True Blood 202: I’ll be your bad-ass vampire

Ooh, the stress, my dear! Even Jason, who usually provides light relief, set my nerves a-jangling. At first it was fun watching him bounce around Christian Leadership camp with other blond chirpy Walton types, all in their silver anti-vamp rings and sunshine yellow t-shirts. Or sunshine yellow pecs in Jason’s case. That boy can’t keep his top on for more than five minutes. But he freaked during role play with Sarah when she popped plastic fangs into her mouth (only slightly less convincing than the ones the real vampires wear). Flashing back to the horror of  Amy killing Eddie, Jason damn near staked Sarah with the American flag. From the way Sarah flushed and licked her over-heated lips, it seemed she’d be purty glad to be staked by him any time.

You could, uh, fry an Egg on that

It was Pecs On Parade this week, as Eggs also swanned about shirtless. He has a perfect washboard stomach, but for some reason Tara was less interested in that than in interrogating him about his past. Though the poor boy wiggled his manly chest at her, she kept her eyes resolutely above neck-level and insisted on knowing what he’d served time for. Who cares, Tara? So it was armed robbery. Never mind that, look at his six-pack!

Maryann was stressing me out too. If she wasn’t eating her way through Merlotte’s entire menu (‘what’s going on at table four?’), she was somehow persuading the entire bar to dance and rut in bacchanal fashion. And turning Sam into a dog when he gave her a hard time about it. When Sookie listened in to Maryann’s thoughts, all she got was a lot of what could be ancient Greek. Or Latin. Who knows? It’s all Greek to me.

Eddie Iz Running: lovely, crazy marathon man

Normally I sigh and roll my eyes when someone sets themselves up for a crazy, audience-seeking ultra-endurance activity. Especially when it gets hung on a noble ‘for charity’ peg when it’s really all about the person wanting attention and affirmation. But when it’s Eddie Izzard, it’s seems different somehow. He seems such a lovely man. But it’s still a nutty thing to do to be sure. Forty-three marathons in 51 days, running around Britain, carrying the flag of each country that he’s running through? Not something even a skilled, experienced runner would undertake if they had half a brain.

And he is none of these. He’s not experienced runner at all. He has a mere five and half weeks of preparation, during which time he is helped by Olympic sports trainer, Professor Greg Whyte, who tells us it takes the body three weeks to recover from one marathon. How can a forty-seven year old self-confessed unconditioned comedian cope with such a tough challenge with virtually no rest?

Not easily is the answer. Eddie has flat feet and numerous old injuries. It’s relentless, and he suffers terrible pain, struggling daily with blisters that risk getting infected. He is told that there is a risk of his nipples falling off from so much constant chafing,  ‘I’ll get joggers dick,’ he jokes, ‘when it will all drop off’.