See, here I am now sitting by myself, uh, er, talking to myself. That's, that's chaos theory.

Clearly, I’ve been a little neglectful in posting here lately. Blame it on my plain ol’ inability to see anything through to the

Anyway, I promised Tom that there would be a sea change in my attitude towards the blog*, and that I’d begin contributing with some regularity. Something more constructive than, “oops Tom, I’ve accidently deleted all of the free advertising that you painstakingly set up.” And more substantial than, “hey Tom, I spent twenty minutes playing with all the fonts and backgrounds.” (nice though, huh?)

The Tomatron has been keeping you abreast of all the important developments in our interracial swim-fest – with tales about board-games that may or may not have happened, and encounters with people that may or may not exist. Add to that mix, the cocoa buoy game, underwater performance art and ooh, too tight swim-shorts, and you have the last six weeks of intense swim training in a nut-shell.

Actually, speaking of swim shorts, Tom continues to extol the virtues of his fantastic new Aquablade Hydroshorts, attributing everything and anything to their existence. Those points agreed, I must admit to experiencing slight feelings of inadequacy in the swimming trunks department (wait, I have a feeling that’s going to be easy to misconstrue). As a consequence I’ve decided that my own swimming trunks are in need of a flashy, gimmicky name. Oh yes. From now on dear readers you’re going to be hearing plenty** about Seb’s mega-ultra-uber-super-duper-holy-cow!-hyper-hydro shorts.

So, with regular service resumed, I’ll leave you with the video I posted - and subsequently deleted - last week. The public outcry for its reinstatement was over-whelming.






* but evidently not towards water-based puns.
** i.e more than you'd ever care to know.

What've they got in there, King Kong?

Ok, so after last week's strange outing, it's back to normality for the most recent training session.

"Unfortunately, the transvestite didn't turn up." I said to Seb as we drove to Brentwood.
"Oh," said Seb. "That's a shame."
"Never mind." I said, concluding a story that has no relevance to our swim for glory, and so needs no elaboration. We drove on in silence for a while. "What are you going to do today?" I asked Seb. "I think I'll do some swimming." He answered, in an exchange that is swiftly becoming a weekly tradition.

In the pool, I swam only 1.5 Kilometres, less than the 2.5 I have managed to squeeze into the relatively short time available to us in the pool. On the pool timetable, tonight's session is labelled as "Adult swim". I think this must mean you have to be an adult, and not necessarily behave like one, as we certainly didn't.

We played that game where you throw something into the middle of the pool and then have to swim out and collect it before it hits the floor. We threw our locker keys. As Seb threw his, for me to collect, I noticed that it was falling worryingly close to the grate at the bottom of the pool. I pretended to be a sealion and picked it up in my mouth, just in time. It was like Die Hard but wetter. Then we did our underwater lung capacity improvement training, only this time, we were in the deep end of an almost empty pool. I chose to face outwards, towards the rest of the pool when I did mine, as opposed to facing the wall. During my attempt I realised I was doing a "Jesus on the cross" type pose, and that the dappling light penetrating the surface of the empty pool is quite a picturesque sight, as viewed from underwater. Not for the first time, I thought to myself how much better this will look in the open ocean. Anyway, my Jesus pose must have helped, as I managed 55 seconds underwater twice in a row!!

Naturally, I became quite enthused by the possibilities presented by the scenic background of the people-less pool of liquid light, so the last ten minutes of the session were passed in the following way: "Ok, I've got one Seb!! Go underwater, and see my performance art!!" I would then swim down to the bottom, empty my lungs, and sit on the floor of the pool in various poses e.g. sitting cross-legged facing away from the viewer (Seb), a David Brent Reclining Pose, and a "Standing upright, facing Seb, Arms folded, tapping my foot" pose, to name but a few. Seb commented on the fact that I am only one of two people who he sees regularly doing the David Brent Reclining Pose (DBRP). The other is someone mentioned way back in the beginning of this very blog, a lovely fella, who has a car he calls Nancy, named Mike. Hi Mike!!!

P.S. If you saw the video posted by Seb recently on here, and were disappointed by its deletion (Also carried out by Seb, as he was concerned about any embarrassment the video would cause me, bless him), just leave a comment saying so. If you didn't see the video, and are now intrigued, leave a comment saying so. If you couldn't care less, either leave a comment saying so, or don't bother. Either's fine.

You Bred Raptors?!

Here's a little fun game. I'll tell a story about last week's experiences, and you have to guess which bit actually happened:

On the way to the Brentwood centre in Seb's car, we went over a particularly nasty pothole on Warley road, and the black ice caused us to skid. I went mental, but Seb kept calm, and managed to bring the car to a safe stop, although we were a little shaken.

We got out of the car to survey the damage, just as it started to rain. I wandered over to a stream which ran alongside the road. The stream was fairly fast flowing, and the water level very high, as it had been raining quite heavily for the past few days. I noticed a dark, box-shaped object caught up in the branches. As you may imagine, dear reader, I was more than a little intrigued. I looked over at Seb, who had finished inspecting the car and was standing by the open driver's door. He said "I think it's all ok, V Diddy...Shall we get back on the road?" I looked all handsome and thoughtful for a second, then said "Hang on a sweet moment there, Sebbro!! I've spotted something." As Seb looked on, with an amused and curious expression on his pleasant face, I scrambled down the riverbank, and just managed to reach the box as I said "I can reach it, Dad!!" I clambered back up the slope, and Seb remarked "I thought I lost you, boy!!!"

He then realised that, although very funny, the statement did nothing to advance the plot, so he said "What the heckaroo is in that box, do you think?"

I just stared at the wooden box while wiping the mud and silt from it, and slowly, amazingly, the word "JUMANJI" appeared from underneath the dirt. Some beautiful woodwind music started as I looked up at Seb and whispered "Jumanji..."

Then the drums started.

Five minutes later, in Seb's car, Seb had rolled the two dice in the first throw of a spectacular adventure. We leaned in over the Obsidian circle in the middle of the board as Seb's Ebony Gibbon figurine moved seven spaces forward. "Must be Nonochromatic Electromagnetism or something" I said, speculatively.

We both read, in quivering, yet buoyant voices:

"Don't be scared, you must believe....He's not a psycho; his name is Steve."

We looked at each other quizzically. "Who's Steve?" I asked nervously.
"I don't...know" Seb answered, unsure.
Just then, a knock on the window made us both jump. A man with a friendly face and ginger hair stood the other side of the car window, smiling pleasantly. He made the international gesture for "Please roll down your window". Seb did so. The man spoke, and when he did so, it was in a voice that can only be described as "Normal".

"Hello!" he normalled, "My name is Steve!"
Seb and I looked at each other, confused, but relieved. "Hello Steve!" we said in unison.
"Do you need anything?" he asked.
"Errm... Not at the moment thanks, Steve." I said.
"Ok then." said Steve. "I'll be off"
And he left, just as amiably as he had arrived.

"Right, that was weird." said Seb, extremely accurately. "Your turn."
I rolled the dice. A Two and a Three. Obediently, my Ivory Bearded Capuchin monkey crept forward five spaces. We leaned over the darkness, in preparation for another absolutely average manifestation of an as yet entirely friendly, yet somewhat disappointing game of Jumanji.

"Now Steve is gone, you gain some clarity....Beware the Quantum singularity." We read together.

"What's a quantum singularity?" asked Seb.
"Something to do with Black holes" I answered, remembering something from a book about space I read when I was eight years old and drunk one day. "If I remember correctly, it's the point of space and time at which all laws of physics break down completely, and absolutely anything can happen."
"Anything?!" Seb asked, visibly worried.
"Absolutely anything."

Just then, Postman Pat turned up, holding Greg Rusedski in a test tube. "Hello Seb!!" Pat said, before Seb changed colour to luminous pink and travelled 28 seconds into the future. I hardly noticed this, as I was too busy swatting away the Dawn Frenches from my shoulderblade.

Then I swam 100 lengths of a 25 metre swimming pool in Essex.

"Angus Deayton, what are you doing here?" I asked. He didn't answer me because he was in the process of spraying the Atlantic ocean onto Genghis Khan's nostalgia. Helen of Troy watched the whole scene in confusion. Her leg fell off and married my face. I wasn't feeling too comfortable by this point.

Then Alpha Centauri kindly made everyone a cup of tea, except he put Hypnogogic hallucinations in mine, when I clearly asked for a West Nigerian orange-bellied Sparrow's reproductive cycle. Then Seb came back from the past, and spluttered "Tom!! You'll never guess what?"
"What?" I Fidel Castroed.
"Steve's back!" He shouted, pointing at a horseshoe crab's liver.
I don't know if he meant this metaphorically or not, but I definitely heard his friendly, familiar voice in the solid core of Neptune.

The End.

Or is it?

Ah ah Ah!! You didn't say the magic word!

Thank the good Speedo Lord for Aquablade Hydroshorts!!!

I swam 2 kilometres in 46 minutes this week!! An average of 23 minutes per kilometre, which puts me in group 2, one up from scenic swimmers!! The greatly reduced resistance compared with my old swimshorts mean that the Hydroshorts have improved my stroke!!! I feel like I position my body flatter in the water and time my leg and arm strokes more efficiently, because I no longer just fight against the drag, which is what I was doing before the advent of Aquablade technology!!!

When Seb and I did our weekly "Lung capacity improvement training" this week (which involves staying stationary underwater for as long as possible), we both achieved vastly improved lengths of time underwater compared with previous weeks. In fact, because we both did it at the same time, and we were the last people in the pool, the lifeguards came over to check that we weren't taking part in a collaborative suicide attempt. When I surfaced after a minute and 2 seconds, and Seb surfaced three seconds later, The lifeguard came over to us and said "I was getting worried about you!". We waited until we were in the changing room before we high-fived our success...

Anyway, here's a limerick I like:

As they fished his old plane from the sea,
The inventor just chortled with glee,
"I shall build" and he laughed,
"A submarine craft,
And perhaps it will fly, we shall see."

Now, some West African frogs have been known to spontaneously change sex from male to female in a single sex environment.

"If I jumped off a skyscraper into water, I think these pants would stay on" Seb told me once we were in the pool. What a strange thing to say, I thought, as I had only asked him what time it was.

Just kidding!! What had really prompted this outrageous statement was the ceremonious unveiling of my brand new Speedo Aquablade Hydroshorts, bought online with a 15% discount thanks to the link from www.kelloggs.co.uk. As I got into Seb's car when he picked me up from my house, I said "I've got a surprise for you, Seb. I'll have to show you in the changing rooms". He raised his eyebrows and replied (not for the first time, worryingly enough) "Is this one of those 'friendship changing' surprises?".

In the changing room, in the presence of the regular runners getting suited up for their weekly jog, I started a drumroll as I pulled my trousers down and revealed my awesome Speedo Aquablade Hydroshorts!!!! I've seen Seb looking more comfortable in a situation. In fact, it's probably the second most uncomfortable I've seen him. The first prize goes to the time I tried to film him saying hello in a high pitched voice, back on the 2nd May 2007.

If I had to sum up, in one composite word, how it felt to swim with my brand spanking new Speedo Aquablade Hydroshorts, compared to how it was swimming with my old, heavy air-pocketed swimshorts, I would say this: Glidestream. Wow! How did I ever get through the water before? I felt like I was flying, a glidestroke; I was a dolphin!! I swam a kilometre in half an hour, but I stopped twice to have a good old fashioned chat with Seb, so I could have done it quicker, thanks to my new Speedo Aquablade Hydroshorts!!

In other news, I stayed stationary underwater for a full 51 seconds!! An improvement at last! I also swam 25 metres (1 length) underwater, mainly thanks to my new Spe- Oh you get the picture. The only disadvantage attached to the aforementioned swimwear is that, due to the Aquablade technology, they look like they are pinstriped, and so make me look and feel like some sort of amateur boxer from the 1930's. Never mind. What with the conversation turning to the respective huggability of our trunks (see Seb's skyscraper quote, above), and a chance meeting with an old school friend on the way out, I can describe this session in the same way I describe Kellogg's Frosties. They're more than good. They're Grrreat!!

This post was sponsored by the male and female West African frogs at Kellogg's and Speedo.

The Blind man will see...

Welcome....to Jurassic Park.

Swimtrek Trip speed Groupings:

Speed Speed
Group min/km min/mile

1 18 29
2 19-25 30-40
3 >26 40


Last night, I timed my swim for the first time, because for the first time, I could see properly!!! I had contact lenses in, and Elton John style swimming goggles over my eyes. They're not pink, they're a sleek grey, but they make me look like Elton John. Nothing as cool as Jetbear's all black gear. Anyway, I swam a kilometre in 29 minutes. With a few brief "Stamina building" breaks, as Seb so creatively titled them, every so often. As you can see, from the above table, this puts me in group three, or, as they generously call it in the world of swimtrekking, the "Scenic group".

In the Swimtrek brochure, however, it lists the following four points as "Essential requirements in swimming distances of over 1km":

Ability to swim the distance
Ability to withstand the temperature
General conditions
Sustaining a consistent pace.

Using an indoor swimming pool for training, we can improve upon the first and last of these points. There isn't anything about speed here, though! As long as we can swim the distances involved at a constant pace, we will be both fine and dandy. Straight after last night's swim, I was exhausted!! My triceps, deltoids, biceps and pectorals (Oooh, who's been typing "Arm muscles" into google?) were all screaming at me "Why?! Aaaaaaggghhhh!!!!"

In other news, I stayed underwater for 49 seconds this week!

After the swim, Seb suggested that we maybe try some cardiovascular exercise using other sports as well, due to the fact that week upon week of blog entries about swimming up and down could become a tad tedious. It would be a BIG READ. Which, coincidentally, is the name of the only person we know for certain is following this blog (Hi Tom!!). We'll keep you posted about that. We will also eventually have blog entries devoted to finding a suitable charity or charites for which to raise money. Plus - we haven't even booked our swimtrek holiday!! All that and more to look forward to!!!!

In the meantime, I went home and ordered a kebab, in the whole Greek spirit of things. And drank some Californian Merlot. In the whole Greek spirit of things.

The Dangers of our Cause

And so, dear reader*, our story resumes, some seven days later, deep in the untamed wilds of civilisation ... (or suburban Essex, to be more precise).

Buoyed by a sense of purpose and imminent triumph, our two protagonists arrived at the swimming pool for week two of the most fiendish training regimen ever devised by man (40 lengths of a standard size swimming pool, at slow-to-very slow pace, interspersed with plenty of Grange Hill gags and frequent stoppages).

Unsure as to whether the human body could survive such a strenuous routine, our plucky brown hero was filled with doubt as he approached the water, and, his toes curled around the lip of the pool, he began to question all that he had previously held to be true (such as the relative merits of water-based puns, writing in the third person, and over-dramatising really quite mundane events).

However, these nagging thoughts were waved aside as he plunged into the water, with all the grace and elegance of a blind, three-legged, baby giraffe taking its first tentative steps over a pit of hot coals (too much?). The joy of swimming; that feeling of flight and weightlessness, swept over him and flooded his senses with a striking and vibrant clarity of feeling. Nothing could stop him in that brief moment of time, because nothing else registered.

Simply put, nothing else mattered.

Little did he know that he was completely and utterly wrong; that tragedy was about to strike.

During one of his (many) allotted ‘stamina-building’ stoppages, our failing brown hero was struck by a rising tide of pain in his left foot. Gazing down through the chlorinated water, the source of his discomfort soon became clear. His large toenail, which mere moments earlier had been a perfectly normal, well-rounded toenail, was now hanging loose, replete with extra edges and spring.

Finding this state of affairs to be more fascinating than alarming, our hero turned to his sidekick (aka Flotbear) and said with precise brevity, “Look at my toe”.

It was a request that would provide inspiration for tribal mask creators and old wives tales the world over, as his comrades face shifted into an an ever-changing montage of distorted shapes that managed to express befuddlement, horror, surprise and indifference in one fell swoop – an expression that Seb would later affectionately refer to as car-crash face.

Saluting his wounded comrade (and sinking as a consequence) Flotbear then asked the question that no-one had dared voice. “Do you think you should stop?”

But our hero wasn’t for stopping.

... That is until two lengths and many stifled sobs later, when he realised that stopping was probably a good idea.

* I think the singular use of this noun is appropriate. Hey Tom!

The Forecast is Fun...

So, the "honeymoon period", if I should use such a phrase when referring to the exploits of mine and Seb's, is over. One measly kilometre last week. Pah. This week, the real training was to begin. For real, I mean. Really.

"I'm going to take it easy this week; I've not been well over the weekend." said Seb as we got into his car. So entranced was I by his effortless use of a semicolon in his speech, I almost forgot to reply.

"Oh yeah... me too, I gave blood on monday, and I've just finished an eight hour shift"

So that, as they say, was that. This didn't mean we had to take it any less seriously! We could take it easy and maintain a professional attitude towards our training. After all, we've still got ages! With these thoughts in mind, we suited, booted, Flotted and Jetted ourselves up and headed into the pool.

"Okay, guess whether my feet are on the floor, or not on the floor!" Seb called excitedly as his head bobbed on the surface, like a Talking Cocoa Buoy. I have to be honest, it was quite easy to guess whether he was treading water or standing on the bottom of the pool, due to the fact that he only bobbed when treading water. Which gave me an idea when it came to my turn. Twice, Seb guessed "Not on the floor" correctly, as I was treading water. Then, I stood on the floor and made what I intended to be a convincing treading-water-bobbing motion. He took the bait.

"Not on the floor!" He said.

"No, Wrong!! I was standing on the floor!!!"

We had a good long laugh about that.

As we were swimming along later (a whole lane each, we had!), Seb gave me an invitation I hope never to hear from him again.

"Have a look at my toenail."

I did. I immediately wished I hadn't. The toenail on the big toe of his left foot was hanging off. By some impossible thread. Seb will probably be able to give you a more detailed account of my reaction, but as far as my recollection goes, I wore an empathetic, pained expression on my face and saluted him a lot. I think he deserved it. He valiantly tried to swim on, and regularly updated me with bulletins such as "It feels like the water is pushing it out at a ninety degree angle from my foot. It's not, but it feels like it."

I saluted him, and then sank, as I forgot that I was using my hands to keep me afloat.

Soon after this, we got out, ending what was perhaps the least intense of any training session that has taken place anywhere, ever. In the whole history of Life on Earth. Just ask David Attenborough; I'm sure he'll back me up. We experienced an important reminder tonight, though. A reminder to always have fun!

In the words of Spongebob:

"F is for friends who do stuff together,
U is for You and me,
N is for anywhere and anytime at all,
Down here in the deep blue sea!!"

Is there anything that Sponge can't do?

The first training session

Swimming isn't all that hard really, is it? Starting our training, as we are, almost a year prior to our trip must give us a good old head start when we first tentatively tiptoe into the ocean in our quest for fortune and glory. Well, that's the idea, anyway.

Wednesday 15th October 2008

Seb picked me up from my house and drove us to the Brentwood centre, for the start of the provocatively labelled adults only swim session. After parking up and marvelling at how much the trees had grown since I was last here, we headed on in and paid our £3.60. Seb extolled the virtues of his new swimming gear (goggles, a cool black hat and all!) straight from Fenton's, while I listened, silently bristling at the fact that he had claimed the cooler of the two nicknames for himself.

"Are you ready, Jetsam?" I asked.

"Yep. Are you ready, Flotsam?"

"......There is no ready...." I replied. There it was. The official start of the use of our new nicknames. At times like this, I find the best thing to do is quote from the movie Jumanji.

"Jumanji" I said under my breath, walked out of the changing room and dived into the pool.

As always, in the first few seconds after being plunged into a large body of water, I felt free. Something about swimming underwater seems to eliminate any thought about the stressful business of living life on land. If this is how I feel in a swimming pool in Essex, imagine what it'll be like on the open ocean!

Shortly, I fell into the delectable stupor of repetitive exercise. Length after length after length, time eventually lost its impact on my consciousness. Seb appeared standing on the side of the pool; he had come out of the changing room after me, no doubt admiring all his brand new swimming gear. "How many have you done?" He asked. I caught my breath. "Five." He got into the pool. I had to admit, he did look cool in his cool black swimming cap and cool goggles. I said as much to him. "You look cool!" He seemed pleased with my compliment, but I'm so very short-sighted, he could have been crying.

Anyway, back to the swim. I was still full of Chilli con carne and the odd drop of red wine, as I had dangerously neglected to wait for an hour and a half after eating before swimming (Extreme!!). As such, I think my progress was slower than usual. I also had to put in a lot more effort than I would have had to on a slightly less heavy stomach. After a while, I started to think some strange thoughts, of the type only allowed to surface during prolonged exercise.

"I bet I could eat an onion in less than 43 seconds."

"That woman looks like a garden centre."

I finally finished 40 lengths, which, at this pool, amount to a kilometre. I had been swimming breaststroke all the while, except for the last length when I swam flat out front crawl. Partly by necessity, as halfway through, Seb and I had been joined by a serious swimmer. Seb had sped up later on and drawn level with me, to say "I'd hurry up if I were you!" I looked over the shoulder, to see a velociraptor with a swimming cap on speeding towards us. This wil probably be the first of many times I'll say this, but I felt like I was in Jurassic park.

Once the kilometre was over, we swam lazily backwards and forwards to warm down the muscles. Very important! Then we timed each other while we alternatively held our breath underwater to test our respective lung capacities. After I had removed the Grange Hill theme tune from my mind, I achieved 47 seconds underwater. I'm excited to see how this will improve over the next 11 months.

Influenced as I was by an exercise-induced endorphin cocktail in my brain, I felt happy, and optimistic, not only about this adventure, but about about every aspect of my life at the moment.

Exercise can do some nice things to you.

Once upon a time...

Like all good adventures, the one about to be embarked upon by Sir Tom Jones and Lord Seb Urquhart* Clark started in the pub. The conversation was as follows:

Tom: I say, my good man, I have recently felt a significant lack of vitality in my brain cells.

Seb: What you, nay, what we both need, old bean, is an adventure!

Tom: Splendid idea, Bubblebear!

Seb: But where shall we find such an adventure to invigorate and replenish the soul, as it were?

Tom: Why don't we...Go for a swim?

The rest will turn out to be history.

Actually, it happened nothing like this. An article in the London paper drew my attention to a company called Swimtrek, which organises holidays based around...well, swimming and trekking. I showed this to my two good friends, Mike and Seb, and eventually, we formulated a plan to arrange a swimtrek holiday for which we could train and prepare. Then one day, the idea to raise money for charity whilst "swimtrekking" popped into our hivemind. And so the planning was under way.

High up on the agenda was a blog, that we could all contribute to over the months leading up to our adventure, tracking our progress with training and raising money, etc. In our early communications, Seb and I were sorry to learn that Mike would not be able to join us on our adventure this time, due to problems with his shoulder not staying where shoulders should stay (By this I mean it always dislocates, not that it pops off to Tibet once a fortnight). So, our company down to two in number, we pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and dive in.

The blog will be colour coded, so you know who is saying what. Seb will write his posts in blue, as is the fashion these days. Tom, however, will write in green. From now on, I mean. We hope you enjoy following our adventure. Keep it ex-stream**!!

Tom \'''/

*Not his real middle name.
** I was assured, before we first met to plan our swimtrek, that the water based puns would end after this one. They didn't. In fact, the first night of planning in the pub was almost nothing but water based puns, coming from both of us.