58 Days To Shape Up

It was back on the mountain bike today - in the tipping rain which made the obligatory Oakleys a little silly but I've got 'em so I wear 'em. Besides it is a scientific fact that they make you go faster. I ended with thighs screaming at me and sunglasses specked with road dirt. If all goes well I am aiming to run for the first time in almost three weeks tomorrow morning. Watch this space.

What else? Well I have been doing a lot of thinking about my future and therefore immersing myself in the labyrinth that is the professional regulation of solicitors. All I want is to be able to do a little bit of work for selected commercial clients. Such small ambition seems to be frowned upon. Again, watch this space.

59 Days To Shape Up - An Uncomfortable Yet Comforting Ride

I laughed in the face of ill-fortune and took the Precious Bike out for a spin this morning. Drumroll - no punctures. The discomfort I refer to in the title was from the decrepit state of the roads juddering up through the highly inflated tyres via the frame. Result - sore derriere. The comforting effect comes from the knowledge/hope that I am free of the bane of constant deflation. And I'll tell you this - that final hill is several degrees easier on the Precious. For tomorrow's ride I am going to revert to the mountain bike and get that righteous burn in the thighs.

Here's something I didn't think I'd be saying - I heard that Andy Burnham/Scott Tracy dealing sensibly and illuminatingly with questions on Radio 4 at lunchtime. Instinctively I am not a fan of the franchise being extended to 16 year olds but I have to grant that there is an appeal to Burnham's soundbite "If you're old enough to be exploited by Sports Direct on a zero hours contract then you're old enough to vote." This is that rarity - a crafted soundbite that actually prefaces a serious debate.

Ed explains the voting system

I have avoided any lengthy pondering of the Labour leadership election, comparing interest in the event  to an intrusion into private grief. However it is now getting very arresting. Only now is it becoming clear to the dozy apparatchiks that they have somnambulated themselves into an existential fight for the life of the party as an electable proposition. All of this comes as a parting gift from the disastrous Ed Miliband whose legacy fittingly includes, or possibly comprises nothing other than, the plain daft voting system. So we now have the other candidates piqued into action by the prospect of actually losing to Jeremy Corbyn - a figure notably antediluvian in his policies and his friendships, Hamas, the IRA etc etc. Corbyn is a reminder of the student left of my youth, the sort who would miss an exam rather than miss the chance to throw eggs at Margaret Thatcher. I didn't make that up by the way, it actually happened with one bizarrely admirable loon of my acquaintance. Golden days.  

62 Days To Shape Up

Sixty-two days as of yesterday, that is how long we have until the Royal Parks Half Marathon. That is how long Big Fat Pig has to get himself into some sort of shape. Things had been going passably well until les grandes vacances took us westward, whereat BFP ate way too much and then came home to re-injure the wretched calf muscle. So BFP took to the Precious Bike (I think it is a proper noun so we will dignify it with commencing capitals) and promptly won the world puncture championships. So BFP brought the old, nay very old, mountain bike out of retirement and, touch wood, that is going quite well thank you. Indeed things are looking up generally. The wonders of chiropractic science (or is it an art) have been exercised upon me twice in the last two weeks and the pains I brought back as extra baggage from Vancouver have dissipated. And better yet, the bike doctor has diagnosed a bad case of under-inflation as the cause of the punctures. Thus the Precious is back in the garage and raring to go and BFP has a lovely new stand pump so that he can accurately measure inflation. BFP is also toying with a return to running. Baby steps only. For now swimming is off the agenda because the school holidays make the baths tiresome.

Equipment sorted

I pushed myself quite hard on the mountain bike yesterday following the measured route that I used to use on the Precious. I'm about 25% slower on the mountain bike and the final hill is definitely more of an achievement on the heavier machine, but I managed to propel myself all the way up it both yesterday and today and even managed a ninety second improvement over yesterday's time. I actually feel a lot fitter already, but bloody hungry mind - and I could kill for a glass of red wine. No pain, no gain, Pig.  

… Are Brilliant Mark XIX

Cycling. Most particularly without the constant fear of puncture. The old mountain bike may weigh half a ton but it feels bomb-proof compared to the precious, which latter has gone for residential therapy to my favourite bike doctor, John Bedford at Park Cycles.

Soft herring roes - I am only allowed to prepare this economical treat when Sharon is out, on account of the smell. She doesn't know what she's missing. £1.35 a tin in Sainsbury's. Bloody bargain.

Winning the Ashes. Don't let the naysayers convince you that somehow England's unexpected victory is massively less noteworthy than that of predecessors from some supposed golden age. Four weeks ago most sane commentators gave England no chance. What we have witnessed is the mental disintegration of a brittle Australian side and, moreover, that disintegration achieved without recourse to the coarseness ("sledging") excused as professionalism that Steve Waugh (an estimable cricketer just below the peak of greatness) used to encourage. Mind you we needn't be too prissy about Waugh because he has had numerous poor English imitators.

Days Of Wonder

OG forced to withdraw
 previous comments

I have spent today pootling around getting one of the cars (Rachel's precious Fifi, not the precious Jag) fixed and all the time keeping an ear to the radio or an eye on the television.  Australia 60 all out (yes that is correct, 60 all out) and, as I type, England already a good deal more than one hundred ahead. Stuart Broad (and yes I hold my hands up I did in the past call him a show pony) took 8 for 15. Bloody brilliant. It's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, cricket's coming home.

I've bored you all to death about American standards of service so it is only right that I should shout just as loud when the British get it right.

The today that was has become today's yesterday. By which I mean that I was disturbed at the end of the last paragraph and that it is now the morning after the night before as I resume. And by now England are 250+ ahead but losing wickets all of a clatter this morning. Surely we cannot snatch defeat from the jaws of this victory.

Back to that question of service and, not for the first time I have to commend National Tyre Service at Mere Green who sorted out the exhaust on Fifi. A very loud mention also for the staff at Cambaz the Turkish grill in Sutton Coldfield. We dined there for the first time on Tuesday and if we had encountered it in Oregon I would most likely have raved about it so  will do the same here. Top grade chicken in particular, enjoyed by both OG and the Groupie. Cambaz

I took the precious bike out for a spin this morning and managed about two hundred yards before another sodding puncture. Precious though it may be I am temporarily retiring the machine and will get it booked in for a service and hopefully a diagnosis of the cause. Instead I hauled my ancient mountain bike (vintage 1997) out from the back of the garage and did my old timed loop which I used to do as part of my training pre ownership of the precious. According to the watch (which doesn't lie) I am about 15% less fit than I was in those good old days. The factor I try to ignore is that I am also a meaningful amount older. Eheu tempus fugit.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Those keys (see yesterday's extended whinge) were on the work surface in the kitchen and therefore visible from the very table at which I sit to blog. The burning question is - who put them there? As Shaggy would have it, it wasn't me.

J'accuse

I've been out on the precious bike this morning with decent results. I wasn't on the road for too long but at least I avoided yet another puncture, something about which the sorry state of our roads has made me paranoid. Am I carrying too much weight (don't answer that) or, more plausibly, am I the sad victim of a conspiracy between the Highways Agency and the manufacturers of cycle inner tubes? I think we should be told.

I've just heard a replay on Radio 4 of the moment when Ed Balls' defeat at the polls was announced. May the road rise with you in a similar manner.

Oh Woe Is Me

One of those frustrating days today. I went out for a run and at pretty much the same point into the run (indeed on the same stretch of road) as when last out, the calf started to tighten up. I walked in but I could really do without this interruption to training that had hitherto gone pretty well.

One man went to mow

Anyway I wasn't going to let this setback get in the way of wheeling out the precious petrol mower and re-striping the lawn. But what did get in the way was the absence of the keys to open the door from garage to back garden. Since I am the only one who uses that door I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I must have lost them, but I will not completely abandon the search for somebody else to blame. Not just yet.

Uttering foul imprecations (etymological note to self: is there any other sort of imprecation) I had to move the precious bike, manoeuvre the precious mower around the precious Jag and then drag the precious mower through the gravel on the drive before negotiating the side entrance to the garden. Then it bloody well rained. Then it bloody well stopped and I was able to mow the lawn. Altogether a bit of a fag but the results are quite pleasing.

I had decided that yesterday's mot du jour was to be 'cant' but in the end I rejected it because, on more measured analysis, the specimens that were exciting my ire probably lacked the full blast of hypocrisy. I've been seeking an alternative but I'm afraid I've come up with nothing better than 'drivel'. The first instance was the plain blather of our esteemed Minister for Housing, one Brandon Lewis. It gives me no pleasure to report that this man holds a degree from King's. Still he was not the worst (or indeed most important) culprit in the news because St Barack of Obama was at it again yesterday. With his best "Trust me I'm a lawyer" face on he announced that something must be done about global warming and that it needs to be done - by somebody else. Now I think about it, Obama probably got closer to cant than poor old Brandon Lewis whose major offence was to have drawn the short straw of defending the government's symbolic and meaningless legislation to make private landlords do the job of the Home Office.

If you know where those keys are could you let me know soonest. I can't go through this rigmarole every time I want to mow the lawn.

Ooh, if you want some good news - I played golf again last Friday (I had the course to myself at Baron Hill) and played the best I can remember for years. I believe I have detected a pattern to this - I play strongly every decade.