Inventive Looping

Today I do the Leicestershire Half Marathon which is the rather curious name they have given to a race that starts and finishes at Prestwold Hall. Which is, granted, in Leicestershire but then so are countless other places…

It is organised by RunThrough who specialise in events that make you run through places repeatedly. This one is centred on Prestwold Driving Centre which is right next door to the hall and is just ripe for doing laps of.

It actually turns out better than I expected with the start\finish in front of the hall and even a trip out on to real roads, the only issue there was we had to do a short cross country section to get there. Then we finished off with some inventive looping of the Driving Centre e.g. they didn’t just make us go round. They were quite cunning and made us double back on ourselves and stuff like that.

Anyhow I must have done ok because my time of 01:44:57 can only be bettered in the last twelve month by my Robin Hood time. I even, sort of, enjoyed it. Not so L who seemed to have a traumatic time with the boys. Which makes her take the Lad out on a ‘training’ walk once we get home.

In the evening we are at Broadway where I stumble across Vanilla Gorilla, which wasn’t available at the beer festival last night. We watch 'A Private War' which is the story Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike), the long time Sunday Times war correspondent of whom I was an occasional avid reader (now there's a contradiction).

Colvin, as with most war correspondents, risked her life to report from the front line but she often went where others feared to tread. Over the years she became a legendary figure who lost an eye to shrapnel in Sri Lanka in 2001 but, once she’d recovered, went back to reporting wearing an eyepatch like a badge of honour.

The film covers Colvin’s career up to her death in Homs in 2012 where she was in a building that the Syrian government shelled. At the time she was in Syria to prove that, despite what Assad had said, the government were targeting civilians. She proved it conclusively with her death and still got a live report in to CNN.

The film goes back a decade or more before Homs and keeps us informed of where we are with rather unnecessary nagging on-screen countdowns e.g. London, England, 10 years before Homs.

Having teamed up with photographer Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan) she travels to Fallujah where they uncover mass graves containing victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Then as Colvin continues to be drawn to danger zones, we see her in Afghanistan and then interviewing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Her editor Sean Ryan (Tom Hollander) constantly fears for her safety and sanity but ultimately he needs her to sell newspapers and, luckily for him, her DNA constantly drove her back to the front line.

Although we do see Colvin in civilian life it is fleeting. She struggles in her relationships (Greg Wise/Stanley Tucci), suffers nightmares, drinks a lot of alcohol, is rarely without a cigarette but she does occasionally pop home to pick up an award. The implication being that her job took a great toll on her but it's not clear if this was the extent of her personal life and it would have been nice to have known more.

Rosamund Pike throws herself into the role and does a good job. The film may be more action movie than I would have liked but I still liked the film a lot. It is pro-journalist at a time when many journalists are rightly being criticised and news itself is under suspicion. Marie Colvin was one who believed in actual facts and real news.

(Sunday 18th February)

Out Of Desperation

It’s a little bit cold and icy this morning but out of desperation I risk the bike anyway and I make it to work unscathed. As it turns out the roads are not slippery.

L is in the gym where they have introduced yet another points card. L says she isn’t bothered about first or second prize and is only going for third prize, which is chocolates. I assume, purely so that she can gift them to me. She’s nice like that.

The Great North Run is giving the option of paying a £60 fee to guarantee entry for the next three years. On one hand, they have a bit of a nerve but on the other hand... it isn’t too bad. That is assuming we’re both interested in doing it again? And indeed for the next three years.

I try to find out whether the Sunday Times will be running a ballot again because that worked well for us this year but I can’t see any indication that they are. If they don’t, we’ll have to join in the main ballot with the great unwashed and we may struggle to get in. We decide to sign up.

I’m at dog training tonight. L is at home and in bed early to keep herself out of the fridge which I thought I’d emptied earlier but apparently I missed some cheese... deliberately though, I was saving that for my supper.

(Wednesday 29^th November)

A Bad Pint?

I have a touch of a hangover this morning or perhaps it was just a bad pint. L and MD go off for a run without me.

Other than that it’s a largely leisurely day with the Sunday papers etc. Even L has started reading the Sunday Times in an effort to keep up with the news. She’s not impressed though. 

(Sunday 31^st January)

A Royal Baby?

Apparently Kate Middleton is pregnant. I don't know how they’ve kept that quiet but the secrets out now and this weekend The Sunday Times are going to publish ‘A Prince is Born: Royal Baby Souvenir Issue’, a 16-page collectors' edition. I suppose if Wayne Rooney’s life can warrant multiple biographies then I’m sure an unborn baby is entitled to 16 pages.

I take delivery at work of the trophies for this weekend's dog show. All eleven rather heavy boxes of them. I manage to get them all in the car but the boot might be scraping along the floor as I drive home.

After making it home and unloading the car, I head off to training with the boys. Which takes place in rather hot and sticky conditions with towards the end constant rumblings of thunder overhead.

As we drive home, the thunder starts to be accompanied with a rather impressive light show. Doggo is already getting worried and even more so when, just before we get home, the monsoon arrives, leaving us marooned in the car on the drive for a while before I decide to leg it inside.

Unfortunately Doggo decides there’s no way he’s legging it anywhere in such weather and refuses point blank to move, leaving me remonstrating with him and getting wetter and wetter at the same time. Eventually, after a good shove, he’s out and legging it to the front door as well.

(Monday 22^nd July)

Morbid Fascination

I had planned to bike today but decide to skip it, as I feel a bit relapsed after last night’s run or it might just have been too much pizza last night.

I’m close to finishing an audiobook in record time, although it was only a six hour one but Stuart McBride’s ‘Cold Granite’ seems to have captured my morbid fascination.



It’s the first in his series of book about Detective Sergeant Logan McRae and was a free download from the Sunday Times. In fact they’ve handed over four of his books for nothing. Set in the glamorous location of Aberdeen, it is an unpleasant little number with bodies, many children, winding up dead everywhere. Despite that it’s quite witty with it. Chuck in a pathologist ex-girlfriend (that's pathologist not pathological) and a half naked WPC in his apartment but he was too drunk to remember how she got there. It’s an interesting read.

Training for both boys tonight even Doggo. He only gets a session once a month, just to keep his paw in and it’s tonight. He looks terrible afterwards.

(Wednesday 9th March)