Naturally, there will be a number of morals to this sorry tale, so let’s start one. How about ‘Never place too much trust in the views of people who are obviously pissed’.
The only disappointment on Thursday was, while enjoying a quick pint, having a chat about where to eat, and being assured by a steaming local that there was only one curry house worth going to in the whole of the lakes, and that it was just round the corner. ‘Just tell ’em mad Tony sent you’, he reassured us, while falling off his chair, managing to spill not a drop from a full pint. Naturally, a disappointing meal ensued, with us as the only diners, and the shut sign being put up before we’d even started eating.

Last night, our new BFF was a veteran of many C2C rides, and made it clear that there was only one way we should take out of Rookhope. ‘Don’t go to Stanhope – too many hills’ he said, ‘go up the old track then drop down to Parkhead – much easier’. And we, like the gullible fools that we are, believed him and duly went up the track, pushing our bikes until the track levelled out. Which it didn’t. We pushed upwards for about 3 miles into the most desolate moor you can imagine, then had to try to descend on a track made out of flint, rubble and anything other sharp substance you can name, to make the journey harder. Mrs Emu, by this stage had not only put on the Horcrux, but had had a couple of diamante Horcrux T-shirts knocked up, and was contemplating a Horcrux tattoo.

Got to the top of the climb, and found ourselves at Parkhead, where a cafe offers windswept and frustrated cyclists a chance to stop before the next chance to be thrown against the side of an unsuspecting sheep while trying to avoid a scree slope. This was naturally an excellent spot for a puncture, although to Mrs Emu’s credit, she didn’t mention luxury Paris hotels at all at this stage.

After another couple of miles, we saw some tarmac in the distance, and headed for Consett, where there is a splendid bike shop selling inner tubes, albeit placed on top of the most stupid hill imaginable.

And so onward east, and to Newcastle, which, after all the challenge of the last couple of days, was simply a straight and fairly downhill slope for about 15 miles, across viaducts and forests, and generally making us feel very happy. Rather unfortunately, the end of the route was at Tynemouth, which I’d previously thought was next door, but in fact is another 10 miles east. So on we pedalled, through Byker, Wallsend, looking over to Jarrow and finally to the end…which was marked by a small post, which we initially cycled right past.

Back another mile for tea, fish, chips, peas and bread at ‘the best fish + chip shop in the North East’. Which I’ll remember most for its astonishingly slippery floors, which had been coated with an ice-like veneer of chip fat. Mrs E visited the toilets and pronounced them as smelling of ‘old ladies and chips’, which I’m sure was very accurate.

And into Newcastle, where we met Emily, Tom, Graham, Nathan and Polly, drank more than was strictly healthy and looked on in wonder at the goings on in central Newcastle on a Saturday night. Which brings us to the second moral of the day. Once you reach a certain age, you should do everything you possibly can to avoid being ‘on the market’.
We both woke up immensely relieved not to be lying next to someone with orange skin, and pushed the bikes to the station.

Homeward bound now, and only planning to ride the bikes from the station to home.

Which would seem a good place to end. Thanks for reading, and take it as read that this is a fantastic way to see some fabulous countryside and meet some great people. Just don’t do as we did, and forget the Assos cream.

Did I mention that we did some hills yesterday? Well I was lying. Today we really did some hills. Five of them, in fact, starting off with an outrageous one up to Hartside, and ending up with a tasty little number out of Allenheads towards Rookhope, where thankfully we stopped for the day, and deadened the saddle sores with far too many pints of something that may well have been called ‘Golden Sheep’.

We met cows, sheep and a disturbing amount of roadkill, got sunburnt, managed to still be talking to each other at the end of the ride, and everyone we spoke to, whether cyclists or unsuspecting people where we stopped, were wonderful. It was like being right in the middle of JB Priestley’s ‘An English Journey’, although that may sound a bit pretentious, so let’s just say it was a very good day.

Not, of course, without the odd little challenge, and perhaps the first couple of hours were rather less fun for Mrs Emu than her original plan for the break, which involved Eurostar to Paris, a luxury hotel, and a little light shopping. Problems with her bike squeaking turned quickly to problems with the gears, which turned to problems with the saddle and then to problems with the terrain, finally ending with the immortal words ‘I’m not bloody impressed’. Quite what possessed me to say ‘no-one’s trying to impress you’, I don’t know, but it didn’t seem to help. Half an hour and an energy bar later, she said ‘I’ve been wearing the Horcrux’, which will mean something to you Harry Potter fans. Anyway, order was restored, she returned to being wonderful, and all was right with the world.

Worth pointing out that the start of the day, in our rather retro Hotel, was marked by a cooked breakfast that appeared to have been twice-cooked, especially on the egg front. Someone in Penrith is taking all manner of precautions to cook the living crap out of the food to avoid the current e-coli crisis. But breakfast time was enlivened enormously by a coach breaking down in the town immediately outside the hotel, and when we got back into the lobby, there were 50 slightly bemused looking Japanese tourists, being catered for by equally bemused hotel staff. I don’t know if it was a translation failure, but trays of drinks were being despatched, left, right and centre, with the drink of choice being pints of lager. I’ve only ever seen lager drunk at 0830 in the morning when I used to fly into Edinburgh airport, and the holidaymakers were working to, well, holiday hours, but everybody seemed happy enough, so maybe the rest of the tour went with a bang. We’ll probably never know.

And into our hotel, where our room features framed pictures of small lovable kittens. Another of Mrs E’s ailments has been contact lenses drying out, so I’ve taken the precaution of photographing the pictures so I can show her if it happens again, all being well, she will go a bit dewy-eyed. And if that doesn’t work, I’ve got a couple of snaps of the hill up to Hartside.

One more b’tard hill tomorrow, then 50 odd miles to Tynemouth. Can’t imagine it will be as exciting as today, but who knows?

So, to day two, or possibly day one, given that yesterday was all on the train. The plan was to follow the C2C route to Penrith, across the lakes, taking in a few hills along the way. This we did, but the hills that we saw on the map didn’t quite do justice to the reality – these are proper steep ones up and down, with very little flat bits between. Given that we come from Norfolk, where the accepted wisdom is that hills just get in the way of the view, this was a bit of a shock to the system, and by the time we’d done the first 10 miles, I was quite glad that the original plan of doing this trip on the single speed had been dismissed fairly early on.

We started off at the Whitehaven harbour, ceremoniously dipping our front wheels into the Irish Sea, and nearly dipping ourselves as well, given how slippery the slipway was. We met a few other riders who all appeared to have been brought by minibus, a booming market whereby someone drops you off, then carries your luggage to your next stop. They seemed to think that carrying your own gear was quite extreme, given some of the climbs ahead, and proved their point by overtaking us for most of the day.

So, from Whitehaven, hard work for about 9 hours, with an occasional stop to look at what must be the most amazing views that this country has to offer. I could quite get into the majesty of the countryside hereabouts, although I fear that in order to do so, you might have to read up on Wordsworth and Coleridge, two individuals who, as far as I can make out, were the Pam Ayres of their time. But, that aside, the views across the lakes and up to the fells and pikes were stunning. And slightly daunting, once you realised that you were heading in that direction by bike. My fave bit was a turn around Mungrisdale, which came after the only down point of the day, when Mrs E needed a puncture fixing. This was combined with lunch, which consisted of bread and some cheese which we’d bought the previous night and which had been in the panniers for five hours. No need for a knife to spread it.

We left the guest house in Whitehaven giggling unfairly at our host, who was made to run a guest house, in the same way that Glen Roeder was made to be a football manager. He was very, very keen to point out the key points of the macerator attached to the toilet, and had gone to the trouble of laminating a number of signs to make it clear what could and couldn’t be disposed of. We made the mistake of getting to breakfast 10 minutes after our allotted time, which threw him into something of a blind panic, but things soon settled down, and we were pleased to see delights such as ‘home made toast’ on the menu. We were so worried that it might be shop bought toast, after all. Anyway, an interesting contrast with the hotel in Penrith, which appears to have been genteel in it’s day and is trying desperately to hang on to the past. I don’t think that their normal clientele bustles in wearing lycra and asks to borrow a tin of swarfega, but they seemed to take it all in their stride.

Tomorrow beckons with, according to the map, four unpleasant climbs to Allenhead. If only we’d had the presence of mind to book that bus….

And so to Whitehaven, which we reach with 4 train journeys, each slightly more interesting than the last, and with the final one pottering along on the edge of land just before you drop down into the grey Atlantic Ocean.

Admittedly, we left the house at 0815 and get to Whitehaven at 1745, so it’s taken us 9.5 hours to travel just over 300 miles…which means that it’s not the fastest way to get about, but this will undoubtedly be the greenest holiday Mrs Emu and myself have ever enjoyed. Well up until now, anyway.

Anyway, into Whitehaven, which has a fairly despondent feel to it; ideal for a seaside break with Morrissey, or possibly to breed threatening dogs, which seem to be all the rage round these parts. Time was, when Whitehaven was a huge port, with rum and sugar going in and big ships going out. In its day, it was built up in a grand style by the Lowther family, who effectively built it as a new town, and, rather excitingly, it was used as the template for Manhattan. Whitehaven’s most famous son is John Paul Jones, who left for the colonies, pretty much invented and then commanded the US navy, and rather inconsiderately used his new role to invade England in 1778. Not much was heard from him for a couple of hundred years, until he cropped up again playing bass guitar for popular beat combo Led Zeppelin. Although that may conceivably been a different John Paul Jones.

Wandered into town to find a curry house, and called the kids on the phone; 30 seconds into the call we both managed to get blasted from above by a passing seagull. Pinpoint accuracy for our feathered enemy, managing to pepper both our hair + jeans, and also the park bench. Astonishing just how much shit can fit into a relatively small animal. Apparently, it’s good luck to have a bird shit on your head – although I may have slightly mistimed this news to Mrs E as she struggled to come to terms with her new ‘distressed’ look.

So we swiftly made our way to the curry house, where a handy internet connection informed us tht not only was a bird crapping on your head a portent of good luck, but so was fingers tingling (check, although might have been to do with cycling with no gloves), when it rains and the sun is shining (check), and when you meet up with a cow (not today, but I have high hopes for tomorrow). See http://www.wofs.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=37&task=view&id=540 for more nonsense factoids. Including the great luck that you will have should the date of your birth add up to 8. Which Mrs E’s does. So all being well, it will be a lucky day tomorrow. We’ll let you know…

PS hot towels at end of curry are ideal for cleaning up seagull poo

Like many, I spent a little time at the weekend playing a game called ‘how well do you know Google’, in which I tried to get to the name of the ‘Top Flight Premiership Footballer’ in the injunction case with as few Google searches as possible. Got it on the second page of the second search, so obviously I score pretty low on the Google capability. Anyway, the point of the search was not so much to enjoy the salacious gossip around Who’s Bedding Who And Keeping It Out Of The Public Domain, but more to understand the workings of the footballer’s brain.

So, I’ll try to explain that last bit. After all, you might think this is an elaborate bluff to justify a good leer at Busty Welsh Big Brother Beauty Imogen Thomas (28), and it’s not.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about how long the press can continue in its current form; not just with the takeover of printed media by online, but in the whole area of traditional journalism. In times gone by, the journalistic right to privilege was very tightly bound to the media group that they were representing. In some areas where you might least expect it (the NoW’s phone tapping case, for example), this is still the case, and we see charges levied against the business rather than the writer. But these times will soon be behind us, and the concept of journalistic privilege, where conversations can be off the record, where confidential anonymity can be protected, and where journalistic opinion is protected by the publisher, will no longer exist. Some of this is a good thing. The media in this country has long been dominated by some pretty extreme views, which might purport to represent the readership, but do far more to influence it politically. And in an age where the internet allows individuals to be, well, individuals, then it’s absolutely appropriate that people can source their own news sources, mixing, for example, the relative independence of the BBC with their favourite blogs, or what’s trending on Twitter. All of which, I think in general is a good thing.

Which brings me back to the weekend, where I was listening to a very worthy legal expert describing the Criminal Justice view on following up on ‘name & shame’ Twitter Tweets. In the unlikely event that you’ve missed this, the idea is that a celebrity takes out a ‘superinjunction’ to suppress any mention of their name with a gossip story, lest it damages their reputation. And when there’s a threat that it might leak, through the crowd-power that is Twitter, they look to take the information’s source to court. Anyway, this chap was justifying the action against Twitter by using a rather charming analogy.

“Let’s just say that we were receiving abusive mail from a PO Box*”, he said, “We’d be completely within our rights to ask the post office to name the sender”

The problem is, that this is so far and away the wrong analogy to use, that I do wonder where such people have been for the last ten years. Sending a Tweet is not the same as sending a letter. At All. If you wanted to use a more appropriate analogy, think about the way that rumours used to spread around – one person would tell somebody something in a pub, that person would tell someone at work, and before you knew it, the next week it was being relayed back to you, often with lots of embellishment. Well, that’s kind of how social media like Twitter works.

And only a completely out of touch dimwit would try to sue the equivalent of chatter in a public bar, showing themselves to be so far out of touch with reality (and indeed, their own importance) that they’d be made a laughing stock.

And that’s why I was keen to find out who it was. And now I do.

*No, I don’t know who would send abusive mail from a PO Box, either

As the crisis in the Middle East escalates, the instability of the world economy increases, and the revelation of just how many fault lines you can build a nuclear power station on becomes clear, in the UK, our obsession turns to…the Royal Wedding and the referendum on voting principles. These two headline staples are about to reach fever pitch, and I find myself fairly indifferent to them both.

The ‘wedding of the century’, which appears to be sending journos into palpitations on both sides of the Atlantic, is between two people that most of us have never met, who, for all I know, may be very charming and worthwhile individuals, but who appear to come across as chinless toffs with only a marginal connection by birth with the rest of their country. And at a time when we’re supposed to be riding out a serious recession (with Boy George Osborne at the controls, Gawd help us), do we really need to bring the country to a halt, buy a jobload of Chinese Union Jack bunting, and watch a procession of upper class twits parading around London in stupid clothes? Actually, we had most of that at last week’s London marathon.

Just how ironic is the concept that this event was going to be a toned down event to reflect the nation’s austerity? I’m particularly indignant about this, because my marriage to Mrs E, 21 years ago* was conducted for the princely sum of £27.50, plus the cost of her dress. To be fair, being the well bred lady that she is, she’s never revealed to me the cost of the dress, but given that she bought it from a second-hand shop in Norwich, it’s unlikely to compare with that of the People’s Princess. And, while I’m on the subject, neither did Mrs E attract my attention by parading along a catwalk at a posh university in a transparent dress. Far more romantically, we met one night in the infamous Jolly Butchers’ nightclub, when both of us were blind drunk and unable to focus or speak coherently, and after she’d spent two hours asleep on the toilet floor**. Class.

I’m not a fan of daytime drinking, but should you find yourself alone on Friday with a bottle of vodka and a TV set, I would recommend the following game. Just knock back one shot for each of the following:

– Hushed commentary with the words ‘his late mother’s ring’ in any sentence. All rather creepy, therefore worth a drink anyway

– Reference to Kate Middleton’s humble roots; extra shot for coal mining reference, but one shot deducted if the £30k annual school fees and millionaire father are mentioned in the same sentence

– Heartfelt commentary, being broadcast across 300 countries to a billion viewers, about how important it is that the royal couple are able to live away from the glare of publicity

– Broadcast of any street party north of the border

– Interview with slightly weird Royal enthusiast, who has been camped out for 48 hours on the Mall, saying that Kate looks ‘every inch the Princess’

Obviously, you can add or subtract your own key phrases to taste, not least to pace your drinking. There is a danger that if you follow this directly you’ll be smashed by about 1130; although this may be the only way to get through the rest of the day.

Personally, I’ll be spending Friday creating my own art installation. Inspired by Spencer Tunick, I’ll be employing 500 uniformed public schoolchildren to lay down on a playing field, spelling out the word ‘Austerity’ in 20 ft high letters.

Anyway, that’s my balanced view of the Royal Wedding. Don’t get me started on AV, however, I’m really cross about that one. More of which later.

*And never a cross word

** Mrs E is at pains to point out that her condition was due to an unfortunate incident with what I believe is called a ‘Tardis’

This all started when I hurt my knee last year, while running. This was a Very Big Deal to me; not being able to run makes me a far grumpier individual that normal. And for anyone that knows me, that really is a Very Big Deal.
Anyway, I went to a number of experts, had a suitably swanky MRI scan, where you have to stay perfectly still in a metal coffin whilst being subjected to Heart FM for 25 minutes (I think they do this as a sort of aural anaesthetic), and eventually got to see one of the country’s leading knee specialists, who was kind enough to see me a number of times at short notice. Which was nothing to do with him needing to pay for his daughter’s wedding.
Anyway, the day arrived where I was getting the full consultant treatment – diagnosis and treatment were promised in one session, so I arrived with a sense of nervousness and excitement.
I went into the office and closed the door; the consultant looked at me over his glasses, with what I think was a benevolent look.
“A lot of people get frightened when I say the word ‘Arthritis'”, he said. Probably not the most positive start to a diagnosis. On the other hand, not necessarily a surprise, or a disaster. After all, most people have some sort of arthritis; it’s what people get when their joints are getting worn. A bit of a blow to my plans for a new PB at marathon, but hey-ho.
Rattled back to Emu Towers, where Mrs E took the news remarkably stoically. “You’ll have to cut down on the running, and do more cross training,”, she constructively suggested.
I’m not sure what happened in the next couple of months. I kind of thought that it would be a good idea to push these knees a little bit more, maybe to prove that there was life in the old dog yet. So I got a place at the London Marathon. Then I started thinking about the Paris Marathon. Then I thought it would be a good wheeze to knock out a few miles between the two dates, in a ‘8 marathons in 8 days’ style.
Then I told Mrs Emu who, as a medical professional, has a delicate bedside manner that she was kind enough to put to one side in her reaction. And she’s barely contained her ire ever since.
So this blog is a rather pathetic attempt to apologise to her for a foolhardy exercise. But, as solutions to mid-life crises go, slightly better than the sports car/Lithuanian escort/crystal meth options that I might have chosen. Not that I pursued any of them, dear…
For all of you other kind souls with open and forgiving hearts, you can follow my new adventures between 9 and 17 April at www.paristolondonrun.co.uk – enjoy!

A quick tale this morning about the joys of running in unknown areas.

A few years ago I used to work quite a bit up in Edinburgh, and I stayed out near the airport. Not the most salubrious part of the city, but very convenient if the most important thing about your visit was the return journey, which in those days it was. If you can get out that way, there’s a canal, which I believe runs from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Head right when you get to it, and you travel into the lowlands, out towards Falkirk. Turn left and you’re on the way to Edinburgh city.

If you’re a runner, canal towpaths are both fab and a challenge. By their nature they are flat, and tend to have a fairly forgiving surface. On the other hand, they’re pretty narrow, and if you want to avoid any obstacles, you’re faced with going up the embankment or into the water. This is particularly irksome when you go past fisherman. I’ve never really understood what drives a man to set up at some god awful hour next to the side of a canal to catch some over-polluted and inedible fish. A friend once told me that it was a great excuse to be alone and smoke a vast quantity of weed, but not sure from the people I see that they’re really the type, and surely you’d want to do this away from a large stretch of cold, deep, dark water? But whatever it is that drives them to this strange hobby, also encourages them to ‘own’ their particular stretch of water. Sometimes they do so with ridiculously overize poles, which stretch behind them and act as hurdles. The more subtle anglers set out guy ropes behind their canvas tents, which act as trip wires. Oh, and they never, ever say good morning.

Where was I?

Oh, yes, so I decided to do an hours run, 35 mins out, 25 mins back, and after about 3 miles, realised I was getting into an area I was going to be uncomfortable in. Canal towpaths can tell you a lot about the area as well – the graffiti, the quality of the litter, the disturbingly slippery discarded prophylactics on the ground… Anyway, incident free, I turned round at 35 minutes and started running back at as fast a pace as I could manage.

After about a mile, I saw them in the distance. Walking ahead of me, and taking up all of the path, was a family, out for a walk with their dog, which even from a distance, I could see was a lively collie, jumping up and down at the father of the group, who was teasing it with a stick. The father, the mother and the dog were walking a little way ahead of the son and daughter, who both looked to be about 6-8 years old.

How best to approach the overtaking manouvre? I didn’t want to shout out, as I thought I might scare them. In any case, what do you shout? I started getting a bit nervous at this point. I was quite keen that none of us should land in the water, and also that the dog didn’t get excited – I really didn’t want it chasing/biting me.

Manouvre number one was executed with considerable precision, and although I say it myself, some success. Silently I padded up behind them, a quick turn right to get past on the embankment side, and a quiet “Hi”, saw me through with neither child jumping into the water.

Manouvre number two was going to be more of a challenge. I had the lively dog to contend with, for a start, which was still jumping up and down trying to bite the stick that the man was teasing it with. Then there was the man himself. You know when you look at someone from behind, and that tells you enough that you don’t want them to turn around? I knew that if I startled him from behind, there was a fair chance he’d react, dog or no dog. Given that I didn’t have much time to consider options, I decided to go for broke, and just cut past, so that the first they’d see of me would be at their side, rather than behind. And at this point, the whole episode went into slow-mo.

First, I got level with them.

Then the dog noticed me.

The dog barked.

I looked , in as friendly a way as I could manage, at the man.

For some reason, my eyes dropped to the stick.

Then I realised it wasn’t a stick, after all. It was a revolver.

Understandably, my pace quickened somewhat. You see, the other thing that I forgot to mention about canal paths is that they tend to be fairly straight. This combined with no exit to left or right meant that I was running away from a slightly scary bloke with a gun, who I’d just startled, with about half a mile to the next bridge. And for all I knew, the gun was being aimed in my direction – and I didn’t even have the option of zigzagging. Oh, and the dog was now giving chase, fairly loudly, and pretty much at my heels.

I reckon I PB’d the half mile fairly easily, and about halfway there, the dog gave up, his barking mixed in with some very loud and imaginative cursing from the owner. I got to the bridge and ducked behind it to get my breath back. Tentatively, I put my head out to see what was happening, and was rewarded with the sight of the family reunited, and the man enthusiastically pistol-whipping the dog.

I continued my run on the road, safe in the knowledge that few of the motorists were likely to be armed or throwing violent dogs onto the pavement. I reflected that from my perspective, it was better that the man was more annoyed with his dog than me, although not sure that made me feel a whole lot better. It did, however, cement some preconceptions I’ve held for some time about dog owners.

So, if you’re going for a run this weekend, you watch out for the man with the dog and a stick…you never know what could happen.

If anything shows the worrying lack of depth in British distance running, then it would be the fact that our athletics headlines are dominated by the dog that had the audacity to bite Paula Radcliffe.

If you’ve missed this alarming news, check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/9350741.stm

For those of us who run, however, this is an important point for discussion, and ranks alongside global warming, future fiscal policy and the human condition. For when you are a runner, the dog is, at best, an unpredictable enemy, and at worst…well, do read on.

I have run for many miles for many years on Sunday mornings with my friend The Flying Postman, and might have mentioned this once or twice in this very blog. And I mention this now, because, unlike me, TFP is a dog lover. Not, I hasten to add, in some rather unpleasant sense that you might find in the Latvian outback, or indeed in Lincolnshire, but in the sense that he genuinely likes dogs. So, running along, with a po-faced dog-walker coming towards us, he’ll make a beeline for the dog, and do whatever dog-lovers do when they see an old chum slavering towards them. Sometimes, I have to stop, while he has a quick chat with the owner, while gently tickling them in the stomach. The dog, not the owner. TFP knows full well that this annoys me, yet still he continues, and I personally think this is a little malicious. So, I had a certain amount of enjoyment a few years back when, during a race, he tripped over a small dog that was snapping gaily around his ankles, sent him flying, and consequently hopping for the last 2 miles. But I digress.

Of course, it’s not the dogs I really object to, it’s the owners. I was out on a run the other day with Jr Emu #3, and we had to stop, while a heavily anoraked walker called his ‘playful’ dog to settle down. “Thanks”, I said, as we finally passed by unmauled.

“Why did you say thanks, Dad?”, said Felix

At which point I realised that I was thanking a total stranger for not letting their dog bite my child. Whilst I realise that this is all a bit downbeat and grumpy, it’s just that I can’t think of any other situation where you can be minding your own business, and some jerk allows a completely uncontrolled beast to come up against you and bite you or jump on top of you. Well, possibly outside a branch of Wetherspoons on a Friday night, but that’s not really the point, is it.

I could go on. So I will. Even worse than the gormless outdoor booted twits from planet Barbour are the enthusiastic dog owners who say helpful things like

“he’s only playing”

or

“don’t worry, he won’t bite”

Hard to believe that they have such a hard and fast contract of trust with an animal that appears to be completely ignoring them. I had a manky terrier bite me once when I was on a run, and the owner helpfully said:

“Well, he’s never done that before”

All of which brought me to something of a boil.

And I do think it’s time to bite back. If you’re a runner, here are some things you can do:

• The next time you get chased by a dog, encourage it to follow you. Ideally off road. Aim to put a mile between the dog and the owner.
• Run up to dog owners that have annoyed you, get right in their face, and shout as loudly as possible, something along the lines of DON’T WORRY I’M JUST OUT FOR A RUN AND I’M PROBABLY NOT GOING TO BITE YOU. If you can get one of your fellow runners to grab you by the neck at this point and say

“he’s only playing”,

just at the point that you start foaming at the mouth, so much the better

• If all else fails, just pull your shorts down and relieve yourself in front of them. Fairs fair, and you can claim in court that you were simply marking your territory

Good luck with all that.

Next week, I’ll tell you my worst running & dog nightmare…