Tis The Season

[Sweder]

A pre-dawn raid into the hills. The Napalm glow along the eastern ridge warned of impending sunrise. I turned my back on the town, loping into the west, arctic cold nipping at my heels. No watch today, just my old mucker Alice to keep me warm with rambling tales of rock n roll excess interspersed with rare classic rock cuts. A Jimi Hendricks version of Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love threatened to steal the plaudits as I crested Blackcap.

I turned to survey downland dressed in its finest winter bling. The sun was awake, a huge, blood-orange orb loitering above the golf course, impossibly heavy in a light blue sky. Ten minutes later it had shrunk and lifted, appearing to move along the ridge towards the valley. I smiled. Our great ball of rock had rolled and tilted toward our solar star. Those early Sussex runners would have been amongst the first to know for sure that the Earth was not flat. Still, you could forgive our ancestors their belief that the sun rose and set, clocking on and off for the benefit of man. It certainly seemed that way this morning, climbing steadily, changing from blood red to white gold.

I opened the gate for the hounds off the east side of Wicker Man Hill at the foot of Stables climb, glanced up and stopped still. Two heavily frosted paths, shadowed by the hillcrest, streaked away like torpedoes seeking separate targets. Between them tall grasses bent, heavy under Jack's overnight caress. At the ridge above us light shimmered with the promise of a wonderful new day. As I lumbered forward, amazed that this scene, so familiar, should touch me so profoundly, Mr Cooper provided the musical magic to bring eyes and ears into perfect harmony. David Gilmore's Ebb and Flow took me home on a sea of gentle rise and fall, a song of craft, guile and richness; perfect.

The song ended half a mile before I reached home.
I turned the radio off.

[Sweder]

Christmas is coming
Sweder's getting fat
Please put a penny
In the Old Man's hat

Another superlative outing this morning. Despite the extreme cold (OK Suzie, minus three is extreme cold to us!) I opted for shorts. On days like these even the wind stays in bed. The sun was up by the time I stopped pfaffing about, but it was clear as the bright blue sky that hard though it tried to shine it would make no impression on the frozen ground.

It's a shame when your track du jour pops up so early in a run, but that's how it was today. Listening to Planet Rock as I got the legs going, enjoying AC's banter, I was dismayed to hear the vibrant thrumming intro to LA Woman so soon. That wonderful driving beat got me galloping rather sooner than I'd planned. I confess I loved every frozen step, allowing the cadence of the music to flow through my legs, leaving me a grinning bystander as we chugged up the slopes. I lost interest in the music after that, though Van Halen's Hot For Teacher got me driving hard up the approach to Blackcap, probably a quickest-ever ascent for me.

Thoughts drifted to yesterday's radio interview with new Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. Clegg, a man who has enlisted the help of no less an icon than Brian Eno as an advisor on youth policy, had boldy declared his atheism to the nation, sparking a trail of debate amongst the chattering (phone-in) classes. I'm happy to have leaders who don't have/ listen to voices, even if some are allegedly of the Almighty. Years of Bush and Blair claiming to serve a higher purpose and being happy to be judged by God for their actions have done little for global stability or religious harmony. The very nature of some faiths appears to be simply Global Domination, a sort of God-driven communism; there's bound to be trouble. As one comedian observed recently, if the leaders of all the world's religions should perish on the same day and find themselves before the one true God, one of them is going to be laughing his ass off. In my view Dichotomic dogma shares a carriage with poverty, starvation and opression on the runaway train of world suffering.

What's this? Religion and politics? For shame, Sweder; 'tis Christmas.
What on Earth do such matters have to do with Christmas?

Happy Humbug.

[Sweder]

I was due a tough outing and it duly arrived with the mid-winter thaw. In a horrible parody of Sports Review of the Year my body revisited a number of ailments from earlier races. My stomach, suffering the after effects of a seasonal thrashing on Friday, was flipping like pancakes on shrove Tuesday. Showing remarkable solidarity with another symptom that last appeared during the TOM my right calf tightened up six miles in; all that was missing was the 30 degree heat.

A modest group set off this morning. Having shed last week's wonderful winter coat the downs bathed in gently warming sunshine. Trails slithered in treacherous mud, twelve and a half miles of slip-sliding fun along our regular Sunday route. Despite my protestations my much swifter long-run colleagues, Remmy, Steve and Irish Michael, insisted on waiting for me at every gate. I elected to plough on with the dodgy limb, figuring that modest pace would not exacerbate what might or might not be an injury. This stop-start progress lead us to review one of the unwritten laws of downland running: how long should one wait (for following runners) before closing a gate and moving on? What is the acceptable length of gap to the next runner that makes it OK to slam the gate and move on as opposed to standing there whilst cooling faster than an Eskimo streaker until your colleague lumbers through? We decided there was no hard and fast rule and it all depends on eye contact, signals from the straggler and the patience - or lack thereof - of the leading runners.

As it turned out we covered the route in the same time as last week - 1:57 for 12.34 miles. Having blasted home at breakneck speed last Sunday I can only surmise that we started a lot quicker today, possibly explaining the appearance of mild calf-knack half way in.

I'm off now to round up the Christmas turkey and sniff out those last 'difficult' gifts. Season's greetings to all RCers. I hope to catch up with many of you before too long, maybe for a lope, definitely for a glass of ale.

[El Gordo]

Aye, have a good Christmas one and all.

We're going goose this year which is quite appropriate, as I'm fearing that my marathon one is well and truly cooked. Very gloomy news re the knee, but I won't bore people with the details right now.

I'll get the next few days out of the way and see where I am.

[Sweder]

Sorry to hear that Andy.
Something that might put a wry smile on your face is a piece of news from Old Trafford this afternoon. Celebrated Rowdie newcomer Anderson indulged in that most detestible past-time - waving an imaginary card towards the ref after receiving a harsh challenge from an opponent. The ref, Howard Web, duly obliged - booking the Brazilian for unsportsmanlike conduct. Nice one Howard; let's hope we see a lot more of that, in Europe as well as the Premiership.

[El Gordo]

Ha! Missed that. I was able to watch most of the first half before being summoned by Sainsbury's. I agree that it's a miserable new development in football -- though sad to hear that a decent player like Anderson's doing it. As always, I enjoyed the Rooney antics in the first half. He does hissy fits so thoroughly well.

The negative football story for me this weekend is the news that QPR fans were singing "Two-nil to the billionaires" during their game with mighty Colchester. I just hope this was a bit of fun, and not an omen.

[Nick]

I received a text from an old friend who happens to support QPR. It went like this:

"Hi any chance of getting a couple of tickets for #watford v The Billionaires as our pathetically small allocation of 2500 has sold out in under an hour. We are going up! Come on you R's"

Soon to become the second most hated team in the land me thinks.

[Sweder]

Soon to become the second most hated team in the land me thinks.

After Brighton & Hove Albion, obviously

The Mighty Rooks go into Christmas with a six point lead at the summit of Blue Square South after a three nil away hammering of Fisher Athletic. You better watch out, you better take care . . .

[Antonio247]

Sorry about the knee, Andy. I hope you will get better soon.


All the best for all of you at Christmas and the new year!


Antonio

[El Gordo]

I received a text from an old friend who happens to support QPR. It went like this:

"Hi any chance of getting a couple of tickets for #watford v The Billionaires as our pathetically small allocation of 2500 has sold out in under an hour. We are going up! Come on you R's"

Soon to become the second most hated team in the land me thinks.

Way too early to say, Nick. Most QPR fans I know reacted with some elation to the news, having been knocking on the door of administration for over 10 years (and entering it once for a year). But after the relief of the debt being paid off, a strange sense of reality, or perhaps unreality, is breaking. The QPR messageboards are full of discussion on the 'billionaires' thing. There's a small but mouthy minority who are giving it large, while the great majority are shushing them, reassuringly worried that we'll handle it badly. There's a nice piece in the Telegraph about it today:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jh...qpr124.xml

I've been pleased with what I've read Briatore say on several occasions, that he wants to change the way that football is marketed to the local community, and wants to make improvements to the stadium. He's been quick to swat away any suggestion that there'll be a spending spree on players. He's talked about a £10m budget for the coming year which is respectable by Championship standards, but not the mark of the Abramovitch strategy -- to buy success at all costs, and to think nothing of paying £20m+ for player who then sits in the stands for an entire season. He's talking about picking up reliable Championship-level players, as well as the possibility of a couple of surprises from Italy. I think this may be what he's about: shipping a fading Italian star or two over to add a bit of glamour -- if the Naomi Campbell/Tamara Beckwith thing was anything to go by. These guys have been successful in F1 by being resourceful and creative, rather than spending their way to success, and they SAY that's what they plan to do in football. I hope so. QPR have always been a relatively small, family club (not unlike Watford), that most people seem to quite like in a nostalgic sort of way. It would be a shame if they lost all of that.

On the Watford match point, there's been a lot of disappointment about the size of the allocation which is apparently much smaller than last time. It sold out a couple of weeks ago, though I suspect not within an hour. Looks as if I'll be in with the Watford lot, like many Rangers fans.

Good luck to Watford -- after Saturday. I'd like to see them go up again this season, preferably at the expense of Fulham and Reading.

[Nick]

Andy - the small ticket allocation seems to be a hangover from the Premiership, where most clubs kept the away supporters to a bare minimum which , in my opinion, ruined the atmosphere. Watford have kept this going and the match day "experience" is definately the poorer for it.
A strange thing is happening at the Vic these days. We are top of the league but the fans are very disgruntled in the way the team are playing. There is very little attractive football being played, just a lot of "Huff and Puff" and an over reliance on the physical side. The star striker Marlon King is on his way to Villa and there are plenty of other want away players who think they should be playing in the Prem. You don't have to listen too hard to hear the the fans even complaining about the manager and his signings.
The real problem is the Premiership and the raised levels of expectation.
Their are many who see it as the Holy grail but it can just as easily become a poisoned chalise.

I won't be there on Saturday against QPR, I had my fill against Cardiff.