Now I'm in Scotland.

It's the 20th of September, 2008, I'm in a hotel room in Dunbar, Scotland, I've just had a pretty decent meal downstairs and I'm thinking I might be ludicrous and go to bed quite soon. This is ludicrous because it's only 9.45.

The window's open because I'm smoking, in direct contravention of the law, apparently, and the room is being quietly annexed by various and numerous flying things and this is making me a bit nervous. The last time I left the window open in an insect-heavy environment I was bitten to all get out and spent a week or so feeling very, very sorry for myself. Still, this dicing with pain attitude seems to be improving the flavour of the cigarettes so.. The little bastards can have a go if they want.

This marathon, then.

I can't really think of much to say about it just now, except that I was a little disappointed to find that it comprises of two virtually identical laps. IE you run 13 miles and then run the same 13 miles again. This in itself is not much of a problem - it's not as if I'm concerned about the aesthetics of the course or chafing at the laziness of the Swedes for just rustling up a half-marathon and doubling it. The problem I can forsee, pessimistically, is running 13 miles then having the whole environment screaming at me for the next 13 "You're still nowhere near the end!" "You've only just got to half way!!" "Now you're coming up to that bit that nearly killed you 3 hours ago. You know.. the really STEEP bit. You're not gonna make it, loser!"

I regularly play gigs in Aarhus, Denmark, and they consist of, at the weekends, 4 or 5 hour sets starting at midnight and going on till, you'll never guess, 4 or 5am. Sometimes, around 2am, I get hit by this crippling ennui because I know I still have 2 or 3 more hours to go before I can get to bed, and those 2 or 3 hours are going to be EXACTLY like the preceding ones. This, even on a good night sometimes.

I'm not sure that this a valid concern, or that it's not just me bollocking on about something that most people would just take in their stride, as it were, but it's nagging at me.

Now, though, I'm suddenly bored talking about that.

As it will be my 40th birthday on the very same day, it looks like a bunch of friends and possibly family will be coming out to Stockholm with me. Some will want to come to cheer me on, I hope, and some will want to come to witness the highly amusing possibility (right at this moment it seems more like a certainty) that I'll collapse after about 500 yards and they'll all be getting pissed that night in a bar sympathetically close to the hospital, toasting my stone's-throw recovery and chuckling over the footage on their mobiles.

At least, it being Stockholm, they'll be chortling and getting hammered very expensively, which will cheer me up no end. 

Well, I think it's time to see what's on telly. Tomorrow is Sunday, and I'll be in Edinburgh, sniffing around the water in Morrisons. Exciting, eh?