17th Feb. Bla Bla Bla Blah...

There you go. People start writing a blog -why? Then they stop - why? but do they ever start up again after they stop? Is it like smoking? Like an addiction? Pah! As if anyone is interested in what I've got to say. Now it's 12.30pm. Maybe I thought I was more interesting than I actually am? People who have nothing to say i find boring. That's why I must find something to say....Tomorrow yeah yeah

14th April. Things Go Bad.

" HONESTLY all that GOOD food WASTED!!!!"... I can hear Mother now. The plug had come out of the freezer under the stairs... prob quite a while ago by the look of things, or rather the smell. The resulting putrifaction mixed well with Tiddles new trick of using the area immediately behind the freezer as a sort of litter tray without the benefit of the absorbency of the litter. Bleach seemed to answer well to the task. That cat is going senile now and if I was willing to stand the ensuing hiatus with IB would dispatch it myself. Although to be fair to Tiddles she's been very cheap to run. It's just like people, the pre war generation, formative years on what was largely organic then rationing till 1956 no burden at all on the state until the last lap. Sooner or later Elected Dispatching is going to have to be brought in and why not rationing? This obesity epidemic should be tackled head on 2 ounces of butter a week, four ounces of meat and no sugar.

5th April "The World's Toughest Ironman"

I must say it recently came as a bit of a surprise if not to say shock to find that IM Lanzarote is dubbed the world's toughest bla bla bla... I mean my hand had been forced by Fat Boy, there's no way I could have him trumpeting about doing it. So in a continued spirit of bitter rivalry I find my self with only about 6 weeks to go before the dreaded heat, hills and headwinds. Course FB has had a lot on what with newfound domestic bliss, romantic trips to New York, The Wedding and financial stuff, which may have left him less prepared than he'd want and naturally heavier. Nothing like the bad old days you understand but... Even so largeness has its own peculiar advantage. It's one thing cycling uphill but coming down - you wanna see him go! YEEEE - HAAAAH!!!!

16th January. Sequel to "Love & Other Drugs"

Maggie's condition has deteriorated to the point where she no longer enjoys sex. When she has lost most of her personality and keeps shitting herself Jamie decides to smother her with a pillow. He then meets another, younger, woman with a keen interest in sex but this time with a psychiatric illness. She ends up cutting his penis off in the middle of the night. Jamie is then forced to reinvent himself as the transsexual escort "jamie Lee".

24th December. They Shoot Ponies Don't They?

Speaking to up the road and said "it can't be easy getting equality between the three of them" motioning to the kids looking at some movie on the telly. "Well She had a new pony which will do her for the next ten christmases at least." "New pony?" "Well two of them were getting old and sick they had to go..." "Go? " "Yes they go away in a big van." Dear dear... what could be sadder than that? murdering your pet after thirty years?

13th September. Fat Boy Bites Off More Than He Can Chew.

Rounding the outermost bouy on the second lap of the swim in chilly Loch Linnhe I was surprised to find that the huge fish I was in collision with was none other than FB. It was a few moments before the fish came to the realization that the digging in the ribs was out of mere recognition rather than underhand play by an unknown competitor. Ahead in the swim! A first in this long running saga of  bitter rivalry. FB then had the benefit of talc in transition 1. and had his socks on first however I sprinted to the exit and got away on the bike. FB was expecting big things after investing heavily in  Titanium and assorted top of the range bicycle componentry. However the Big Man was tiring like a 300 lb Marlin on the end of high breaking strain line after the exertion of the previous days race. By the end of the 90km cycle all the fight had gone out and the big fish was flapping about in the bottom of the boat.  "What! No run??" I said after running across the line after a further 13 miles of pointlessly looking over my shoulder..

8th September. Helvellyn Sick Up

As soon as I tip-toed in and climbed into one of the three tier bunks of Generator Noise Cottage I knew I was going to be sick in something like 10 secs, which wouldn't have been nice for the serious competitors already asleep. I reversed quickly in the darkness and straight out into the relative anonymity of the campsite in  just my matalan underpants. 3 bottles of Miller and then a pint at the local just sitting on top of double lasagna with lemon meringue ?? Simply a case of overspill and not true vomitus.  The plus point was with that level of carbo loading that "England's Toughest Triathlon" could be completed on one Mars bar and half a bottle of coke.

24th August. God On The M90 Slip Road.

SO there was this rubber wheel rolling down the road towards us, that was the first indication. Then round the corner a bit further up the hill a car with the remaining tyres pointing skywards and a faint blue haze. Ummmm.. I was expecting carnage, you just don't know, but Pete being an ex PC was well used to people trapped in wreckage and screaming that kind of thing, And then here's this young lad in what looked like a pair of Winkle Pickers on his mobile. "Yes but can you come and pick me up..?" Obviously it was Un Miracle! The youth seemed attired for what might have been a wedding, perhaps he was late and that accounted for the high speed and latterly the trajectory of the Peugeot? A mini bus appeared through the jam of traffic and other well dressed people got out, some sort of congregation it being a Sunday evening. Prayers after the initial clipping of the crash barrier... explained the father. Ahhh! That explains it, walking free unscathed and all. Unless he'd suffered a ruptured spleen that didn't come to light till Monday? I mean God can't be everywhere at once?

25th July Ironman Zoorick Just Pissing About..

"Funnily enough it's the swim I'm most worried about." said Old Nick (42) doing his first Ironman. "So long as I've got space in front of me to swim in I'll be ok - It'll be ok" He assured himself. We shuffled barefoot along with two and half thousand other rubber suited clones through the muddied grass towards the early morning lake. "Yeah and then your goggles mist up halfway through and you don't know where the hell the bouys are." i interjected, "DON'T TALK IT UP MATE! DON'T TALK IT UP!" That was the last I'd see of Old Nick and buddy Tone until 5 mins before the end of the race...  Now you can always pee in a wetsuit but try as I might I just couldn't relax the old bladder enough to get the flow started whilst I was front crawling. So I kept on, tried to forget about it but the pressure kept on mounting, Bloody Hell! Carter! it was becoming unbearable - I'd  just have to break off and tread water to finally get some relief. I knew what would happen though - as soon as you stop swimming the nearest bloody race marshal in a kayak thinks you're in difficulty. Well I WAS but not cos i was gonna drown. So this Swiss German comes paddling over just when i was in  warm relaxing midstream ach I just had to get swimming again and make straight for the porta-loos in transition one. The cycling was something best forgotten about and there was two laps of it. I stuck to coca cola and water and I think I only needed one roadside urination in the whole 112 miles. What sticks in my mind is umpah bands and steel bands and pretty girls coming past in Lycra with names like Jolleen. Any girl's name that was part of a song made you want to break out of delirium into an  appropriate refrain - "Jolleen Jolleen Jolleen JO-LLEEEEEEN! " or whatever. So the run? - well you could drink yourself silly on that and there were handy urinals every few kilometres but then I wasted so much time at the urinals I missed getting under the 14hours by 13 seconds. God damn it to hell!

24th July Prelude To An Ironman

"Have you got anything for diarrhoea?" I enquired from the steps of the medical caravan "Sorry?" "DI-A- RRHOEA" "? You have to speak slow-er" "Have you got any Immodium?" "?" "IM-MO-DI-UM" A smile of recognition appeared on the, until then, blank face of the Swiss German stand in nurse. " One moment..." I am then allotted one capsule scissored of with its foil backing. "Not good for race tomorrow!" I proffer. I'd been walking along quite happily whilst Tone was wheeling his alloy framed Ribble to the bike check-in for numbers over 2000 when a routine release of gas surprised me with that inter-cheek ominous squirting sensation instead of a satisfying trump. Bollox! Fuck it! I thought I was actually going to make it to the start line with no more than residual Natural Weakness this year. The Swiss toilets were made entirely of stainless steel with hydraulically damped retracting loo seat and integral handwash facilitiy. It seemed like a desecration - akin to shitting brown water inside a new BMW but the flushing action, something like the whirlpool of Corryvreckan, was second to none. My arse was certainly going to be additionally challenged on the 180km cycle...

20th July. Here We, Here We, Here We Fucking Go!

I had this nightmare... I mean dream... of doing Ironman Zurich... What I mean is I'm Living The Dream, shortly, which may feel like a nightmare.  This morning  I was down the leisure pool for a last splash around and the Tattooed Ironman was in the showers. I said "Ironman Zurich on sunday."  The Tattooed IM had told me some other time that "He'd never been able to get under 10 hours." And that's like saying I'm better than you, you're weak, you're just playing at it, not serious, it takes discipline to get up on dark winter mornings to train (like him).

But what if you entered an Ironman with virtually no training?  just relying on one's general state. Is it inevitable to end up in the medical tent wrapped in a space blanket with a drip set up for hydration? Its an interesting concept and to be honest I'm gonna find out on Sunday. The T. IM. is overweight and has let himself go a bit, like FB and needs to train. See if Man A. is 2 hrs faster than Man B. does that mean that A. is better than B? cos he's made more effort? Its like when FB got that award for not being fat anymore - it was for being a "better person". I didn't get an award for being thin, cos its all about Self Improvement innit? But What's the point of devoting every hour to training in order to"Improve" ?  it's a sort of perverted narrowly defined mentally ill version of Self Improvement. 

14th July. Gok Fucking Wan.

How To Look Good Fat, with that fat gay chink. Everything on the telly is for women worried about their weight apart from fucking football and if you hate Football well you're fucked aren't you. What happened to The Sweeney? "YOU'RE NICKED!"  Is it some kind of conspiracy? "SHUT IT!" I mean even Inspector Morse wasn't that female friendly "LEWIS!"  Top Gear? well that's just an exception that proves the rule. As for all those perfectly coiffed CSI style melodramas, well... and worse still that tedius saccharine sweet Grey's Anatomy dripping with cliches, bloody hell!  In turn that's only surpassed by the narrator of that gruesome Desperate Housewives, fucking desperate alright..

12th July. The Black Bull, Rothesay.

"I don't know about some of those birds in there though, they're just like eating machines with chins. They could demolish a steak in 2o seconds but I wouldn't want to shag it."

"Yes but some of them could have important jobs you haven't thought of that."

"Like what?"

"Well... like a casualty nurse."

"NO way they're fit for nothing, they couldn't even do secretarial work cause their fingers would hit more than one key."

"You mean they should be just melted down or something...Is that what you're saying?"

"Yeah made into soap. If your BMI is above a certain level you shouldn't be allowed to have children."

"Why, because its genetic?"

"No because sex between fat people is disgusting.."

10th July. Tesco Fatties (continued).

"I can't believe there's so many fat people in there" said Fat Boy, "The reason I took so long was there was this huge bird in front getting a mochafrappelattechino or something really special which came in a mug with two handles about the size of the FA Cup. Took bloody ages and the Tesco cafe's gone it's Costa now ten quid for a snack!"

"Bastards!"

~Just about everybody's misshapen nowadays."

"Bacon misshapes,"

"I don't know where they get the money from to keep themselves that big there's supposed to be a recession on."

"Do you want to try a bit of my Frescato?"

"What's that in it - ice cream?"

"I think so"

"No wonder you were such a fat cunt."