Being difficult...

As I lay in bed this morning, debating whether I should get up, I decided to procrastinate a little further and so, at the risk of catching one of Radio 4's Sunday morning religious programmes such as Bells on Sunday or Something Understood, I turned on the radio. Luckily, God was with me and I'd narrowly avoided Sunday Worship, tuning in just in time for the start of Radio 4's A Point of View.

This morning's broadcast was a piece by Will Self entitled, Challenging Intellect. In this piece he argued that we should embrace the intellectual challenge of "difficult" books and art, and value works which are more taxing than our increasingly low-brow popular culture.

"The most disturbing result of this retreat from the difficult is to be found in arts and humanities education, where the traditional set texts are now chopped up into boneless nuggets of McKnowledge, and students are encouraged to do their research - such as it is - on the web."

I read the transcript of the programme when I got up and his phrase, "boneless nuggets of McKnowledge" has stayed with me all day. His comparison of knowledge to food and its acquisition in our information revolution age being akin to buying something cheap, quick and easily digestible at a fast food outlet is, I think, a powerful metaphor. It's a beautiful and potent phrase that I have returned to today - whilst cycling, at the supermarket, at the swimming pool. It has conjured up images throughout the day that have set my synapses alight.

We live in a 24/7 culture where everything is in competition with everything else for our short attention spans. It's a world of headlines, strap lines and catchphrases; anything longer is overlooked. I believe this to be a major driver in why we now have McKnowledge in place of broad understanding. Everything has to be easy and instantaneous; films, theatre, books, music - it's why so much of what we consume is formulaic. Once it's proven to work, it's repeated and applied to other genres and forms too.

The internet has revolutionised information; how we communicate it, how we access it and how we digest it. There is more information readily, easily and cheaply available to us today than we could ever hope to digest. There are, of course, many advantages to this but, as Will Self points out, there are many disadvantages too.

If you've not already done so, listen to his broadcast, Challenging Intellect.

Rabbi Lionel Blue...

I have thought quite a bit today about Cardinal O'Brien's Sunday Telegraph article opposing Gay marriage, which I wrote about yesterday. I've been thinking how spiteful he must be. What a narrow and distorted outlook describes same sex marriage as grotesque; what a pinched and soured mind compares same sex marriage to slavery?

Listening to him spout his stunted view on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, I could feel my anger rising and would have left for work in a frame of mind far from calm, were it not for the wonderful Rabbi Lionel Blue and his thought for the day.

In his message this morning he contemplates the approach of Spring and those life affirming feelings we all share at this time of year. It's worth listening to the end of this short piece for his gentle swipe at Cardinal O'Brien. As @chris_burton_ remarked on Twitter this morning:

Cardinal Keith O'Brien 0, Rabbi Lionel Blue 1

What Rabbi Blue may have lost in his faltering delivery this morning was more than made up for in the warmth and breadth of his message. Unlike Cardinal O'Brien, he is compassionate, generous, forgiving and loving - all those so called Christian attributes that mark us out as human. Except, of course, Rabbi Lionel Blue is not a Christian - unlike Cardinal O'Brien who, so I'm informed, is.

Today's run at 17:20
Distance	4.01 km	Time	20:57
Pace	5:14 min/km	Cadence	82 spm
Comments: Sunny and cold.

Tomorrow is a leap day...

I knew a girl who was a couple of years older than me at school; she was born on February 29th. She was fond of asking people how old they thought she was. When they guessed at 16, she'd correct them and say that she was 4. How we'd laugh... It soon lost it's appeal.

Tomorrow is February 29th or leap day, as it is sometimes known. Leap day is an additional day inserted into the calendar to correct the 6 hours not counted each year as the earth orbits the sun every 365.25 days.

Persons born on February 29th are sometimes known as leaplings. In non leap years, depending on the law, they either mark their birthday on February 28th or March 1st. Notable people born on February 29th include: Gioachino Rossini, Jimmy Dorsey and Dinah Shore. James Milne Wilson, the Premier of Tasmania from 1869 to 1872, was both born and died on February 29th.

BBC Radio 4's PM programme is asking its listeners to take a leap this year by thinking of February 29th as a free day and to mark it by doing something different.

On PM we've been highlighting listeners' planned leaps every night: a man debilitated by depression and almost unable to leave the house who hopes to take the bus to Swansea, a pensioner who's getting her first tattoo, a man who's been spurred on to finish his first symphony and many more.

It's an interesting way of looking at this leap day. What are you going to do?

Today's run at 17:49
Distance	4.26 km	Time	23:11
Pace	5:26 min/km	Cadence	81 spm
Comments: Overcast.

Fandabidozi...

What has the world come to? Is nothing safe anymore? I feel sick to the bottom of my stomach to hear that wee Jimmy Krankie and his father were having sex. Not only that but they went to swingers' parties together! They've admitted their sordid past in an interview with the BBC and now it's all over the papers. The whole of Scotland is hanging its head in shame.

To think, these perverts were entertaining innocent children through the 1980s and all the while indulging in all manner of perversions with each other, and not only that, but with complete strangers! They not only enjoyed sexual filth of all sorts but have also boasted about smashing up the lovely Status Quo boys' tour bus, punching magician and family entertainer, Paul Daniels in the face and streaking through respectable middle class neighborhoods for a bet.

To think, I used to be a fully paid up member of the Krankies Klub...

Today's run at 18:04
Distance	4.27 km	Time	23:42
Pace	5:33 min/km	Cadence	80 spm
Comments: Damp and dark.

What's in a name...?

To scarper is British slang for to run off or to run away. It originates from the Italian scappare meaning to escape and was popularised through it's usage in Polari.

Polari is a language, used predominantly by gay men, made up of slang borrowed from various sources such as Italian, Romany, cant, backslang, rhyming slang and Yiddish. Polari's heyday was prior to the legislation in the late 1960s that partially decriminalised homosexuality. Prior to this date, a careless word could mean a gaol sentence, if overheard by the wrong person. Speaking in a slang only understood by likeminded souls was a very real protection against prosecution.

This was hilariously exploited in the Julian & Sandy sketches in the hugely popular 1960s BBC radio show, Round the Horne. Julian and Sandy (played by Hugh Paddick and Kenneth Williams) were out of work actors doing different jobs to get by. Each week would see them try their hand (hopelessly) at a different profession. All of them prefaced with bona, the Polari slang for good: Bona Law, Bona Pets, Bona Estate Agents even Keep Britain Bona where they launch their own political party. 

Because of all of the above, the fact I'm gay, that I like to run and that the URL was available, it seemed right to name this blog The Scarperer - escaping into my thoughts when I run. For those interested in finding out a little more; here's the Wikipedia article on Polari, a One Show feature on Polari by Arthur Smith with Paul Baker and even the Bible translated into Polari. For those still not sated, you can get a copy of Paul Baker's excellent Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang.

Bona nochy!

Dogger: northerly; moderate; showers; good, occasionally poor...

I guess I'm not alone when I say that all I want each morning throughout the week is a bit longer in bed and then come Saturday morning, guess what: I'm wide awake and bright as a button at 5am. Typical! I've learned that, whenever this happens, my best course of action is to switch on the radio. My radio is always tuned to BBC Radio 4 and the sound of voices soothes and relaxes me. I listen to it to go to sleep at night and I wake to it each morning.

Curiously, I don't listen to anything when I run. I know there are those who can't run a step without their iPod plugged in but I don't like being wired for sound when I run; I prefer the sound of my breathing and the whir of my imagination. I have an iPod and, for a time, I used it when running but I rarely listened to music - there's only so much Madonna that even a gay runner can take. Instead, I listened to podcasts; and one in particular: The History of Rome, which I became addicted to.

When I switched the radio on this morning, Radio 4 hadn't started broadcasting and so instead I got a selection from the BBC's World Service. This morning the World Service was just winding down with news headlines about yesterday's terrible events in Norway before flipping over to BBC Radio 4 with the Shipping Forecast. If you've never heard this programme, you don't know what you're missing.

It's an impenetrable and soothing three minute smörgåsbord of nautical and meteorological terms, guaranteed to send me to sleep. 3, 2, 1 and I'm gone. Starting with Viking and moving in a clockwise direction around the British Isles through Forties, Humber, Portland, Fitzroy (formally Finisterre), Shannon and Malin and many more to finish at South East Iceland; the listener is treated to a synopsis of British maritime conditions.

Because of the soporific effect it has on me, I think I've rarely got past German Bight. Certainly, by Trafalgar I'm fast asleep and dreaming that I might one day remain conscious until Rockall. And so it was this morning...

If you've never listened to this programme, you can find out more in Nick Higham's Close Up report and you can access the last few broadcasts on the BBC's Shipping Forecast website. You'll be asleep well before the end; guaranteed!