The Blade Journal

As President of UNICEF in Cambridge, I recently organised an event where live acts, such as a Celidh band, and jugglers, performed all day in Market Square, with permission from the Council. I made £900 in one day, which will go to a project, rather than their bureacracy.

Recently, Gary Duncan in The Times slandered the Scottish Evangelical Christians as being enemies of free speach, like the theocrats in present day Iran. I quickly put him right, in a letter to The Times, as follows.

Sir,

Gary Duncan’s analogy between the Scottish Kirk’s ‘theocratic grip on temporal power in Scotland’ and the ‘confected outrage of President Ahmadinejad of Iran , can in fact be inverted. (Free Speech Ensures Economic Progress, February 13th 2006). As a historian of the Scottish and American Enlightenments, and the role of evangelical Christian, or ‘covenanting’ ideas in their development, I would suggest that the notion of a ‘repressive Presbyterian church’ stifling all public opinion and criticism in eighteenth century Scotland, as a means to deflect opinion from its own worldly corruption, overlooks a central paradox, which we may link to the situation in Iran today.

Scottish intellectual and religious culture came during this period to be divided between the ‘Moderate’ and ‘Popular’ parties. The latter advocated a more evangelically Christian approach to socio-political development. Yet in doing so, they rightly criticised a Moderate Church Party whose central role could be attributed to patronage and secular corruption. If anything, an Iranian analogue could be drawn against this, so called ‘Moderate’ group, rather than those ‘Populists’ descended from Duncan’s ‘theocrats’.

It was, after all, these groups who rallied against political corruption, and the stifling of their own freedom of speech as a dissenting religious minority. In America, ironically, it was these strong religious dissenting ideas that led to a call for the separation of Church and State, so that they could be protected from an institutionalised connection to secular corruption. Similarly, in Iran today, it is often devoutly religious groups who are the most critical of Ahmadinejad, who, in fact, has many ‘worldy’ interests.

Yours,

‘Blade’

The College of St. John The Evangelist

Sinews of Power: This afternoon I rowed in the Newnham Short Course Regatta. The Sabra gave me a banana in the afternoon, which I combined with a croissant in order to fuel my sinews for the race. The crew which I fought my way into this term is peopled with chaps with names like ‘Thomas’, ‘Rob’ and ‘Will’. Many people assume I am from the Home Counties, and this therefore allows me to become one of the chaps. Indeed, being a One-Nation Tory, they are my constituency. The boat has remarkable balance, which has been enough to get me up at 6.30 am three times a week, as well as another Sabbath afternoon outing. On several days, the water has frozen onto the oar paddle between strokes. After this, I breakfast in the hall of St. John the Evangelist, reading my copy of Essentially America Travel Magazine. At this early time, it is filled with red-hoodied John’s rowers, and I get strange looks wearing my alternative rowing club kit. I usually have two fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms, fried bread, scrambles egg, a croissant, porridge with banana and honey, and tea. Having breakfast is a very new and odd experience for me.

Despite our English balance, the boat could do with more aggression, which Crazy Dave, a friend of mine since youth, has also remarked on. He comes down from his junior barristerial role in London, now and again, to coach us. He is a former cadet leader and orator, and is more than happy therefore to be able to coach a regiment of proper Englishmen, rather than the liberati he is no doubt forced to converse with in London. Rowing is all about combining balance, with channelled aggression. There is a danger that that the latter can override the former. But a great boat- which we are on the verge of becoming- can combine the two. Indeed, after the race today, we were not feeling as though we wanted to vomit, and I voiced this problem to the chaps. We need more aggression. Still, we beat two thirds of our division, and I went on my way to meet the Europhile, for dinner, rejoicing. I had quail with broccoli, and banana-caramel pudding with cream, at Pembroke.

I have combined this very English prescription of balance (Burke, cricket on village greens), and temporarily necessary aggression, in a chapter I have written for a book to come out in the next few months. It is on African development and Britain’s global role. I am also currently researching, for various chapters and papers: Missionaries in Sudan, Anti-Americanism in Liberia, and blood, milk and Christ’s passion in the Iberian Atlantic.

I am currently heavily (ginger) bearded on the request of some, as well as in order to look older than the little historians I supervise five times a week. The Boat Club Captain asked me if I had been sleeping on a park bench, while another, glancing at my white striped trackies, hoody, and vagabond beard, asked if I had received my ASBO yet.

I went to Limmud over Christmas, which was filled with Ethiopian and Venezualan lost tribe talks, with my Scottish-Barbadian black Hebrew friend, as well as heavily textual and biblical exercises with Aviva Zornberg. Sharonah Fredrick, a great educator from America, and a Barcelonan Heeb, fascinated me with tales of blood suckingly sexual Lilith, as well as Hispano-Heeb folk tales. I broke the window on my room, and slept for four nights with snow landing on the bed.

In mid-January, I popped off to Daytona Beach, Florida, with parents. I booked it at the last minute. Diners, burgers, 80 Degree (25 Degrees Centigrade) full sun, and runs along the beach and through suburbs with people playing basketball at dusk. Read New York Times everyday, watched films about black gospel music, and avidly watched the Weather Channel, my favourite enterprise. Farmers’ Market had sacks of blood oranges and tomatoes, as well as Christian T Shirt Stalls with signs saying things such as ‘What Part of Love Don’t You Understand’, along with bloody screen prints of The Passion. I ate Creole food, as well as that ‘Pom’ Pomegranate Juice. I also saw Munich in a 50s style movie-plex. (Last week in Cambridge I met one of the two survivors of the massacre at a talk: a fencer who in Munich lost to an English Heeb).

On the way back, on our cheapo Britannia Thompson Flight, however, things did not go as nicely as they had when we came to Orlando, having blagged Premium Class. This time, after four hours, the captain announced that, unfortunately, owing to engine problems, we could not cross the Atlantic, and would have to turn back to where we came (they had none of their engines in a nearer airport such as Boston, due to their cheapo nature). Every jolt was hell for that four hours, and people were a bit upset. The passengers were all rather salt-of-the-earth, shall we say, which made things more fun. When we eventually landed (after having doused myself with alcohol), the coaches that were supposed to take us to our hotels were seen full, going off into the distance. Another Thompson flight had also had to turn back and make an emergency landing in Orlando at this late time of the night, because of a fight on board. They thus took all our hotels, and our coaches, which meant we had to wait hours for both. We were all a little frazzled, to say the least. Others on the flight had to share rooms with strangers and sleep on the floor. We got back eventually, and now that a few weeks have passed, my tan reminds me of the sun, luckily, rather than this frazzled end.

Life has been more hectic in the last few months. Over the next days when I try to return to normalcy I will update on Limmud biblical training, Florida sun and charter nightmares, political publications, Thinktank work, personal development, foodways, African campaigning, cross country mud-fests, and Celebrity Big Brother. Before that, news from the rowing front: I have made the Second Men Eight after a gruelling Ergo test that reminded me of that forced upon the Oarsome Foursome from Sydney 2000 Olympic times. But it will still be tough: See this mafioso style threatening prologue from the Boatclub Captain:

Below are the crew lists for the 1st and 2nd VIIIs. We have more than 16 rowers this term, so not everyone is currently in a crew. However, the important point is that these crews are not fixed. I want to make it quite clear that no-one has a safe seat in any boat. We will try to put out a 3rd IV so those who are currently not in M2 can still row, and I encourage you to also do the land training sessions. There is nothing to stop you dragging a person kicking and screaming (metaphorically, please) out of their seat in the boat above yours. Similarly, there will be people snapping at your heels if you don’t keep up the work. That’s right, we’re training in a climate of fear! And without further ado…

Hmmm… Should be a fun term, with this painful regime including three pre 7am outings, combined with supervising six undergraduate kiddies in a history a week, two chapters, two papers and a conference to organise…

I went to my nan this Saturday night, with my pup. She had received a call from my new uncle, an engineer, who was away on holiday with his new wife: He informed her that he was devastated that he would miss the X Factor final, which filled mine and nan’s evening. Apparently Euan Blair was so desperate for tickets to the final that he got a ‘contact’ to phone up ITV to try, but they were sold out. Same for Ricky Gervaise. Nan and I also watched the X-tra factor on ITV2, which featured interviews with fans in the audience, including Sir Trevor McDonald, who apparently barricades himself into his ITN office to watch it each week. We were both impressed with his Trinidadian cut glass English Empire English, which was used to express his delight that Shayne and Andy had made the final two. It was really very good, and matches anything I have seen in America. It made me think: would anywhere on mainland ‘old’ Europe be able to produce a black Andy, Brenda, or Maria. I think the answer is no.

Did you know that Sharon Osbourne is half Irish, half Heeb? I did.

There were a lot of grown men crying on the show, which somewhat disconcerted me: What would these working class blokes do if/ when the Germans or French tried to invade Britain again. Hailing from sturdy places in the ‘North’ with names like ‘’Manchester’ and ‘Middlesborough’, they would have been the kind of decent stiff-upper-lippers who beat the Nazis with calm and quiet determination, led, of course, by chaps like me in the intelligence units. Now the likes of ‘Journey South’ from Middlesborough cry when Simon says nice things about them. Andy would have been in a Commonwealth regiment fighting the Huns in North Africa, but now he cries when Sharon compliments him about his high notes.

Mind you, I can talk: I was browsing through a record store with some colleagues, and I was forced to buy a three for the price of two set of Celine Dion CDs, for a young lady whose name shall not be mentioned, to protect her from embarrassment. Well she made me carry them in my bag with my CDs, which included The Best Footie Anthems Ever. I bought the latter because it contains a track of Desmond Lynam reading the poem ‘If’, by Rudyard Kipling, with Faure’s Pavane playing in the background. It was first recorded at the end of World Cup 98, at Des and the BBC’s sporting coverage heyday, and set against a montage of the highs and lows of the championships. Anyway, I forgot to hand them back to her, and took them back to my room, and on to London, with the rest of my CDs. I listened to them today while researching evangelical Christianity in the Sudan, and also started to cry. Unlike Andy and Journey South, however, it was more a cry for mercy..

After watching the show at nan, I went back home and watched Match of The Day, which showed a fight between Toure and Llungberg that I had not noticed, from last week’s match against Bolton.

Tomorrow I go with the sunday runners on a ten miler, followed by my journey to Highbury, where I am going to watch Arsenal versus Chelsea. Bit of a ’six-pointer’. Pity the latter is more for Man Utd than Arsenal.

I went running the other week with The Junior Research Fellow, who I allowed to run ahead of me while I went further on, in order that I could then turn after he had and try and catch him up by running fast. As I was doing this an elderly man in his seventies started running at my side. He tried to overtake me but I was having none of this, and carried on at his speed shoulder to shoulder. I then upped the tempo, knowing his pride would be at stake, forcing him to run at that speed for another mile. It turned out he is an ancient astronomer at the College of St. John The Evangelist, and he asked if I could join him on other runs. He is too fast for me over short distances though! We caught the Junior Research Fellow, who was by now groaning, and I went on my way rejoicing.

The Junior Research Fellow sent me the following letter in response to my goading him about the latest Iranian outbursts. (He likes silly Abas Kastami Iranian arthouse films and thinks they are genuinely scared of Israeli might). It turns out he doesn’t, however, share such fondness for The Syrians:

Dear Blade,

Let’s ship David Irving there [to Iran]- he would make a good ayatollah. Even better though are my favourite Syrians: I don’t know if you saw Newsnight yesterday, with the Syrian ambassador being interviewed.

PAXO: who killed hariri?
SA: i don’t know, we would like to find out. It’s not us, the major witness has retracted his claims.
PAXO (goggle-eyed): because his family were menaced
SA: you will not find anyone in Syria who believes that [ho, ho]
PAXO: isn’t it funny that 13 people have been assassinated since the death of Hariri, all of whom had publicly criticised Syria?
SA: this is a campaign to discredit Syria etc… etc….
PAXO: ambassador, thank you.

The Junior Research Fellow

Just back in London for a few weeks, and received this email from my friend ‘gobbet’, named after a fragment of a historical source, pamphlet, or quotation. He likes being set gobbets in order to decipher their provenance. He is soon off to South Africa for a couple of weeks and sent me this letter in response to an update I gave him on my last few months:

Hi ‘Blade’

I fear you will have to adopt the ways of the nebbish, giving up your manly running and becoming an orthodontist or lawyer. Save yourself whilst you still can and join the Zimbabwean white farmers now in Zambia and Nigeria, trek until you can’t see the last farmer’s chimney and then stake out your land.

Your man Cameron is a big wet liberal:
http://www.libdems4cameron.com .

Does your gang still have cross-party pretensions, or have you caved into the reality of tribal partisanship?

We’ll all go out some time in London with ‘Hunt’.

‘Gobbet’

Motivational Music

When I finish an academic treatise I am working on, hopefully by this Sunday, I will be able to give that update on events around town that I promised. Until then, I must give another interesting filler. I have never been one to buy music, and have only just warmed to this trend, on the back of a need for motivational sounds while I am writing this-and-that. In light of this, I ordered the following CDs after extensive thought and search exercises. Most were from Amazon market place buyers, and therefore only cost 2 pounds each, plus packaging. As such, St. John The Evangelist’s porters are having to ferry various packages to me each day, which are beginning to trickle in. I told Europhile about this, and he laughed that I still buy CDs. As ever in these things, I seem to be ten years too late. With I Tunes etc, CDs are now apparently quaint. He is from a farm, and I told him what the etymology for quaint was, and I went on my way rejoicing.

Here is the list of motivational music that I ordered, and am currently receiving:

**Rhythm of the Games: The Official Album of the Atlanta 1996 Olympics Games**
Featuring To Dream The Impossible Dream - Campbell, Tevin, Reaching For My Goal - McKnight, Brian, Dreamin’ - Usher, Champions Theme - Kenny G, Reach - Estefan, Gloria, Star Spangled Banner - Boyz II Men, and others.

** John Williams: Call Of The Champions**
Anchored by his Mormon Tabernacle-charged “Call of Champions” (theme of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games) and the sweeping, emotionally rich six-part title suite (originally written for Washington, DC’s millennium celebrations and appearing here for the first time as a complete concert piece), this rousing, unabashedly patriotic collection from John Williams seems doubly timely, given America’s hunger for comforting affirmation.

**Stars and Stripes Forever**
Featuring Olympic Fanfares, Marches, and Windband Spectaculars.

**From the Official Barcelona Olympic Games Ceremony **
Music and Score from the opening ceremony of Barcelona 1992, played by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra.

***Lighthouse Family: Ocean Drive**
The follow up to Postcards from Heaven

**Enigma: Best Of**
The influential output of Michael Cretu, a techno-bohemian who successfully creates cinematic, otherworldly New Age musical suites.

And much more besides…

Comments are back up, and are able to be read. I have enjoyed reading all the past ones from the last few months.

So many important matters-of-state to divulge from last two weeks, melded together with social meanderings, fun times, zany trips, and calm reflection. Whirlwind. But will have to describe them when have proper time-slot to do so, which will be very soon. Only one thing to note before then: I bought the new “G4 and Friends” album today, and made a terrible discovery: Their fourth track, entitled “Miss You Nights”, features Cliff Richard. I did not read this on the back, and as I listened to it while writing an academic treatise, I thought to myself: “This guy’s voice is really cool and chilled, I really like his singing.”

OMG.

Had a free dinner for Members of The Foundation of John The Evangelist, last night, given to all ’scholars’.

The menu was as follows:

Riesling Riquewihr, Domaine Bott-Geyl, 2001

Bouillabaisse Terrine

***

Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons, Domaine Billaud-Simon, 2002

Oven roasted turbot

***

Chateau Thieuley Reserve Courselle, Bourdeaux Superieur, 1999

Braised pheasant with spices, green beens, vegetables, potato croquettes.

***

Liquorice Pannacotta with burned oranges

***

Grahams Port, 1970

Spinache and Cheese Tartlette Marquise

***

Cornas, Alain Voge, 1995

Dessert and Coffee, including figs, dates, walnuts, tropical fruits and chocolate truffles.

Gewurstraminer Schloesselreben, Domaine Bott-Geyl, 1999.

(I had to ask for the vegetarian option to the Bouillabaisse Terrine which had shellfish and monkfish in it, as well as the Turbot second course, which has neither fins nor scales; Instead I was given a tomato terrine, followed by a vegetarian rissotto with baby grilled aubergine, for the second course).

The following call for historical papers to be published reached me today. I don’t think I have much expertise in the particular academic field they are asking submissions for:

…”Papers are invited that relate to the subject of ‘The Liquid Beast: Drinking the Animal Body.’ This collection of papers is intended to complement ‘The Slaughterhouse and the City,’ a forthcoming special issue of Food & History. Depending on the number and quality of the submissions, a possible anthology will result. This volume will address the blood, milk, semen, fat, and sweat of the animal, which is not conceived as a material object but as an abject subject. Papers need not focus on the food uses of the liquifed animal, but should be attentive to the problem of cultural categories, the process of symbolic transformation, and the hierarchy of bodily parts. Please submit 500 word abstracts and a CV to Department of Art History, University of South Florida…”

Before I update on my post-Marathon exploits in John’s - political manoeuvrings, savage liberal media attacks on my honour, academic hegemony while supervising undergraduate lemmings, Anglo-American terror analyses, male modelling, new music, Granchester cross country running and the like- I must prefix this all with a word on my recent foodways in John’s, which have been highly impressive. I received a memorandum in my pigeon hole declaring that all important members of the catering staff at the college of St. John The Evangelist had been sent on a culinary course to the hotels of Dubai, so expectations were high. Tomorrow is ‘Asian Day’ and the lunch and dinner menus have been kept a secret. I was reading Steve Redgrave’s rowing biography the other month, and I think he mentioned that he preferred to have either lunch or dinner alone now and again, so as to read the sports pages while everyone else around him is talking quotidian nonsense. Today I did that in John’s cafeteria. The dinner I had was as follows (take into account this was mass catering, and it is really rather amazing).

Gorgonzola, swede and spinach mash starter
***
Poached lime Haddock curry, with curried potatoes, carrots, onions, with a poached egg sitting on top
***
Sautéed potato nuggets, celeriac, green beans and onions, cheese cauliflowers
***
Lemon curd pudding with crème fraiche

All of this for £4.13 !!

Other meals have included ox-tail with red cabbage, miso-noodles, lamb tagine.

I have also taken to eating Muller-rice pots, in vanilla, raspberry or toffee flavours, which the college sells. They are especially good before rowing, as they line the stomach with carbs and sweetness.

In terms of beverages, I got drunk the other night at Simchat Torah celebrations, where Sollies shawarma was bussed into town, along with ‘biblical’ cocktails such as Red Sea breeze etc. I was plied with vodka/ C2H4OH by drunken religiousy-geeky people.

Now onto other matters of state.

*Supervising*
My legs were very sore after the marathon, and it was in this state that I gave my first one-to-one Oxbridge supervision to a chap on Puritan New England. It went fine: I wore my grey jacket, and he seemed to note everything I said about witchcraft and Native Americans in the Maine-Massachusetts frontier. I have some other girls from several colleges, as well as another chap. Last Friday I covered Evangelical Christian awakenings in the American 18th century. Soon we will reach the revolution. I supervise in the wooden sitting room of my house. Unfortunately a rather ‘difficult’ housemate saw this as an invasion of the public sphere, which created a bit of a commotion while this poor undergraduate stood there wondering if his essay was any good.

*Book chapters*
Speaking of public space, I am currently struggling through hundreds of pages of impenetrable social science effluent in the hope that I will find some inspiration for a terrorism in the American public sphere chapter I have been accepted to write. Dull and hard. I have also had to begin research and writing for an article on Africa for my think tank publication, as well as some proposals for obscure conferences where I hope to wangle a few pounds to attend.

*Liberalintelligentsiafullyconnectedandattackussavagely*
Rather happily, the thinktank received a savage attack in the neo-fascist Grauniad, which is fast becoming a student publication that seeks to be contrary on all matters, even if that means genocide denial in Sudan, or employing failed impotent hacks to attack us and laud Slobodobodobdobdan Milosevic as a semi-messianic hero. Then, showing the interplay between these media elites on our claustrophobic island, the BBC Radio 4 today programme ran a five minute profile of us, without asking any of us or our leader. Still, makes us feel important, which is the point of all of this in the long run, isn’t it.

*A ‘Model’ Englishman *
The other afternoon, just as I had finished watching ‘neighbours’ 20th anniversary special in my penthouse, I received a call saying that given I was a model home-counties Englishman, I would be photographed wearing tweed jacket, white cricket jumper, brown jeans, and a gown, for a spread that Varsity were doing on English manners and self-fashioning. My photographer, a close Heebess, accosted someone on a bike in the middle of Kings’ Parade, and asked if I could ride it with my gown on, and put lots of books in a basket. In the sun and blue skies, I was duly photographed. They look wicked, but unfortunately, someone was murdered, and the section had to be temporarily dropped, so watch this space.

*Muzac*
I bought the new Alex Parks (Fame Academy Cornish bird) which was so maudlin, dull and angsty I nearly threw it out the window. I have really gone off her. So I went back to the shop and bought an album of Platinum Soul Legends, as well as Kelly Clarkson. (Texan bird). I like Brenda, Andy and Maria on X Factor.

*X Country Matters*
I ran in a 6K X Country match through Granchester meadows on Sunday. It was very hardcore, with beanpoles sprinting ahead of me at the start, and I had to burn my lungs off just not to finish in the bottom 15 of 85. It was muddy, there were a few cows, and the two mixed at times. I had a sprint finish with someone trying to overtake me on the finish line. I think I just held him off, but as he went past me after the line, I jokingly stuck my fingers up at him. Unfortunately at this point a photographer was crystallising the moment for posterity. And I went on my way rejoicing.

Can I do it, I thought to myself, as I stumbled past some Dutch trumpeters with 2 kilometres to go. Can I do it… I had put myself in with a chance.

It all began half a year ago when a brother anounced that I would be entered for the Amsterdam Marathon on Sunday 16th October 2005. Months of training, bloody vests, visualisation and sheer mental toughness ensued. I followed a gruelling training programme which lost me nearly a stone. But in those last two kilometres in Amsterdam, having pounded forty in my legs already, and as I could hear the roar of the Olympic Stadium in the distance, I would have to draw on every ounce of mental toughness to complete my quest for the holy grail of serious marathon running: a sub- four hour performance.

Well as I snatched my last isotonic water cup at the 40k mark, and as I glanced up at an electronic timer that suggested my dream might be over, I simply had to visualise what I had done in the previous six months: Totteridge Runs, Runs to Granchester, Runs in Poland, Helsinki, Oslo, Runs from St. Albans, to Radlett and to Hindu Wembley. With this in mind, I dug my aching legs into the ground, and smashed the ‘wall’. I had to run each kilometre in 5 minutes to get the holy grail. Would I do it?

The weekend in Amsterdam began with Easyjet on Friday to an apartment I found in the swish Joodenran district of Amsterdam, where I stayed with the rest of my running party. Parents went to a more central hotel. Saturday came and went, including carbo loading with apple and honey crepes, tomato soup, and pasta with artichokes and asparagus. I barely slept for three days, with the nervous anxiety t hat only Paula, Kelly, Redgrave and Pinsent can really have experienced. Sunday came, and we made our way to the Olympic Stadium. Mrs Trellis gave me some breast nipple flowers to stick on, which I duly did, as well as vaselining up, and putting on my race number, and electronic chip. After a chaotic trip to a nearby hall to get changed, we made our way into the Olympic stadium where we lined up. A brother lined up further to the front with ostensibly faster runners, while I started with the other half of Greanna and her friend.

Moved over the start line just after 11am, with Haile Gebresellasi leading the race. After twenty minutes through central Amsterdam, we had caught up the green ballooned Runners World pacemaker, which was a good sign, given we started off with the 4h30 pacemaker. Or did it mean we had set off too fast? Only time would tell. I kept injecting spurts of pace to keep with the green balloons, and started to heat up already on a very warm, sunny and blue-skied Dutch day. I spied parents in the crowd on the way into Vondel Park, and then entered the stadium again after 10k or so, after which, still feeling fine, we made our way out of Amsterdam towards Amstel, eventually arriving at the river after around 16kilometres.

I still felt fine, and had my first glucose gell pack, as well as a water sponge. After pissing accidentally onto a Dutch woman squatting in the bushes , I broke away from the other half of Greanna. By now we had lost touch with the 4hour pace setters, and along the Amstel river in the blazing son, with Dutch kids handing me drinks and bananas, and the occassional cheer, it was my job to catch the green balloons. And before 21 k, that is exactly what I did, still feeling relatively fresh. I ran with them, as people began to cramp on the side of the road, or struggle to maintain the pace they had started with. I went through the Half-Marathon point in just under 2 hours: bang on schedule. But I had to do it all again.

And so I ran on the other side of the river for what seemed like an eternity, all the while forging ahead from, and then being caught up by, the green ballon Runner World pace setters. I had had enough of this, and made a bid to break away from them. This I did, and found myself away from the crowds running behind, with a whole new breed of club runner, many of whom were from the UK. I was also now running through an industrial zone of Amsterdam, in what seemed like strong sun. It was now 19 miles, and I had not hit the wall. So I decided to move past as many people as I could. And I did.

But then, at around 22 miles, I hit the wall. My legs just slowed down with every yard, and I could barely will them onwards. I kept chugging along, but it was tough as I got past 35 k. Around me, people were feeling the same. I came to the only hill of the course, and swayed from side to side. I began to walk for five seconds. An old lady in the crowd watching seemed to scold me. So I carried on. Chug, chug, chug, I seemed to get slower.

Then it happended. The green balloons and four hour pace setters had caught me up again. Now, I knew that I had caught them up in the first place, because it took me five minutes to cross the start line, where they had started further in front, and about four minutes earlier. So as long as they were no more than five minutes ahead of me, I would still go under 4hours, according to the electronic chip in my shoe, and my own personal timer.

I carried on running, through Amsterdam, past drummers, injured athletes, and in to Vondel Park for the last time. My legs were tired, and I began to lose heart. On into the streets again, and there it was: the 40k mark, and an electronic timer that suggested I had ten minutes to make it to the finish line, to achieve my goal. I swigged some cold water, and dug in for home.

The rest is a blur now: I seemed to overtake dozens of people, and began to hear the Olympic Stadium where my journey had begun some nearly four hours earlier. I sprinted past the crowds, and saw the 41k timer: I had to run the last k in under 5 mins. I began to sprint even faster, and entered the stadium. I had no time to look up at the crowd or soak up the atmosphere. I had to get to the line without a second to spare. I took the inside lane of the running track, and emptied the tank.

I looked up at the timer as I crossed, and it said 4:05:01. I glanced at my own timer, taken from when I actually crossed the start line five minutes after the race began, and it said around 4.00. I would have to wait now until the race organisers published the official results taken from the electronic chip attached to my shoe. As a medal was put around me neck, and the feeling of happiness engulfed me that I had finished the marathon, I knew the holy grail of sub 4 hours would be a close matched thing. It would be a matter of seconds. Perhaps the old woman who scorned me for attempting to walk saved my skin? Or had I missed out by a whisker?

Well the news came the following day. My official time for the Amsterdam Marathon was:

3. 59: 58 !!

Three hours, fifty nine minutes, and fifty eight seconds.

I had done it BY TWO SECONDS.

I had done it.

As I am off to Amsterdam this evening, for a long weekend including the minor detail of a 42K marathon on Sunday, I have again engaged in a pamphlet war with the Eurofile. After suggesting that the Dutch were not too happy with the EU and the liquidation of their culture and autonomy, he sent me the following overblown nonsense. See my reply to his “I have a dream” jeremiad, below it.

From Europhile:
I have a dream…and it must be realised:

We have a destiny to perform, a ‘manifest destiny’, over all Europe, over Turkey, over Belarus, over the Caucasus and over Russia. The land to the south of us is as necessary for our economic expansion as that to the east. The gates of the Russian empire must be thrown down by the power of our superior values, and the haughty Belorussian dictatorship must be enlightened by the doctrines of democracy and the ballot box.
Africa must liberated and brought into the universal world of commerce and ideas that has been so steadily a-making by the advance of European power. The stars on the Union’s flag must poise themselves over Vladivostok, after tracing their flight through Moscow and the Ural Mountains, and they should shine brightly through the villages of Turkey, after passing over the Bospherous and though the Balkans. They must then cast their way over the Mediterranean to shine like a beacon of light through all Africa, transcending the demons that inhabit that wretched continent. A Union must emerge to bring peace and prosperity to the whole greater continental region, projected forth by the land that gave the world the modern age, and Europe must become the first Universal Empire, its people the happiest, richest, and greatest on Earth!

My reply:

I have a dream that all nations can be proud of the poetry and eccentricities of their own culture and legal systems, with a free and open exchange of ideas and goods between these difference nations. I have a nightmare that supra-national quasi rational, sterile, a-historical institutions will destroy these delicate patterns and historical poetries, and leave us all as atomised individuals floating around in a boundaryless world, without difference, poetry or distinction. Shame on you, you foolish Knave.

I had my free Grad Feast at John’s hall on Friday. I was surrounded by Texans who were making fun of cows. I said wittily to the Hindu chap from Dallas doing a Management degree, who was opposite me: “I’m sorry about all this negative talk about cows”. He replied thusly: “Dude: Are you for real? Shut the f*%k up with bringing my religion up like this. I’m getting a bit sick of your snydy little comments, so just keep the f*%k away from that stuff”. It seems American Hindus are a little humourless, and are not like our nice ones I have grown up with in England.

It is bright green grass and sunny sky here all the way. Had a Thintank meeting where China was on the agenda again.

I am now officially tapering for the Marathon on Sunday, and trying to avoid all the horrid fresher germs around me. When entertaining colleagues at night, I am turning into Howard Hughes, with face masks and covered noses. I yearn for thos nice plastic bags they gave us on the cruise tour of St. Petersburg, to cover our legs when we went into the Church of Spilled Blood, to cover my whole body.

Anyway, below you can see the menu from the now infamous grad dinner. The soup had molluscs in it so I had a vegeterian soup instead, while the pudding was just plain wierd: like green tea angels’ delight with chewy stale gelatinous coffee beans dumped on top in a glass.

Fish and Noodle Soup
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Spiced Gressingham Duck Supreme with Pears

Ritz Potatoes
Braised Red Cabbage
Green Beans with Shallots
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Green Tea Parfait with an Expresso of Beans
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Coffee and St. John’s Truffles
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Crozes Hermitage
Alan Graillot 1995

I am now in the state-of-the-art library of the college of St. John the Evangelist, my new college of residence. I have been sold from Peterhouse here for a record fee. I have been enjoying the new year in Cambridge, where I got to be on security duty for a while, given my physical exploits in running and rowing. John’s is opulent, and my residence is attached to the oldest building in East Anglia, built in 1234. The floorboards are very creeky, however, and I am in the process of mapping out an aeroplane-aisle style route accross the floor, with yellow post-it notes, so that guests and I can avoid the creeking at night. I bought national geographic magazine while in Copenhagen on the cruise, and have put up a big wall chart of Africa that comes with it. I have decided I am at a point when subscriptions to magazines might be a good bet. I like the idea of subscribing to specialist magazines. Here are my thoughts so far:
* Heeb Magazine
*IAAF Quarterly Athletics Magazine
*The Jerusalem Report
*Conde Naste Traveller
* World Soccer
* “Around the Rings” (The official internal magazine of the IOC)
* Commentary Magazine
* The Spectator
* Jewish Renaissance Quarterly
* Reviews in American History
* Airliner World

I am at the moment thinking rather deeply about a painting I once saw by medieval/ early Renaissance painter Quirizio da Murana, which depicts a maternal Christ, lactating blood from each of his breasts/pecs. This painting, coupled with a similar depiction of Christopher Columbus which shows him maternalised with a baby on his back, representing the burden of knowledge and discovery, may provide a research avenue for me. I am reminded of this because I have just come back from a 20 mile training run- just over three hours- through Mill Hill, Elstree, Radlett and Lechmore Heath. As I was stretching, a brother gasped that two large pools of blood were seeping through my running shirt on either of my pecs. 20 miles obviously combined with misty conditions, to create chafing. Hunt and I went to Golders Green the other day, and I bought some chewy sweets with kosher gelatine. I ate one every 2.5 miles on the rune today, as well as an isotonic ‘oros’ style drink.

Incidentally, I went running when the Star Princess cruise ship docked in the Polish port of Gdynia the other week. We took the train to Gdansk/ Danzig, opener of the WWII and seat of Polish ‘resistance’ to Communism. Then We got the train back to a Polish seaside town called Sopot, with perhaps not enough time to spare. I got changed into gear on the train, and pater and a brother and his ladyfriend sought to make our way down the motor way back to Gdynia and the ship docks. Unfortunately, after over an hour of running we realised we would make it back in time for the ship, at the speed we were going. It began to rain, and pater and I were left stranded without money, credit card and map after the other two got onto the nearest bus, and we did not. We carried on for another mile or two, and then got on another bus, which we hoped was going in the correct direction. Of course, the Poles were rather surly/ smelly and did not give us much help with directions. Eventually one nicer man told us where was nearest to get off at the dock. But when we did, this was the twee old tourist dock. We panicked again, had no money for taxi, and then suddenly we saw a Cruise tour bus. We waved our cruise cards at them but they just waved back thinking we were locals/ yokels. I decided to chase the bus for as long as I could, catching it up at traffic lights. It took us a fair way, but then we lost it. We asked some gestapo-looking police who pointed us towards the newer docks, and I ran to finally see it waiting there, with dozens of passengers still outside buying amber and gifts. They had been delayed, and I was still there with a couple of minutes to spare in the first place. The rest of our party were anxiously waiting at the entrance, and some Americans came up to us and said. “Hey, weren’t you the guys who were waving at us. We thought you were friendly passers by”. Very exciting adreneline rush…

I am currently at ‘work’ in the office of my consultancy near granny, and I am refreshing the bbc cricket pages every 30 seconds. It is thrilling, with four sixes in the last 20 minutes! My big parliament event is tomorrow. Boss is coming upstairs with his wife from the kitchen….. More news about Scandinavia and Russia cruising, as well as many article deals and Thinktank activities, all to come soon. Back to cricket/work…

I am off to Copenhagen tomorrow. Denmark is at the vanguard of the crusade against European integration, having refused the single currency and much else. They were also philosemitic during WWII. As such, I will tip my hat to them in Tivoli Gardens. The full itinerary is as follows. I will hope to keep updating from port-to-port.

Day 1 Copenhagen
Day 2 Oslo
Day 3 At Sea
Day 4 Gdynia/ Sopot/ Gdansk
Day 5 Tallinn
Day 6 St. Petersburg
Day 7 St. Petersburg
Day 8 Helsinki
Day 9 Nynashamn (For Stockholm)
Day 10 At Sea
Day 11 Copenhagen

I am aching a bit and rather sweaty. I just got back from my first 13.5 (though I suspect significantly more than this) mile run. I was driven past St. Albans, to Hemel Hempstead, in the hot sun. Pater, pup and I then ran through St. Albans, towards Radlett town centre, where pup drank from a bucket of soapy water in a petrol station where we stopped for two minutes to buy water. Than on relentlessly- and undulatingly- towards Elstree Village, past the Artichoke pub where I used to go as a schoolboy. Down the motorway and into Edgware and home, in around 1hour 55minutes, with pater and pup ten minutes behind this. Now for some cold cola from a bottle, some M&S trout and mackerel, and the small matter of Arsenal Versus the Russian billionaire. I also must write my piece on the sephardim of Cuba.