I have got back into my exercise regime after a couple of months of mainly slacking. I did a four mile run today and was feeling pretty good. As I get older I slightly worry about my knees (which have held up fine so far luckily). Usually I strap them up just in case, but today I had forgotten. But my old knees had served me well and there were no twinges.
A mile from home I was crossing the busy road under the Hammersmith flyover, a dual carriageway with an island in the middle. Often you have to wait twice for the lights, but I was in luck as there was no traffic coming either way. I ran to the island, noticing that some people were crossing the road ahead of me. A portly man with two big shopping bags was nearest to me, but he had seen me coming and surely would make some room for me to dash past. I took the tightest path past the traffic light poles, but was astonished to see that this man was not making room, in fact he was trying to cut me up, hugging as close to the pole as he could. I was going too fast to stop and tried to squeeze past, but the man didn't make any effort to move and seemed to almost deliberately swing his bag in the way so it caught me in the knee. It was full of bottles and it hurt a little bit. But I managed to keep going, just shouting at him saying, "You saw where I was going, you prick." He didn't make any attempt to apologise and didn't even look round. By the time I was on my side of the road I was properly angry with him and now wanted to punch him, but he was safely on the other side and now there was traffic. I reckon I could have caught him up if I had wanted, but I just let the aggression out by running a bit faster, hoping that the pain in my knee was temporary and that there would be no lasting damage.
I was also glad I hadn't punched the man, even if he had been a little inconsiderate (and no doubt he felt I was the rude one, selfishly scuffing his bottles with my knee bone). I was envisaging a Sliding Doors version of events where I hit him and he fell and hit his head on the paving stone and died and I was sent to prison for manslaughter. An instinctive act of fury could have wrecked many lives and at the very least the strange man with bags full of what I suspect were empty bottles might well have got some capital out of being punched by an ex-BBC employee and everyone would conveniently forget about my slightly bruised knee.
Luckily it takes quite a lot to incite me to violence and a minute or so had passed before the desire to punch had descended on me, and was controllable as it wasn't in the heat of the moment. To be honest it was probably only the fact that there was no chance of there being a fight that meant I could imagine the possibility of one. I am a lover, not a fighter and I am not much of a lover. I wouldn't cross a busy road for that either any more.
Although sore for a couple of hours my knee was fine and my running career can continue for now and I don't have to go to prison, unlike the Richard Herring from that other time-line. I doubt he's written a blog today. It would seem inappropriate on a day that he killed a man. He got so close to ten years and then murdered someone and ruined it all. And I am sure the failure of his consecutive blog will be his biggest concern today. The punchy idiot.
