Eddie Izzard

I'm not a big fan of celebrities doing silly self-promotional stunts and charging us for the privilege. In an increasingly unequal society the sight of Dragon's Den's Peter Jones stepping down off his private jet to tax the poor is pretty unedifying.

I'm forgiving Eddie Izzard though (my favourite stand-up of all time, and strangely the only comedian I can think of who can't act).

Because plainly the run had little to do with raising money for charity - He'd already run about 12 marathons before anyone noticed he was running at all - and more to do with him being completely bonkers.

Because the route seemed to be planned using the AA's Great Britain's Busiest Roads Atlas - expertly left open at "Lorries". He was much shorter odds in my book to be run over than he was to complete his challenge. The Hangar Lane Gyratory is for cars Eddie. Cars.

Because he runs much like me. A fat-thighed, stomach-out shuffle. He just kept it up for 1092 miles further. Fuelled by ice cream.

Because that rather puts into perspective half of Shropshire's current obsession with running a half-marathon.

And because he may have raised the bar sufficiently so that we don't have to put up with the Christine Bleakley's of the world blubbing about hanging off the back of a boat for half an hour, when she could have just asked her boyfriend and his mates for the cash and saved us all a lot of time and money...



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