Advice to youngster

Dear Bloggi,

      Glad to report that I’m feeling much better today as if life’s script has taken on a more amusing aspect, I feel. The sun is out, the sky is blue and there’s not a cloud to spoil the spring in the air. There are even buds on the holly. I went down to the running club last night to do my trudging. After which, one of the younger members asked me what my weekly training had been. I desisted from explaining the meaning of the word ‘training’ and assumed he was referring to the trudging

Fri: 5m rd

Sat: 1h 55m 60m pk, 55m rd

Sun: 2h 55m finished knakered

Mon: am 48m cty

Tues: pm 65m rd

Wed: am 63m rd

Thur: pm 62m rd

I told him it was all slow, survival in April being the overriding concern. He then asked me if I’d ever made a mistake I’d regretted. Thinking he was referring to life’s rich tapestry, I said that I had, and embarked on a long discourse about my first year at University. It was only the tormented look of bewilderment on his face that made me realise that, in fact, he had been referring to errors in an athletic context .. but, as I’d started, I continued to cycle of along my tangent.(Have you ever cycled on a tangent missus? Uncomfortable with no saddle isn’t it?)

In my fresher’s year, I’d opted to choose a course on computer studies. Of course, it wasn’t called that in the days of yore, it was called abacus, abacus, abacus, abacusorum or something, more like. Anyways, computer time was very expensive, and freshers were allowed 30 minutes on a Wednesday night, I think it was. As preparation, a programme (whoopsie daisie read ‘program’), had to be devised, written in code, typed onto ticker tape, and for a check, you posed a question for your own program to perform and solve. [Why’s he yawning, I don’t want to inspect his fillings] At the allotted time slot, the ticker tape was run through the transfer machine and dispatched via the phone line to god knows where. Our University shared computer hardware with another uni and a couple of polytechnics. The solution came back the following week via the phone network, ticker tape and decoder if the program had been written correctly. If not, an error message came and the whole fortnightly procedure had to be repeated!! I never did get an answer to my problem! At the end of a year of total frustration, I decided that computers would never catch on, they would never be of any real use and I was wasting my time. [Why’s he rubbing his eyes, has he got grit in them?] Instead, I switched to a course on Relativity. Now that was a real bright thing to do, a clever move on my part. I cannot begin to tell you the number of times that I have been in a tight spot and I’ve said to myself, ‘And what would Lorentz have done in this situation?’ And back would come the answer, ‘He would have travelled faster than the speed of light and ended up at a time before there had been the problem. So the situation causing the tight spot never occurred. Simple. Boy, I can’t start to tell you how pleased I am that I was wise enough to change courses all those years ago.

And do you know, after I had related my experience to the youngerster, I notice that he had dozed off and I had to wake him up. I can only speculate that his coach had worked him so hard that he was totally fatigued – surely a case for the club child protection officer to deal with? I shall have a word with my wife about it when I see her next.

Now don’t forget

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Colin