Back on the trail again

I crawled out of bed at 6:30 this morning, pulled on my running kit, and took a taxi up to Park View, then hit the trail. It was a punishing run: although I made it to the reservoir in 37 minutes, I was a broken man and on the way back I had to stop running after an hour and walk the remainder of the distance back to the road.


It wasn't the kind of run where I attained that elusive runner's high. I felt like I had been high on something, though; as I stumbled back on my return leg, I kept wondering whether I'd traversed a particular part of the trail, then realised that I must have done because I was much further along. Maybe the pain and suffering had been so much that my mind had blocked those parts of the run out for me.

Strangely, despite my legs feeling like they're no longer my own, and only having had six hours sleep, I've been much more active today than usual. Normally on a Sunday I would have had a long lie-in, then stumbled around town being sleepy for the whole day. Instead, I've managed to watch Stranger Than Fiction, shop for the week's groceries, buy a whole bunch of electronics from Wan Chai and a set of crockery from G.O.D., and only flake out at 5:30, when I got into a huge sulk at not being able to configure my new wireless router. If I can only maintain this exercise as part of my schedule, I should be some way towards regaining my old sense of energy and cheerfulness. Or perhaps I'll just be too knackered to complain about being stressed.

Elsewhere, the 1st of May was celebrated in Macau by a big fight between people protesting that foreign workers are taking their jobs, and the police.  It's interesting that just as some people in the UK want to blame their woes on a tide of foreigners stealing their opportunities, the same is going on out here.  Protectionism and nationalism are something we all have in common.  Maybe if the people of Macau (and the UK) realised this, they'd see there was less to fear.  Or they could all join together in rioting, in some multi-national display of being annoyed at foreigners.

Apparently, four people in the rally were injured, along with thirty-two police officers.  This suggests that maybe the police aren't that good at dealing with rioters - in the good old days, a bunch of men with armour and batons would be able to wreak havoc on people armed only with the occasional flagpole.  Perhaps the police in Macau are so peaceful that it took a much higher ratio of them to subdue angry protestors.

Or perhaps the statistics are being fiddled for some reason.  But I can't imagine that going on, can you?

Other bolshiness news: I hosted last night, wasn't feeling that bright.  A woman tried heckling me, saying that she knew a lot more about the British than I did, on account of working for the British government.  But she wouldn't say where she was from, and said that she wasn't going to be part of any audience participation.

I think once you're accused the compere of wanting to have sex with fish, you've abrogated your right to refuse to participate, but she didn't think so; she just sat, grumpily squinting, for the rest of the night.  And it was a difficult set for many of us; the laughter just didn't seem to flow very well.  Forgetting how to speak near the end didn't help much either, I guess.

Still, onward and upward.  Less than a week to the comedy marathon, so time to rehearse some more.  I'm not bunking off to go and see the new Iron Man film, oh no...

Oh.  I am.  Oops.