The Walking Man

During, and for a time after, the covid epidemic and its numerous associated lockdowns I started to write about my attempts to run. If you read the posts (which started with Couch to 5k and rounded off with a number of Running Man episodes) you will know that running was something I willingly endured, but never enjoyed. Since I stopped running I have gone through spells of swimming, cycling and gym-going before washing up on the shores of what I like to call exercise these days: walking football and walking (without the football). I have become The Walking Man, not (yet) the walking boots, rucksack and kagoule kind of walking man, but the weather’s dry and I’ve got a spare half hour so I’ll take a quick skulk around the village kind. The 10,000 steps a day kind, rather than the cross-country trek kind. My little excursions generally begin and end at my house and seldom veer far away from proper pavements.

Walking is exposing: if you were to find yourself being chased by a lion, you would have to lope up to speed before you could even think about getting away and, somehow, when you are walking there is nowhere to hide. People barely perceive runners and dog-walkers, but old men wandering aimlessly about the village tend to attract attention. I sense that even people who know me have begun to fear that I am casing the joint for a gang of International Housebreakers. Or worse… People who just amble around on village paths without hiking boots, waterproofed headwear or Kendall Mint Cake must be odd, right?

My immediate reaction is to make myself even more noticeable, e.g. nobody so obviously weird can possibly be actually weird, can they?. I say ‘Hello’ to everyone I encounter: to the dog-walkers, who consider me very peculiar because, well, because I’m not walking a dog; to the pram pushers who consider me exceedingly strange because I am talking to someone who is obviously well outside of my own demographic – i.e. not nearly so close to the final goodbye; to the elderly women who ooze ‘Don’t even think about trying to mug me sunshine, I did Jujitsu at the W.I. this morning’, and the elderly males who recognise a commonality, but are too focussed on remembering that they need cat littler from the Co-op to stop and chat. Not even those who are on a similar rambling course to my own attempt to disguise the fact that they find it very curious that I am doing it too.

As a runner you become used to feeling invisible: nobody thinks that you are doing something strange because they don’t even notice that you are there. They may swerve slightly to avoid sweaty bacterial fall out as you pass, but they are completely deaf to your wheezy greetings. When you are walking, the very act of ignoring you takes far too long to seriously consider. By and large a greeting requires some form of response and that is often couched in a quizzical ‘Why aren’t you running?’ kind of look, and an obvious desire for people to distance themselves from any association with the slow-motion weirdo.

But here we are, life and time go on and, whatever the drawbacks, walking remains my way forward – particularly as walking backwards is not to be encouraged at my age. As the summer draws on it becomes a more attractive, enjoyable prospect, in a way that running never did. I am likely to remain a walking man until time takes a further toll and the blundering progress of The Shuffling Man becomes the story I have to tell…

My Couch to 5k posts ran from May to August 2020, with a brief return in 2021. I dropped in a few ‘running’ posts through the next few months until I started to regularly publish Running Man posts from November 2020 to June 2022 with a further brief return in May 2023. I imagine they are all fairly easy to find should you wish to (just search ‘running’) but I’ve attached a few links below just in case. I’ve looked back on quite a lot of them and they tell me a lot about epidemic and the world as it recovered. A common theme seems to be illness – almost certainly linked to covid and I realise that running gave me the time I needed to think my way through a difficult time, but it was exhausting and I don’t see me doing it again…

Couch to 5k (30.05.2020)
Couch to 5k (10) – They Think It’s All Over (03.08.2020)
More Random Running Thoughts (13.08.2020)
Man on the Run (29.09.2020)
The Running Man Plods On (09.11.2020) started a run of Running Man posts which continued until The Running Man – The State of Play (14.06.22)
The Running Man on Thoughts of a Return (03.05.23) reveals that the bloody virus still had the power to pop back into our lives from time to time almost four years on, but furthermore illustrates that I did not allow it to alter my fundamental attitude to running as a means of escape – although it did make me question how badly I wanted to get away in the first place…

Neutering Toads for Fun and Profit (Very Good) #930

Well now, here’s a pretty kettle of fish. Following on from my speculation about the reasons behind the paucity of readers for mid-week posts, I managed to plumb new depths with a Monday (traditionally my most successful day) offering: In Memorium Meliorum Dierum. The title was arrived at by the simple expedient of putting my intended title (In Memory of Better Days) through an English to Latin translator. It seemed to fit very neatly with what was for me a sweet and nostalgic post: not typical of my usual output, but then you’d have to read it to know that. What I didn’t bank on was the capacity of my readers to take one look at the title and think “Well, that sounds like a load of pretentious pap,” and consequently not bother with it at all. (If you haven’t read it, please feel free to think of it as In Memory of Better Days, Eating Chips on the Green or if it appeals Neutering Toads for Fun and Profit and give it a go.) I realised that I really needed to be a little more thoughtful (if not exactly truthful) with my titles henceforth, and it put me in mind of an article – How to Undertake a Futile Quest for the Ultimate Headline – I published way back in the mists of time (12^th February 2019 – before either Brexit or Covid) when I tried to look at ways to improve my readership by tinkering with titles, and I decided to try again.

I clicked on the first website that came up in answer to my search “Improving Titles for Blog Posts” and this is what I discovered I should do:

1. Be specific about your topic – Well, that’s all well and good, but I think using the same title – Utter Tripe – one hundred and fifty times a year might not quite have the required effect.

2. Include an action verb – I am no great shakes at any form of grammar that pokes its toe anywhere beyond ‘extremely basic’ but my primary school education tells me that a verb is a doing word and what is doing other than action? It seems that I need to include an ‘action action’ in my title. I will consider consider it.

3. Use emotional language – Too f*cking right I will. Just try and stop me fart breath.

4. Use longer headlines (but not long-winded) – As a person who is more than capable of taking short and sweet and turning it into a three metres-long lemon, I am awaiting clarification on this one.

5. Don’t include the entire story – War and Peace is 587,287 words long. It is about war and peace.

6. Add numbers when appropriate – If you are telling the tale of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ it is ok to say ‘Seven’. It is not permissible to say ‘Dwarfs’. Some people include a post number (I have checked and, for me, this will be 930, so I have included it in the title. Going forward I will almost certainly never bother again.)

7. Include relevant keywords for SEO (tastefully) – For me, first step was to look up SEO. It apparently means Search Engine Optimization. I do not know what words are ‘relevant keywords for SEO’. I should probably look that up as well, but frankly I have lost interest. I may put ‘Very Good’ in parenthesis after each title.

8. Convey clear benefits in marketing blog posts– This is clearly not relevant to me, but aimed at the kind of bloggers that follow me having never read a single post. I wish them luck!

9. Avoid hyperbole and clickbait– I cannot avoid hyperbole in my titles unless they have no relevance whatsoever to my posts. I have written millions of them and not a single one has been without hyperbole (although I will admit that it was basic exaggeration until I bought a dictionary.) As for clickbait, I suppose I will have to re-think my plan (see 7 – above) and put ‘Distinctly Average’ in parenthesis instead.

The seven types of blog titles I should, apparently, choose from are

1. “How-to” headlines– “…waste an entire five minutes of your life by reading my blog”?

2. “Why” headlines– “…bother?”

3. “Best” headlines – “…not, if I’m honest.”

4. Question headlines – I’m starting to. Perhaps I can do completely without them.

5. News headlines– Well I can do ‘topical’, but I’m not very good at publishing promptly. ‘News’ is ‘Old News’ within a day. Topical comedy, like almost all satire is seldom funny.

6. Controversial headlines – I will endeavour to employ a swear-word in every headline and I will try to say something rude about anyone I can think of who is universally loved. I will call my next post “Judy Dench is a twat.” We’ll see what happens there…

7. Statistic headlines – A surefire way to ensure that nobody ever reads a single word you write.

There were also 25 headline templates to consider. I considered them (this is a blatant lie) but discounted the notion as I am not a complete loser. The guide went on to suggest that I prepared at least 25 titles for each piece, which could be whittled down to a Top Three with use of the title analyzer before settling on The Winner. As, contrary to all impressions, I do have a life, I did not try to write twenty five titles, but I did manage three which I ran through an analyzer. They were: How to Make Informed Decisions About the Title of your Blog Posts – part one (I’ll be honest here, there is little chance of there ever being a part two); Achieving Great Things Through Carefully Considered Blog Post Titles, and The Curse of Genghis Khan’s Anal Warts. I started with WordPress’s own little tool which refused to analyze any of my titles, saying ‘Cookie Check Failed’ to all of them. Stunned that software associated with WordPress should fail to work correctly, I none the less tried another analyzer. It said title 1 scored 85/100 (very good); title 2 scored 60/100 (good) and title 3, 51/100. Just before I turned it off I tried Neutering Toads for Fun and Profit (very good) #930 and it scored 86/100 so I used it here and, if you’re at all interested, that’s why…

My Enemy

Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

Bloody Covid again. Only (to my knowledge) the second time I have succumbed, but against all expectations (being fully vaccinated) far worse than the first time: the mildest of coughs, but a head pumped so full of mucus that it feels as though the top of my cranium might just detach from the rest of my skull with a ‘pop!’ like a champagne cork. I realise that this annoying twenty-first century bully is not interested in those who can give it a fair fight, but preys on us oldies, especially when we are already down. I was at the diminishing end of a persistent cold that had chipped away at my body for weeks: symptoms were slowly subsiding when ‘Pow!’ they returned in spades and, unusually, bowled me over. I do not know whether my ‘cold’ was actually Covid all along, or whether it simply passed its fading symptoms on, but one way or another I seem to have spent some weeks falling to this point and, quite frankly, I’m fed up with it now and ready to fight back. I am currently reviewing a complete list of bones and muscles in the hope of finding one that does not ache.

I’m not good at being ill – God knows I’m bad enough at being well – and I feel affronted. I visualize disease as any other enemy and just as soon as I regroup my senses I will kick its shins. My counter attack began with the peanut butter sandwich I had been craving all night and three bituminous cups of black coffee before a few hours in front of Saturday morning TV which, having worked Saturdays for much of my adult life, I have not seen in many years. Sadly, it is not what it was: what has happened to Daktari? Where are The Banana Splits? Why can I no longer summon International Rescue? Life is not the same when it is robbed of the Frank Bough/Dickie Davies conundrum: Grandstand or World of Sport? Motorcross or all-in wrestling?

After some searching I did manage to locate an episode of Columbo. Not that difficult I admit, but I’m not sure it’s an episode I’ve seen before – at least, not often. What is noticeable is that the peerless 70’s detective is now punctuated by very twenty-first century adverts: fuss-free cremations, on-line bingo, over-fifties insurance policies (guaranteed acceptance, no medicals), stair-lifts, mobility scooters, incontinence pants, and motorized high-seat chairs. It is clear that the Saturday Morning TV audience has changed. It is no longer expected to grow into a Saturday evening audience, it is expected to fade and die with its funeral already paid for and its descent downstairs assured – as long as the electricity is not summarily disconnected. Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion is neither an acceptable source of entertainment, nor what the target audience now wants to see.

So two questions pop into my virus-fuzzy head 1) what does the current, obviously ageing Saturday morning viewer actually want to see and 2) where are the current teens; today’s equivalent of those who comprised the audience way back when? Not out in the fresh air obvs. I watch the news: I know that all young people are allergic to the outside world. They are locked away in darkened rooms playing CoD with a world full of friends whom they have never met – nor ever will if they’ve got any sense. Cyber friends and virtual enemies are the new early-teen staples – and not a single age-prejudiced bug nor a visually impaired lion in sight…

When you thought I was winning the game
You came and snuffed out the flame
You thought you finished me off
But you just made me strong
Each time you dealt me a blow
Each time you brought me so low
I found something inside to help me along… My Enemy – Richard Thompson

A Peep Into the Future – The Hope is in the Past

So, it started with me finding this little article on the internet which explains that mental acuity does not start to collapse until the age of sixty and, being sixty three, it set me off thinking about what I might already have forgotten: what might, quite recently, have become beyond my mental capacity. I cannot complete a Sudoku, but then I never could. I would ask you to remember that my own understanding of mathematics is only just a little less tenuous than Boris Johnson’s grip on reality. I constantly end up with two sixes in the same block and a corner, somewhere or another, with nothing but the numbers they gave you to start with and ‘fuck fuck fuck’ scrawled across it in ballpoint pen. I’m not totally certain whether this is a symptom of a rapidly deteriorating brain, but then I wouldn’t be, would I? I’m trying very hard to remember what I could do a mere forty-two months ago that I can’t do now and the only thing I can come up with is the ability to remember what I was doing forty-two months ago.

What I am able to do with alarming frequency is to stumble across internet stories that predict my all-to-imminent decline and demise. Seconds after reeling away from the realisation that whatever my brain was once-upon-a-time good for, it no longer is, I stumbled onto this little beauty in which scientists seek to relieve the anxieties of the ageing by revealing that they are close to discovering why people suddenly become frail at the age of seventy. This is six and a half years away (I cannot work that out in months without a calculator, and I’ve no idea where I’ve put it). Less than the delivery time on the average SCS sofa.

And now I discover that, at sixty three, I should actually be long dead – although I’m not entirely certain what, exactly, an Airedale is*? According to the Bible I’ve got six and a half good years left in me yet – although, if I’m honest, I don’t think the Bible actually says how good they will be. It just gives me three score years and ten to play with (although no idea of why that’s not three and a half score years) but no idea of how I would be best placed to employ them. I could really do with some kind of timetable for my life:

0-20 years – grow up
21-40 years – teach my children to grow up
41-60 years – teach my grandchildren to grow up
60+ years – grow up.

If I have less than seven years left, I have no intention of spending them like a ‘grown up’. I truly hope that my mind and body will not retreat fully into childhood, but I’d be very happy to recapture the spirit of ten-year-old me. He did not spend a single second worrying about ‘decline’. If I’m honest, ten-year-old me didn’t waste a lot of time fretting about the future at all, he just got on with today.

Of course, ten-year-old me didn’t have the internet, but I’m pretty sure that if he did, he’d have had the common sense to ignore it.

*It’s a dog apparently, so I guess that means that I’m ok for a while yet, although by my calculations – I found the calculator in the fridge – if I was a dog, I would actually be 441 years old and therefore far less keen on ‘walkies’.

N.B. as I write this, two and a half years down the line, a growing sense of some sort of natural immunity and here I am with Covid. My wife succumbed three days ago and since that time we have lived in face-masked isolation, swabbing down and disinfecting for all our worth. Oddly, my symptoms are completely different to hers: is this a different strain or merely a different reaction to the same one? I have no idea, but rest assured everyone, unlike 5G masts** I don’t believe there has ever been a case of Covid being caught from WordPress. Please read on – normal service will continue. As much as it ever did…

**Yes, this is a joke. I have not gone completely mad!