Run London Training Run #1

I started my Run London training in the pissing rain in Victoria Park yesterday, and thought I ought to record the results (as posted on the Run London website).

Distance: 5K
Time: 00:25:22
Average pace: 11.83kph
Predicted 10K time: 51mins

The general idea is that, over time, this predicted time will go down; we’ll see…
I got absolutely soaked to the bone while running, quite ridiculously wet. Having a quick look on a weather website it seems like I might have to get used to that - we’re going on holiday tomorrow, and here’s the forecast:

Gorilla Run

I’m thinking about entering The Great Gorilla Run, a 7K run (or walk) around London wearing a gorilla suit in aid of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund. Unfortunately, the entrance fee is a little steep at £100, although you do get to keep the suit afterwards!
I’ve approached everyone else in my company (via email, natch) to see if anyone wants to join me, but no-one has replied. I’ve also enquired as to whether the company might consider sponsorship if entrants wear t-shirts with the company logo on it - but I’ve yet to hear anything back on that front either…
Appearances can be deceptive; for an organisation that relies pretty much solely on high profile marketing, we aren’t half a miserable apathetic bunch when we don’t have a drink inside us.

Cool stuff

Now and again, when I’m f**king about on the Interweb, I spot cool things. Sometimes I find them myself, other times they find me. Anyway, here’s a few that came my way today:

Speedtest - ever wondered just how fast your connection is? Are you a more visual kind of guy/gal than a white-text-on-black-background kind of dweeb? If the answer is yes to either of those questions, you should check this out.
USB Oil Burner - do your colleagues smell? Do you work better when the air smells of flowers/patchouli ? If the answer is yes to either of those questions, you need one of these.
Laptop bag - If you’ve ever felt like a bit of a target/nerd walking down the street hauling your Dell branded, faux-leather carry-all. Here’s the answer. Very nice, but while the muggers might turn a blind eye, don’t expect homophobes will too if you’re a guy carrying one of these…
Yes - ever wondered what music all those Americans are listening to while they hunker down in their homeland and wait for the “terrorist threat” to subside? Well, now you know: it’s Natalie Imbruglia!
Devil Dog: (with picture) An unidentified animal found dead in Maine, USA, is believed to be the Androscoggin Beast. Residents of Androscoggin County have been hearing “chilling animal cries” since 1991, with sightings of an animal with glowing red eyes who apparently mauled a doberman and a rottweiler to death.

Grrrr…

I am not a happy bunny this evening, and what’s more I can’t discuss it - because people get sacked for that sort of thing. And anyway, I took a vow many moons ago never to mention work on my blog because about 50% of my readership work there

It’s just as well I’ve got a nice holiday pending really - a nice holiday by, and on, the sea; listening to the waves lapping gently against the shore and the hull of the boat. An opportunity to relax, reassess life in general, and get horribly arseholed on a regular basis.
Boy, if ever I needed a holiday…

- oh, and I’ve just put a Tony Parsons book on eBay. Fittingly, it’s worth bugger all.

After the rain, comes the Flood.

Bit of a nightmare day today. I pulled the plug on the bath this morning only to hear screams coming from downstairs and Z. screaming for a bucket - water was flooding from the kitchen ceiling and pouring out of the light sockets. Given our recent problems with bathroom drainage, we decided it would be a good idea to call an emergency plumber and so I called Thames Water (emergencyplumber #1). The woman at TW responded to my explanation of events [quote] “ooohh, that’s all I can say to that: oooh”. I bit my lip. She took my name, address, and phone number and provided lots of long silences; then asked if I lived in a house or a flat. Flat. “oh we don’t cover flats, only houses”. I put the phone down and called 118118.

Desktop goes under the hammer…

I’ve begun the process of selling my desktop PC on eBay to part fund the new laptop I’ve decided to buy. Our flat isn’t really big enough for a sprawling desktop with cables and stuff everywhere, and it’d be quite nice to be able to watch movies in bed on a laptop. In all likelihood I won’t get anything like the price I originally paid for my desktop, which I built myself, but if I can lessen the wallet pain induced by the Vaio I’ve got my eye on, it’ll be a worthwhile venture…
The P4 Shuttle XPC and IIyama monitor will go online as soon as I get round to photographing them and writing them up for eBay…

Avast! Landlubbers!

Preparations for our holidays have reached an advanced stage with this morning’s delivery of my Ring Of Fire. Pirate hats and eyepatches should also be in the post and J.’s parrot with ‘realistic feather detail’ and ’shoulder attachment’ is imminent. We’re undecided about whether or not to buy snorkelling equipment before we set off, or just buy some from a beachfront shop once we’re there. I think I’ll grab some off the eBay, then at least it’s done and dusted.
We all got together last night for an organisational BBQ round at J&B’s - the plan was to get an hotel booked for the first night in Split, get an itinerary sorted, and generally decide where we’re going to drop anchor and who’s going to be first to walk the plank. It didn’t quite work out like that: after a couple of bottles of fizz, beer, and whiskies we put on some music, played our favourite tunes and discussed what playlists everyone should put on their iPods, as well as what cables we might need to take in order to plug in to the ship’s sound system. We then decided we needed to buy a flying bat-thing. And that’s about as far as we got.

Weapons of cuticle destruction…

While everyone else is muttering darkly about ‘foiled terrist plots’, this post by Damian on littleredboat just made me snigger:

The confiscation of nail clippers has always puzzled me.
If I’m on a plane that is hijacked by someone armed with nail
clippers, and I make no attempt to prevent it, then I deserve to die.

How could anyone disagree with that ?

Total number of articles about the Lebanon/Israeli crisis in today’s BBC news RSS feed: 1
Total number of articles about foiled bombplots in today’s BBC news RSS feed: 9

@see also: Old Trafford Bomb Plot, North London Ricin Plot, and ‘Shoot First, Ask Questions Later’ policy for those on tube trains and stairwells.
Oh, look! Over there! A puppy!!

all my crap for sale

I’ve got loads and loads of stuff sitting at home that I need to get onto eBay to fund my drug habit upcoming holidays, there’s tons of books, CD’s, camera equipment (lenses, tripods, cameras), some barely worn pairs of trainers, a flatscreen monitor, a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and my Shuttle XPC. I’ve taken photo’s of much of it, but it’s always such a drag typing it all in, and making the listing look all purty so as to draw in all those mugs punters. I’ll get round to it soon - promise.
In the meantime, I’ve relisted a couple of previously unsold items: a Miss Van t-shirt, and a copy of Hollywood Babylon II. What? you don’t currently own a Miss Van t-shirt, and you haven’t read Hollywood Babylon II (sequel to ‘Hollywood Babylon‘ , natch) ?? How have you managed to survive this long ?

Shitty Weekend

Not the most exciting of weekends… I got home on Friday to discover that the toilet in the flat was blocked and was taking about twenty minutes to drain. It’s happened before, and usually all it takes is a quick poke around the ubend with a coat-hanger and maybe a kettle or two of boiling water. Not this time, however. So, after fishing out all the (let’s call them ‘elephants’) elephants and other assorted ‘oomska’, I found myself pouring the best part of a litre of sulphuric acid down the pan on Saturday morning - which did nothing but stink the flat out with the smell of burning ‘elephants’. Nice. On Sunday morning I went to B&Q Leyton and bought a 6′ drain clearing device and spent some time down the pan with that, discovering a blockage about 5′ down the pipe; after which we were down to a pan-drain-time of 2 minutes. So -off to B&Q Greenwich for a ‘drain buster’.
…anyway - this is all very dull I’m sure - so now it’s Monday morning and I’m down to a drain time of about 20 seconds, but still with insufficient power to pull away a fold of toilet tissue. Emptying the bathroom sink now also causes water to come out of the bath plughole - which can’t be right. I’m going to give it one more go tonight, then I’m calling the plumbers. Life’s too short.