The Irish Question

Dear Blog,

Knackered I am, I am knackered. Trudged early this morning and spent 4 hours this afternoon officiating at a 30 kilometre road walk race. So I am all k’ed out!! Seeing the walkers reminded me of the recent holiday in Eire. Everyone seems power walking mad, morning, noon and night they are at it. It will be interesting to see in the near future if this obsession is translated into more class walkers emerging to add to Eire’s already considerable reputation in the sport. If that is a potentially nice problem for the country to have, they do have another not so nice one. I don’t know how aware the Irish are of the problem, but they appear to be sitting on a time bomb with a very short fuse. Trudging around as I did while I was on holiday for a few weeks, it soon became apparent that Chinese knotweed has firmly established itself in the hedgerows across the country. As you may know, Blog, the weed is insidious. Spreads like wild fire and is almost impossible to eradicate. Any little tiny piece of root will regenerate, forcing up roads and pavements, invading fields, gardens, hedges. There is no weed killer to touch it. It can’t be dug out with any degree of success. Some work has been done in this country on modifying an insect which will eat the plant, and after years of trials, the British Government has given permission for the insect to be released into the wild with the assurances from scientists that the insect will cause no damage TO OTHER PLANTS AS THE BUG HAS BEEN TESTED ON A VERY WIDE RANGE OF VEGETATION!!!!!!!!!!!! I do not claim to be much of a scientist, more a sums man, but I do question whether we are playing with fire here. Boyoboy, if things go wrong. Mess with the natural order of things at your leisure. We have yet to see the long term effect of the free use of modified plants .... Has the scientific world gone mad? They may be able to con the politicians but it ain’t the politicians who will suffer the consequences, is it???? No it ain’t mate.

Still on the subject of Eire. I don’t know if you are interested Blog, but you know that I have spent a great deal of spare time researching the historical, educational, political and industrial influences on athletics in the Coventry area, more particularly to do with Coventry Godiva Harriers ... well from time to time I get e-mails, phone calls and letters requesting information about some aspect of athletics, Godiva or former members. About six weeks ago it was about the use of corks .... running corks (I will tell you more about that if you let me know if you are interested). Anyway I was copied into an e-mail which was circulated to some luminaries around the big wide world of athletics. I do mean worldwide!! I was quite stunned to be included, I kid you not!!! Anyway, in this particular enquiry, I received this phone call from the Eire Olympic Association. I was on holiday in Eire at the time, believe it or not .... as I was when I received a second call!! The third call was ringing out as I stepped through the door on my return from the Emerald Isle. Honestly ... as I stepped through the door. I could have talked to the bloke while I was in the country, I camped so close to where he was calling from, I kid you not. The Association is compiling a book on Olympians from Eire and they were having trouble collecting basic information about two Olympians who ran for Godiva, Paddy Mulvihill (1948 Olympics), and Joe West (1952 Olympics), both marathon runners. He wanted to know if I could help??? Well now ... Godiva runners  ... marathon runners ... Olympians   ... I ask you ... is the Pope a Catholic???? I had most of what he wanted to know, but then with a bit of lateral thinking of which I excel, I contacted the families in Eire and California to confirm my historical notes. Was I correct, or was I correct??? The best bit about my searching is that I have contacted Paddy’s daughters for the first time, which is nice. At least the hours I spend trying to read the dreadful microfiche in the local library and down at Colindale has not all been in vain. Anyhows, it’s time for me to start thinking about my next little trudge, so I’ll say tararrfnow.

                              Colin