That was the week that was

Our brethren across the pond have a habit of borrowing successful entertainment formulae from British telly. "Strictly Come Dancing" has become the altogether more prosaically named "Dancing with the Stars", "Till Death Do Us Part" became "All in the Family" (spotting a pattern of prosaiety here?), "Fawlty Towers" was remade as "Chateau Snavely" (not very prosaic), "Amanda's" and "Payne" (that's more like it). "The Office", already sufficiently prosaic, became, err, "The Office".

Bucking the trend of dumbing down the title was That Was The Week That Was (or TW3), which against the odds kept its name on both sides of the pond. The original British version is more famous, and gave us David Frost, Millicent Martin and the late, great Willie Rushton.

It also gave me a title for this blog. Because it's been a busy week. First up was the launch of the prize draw, which is going strong. A week in, I've sold 80 tickets and they're going fast... don't forget to buy one.

Secondly, the date of the karting evening was finally upon us. 16 teams from Accenture and beyond descended on Sandown Park to hare around the track. Conditions ranged from "damp and slippery" to "bucketing down" but the drivers rose to the occasion and threw their karts around the track, powersliding like the Formula 1 drivers of yesteryear. We might have given Lewis Hamilton more of a run for his money than Fernando Alonso did 36 hours later.

Most importantly, we look set to raise at least £1400 for VSO from that one event.

Finally, I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I've joined a gym. This week, I had my induction. A young lady asked me questions about my current diet and exercise (apparently I drink an impressive amount of water), tested my flexibility (which in my hamstrings is dire. But then I knew that) and told me which exercises to do.

All in all, I've been to the gym three times and done three 40 minute sessions in the hypoxic chamber. And in fact, it's not been that hard. Which brings me on to my second TW3 reference of the blog.

The American version of TW3 is less well known than the British one. But it gave us Tom Lehrer.

There are, broadly, two kinds of people in the world. There are those that have never heard Tom Lehrer, and there are his fans. And yet finding an adequate way to describe what he did is tricky. Satirical singer-songwriter is the factually accurate choice but fails miserably to capture how sharp, relevant and painfully funny his songs are more than 40 years after they were written. "Like a funny Richard Stilgoe" is simply hopeless.

And what has all this got to do with this week's Everest Base Camp preparations? Well, one of Lehrer's best songs is Pollution, written about smog in California in the 60s, but frighteningly accurate about modern-day Mexico City or Beijing.

Or London. Pollution (sung as a cheery calypso) opens "If you come to American city / Sure to find it very pretty / Just two things of which you must beware: / Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air" and later goes on to advise "Pollution / Pollution / Wear a gas mask and a veil / Then you can breathe long as you don't inhale."

It didn't take me long cycling in London to realise that naked inhalation of what passes for air in rush hour is not such a great plan, and wearing a cycle mask (if not actually a veil) is A Good Thing. And and interesting side effect of a mask is that it's basically designed to restrict airflow. So I already do most of my exercise with less oxygen than normal - which might explain why I'm finding that the hypoxic chamber holds no fears for me.

Except one. You may have detected a touch of hubris in those last paragraphs. As you might expect, Nemesis is hot on my heels, this time in the guise of a torture instrument that even Torquemada dared not use.

I am, of course, referring to the Concept II Rowing Ergometer. A machine so brutal that it regularly reduces grown men, even Olympians like Steve Redgrave, to quivering lumps of jelly. My inductress decided that this should be my particular vehicle for cardiovascular fitness. It's a beast of a machine because it leaves you nowhere to hide: you work all the major muscle groups with every stroke. And after a few strokes, you really feel it, especially in a hypoxic chamber.

The upside of that, though, is that it's starting to show in my fitness levels. I was back on my bike for the first time in a week today, and it was much easier both to pedal and to keep my heart rate to a sensible level. I can only assume I'm doing something right.

By next week, we should know for sure. I'm off for our group's specialist training weekend in North Wales on Friday...

At last... my VSO Prize Draw

I've been hinting about this for a few weeks now, and I'm finally ready to launch. There will only be 250 tickets so each ticket has a good chance to win one of four great prizes:

- A table for 4 at Ascot
- A custom-made corset
- A case of vintage Claret
- A weeks' accommodation for 4 in Spain.

Tickets are £10 each. To reserve your numbers, just get in touch.

Jason

Here are the full details of the prizes:

Full hospitality for four people in the Parade Ring Restaurant at Ascot for a raceday of your choice (subject to availability and excluding Royal Ascot).
The Parade Ring Restaurant is the jewel in the crown of the new Grandstand and the finest restaurant at any racecourse in the world. It overlooks the 8,000 capacity Parade Ring to the south, with only a short walk across the galleria to reserved seating opposite the Winning Post.
The prize package includes:
• Exclusive table for the day
• Reserved race viewing area
• Premier Admission
• Car park label (one between two)
• Tea, coffee and biscuits on arrival
• Canapé and champagne reception
• Four course luncheon
• Cellar Master's selected wines
• Port or brandy with coffee
• Full afternoon tea
• Complimentary bar (excluding champagne)
• Ascot Television
• Totepool betting facility
• Racecard
• Racing papers
Approximate value of prize: £1000

A custom corset designed for you and made to your specifications.
Laura Whyte has worked as a costumière and corset maker on many theatre productions throughout the UK, which she combines with her own clothing label as a corsetiere. Laura works with her clients through a design process to incorporate their own ideas and explore styles that suit, so that every custom-made, handcrafted garment is unique to the wearer and fits like a glove. Whether designed for a special occasion, evening wear, or to be worn out with jeans, being laced into a corset will instantly reduce the waist size and make any woman look and feel stunning, sexy and sophisticated.

Approximate value of prize: £250

A case of Château Charmail, 2003.
A blend of 48% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot. Wine guru Robert Parker describes the 2003 vintage as "impeccably made", and scored it 88-90 (very good to outstanding). It offers a blue/purple color, medium to full body, and abundant notes of blueberries, creme de cassis liqueur, smoke, barbecue spices, and vanillin. The wine is fleshy, opulently textured and medium to full-bodied. Drinking now-2013.

Approximate value of prize: £200

A week for up to four people in a spacious apartment in Spain's Costa Blanca region.
The apartment is 1 hour's drive from Alicante airport, 40 minutes from San Xavier (Murcia) airport, close to Villamartin, with three golf courses within easy reach. It is about 15-20 minutes’ drive from the Mediterranean on a large (but currently quiet) development. There is a bar/restaurant within 15 minutes’ walk and several bars and restaurants in San Miguel de Salinas and Villamartin Plaza which are each about 10 minutes’ drive away. The accommodation available comprises 1 double bedroom with en-suite, 1 twin bedded room with adjacent shower and toilet; Living room with TV (Spanish, British terrestrial and some Sky channels) DVD/CD player; fully equipped kitchen, terrace area for meals, solarium with sunbathing equipment and use of the communal swimming pool. The prize is accommodation-only but cheap flights are easily available.

The apartment is a family holiday home rather than rental accommodation and the week on offer will be agreed between the winner and the owners but could be during school holidays.

Approximate value of prize: £150

Back in the saddle

Just when it was all going so well... something goes wrong. We all know the feeling; it's part of human nature. The ancient Greeks knew it so well that they named it for us: Hubris and Nemesis. Hubris (or excessive pride) was actually a crime in ancient Athens. And just in case the law didn't get you, Nemesis was the goddess of retribution. Her name is related to neimeis - a helpful verb meaning "to give what is due." We'll come back to that later.

I was feeling pretty good after my last blog. You might even have accused me of hubris (albeit not in the criminal sense of violating a corpse or humiliating a defeated enemy).

But the best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley. First, I got a cold. I've learned that trying to cycle through minor ailments tends to make them worse, so I took a couple of days off from the bike. Then, the cold settled on my chest with the result that every attempt at physical exertion brought on a coughing fit. Cycling in London is dicey at the best of times, but cycling with a cough that could pitch you into the path of every passing bendybus, deathwish motorcycle courier or irritable trucker exceeds even my well-developed affinity for risk.

So, I stopped all training until I could be reasonably certain of being able to ride in a straight line. Which point came on the evening of the tube strike. Synchronicity, eh? The next morning, I strode happily down to the garage, confident of getting to work on time while all around me struggled in on the remains of London's public transport network.

Of course, piling hubris on hubris in this way invites nemesis as surely as picking Joe Worsley at 7 invites derision. It was almost inevitable that she would have it in for me. But her punishment was, I thought, overly harsh: some [expletive deleted] had nicked my bike, somehow getting into our garage and using a plank to lever the U-lock off. To mix my religious metaphors, is my karma really that bad? Is having my bike nicked really "what is due" for being a bit smug? Wouldn't a puncture would have sufficed?

Actually, as it turned out, not even bicycle theft was enough to satisfy She Who From Whom There Is No Escape (or Adrasteia, as the Greeks more succinctly put it). Oh no. I didn't have the option of working from home that day, because I had arranged an important meeting with my boss. So I took the bus in. 3 hours later I got to the office, only to find that the meeting had been cancelled. Ouch!

Fortunately, my insurance covered it (the stolen bike, not the bus journey and cancelled meeting), and I now have a shiny (well, chic matte black) new bike. I've managed about 60 miles this week. Unfortunately, it seems that in the 4 years since I last bought a bike, suspension has gone out of fashion on road bikes. The new machine is much more responsive than the old one - I can feel the thickness of the paint on road markings - but it isn't half hard on my backside.

I'm also experimenting with joining a gym. Of course, the original reason I got the bike is that I'm not disciplined enough to go to a gym regularly... but one of the Everest Base Camp party has negotiated a fantastic rate with The Thirdspace in Soho, which is a gym with a difference.

The main attraction is that it has a hypoxic chamber - a room where they keep the oxygen at a level equivalent to about 3000m (the height at which our trek starts). Fantastic for boosting the cardiovascular capacity. So, asks I, on my introductory tour, do I have to book my sessions? No, comes the reply, hardly anyone uses it. My theory is that they've offered us such a good deal so that other gym users will see us training and get interested in using the room.

Meanwhile, fundraising continues to go well. Huge thanks go to my son Gregor's nursery (Gwendolen House Nursery in Putney) for donating the proceeds of their summer fete - over £1,000 - to VSO, and to the wannabe Schumachers, Alonsos and Hamiltons who have signed up for my karting event on Friday 28th (which is also set to raise around £1,000).

Next up on the fundraising front is my prize draw. We've got four great prizes:
- A table for 4 in the top hospitality suite at Ascot, for any event except Royal Ascot itself
- A case of vintage claret
- A corset - custom made to your own design (note to blokes: you may not get this, but I've had an enthusiastic response from the other half of the population. Think Christmas present...)
- A week's accommodation in a luxury villa in Spain

Tickets are £10 each, and I'm only selling 250, so you've a good chance to win. Get in touch to reserve your numbers.

Training begins

Walking. Easy, right? You pick one foot up and put it in front of the other. Why, I walked all the way down to the shops the other day, can't see what all the fuss is about.

Except the funny thing is, you put one foot in front of the other enough times and things start to accumulate. Bits of muscle you didn't know you had seize up, the friction on your toes has the cumulative effect of brushing them repeatedly against a brick covered in sandpaper, and you develop chafing in places other activities cannot reach. The only cure for it is training. So today was my first training walk.

You might think I'd begin with a nice gentle stroll through easy terrain to get used to it. No sir, for I am made of sterner stuff. I took as my inspiration the mystical monks of the High Himalaya and chose for my first training walk a pilgrimage to a legendary temple where highly skilled acolytes practice their finely honed pugilistic skills.

Yes, my first challenge was the tricky ascent of Twickenham Stadium, via the arduous and little used Richmond Park col. Without, I should add, supplementary oxygen. And so it was, on a sunny august morning, I bid my loved ones farewell and set out along the Upper Richmond Road.

The Ur-Road (as it is known in ancient scripts) is one of the great commerce routes of Southern England, daily traversed by caravans of merchants trafficking rare goods from east to west and west to east, often stuck behind caravans of holidaymakers trafficking screaming kids from... well, you get the picture. For many years, the very idea of the Ur-Road was a joke among North Londoners, who believed that no serious commercial traffic could negotiate the narrow passes and treacherous obstacles. Yet here I was, traversing the very route that Marco Polo might have taken if he'd decided to go to Chiswick instead of China.

At least until I turned off up Sheen Lane. A short, technical climb past the dangerous LTA, with its ever-present threat of falling tennis balls, and I was at the Sheen Gate. Often ignored in travel guides in favour of other, more famous (and, let's be honest, bigger) portals such as Tiananmen Gate, this wrought iron monstrosity stands still as a reminder of Victorian England, when the British Empire covered so much of the world that the sun never set upon it. Nobody had pointed out to them that they could achieve the same effect with less administrative burden if they just claimed the North and South Poles. Or maybe that's what Captain Scott was trying to do.

Here, my map suggested a direct route, cutting a bold segment across the park from South East to North North West. But I, I took the one less travelled by. Has it made all the difference? That's for me and Robert Frost to know, and you to find out. If butterfly can flap its wings and change the course of a hurricane, I think the chances for a bloke out walking are far higher. I'm much bigger than a butterfly. All I can tell you is that my feet didn't start hurting until I reached the end of the park.

From there, it was just a quick stride down through the outskirts of Richmond and into Twickenham, with a little detour to St Margarets (one of those places the train stops at and you think "What a pretty name for a station. I bet it's lovely." It's always disappointing to find out that, these days, it's just another bit of suburbia). Of course, I say it's a quick stride, but by this point that old cumulative effect thing (remember the top of the blog? Back when you were young and all this were fields?) had kicked in and it was more a medium-pace trudge-shuffle-wince.

Once there, I met my family for the traditional rugby-day tradition of a curry. It's also quite appropriate training for a trek in Nepal, of course. Except I picked the one restaurant in Twickenham that serves Keralan cuisine, from southern India. But I don't care, because it's a nice restaurant, child-friendly and we like it. It's called Pallavi, if you want to look it up.

After that, we made our way to the mystical temple that is Twickenham Stadium. We only went as far as the metaphorical base camp of the Lower North Tier (under 5s like my son are not allowed in the higher tiers. Presumably the medical research of taking them that high has not been completed, though I've heard rumours that the doctor who's taking his kids to Everest this summer is planning that for his next trick).

Finally, we settled in to watch the real experts do their stuff. But despite valiant efforts, the Welsh team were unable to scale the mountainous peak that is Simon Shaw and were eventually buried under an avalanche of tries. No-one ever said this stuff was safe.

Which, oddly enough, was a thought that had come back to haunt me when I finally got home and inspected my feet. I'd walked about 8 miles - not, if I'm honest, that far - but I'd been going quite quickly, under two hours for the lot. The little whoosh of hot, moist air that greeted me when I unlaced my boots was worryingly reminiscent of the one you get when you open one of those trendy "steam it in the microwave" ready meals. I was half expecting to find some lightly cooked quinoa in my socks. Maybe next time I'll go more slowly.

So overall, how am I bearing up? Sore enough that I wince when I climb the stairs, stiff enough that I walk bow-legged like a John Wayne impersonator, but nothing that won't fade by the end of the weekend. Training has started, and it was OK.

Training... after a fashion

This week was a breakthrough week for my training. Sort of.

I've been getting back into the cycling groove (8.5 miles each way to and from work, I'm trying to do 2-3 days a week). It's actually quite hard to combine cycling for training and commuting purposes. In London, you quickly reach a level where the main influence on your journey time is how many red lights you stop at. So the temptation to sprint when you're approaching a light that you know might change is very high, and there are a lot of lights on my route. Which means I tend to spend a lot of time with my heart rate well above the optimal training zone.

It's stupid, because if I could be disciplined enough to ride within my target rate for a couple of weeks, I would very soon be fit enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But I don't, so it takes longer to get fit.

Nevertheless, there's a magic point where you find you can go quite hard and still keep the heart rate in more or less the right spot, and I've hit that point this week. Now I just need to keep going.

I've also been doing some exercises as part of my morning routine - press ups, crunches, various variations on "the plank" and - crucially - pull ups (we have a stairwell that is just the right height). It was seeing these latter efforts that caused 2-year-old son-and-heir Gregor to declare that I was "like Sportacus."

If you don't own a toddler yourself, this may not mean that much to you. Your reaction might be "Jason can't type and why the heck is he letting his two-year old watch Kirk Douglas epics with homoerotic subtexts?"

If you do own a toddler, you might nod sagely. Sportacus is the hero of Lazy Town, a muscular exercise-addict with an Icelandic accent, a moustache to shame Terry-Thomas and a uniform that looks like Biggles reimagined by Steps. Lazy Town, with its wholesome promotion of teamwork, sharing and fanatical devotion to aerobics, was the most popular children's TV programme in the US of A last year (it was in the newspaper, so it must be true). Sportacus is, for toddlers bewildered by the sudden disappearance of Greg Wiggle (which is a whole other story), the hero du jour. For a dad to be described as "like Sportacus" by his offspring is A Big Thing.

In my case, the comparison is, of course, completely inaccurate. But delusional is different from delightful, whatever Neil Gaiman thinks.

And no, I still haven't put on my walking boots.

On a scale of 1-10 for likelihood, how highly would you rate "Jason Whyte - International Athlete"?

No, me neither. But strangely enough, I find myself carrying that label, albeit somewhat uneasily. Y'see, there's this thing called the Microsoft UK Challengers' Trophy, which bills itself as the UK's top corporate adventure race. And I was in it, sort of, and qualified, sort of, for the international version (no sort of in that - it is definitely international. I'm going to need a passport and everything).

So, you may be wondering, what's an adventure race? If, like me, you're a reformed boy scout, I can explain it easily by saying it's a very big wide game. But it appears that the scouting movement was in deep recruiting trouble even when I were a lad, because I only ever get blank looks for that explanation. So I'll say it's like orienteering but with more complicated strategy and some other bits mixed in, like cycling, canoeing, pub quiz and GCSE woodwork.

Anyway, teams from businesses (and bits of government) all over the UK compete for this thing (which this time was held in Sheffield. In late June. It was, to say the least, wet), including Accenture. Now your typical team member is the sort of all-round sportsperson who not only knows that a 10k run is something other than a very, very small .exe file, but can complete one in less than 45 minutes. But there's this bit in the rules that says each team needs a Senior Executive to turn up for the last few stages of the contest. And, largely by virtue of no-one else being available to support the auspiciously-numbered Team 13, I was that Senior Executive.

A moment or two of seriousness, now: the Trophy is a really great event, and this year raised half a million quid for the NSPCC. And Accenture Team 13 are simply awesome; two tough refereeing calls left them well down the pack at the half-way stage, but they came back strongly in the second half, recording 4th, 12th, 4th and 2nd place finishes in the remaining stages to finish 7th overall.

I can't claim much credit for this. While they were posting their first stunning comeback result, I was in the queue to register. I just escaped the queue in time for the next phase, which turned out to be trivia and sudoku. I think I may have answered 3 questions. They graciously let me do the strategy for the next phase, so I didn't feel so useless, and the rules required me to make a short jog to collect one of the objectives. Which amply demonstrated why it was better not to use me in the final phase, which had lots of running.

Anyway 7th (out of 122) is a pretty good result, though it wouldn't ordinarily be enough to qualify for the world event. We were 4th in the mixed category, and only the top 3 qualify. But one of the qualifying women's teams wasn't high enough up to qualify, so the place went to the next best placed team. Which was us.

What does this mean for my VSO trek? I'm still trying to work it out myself. It's another incentive to train, at the very least.

Anyway, we're off to the World Challenger event this December. Perhaps having learned their lesson from Sheffield, the organisers have decided to run it from a town on the French Riviera. Which will be, as Mark Williams once said on the Fast Show, Nice.

Welcome to Jason's Everest Base Camp Blog

Dear all -

If you're reading this, then my cunning advertising strategy has worked. I've left a number of cryptic (and not so cryptic) messages about my upcoming (and indeed upgoing) trek to Everest Base Camp. You may have seen my Facebook status, one of the posters I've left at work and at Gregor's nursery or one of the emails I've sent out.

Lots of you have asked about it (and thanks for your interest), and some of you have already sponsored me (I'm off to a great start - thanks! I still have a way to go, though...), so it seems the right time to let you know a bit more about it.

On 28th February next year (that's 2008), I'm going to fly out to Kathmandu with a bunch of other Accenture types, and begin a 20-day trek that will take us from Chumoa (at 2743m) to Everest Base Camp (5300m) and Kala Pattar (5545m - where you get the classic view of Everest) and back again.

For me, it's a lifetime ambition. I've always wanted to see Everest up close (in my sillier moments, I have been heard to say that I'd like to try to climb right to the top... but Leah, entirely correctly, would never let me do it), and when the email announcing the trek came round it took me all of 30 seconds to decide to go for it. Which is a good thing, because places filled up within minutes.

The trek is part of Accenture's ongoing relationship with Voluntary Service Overseas, which has built since 1999 to the point where we have sent over 118 volunteers to support VSO's projects in some of the poorest countries in the world. VSO today is much more than the "student gap year" organisation you might have encountered years ago. Today, over 2000 skilled volunteers, whose average age is 38, work in 30 countries to address gaps in education, governance, healthcare, securing livelihoods and the response to the threat of HIV/AIDS.

They give their time for free, but there is still a cost to support them on their assignments. It costs VSO around £5.25 per day for each volunteer.

Of course, not everyone can volunteer for VSO. Some of us have mortgages in South West London and need to spend most of our time working to pay them off. But we can still help by fundraising. Accenture has raised money for VSO in several ways over the years, but last year saw the advent of a new approach that has really captured people's imaginations. 25 of our people trekked to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, raising over £100,000 between them. That's enough to support over 50 volunteers for a whole year.

A second Kili trek is on its way at the moment. Fellow Monty Python fans may be relieved to hear that it is not searching for last year's expedition, which did not attempt to build a bridge between the two peaks of Mt Kilimanjaro (and which did return safely).

And then there's the Everest trip. I couldn't resist, and when I read about what VSO is doing in Nepal, I was even more determined to go. Nepal has a population of 24m, one third of whom live below the poverty line. Think about that for a moment. If they lived in Britain, one in every eight people you met would be too poor to feed themselves properly. Nearly one in two children suffers from malnutrition. If that sounds shocking, it should be.

The key to changing one statistic is another one: literacy. Adult literacy in Nepal is only 56%. Nepal's people have little hope of pulling themselves out of poverty without decent education, and this has been a key focus of VSO's work. And it is working - Nepal has 28,000 schools (from having none fifty years ago) and literacy at the primary school level is now over 70%. But that in itself raises new challenges: class sizes of 90 (and you thought your local state school had problems) and a chronic shortage of textbooks and other teaching aids.

This trek should be a life-changing event for me. With your help it should be a life-changing - perhaps a life-saving - event for the people of Nepal as well.

Often with these events some of the fundraising goes towards the cost of the trek. But that's not fair - I would have paid to do this sooner or later, and I can afford it (even after my mortgage in South West London). So I have told VSO that I will personally pay the total cost of the trek.

It means that any sponsorship you give me (plus 28% in gift aid from the Government, if you're a UK taxpayer) will go straight to VSO and their work in Nepal. And there's a benefit for you too, on top of the warm feeling of having done the right thing and the vague hope that I might fall off a mountain. If you're a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim the rest of the tax relief on your donation through your tax return, and offset it against your tax bill. I've tried it, and it works.

Please do give generously. It's a great cause. I've set a target of £3,600, which (with gift aid) would fund two volunteers for a year. My deadline for reaching it is the end of November 2007.

You can donate via www.justgiving.com/jasonwhyte, or use VSO's donation form at http://www.vso.org.uk/Images/vso_donate_form_tcm8-705.pdf - but please make sure to put the following on the back of your cheque: “Jason Whyte / 262053 / Accenture Everest Base Camp Challenge 2008” so that they know it's towards

Many thanks - and keep posted (pun intended) for updates on my training and fundraising. I'm trying to organise a charity go-karting event for later in the year (if you're interested - let me know) and perhaps even a charity ball.

All the best,

Jason