... and the winning nomination is ....

Photograph Quiz.

Photo no. 122:- Easy … which athlete is the Olympic silver medallist? Which of the runners has just had his 95^th birthday? He did tell me yesterday that he was feeling ‘a bit rough’!! Can you name any of the others Blog? What was so special about this newspaper photograph? Which park is this in Coventry, and what sport takes place nowadays where the race start is???  

Dear Blog,

If you look back to my letter to you in October, I mentioned that I had heard the local service from the Cathedral and that the vicar taking the service had also run the Coventry Half Marathon. Because of the small time gap between the service ending and the race beginning, I flippantly remarked that he must have run to the start in his church robes. As this was unlikely, I concluded that the service was recorded. I was talking to the said vicar today and he did (almost) and it wasn’t. He had to run out of the service as the organ was playing for the conclusion of the Radio 4 programme!!!

Did you watch the ‘Sports Personality of the Year’ on BBC television last night Blog?? Yawn. I certainly didn’t bother. YAWN. And Aunty BBC deciding who the nominations were. Ridiculous. What is it about these self-congratulatory presentation programmes; the desire to be recognised by one’s peers. And that silly opening of the envelope business followed by the pregnant pause. Cheap ‘tele’ in both senses of the word. When I won a race, I never felt the need of congratulations. I was happy enough to know that I had screwed the field; roll on the next training session. Period. I helped a disabled old bloke and his dog to cross a busy road yesterday. I held a bus up in one direction as we slowly crossed, the driver being quite happy to wait. No problem. We held a couple of cars up in the opposite direction. The drivers waited patiently. No agro. No problem. In the world of super sport or of super media, I’d be one of those names in an envelope. Ridiculous.

Oh yes the knee … walking well so a teeny weeny trudge tomorrow???

I was helping my young granddaughter with her maths homework before the weekly family evening meal last night . Ridiculous. The teacher must have given no thought to the questions set. Lack of preparation. And this, at a school infant / junior school which was all but at the top of the National League Tables for the city. And we wonder why youngsters are put off maths. It is so easy to make sums interesting, but it is a lot easier to make it boring.

                                   Colin