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Most women think about doing yoga a lot more than they do yoga

Women who state yoga as a thing they do actually spend more time thinking about doing it than actively doing it. Stiff desk-based software engineer Jemima Bennett regularly sits on the sofa in loose clothing in the position of the basking meerkat binge watching Bridgerton. Each time the adverts come on she decides that at the next ad break she’ll stop watching telly and do some yoga from the DVD she bought in 2004. This sits next to two other still shrink wrapped yoga DVDs. Despite streaming all other media Jemima needs to do yoga from a DVD because otherwise she gets lost in what she should be bending when. She has never got to the end of the DVD. About once a year she completes the first fifteen minutes of the DVD and then spends the next week prancing about like an agile flamingo.


Periodically Jemima decides that going to a class instead of doing yoga at home will motivate her. She then decides none of the local classes are at the optimum time. She mentions this to fellow bendiness-dodger Lucinda and they both sit in the regretful salmon pose by a coffee table with a plate of Bonne Maman Chocolat Caramel Tartelettes (unarguably the middle class Twix).


Both women stand in front of their wardrobes in the posture of the irritable wombat and suffer guilt over the enormously expensive, barely worn leggings they purchased despite yoga not needing special clothes. The leggings have a pocket. This is a win. Months pass in the firm sloth posture and then a microdose of yoga is achieved again.




Assisted Dying to be offered to actors on daytime TV ads

Frank (48) has been involved in acting for as long as he can remember. He earns just enough from bar work to stave off eviction. He’s a slim, silver fox with a neatly trimmed beard – sexually unthreatening but with an aura of worldly success, as required for daytime TV. Occasionally he gets a role repeating a catchphrase on a car insurance ad or pretending to have mobility issues before beaming with pleasure at the wheel of a battery-powered death-trap. ‘Acting was all I ever wanted to do but if you pay attention in that Go Compare ad you can see the life leaving my eyes. Then I started to notice other daytime ads – all the actors are mutely pleading for death’.


Susan (56) has the sort of face other women find safe. Her biggest role this year has been for an indigestion remedy where she has to screw her harmless face up in part one and beam in part two. All of her roles have involved beaming in part two. ‘The indigestion face is easy - I just visualise the gas bill - but I’m finding it increasingly hard to show joy. Look closely and you can see that I’m dying inside. Ironically, if I had a proper role, one where I was meant to simulate joy whilst dying inside – think Alexander Armstrong in every Armstrong & Miller sketch – I probably wouldn’t manage it. That would need serious acting skills’.


Thousands of dedicated actors find themselves in a no-man’s land of soul-destroying work for largely worthless products which will only be seen by people who are, themselves, quietly waiting for the grim reaper.


‘I sometimes think they want us to look like we’re in despair, just to reassure the viewers’, said Frank. ‘That’s why I’ve asked for an amendment to the Assisted Dying Bill to allow middle-aged actors to cut to the final scene rather than having to pretend that organising their no-frills cremation in advance has brought them peace of mind. God, I hated that one. Plus I couldn’t afford it – they’ll have to dump me in the wheelie bin when it’s my time’.


Opponents of the amendment point out that daytime TV serves a valuable purpose in keeping old people out of Sainsburys during busy periods, and probably reduces the number of mithering phone calls you get from your parents. Remove the advertising revenue and the programmes would be even more low-budget shite than they are now, which might result in a tsunami of old people actually leaving the house and causing mayhem in their battery-powered mobility death-traps before finding out just how grim a no-frills cremation can be.





Forecasters say that drought fears are overdone

Met Office weatherpersons are confident that, despite the current sunshine, rain will follow soon. It’s obvious, said a spokesperson.  It’s nearly Wimbledon and cricket starts soon.  It stands to reason that it’s going to rain.’


Records going back 140 years show that it always rains on Wimbledon, and it always rains on cricket.  Statisticians see a strong correlation between heavy rain and England’s international cricket matches at home.   And there is a similar correlation between heavy rain and the seeding of England’s tennis players at Wimbledon. The higher the seeding, the more likely the rain.


The forecasters are not confident about rain for the one-day international match against Zimbabwe, but they reckon that rain during the matches against the Windies is a dead cert.


For Wimbledon fortnight, they point out that, despite some recent setbacks, Jack Draper is on passable form and fairly likely to make it to the second week of Wimbledon. This increases the chance of bad weather a lot.


A spokesman said, ‘the weather always likes to spring surprises. Our analysis shows that rain is more likely when English players are on the outside courts. As soon as they get onto a court with a roof, then rain becomes much less likely. Although everyone should expect to suffer from a significant depression centred on Wimbledon towards the end of the second week.’




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