diglett

And here we go with the first of the 2016 Post Mortem entries, my top ten songs of 2016. This is mainly a celebration of the fact that for once I listened to some music that was released after 2004.

7. Anne-Marie - Alarm (Marshmello mix)

I've always been a sucker for a wild boy

Anne-Marie is best known for that awful saccharine song about single parents but this is a stomping masterpiece, a furious whirlwind on the topic of That Moment when you realise that your significant other's behaviour does not quite add up. This remix builds and explodes like a real-life alarm.


6. 3teeth - Atrophy

All I see is vanity and I don't want to be

3teeth have brought back that 1990s guitar industrial sound with a modern twist. This is a seething song with a shout-it-out chorus that somehow manages to be simitaneously catchy and cacophonous. This is a fabulous video too, it's somewhere between a riot and an orgy with a load of latex, riot police, moustaches and John Lennon glasses milling around in a place that looks like Slimelight.


5. Gnash ft Olivia O'Brien - I love u I hate u

You ever wonder what we could have been?
You said you wouldn't and you fucking did.

My friends' children all love this song which probably means everyone else reading this will hate it. Admittedly, it's a rap ballad duet, but it's no Emilie Sande dirge. Clever lyrics and a melancholy refrain... and great for putting on repeat when you've just been dumped. I have just noticed that Gnash and the singer from 3teeth look a bit alike too.


4. Alien - Starboy

Look what you've done -
I'm a motherfucking starboy!

The original version of this song (by The Weeknd) only came out this year, and could easily have made this list had my favourite X Factor rejects not come along and done it even better. Also check out the running-mix friendly James Hype remix. I have no idea what this song is about and it has so much swearing in it it doesn't really make any sense when they play it on the radio, but I don't care.


3. Faderhead - Like A Rocket

She rocks like a rocket, she's hot like the sun, she's cool like ice and too much fun!

This is a track from this year's FH-X album which breaks the Faderhead mould a bit. The Faderhead back catalogue can basically be divided into "up all night snorting amphetamines in the club here come some hot chicks boomph boomph" and "woe is me, I'm bad, you're bad, the world is really bad, here is my synthesizer. Like A Rocket, however, has a distinct "Rockin All Over The World" kind of sound to it. I fondly remember listening to this song near the end of the Brighton Half Marathon, speeding along the beach feeling like Mo fucking Farah, oblivious of the seven thousand people in front of me, rocking like a rocket!


2. Mesh - Kill Your Darlings

YOUR HOUSE IS BURNING TO THE GROUND!!

Mesh were back this year (well, not "back", they never went away) with more of the same. There has been little change to their formula over the last twenty odd years, and this is fine by me, but on their latest album "Looking Skyward" they do appear to have made a conscious effort to stop writing about that same dysfunctional relationship that ended in the 1990s. (Maybe Mrs Mesh was getting the hump). Kill Your Darlings is just a miscellaneous mishmash of angst and woe, it sounds like they've taken a few lines from other Mesh songs, sped it up a bit and added a new bleeping sound. That sounds a bit negative but it's not meant to be. I love you Mesh, don't go changing!


1. Empathy Test - Demons

I waited so long for you
And now you're here I don't know what to do with you

Yes, someone made a better song than Mesh this year. And this isn't even my favourite Empathy Test track (that would be Losing Touch, which made me cry the first time I heard it). Empathy Test write the kind of music that goes right through your soul. Demons is about finding love when you felt all hope was gone and the abject terror which accompanies it. I first encountered Empathy Test when they supported Mesh on tour earlier this year - an obvious choice really, an extravaganza of Angst and Woe. Their style will be familiar to all lovers of 80s and synthpop, yet they still manage to sound like nothing else I've ever heard before. If you only listen to one song from this post, make it this one. I can't wait to see what they are going to do next.

I am from London. I do runs that start in places like Trafalgar Square and take you across smooth, wide roads with not so much as a pothole in your way. If I am feeling a bit reckless, I might go for a bit of “trail running” somewhere like Richmond Park, where you occasionally tread in a puddle, or spend two minutes running uphill. That’s as wild as it gets.

Therefore the Great Yorkshire Pieathlon was a bit of a rude awakening. I mean, I knew it wasn’t going to be a road race, but had imagined it being along footpaths and bridleways, maybe the odd field, with a few bogs and hills to dodge. Well, forget all that. Have you ever been to Huddersfield? It’s just like a giant bunch of hills with a few northerners rattling around in between them, living in houses where the front door takes you directly from the street to the living room. Not much is flat, and if it’s flat, it is a bog, with a horse in it. It’s strange in the north.

We convened bright and early on Sunday morning at Salendine Nook school, a bleak, cold building on the top of a hill which looked as if it belonged in a ghost town and had been untouched since the great Huddersfield Holocaust of 1972. We were amongst the few people not wearing fancy dress. Amongst the outfits there was a man with a five foot Christmas tree strapped to his head (who had to limbo dance under the start line), a sumo wrestler, a turkey and of course the obligatory banana. There was also a small dog that looked like Kipsy which was later to snatch Dawn’s pie from her hand.

The race started off fairly easily – a jog across some reasonably even grass then a gentle climb for nearly 2km up a slightly wonky but still manageable unmade road. At the end of the road there was a steep drop to Pie Stop One.

“This is a doddle!” I thought to myself, tucking into a delicious pork pie and observing the Christmas Tree man exhibiting serious Tree Flop. I waited for Stella to catch up but she seemed more keen on chatting to the locals than getting anywhere fast, so I started running again. Dawn, of course, was long gone – off in a cloud of dust before we’d even left the school, not to be seen again until I reached the finish.

The next station was a fairly steep, uneven downhill scented with Eau De Cowpat. It was still runnable, but not at any great pace. This was followed by a very long, steep stretch up a golf course, which was probably my favourite part of the race. I ran most of it and there was an amazing view at the top. Dublin’s infamous Heartbreak Hill had nothing on this! I waved down to Stella and this was the last time I saw her. At this stage I was still thinking it was a bit of a breeze and looking forward to my next pie. I had no fucking idea what was to come.

Over a stile at the peak of the hill, and I heard a man’s voice with a northern twang: “Ey up, it’s another world oop ere!”

Indeed it was. There was no path, just a trail of yellow markers which seemed to have been arbitrarily placed by the Pieorganisers to get everyone going the same way – neither the quickest nor the easiest way, might I add. Running was forgotten, a lot of slipping, sliding and cursing occurred. At some points I simply could not stay on my feet and resorted to clambering along on all fours. I blame my upbringing for this; if you have a dog instead of siblings, you learn to tackle life’s obstacles like a dog. I started to share some words of encouragement (I think that’s what you’d call it) with the nearby group, who were from the “Sowerby Bridge Snails” running club.

“I’m from the South!” I lamented to no one in particular. “We don’t have all this stuff in the South! I run on ROADS! In PARKS! ON A MOTHERFUCKING TRACK! I’m not cut out for this kind of stuff. I’M A CELEBRITY, GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

But Ant and Dec didn’t appear and I figured that if I dropped out I would probably just be left in the hills to rot so had to finish whatever happened. I just hoped the dreaded Bog of Doom would not claim me.

Having exhausted the possibilities for Up, we had to come down, and we did this by way of the slippery cobbled slide to hell that is Gravy Lane. So steep that you couldn’t take it slowly, but too uneven to run. I resorted to holding on to the flint wall that lined one side of it.

“Oh look,” I mused, “a cute little pony! Ouch!”

“The cute little pony” had taken a nip at my hand, but since holding on to the wall was the only thing stopping me tumbling all the way down Gravy Lane like Humpty Dumpty, I had no choice but to let the bastard thing nibble my fingers. I continued my shuffle to the bottom of Gravy Lane and the climax of the race, the Bog of Doom.

We knew the Bog was coming for a long time before we actually saw it because we heard the screams of the victims who were getting stuck in it and the maniacal whoops of the race organisers, one of whom was dressed as a Pieman and kept whacking a rolling pie with his hand in a menacing manner. (I assume he was one of the organisers. He might just have been a random psychopath. How would anyone ever tell?)

“Just go for it, run through as fast as you can, don’t look back!” said someone. So I did.. and I flew through the Bog just like Usain Bolt doing the Olympic 100 metres… and … come on, right leg, don’t get stuck… HEAVE HO… OH MY GOD WHERE IS MY SHOE?

I turned round but the mud was already starting to swallow my precious Hoka One One. I have very little proprioception at the best of times and had no idea where my right foot had actually been when it suffered its catastrophic loss, so all I could do was dig with my bare hands and hope for the best. Of course Pieman and his cronies thought this was absolutely hilarious.

“Don’t just bloody stand there laughing!” I bellowed, which of course made them laugh more. “HELP!”

“Leave the shoe! You don’t need the shoe!” said Pieman, which didn’t help at all.

“I AM FROM THE SOUTH I CANNOT RUN WITHOUT SHOES!” I hollered. “WHERE IS MY SHOE?”

Suddenly there was a glint of blue and gold and I had my shoe. Except of course by now my other was stuck fast in the mud nearly up to my knees and the rescued shoe was so full of mud that I couldn’t get it back on my foot anyway, so I ran the rest of the bog with one shoe on and the other in my hand. When I reached relatively dry land I did my best to scoop the mud out with my fingers and finally it was back on my foot. It didn’t feel great.

And then suddenly there were pies. I had totally forgotten about the pies. I helped myself to a delicious steak and kidney item and ran off. The last section was back on the road – steep hills again, but lovely concrete. Unfortunately my ankles were shot to pieces from the cross country section and every stone felt like a bolder. The Snails Running Club seemed to have dropped off at the pie stop (eating all the pies, I guess) so I was totally on my own for the last kilometre, which seemed to go on forever (my Garmin clocked 6.7km for what was supposed to be a 6km run) Every time I thought I was nearly back at the school, there was a steward saying “Nearly there! Just up this GARGANTUAN MOUNTAIN that makes Everest look small and then you’re there!”

I made it back to Salendine Nook in one hour and thirty two minutes (not sure if this includes autopause whilst pie munching or not) and found a bored looking Dawn, who’d whizzed around in under an hour, posting pictures to Facebook and musing about whether Stella and I had drowned in the bog.

Many people have asked me if this is going to be the start of my love affair with trail running and I’m afraid the answer is no. I totally enjoyed the Pieathlon – the views, the challenge, the pies! – but I’m happiest when running along a smooth path with no obstacles and no need to think. I’m glad I did it but it’s too much of a performance to become a regular thing. I don’t want to have to worry about losing a Hoka, being savaged by ponies or choking to death on a pork pie, I just like to run free with the wind in my hair and my clean, dry, feet on the ground.

A bit of background, in case you are a random stranger or live under a rock and haven’t heard me going on and on about this. Training for the Dublin Marathon had been going really well until the end of July and I was aiming for a time of 5 hours 30 (not fast, but good for a non-athletic person like me). Then disaster struck and I developed a niggling pain in my left calf. Although not always severe, it was bad enough to stop me running and just didn’t get better whatever I did. The doctor’s opinion was that I had torn my medial collateral ligament (the inside of my knee) where it meets the calf and that my calf muscles were tightening and cramping because of this injury. There was no acute injury, just a combination of overuse and bad mechanics (flat feet and hypermobile joints). I ended up missing two months of training and agonised about whether I should pull out.

Well, of course I didn’t pull out. When do I ever give up on anything? Just look at how long it took me to give up on that American twat I used to go out with! I did realise, though, that I had missed out on the marathon experience I wanted whatever happened. A marathon isn’t won when you cross the finish line, it’s won in those long, hard, lonely training runs, ploughing through the marshes with only an Ipod Nano for company, dodging cyclists and negotiating drunks outside the pub as you run along the Thames Path on a Friday night. Even if by some miracle I had finished in a time I was happy with, I still wouldn’t have felt I had earned it. So with this in mind, I entered the 2017 Brighton Marathon and decided I would just go to Dublin and do my best. I decided to just do what felt right on the day: either walk, run/walk the whole way, or go for broke and run as far as I could as fast as I could and hope for the best. My long suffering physio, who must be wondering if I have mistaken her for a psychiatrist, assured me that there was no shame in dropping out at halfway and that this was exactly what Mo Farah did (pre planned) on his first marathon. I promised to consider this an option, though I think as I said it I privately thought that the only way I would take up that option would be if I were in so much pain that I physically could not continue.

Marathon day crept closer and closer, and though my leg was improving, it was far from normal. I was pleased to run 5km and 10km personal bests (34 mins something and 1 hour 11 something respectively) but even after a 5km run my leg was so painful that it would be three days until I could run again. Remembering something I had read in a book about “it is better to turn up undertrained and uninjured” than vice versa with three weeks to go I made an executive decision to give up any kind of running or high impact exercise until race day. Seeing Instagram posts of people posting their last long runs and final preparations for the marathon was hell – I should have been doing that but instead I was at the gym doing fucking yoga!

I talked to a few other runners at the Expo and in the start pens and some said they’d also had problem with injuries and missed runs, which made me feel better, until they followed up by saying that they’d only missed a couple of weeks and were only one or two long runs behind on their plan. I’d missed so much more. Still, there was no backing out at that point. I reminded myself I was only there as a dress rehearsal for Brighton and stepped forward towards the start line.

Some days recently, my leg has felt fine until I tried to run on it, but the second I took my first step I have instantly felt something wrong, and on occasions I have set out hoping for a 10km+ run and not even got as far as the end of my road before turning back. I have known within seconds of setting off whether each run was going to be a success and thus I was terrified that when I broke into a run I would feel that familiar twinge that meant this was going to end badly. I almost didn’t want to start running but when I took that first step and felt nothing… the relief. I was running a marathon! I wouldn’t be dropping out in the opening seconds.

The first two miles were the most enjoyable. Relieved that my leg wasn’t hurting, but knowing that there was a long long way to go, I plodded along at a slow pace smiling at the spectators and taking in the sights of Dublin – through the city centre and past St Stephen’s Green, along the river Liffey and over James Joyce Bridge into the delightfully named Stoneybatter, then along the North Circular Road, which is quite unlike our North Circular Road. It’s a tree lined affluent road with gorgeous houses and a view of the Phoenix Monument at the end of it. Then it was past Dublin Zoo (where, sadly, you could smell the animals but not see them) and into Phoenix Park. This – around the 4 mile mark – was when I first started to feel that this marathon business was going to hurt. Phoenix Park is a long, shallow incline, which is not something I enjoy at the best of times and given that I had done no hill training since July, I really struggled with it. Contrary to what the weather forecast promised me, the sun came out and the temperature hit 18c for a while – not hot, but I run best when it is unpleasantly cold, and to make matters worse I had no sunglasses and was facing the sun. I felt the beginnings of a headache and scoffed the emergency painkillers that I hadn’t planned to use until much later, and decided to walk until the hill either became a proper hill or went away. I figured that I would take my “walk breaks” early on and save energy for the second, easier, part of the course. I realise now that this was a rather optimistic strategy.

This happened a lot later, I spotted my mother and her friend Liz hovering outside the portaloos. After slowing down and posing for a rather unflattering photograph and muttering something triumphant about my leg not hurting, I carried on out of the part to the 10km mark. For some reason this seemed to be a popular drop-out point, with several people in tears at the side of the road or being cajoled to continue by a friend/partner/stranger. Because I am a terrible person my reaction was 10% sympathy and 90% “well at least I am not a quitter like this miserable lot” and off I ran. It had been the slowest 10k I had run in years (mainly because I’d walked over a mile of it) but I still felt pretty much fine. The next section was through Castleknock, an area I was go so far as to call a village, with countryside terraced houses and footballer style mansions. The next section was all downhill and would have been really enjoyable had I not been followed by some chap who had the bright idea of running a marathon playing a miniature guitar. I ran extra fast to get away from him. The south side of Phoenix Park is beautiful, all trees and steep drops and wild deer like Richmond Park. It’s very high up with a view all over Ireland and for a minute I was reminded of the Sheffield Half Marathon route which is actually quite similar to the first half of the Dublin Marathon but with bigger hills and was filled with both relief and sadness that I would never have to run it. Then I saw a woman having a poo behind a tree at the 9 mile mark and I stopped thinking about fucking Sheffield pretty sharpish.

The 9 mile mark. Yes, I think this is when I started wondering whether this had been a good idea. I’ve done a few half marathons now and 9 miles seems to be when fatigue and aches and pains set in. But when you’re doing a half marathon you only have four miles to go, so you just run through the pain and tiredness and think of the medal. In a marathon you still have SEVENTEEN fucking miles to go. If you are reasonably fit and not too bothered about getting a decent time, you can blag a 10k race or a half, but you really can’t blag a marathon. I was tired and the distance I had left was still further than I had ever run before in my life. At this point I realised that if I was going to finish (and I desperately wanted to finish) I was going to have to treat this as a walk and not a run. If I tried to run, I wasn’t going to make it. Knowing I was never going to make my target time, I didn’t really care if I finished in six hours, seven or eight, so long as I got my medal and t-shirt and could say I had done it. So off I walked. Up St Lawrence’s Hill, past Kilmainham Jail (where they executed the Easter Rising people), over to Dophin’s Barn (an area that looks suspiciously like Romford). To halfway, and the slowest half of my life, but still within the cut off, so going ok. And then disaster struck.

I lost my Vaseline. And yes, I know better than anyone that you can visit St John Ambulance’s Vaseline Alley, but because I was going so slowly they were off the side of the road and you had to go and ask for Vaseline and I kept missing them because I was concentrating on the road (I know, I wasn’t on a bike, how hard is it to walk in a straight line?) The loss of my Vaseline was too much for me to bear and my lip started wobbling like a child who has just been told off by the teacher and I decided that next time I saw some Johnnies I wasn’t just going to ask for Vaseline I was going to hand myself in, confess to being an untrained Marathon Fraud like Jade Goody and ask them to call me a taxi. (I had, in fact, put twenty Euros in my Flipbelt in case of this eventuality).

But before I spotted any Johnnies, my guardian angel spotted me. A random Irish spectator spotted me and, seeing my sniffly face, asked if I was in pain.

“No,” I said (though I was) “I’ve LOST MY VASELINE”.

I can’t remember what she said to that but clearly thinking I was in need of help, she told me she would walk with me for a bit. “You don’t have to talk. Just keep walking.” And she walked with me until the 16 mile mark, and gradually I actually started making small talk with this stranger (which those who know me will know is something that I struggle with almost as much as I struggle with running) until she left me and darted into a suburban street which was apparently where she lived. After that I became a lot more cheerful (despite the ongoing lack of Vaseline) and started exchanging a few works with my fellow slowcoaches. Don’t ask me what about. I’m sure my medial collateral ligament featured, along with “what are we all doing here?”

The fabled “Heartbreak Hill” at 21 miles turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax, although to be fair it might have been more taxing if I had made even the slightest effort to run up it.

The worst part by far was miles 23 to 26. My earlier plan to run these “easy bits” had gone to pieces – I felt that I could not physically run a single step. I could not put my finger on exactly what part of my body hurt, and just figured that everything hurt. At least it didn’t particularly seem to be coming from my left leg. That was something. Eventually I identified a problem – there was a small blister forming on the top of my right foot. Fortunately, as a former first aider I had remembered to pack blister plasters, and they had not gone the way of the Vaseline. But there was another problem – as I bent over to put it on, I realised I couldn’t reach. Despite the fact that ordinarily I can touch my toes with my hands flat on the floor, my middle had lost its bend and I couldn’t even touch my calves. I had to sit on a wall to get the plaster on. I thought I had only stopped for a few seconds but my Garmin says that it was actually three minutes.

No one was talking to each other any more and somewhere along the interminable Merrion Road stretch I was overtaken by that sodding man with the miniature guitar. I momentarily considered running after him and battering him to death with it. I noticed a few stewards ask if I was okay and couldn’t work out why – until the sun came out and I took a look at my shadow, staggering like Jonny Brownlee. I’d completely lost control of my arms and they were flapping around like they weren’t properly attached and was wobbling from one side of the road to the other. My mental faculties were starting to go as well and I was struggling to remember what the last mile marker I had seen was, or for that matter how many miles were in a marathon. Every steward or Johnny I passed kept shouting “two miles to go” but however far I went no one every shouted “one mile to go” and then eventually someone shouted “three miles to go” . I decided it was all a big enormous piss take and started paying more attention to my watch, as I could at least remember that there were 42km in a marathon. That is the distance between Walthamstow and Heathrow Airport, by the way. The whole of the way across the biggest city in the UK and then some. No wonder I can’t walk, think or speak.

“800 metres to go” says a sign. Twice round the running track. I remember the days I couldn’t run once round the running track. Oh, they’re back. I can’t run a single step. I am going to have to walk across the finish line – but look on the bright side. They haven’t dismantled it yet, even though I must be over the cut off by now. Wait – there’s a man with a ladder. NOOOOO!

With three hundred metres go I break into the slowest sprint ever known in the history of slow sprints, cheered on by spectators who are mainly earlier marathon finishers who are now in a pub near the finish supping Guinness. Watching the video back, it’s somewhere between a shuffle and a waddle. But it’s not a walk, and I have finished in time to get an official time, a medal, and t-shirts and some valuable experience for Brighton, where I will either finish in a time I am happy with or not fucking start in the first place.

The twenty euros for an emergency taxi were spent on a celebratory pizza.

I raised £772.20 for Hounds For Heroes.

My leg feels fine today. But everything else hurts.

I am not going to make any New Year's Resolutions this year because I think I have already parted with enough bad habits. I could cut down on drinking or spending or television or death certificates or something but quite frankly I've got to have some vices. This year I have already started working on my new career, entered three 10ks, three half marathons, one marathon and one skyscraper stairwell run, lost a bit of weight (for marathon purposes), cut down on beer (and increased rum), given up online dating, given up offline dating, maintained a total lack of contact with Twat Ex and didn't smoke or take drugs in the first place. The only resolution I can think of is "get better at cycling, in particular stopping and starting on the New Bike". But this is more of a resolution for 2017 because that is when I intend to enter the London Triathlon and cycling has to take a bit of a back seat to running until after the marathon. Anyway, instead of a list of resolutions, here is a list of things I am looking forward to in 2016!

Runs:
- Cancer Research Winter Run (10k, January)
- Brighton Half Marathon (February)
- Vertical Rush (skyscraper stairwell run, March)
- Reading Half Marathon (April)
- Hackney Half Marathon (May)
- BUPA 10000 (10k, May)
- British 10k (July)
- Dublin Marathon (October) (I am fucking terrified)

Gigs:
- Faderhead at Slimelight (Feb)
- Front Line Assembly at the Garage (March)
- a-ha at the O2 (March) (this cost a fucking fortune)
- God Module at Slimelight (April)
- Therapy? and Fuzzbox at Whitby (April)

Holidays:
- April Whitby
- Seeing one of my best friends get married at Eurovision in Sweden (May)
- Sorrento with my mother (June)
- Dublin (for the marathon, this still counts as a holiday right?)

Sports:
- Euro 2016
- The Olympics... this seems to have come around again awfully quickly
- Leyton Orient getting promoted back to League One (please no Wembley this time though)

Other:
- Possibly two more weddings although logistics may impede my ability to attend. Three if you count my own wedding to Mathieu Debuchy/Katarina Johnson-Thompson/Cheryl Cole if she puts on a few pounds.
- More genealogy stuff, esp the military section of my course and a lecture in February entitled "My Ancestors Made Hats"
- Scoping the Maldon housing market
- Scoping the Maldon dog market
- Moving to Maldon and cycling round country lanes whilst being chased by a small dog. Although actually this probably won't be until at least 2017. Getting ahead of myself again.

1. Cream with alcohol in it. Amongst the midst of sickly chocolates and ordinary items made festive by shaping them like snowmen, this stands out as a wonderful creation.
2. Christmas jumpers. They are very warm and everyone looks a twat in them.
3. Sprouts. Sprouts epitomise Christmas. Everyone is forced to eat them, even though most people don't like them and even those who do wouldn't dream of eating them at any other time. They look a bit like testicles and make you fart. I like them sauteed, or with vinegar.
4. Do They Know It's Christmas. A Christmas song about famines. How much more bah humbug can you get? My favourite lines are the "clanging chimes of doom" and the rather uncharitable sentiment that you should thank God it's them instead of you.
5. Cheese with ridiculous things in it, including but not limited to salted caramel, christmas pudding and mexican chillis. More of this please.
6. Advocaat and lemonade. But not the way your teeth feel after drinking it.
7. Decorations! I like shiny things and flashing lights. I also like Christmas trees because there is something inherently ridiculous about them. Whose idea was it to get a whopping great tree and stick it in your front room with lots of random tat hanging off it? How did it ever catch on?
8. January sales. Because you can never have enough consumerism.
9. The EastEnders Christmas special. This has got to be the highlight of any Christmas, if not the entire year. Always features someone giving birth, some angry person informing their family that Christmas is caaaancelled (usually Phil Mitchell) and someone hysterically smashing up their Christmas decorations after discovering their partner has been having a secret affair with the ghost of Dirty Den since 1984.

1. Cliff Richard
2. The overheard "WE ALWAYS" conversations, which make you feel like the rest of the world are surrounded by their happy faaamleeees and that those of us who have no "We always", just an "I" and a "used to" are absolute freaks and failures at life.
3. Coming up with a wonderful idea to do something unchristmassy to distract yourself from the whole bollocks (eg. going out for a mexican meal) only to find that everywhere is fucking closed from lunchtime on December 24th to the day after Boxing Day so you have no choice but to sit and suffer festivity.
4. Complete lack of comprehension on the part of some people that Christmas does not mean "time off work" for everyone - in fact for a lot of jobs, it is the busiest time of year and the time that you are guaranteed not to be able to take a single day's leave.
5. Despite point 4, the fact that some businesses, including some rather important services like gyms and housing associations, think it is reasonable to completely shut up shop for two weeks.
6. Despite point 4, the fact there is no public transport on Christmas Day, meaning you have to beg a lift from some grumpy sod who has to go ten miles out of their way to pick you up, or pay ninety pounds for a taxi.
7. And then the posts that start at 9am on Christmas Eve from people complaining they are still at work. Of course you are! It's a working day!
8. Buying Christmas presents for men. Men never want anything interesting. The ones I have been out with never want anything at all.
9. Enforced visit to Kettering with the usual "Why aren't you married yet?" conversation. Being given a cheque for twenty quid, as if you are a child with no money and not a thirty-eight year old woman with a reasonably paid job. Having to invent something you spent it on, instead of the truth, which is either "alcohol" or "I put it towards the ninety quid cab fare to get to work on Christmas Day".
10. Suddenly "gluttony" becomes "decadence". Turning down the circulating Quality Street tub is a massive insult. Not to mention the fact that you are so depressed anyway that chocolate might just be the only thing that makes you feel better. For anyone who has successfully beaten a weight problem, Christmas is a minefield full of reminders of how easily you can get back to the dark days when nothing in Topshop fits you and you are too fat to even run round a track, let alone do a marathon.
11. I don't actually like turkey but no one seems to care.
12. Crap presents. My mother "yes I know you said you wanted a size X but it looked enormous so I got a X minus 5. What do you mean it doesn't fit?" Or "I know you don't have a bath but I thought this bath foam smelt lovely!" What?
13. The nightmare of NYE when no one can decide what to do, everyone feels like they HAVE to have a good time when in fact they are still depressed about their crap christmas presents, the fact they still aren't married yet, paying ninety quid for a cab to work and putting on half a stone in two weeks.  It is freezing cold, everything costs twice what it normally does, there is a queue to get in and it takes a week to get home.
14. Fractious, overexcited children EVERYWHERE making noise and giving me a headache.
15. The fact that my fucking tinsel keeps falling down.

The following is an abbreviated version of the report published in the local newspaper following the inquest into my great grandmother's death.

( abbrievated but still quite longCollapse )

---

Fred did live. Alf, Annie's brother, did take him, and brought him up as his own. As was Annie's wish, he was never told the circumstances of his mother's death. Fred was my great grandfather.

Tom Elsegood married again three years later.

Alice failed to heed Annie's advice and married an American.

Annie's stepmother did not poison her father. He was a painter and decorator, and poisonous lead was an ingredient of paint at that time. This is what killed him.

67 Milton Street is now a car park.

I have no idea what the significance of the cheese dish was.

Firstly can I say, what a great race! I highly recommend it to anyone who fancies a half marathon, beginners/slowcoaches and Paula Radcliffes alike. It is a fast, interesting course with no nasty bits and plenty of room. There is lots to look at on the way, and while they describe it as "flat" it is really a lot of gentle ups and downs which personally I prefer to complete flatness. The advertised cut off time was 3.5 hours but they did keep the finish open and give out medals after that - the streets had reopened but as the last three miles are in the Olympic Park anyway you'd have to be walking the whole distance to be affected by this. Best of all were the spectators. In the big London races you mainly get tourists who are only out to watch the fast runners, but here were the local people of Hackney, who were handing out water, grapes and Haribo from their houses, cheering everyone along, waving amusing signage and encouraging everyone from beginning to end.

I was initially planning to take part in this race all along, but then I found it clashed with a friend's birthday party. Then said friend was unfortunately not well and had to cancel said birthday party a couple of weeks before the event. I took this opportunity to do something reckless and asked London's Air Ambulance for a last minute charity place. Although I hadn't trained properly, I have been running 2-3 times a week, 1-2 short runs (between 1-5km - usually on the treadmill) and one long run along the towpaths and marshes in my local area (Walthamstow, Edmonton, Tottenham, Clapton etc) in preparation for the Royal Parks Half in October, and I had got up to 17km of solid running (albeit not very fast running) so I figured I was at least ready enough to finish the race, although probably with a bit of walking.

The worst thing about the day was something no one could control, the weather. The forecast said 15c and grey skies so I dressed for that and left my sunglasses behind. In actual fact, as soon as I crossed the start line the sun came out and it got very bloody hot. It's funny because it's the one time I didn't want it to be hot! It didn't bother me for the first few miles but by the time I reached the 5 mile mark I was very conscious that my feet were overheating and that actual sweat was rolling down my face, something that rarely happens as I am not much of a sweater (sorry for the TMI). And then I started seeing stars and my hands went a bit numb and I thought "OH MY GOD I am going to faint and St John Ambulance will have to pick me up on a stretcher and it will be people I know and I will never live it down and I won't finish the race and it will be PUBLIC HUMILIATION!" and the panic induced by this thought made me feel EVEN WORSE.

Fortunately the 5 mile mark was also a water stand so I took a big water bottle, drank half, poured the rest over my head and feet, had a sports gel, walked a bit and had another sports gel. And then I started feeling okay again and resumed running and for the rest of the race I ran about a kilometre at a time, then walked for about 200 metres, then ran again, and this made me feel a lot better. Now convinced I wasn't going to be carted off after all, I began to really enjoy the race and the scenery. Okay, Hackney is not a beautiful place but there is lots going on and running in parks can get very boring, so it was nice to run the streets - plus being from the area, I felt like I actually knew where I was going rather than running aimlessly in circles. The route started on Hackney Marshes, went up through Homerton and Clapton to the Lea Bridge roundabout, round Hackney Downs, out to Dalston Hipsterland and London Fields, all the way round Victoria Park and under the A12 to the Olympic Park. Having the Olympic Park at the end was really good as it gave me something to look forward to - I just wish I was fit enough to still be running comfortably at that point but hopefully next year.

I saw my St John/Leyton Orient colleagues at around 9 miles and this gave me a much needed boost, especially as they had saved me a much needed bottle of Lucozade.  Fortunately I did not need to visit "Vaseline Alley".

At about 11 miles, just before the Olympic park, I saw a chap in front of me tread awkwardly on a pothole and stagger away to the side of the road with an injured ankle. I really felt for that guy! I wanted to stop and help but there was nothing I could have done (I could hardly pick him up and carry him and funnily enough I wasn't carrying a first aid kit!) so I just pointed a steward in his direction and carried on. I hope he wasn't too badly hurt and managed to walk the rest of it at least. I would be gutted to get so far and then have to drop out. If I am going to tread on a pothole please at least make it be at the start of the run.

Back in Homerton, I noticed my Garmin clock 21.1 kilometres, the official half marathon distance, at 2:55:51. This meant that I had met my goal of under three hours. (I appreciate this is not very fast but I am not a very fast person). But there was a sting in the tail! Because (I assume) of the wide roads, I obviously hadn't taken the most direct path and still had another half kilometre to do. As I crossed 13 miles, the Garmin went over the dreaded three hours, and my final finishing time was 3:01:20. Bit gutting, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the race and I think I have learned a couple of important lessons for next time such as Wear Sunglasses No Matter What and Get Thinner Socks. Also maybe Lose A Few Kilos Paula Radcliffe Does Not Have Curves.

Oh and I did end up being carted off in an ambulance after all.  My Johnny friends gave me a lift home!

Next half marathon is Royal Parks in October (there will be no more crazy last minute entries before then I promise) in which I aim to run the entire distance with no walking in 2:45 or less.

On Sunday, Leyton Orient were relegated to League 2. There was a cruel period of hope when we went two nil up against Swindon, their goalie having been sent off, and the three teams above us were all losing, giving us the last safe spot. Of course it was not to be and in true Orient style we gave away a pointless penalty in the last minutes of the game, propelling us back to Relegation City.







The first picture is Tiny Cox immediately after losing the playoff final at Wembley last year. The second picture is Tiny Cox on Sunday immediately after being relegated. The first Tiny is heartbroken. The second Tiny looks angry and defeated and like he won't be sticking around for a third picture of woe. I can't say I blame him.

Almost exactly a year ago, my Orient supporting friends and I made the journey to Milton Keynes to see our beloved team play. It was the last match of the season and the many Orient fans, filling blocks 26 to 38, were in a carnival mood. We were already sure of a play-off spot, but a victory against the Dons would see us finishing in third place and thus drawing the weakest opponents in the play offs. Sure enough, we ran roundabout-like rings around those concrete cows and won 3-1. We saw off Peterborough in the play-offs and headed off to Wembley for the play-off final against Rotherham.

On the day of the play-off final, it looked as if everything was going our way. By half-time we were two-nil up, our players were on top form and it felt like it was going to be the best day of our lives. In the second half, Rotherham's Alex Revell - an ex-Orient player that we sold to Rotherham in 2011 - sank two brilliant goals against us and we went on to lose on penalties. I have never seen so many grown adults in tears.

I later mused that the Orient play-off final of 2014 was a general metaphor for life, so much so that the title of my livejournal is now "Two Nil Up at Half Time". Just when you think you have it in the bag, someone comes along and gets you where it hurts most and in the time it takes to kick a ball all your dreams turn to dust.

And that, of course, wasn't the end of the story. If this were a book, Orient would pick themselves up, dust themselves down and fight back, gaining automatic promotion at the end of the season. But in real life, when things are bad they usually get worse. When someone is lying on the ground it is the ideal opportunity to kick them in the head.

A few weeks after the play-off final, the owner Barry Hearn sold Leyton Orient Football Club to an Italian billionnaire named Francesco Becchetti. Hearn assured us that Becchetti wanted to make Orient a great club and was committed to working with the existing staff, players and fans to take us to the dizzy heights of the Championship.

What Becchetti actually did was sack our beloved manager, Big Russ, sell one of our best players to one of our biggest rivals, oust most of the staff and give jobs to his mates, irrespective of whether they were any good at doing whatever they were employed to do, or whether they could speak a word of English. Two new Italian players were brought in (including Andrea Dossena, best known for being caught shoplifting Parma Ham in Harrods) and paid far more than they were worth, and crucially, more than the existing players, who accordingly got the right hump. Then, as if this wasn't bad enough, he turned the club into a laughing stock on primetime Italian tv, on a reality show where Italian youngsters compete for a pro contract with the club by way of singing "Best Day of my Life" whilst running backwards through the club bar and stands and flirting with scantily clad models. (You really need to watch those links, they are beyond belief.) Oh, and we signed someone whose brother is in The Only Way Is Essex and is shagging that fit bird who used to be in Corrie, thus making us proper fodder for Heat magazine. Basically, Becchetti doesn't give a fuck about football and he has no idea who Leyton Orient even are. He just thought that a football club was a good thing for a billionnaire to buy with his loose change and have a bit of fun with. Never mind over a hundred years of history, loyal fans who trudge to horrible grounds with poisonous hotdogs in treacherous weather conditions and players whose are pinning their careers on and working hard for this club. Suddenly we're all just an enormous joke and people thousands of miles away who had never heard of us a year ago are laughing at us in a language we don't even understand.

Strangely enough, Orient started to lose games. Those players that fought to get us to Wembley last season suddenly resembled something between headless chickens and knackered carthorses, running in circles for half an hour and then falling to the floor exhausted. Who'd have thought it? People don't perform well when they have the hump! I have known in my heart for some time that the only fitting end to this season will be relegation to League 2, and this outcome is all but certain after this weekend's trip to Milton Keynes. In eleven years of attending Orient games, at 6-1 it was the worst defeat I've ever witnessed. I can't say anything positive about our performance at all. Basically, no one could be arsed to kick the ball, on a couple of occasions it seemed to just end up in our net because that was the path of least resistance, and even the MK Dons players started to look a bit bored. The Orient fans, who occupied blocks 34 to 38, a third of last year's attendance, started getting up and walking out after the fourth goal, ten minutes before half time. By the time the match finished there were only a few left, and they were mainly people who had got squiffy on Concrete Cow Pail Ale at the bar and wanted to scream abuse at the manager. (Not much point in that, I thought, he won't understand unless you do it in Italian.)

There are now three matches left at until the end of the season, and the fans have their calculators out and it's all about if Crewe do this and Crawley do that and we pull one off against Sheffield - but let's face it, relegation is what befits this lousy season, and until we get Leyton Orient back in the hands of someone who cares about football and small third division London clubs, we're as stuffed as a calzone.

My top artists of the year (in terms of last.fm plays) are:

1) Faderhead
2) Example
3) Mesh
4) Covenant
5) Cheryl Cole
6) Carter USM
7) Grendel
8) Senseless Things
9) Girls Aloud
10) Front 242

I am surprised Tinie Tempah did not make the list but I think this is probably because I mainly listen to him on my ipod which refuses to scrobble. I also have little recollection of listening to Front 242 at all - maybe I left them on repeat and went to work or something.

Anyway, time for bed. Crappy new year!

Until I was fourteen years old, my definition of a good band was a hot bloke singing songs about lurve. Nik Kershaw, Simon Le Bon, Boy George, Morten Harket, Matt Goss. (Matt Goss?! What can I say, we all have our pasts). Then in the summer of 1991, I went on holiday to Crete and Clare Horwood kindly copied me some cassettes for my Walkman. One of them was 101 Damnations by a band dubiously named "Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine". I think the other side of the tape may have been the Wedding Present, or The Levellers, or maybe even Ride. Whatever it was, it never got listened to. One play of 101 Damnations, and I was in love. Not the kind of teenage crush love that I felt for Morten and Matt but proper oh-my-god-this-music-is-perfect love. Carter were simultaneously like nothing on earth anyone had ever heard before yet simple, unpretentious and catchy. The lyrics weren't just blurb to fit a tune, they were stories, they were puns, they were about serious issues and not at all about lurve or copping off with inappropriate people. They summed up life in dodgy sarf Landan, the life we were just getting to know as we hit our teenage years and flew the nest of Bromley to the dubious streets of New Cross and Lewisham and contended with night buses and kebab shops for the first time.

But you have to see Carter play live for them to truly make sense, and my first experience of Carter was on the 9th November, 1991, at the Brixton Academy. I remember the night well. A mouthy little brat we used to hang around with by the name of Tiernan spat on the steps of Brixton station whilst we waited for our friends. A policeman marched up to him and said "Do that again and I'll make you clean it up with your coat." He was wearing a long black army surplus trenchcoat that was so big for him it dragged along the ground. Once inside the Academy, my friend Jane copped off with a boy called Danny who I had snogged on two previous occasions and was therefore practically my boyfriend. I was so angry that I didn't speak to her for three days and as revenge I copped off with a boy called Kerry who put his hand up my top in front of all my friends, an incident which I would never live down.

All this was forgotten when Carter took to the stage, introduced by the inimitable Jon Fat Beast. Luckily, I don't have to describe this spectacle - I am not sure I could find the words - because it was all captured on the video release "In Bed With Carter". (I think this was the gig before, in June 1991, but the format didn't change much. It still hasn't). http://youtu.be/2CUKm2_YZZo

I'm just going to sum up what a Carter gig is like in a jumble of words. This is a jumble of every Carter gig I have ever been to. Fringe. Guitar. Drum machine. Lyrics about London. You fat bastard, you fat bastard, you fat bastard. Slogan t-shirts. Beer. More beer. A wall of white lights. Inadvisable stagediving. Moshpit. Dropped beer. Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, come home you silly cow. Record bar takings. Singing along with the person next to you. Everyone knows all the words. The greebos, the crusties, and THE GOTHS. Oh my god, they're doing this one, it is my favourite, oh no actually this one is my favourite, or perhaps Bloodsport For All is my favourite. Here comes Sheriff Fatman! Has it finished already? It's only been two hours! I wish... I was... in BRIXTON... I'm a GI, and I'm blue, and my mascara has run and that is obviously because I was sweating in the moshpit and not because I was moved to tears. God I look rough. Shall we go on to the Venue?

In many ways Carter just shouldn't have worked. They were already 30 something in a music scene dominated by 20 somethings and fans who were 10-something, they were not playing on their sex appeal (not that Jon Beast wasn't a handsome hulk of a man, but, well, he was no Mark Keds), they wrote lyrics which must have come across as gibberish to anyone outside the M25 and they made enemies of Philip Scofield and the Rolling Stones. Yet Carter USM, with their stupid name and stupider hair, were the leaders of the indie pack. They have stood the test of time far more than any of their contemporaries and still have a fierce following over 20 years later.

I counted earlier today that I have been to thirteen Carter gigs and four of these were supposed to be the last Carter gig ever. There was one in 1997, when Carter officially split up (having got to that dodgy stage where the fans have got older and stopped going to the gigs, but not enough time has passed for them to become a Classic Band and do Reunions), one in 2001 which was supposed to be a one-off, another in 2007 at which Jon Beast went into great lengths about how this was definitely the last one ever because "we're not the fucking Wonderstuff you know", which was followed by a swift backtrack and more gigs ("never say never again") until this year Carter announced yet another "final gig" and no one really believed it.

And then Jon Beast died.

And then suddenly the "last gig" felt like it really was a final gig, and a send off for a beloved talisman, and a goodbye to our youths.

I wondered how Carter could open the last ever show without Jon Beast. The answer was simple. They didn't. They used the introduction from "In Bed With Carter" that I posted above, complete with ten fat bastards in Jon Beast masks standing in a line inciting the loudest chants of "You fat bastard" I have ever heard.

As for the gig itself, there are a billion reviews online, and all say much the same thing: it was amazing, it was emotional, we danced like lunatics and we will miss Carter like hell. A few of us even confessed to shedding a tear or two as the gig came towards the end. GI Blues got a few people, but the track which got me was Falling On A Bruise. I like the lyrics. "I've spent my whole lifetime falling on a bruise, and if I had the chance to do it all again... I'd change everything". I've certainly fallen on a few bruises, repeated a few mistakes, wished I could change things and get some years back, but I wouldn't change everything. I wouldn't change Carter.

PS. The bloke called Kerry who put his hand up my top in 1991... I saw him post on the Carter Facebook with a spare ticket to sell. He is apparently married with children. I hope he kept his hands to himself this time.

On 7th January, 1899, 22 year old Annie Catherine Elsegood committed suicide. After a bitter argument with her husband of barely six weeks, during which he had packed a bag and walked out, telling Annie he was going to be single again, Annie had placed her wedding ring on the table and gone to the level crossing in Southchurch. Annie was hit by the last London bound train from Shoeburyness and her body was found cut to pieces 200 metres up the line.

Annie’s life had not been easy. Born in Writtle, near Chelmsford, she was the fourth child of painter and decorator Henry Downing’s nine children. Henry was not a prosperous man and had moved frequently to wherever he could find work. By Annie’s 18th birthday in 1895 the family had already moved at least four times. In October that year, her mother Harriet died, aged just forty-nine, of capillary bronchitis. Two weeks later, her three year old brother Edward died of diphtheria. Early in 1896, Annie found herself pregnant. She was living with her elder sister, Emily, when she gave birth to her son, Frederick Allen Downing. Emily herself was heavily pregnant at the time of Frederick’s birth and had three small children of her own, so had neither the time nor the energy to look after Frederick. He was sent away to live with Annie’s oldest brother Alfred and his wife, who lived in Kettering, and brought him up as their own.

A few months later, Henry Downing married a much younger woman named Emily Simmons. Henry was not a well man at the time. Although he didn’t know it, the lead in the paint he used at work has been slowly poisoning him. He only just lived long enough to see Annie married. Her wedding to Thomas Elsegood took place at All Saint’s Church in Southend on 5th November 1898. Henry died on 21st December and was buried at St Peter’s, Thundersley, on 27th December. Annie’s last Christmas must have been a miserable one.

Beside Annie’s body was found a note, explaining how deeply unhappy she was and that she was taking her own life in order to set her husband free, and that if she were to bear punishment for this in the next life, she would cheerfully do so for his sake. Her final request was that she be buried with a photograph of her husband.

According to the report that appeared in the Chelmsford Chronicle the following week, Annie was a young woman of prepossessing appearance who was very well liked in the town. The coroner had lain the blame for her death squarely at the feet of her husband, reprimanding him for his callous and ungentlemanly conduct and telling him he was as responsible for her untimely demise as if he had killed her himself. The report made no mention of young Frederick, who would never know his mother and who would never even know his father’s name. Although his uncle Alfred was always kind to Frederick, his wife Sarah seemed to resent him, and treated him unfavourably compared with their biological son, Alec. Though Frederick lived a long and successful life as a talented tailor and author of men’s fashion guides, a soldier, a husband of over fifty years and a father of two, he never knew his true origins. He was told his mother died in childbirth.

Fifty years after Frederick’s death, his great granddaughter Suzi took up genealogy and vowed to solve the mystery once and for all. It was not an easy task. The space for “father’s name” on Frederick’s birth certificate was left blank. His baptism record appears to have been lost by the church, but would probably have been blank too. No records or papers survived that give any clue. The only piece of evidence is Frederick’s middle name, Allen, which is almost certainly his father’s surname – it was customary to give illegitimate children their father’s surname as a middle name. Sadly, Allen is rather a common name and Southend on Sea was a rather large place, even 100 years ago. There are many, many Allens floating around the area. Some of them were even related to Annie a few generations back, and for a while Annie’s fourth cousin Charles Allen, a sailor and by all accounts a bit of a drifter, seemed a likely candidate – but the dates did not tie up as he only moved to Southend after Annie’s death. There was Samuel Allen the bootmaker, who lived in the next street from Annie, but he was rather too old for her. More plausibly, there was Joseph Allen the cabbie, who had an assortment of children of similar age to Annie, including one whose name was Frederick, but there was no further evidence to link any of these Allens to Annie.

One day, Suzi was browsing the records for St John the Baptist church in Southend – the church attended by Henry Downing, his son and work partner Harry, and his daughter Emily – and one name stood out. Frederick James Allen, of Belle Vue Terrace – just along from the Southchurch level crossing - married to Sarah Ann. Painter and decorator. So this Frederick not only lived near Annie, he did the same job as her father and brother, and attended the same church as them. Further research showed that Frederick was born in East London in 1871, making him six years older than Annie and the same age as Alfred. He had married in London in 1892, but his wife had died just two years later. Sometime between 1894 and 1897 he must have come to Southend, because his second wife Sarah, whom he married just after Frederick Downing’s birth, was from there – although they married in London. Frederick had two extremely rich uncles in Southend, George and William, who were aldermen of the town and who ran an extremely lucrative building business. They had built many of the houses in the town and the local Baptist church.

George Allen’s great grandson David is also a keen genealogist and is on a genealogical DNA database. To see if Frederick James Allen was really Frederick Allen Downing’s father, all Suzi needs to do is persuade a male descendent of Frederick Downing – her uncle or her grandfather – to take a test.

Whenever I write about running I feel like I have to justify my performance with a foreword. I'm not just coming from this as an average not-very-athletic person who used to be unfit. I have really struggled my entire life with balance and coordination and I could never do all the things that other kids took for granted - catching a ball, balancing on a bench, riding a bike. I even struggled with running because I'd trip over my own feet and my arms would flap around uncontrollably and I couldn't keep in my lane. I suspect that if I'd been born 20 years later I would have been diagnosed with dyspraxia but when I went to school kids with ADHD were naughty, kids with dyslexia were thick and kids with dyspraxia were clumsy, lazy idiots who were constantly laughed at by the rest of the class and constantly berated by PE teachers. I was just terrible at everything and PE was so awful that I used to hide in the toilets to get out of it, fake sick notes or just clown around for the whole lesson and pretend that I was being deliberately bad at everything or just not trying. This was one of the reasons I became a podgy teenager and a seriously fat adult.

Anyway, the reason I took up running is because I wanted to show I can do it and that I am not lazy, just lacking in natural ability. It is not true that you can do anything if you put your mind to it. I will never be able to do a handstand on a balance beam - I will never be able to walk along a balance beam for that matter. But if you set yourself realistic, achievable goals based on the things you can do, you can actually do a hell of a lot Running is an obvious choice because it's really not all that difficult, it's just the same thing over and over again and you can keep doing it indefinitely unless you faint or a muscle gives up. If you are not so worried about speed, you can really cover as much distance as you want.

And this is how I found myself on the start line of the 2014 Royal Parks Half Marathon.

The first 5km went well - I kept pace with the 2:40 pacemaker as planned, so was running about at about 7.5 mins per kilometre which is a comfortable to fast pace for me for 5km now. I was about thirty seconds short of a personal best for 5km, but the beginning of organised runs is always slow compared with training because of the congestion caused by other runners. Unfortunately, on Westminster Bridge (a diversion put in place solely to get a decent photos of runners with Big Ben in the background) I felt a nasty twinge in my left hip reminiscent of the injury that cost me two weeks of training. Fortunately, I did what footballers do and tried to "run it off" and the pain subsided. Or rather it dulled and spread out and got diluted by the fact that everything else was starting to hurt too. But it did mean that I was actually in pain for three quarters of the run, which is not great.

Re entering Hyde Park around the 6 mile mark was great, there were loads of people cheering and clapping and I felt like Mo Farah. My mother was supposed to be there, but she is an idiot who doesn't know the difference between 5km and 5 miles, so she wasn't. I was pleased to see that I'd got a new 10k personal best of 1:20:54.

There then followed a Bleak Moment. Having run without a single walk break for 10k, I passed the halfway marker and really felt like it should be the end. My hip was really painful and my feet hurt and mysteriously I kept getting pins and needles in my left arm and I noticed my leg was dragging a bit and that I kept veering off to the left instead of running straight. I couldn't cope with the thought of doing it all again. At this point I got very grumpy and wanted to punch all the "motivators" who tried to high five me and all the well meaning supporters who were shouting my name. (I agree with Rosie, putting your name on your running vest is not the good idea you think it might be). I just wanted my goody bag and some Lucozade. I wanted to go home and watch X Factor. I wanted a walk break but all the good runners were already way up ahead and I didn't want to be any further back. But really I had no option, so I decided to finish the rest of the race in a walk/run alternating fashion, at a pace of about 10 mins per kilometre. This of course meant that all the runners got away from me, but there was a good group of stragglers with me doing the same so I didn't feel too alone.

My mother, having realised her error with the units of measurement, was waiting just before the 9 mile mark with her camera. I wish she'd seen me earlier on when I was still feeling like I was Paula Radcliffe, but it was a relief to see a friendly face. "Only 4 miles to go!" I called out cheerily, maybe more to convince myself that this wasn't far than to convince her.

As we entered the last three miles I saw several people being carted away by St John Ambulance in varying states of consciousness and tears I knew I had been right to slow down and walk some of the course. My finish time might not have been much to write home about, but to say I hadn't been able to finish would have been totally crushing.

I was determined I was going to run over the finish line, so as soon as I saw the "400m to go sign" I broke into the slowest sprint of my life. 400m is a lap of the running track, it's usually nothing to me... it felt like a lap of the bloody planet. I felt like I was running through treacle with my shoelaces tied together. I nearly cried with happiness that I didn't have to go any further... And that all the training was over, no more running along the sodding canal with all the murderers and cyclists and bottles of water strapped to your waist... no more eating bananas. I don't even like bananas. Thank fucking god. Final time: 3 hours, 14 minutes, 50 seconds. No, not threatening any world records there. Who bloody cares? Not me.

These are my fitness goals for the future:

1) Lose 10kg by this time next year
2) Improve speed in 5km and 10km - run 5km in 30 mins by this time next year
3) Do another long race in Autumn 2016. Will decide which one and how long nearer the time.

Addendum: Have come back to edit this post the next morning as I was still feeling a bit dazed when I originally wrote it and it is full of mistakes and has some bits missing. Would also like to add that I have worked out that I ran this half marathon at a pace equivalent to a 45 minute 5km. For years and years (when I weighed 13 stone plus and did the odd Race for Life etc) it was my goal to do 5km in 45 minutes, and in fact I only cracked that barrier in 2013. My 5km personal best is now 37 minutes something. In a 5k or 10k race there are actually more slow runners than in the half marathon, which I wasn't expecting (although I suppose it makes sense that slower people tend to take on shorter races) so I think my placing gives an exaggerated sense of slowness. In the last 10km I did, for example, I finished about two-thirds the way down the women's table - in this half marathon I was in the last 5%. BTW I am doing a 5km in two weeks, it is not chip timed but am hoping to be midway through the finishers as it is a fun run type thing with lots of fancy dress and walkers etc. Will report.

Last night some people forced me to drink at least five caipirinhas and now I feel like my head is full of limes so please bear with me if this entry makes no sense.

It is my last morning in Brazil - and also the first day of Save Livejournal Month, which means a daily dose of nonsense from me for the whole of October, go here if you would like to nominate a topic. I spent it in Sao Paolo. I didn't realise what an enormous city it is, in fact not being very good at geography I'd never heard of anywhere in Brazil other than Rio de Janeiro before Ollie moved here, although thanks to the World Cup I am now an expert on Brazilian Geography. Sao Paolo is has a greater population (11 million) than Rio (6 million) or London (8 million). It is not hard to believe when you look at the view from this 22nd floor balcony, there are tower blocks as far as the eye can see. Apparently this one was constructed in the early 1900s, whereas tower blocks did not reach London until after WW2.

We spent the afternoon in a disused hospital looking at Art. I think I found the building itself more interesting than the Art though I must say that such an eerie backdrop does bring the installations to life, especially those which had used materials from the decaying building itself, although in some cases it was hard to tell what was Art and what was just a pile of old rubble.

After this we went for some sugary beer and pasteles (like McDonalds apple pies with savoury fillings) at a bar on Avenida Paulista with Ollie's Brazilian friend Mariana, then fruitlessly hunted for parrots in a tropical park (we saw mosquitos and lots of people snogging) before coming back and sodding around a bit. When Lila got back from work we trooped out again and I had my last proper meal in Brazil which included a fried banana. I have decided I only like bananas if I they are fried so I might try to replicate this at home because apparently eating lots of bananas turns you into Jessica Ennis. Then we went to a bar and drank more caipirinhas and I complained voceriferously about the lack of parrots, the difference between a limao and a limao lima and the fact that Portuguese consonants don't sound the same as Spanish ones. A beggar called Ollie a "shrimp" because we wouldn't give him a cigarette. And after that it all goes a bit hazy and now I am hungover and have to sort my suitcase out and get on a bus to the airport. A bus? I think I might get a taxi. I feel rotten.

To summarise, here are my top five pointers for anyone planning a trip to Brazil:

1) Don't come here looking for parrots. As Lila says, the best place to see a parrot in Brazil is in a cage in someone's living room.

2) The best place to drink beer is in a petrol station.

3) Portuguese: speak Spanish but substitute your Ds for Gs, your Rs for Hs and your Os for Ns, pretend your nose is blocked and your jaw is wired together and you are basically there.

4) Don't come here if you don't like dogs. You will be outnumbered.

5) Bring mosquito repellent.

My latest discovery is that the mosquitoes in Ilha Grande are as friendly as the dogs and the sparrows, with the consequence that my legs are absolutely covered from top to bottom with red, angry, oozing welts. It was particularly unfortunate that this chose to happen on the day I decided to sport a red-and-white polkadot bikini as I am basically just polka dot from head to toe now.

In between bouts of frenetic scratching, the last two days on the island consisted of wandering from beach to beach, putting my foot down re any further mountain hikes (it's bad enough coming home looking like a candidate for malaria, I don't want a broken leg to top it off) and being followed absolutely everywhere by our beautiful, clever little dog, Ze. Oh, and the consumption of fifty-nine caipirinhas. Of course.

Last night it was time to leave so we boarded the "ferry" and watched the lightning as a thunderstorm struck Angra Dos Vultures, fortunately just missing us. A 7.5 hour coach trip would have been even less enjoyable if soaking wet. We had three hours to wait in the coach station, and enquired about local bars. "There aren't any", we were told, but never mind, there was a perfectly lovely coach station kiosk that sold warm lager, weird potato bread roll pies and had a perfect view of the toilets, in 4D smellovision. It was here I learned that the Portuguese for disabled people is "deficientes". This made me laugh. It does not sound very PC.

On the coach journey back some stupid hippy's rucksack fell on my head whilst I was sleeping. I wish I'd learned to swear in Portuguese.

We are now at Ollie's friend Leila's place in Sao Paolo. She lives on the 22nd floor of a very imposing looking tower block in the city centre with a fantastic view over the city. There are metal shutters on the window. I don't know who or what they are trying to keep out. When Ollie wakes up I will get the wifi password and then I can post this and download X Factor and then we can go and see some Brazilian Culture or something.

We took the night bus from Sao Paulo to Angra dos Reis, and the "ferry" to Ilha Grande. The whole journey took longer than it did to get from London to Brazil in the first place. In contrast to the local bus to Cambui, the night bus is actually quite luxurious, with seats that tilt right back and footrests, so it is almost possible to get something resembling a decent night's sleep.

Angra Dos Reis is a ominous looking place. The name means "Port of the Kings" apparently, after the Three Kings as per nativity story. I am not convinced they were ever in Brazil, it's a long way from Bethlehem. It is built on a mountain side enveloped in swirling mist and has vultures circling on the beach. We stayed long enough to eat a soggy cheese toastie and drink coffee that was 90% milk, 9% sugar and 1% coffee from dirty glasses (at least Ollie and Kevin did, I don't like any kind of coffee and I especially wouldn't have liked this kind). Eventually the "ferry" arrived to take us to the island. I had imagined some kind of speedy craft with covered seats and maybe a bar; we actually got a rickety old fishing boat that took 90 minutes to travel not-very-far to the island. Kevin, who had claimed not to be able to sleep on public transport and who had stayed awake for the whole coach journey, promptly fell asleep sitting up.

We finally got to Ilha Grande about 10am. It is a beautiful little tropical island where there are no cars and lots of lovely wildlife (we saw monkeys this morning, but no fucking parrots). There are, however, a lot of hippies and upper middle class kids travelling on their gap year. Our guesthouse turned out to be a bit Fawlty Towers. It is run by a rather plump woman and a very thin woman, who may or may not be a lesbian couple. Their website made quite a big deal of the fact they have multiple cats and dogs but rather glossed over the fact that they also have a small, annoying child and like to host parties for up to 200 children at a time, which is what they are doing right now and why I am sitting in a bar writing this and sipping an extremely sugary beer while Ollie and Kevin get changed. They also have damp, a shower that doesn't work if the swimming pool is being cleaned and bit of foam where there should be mattresses. The wifi only works if you stand on your head and say "Neymar" three times, so this might get posted a bit later than it was written (27th September, 4pm).

However, they do have an extremely cute and clever dog called Ze, short for Jozé. On Ilha Grande the animals are exceedingly friendly and behave like people. Ze, for instance, is allowed out of the house by himself and will make his way to the beach to hang out with other dogs, some of whom look rather like him and may well be his illegitimate children. He will also guide guesthouse residents to whichever bar or restaurant he deems suitable for their tastes and loyally sit under the table, requesting payment for his guide dog services in the form of scraps. The sparrows are also exceedingly friendly and will eat out of your hands, and there has been a cat in my room for most of my stay despite repeated attempts to remove it.

It bucketed with tropical rainstorm in the afternoon so we didn't do a lot - drank Brazilian beer that tasted of tarmac, explored nearby beaches and returned to the guesthouse to watch X Factor on my laptop with an assortment of odd beers. (Yes, I've come all the way to Brazil to sit around watching X Factor on a laptop in a shitty guesthouse drinking beers from the local offy. I know, I know.) After that we went to some restaurant on the beach where I ate olives, salami and Brazilian cheese with lime juice and drank caipinrinhas. We saw Ze hanging out on the beach with some local dogs and Bebe, the guesthouse's rather grumpy miniature poodle. He took us to another bar for more caipirinhas, and all the locals said "Hi, Ze!" as we walked past. They still had their World Cup bunting up.

This morning we Did Hiking. I wore my trail shoes and backpack like a proper wally. We climbed up to the Faticeira Waterfall which according to my Fitbit is the equivalent of 85 flights of stairs, and it was quite hard going especially for someone like me with short legs and no sense of balance. When we got to the waterfall I hopped straight into the (freezing) water and demanded Ollie take a photo of me posing in my bikini like some chick in a shampoo ad, except I slipped on a rock and fell on my arse and the water was so cold it made me hyperventilate. So I got out again.

And now I am having a beer.

Yesterday I left the guesthouse for the first time, as Ollie and Kevin had some urgent business (ie. Kevin needed his hair cut and Ollie needed to shout at a dentist in Portuguese) in the nearest big town, Cambui.

The bus was a proper white knuckle ride. It had zero suspension and every time we went over a lump in the road I actually felt like my stomach was going to come out the top of my head. The bus driver seemed determined to add to this effect by driving as fast as is physically possible in such a dilapidated automobile. I reached Cambui in a state of nervous exhaustion, but none of the other passengers seemed to think anything was amiss.

Ollie's brother had informed Ollie that there was a Rock Bar in Cambui which had bands called things like Santa Death and Demonic Menstruation playing. We tried to find this establishment but got a bit lost down a back alley and only found warehouses and places where people might keep their horses. So we gave up and tried to find an Ordinary Bar instead. But they were all closed because it was lunchtime and Brazilians only drink at night. During the day Brazilians sit around on benches in the town square and eat ice cream and talk in Portuguese, so we did that instead. Well, two of those things, I still can't speak Portuguese. I had a lurid purple ice cream flavoured with a traditional Brazilian fruit that Ollie's mum makes a pungent liqueur out of. It is called something like "jubajuana" . Then we walked to the only open bar in town, which is actually a cafe in a petrol station with a fridge full of beers. You can take a seat outside and watch people filling up their petrol tanks. I had a beer from the only craft beer brewery in Brazil, which is called Baden Baden (wasn't that the place all the WAGs were hanging out at the German World Cup?) While Shepherd Neame have a beer called 1698 and Fullers have one called 1845 named after the year they opened, Baden Baden have one called 1999. Their beers are actually very nice but they cost a fucking fortune, like 15 Brazilian Thingies or five quid when all the other beers are two Brazilian Thingies.

We saw a couple of stray horses on the way back, coupled with a boy on a horse who was looking for a horse. Apparently if a stray horse gets into your property and causes damage, you can sue them, but you are only likely to win a horse. Surely that would be the last thing that you wanted?

I am writing this from a beach towel in the garden of Ollie's guesthouse in the wilds of Brazil. I have been in the country just over twenty-four hours. These are my observations on Brazil so far:

 

1) There are no foreigners here, and the possibility that I might not speak Portuguese has not crossed anyone's mind. I have been brushing up with a copy of "Lonely Planet Portuguese Brazilian for hapless tourists" very hastily and also watching X Factor with Portuguese subtitles so I can now say things like "Desculpe, mas voce nao sei cantar." (Sorry, you cannot sing) and of course I can order beers or caipirinhas in a variety of quantities and say thank you if someone lets me out of my plane seat to go to the loo.

 

2) There is no flat land whatsoever. Perhaps for this reason, people use horses as a mode of transport rather than a recreational ride or a pet. More baffingingly, there are quite a quantity of Brazilians struggling up and down mountains on bicycles, though I am sure this is neither safe nor ergonomic.

 

3) A visit to the Brazilian equivalent of Walmart was enlightening. The only thing I recognised on the inside was mangoes. There are a lot of wafer biscuits, weak lagers and fruit juices. Everything contains twice as much sugar as the English equivalent. They have things that look like doughnuts but taste like cheesy wotsits, baps that contain a secret hanmburger, and indeterminate green and red jellied substances in salad pots.

 

4) A Brazilian cheeseburger is perfectly flat, as if made in a sandwich toaster, and comes served with 200ml of "homemade mayonnaise" (don't!!) in a plastic cup.

 

5) Brazilian parrots are invisible.

 

6) Brazilian sausage dogs are the same as the English ones - cute.

 

I have not had a caipirinha yet. I hope this will change soon. We are at the guesthouse until tomorrow evening, when we take the night bus from Sao Paulo to somewhere I have forgotten the name of and then catch a night bus to Ilha Grande, which is a little island where cars are not allowed but hippies and yoga are plentiful. Apparently there are going to be tropical thunderstorms but Ollie is in denial about this.

Leyton Orient v Rotherham - League One Play Off Final 25.5.14

A quick recap for those not interested in football or not interested in Leyton Orient (ie. most people). Leyton Orient did really well this season. They won the first eight games in a row and were undefeated in nearly three months. For a while, it looked like we were dead certs for automatic promotion. But Orient being Orient, something had to go wrong. A few injuries, a few suspensions, a few silly losses to teams we really should have beaten and suddenly Brentford and Wolves had caught us up and taken those two invaluable automatic promotion spots. We found ourselves staring a third place finish and the indignity of entering the playoffs with Preston, Rotherham and Peterborough to clinch the final promotion spot, a spot that we felt was rightfully ours in the first place.

Two weeks ago we saw off Peterborough with a convincing 3-2 victory over two legs. A lot of people were very happy and there was a massive pitch invasion mainly of pensioners singing "que sera, sera". For two weeks everything has been Wembley, Wembley, Wembley. Orient fans all over Leyton have been sleepless, off their food, chewing their nails and frantically purchasing scarfs, flags and foam fingers like their lives depended on it.

As I set off for Wembley on the morning of 25th May, I felt like a celebrity. Everyone I passed in the street gave me a thumbs up or wished me good luck as if I personally were playing or in some way responsible for the outcome. I met my St John Ambulance friends at Walthamstow Central, we posed for photos, waved flags and discussed how nervous we were. It took just over two hours to get to Wembley, not because of engineering works for once, but because everyone kept stopping to sing, discuss the match with total strangers or wave their flags in the air. When we reached the Metropolitan line platform at Liverpool, it was packed to the rafters with singing Orient supporters, seemingly more than at the average Brisbane Road home game. Songs sung include:

"Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, we're going to Wem-ber-ley, que sera sera"
"We're the famous Leyton Orient and we're going to Wem-ber-ley"
"He's got no hair cut we don't care, Russell, Russell, he's got no hair but we don't care, Russell Russell Slade"
"There's only one David Mooney, one David Mooney, he used to be shite, but now he's alright"
and of course "We've got Tiny Cox, We've got Tiny Cox, We've got Tiny, we've got Tiny, We've got Tiny Cox" with additional words from Brian "But we've got big balls, but we've got big balls"...

The singing went on and on, it lasted all the way to Wembley at which point people got confused because they couldn't sing "We're going to Wemberley" any more because they were already there. The motion to go to the pub was quickly passed and Martin informed us he knew of a pub just a five minute walk away which was exclusively earmarked for Orient fans and not letting any northern riffraff in.

... fifteen minutes later we found ourself in the middle of suburbia surrounded by semi detached houses and precisely zero football fans. Since no one had stopped singing since we left Liverpool Street, we decided to ask for directions football chant style by singing the following at a random passerby: "Excuse me, where's the pub? Excuse me, excuse me, where's the pub?" The random passerby obliged and got a round of "Who the fuck are you?" in response which the rest of us hastily apologised for.

Another fifteen minutes and 50 thousand semi detached houses later, we finally heard the faint rumble of people singing "Orient Orient Orient" in the distance and knew we had finally found the mythical pub. As we walked into the garden, there was a sight for sore eyes, hundreds and hundreds of people in Orient shirts clutching overpriced pints of shit lager. Pensioners in red and white wigs, kids dressed as the Orient mascot and shirts from every season. Several pints were necked and then we sang our way to the stadium, with Brian (who is the same age as my mother) stealing a traffic cone on the way and attempting to sing through it like it was a loudspeaker.

Eventually we reached the stadium where I paid £9.90 for a shit beer and a tiny hotdog. We found our seats amongst the unmitigated chaos of balloons, flags and inflatable flamingos that were being thrown around. As the teams came on to the pitch to some Foreboding Music the air of jollilty evaporated. This was serious shit. Leyton Orient were playing at Wembley. They were playing a massive match. A massive match that they had a good chance of winning. Millions of pounds were at stake. The future of the club was quite possibly at stake. Would this be a day to remember all our lives or a day we would want to forget?

For the first half hour, I couldn't pick a winner. Not surprising, perhaps - Orient and Rotherham finished equal on points in the league with only goal difference separating them. If it had been an ordinary game my money would have been on the draw. But there are no draws in the final.

On 34 minutes, Moses Odubajo thumped a free kick from Tiny Cox goalwards with such energy that the goalkeeper barely had time to react before it was in the back of the net. We were ahead! The crowd roared, the balloons went in the air, the singing returned. And five minutes later, it got even better when Moses repaid the favour, feeding the ball back to Tiny for goal number 2. Finally, we started to believe. We were forty-five minutes away from the Championship. Surely Rotherham wouldn't overturn a two goal lead? Surely it was ours now? But yet, I couldn't quite relax. I felt sick to the stomach. This is Orient, this is the team that likes to lose due to an own goal from their star player in the 90th minute. Nothing could be that easy.

As Martin said exactly twelve times during the second half, Orient were "still in the dressing room for the first ten minutes". I guess like me, their heads were in the sky, dreaming of the promotion and the trophy and the money and a trip to Millwall next season. Rotherham didn't let them get away with it. By the time fifteen minutes had elapsed, Alex Revell had stormed in with two goals, leaving us equal. The second goal was an absolute screamer, looped in from a ludicrous distance right over poor Jamie Jones' head. I should add that Alex Revell used to play for Leyton Orient. If seeing one of your favourite Orient footballers playing for another team is like watching your ex boyfriend kiss another woman, seeing one of your favourite Orient footballers score a goal like that to equalise in the play off final at Wembley is like seeing your ex boyfriend shag your best friend, in your bed, if your best friend happens to look like Cheryl Cole. It hurts.

There then followed a very painful half hour of regular time chased by an even more painful half hour of extra time. The players looked exhausted. The Wembley pitch is bigger than those they are used to playing on, and league one footballers very rarely end up having to play extra time, so they train to give it their all for ninety minutes. They had nothing left. They were limping, asking for water, mopping their brows. Cox, Lisbie and Mooney, three of our best players, all had to be substituted, despite the looming prospect of penalties.

Penalties. I knew it was going to end in penalties from about the 70th minute. It just didn't seem that either team had the energy left to score from regular play. What is it with penalties, though? Every time I've watched a shootout, the team I have been supporting has lost. It seems like any supporter of any team will dread the shootout and tell you that their team are terrible at penalties and always lose. They can't ALL lose, can they? It just seems that way. I certainly wasn't pleased at the prospect of them, the only positive I could take was that this excruciating game would soon be over, one way or another, and that I would be able to get my heart out of my throat and stop shaking like a leaf.

The penalty shoot out went like this:

Thump! Cheer from Rotherham end.
Thump! Cheer from Orient end.
Massive cheer from Orient end. Jamie Jones has saved one. You beauty! We're ahead!
Thump! Cheer from Orient end.
Thump! Cheer from Rotherham end.
Thump! Cheer from Orient end.
Thump! Cheer from Rotherham end.
FUCK! Cheer from Rotherham end. Mathieu Baudry's penalty has been saved. It is all equal.
Thump! Cheer from Rotherham end. It's the last penalty. Chris Dagnall has to score his penalty, or it's all over.

Chris Dagnall's penalty is saved.

I put my head in my hands and burst into noisy sobs.

Somewhere in the distance the Rotherham fans are roaring, like a oncoming train about to flatten me. Their players are ecstatic, leaping on to each other like a great pile of footballing joy. The Orient players almost become invisible. Chris Dagnall hides his red face in his red shirt. Batt and Vincelot fall to the ground as if mortally wounded. Tiny Cox rejoins his teammates on the pitch, tears streaming down his little face. In the stands, no one has said a word, but I can see I am not the only one looking a bit tearful. We trudge out of the stadium shaking our heads. You can hear a pin drop. It's a long, long walk back to the tube station.

Then, as we go under the bridge, a single, breaking voice calls out "Ori, ori, ori", and slowly everyone joins in until we're nearly as loud as we were at Liverpool Street five hours ago with our hearts full of hope. "There's always next season", says someone, and then there's a discussion about statistical likelihood of the play off losers coming back to gain automatic promotion in the following season. We all agree to put this behind us and reconvene at Brisbane Road on August 6th.

That's the thing with football, you see. It tears your heart out, but it doesn't leave you. It just keeps carrying on.

The last time Leyton Orient played Arsenal, I was a year old. The last time Leyton Orient beat Arsenal... well, it was so long ago that I don't think anyone who was at the match is still alive. Therefore, Sunday's FA cup fifth round match at Brisbane Road was the most momentous football match I've ever been to. I was so excited the night before that I could barely sleep and sat up till 2am reading previews on the internet. It was like Christmas.

Being on St John Ambulance duty (there was no way I would have got a ticket otherwise - they were going for £250 on ebay!) I had to be at the ground 2 hours before kick off and spent a very cold and boring two hours sitting on a stretcher at the side of the pitch watching the sell out crowd file in and trying to spot rogue Arsenal fans in the Orient area. They weren't very intelligent, asking a steward "Which is the west stand?" and "Do you have any toilets?" at a match where tickets were supposed to be for season ticket holders and regular attenders only is bound to arouse suspicion. As is wearing an Arsenal shirt. The ground was completely full, and everyone was singing "Orient, Orient, Orient!" I have never seen it so alive there.

Finally the clock ticked round to 4pm and the players were on the pitch. Usually we line up against someone like Huddersfield or Tranmere and our opponents are tubby misfits with names like Smith and Bloggs. This time we had Bentner, Rosicky, Song, Sagna, Squillaci and Arshavin. Proper hardcore famous multimillion pound footballers side by side with my little Orient. And then the game kicked off and all I could think was "bloody hell this lot are good". I mean, of course they're good, they're Arsenal, but it doesn't really come across how good they are when you watch them on TV against another premier league team. It's only when you're ten feet away watching poor old Tiny Cox and podgy, 37-year-old Scotty McGleish scrambling around them that you realise that the Arsenal players are like hardcore, streamlined, expressionless robots designed to have small league one football teams for dinner. As I watched poor 5'4" Cox get sandwiched between Song and Sagna (two hulking six foot something black guys with terrifying blond hair that makes them look like negatives, or zombies) I could only think "ok, how bad is this going to be? 7-0? 8-0?"

But then slowly something amazing was happening. Despite Arsenal's obvious superiority on the pitch, they just weren't scoring. Against all odds, Orient were keeping their nerves, sitting back and defending and not taking any chances. The ball was spending most of the time in the middle of the pitch and whenever Arsenal came close to scoring, Jamie Jones (the scouser) was there, effortlessly scooping the ball up. The clock was ticking down and suddenly we were at half time and it was still 0-0. Orient left the pitch to rapturous applause.

By the time they returned, it was dark, I couldn't feel my toes and a thick fog was starting to descend over the pitch. The crowd were still screaming, banging drums and wielding effigies of the FA Cup. But eight minutes after the restart, the inevitable happened. Rosicky scored for Arsenal.

Oh well, I told myself. You knew it was coming. They're in the premier league for a reason. They beat Barcelona four days ago. We've played well and not embarrassed ourselves. It's not going to be a crushing defeat. It's still a day to remember.

And the Os didn't give up the ghost or change their tactics, and for the next thirty-five minutes they continued to frustrate Arsenal and keep the ball away from the net.

And then it happened. The unthinkable. Jonathan Tehoue, an unfit Frenchman with a name like a bad scrabble rack, with a minute left on the clock, decided to attempt the impossible. Ball at his feet, he barged at two Arsenal defenders, hopping over their outstretched legs. Yards from goal with only Almunia the goalie in his path, he whacked the ball as hard as he could. It went straight under Almunia and unfalteringly into the back of the net.


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Tehoue's goal

On the TV they talked about "the roof coming off" but unless you were there you will never know what it was like. The stadium erupted. It was unmitigated chaos. Everyone was out of their seats, running around, screaming, hugging, throwing hotdogs and £5 souvenir programmes into the sky, punching the air, running on to the pitch, invading my little safe space between the stretcher and the corner flag. I was up on my feet screaming "YES YES YES" completely forgetting that as a first aider I was supposed to look neutral at all times. Trust me, there wasn't a neutral in the place. Even the police were cheering. The noise was loud enough to be heard from the Olympic stadium.

No one saw much of the four minutes of injury time. Conscious of the number of times Orient have been on top of a game and fucked it up in the last minutes, I could hardly bear to look. I was actually shaking. When the referee blew the final whistle the stadium erupted again, almost as loudly as the first time. We had done it! We had done what the mighty Barca had failed to do and held Arsenal to a draw! And now we had earned a replay at the Emirates, a match which will earn us around £700,000, enough to pay all our strikers' wage bills for a year or more importantly fund our legal fight to stop Wet Spam taking over the olympic stadium and potentially putting us out of business. That one goal, one brave chance from Tehoue, may have saved the Orient.

Since the match it's like anyone who gives a toss about football (and even some people who don't give a toss about football) are talking about the Orient. Tehoue's face was staring at me from the back of every Metro on the tube, the match was first on the highlights show and "Leyton Orient" was trending on Twitter. Just for a short while it feels like everyone gets it at last. People actually give a shit about my silly little football team. I can't tell you how good that feels.

I thought I was going to enjoy the Swans gig. I had a couple of their albums many years ago and enjoyed listening to them and foolishly thought this would bear some resemblance to the live experience. But I forgot one key thing: when you're listening to something at home you can change the volume and skip the tracks that resemble aircraft noise.

The gig got off to a terrible start with at least ten minutes of awful, droning white noise that was so loud that my brain started to vibrate and pulverise. I don't mean it was a droning song, it was literally just one noise that went on and on and on and got progressively louder. Occasionally someone bashed a cowbell or something and the noise dimmed tantalisingly, as if it were going to finally stop, only to start up again just as loudly as before. After five minutes I had to sit down, I felt like I was going to vomit, my head was pounding and filling with unsightly colours and flashes of light. I was actually starting to hallucinate a bit. It looked like this
( Not safe for epilepticsCollapse )

Finally something that vaguely resembled music broke out. Unfortunately it was even louder. It was impossible to pick out any rhythm, instruments, tune, singing, etc because of the sheer volume. If I were the cynical type I might say that deafening the entire audience and trying to pass it off as a "concept" is just a way of disguising the fact that they are not actually any good. I actually thought I was going to have to leave the gig because it was so unpleasant but then Clay kindly offered to take me to the upstairs bar where we could watch from behind a plastic screen with screwed up toilet roll in our ears. From this safe distance the gig was actually tolerable, there were some definite semblances of songs at some points, but being so far away completely killed any atmosphere. I could see that there were about seven people on the stage, all facing in different directions, with random instruments strewn about, some of which did not appear to be being played by anyone. A topless man had a xylophone round his neck like a guitar and someone else appeared to be playing a trouser press. Every now and again someone shouted "JEEESUS CHRIIIIST" but that was it for stage banter.

I don't know if I'm just old and boring but I like music to sound nice. I like it to have a tune and a verse and a chorus and traditional instruments like guitars and keyboards. I don't want to feel like I've achieved something but sitting through the whole gig without vomiting or convulsing. But oh well, I'll try anything once and it was certainly an interesting experience. Now back to my Girls Aloud albums for me.

I used to hate football. Ball goes up the pitch, I thought, ball goes down the pitch. Sweaty men kick ball. Supporters punch in each in face. Big deal. Why do people get so excited? Then I started doing the first aid at Leyton Orient, and I realised I was seeing it all the wrong way. Forget all this stuff with the ball. The ball is a red herring; football is a game of drama, just like livejournal.

The rules are simple. There are three sides: two teams and the referee. For the teams, the object of the game is to trip the players on the opposing team over without being seen by the referee. Once all the players have tripped over, a member of the team should run towards the ball and kick it towards the goal. Any player who has managed to get up in time can try to get in the way of this, and then the first team has to start trying to trip them over all over again. If the ball goes towards the goal, the goalkeeper has to jump in the air. If he falls over, the ball will probably go in. The player who kicked it then has to do an handstand and hug all the other players on his team in the time it takes for the crowd to sing a verse of "Three Lions on a Shirt". If he succeeds, then it is one point to his team.

For the players being tripped over, the skill is in getting the referee to notice what is happening. Because the crowd are singing loudly throughout, shouting does not help, and the players have to indulge in play acting. They do this by flailing on the floor, howling in pain, and swearing at the person who tripped them up. If the referee feels sorry for them, then the player who tripped them up gets a yellow card, which says "You are a very naughty person" which he has to keep in his shorts for the rest of the game, and the tripped-up player gets to have a go at kicking the ball at the goal, even though none of the other team have been tripped over. If the referee feels really sorry for them, or the tripping-up player does something stupid like kicking them in the face (cf. David Beckham in the 1998 World Cup) then they get a red card, which means that all the other players take him off their friends list and call him bad names until he leaves the pitch in tears. However, if you ham it up too much, the doctor (who works for the referee) comes on and makes you leave in a nee naw, so beware.

There is one last recourse for a team if all their players have fallen over and the other team has the ball. This is called the Offside Rule. All their players must run back towards their goal as fast as they can. If they get away from the opposing player and the ball, leaving him all alone at the top of the pitch, the referee blows his whistle, the ball goes back to the middle and all the supporters shout bad words.

At the end of the game, the team who has the most goals win. If it is a tie then the referee wins. Whoever wins gets a slice of orange and free drinks at the bar all night. In some World Cup matches, the referee is not allowed to win, so it goes to Penalties. All the players get a chance to kick the ball at the goal, while all the supporters sing their national anthem. The referee measures it with a decibelometer. The team with the loudest supporters wins.

England vs Trinidad and Tobago: 1700, June 15th 2006

It's not like there is a shortage of decent football teams in London. If I lived just a few miles away it would be Arsenal, Tottenham or West Ham, but alas, I live in Leyton so my local team is Leyton Orient. Personally, if I was a football fan, I would be inclined to support the second closest team, but I am not a football fan, merely a first aider who is required to attend football matches, so off I trotted to the match in 30° searing heat wearing a stupid hat and a stupid tie.

As I said above, I am not a football fan, but even I can tell when a team is no good whatsoever. Whenever the ball approached the Leyton goal, the footballers huddled around it looking as if they'd never seen a football before, until someone from Macclesfield town jumped in and sent the ball hurtling back down the pitch and into the goal in a blink of an eye. By half past four the score was 0-3 to Macclesfield Town (where is Macclesfield anyway? It sounds grim. Like a field of mackerels) and the Leyton supporters (who comprised 99% of the audience at least -- I can't imagine anyone travelling all the way from Macclesfield, wherever it is, to watch a lousy twenty-eighth division football match) were seriously disgruntled. They began hurling abuse at the team, chanting "What a load of rubbish!!" and leaving the ground in droves. (I thought this was very unsporting. Surely the correct attitude is "Come on Leyton! You can do it!!") It barely registered when someone from Leyton Orient scored in the final moments. Final score: 1-3 to Macclesfield Town.

As far as accidents went, there was one theme and one theme only: hot people. I got very excited when the Leyton Orient mascot (a man dressed as a large red dragon wearing furry wings and a furry head) was hit on the head with a football, but alas his dragon's beak protected him from damage and he did not require medical assistance. It is nothing short of a miracle that he didn't dye of heatstroke dressed like that.

Unfortunately, it was 6pm by the time I got home and after four hours standing wearing a uniform in direct sunlight with no shade had made me a trifle woozy and we decided against going to Alexander's barbecue (too far) and very strongly against going to Slimelight (too hot). After a period of vegetation, we plumped for a less taxing trip to a nearby Wetherspoons where I consumed a bacon and cheese burger and half a plate of waffles with ice cream and scrabble was played.

Contrary to the last statement -- call it a last supper -- I have decided I am going on a small diet. I only want to lose one stone so it shouldn't take more than a couple of months. I want to be able to see my muscles as opposed to just feel them! I know diet posts are very boring but I do have to make them because it gives me extra willpower -- if I have told everyone I am dieting I will look like a prat if I do not lose any weight, therefore I have to do it. So you will have to put up with it. Sorry!

It seems to be very hot again today and plans include: going to the fairground at the nearby park (likely to be crap), going to the boating lake (hopefully no people-in-lake accidents like last time) and/or getting a pizza, I mean, a large salad from Safeways and vegetating in front of Big Brother repeats.

First of all thank you to everyone who showed up, especially those who came a long way and/or braved a room full of strangers to put in an appearance. It's always nice to meet new people but I didn't expect to do so at my own party! Since we only organised it six days beforehand I had visions of me and Aden sitting round the barbecue on our own toasting a lonely sausage. The late invite was probably responsible for the novelty attendees which included: people I know well in the realm of livejournal but never thought I would encounter in real life (butterflymonkey, commonpeople), people I had never heard of who had never heard of me (spikey_bastard and others whose journal names I don't know,) people I know well but who had drastically changed their appearances since the last time I saw them (Dru, araqnid), people who had said they were definitely not coming (dawnage, miss_cc, sliding_loopz) and the usual staples such as Rosie, Steve and Rattler.

The party started with me plying everyone with Pimms while a stream of people breezed in presenting me with bottles of booze and packets of burgers. I feel a bit guilty about this because I did a tickybox designed to encourage people to bring stuff and didn't mention that I had got stuff in so there would be enough for everyone. I didn't expect everyone to bring stuff and there ended up being loads! Thank you everyone!

First accident of the day occurred when I was making the second jug of Pimms and cut my finger slicing lemon. Never cut fruit when drunk. I then ran around waving blood at people and saying "it's okay, I'm in the St John Ambulance!!" Vicky put a plaster on me and Sue made a cold compress. I drank more Pimms to ease the pain. The accidents came thick and fast and involved the Peter Andre doll, putting a lighter in the barbecue (it went very high in the air when it exploded), balloons, Adam Ant face paint, all the photos on my computer that were too sensitive to post to livejournal (including the candle video), thinking it was hilarious to play Strawberry Switchblade at an exceedingly unimpressed Rose, Steve passing out on the sofa, Vicky and I dancing to Carter in the kitchen...

Around about 10pm I decided it was a good idea to make and distribute cocktails. Please note that despite having the same colour and consistency, cherry brandy is not an adequate substitute for grenadine. For some reason everyone started passing out, turning green, suffering memory lapses and/or going home. I decided to post some spirited rants to livejournal, many of which had little or no relevance to the post I was replying to, and all of which got deleted in the morning.

Things we had left over the next morning: two packets of burgers, one packet veggy sausages, one packet spare ribs, one bottle buck's fizz, one bottle Budweiser, three cans Tanglefoot, two cans John Smith's, one can Guinness, one bottle vodka (3/4 full), one bottle cherry brandy (ditto), one bottle tequila (ditto), one bottle Southern Comfort (unopened), one packet Pro Plus, one bottle Ambre Solaire suncream (factor 30).

Fairytale Generator

Once upon a time, there was a ugly, smelly girl named Suzi. Everyone loved Suzi, but that didn't matter. You see she was fat and in love with Clay, who happens to hate fat girls. Suzi tried very hard not to be fat. She even tried shagging. But that didn't work.

Then one day while shitting through a very rotten Walthamstow, she vomited upon a oozing dog. This oozing dog spoke to Suzi and said, "If you can answer my riddle I will grant you a wish."

Well Suzi wanked. And she sweatily said, "What is your riddle, pussy dog?"

The dog replied, "If a rat has a tit, how many bananas does it sneeze?"

Suzi thought about the riddle and answered, "15!"

The dog began disembowling, than it stank, and turned into a prostitute. The prostitute pulled and said, "You are correct! You turned this old dog into back into a handsome prostitute. What is your wish?"

Suzi was so happy! She knew exactly what she wanted, "I don't want to be fat any more! That way Clay will fall in love with me."

The prostitute then jumped his oozing beer and Suzi was no longer fat! She left the Walthamstow to find Clay. When she did, she found him smelling Cordy, the vile girl from York. And Clay and Cordy lived frantically ever after. Suzi, on the other hand, died a putrid spinster.

The end.


Erm... I can't comment...