Diamond Jubilation

For the first time ever I am writing this post from within the depths of London’s underground system, hoping to take advantage of the new wireless internet system which was set up last week. It’ll be a race against time as I intend to start and finish whilst underground – I have about ten minutes before I reach Westminster where the signal cuts out, so here goes:

Up until last week I had no plans for how I was going to celebrate Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee – a mixture of apathy and idleness I’m ashamed to say. Stay inside, watch it on tv – it’s going to pour with rain anyway a weasly little voice in the back of my mind kept on saying.

Luckily my brother called to save the day:

“Have you got anything planned for the third?” he asked.

“Oh one or two things,” I replied, as I finished polishing the tv screen.

“I’m playing in a band at the tower of London if you want to come along,” he said.

“I’m afraid I’ve already said yes to a couple of things” I maintained, getting my tracksuit bottoms out the drier.

“You’ll be in a VIP area,”

I paused. The word “VIP” always makes things sound ten times better whatever it is. It’s almost as if you’re so important you need a bodyguard. “Go on.”

“You’ll have to wear a suit and tie – oh and you should bring I.D. as there’ll be security.”

I stopped replacing the batteries in the tv remote.

“…and there’s a hog roast after,”

This was becoming very tempting indeed. “Anything else I should know?”

“There’ll be cannons.”

“My diary just cleared.”

And so here I am, joining the throngs of dedicated well-wishers, and very happy I did. It may be a little damp but the spirit of jubilee is alive and well – as is my appetite. I am looking forward to that hog roast…

Greece Is The Word

In my halcyon days of misspent youth, I always associated Greece with its mythical stories of gods, heroes, and monsters. For me, the Twelve Labours of Hercules was the original action movie: a man driven insane goes to hell and back for redemption and immortality (and a quench-thirsting cup of ambrosia – after defeating the nine-headed Hydra and taming Cerberus, who wouldn’t be parched?). As I got older, I learnt that Greece also gave birth to the philosophical fathers of western thought, was key in the development of drama, comedy and the fundamentals of mathematical law, and finally home to a chap so eager to share his discovery about water displacement with the world that he ran through Syracuse shouting “Eureka!” with no clothes on. Yes, the only Greece which existed for me was the cultural powerhouse which conjured up images of men arguing up to the limits of reason and logic, their spirits imbued against the backdrop of such a culturally rich tapestry. These days however, only one thing springs to the mind when Greece is mentioned: the Euro Crisis. Close to teetering on the brink of economic collapse and threatening to drag the rest of Europe down with it, one forgets how much Greece has contributed to Western Civilisation.

It is ironic that one of the greatest gifts Greece has given to the world might be that which brings it to its knees: democracy. The backlash against the outgoing government’s austerity measures has resulted in an extreme right-wing party getting a stunning 7% of the vote in the most recent elections (Hitler’s Nazi party only received 6.5%) and a referendum on whether to default on their euro loan which is most likely to be supported by the majority of its disgruntled citizens.

So, what can be done to stop this turning into a real Greek Tragedy? How to save Greece’s economy, the European Financial markets, and finally remind people of the tremendous impact Greece had on medicine, philosophy, democracy, and waking up in the morning (in between philosophising, Plato also invented the alarm clock).

Several options have been floated:

1. Officially Default
2. Drop the Euro
3. Raise Taxes
4. Cut Spending
5. Liquidate Greece’s Assets (both commercial and cultural)

Each is not without its shortcomings however: the financial markets spiralling into chaos, Portugal, Spain and Italy leaving the Euro spelling the end for the Single Market Experiment, civil unrest, mass strikes, and (far-fetched but still on the cards apparently) the loss of Greece’s incredible historical culture pawned off to the highest bidder.

But there is another way, a way which avoids the pitfalls of riots and the bottoming out of the market. How? Go on holiday to Greece! Bear with me as I run the numbers. So far there have been two Greek bailouts totalling two hundred and forty billion euros. There are seven hundred million people in the European Union. The average spend of a holidaymaker in Greece is 856 euros. Making an allowance for those unable to travel due to reasons such as health or finances, if half of those seven hundred EU citizens (all whom will be affected one way or another if Greece runs out of steam and Germany has no more coal to keep it going) go on holiday to Greece, financial matters will surely improve without having to shoulder the burden of loan repayments, creating international discord in Europe, or allowing extremist right-wing groups to have an ounce of political clout. Three hundred billion euros would be generated to rescue the Cradle of Civilisation from its quagmire of debt, whilst assisting the creation of wealth and jobs without the need for a gargantuan amount of financial aid. Most importantly however, we would remind ourselves of Greece’s place as the cultural birthplace of the western world, and associate the country once again with Descartes and not debt, Euripides and not the Euro Crisis. Having wrapped yourself up in enough Grecian culture to last an odyssey, don’t forget to stop off for some Ouzo on the beaches of Santorini - after all as Hercules can attest to, saving the world is thirsty business.

The Missing Piece – A Short Story (Part 1)

October 2011

Charlie flung the house keys towards the living room table as his wife Evelyn closed the door behind them. With a loud orchestral clinking of metal on the lacquered surface the keys slid off underneath the sofa, completely missing the pot Charlie had been aiming for. Evelyn rolled her eyes and tutted loud enough so it wouldn’t go unnoticed. “Darling, you really shouldn’t do that, you never ever get it in the pot, and scratches are beginning to show.” Charlie had already bounded across the room to rectify the situation.

Evie continued to drive the point home. “You know that my love for our table and loathing for your aim is in equal measure dear.”

“Sorry”, a voice replied from underneath the sofa. Evelyn peered round the corner and could only see Charlie’s rear end as he rooted around the dust and dark for his now lost keys. “My aim will improve, I promise. One day I’ll get the buggers in.” Charlie was clearly oblivious to the fact that Evelyn’s source of discontent was the treatment of the table, and not her husband being a bad shot.

Evelyn slipped off her overcoat, gently shaking the snow from it. The forecast said it would be like this for at least another week, apparently a result of the Indian summer just gone. She fondly remembered the warm summer days just a month earlier, and being out until 6pm with the sun still out. Now it was dark by the time the hour hand hit four. Evelyn hated winter. She went to the closet tidily hanging her coat up, and from the corner of her eye, beyond Charlie’s jiggling bottom, spotted her husband’s jacket flung on the sofa with the same disregard he had shown the keys earlier. She quickly smiled realising her boy would never grow up, and moved from the hallway into the kitchen to prepare a nightcap.

“Ah, found it!” she heard, a triumphant cry as if Charlie had just discovered Blackbeard’s treasure. He came to the kitchen and leant on the doorpost dangling the keys victoriously in front of Evelyn. There was a gleaming smile on his face, a bit too much glee for someone who has found his front door keys having only lost them thirty-seconds earlier. Evelyn thought it was adorable nonetheless.

“Shall I have another go, see if my hand-eye coordination hasn’t improved in the last five minutes?”

“I should think you might find your laptop sailing out the window if you put Aunt Mable’s table through that again.” Evelyn replied.

“Mm, actually I’ve had enough goes today come to think of it. Could you pass the cheeseboard over?”

As Evelyn did so, Charlie took the board from her and immediately placed it on the tabletop next to him, taking up his wife in a long, loving embrace.

“I do love the way you put up with my silliness – how you cope I have no idea.” Charlie gazed into Evelyn’s dark brown eyes and kissed her.

“Well that certainly helps,” Evelyn replied, breaking away to get the two small glasses of port from behind her. Handing one over to Charlie, Evelyn motioned him into the living room where they collapsed together onto the sofa. With Evelyn lying on Charlie’s lap, she looked dazily up at the ceiling.

“It’s such a shame that the parties we go to have such potential for great fun but are ruined by such boring attendees.”

Charlie, leaning back on the sofa with his eyes closed played with Evelyn’s hair letting her chestnut locks fall between his fingers. He was seemingly away with the fairies. Evelyn continued anyway, “Take tonight for example: charity fundraiser held in the Butterfly hall of the Natural History Museum, with Michelin-starred food and Chinese acrobats. I repeat: Chinese acrobats. One of the girls was dancing on a chap’s head for goodness sake! And yet why do I come away feeling slightly short-changed? Because I have to be sat in between a right-wing tax attorney and a food importer from the US. Did you know that California produces about 70% of the world’s supply of prunes? Absolutely tragic conversation that one…”

Charlie looked down at his wife. “Evie. That was a first world problem if I ever heard it.”

“A what?”

“A first world problem. It isn’t easy being a privileged citizen of a developed nation is it? Like when you have so much stuff you just don’t know what to ask for for Christmas, or when you get a paper cut from pulling out a fifty from your wallet. Or in this case, when you attend an event to help kids in Africa but you have to sit next to people who don’t entertain you enough for an hour. It’s a problem, but it’s not really a problem.”

“Am I detecting some degree of indifference to my ‘first world problem’ then?”

“Spot on sweetie, spot on.”

Evie stopped staring at the ceiling and looked at Charlie with surprise. “Unbelievable – what other ‘first world problems’ am I guilty of?”

Charlie closed his eyes again. “Do you really want me to go into it? There’s quite a list and it’s almost 2am.”

Evelyn did not know if she had heard quite right. “There’s a list? You’re talking about a list? That means there’s definitely more than four, otherwise we’d be going through a…a ‘memo’ rather than a ‘list’.”

Charlie gave Evelyn a knowing smile and said nothing.

Evie grabbed a cushion and began to playfully whack her husband. “Right, well bring it on buster,” she countered, “I can take what you’ve got on me, I don’t even care. These aren’t first world problems, they’re Evie’s problems, and so logically your wife’s problems, which ultimately, no matter how fairly, end up as the husband’s problems anyway. At least this will be a reminder as to what you’ve got to sort out for me…”

“Well, if you insist.” Charlie said. “I’ll just get my notepad.”

“You’ve actually been writing these down?!”

“Don’t worry, you’re the first person I’ve shown. Apart from my mother.”

“Charles!”

“Okay, okay!” Charlie put his hands up in immediate-surrender. “I’m teasing – there’s no list.”

Evie still looked to arm herself with another cushion.

“Every joke is a half-truth Charlie, even if there’s no list I bet you’ve still got a couple of things you could mention.”

“You want me to dive in?”

“Bring it.”

Charlie cracked his knuckles. “Well, there was that time you complained the ice cream was in the freezer for too long  so it was too hard to scoop out of the tub…or when you opened the wrong door on the advent calender I gave you and got really upset-”

“I didn’t get really upset,”

Charlie began to stroke Evelyn’s hands. “Sweetie, you went bonkers and decided to open all the windows and eat all the chocolate because the ‘spirit of Christmas was now broken’. ”

“I got a little upset.”

“Or when only 93 of your 1,000 Facebook friends wished you happy birthday, or-” Charlie suddenly stopped quite abruptly both his sentence and stroking Evelyn’s hands, and looked at her. “Evie?”

“Yes sweetheart?” she answered.

“Where’s your wedding ring?”

Evelyn glanced down and seemed surprised that a faint tan line was now where a band of gold should have been. “Oh! I suppose I must have taken it off when I did the washing up”

“You never take it off when doing the dishes: you wear marigolds.”

“Well sometimes I take it off-”

“No, no you don’t.” Charlie said, “In three years of marriage there was only one time you took your ring off. And you know when that was…”

Evelyn sat upright, and gave a piercing look. “You don’t need to bring that up.”

“I’m just reassuring myself it’s not happening again-“

“Well it isn’t,” she snapped, “you don’t need to worry about those type of things. I’m going to bed. Goodnight. I’ll see you in the morning.”

At that point Evelyn stood up and walked off in a huff. Charlie was not in need of his phsychology degree to recognise something odd about his wife’s behaviour. He was concerned. Usually Charlie was the type of man to let sleeping dogs lie and move on, but when it came to his relationship with Evelyn, that bright star in his otherwise dull life, he would rather remove the thorn from his marriage’s side than let it remain undisturbed to fester into something worse. Unfortunately when it came to discussing these types of matters, Charlie had the tact and subtlety of a brick in a sock – he was not known for using a fine pair of tweezers to retrieve the thorn, but rather industrial-sized pliers. Charlie would regret pushing the issue later on. Little did he know, this would be the last night he would spend with his wife.

The Power of One

Last week the website Reddit played host to an extraordinary story of compassion and charity, a distant cry from its usual front page collection of “rage comics”, Keanu Reaves Memes, and pictures of cats who want cheeseburgers.

A user posted a submission that his girlfriend’s sister’s family couldn’t afford a much-needed operation for her three-year-old son Lucas who has a “1 in 1 million”  disease affecting his immune system. The goal was to raise $50,000 and members of Reddit helped them to achieve that contributing over $30,000 in less than 12 hours. Needless to say Lucas’ family were blown away by this amazing act of goodwill: “thank you all again SO SO much for what you did,” wrote “redditor” ironyx, the original submitter of Lucas’ plight, “We still can’t believe it.”

This is not the first time members of Reddit have pulled together to make something amazing happen for someone out there. In June earlier this year, Alice Pyne, a fifteen-year-old with terminal cancer from the UK had her “bucket list” posted on the website and redditors everywhere helped her fulfill many of those things, from designing an Emma Bridgewater mug to sell for charity, to meeting Take That.

Both these and other stories of charitable giving which are posted each day on Reddit’s altruistic communities (r/randomactsofkindness and r/assistance) demonstrate the power of people when gathered as one and the amazing things that can subsequently be achieved. Lucas’ dad describes why this happens on sites like Reddit: “I guess the biggest surprise or thing I didnt realize was what a strong sense of community there is on reddit. I consider it a place now, rather than just a website.”  

Many will see the likes of Warren Buffet or Bill Gates giving billions of dollars to charitable causes and say to themselves “well, whatever I give, it’s not going to make a darned bit of difference in comparison”. It doesn’t have to be a billion dollars which brings positive change to someone’s life – it could be five bucks or even a slice of pizza (see r/randomactsofpizza). Stories like Lucas’ highlight the difference we can make together, regardless of the material size of our individual contribution, and whilst the amount raised for Lucas may not have been a million bucks, it certainly felt like it.

Lucas’ Website: http://loveforlucas.com/

Register to be a bone marrow donor today and save others like Lucas at: www.bethematch.org. 

The New Patron Saint of Artistic Impediment

Molte grazie Signor Contini. You truly are the santo of musicians, writers, and artists everywhere when times are difficult.

The musical Nine introduces us to the famous Guido Contini, a philandering Italian film director who is rapidly losing control over his life and creativity. He is expected to deliver the masterpiece of a lifetime, but instead struggles with insecurities and a lack of inspiration leaving his screenplay non-existent, the producer exasperated, and the costume designer making clothes just for the sake of it. Nothing holds together or makes sense as Guido wanders aimlessly through a labyrinth of regrets and old memories. When he is able to momentarily escape those vicious demons, the director is caught frozen in the headlights of an intimidatingly colossal task ahead of him, unable to move for hell or high water. Many of those engaged in the creative arts will readily sympathise with this: the vision is there, whirling around your head bursting to get out onto the sheet of paper in front of you. At times the ideas will flow freely, and make the transition effortlessly from mind to pen to paper like a Ferrari swiftly driving down the Amalfi Coast. Sometimes though, one will encounter instead the stop-start, splurting of an uninspired mind more akin to a rusty Fiat Cinquecento stuck in heavy traffic down the Via dei Fori Imperiali. Guido attempts to procrastinate the problem away, but this is as useful to the director as overcooked torterllini – such time-wasting in our own lives solves the problem equally as badly.

After much in the way of trials and tribulations, Guido is quite bluntly told that “making movies wasn’t your problem, you were the problem.” The blockage becomes clear, and Guido’s nine year-old self, full of inspiration and with a clear mind untainted by worries of women and work, love and life, takes control of the set as he regains his passion and inspiration once more.

Writer’s block can be an awful affliction on any artist, but the story of Guido Contini shows us that despite the seemingly indomitable wall one might be faced with, it is possible to eventually break through if we can examine the anxieties which built the damned thing so high in the first place.

Nobody Gives You Power. You Just Take It.

I’m writing this at 4:30am from a bus stop in Sloane Square, waiting to get home for some much needed shut-eye.  It is another fifteen minutes before the next bus arrives and if there was ever a time to kill, now is the most weak, vulnerable calf of a time I have ever come across.

I took the decision tonight to travel up to Oxford for a dinner party, returning the same evening due to commitments in London the next morning. Hardcore, out of character perhaps but well worth it for the fantastically stimulating dinner chat which passed around the table. A tip I learnt from my father is to never let a dinner party pass without learning at least one new thing. What did I learn tonight? Nothing quite enlivens the room like a good old cogitation on the existence of gender roles today and the acceptability of house husbands. I guarantee it is a discussion everyone has an opinion on – if it fails to raise a response then chances are you’re probably eating dinner on your own.

We certainly had a spirited debate to say the least and Nancy, our resident liberal Californian vehemently stated (much to her boyfriend’s delight) that she would be incredibly happy to go to work whilst her partner stayed at home taking care of the kids, tending to the petunias and making sure her skirts were ironed (perhaps that’s not quite how the conversation went, but you’ll forgive the hazy blur of a tipsy, sleep-deprived brain).

However, why would this not be considered the case in the first place? Is simple biology the culprit? After all, men are neither capable of childbirth nor have the ability to breast-feed, both of which go some way to encouraging a woman’s nurturing instincts and stronger priorities towards their cultural gender responsibilities. Indeed, some go on to say that the fact that many women tend to be more attracted to “alpha males” explains a man’s drive for power and control, which are therefore partly the result of a female preference. So, is it in fact women who are to blame for their own subordination?

Of course not. If it is just because of an innate sexual disqualification as opposed to a male-dominated culture or social prejudice then women would still be in the position they were fighting to escape from a hundred years ago. Anyone in this day and age reading Robert Wright’s statement to explain feminism away (“there is not a single well-known feminist who has learned enough about modern Darwinism to pass judgement on it”) would cringe at its ignorance. No, whilst the root of traditional gender-roles can be found in nature, its firm establishment within the heart of social norms is a greater determining factor.

When it comes to gender roles however, Western Civilisation is now at a stage where self-determination is, quite rightly, a higher power than social convention. Today, certainly more so than sixty years ago, women and men (let’s not forget the men) have a much greater freedom to choose the role they fall into when it comes to relationships or life-choices, and are only limited by what they are anatomically capable of (although even this is gradually being chipped away).

Freedom to choose is the key, and the term “gender-role” is on the road to being left in the dustbin of history. A well known doctor once said, “Today  you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” We all make our own decisions, and society does not have to do it for us.

Pepper Spray This

Love is in the Air (Flower Thrower) – Banksy, 2006

The recent events in UC Davis reminds one how swiftly things can turn on a sixpence these days. Before you know it, sit-ins change from peaceful demonstrations to ugly displays of authoritative brutality, and small university protests attended by a hundred of its students quickly go to being viewed by millions online.

How important it is that the latter should be the case. Whilst the methods of the Occupy Movement are peaceful, the cause cannot be tossed aside with indifference. It is time for governments to take notice. Banksy’s Love is in the Air expresses the Occupy Movement’s ethos well: one might expect the pictured man to be wielding a stone, a molotov-cocktail perhaps, or any other weapon that would bring harm to others in order to make his message heard. Instead he threatens with a bouquet of flowers, a striking contrast to the baseball-cap wearing man and his balaclava-covered face. In the same way, the Occupy Movement lets itself be heard through anything other than violent means, and the integrity of its message and its supporters will be intact for as long as it can maintain this.

Captain John Joseph Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 says,”the enemy is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on,” and in some ways that’s the point: the Occupy Movement does not wish to bring harm on others because they are not the enemy. The sooner this is recognised, the quicker progress will be made. The Occupy Movement in its peaceful methods is by no means a push over, nor should it be treated as such, and you will hear their voice even if the only weapons they have are the chants they sing, the banners they fly, or the steadfast resolve to persevere no matter the cost.

The difference between an iPad and a bag of potatoes

Last week I read in the papers of a man from Yorkshire who handed over £200 for an iPad only to receive well…not an iPad. The Yorkshire Post reported as follows:

“The victim was approached by a man in Dark Lane, Batley, who offered him an iPad for sale. The price was agreed and the men drove to a nearby cash machine on Commercial Street where the £200 was exchanged for a black laptop bag which the victim believed contained the iPad. However, after leaving the scene he discovered that it was actually full of potatoes.”

Poor, poor man. The realisation which must have flashed across his face probably resulted in an expression not too dissimilar to an Edvard Munch painting. I do feel sorry for him though, mostly because I have been in that position of being duped before myself. Twice. The first was during my student days on the way back from the library after a hard night’s studying. A minicab driver pulled up next to me and leant out the window asking whether he could borrow my phone. I interrogated him as well as Inspector Clouseau might, and found he needed to call his girlfriend who was “super pregnant bruv”. With my limited medical knowledge I failed to realise that there aren’t actually different levels of how pregnant one can be beyond “pregnant” and “not pregnant”, and that, coupled with a naïve faith in man that has since disappeared, meant I generously obliged. He then started talking about the weather (odd considering the imminent “super-pregnancy”) before the scoundrel drove off laughing in the face of youthful gullibility (who said university doesn’t educate you beyond the library?).

The other time rings closer to the ballad of Mr iPotato – I found a brand new iPhone 4 on EBay for the quite delicious price of £360, and quickly pounced on the opportunity. Four days later, I received something resembling an iPhone but the clunky graphics and preloaded Chinese music soon gave it away as a fake. I take some comfort in the fact that my seller had at least attempted to fob me off with an imitation Apple product rather than merely groceries.

On both occasions I was greatly annoyed at the material loss suffered, however I must say I was more worried about how much of an idiot I had just been. A minicab driver without the means to communicate? A brand new iPhone 4 from a private seller with almost £150 off? Absolute madness. What the latter story serves to remind is that when something is too good to be true, it usually is. Paying full price on items can cause pinches of discomfort when you see the same thing (supposedly) for 40% off but take solace in the fact that you’re not going to end up with just a bag of over-priced potatoes.

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish…or is it?

Starting and finishing in Hyde Park, the half marathon I completed this October is rightly considered to be one of the most beautiful running routes in London. However, nothing worth doing ever comes easy, and this is the story of my run in the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon.

In English I was always told that the key to every story is to think about the beginning, the middle, and the end. When it came to signing up for the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon however, going through my thoughts was not “the beginning” or “the middle”, but only just “the end”. The first two of this writer’s holy trinity completely escaped me, and as I confirmed my place online I had an immediate flash-forward to the triumph of crossing the finish with throngs of people cheering me on, several banners with my name on it, and perhaps a TV crew or two scrambling to get a piece of the action. Sure, the thought of training had crossed my mind briefly, but only in the form of a montage which consisted of downing raw eggs, running up some steps, lifting weights, and all against an adrenaline-pumping 80’s soundtrack – indeed movies had taught me it only took about three minutes to transform a hopeless vegetable into a triumphant hero.

The Beginning

Run Times (not including the gym)

It was a month later I realised life was not like the Rocky  Movies I-VI in any way: running up steps? Not easy (it felt like I was wading through melted Camembert). Raw eggs? Don’t even try it (trust, trust me). Blaring 80’s music soundtrack? So cheesy I’m pretty sure that’s why I struggled up those steps…I trained from April to October and have to say that those sessions were particularly similar to what Nixon went through with the Frost interviews: the first were fine, not too challenging but nonetheless you’re enjoying yourself and feel like you’ve got it in the bag. In the next set, the pace quickens, the distance covered is larger, pain starts to creep into the exercise, and self-doubt gradually begins to appear. Finally, you’re being pressed so hard you feel the wheels might come off, you’re being asked way too much of yourself and you wonder why you ever agreed to do the damn thing in the first place.

N.B. If you’re looking at the training times above, you may notice that in between run 8 and run 9 there is a gap of over two months. This was due to an injury in June and also some time away in Asia, but the interesting thing is that the first run I did coming back from that break was the quickest I would do by a long way, even including the shorter runs – I always wondered when my quickest run would come, but had no idea it would come after two months off. Perhaps less is more…

The Middle

Race day came and did I feel prepared? I had placed myself in a secure bubble of denial by now about how difficult it could be. People do whole marathons all the time, surely half the distance would be completely manageable: I’d been on my runs, it wasn’t as if I had been eating kebabs nightly, and sport was a regular part of my week – would a two hour jog be so taxing? The answer was yes, yes, and yes. And yes once more. The excitement, the buzz of 12,000 people running with you,  and the cheering crowds (not forgetting my parents who managed to find me not once, but impressively twice during the race) were an experience I shall never forget, and I got through the first six miles buoyed by the support without much trouble. During  miles 7-8  chest pains started to come through, and 9-10 my legs began to give. It was at this point I realised how much running these types of races were as much a mental challenge as a physical one: at the last couple of miles to this half-marathon fellow runners were dropping like flies – one can so easily decide to stop for a minute or so since “everyone else is doing it”. However, I knew two things would result if I stopped: one, the build-up of lactic acid in my muscles over 10 miles would make it incredibly difficult to start running again. More importantly though, I knew that the imperative question to be asked when I finished was “but did you run the whole way?” If the answer was in the negative, then with the disappointed faces which followed I might as well have not embarked on the run at all.  Sure, there isn’t a rule about running all the way, but the accomplishment of just going the distance, no matter how tortuous, will leave you with a supreme sense of satisfaction. It was no easy task to keep on going – running on the hard streets of London means that the impact of each stride is three to four times a runner’s body weight, transferred from ankles to knees to hips (all of which I would pay for in the three weeks after the event).

The End

In the last mile I felt like Sisyphus, the king in Greek mythology who was punished by being made to roll a huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, and to repeat this for eternity. And that is what mile 13  was to me: an eternity. Mile 1, and the distance slips by like a TV ad; by the time you reach mile 13 and it seems like the Lord of the Rings films back to back. However, as the great man Winston Churchill once said, “If you’re going through Hell, keep going”. All I can say is that it was a mighty relief to reach the finishing line, and whilst the TV crews and banners weren’t there, I can truly say that it was most definitely worth it.

The Honey Thunderer was running for The Cure Parkinson’s Trust (www.cureparkinsons.org.uk) 

Taking Stock

I returned home one evening to find that a friendly reminder of my outstanding student debt had arrived in the post. These things always make me wonder briefly what the alternative dimension of me not going to university looks like (apart from being £12,000 better off), and whether the experience was truly worth it. But then the memories, the stories, and the friends soon come roaming into view and well, I know it really wasn’t such bad value after all.

This poem, scribbled spontaneously on the statement I received, echoes fleeting doubts.

I owe a lot of money,

A lot of money indeed

Give me gold, silver, and bronze,

Not education, debate or thought!

Why work towards my future when I can get what I want now?

Is it really worth it?

Do I really trust

That university is there for my development,

Or is it just a “BALANCE CARRIED FORWARD”?

.