with Mark Bowness


If I pull this off I think I'll just sit down with a nice


cold pint. beyond belief


Poverty trap? Yes please


I


MISSION IMPOSSIBLE


Personal trainer Sam Boatwright is attempting an extraordinary feat, with his incredible plan to run fifty miles a day for fifty consecutive days. beyond reports.


Pictures by: Paula Solloway P


eople do all kinds of crazy things in order to raise money for charity. Some sit in a bath full of baked beans. Others leap out of a plane. But Silsden man Sam Boatwright has got more ambitious


plans. Amazingly, he's about to embark on a mammoth journey that will see him run 2,500 miles around the UK in just fifty days – an incredible challenge that has never been done before. Many have argued that it's an impossible endeavour, as it


requires the running of nearly two marathons a day for fifty days straight. But Sam is quietly confident he can prove the doubters wrong. “People have said I'm crazy,” says the 29-year-old, “but I


know I'm mentally tough and I've already gone way past the marathon distance a few times. People say it's impossible, but if you get the preparation right you've got a chance. “I've already done a few days of it in training, and my legs


feel fine. The distance I need to cover each day is roughly Skipton High Street to the centre of Manchester – which sounds a long way – but you can walk fifty miles in twelve


54 beyond


hours. It's more about mental strength than anything else.” Sam, who works as a gym


instructor and personal trainer at Escape Health Club in Skipton, is aiming to raise £4,000 for Help For Heroes. Partly inspired by Eddie Izzard's achievement of running 43 marathons in 51 days, he decided he wanted to do something far beyond your ordinary fund-raising challenge. “I decided about a year ago that


I wanted to do something to push myself to the absolute limit,” he explains. “I looked at climbing mountains, but quite a lot of people have gone up Kilimanjaro haven't they? I thought: “If Chris Moyles can climb Kilimanjaro, it can't be that difficult'! But no one's done this before.” If Sam achieves his incredible


feat he'll be straight into the record books. However, he's got no plans for extravagant or glitzy celebrations should he succeed. “If I pull this off I think I'll just


sit down with a nice cold pint,” he laughs. “I haven't had a drink for five months already!”


Sam's run begins in Blackpool on April 6th. For more information on the challenge, plus up-to-date reports and details on how you can make a donation, visit www.epicrun.co.uk


see the Guardian-loving grievance-mongers are out in force again, getting themselves in a flap about Government plans to stop


families receiving more than £26,000 a year in benefits Do me a favour will you? They’ve been bleating on hysterically about


the cruelty of this callous measure and claim that restricting benefits to the level of the average household income was 'plunging people into poverty'. It would appear they have a problem with dole-scrounging families being forced to move out of their palatial homes and give up their free cars and allowances and live like the rest of us. How does giving someone £500 a week, tax


free, every week, for doing nothing amount to falling into poverty? If that is the case then there are millions


P


eter Andre has announced he is ready to quit showbiz because he fears he is not cut out for it. Blimey, well done Sherlock. I’m not cut out to perform open heart surgery but it didn’t take me 25 bleedin’ years to work out.


of people in Britain, particularly pensioners on fixed incomes and parents on low wages struggling to feed their families, who would just love to be 'plunged into poverty'. Twenty-six grand is not a fortune but it is the


average household income after tax in Britain. To pull that in you have to earn around £35,000 a year gross. There are plenty of people in all kinds of


work today who can only dream of picking up that sort of money but rather than moaning they get on with it and cut their cloth accordingly.


Most of them would love to have a city


centre penthouse apartment with a 54 inch flat screen and a car parked outside. Instead they settle for a two bed terrace with


a mortgage hanging round their neck and shake their heads at the world we live in.


T


he movie A Dangerous Method features Keira Knightley in all manner of kinky poses getting spanked across the knee of her psychiatrist. However it is the intense portrayal of the


deteriorating relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung which explores the Freudian techniques to treat Russian-Jewish psychiatric patient Sabina Spielrein and the complex issues surrounding such pysco-analysis that is the most thought-provoking aspect of the film. And the reason, of course, why I have seen the film seven times so far. Have nearly grasped it.


ooking for a celebrity chef fish recipe the other day, I stumbled across the web site of shop-lifting hobgoblin Anthony Worall Thompson.


L


And sure enough there was a lovely one for Oriental Crispy Mackerel which lured me in with the headline...Low in fat, high on taste. What's the catch? Probably about three months inside for sticking some Tesco fresh fish up your jumper and running for the door, I would imagine.


the World that no longer exist. More than 13% claim to have seen the Colossus of Rhodes which was destroyed in 226BC while 5% swear they have been to the statue of Zeus which is pretty good going as it was torched to the ground in the 3rd Century. History lessons hey? What the hell do they


A


teach kids these days? And on that note I’m taking a well-earned break, to Narnia. See you on the other side.


beyond belief 55


new survey reports a quarter of Brits claim to have visited ancient Wonders of


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