Nine tenths of five eighths of not much.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I'm not obsessive or anything, but I never tire of watching aircraft, especially big ones, hang in the sky (as they seem to do). This comes from living near a flight path I guess. Also on the train in the mornings as we approach the city I often see planes coming in to land at Sydney airport, the effect even more pronounced as they fly low over the city on approach from the north.

I had been anticipating, therefore, the arrival of the first Qantas A380 giant double decker Airbus behemoth. And now I've seen it! Delivery of its first A380 was this morning, and I was outside my home in the northern suburbs at 9 am to watch the thing as it arrived. I was a bit too far away to be overwhelmed by it, but there's no doubt in my mind that if these monsters can hang in the air like that, then there's nothing unbelievable on earth, really. Tell me you saw a policeman transmogrify into a potato in front of you last night at the pub, and I'd have to say that I've seen something even more impossible - because I've seen an A380 actually fly.

Or maybe I'm just easily impressed. Dunno.

Not quite as impressive, but yesterday I went kayaking for just the third time in my life. I went out with a couple of guys who were training for a 110km race coming up in a few weeks - I was seriously out of my league, but I kept up by battling through the pain and fatigue. It did reinforce my thinking that kayaking is great cross-training for runners, as it builds upper body and core strength but also draws on the endurance and aerobic fitness you build as a runner.

There seems to be an increase in the popularity of kayak/cycle/running multi-sport events, and these appeal to me, as I'm an utterly crap swimmer and dislike it intensely as a result, otherwise I'd been keen to do a triathlon or two. Kayaking though is good fun. Must suss this out a bit more.

Running is still light on as I continue to work absurd hours (14.5 hour days the standard) and disappear interstate when on days off. Next weekend I'm off to Canberra though, which hosts one the great marathons, so I may well get all inspired again. The 2009 race is in April, so a training program would slot in well.

I have a job interview in a week or so which will determine my fate, that is, whether I stay in Sydney permanently or return to Tasmania next month. We shall see.

Meanwhile though I'm keeping fit and healthy and the weight is staying off so it won't be long before the desire to run a major race returns. The other good news is that the new uber-orthotics are working well. Final judgment is reserved however for the completion of a major run ... soon ... ish.

But that A380 ... what a plane!

[Sweder]

I must say the A380 is certainly impressive.
It seems entirely appropriate for the Aussie nation.
Big, bold, some might say even brash; and with a perceptably enlarged head :p

Good to hear from you. I take it Syders is still first choice as far as you're concerned (given the choice)?

[Bierzo Baggie]

That kayaking sounds good MLCM
the plane looks disturbingly large though...

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

A brief report from a weekend spent in Canberra: Went there, saw things, did stuff, came back.

A longer report from a weekend spent in Canberra: What a blast! I've always loved Canberra - it's a hoot of a town to visit and I've never had a bad experience there. Being the nation's capital, it has loads of "national" things to visit: National Art Gallery, National Museum, National Science thing etc etc and so on ad infinitum. Brilliant! Loads of stuff, but chief among them in my opinion are the National War Memorial, which is a vast museum-like thing as well as an inspirational memorial and fabulous architecture (pic below), and the National Art Gallery which boasts a Jackson Pollock (Blue Poles) which I literally just sat and looked at in stunned silence for 45 minutes the first time I saw it - astonishing to think such a deranged, drunken mind could create such a masterpiece.

But Canberra is a just a magnificent and bizarre place - the whole city is laid out as gigantic piece of architecture (Walter Burley Griffin designed the city layout originally), and the sense of space and landscape is on an astonishing, grandiose scale. There's nothing quite like it probably anywhere, but certainly nowhere else in Australia. It has this great habit of just imposing it self on you - one moment you're walking across a lawn to get to some museum or something when quite suddenly you realise you are at the intersection of some great man-made ley-lines, with avenues and rows of buildings radiating out from where you happen to be standing. It just hits you in a satisfying, gob-smackingly kind of way.

So it's no wonder that the Canberra marathon is one of the great races. I'm massively inspired to have a crack at it next year. So stay tuned for more details.

However one negative is the lack of pubs - whereas most Australian cities have pubs seemingly on every corner (and not a few in between as well), Canberra's pubs seem to be non-existent, or at least well hidden away. There are of course plenty of bars in the restaurants and hotels, so you can always get a drink, but if you're looking for a colourful, themed pub, you'll be out of luck. But there are plenty of good bottle shops, and with the average salary of this public-service city being rather higher than the national average, they stock some good stuff. And at least one wine shop I went into had a proper, locked, gravel-floored and un-signed cellar into which they'll let people who know about it, to peruse the really rare stuff. Mmm. "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it I'm afraid, sir" - kind of rare.

And we had totally perfect weather: 26 degrees, impossibly blue sky, glorious sunshine and my mate's Audi TT Quattro open Sportster to bomb around in. Bliss and bliss again!

Only one running-related anecdote to relate: I was in the National Film and Sound Archive, watching a series of vignettes on the 60s, when on the screen popped up a photo of John Lennon's Quarrymen that Andy posted a few weeks ago (see below). I excitedly said to the bloke standing next to me "Ooh, see that bloke there! That's Paula Radcliffe's dad!". He said "Wow, really? Who's Paula Radcliffe?"

Anyhow, here's a few pics...

1) Paula's dad.
2) The War Memorial.
3) The gigantic flagpole atop the Parliament House.
4) A rare find in an Aussie grog shop.
5) Me being chaufferred around in aforementioned Audi TT Quattro Roadster.
6) Me showing my left-wing bias with a Canberra souvenir. (Gough Whitlam was the Labor PM who ended the conservative stranglehold on Aussie politics and brought the boys home from Vietnam, gave women equal pay and other socialist radical reforms in the early 70s. A great hero of mine!)

[El Gordo]

I know only one thing of note about Gough Whitlam, which is that Harold Wilson once referred to him as "Whit Goughlam" in an after-dinner speech when he'd probably had one brown ale more than was advisable. It's not really "of note" though, is it? It was reported in Private Eye in about 1973. In the way that these things do, it's one of those tiny fragments of information that just got lodged somewhere in the mush of my brain, patiently waiting 35 years for its glorious reappearance.

I hope it was worth the wait.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I hope it was worth the wait.

I'm glad to have given you the opporuntity. One wonders however, how many others similar bits of information you have stashed away...

...still waiting for news about the goldfish and the giant rhubarb, by the way.

[El Gordo]

...still waiting for news about the goldfish and the giant rhubarb, by the way.

Such impatience!

[Sweder]

That reminds me . . . how's that chess match against the Plodder coming along? He didn't mention it this weekend, although he did enchant his MGS colleagues with a rather amusing after-dinner bon mot which some here might enjoy. Captain Tom and I had giggle-stitch for over an hour and some of the old buffers required oxygen.

Perhaps that's one for Molly's at around 9pm on 1st of Feb 2009 . . .

[El Gordo]

That reminds me . . . how's that chess match against the Plodder coming along? He didn't mention it this weekend, although he did enchant his MGS colleagues with a rather amusing after-dinner bon mot which some here might enjoy. Captain Tom and I had giggle-stitch for over an hour and some of the old buffers required oxygen.

Perhaps that's one for Molly's at around 9pm on 1st of Feb 2009 . . .

I'm glad you asked me about that chess match. It's still going strong, and although I'm in a very weak position, my last move seems to have stumped the great man as I've apparently been waiting 2041 hours for a move from him.

If you're interested, here are the moves. I'm white:

1.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(1,0)]e4[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(2,0)]e5[/url] 2.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(3,0)]Nf3[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(4,0)]Nc6[/url] 3.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(5,0)]d4[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(6,0)]Nf6[/url] 4.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(7,0)]dxe5[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(8,0)]Nxe4[/url] 5.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(9,0)]Nc3[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(10,0)]Bb4[/url] 6.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(11,0)]Bd2[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(12,0)]Nxd2[/url] 7.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(13,0)]Qxd2[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(14,0)]Qe7[/url] 8.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(15,0)]Qe3[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(16,0)]d6[/url] 9.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(17,0)]O-O-O[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(18,0)]Bxc3[/url] 10.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(19,0)]Qxc3[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(20,0)]dxe5[/url] 11.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(21,0)]h3[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(22,0)]f6[/url] 12.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(23,0)]Bb5[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(24,0)]Qe6[/url] 13.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(25,0)]Rhe1[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(26,0)]Bd7[/url] 14.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(27,0)]a3[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(28,0)]Rc8[/url] 15.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(29,0)]g4[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(30,0)]Qf7[/url] 16.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(31,0)]g5[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(32,0)]a6[/url] 17.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(33,0)]Bc4[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(34,0)]Qf8[/url] 18.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(35,0)]h4[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(36,0)]Ne7[/url] 19.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(37,0)]Nxe5[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(38,0)]fxe5[/url] 20.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(39,0)]Rxe5[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(40,0)]b5[/url] 21.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(41,0)]Rxe7+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(42,0)]Kxe7[/url] 22.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(43,0)]Qb4+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(44,0)]c5[/url] 23.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(45,0)]Qe1+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(46,0)]Kd8[/url] 24.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(47,0)]Qa5+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(48,0)]Rc7[/url] 25.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(49,0)]Qxa6[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(50,0)]Qf4+[/url] 26.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(51,0)]Kb1[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(52,0)]bxc4[/url] 27.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(53,0)]Qa8+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(54,0)]Rc8[/url] 28.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(55,0)]Qa5+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(56,0)]Rc7[/url] 29.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(57,0)]Qa8+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(58,0)]Rc8[/url] 30.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(59,0)]Qa5+[/url] [url=http://javascript:SetMove(60,0)]Qc7[/url] 31.[url=http://javascript:SetMove(61,0)]Qc3[/url] *

What do you mean, "too much information..."?

That anecdote sounds worth waiting for.

[Seafront Plodder]

Yes your last move has stumped me a bit. I received an email saying it was my move about errr...2041 hours ago, had a look and decided that my next move required some thought. Since then I've been thinking about little else... Still, tension is building nicely I'm sure you'll all agree.

[Sweder]

Ah, a hijacked diary . . . haven't seen one of those for a while.
Reminds me of the good old days . . .

I've just remembered why I never took up chess - I have a life :p

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

I've just remembered why I never took up chess - I have a life :p

Chess - the only game that takes longer than test cricket to play (apart from bink of course).