Following on from yesterday, I think I’ve been disingenuous as I’m not placid as I reported. When Dave proof-read it for me, he scoffed when he reached that sentence, as we know. What I forget is that I am incredibly placid compared to what it going on in my head and what I would really like to say and do.
The result of which is that sometimes I’m direct and harsh but, hey, it’s all relative and it’s mainly because I get scared so over-compensate. I’m sure there are loads of examples already but I’ll be more mindful and point them out next time.
I heard Idris Elba read out one of my favourite mantras today: “Rest if you must but don’t you quit”. In my special box of treasures, I still have the shiny piece of card my first version was on from when I was 18 and having a particularly horrid time with exams, or, to be more specific, the failing of them.
You can’t read any of the words now as I carried it for years in my purse but I just can’t part with it. I wish I could go back to my younger self and tell me that it will all be ok so I should just be more confident as everyone else is pretending too. I absolutely love Helen Mirren’s quote, “At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be use the words “f@@@ off” much more frequently.” Oh, how I wished I’d done that too!
During our usual lazy morning, I was listening to the news on the TV and you can tell that we are bored with the repetition of the actual Covid-19 story as we are now looking for the blame angle. There was lots of talk about the fact that lockdown didn’t happen quickly enough but I certainly don’t remember the politicians or many of us calling for lockdown much earlier than it was enforced.
I also don’t remember us all being sensible and not going out or not going to sporting events. That’s hindsight, people, hindsight. We have never been in this situation before and we will all have done things that we regret or now think were too selfish. Over 15k deaths have occurred in the UK up to now from this virus and that doesn’t include people who were in care homes.
The important thing is that we learn from what is happening, modify our behaviours very quickly and put them into practice for as long as we need to. Now is not the time to be scoring points – now is the time to be digging in and dealing with the boredom. We don’t know when the lockdown will end but we do know it will come at some point so let’s just be sensible.
One of the trailers for a new TV programme next week sounds interesting. Fred Sirieix – some of you may know as the maître d’hôtel from various shows, including First Dates – has a new restaurant with a twist as all the calories the diners consume must be burned off by others in the gym below stairs. I am not sure if the eaters know about this beforehand but I have visions of them being able to see fat, sweaty people peddling very hard and pleading for them not to order the chocolate pudding. We’ve set the catch up-catch up to tape it so I will let you know.
The key thing I admire about Fred is that I don’t believe he ever set out to be famous. I had seen him on the TV many years ago and his passion was about perfection by doing a job he loved to the best of his ability. Thankfully, one of the positives that is currently being reported is that children don’t want to be WAG’s or footballers or famous but want to be doctors, nurses and carers. That, surely, has got to be a silver lining. Captain Tom is also an inspiration for us all as he has raised £23 million and counting for the NHS. Just brilliant!
