sleeps. Theyâre all conspiring to tell me that I have to get some rest but as soon as I nod off everyone else gets up again and busies themselves practising the piano or learning clever Latin phrases or reading novels. And then I go to some party and theyâre all talking about the latest Martin Amis or chatting in Russian to the guest from Moscow and Iâm left thinking, Er if anyone wants to know the precise wording of any Monty Python sketches, Iâm right here.
Now that I considered the matter, it seemed strange that someone as busy and famous as Billy Scrivens found the time to go jogging. I thought the super-rich paid other people to do all that boring stuff for them. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, answering letters .. . If I was a millionaire, going jogging would the first thing Iâd delegate. Maybe it isnât the half-hour spent exercising thatâs the point. Maybe itâs what it does to the rest of your time. Perhaps the reason I never seemed to achieve very much on any given day was because I failed to attack the early morning with sufficient vigour. Was this why you always saw pictures of have-it-all high-achievers like Billy Scrivens and the American president going jogging? If I too started the morning with some strenuous exercise,perhaps the rest of my day would continue on the same high-octane go-getting level. Pd return home supercharged and ready to whizz through all my tasks for the day, ticking off each duty on my to-do list with a bold sweep of my pen before sitting down to read a little poetry before my fencing lesson.
My mind was made up. Instead of my usual morning workout (gently turning the pages of a newspaper and sipping a mug of tea), from now on I was going to leap out of bed at 6 a.m. and go for a vigorous run along the beach and up onto the clifftops, whatever the weather. Starting in two hoursâ time. This was it: the start of a dynamic new regime, and I set the alarm accordingly. With the riddle of how to sort out my life finally solved I felt at peace with the world again . . .
I was on a steam train with my old maths teacher when the station tannoy suddenly emitted a similar buzz to the noise of my alarm clock. And then I woke up and it was all a dream. I looked at the clock, which said 6:00, and then I felt depressed that my alarm had gone off accidentally early, and then even more dejected when I realized it hadnât. Right, come on, Jimmy, get up! Youâre going jogging! Today is the first day of the rest of your life, go for it, just do it, feel the force or whatever.
I closed my eyes for a split second and then I fear I must have been kidnapped by aliens or sucked into a time warp or something, because even though I opened them again immediately the clock tried to claim it was three hours later. It glowed â9:15â at me mockingly, in that annoying digital clock font that looked slightly futuristic for about five minutes in 1973. Ten minutes later I was dashing along the pavement towards the beach, being dragged by a Border collie unable to believe her luck. Betty would pull me along faster than I could possibly run until she smelt a bit of abandoned food, when shewould suddenly slam on the brakes, nearly yanking my arm out of its socket, and then refuse to budge.
Betty was quite picky about what she ate in the sense that it had to have been a foodstuff at some point in its history. To dine on driftwood or an old flip-flop that had been washed onto the beach would have been an offence to her polished canine etiquette. But if it were food, or rather had possibly been a human dinner in any former incarnation, then she was very open-minded about its preparation. Hereâs a favourite recipe from the
Larousse Gastronomique de Betty:
take one KFC chicken leg, strip most of the flesh and dump in a grass verge for several weeks until well rotted. The decayed bone should be sprinkled lightly with dirt and ants before serving and then it is
Now that I considered the matter, it seemed strange that someone as busy and famous as Billy Scrivens found the time to go jogging. I thought the super-rich paid other people to do all that boring stuff for them. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, answering letters .. . If I was a millionaire, going jogging would the first thing Iâd delegate. Maybe it isnât the half-hour spent exercising thatâs the point. Maybe itâs what it does to the rest of your time. Perhaps the reason I never seemed to achieve very much on any given day was because I failed to attack the early morning with sufficient vigour. Was this why you always saw pictures of have-it-all high-achievers like Billy Scrivens and the American president going jogging? If I too started the morning with some strenuous exercise,perhaps the rest of my day would continue on the same high-octane go-getting level. Pd return home supercharged and ready to whizz through all my tasks for the day, ticking off each duty on my to-do list with a bold sweep of my pen before sitting down to read a little poetry before my fencing lesson.
My mind was made up. Instead of my usual morning workout (gently turning the pages of a newspaper and sipping a mug of tea), from now on I was going to leap out of bed at 6 a.m. and go for a vigorous run along the beach and up onto the clifftops, whatever the weather. Starting in two hoursâ time. This was it: the start of a dynamic new regime, and I set the alarm accordingly. With the riddle of how to sort out my life finally solved I felt at peace with the world again . . .
I was on a steam train with my old maths teacher when the station tannoy suddenly emitted a similar buzz to the noise of my alarm clock. And then I woke up and it was all a dream. I looked at the clock, which said 6:00, and then I felt depressed that my alarm had gone off accidentally early, and then even more dejected when I realized it hadnât. Right, come on, Jimmy, get up! Youâre going jogging! Today is the first day of the rest of your life, go for it, just do it, feel the force or whatever.
I closed my eyes for a split second and then I fear I must have been kidnapped by aliens or sucked into a time warp or something, because even though I opened them again immediately the clock tried to claim it was three hours later. It glowed â9:15â at me mockingly, in that annoying digital clock font that looked slightly futuristic for about five minutes in 1973. Ten minutes later I was dashing along the pavement towards the beach, being dragged by a Border collie unable to believe her luck. Betty would pull me along faster than I could possibly run until she smelt a bit of abandoned food, when shewould suddenly slam on the brakes, nearly yanking my arm out of its socket, and then refuse to budge.
Betty was quite picky about what she ate in the sense that it had to have been a foodstuff at some point in its history. To dine on driftwood or an old flip-flop that had been washed onto the beach would have been an offence to her polished canine etiquette. But if it were food, or rather had possibly been a human dinner in any former incarnation, then she was very open-minded about its preparation. Hereâs a favourite recipe from the
Larousse Gastronomique de Betty:
take one KFC chicken leg, strip most of the flesh and dump in a grass verge for several weeks until well rotted. The decayed bone should be sprinkled lightly with dirt and ants before serving and then it is
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