That’s odd — the GNR report seems to have lost its final paragraph, which was a brief mention of Monday morning. We eventually tracked down the Baltic Gallery next to the new bridge over the Tyne. The bridge is fantastic, and I’m sure the gallery will be — but at the moment it suffers from being almost totally empty. I wasn’t sure if they were making a statement, or if they’d built the gallery but just forgotten to put things in it for people to look at.… READ MORE.... …
Month: September 2003
Surely no one sets out on a career in radio, hoping to become a traffic reporter? So where do they all come from? The Traffic Desk strikes me as a kind of holding cell; a place to store failed broadcasters on their way out of the profession. I was able to gather plenty of evidence on the way up to the north east on Friday.… READ MORE.... …
GNR minus 3 days. Tomorrow we set off for the north-east. Beginning to feel quite apprehensive about the race now. It will be a slog. Every time a race appears I vow to do things better than last time. Always top of the list is that I’ll get to my target weight. Don’t even ask… I have another 3 days to lose 7.8 pounds.… READ MORE.... …
These scales just can’t be right. After an entire day of fasting I find I weigh two pounds more than I did this time yesterday morning. How can this be? I’d already cheated and revised my target GNR weight upwards by a whopping ten pounds. I now find that I have to lose nearly two pounds a day between now and Sunday to achieve even that doctored target.… READ MORE.... …
Something pretty amazing happened this evening. I went off at about 7pm to do my 3 or 4 miles. My foot was still aching a bit, and I felt sleepy and utterly unenthusiastic. But inexplicably I ended up running TWELVE miles. It was slow — in fact the 12 miles took me a lot longer to complete than I hope the half marathon will take, but who cares?… READ MORE.... …
Shalom England. I’m in that state of mini culture-shock in reverse that you get when you return home after being somewhere very different. It was another interesting day yesterday. I took a minibus from the hotel to visit some places in the south of the country. There were three of us to start off with this time: an earnest young Hungarian guy, a garrulous South African lady, and me.… READ MORE.... …
A remarkable day. I’d booked a bus tour to Jerusalem, but when I met up with the organiser this morning, I found that there was just one other person (a clean-cut, young South African called Stephen) who’d arranged a trip today. So instead of the expected ancient bus with no suspension, we had a roomy, air-conditioned Mercedes saloon and our own personal guide, a chap with the improbable name of Israel Rodrigues.… READ MORE.... …
Any lingering doubts that Paula Radcliffe is stalking me can now, surely, be dismissed. FLM 2002, Chicago 2002, and now the Great North Run 2003. Heard today that she had risen to the Running Commentary Challenge, and will be there on the 21st after all. The record books show that I usually bring out the best in her, so I would get along to the bookies soon if I were you.… READ MORE.... …
Another long and tiring working day, but at least I managed a decent-ish run early this morning. After yesterday’s fizzle-out, I decided to go back to basics, and ran-walked from the start: 5 minutes running, 1 minute walking. I did this for 40 minutes, then stopped, feeling I’d had a good workout. Perhaps this is how I should approach the Great North Run on Sunday week.… READ MORE.... …
“Revenge is coming. Israel has opened the doors of hell”. These are the latest comforting words from Hamas, following Israel’s attempt to kill a Palestinian leader yesterday. The other big local news is the resignation of the Palestinian PM, Mahmoud Abbas, which is adding to the uncertainty round the city. This morning’s Jerusalem Post was a gloomy enough breakfast read, but the real litmus test of public opinion came with my taxi ride to work.… READ MORE.... …
What does Eyal Berkovitch look like? Answering this question is my best hope of working out which team is Israel and which is Slovenia. And what was that announcement about “Anglia” and “Dav-eed Beck-ham”? He’s either just scored against Macedonia or been caught stealing an old car. Earlier, I toyed with the idea of popping up the road to Molly Bloom’s (yes, even Tel Aviv has an Irish bar), but a rare burst of common sense has kept me in my hotel room this evening.… READ MORE.... …