Nature Is Trying To Tell Me Something ... And I'm Not Going To Listen

Hamstring is better. It's official. I've been out running on it  a fair bit recently. Trouble is I was well into my fourth mile the other day, feeling not a little chuffed with myself, when the sodding, bleeding, buggering calf muscle went again. That's it, the self same injury I was whinging about last summer and which transported me to the acupuncturist. Give up Dave, give up - that seems to be Mother Nature's message to the Roberts' body. But we will not give in so easily. If running is going to cause these breakdowns I have a simple solution - I will train for my triathlon by swimming and cycling only and trust that my legs will stand up to the strain of the actual day. I am not old. I am not old. I am stupid but I AM NOT OLD.



Bert from Sesame Street
Working Class Hero

 I received a letter the other day from this bloke I've never met but who nonetheless feels comfortable enough to address me 'Dear David.' Cheeky young whipper-snapper. Anyway it seems this bloke desperately wants to know what my priorities are and is going to do something about them 'For you, your family and your friends.' I am touched that he should be so concerned. So here is the list of what I want Ed Milliband (for it is he who has so importuned me)

• I would like people not to take it for granted that they may use my christian name unbidden. I do actually prefer to be addressed by it but I also like the politeness implicit in asking first.
• I would very much like to live in a country that believes social mobility can be a matter of upward aspiration rather than something achieved by resenting and choking high achievement so as to elevate the status of the politburo.
• I would like to be a citizen of a country that is not compelled to underwrite the bailing-out of basket-case economies such as Portugal.
• I would like to live in a country that held some gold reserves and not one that sold at the bottom of the market.
• I would like to be governed by politicians who strive beyond a fixation with class. Your snide remarks in your Budget response about the Chancellor's skiing holiday were monumentally pathetic. Lifelong politicos like you Ed make comically poor class warriors. Didn't they learn you nothing at Oxford. Ooh sorry there's that chip on my shoulder showing.
• I would like to be left alone to live my life in accordance with my conscience and not one dictated to me by anyone else, least of all you Ed (or is it Edward in fact?)

So Mr Milliband I will not be taking up your invitation to 'keep talking' but you are free to read The Overgraduate any time you like. When you bump into Vince Cable, David Cameron or any of the rest of the shameful crew of the good ship Britain please pass on Mr Roberts' regards and ask them ever so politely to make sure they leave space in the lifeboats for the rest of us. Oh and can you please sort out my calf injury as part of Health Service reforms. If you do that you can have my single transferable vote as many times as I'm allowed to give it.