Running the London Marathon While Inside Prison

FRANK: Still. Saw me running did you, oh aye? Done forty-nine times round the block this afternoon, I reckon I do that every day. Why forty-nine? Well once round’s a hundred and eighty yards see, so thať’s five mile more or less exact. Till now I do only afternoons, but next week I’ve got permission to do mornings and all. Then it’ll be ten miles a day. I’m going to keep pushing it up a bit further each week, cos it’s the Marathon next month. About the twenty-third is it, somewhere round there? The London Marathon. That’s what we’re in for: nineteen of us, sixteen cons and three members of staff.

We’re doing it for charity, Children’s Leukaemia Fund I believe it’s called, some name like that. We’ve got outside sponsors and everything, reckon we’ll raise a good few bob. Me, l’m aiming to complete the whole course, twenty-six miles and something yards is it? I don’t see why I shouldn’t not with the practising programme I’ve worked out. Aye, it’ll be same day it teks place in London starting same time and following exactly the same route, On a map I mean, one of the screws brought it in for us a few weeks back. I’ve got it all up here in me head though by now, I’ve been studying it. Ninety-eight circuits ten miles; a hundred and forty-seven, ffteen, a hundred and ninety-six. twenty, and another sixty-eight on top that’ll see me home. Makes it more intersting, you think now I’m crossing Tower Bridge, now I’m in the Isle of Dogs, now I’m running down the Mall. Some says I’ll not do it all, but I will. I’d have a bet I’ll be the only one does and all. They say good stuff comes in little packages don’t they eh?

Life After Life
Paul Jepson, Tony Parker
Valerie wants a job, Frank wants to run the marathon – Paul, Philip and Alan just want to hold on. This dramatic piece of reportage draws on interviews with murderers to create stark, uncompromising portraits of people rebuilding their lives.
Life After Life was performed as part of the National Theatre’s ‘Transformations’ season in 2002.

The War Will Resume After the Midterms?

Top Military Admiral Briefs Trump on Iran Options
White House meeting came as U.S. weighs new combat operations
Wall Street Journal
Michael R. Gordon, Lara Seligman and Shelby Holliday

From the comments:

It’s so disheartening to me our lack of moral clarity here. Whether it’s buying Russian fuel while undermining Ukraine or furthering the conflict with Iran, people (both innocent, and just following orders) are going to DIE. And what’s the primary concern? Lowering the price of diesel for Americans before the midterm elections. It just makes me ill. It’s just gross.

Yes it is disgusting

The Smashing Pumpkins – Denver – October 27, 2026



Great show. 10/10.
Highly recommended

From Google AI:
The Smashing Pumpkins performed at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado on October 27, 2026, as part of The Rats in a Cage Tour. 

Set 1: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Front-to-Back)

  1. 1979
  2. Bullet With Butterfly Wings
  3. Cupid de Locke
  4. Porcelina of the Vast Oceans
  5. Jellybelly
  6. Bodies
  7. Galapogos
  8. Thirty-Three
  9. Tonight, Tonight
  10. Here Is No Why
  11. To Forgive
  12. Fuck You (An Ode to No One)
  13. Zero
  14. Muzzle
  15. By Starlight
  16. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

Set 2: Career Hits & Deep Cuts

  1. Sojourner
  2. Edin
  3. Pentagrams
  4. Disarm
  5. Ava Adore
  6. War Dreams of Itself
  7. Mayonaise
  8. Black Stars
  9. As Rome Burns
  10. Today
  11. Cherub Rock
  12. Jesus Is the Sun
  13. The Everlasting Gaze
  14. Superchrist

A Thousand Forms of Fear – Recovery Phrase

My only way to deal with what I deemed an attack (and I might deem anything an attack in those days) was to attack more aggressively in return. The level of hostility in my offensive depended on my level of fear. Fear of being caught, fear of having to tell the truth, fear of being exposed as the lying, cheating fraud I was. But it was the fear of showing my true heart, at times either so full it might burst or so empty I could cry, that hounded me most viciously.

There had been a perpetual war between myself and the costume of persona I’d donned as a youngster and then worn my entire life. Petrified that someone might discover who I really was: merely a child inside the body of an adult. A boy playacting as a man. My lifelong hard-ass exterior and, underneath that, ironclad interior were all an intricately constructed, carefully cultivated, and fiercely guarded sham. I was, in reality, driven by what I’d heard referred to in rehab all those years ago as “a thousand forms of fear.” Sadly, somewhere deep in my soul, I knew that was probably me.

Sing Backwards and Weep: A Memoir
Mark Lanegan

Note – Highly recommended book

The Later Days of Lyndon Johnson

Salem1690s
When you had a near fatal heart attack in 1955, and then begin smoking again, and keep smoking after a massive attack of angina in 1971, yes, I’d say you don’t give a fuck.

He drank. He didn’t keep to a physician prescribed diet, and got chunky on heavy, salty food that also sped up his massive heart attack.

He had an actuarial study done that he was likely to die at age 64 given his family history; and seemed to accept this, and to just head towards making that prediction a reality.

There are reports that in this period.”, he would listen to the song Bridge Over Troubled Water by S&G on repeat and cry.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/1x6p852/lbjs_slow_suicide_called_so_by_his_aides_from/

Relating to a Poem – Personal Experience and Imagination

One way to talk about a poem is to talk about how you relate to it. How you may identify with the speaker of it, like a main character in a story or movie. Or how you share the emotions running through the poem. Or how you are sympathetic to a particular situation, event, or character in the poem because you’ve had similar experiences.

But what if you don’t relate to a particular poem in any of these ways? Or what if the way you relate to the poem is by taking a different or opposing viewpoint? What then? Do you chuck the poem aside, spit in its eye, take it out back, and smack it around a little, before burying it at the back of the bookshelf? That would be one method of readerly response. All reading, in one way or another, is call-and-response. The call is the set of words on the page, and the response is your reaction in reading them.

But here is the thing: you have the ability to relate to anything. Your imagination is as powerful as any reality you have experienced or are presently experiencing. If you have a certain response to a poem—especially an adverse one—have it. Let it run its course. Then, re-read the poem, questioning what you think you know about it in order to enter the poem on its own terms.

The Poetry Reader: An Anthology
Mark Yakich

Cool Bomb Name – Iran War Update

Both the U.S. and Israel militaries are drafting plans for operations against Iran’s nuclear program, according to people briefed on the work. That could include an attack on Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried nuclear site that Iranians call Kooh Kolang.

Mr. Trump said last week that he was considering using a 22,000-pound GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, or MOAB, against Pickaxe. Officials say Mr. Trump is enamored with the weapon in part because of its nickname, Mother of All Bombs.

U.S. and Israel Draw Up Plans for Renewed Strikes on Iran After Elections
Renewed hostilities might not be any more successful than the war’s first phase, and President Trump has repeatedly canceled plans for a return to major combat.

United Airlines CEO on Inequality

But he struck a decidedly more populist note on the topic of wealth inequality — which he brought up when the Times asked him about waning trust in CEOs and his responsibility in dispelling it. Here’s his full answer:

“Wealth inequality has become a danger to our society, and we need to address that,” he said. “We should have a national wealth tax — it won’t work by state because people will just move. And I think we should have inheritance taxes that get close to 100% at some level. I would pay them.”

United Airlines CEO: ‘We should have a national wealth tax’

A Week in the Life of Gaza – Guardian Series

We follow five ordinary people – a 12-year-old boy, a professor, a pregnant woman, a skateboarder and a grandmother – through their days, with all of the difficulty and joy that they encounter. This is what a week in the life of Gaza looks like.

‘We skate on the rooftops of damaged buildings’: a day in the life of a skateboarder in Gaza

‘First there’s the gruelling task of trying to charge my laptop’: a day in the life of a university lecturer in Gaza

‘This is where I live now, the back of a truck’: a day in the life of a grandmother in Gaza

‘I’m afraid they’ll bomb the cafe where I work, or bomb me’: a day in the life of a 12-year-old boy in Gaza

‘I lost my children, and I’m afraid of losing my baby again’: a day in the life of a pregnant woman in Gaza

Gaza: a week in the life
This series captures seven days of daily life Gaza, through the eyes of five ordinary citizens, as the war pushes deep into its third year

Hunger in Colorado – 2026 – Google AI on

Food insecurity in Colorado has surged dramatically, with a recent Colorado Health Access Survey finding that 17.8% of adults (more than 1 in 6) reported they could not afford all the food they needed. According to coverage from NPR and its local partner, Colorado Public Radio (CPR), this marks a massive jump from 10.5% during the same period in the previous year.
Local reporting highlights a “perfect storm” of economic pressures straining both Colorado families and emergency food systems:

  • Rising Costs: While general grocery prices have shown minor stabilization, specific staples like beef, fresh fruits, and vegetables have continued to outpace broader inflation categories, placing an immense burden on household budgets.
  • Federal Food Aid Cuts: Food banks have experienced severe supply drops due to a 37% reduction in available food through the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). Simultaneously, stricter work requirements introduced for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have cut or restricted benefits for hundreds of thousands of Coloradans.
  • Child Hunger: The crisis is hitting children especially hard, with an estimated 157,000 children (1 in 6) facing food insecurity across the state—an increase of 30,000 kids in just a year.

Principles as a Limited Durability Product – Brecht Quote

That was straightforward. Why take things in a roundabout way now? I’m packing so they shan’t take away your job as senior physician. And because they’ve stopped saying good morning to you at the clinic, and because you’re not sleeping nowadays. I don’t want you to tell me I mustn’t go. And I’m hurrying because I don’t want to hear you telling me I must. It’s a matter of time. Principles are a matter of time. They don’t last for ever, any more than a glove does. There are good ones which last a long while. But even they only have a certain life.

The Jewish Wife
Bertolt Brecht
Note –  One of the short one act plays in Fear and Misery of the Third Reich
Brecht Collected Plays: 4

The Blue Danube – André Rieu – Vienna

“The Blue Danube” (German: An der schönen blauen Donau, lit. ’By the Beautiful Blue Danube’, Op. 314) is a waltz by the Austrian composer Johann Strauss II, composed in 1866. Originally performed on 15 February 1867 at a concert of the Wiener Männergesang-Verein (Vienna Men’s Choral Association),[2] it has been one of the most consistently popular pieces of music in the classical repertoire. Its initial performance was considered only a mild success, however, and Strauss is reputed to have said, “The devil take the waltz, my only regret is for the coda—I wish that had been a success!”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Danube