The Road Ahead…

After spending months waiting for the snow to disappear, so I could sneak in a cheeky 3 mile run to maintain my fitness, I’m happy to say that the never ending winter is finally just a distant memory and it’s time to start building up a few miles on the road again.

It’s hard to believe that it’s just over a year since my first run but the Ronhill Tracksters that I have become quite attached to are showing some wear and tear, in fact two holes have appeared on the errm under carriage so maybe it’s time I reinvested in some new kit.

My faithful he Saucony Pro Grid Ignition 2 Running Trainers are also in need of being retired to gardening and dog walking duty but to be honest, this is what I love about running. The fact you can throw on some old clothes and just hit the road, there is something quite poetic and therapeutic about it all.

The last two months has seen me gradually get back up to 9-10 runs a month with an approximate monthly mile count of around 30-35 miles. With the old motto of “Running is 90% mental, the rest is physical” in my head, I realise that I need something to aim for again to keep me running and on the healthier path.
I simply don’t have the discipline or time to commit to a full marathon, a four hour training run several times a week scares the hell out of me, so intend to keep things real by aiming for the Birmingham Half Marathon again in October.

Over 56,000 calories bite the dust…

So I have set myself a realistic target of running 40 miles a month for May/June and if this goes to plan, then I will sign up the half marathon and maybe even the Black Country Half Marathon too but there’s a fair amount of work to do until I commit to anything like that.

A healthy runner beats an injured runner every time they say, and the sound advice over at Runners World “To avoid injury when upping your mileage, you need to take it slow and allow your body time to adapt to the increased workload. In general, you can add a mile for every run you do per week, provided you then run at least two weeks at the new level before advancing again. If you run six times a week, for example, you can up your weekly mileage by six miles. Then stay at that higher level for two weeks before adding another six.”

With this in mind, I will be slowly building the miles over the next few months and try to avoid any injuries to stop my over enthusiastic self from doing too much too soon which is ultimately the cause of most problems. This is one lesson I learned the hard way last year.

Who would have thought that one mobile app called “Get Running” could have had such an impact on this beer swilling, junk food eating gamer. Enough of my ramblings, I’m just going out for a run…

Al Pacino: Full Roar

In an interview with Forbes, actor Robin Williams talked about working with Al Pacino in 2002′s Insomnia, and said “[His] character was crazy. Before every take, he would roar like a lion.”

Roar like a lion. “Roaring,” of course, might be a bit of an extreme characterization — but Pacino certainly isn’t known for his whispering roles.

Chicago-based filmmaker Nelson Carvajal threw together a memorable compilation that is appropriately called “Pacino: Full Roar”  that contained  some of the actor’s most memorable movie meltdowns.

 

Get Running: Couch to 5K – One Year Later

Where does the time go? Exactly 12 months ago, I was measured for my wedding suit only to be told I was a 38” waist which was just the kick up the arse I needed to take immediate action. Luckily I was able to combine my love of the great outdoors and listening to music to try and get to grips with running.

I quite literally started out with an old pair of trainers, a Spotify running play list and the Get Running C25K App. It was bloody hard work and was horrified to discover that I couldn’t run for more than a couple of minutes without gasping for breath. However the app gradually builds you up with a combination of walking and running until it finally installs the running bug deep into your soul and within 2 months I was running for 3 miles without any problems at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I am no athlete and never will be, but by making a few adjustments I was able to lose 2 stone, squeeze back into a 34” waist and even completed the Birmingham Half Marathon but the craziest part of all of this and I can’t believe that I am writing this down but I actually love it!

It is very easy to see why they call it the running bug because if I am stressed out after a bad day at work, had a heavy night on the beer or over indulged on food, a quick 30 minute run makes me feel me so much better and clears my head. The weird thing is when the snow settles, I’m actually gutted about not being able to get out there and I am the least likely person to ever say that.

So a year on and my biggest battle is motivation but looking at my runkeeper, I have enjoyed over 100 runs, ran for over 370 miles and burnt a whopping 56,000 calories. So if you are reading this thinking of starting out, if a self confessed gaming couch potato like me can do it then anyone can.

You don’t need fancy clothes, £100 trainers or expensive gym memberships; it’s just you and the open road. My best advice to you all is ALWAYS remember the old adage of “Running is 90 percent mental and the rest is physical.” Despite this advice, people tend to spend much more time preparing physically than they do mentally. It really is that simple.

As for myself, its time to look at booking a race on the horizon to keep me motivated and something to aim and push for, although I completed the half marathon in October it seems a lifetime ago and running for more than 5 miles fills me with dread, but once again its all about the very powerful contraption in your head. The mind is a very powerful tool that just requires a few Jedi mind tricks to trick it into getting your arse in gear.

Enough of my ramblings, spring is officially here, so if you were thinking of starting to run, now is the perfect time to start.

 

 

The Night Billy Bragg Sang Tank Park Salute For My Little Girl At Glastonbury

On the April 15th 2008 my 5 year old daughter lost her battle against a nasty childhood cancer called Neuroblastoma. Despite trying to remain positive until the end, I was now left with the realisation that I had lost my little girl forever and turned to music to help me deal with my grief.

A song called Tank Park Salute by Billy Bragg helped me through a difficult time more than I could ever express in this short post and when feeling low one night, I emailed the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival advising that it would mean the world to me if Billy Bragg could sing the song as a tribute to my little girl on Sunday night when he was performing in the Leftfield tent at the festival.

I thought nothing more about this until the Sunday of the Festival several months later, when my phone rang early in the morning as I was eating my full English Breakfast which was lovingly prepared on our camping stove by my Kerry, as I answered the phone call, I was greeted with a familiar voice from Barking saying “Hi Neil, Its Billy Bragg here and wanted you to know that I will sing Tank Park Salute as a tribute to your little girl tonight if you fancy dropping by”

Billy was incredibly nice and we chatted for a good 10 minutes like old friends with no hint of awkwardness at all, for me this encapsulated the very essence of the Glastonbury Festival. All too often people think of music festivals as being big corporate affairs with no heart or soul. However what Michael and Emily Eavis family have built is like nowhere on earth and there is a community of over 170,000 people who quite literally fit the demographic of new born babies to 70 year olds with a common love of music and making a difference.

That Sunday night, I went to see Billy Bragg and with minimum fuss he said this song is for those that have lost someone and subtly changed the lyric.

Some photographs of a summer’s day
A little GIRLS lifetime away
Is all I’ve left of everything we’ve done
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by.

Everyone has a Glastonbury story and being on the front row of the Leftfield tent in 2008 with tears streaming down my face whilst Billy Bragg sang Tank Park Salute is something that I will forever be grateful for and it helped me so much in dealing with the unthinkable, the loss of my little girl.

A few years later, I was waiting at Derby station and who should get out of a cab and walk towards me? It was Billy Bragg and I had the chance to thank him for what he did that night and shake his hand in what I thought was a poetic moment of closure. Imagine my surprise when 8 hours later I returned to Derby station to board a train to Birmingham when I bumped into Billy again. I assured him that I wasn’t stalking him but must admit I was a little spooked by the bizarre coincidence.

Life can be quite bizarre sometimes and I have always thought about posting my story, but I never actually got around to putting it down in writing.

My little girl would have been 10 years old today and my biggest battle is not forgetting her smile, her voice and all those little things that a parent takes for granted so as a thank you to the people that made a Sunday night in Glastonbury very special and as a tribute to my little Princess Samantha on her Birthday I have finally wrote it down.

A massive thank-you to the Eavis family and Billy Bragg for a truly special moment that I will never forget and a big Happy Birthday to my princess in heaven.

The Indianapolis Speech By Robert Shaw In Jaws (1975)

Robert Shaw is probably the main reason for Jaws being one of my favourite films of all time, mainly of course for a scene that is three and half minutes of near-perfection. Shaw steals the scene effortlessly, aided by a few whiskeys of course, but here in 2013 most films have ten minutes without any dialogue at all, so the famous Indianapolis scene of rich dialogue without a cut is quite special and yet tragic to think that Robert Shaw died of a heart attack only 3 years after this magnificent performance as Quint.

There has been so much mythology surrounding this scene; about authorship, what was improvised, what was scripted but an interview with Spielberg on Ain’t It Cool News is quite enlightening.

Steven Spielberg advised that Howard Sackler, who was an uncredited writer, didn’t want a credit and didn’t arbitrate for one, but he’s the guy that broke the back of the script before we ever got to Martha’s Vineyard to shoot the movie.

Howard one day said, “Quint needs some motivation to show all of us what made him the way he is and I think it’s this Indianapolis incident.” I said, “Howard, what’s that?” And he explained the whole incident of the Indianapolis and the Atomic Bomb being delivered and on its way back it was sunk by a submarine and sharks surrounded the helpless sailors who had been cast adrift and it was just a horrendous piece of World War II history. Howard didn’t write a long speech, he probably wrote about three-quarters of a page.

But then, when I showed the script to my friend John Milius, John said “Can I take a crack at this speech?” and John wrote a 10 page monologue, that was absolutely brilliant, but out-sized for the Jaws I was making! (laughs) But it was brilliant and then Robert Shaw took the speech and Robert did the cut down. Robert himself was a fine writer, who had written the play The Man in the Glass Booth. Robert took a crack at the speech and he brought it down to five pages. So, that was sort of the evolution just of that speech.

BAFTAS, Brits, Grammys, Oscars – All Award Ceremonies Are Stupid

Here we are in awards season, where there seems to be an award for anything and everything, as we watch an endless red carpet of desperate people wanting to be loved, accepted and respected in their chosen field. We all know that the real reason why there are so many of these award shows on our TV’s, is to simply boost the sales of entertainment media in a one big import/export global operation.

In a world where our lives are dominated by screens that will beam the latest must see acts everywhere you look, its quite interesting to see how we are all conditioned to buy what we are told and a quick look at post award sales shows that it works a treat.

However Jerry Seinfeld has a much better way of explaining exactly why all award ceremonies are stupid.

At least with the Oscars we have a respectable selection of the best critically acclaimed movies, but I struggle to understand the meaning behind our very own Brit Music Awards which just seems to be a celebration of everything that is bland to boost worldwide sales of music. Maybe I’m taking it all a little too seriously because we all know that all awards are stupid.

Gait Assessment – The Search For New Running Shoes

Despite my previous post being a little cynical towards gait analysis, I was given a little push by fate to maybe reconsider my preconceptions. After a 4 mile run, I was suddenly crippled with a pain on the outside of my left knee, which left me hobbling for a few days.

As I shuffled past the Up & Running shop in Birmingham, there was a poster advertising “Free Gait Assessment and Physio Advice” so after nearly a year of running, it seemed like I was experiencing a push in the direction of some good old fashioned professional advice.

After my old school wet feet test revealed that I am a “normal pronator”, I was interested to see what the latest technology would say about my running style and confirm exactly what shoes I should be running in.

I hopped onto the treadmill for the first time in my life, and it felt quite strange as I have only ever run in the great outdoors. After only a few minutes I was shown my running style on camera and it appears that I am a “neutral runner” which should make life quite easy when choosing new shoes.

Typically the store would charge for the use of the gait analysis service if you do not purchase a pair of shoes from them, so I was glad that I visited on their open day because £115 for a pair is a little out of my price range.

There is a balance to be made here and I think it is important to use a little common sense, it’s sensible to get your gait checked to determine how you run and what shoes you should run in.

Running: Take the Wet Feet Test and Learn Your Foot Type

Just under a year ago, I purchased my first ever pair of running shoes that were reduced from £65 down to a very modest £20. The Saucony Pro Grid Ignition 2 Running Trainers have now notched up over 400 miles of running and many miles of walking over the Olympic Park in the summer of 2012 so maybe the time has come for them to be relegated for walks or very wet days

In a weird sort of way, I have become quite attached to these trainers, but after displaying a few signs of wear and tear and I have picked up a few little twinges so maybe it is time to look for my next pair of shoes that will be hitting the streets for my next 500 miles.

Maybe its time to visit a local running shop for some gait analysis to see exactly what kind of running shoes I need, but I have a cynical side that thinks running on a treadmill in a shop, which is completely different to running in the street is not really analysis at all but it’s actually an opportunity for a sales pitch for an overpriced running shoe that you will be tempted to Google when you get home only to find it was £30 cheaper on-line or along.

Top 50 Tarantino Characters Video “The Whole Bloody Affair”

This video was created by Jonathan Keogh, and who published this video on You Tube where he stated, “This was originally going to be two separate videos (yes…Vol. 1 and Vol. 2), but whenever I watch Kill Bill Vol. 1, no matter what the day has planned, Kill Bill Vol. 2 comes right after. So here I present “The Whole Bloody Affair”. I wanted the first volume to have the hyper-kinetic dominance that Bill Vol. 1 had, and I wanted the second part to be much more of a meditation on the characters, like Bill Vol. 2. The list (created by AskMen.com) also contains characters from films that were only penned by QT. The first tune is from theo “DJANGO UNCHAINED” soundtrack. The second track was produced by Tarantino enthusiast, Flying Lotus, who gave me a few tracks to play with, but nailed it with this one”

Probably most touching is that this video was dedicated to Sally Menke who edited every film directed by Quentin Tarantino, from Reservoir Dogs (1992) to Inglourious Basterds (2009).

House of Cards: NetFlix Binge Viewing Has Arrived…

House of Cards, will probably go down in history as being the first show that is not being shown on any television channel.

As of today, all 13 episodes of the first series are available on www.netflix.com. If you have £5.99 and 13 hours at your disposal, you could watch the whole series in one sitting. No adverts, no waiting, just a full season ready to go, is this the future of TV as we know it?

The New York Times recently stated “Television producers have turned bingeing, hoarding and overeating into successful prime-time shows for years, but now they are having to turn their attention to another example of overindulgence — TV watching.”

It seems after a little peer pressure from our friends about the latest must see show, we are all cramming in our TV shows via boxsets and streaming services. After enjoying marathon sessions of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. Are these shows simply modern novels for a visually oriented generation?

It will be interesting to see  how Sky, Virgin etc adapt to this kind of medium, because a £5.99 a month NetFlix subscription is now looking much better value than 200 channels of garbage for £40 a month, especially if you prefer quality entertainment over quantity.

It is an interesting experiment and who knows if it will work or not, the strange aspect to all this, is that  it does not look or feel like a TV shows, which is probably down to David Fincher which gives this show a dark moody atmosphere that would sit right at home on HBO.

As a fan of the comedy show Miranda, I find it hard to take Kevin Spacey seriously when he breaks the fourth wall by talking to the camera, it’s an interesting technique that works well but I must admit now and again I think of Miranda Hart, Harry Hill or the Gary Shandling show and I can’t help but let out a childish giggle.

If you don’t like political dramas littered with rich dialogue and monologues to the camera, then House of Cards won’t be for you, however if the idea of kicking back with a single-malt scotch whilst watching everything unfold slowly before your eyes without the need for explosions, just top quality acting, then give this a try.

A recent review summed the show up in saying “This is a series for the patient, and the more time you invest in it, the more it will reward you as danger thickens. .“

The beauty of NetFlix is that you can watch the show on your TV, go to bed and watch a little more on your tablet, and then during your commute to work in the morning you can continue where you left off and each time it remembers exactly where you were up to each time, no matter what device you use.

The traditional TV set-up and their strict one box rule, rapidly need to up their game or they could end up going down the same road of High Street stores like HMV and GAME, who were blinded by their own arrogance until it was too late. Whether you like House of Cards or not, is not important but what is certain is that we are now witnessing the future direction of entertainment and how we access it.