Do you remember in the wonderful movie Chariots of Fire how there was a race round the courtyard of an Oxford college when the runners had to complete the run within the sound of the 12 o’clock chimes.

I love that. No-one had a stop-watch (they weren’t invented until 1952 by Ronnie Stop and Jimmy Watch) no-one fired a gun to start nor put tape up for the finish, let alone a checkered flag (checks didn’t arrive until the Bay City Rollers in 1973).

It’s what people did whilst they were waiting for someone to come up with the smartphone which could then dominate every waking moment of their lives.

Well apparently there were many such events. And in 1934 a woman known as Florence Ilot (possibly her real name) ran across Westminster Bridge between the noon chimes from Big Ben.

Apparently this midday run was a regular but infrequent happening, normally by politicians whilst they were waiting for politics to be invented in 1962 when Harold Wilson came round. So they had time for a run. Can you imagine Theresa May, Nicholas Soames, taking off their jackets for a midday run?

Anyway, they reckon (because it was all wonderfully vague) that this woman, the first person to succeed, in fact, man or woman (!!!!) ran about 350 yards in about 38 seconds. That’s impressive. Probably wearing a pencil skirt and heels.

And now they’ve possibly found ‘the secret’ to the Pyramids. The secret being the question: ‘how the fuck did they do that?!?!’ Because over a thousand years before Jesus (allegedly) Christ was born they put up these immense ‘things’ in the desert. And no-one’s ever worked out how massive stones were hauled up the amazing heights. It’s not like they could use Amazon Prime to deliver them. Well they’ve found what is possibly a ramp. Right next to a pyramid. And it has a series of holes that they reckon would have facilitated some kind of rope & pulley system that the 24 million slaves could shlep to help them in their task. Using pulleys equated to losing less slaves. Gotta be good business. Damned clever them ‘gyptians.

There was a whole world happening before Lila, you just tend to forget what it was like. Or never knew.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx