A run-in with the President

So, I was running in Regent’s Park and who should be in my way but Barack Obama?! I know, I too was surprised! Wasn’t he supposed to be playing ping pong with Pippa Middleton, or barbecuing Nick Clegg over the cabinet table? Turns out he was in the Park all along, blocking off large parts of my usual route with his white tape, metal fences and armoured police with enormous terrifying guns.

I was going to take a photo to record the cause for my outrage, but then I looked at all the guns and thought, maybe not.  Even from far away, the policemen still seemed to have their sights trained on me. Were they impressed by my running stylings? I don’t think so. They meant business. And not that kind of business.

My run-in with the President, or at least, my run-in with his temporary residence in London, wasn’t the only excitement of last night’s 7.5 miler from work to home via the Park. Nearing home in a particularly urban part of Archway I witnessed what I can only describe as an Ice Cream Van drug deal. I may have been watching too many episodes of the Shield, but I swear that a group of youths were working as go-betweens between a Mr Whippy and dark-windowed saloon, and that what was changing hands did not involve any strawberry sauce.

This idea is gold, I was thinking. The plaintive siren call of ‘Greensleeves’ as the van approaches your street. The panicky search for mum’s purse to steal the necessary cash. The purchase of the two-ball speedball, the Choc-Ice, the Freeze Pop…