An Irishman's Diary

I SEE that English all-rounder Andrew Flintoff is to quit test cricket after the current series with Australia because, according to reports, “his body told him to”. Expanding on a decision to concentrate instead on becoming the world’s best one-day player, Flintoff explained: “My body has been telling me things and Im starting to listen.”

The exchanges so far seem to have been dominated by his knees and ankles, which suffered a string of injuries in recent times and are understandably upset.

Less clear from reports is whether his body has had the bad taste to mention the enormous rewards one-day cricketers can make these days, especially in India, where Flintoff is due to earn $1.5 million next season.

Either way, there is a lot of this about of late. Everywhere now, one hears of celebrities who have been listening to their bodies and are acting – often slavishly – on the bodies recommendations.

If it’s not an actress whose insides have ordered her to start a family, it’s a football star who, while his heart will always be in Manchester, has reluctantly agreed with the rest of his organs, which favoured a multi-million move to Madrid.

Mostly, though, the advice relates to health issues: the need to give up smoking, become a vegetarian, etc.

It must be because of my repressive Catholic education that I find the latter-day autonomy of the body odd. I tend not to listen to my own much, unless there’s no choice: like that night at the theatre last year when, during a hushed moment on stage, my stomach started telling me about certain digestive problems it was experiencing.

Even then, I was a lot less interested in what it was saying than in whether the rest of the audience could hear it too.

That the body has emerged in our times as a source of moral guidance is a particularly big turn-up for the books.

Like many people, I was barely aware of having a body until the age of 14, when it started talking to me for the first time.

The conversations were not exactly wide-ranging, as you can imagine. And I formed the opinion then (an opinion shared by our school’s religious teacher) that most bodily suggestions were best ignored, if possible.

The struggle has continued ever since. I can only marvel now at the bodies celebrities seem to have, always making sensible recommendations.

My body’s priorities have changed over the years. But as recently as yesterday, it was trying to convince me that our future happiness together depended on us eating an entire Swiss Roll, now.

This would be fairly typical of the ideas it comes up with.

Earlier this summer, I opened negotiations with my knees about the possibility of us running the Dublin City Marathon for the first time, next October. My right big toe, which still suffers the results of a high-speed collision with a tree root 20 years ago, is also being consulted. So far, we’ve agreed a non-binding framework for training, involving gradually increased mileage, with a final decision to be postponed until five minutes before the race.

In the meantime, as mental preparation, I recently bought a copy of Haruki Murakami’s best-selling memoir: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

Murakami is an acclaimed and widely-translated Japanese author whose novels have earned him mention as a potential Nobel laureate. And not having read any of them yet, I thought his book about long-distance running (he has graduated from marathons to ultra-marathons, although now 60) would be a good place to start.

Im not sure it was, in retrospect. The book appears to be composed largely of cliches and banalities, with its other most notable feature being the repetition of statements that weren’t interesting even the first time. I say “appears to”, because it’s possible Im missing some ineffable Eastern wisdom that resides between the lines and reveals itself only to the wise.

But the following is a not untypical extract, on the author’s thoughts while running: “On cold days I think about how cold it is. And about heat on the hot days. When Im sad I think about sadness … But really, I don’t think much of anything worth mentioning.”

Being charitable about the book, it could be an attempt to express the inner silence which runners seek.

Because if there is one situation in which even we non-celebrities have to listen to our bodies, it’s while running. Were a captive audience then: whether for our lungs nagging us about oxygen debt, or our stomachs, bitterly regretting that Swiss Roll it had earlier, or whatever.

Here’s Murukami talking about the things his knees say: “You have to expect the knees to want to complain sometimes, to come up with a comment like, ‘Huffing and puffing down the road’s all well and good, but how about paying attention to me every once in a while? Remember, if we go out on you, we can’t be replaced.”

That’s a typical knee sentiment all right; although again I have to suggest that Murakami’s knees sound very mild-mannered, certainly compared with mine.

Also, on a technical point, knees can be replaced nowadays. I met an 80-year-old man recently who had a new artificial pair, and the operation had been a triumph: a fact I now remind my knees about every time they start getting abusive.