2013 - the year the Tellytubby tummy goes eh-oh!!

I AM sitting here with jelly in one ear and custard in another feeling a trifle deaf! Okay, enough of the Christmas cracker jokes since the trifling matter of the day, as I wolf down a pudding bowl of raspberry trifle, is what beckons for 2013.

A million New Year's resolutions are made at this time. Equally as many disappear swiftly in a fog of cigarette smoke, a collection of beer cans or the guilty wrappings of a chocolate box.

For many years I became a complete running anorak; a saddo to stand alongside those pitiful muppets who loiter at the end of platforms collecting train numbers.

I would log every run I made, apend comments on where I went, how far I ran, how fast I had gone, even how many toilet stops we had to make for my training partner Gary who has the weakest bladder in the world. And to top it all, there was the cumulative mileage figure which beamed at me proudly from the well-thumbed page of my log as I aimed to nudge more than 1,000 miles' running each year.

Of course there are many runners who do this. The new-fangled GPS watches seem to be able to log everything including the number of times you fart on a training sortie which you can download onto your laptop as soon your sweat-ridden body boots up the machine. Just like showing off those holiday pictures, I bet you can impress your friends by recalling the sights and sounds of the many off-road trails you have encountered and logged.

Fortunately, I gave up that pointless exercise a few years back. I binned the running logs and just enjoyed my sport for what it was - an enjoyable pastime not to be taken too seriously.

I've still got a scratched-to-pieces Forerunner 205 which sits like a block on your wrist to give a breakdown of how far and how long I've run, as well as my pace - but more often than not I can't get a satellite signal so midway into the run, as I'm striding purposefully over the South Downs within a spectacular view of the Beachy Head lighthouse and the English Channel, the numbskulled GPS asks whether I'm still indoors!!

Anyhow, as I sit here on New Year's Eve, finishing off the remains of my Sainsbury's special, with a ridiculous fat content and enough sugar in that wee bowl to send my dentist into tooth-tormenting apoplexy, I feel it's time for a change.

I tried earlier in the year to wean myself off sugar which is my biggest vice apart from Pamela Anderson and a love of the Pet Shops Boys. It worked successfully which saw some weight loss but also a disappearance of the much-derided Tellytubby tum which wobbled like a Weeble or a firm blancmange with a hairy navel every time I went out for a saunter.

But the list of festive sins in the past week have been endless; mince pies, chocolate cake, those tempting tins of sweets and the inevitable feast of mouthwatering desserts. Tellytubby tum is back with avengance!

So I've just danced on top of my new-fangled scales which reads weight, body fat and body water. Ouch! It really doesn't make pleasant reading. Anticipating the agony, I went to Poundland yesterday to buy the cheapest of diaries to scrawl down that sad statistic. This is the bottom line.

I plan to set out on a final run of 2012 this evening which I will also log in my diary, which will become a food diary too. This little bedside ornament which become a sort of mini confessional to highlight my weaknesses like a prison searchlight but allow me to bask in the successes as the stats make prettier reading.

The key is sustainabilty and to have a realistic target. Those who go on a binge diet or say they are going to crack the amount of alcohol they drink might as well not bother if they can't sustain it. The one thing worse than a failed dieter is a yo-yo dieter.

My target is realistic. I've set a weight target for my 50th year and I want to keep my body fat and body water stats within the margins. However the proof of the pudding will be the running. Shed the weight, lose the Tellytubby tum, strengthen the core and the running should come together. And, in turn, the quality of life should become more enjoyable.

I don't plan to abandon sugary treats altogether - one Sunday treat a week after the long run will suffice - but the sad point is that I'm going to become an anorak once again.

Anyone got a dodgy coat I can borrow and a notebook?!!

Chicken soup for the soul on Christmas Day

MY Christmas story happened yesterday. It's not a story about a miracle, instead it is a tale about hope, the power of prayer and the collective bond of friends pulling together. And it's happy ending, falling on Christmas Eve, makes the tale ever more powerful and prophetic.

I've known this friend since we were teenagers. We dated for a while and I remember romantically taking her on a first date to see "Monty Python & the Holy Grail" at the old Odeon opposite Ealing Town Hall on the Uxbridge Road. She must have been impressed! But we had a lot of fun and there was always laughter every time we went out - I don't think she could get a handle on my weird sense of humour, as I tried to work out the sarcasm in her refined Queen's English voice.

Over the years we moved our separate ways; I scooted round the country and abroad in journalism while my friend's path took her to Detroit where she married and later had two sons. This was before email, Twitter and mobile phones, but we stayed in touch through old-fashioned letter writing and phone calls. The friendship held steadfast.

Oh yes, the phone calls. We would talk endlessly, and because of the five-hour time difference the calls would be in the wee small hours. Life wasn't easy for an Englishwoman living abroad without the support of her immediate family and close friends, but my friend was stoic, a glass half-full lady who always tried to look at the positives.

Sadly, the marriage didn't work out and my friend's life with her two sons moved on. I once went out to visit her in Michigan and we caught up when she came back to Blighty, but by and large our contact remained through emails and now via the wonder of social media.

My friend, an engineer by trade who loves dance and is very arty by nature, has now lived more of her life in America than in England, but she still retains that plummy English accent, with an occasional American drawl on the long vowels.

She moved south to Florida, escaping the horrendous winters of Michigan to set up a new life in the sunshine state; her magnetic personality swiftly weaving together a new set of loyal and very dear friends.

Of course, from afar you can never know what is really going on through someone's mind, how they are thinking or feeling. Conversations by phone, email or even chatter on Facebook are abridged and superficial.

Last Thursday, she posted this on her Facebook page:

20 December at 17:41 · 

• When you think of me remember that through the increasing hardship I always sought the joy in life. I have worked hard and always tried to help others. No time is good for this, but I would not have willingly chosen the holiday season. Please forgive me.

Immediately, alarm bells began ringing on both sides of the Atlantic. A friend called round her apartment and raised the Sheriff's department - she wasn't home, but her mobile phone was. A missing person's alert was put out for her and her car.

 

Through the power of Facebook, there was a collective brainstorming of ideas; where she could be, who could she have met, what had she been doing recently. Information was shared and then the platform was used as a means of prayer as well as offering messages of support in case she should chance upon her Facebook page to discover the love and care shared by all of her friends.

 

As days passed and there was no contact, so concern grew. Come Christmas Eve it was looking pretty grave. I didn't pick up on the news until Sunday and could only watch on and pray. I've lost a lot of faith this year, I've struggled with prayer and my belief, but I still prayed, I still hoped.

 

Information was shared by friends on both sides of the Atlantic. Those who had been in touch with the police and with her mother fed the news back. It was mesmorising to watch. It restored your faith in humanity as a force for good.

 

And then yesterday, the "miracle" happened, my friend was found. She was discovered in the Everglades National Park, given fluids and treated by a medical team before being whisked to hospital in Miami where she is now recovering. I've no idea how she really is, but she is safe, that is the important thing.

 

It's a good news story for Christmas Day.

 

It's a story of friends on both sides of the Atlantic, people who don't know each other, pulling together for one person through the power of social media.

 

There is much to criticise Facebook and Twitter for how it has been used and abused, but here it was as a force for good. It was inspiring, it touched the soul. And should my friend one day read back the trail of messages, hopefully it will be something to inspire her and realise there is love in the world.

 

My friend is safe and sound in Florida. Her journey has just started as she bids to rebuild her life. It won't be easy,  but as one friend of mine wrote on my Facebook message board only today: the biggest storms create the learning and defining moments.

 

Happy Christmas.

 

 

Beware the crinkly shopping with the mobility scooter!

OLD people, don't you just love 'em!

Living in sun-kissed Eastbourne, affectionately dubbed "god's waiting room", the town has its fair share of crinklies; those who have made East Sussex their home or the hundreds of thousands of visitors who each year take their holidays on the Sunshine Coast.

We've been celebrating Christmas here since late October when parties of "Turkey and tinsel" tourists began arriving in a fleet of coaches drawing up along Grand Parade.

I'd never head of "T&T" before moving here - a clever marketing move by the hotels, both here and in places like Torquay and Bournemouth, to exploit that dull period between the end of summer and the start of Christmas when occupany is light by staging their own mini festive seasons.

So in a matter of a few days, at cheap as chips prices, party-goers can enjoy the delights of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day rolled into one. Five days of non-stop turkey, crackers, eggnog, party hats and a trip through the festive season song book.

Come the end of October, the hotels are unseasonly adorned with Christmas tree lights, so as you walk along the seafront you can't miss these festively-dressed folk stood outside their hotels grabbing a cigarette before heading back in for more fun and frollicks!

Believe you me, when I'm in the autumn of my years you won't catch me celebrating Christmas and New Year two months early before we've even had Fireworks' Night - one festive season is more than enough, thank you!

Anyway, I digress. So in this season of goodwill to all men, an expression which, to be frank, is a load of rollocks in the heaving shopping aisles of Sainsbury's, it's interesting how people's characters change as we draw closer to Christmas Day. Are we courteous, are our faces filled with smiles and joy? Are we heck!

The big supermarket shop the other lunchtime was brutal. One friend said he visited Tesco's late night at around 11pm hoping for a brisk scoot round the store only to find it busy and bustling. Come a few days before Christmas it was Murder on the Supermarket Dance Floor - no quarter given, except maybe in the pet food aisle which no-one could be bothered to visit, with shopping trolleys the weapon of choice.

The tactics were clear; never give way at a crossroads, block at every opportunity, particularly down a narrow aisle. If you are part of a team - mum, dad and children, even with friends, then use them at every opportunity to throw a human curtain right across a section. Stop suddenly, have a long conversation, consult a shopping list, or even greet friends and neighbours with a drawn-out chat right in the most inconvenient part of the store, ignoring the seething faces of fellow shoppers.

And if they see you eyeing up a particular product, grab a handful quickly to deny your opponent the opportunity to snaffle the last of the Cranberry Sauce jars, even if you don't want it. You can put it back at a later date

Use those heavy supermarket storage trolleys wisely as a canny blocking tactic so when a staff member is pushing stock slowly down an aisle, block the remainder of the narrow corridor with your own trolley - like a cumbersome HGV taking the outside lane of a motorway. Even better, just park your trolley and wander off aimlessly with a sneaky look behind at the logjam you have created. It's a good, frustrating move which allows you to hold aisle ascendancy and freely plunder from the counters without passing interference.

Bring back Dale Winton because this has got all the portents of a gorey TV game show; from Supermarket Sweep to Supermarket Slaughter - the last man or woman standing with their ruthlessly-equipped trolley, a Spartacus-like contraption with spokes on the wheels to rip to shreds the ankles of rival shoppers, victorious among the carnage in the aisles to win the Christmas turkey!

Oh it's a game show winner, and who would triumph every time? The Crinklies including the most supreme opponents of all, the feared, nay undefeated and spine-chilling agressor of all - the crinkly with their own mobility scooter.

Wider than a conventional shopping trolley, faster and with a greater turning circle, these awesome creatures strike fear into any mortal customer hoping for a dash and cash shop. Their drivers are black belt exponents in the retail martial arts, first Dans every time and they know every subtle move in the game book.

Cross them, and you're dead in the water. Not just in a supermarket, but out shopping in the High Street or in a shopping centre there is no way they will give way.

The other day, I found myself side-stepping into the lingerie section at M&S to avoid a severe crinkly blockage caused by a squabbling couple in front who were waddling procession-like by the imperial Queen aboad a mobility scooter who was stopping like a London bus at every possible section.

Maybe I'm unfortunate with the people I meet, but joking aside I know when I'm pushing Ross around in his buggy through the Arndale Shopping Centre, the thoughtlessness of some folk, not even thinking of giving way, not even being considerate of others is simply mind-blowing. It is just plain rude.

There is a bigoted arrogance about the elderly in many cases - maybe they have had too much turkey and tinsel and simply peaked too early!



 

A night with the nerds at The Hobbit

Didn't realise that Osama bin Laden got a small part in The Hobbit!

THERE was a distinct feeling that the Nerds were in town at the weekend, jam-packed into screen 2 of the local fleapit.

Oh yes, you could count the anoraks and spot the saliva of anticipation for the cinematic marathon that is The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. There were a couple sitting just along the aisle from us, laden with two huge barrels of popcorn, offering a painfully dull critique how the movie plot differed from the book in their nasally monotone voices. 

I should have wised up and chatted to them earlier, because unless you’ve got a degree in Tolkein-ism, then the plot is so tough to follow. At times you haven’t got a clue who’s who, what’s going on or wonder if these characters do have mystical magical powers, why don’t they use them straight away and not right at the death.

Even some of the fight scenes were bizarre, straight out of the A-Team story book where our heroes never suffer a scratch despite being out-gunned and surrounded, fleeing under a hail of arrows and axes, chased by a pack of wolves, and yet who still walk tall after suffering back-breaking falls down a mountain crevice. It’s got all the credibility of Spice Girls: The Movie.

If you’ve not witnessed Peter Jackson’s two and three-quarter hour slog of JRR Tolkein’s classic novel then be warned; take a good cushion, an armful of provisions including a flask of coffee or some cans of Red Bull, and possibly a pillow because it’s going to leave you numb in the bum with a huge dose of anti-climax at the end.

To be blunt I’m not into these Geeksville movies - Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings or The Hobbit - yet millions clearly are. I went because I fancied a night out at the cinema,  X-Factor is done and dusted, I was intrigued about the movie and I also quite like Martin Freeman from The Office and Love Actually.

So fair play,I sit firmly in the non-Geek minority aisle, since The Hobbit has already broken two US box office records to become the biggest grossing Christmas movie of all time across the Atlantic and judging by the queues at the cinema it is bound to enjoy similar success in this country.

But what disturbed me most from the evening was not the movie, it was the trailers targeted towards this 12A audience with Christmas just around the corner. Advert after advert publicised the latest high action computer games, most of them war games based along the predictable lines of Call of Duty: Black Ops II with death and destruction their main agenda.

Now kids have been playing war games since Noah was in nappies and fantasy role play has always been part of those childhood milestones – maybe war has been too naively portrayed in the past as a game when the enemy gets up and walks away at the end.

But coming on the day when the world was reeling the shootings at the school in Connecticut which left 20 children dead along with five of their teachers, along with the lone gunmen and his mother, witnessing trailer after trailer of this computer carnage at the cinema left you with an uncomfortable feeling. One advert even offered punters the incentive of a free, realistic gun if they pre-ordered the new game.

For Call of Duty: Black Ops II, described as a “first-person shooter game” which was released to an eager audience last month, there was one telling review critical of the opening battle in the game where the player guns down fleeing Africans rebels.

The video game talk show Good Game felt this scene was added purely for shock value, adding: "The landscape of shooters is changing somewhat. The fact is that everyone loves playing military shooters, but we're also realising that we don't want to glorify aimless killings. A lot of games are trying to make you feel that conflict and even make you feel bad about what you're doing. But I don't think it's been handled very well here.”

It doesn’t take a huge leap of faith to realise that studies have shown how violent video games can make teenagers more aggressive. Of course, you’ve got to take these surveys with a huge pinch of Paxo, but one Canadian team carried out pretty extensive research annually among almost 1,500 teenagers across four school years from the ages of 14 through to 18.

The findings, published in September, are really interesting because they give the first indication of a clear link between a sustained period of playing violent games and subsequent increases in hostile behaviour.  Girls who played them were affected just as much as boys.

The research team at Brock University argued that violent games could "reinforce the notion that aggression is an effective and appropriate way to deal with conflict and anger."

Their evidence suggests how long-term players of violent games could become more likely to react aggressively to unintentional provocations such as someone accidentally bumping into them.

The teenagers were asked a series of questions such as how often they pushed or shoved people and whether they frequently kicked or punched people who made them angry.

Others who regularly played non-violent games did not show any evidence of increased aggression.

The trend remained even after the researchers took into account other factors that could be linked to aggression such as gender, parental divorce and marijuana use.

Of course, we have no idea what drove Adam Lanza to kill his mother on Friday, drive to the elementary school in Newtown and open fire on the innocent children and their teachers, before turning the gun on himself. This has much to do with the American guns laws and their ludicrous, selfish belief under the Constitution to be able to bear arms.

However, in a broader context, given the more violent world we live in, one wonders how much of the daydream world our children now live in can lead them to mixing up reality with fantasy with such fatal consequences.

Is glorifying killing through these video games going to wean the aggression out of these nerds or merely fuel the fire?

 

Why running with Ross is to heavy a burden

SUNDAY saw the sad end of an era. Nothing momentous, nothing tragic, just the simple passing of a small landmark never to be returned to.

Because Sunday was the last time I will be able to run with my son Ross. For six years now, we've competed in a couple of dozen races together in his specially adapted pushchair, and been on numerous training runs together too.

The lightweight pushchair was specially made for me by a company in Fordingbridge in Hampshire. It's got three detachable wheels, brakes, a comfortable purple canvas seat and a useful carrier underneath to hold drinks, some clothing and Ross's medicine.

The portable pushchair has served me well over all sorts of rugged terrain, notably five years ago when I completed the 80 races around the British Isles and Ross joined me in a number of those events.

The hardest was the Great South Run when I dressed as Scooby Doo for the 10-mile trek around the streets of Portsmouth. The flat course was ideal, although the last two miles running into the wind from Eastney to the finish was tough. It was a rainy day, and Ross was wrapped up tightly in waterproofs.

The support was amazing from the tens of thousands of people lining the streets with children getting really enthusiastic about seeing Scooby Doo and a pushchair running together.

At one stage a Channel 5 camera crew pulled alongside on a motorbike to take some shots - we got 10 seconds on their post-midnight Great South Run coverage! I was a little dazed by then because the nose from my Scooby Doo costume was banging into my eyes and giving me one hell of a headache. We passed a pub and joked about trying to get a drink. A couple of guys looked at me and said: "we don't serve dogs, mate!"

It's also been fascinating to gauge the reactions of runners when I race with Ross and the pushchair. At first, runners are very jovial at the start; they will joke whether they can get a ride, or ask if I'm carrying any be food or drink to get them through the run. I always start at the back of the field for a clear run and to avoid getting in other runners way. But towards the end of a race, as I'm easing past quite a few people with the finish line in sight, you can sense their annoyance at being passed by a runner with a pushchair while they are struggling with their own form.

Well, no longer! Ross, who is now 15 and stands at around 5ft 7in tall, has had a growth spurt in recent months and the day of reckoning came on Sunday when I realised I could no longer push him in a race. We took part in a 5km Santa Run with around 300 suited Santas in Haywards Heath which consisted of six laps around Victoria Park in the centre of town. The course was very hilly, with two stiff climbs. Going downhill was great, but the uphill parts were killers.

After lap one I knew I was in trouble. I was walking up the hills because it was impossible to get any momentum. I was sweating profusely through my Santa outfit and physically the hills were hurting my lower back.

By the half way mark I knew this was not going to work and stepped off the course gracefully. It was the first time ever in more than 40 years of racing that I've had a DNF - did not finish. There was no medal at the end, no relief or satisfaction of a job well done. It felt quite humiliating, a sense of failure, and a very sad realisation that I'm not going to be able to share my running adventures with Ross.

During my 2007 round Britain adventure I met a couple of guys called Mick and Phil Curry. Phil, who is an adult, has Cerebral Palsy and Sodium Valproate Syndrome. Since 2002 his dad, Mick has been pushing around races all over the country in an NHS wheelchair.

I met them at a race in Stoke when Mick told me the story of how he wanted to run and the only way he could run was to take Phil with him. Now the two have run marathons all over the country together in a pushchair which doesn't have the nodern adaptations as mine. I've pushed Phil in the chair, and it's not easy. I've got adjustable handlebars on  mine, theirs is a very basic pushchair. Phil is an adult and much heavier than Ross and there was no way I could have pushed Phil for a marathon. So I feel a bit of a wimp at ducking out now.

I guess Ross and I may go for the occasional jog along the promenade in Eastbourne together, but our racing days together are sadly over.

Why I don't think Jahmene will win X-Factor - but I hope I am proved wrong!

HE'S the bookies' favourite, but can Jahmene Douglas really win X-Factor? I don't think so.

It's been an amazing journey for Jahmene who heads back home to Swindon this Wednesday to switch on the Christmas lights in the town centre, inevitably followed by a posse of ugly minders, slavish camera crew and schmoozing public relations floozies to keep his adoring fans at arm's length.

When a very shy and awkward Jahmene auditioned for X-Factor and then totally screwed up Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger" at Bootcamp, I feared how nerves would get the better of him so we would never get to see or hear his prodigious talent blossom.

But round by round, the 22-year-old former supermarket worker has got better and better. Having heard Jahmene perform several times, you can see how much his voice has matured, his breathing is controlled and he has far better stage presence - though he still hardly looks comfortable.

If, for nothing else, the X-Factor experience has been extremely cathartic for Jahmene.

The stories of the abuse his father Eustace meted out, who was eventually jailed for a blowtorch attack on his mother Mandy, and the suicide of his younger brother Daniel, were tales I was totally unaware of from the many times we had spoken. He never spoke of the family turmoil which he and his mother had endured. To that extent, Jahmene is a very private person.

By wearing his heart on his sleeve, by courageously talking about the domestic abuse in the home in such a humble way will hopefully serve as inspiration to tens of thousands of people who live under the same daily spectre.

 "If I had two minutes with David Cameron, I would give him the facts about domestic violence," Jahmene said recently. Brave words, inspirational belief. Like Sara Paine, who was a catalyst for change with tighter controls on child sex offenders after the murder of her eight-year-old daughter, maybe Jahmene might carry a similar beacon for the victims of domestic abuse through his words and music.  

Although this is about a singing competition, you sense that in terms of talent that this crucial factor doesn't count too highly with X-Factor. Instead, it is all about popularity, it's the freak factor added to a touch of tactical voting - talent, sadly, comes a remote fourth.

I just don't get the James Arthur attraction. He has the stage presence of Lurch, and the charisma of cardboard. His singing is just an uncontained growl and painful to hear. He is certainly not classic pop material but maybe I'm missing something and he will go on to carve out a successful music career ploughing his own unique furrow.

With Christopher Maloney, he was even more nervous when he auditioned first time and to have got as far as he has done is amazing. The guy is very karaoke, but the legions of Scouse fans love him and have no doubt swayed the voting to ensure that he is in contention. I have a sneaking suspicion that Christopher will oust Jahmene after the first round of voting to leave him and James Arthur fighting it out for the title this weekend.

Not that this should matter to Jahmene. Just look at Ray Quinn (2006), JLS (2008) and Olly Murs (2009) who all finished runners-up and have gone on to bigger and better things. Win or lose, Jahmene is bound for a music career which will jettison him to the next level.

Jahmene as a person is quality. He too is very humble and to follow his postings on Twitter and Facebook is to understand how inspirational this young man is. It's hard to realise he is just 22. There is not a bad bone in his body.

I don't think this has been the best X-Factor in terms of talent, but Jahmene stands out as the one singer, and one singer alone who possesses the X-Factor with his soulful, searching melodies, the way his powerful voice wraps itself around the melodies, and, above all he entertains.

It is for that reason that Jahmene should win X-Factor - but somehow, even at odds of 11-10 on, I doubt it.