 hours. That’s it for now.… …
Author: andy
A man shouldn’t have this much trouble writing a blog post. As most likely readers of this will now know, I have some major news to impart, but I’m like a small-time actor who’s finally been trusted to deliver a key speech, and keeps fluffing his lines. As previously disseminated to many people, something genuinely life-changing has happened: the sort of thing that blogs dream about. Yet I’m struggling to give this piece an appropriate gravitas, or explosiveness, or sense of electricity. You see, I can’t even decide on the wrapper. Bah! Let’s just get on with the news. If you’ve not heard it, here it is: in a few weeks time, we are moving to Switzerland. For the last … …
Claiming that we would be hot yoga-ing 4 times last week was a magnificent example of giving a hostage to fortune. I knew it as I wrote it. It’s why I wrote it. The sentence was tapped out meticulously, and slowly, with my left hand. I was using my right to hold that gun to my own head. Bang! We had already missed one scheduled session when M had to visit her parents at short notice, and since she returned, she’s been squirming in agony with acute lower back pain, scuppering plans to return to the studio over the weekend. She’s not in a good way: barely able to move, and being hit by a spasm of pain every few … …
Everything about the Hot Yoga studio is small and neat, even the receptionist’s sales pitch, after which she asked: “Do you have any questions?” “Just one — why is Hot Yoga always spelt with capital initial letters?” “Oh. ” M and I finally made it to a session last night, after a hesitant week or two. It was good to rope her in. The presence of another newbie added a small sprinking of reassurance to the experience. What is Hot Yoga? Pretty much what the label says it is: yoga, practised in a room heated to 41 0r 42 degrees Celsius (105-108F). The idea of the heat is to loosen the muscles and encourage the cleansing qualities of profuse sweating.… …
It’s at least 3 months since I quoted this Twainism, so it must be time for a reprise: If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. It dropped into my head again early Monday evening, as I pulled up sharply, clutching my left calf. The annoyingly whiney voice that accompanies hindsight tells me that this was an ill-advised jaunt. At the time, I spied no danger; just a pleasing excess of enthusiasm. After another strenuous spin class early in the morning, I must have been feeling a bit too self-congratulatory, and lined myself up for a further 4 mile plod later in the day. And a lovely evening it was too, with an … …
Considering this blog bears the strapline: Running is the answer, it seems like a long time since it reported an instance of this purportedly miracle activity. Barring my Connemara stroll, the Almeria Medio Maraton, at the end of January, was the last time I heard the slap of rubber on tarmac — and even that one ended in calf tears. Six months. That might sound like a running career that’s dead and buried, but it isn’t. Buried? Maybe. But it’s a shallow grave, and a premature burial. The dead man breathes. He breathed very heavily three days ago, and again yesterday. Just 7 miles in total, but a journey of a thousand miles… and all that. Added to … …
BALLACK WINDS UP ENGLISH I read this headline the other day, and for a moment, misunderstood it. I thought it was saying that Michael Ballack, of Chelsea and Germany, the owner of the most punchable face in football, had ended up being English. Perhaps he’d married an English woman and applied for British citizenship? But no, it meant something else: that he was cheekily prodding the old enemy in advance of the Crash of the Titans. So what did he say? Well, something quite incisive in my view: that “England are intimidated by their past”. He was talking about the football team, and needlessly self-imposed pressure. With third person singular verbs, the sentiment could equally apply to the country as … …
I’m not a parent, but I suspect that starting a business is a bit like having a child. Life-changing. A shuffling of priorities. Being kept awake half the night. Networking is the new sex. Or the new black. Or perhaps the new running. I’ve attended plenty of hand-shaking festivals in my time but what was, in a previous life, often an onerous, awkward duty, now seems like a self-reaffirming recreation. Mind you, this is based on just two experiences. Or perhaps three. Last night’s ‘speed networking’ session (a pleasure still to come) was cancelled, so I ended up in the local pub, though even this turned into a mini networking experience, and might eventually have more value than the others.… …
It’s time someone gave a new image to ‘the jobless’. When the TV news has an item about redundancy or unemployment, they tend to reach just an inch or two into their image library for monochrome clips of dole queues snaking round the corner of the labour exchange, or clumps of silent modern youth on street corners, eyes downcast. When they interview one of these tragic statistics, we find some gloomy middle-aged bloke on a sofa, as if paralysed by boredom, blaming politicians and cheap foreign imports (both the human and factory-produced kind) for his plight. The scene is often shot in a half-light, or against an industrial sunset, to offer a crude metaphor for dwindling hope and moribundity. These … …
An unseasonably hot, claggy day in central London today. 29 degrees might be the sort of temperature that would make an Aussie reach for his overcoat, but for us, it’s just on the uncomfortable side of warm — unless you’re in a beer garden. I wasn’t in a beer garden. Instead I was sardined on the London Underground system, floundering in a forest of armpits and hissing headphones, and can attest that it’s a less pleasant spot from which to enjoy the heat. This oppressive subterranean expedition would eventually lead me to the gates of the Bank of England, then slightly beyond. I was heading for Cornhill to attend an all-day seminar. One of the more substantial crumbs I was … …