tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66173643175723113502024-02-21T17:30:45.727+00:00Stranded on GaiaCycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.comBlogger544125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-67955013776143788112019-05-18T19:48:00.001+01:002019-05-18T19:48:09.358+01:00And as it turns out I'm not readyHey! How's it going!<br />
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My mother died.<br />
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We bought a house.<br />
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In five months I get married.<br />
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<br />Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-23008729767129359652017-06-18T17:46:00.002+01:002017-06-18T17:46:57.929+01:00I'm going to a answer, protectingI got a school reunion coming up. I need to get my story straight.<br />
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"It's 25 years already!!!" said the forwarded email. Can I believe it? I can. I totally can. Yesterday alone felt like 100 years. That said, it was also yesterday that I decided against attending my Accountancy Leaving Certificate exam, opting instead to sit in the Garden of Remembrance, failing to remember the explanation that I must have heard somewhere along the way as to why I would even consider attending my Accountancy Leaving Certificate Exam. Yesterday, 25 years ago.<br />
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I'm not going. I hate those guys.<br />
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But hey! I might venture into a pub on an adjacent night, and sit with a select few, and chew, chew it all over, while we have a few. Maybe talk about Gerry. Talk about Kerry. Talk about Jules. Those times, those were hard times. But oh how I felt. So much feeling. Like never before nor since. I'm scared of the remembering of that. Of all the joy I felt and all the pain I was in and what a terrible, terrible person this made of me. And I'm scared of looking into their old man faces to see the reflection of my own.<br />
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I got a school reunion coming up. I need to get my story straight.<br />
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<br />Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-70967486492858258152017-06-17T15:36:00.000+01:002017-06-17T18:20:05.204+01:00I know you can make it good*I've given up so much stuff over the years. Giving up, it's one of my regular gigs. Like that marathon The Rider rip off below. Just past half way and then fuck this. Fuck this very much. There, that's that. My would be novel, shivering in shorts and singlet on the side of a Crumlin road. Let's move on.<br />
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To more giving up. All the giving up that I do. All the biggies. Smoking, drinking, meat. Meat, of course. All the animals and their secretions. You missed my veganniversary, you thoughtless fucks. Though who knows, we may meet over meat again.** But that's your exception. Cause here's the scoop folks. I'm after giving up giving up the rest.<br />
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Behold my glass of white wine! Gaze upon yesterday's tense but frivolous fag! See my blog! That, you understand, was the other non sacrificial sacrifice. All that writing. I gave up, but now I want back in. I want back in so bad. Tbh (this is how I talk now, Jsyk), I think it might have something to do wth the dog***. Walking around the ugly soiled nappy strewn field, I find myself having an awful lot of dumb opinions that absolutely will not fit within the boundaries of any thread, be it short, long or even imperial. There is only one format that allows me to lay bare my cavernous soul and you're looking right at it folks.<br />
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And my soulful truth: I am old now. I have one daughter doing her leaving. Another about to enter secondary school. I have a dog a cat a car a common law wife. But, or possibly so, I feel scared and angry and confused and often isolated. Even alone. I felt like this before. So I wrote it down in ways that amused me. and in writing I realised I was right to feel scared and angry and confused, but almost certainly wrong to feel alone. Even isolated.<br />
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Time for another crack at it.<br />
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<i>*What is it with this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjEq-r2agqc" target="_blank">line</a>? It's a bad line. It's barely a sentence. It's "I know you can make it" plus a word. But, ugh, how I love it.</i><br />
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<i>**This is not a good line. This is not a so bad it's good line. Jesus. Am I going to leave that up for anybody, even the "<a href="https://www.google.ie/search?q=Beko+WM5100W+won%27t+drain&oq=Beko+WM5100W+won%27t+drain&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1j0i22i30k1j0i8i13i30k1.2123599.2123599.0.2123852.1.1.0.0.0.0.83.83.1.1.0....0...1.2.64.psy-ab..0.1.82.PsL4L7Zrl-w" target="_blank">Beko WM5100W won't drain</a>" googlers to read and sigh and shake their heads at? At the hackneyed awfulness? Well, yeah. I'm saying we have a lot to discuss on that eating animals deal you guys all have and I'm saying it both obviously and pretentiously. Fuck you, Beko man.</i><br />
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<i>***Not unrelated to the oncoming vegan righteousness assault. We got a dog, a dog got us. Name of Mo. Which does sound an awful lot like "No!" leading to lots of hilarious material already run through by Steven Wright and his canine companion "Stay". This may also be a contributory factor in his eyes being too close together, giving him the look of a <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BUqwdGPlRg_/?taken-by=gimmeaminute&hl=en" target="_blank">Collie that banjo duels</a>.</i><br />
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Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-56774921929567957752013-11-29T16:39:00.000+00:002013-11-29T16:39:23.182+00:00Mile Fourteen<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another gel pick up will come somewhere in the next two miles. I remain in unfamiliar territory but I have watched the course video two hundred thousand times so I have no doubt that all will be fine. To my left and for the longest time, I see a man who has dropped. He stands tall and slim by the side of the road, his face in his hands. He is shaking. Sobbing or shivering. Both. No one comforts him. He has made it past half way, like me, and then he has had to stop. I know that if it had been possible he would have continued. I know it. I want to tell him that I know it. But I don't want to tell him it's okay. It's not okay. He has failed. He has earned his failure. I might still earn mine. His stance does not alter as I pass. I drift. </div>
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I'm nearly eight when I learn to ride. I got a Chipper for Christmas but I don't know how to ride it so Darren's daddy teaches me. Darren lives across the road. Darren has a Chopper which is better than a Chipper and Darren's Chopper is red and my Chipper is yellow. Darren's daddy teaches Darren and then later he teaches me because I want to learn too. I wobble up and down Maryfield Close and I fall over against this car that is parked with a man in it. My shoulder hurts a bit, but I'm okay. I've left a little mark on the car. The man gets out of the car and he's angry and Darren's daddy says he's only just learned but the man is still angry. The man says you should be keeping him away from facking cars then. Darren's daddy says he's not my kid, is he, he's the mick from over the road. The man said look at my facking car. Darren's daddy says it was an accident. I run home because I'm scared of the angry man and Darren shouts you forgot your bike but I keep running because I'm scared. Mum is at work but Fiona is there and she says where's your bike, you didn't put it down the side. I say I forgot it. She says then go and get it. But I'm scared so I just stand there and wait. And she says I told you to go and get your bike and she looks like she looks when she's going to smack me so I run outside and stand on the kerb. I don't know what to do. I'm scared of the angry man and I'm scared of Fiona, so I stand on the kerb and wait. I can see Darren's daddy talking to the man. They look more friendly now, but I'm still scared so I stand and wait. After a long time the man gets in his car and drives away. I go and get my bike. Darren calls me a scaredy cat. I get on my Chipper and wobble home. I put it down the side and go inside. Fiona gives me a biscuit. Tomorrow I think I'll run away.</div>
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I see the pink jacket up ahead.</div>
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I get up early. I always get up early on the holidays and Fiona says she always has to wake me up when there's school but I'm not allowed to watch television on school days so why would I get up? But today I don't watch television. I want to ride on my bike again. I liked riding on it yesterday and I want to do it again. And also I can run away. I can run away but on my bike. So I put on my clothes. My sister is still asleep. Fiona is still asleep. My mum is still asleep. I go out the side door. I am very quiet. It's cold outside, and still a little bit dark.I push my bike out to the front and get on it. I remember what to do. I'm wobbly for a bit but then I'm okay. I get to the bottom of our road and I stop. This is the big road. Joyden's Wood Road. I'm not supposed to go on it on my own, but that's when I'm walking. Probably it's different on my bike. Big kids go on this road by themselves. And I can ride a bike now so I must be a big kid too. So I go round the corner and down the hill. Joyden's Wood Road is a hill. The library is at the bottom. I think I'll go to the library and then go to Joyden's Wood and live there. I haven't really pedaled much but I'm going fast. Fast like Jason in Battle of the Planets. I make the noise that the Galacti-cycle makes. Jason doesn't drive the Galacti-cycle, he drives the race car. Princess drives the Galacti-cycle. Once I pretended to be Princess when me and Darren were playing Battle of the Planets he said that I couldn't be Princess because she's a girl and I said why not, you're being Barry Sheen and he isn't even in Battle of the Planets and he sang David is a girl David is a girl so I broke his Action Man toy and he stopped. Darren's mum shouted at me a lot and I had to go home. The next time we played Battle of the Planets I was Jason instead. And now I'm Jason again and I've borrowed the Galacti-cycle from Princess. I'm going very fast. I remember Darren's daddy saying pull the brakes if you want to slow down. I think I want to slow down. I try to pull the brakes. I can't reach the brakes. I'm going very, very fast. I'm not Jason anymore. I'm not even Princess. I'm scared. I'm going too very fast. I think maybe I should put my feet on the ground because that will help me stop but maybe I'm going too fast and I'll hurt my feet. I think I saw The Six Million Dollar Man do that in a car once because the brakes weren't working, but I'm not made of six million dollars, I'm made of kid. I put my feet on the ground anyway.</div>
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I take the gels smoothly. "I'm okay!" I say, I shout. "It hurts, but I'm okay! I think I can do it!" I so rarely speak with exclamation marks.</div>
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My Chipper goes upside down very fast and I go upside down very fast and then I go onto the ground very fast and I think my Chipper goes onto the ground but I can't see because my face is on the ground. I shouldn't have run away. </div>
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I think I can do it. Saying it out loud, to that friendly, smiling face makes me believe. For the first time, I believe that I can. I can finish this. With the rush of elation that this belief produces comes the realisation that for the duration of this mile that I have spent in Bexley, Kent, I completely failed to notice the pain in my knee. I notice the fuck out of it now, but then I also notice those wrists again and my other knee and my arms and my calves. Things are balancing up, evening out. All over, non-specific agony is my bag. I'll absorb that shit all day long. Here comes another rush. In this moment I can run forever. </div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-73073513173033306572013-11-28T18:46:00.001+00:002013-11-28T19:48:37.634+00:00Miles Twelve and Thirteen<div style="text-align: justify;">
Where is this? What are these roads? Suddenly the course is split for traffic. The small bunch just ahead of me, which includes Lurchy Pinkface, continue on the left hand side of the road while myself and all those behind me are siphoned off to the right. The road is wide. The cars drive between us. I can see that the next turn is to the left. Our route will be longer. I am genuinely enraged. What the fuck is this shit I mutter. Closed roads my fucking arse. I cannot remember being this angry. I recognise that it may be time to eat a gel. I eat a gel. Mile marker. Twelve down. </div>
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You never feel more privileged than on a Wednesday morning. You're up at six thirty making coffee, eating porridge and getting the day going for the house. By 8.45 you have completed your tasks for the morning. Children are at school with some class of lunch upon their person. Spin classes have been constructed. Dishwashers emptied, clothes laundered. You no longer instruct on a Wednesday morning. You are privileged to have this time to yourself. So you get in your car. Privileged to own a car. You drive to Howth. Privileged to live so close to such a place. You park right at the end, up by the public toilets. You have been sipping water all the way out. You need, as usual, to pee. So you pee, then jog slowly back to where the village starts. </div>
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This is the beginning of The Bog of Frogs. On its website this trail is advertised as ten kilometres. More damnable internet lies. It is in fact just shy of eight miles. You will not find a better run in the county. </div>
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You've had your warm up jog now. It's time to get going. Do a little lean in, like you're on a start line, wait for the Runkeeper to count down from ten. And you're off. If you're lucky, and you're always lucky, the wind, and it's always windy, begins at your back. So you burst from your imaginary blocks and shoot down the promenade, flying past the slouchers you shuffled passed moments before. Make up your mind moron, you hear them mentally cry. East or west? Fast or slow? Make your choice. Stick with it. East it is, for now. East and fast. Why not fast? It's as easy as slow. </div>
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Go right at the pier. Bang. You're climbing. It's sharp, it's steep, it's probably about 200m long. You need to stay out of the red. It's too early for the red. But there is little option. Red is the colour. Left now and the slope drops to almost nothing. Recover. Breathe. You like this section, a quiet road of gentle incline that leads to the real beginning. Take it easy tap it out. Fun times await. Runkeeper chirps a mile and you're almost there. You smile. Here it comes.</div>
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For the next five miles you run the cliff path, constantly up or down, though more often up, hopping over rocks, charging up steps, barreling down descents, squeezing through narrow thorn corridors, briefly dropping all the way down to the beach before it's up up up again. Sometimes you meet a hiker, or a dog walker. All are lovely and stand aside to let you pass. You always shout thank you. You beam. They beam. How can you not beam? Look at the view. Feel the wind on your face in your lungs. The sun or the misty rain. Quick short steps, long galloping strides, everything happens in these five miles. One time you run this with "Songs in The Key of Life" in your ears and everything makes sense. And then you go right.</div>
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Up. For a mile. No relief. Some of it outrageously steep. It is the most you will hurt in your marathon training. Your legs and lungs will scream like they will not scream even in 400m repeats. Stop. Please stop. Please. Or walk. Please walk. Please. Just a few steps. Please let it stop hurting. But you have come from cliff joy and you know that a mile of descent awaits. So you do not stop. Shut up legs. Fuck you lungs. We're doing this. We're getting it done. You run through a golf course just before the last brutal incline. And even your scorn for this alleged pastime is softened by the effort and the joy. And then it tops out and brother do you fly. If it's a good day and you came to this run rested and you ran the climb smart, you may now effortlessly hit a 6'30 mile. Nobody, you feel, has ever moved this fast. Down through an estate, dropping dropping and then it's Howth again and a sharp u-turn and a final surge to the pier. You keep running until the phone calls eight and then you stop. You are exhausted and you are grateful. Grateful to have had the time, the health, the inclination to spend this hour in this way. You love to run. How you love to run.</div>
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I fucking hate running. My fucking leg. Jesus. My wrists hurt. Fuck. Why do my wrists hurt? The road comes back together and I find that I have lost my lurcher. Have I slowed? Quickened? I don't know. I don't much care. I hear music from afar drowning out my own tunes. <i>I'm the cat with the base and drums going round like bom bom bom. </i>Halfway approaches. The music is so very loud. I know this song.<i> Sixteen pints of rum.</i> I started using it in pump last week, It is a stupid song. I like it a lot. I allow myself a smile. <i>I'm so cool and I'm so groovy.</i> I'm also half way. Half way through a marathon, this marathon I said that I would run before I got too old. My leg. My wrists. Halfway. <i>Bom bom bom</i>. </div>
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Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-57741339479267093812013-11-08T21:13:00.000+00:002013-11-08T21:13:16.941+00:00Miles Ten and Eleven<div style="text-align: justify;">
There's a small boy on the right hand side of the road. He is holding out his hand for the high fives. High fives for him, low fives for us. He can't be more than six. The woman in front of me veers to contribute. I veer with her. She wears a black baseball hat, black shorts and a bright pink singlet. She runs easily and with purpose. I would wager my last gel on her being American. But then we're all American now, with our can do attitudes and our marathon running and our high fiving. As her outstretched hand impacts the kid's his face lights up like a stricken tower. I get a similar reaction. I feel like Stewart Lee must have felt when I bought a book I already owned so that he could sign it. I hope this child stays here all day. The American lady powers on and I let her go. We will meet again, I feel. </div>
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Other less youthful spectators offer food. Jelly Babies mostly. I can't, don't, won't eat Jelly Babies. I have my reasons. They are twofold. The first reason makes a modicum of sense. Don't do anything you haven't practiced in training. No new shoes, no new clothes, no new sweets from random strangers. I have not practiced with Jelly Babies, so no Jelly Babies. The second reason is not so sensical. Jelly Babies contain gelatin. I do not eat gelatin because I am a vegan. I am vegan? I do not know. It does not matter. I am a vegan vegan. Gelatin is made from hooves. Animal hooves. I do not eat animal products. I don't really know why. This is not true. I don't eat animals products because I read about an ultra runner who was vegan so I decided I'd do that. I'm always doing shit like that. I am extremely suggestible. I ran barefoot for months after I read "Born to Run". But while barefoot running was nice, it was also deeply impractical and not entirely safe. So I stopped doing that. But this vegan gig, it makes me feel good. I have more energy, less guilt. I can eat mountains and mountains of food without putting on weight. If I'm honest, this is the main, if not quite only, reason. Because I am both greedy and narcissistic. Real vegans, if they could see my heart, would despise me. But then real vegans are mostly militant nut jobs who believe that children who like a hot dog and a milkshake in Eddie Rocket's after a second rate animation in Cineworld are filthy murderers brainwashed by the system into a terrible unthinking life of slave mastery and butchery. They're right too, but I like to focus on my low body fat percentage. It's less stressful.</div>
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Ten miles. I do not know this part of town. I am in that place where I am just running. It is a good place. It cannot last. </div>
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An Irish woman passes me. I know she is Irish because though she does not wear the colour, she is pink. And ginger. But so very pink. And she's moving. Effortfully. I guess my pace at about 7'25, hers is somewhat quicker. But she does not run. She lurches. She is lurching along at a pace that I am not sure I can hold. Her form reminds me of a conversation I had with Tommy seven days ago. Tommy works where I work and can give a mean deep tissue. Very, very mean. When he had finished fucking me up, Tommy spoke of an old man who had overtaken him in the final miles of his first marathon. There on the gym floor, he demonstrated the veteran's gait, a Quasimodo like hop. People stared. I laughed. Mile eleven and it's happening to me. Everything in this race is happening too early. I slowly accelerate to match this woman's pace. For the next mile I will be try to live within her beautifully pink, loping lurch. </div>
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Mile eleven marker. I am bored, I realise. Non-runners always say that, don't they? "I could never run! I don't know how you do it! It's so boring!" I am never bored when I am running. But I am bored now. Bored of the pain in my left leg, bored of concentrating on not letting it slow me down, bored of wondering if I'm going to make it. Not far to half way. That'll be something. Probably a thing with running and no Jelly Babies. But something. </div>
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On we lurch. </div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-864990871959309602013-11-07T20:55:00.000+00:002013-11-07T20:55:06.255+00:00Miles Eight and Nine<div style="text-align: justify;">
Out of the park we stream. The sky is big and blue and there are hundreds of bystanders, shouting, encouraging, bystanding. One comedian hollers "Almost there!". I assume the repetition of this hilarity will continue to amuse him for at least the next hour or so. I do not begrudge him. Everybody is doing what they have to do to get through this day.</div>
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My leg I think again. My knee, my hip. It hurts. They hurt. I realise that this repetition of my own is even less amusing than that of our witty wag. So I decided to cut it out, to give it up, to let it go. Pain is my lot now, earlier than I had hoped, but this is where I am. Run, run.</div>
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There is a climb coming.</div>
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Here. Close your eyes. Take this. You know what it is, right? Feel that gentle crinkle. No, no, don't open it yet. Bring it to your nose. Inhale. Can you smell it through the wrapper? Maybe not. But you can imagine. Nutty, creamy, sugary. Open it. Yes, go on. Expose the burnished mahogany of your dreams. See the helicopter shot from the television advert that you are composing in your mind as the camera zooms through the ridges and folds of sweet, sweet chocolate. Enough anticipation now. Take your first bite. Oh that taste. Peanuts, caramel, milk. Protein carbohydrates precious life giving fats. The effect is immediate, like a shot into the veins. And here at 1.30 in the afternoon in Sault, Provence your body believes again. You have climbed the mountain that looms to your left twice today and you must climb it one more time. Thirty seconds ago it seemed an impossible feat. But a Snickers has changed all that. You stuff the paper in you back pocket and gear down as the road begins to rise.</div>
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Six months ago I switched to a vegan diet. There will be no more Snickereses for me.</div>
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Mont Ventoux. This name means little to most. Club des Cingles. Even less to more. But these are the words by which I will measure my effort today. I have climbed Ventoux. I am an initiate of Club des Cingles. Towering like a canker sore out of the flatlands of Provence this extinct volcano rises to 1912m over 21 kilometres. If you're a professional cyclist hepped up on the goofiest of goofballs you can climb it in an hour. If you're me, it takes a little over 90 minutes. There are no downhills, no relieving switchbacks. Uphill, most often at a grade between nine and twelve percent, for an hour and a half. Before the terrible rise of Team Sky the best known British pro cyclist was a guy who was famous mostly for dying on this hill. That's amphetamines, brandy and a blatant disregard for your own well being for you. Hey, that's Mont Ventoux and that's all very well. But Club des Cingles, that's a whole other reinfused blood bag. To join you must ascend the mountain three times in a row from three different sides. The descent takes about maybe twenty minutes though Sean Kelly did it in eight. I did this. I joined the club of morons. It was a lonely, majestic and ultimately Snickers fueled pursuit. I got the fucker done. And cried like a baby on finishing the final climb. I had never been so exhausted, so physically crushed. I never thought I would be again. </div>
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Eight miles. A quick one.We breeze through a village, so many people, so much cheering. I am beginning to feel like I can stand this pain. Like I can do this.</div>
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I was back from France about two weeks when the friend of a friend, being informed that I like to cycle a bike, told me that he also rode. "There's a hill in Inchicore," he said, eyes ablaze. "It's a fucking killer. I used to have to walk up it. Now I don't even have to get out of the saddle." "Wow." I say. </div>
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My Dublin City Marathon 2013 passes under a bridge. I am maybe fifty metres further on and there is shouting behind. It's the 3'20 pace group, playing with the echo and failing to suffer. I sigh and look to this Inchicore Hill. I have never cycled up it. Let's hope I can do it without getting out of my metaphorical saddle. I shorten my stride, pick up my cadence. No heart rate change. No significant drop in pace. I have run up a lot of hills in the last four months. Not just because it's good training but because since I returned to running I have discovered that my love of climbing is not limited to the bike. So I am trained for this. I know what to do. Yes, my IT band maintains its piercing whine. But for the next 250m it can fuck right off. I am finally in my element. I pass ten, fifteen people. Largely flat the website claims. How I love this lie. I briefly fantasise that the whole course is uphill. That is a marathon I could finish, I think, ludicrously. And then the road levels out. That was it. That was my quarter kilometer of joy, </div>
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I keep running.</div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-43312864331391151632013-11-05T07:08:00.000+00:002013-11-05T07:08:35.561+00:00Mile Seven<div style="text-align: justify;">
This water station is a nightmare. They are not ready. I am not ready. I have to stop, rip apart some plastic sheeting. I lose seconds. I have no seconds to lose. The stopping means I start again and when I start again it's there. Full on. All out. Stabbing. I stopped two weeks ago with this pain. And so I will stop now. But I do not stop now. Not yet. My training partner is just around the corner, waiting with gels. That's the time to stop. I speed up a little. The sooner I get there, the sooner I drop. The corner comes quick. I see her before she sees me. dressed as she is in luminous pink. She's on the phone. She's talking about me, I guess. though my ears have failed to burn. She looks worried. I am very late. Probably he's dropped already, she's thinking, maybe saying. Should she start to walk back? I raise my hand. She spots me. But instead of instantly identifying my terrible need to make it stop, she whips the gels from her pocket and holds them in my path. What can I do? We practiced this on the coast road that Sunday morning that I pulled up short. I wore my serious face as she passed the squishy batons. "I hope I get a smile on the day!" she said after she caught me back up. I made no promises. And she gets no smile. But I take the fucking gels and keep running. Because practice. </div>
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I am still running. I don't know why. I should have stopped. I really should have stopped. I could still stop. Quick, now, stop before she leaves. She'll take off her luminous pink coat and cover me up. The pink will hide my tears and my shame from the passing thousands who could not give a fuck and from the gawking spectators who might well be glad to gaze upon a spectacle besides those passings thousands. They will bestow on me their terrible, terrible pity. But I won't see, hiding underneath the pink coat. We will walk slowly back through the park. I will exaggerate my limp. I will ask her to mention to passers by that my ribs are broken even though they no longer are. We will phone Common Law who will be expecting this call. Hopefully the family will not have left for town. It will be hard to get home. I may have to borrow a bike. But I will get home. And I will crawl into bed. It will be warm and my knee will not hurt. I will cry some more, though mostly with relief. It will be over. I am only here to find out where it ends, and it may as well end now. Common Law will give me comfort. The children will tiptoe around me. My younger daughter will not understand. I banish this thought. I will go to work tomorrow and say over and over and over again "Not great, I had to drop out. There's always next year!" </div>
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There's always next year. </div>
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My younger daughter will not understand.</div>
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The pain is very bad. It runs the length of my upper leg and nods a hello to my lower back. It has settled somewhat from a stab to a sear. But sear it does. Still I am not quite limping. I continue to run. Slowing has not helped. I spot the 3'20 pacing flag maybe 200m ahead. So I pick it the fuck up. Why not? This neither magically dissipates the pain nor makes it noticeably worse. I begin to pass people. I follow a fellow surger onto the far right hand side of the road. The camber! I have been on the left all the way through the race! Maybe this change will magically heal me! It does not. Me and this guy, we go up on the grass to enable further passing. The softer surface will soothe me! It does not. We come level with the pacers on a slight downhill. My friend eases off, happy to have made the catch. I press on. The descent will ease my pain! The descent does not.</div>
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It hurts. It really, really hurts. But it has not worsened over the last half mile. I know that I cannot stand this for another nineteen miles. This is a given. It seems really unlikely that I can make it to my next training partner meeting place at fourteen miles. I'm not sure that I can even make it out of the park. So I summon the spirit of Gordy Ainsleigh. inventor of modern ultra running, who famously asked, as he threw up, pissed blood and hallucinated his away around a 100 mile mountain course, "What <i>can</i> I do?" And his answer: "I can take another step."</div>
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I take another step.</div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-90756227252715282342013-11-04T10:24:00.000+00:002013-11-04T10:24:10.485+00:00Miles Five and Six<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yeah, yeah. Park schmark. We run down the side of the zoo and there's a sudden steady stream of male runners sprinting off course to release their sudden steady streams. They've been on the edge of wetting themselves since before the gun and our society's outrageous emphasis on hydration is to blame. Worse by far than poverty, racism and our consistent failure to revolt, this cry of "Drink plenty of water!" permeates our lives as a panacea to all ills. Hungover? Drink plenty of water! The common cold? Drink plenty of fluids! By which I mean water! Cancer? Make sure you hydrate well between your chemo heaves! </div>
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I do not need to piss. This is a rare and happy state. I may need to stop running, right here and now but I do not need to piss. I can no longer call this discomfort discomfort, and I can no longer locate it my upper shin. I am four and a half miles in and I have pain. Pain in my knee. Knee pain. It is still ignorable. So I ignore the fuck out of it. </div>
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Eight weeks and five days ago. Had it all been going so well? Dunno. I guess. No niggles. I was not collapsing under the load of the training, Though slightly fearful of a scheduled six mile tempo run on Friday morning I still agreed to cover a couple of extra spin classes that Thursday night. Maybe traffic is always that heavy on Merrion Square come late night shopping day. There is nowhere safe to go ride in this scenario, unless it's on a horse. And even then. Go on the inside and you might as well wear a t-shirt saying "Door me, please. Door me all to hell." Between the lanes is slow and messy and similarly doorish. The outside seems the best bet. Here I come. Here it comes. A van blocks the view of a yellow box whose I existence I have forgotten and I'm going fast because I'm always going fast and Emmanuel pulls out fast because he's probably always going fast too. I don't know where I connect but it's a big fucking crunch and I have not hit the ground before I'm wondering can I run. And then I do hit the ground and it all goes quiet and I lie there for a bit as the crowd crowds around. And then I'm up. Legs okay. I'm looking for the bike which is a long, long way away. Ache in my side. Adrenaline flood. I'm okay, I'm okay. I take a load of photos, get the numbers, get the name. Emmanuel it is but not the good kind. If this guy is doing soft focused soft porn it's for a niche market that I have yet to stumble across. The bike, by contrast, is hard focus fucked. I decide I need to go to work. So I put the bike on my shoulder and walk to the Concert Hall where I find a cab that'll take a broken bike and a now slightly limping me. I teach my spin classes. My side begins to move beyond an ache. This progression continues over the coming hours. It takes about a week to get bad enough for me to seek medical attention beyond a phone call to my father. But it's okay, because I stay fully hydrated throughout this crucial time.</div>
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Onto Chesterfield Avenue. I've dropped off again. I can still see the pacer's flag but in the distance now. How can I be running this slowly? I don't feel tired. The knee has yet to alter my form. Slowing certainly doesn't seem to reduce the pain. I decided to eat a gel. It's early, yes, but that was the plan. I stick to the plan. Then fumbling to open the gel with gloves, something which due to climate change I have failed to practice, I squirt most of it down my front. The plan sticks to me.</div>
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Half a gel makes me go no faster. It's the gloves, I think. My hands are warm. So I throw them to the verge, the last of the ballast cast off. Early again. Everything is happening too soon and too slowly. We pass five miles and my pace is a joke. My knee hurts. Emmanuel paid for the bike. He unknowingly paid for the classes I ultimately missed. He did not pay for this despair that is now beginning to slowly envelop me. But hey, he wasn't to know. </div>
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Up Chesterfield Avenue I trot, the 3'20 flag still in the distance but not getting any further away. Just before six miles there is a water station. Then a turn and a pre-arranged gel pick up point.The knee is bad now and has been joined by the hip. Probably time to drop, I think. Best get to the water station first though. because, you know, hydration.</div>
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Here it comes. Here I come.</div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-54518047052022128002013-11-02T21:23:00.000+00:002013-11-02T21:33:47.455+00:00Miles Three and Four<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have faded away from the pacer as the road does a little twist and turn. It's okay. It's no biggie. Who will give a fuck how fast I was going when I drop? Me. I will give a fuck. I slowly ease my way back. Another little rise facilitates this process. Largely flat they said. And suddenly there it is. The cool breath of the ghost of a niggle at the top of my left shin. Paranoia. Hyper-sensitivity. Keep running.</div>
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North Circular Road. I have run this. And biked and bussed it. But never walked. Who walks this road? No one with smarts. Once I ran it regularly, working for a time within the walls of St Brendan's Hospital. It had almost stopped being whatever kind of hospital it once was and it smelled of rot and mental health and cat piss, the latter undoubtedly due to the litter of feral kittens that appeared halfway through our month long stay. Oh but they were cute. Teeny tiny with outsized paws all black and white and soon to doubtless die. I think someone called the DSPCA, someone else fed them sandwich ham. I played with them, my headphones as a toy. Then I'd do some shit of which I will not speak before running home, relieved to be away from the crazy and the cats. I had not been running long back then and every step was still a joy. But now, now we pass the three mile marker as the first water station looms. I am glad to be beyond Brendan's and happy to find myself well positioned to snatch a child sized bottle for each hand. The field remains ridiculously crowded but I am lucky, I do not have to break my stride. I breathe a "Thanks". I'm sure they do not hear me. Rightly so, these faceless workers retain the dignity of the thankless job. I drink a little, then a lot, legs not slowing, then hold a bottle in the air, as if toasting extravagantly, to indicate I've done well at this station of this cross and am more than happy to share. A guy takes me up and I exchange my only pleasantries of the race so far. I do not find them pleasant. He's out of breath and red faced, this guy. Maybe he surged to catch me even at what feels like my increasingly turgid pace. I worry for him. I worry for me. I drop him. Separately we trample on towards the park. </div>
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Less subtle now this hint of pain. It contains the promise of a throb.</div>
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We're still running the North Circular. It's a long fucking road and not circular at all. I came this way most recently on a Sunday morning training run. The plan was to meet an athlete friend and have her take me on a tour of the park. It was a beautiful day and a glorious run finishing with an unplanned diversion down the majesty of Griffith Avenue. Many miles that morning among the many other miles I have run in preparation for this day. The longest ones have always been in the company of this friend. She rides her bike beside me, hands me water and gels. She talks incessantly of this and that, about you and me and her. She's the podcast to which you can talk back. Runners are selfish creatures, and I fail to question what she gains from this arrangement. Other runners observe us from a distance and as they approach their terrible jealousy becomes apparent. How dare I. How dare we. This must be cheating surely. And maybe it is. Older dog walking women, by contrast, think we're very, very cute. As each Sunday reaches its conclusion and up the pace begins to ramp, my training partner proffers the odd word of encouragement. She has gotten better at this proffering as the weeks have waned or I have gotten better at the receiving. I mostly believe her now when she tells me I'm strong. I mostly believe her when she says we're almost there, even when I am aware of both the route and the lie. I mostly believe I would not be on this road today if it had not been for her. And so she tops the list of the people who I am about to disappoint. I see her husband up ahead, easy by the side of the road though already looking slightly bored of all this clapping, all this watching. I shout his name. He does not hear or see me. I take off my hat, a big moment in its revelation of my race haircut, and throw it at him. He catches it with his face. As the hat drops to the ground he appears happily confused. Me and my mohawk, we fly on. </div>
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The mile four marker passes. I'm in the Phoenix Park. </div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-8217208452575512712013-11-01T22:56:00.000+00:002013-11-01T22:56:38.096+00:00Miles One and Two<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here I am on a line again. It feels different. Maybe I'm misremembering all the other times. It's been a while. But I don't think so. I can clearly recollect the pounding heart of that 5k in the park.. The giddy anticipation of the Penticton half. The beautiful calm focus of a Dublin Bus Ten. But even with that calm, the fear. Always the fear. On every line. The fear. The dread. The knowledge of the pain to come. The wondering why the fuck before it even begins. Not this time. I just want it to start, so that I know when it will stop.</div>
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I'm injured. I got hit by a taxi eight weeks ago. Cracked a pair of ribs. Couldn't train for two weeks. Came back too soon, too hard. Inevitably. Properly, almost. What else is a runner to do? I had laid the money down, I was going to this line. So I came back and did fourteen with still a stab in each breath. Those ribs, they jabbed, but I could cope. But that little lean away from them or the too hardness or maybe the too soonness, one of those or all of those, kicked me right the iliotibial band. The ole it band. It's not a muscle, you know. It's connective tissue. It runs from the knee to the hip. And the taxi driver and me, we fucked it all up. Three weeks out I do 22. I live. I finish pretty strong. The next week calls for fourteen. I stop after twelve. I cannot run another step. The pain is too much. So I do bits and pieces. I get massages. I foam roll the fucker to death. I pointlessly stretch. It's not muscle, it's connective tissue. So it's not stretching, it's mobilising. I pointlessly mobilise. I can feel it on the stairs. On the bike. I do no exercise for three days. Still feel it on the stairs. On the bank holiday morning, the morning of this line, I feel it on the stairs.</div>
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And now I'm on the line. No fear. A terrifying lack of fear. A vague curiosity. Because I almost forget what is to run. I certainly forget what it is to race. I have no goal pace. I intend going out with the 3'20 pacers, then kicking it up if I can. When will the pain start? When will I have to drop? These are the questions that disinterestedly interest me. It was supposed to rain, I think. It might yet, I suppose. As the five minutes to go mark approaches a rainbow of warm up clothes appears in the cold bright air. I cycle down this road nearly every day of my life. I have never seen it before. I tie my laces one more time, too close to the gun, because that is a thing that I do. I stand. And there is the gun. I hit start. I hit play. "Pistol shots ring out..' rings out in my ears.</div>
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I expected this opening shuffle would last forever, what with a crowd of fourteen thousand, but the road is wide and I'm close enough to the front, so quickly it becomes a jog, and then a run. There is slowing as we round the corner onto Leeson Street. But it's brief. The early morning sun blazes. My grandfather walked me down this road every school morning for a year. As we walked he told me Macbeth, Hamlet, Silas Marner. Leeson Street flashes by and we're on the Green. My teenager daughter and her friends call it "Green" forsaking the definitive article like they're in some kind of shitty American sitcom. My grandfather my daughter. I position myself on the shoulder of one of the pacers. He glances at me. The glance tells me my music, still a hurricane, the hurricane, Hurricane, is too loud. I don't give a fuck. I am not here for the chats. I am wearing shades, a hat, gloves. I like to think I look serious, resolved. But I feel neither. I still feel a dominant nothing. </div>
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I blink and it's a mile. A glance at my borrowed watch tells me the pacing is too fast. It feels that way too. I am rusty. Two weeks of no real training. "All the work is done," the websites tell me, the trainers tell me, I tell myself. But it's bullshit. I've lost my sharpness. 7'30 should feel like floating. It does not. As yet nothing hurts but there is a sense of labour that should not be present after a mile. I'm just not warm, I tell myself. </div>
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I don't remember how we get from Dawson Street (Dawson says Riker in my mind) to Westmoreland Street (Westmoreland) but suddenly we're there and the road is very wide again and it's another one I've walked all my life. I have never understood place, love of a home town, a home country. It's just where I am, where I've been. I try again now, make a conscious effort to savour the weirdness, the some kind of wonderfulness, of running up these roads. I feel something for the first time. But it's not the love of place. My confusion over patriotism remains. What I feel is that maybe I don't want to drop. My detachment is dripping into the gutters of O'Connell Bridge. I would kind of like it back. </div>
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O'Connell Street flashes by. My race hits Parnell Square. A little hill. A tiny taste of incline. I love to climb. I didn't used to. But then I became a rider and I brought my riding to my running. I gear down. My stride shortens, my cadence quickens and in my mind I drop them all. My heart rate doesn't change. The road levels out as the second mile marker appears. I wish it was all uphill. Largely flat the website claims. So I settle back down. Gear back up. I note that with that rise the fear has risen too and with it a flicker of hope. Maybe like the rain, the injury will stay away. I do not allow this thought last. I know I'm going to drop. Of course I'm going to drop. But not yet. Not just yet. </div>
<br />Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-5672427427766463492013-01-05T16:22:00.001+00:002013-01-05T16:22:29.335+00:00The door was open, I was seething<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>For posterity, a comment I made on <a href="http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/01/04/parting-words-2/" target="_blank">this Broadsheet post</a>, which briefly passed moderation and was then taken down. The context, while not essential, is probably useful.</i></div>
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So here's to inbred muck savages hitting each other with sticks.To a language that everyone must learn but that nobody speaks.. To lumpy mash and vegetables boiled to death, Aon Focal Eile and the vomit strewn alleys of Temple Bar. To Cecilia Ahern and Ger Doyle. Ingoldsby and Linehan. To Corrupt Ireland, the Celtic Tiger and my cock. To the systematic degradation of women by church and state, red bull and vodka and Brendan Smyth's red helmet. To marital rape after a night out, beatings after a Senior Cup final, to Jesus is this your first time setting foot out of Limerick? To Oliver Cromwell, Sophie Toscan du Plantier and Michelle Smith de fucking Bruin.To Ireland's Call and not being so polite that you won't fuck over the poor, the disabled and the weak at every opportunity. To knowing that whatever these things mean now they'll mean even more in the majority of first world countries where women aren't left to die because of religion. <br /><br />And most importantly to finally leaving, never to return to this putrid shit hole. Fuck you, Eire. </div>
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<i>It was probably the bit about my cock that upset them. My cock upsets everyone.</i></div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-70715253563181286752012-12-22T22:44:00.001+00:002012-12-23T08:12:17.784+00:00The ribbon of flat road. The afternoon sun. The front wheel. Hands. <div style="text-align: justify;">
There has been much fuss over Instagram in recent days. Mia Farrow in particular got very upset indeed about the company's change in terms of service and we all know that you do not fuck with The Farrow. Instagram, for those unfamiliar with the service, is this irreligious icon on my phone that makes crappy photos of weird Twin Peaksy hotel bars in Bunclody look like they were taken by a pretentious, talentless cunt rather than by a naturally gifted photoguy like myself. It's fab. Everyone should have one, particularly people in Homs who I suspect could do with a little Amaro cheer. The controversy arises from Instagram threatening to take everybody's dreadful photos of their blog post rough drafts and feed them into the corporate monster machine like so many processed savoury snacks. They taste like shit, these glowing orange treats, but the monster cannot but munch. Gimme, keeping in character, fails to give a fuck. And all this is as nothing in comparison to the Instagram based trauma that was visited upon me recently. Last week a young lady who I "follow" "posted" a "picture" of something inconsequential. I commented pedantically, not on the picture itself but on the accompanying caption and received a scathing, my place putting me in response. So far, so not unusually Stranded. But yesterday I discovered that said person had in fact "blocked" me. And while this action should not have surprised me given that during my brief flirtation with the horror of Facebook the same woman refused my repeated requests for friendship status, it seemed to me to be both something of an over-reaction and also immensely fucking cheeky given that I paid for the device on which this blockage was performed. Yes folks, it's one of my patented switcherooes. For the unstalked of which I speak is none other than my very own Riker, my sweet, sweet baby girl, barricaded from me now in so very many and not merely socially mediated ways.</div>
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Do you remember back when I started this shit? Riker was eight, tense of mouth, and "as a rule carried herself with the long-suffering air of an Irish mother". And now it is Data that answers to eight, and in six short weeks Riker will be fourteen. I have a fourteen year old daughter. She bears that same air, for the most part, with precious few of the teenage tantrums that society has led me to expect. But Ryker, for she has changed the spelling of her name, Ryker is riding away from me. She has always has been trying to, naturally, naturally, but until recently I could always at least keep up and more often than not take the lead myself. Being still relatively young and pretty fucking determined, I could pick the route, set the pace, shelter her from the wind. But of late she has opened up a little gap. And day by day, week by week, this gap widens. I still churn out a good steady tempo, but I grow older, weightier, and am imperceptibly but inevitably slowing, even as Riker herself grows in alacrity and confidence. Soon, much sooner than I can stand, she will be invisible on the twistier roads and as she crests those rolling hills. I will still catch glimpses on the longer straights and on the hairpins above me, but not until she begins to slow herself, from the fatigue inherent in the chasing of her own child perhaps, will I make the catch and ride side by side with my Riker once again.</div>
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At which point she had better unblock me on Instagram. I cannot stand to be this uncool. </div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-69036201108882563042012-12-18T14:58:00.000+00:002012-12-18T14:58:41.250+00:00What sounded like fireworks turned out to be just what it was<div style="text-align: justify;">
We went down every New Year's Eve. I tried my hardest to make a tradition of the trip because White Mills was one of those places where I always seemed to be happy. I was happy because it was a pub, it was never too loud and it had a pool table. There was also a brief period where I was a massive fucking celebrity due to my soap opera stardom. Oh how I laboured under the terrible weight of fame for that one weekend a year. "Greatest Pub in the World!" I would loudly to proclaim to any new person that I was trying to drag down with me. And it was. Olive and Jimmy would be there to meet us. Jimmy already aggressively chalking up his cue, in vain, as Olive would have prepared mountains of delicious, proper homemade food for the self-starved actors and their mates. Here are three chickens, every vegetable Carlow has to offer and a potato Alp. Eat up and you can have nfinite toasties for dessert. She wouldn't say much, would Olive, and when she spoke it was in the softest of tones and always with concern. Olive was concerned about everyone. Particularly her boys, but everyone else too. One year, Jan, despite being nothing if not languid, managed to smack her head with no little violence on a low hanging protrusion that a drunken body would face on the way from the bedrooms to the pub. Repeatedly. Every time, in fact, that she went up or down the stairs. The next year Olive had a sign up when we arrived. "Mind your head, Jan!" I think it might have had a smiley face. </div>
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I would invariably get very, very drunk. It was a pub! It was New Year's! Bed was very close! On one occasion however, it was not quite as close as I had imagined. We played pool till four or five. I drank all the Guinness and quite a number of gins and tonic. Finally we threw in the towel and headed on up the stairs. Jan bashed her head and then walked off to the bathroom. Or somewhere. I went to the guest room and got into bed. </div>
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"Gimme!"</div>
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"Olive."</div>
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"I think you're in the wrong room, Gimme."</div>
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"No, I don't think so."</div>
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"Really, Gimme, I think you are."</div>
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The debate raged for some time and I believe it took a particularly loud snore from Jimmy's side of the bed to convince me of my error. I got a pretty hard time of it the next morning from just about everyone in the county, though not from Olive who contented herself with a little gentle ribbing. Gentle Olive. Caring Olive. </div>
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Pancreatic cancer. It was quick. Shockingly quick. I got the text message in the checkout line in Super Valu about an hour ago but I waited till I got home to call him back. Waited till I got home, had eaten something. Had a cigarette. That feels like a betrayal now. He didn't pick up. I haven't talked to him yet. I wish he'd call me back. </div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-39410524952079238512012-12-18T09:06:00.000+00:002012-12-18T09:06:03.909+00:00A dog barked far off, once and no more.<div style="text-align: justify;">
Do you listen to Judge John Hodgman? You should. It is an amusing way to while away a thirty minute* bicyclistic commute.** John Hodgman, whom you will know from The misnomered Daily Show, pronounces judgements upon trivial disputes both real and I very much suspect, fake. From time to time the disputants are so irritating that I am forced to skip to the next podcast in my endless list, most often these dark days Richard Herring's Leicster Square Theatre Podcast or as the cool kids are calling it Rehelustepu, (Rehelustepu!) but never before His Honour delivers his opening salvo, traditionally a modified culture reference that bears some passing relationship to the case at hand. If either party can name the piece of culture in question they are awarded a summary judgement. Such is the obscurity of these references that this rarely comes to pass.</div>
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I live a life of such terrible isolation from my fellow man that most of the greatest moments in my life are inexplicable to the rest of humanity. I have no close friends who share my passions. You may consider me a friend, but were I to explain to you how, as I completed my third consecutive ascent of Mont Ventoux this July***, I collapsed on the ground and wept as I have not wept since as a sixteen year old I learned, in a beer garden in Ballinaskelligs, of the death of my cousin, you would at best regard me with that glazed expression with which I have become so familiar and at worst do whatever it is you are doing right now. And so it was that I dismounted outside the unnamed gym and pushed my way through the turnstile while listening to the Judge intone words that felt familiar. I reached my locker as he finished his piece and on hearing the final line "That was nonsense.", I realised that I had won, that I was the champions, that I did indeed recognise the culture reference that the justice was paraphrasing. I did not exclaim out loud, but I was filled with an all encompasing joy, a feeling of connection with my fellow man, a momentary release from the constant fear, with the confirmation that I shared a passion for an obscure author with somebody vaguely famous.</div>
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Samuel Youd died this February, a mere thirteen days before my younger daughter's eighth birthday and, my red training diary tells me, two days after I dropped my phone in a toilet. All things are one. He wrote dystopian fiction for adults and "young adults" alike and if you know him at all it will be as John Christopher, he to be the author of The Tripods Trilogy. And the Tripods Trilogy was fucking deadly. But The Prince in Waiting Trilogy? Oh my. What a fucking book for a ten year old to read. It stands up still, though everything seems to happen too quickly and even main characters which I had remembered as Shakespearean in their depth seem to my adult eye to be little more than rough sketches. But he could tell a tale that kept the pages turning, with language that seems to me now an odd combination of stuffy stiff upperlipiness and an almost Chandleresque sparsity that results in an unabashed dramatic tension throughout. But what the fuck do I know? I'm not some literary cricket. Mostly he was an author I read over and over again, for whatever reason, in the halcyon days before I switched to Orwell and realised that this life, no matter how prettily portrayed, is just one long miserable march to death.</div>
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So thanks, Sam, and please accept my apologies for the lateness of my tribute. I hope your march had flashes of the joy that you so regularly brought me.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Current world record 2<span style="font-size: x-small;">2</span>'47''</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">**Let's not get into the cycling with earbuds thing because that's just going to lead to the no helmet thing and what are you my mother? Jesus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">***This, as you may now be gathering, was a pretty fucking big deal for me. I'm too scared of its enormity to deal with it in one go, so I'm just going to keep dropping in references until you scream "SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT MONT VENTOUX" and I can go "What? I've barely mentioned it!"</span></div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-21804864902891655592012-12-17T13:48:00.000+00:002012-12-17T20:26:31.330+00:00My aim is forget what my name is<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm always thinking of shit to write about when I'm on the
bike. Not cycling related ideas, but other genuinely
interesting, even controversial topics that any internet trawler would
glad to scoop into its nets. They come to me, these inspiration flashes,
in complete, sparkling sentences, syntax intact with a full flowing
narrative and heart-wrenching conclusion. But by the time I turn into
the car park or the garden path they are gone, leaving nothing in their
place but the inevitable pasta lust. I could stop, I suppose, and whip
out a notebook. How writerly I would then look. And there may well be a
combination of up and down volume button presses I could perform on my
headphones that would allow me record a voice memo. Talking as I ride? I
could do that. Looking like a total weirdo is no bar to me. But I
cannot talk this tripe. this tripe must be typed. My voice sounds funny,
you see, and fake. It makes me feel ill to hear it. So I just need to sit down. And tap. Tap it out. I say that to
students of spin, riding right on the edge of their sustainable
threshold. It hurts. Yeah. But you tap it out. </div>
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All twelve of you guys* are just going to have to excuse the last couple of posts and then move on and be momentously forgiving of this one. This one is worse than all the bike and cutsie children entries you could imagine. Writing about writing. The last refuge of the scribbling scoundrel who finds herself bereft of inspiration. But my plan is to put it out there as my first, or counting yesterday and this morning, third resort, for it to very not be the last. I'm going to attempt a little something every day now. It may be slight and it may not appear on this soggy ground. But something it will be. I'm resolouting here and I would like for this resoloution to be public so that you might hurl things at me in the street when I almost certainly fail. Almost. Almost certainly.</div>
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It really does feel like a return to exercise. Creaky. Uncomfortable. Somewhat terrifying in how much harder it feels than when I was banging paragraph after paragraph, day after day. But I do it knowing it'll get better, easier if I just apply a little consistency. And always, even after the first go or the often tougher second, I stagger in the door, or push the keyboard away, feeling way better than I have for quite some time.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*That used to be my big joke, hahaha, I only have <span style="font-size: x-small;">twelve</span> readers. It was never that funny since I rarely climbed over 150 but now it's one of those literal actual fact things, and thus well, slightly funnier, albeit in a pathetic way, than it<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>was before. Which is kind of nice. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Twelve</span> people I can cheerfully ignore. I do it all the time for money. And <span style="font-size: x-small;">now i</span>t feels once more as if I'm doing<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>this, whatever this is, for me. Saying that, feel free to attempt to rectify this situation in any way you feel fit. Subscribe and rate me on iTunes. </span></div>
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<br />Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-65211399746471077772012-12-17T09:34:00.001+00:002012-12-17T09:34:38.345+00:00Nobody's gonna go to school today<div style="text-align: justify;">
There's a trite title reference for you. I don't need Bob to tell me why. I have no interest in seeing into the mind of this killer. I doubt that there's all that much to see. If you're going to repeatedly propel lead into the bodies of screaming six year olds, then you may as well be a derailed train, a flood, a collapsing building. Your thought processes have become an act of God and as we all must surely be aware by now, God is a terrible cunt. But we build trains to run true and endeavour to keep their tracks clear. We construct flood defenses and evacuate the homes of the threatened. We do not sink our foundations in quicksand. </div>
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I was a troubled teen. All teens are, to some extent, troubled, but I like to think that I was way up there with those Tribbles, albeit considerably less cute. For deeply uncute instance, I gave that old self-killing bit a whirl. It was a half-hearted attempt, foiled, I assume, by some safety mechanism inherent in extension leads. Hair dryers don't kill people, electric outlets in bathrooms do.</div>
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And the why on this one? Dunno. I remember hating myself, and with a burning intensity. But I also remember hating others, with much the same fervour. Teachers and students alike, some of whom didn't have the slightest connection to the Senior Cup Rugby team. I don't know for sure that given easy access to a high powered rifle I would necessarily have embarked on a Columbinian massacre but then again I wouldn't have been remotely fucking surprised. What is not in doubt in my mind is that if my mother kept firearms in the house I would not be here entertaining you with hilarious anecdotes from my idyllic childhood. If I my drunken, egocentric 1990 self could toss a hairdryer into a bath he could surely have squeezed a trigger.</div>
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Guns, if you are inexplicably failing to get my gist, are the problem here. Guns for the dead and Twitter for me. Because before Twitter I might have been satisfied with just being nauseous and weepy and briefly nicer to my children. And my rage could have been pointlessly directed at the unconcerned gunman. But Twitter. Twitter with its hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people whose primary concern after this senseless slaughter is the highly unlikely possibility that they mightn't be able to go down to their local range and shoot the crap out of some shit whenever they fucking want. These are real people. You can talk to them. They can tell you to "BURN IN HELL DEMON". And they, not the zombie who walked into that school, no, nor the seventeen year old Gimme, they are the reason that twenty-six families now lie in ruins, never to be rebuilt. </div>
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I understand a passion for a past time. I have been moved in profound ways by my time spent astride my various bicycles. But if taking away all my Monts Ventoux, all my Alpes d'Huez, even my Sallies Gap were to prevent the horror visited on so many people on every day of the year I would not hesitate. Take the Focus. Mercilessly smash its carbon frame, sever its cables, warp its pretty wheels. Leave it mangled, mutilated in my daughter's school playground. This no sacrifice. This makes me no hero. You would do the same, with your football or your train sets or your Farm Frenzy 2. As would anyone with a shred of fucking decency.</div>
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But not those cunts. Those stupid fucking selfish cunts. </div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-60142438346466651652012-12-16T19:19:00.000+00:002012-12-16T19:19:18.400+00:00It's the same with men as with horses and dogs<div style="text-align: justify;">
The fall is coming. Not the Fall. Or even The Fall.* Just the fall. My fall.</div>
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Here it comes. </div>
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If one rides a bicycle quickly and aggressively through city center traffic every day of the week, to a total of about 500 kilometers a month, one will only last so long before the inevitable crash. And it has been so long. </div>
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We all remember my high speed altercation with a delivery van back in the late summer of 2010. Since then? I've gotten caught in the clips once at traffic lights (that'll learn me, never fucking stop at lights) and last week I went down on one of those wooden bridges by the IFSC. Wheels just disappeared from under me. Low speed. The wrist took it, classically. It remains a little ouchie in a long arm plank but I can still comfortably, furiously masturbate. Outside of that? Nothing. Spill free. Beheading bereft.</div>
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So it's coming. </div>
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And when it comes, I very much hope that it is my fault. For while I still holler abuse at the many, many morons who fail to indicate, who pass too close, this is increasingly little but a reflex. I no longer consider cars to be people piloted. To me they are now merely moving obstacles which can and will do all kinds of crazy shit, but all kinds of crazy shit that I have seen many times before. Nincompoopery holds no novelty for me now. I count on cuntishness. I assume that I am unseen. I can ride these mean streets with speed and determination while always giving myself the space to make the save, to ride the wave of traffic without being submerged. A little lapse, a forgotten glance, these things may take me down. And it would be a deserved downfall and one that I would accept. I accept and suspect it would not be fatal. Because of the space, because of my smarts. But there are incidents that defy prediction. The oncoming drunk driver crossing the median line, the light broken beyond the now somehow acceptable five second limit, the fresh pothole as I draft a bus. These and all those other happenings of which I have not dreamt, these are the moments that I fear. I embrace Darwinism. I am happy to be slaughtered by my own idiocy. But not by chance. Chance can go fuck itself.</div>
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Soon now. I want to live. So I hope that it is me that fucks it up.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Two Americanism right there that have totally, thankfully, failed to take hold in our new Hiberno Americano. First, "Fall" as Autumn. Really, I have no problem with this. It's a far better word than the Narnian "Autumn". It just doesn't belong here. Keep Irish English Irish English. No Surrender. Second, the singularisation (no z there fuckers, red squiggle at me all you want spellcheck) of both bands and sporting teams. Of groups essentially. Coldplay <i>is</i> not a collection of joy numbing soul manglers. They <i>are</i> a bunch of cunts. Bradford City <i>is</i> not my new favourite football team. They <i>are</i>, despite my knowing precisely none of their names, my sporting idols. In summary, I'm fine with your Fall, Yanks, but please get it the fuck together with the group thing.</span></div>
<br />Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-40695254239703722152012-08-09T22:59:00.000+01:002012-08-09T22:59:03.817+01:00Howard, the strangest things have happened lately<div style="text-align: justify;">
There's a bit in the Screwtape letters where John Cleese talks about a learned man, who, one morning while studying in a library, suddenly begins to doubt his atheism. On the verge of this Pauline moment, his tempter Screwtape suggests that he get some lunch, and thus the moment passes. Go Satan and all his minions.</div>
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I came here today to write about Katie Taylor. I had a load of good shit ready to go about a SWAT team bursting into the Olympic village, taking out the shambolic Group 4 security guards, before crashing into the room where Taylor might have been found listening to her favourite gospel tunes on a Discman. Her father Pete would have leapt up, before being instantly taken out by a rifle butt to the mouth. I was almost certainly going to put in some flying teeth. Katie herself would have gotten one good punch in, detatching the retina of one of her assailants before being wrestled to the ground, her hands pinned behind her back as her face was smushed into the cheap nylon carpet. Chances are I would have changed the word smushed in the edit. Then the Gimme gold:</div>
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"We've come for your medal, bitch."</div>
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Taylor, dignified even through this indignity, holds her peace. Her mother, in the corner of the room, three AK47s inches from her face, shaking, weeping, gasps:</div>
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"Who sent you?"</div>
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The leader of the team, a blonde haired, blue-eyed man with the word 'Gabriel' stenciled into his uniform barks: </div>
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"Who the fuck do you think?"</div>
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"Putin?" This croaked by Taylor from the ground.</div>
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Gabriel guffaws. </div>
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"Fucking Putin? You dumb bitch. No, 'Katie', wanna guess again?"</div>
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"No."</div>
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"Well then, I'll fucking tell you. Jesus. Jesus sent us. You said it yourself, you stupid slag, He did it all, it's all down to Him and now He wants what's coming to him."</div>
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He rips the medal from around Taylor's neck.</div>
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"We'll be taking the Adidas and Lucozade money too. Denying queers basic human rights ain't cheap." </div>
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So I probably would have put a little more flesh on those bones but you get the basic gist, right? Thing is, as I moseyed on up to the old Gaia I happend to glance at the last bit I flung together, and what do you fucking know, that was Jesus related too. What the fuck is the matter with me? Two posts in a year and they're both about how much I just don't dig The Naz? Doth the lady protest too fucking much or what?</div>
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I envy the faithful folks. I envy Taylor's certainty. I envy her humility. And one of these days I'm going to sit me down in a library and conjure up my own Pauline moment. I'm going to accept Jesus into my life, stop being a selfish, insecure, directionless cunt and get to some proper gay hating. </div>
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But first, I think, some lunch. </div>Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-63168385433278983822012-06-16T10:33:00.000+01:002012-06-16T19:34:05.114+01:00I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you<div style="text-align: justify;">
As a glance to your right will reveal that, blogging, thank fuck, is dead. I gather that something called 'Tumbling' may have donned this rotting corpse of indulgent self-analysis like some class of putrid pashmina and is now bearing not over-wrought confessions of self-doubt, but rather short proofs of the author's literacy or cute pictures of her pets. And so, though I clearly cannot be dealing with the high levels of stress induced by setting up one of these Somersault accounts, I nonetheless grace you with a cute picture of one of my cats:</div>
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Shower time. Data is seven, and although she has passed the threshold of being permitted to see my lady parts, I am still allowed to see hers. She washed her own hair during the week and while I applaud the effort, as she elected to skip the shampooing and go straight to the leaving in of the non-leave in conditioner, I am taking advantage of a Friday evening away from work to supervise this activity. </div>
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We discuss religion as I rinse. We have come to this topic via our seemingly endless conversation regarding her 'graduation' which is to take place in a week's time and about which Data is extremely excited. She is 'graduating' from the 'junior' side to the 'senior' side of her Junior school. It will no longer be dheas a bheith og but she will at least be away from the sour-faced bitch who has been victimising stroke putting up with her for the last two years. The graduation ceremony is to include the deeply inappropriate singing of Dylan's 'Forever Young'. </div>
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"It says 'God' in it!" Data informs me with glee and sings the relevant snatch. She senses my godtipathy and enjoys winding me up. </div>
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I will not be wound. </div>
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"Yeah, Bob's big into his Jebus," </div>
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"Is he?"</div>
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"He is." I feel the need to retort singingly and so I launch into Lennon's 'God'. </div>
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"God is coooooooncept, by which we measure our paaaaiiiin..."</div>
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This is received with a wet, blank stare. </div>
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"I don't believe in Jeeeesuss..."</div>
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Stare.</div>
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"I don't believe in yoooga..."</div>
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"Yes, you do."</div>
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"No, I don't. I doooon't believe in The Beatles...."</div>
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"What?"</div>
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"It's a John Lennon song. You know who John Lennon is?"</div>
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"He's in The Beatles."</div>
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"Yes. So that's interesting, isn't it?"</div>
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"No. Anyway, maybe he's talking about actual beetles."</div>
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"Well Data, I'm pretty sure the line is 'I don't believe in The Beatles' as opposed to 'I don't believe in beetles', so the word 'the' would suggest that he's referring to the pop combo."</div>
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Data looks dubious. Shower time is over and so we move to the bedroom. As my daughter gets her pajamas together, I fire up the internet device, hit the youtubes and load up the song in question. And it turns out that the line does not contain a 'the'. John clearly sings 'I don't believe in beetles.' Data masks her triumphalism in apathy while I sit on the bed with my MIND FUCKING BLOWN. </div>
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I just believe in me. Data and me.</div>Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-45466663170826226352011-10-06T22:28:00.003+01:002011-10-06T22:28:56.450+01:00This is beginning to feel like the long winded blues of the never<div style="text-align: justify;">
Once upon a time there was a woman and her boyfriend, and they went to Galway for the weekend and when they were in Galway they went to Eddie Rockets which is a diner and the woman ordered a burger and cheese fries and the man ordered a BLT which is a sandwich with bacon and lettuce and tomato. They waited for a long, long time and when eventually the food came it was the wrong food. The woman was very upset and her boyfriend, though he didn't really care himself, as he was very hungry and just wanted to eat, complained about the food being late and wrong. The waiter, who wasn't just any old waiter but was also the manager, was not happy about this complaint, and this not just waiter but also manager sighed and took the chips that lacked cheese away and grated some cheese on them and bought them back and flung them on the table. And the boyfriend, who was really very hungry by now, got pretty annoyed as chips with cold cheddar grated on them do not trademark Eddie Rockets Cheezy Fries make, and where were they, Basra or somewhere? And then the boyfriend did a terrible thing. </div>
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He swore. </div>
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He said "All you've done is grated some fucking cheese on them". And a smile broke over the manager not waiter's face. And he entered full indignant mode and from high on his moral ground he rained his "Calm down this is a family restaurant" wrath upon the boyfriend. The woman and her boyfriend ended up leaving the restaurant without eating. The woman was embarrassed but the boyfriend had learned a valuable lesson, and this was the lesson: Never, ever swear, because even if you're trying to be reasonable, even if you're being provoked, even if someone says as hurtful a thing as they can think to say, once you utter the word 'fuck' then you are forever the bad guy. It was a lesson that served the boyfriend well, for many, many years.</div>
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Until the day that he forgot.</div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-1704493513445144002011-09-24T11:27:00.000+01:002011-10-06T22:29:50.694+01:00Tell her that the only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Are you going to do a post about your new phone, Daddykins?"</div>
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"I don't think I really can, Riker."</div>
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"Why ever not, Father Dearest?"</div>
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"Because a 1,000 word diatribe about how obscenely horrible it is in every conceivable way may come across as just a teeny bit ungrateful to the kind sister who was generous enough to donate it to me."</div>
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"But Mine Hero, sometimes when you spend hours and hours shouting in a deranged manner at an inanimate object, an attempt to express your feelings through a medium apart from the common howl can alleviate your distress. And mine. Also, isn't Auntie Ellie away on holidays?"</div>
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"Both excellent points, Riker, though I suspect that they may have the World Wide Internet in whichever sunny clime she has ensconsed herself."</div>
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"Nonetheless, Papino, relaxed by warm weather and copious amounts of local wine, I am sure that she would look upon any phone based offering in the spirit of humour that it was intended."</div>
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"Hmm."</div>
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"Please, Pater. Do it for me."</div>
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"Very well, Riker. For you."</div>
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This is how we talk in our house. Because we're fucking sophisticated, right? </div>
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The phone isn't that bad. Really. It's a Nokia N97 mini. I'm sure that many a starving Somali would be more than happy with it. But folks, I'm coming from an iPhone 4. And it feels like my right hand has been severed and replaced with one of those mechanical claw gizmos. It's better than no hand. It's even better than a standard hook. It can do an awful lot of stuff that my real hand could do. But it does more slowly, in a less intuitive manner. And it makes people stare at me in the street. I'm getting used to it, though I'm feeling my way around. I'm looking hard at the bright side, begging it to blind me. </div>
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Look, it's got quirk. We know how I love the quirk. My purple car. My bright orange headscarf. My not quite out of date enough to be retro wardrobe. Every self-aware vertebrate has an iPhone these days, just like every self-aware vertebrate has two hands. This makes me and my mechanical claw kind of special. Yeah, special. It's got a little slide out qwerty keyboard. I could type on that bad boy all day long. I choose not to, but I could. It's got a kind of App store. Full of fun free games, none of which actually work. It's got...nothting. It's got nothing. No Sound Hound. No iTunesU. No Words With Friends. And thus no real justification for its existence. Yes, it can make and receive calls. But I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to beat them at WWF as I fall asleep listening to a lecture on Global Geopolitics. Give me back my iPhone. Give it back. GIVE IT TO ME.</div>
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"Now, Daddy, do you feel better?"</div>
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"Not really, Riker."</div>
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"I'm going to ask you that question again, Papa, and I want you to consider your answer carefully, keeping your family at the forefront of your mind."</div>
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"Okay."</div>
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"Now, Daddy, do you feel better?"</div>
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"Yes, Riker."</div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-31870699262305488822011-09-22T14:13:00.000+01:002011-10-06T22:30:26.106+01:00I'm tired and naked<div style="text-align: justify;">
Quite how it was decided, what with all the famine, pestilence and imminent return to the Dark Ages, that the retirement of R.E.M. justified a piece on last night's national news is somewhat beyond me. Whatsherface announced the split with a faint undercurrent of glee and proceeded to furnish us with a quick list of their hits, all of which apparently came from either the semenal, go on correct that one in comments, I dare you, I triple dare you motherfucker, 'Out of Time' or the considerably less spunky 'Automatic for the People'. But what of the turgid 'Monster', Eileen? The mumbling 'Murmur'? The dismal 'Accelerate'?<br />
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I seem to know an awful lot about R.E.M. for someone who doesn't particularly like them. But they're just one of those bands that lay down their grooves unbidden on the soundtrack of one's life. "Stand in the place where you live!" I sing to Data as we perform the ritual morning dance of dressing and brushing. "Please, please stop singing, Daddy," she responds. When Riker was a toddler, I used to wake her from her morning nap with their cover of 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight'. She doesn't remember this, but I'm sure it will all come rushing back under hypnosis. Many a self-involved wallowing has been deepened, with blatant disregard to the actual point of the song, to the strains of 'Everybody Hurts.' That track also makes me think of MIchael Douglas. No prize whatsoever to anyone who can work that one out. </div>
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In summation, I lied, I do kind of like R.E.M., 'New Adventures in Hi-Fi' was by far their best album, and despite having taken the time to sit down and write a couple of paragraphs about them, I couldn't give a flying rats ass that they're splitting, secure in the knowledge that all these kind of break-ups are merely the precursor to the inevitable reunion tour, and album, and tour. And no matter how hipsterly ironic the intention, 'Shiny Happy People' was a crime against decency for which they may never be forgiven. </div>
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<br />Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-19509271982089880392011-09-21T16:58:00.001+01:002011-10-06T22:31:00.169+01:00I saw a sign in the sky<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQtI4X_VP9UD7jyOnna0qaL-D4UieMwdLA_z8wuM1t5DNY3lWdBAFJxMFyvYQvhvG44K4YvhBwM-A09qXGZEMVjaNRPRQF4xbOKWIJSAu0841C6osv30ucGObW_Ve34b0MMMaYMeYvS_I/s1600/goddoesnotexist.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQtI4X_VP9UD7jyOnna0qaL-D4UieMwdLA_z8wuM1t5DNY3lWdBAFJxMFyvYQvhvG44K4YvhBwM-A09qXGZEMVjaNRPRQF4xbOKWIJSAu0841C6osv30ucGObW_Ve34b0MMMaYMeYvS_I/s320/goddoesnotexist.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Riker's Junior Cert Religious Studies text, 'A Question of Faith', is 332 pages long. Christianity gets a little over half of those pages. Other major world religions make up the rest. The rest that is, apart from what you see above. The guy holding that sign looks pretty unhappy, huh? That's because he knows deep down, however much he might deny it to himself, that he is going to spend eternity with a burning pitchfork up his behind. </div>
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It's stupid of me to be bothered. What the fuck do I expect? But "their inability to believe in religious teaching"? Really? So what you're saying, Lori Whelan and Niamh McDermott, is that atheists are a pack of slobbering retards incapable of swallowing whole a bunch of made up bullshit?</div>
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I'm rereading 'Earthly Powers' at the moment, and the Don Carlo sermon that makes up most of Chapter 27 of that pretentiously wonderful novel had started me on a slow drift back towards something resembling spirituality. But these fuckers have sent me right back to my scorched ass destiny. Nice one, you guys.</div>
Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6617364317572311350.post-4489974863487388952011-09-20T16:04:00.000+01:002011-10-06T22:31:40.064+01:00Climb into the frame and shout God's name<div style="text-align: justify;">
I can't help but notice that I have singularly failed to weigh in on any matters social or political since my steaming great comeback of September The Fourth. Unless you consider Macnas to be sociable or children's birthday parties to be political. Which you don't. Because all eleven of my readers are bright, savvy people who know stuff. That's right, I'm up to eleven. I do it for your love.</div>
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So politics, huh? The Presidential election, what?</div>
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What is right. What a load of shit, in fact. The pointlessness of the position. The fuckwittery that is the electoral process. The horrific list of candidates. Who shall serve as our Head of State? Who would best represent our country abroad? A mass murdering fuckhead? A crazy bigot? A powerless old man lacking the guts to quit a morally bankrupt party? Or David Norris?</div>
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Norris was my guy, you see. I was happy to overlook his pomposity, his smugness, even his two-tone bearded toddler pageant grin. Liberal, literate, loquacious. All my favourite Ls. But if a member of Fianna Fáil had misused their office in the way that Davy did, I would be howling for time in the stocks, and even I cannot stretch my bungee of hypocrisy to the point that I can see myself voting for the guy, however much I might wish that I was gay. It's all moot as fuck of course, he's not going to get the nomination. True, nobody would have been trawling through his every letter had he been a super-hetero, bog trotting Fine Gael anonymatron, but thems the big gay breaks. </div>
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So where does this leave us? Predictably bereft, with little but the transferable hope that the literal or metaphorical sky falls before October 27th, saving us from the further international ridicule which will doubtless be occasioned by our election of a straight man who chooses to call himself Gay. </div>
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Cycles Goffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00808599865674594022noreply@blogger.com