another long run

It looks like I was right about Steve Bracks. He was leaving, he has left, and he is no more. By that I mean of course he’s no longer the Premier. I assume he still exists, perhaps somewhere out Williamstown way, but I can’t be sure.

In the few days since the big announcement, there’s been an orderly transition, a couple of incident-free meetings and a lot of hard work, one assumes, on the part of various journalists to write anything remotely interesting about the man’s time in power.

It’s pretty hard to get excited about Bracks, either for or against.

Now Jeff Kennett, there was a man who was, shall we say, fraught with interest. I remember once he stepped out in front of me in Spring street and, unthinkingly, I swerved to miss him.

It’s one of my life’s great regrets. If I had my time again, Jeffrey Gibb Kennett might today be nothing more than a faded splotch on the tarmac outside the treasury buildings.

Still, that may not have been entirely a good thing: he does seem to have mellowed in recent years. “Almost human” is probably a fair description, leaving aside the horrid Hawthorn jacket episode.

After Kennett, a little boredom seemed exactly what the doctor ordered. As is often the case, as a state we should have been a bit more careful what we wished for. As an affable, harmless, smiley bloke in speedos, Bracks was fine. If you wanted something to get your political heart-rate up, no such luck.

Running
A 33k long run (here it is on mapmyrun.com) on Saturday afternoon, which extended into the early-evening darkness and the video store.

There’s something nasty about finishing your run in the gathering gloom; something desperate, something depressing.

Stopping at the video store has a similar affect. It could be something to do with having to stand in line sandwiched between fatsos loaded up with enough Cheetos to bury an elephant and a teenage boy clutching a life-time supply of Adam Sandler movies.

Now, before you say anything, I’m not having a go at our more corporeally blessed individuals. There’s nothing wrong with Cheetos. I just wish they had’ve given some to me!

I am however intentionally being snide about Adam Sandler. I don’t think well of the man, and even less of his cinematic oeuvre.

Last night pulled up okay, so had a fast-ish tempo session through the surrounding streets. 10k or so.

evolution

In religious news (I bet you didn’t expect that!): Pope Benedict has admitted there is “substantial evidence” for evolution.

He went on to say:

…(evolution) appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.

Admittedly, for some of us, not of the Cathological faith, this ain’t exactly news. In fact, in some circles, evolution has been accepted for the best part of 200 years. Still, it’s good to see the church progressing into a new century, even if it’s the 19th, not the 21st.

Now he’s opened the evolutionary can of worms, I would be interested in hearing his thoughts on where the book of Genesis fits into the whole scheme of things. Does the whole god created the universe in 6 days story “appear as reality that we must see”?

Also, how about that bit where Eve gets whacked together out of Adam’s rib? How was that one done? Ditto, Jonah and the whale, was that a scientific reality?

In other news, he also suggested “there might be something in that gravity idea”, “Gallileo wasn’t so stupid after all” and church sources suggest a major new statement may be forthcoming on the issue of the earth being round.

Another related story I noted at the time but neglected to mention: Benedict said publicly that the Protestant faith was “not a proper church”. Apparently they suffer from a “wound” because they don’t accept the authority of, guess who, Benedict.

That’s a little like Essendon saying Hawthorn aren’t a proper football team because they don’t accept the authority of Kevin Sheedy.

Good one.

Steve Bracks
As I write this, I’m hearing early reports that he’s going to resign. I initially thought someone must have told him the Labor Party wasn’t a proper party because it didn’t acknowledge the authority of John Howard, but that’s probably not true. Or, is it?

Running
Possibly a run at lunch-time.

bloody football

I gen’rally try to avoid if I can
AFL in all shapes and all forms
In Melbourne at least if you manage this feat
You look kinda strange and forlorn.

Today it seems harder than ever before
with seventeen pages of wrap-around news
of sacking the coach of one football team
to which I say “Kevin Shee-who?”

“Sheeds” so it seems, was a bit of a lad
if you ask your friends they’ll call him “character”
but all that he did was wave his jacket
around and that seems a bit average

I know that last line, it didn’t quite rhyme
but I promise I’m trying to make up this time
for all my past crimes, and with one long line,
make some sort of sign that I’m able to find
a line with nine rhymes for “malign”

There, is that better?

Running
12.25k this lunchtime, including a couple of laps of Princess Park. Quite a good run, no great hassles. The 0.25 is there just to make up for yesterday’s 14.92k. I made sure I ran the last few metres through the lobby at work. I had to push an old lady over to do it, but who cares.

She probably had it coming.

yum cha and nutrigrain

A combination of a big yum cha lunch and an overly warm office left me feeling somewhat fat and contented yesterday afternoon: so much so that a humorous rant against hairdressers seemed in order.

This was a mistake.

Much like the super-groovy “hair sculptor” who decided she should give me a parabolic fringe (don’t ask), the revenge of the hair-dresser’s guild was again swift and subtle.

Don’t ask how, but somehow they contrived to make me lose my passkey at work, so I ended up locked in the lift-well, forlornly hoping for someone to come and let me out. In the end I was forced to make a humiliating phone call to my boss to come let me out.

Also, I missed the train, meaning I had to stand at Ringwood station for 10 minutes, never a wholly enjoyable experience.

If there are any young men out there starting in life, let this be a lesson to you: never diss hairdressers. They have powers.

Running
After the somewhat dramatic homeward journey, a peaceful run seemed in order. Well, it was a run, but peaceful wasn’t really the word.

I had a strange sensation of being somehow off balance in the first 5ks. ’twas very strange, like my legs were brand new. After then the hills kicked in and I didn’t have time to think about technicalities like swapped-over legs.

I do like hills, strangely. I get all aggro, urging myself onwards with “Feel the burn” type slogans. I’ve even been known to let out an anguished roar, like the sound those kids from Nutri-Grain ads make when someone gives them the wrong cereal.

This is why I run alone. At night.

It worked out to be 14.92, according to mapmyrun. I kinda wish I ran an extra 8 metres. Damnit.

hair

Andrew over at AJH has got me thinking about haircuts.

Oh joy.

There’s nothing I like more than getting my hair cut. No – really; I love it. I don’t know what it is, the decor, the hair all over the floor, the trashy magazines, the conversation (“d’you go anywhere nice for your holidays love?” “No, bugger off”) the people who don’t understand the concept of “just half an inch off”. I could go on and on.

And I will.

I used to try to break the monotony by giving a false name, false job etcetera and bull-shitting my way through the whole awful experience. I found it passed the time nicely pretending to be Barry the builder from Broadmeadows; really into V8 supercars and kick-boxing. Then one day in a “Supercuts” in some outer suburban shopping-centre, I had a sort of epiphany by way of an unexpected reflection in a window, and realised telling porky-pies in a shopping centre was a bit too sad for words.

Now, in summer I just stick to the script – “Number 2, all over. Straight across the back. Thanks”, and a nasty glare that says “don’t even try to make conversation”.

The razor cut has the added benefit of cutting down the daily hair-preparation time to an absolute minimum.

It doesn’t work so well in winter though, when I require a bit more foliage to protect the old boof-head. In winter I just let them cut it any-old-how. It never stays in any one style for longer than 5 minutes anyway, at least not intentionally. So I don’t care.

Incidentally, why do they bother showing you the back of your head? I don’t give a stuff what it looks like – I can’t see it!

the lurgy is over

Ahh, “lurgy”. It’s not the nicest word is it? There’s something about it that reminds me of that instant just before vomiting.

Lurgy

Still, it’s appropriate.

Thankfully, last week’s sickness has more or less departed the scene. The chest is back to normal and the nose has resumed normal service. Thanks to all readers who left messages of support through my ordeal.

Yesterday I even went as far as a long run, taking in such local sights as the Arndale Centre Video Busters, the back of Bunnings in Bayswater and a good portion of Dorset Road. Lovely.

As I was still in the tail end of the aforementioned cold, there seemed little point in pushing the pace. The whole thing was done “on feel”. Not surprisingly, my body “felt” like running fairly slowly, especially at first. 31k in 2hrs 20. The route is on Mapmyrun.

Poetry
I haven’t jettisoned my new-found interest in poetry, despite the above lapse into prose. During the run yesterday I amused myself by trying to pick out the metre in the various song lyrics on the old empythree player.

Leonard Cohen has some good stuff, as one would expect from a singer who was originally a published poet:

If by chance I wake at night and ask you who I am,
Oh take me to the slaughterhouse, I’ll wait there with the lamb

And Dylan:

At dawn my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams
with no attempt to shovel a glimpse into the ditch of what each one means

That last line gets a bit out of hand. That’s okay, it’s Dylan, and Dylan can do whatever he likes.

pox

The new style is on hold today, I’m afraid. Much as I would like to serve up a beautiful example of trochaic tetrameter extolling the virtues of various running spots across Melbourne, I’m afraid it can’t be done.

“Why,” you ask? Well, mainly for one reason:

I’ve been gripped by some sort of pox or plague that has made running next to impossible. It’s most difficult to do the daily dozen when your nose is doing a slightly viscous impersonation of Niagara Falls and your chest feels like an acorn being stood on by an elephant.

When I say “elephant” I don’t mean one of those lithe schoolgirl-figured elephants you sometimes see, I mean a big one.

So, I’ve been sick, and in true male style I’ve been a complete sook about it; whining, moaning and generally spreading the love and/or snot around the place.

And I haven’t felt like reading anything serious. I got to the bit in Stephen Fry’s book about poems that are written so that they appear in a diamond shape on the page. I confess at the point I quailed, quaked and mentally did an impression of a Ricki Lake guest:

Enough!!! Talk to the hand, the face don’t wanna know

writ-
-ting a
poem that
looks a groovy
shape is the
stupidest
thing ev-
-er.

It’s the missing link between writing and soduku. Like the other missing link, it’s inarticulate, composed mostly of grunts and, if it had knuckles, would surely drag them along the ground.

A prize for the first person to write in the with the correct, technical name for that sort of poem.

new style

I didn’t run today because of rain
but deny strongly it was ’cause of pain
that dogged my hips and knee so much last May
and left my marathon in disarray

Notice anything yet? That’s right, no more prose, finely-crafted or otherwise, today I’m experimenting with the medium of poetry, or poesy as you might say if you were the kind of kid who got beaten up on the play-ground.

This has been inspired by a lovely book by Stephen Fry with, ironically for such a well written book, a name that is possibly the worst pun this side of Fleet street, The Ode Less Travelled. But, moving on:

Another story caught my eye today
Cockroaches, pigeons in a restaurant
in Chinatown. I’m terrified to say
I’ve had lunch there a few times and I thought
“it’s not so bad” (including Peking Duck
cooked in a kitchen smothered in black muck).

Whooo, this is hard work, this verse business. If you have some experience with this stuff, you’ll recognise the two snatches of doggerel above as iambic pentameter, admittedly of a fairly low standard and arguably slumping into the trochaic late in the piece.

Poetry, as you might expect from a pastime mostly concerned with words, has some wonderful jargon. It’s far better than running with its “intervals” and “fartlek” (ugly word). How about this:

alexandrine: A line of iambic hexameter, typically found in English as the last line of a Spenserian Stanza or similar pentametric verse arrangement

So now you know. Also:

anacreontics: Short-lined (often seven-syllable trochaics), celebrating erotic love, wine and pleasure.

and

ictus: the unit of stress within a foot

Use them at your next party, I’m sure you’ll impress your friends and acquaintances. Just be careful – ictus isn’t about your actual foot. It’s a poetic term.

It’s all very exciting. Tomorrow I might try something in the heptameter vein, or possibly hexameter or even haiku. Perhaps even some Gerard Manley Hopkins-style sprung rhythm, although I’ll probably only manage about one post a year, and that would be pretty much unintelligible.