It's a little over three weeks before my girlfriend and I run the Royal Parks Half Marathon (
Sponsor me here - if you all gave just a pound SCOPE would make a nice chunk of money). We have really let the training slide over Edinburgh and today did only our second run since Edinburgh (and we didn't do much in Edinburgh), doing about three miles in just over 30 minutes. But I felt like I had a bit more in the tank and we're not heading out to break any records, so I am confident we can do it. I feel fairly fit at the moment and am looking forward to getting fitter. I've managed to shed about 3kgs since Edinburgh (though I had been overdoing it there) and was delighted to find out today that
Fitday.com now has a free iPhone app. This will make keeping track of what I am eating much easier. I am back on my 2000 calories a day aggregate diet (today's exercise apparently gave me an extra 400 calories to consume). This system has really worked for me before, as long as I keep it up honestly and consistently. Back in 2008 I lost a Hell of a lot of weight by doing this and it's actually a big galling to see how much I weighed back then (as it's all still in the statistics stored on the site) - I have some way to go, but am pleased to have shifted so much already. It's great to have the half marathon to aim for too. As long as I can stave off injury I am going to be burning off a lot of calories in the next month, so hopefully by October I will be able to fit back into the suits I bought after my last tour. If you have read this blog for a while you will realise that my attempts to lose weight are all doomed and pointless and that soon enough I will blow up like a balloon again.... but this time is different.
The iPhone really is a wonder. Although Captain Kirk never went on a diet (and perhaps he should have done) being able to update this site on the move as well as finding out calorific values for what I was eating did make me feel like I was in Star Trek. The amount of stuff that it's possible to do from one device is mind blowing. Which was brought into focus today as I made an attempt to organise my office. This is a job that might take me a week in itself as it has become a graveyard to obsolete electronics and old show merchandise. Plus I am just really, really messy. As I try to get all the various bits of paper and artifacts from my life into some kind of order I will get distracted by an old photo or letter or script and be hit by a wave of nostalgia which derails the process and makes me feel time sick. There's stuff in there that has been stuck in boxes for ten or twenty years and some of it resurfaced today. I am a hoarder and some of it might be worth some money - though alas not the tubes containing dozens of Hercules Terrace posters - like my invite to the Jerry Springer premier or programmes from the Oxford shows that Armando Ianucci put on. I discovered the Absolutely Fabulous script of the show that I was meant to be in, but ended up not being in because I split up with Julia Sawalha two weeks before it got recorded. It even has me listed as playing the character at the front. Mind you I also found a massive candle in the shape of an erect penis (which I assume I was given when I was working on Talking Cock - it's unused - the wick has not been dipped).
I found various turn of the century handheld computers - I had always loved the idea of a tiny personal computer that you could carry in your pocket and use to write and organise your life - made by Compaq and Psion, none of which lasted long and either broke or lost their novelty value and I also found one of my earliest Nokia mobile phones, which would once have been a prized possession, but which seemed almost entirely unfamiliar to me now. It was strange to see these musuem pieces and to consider how quickly they had become so, but also to think about how far technology has developed in little more than a decade. And I still find it hard to throw this stuff away. I was all ready to chuck my old Compaq handheld device, still in its box, into the bin, but I couldn't do it. And not because of the environmental concerns either, but because I still felt I might need it. Or someone might be able to use it somehow. I am going to have to get rid of some of this stuff though - there are loads of printers, a couple of redundant scanners, CD players, the amps and speakers from an early mid-90s surround sound cinema system, four broken or redundant lap tops, a desk top computer that works, but I never use, a fax machine that I foolishly bought in 2003 with little understanding of how technology was progressing and a few tape players - I have to dispose of them really, but they will probably stay up in the attic for another ten years. The items make me feel nostalgic and profligate. I think of the quaint olden days when these things were cutting edge and the harsh, post Apocalyptic future where the world has been choked to death by all the devices that were replaced and discarded in three year cycles.
My attic looked messier by bedtime than it had this morning. Of course it did. And I suspect I will just push everything to the sides and try and work around it rather than finish the job. Or maybe I will finally give up the ghost on it all and the world and take it to the dump. They do recycle stuff there I believe. But still I might have to stand by the rubbish in a native American costume and let a single tear fall. When's the next iPhone out?
