Luxembuggered!!

Well it’s taken me nearly a bally week to recover from my International appearance in Luxembourg last weekend and, frankly Ronettes, I don't know where to start!

I was making an eagerly awaited appearance at the Night Run in Luxembourg - an event that I have graced with honour and achievement each year since the event was launched five years ago. And, you know, it does give make me kind of humble glow - knowing that the people in this little country live for this one weekend a year and an opportunity to see me. And before you get all dewy-eyed with emotion, just think that if it wasn't for my appearance all they'd have to do with their small lives would be to carry on counting their money, putting up more EU buildings and pretending they're not German.

Anyway, I'm pencilled in on the Nice Work trip once again. Little did I know though that Ernie had done a deal with them. In exchange for their sponsorship of my international appearances, he'd agreed that I'd do a bit of work for them over the weekend. (OK I'll fess up - there was a small to medium sized bar tab that was hanging around like a French smell).

Well I thought they'd want me to sink a few tubes in the hospitality tent so imagine my bemusement when I bowled up on Saturday morning to find that I was only driving the bally Transit!! We set off from Ashford at some unearthly hour with the motley-est of motley crew - the stench of stale alcohol and last night's kebabs very much filling the van. Upon arriving at the tunnel entrance ... guess what? They had only shut the flippin' thing down because ... oh I don't know there was a mouse in the tunnel or something.

Of course there being French stuff involved in the process it took three hours to get the tunnel opened and when our train did finally creak away from the platform it refused to go above half speed. The bottom line was that we arrived in France four hours late, with a four and a half journey ahead of us - and a race start time five hours ahead of us. That meant a hairy journey with no stops, a quick change into our Dunlop Green Flashes whilst driving and, dear Ronnettes, without a word of a lie we arrived on the start line with just THREE minutes to spare.

Of course we would have had a full five minutes to spare but for a minor flaw in my pre-race preparations. I'd only gone and left my bally pumps at home!! Now, as you can appreciate, us international athletes spend a great deal of time preparing ourselves for these kind of events - and we can't just go out and get another pair just like that. As luck would have it though we had a bloke from Sheffield on board - a carpet fitter he was. Well as they lined up to start, this chap was told he was being disqualified - apparently he'd been seen with anabolic stair rods. So that left a bloke with no race - and needing no shoes.

So, I forced him to let me use them ... and that makes my stunning 2 hrs 33.34 time (a full 4 minutes quicker than last year) all the more remarkable! There is, though, something of a confession I need to make.


The shoes were from Yorkshire.

Now just because I'm from Lancashire doesn’t mean I have nothing against stuff from Yorkshire, though I do admit that I prefer to have my chip in a sandwich than on my shoulder. But wearing Yorkshire shoes did make feel slightly uncomfortable. Apart from anything else, being from Yorkshire they were very tight, seemed desperate for it to rain and whinged and moaned the whole way round the course.

Anyway after my stunning run I then set about sticking a few tubes and a sausage down my neck before hitting this very small country. After getting back to the place that masqueraded as the group's hotel - when will these people realise that international athletes deserve a little comfort? - and hitting the sack for a few hours I was rudely awakened by the greasy foreign breakfast chef in his vest and clogs that a copper was sniffing round the Transit. Sure enough I scuttled downstairs to find some bloke who was the spit of the U Boat Commander in The Cruel Sea sniffing round the truck.

Apparently it wasn’t quite parked correctly and he was threatening to slap a 150 euro ticket on my windscreen. Well this is where my infamy really came to the fore. I explained who I was and in calm measured tones told him that I was an Olympic Athlete in town for their little marathon race and that I was on some kind of mission to spread love and happiness around the little country of Luxembourg. It was all going quite well until I asked him did Luxembourg have any athletes and he started barking some malarkey in a very strong (and I'm afraid it was back to The Cruel Sea again) and strangely reminiscent accent.

Obviously I then reacted in the correct way - talking very loud in pigeon Queen's English, demanded to know what his lot did in the war, reminded him of the result in 1966 etc etc And to be honest it seemed to do the trick and he strutted off muttering into his jackboots.

So, you see, if you just show these foreigners a little respect and resist the temptation to fall into the trap of stereotyping them, you'll usually come up smelling of dandelions.

Well I was up now wasn't I? So I decided to pop into town and sniff out a full English and that's when my day headed south ... because the next thing I know, its midnight and I'm staggering out of a bar at just a snifter before midnight with a few Luxembugger Best Mates that I'd found. They put me in a taxi for the ten minute cab ride back to the digs (a snip I thought at 80 quid) - and that was Luxembourg over for another year. I'm not sure exactly what happened during the day but I do recall seeing sausages and some sheep shearing - no I don't know either.



We stopped off for a sherb in a small town in France called Belgium and then it was back to the Channel Tunnel for the quick ride home and back to Blighty. Oh - I forgot to say. My passport had run out. In fact I'd forgotten to tell the other people in the Transit as well. You should have heard them whinge!! But, you know what? That's the difference between us Brits and those Johnny Foreigner Do-Gooders. All it took was a quick two minute chat with the chap on the desk and he would have let me through. OK, so I got it wrong by then tipping him with some folded stuff in a somewhat flamboyant manner. But even then it took just one set of rubber gloves and I was able to walk gingerly back to the Transit and I then stood all the way home.

I sometimes wonder why I bother.

Keep on tapering.

Ron