I was on the radio again today. It was Andie Harper’s Mid-Morning Show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire. The producer contacted me thanks to Sue Dougan who is a runner and Radio Cambridgeshire presenter. I’ve been on her show a couple of times and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
We were talking this morning about wearing headphones when out running and in particular during races. I was on after Adam Moffat from One Step Beyond, the organisers of the Cambridge Half Marathon. They have banned headphones from the race on safety grounds and I think the Beeb wanted a runner’s perspective as well as the organisers’. Cue Rich.
I had much more notice when I went onto Sue’s show. I had a good couple of weeks in each case to worry about it, to tell people about it and then to worry some more. I was most worried about allowing a little sweary word out inadvertently. I’m a sweary man. I know little about mass press and public relations but I know that if you want to get invited back to day-times shows you can’t be sweary. What I am sure about is that I have to try really hard not to say “Fuck” on the radio, All the way there in the car, i kept saying to myself, “Don’t say fuck, Don’t say fuck.” I thought about writing “Don’t say ‘Fuck'” on a post-it note and sticking it to the desk in front of the microphone but that wouldn’t have been politic in the circumstances.
I’m not going to rehearse the arguments for and against wearing headphones when out running. There doesn’t seem much point. I don’t like wearing them because they’re just one more thing between me and the world. They’re a distraction. I understand how someone else might feel just the opposite. Still, they’re wrong…
And I managed not to say “Fuck” this morning. Aren’t I good?
If you wear headphones when in a race you can’t interact with others – given that I am never going to win any prizes for coming first (or second or third) I’d much rather be able to hear when the bloke in the mankini tries to start a conversation with me, if only because, frankly he is quite a frightening sight and I need to know he is trying to talk to me so I can pick up the pace and get away from him!
As to the ‘sweary thing’ those who know me in real life are often surprised that I haven’t been thrown out of the teaching profession. I swear a lot, but the minute I walk through the school gates it is as though a switch has been thrown and I don’t swear. Although I came close today as the condensor and round bottomed flask slipped out of my hand spraying water all over the place. Very close!
You’d probably have gone up in your student’s estimation had you said “What the ever-living fuck was that?”