August

[Sweder]

Quick update:
Been to the Quack and got referred to my local sports physio. Hopefully start the knee quest by latest next Thursday. Meanwhile an innocent case of aircon throat picked up in Florida has developed into bubonic plague. I'm coughing up lung butter in lumps the size of golf balls. So it's a kind of two-for-one non-running deal; whilst your knee's crocked your lungs may have well take a time-out too.

Two weeks of inactivity has me adrift on the dusty highway between Desperately Concerned Canyon and Couldn't Care Lessville. Trouble is I'm slowly trudging towards the latter, my yearning to hit the hills dissipating as fast as drinks in the Last Chance Saloon for our lame duck PM. Meanwhile the layers of lard, until recently held at bay by my dogged refusal to stop dragging it up hill and down dale, have started rolling effortlessly in across Big Belly Bay.

Not much more from me for a while - unless I get around to writing up the tale of our trip to the Friends For Life conference in Orlando; that was some journey for all of us. I mentioned it in an e-mail to all old mate of mine, but less haste/ more speed and all that . . . I wound up name-checking Friends for Leif. I got an excited message back two days later together with a link and a note that he thought it was terrific that I'd gone all that way to support an Eighties Icon.

Like, whatever man.

[marathondan]

So it's a kind of two-for-one non-running deal; whilst your knee's crocked your lungs may have well take a time-out too.

Best get 'em both out of the way at the same time.

Good luck with the knee rehab. I know the loss of fitness will be a pain in the arse (and quads, calves, hammies, etc) but maybe, somehow, the enforced restart from a rung or two down the ladder will give you a different perspective on things. Y'know - you've been forced down a particular path, so you might as well enjoy (and write about) the scenery.

[ladyrunner]

Sweder,

Hope you're fit and back running again soon. I'm away in the van for three weeks but hopefully catch up with you when I return at Hove Park or on the Marina cliff tops.

Julie

[Sweder]

Jools, much fun and safety on your travels.
If I'm not treading the hilltops by the time you get back I'll be the old man gnawing his own flesh rocking back and forth in the shadow of the entrance to Waitrose. And God help my poor family.

I'm astonished at how quickly the lard flourishes when the running stops. I thought I'd caught a portly intruder in my bathroom this morning; turns out my Mother-Outlaw had moved the big mirror. Yuck.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Sorry to hear about your knee Sweder. Can't you walk those Sussex hills and write about it... there's something missing on this forum...

[Sweder]

Never meet your heroes; you might not like what you find.

It’s good advice; there’s nothing so fragile as adoration, more so when the focus of one’s idolatry is a very public figure. Chances are something – or more likely someone – will surface to shatter your illusions, usually in exchange for some filthy Fleet Street lucre.

There was never much chance of me meeting Hunter S Thompson.
The Great Gonzo, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, insightful political commentator and friend to the great and the good in New York, Hollywood and Aspen, put a .45 slug through the back of his mouth on 19th February 2005. I went in search of this mythical creature the only way possible; through his writing and that of those around him. I had to know more. I’ve read Hunter increasingly over the past few years, getting beyond the hedonistic romp of Vegas and wading, elbows deep, into the murky waters of the US Presidential campaigns of ’68, ’72 and ’92. Through Thompsons’ omnipresent shades Republican and Democratic monsters roam the United States, bloated with plagiarism and mendacity, coffers swollen with funds from the rich and the power-hungry.

I have a fault – one of many, I’m told – and this one drives Mrs S up the wall. I have a tendency to, when traveling, pick up and emulate local accents. I recognise this as salesmans’ disease, the unconscious attempt to put your audience at their ease. I don’t recommend it, for as with my good lady when worlds collide and you slip into a spongy Texan twang, those that know the real you will recoil in horror and forever treat you with suspicion. The point is this defect creeps into my writing too. Having immersed myself in the world of Thompson and Steadman I have, unwittingly, adopted some mannerisms, if not the brilliance, of the Good Doctor and his pen-wielding accomplice. There’s no harm, no foul as the Americans would say; it’s not a deliberate attempt to hijack a style. I’d have to ingest copious amounts of pharmaceuticals and develop a love of Chivas Regal to even think about copying Thompson. Yet it irks me that I find myself cursing in Hunterese, or thinking of things in his twisted terms. Twisted is indeed an oft-used HST term.

But I digress; the reason for my piece is this. Where Thompson was fuelled by industrial amounts of cocaine, LSD, mescaline and whiskey the inspiration for my output lives in the hills. Without running my writing engine cools, pinking in that alarming very-hot-metal-cooling kind of way. Panic ensues; can I write without running? What if my knee injury is in some way irreconcilable? Is this the end of my short foray into cyberwaffle? So, dear friends, this is a test. Endorphin-less, slightly (well, very) hung over from a night in town with our own Mighty Plodder (the pattern on my garish Hawaiian shirt fighting the intrusion of late night curry stains), I’m trying to convey a warning.

Warning? Oh yes; for in the midst of my journey into the black heart of the American dream I tarried a while in the biography lay-by. The reality surrounding the man who has held me in his literary thrall just as he held all who knew him in life is he could be a quite despicable man, a self-centred narcissist who’s every whim had to be obeyed, an impossible egotist, a drug addict, booze hound and, perhaps saddest of all, an intollerable, black-hearted bully. As time ticked on and his body succumbed to the inhuman weight of decades of debauchery Thompson morphed into parody of himself, a drooling, immobile caricature, loved by the hardy few, hated by some and feared by many. It’s inevitable really; you can’t behave as this man had for so long without trampling friends, girlfriends, editors and fellow journos into the dirt. Alongside the physical decrepitude his one true asset, his writing genius, faded like the details of a waking dream; just there, on the edge of consciousness, deliciously close yet tantalisingly out of reach. Deadlines came and went, missed by minutes or miles. Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone magazine, Thompson’s home in print since its inception in 1971, finally admitted defeat. Reflecting on a stack of stories mistreated and abandoned by his former headliner he bit the bullet, instructing his staff to no longer weed out juicy tales for their talisman. It broke his heart, even more so than when Thompson, now painfully aware of his own mortality, bit a bullet of his own.

Thompson could no longer trust his writing. He’d have friends and associates come to his nest at Owl Farm in the Colorado mountains to read sections of his past works to him, as if wallowing in former glories would somehow invigorate his drug-battered, booze-soaked mojo. More often than not it failed.

I commend Thompson’s work to anyone prepared to be up-ended, to embrace sideways thinking and suspend disbelief. Hunters' view on the world was as warped and bizarre as any I’ve found, yet in his pomp his insight was vital, his ability to cut through the bullshit singular, spiteful and joyous to behold. It speaks volumes that some of his biggest fans were those crusty hard-nosed hacks out there on the campaign trails with him; writers for The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Herald & Tribune. The Rolling Stone obituary for his nemesis, Richard Millhouse Nixon, entitled 'He Was A Crook', ranks as one of the most incredible pieces of writing I've yet to find; it takes your breath away.

If there was a story that summed up Hunters’ approach to the conventional world perhaps this is it.
In the early ‘70’s Rolling Stone was getting itself a reputation. Thompson’s leaders were catching eyes, it’s editor and founder pulling together some prodigious writing talent. They had the trust of some of the world’s leading music makers and were about to arrive on the national political news scene with a wallop. Wenner was looking for investors to help realise his plans for national syndication. One such man, a billionaire who ultimately invested in a small computer-related concern that became Intel, expressed an interest. Wenner set up a lavish dinner at a fancy Aspen eatery and invited Thompson, a writer hugely admired by the potential investor. Hunter had a reputation for tardiness so it was no great surprise when he bounded into the dining hall, dressed as ever in three-quarter trousers, leery shirt, floppy hat and shades, just as the appetisers were arriving.
‘Sorry I’m late’ puffed Thompson, pulling a bundle from his journalists’ satchel.
‘So as not to cause a fuss I’ve taken the liberty of bringing my own food.’
He sat between the two startled men whereupon he unwrapped the package of butcher’s paper to reveal a large bloody liver crawling with maggots.
The ‘investor’ promptly threw back his chair, scrambling for the exit hand to mouth, choking back the horror. Recalling the event Wenner says
‘I was mad as hell yet laughing my ass off – it was so Hunter. He just looked at me in that way of his and said ‘What’d you expect? You know I can’t stand those people.’’

Uncompromising, infuriating, inhuman, incomparable.

I read another book about HST recently; The Joke's Over by his long time, long suffering collaborator Ralph Steadman. It also shone an intrusive spotlight onto Hunter's foibles, though with a good deal more compassion, the understanding of a fellow degenerate and a man who truly loved the man behind the stories. I was moved by this very personal account, to the point that I wrote to Steadman about the book, mentioning in passing that I'd long admired his own work and had 'lost'* a hardback compendium of his political cartoons during a trip to Moscow in 1984.

To my surprise he wrote back, enclosing a signed sketch of Hunter and a hand-written letter, soon to be mounted in pride of place in my office at home. I was made up.

[SIZE="1"]* A saga in itself. For reasons too detailed to go into now I had to bail out of my hotel - the Intourist in Moscow - having no funds, no plastic and a rather unpleasant bill waiting for me at the front desk. I threw my gear - a suitcase containing 30 days of sweaty clobber and a kit bag holding my ATC hobnail boots and said Steadman meisterwerk - into a lurking Lada. US Dollars were waved and we roared off to the airport in a cloud of slush - the Moskva river was frozen over, it was minus 18 degrees and snow covered everything - with me peering anxiously out of the rear window for signs of pursuit, all the while trying to stop my jaw from rebounding off the parcel shelf as the car hammered along badly pitted 'roads'.

I made it to the BA check-in desk, handling over my bags before heading for the bar and a fond farewell to Messrs Stolich and Naya. On arrival at Heathrow I was gutted to learn that the kit bag had been 'pulled' by the authorities at the last minute back in the (then) USSR. Seeing as the book contained some fabulous Steadman classics including rendered ancient, crumbling Soviet premiers, I probably got off lightly. And as Mr Steadman himself says, I'd seen it already. I can't help thinking they would have prized my well-polished hobbies equally if not higher.[/SIZE]

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I thought you said you didn't write well when you weren't running?

Priceless!

[Sweder]

I took the old track
the hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
they were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
and as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain
was warm and soaked the crowd.

[SIZE="1"]Peter Gabriel – Lord, Here Comes The Flood[/SIZE]

I took the old track this evening, the one that leads from the house up onto the downland edge, on the cusp of nightfall.
The hounds were excited, edgy, as if beasties lurked in every shadow. Despite a weird and unearthly calm the hills resonated with hidden force, energy coursing beneath the turf in an underground torrent. A bolt of light from the south west snapped my head up; there! Another, huge, back-lighting great stacks of dark cloud piled above the cowering gloomscape. And another, up to the north, sheet lightning bouncing back and forth across legions of fields barely tucked in for the night. Hidden forces signalled fierce intent across the plains. The air around us remained deathly still, almost hushed; the calm before the storm.

I looked out to where the city of Brighton nestled between mighty shoulders of chalk and grass. The city glow reflected on the sky's swollen underbelly, the twisting body of vapour darkening into a disapproving furrowed brow as I dared to watch. Something wicked this way comes. Indeed; another awesome flash triggered God’s paparazzi, a cavalcade of monstrous flashbulbs flooding the heavens. The first rumbles of thunder changed the scene, reworking the imagery; this is war, a gathering of hostile forces sweeping in from the west. More blasts of light followed now by a distant growl, big guns advancing, malevolent, intent on savage harm. The pink-orange tint wasn’t refracted light but the death-glow of a ravaged city, fallen to the crushing blows of unstoppable energy and power. I called the hounds to heel and struck for home as the temperature dropped several degrees. In minutes we’d be mauled by a hellacious deluge; time to take cover.

By the time I’d kicked my boots off and re-hung the leads the first heavy drops were pounding on the windows. Dazzling semaphore danced all around, darkening shadows, hurling houses and trees into sharp relief. Seduced by the angry sirens' song I clasped the wooden door frame and peered into the broiling sky. Black-streaked thunderheads gathered above, furious, eager to punish the foolish and the impudent. The rain speared in, steel rods stinging the ground, driven not by wind but by some mighty hammer wielded by a celestial blacksmith. Wild imagery ran amok; anvils, giant sparks lashing the firmament, a huge, cloud-bearded beast smiting his cruel cudgel on a vast iron block . . .

I love this planet, no more so than on nights like these.
The unfathomable range of nature, the awesome power that moves around us, reminding us that we’re nowhere near as smart or important as we’d like to think.
It’s like a warning; be careful. If you continue to trash me I can pick you up and crush you like a squirming bug.

There's nothing so fearsome as a mother on the warpath.
Now, tidy your room.

[Sweder]

Finally caught up with my physio last week. She checked the errant knobbly joint and proclaimed a minor patella infringement and a possibly faulty fat-pad (no sniggering please). Net result, no running for a while. Suggested alternatives: cycling and any non-impact exercise. My immediate response is to sit on my rapidly growing backside during the first of two weeks off to soak up every broadcast minute of the 2008 Olympics. In between bouts of vomiting over the blatant worship of some American swimmer who happens to have been born with exceptionally large feet I've enjoyed a wide variety of British failures, from the almost-rans in the archery to the simply awful capitulation of our Judo squad.

I'm not one to put much stock in the national medal tally. As governments like to cherry-pick crime statistics so the BBC choses to view the medal tables in such a way as to keep team GB on the front page. We're a small nation still healthily over-achieving in a rapidly developing sporting world. It's great to see British athletes, until recently starved of decent funding and training facilities, going toe to toe with some of the world's finest. In these uncertain economic times, with summer peeping nervously out from behind the gathering storm clouds of burgeoning inflation and tightening global tension, it can be useful to fall back on the achievements of our brave sporting talent socking it to the world out in big old ugly old China as a ready-made masses-opiate. I'm not buying it; the Olympics are a fantastic showcase for global sport, not a prop for ailiing governments. Forget the medal tables, forget Sue Barker and her carefully scripted jingoism. Focus instead on the incredible performances of our individual atheletes. Oh, and is anyone else heartily sick of hearing 'it's been great experience for 2012'? Pa-leeese.

One observation on the hosts. The little girl shown clearly miming to angelic singing at the opening ceremony was apparently inserted at the last minute after organisers deemded the actual singer, a seven year from Beijing, 'too ugly' to represent China. I've been to Beijing several times and I can tell you your average local ain't no oil painting. For shame.

[El Gordo]

To my shame, I've watched little so far. Sorry to wheel out this cliché, but I tend not to get sucked in until the athletics start. And they're about to start.

[El Gordo]

Just caught up with the Hunter/Steadman post. What a superb response from the old master. I'd be dead chuffed to receive that.

The closest I can come is my handwritten letter from Alf Ramsay (as he then was). As a schoolboy back in 1968, I wrote to him to ask him some breathless questions about what it was like winning the World Cup. He sent me back a really nice hand-penned letter on FA headed paper, telling me how much the side had deserved to win, how delighted and relieved he felt at the final whistle, and promising to personally pass on my best wishes to the players! I still have it, Every time I read it I'm reminded of what an absolute gent he was, to take the time to write to some kid. I bet it wouldn't happen now.

[Sweder]

Just caught up with the Hunter/Steadman post. What a superb response from the old master. I'd be dead chuffed to receive that.

Yep, I was pretty excited when I opened that.
Sadly RS declined my offer to illustrate some of my running adventures but I do believe he may have read one or two pieces. He was kind enough not to pass judgement. His old partner in crime would not have hesitated to rip me to shreds

[Sweder]

Just caught up with the Hunter/Steadman post. What a superb response from the old master. I'd be dead chuffed to receive that.

Yep, I was pretty excited when I opened that.
Sadly RS declined my offer to illustrate some of my running adventures but I do believe he may have read one or two pieces (I sent him a link). He was kind enough not to pass judgement. His old partner in crime would not have hesitated to rip me to shreds

[marathondan]

I'm not buying it; the Olympics are a fantastic showcase for global sport, not a prop for ailiing governments.

If you want to really appreciate the magic, you should try seeing it through the eyes of young kids (as I guess you have in the past Sweder). Our two are getting a (moderate) daily dose of coverage, and Luke is re-enacting every event he sees (culminating in an excellent 400m individual swimming medley in the living room). Even Naomi, at two and a quarter, greets me with cries of "Daddy! Daddy! Horses! Jump over fence! Knocked it over!" It's a celebration of everything that is possible in life (like this forum really...).

Just mute Sue Barking - in the internet age we have no need of experts for background data any more - and enjoy the action.

So Sweder, is it time to dust off the bike and take to the beloved hills once more?

[Sweder]

So Sweder, is it time to dust off the bike and take to the beloved hills once more?

Funny you should mention that Dan . . .
Faced with yet more weeks off running dusting off a bike - or in my case biting the big bullet and purchasing a (gulp) new one - is next on the agenda. I'm going for a hybrid - not fully off or on road, something mid-range - so as to patrol my usual trails without the thudding impact on my battered patella.

I'm launching a monstrous London to Paris cycle adventure (scheduled for July 2009) in aid of JDRF - more news as it happens - so I have to start gestating some bottom-blisters in readiness. I've already borrowed one of SPs favorite books - 5 Months In The Saddle by Major Bumsore in preparation. I'm 'ere all week . . .

[marathondan]

Faced with yet more weeks off running dusting off a bike - or in my case biting the big bullet and purchasing a (gulp) new one - is next on the agenda. I'm going for a hybrid - not fully off or on road, something mid-range - so as to patrol my usual trails without the thudding impact on my battered patella.

We await a detailed chewing over of the technical specs...

I'm launching a monstrous London to Paris cycle adventure (scheduled for July 2009) in aid of JDRF

Not one to do things by halves eh? Sounds like a great adventure in the offing - good on yer!

[Sweder]

I watched the monstrous con of a giant nation unfold in Bay-jing this morning.
Not to be undone by the failed Miracle of St Paula the hosts sent a one-legged man out in search of gold in the 100 metre hurdles. Liu Xiang has been the public face of these games for four years. All over Asia his lithe frame can be seen flying over major credit cards and hurdling a variety of fashionable baubles engraved with brands beloved of the New Rich. His image looms over every Chinese city, a modern colossus striding out to head a global advert for naked global ambition. He was bourne to the Bird's Nest on a molten river of gold, the hopes and dreams of the world's new super-power carrying him onto legend . . .
Oh dear.

We know all about pinning our hopes on broken heroes.
David Backham's metatarsal, Wayne Rooney's rushed rehab and of course Le Radcliffe's all-too recent, all-too painful disregard for medical science. Liu's close camp will have known the extent of the tendon damage for some time. Recent interviews with the icon revealed a strange reticence, an attempt to lower sky-high expectation doomed to failure thanks to the super-efficient marketing machine that, like a supreme coxless four, built an unstoppable force stroke by calculated stroke until it raged towards an undeniable, furious climax. You can imagine the Chinese leaders weeping blood behind house-thick, lead-lined doors. Heads will roll.

Perhaps the decision to make this man line up this morning was taken at a level far above national sport; perhaps not. One thing's for sure; kicking the sh*t out of that backstage door after the inevitable on-track collapse won't have helped much.

Others with far greater brains than mine (addled by red-eyed vigils in the realms of rowing, numbed by surviving a week of bad weather in a terrifyingly confined space with my Dragon-in-Law) will ponder the political significance of Liu Xiang's all-too-public execution this morning. A nation grieves, the wailing and gnashing of prominent teeth audible across the oceans.

I'm off to buy a bike to help me burn some off my frustrations (and the impressive mountain of mid-line lard) in my beloved hills. My task has been made a good deal harder by some bloke called Hoy and another called Wiggins who, by all accounts, have launched our nation off their sofas and into their cycle stores. Bloody typical.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I applaud Paula for entering. It's nice to see someone - particularly a champion - represent their country even when they have no realistic chance of winning and there is a real risk of injury.

Liu Xiang however, was clearly in significant pain before even starting the race and was never going to get over the first hurdle. In his case I abhor the pressure he must have felt under to compete. Crazy in the extreme. It's one thing to risk an injury to represent your country - but it's quite another to line up when you're only going to fall at the off.

To use a RC/drinking analogy - on a night out at the pub, Paula was like one who is moderately pissed but knows she can get through another pint to shout her round and keep everyone happy, despite risking not being able to get home without wetting herself. Liu Xiang on the other hand, was already pale-faced and under the table, and was only ever going to spill the drinks and get himself thrown out by the publican. In that situation no-one expects him to get the next round in - just leave us your wallet and we'll call you a cab.

Actually, that's probably a crap analogy. And now it's made me thirsty... I'm just off to the local for a quick one. Cheers.

[Sweder]

Thanks for that mate . . . now I've committed to a golf/ beer/ curry fest with the Mighty Plodder this Friday!
A fair dinkum analogy. In Xiang's case it looked like he'd been doing his fair share of guzzling before he left the house; that was some stagger in the warm-up.

Perhaps I'm being a little selfish/ hard on Paula; I just don't want her to deprive us of further vicarious glories including an outside shot at 2012. The winner this time was 38 . . . PR's age next Olympics. There was a real chance she might have done damage she wouldn't have walked away from - and we don't know for sure yet that she hasn't. I agree her situation was very different to that of Liu Xiang. The man had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Must . . . get . . . on . . . bike . . .

[El Gordo]

Are you still OK for Monday Sweder? If so, you may want to postpone your comeback until next week -- like me. Don't exhaust SP's beer-drinking talents; I was hoping he might join us on Monday.