I don't have much to tell you about running so I may skip around from subject to subject here. Well yesterday I planned to go for a short run, maybe once round Arthur's Seat - the standard 5.58 mile run that is my default. I didn't go out in the morning though, because it was teeming down and forecast to be sunny (though very windy) in the afternoon. By 4pm I had sat too long in front of a hot computer doing course-worky stuff and was also starving hungry, so I put off the computer and readied myself for a run.
Only the computer wouldn't shut down and being temperamentally unable to just walk away I forced the thing off and then put it back on again just to make sure it was still working. And when it came back on it wasn't. It was very busy with something, but nothing I'd asked it to do, and it was barely responding to anything I did and there was no internet connection. Aaaaaah. Mental anguish. Plus I hadn't backed up any of the work I'd been doing all day. (I usually email it to myself so it exists somewhere in cyberspace.) So my run was forgotten. I had a bowl of soup and a roll to take care of the starvingness and got into a long session of restarts and system restores, ending two hours later with me uninstalling Microsoft Silverlight and everything getting back to normal.
It was now 6pm and I was still kind of full and didn't feel like running but I couldn't square not running with myself either, so out I went. My belly swashed with soup and when I started running up hill it got sore. So at the top I decided, instead of running all the way round the seat I'd just cut down a slightly different way and go home a bit short of mileage. I got home having just run 4 miles. Better than nothing.
Today I couldn't be bothered with a run either. Too many days of so-so running were taking their toll. I was still a bit disappointed in myself that I didn't go in swimming with Amanda and Peter on Saturday though, so I decided I'd go up to the Commie pool to see how my swimming was going these days.
It hasn't improved since the last time I was there, in fact it's got worse. I can get by with breast stroke but I couldn't get the breathing right for freestyle at all. The water felt like a heavy weight on my chest making it hard to pull in enough air. I think the chlorine or whatever's in the water makes me wheeze a bit, which is probably why.
My standard swim is 20 lengths of the Commie Pool (1000m). I used to knock this out in 20 - 25 minutes after work many moons ago. Those days are long gone though. I did manage to do half lengths of freestyle(ish) swimming and then got my breath back doing breast stroke. Luckily the pool was pretty empty and there wasn't much pressure. At 18 lengths I'd been in there for 38 minutes (including breathing at the side time) and I thought I'd call it a day. What the hell. No point in putting myself off!
As I was having a long shower in one of the few private compartments in the "Changing Village", trying to shut out the sound of children babbling and shrieking all around me, the song "Knights in White Satin" came into my mind. Now why would that be? The next line "never reaching the end" cleared it up for me. I took it to be internal commentary on my short run yesterday and my short swim today. It was only when I got home and had a google that I discovered that that song is in fact "Nights in White Satin"! I have discovered a new Mondegreen.
For the uninitiated, there is an explanation of Mondegreens here. From this website;
Mondegreens – Misheard Lyrics
Mondegreens are a sort of aural malapropism. Instead of saying the wrong word, you hear the wrong word. The word mondegreen is generally used for misheard song lyrics, although technically it can apply to any speech. They are oronyms(homophones) which are discussed on a separate page of this site.
The term mondegreen was originally coined by author Sylvia Wright, and has come to be quite widely used. As a child, Wright heard the lyrics of The Bonny Earl of Murray(a Scottish ballad) as:
Oh where hae you been?
Thou hae slay the Earl of Murray
And Lady Mondegreen
It eventually transpired that Lady Mondegreen existed only in the mind of Sylvia Wright, for the actual lyrics said that they "slay the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green."And to this day Lady Mondegreen's name has been used to describe all mishearings of this type!
There are a number of funny examples at the website linked above. "Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear" is probably my favourite.
For many years of childhood I thought there was a hall called a Dancing Dee where people went to dance. I'd got this from the words "I am the lord of the Dancing Dee."
Please feel free to add your own Mondegreens in the comments section.
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