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RE: Gut bust August.
Running with His Excellency.
There was an interesting little story tucked away in one of the weekend papers recently. Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, His Excellency The Honourable Alexander Downer was dining at Roka, a Japanese establishment in Aldwych, just off The Strand in London and an easy stroll across the road from his office at the Australian High Commission. As their Spanish waiter turned and left them, his dining companion nonchalantly asked who he thought would be left to wait on diners after Brexit. His Excellency looked grave and replied that he was afraid London's pubs and restaurants would soon become 'self-serve' only. He had, it must be said, consumed a sizeable portion of sauvignon blanc by this stage and he was of course being facetious, but possibly as a portent it contains an element of truth (I should perhaps add that Mr Downer was a notable advocate for the 'Remain' campaign).
I actually met the Honourable Mr Downer a handful of times back in the late '90s when he was the Minister for Foreign Affairs here in Australia. He resided then, as I did, in Adelaide, albeit he in a renowned family mansion and myself in a far more modest abode. Despite his privileged upbringing, he was (and I presume remains) a pretty down to earth character. More than once, having completed an end-of-day radio interview from the guest interview booth at the broadcast centre where I worked he would emerge shaking his head and muttering dark oaths about 'those bastard journalists' before asking if he could chill in my control room for a while to 'unwind'. He would then help himself to a mug of our government-issue instant coffee and sit down, contentedly humming to himself or making small talk for 15 minutes before rushing off to his government car and doubtless more affairs of state.
Although I had already formulated my theory of 'inverse humanity' about politicians by then, which is that the more you despise a politician for their politics, the more likely they are to be a very decent, approachable human being, the charming and disarming Alex Downer cemented it for me. A thoroughly likeable chap, he was none-the-less not of the political persuasion I could ever vote for and made, I thought, a terrible foreign minister. Not that the rest of the country seemed to agree with me, as he held the post for well over a decade.
It was his habit of making off-the-cuff quips such as the one in Roka that sometimes got him into trouble, and which quite possibly prevented him from becoming Prime Minister, not that a decade as Foreign Affairs Minister and now his role as High Commissioner to the U.K. isn't a bad consolation prize of course.
In stark contrast there are no consolation prizes of any sort for me just at the moment. My early morning runs continue, but the benefits remain far from view. The bathroom scales reveal the ugly truth that my vital statistics; weight, body fat percentages etc., are still headed in the wrong direction. I've reached the conclusion there's little for it but to get a bit more serious about my drinking and diet. A week off the booze would probably be a good start, so let's see if I can't recalibrate some internal calorie burning with a touch of abstinence.
I would say that my effort on the streets today did feel just a little easier, although my pace remains as slow as ever. I will just have to persist and doubtless the benefits will soon enough flow. But I do have to stick at it, and probably start throwing in some longer runs as well.
This of course has very little to do with ambassadors or Brexit or anything much at all, really. But it is the fine threads that connect us and everything together, and the story of Downer making off-hand remarks about waiters in the wake of Brexit piqued my interest. That a simple cup of instant coffee should connect His Excellency, a Spanish waiter in a London Japanese restaurant and my unearthly early morning plods in suburban Sydney fascinates me. And it neatly skirts around the fact that my running just now contains very little that is of interest.
Never mind, it's what I think about when I run, so it's all part and parcel of the sport.
Sushi, anyone?
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Gut bust August.
