Myipurts

Erm. Check out my last two runs on the Nike widget to the right...

Saturday - a slow run to Hylands with Dom.

Sunday - an 8 miler with Simon, Joseph and Claire. Great run. Finished in the pub.

Today, Tuesday lunchtime - a quick 3 miles to Hampstead and back from Kilburn. With a record pace of 10.06'.. And this route is one big hill (Arckwright Hill). Great run. Hot. My hip hurts now.

But, really all I'm thinking of now is going away next week for a week in the country with my beautiful wife and kids...

As I stare out of the window of Liverpool Street train this morning I listened to 'More Specials', by the Specials. And on the way home I listened to Jill Scott's 'Golden' three times in a row.

I am longing to get away from London, Chelmsford, this bloody computer, the TV, work, emails and letters. I want my kids with me 24 hours a day for 9 days. I want to eat only barbecues and fish and chips. Get stoned with Mike and drink wine with Libby.

3 more days to go..

T

Ho hum

Another week.

Some runs to list:

20th July - Thurs early morning, up the hill at home in Chelmsford - 2.38 miles / 24 mins.

21st July - Sat morning down the private road to Hylands (saw the Scouts). A great run. - 4.7 miles / 49 mins.

23rd July - Mon lunchtime to Parliament Hill in Hamspstead Heath. Great run. 4.4 miles / 44.49. Good pace too. With hills and everything..

24th July - Tues lunchtime to Hampstead Heath with Iain as part of our Great North Schedule. A hard run; hot, no water. 5.2 miles / 55 mins.

26th July - Thurs morning, early. Private Road route. Great run. I loved this one. Picked up a good speed in the last half. I was flying through the park like a bronzed god. The mist parting before me like the ocean breaking on the shore.

27th July - Friday lunchtime, in Woolpit in Suffolk; I don't like not knowing where I am going. This was one of those runs. I also don't think I'll ever forget getting stuck in 'cat shit passage' in Woolpit last week; Woolpit has now been sullied in my mind. Even thinking of it is making me itch.

Do you want a coat with Bench written on it ? I would love one. It needs to be a kinda distressed denim / military type coat with BENCH emblazoned on the back in massive letters. It would be so good.

I saw the drummer from Razorlight a week or so ago when I was running in London. He appeared to be carrying an unopened Pot Noodle (a raw Pot Noodle). Three weeks ago I saw Jeremy Paxman at Liverpool Street Station and he was eating a lemon, with the skin on an all.

On that note here is 'Johnny Cash' by Sons & Daughters. Play loud when you should be doing something else.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2z2cjoltn9m


Amen

T

America Alone

I have been reading America Alone by Mark Steyn.

Steyn's premise is that Europe is going to be swallowed / subsumed into the Islamist Umma leaving America alone, as the only free and viable society in the world.

Steyn maintains this will happen because us lazy liberals are not breeding enough and that it is only the Muslims who are procreating at a sustainable rate. This coupled with a global Islamist agenda and an unsustainable economic future means we are headed for dark days.

Reading this book is rather like being cornered a lunatic clutching a bunch of statistics and making them all add up to the end of the world. And like most conspiracy theories it has a delicious streak of logic running through it. However, this book is a conspiracy or doomsday theory and nothing more.

I do not have the time nor tenacity to offer anything against Stein's set of statistics about our declining birth rate. But to assume that the UK, for example, is going to become a Islamic state is quite simply nuts. Why ? Because, at it's most basic level, there is not a global conspiracy by ALL Muslims to take over the world and if there were the 'good old boys' down at the local Yates Wine Lodge will indeed make sure the streets do run with blood before they are told to not shave again.

My real concerns with this book are not really with the main points above. What bothers me most is the constant criticism, within the book, of our basic libertarianism and society's foundations in relativism and multiculturalism. Steyn sees this is a weakness. To him we simply reign it back in; we control the media, we stifle free speech, close borders, force people to assimilate culturally.

Given the current climate, where my liberal counterparts are willing to march through London with banners stating "we are all Hezbollah now", along side asylum seekers in the UK who once they have been given refuge, freedom and opportunity by this country are then willing to commit indiscriminate mass murder within it. It pains me to say that there is a valid point to be made in highlighting our lack of resolve in the face of these fascists. It pains me equally to note that the loudest voices highlighting our inability to deal with this situation are right wing crypto-fascists, such Steyn, who declare multiculturalism as a folly and a weakness. Instead of the pinnacle of civilization it is.

The basic danger here is some are trying to fight fascism with fascism. I believe in freedom of speech and multiculturalism, Steyn and Bin Laden do not. Our enemy's enemy is not my friend.

So what to do ? Answers on postcard please, or maybe leave a note in the comments.

T

Melody Day

Ok. This is a remix of the new Caribou (nee Manitoba) single by Four Tet. It is called Melody Day. I love it. I suggest listening to it whilst you gaze at the sky.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0ogeymbpzwz
This is also my first mp3 post. If you can successfully download it (or not), please leave a message in the Comments.

Amen

T

Very Great

So. Yesterday Nike emailed me and offered me a free place in the Great North Run. I accepted. This is a half marathon at the end of September in Newcastle. I've never run anything like a half marathon before; indeed before February the farthest I had run in 20 years was quite literally no more than a few hundred yards, and here I am..

You know what ? All that stuff about sport being great and everything ? Well it is.

So in celebration of yesterdays news I went for a quick 30 min jog at lunchtime. I was in Woolpit in Suffolk working and took off kinda blindly following a footpath across a field. I ended up behind some prefabs in one of those 'back passages' some houses have that are totally overgrown and are covered in invisble, but smelly, cat shit. (2.75 miles in 28 minutes).

Today, back in London, at lunch I did my route to Hampstead and back, which was nice. I find myself insulting the traffic wardens in that part of London (Camden). It's one of my many public services, insulting these crooks. Today this chap called me 'wanker' back. Fair enough really. (3.25 mile in 33 minutes).

It was great in London today though. My run was easy. It is a precious time, running like that.

I have been listening to Six Organs Of Admittance. They are very great.

Namaste

Indoorsman

An update, for my records. This last week I -

Finished 'Between A Rock And A Hard Place' by Aron Ralston. This is the American mountaineer and 'outdoorsman' (I love that term. I am an 'indoorsman')who whilst solo canyoneering gets his arm stuck behind a great big rock.. and has to amputate it. Quite a story, and the book is full of great bits but also loads about 'chockstones', 'grapples', and 'camelbacks', which kinda passed me by. Check out - http://www.aralston.com/

I also nearly finished 'The Islamist' by Ed Hussain, but had to take it back to the library. Really good. Goes someway towards explaining how British Muslim youth can be seduced into the fascist death cult that is modern islamism. He also tackles and identifies how moderate Muslim society in UK failed, and also continues to fail, to address this issue.

Since Friday I have done the following runs -

10k in Chelmsford with Morgan. Early morning. Great weather. Morgan going on about Apocalypto, Roy Hattersley and anti-semitism etc etc etc. Great run.

6k in London, at lunchtime with Iain. To Hampstead Heath and back. Warm and hilly. Iain did it without stopping. And he sprinted at the end..

3.5k This morning, at home in Chelmsford. Early morning. Up the hill and back on my own.

And I have been listening almost exclusively to Richmond Fontaine. Go here for free mp3's - www.richmondfontaine.com/downloads/down.php

Neon Bible

I was listening to the new Arcade Fire album 'Neon Bible' yesterday. Unlike the majority of people I know I really like Neon Bible. I really like this new 'widescreen Springsteen type' sound they somehow distilled. It sounds big. Almost bottomless. It has drama and it sounds to me exactly like than an album that could only have been made in 2007. It is a true modern masterpiece, an epic.

I've seen a TV interview with the band recently and they are young. When you see their videos or press shots they somehow seem old, almost like they stepped out of some lost America imbued with wisdom, if a little po-faced. But in actual fact, as I say they're kids. They seemed impossibly shy, but polite and nice and all very Canadian. Which is nice.. Anyway, how could someone so young and possibly unwise (and nice), have written a doom laden epic such as Neon Bible, and have done so it well ? An album that, I feel deals with impending mortality and the breakdown of civilization, with such passion and romantic vision, and yet somehow makes you feel they are performing just for you..

This ability for the youthful to somehow transcend their world, and create a sense of truth, has always occurred. Bob Dylan, was like 20 years old when he wrote 'Like A Rolling Stone', perhaps the most popular example of a song that can transcend almost any barrier and mean something to almost anyone, whoever, or wherever they may be.

But what is it that makes a great song work in this way ?

Is the magic in the artist ? Is the magician here Win from Arcade Fire or the elemental Dylan or is it somehow the music ? I'd like to think it's the music. And that somehow music, like all art, is often summoned through sweat, intelligence and innate skill and craft, but sometimes art is also touched by 'something else'. And what is this 'something else' if not some kind of truth; a truth or a simple fresh perspective that somehow 'fits' into any situation ? In which case, maybe, it is us the audience who create the truth. We are the filter that distills the bullshit, discards the millions of cultural or artistic attempts to engage us from the moment we wake each morning, and on the rare occasion find something that 'resonates'...

Anyway...

T

So I ran at lunchtime. From Kilburn to Hampstead Heath. 6.05KM in 39:29 minutes. Not fast, but hilly. Iain and I ran together.

I love to run. I truly love to run. You are part of the everyday life of the street, but detached from it. I love the otherness about running. It's like you're a ghost; people only seem to see you fleetingly. They glance at you, as they shuffle about with their cigarettes and you spur by them. Or maybe this is just the endorphins talking as I sweat over this keyboard, but for now I feel good.

I ran this morning.

I ran this morning. I got up at 05:30. I was out of the door at 05:50 and I ran for 37 minutes. I did 3.59 miles. I ran faster than usual. I saw a dead pigeon and a female truck driver outside Britvic. The pigeon was surrounded by its feathers, scattered far and wide. The female truck diver was away from me climbing out of her cab. I did not see her face but I could smell her cigarette smoke.