Two out of three brown bears
in a famous zoo got out when their enclosure was rendered less than safe by freak weather. And they had to be shot. Danger to people. There are far too many people and I like bears. Then there is a story of a lioness turning on her trainer in a Russian circus. She probably thought it was Putin. I hope she cleaned her claws. I was inspired to make this comment by Ray Mears the wildlife expert
whom I saw out of context for the first time, overweight but worth every pound of it in charm, serious (he had a pop at Putin in a context too often limited to self conscious flippancy) and moreover, refused to be budged when the audience wasn’t sure about one of his choices.
Sitting next to him was Fiona Bruce
grinning her nice grin, as much at ease as you get to be when you have been round the block in tv terms and wearing elegantly comfortable shoes for the first time I have ever seen (her footwear often looks like a loan from the Queen Mother). FB is a terrific interviewer and when I read about her as herself, she sounds like somebody you’d like to meet though she’s on the list of people I can’t bear reading the news. The third guest was the metrochick Katherine Ryan – she was so good I looked her up and discovered she is a Canadian comedian.
The maple leaf forever ! Anybody who can come up with the idea of Cheryl Coles as a Conservative Party bot , allegedly because she’s too perfect (even with fake hair) and can skewer enough of those Geordie nothings to have us all giggling, even though it’s one of the hardest accents to imitate and KR knew she hadn’t got it right …
This was all on the kind of longrunning show I usually avoid, the host wreathed in self congratulation like an inadequate hotel towel – though I admit it is difficult to develop a television personality that won’t get up somebody’s nose and this guy gets the Silver Chimney Brush. But we need a laugh and you get it where it works for you, to help you skate round the edges of the rant that is always threatening… (Pam the Painter is wont to ring, beginning “May I vent ????” )
I hate men in shorts
and women in leggings. There are probably five exception to each globally, where the garments work or where what is inside them is so perfect, it wouldn’t matter what they were wearing. All this is having its moment now because we have had such a grave year and both these things are cheap to manufacture and cheap to wear. We are not “all in this together” politically but large numbers of us are “all in this together” sartorially.
I hate “wellness”. Nobody has yet explained it to me though I can work it out ie something which might benefit hair, skin, digestion or immortal soul –
and most importantly, makes me appear hip, because that’s what the young, famously beautiful and rich are doing. Health which is a much more complicated concept doesn’t fit in to marketing. Health is to do with Covid, right ? Wellness is to do with food supplements and Gwyneth Paltrow.
I hate half the story. It is all that most of us get when we’re talking about news of any weight. Vested interests at every level live by the motto “fudge and blur.” But after all these years, shouldn’t somebody point out to Martin Bashir that “not wishing Princess Diana any harm “ is not nor ever was the same as involving her in a process which might harm her ? We used to describe that as pigeonholing –
people who put incongruous facts side by side, not attempting to reconcile them but hoping by sheer brass neck they’d be acceptable. In other words, the moon is made of green cheese.
So here is seen with my own eyes good news, though only a fraction of the story: after frost, hail, sleet and prolonged periods of overcast both cold and claggy, there are buds on the flowers in the garden. Of course there may be more errant weather – this is the home of errant weather – but, as plants are fragile, so are they determined.
Annalog 