10:00 The sun's out so Lois and I decide to take our walk early before it clouds over. The football field is the same as ever - no surprise there - but there's a zumba class going on in the netball court, mums and daughters. We want to take pictures but hesitate to get too near: people get upset if you photograph children these days even though I personally can't see the difference between seeing and photographing: what a crazy world we live in !!!!!
the football field this morning - and it's buzzing!
A zumba class in the netball court, some old codgers playing slow-motion tennis (not shown)
and one person (believed to be Brian O'Grady, on the exercise equipment - my god!!!
[I wouldn't call it "buzzing" exactly - Ed]
the zumba class is certainly hotting up now - cripes!!!!
[I wouldn't call it "hotting up" exactly either! - Ed]
[You're totally losing it now! - Ed]
Some fitness fanatics tend to look down on zumba as a form of exercise. I read recently on the influential American website Onion News about local man Brian O'Grady, who seems to think that zumba is several degrees of difficulty below his own favourite, perhaps more challenging, machines.
Brian's statement to journalists went viral round the world - no surprise there!
Intently scanning the room for signs of fatigue or excessive perspiration, local gym member Brian O’Grady reportedly kept a tally Monday of how many people were in worse shape than him. “That guy’s been on the seated bike for like a minute and he’s already out of breath, and that old dude’s doing like 30 pounds on the shoulder press machine—so, yeah, that’s two,” O’Grady thought to himself, leaping suddenly into double digits as he counted 15 people limply moving their arms and legs in a Zumba class.
“And I bet I could easily outlast four of these people on the
ellipticals, plus two, maybe three on the treadmills—oh, and definitely the guy
who’s been on the rower two minutes and could have a heart attack any time
now.”
At press time, O’Grady had determined that a muscular woman doing numerous weighted pull-ups was a professional athlete of some sort and would not count against him.
Brian has become a bit of a pariah locally, following the news of his secret thoughts about fellow gym members becoming known around the world. This is perhaps why he's the only person on the football field exercise equipment today - nobody will work with him now!
flashback to earlier this morning: Brian (circled in orange) makes
a rather pathetic figure exercising on his own on the equipment
Poor Brian !!!!!
flashback to August 2020 - Alison, Ed and all 3 children visit us
in one of the pauses between complete lockdowns
16:00 Lois and I have a cup of tea and listen a bit to the radio, "Last Word" - we try and listen to this every week to see who has died: we're not in it again, which is encouraging haha!
We're relieved that the programme today isn't doing Prince Philip - much as Lois and I admire Philip it would have been complete overkill after all the BBC programmes on Philip there have been in the last week - my god!!! We think that Philip was a no-nonsense kind of a guy, to put it mildly: he would have been the first to pour scorn on it all.
But we are sorry to hear that NASA engineer and flight director Glynn Lunney has died, aged 84. He was the modest guy with the cool head that had to cope with the aftermath of the accident on Apollo XIII, and somehow get the astronauts back safely to earth. He decided the best hope was to sling-shot the astronauts round the moon and do the burn at exactly the right moment to get the right trajectory coming back for re-entry.
NASA engineer Glynn Lunney, who was flight director
for Apollo XIII, who has died aged 84
During re-entry communication was lost with the spacecraft, as it always was, due to the hot gases being generated, but there was silence for a while after communication was supposed to have been restored, leading to fears that the heat shield had perhaps been irrevocably damaged. Eventually one of the astronauts on board came on the line and said "Hello Houston, everything's just fine here," and everybody could relax.
What a guy, that Glynn! One of the heroes of our age, Lois and I think.
20:00 We settle down on the couch and watch a bit of TV, a programme aired yesterday in honour of what would have been Peter Ustinov's 100th birthday - he died in 2004.
This compilation of interviews that Ustinov did for chat show host Michael Parkinson in the 1970's makes it clear that it's easier to recount what Ustinov didn't do in his life rather than what he did do. Whatever else he was, he wasn't a soldier - that's clear: unusually for someone of his background and education he didn't serve as an officer when he was in the army - he joined as a private and left as a private, and tonight he has fun mimicking the voices of the various sergeants and NCOs, much less educated than he was, that he had to put up with.
Parkinson asks him if his work for UNICEF and UNESCO has made him a pessimist.
Ustinov says, "I think pessimism is completely out of date, a romantic indulgence. We can't afford to be pessimistic any more. So much can go wrong, optimism is the only thing possible.
"I've always thought that an optimist is one who knew how sad the world could be, and a pessimist is someone who finds that out anew every morning.
"I'm optimistic because you have to be. It's an obligation."
Parkinson recalls that Ustinov has described life as a voyage, and asks him what kind of journey it has been for him.
Ustinov replies, "Oh, a fascinating one. I'm enjoying it now more than ever before. I think I was right to be optimistic.... If you invest a lot in a play that doesn't come off, you find yourself with nothing to do, and you're maybe offered the greatest part you've ever done in a film. If the play had run, you would not be free.... Even when you win an Oscar, and you're delighted, there's a pang of sadness because you've reached a peak and you've got to go down the other side.
"But when you come under a very big attack for something, that's when you can behave with dignity - a compensation, because people discover you have a little stature, a little guts. So I'm never depressed unduly or excited unduly about anything."
Lois comments how on all the Parkinson chat shows we see tonight, "Parky" always has other guests sitting there with Ustinov, and she notices there wasn't a single woman guest in any of the shows - oh dear! And she recalls how, in the biography of Victoria Wood, one of our favourite comediennes, Victoria comments how Parky was unbelievably patronising to her when she came on the show in the 1970's.
But I suppose that was just the times, wasn't it haha!
22:00 Big day tomorrow. We go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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