This strange and terrible urge to kill or maim strangers

  • Wednesday, August 09, 2017
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I wanted to run today but the rain has been sheeting down since the early hours. In the past I would have stuck to the plan and shrugged off the wet but now I can't be arsed.
Instead I have paced restlessly over the cheap laminate floorboards that I laid in the crumbling rented house in the dead end street where I have lived for 17 years. When we moved in the carpets stank of stale dog's urine and were so rotten that I was able to poke my fingers through them onto the floor beneath. 
I can't stand the silence so I'm listening to the Bhundu Boys, still Zimbabwe's best and most famous band. They took the UK by storm in the Eighties but typical of many who are uprooted from home and placed in an alien culture they fell apart through bad management, sickness, the tragedy of Biggie Tembo's suicide and disappeared. 
 
I am also waiting for an email from Annie that never arrives, she is meant to inform me when she has returned from holiday so that we can make plans for some August running.
While I pace, listen and wait I have been reading about Jogger rage. The media is full of the story of the Putney Bridge jogger who shoved a woman into the path of a Red London doubledecker bus.
There has been a lot of opinion both on written and social media and on talk radio about why this fool acted in the way that he allegedly did.
I'm completely baffled, if you watch the video he passes a man and then seems to alter his trajectory enough to seemingly shove the women into the road. He then runs on almost pathologically and without emotion or remorse.
It's weird.
There is a lot of speculation that he hates women/ they were stunt actors/ he was a hit man and even that she tried to trip him first! The prevailing theory though, is that he was exhibiting 'joggers rage' a previously unheard of affliction causing aggression brought on by running. Many members of the public are coming out and saying that they have been targeted by hostile runners and that this is a growing affliction of modern society. 
The Independent humorously asks whether people have been suffering in silence from this strange and terrible urge to kill or maim strangers once they pass the 5km mark on their morning jog.
I've searched myself as a long standing runner to see if I've ever felt this urge to become violent towards innocent members of society whilst running but I can't think of any. I don't think runners are always angels and concede that they can be conceited and rude but I think they are a boorish minority. I've seen runners who are undoubtedly absolute pricks and sadly they are almost always men but I haven't seen any violence apart from last year when I was shoved at the start of a race by a foul mouthed idiot who felt I was holding him up - but it's the only time in a decade of running where I've experienced anything like violence.
Mostly I think we just want to run and enjoy it but I hope that this will make some runners pause for a moment and think about how people perceive us and perhaps try a little harder to make eye contact, smile and greet people.
We are not, after all, gods.


The Putney Bridge jogger.

I drank one bottle of wine and cooked on the floor.

  • Saturday, August 05, 2017
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"Because that's rock and roll"
Deadpan response by Olly Smith of the band Hothouse
 to a small girl asking him why he was playing his keyboard behind his head during the band's finale.

There's not a lot of running in this post and it occurs at the end.
The tribe and I have camping in Stoneham Aspal, a small village in Suffolk. We have been at HEFF, the Glastonbury of Home Education. As a family we are in our fourth year of Home Education but this was our first festival. Camping does not come naturally to me, at least not any more. When I was younger it was normal and I never gave it any thought but as I've got older my enthusiasm for camp beds, groundsheets and guy ropes has vanished along with my suppleness and my hair. Nonetheless I borrowed a blue tent from loud Samantha and set off in our white Chev with joy and anticipation. I was not disappointed either.
I've never doubted our decision to Home Educate which is good because it takes a certain amount of courage. HEFF was a joy because it reinforced many things for me, not the least of which is that it is a lifestyle, pretty much every thing we do and think about revolves around our kids and their development. It was wonderful to be completely immersed in community and it was wonderful to see how kids can flourish by taking a different path. The other validation that I got from the week was a sense of being at home, nobody thought I was strange going around barefoot and I was able to wear the type of clothing that I prefer and that helps me express who I am. I've needed this restoration of my self identity.
The week was busy yet relaxing, there was a myriad of workshops and activities for the kids and some interesting talks in the conference tent. 
I saw freedom, I saw mutual respect and I saw a lack of hierarchy.
I saw inclusion take place organically.
I saw Bollywood dancing and traditional African dance. There was Ukulele workshops, tutu making, mask making and my kids built paper Spectroscopes. I saw a man with a Taliban beard and I had some fantastic conversations with some fantastic people.
I learnt a lot.
I drank one bottle of wine and cooked on the floor.
Every night I heard some quality live bands, my favourites being Casey Birks, Funke and the Two Tone Baby, Oliver and Company and the cream of the bunch, Hothouse. Patrick Channon you rock.
I heard a kids orchestral ensemble play Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall.
My kids bought a Red Ukulele and my son played his Bass in two bands.
On Saturday night there was torrential rain, thunder and lightning.
It was the apocalypse in time lapse.
The best thing I saw are children who have been given the freedom and encouragement to explore their interests no matter how diverse or strange and also to just be children, no matter how diverse or strange. Through that magic happens and we get self confidant, well balanced kids who all mix well together regardless of age or disability. We get kids who achieve, some of whom are overcoming huge challenges. These guys I found interesting from a professional point of view, especially those with social communication difficulties and ASD. 
As Dr Suess said, sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.
I think allowing these kids to just be who they are and allow them to find their in their own way in their own time works, they don't do the paradigms or time structures of so called neurotypical people but march to their own unheard beat. It's up to us to tune into their frequencies and when we do the gifts we receive are great.
I also went to HEFF intending to do a fair amount of running, I knew from talking to our Home Ed friends that mostly the kids tend to go off and do their own thing and consequently I would have lots of free time. In the end I ran only once, two days before we left. I was so relaxed by the festival, so absorbed by the vibe that I just decided not to run - and it was impulsive after an early chicken and red wine supper when I pulled on my Vibrams and went into the fields adjacent to the site. My run took place under one of the loveliest skies imaginable, the timbre and quality of light was too beautiful. I ran along a muddy farm track and next to adolescent Wheat and then onto a weirdly deserted Golf course, As a run it was odd, I felt both the total peace of my environment and struggling with a bellyful of Red Wine.
I saw no one apart from a young man with a beard on his sunken cheeks, he was sitting cross legged beneath a dead tree and gazing at the horizon. When I stopped and asked if he was OK he looked up with dark eyes and without speaking he flashed me a thumbs up, I ran on wondering if he had a wound in his side until he was just a dark speck against the Wheat.
Running alongside but not through a Wheat field Mrs May.

 Our home for a week


Mud, sun, clouds.




Speakers corner and marquees.