I try not to run on concrete. Besides hurting, it’s like I’m expecting a whole generation of Jim Fix joggers to succumb to arthritic knees overnight and need wheelchairs – like something out of The Day of the Triffids.
Like Freud I blame my mother for most things. Her favourite party trick is to take my wheelchair-bound dad out to parks and tick off joggers for running on the path, when they could be on the grass. “If you don’t believe me,” she says. “Just ask Davros.”
I like running around The Lakes in central Copenhagen. It’s mostly earthy – ideal if it’s been raining. Recently I’ve been devising a new game I like to play that’s based on golf. (By the way, don't forget to check out our preview of the annual holiday and golf fairs.) Starting in Vesterbro, you split up the course into nine parts and reward yourself with a par every time you complete one without being overtaken.
Pass somebody, and you get a birdie, two an eagle etc. So, if you overtake a group of primary school children, it’s Tiger Woods time. But likewise, a team of elite sportsmen out for a run will seriously damage your round – we’ll call that one an Ian Baker Finch.
The key to a steady round is allowing superior golfers (we could call them goggers or is that too close to doggers?) to pass you in the no-scoring zone – the pedestrian crossings between the ‘holes’. The key to a high-scoring round is to let the slow ones pass you as well, so you can overtake them, again and again and again – although there’s a risk you’ll end up with a restraining order.
Talking of which, you wouldn’t want to work with the performers in Blam!. There you are enjoying a boss-free afternoon when Tweedle Dum and Dee start re-enacting Face-off. As a stage performance it sounds like a lot of fun, although (and perhaps this is an anal concern) I’d like to think I’d be able to recognise the movie. I remember really enjoying it when somebody (it was Vincent Gallo in Arizona Dream – but I’m loathed to mention the man responsible for The Brown Bunny) did the cropduster scene out of North by Northwest, but it kind of helped that they had Cary Grant doing it ‘for real’ at the same time.
Almost as real as playing imaginary golf in your head running around The Lakes.
