Observations on The Great North Run Finishing Line

Today we went to give a little moral support to our friend Helen who was partaking of her fifth Great North Run (same as Sir Mo Farah) with her friend Suzanne. The weather held and we were thinking of seeing her off at the beginning, but she was one of around 43,000 participants.

I was surprised to see that the wheelchair winner covered the course in 40 minutes (that's an average of 20 mph) and Sir Mo Farah did it in under an hour therefore averaging 13 mph for the duration of the race.

The organisation was excellent with public transport providing egress and ingress for God knows how many people to the finishing line near Bents Park in South Shields. Given that there were 43,000 participants then each one of those must have averaged say 5 well wishers and support staff so you are probably looking at 200K-250K people in the area.

There were many charities represented, and Helen was running to raise money for St Oswald's Hospices and you can text STOS18£5 to donate £5 to them,

The Red Arrows did a start of race fly past over Newcastle as the runners went over the Tyne Bridge and did a full display after most of the runners had finished. You can see my short far away footage here.

On leaving the number of buses for travellers was phenomenal, and the queues for the Metro and Ferry were extremely long. Luckily Suzanne's sister came and picked us up although we walked a fair way to meet her, but she probably saved us about six hours of queueing, an absolute angel.

Although the organisation was excellent I was surprised that there was absolutely no Mobil Phone Company presence. Duracell were sponsoring and had charging points, and I'm with EE who generally have the best Network coverage, but the sheer number of people meant that they shut down data services and calls were limited to Emergency. I don't know if other providers were the same but I would have thought for such an important event there would have been a presence with signal boosting towers, but there was nothing.

This meant that I couldn't post any video at the time and it may have stopped people from texting donations as well, because that sort of thing is a spur of the moment thing and  once you leave then it's forgotten about. So EE and probably all other mobile phone companies copybooks are blotted, but the day was a huge success and charities did benefit from huge contributions.

That Was Lucky

An absolute deluge during the night, so glad it held off while The Great North Run was on. There were ceratainlt black couds about during the day. The sky looks a bit clearere this morning so a walk into work is going to happen, but I'll be keeping off the grass, and I won't be mowing the lawn tonight.

It's another Monday and even though it's halfway through September , the mornings are dark and this weather is not exactly the best , but weather is complicated so you take what comes and deal with it insted of moaning about it. Though there are people who are only happy when they are miserable and the weather gives them another reason to complain, and I am sure we have a lot of non sunshine on the way to cries of "We never had a summer" , in reality the last couple of years the weather has actually been excellent.

On my walk in today I will be listening to Primal Scream's "More Light" and I was vauguely thinking of including The Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" but my mind says have something more upbeat and better, so Primal Scream's "Trippin' On Your Love" would be a good start to Monday , I think.

Have a brilliant Monday everybody.

A Day For Primal Scream

Today has mostl y been walking though expending nothing like the energy of the people on The Great North Run. I crossed the bridge where the start took place and posted and Instagram picture here. While I know there are world class athletes taking place I was absolutely amazed to find that the Wheelchair racers covered the 13 mile course in inder 45 minutes , that is close on twenty miles an hour average (that's what I worked out in my head, so apologies if it's wrong).

The albums I have been listening to on todays walk have been:

• Malcom McLaren - Fans:  My favourite Mclaren album where he takes on Madame Butterfly and Carmen (Puccini and Bizet) as well as Verdi. It's only half an hour long but is absolutely gorgeous while anything but po faced as sometimes classical music can seem . This will have you chasing after the originals as well.
• Primal Scream - Chaosmosis: Love the title and more baggy electronica than rock, but still excellent listening. The opener "Trippin' on Your LOve" recals the gospel of "Screamadelica"'s "Movin' on Up".
• Primal Scream - More Light (Deluxe): A rockier Primal Scream from the off of "2013" to the lift of Hawkwind's "Master of The Univers" riff for "Nothing Is Real" on the bonus disc. One to finish on the walk to work tomorrow but another great album

So that's been my Sunday and I'll leave you with the "Boys' Chor us" from "Fans" , but I am sure I will be including some Primal Scream in the future , as I have in the path. Enjoy your Sunday evening everybody.

All Work

No Joy

Makes Mac

A Dull Boy!!

 

I Find It Difficult To Get Angry

I started the blog And Annoyingly  to vent my spleen and The Red Tops and their readers and supporters and the idiotic right wing and racists, but to be quite honest I find such things a waste of energy hence the fact I have only put up three posts (so far). While I am exasperated by the electorate and public, unless I do something to change it, it is pointless wasting energy getting bothered about it.

So I won't, it is a Sunday and the weather is wonderful, lots of my friends are running in the great North Run and lots of people will achieve a dream today. It's things like that that spark me, make me feel positive, knowing that people are doing something THEY want to do , often for the benefit of others. It's like Jessica Salmon's "Storytelling Of The Ancients" exhibition (which you can watch here) , Jessica put time , effort and ideas into a presentation that was free for the public, and she provided wine and cake. Absolutely wonderful.

Some people spend their life whining about whatever slightly irks them , instead of doing something positive, but then some people are only happy when they or others are miserable. Bad things do happen but you need to try and find something good to hold onto , however difficult that might be.

Ken Loach is making all his films free to view on Youtube , he doesn't need to , but he is allowing people to see his work effectively for nothing. What he will get out of it is a lot of exposure, and deservedly so.

I thought I'd choose The Rolling Stones I'm Free , because most of the time we do have a choice, and if you get the chance take it, don't  pass it up.

Anyway go out and be positive and have a great Sunday everybody.

In The Future Everyone Will Be Famous for 15 Seconds

I very seldom have a rant, more just have a feeling of exasperation at the apparent idiocy of the masses, however after having seen the Sunday Express'  headline today about another migrant invasion I thought I'd let you have my take on the "Ice Bucket Challenge" thing.

Over the years various people have done things to raise money and awareness for certain illnesses and causes. Today the Great North Run took place , which is now the world's greatest half marathon and raises millions for lots of worthy causes. People have trained for months to get into shape to give them a chance of finishing the race and hitting their target.

Now this IBC, it's supposed to be to raise awareness of ALS , I don't know what it is but think it's something to do with Motor Neurone Disease / Syndrome. ALS stands for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and I was right in my presumption. Here is a wiki definition. IBC seems to be a sort of "charity thing" for the iPod / You've Been Framed / Reality TV generation, the people who can't concentrate on anything for more than two minutes. It requires no training , no planning, and when it's done it's forgotten about. I believe some people have made money from it but eveybody can now put themselves on Youtube for two minutes and may or may not be seen but in most cases will be forgotten.

This is the same generation who buy into the broadband blurb that you can download an album in 40 seconds, but it should take 40 minutes to listen to, but then people skip tracks make playlists and maybe never listen to the album they've downloaded, because it's more convenient to download than it is to listen.

Andy Warhol

In the past Andy Warhol stated "In The Future Everyone Will Be Famous For 15 Minutes", he didn't take into account the idiocy accelerometers.

I think the the fact that the IBC is so ubiquitous has really annoyed me, and many of my friends have taken it to raise money for charities and all power to them, but I think it's good to take a challenge that you can put yourself into.

Anyway that's my rant over and obviously the only song I've going to choose is David Bowie's Andy Warhol so enjoy the rest of your Sunday , I've mowed the lawn and now others are following suit and if you must IBC say what your doing it and promote your charity upfront. Have a great day