Three partial workouts to report. The last of the three — today’s gym induction — was never going to register as an over-rigorous ordeal. You usually expend more effort trying to sound convincing when asked about weekly alcohol intake, than you do on any particular piece of apparatus. A gym induction comes close to being almost faintly exciting. For the first bit you sit there and say all the things that you want to hear yourself saying.… READ MORE.... …
Month: March 2007
You know how sometimes you pop into Marks and Spencer to top up your Y-front collection, and come out with a suit and half a dozen shirts (and no Y-fronts…)? Same happened today on the running front. Went out for three miles and came back with seven. Encouraging. I’m serious this time. Yes OK, I was serious last time, and the time before that.… READ MORE.... …
If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say: “If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say: ‘If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say: “If I had a pound for every time I’d heard someone say: ‘I’d like to be a rich man’, I’d be a rich man“, I’d be a rich man’, I’d be a rich man”, I definitely wouldn’t be a rich man because I’ve never heard anyone say all that.… READ MORE.... …
Every time I glanced through the window today, I felt smug about working from home. Who would want to venture out in that? The temperature bobbed around freezing all day, though the wind chill must have brought that down further. In the morning it rained heavily; in the afternoon, we had sleet and snow. By five-thirty, as I was winding down for the day, we were back to rain, while the windows rattled ever louder.… READ MORE.... …
I’ve been quiet recently, but have a good excuse. From time to time I mention writing a book. In fact, I’ve been mentioning it to someone or other for much of my adult life. There’s been the odd false start: a few years ago I wrote a really terrible novel which fortunately, no sane person was willing to help me publish.… READ MORE.... …
I’ve mentioned Mark Twain before, admitting that my admiration for him is derived not from a comprehensive reading of his works, but from arbitrary quotations spotted in other people’s email signatures. Here’s the latest one: A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. I like that.… READ MORE.... …
Waking on a Saturday without a hangover is an unsettling experience. I needed an extra hour in bed while the nausea subsided. More strangeness was to follow. Porridge-Spoonful-1 had just successfully taken off and was climbing steadily mouthward when the bastard phone rang. Damn. The flight was nearing its destination. What to do? I had to think fast. Only two people ring on Saturday morning: one is my wife’s mother.… READ MORE.... …
They’re already calling it the Race of the Century. Scanning RW for likely local races last night, I happened across the Oxford “Town & Gown” 10K, May 20. Researching further, I glanced through last year’s results as I usually do, to get an idea of how many take part, and how close to the back I’m likely to finish. And there I spotted a name I’d not seen in ten years — Mark M-W.… READ MORE.... …