women, run raster!

I’ve only twice ever beaten my wife in races, and both times, she was really unwell, so they don’t count. In every other event we’ve run together, I’ve usually seen her getting further and further away, until she is a little black and white speck in the distance.

In the latest of these – the Cabbage Patch 10, a pleasant 10miler up and down the Thames – I had a bit of time to think about it. Why am I slower than my wife? She’s got shorter legs, less muscle and she’s a girl, and girls have always been slower than boys by about 10%. I have no excuse.

Or do I? In one hour and 26 minutes, I had a lot of time to think about why our ladies aren’t regularly beating our men, and I don’t get it.

Girls are smaller than boys, so therefore have less to carry round the distance. Remember all the tiny (by height) weightlifters at the Olympics? Its all about power to weight ratios there, and the same should be true with running. I’m slower than her because despite my best efforts I weigh over 12 stone, and she weighs less than 9. If I was 25% lighter, it would be 25% easier to run.

Girls, by virtue of being smaller, are also more aerodynamic. My broad man’s shoulders, wide, lovehandled midriff, massive thighs and big spiky hair, can surely be only causing enormous wind resistance, not to mention my ears, which despite the best efforts of Chepstow’s finest plastic surgeons, are still far from flush against my head. You know how a formula one racing car is all pointed at the front – Girls come with two ready made pointed bits at the front, specially designed to help them cut through the air.

Evolution will have also enabled girls to become natural runners, as they will have spent their entire lives running away from men, as if they were caught, the natural brute strength of the man would win through, (don’t hate me for thinking of this, we’re talking cave men here) so in the last million years, surely women should have evolved a natural speedy defence against (sexual) predators.

Men also have an enormous natural disadvantage, when it comes to running, two in fact, in the shape of testicles. Watching the world gymnastics championships, it would appear that the events have been adjusted to protect the testicles of the men involved, and this has become another reason that man and women aren’t able to compete on a level playing field. I say allow the men to compete against the women on the beam, and penalise them (hurrah – appropriate use of the word penalise!) if they don’t do the landing on their butts and swinging the legs behind and moving to a handstand. If they do, and they can do the rest of the bouncing around as well as the girls, give a guy the beam gold medal – he’ll deserve it. Having a pair of balls swinging around, getting in the way of the legs, which are after all the most important aspect of the running equipment. What do the girls get in that area? Nothing but a little natural lubrication.

Add to this small feet (less blisters), long hair (better removal of sweat from the face), less leg hair (wind resistance again) and I’m amazed I’m not getting beaten by all the girls in the race, not just most of them.

So, to conclude, I’m going to race against the men from now on. I have no excuse for the fat guy I saw enjoying a cigarette at the end of the Thanet 20, while I’d still not got to the 19 mile mark.

Original Flavour

I was sent to the shops to buy some toothpaste, but what to buy. I was looking for something minty I guess, but I found something more unusual.

Toothpaste in “original” flavour. What retro wonder is this – was there something in it when the Victorians first started using soot to clean their teeth? Then I thought, no – people were cleaning their teeth long before black fingers... Maybe original flavour is referring to the original flavour – what was the very first flavour to be tasted? I couldn’t imagine toothpaste coming in Mammoth flavour, or “gathered berries” flavour. Maybe mother’s milk flavour? (Doesn’t bear thinking about...)

Then I sussed it – the only other time I have seen original flavour before – Doritos. No-one wants toothpaste to taste of a mildly spicy and salty corn snack, so I moved on.

Regular flavour? Great regular flavour?

I guess no-one wants their toothpaste flavour to become more or less intense as the tooth cleaning experience goes on. Therefore, in order to eliminate irregular flavour syndrome (think a poorly stirred curry paste, or a sudden mouth based explosion as you accidentally crush a cardamom pod – neither are what you want while brushing your teeth) so for this particular brand, regular flavour is what they sold it on. Still didn’t give me any ideas on what it might actually taste of, so I opened the box, pulled off the lid, removed the teensy bit of tin foil (imagine how nasty that would be if you brushed your teeth with a mini foil grenade waiting to electrify your fillings?) and tasted some.

It was kind of minty, which I liked, so I bought the one next to it that someone hadn’t already been tasting...

Brands and Bling part two - doing it properly

another one from cheekbone magazine.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to be turning pro any time soon – I’m pretty sure I came in second place in the “vitamin water” competition! (out of 7, and I used the Burberry frock picture, which can’t have helped, the eventual winner was very good (but already known to the water people) and had amazing legs.) there were very strange things going on with the voting (at one point 3 entries were virtually tied on 1987, 1986 and 1985 votes, and then after I’d totally given up to them, they whipped all their dubious votes away, and I was back in second place, but had no time to re-ignite my campaign) and I’ve let them know I ain’t happy, but ho-hum, they might send me some posh squash.

I spent a proportion of my last blog entry slagging off designer labels (which may also have not gone in my favour), or – more specifically, slagging off the way certain sections of society wear certain brands of clothes, and the way those brands overdo it, because they realise the brand is the important aspect – not the actual item of clothing.

Since then, I’ve been shopping, and I’ve bought the most expensive pair of jeans I’ve ever bought. In fact – at face value, (and we’ll come to the question of value over cost later) I’m now kind of having a go at being exactly the sort of person that I was so rude about the other day. I could go into scientific reasons why I’m experimenting with this, trying to learn something from my previous ravings, but it would be lies. I love these jeans.

I’d been after a pair of black jeans for ages, since moving to blue about 5 years ago from only doing black for a long time as I was allowed to wear black jeans and not blue when I was in the sixth form at school. Doing my usual scouring of TKMaxx (where I got my nice blue French Connection jeans for about £25) and having spent £60 each (full price) for my current “best” jeans (Duck and Cover and SuperDry) I’d drawn a complete blank on any black ones. Diesel came close with some nice grey ones, but they never quite fit, and certainly the ones in TKMaxx were never in my size. I had some old Cyberdog ones too, but they’d faded badly and I’ve lost so much weight since then you could have fit the wife in there too.

As I may well not have a job in a few days (another story) I decided to spend spend spend in case I couldn’t justify spending any more being one of Brown’s 9million, or whatever the final second great depression figure comes to. If I’m going to be in the dole queue, I might as well look awesome while queuing.

Justifying the expense by going out to by a £350 coat (Hugo Boss) but discovering it wasn’t as nice as it looked in the picture, I glanced at the shiny (they weren’t actually shiny, that would have been nasty) piles of jeans at the Armani concession in Selfridges, and went for it.

Being in Selfridges at about 5pm, wearing my best (Tommy Hilfiger – another TKMaxx bargain) suit and being as beautiful as I think I am (confidence is a great substitute for being genuinely good looking – ask David Tennant) left me getting knowing nods, and the occasional “good afternoon sir” from the polite and probably quite bored staff. The other great thing about trying on clothes in the Armani bit is you get to use their secret changing rooms. Where Hugo Boss have a velvet rope you have to ask permission to cross, at Armani they have secret doors behind the full length mirrors. I felt proper special.

Being able to fit in a pair of designer jeans was good enough, (I’ve gone from a 38” to a 33” waste with all the marathons) and being able to afford them was the clincher. £135 later and I’m getting even more respect from the staff, as not only do I look awesome, but I look rich enough to buy something substantial enough to warrant the enormous yellow bag I was presented with.

I then proceeded to abuse Debenhams one day sale (which I think is into its third month, although that might just be how often I go to Debenhams) for a couple of t shirts and a semi formal shirt, and completed a busy week for the bank card with a few more TKMaxx bargains on Saturday (Bench hoodie, a couple of loud ties, a work shirt, and a stunning Calvin Klein jacket – all heavily reduced – not least the jacket – from £325 to £69.99 – superb).

Based on how often I buy casual clothes (I’ve been more excited about suits and ties for a few years, give or take a healthy smattering of football shirts – I really should lay off the chavs!) I think I can justify this particular £250 splurge.

As for the jeans themselves – they are, as I said, more beautiful than a baby’s first smile and an autumn sunset put together, and I feel pretty amazing when I wear them. The branding is subtle (all in black, with a matt black whatever their logo is on the butt pocket (which is also going to make sure I don’t sit on the leather sofa in them at home as there’d be an Armani shaped dent in addition to my usual groove, and no-one wants that.

So yes – as well as the fact that I love them for being a really nice pair of jeans, I also love them for being a really nice pair of Armani jeans. Don’t judge me.

At least I didn’t go to Armani Exchange – the shop for people who want to wear Armani, but can’t quite afford to.