Musings and Random Vitriol

This rambling contains spoilers.

Look away now if you haven’t yet seen Skyfall and care about such things.

Actually, although there are spoilers, they’re unlikely to spoil much, as most of the moments referenced are telegraphed well in advance during the film. But still, it’s only polite to warn you …

Depending on who you read, Skyfall is either a triumphant return to form/extension of the ‘new’ Bond, or it’s so sexist and misogynistic that any right-thinking person will run screaming from the cinema in a boiling fug of offended hysteria provoked by the sheer unreconstructed horror of it all.

Having finally got round to seeing it last night (in the company of fine folk of the female persuasion, none of whom appeared desperately outraged afterwards, although there were some raised eyebrows), I’m of the opinion that it’s a little bit of both, and not quite as strong in either direction as has been implied elsewhere.

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Disaster strikes!

The mid-week runs went OK – slow, but OK. Last weekend, however, I was utterly shattered – just bone weary – all weekend. We held off until Sunday afternoon to go out, but even then I wasn’t really in the right place mentally. We also decided to reverse our route, so rather than a steady mile or so uphill from the start, it would be more on the flat, then a sharp uphill followed by downhill all the way back.

That was the plan. In the event general fatigue and the sharp uphill proving sharper than anticipated got the better of me and we only did about half distance/time before deciding that the only sane thing to do was walk back.

However, I’ll be out again tomorrow, and pretending that never happened. Just hope I get some sleep tonight, and find some energy and enthusiasm from somewhere.

It’s hard to believe, I know, but sometimes I can be a miserable, cynical, grumpy old git. In a (probably futile) attempt to counteract this tendency, I have resolved two things:

1. I’m going to stop bitching about work. So if people ask me how work’s going, I shall at worst respond with “OK” before changing the subject. Power of positive thinking and all that. Note: this doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily stop bitching about people doing stupid things at work, just about work itself
2. I’m going to make a concerted effort to find at least one thing, preferably more, to be thankful, cheerful or in some other way pleased about each day. To which end I have created a new twitter account from which to post happy-making things. I can’t promise this won’t sometimes be repetitive – I’m a simple creature, and the same things often cheer me up

Even if it has no followers ever, at least it will make me look for the sunshine on a rainy day.

Wonder how long it will last?

I’ve had an affection for Philip Larkin’s poetry since school days. As a rule it’s short, accessible, and to the point; all qualities I value in poetry. That it’s generally somewhat cynical and perverse is just an added bonus. As someone who studied English at university, I probably ought to be more moved by epic verse. More appreciative of Milton, Spenser, Shelley and the like. But tough, I’m not. The closer a poem is to a well crafted song lyric, the better, quite frankly. Would that Steve Turner were more prolific.

Anyway, I digress. Amongst the various Larkin poems I treasure is This Be The Verse (may be NSFW if your employer is particularly sensitive). I may not share the sentiment of the last line – after all, surely one of life’s key pleasures is messing up the next generation – but the rest of it has always seemed pretty much on the money. Pop psychology 101 it may be, but not without truth for all that. Up to a point … Read the rest of this entry »

Belated end to Week 7 due to a thoroughly enjoyable visit to see my sister-in-law at the weekend.  Thank heaven for bank holidays, otherwise we’d have had to run when we got back on Sunday night.  Managed to push the pace a little bit, but the sleep deficit took its toll – only just hit 2 miles in the 25 minutes of running.  Which is sucky, but not far off our best pace yet, and we’re sticking with it.  Slowly slowly catchee monkey …

Week 8 starts tomorrow, and we’re going to have to lengthen the route, as we ended up running all the way back to the car this morning.  I somehow suspect that when we get to the end of Week 9 we’ll be OK for time, but short on distance, and it will take a wee bit longer to get up to a full 5k.  Right now, I don’t care; I’m just pleased to still be sticking with the programme after a couple of months.