One small step for a man…

This week’s Mars landing revived memories of that most famous faux pas of them all, and acted as a suitable backdrop for another tectonic event — the official start of my campaign to complete a 5K run without intervention from the Grim Reaper. As any social media captive or desolate blogger will know, we’re all located at the centre of our own universes, and so, folded within this afternoon’s modest exertions, I spared a few sympathetic seconds to Neil Armstrong. I suppose one consolation is that if you’re going to mess up your lines so spectacularly, best that you do it as far away as possible. The moon for instance. At least no one’s likely to notice there.

The interplanetary significance of today’s jaunt was diluted by the fact that I’d already staged two dress rehearsals. And let’s face it, if you need two dress rehearsals to plod for eight individual minutes, each separated by 90 seconds of ‘recovery walking’ then the chances of hitting the non-stop 5K, not to mention those distances that keep exploding in my imagination, are pretty slim. But I’ll give it a go.

The health campaign remains in pretty good health itself. Last Saturday marked six weeks of my ascetic eating regimen, and so it was time to take stock — the meaty variety — and the Bratwurst and Sauerkraut that went with it, plus the medley of seasonal vegetables and my first two glasses of wine in 42 days. No panic. Always part of the plan. The six-week mark wasn’t pre-ordained but it seemed right and it will certainly do. I’ll be sticking with the low-carb principle for some weeks, perhaps months, to come. But the strict sub-20 grams of daily carbs have done their job. The near-20 pounds I’ve lost feel like a result. I’m well and truly kickstarted. Potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, sugar, beer… are still verboten in previous quantities. But I need to admit a few additional carbs to move a few inches closer to normal life. My goody-goody salads for instance — themselves symbolic of running in that I feel much better having disposed of the obligation than I do during them — would be immeasurably improved with the addition of a half-portion of pasta. As would my digestive system, but I will spare the detail here.

Wine contains mercifully few carbs anyway. A couple per glass which is, er… [reaches for spreadsheet] let’s see, roughly… yes… a single carb per gulp. Most pure spirits — whisky, vodka, gin — are carb-free though naturally the picture changes once you add mixers. Which I won’t consider doing until some way into the gin and tonic season. Neat gin or vodka hold no appeal but it’s good to know that a decent malt whisky can be enjoyed in its rightful virgin state without spooking the carb meter. A good bottle of malt will last me absolutely ages — at least a day and a half. But seriously — as I must say in case my wife discovers that I’m making such public declarations — one of the pleasures of a good whisky, or even whiskey, is that a bottle can spin on for weeks. And if you have two, three, four, five on the go then the weeks can easily become months. That’s the theory.

After visiting the farm shop on Saturday, I detached my halo and called into the local Coop (pronounced ‘cope’ in German) supermarket to top up on a few wicked jars and beastly cans of stuff to help make the farm shop materials more palatable. While there, I paused at the spirits shelf for the first time in months. And while I was pausing at the spirits shelf, I gasped. Because here I spotted The Singleton, and spotting The Singleton would finally bring some closure to a question I was asked 38 years ago, in 1983, when I was working for Oddbins at their branch in Cooper Street, Manchester.

Oddbins had a good collection of malt whiskies which drew a steady stream of posh custom from the university (which I’d attended until shortly before this), and the local law offices and accountancy firms. One December day in 1983, when the shop was rammed with Christmas shoppers, a particularly posh gentleman waded through the crowds to survey the shelf. I feel I must refer to him as a gentleman because he was, and remains, the one and only person I recall encountering in real life (i.e. not including those appearing on stage or in fancy dress) to wear a monocle. A monocle. He stood in front of me, loudly mouthing something in an attempt to be heard above the tumultuous, chaotic, exhausting Christmas crowds. The monocle mesmerised me. Within my exhaustion, within this pandemonium, I found its sudden appearance quite surreal. Literally surreal. Trippy. Hypnotic. After dealing with a thousand chatty chummy Mancs that day, I suddenly found myself transported, as if suddenly viewing the world through a piece of yellow glass smeared with Vaseline. I could see this monocled man moving his lips, but couldn’t immediately twig what he was trying to communicate.

“Ah, blub blub blub blub The Macallan! Blub blub blub blub Smith’s Glenlivet! But blub blub blub blub Singleton? Hmmmm?” I must have uttered something like: “I’m sorry?” because the statement –and I call it a statement despite its unquestionably interrogative tone — was repeated. This time, I caught the end bit: “And I said, I am saying, I am asking — do you carry the singleton?” Man, how I stared at that hairless twit in his Crombie and monocle. Do I carry the singleton? What the fuck was he talking about? Do I carry the singleton? As a recent Philosophy & Politics graduate, and keen student of the excessive influence of Freemasonry within our civic structures, my instincts were to suspect that his enquiry might be some sort of coded message. But before I could frame my response he vanished, consumed by the mob waving bottles of Liebfraumilch and Muscadet at me, and crying things “Me next, our kid!” In those pre-Google days, the opportunity to research his enigmatic question was lost, and eventually the memory itself vanished beneath the advancing waves of time.

But here, 38 years on, in the relatively tranquil setting of the Horgen Coop, I finally understood. For there it was: The Singleton, a 12-year-old single malt from the Glendullan distillery in Dufftown. As I enjoyed a small, or smallish glass (or was it two – roughly?) yesterday evening, I wondered why this delicious dram was so much less expensive than its rivals. I don’t know, but it seems to me that the monocled chap was on to something. Should he be still alive, and should he find himself on this page (both unlikely, I concede), I’m happy to apologise to him. Should he ever track me down, a glass of The Singleton awaits. I did check out the best, and in fact the only, book on whisky that I own: “Whisky – The Manual” by Dave Broom. For what it’s worth, Broom was another Oddbins serf back in the early 1980s. Broom wouldn’t have given the monocled gentleman the brush-off nor bristled at his question had he entered Oddbins Bristol rather than Oddbins Manchester that day. This is what Broom has to say on the topic:

“The European exclusive of the Singleton triumvirate is a medium-rich dram where the nutty core of the malt is given some heft by a mix of American and – more overtly – European oak casks, which gives the drinker a mix of Weetabix, Dundee cake, and a slight porridge/white pudding note. Soda is a little too crisp for all of this but is sound enough; green tea is fairly edgy; but coconut water’s fatness seems to meld with the malt, adding a light sesame note. Cola is quite pleasant at 1:1 with those figgy elements the key, and ginger works well.”

I can’t recommend soda, green tea, coconut water, or cola. An ice cube was quite enough interference. As with many things in life, this morning I was left wondering if life’s pleasure’s are always worth it. But anyway, I got through my run at least, and have the next one on Friday.