mostly david ephgrave

Consecrated ground has the same effect on evil spirits as when I cross the threshold of a Sports Direct.  (Bang goes the chance to do an advert for them; Sports Direct, not graveyards.) I visited the Stevenage branch of the sportswear giant (of giant mug-producing fame) this afternoon, to buy a pair of swimming shorts for next week’s trip to Center Parcs. I've seldom felt less comfortable than on entering the premises. It didn't help that a guy I went to school with works there ( who compared me to Ned Flanders, on a memorable and still niggling occasion ). I had visions of him spotting me across the shop floor and repeating his hilarious Simpsons-based assertion at the top of his voice while the rest of Sports Direct laughed. I have a vivid and paranoid imagination.  Everything about the situation screamed “awkwardness”. I was completely out of my depth (*swimming pun*). I wandered around the ground floor a few times, having writ...

Yesterday I saw a woman smoking a cigarette whilst riding a bike – and couldn’t work it out whether this made it more or less unhealthy. She came speeding around the corner, steering with one hand while the other took the fag from her mouth for a moment; releasing a plume of white smoke that she cycled straight into. It was as dexterous as it was no doubt cancerous. Her lungs must have been working overtime. I can’t decide whether this heightened activity would push the smoke from her system more quickly, or enable it to cause some more lasting damage. There must be some sort of experiment I could set up to determine this. (I probably won’t bother, though.) The cigarette looked very incongruous: it was hard to draw a parallel between someone so keen to do exercise and someone who needed to smoke so desperately. It reminded me of the time I stayed in a holiday camp in Cleethorpes. I was on tour with a show called Rock & Rol...