Mister Duffy Changes Trains

  Stop Press It has been an interesting week. On Sunday, Linda did the Cambridge half marathon and acquitted herself admirably. She has declared this to be her final half marathon. Her first was the Great North Run in 2000. Since then, she has completed a further 40 half marathons, one marathon (Paris), and countless 10 kilometre and shorter runs. She had always said that she would stop doing half marathon races when she was 60. I noted this evening that I am 65 years old and I haven’t done my last half marathon yet. Mind you, I haven’t done my first either. Anyway, she completed the half marathon in a similar time to that achieved in Newcastle in 2000, and we are all very proud of her. Later on Sunday I had my Taekwondo class. Recently, my Sunday classes have been taken up with self-defence training, courtesy of Master Fronzie Charles. Self-defence training largely consists in younger and more skilful students hurling me to the floor. Master Fronzie’s strength, fitness and tec...

  The Great British Eccentric What the buggery bollocks am I going to write about tonight? For close on nine months now, every Thursday night, I have sat down at my computer with no idea of what to put in my blog, but after a while something has come to me. Tonight, I am sitting here like a great pudding, head full of mince, don’t have two neurones to rub together. I could tell you about the time my dad crashed his car into a mobile fish and chip shop when he was plastered (he was very popular down the police station because he hadn’t actually killed anybody yet). But I have regaled you quite enough about the old fellow. Actually, here is one more story about him and then I’ll shut up. One day, the cat was sitting by the fire, enjoying the warmth and oblivious to the fact that one of her ears was inside out. My mum said, ‘Tony, fix that cat’s ear, for God’s sake. It’s driving me mad, looking at it.’ My dad grabbed the cat and turned her other ear inside out too. Which raises th...

  Back to Normal I have started commuting again. I live in Cambridge and work in London. Between March 2020 and July 2021 I worked at home and never once ventured on to the train to London. For the past few weeks I have been coming in to London one day a week. While it is good to be back and see workmates face to face, it has reminded me that commuting is a pain in the neck, and has strengthened my resolve never to return to the five days per week commute. There is a two-mile cycle to the station, a fifty-minute train journey to Kings Cross, and a half hour walk from there to my office in Charterhouse Square, near Barts Hospital. I will work up to two days a week in London, but there it stops, until I retire in a couple of years and never have to do it again. I remember one summer Sunday around ten years ago being invited for lunch by our good friends the Tripps (of whom one member, very sadly, is no longer with us), who lived just the other side of   Histon, a village jus...