In the arse end of nowhere

I had a new Italian teacher last night, so that makes a total of two in two lessons.  Not that I am scaring them off but I have since figured out that it is one teacher for language, another teacher for hand gestures.

That aside, I also figured something else out today.  This morning over breakfast, I treated myself to a little Amy Winehouse from her time on Jools Holland.  Way back in 2004, she was quite sweet and innocent, tattoo free and a fuller figure – her voice, purely magical.  A couple of songs later and the year was 2006,  the tattoos started to appear, the weight dropping, that glazed unfocused stare and of course in the background the worthless shite of a boyfriend.

Then over lunch, I happened across a BeeGees in concert movie so I stuck that on and we got to talking about the two brothers that had died.  It then hit me – you can tell how old you are by how many dead artists you have in your music library. I bet everyone has a bit of Lou Reed right? Jimmi Hendrix, Beatles, Nirvana, Joplin, Marley,Presley,Bolan, Beastie Boys, Barry White,  they very quickly add up. I would like to tell you now just how many dead artists are in my library but fear of knowing the true figure stops me counting.

Of course, it got me thinking about Winehouse. Being a hard arse, I have little sympathy for her way of life but I do fully appreciate the staggering loss of talent when she departed. I also remember when Cobain decided to take his head off with a shot gun, I never understood why. I am sure that will remain eternally unanswered but then one night many years ago while in bed in Abbey Street I was listening to Radio 1, before it got shite.  Back in the day (at 44, I am old enough to use that phrase, not like some of the spotty teens on the streets)   the evening was filled with Bob Harris (deceased) Nicky Campbell and of course the late and very very great John Peel.  Peel was hosting a show on Cobain and finished off with words along the line of feeling like he could have helped, invited him into his house to be looked after and helped through their problems – and I can’t help but think Peel was right, better still, there are many of us that would have volunteered our services to help to keep such talent alive.

But enough of that crap

Lets talk about my friend Rupert – or ‘Poopie Pants’ as he is known in Portugal.  During a recent stay in England, I talked Poopie into doing the Park Run with me on saturday morning (thank you Horley for the tip off).  For those of you unfamiliar with the Park Run, it is a weekly event ran by volunteers across the UK and 7 other countries (including S.A. Lexa) where you can run a 5k track, be timed and have your times analysed and compared by world record times, age, sex etc.   While out on a run on the prior wednesday evening, I was accompanied by the aforementioned Poopie and as we got talking I suggested he do the Parkrun with me on Saturday.  He actually agreed, I was agast and he was regretful almost instantly.  Building up to the saturday, he started to look grumpy about doing it but I kept pushing him until at 9am on an autumnal Saturday morning, the flag was dropped and we were off.  My previous 3 runs had all been personal bests and I knew I would be pushing it if I were to to another.

I never of course, I posted my slowest time ever of 23:53 but was very impressed to see Poopie coming in around 1:15 seconds behind me as a first attempt.  Now I have to admit at the time it was a bit of an eye opener.  I run a lot and I was aware that I need to pick up my pace but seeing this fucker post a time like this with a complete lack of training gave me a kick in the nuts that I needed. I did take some comfort in the fact that despite all of his moaning and groaning about not being a competitive person before the event, he did actually really enjoy it.

Since then, I can see his Runkeeper times are very respectable and I have no doubt that Poopie will be busting his nuts to get a better time than me next time we go, so I am upping the ante and have pegged a 7km course here in Genoa to ‘train’ on for my next 5k.  First time out tonight was under 35 minutes with mild poo cramps toward the end but expect that time to tumble as I naturally get quicker and time my toilet drops to perfection