So a half smile to start. Was doing the morning service on zoom with Rabbi Daniel and at the end he was talking about methods of collecting wheat in straight lines ( too complicated to explain here why we got on to that subject, the ways of Judaism are indeed mysterious which may be why Madonna wanted to study Kabbalah and wore a red bracelet to prove it ) Anyway, back to the wheat issue . I asked if you wore tight underwear when you were doing it would you be separating the wheat from the chaffing. I did say it was a half smile or maybe a minus ten million joke.
When I bought my first Fitbit I didn’t realise that I was signing the contract in blood sweat and tears. Before the lock-down. during the course of my last week in South Africa in February, I achieved a weekly steps total of over 78,000 steps. Back home in London I rarely fell below 10,000 per day and if I was in the 9000’s just before I was going to bed than I would walk around the house madly trying to achieve that final, elusive thousand. Then the NHS passed sentence on me ( still drafting my appeal on that one ) and I was only allowed to walk from my desk to the window with a view to opening it. I just tried an experiment and it takes just six steps to walk from my desk to the window. There was a fair bit of walking up and down the stairs ( with some difficulty as ever since my surgery a few years ago my right foot doesn’t bend ) and round the garden. Cara, my grand-daughter loves playing round and round the garden with us when she is in the bath. Her Mummy tickles her at the end and I tickle my wife. But, believe me, walking around a real garden is nowhere near as much fun. Unless you are Major Tom, of course.
So, for most of March I didn’t achieve much more than 20,000 steps in a week. And then I started using the treadmill and also walking around the green in the middle of my road and the totals gradually crept up until I am now doing around 50,000 steps a week. Yet, 10,000 in any one day remains a step or two ( or two thousand or so out of my reach ) and I’ve only managed it twice. Then, I find that I’ve been sold a pup by Fitbit. ( more of dog selling later )
It seems that the 10,000 target was made up by the marketing teams of Fitbit and the other pedometer companies to boost sales and that after 7500 steps a day the benefits of walking begin to diminish.
Walking isn’t a new thing, but that is stating the bleeding obvious, which I try not to do except in the cause of irony. Fossil records show that we humans ( well, not me personally as I am not that old ) began walking long distances about 1.89 million years ago ( guess if they’d worn a Fitbit and really tried they could have made that 2 million years ago ( more about big numbers later, too )
So, who thought up that magical 10,000 steps I wonder? I’ll put you out of your misery and tell you. It was the Japanese. There was no scientific basis for it, but it was part of a marketing campaign in the 1960’s. The Yamasa Clock and Instrumental Company ( who, apart from their name have a lot to answer for ) created and sold a wearable pedometer that was called “ Mainpokei “ which actually means “ ten thousand step meter. “ Well, what do you know ! Also the Japanese character for 10,000 looks like a man walking. Thank goodness that it wasn’t the character for 20,000 or else we would all be like Felix (remember him ) the cat who kept on walking. Even Fitbit urge a bit of caution and say that 10, 000 steps might not be right for everybody and that many older people can cast tyranny aside, break their contract and settle for less. I am thinking that one thousand might be just about right as my legs ache. Meanwhile, I have to pause the blog and walk around as my Fitbit has just messaged me and told me to do a hundred steps.
So, big numbers and as the Trumpster would say these are the biggest ever. I heard on Chris Evans Show this morning ( so, it must be true ) that we, as a country, borrowed one hundred billion pounds last month. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear figures like that I get to wondering who we borrowed it from. I mean does Little Ritchie sit down in a bank in front of an avuncular manager looking like Captain Mainwaring from “ Dad’s Army “ (on a stool presumably so he can reach the desk ) and mumble that he’d like to increase the Nation’s overdraft by one hundred billion? Does the bank manager tap a few keys on his screen and say “ The Computer says no. “ and then do it again at which point does the computer explode ? And when Little Ritchie walks out of the bank finally, with a cheque in his sticky little hand ( because I am sure the bank manager has been so enchanted by him that he has sent him on his way with a lollipop ) what security has he been authorized to give by Bojo and The Caretaker?
Has he literally pledged the family silver in the shape of the Crown Jewels or has he given Her Majesty herself as security and thrown in the Duke of Edinburgh, Buckingham Palace, Prince Andrew ( am thinking they wouldn’t mind if they foreclosed on him… who will rid me of this turbulent Prince ? ) and all the royal cars and horses and dogs. And then what happens if we don’t repay. Do the bailiffs roll up at the gates of the Palace with court orders and huge removal trucks? It’s all mind-boggling and probably doesn’t bear too much thinking about.
Continuing with mind boggling figures, I see people are paying up to £10,000 for canine companions in the lock down. Whilst it might be cheaper to hire a human companions ,a dog is for life ( though they don’t say whose life, yours or the dogs ? ) and not just for the lock-down. There is an unprecedented surge in folk wanting to buy a four-legged friend (buy a spider, you get more legs for your money and they are cheaper ) and breeders and animal sellers generally are cashing in on it. Dogs like Wanda ( a cross-breed ) are going for more than four times their pre shut down price and British bulldogs are selling for about nine grand .
Wanda is going for a grooming session today so even when you get a dog it doesn’t stop there. They have to be fed and walked whatever the weather and looking out of my window yesterday at bedraggled dog walkers made me relieved that my four pets are my tomato plants which are doing very nicely, thank you.
And on the subject of the British Bulldog and patriotism and political correctness running riot they now want to ban “ Swing Low, Sweet Chariot “ as the England rugby theme. I hate rugby and would be all in favour of banning the sport altogether, but as they won’t they might as well have the song. Seems it’s a slave song. Right. And our National Anthem is an Imperial song and the cricket song of “ Jerusalem “ is also probably politically incorrect if you analyse the words thoroughly. And I’ve not yet started on any thing that Vera Lynn may have warbled, either.
Come on, enough is enough and that’s a cue for me to end as well.
No blog on the weekend so see you all on Monday if we are spared. Have a peaceful Sabbath and weekend. Enjoy the football without any offensive singing and see you all on Monday, I hope.