I'm going to try and be as polite as I can with this wee post, but if I stray into screaming obscenities, then please forgive me.

 

For the love of God, will you effing joggers out there begin to appreciate that this current time is NOT the best time to continue to puff and pant and sweat and spit your way down your traditional jogging routes, that is to say narrow kerreisting pavements.

I understand (HOO BOY do I understand) that you need to take your daily exercise. Whilst we are allowed (for how long I wonder) I try to get a walk in each day too. But what I will never understand is that YOU feel it's OK to run towards people down a narrow pavement - and worse, get salty when those people you run towards stop and scream "WTAF!" at you.

Some advice -as you clearly need it, you effing selfish, arrogant imbeciles.

1 - Just don't jog.  I dunno... buy a bleeding skipping rope or something.

2 - If you absolutely HAVE to jog, choose an open area or a WIDE path or pavement.

3 - If you can't even do that, then YOU MUST prepare to get HYPER AWARE and then zig-zag across roads YOURSELF, to avoid people who SHOULD NOT be expected to get out of your way.

4 - If you can't do that then return to point 1.

 

It is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS the faster person's (or vehicle's) responsibility to ensure the safety of the slower road/pavement/space users and move themselves to get around those slower people or vehicles safely.

Cars should not expect cyclists to get out of their way.

Cyclists should not expect joggers to get out of their way.

Joggers should not expect pedestrians to get out of their way.

This really is SIMPLE (despite Naga Munchetty's inane witterings on BBC Breakfast the other day and despite also the indignant protestations of Andrew castle on LBC too).

 

Now OK. Sure. This may affect me harder than many as I'm clinically hyper-aware or if you like, hyper-sensitive.

No, by that I don't mean that if you tell me I have big ears, I'll immediately burst into tears -  but what it does mean is that I will be sitting in the garden talking to someone and I will have already noticed the rose chafer flying around the trees 50 yards away to the south, over your shoulder - and the KLM aeroplane flying into the wind, high in the northern sky ... and the fact that in thirty seconds a sparrowhawk will fly overhead as I've heard the starlings' alarm calls in the western valley below not to mention I've heard a squirrel getting angry at I presume a cat or a dog or a fox from a poplar tree 100 yards to the east that I can't even see as there's a house in the way.

I see stuff and hear stuff and FEEL stuff before you even know its there. You may never know its there. But I see and hear it ALL.

I don't go outside to have a spot of "me time" and mull over a few things - I spend my time outside being completely mindful. Aware of everything around me and IN the moment. It's quite exhausting sometimes - as two TV producers will attest to as they interviewed me in my garden a few years ago and I demonstrated to them ALL of the above (rose chafer, sparrowhawk, KLM plane, squirrel, cat) in five minutes, WHILST chatting to them about their TV programme.

So.... yes... I WILL spot people on the roads waaaay before they spot me - so in some cases I get exasperated with these people before I even give them a chance to get out of my way - I'm already crossing the road to get out of their way!

That all said, even our local postwoman (who really is a nice woman generally) takes a daily run down the pavements at present - and as she does so she unthinkingly scatters people into the road and hedges - be those people be healthy men like me or old women or even people like my wife and my two small children. It would be fair to say that I don't think I'll be as polite to her as I used to be when all this is over.

 

Finally, whilst I'm on one - a note to 99% of the British public who (incredibly) believe that on a road with no pavements, you should walk down the side of the road on which you would be driving if you were in a car - i.e. with the traffic, rather than towards the oncoming traffic.

Jesus did indeed PIGGING WEEP. 

That is the EXACT opposite of what you should do. And what you should do (walk on the side facing oncoming traffic rather than facing away from it) makes PERFECT sense, if you, for one millisecond, engage your pea-sized brains to think about it.

 

So.

To summarise then.

KERRRREIST!!!

 

(Stay safe grapple fans, and as far as possible... calm).

TBR