Pages

Subscribe: Subscribe to me on YouTube

Monday, November 20, 2006

Brooks Brighton 10KYesterday's event down at Madeira Drive (as I discovered when I wandered down there on the offchance that something would be happening - it usually is) was the Brooks Brighton 10K Race. Or, as I thought when I arrived at the seafront and looked over the railings, two thousand people in primary colours being run out of town by the Lycra police.

As it happened, I was more interested in the people watching, especially as I walked towards the pier and came face to face with singing binman and X-Factor runner-up Andy Abraham. I think. To be honest, even standing three feet away, I wasn't quite sure enough to take a photo, on the grounds that if it wasn't him, I risked a conversation along the lines of "Why are you taking my photo? - You're Andy Abraham. - Are you saying all black people look the same?", and frankly I didn't want to go there. So I just loitered nearby and stared long enough for him to feel uncomfortable and move on.

Go MummyFrom there I made my way to the finish line and stood opposite three small children holding "Go Mummy" signs. Obviously you can be arrested for taking photos of other people's kids without permission, which explains the grainy image - it's not easy getting a quality shot whilst looking the other way and pretending to clean the lens.

Anyhoo, I was a bit confused about how long the race took, meaning the winner ran straight past me and finished in a time of 30 minutes whilst I was facing the other way trying to spot Andy Abraham again. But having watched the first hundred or so cross the line and realised it wasn't going to get any more exciting, I made my way back along the seafront towards home. At which point the bloke on the loudspeaker announced that Fatboy Slim was approaching the finish line. Honestly, they could have told me celebrities were involved. I'd have stayed longer. According to the race website, snooker ace Ronnie O'Sullivan (nicknamed 'The Rocket' due to his love of salads) was running too. And all I saw was an X-Factor lookalike. It's tragic. Obviously I could have walked the quarter mile back to the finish, but I hadn't had breakfast at that point, and a celebrity-spotter marches on his stomach.

In other news, my career as a soothsayer has taken a turn in the right direction. On Saturday I played the lottery numbers which came to me in a dream at the end of May. It's the first time I've used them since inexplicably losing faith in my vision sometime in late July. But lo and behold, they came up trumps and won me a tenner. Obviously it's not enough to cover the eight straight weeks of play in which they won me nothing, but if I put that tenner on a horse, I could be quids in.

0 comments: