COMET

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 138:-  Ok, oK, Ok Blog stop knit pickin .. it’s a cartoon. Name a club near you with a committee like this????

             So Blog, have you seen this here comet yet that is supposed to be visible low in the west all month? I trudged on Tuesday, purposely to see it, as it was such a dark clear night …nutting! Not a ting. I will organise my trudging westerly for the next couple of weeks if the night is fine and clear so that I might catch a glimpse. Interesting that the scientists, by tracking the path of the comet claim that they can determine from whence it came and how long the journey took … now my sums suggest that with the changing celestial activity, a star coming here or a super nova going there, a black hole or two hovering all around, I cannot understand how past conditions / events can be recreated to facilitate such a claim. Just a bit of gravitational pull exerted on the comet since gravity’s invention in 1687 must have an incalculable influence? (Did you know that an apple conk is so called because that is the part of Newton’s anatomy on which the apple fell? Bit off putting if the apple had fallen on some other bit of Newton …. ??? Do you eat your apple conk Blog? I reckon it’s the best and tastiest part of the fruit, no jokularing.) It was nice getting the old spikes on again, doing a few reps as of yore … and of course, I lost count as per usual.

              TRAINING TIP => When interval training on the track, I used to wear gloves with the specific aim of moving a finger out of its sleeve after each effort to facilitate accurate tracking of the number of effort repetitions completed, and when I had two fists inside the gloves after ten efforts, I reversed the process by inserting a finger back into its sleeve following every effort. Counting was easi-peasey. Wearing gloves in summer you ask Blog? I refer you to the photograph of the finish of the Polytechnic Marathon in 1974 and ask you to ask where did Usami and his two Japanese mates get the glove idea from???? And suddenly everyone was wearing gloves in those days of yesteryear. BUT. Most runners entirely missed the point of wearing gloves on a hot day. It was the Japanese equivalent of Jimmy Alder carrying a sponge mile upon mile … the gloves were soaking wet and used for cooling purposes …. Not a lot of athletes knew that Blog!! And not many do now, Blog!!

So we have    warm up 2 miles then 10 times (steep hill 250 yards + 150 very steep) concentrate on knee lifting - grass ..Tues

                       5 mile road trudge  - Wed

                       Window sitting – Thurs

           Window sitting you ask Blog? Yes it was D-Day again. Suite Delivery Day again but this time it flew in through the bathroom* window having removed the same the day before!!! And with no window I had to sleep downstairs on the carpet in case of burglary. Blog, I kid you not.   … the staff refused to do it without being paid double time. I was a little upset at their attitude. I am afraid I told the cook what to do with her puff pastry, and I told the butler that it was about time he learned to butle down to some serious butlering. If it stops raining tomorrow I’ll get the window fitted and will be able to sleep in bed again. Fingers crossed please Blog. Oh yes …an update on Arkana tomorrow as well ………

          It has just been announced on the television news that Daw Mill Colliery just up the road from the Manse is to close with the loss of hundreds of jobs. Trudged past there not long ago. It has been rumored for some time that the mine was having difficulties, like many of the old pits around Warwickshire, the geology was not good. The mine was running into financial losses according to some sources. But it was a coal face fire that caused the premature closure. In God’s Own County, when a woolen mill was having financial difficulties, the rumors spread like wild fire amongst the workers and it was usually a fire which destroyed the mill.

                                                                Colin

Ref * for bathroom read living room, sounded better, Blog?

A 2013 London Marathon place up for grabs.

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 137:- All the information about the medal is in the photograph, but when was the National Cross Country Championships first held at Leamington, and what was the problem that caused fighting to break out? And in a race at Leamington this season, the same problem occurred although the outcome was much more civilised – explain!!!!

Dear Blog,

           You might be interested to know that the club ballot for the single club place in the London Marathon has just taken place, but the Club Chairman will not tell which of the three club runners has been successful until the Club Dinner and Awards night in two weeks’ time. Of course the three athletes are a bit upset because they want to get on with their preparations. You probably know the three runners Blog, they are club stalwart Martin Gardner, that two faced Monty Hall and ‘flash your eye lashes’ Marylin vos Savant, the latter being a German mathematics exchange student at Warwick University. I have been talking to a couple of them separately because for some reason they each thought I had the ear of the Chairman and I knew which one was successful in the draw! It appears from what was said over my coffee tete a tetes with them, Martin confided to me that he actually went to see the Chairman in an attempt to find out if he had the London Marathon place. Martin begged the Chairman to at least tell him the name of one of the other two who hadn’t got a place so that he might know whether it was worth him starting his special training for the marathon event straight away rather than dithering around for a couple of weeks, not knowing what  schedule to adopt for the fourth-coming season. Apparently what he said to the Chairman was “If Monty has got the place, give me Marylin’s name. If Marylin has been successful in the ballot, give me Monty’s name. And if I have got the club place, flip a coin to decide whether to name Monty or Marylin.” The sheer nerve of the man!! From the way our conversation went, the Chairman told Martin that Monty had not been successful and had not got a club place. Martin was tickled pink because he believed that the chances of getting that coveted place in London had increased from one in three to fifty fifty, as the place was now between him and Marylin. Martin also told me in confidence that he had secretly told Marylin the news, who herself was happy because she thought that Martin’s chances were still one in three (but she didn’t tell him her thoughts, she said to me later over a couple of eye lashes, because she calculated that her chances had risen to two in three!!!!).

   Now Blog, clearly none of them did sums at the Pink Panther University like as what I did, so who will be pleased at the Godiva Club Dinner to find that they have got that London Marathon place?

                                                                    Colin

..... digging a hole, hole in the road ......

Dear Blog,

                Welcome to my crazy world. Am I alone in this world, I ask myself? Am I the only one who doesn’t make sense? If I scream will the local council do something, come to my aid? – one thing is certain, they will only do half a job. This morning bright and breezy, I am off for a trudge up the hill and over the dale so to speak. Leaving the estate by the tradesman’s entrance, two jobsworths sharing a can of red spray were finding holes in the road to spray the red paint around. This according to licky weeks is a prerequisite for the council to dispatch a tar lorry to fill in the holes with which had red paint sprayed around. Now here is a tale … look back at previous correspondence between the two of us Blog and you will find several rants from me about the council making two jobsworth walk round the Coventry Half Marathon course (held annually in October) finding holes which may or may not offer a health and safety hazard to all the Coventry Half Marathon joggers and then red can spray any holes they find. Last October for example, they sprayed a small hole at the bottom of my estate driveway where it meets the Lane; a small hole but insignificant in the scales of holes. Anyways, this hole was sprayed but tar lorry never managed to reach the hole in the Lane at the junction of the Estate driveway and the Lane, ran short of tar no doubt. Anyway, as I related in a subsequent letter to you, the hole grew and grew and grew. Now it is a mega hole with related holes at the nearby drain, and in two in the middle of the Lane with fourteen more within fifty yards (forty eight metres to you Blog) of my gate as well as a most dangerous landslip from the road into the ditch, which is hidden  by bushes from the oncoming traffic. (a Mega recipe for a serious disaster. Make a note of the date Blog, I bet you many quids that within six months a car will be in the ditch and I will give my winnings to the charity for disable children, Tiny Tims Children’s Centre). Of all these holes, a mere six, SIX!!! have been red spray painted as I observed on my return from the trudge. Am I alone in this world? Am I the only one who doesn’t make sense? If I scream will the local council do something???? The holes they have not painted are so bad that within two months they will pose a serious danger to joggers and traffic ….. surely it would be far more financial efficient to mend all the holes NOW…?

         I heard on the News report on the radio yesterday Phil Ham Ond, the Defensible Secretary in that nice Mr Cameroooons cabinet, that money should be taken from the Welfare Department in the up and coming Budget and given to the Military!!!! My family always gather for a Sunday meal in the evening at the Manse, so after yesterday’s meal I had a word with my seven year old disabled grandson to find out what he thought about the proposal. He said that with the country’s fiscal deficit being so bad and the failure of quantative easing he thought it only fair that I put his wheelchair up for sale in the small ads of the local paper and give the proceeds to Phillep Ammunition for a few wreaths for the families of soldiers killed fighting for some worthless cause in some far off part of the globe. He said he didn’t might not being able to get about ever again if it saved Mr Hammond's job in the next government reshuffle. Bless.

          In my last letter to you Blog, I mentioned that we called in at God’s Own County to see my sister on the way back home to Coventry from Sunderland where the National Cross Country Championships were held. We stayed with her and my brother-in–law overnight. My sister has a rather quaint heavy metal door stop to the kitchen door. My daughter stubbed her toe rather badly on said door stop and feared that she had broken her toe. The doctor advised that she strapped the damaged toe with Elastoplast to another toe as nothing else could be done if she wanted to continue with her running. Since seeing the doctor, every time she tries to run she falls over. Every single time, over she goes, a*** over t**. The doctor should have taken the time to tell her that the toes to be bound together should be on the same foot!!

                                            Colin

Arkana:- You are so suite Blog.

   This Blog you will never believe. No way, not now, not ever. Stranger than fiction … if you saw it on the box you would switch off as it being preposterous!! But do read on Blog if you have nothing better to do, after all, would I lie to you Blog? ….

   My good wife and I have been in wedded bliss for more years than you have had custard puddings. Anyways, for some reason known only to her, she decides that she would like a new three piece suite. Now I am not saying she is greedy or wastes money, but she did have a brand new one when we got married. I told her that I did not think it was a particularly good idea but she was adamant and the ants. I told her that I thought our suite had another good twenty years of service still left in it if we only sat on it at weekends and when we had visitors and as we do not have visitors, read twenty five years of service instead of twenty years of service. Then my wife of many years went NUTS. BANANAS. Shouting and carrying on. She said “That’s it. Its either a new suite or I am going to leave you for good.” Now I tell you Blog I was worried, really worried with a capital ‘W’. I have had to make some really hard decisions in my life but this was one of the most difficult. I was on the horns of a dilemma. A new suite or she leaves me for good. The big question Blog, is - can I trust her to keep her word???

        Now I have always been one for a quiet life but after three days of not talking to each other because she wanted a new three piece suite and I already had one, the total silence was becoming unnerving even for me. So she buys a three piece suite although I told her I still thought it was a mistake as the sales representative in the furniture section of the Cooperative Department Store busied himself thinking what he would do with the mega commission he had just earned himself. When I told him that I thought the idea of buying a new suite so soon after we were married was a bad idea, he just smiled and carried on looking through his holiday brochures.

     Anyways yesterday was D Day – Delivery Day. And sure enough, just as my dear wife of many years was ladling the caviar into my bowl with my bacon and black pudding, the three piece suite men arrived.

      No way through the servants quarters nor the kitchen door could the sofa be carried they concluded after a cursory inspection, so it had to be through the front door of the Manse. So they try and they try and they fail miserably and they complain that they still have ten more deliveries to make and they haven’t had time for a lunch for ten years. Tough Titty. And I knew it was a mistake, this suite business. I take the front door of the Manse off and they try and they try and they wedge the sofa firmly in the hallway. Blog I kid you not. And they complain that they still have ten more deliveries to make and they haven’t had time for a lunch for ten years. Even tougher Titty. And I knew it was a big mistake this new suite business. They try to take the sofa through the lounge door and they try and they try and they fail miserably. And I take off the lounge door and they complain that they still have ten more deliveries to make and they haven’t had time for a lunch for ten years. Tough Titty squared mate. And I knew it was a bad idea this new suite business. They try to withdraw the sofa from the lounge door space and get it firmly wedged and they scratch the wood work on the sofa and they take the paintwork off the door frame which does not have a door attached. And they complain that they still have ten more deliveries to make and they haven’t had time for a lunch for ten years. Titty, titty titty mate! What about my paintwork? And I knew it was a really bad idea this suite business. It is now nearly time for my tea and my caviar soup has got cold, my bacon is no longer crisp and my black pudding has stopped bleeding. And they get the sofa out of the hallway finally and they load up the sofa and the two chairs which have been sitting in the lane for the last couple of hours and I certainly knew it was a bad idea, this suite business. And as they drove off down the Lane they still had ten deliveries to make and they had missed lunch again. Bugger.

     I phoned the Furniture Section of the Cooperative Department Store to find a solution to my dilemma. Yea, I am about to put a brand new replacement window in my lounge next Wednesday and yea, the sofa would fit through the hole ….. And I know that is a good idea. Now the thing is because the suite was arriving yesterday, I had dismantled our old three seater sofa and two chairs to make room for the arrival of the new replacements and stacked the sections in one of the garden sheds, the one down by the orchard; another sign of my generosity to my wife of so many years. Bought when we were first married it cost mega quids. The things were constructed by Arkana, which at the moment, is the top of the retro collectors lists; mainly because the company is something of a mystery!!! Blog I kid you not. The sofa and two chairs all were built using a single ‘allen’ key, the frame being high quality chrome and the seating high quality leather. Now with a week until I take out the window for the refurbished renovated brand new suite to arrive, my dear wife of many years has moaned and moaned until I rebuilt a couple of chairs for us to sit on

                        Colin

So Blog, a slightly different take …………………

Photograph Quiz:

and in bits ….

Photo no. 133: A chance for you to support Tiny Tim’s Children’s Centre, Blog. I am selling my old suite for a ten quids at least, whatever I get goes to the Children’s Charity for disable children. The suite can be a three seater sofa and two chairs,     or a four seater sofa and one chair     or a five seater sofa      or four chairs … and the whole lot will fit into your car Blog. A quality flat pack, none of your Ikea nonsense. As I wrote above, it was like dead posh when new and cost very very many quids. Get in touch Blog, no messing. Chrome and leather!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  

P.S. Thanks again …. The bright green cones on the motorway you tell me, is to denote the entrance and the exit for the works traffic onto their works section of the hard shoulder … well you live and learn Blog.

A meal fit for a King ... Shoc King?

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no 132:- So where is this, what is the building called and which is my room?

Dear Blog,

           So it is nearly goodbye to the cross country season for another year with only the Inter Counties Championships (and for the youngsters, the English Schools Championships) remaining. What have we learned from this last six months, Blog? Have you raced too much or trudged too often rather concentrate on planned quality training. Certainly, when observing my younger club mates, methinks that there has been lots and lots of training with little racing, forfeiting team medals at National Championships because those with arms full of badges have a preference for filling in their little red training books instead of full filling a commitment to their athletes by letting them enjoy the sport and collect a few meaningful awards along the way. Roll on the ‘Mickey Mouse 10 kilometres’, the ‘You Must Be Joking 5km Park Run’ and the ‘Fleece the Athlete 5 miles’ (8 kilometres to you Blog).For participating in the ‘Cough Up a Few Quids Fun Run’, you receive a shiny medal on a piece of brightly coloured ribbon just like the other eight hundred participants receive, you might get your picture in the local newspaper (reporting that tens of thousands took part) and if you win, perhaps a prize of a few quids which will cover the cost of entering the next ‘Saw You Coming Half Marathon’. But the kudos? Can’t beat it. Only the winner can claim the race title, sought after by no one else in the area. But I have no badges so I will stop lecturing you Blog on all these aspects of road running when you know much more than I have forgotten.

          Arriving home from the snowy, very very muddy Sunderland, my wife treated me to one of her special dinner treats. She is so thoughtful. For meat she just had to cook a couple of horses hooves each, they being so popular at the moment, in supermarkets everywhere. Realising that I might use all my bullets in failing to kill a possible intruder in the shower with my AK-69 automatic, she supplied half a plate of peas to be used as back up to slay the possible robber. If the concrete peas proved ineffectual, the solidified potato wedges could be used in hand to hand combat, and there is nothing more deadly than one of her sharpened cooked carrots. Blog, I kid you not. Usually the crunchy gravy helps build up the strength of my gums, but left uncut with a knife, the platter of gravy can be quite deadly when used as a discus and thrown with accuracy. And for sweet, my wife served up custard. Just custard you ask Blog? Yes, just custard! My wife specialises in three different sorts of custard. Firstly there is her ordinary custard … no problem if you want to cut yourself a second or third slice. The second type is the stand alone custard, useful when the assembled guests wish to play after dinner party games. Spoons are stood upright in the custard, and the hardened Brussels sprouts are bowled along the table cloth towards the spoons, the winner being the person who manages to knock any spoon from the upright position; a leaning spoon counts as a half point. The game is like table top skittles except the spoons are much harder than skittles to knock over. Her third type of custard is called ‘King Arthur Yellow Custard’, a family favourite. This is always regarded as a family challenge, the winner always being rewarded with one of my wife’s mince pies. All other participants in the family receive two mince pies for their failure. And the aim of the ‘King Arthur Yellow Custard’ sweet, you ask Blog? I am glad you did; the declaration of the Family Champion is much sought after by relatives across the country. To be crowned for being the only person able to extract the spoon from the custard is fought for whenever two or more family members meet together. One of those stories that circulate as family myths claims that Great Uncle Charlie actually manage the feat on one occasion but there is no evidence to substantiate the achievement. Aunty Gerty, his wife, always said that it was one of their most bestest friends who extracted the spoon, Uri Gargarin or something like that name.  For wine my wife treated me to some of her last year’s rhubarb sparkling wine. She calls it sparkling as that is the state of the horse brasses after they have been cleaned.

      And so to bed.

                                  Colin    

Home again, home again jiggerty jig.

Photograph quiz:

Photo no. 131. This photo was taken from the top of the Durham Cathedral tower … place an ‘X’ where my room was.

300 miles plus (500 plus kilometres to you Blog) and back home from the very snowy, very, very muddy National Cross Country Championships in Sunderland last Saturday, again returning via God’s Own County. Sunday was dry enough to trudge along the banks of the river Wharfe at Bolton Abbey. It is rather sad that, like the moorland’s paths, to prevent further erosion, the river bank tracks are increasingly being covered with stone and grit. For trudging, the advantages of nature’s cushioning are therefore being negated, making pathway running almost as bad as running on the hard road surface. Sad! Earlier, it was nice to see that the track at Durham University’s Sports Centre is now an all-weather surface … not that you were able to run on it on Sunday morning as the all-weather surface was under a covering of snow. All weather?????? What’s that all about? All weather use as long as the weather is all right!!!! Whether to use the track? That’s fine then? When I was in my final year at the Pink Panther University, a 400m track (440 yards to you Colin) was built in the flood plain of and alongside to, the River Wear. So that was a bit clever don’t you think Blog? But also lots of university quids was spent on notices informing the competing athletes which event took where, just in case they were confused … after all, taking a degree at one of the country’s top universities didn’t guarantee that the long jumper would recognise a long jump pit, nor a sprinter would realise where the 100m (110yds to you Colin) might be. Large notices were erected at each and every event start and finish!!! Even notices which proclaimed “water jump”, “pole vault” and “discus circle” were placed in the in-field. Best of all was the notice on one side of the run up strip proclaiming “long jump”, while on the other side of the same run way a different notice proclaimed “triple jump” just in case anyone thought the sand was there for building sand castles. Each of these signs was about five feet (1500mm to you Blog) high and nearly as wide. And the signs got increasingly bigger the more the number of events to be recorded. And at the end of the finishing straight, a bill board was needed to inform the spectators what races ended there … not that they could see the track anyway!!!!!

       The athletics track which was built while I was in attendance at that seat of learning was far from all weather. Rumours circulated at the opening invitational meeting that the track material was coal waste from one of the nearby coal pits (it was an ash colour, Blog I kid you not!); in winter it was like a soggy pudding, so students were banned from using it because a runner left deep foot holes with every step when they tried to run around the track. In summer the students couldn’t use it because the coal dust set like concrete, making the use of training spikes an impossibility.

        Thank you for that information about the traffic cones Blog. Much appreciated. So the yellow ones are placed under or over electricity cables on motorways, the blue ones ditto for water, but you don’t know about the green cones???? Get a grip Blog, it can’t be that hard. Yes I knew already that the white cones were for ice cream, thank you very much.

                                       Colin

National Cross Country Championships at Sunderland Results February 23rd 2013

Boy Blog,

             What a difference a day makes … as they say, ‘here today, gone tomorrow’! So what dear Blog, you ask, am I wittering on about? You may well ask… well I am glad you did. I am tin boxing again, this time for the National Cross Country Championships in Sunderland. After a journey up here from Coventry via a diversion to see my dear sister in God’s Own County, we went to sleep last night with the prospect of a chilly day to follow  and got up this morning to find a white all over fest. Two inches (5 centimetres to you Blog) of snow covering the camp site!!! Now, because there was no parking at the National Cross Country course site at Herrington Country Park or surrounds, I had planned to park up at the back on a local industrial estate and walk the 400 yards (400 metres to you Blog) to the course to save the hassle of the Park and Ride journey from the Stadium of Light in Sunderland to the course, but because of the fall of the white stuff, that plan went out of the window and Plan ‘C’ was adopted, i.e. the Park and Ride from the Stadium of Light to the course. Plan ‘B’ had been to catch a couple of local buses and be dropped at the course, but because of the fall of the white stuff during the night, standing around waiting for local transport did not appeal. So it was the tin box to Sunderland and away the lads!

I must say the whole day was most interesting.

1.     When I was at the Pink Panther University, my post graduate year was spent learning to be a sums teacher which involved a whole term, from January to Easter doing teaching practice at Sunderland Boys Grammar School. For the National Cross Country Championships, we travelled in the Tin Box to the Park and Ride mostly along the road I used to run to and from school. This was before the days of 140 miles a week (to you Blog, I haven’t a clue … get out your calculator and work it out yourself!!). The sign post said 13 miles (ditto Blog) from Durham to Sunderland .. so five days teaching practice stuck a few miles in the training diary which gave me the whole of the weekend for some serious mileage!!

2.    Oh yes, I should add that my dinner time session from school was to scoot up to the Penshaw Monument and back for an afternoon of sums to the little Wearside lads …   it is a bit scary actually Blog, because one of my pupils is now a well over 60s master!!!! And this said monument overlooked the National Cross Country Course to which I had come from Coventry via God’s Own County. So after I had watched my younger daughter complete her race in the senior ladies competition, I decided, for old times’ sake, to scoot up to the afore mentioned Penshaw Monument and take a picture of the start of the men’s race. It looks a long way from the course to the folly but the folly, in the style of the Parthenon, is much closer that would appear … so my daughter finishes and off I trudge, soon realising that too much kit was the order of the day. Up I climbed in the snow to the Monument. Out poured the sweat on my way up to the Monument. Arriving at the monument soaked in sweat fearing the onset of a serious heart stoppage problem, I turned to view the start of the men’s race expecting to take a dramatic shot as the field streamed along below me. I focussed my teleteletelephoto lens  … the men’s field  was already half a mile (800 metres to you Blog) into the event!!!! What happened to all this five minute warning gun business??? And the boom of the starting gun???? What boom???? So my climb was in vain!!!!!!!!!! A sweaty heart pumping vein!!!!!!!!! I feel I should add that when I went for my dinner time session to the folly, the view I had from the top was not the Herrington Country Park but all the paraphernalia of a coal mine, pit head winding gear, slag heap and all!!!

3.    At least I had the pleasure of meeting two old Godiva members who came over to the club tent to make themselves known. Excellent .. another few lines in my ‘History of Coventry Godiva and Other City Clubs’. I shall be contacting them for any photos and information etc.. Nice to see that their grandchildren were running, one of the lads finishing 7^th in his event. Brilliant!!!

4.    What a pleasant surprise … one of the club tents pitched very close to the Godiva tent was the Highgate Harriers’. And what was so special … I’ll tell you what was so special Blog. They had a loud sound system rigged up. Brilliant!!!! Music all afternoon … I thanked them and hoped that their tent would be near ours for the National Road Relays at Sutton Park in April. Bet the officials there will kick up a stink …. Watch this space in April Blog!!

                              An d so to bed in the tin box                    Colin