My friend Lawrence Carter-Long turned me on to the weird and wonderful world of British transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard, whose routines—particularly "The Death-Star Canteen", the "Difference between British and American Films", and "Learning French"—are, as we say in England, sodding funny. Anyway, Eddie has put a marathoner like me to shame by running 43—yes, that's FORTY-THREE—marathons in fifty-one days, in a 1,100-mile run around the United Kingdom for the charity Sport Relief, which conducts programs for the disadvantaged in Africa and elsewhere.

Quite why he decided to do this is of course irrelevant. The British have a long tradition of doing pointlessly excessive things for charity. It's part of our barmy charm, natch. In 2003, the explorer Ranulph Fiennes ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents, even though he'd just undergone open-heart surgery, and one gentleman called Robin Kelly sat in a bathtub full of baked beans for twenty-four hours for Comic Relief. Anyway, you can watch Eddie's videos and read about his literally staggering feat (and his quite disgusting feet) here, and you can sponsor him here.