My favourite comedian writing today is John Finnemore, eponymous hero of John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme on Radio 4. But my all time comic heroes are Oscar Wilde (of course), Jerome K Jerome and PG Wodehouse. As luck would have it, they all have blue plaques in Chelsea, so I made it my goal this morning to visit all three on my morning run.
‘You run like an ostrich!’ my Fulani friend Hamadou used to tell me, by which I suspect he meant loping and gangly rather than able-to-reach-forty-mph. And so bright-eyed and ostrich-like I set out across Battersea Park and over Chelsea Bridge, sprinting in search of the three funnymen. At around the 5k mark I located Oscar Wilde’s plaque on Tite Street and then headed east a few blocks to find Jerome K Jerome.
I am sorry to report, I was defeated by Wodehouse’s townhouse in Knightsbridge. Rasping and gasping I staggered up the King’s Road awhile, but stopped well short of Walton Street and turned dejectedly for home.
This week the ballot result for the London Marathon comes out. I entered the ballot some weeks ago in a fit of optimism, and now have somewhat mixed feelings about it all. If I get in, my first training run next week will be a second struthionine attempt at the Three Comics run. Watch this space.
