The Maidenhead Easter Ten

My first ten mile race and I wasn't half as nervous as I was for the MK 10K. I think it was because we had an improvement in the weather. The bitter east wind that has blown continually for the last couple of weeks had died down. It was still around freezing as we set off in the car, but before we arrived at the venue, the temperature had crept up gradually. And the sun was out! So yes, it could have been milder (my hands didn't warm up for three miles)  but conditions were better than expected.

Alison set a good steady pace, exactly 9 minutes 43 secs for each of the first three miles and then around ten minute mileing for the next five. Mile nine was quite hard as it was mainly uphill and Alison persuaded me to leave her behind for the last mile. She likes to coast in, whereas I found I had some energy for a fast finish. We had planned to run just under 100 minutes for the ten miles and thanks to Alison (again) this is what we achieved. I came in at 1 hour 38 minutes 47 secs and Alison 55 seconds later. Amazing to think that this is ten minutes quicker than my three training runs over the same distance.

What brought me down to earth was the fact that we finished 978th and 990th out of 1,095 runners, so only just in the top 90% compared with being well inside the top 50% at the MK 10K. I guess our standard of fun runners don't go for the longer distance. I was pretty tired at the end, but not too exhausted for a welcome lunch at John Lewis on the way home.

Caitlin Rose - The Stand-In

It is very rare for one of the little known female singers that seem to populate my CD collection to appear in the Sunday Times review of the latest releases, never mind become Album of the Week. But Caitlin Rose's second album The Stand-In certainly deserves such praise.

When I reviewed her first album Own Side Now in 2011, I remarked on the songs slightly unusual quality. They have a quiet, relaxed feel, with her voice projected far in front of the instruments. Her music has been described as a country, (maybe because she comes from Nashville) but her songs veer more towards a more folksy sound. There are definite hints of Nanci Griffith. Just listen to Shanghai Cigarettes.

The new album is a more mature and mainstream offering. The contrast with her previous album can be heard on the opening bars of the first track on each. The crashing guitar riff on the new recording is a statement of intent. The songs start off in a definitely more country style but soon we have melodies that would have not seen out of place from her earlier work. But here the production is stronger and more powerful. And boy, does it suit her songs. The twangy guitars nearly spoil a track like Dallas, but Rose's own compositions are mainly unaffected. Track four is an uptempo stand out crowd pleaser. I can turn up the volume in the car and really feel something. Move over Nanci.

Side Effects, Welcome To The Punch and The Paperboy

Post Oscar season and it's hard to find some decent drama at the movies. All three of these films would have equally been watchable on TV. Side Effects could not decide what it wanted to be. It seemed to be a psychological thriller about prescription drugs but then turns a completely different direction into a crime drama. So although this is an extremely well crafted movie from Steven Soderbergh with impressive performances from Jude Law and Rooney Mara, I felt slightly let down by the story. In fact, we have a typical Hitchcock scenario as our hero gets into deeper and deeper water. There are enough hints along the way that things are not always as they seem, but the plot feels all too elaborate to make a satisfying conclusion.

Welcome To The Punch also tries to be something different, this time a British gangster movie trying to be straight out of Hollywood. It is all there, the frenetic pace, the action, the sets and high production values. And although we have seen the story and screenplay too many times before, it does look glossy and sharp. But what elevates this movie is the cast. James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, David Morrisey and Peter Mullan give it their all. So what could have been the normal bargain bin British crime thriller, is instead something worth seeing.

I had high hopes for The Paperboy, a crime drama set in the American deep south in 1969 was quite intriguing. But what was actually staggering was Nicole Kidman and John Cusack as you have never seen them before, and quite brilliant they were. Cusack is in prison and set for the electric chair, and Kidman is the white trash death row groupie who is trying to get him released and marry him (bad idea). Now throw in a couple of reporters from the Miami Times: Mathew McConaughey returning to his South Florida home town and posh black Englishman David Oyelowo. At the centre of things is McConaughey's younger brother played by Zac Efron, the paperboy (he delivers them), driver and general dogsbody. He immediately falls for Kidman's character, despite every reason not too. So what is a really good set up is marred by poor story development. It seems to wander all over the place. Which is a shame, as the acting is first rate, and the characters full of promise. There are perhaps too many strands for the film to work. There is the racial aspect which only surfaces occasionally. Then there is the family drama of the two brothers and their father who is getting married again. But if nothing else, we shall never forget Kidman and Cusack. There could have been a completely wild and different movie here.

Not the end of winter

And so winter goes on and on. The poor daffodils waited so long before they put in an appearance, were then buffeted by the wind and rain, regretted coming into flower with the freezing temperatures, and finally humiliated by the snow of last night.

The temperature today and tomorrow will hardly get above 0C, colder than anytime in December. Oh for the dizzy heights of 11C of early January. When will Spring arrive? The jobs in the garden are mounting up, it will probably be April before any of them get done.

The Hoyland Family Monument

A big thank you to Charles Hoyland for this photograph of the Hoyland monument in a snowy Norton Cemetery in Sheffield. His searches into locating the grave of Charles Hoyland born1829 and buried in 1905 led to him finding three previously unknown grandchildren, Eva, Edith Wynne (whose first Christian name was also my grandmother's) and Florence Mary who all died young, aged 5, 11 and 7.

Charles set out to try to locate the graves and was amazed to find such a significant memorial. Apart from the children, the inscriptions also mark the burials of the first Charles Hoyland mentioned above and his wife Hannah Selina (maiden name Wynne), their son Charles Haywood Hoyland (1868 - 1954) and his wife Louisa Maria (maiden name Brooks). Finally there is their Charles Hoyland (1894 - 1918) who died aged 21. More research needed here.

Thanks again to the current Charles Hoyland.

Why Eddie would have been bigger than Elvis

There are four classic Eddie Cochran songs that still fill me with excitement whenever I hear them: Summertime Blues, C'Mon Everybody, Somethin' Else and Three Steps to Heaven. Eddie died far too young at the age of 21 whilst on his 1960 tour of the UK. So he had only just started. On three of the these songs he was co-writer, and he also jointly composed many others. So he was a songwriter as well as a singer. Can the same be said of Elvis?

 

He was also an extremely talented musician, and played lead guitar on sessions for other singers. Can the same be said of Elvis? Some people would say Elvis had the better voice. In my opinion it was too affected, Eddie's had a raw quality that would have only got better. He actually toured the UK, whereas Elvis never appeared once in this country.

 

Sadly, we shall never know what he could have achieved, his songwriting skills were only just developing. But there is no question that he would have been huge. Maybe not universally as popular as Elvis, but probably more so in this country. And in my opinion he had more talent in his little finger.....

 

David Walsh at the Oxford Literary Festival

The magnificent Sheldonian Theatre (where he is photographed sitting on the steps) was the setting for a talk by David Walsh, Chief Sports Writer of the Sunday Times about his book called "Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong". Having followed his articles in that paper over the years, he has become a sort of hero of mine. His persistance in searching for 13 years for the truth behind LA's seven Tour de France "wins" puts him in a class of his own as an investigative journalist. That is why I just had to buy a ticket and make my way to Oxford yesterday.

But listening to Walsh, he is the least obvious gutsy and pushy hack you could imagine. Modest and quietly spoken, it was his determination to seek the truth that made for such a fascinating talk. He started by complaining of a hangover (you just would not have thought so) having the previous evening attended a testimonial dinner for fellow Irishman Brian O'Driscoll ("doesn't he have enough money?"). And the early start did not appeal to him (or us).

I had woken at 6.30am, reminding me of all those years ago when I was working. I had to leave before 7.30am and was glad I did. After an easy drive, the grid lock on the A40 into Oxford delayed me by 20 minutes. Fortunately, Thornhill Park and Ride had a few spaces left, and the bus was waiting for the crawl in to the city. The day was foggy and cold so it was a brisk walk to the Music Room in Christ Church College where I had to pick up my ticket.

There was already a queue outside the Sheldonian Theatre, so we all froze waiting for the doors to open.

Inside it was not much warmer. I kept my coat and scarf on. As the theatre started filling up, I thought there would be lots of empty seats, but by 10am all the 600 seats were taken.

I was already aware of much of the detail of Walsh's investigations. Luckily he only touched on these so the bulk of his talk I found new and extremely interesting. From his early suspicions to ever increasing certainty but without actual evidence, Walsh wrote an article as early as 2001 called "Saddled with Suspicion". He had just met LA and from that conversation he knew LA was a liar. His avoidance to answer about his relationship with the disgraced Dr Ferrari was just the start. "Perhaps" is no answer at all.

In 2004, Walsh and French journalist Pierre Ballaster had failed to get their book "LA Confidential - The Secrets of Lance Armstrong" published in English. But the Sunday Times published an article about the book and some of it's contents. Walsh does not mention the court case where the Sunday Times settled a high court action by LA, and where the newspaper is now seeking repayment, as they are probably legally sensitive. He also mentioned Emma O'Reilly and Betsy Andreu who bravely gave evidence for the book.

When Armstrong retired after his last Tour de France "win", Walsh thought that was that. he had tried and failed, and that LA had got away with it, he had made his money and had a reputation virtually intact. But in 2010, the emails sent by the disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis implicated LA and the rest is history.

What was news to me was the difference between livestrong.org and livestrong.com, the first being a cancer charity and the second a commercial organisation. Walsh talks about the vast millions earned by LA from livestrong.com, especially their tie up with Nike who sold LA Livestrong products. So this left me with a particularly nasty taste in my mouth.

David Walsh had been allotted 40 minutes to talk, but instead he talked for an hour and a quarter. He hardly looked at a note and is as good a talker as he is a writer. Thank you David for your services to cycling. I don't have his book, but I do have his articles downloaded from Times Plus. Try and read them if you can.

The Snow Child, The Line of Beauty and To the Lighthouse

A fairy story within a fairy story? I'm not of fan of fantasy novels, otherwise this captivating novel by Eowyn Ivey would have gained more than three stars. The Snow Child's setting of deepest Alaska is quite intoxicating, Ivey's descriptions of the landsape are truly some of the best I have read. However they do get a little repetitious, the book would have been even better if a hundred pages less. Indeed, it could have ended magically halfway through when it takes a different turn. I must admit the story of Jack and Mabel escaping tragedy and setting up a farm in the harsh Alaskan countryside of the 1920's, only to be visited by a mysterious girl, was not an obvious choice for me. But I found the writing pulled you in and took hold.

It sounded like my kind of book. London in the 1980's and Nick Guest has moved into the West London home of a friend from Oxford, whose father has become one of the new Tory MP's. And The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurts was winner of the 2004 Booker Prize. But had I realised that Nick was gay? I dont think so. But as the story unfolds, his relationships with two men over the decade were actually quite interesting. But what I did find a little tedious were the set piece dinner parties, birthday parties, wedding anniversaries and holidays that seemed to go on forever. So for the second book running (Elizabeth Bowen's The Last September" is the same) there is very little plot. Just the same people meeting and talking. It is difficult to imagine that the Feddens would have accepted Nick so readily into their fold, given the dangerous aspects of his private life and that Gerald Fedden's situation in politics is such a public one. But the members of the family are very well drawn, Gerald, his wealthy wife Rachel,son toby and daughter Catherine. Nick seems quite useful to them all in different ways. I do have to give credit to the writing. If it were not for Hollinghurst's prose, I would have given up. But he does write superbly well. In the end, there are events that happen through this pretty long novel, that eventually come to haunt the powerful conclusion. It might just have been better if we did not have to wait so long.

It's hard for me to be fair about To the Lighthouse written by Virginia Woolf in 1927 (my first try at one of her novels, and the last) as I actually gave up before I reached halfway. I cannot remember the last time this happened to me. I actually found the prose almost unreadable, basically because it is so boring. Some of the sentences are extraordinarly long. Is Woolf trying to be experimental? Give me a good modern novel any day. Thank goodness for Kate Atkinson. Just starting her book of short stories and the first two are already a delight.

If only I had read this first:
Complexity of experience
Large parts of Woolf's novel do not concern themselves with the objects of vision, but rather investigate the means of perception, attempting to understand people in the act of looking. In order to be able to understand thought, Woolf's diaries reveal, the author would spend considerable time listening to herself think, observing how and which words and emotions arose in her own mind in response to what she saw.
Complexity of human relationships
This examination of perception is not, however, limited to isolated inner-dialogues, but also analyzed in the context of human relationships and the tumultuous emotional spaces crossed to truly reach another human being. Two sections of the book stand out as excellent snapshots of fumbling attempts at this crossing: the silent interchange between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey as they pass the time alone together at the end of section 1, and Lily Briscoe's struggle to fulfill Mr. Ramsey's desire for sympathy (and attention) as the novel closes.
Modernism
To The Lighthouse and its characters often display elements of the Modernist school of thought. Characters such as Mrs Ramsay disparage Victorian ideals of society and question both the existence of God and the goodness in man. Furthermore, the transience of man is emphasized as a central theme alongside nature as an eternal and sometimes menacing force with the omnipresent potential to consume humanity.

Catch a Falling Star by Perry Como

A song played on the last episode of "Call the Midwife" took me back to when I was twelve. If you listen to the intro of "Catch a Falling Star" by Perry Como, you will hear a rhythmic tapping, just before the vocal comes in, maybe a muted cymbal. But it was no cymbal on The Perry Como Show when Perry first sang this huge hit record in 1957.

It was my mother who was a huge fan of the show. When Perry announced his new single, I remember so well him taking a teaspoon and tapping a wine glass to make the distinctive sound before he started to sing. I'm sure the intro went on longer than on the record.

We had the recording on an old 78. "Catch a Falling Star" was Perry's last No 1 and became a gold record. The "B" side was "Magic Moments" and that also became a hit in it's own right. Now that doesn't happen very often.

My First 10K at The Milton Keynes Festival Of Running

Alison had selected Milton Keynes for my first 10K. The weather was not good. It was 3C but the wind chill made it feel minus a lot. And there was snow in the air. I had thought that having run a 5 mile at Marlow last summer, and doing far longer runs in training, I would not be nervous. I was OK until we entered Escape forty minutes before race time. I guess it was just seeing all the people that put me into a state.

Alison did the right thing. With twenty minutes to go, we went for a warm up. Getting running made me feel a whole lot better, and we still had time to go back in the warm for five minutes before heading to the start. The atmosphere there was quite something. We weren't too cold, and as soon as we got going, I didn't feel the cold again.

Alison did a brilliant job of pacing me round. The splits for each kilometre of the first eight were so consistent:
5 minutes 42 secs, 5.43, 5.46, 5.44, 5.51, 5.47, 6.10 and 6.00 (the last two more uphill). At that point Alison told me to leave her (she had been poorly for the last week, so not at her best) and run on. Another 6.0 with a big hill and finishing with a 5.31 got me home in 58 minutes 14 seconds. I had wanted to just break the hour (which Alison just made) so I should have stayed with her.

I was pleased with my result of 280th out of 620 runners, and first of four over 65. But this was all down to my pacer - IAWT (In Alison We Trust). A steady 8K and a blast at the finish. Roll on Maidenhead 10 Mile.

 

My Performance at Running

Apart from running around a football or cricket pitch, my first memory of running was when I started at Braintree County High School at the age of fourteen. At one of the early games lessons, we had to run around the school grounds. I was one of those who walked after a hundred yards. I was no runner.

But when I went into the sixth form, we had a new games master. His background (in 1962) was in basketball. I really liked the game, but if I wanted to join the team, I had to do the dreaded circuit training. Sit ups with a medicine ball behind your neck, bench presses from them hanging from the top of the wallbars, etc etc. By the time I went into my last year in sixth form, I think I had got fitter.

The school always had a cross country race, and everyone had to do it. In my penultimate year, I must have walked a lot. But in my final year, something very strange happened. After a normally sluggish start, I found I kept running. And even towards the end, overtaking two of my fellow classmates who had done really well the year before. It's amazing what some training can do.

But even this achievement had it's downside. The school entered me for the Mid Essex Cross Country Championships. I was unprepared for the distance, conditions and pace of proper runners, and came in at the back. I thought that was it. But no. Come the summer, I was bullied into representing the school again, this time in the Mid Essex Athletics Championships. There was nobody to run the 100m high hurdles, so that was me. And high does not start to describe how I felt about these enormous barriers. In training, I could hardly clear one, never mind all ten. On the day there were only three in the senior race, and the adrenalin must have carried me through to at least finish and get my certificate for third place, and points for the school. Never again.

I cannot remember why, in 1985, I started running again. Living in High Wycombe, I would take myself down to The Rye on a nice summer evening and jog around the park. The problem was I had no advice or trainer, and found after a while that I could run for a couple of miles and go no further. Probably just out of breath. This barrier seemed to put me off, and I gave up. I had my swimming and thought that was enough.

So when I started running again last year, having been swimming for the intervening twenty five years, the breathing was never a problem. And with wife Alison, I had a great coach. So now I run three times a week and looking forward to my first ten mile race on Good Friday. At my age, I still find this quite surreal.

Beautiful Creatures, Stoker and Broken City

How wonderful to have three good middle of the road movies in succession. They are all thrillers, although the first, Beautiful Creatures, veers into the realms of fantasy. Although an adaption of a young adult novel about a family of witches, this is no Twilight rehash. The two young leads are OK, but it is the old hands that make this an entertaining drama. Jeremy Irons, Emma Thomson, Eileen Atkins are the brilliant, though unexpected,  British trio, given the setting is deepest South Carolina. Add in Viola Davis and we have acting of the highest class. They must have all seen something in the script, and they were not wrong. Richard LaGravenese has written some good dialogue and directed with aplomb. The lush settings make for a visual treat, perhaps the colour could have been toned down just a little. The story is a little weak, but the ambiguous ending does not pander to the teenagers and tweenies. Thank goodness.

The most interesting thing I have found out since seeing Stoker is that is written by Wentworth Miller. The actor from Prison Break was actually born in Chipping Norton and this, his first screenplay, was under the pseudonym Ted Foulke. Inspired by Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, it eventually found funding  and became the first American venture for Korean director Park Chan-wook. Having just watched his violent Oldboy again, this is fairly tame in comparison. But the director's insistence on making an art house movie instead of a mainstream thriller makes for a troublesome mix. We basically have a threehander. Mia Wasikowska, the unsmiling intense teenager, Nicole Kidman, her uptight mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Mathew Goode as the suspicious Uncle Charlie who seems to have something in common with his niece that is neither normal or pleasant. Unfortunately the dialogue is not the best, and the direction needed a kick up the pants. And the constantly snappy editing and camera movement do get in the way. When you actually notice this happening, it does somewhat spoil the experience. But the story is intriguing, the Tennessee sets are great, the clothes superb and the acting is fine. Especially Nicole Kidman, who shines in her role. Playing it dead straight, it still makes you smile. I'm still not sure why it had an 18 Certificate. Deleting a couple of minutes, and it might have been a 12 Certificate and gained a much wider audience. But then I guess everyone might have wondered what had happened to Park.

Now Broken City is a completely straightforward thriller. We are now in New York with corrupt mayor Russell Crowe seeking re-election. He hires disgraced cop Mark Whalberg to investigate his wife Catherine Zeta Jones. There are all sorts of twists and turns. There is a lot of dialogue, mostly just about OK. So nothing to write home about, but the city looks good, and bad as required. Although the wonderful helicopter shots of Manhattan could have come from any movie or travel show. So reasonably enjoyable, but instantly forgotten.

Dexter Season 7 Episode 2

SPOILER ALERT

A fairly disappointing Season 6 of Dexter ended with a huge cliffhanger when his sister catches him in the act of one more brutal slaying. But it is not the resolution of their relationship that was the brilliant conclusion of the second episode of Season 7.

I had begun to think that the programme had run it's course, and there were times I was going to call it a day. But then something happens that makes fabulous television. There was a thread this week of another serial killer (Randall), who has found redeption, having Miami Metro, including Dexter and Debs, searching for a body opposite an ice cream parlour "Sunshine and Frosty Swirl" from which the episode takes it's title. It is his philosophical conversations with Dexter that leave our "hero" wondering what he should do next, given that Debs now knows everything.

The superb final scene lets us understand that Randall has no idea about a body, that he only wants some time in the sun before he tells Dexter "there is one more person I have to kill" and he means himself. As he does, it leaves Dexter contemplating his own future. Forget all the other rubbish in the episode about Ukranian gangsters and Dexter's babysitter's boyfriend. Is this the beginning of the end for Dexter.