A salute to Friday

Ah, Friday. Hallowed day, harbinger of the weekend, bringer forth of good times, and usually-quieter-day-at-work-than-other-days day.

Some Fridays rush up upon you, catching you unawares, some idle by, taking an age to reveal themselves, some seem days away, and some, like this week, just tick by with reassuring regularity.

The Bill Jones school of motivation

New year, new you? That’s what everyone says but few of us ever have the gumption to stick to our plans – higher, faster, stronger and all that – as often the motivation that the number 1 appearing on a calendar gives us dissipates as other numbers such as 4 and 12 and 26 start appearing.

However, one man who may be able to give us the resolve we need to stick to our motivational guns is Bill Jones, a fascinating character from the 1920s dreamed up by some advertising wonks to inspire the business folk of Britain – and later the US and Canada – to strive for greatness.

These are two of my favourites below and there’s a whole raft more on the Retronaut website. I came across this via someone on Twitter but I’ve forgotten who it was now. Sorry mysterious Twitter person – please reveal yourself if it was you and I’ll credit accordingly.

Singing out for Christmas

So, that was Christmas 2011. It always goes so fast, after such a long build-up. Still, it was a nice one this year, with mild weather, plenty of cocktails and nice dog walks with the family. My brother and I spent some time noodling around on the guitars and piano too, and even got around to bashing out a Christmas song, after discussing whether or not it was that hard to actually write one. You can take a listen to our efforts in the embedded video below. Enjoy, and roll on the New Year!

Cyril Hartley Moore

History is a fascinating subject. I should know I studied it for three years at university so it makes me something of an expert in the field. One of the most interesting areas, on an individual basis at least, is that of the family tree and the lives of unknown relatives. Certainly the success of shows like Who Do You Think You Are? is a clear indication that people discovering the stories of their family prove highly popular.

As such it was with great interest I received an email from a current family member with information on some research he'd done into my great grandfather's brother Cyril Hartley Moore. Through some clever emailing and tracking of information to Canada he'd been able to reveal a bit more light on his life, and the fact it was actually cut short in 1901 in the Boer War when he refused to surrender to overwhelming opponents:

"The Boers succeeded in cutting off the retreat of a small party of ten men he commanded. Three times the enemy called on him to surrender, but on Lieutenant Moore refusing to do so, he was shot through the heart," reads the report of his death.

Refusing to surrender three times despite clearly being beaten and ending up shot through the heart certainly sounds like the behaviour of someone in my family.

Overall, while I'm not going to cry about it (unlike the folks that go on the BBC show who the producers must surrounded with onions to produce the money shot), it's a fascinating and bizarrely profound insight into the life of someone who, while dimly related to me, is nevertheless part of my family's lineage and make-up.

Sleepovers

When you're young the idea of a sleepover is incredibly exciting. The chance to stay at a friend's house, or have them to yours, is the stuff of "Please mum, pleaseeeee" for years. Yet, even as a child, once the hallowed night has taken place, there's something mildly disappointing about the whole thing. It's just sleeping somewhere else, really, but not as well and coupled with waking in a strange, alien world, of if it's at yours, with a bunch of friends you wish would leave sharpish as they're driving you crazy.

Growing up, such events are obviously far rarer, but the night buses and the early closing of the tube mean that crashing on on good friend's sofa post night out, or after a wine and US Open tennis 2am evening, is preferable to a two hour journey with drunks and weirdos across the city from north to south.

Even so, waking at 7am having had a terrible night's sleep, miles from home, facing a day of relentless yawning, you can't help but wonder if you would have been better off risking the nightmare buses after all. 

It's disappointing how quickly sleep becomes an important part of your life, your thoughts, and defines your ability to function. Not in an active way, an "I must go home to sleep soon" controlling way, but a passive, next day "why did I go to bed so late" moan, that becomes ever more frequent each year, the days of going out til 3am and suffering no ill effects the next day long, long gone. And don't even get me started on two to almost three day hangovers.

Or maybe I am just a wimp. Thoughts?

The changes of September

Throughout life, until at least the age of 21, life changes every year in September. From a young age it represents a new school year with new expectations, challenges, events and so forth. Then it's university starts, and each year throughout not just a new term but often a new house and housemates to boot.

Since then I, like many others, seem to have stayed in the September to September housing cycle, each month representing a different location, a different set of housemates again, this time though we are professional, clean(ish), and wealthy (compared to former student selves at least).

Not only that, but during September autumn marks its arrival: leaves fall, evenings darken, temperatures drop and the combination of personal change coupled with seasonal change always infuses the month with a sense of, well, possibilities. Of new beginnings and new opportunities. A chance to use the darkness and the cold to get more things done, to enjoy snuggling in pubs or taking brisk walks across moors, heaths, parks.

There's also a loosening of that sense of guilt that rare hot summer days bring. That sense of urgency to do something, to make the most of it. A rare autumn day filled with sun is a luxury, something to fritter away with quiet surprise and enjoyment that we have been afforded an day of warmth and sun.

The angles of the sun throughout this time of the year are wonderful too: lasting just a few weeks but offering a unique combination as the sun tracks from its zenith to the nadir, changing each and every day to offer different shades, tints and hues of sunsets and sunrises, skies and clouds.

I think for all these reasons September may be my favourite month.

Putney sunset as September begins

Keep on Running (and therefore enjoying pizzas more)

Did you have a good Christmas and New Year? I did - it was too good in fact. I had far too much food, booze and even the occasional take-away, thanks to a tempting pizza menu offer that came through the letter box one cold night.

As such all my good fitness based work that had taken place in the autumn was completely undone. So, during a night of quite contemplation, I decided the only thing for it was to enter a 10k race to force myself to get training.

So March 20 in Clapham Common is the location and going sub 40 minutes is the goal.

Long-time readers of this blog will remember I did a 42.20 in Richmond about 18 months ago which is the fastest I've ever run (over that distance) when it was quite undulating and very wet. I also did a 44.12 on a three-lap course in Hampstead that took us up a climb of almost one enter kilometer each time around. As such I am confident I have the capabilities to hit this time, even if it is going to be painful training for it. Still, no pain and all that…

I'm not just a speed merchant though, and do enjoy running purely for the pleasure. Even on cold nights there's actually sometimes nothing better than getting outside and pounding the pavement for a few kms, listening to some choons (Arcade Fire's The Sprawl II, the top song of the moment (still)), or chatting with my running mate around the highways and byways of South West London.

So far training is up to 4.5km in 22minutes, which is not too far off, need to add 500m and lose two minutes, and hopefully with increasing light and receding cold this will become easier as well.

The other benefit of all of this running is now I can enjoy a pizza after work without any guilt...

Return to blogging

Where have I been? Busy, that's where.

I went to Paris for a day and a night – I found the Eurostar quite boring actually, not much to look at. Just a train really, isn't it? No fishes out the window or anything like that.

I also saw a play about sub-editors called Subs, which was fun, although was in Kilburn which was not so fun. It was quite good, although the main driving force of the play was an incredibly irritating Welsh man who shrieked and cat-called his lines –as he was no doubt meant to-but it became a bit grating after a while.

Even more enjoyable than this was seeing my girlfriend's play – Dirty Laundry – be performed at the Putney Arts Theatre a couple of weeks ago. Am dram is great, I love the people you meet, the willingness to get involved, the sheer creativity that occurs when people are forced to think innovatively about creating sets and costumes and all those such things.

I have begun running again, heading towards 10k in Clapham in March where I want to get sub 40-minutes (just because) and I am reading as always. Recent books included Do Not Pass Go by Tim Moore (The book I lost on my flight back from Las Vegas last year but found for £2 in a shop over Christmas so bought to make up for that loss) and now Why England Lose At Football, a very interesting pop-economics book on how data in sport reveals that traditional thinking of sports, especially football, is bunkum.

Oh, and only four episodes from finishing The Wire. What a journey.

Expect more updates as and when possible.

Going to Gauguin

To Tate Modern on Sunday (for the first time (I think) since moving to London, shocking) to see the Gauguin exhibition on there. Here comes the reflective bit...

He's a painter I knew nothing about at all really, despite knowing the name. Lots of famous artists and the like you seem to learn bits about through osmosis but Gauguin I had never really heard anything about. But I learnt he lived in Tahiti, was a bit of a rebel and painted some interesting art.

One thing I did note in the crowded exhibition halls (too many people!) were the few yummy mummies attempting to teach their gaggle of children aged 4-8 about the works of a painter they neither know or care about. As my good friend Severs once blogged, it comes across more as the mother showing off to those in ear shot what shes knows than a genuine desire to teach children about Gauguin (Gauguin!).

If I'm wrong in their intentions, while it's admirable to have such lofty educational ambitions for your children it's surely a bit too much, too young, and certainly too public. The Tate Modern is a great building though, isn't it? I enjoyed going to the seventh floor for the views over the entirety of the immediate north side of the river and beyond – and all for free.

Also, is this weather marking the official end of summer? You always seem to get days like this in October that cast a few final rays of sun and heat across the nation before the plunging despair and black dog of winter draws in night by night, stalking across the land.

It'll be Christmas Day before you know it.

World Cup memories

Four years ago today I awoke bleary eyed, tired, and robbed. It was the day after my last exam at university. My bank account had been skimmed to the tune of almost £400 from Bulgaria (Have you been to Bulgaria? The woman in the bank asked me...) and I had, in spite of this, gone out to celebrate the end of student life – it was a fraudulent celebration as I was actually on for a post-grad course, but hey ho.

Later that afternoon, I, and about 19 others, went to the pub to watch Germany play out a highly enjoyable 4-2 win against Costa Rica. It was the start of the World Cup 2006. The sun shone, the atmosphere was carnival, with students everyone winding up their final exams, and the massive over expectation that the "Golden Generation" (snigger) would finally deliver.

They didn't of course, and later that month, back in Cornwall, we slumped out of the local bar after England's dismal showing against Portugal.

In 2002 I slumped into Geography half an hour late after England's dismal 2-1 defeat to Brazil in the quarter-finals. The only player who had a shot in the second half was Danny Mills, which shows what a weak team we had. This was the world cup of early morning kick offs, of the tournament being over each day at about 1pm UK time, leaving you free to make the most of the afternoons – if you were a schoolboy who'd completed his exams of course. For workers it must have been terrible.

In 1998 I was at my auntie's 40th when Croatia stuck three past Germany, to much celebration from those assembled, and the next day I can still vividly remember commenting, struck with wonder at the thought of such an age: "At the next World Cup I'll be 17…". I had been at home for the England v Argentina match, and watched as the team swash-buckled their way out of the tournament after an engrossing match.

In 1994, I only really remember watching Brazil v Italy, in the drab, Americanised final in the Pasadena Rose Bowl. It was a limp match, ending on penalty shoot out. Poor.

Interesting though, measuring out your life by major events, notably the World Cup, I can only imagine where I'll be when 2014 in Brazil roles around.

Anyone care to join in?

Here is the news

I played my first sets of tennis of the year on Saturday. Very enjoyable it was too. Most courts seem quieter in the months before Wimbledon than after, can't imagine why. First games of the 'season' are always characterized by awful double-faults and wild, flailing backhands, but come September I, and those I play with, are generally down with some pretty nifty shots.

I started reading Midnight's Children on Friday. So far so good, but I gather it's one of the most unfinished novels ever written. I am determined to give it a fair whack so will update as I go.

I've been watching Arrested Development again recently, man it's good. Similarly, Lost is almost half-way through its final season and getting very interesting. I'll be glad when it's all over just so it's done and dusted but it's been a weird and wonderful journey to be sure.

Incidentally, I caught about 10 minutes of the latest 24 on Sky One last night. Can't believe that is still going. I was watching that when I was at secondary school. Now I am 24. Yikes!

It's a funny old world

Here we are then, the shortest day in living memory (of 2009) and the day before we (I) finish for Christmas. I can't wait.

My apologies to my readership (Hi Mum! Hi Dad!) for dropping off so suddenly from the blogging world. Moving to a new job of news reporting makes time a lot more precious each and every day, rather than a monthly/bi-monthly print magazines where busy-ness came in waves, rather than as a bubbling river (oh, a nice water metaphor there).

Snow and ice (more water!) on the ground makes things feel wintery doesn’t it? I remember being in Cardiff in 2005 and it being boiling hot on the last day of term and my personal tutor telling me he could remember snow being 2ft high and university closing in late November as it was impossible for anyone to get in. So I suppose global warming is in some ways very real? Is that right?

It's been a memorable year. I ran a marathon, formed a band (although only practicesed twice...bad form), broke a world record, went to Slovakia and flew in a Hind Military Attack helicopter, tasted whisky in Scotland (most northern I've ever been - except when I eat mushy peas), went to Benicasim music festival with very good friends, read many interesting books, gave an after dinner, black tie, speech, wrote more for The Guardian, for Word through some bizarre circumstances, and a couple of bits for Runner's World and a couple bits for Cornwall Today, got a new job, two of my best friends got engaged (to each other), and everyone else I care about is well and good and more.

Twitter took over the world, many notable people passed on (it's the first year of the endless deaths of media / mass entertainment personas if you ask me), Rage Against the Machine had a number one for Christmas (?), SuBo was discovered, we still haven't invented time-travel, and the world seems unsure whether it thinks money is good or evil. I think a bit of both.

In the decade itself we've had mobile phones, ipods, broadband internet, 9/11, foot and mouth, 7/7, Cristano Ronaldo, Obama, the rise and fall of Top Gear, the continued and unabated domestication of the dog (although nothing else - when was the last time we domesticated anything?) YouTube, Facebook, the decline of newspapers, I went, studied, and graduated from university (as did countless millions more), we had endless disasters, global warming became an issue, and a man named Howard became a minor celebrity through singing on adverts.

It's a funny old world.

See you on the otherside, Internet.

New beginnings

So I've spent the last week lazing around London town, going here and there, doing this and that, talking with you-know-who and what's-his-name, all because I was in the middle of a job gap between leaving my old job and starting my new job.

It's been a funny two years and two months at the old place. I had some great adventures -visiting Slovakia, going to a shooting range, wearing a Star Trek outfit for a company video, spending too much time at the NEC and so on - but the time came for a change and thankfully I found something that looked interesting and suited and, after the interview process and all that, I am off to a bigger company, based more centrally, and hopefully with scope to lead to other interesting, diverse places. Just have to wait and see.

Onwards, onwards, onwards, onwards...

My year in books

So this year I have so far read 50 books. Below is the list in mostly chronological order (nerd alert!). Where there's a link it's to a previous review of that book. Might do a little 140-character review of the rest in time on separate blog post.

1. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
2. Black Swan Green (2-6 all reviewed on same link as this one)
3. The Plot Against America - Phillip Roth
   
4. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
5. Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 - Hunter S. Thompson
   
6. Mortal Engines
   
7. The Road - Cormac McCarthy
   
8. The Damned United - David Peace
   
9. The End of Mr Y - Scarlett Thomas
   
10. Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
11. The Chrysalids - John Wyndham
12. The Country Life
13. The Remains of the Day - Ishaguro
    
14. Under a Blood Red Sky
15. How NOT to Write a Novel: 200 Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs If You Ever Want to Get Published
16. The Olive Readers (worst book of the list without question)
    
17. Viva South America!
18. When will There Be Good News? - Kate Atkinson
    
19. Survival of the Fittest by Dr Mike Stroud
20. Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
21. Neither Here Nor There - Bill Bryson
    
22. The Never Ending Days of Being Dead - Chown
    
23. In Patagonia - Bruce Chatwin
    
24. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
25. Blind Faith - Ben Elton (terrible)
    
26. A Wild Sheep Chase - Murakami
    
27. Attention All Shipping
28. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of his Time
29. Leviathan by Philllip Hoare (best book of the year, without question)
    
30. Moby-Dick
31. Ghostwritten
32. American Pastoral - Roth
    
33. A Light Hearted Look at Murder
34. Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals
35. The New York Trilogy Paul Auster (all Auster's covered on this link)
    
36. Man in the Dark - Paul Auster
37. Music of Chance - Paul Auster
38. Leviathan - Paul Auster
39. Dance Dance Dance - Murakami
    
40. The House of Sleep - Jonathan Coe
    
41. The Brooklyn Follies - Paul Auster
42. Travels in the Scriptorium - Paul Auster
43. Timbuktu - Paul Auster
44. Mr Vertigo - Paul Auster
45. The Trial - Kafka
    
46. The Maze of Cadiz
47. The Book of Illusions - Paul Auster
48. To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
    
49. Moon Palace - Paul Auster
50. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
    
51. Drown - Junot Diaz

BNP want BST for all-time.

Nick Griffin has pledged to keep British Summer Time if he is elected PM. Speaking to no-one in particular in an underpass the outspoken Euro-MP allegedly said: “I think I speak for a great number of people when I say I am outraged at the end of British Summer Time on Sunday. It’s another victory for the EU-sympathisers on the loony left. Time is part of what made this country great and by giving away our rights to our, historically pure British Time, it is the white, middle-class people of this country who are the ones to suffer. As they are time and time again. Ha Ha, do you get that?"

In a final flash of inspiration Mr Griffin added, “In fact, if I had my way, I’d rename it Great British Summer Time. Yeah, that'd show them.”

P is for...

People

There are too many people. On Saturday due to 50,000 plus people going to watch 22 other people kick a ball around I couldn't get into a tube station, so had to walk home. I had to walk around people all the way, old, young, thin, fat, all of them. People everywhere. But I know we need these people. We need them to make food, to pull pints, to stop crime, to monitor the shipping lanes, to create adverts, to service heating systems, to referee snooker matches, to help ease the passage of other people into this world, to send people out of this world with dignity, and all the other things that we need to have done so the planet spin along through space. It's good, that we've found so many things for people to do.

In John Gray's Straw Dogs he makes the point that while advancements in agriculture, and subsequently industry, may have allowed us to support larger population, it didn't allow us to support these populations to a higher degree of happiness, or contentment. It merely meant once there existed the ability to make more food, we were able to 'create' more people to eat it. And so it goes.

Moving home is so sad

I moved this weekend. Not far, just a few streets really. Something about moving makes me strangely sad though. In fact it’s not the moving, it’s the unpacking. I think it’s because while unpacking you come across so many reminders of things, and most of these seem to be tinged with pathos.

The main thing seems to be finding things that have been bought for you – DVDs, shirts, books etc – that you rarely use, or have never used. Shirts that I’ve worn once, or DVDs I got for Christmas remain untouched, and somehow this just makes me feel bad, as if I’m just accumulating things that I don’t really need, that other people have bought for me with their own hard-earned money.

Not only that but there are so many other items; tickets, photos etc, that you come across as you move and unpack that remind you of times gone by, even if they were happy, and it just makes me melancholic to think of them. Something to do with the passing of time perhaps?

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me.

13 minutes to go

I usually blog during lunch - it's less frowned upon you see; but some days I read the paper, or a book, or go for a wander. Today, I have done none of these things and yet haven't blogged (yet). I have just 13 official minutes left to write about something and I can sense these parcels of time slipping through my fingers.

Time is a funny thing isn't it? This time last week I was back at home in Cornwall enjoying a nice pasty lunch with my brother and mother; all the time I was at home, eking out the last days of my obligatory two weeks off, I was conscious of trying to really appreciate the lack of work, of being able to wake up when I chose and generally just being at home in the countryside, miles from the reality of everything else; yet I knew it was futile, knowing time was on it's way, in its 'winged chariot, hurrying near'.

That's the thing isn't it - when time is precious it seems to hurtle by, when it's not, it just plods dutifully on; the time between each snooze alarm is surely the shortest time in the world? Yet to a night-worker waiting for that last 10 minutes to pass, it must be the longest. Einstein was more of a philosopher than he realised (or perhaps he did realise).

How can you stop time doing this to you? Accept it or ignore it? Come to enjoy the dull ache of dragging yourself from your bed as just another sequence of seconds to be lived through? Or should you just make your millions as quickly as possible in order to retire and spend your time getting up at whenever-the-hell-you-like o' clock?

And yet...when you do have unending time on your hands, you become restless, tired, lethargic, frustrated, all for the want of something to do; a reason to wake and rise and head out - feeling your own time is being wasted through inactivity; the very flip side of that feeling of being forced to wake everyday with regularity at 7:20am. Why fight time?

Time though is not real. We have invented it. Terms like 'noon' and 'quarter past six' are words imposed on the positions of planets and stars. That's all it is. A way to agree upon the position of the Earth in relation to the Sun so we can make sure we are at the correct place at the correct time. We need to know when to meet trains so we had to invent these terms sooner or later I suppose.

And that was my 13 minutes of blogging; you can write a lot in 13 minutes - a blog that talks about time and Einstein and trains (how relatively relevant) - but time ticks on and so even as I wrote it passed on to 13:59. Soon it will be 17:30, then 22:59, then 13:00 once again and then Christmas, then the Olympics om 2012, and then...and on it goes.

Days

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin

Run for the hills

For the first time in 3 and a bit weeks I laced on my running shoes, strapped on my fancy Garmin watch, and hit the road. With a 10km coming up at the end of August in Cornwall (a tough, hilly 10k that could, with the weather we're having, be a mudfest) I felt it was better to try to get back to peak fitness as soon as possible to make the efforts of going sub 45m on such a tough course a possibility - my 42.20 in Richmond seems a long time ago now.

I set off at a steady pace, finding my feet again, enjoying the evening sun and the music in my ears. After about 2km I was feeling good so picked up the pace a little to around 4.50m per km, but after another 1km or so, had to ease up again as it was starting to give me a stitch. After about 4.5km though the pain eased off and I once again started to increase the pace. There were quite a high number of other runners out and about too so it was good to be able to spot someone in the distance and either try and reel them in, or at least use them as a pace marker (albeit one that was a long way away).

After 6.5km I decided to head for home so followed my route back and. My watch showed I finished on 7.3km in 35.52. About 5m per kilometre. Not bad considering it was the first for a while. But I'll need to be up to 4.30 per km if I'm to hit 45m in Cornwall - and that's on a much harder course. But with 29 days left to train, I'm confident it can be done.

---

In other news - about half way through Leviathan and I have to say it's rapidly turning into one of the best books I have read in a long time. I'll finish it before I write too much more.

Raining on the parade

A lot can happen in 45 minutes: you could boil 15 eggs in a row. Iraq could have launched weapons of massive destruction at the West. You could run 10km. Well, I had never managed that, despite three valiant efforts previously, I had always fallen short in the 47m period. However, on a humid, rain soaked Saturday morning in Richmond park I finally beat the 45 minute mark finishing in a time of 42m 20s.

This time placed me 10th from 90 runners and 9th of the male runners. The race was won by a women in 38.23.

It was a diverse run (route here): undulating through paths for the first two kilometres then, heading mostly downhill, on a path running alongside the main road for the next two km before the final kilometre over grass back to the start / finish area, and the whole thing repeated for the second lap. Having set off at a fair whack I used the downhill of kilometres 3 and 4 to keep this speed before easing through 5 to 8, before pushing on over the last two km, again using the hill to kick the speed back up.

Having been aiming to beat 45m it was good to so comprehensively pass that time. However, on telling my time to a friend who had ran too (45.30) he said, 'oh, you could go sub 40 on a flat course; like at Clapham!'

Oh dear.