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.
This flash of insight came to me at lunchtime, during my brief round-the-block 3½ miler. It’s the sort of thing that appears to someone who likes words and docile computer programming. Is it diverting enough to put into a RunningCommentary entry? That was the question I asked myself just after I wrote the date, above.
Then I got so confused writing the first paragraph, that I could check it only by separating the arguments, which made me realise this might make an even more self-referential computer programmer’s joke:
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 computer programmer, I’d be a rich man)
I’d be a rich man)
I’d be a rich man)
I’d definitely not be a rich man, because I’ve never heard anyone say all that.
And then, seeing what had happened, it becomes:
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 computer _
programmer I’d _
be a rich man) _
I’d be a rich man)
I’d be a rich man)
I’d be able to
buy a gun and
shoot myself.
It is itself a metaphor for this enterprise. Start with a simple idea. Write it down and see it get a bit more interesting and complicated. Then a bit more. Then watch it disappear up a handy orifice.
Why do I never learn?
Anyway, the bulletin that the world has been waiting for: At seven o’clock this morning, with the temperature at one degree Celsius, I could be found at the end of the garden in my dressing gown and flip-flops, punching holes in the crust of ice on the pond. I felt like god. Or Superman. I could see the little things wriggling around beneath the ice, desperate for help. I could see the hope draining from them just as I arrived on the scene with my tent pole. At first, they must have thought the magpies had arrived. Then it got even worse than that. For them, it must have been reminiscent of a B movie, where you see the distorted face of your murderer through a sheet of glass, before the glass shatters, everything goes black, and a terrified scream is heard. There was a sense of “Oh god, that’s all we bloody need” about their body language as I loomed over them. But once they understood my role in their universe, they were pretty OK about it.
The lunchtime run was pretty good. No walk breaks this time. Not fast of course, but steady. It’s heartening to see how quickly the body remembers that it really can do this stuff. I overtogulated, which is a word I just made up. It means to put too many clothes on. I couldn’t think of another. “Overdress” means something else. No casual observer would ever describe me as an overdressed runner. It has to be conceded that no casual observer would ever describe me as overtogulated, either, though that’s just confusing matters.
I wore an undershirt for the first time in history. It came free with a consignment of apparel I once received. It was all a bit annoying. I wanted to buy some running caps, and found a cheap source of supply — a mail-order sportswear company in the States. I decided to go with them because there was a special offer on. If I spent more than $30, they’d send me a free gift worth an additional $30. So I ordered six running caps from them. And guess what the free gift was? Yes, six running caps. I now have the largest collection of running caps in private ownership in the Home Counties.
Anyway, they also sent me this garment that they described as a base layer. It’s really just a cotton vest for a four year old. But if you call it a cotton vest for a four year old, you can’t sell it for more than £2. Call it a ‘performance base layer’ for runners however, and you can multiply the price five times. And then find that you have to give it away because no one is taken in by your description.
It was a bit weird running with a vest for a four year old, plus a long-sleeved top, plus a jacket. It cooked me, and I think it was this overheating, and the subsequent cranial braising, that created the thought with which I started.
But it was another few miles stashed away, so worth it.
Oh yes. Go here and sign up. If you’re not sure who these guys are, check out their website. Amazing guys. I see them round the place a lot. Mick even joined our forum a while ago, but I think he felt we were a bit too eccentric, even for him.
Where could he have got that idea?
