26th February. Ultra-Marathon Showdown.

Fat Boy, rather foolishly IMO, signed up for this self supported 100k Fort William to Inverness race, I felt obliged to follow suit in a spirit of bitter rivalry. FB is untried over anything more than 38 miles following biomechanical breakdown in last years Great Glen 5-0. It's unclear if this event is a sort of mutually supportive buddying thing or another Demolition Derby where the 'winner' is the one who starts crying last. "I'm not sure about the logistics, we could drive to Ft William and run to the start at Banavie as a warm up." "You must be feckin joking, there's no way I'm adding another 2 miles to it." My official Great Glen Way mug which I'm now drinking tea out of says 73 miles, since when did 100k equate to that? The whole thing kicks off at 9pm at night, the highlight is a burger van stationed somewhere halfway with haggis for sale so it'll be heartburn & indigestion as well as joint pain the rest of the way to Inverness ?

22nd February. Showing Off In Front Of Girls.

The climbing wall environment, particularly if heated, brings in roughly equal numbers of males and females. The obese tend not to frequent the 'Avertical World' and even the slightly portly are disadvantaged, so there is both 'fitness' and as Fat Boy puts it 'Proximity'. The 'Young Bucks' vie with each other on the bouldering section with ever more wild gymnastic displays, this is an indirect showing off in front of girls, they pretend to be not interested. There are 'couples' who stop to embrace or even kiss in between climbs, if a man is part of a couple he must be very careful not to look at another womans arse halfway up the wall and concentrate only on the arse of the woman he is with and the management of her rope "ARE YOU WATCHING ME!! FOR FUCKS SAKE." I look up at Fat Boys arse somewhere above as he endeavours to pull his top down over any residual love handles when he gets a chance. Yes the climbing wall is like a giant fallopian tube and the men are like sperm undergoing some sort of selection process. What use is a fat sperm that can't get off the ground? Better a graceful one that makes a 6c+ look effortless. I attempt a 6b, all rounded black smooth things with nothing to get hold of, this results in me spinning round in space on the end of the rope like those useless sperm destined to go round in circles.

20th February. Another Complete Arse Up.

The S's new house was the sort of house where simply entering it seemed to make a mark, somehow cause a blemish on it's pristine interior. Left alone with whole floor areas designated for walking on by the laying out of dust sheets I made my way to the bathroom, the inner sanctum. The bathroom is always first when it comes to cleanliness and order, these days everything is white. Actually making use of the toilet seems like an insult, as if the bowl is there purely for display only. These new houses have a high standard of insulation, which means the attic is basically a sea of fibreglass several feet deep. Needless to say this makes stepping from one obscured ceiling joist to the next a matter of a certain amount of guesswork. Things had been going quite reasonably with a constant back and forth down the whole length the attic when, inevitably, lost in a vaguely erotic reverie brought on by boredom I heard the tell tale crack of the ceiling giving way underfoot like a skater on thin ice. SHIT SHIT SHIT. I made my way down the loft ladder and opening the door of the spare bedroom, where "things" had been put for safekeeping out of the way of any potential dust and mess. You could hardly miss it, there was no pretending, a 2 foot square piece of plasterboard was hanging by one edge like a second loft access. There was also a fair bit of mess. To cut things short, I had to "fess up" immediately on the S's homecoming and also reveal that I'd managed to break part of the hoover. "I'll have to buy you another vacuum cleaner" "??"

9th February. Thoughts In Maccy D's.

As recently as 1980 I remember being dragged across central London by Harry H. to "Have a real burger!" "Lads you've got to try this!" It's almost unbelievable that there was probably only about one McDonalds in the whole of Britain but it was like one rogue cell, a restaurant that had gone wrong, a cancer that just kept multiplying swamping everything in mediocrity. That's what's good about McDonalds - you know what you're going to get - something mediocre, which is better than something that's really really bad, so with that and the ease of parking it's a formula that has worked for long enough. I'm not really a fan of Maccy D's, don't get me wrong but I kind of feel at home with the mediocrity and I like to look at the fat people and think how they'd never manage the cut off in an Ironman just to make me feel better about my own mediocre achievements. There was a woman there tonight who almost wasn't human, it might have been her uterus sticking out or maybe she had lost a lot of weight like down from 40 stone to 20, but it just didn't look natural - when something hang downs like that below the belt, I couldn't see her getting very far on a bike especially with Tri bars. Some people are dead against MacDonalds cause of ranching in Brazil or additives or de-skilling of the workforce or the McDonaldisation of the globe. but if it's so shit why are they everywhere? The answer is mediocrity and I'm comfortable with that, not an abject failure as a human being but not an unqualified success either...

7th February. Night Of A Thousand Gulps.

Imagine the sound of a slowly but intermittently dripping tap about 2 feet from your pillow.  2 am, then it stops, maybe it's stopped for the night? Just have to wait and see. Yes it's definitely stopped now - peace.    Plop... ARRRGGHH!! no it's off again plop plop....plop...............plop....plop.  That fucking fish is driving me mental! It's only doing it on purpose and it's just the one that does it. "Why don't you put the gulping one down the toilet then they'll be more oxygen for the one that's left?"  "No way! they're great friends they've been together for over 12 years." 

 

5th February. Old Rope For Money.

I'm standing looking straight up at Fat Boy's arse which is about forty feet above me at "The World's Largest Indoor Climbing Arena" my thoughts are turning to Health and Safety a subject that seems to haunt these diatribes like a restless malevolent spirit. Although accidents are very infrequent at artificial climbing walls FB had still expressed some concern about "trusting the rope" and me as well for that matter, when, at the top of the climb one is required to lean back and be lowered to the ground. "Purely psychological" but privately, to be quite honest how much can this particular rope really be trusted? It looks ok no signs of mice but since I picked it up at Errol car boot sale a few years ago along with a well used ice axe I began to wonder... As soon as the mind gets on that track paranoia sets in and the whole thing quickly becomes an accident waiting to happen, FB plummeting like a sack of turnips seems guaranteed. I mean say the rope's only been used once but that one time it was well used in a 60 foot drop? maybe it dates from the mid 70's? a clmbing harness should be "retired" after 3 years so what about rope? Preoccupied with the snapping/fraying idea I fail to see the remaining coils on the ground getting in a complete fankle whilst FB is being lowered gently, to avoid any undue strain on the possibly UV degraded fibres. "Just hang on a minute!" I say. FB is ordered to cling back to the wall whilst I unravel the mess of old rope... I cast an eye round hoping my level of incompetence has passed unoticed.

1st February. The Role of Genes In Common Illnesses.

"We are inviting you to take part in a research project..." began the letter, the essence is to take blood, measure everything then see whether you go mental and die or just die. Course my interest was piqued straight way being pre occupied not only with death but also going nuts, the only snag was the "Providing a blood sample bit.." but you know you cannnot spend your life hiding behind a screen of Trypanophobia, it's a bit like saying your still afraid of the Daleks. "We are particularly interested in people with a large family?? well I'm afraid the results are already in for the majority of them because they're all fucking dead. Auntie Ruth went a bit Dulali-tap it's true but how much of a genetic component was involved? Mother had it that Auntie R. began a downward spiral after seeing a horror movie something about a Mummy in a waxworks with boyfriend Steve, it was either that or a lifetime with Steve that drove her mental. She did stand up and take issue with the minister at the crematorium during Steve's funeral. I've got a half brother and he's reached that point where he's on drugs to combat the effects of the drugs he's on, then drugs to combat the effects of the drugs to combat the drugs he's on and so on, so his questionaire would be quite a lengthy piece of written work. So I may be barred because I haven't got enough relatives. My brother's father - we'll never know if a lifetime with Mother would have driven him mental or not because he never got beyond about 23 thanks to Rommel's panza divisions.