Hand up the guilty Jobsworth.

So Blog, How many council workmen does it take to dig out a ditch?????

One week ago, in the afternoon, a lorry dropped a container off on the layby down the Lane from my Mansion. The container was to act as an office / mess room for the workmen.

Six days ago, a very large mechanical digger appears down the Lane from my Manse, a lorry with two workmen who put out a set of warning signs, and nearly dinner time, a set of traffic lights with associated control equipment. Lots of noise. Three workmen and a lorry turn up. As a responsible citizen with a long snout, I felt it my duty to find out just what was going on. Digging the ditch out for the length of the Lane to solve the flooding problem, I am told. Waste of time mate … it’s the River Sherbourne ditch that needs digging out. Sorry governor, that river is Seven Trent, ditches is Council, that’s us. Half the road is coned off, traffic in the Lane controlled by the traffic lights (temporary). It is fun watching the farm machinery trying to get through. The delivery lorries have no chance. Workmen no happy about the speeding traffic, especially those that seem not to see the traffic lights (temporary). 

By knocking off time 50 yards (56 metres Blog) of ditch have been dug out and the dredge spread on the road side verge.

Five days ago, portable loo turns up much to the relief of the workmen. Another 20 yards  (22 metres Blog) dug out of the ditch and the dredge spread on the grass verge on the other side of the road, motorists noit happy about having to wait for the mechanical digger to unload the dredge especially as the traffic lights (temporary) are on green for go. But there was no go! By 11ses workman decided it is too dangerous to work with the speeding traffic. Stop work. Afternoon very quiet. No workmen. Tea time, lorry with two men turn up to collect the road sign warning signs and cones.

Four days ago, porta loo is transported away. Traffic lights go to temp somewhere else.

Three days ago, metal container (aka workmen’s mess and office) picked up.

So how much has those 70 yards (75 metres Blog) cost the ratepayers of Coventry????? Don’t blame the workmen, they worked on what they could … the other 430 yards (490 metres Blog) are for another time when the jobsworth has applied for a total road closure to ensure that the working conditions are safe. Jobsworth didn’t quite plan this job very well. The fact that it is a total waste of time in trying to solve the flooding problem is not material to the lack of job evaluation for the project. The fact that jobsworth will not be accountable for the mega cockup of a wasted week of traffic light (temporary), digger, container (aka office) porta loo and five or six workmen, lorry with two men, signs and cones  is criminal misuse of ratepayers money.

So we are unable to answer the question posed at the start of my letter to you Blog, cos it not ain’t not yet finished. One thing for sure Blog, me and my spade could have done it quicker, and cheaper, saving the Coventry ratepayers a pile of quids. And the big question which needs to be answered is  ?how many pairs of trudging shoes could I have bought if the council had paid me to do a bit of the dig-dig?

                          Colin

P.S. When will they be back??????????????????????????????????? Watch this space Blogsie.

National 30km Road Walk Championship and National 50km Road Walk Championship at Coventry, July 27th 2013 Result.

Photograph Quiz:

First question … what Photo number is it???

So .. Photo no. whatever:- Where is this? What is the pub in the centre of the photo called? Why is it important in the History Of Coventry Godiva Harriers?  

Dear Blog,

 Saturday 10:00am: Clubhouse, collect luminous bib, traffic cones and small coloured marker cones.

       Saturday 10:15am: University Road roundabout, mark out centre of road up to race turn at end of cul de sac with small cones, mark out roundabout with large cones, sweep grit as tarmac on raod is beginning to melt already.

            Saturday 11:00am: Put very large cone in centre of road before roundabout, place folding chair ditto to slow any traffic. National 50 kilometre (just over 30 miles Colin) starts. Sun gets really hot.

                  Saturday 11:00am: Field walks down to roundabout for the first time, Spaniard already opened up a gap.

                     Saturday 2:30pm: First of the wobblers suffering from dehydration and too much sun, watch him stagger back towards the start area to ensure he gets to the First Aid safely.

                           Saturday 3:00: Police car arrives with an urgent request to keep a look out for a young autistic lad missing from home since early morning. Concerns.

                                   Saturday 5:15pm: Race cut off point and all those still surviving get to the finish line in time!!

                                          Saturday 5:30pm: Clear up the course and return luminous bib, traffic cones and small coloured marker cones to clubhouse. Young lad found.

Sunday 9:00am: Bugger. Young Athletes’ League at Loughborough.

                                      Colin

Old Godiva runners never die, they just trudge off into the sunset ...............

Dear Blog,

               Ever felt like banging your head against a brick wall . ….. I bore everyone with the fact that I have been researching the History of Coventry Godiva Harriers for the last decade. People purposely avoid me so they don’t get bored with my ramblings and when they do get trapped with no hope of escape, that faraway look. That glazed expression is all to evident. I think I told you that it was only a couple of years ago that my mother happened to mention in passing that my grandfather used to run for Wathe on Dearne. I had run for years, I had run in the Commonwealth Games, I had run in the European Games, I had run in the Olympic Games and no one in the family had ever thought to mention the fact that someone else in the family ran. It wasn’t that my mother was losing her marbles. He had!!! It was true!! And lo and behold today ….. an old lady (93 years old) and her husband (86 years old) whom I have known for forty years and my wife has known for longer, living across the road from them since childhood, just happen to mention that she USED TO RUN FOR GODIVVA!!!!!! She ran before the last war and stopped when she started a family ………….. so Blog, What will I be doing tomorrow??????????????????????????????? It really is enough to make you want to go out for a trudge!!

                                       Colin

Boy oh boy, what a day?

Dear Blog,

              What a twenty four hours that has been. Talk about excitement. Everyone has gone mad. The press have gone overboard, the television channels have gone over the top and the public have simply acted stupid. London has nearly ground to a halt at times. It is not as if the big event of the day is unusual. It happens all the time; all over the world. I suppose it was because the public knew it was going to happen and had been warned repeatedly in advance by the media. And the hype was built up And when it did happen, all the tension was released. Admittedly, the lightning flashes were more spectacular and the thunder claps were more deafening than most summer storms, but to carry on the way the public and media have, is all rather passé. And there wasn’t too much rain. It isn’t as if it lasted a spectacularly long time either; a few hours overnight. And now it is over, anti-climax sets in with nothing much to fill the newspapers or fuel the television sound bites.

I’ll tell you about a storm or two. For some unknown reason, while I was at university, the summer vacation (holiday Blog, holiday) at the Pink Panther University were always longer than any other in the U.K. including Oxbridge. No student ever complained. We came down, as they say, at the end of May and didn’t return until the second week in October, I was fortunate that I was employed during the whole time for four consecutive years by the local authority at the local running track. Now why there was a cinder running track of reasonably good quality in a small West Riding mill town is beyond me. There was no athletics or harrier club in the town. And there hadn’t been for over fifty years. The Boys Grammar school used it for their annual sports, and sometimes the area school sports were held there. There were a couple of evening athletic meetings organised by Bingley Harriers and the occasional Yorkshire Championships. And then there was me. And me. And me again. I was the only person to use it. Blog I kid you not!! Anyway I was employed there every summer which enabled me to run to work in a morning and shower. Train at lunchtime and shower. And run home again at night. Which helped my running no end. Knackered and a whopping mileage!!! I say I was employed at the local running track. Well that was not strictly true. There was me and Dick, who was the permanent grounds man. Just the two of us and we worked well together. Dick was about sixty. We had the track to look after and maintain, marking the lanes out for when it was never used. We had all the events which never took place on the infield to mark out. We had two full size cricket squares to mow. We had eight football pitches to prepare and mark out for the fourth coming season; this included erecting the goal posts. We had six rugby football pitches to prepare and mark out for the fourth coming season; this included erecting the goal posts. We had to mop out and clean twelve changing rooms and two full sets of toilets and urinals. We had the pavilion reception room to clean. We had two cricket pavilions to clean and maintain. Blog, I kid you not. Me and Dick, Dick and me. We did have gang mowers to cut the grass for us! Anyways because I was the first to arrive in a morning [to put the kettle on for any passing gangers who might pop in for a skive and a pot of tea] because I ran to work and because I was the last to leave at night because I ran home, Dick entrusted me with the bunch of keys. A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS. When I was a kid, I remember that in the hot summer school holidays we used to get thunder and lightning storms which used to last for days. The Worth valley in which the town was built was a ‘V’ shaped cul de sac running up into the Pennine Hills; the heat from the hot summer weather used to funnel the humid air up the valley hill side as the day progressed and presumably when it hit the colder air near the top, it got trapped. The storms used to rumble on and on, days after day. The long lasting storms were just the same when I worked at the track. Dick gave me A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS to lock up when I left work and I had to carry them home to unlock the track on my arrival following day. My general route home each evening used to take me a couple of miles along the valley bottom alongside the River Aire towards Bingley. For variation I sometimes ran along the canal tow path. I had then to start to climb up and up towards Bingley Altar where the Druids used to hold their services in years gone by, climb higher up to the moorland which was open land with only heather and cotton grass for vegetation. I then had about three miles to cross the plateau with no shelter, exposed to whatever nature chose to throw at me. Then I could drop dramatically down to Ingrow where I lived. Now at the times of the daily storms which tended to peak about five or six o’clock each evening, I was crossing this large expanse of high flat barren land with A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS in my hand. I can tell you, I was not a happy bunny at all. There was all this lightning day after day, searching for a protuberance on which to make an energetic landfall, and there was me sticking up like a potential lightning conductor with A LARGE BUNCH OF METAL KEYS in my hand as I trudge across the heather. I can tell you I was not a happy bunny with brown shorts for many days each summer!!!

The events covered by the media in the last 24 hours reminded me of this time and my storm experience. I sometimes thought I should make a Will. I am sure that a weather break at evening, winds or calm, would have done me some good in the eyes of our superiors?? (7 across, 4 across and 7 down)?

And then of course there was that other rather big happening of yesterday …… I picked my first fresh peas of the season.

                                                     Colin

It ain't half hot mum.

Photograph Quiz:

Photo no. 161:  Why were Coventry Godiva Harriers worried about this lot in 1910? (An it were nowt to do wi ow much the cud sup.)

So that’s it Blog, School is out for another year. And in years past when I was part of Mr Cameroon’s dad’s dad’s Great British work force, it was up with the mileage and on with the Black plastic bin bags and sweat, sweat, sweat. And then, come along a hot race, it was easi peasi lemons etc.. My hottest race, temperature wise, was a marathon in Southern Germany which I won by about twenty minutes. Blog, I kid you not …. Twenty, two zero, 20 minutes. The marathon involved almost two identical laps and the starting temperature was well into the nineties! The first lap incorporated a half marathon which I totally forgot all about once the gun went. I had come second in an international marathon race six days before and was a bit weary .. so the plan was to set off fast, get rid of the field quickly as I suspected that they would, quite naturally, be worried about the excessively hot temperature, and then I could settle down to an easy run. Forgetting about the half incorporated marathon, I couldn’t understand why runners were sticking to my suicidal pace .. but come five miles (eight kilometres to you Blog) they had all peeled off. Was I relieved or was I relieved. Unfortunately. Because the marathon consisted of those two similar laps, the half marathon runners had consumed all the water on the first lap!!!! Try running half a marathon with no sponge in searing heat, the temperature climbing higher and higher as the race, or procession, unfolded. Needless to say, it was a bit messy when I finished. My muscles would not do as they were told. I was like a sufferer from Saint Vitus Dance with a bad case of the twitches. A very bad case, indeed. Blog, I kid you not. Every time I have had a daily trudge this last ten days and see joggers out there struggling, sweating, I have to smile. “Get your black bin bags on and sweat, sweat, sweat. You know it makes sense!”

                            Colin

t'watters meltin.

By gum lad, its reight hot. Mind thee, its a guden if the can save a few bob. As a sed t’ missus, if that there bloke int ‘Sun’ can cook an egg ont pavement in London, there’s nowt stopping thee doin t’same. A nos that its out o’sun ont back step so tha can use t’front if the mun. She were int middle o doin me bacon reight crisp wen t’postie cums an steps on me egg. No yolk. It wen tall ower place, a reight mess. A nobbut just managed to dip me bread in wot were left. Told him weare to stick is letta an it weren’t in is sack!! Sed to missus, al mun go fer a trudge wile ye mek me a mug o tea as it is tekin a bit o time t'boil. A sed it ud be quiker if t’pot were moved from shade int sun. She sed, aye likus ye right there. A sed a new a wos.A sed al sup it wen a gets back. She sed reighto.

                           Seeethe. 

Mother's little helper, please.

Blog,

     Gay, Powell et al.

     Two points the media may have missed concerning the latest happy pill episode so don’t forget you heard it first here Blog!!! Is someone at last going to square up to the farce we have in athletics concerning the detection, punishment and prevention of drugs in sport??? Are these latest suspects going to pursue the allegations through the courts in an attempt to open the sport up to legalised use of chemicals because the drugs are not illegal in the real world, just in athletics. Years ago before you were born Blog, a respected National Coach suggested we have open (i.e. with drugs) and closed (i.e. non drug takers) sections of the athletics sport so everyone knew precisely what was actually going on and there was no cover up on the part of athletes or administrators. This was also at the time of ‘Shamateurism’ so he had no chance of sparking a sensible debate into the matter. As with the payments of  many quids to athletes, drug use was a case of nod, nod, wink, wink, innuendo and gossip.

      And the other point that may have not been realised by the media, or they might just be playing it cool, is that we are now entering the era where the off spring of proven drugs cheats are entering into senior competition with a high standards of results. Nod, nod. Is there a case of like parent like child waiting in the wings??? And what about the off spring of parents who perhaps performed ‘under the influence’ when drug testing was in its infancy and it might be suggested that positive tests could have been avoided by various subterfuges. A case of collusion might have occurred???

      All the above is good stuff for a novel coming to an amazon near you soon. None of it could be true, of course, because such things don’t happen in real life. If it did, could it all be avoided simply by getting the sport back to competition per sec and forgetting about all the obsessions with times and records??

                           Colin