please empty your brain below
Given the amount of exercise you do I would not be surprised if your fitness (proper fitness not gym “fitness”) is good if not excellent.

Robert Butlin | 08.03.23 - 7:17 a.m. | #

We definitely took you to see Fantasia, still one of my favorite films.

DGD | 08.03.23 - 7:34 a.m. | #

Sounds as if Job 4 was all about "locking down the low-hanging fruit" and other fashionable activities/fads.

Rob Gullen | 08.03.23 - 7:59 a.m. | #

M&S Belgian chocolate flapjacks. Heaven out of reach in Australia.

Peter | 08.03.23 - 8:04 a.m. | #

Ski was the greatest; the bits were what you bought it for.

Matt | 08.03.23 - 8:24 a.m. | #

I share a distaste for gyms, having tried them after my knees announced that playing squash and badminton weekly was no longer going to happen.

My news consumption growing up was similar. I stopped buying a daily newspaper mid-90s but the PressReader app (free with Library membership) allows me to read multiple papers and other publications each day.

I well remember when jargon bolx speakers arrived. It seems to have coincided with the start of my disillusionment with corporate life.

Frank F | 08.03.23 - 8:26 a.m. | #

Flapjacks are a doddle to make at home.

scrumpy | 08.03.23 - 8:42 a.m. | #

If you have a B & M store near you, try their flapjack bars, individually wrapped and at 29p each a bargain, delicious too.

mikeH | 08.03.23 - 9:06 a.m. | #

I remember leaving school with a sense of relief bordering on manic joy: never again could anyone require me to participate in, or spectate at, organised sports. 45 years later, and there isn’t much that my idiot 17 year-old self did that I’d encourage or endorse, but on sport, I was spot on.

Phil | 08.03.23 - 9:12 a.m. | #

I had always assumed that flapjacks (both the name and the food) were very traditional. But in fact the 1933 edition of the OED only has flapjack meaning pancake, apple turnover, a hydraulic machine, a lapwing, and a somersault. Flapjack only got its current (UK) meaning later.

Alan | 08.03.23 - 9:13 a.m. | #

I was taken to see "Singing in the Rain" in 1952. Regal cinema Twickenham.

When I was a child I doubt if yogurt was available in UK so probably got introduced to it when it started being sold here

As for politics well we used to get the day off school when elections were on as school hall used for voting, so introduced that way to politics

As for news I did not pay attention to the radio news but my parents had the "Daily Mirror" delivered everyday and I would look at the pictures and cartoons so probably my first introduction to news

In 1980's had several gym going years

John | 08.03.23 - 9:16 a.m. | #

One of the first films, if not the first, my mum took me to was Watership Down. I was about four years old and my mum thought it would be nice as it was a film about rabbits, she had never read the book it was based on.

Apparently when one of the rabbits died I burst out crying and she had to take me out of the cinema.

Consequently for years afterwards I couldn't hear the song Bright Eyes without crying.

Barry | 08.03.23 - 9:29 a.m. | #

A low-fat yoghurt is not necessarily a low-sugar yoghurt.

James Matcham | 08.03.23 - 9:31 a.m. | #

Our Journey's are remarkably similar - except I love yogurt and prefer a savoury lunch!

Cornish Cockney | 08.03.23 - 9:37 a.m. | #

…but a small yoghurt is a lot less sugary than a big tub.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 08.03.23 - 9:44 a.m. | #

I've had long and fevered correspondence with a friend about the over-use of the "J" word. It becomes particularly offensive when used by health services to re-cast a gruelling and unpleasant treatment as something glamorous. And I never even imagined there was such a thing as a "mousse person"...

cau1khead | 08.03.23 - 9:47 a.m. | #

If I may be forgiven for evangelizing a wee bit... Most yoghurt is chalky, tasteless muck. But some supermarkets do stock one from Longley Farms - proper yoghurt, sweet and sour, not just chalky and sweet. I can't imagine it's low in fat or calories, but it does come in fairly small pots and it tastes heavenly.

Yes, they do a lemon, but the mandarin and gooseberry are also pleasantly tart.

Chz | 08.03.23 - 9:53 a.m. | #

More gobbledegook - someone on the well-respected Radio 4 programme "More or Less" recently said that they "reached out to" some organization. Ugh.

Tim W. | 08.03.23 - 9:58 a.m. | #

My feeling about gyms is that they give people an artificial fitness, I think a more natural fitness through walking is better.

Sometimes the crowd reaction in a cinema can aid immersion in a film - but otherwise watch at home, no disturbance from others, rewind if something didn't make sense, refer to subtitles if dialogue was unclear.

Still Anon | 08.03.23 - 10:06 a.m. | #

I've been a gym user for over a decade. In my experience, gym users can be broken down to three groups:

The first are the testosterone & stimulant fulled young men trying to show off (and pull) down the gym. Often they're doing the exercises wrong and will need the healing hands of a chiropractor in the near future. These are the ones who put most new people off from returning to the gym.

The next are those who go down to socialise, with exercise being a sideline to their gossiping.

The final group is the smallest, and these are the ones who quietly go about doing their workout.

As to you DG: You do a heck of a lot of walking so I wouldn't worry about your fitness. You're probably a lot fitter than the first two groups in my list.

Jon Jones | 08.03.23 - 10:08 a.m. | #

The word 'passionate'. Everyone is so 'passionate' about everything it's completely lost its meaning. If anyone combines it with 'journey' I run like the wind.

Johnny Topaz | 08.03.23 - 10:24 a.m. | #

I too have been on a political journey. After 50 years of always voting blue, including an unfortunate incident in '74 when I told the Labour teller I would even vote for a lizard with a blue rosette only to to find the Tory teller was the candidate (sorry, Gerry Wade, you never made it), the advent of Boris, and his attendant cohort of self serving slugs, means tactical voting from now on. To me the final straw with Johnson was him kicking out one of the handful of decent and capable Tories, David Gauke. I will never forgive Johnson for the damage he has done this country.

J. | 08.03.23 - 10:30 a.m. | #

I can't remember the first film I saw, but you just turned up at the cinema when you wished, usually in the middle of a film, then carried on watching until it rolled round again, gave your companion an'isn't this where we came in' look and wandered out.

It was quite a rarity to see a film from the start. I don't know if cinemas didn't advertise start times or we took no notice of them.

Martin | 08.03.23 - 10:39 a.m. | #

So, I guess you got to vote whilst still in the 6th form and missed out to vote for Evan Luard in Oxford for the SDP in 1983 as I did

John Styles | 08.03.23 - 11:12 a.m. | #

Probably most memorable cinema experience was a university film club double bill of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was so popular it ran twice back to back. Strangely one audience for the latter came out appalled and disgusted while the other came out laughing.

Kev | 08.03.23 - 11:19 a.m. | #

Back in the 60s my parents took me to a double bill of Goldfinger and Thunderball at the local flicks. It was packed! And yes they do turn up on the tv eventually.

Marmaduke Jinks | 08.03.23 - 12:04 p.m. | #

My gym journey involved going into the Copper Box on its opening weekend, because I fancied a nosey around - being one of the few Olympic venues I hadn't visited during the Games. Turns out I got the wrong entrance and rather than getting to see the arena, an earnest young man from Better gave me a tour of the fitness suite and tried his best to sign me up.

martin | 08.03.23 - 12:19 p.m. | #

Do check the ingredients of the flapjacks especially the cheaper ones. The cost compromises can include horrors transfats (hydrogenated..), non-sucrose sweeteners/syrups (HFCS, fructose syrups/apple juice, or similar). All of which you can avoid with your own traybakes (not exactly healthy, but simpler butter and sugar/golden syrup)

MilesT | 08.03.23 - 1:17 p.m. | #

My traumatic memories of school gyms are so strongly of places of torture and humiliation that when middle-aged knee problems meant a physio prescribed gym visits I very nearly had to be frog-marched into the room (I subsequently bought her chocolates to apologise for my behaviour…). Mercifully, access to a hospital gym meant I was spared the sight of poseurs and testosterone addicts and it was less stressful being surrounded by post-knee op or hip replacement patients. Otherwise, I completely concur with your views, and my only regret is not having the gumption at the time to play truant from Saturday morning “sports” at school.

Labourer | 08.03.23 - 1:47 p.m. | #

I have come to the conclusion that sports in schools does more harm than good, as it tends to put people off sport for life..

Adrian | 08.03.23 - 3:39 p.m. | #

My childhood cinema trips involved a train journey to the only nearby town with a cinema, a rare treat in itself and very exciting. My first birthday treat cinema trip, of just me and my dad, was to see The Aristocats. Nowadays I have membership of a lovely local independent cinema which is very civilised, and although I don't really hold with eating and drinking whilst watching I will tolerate the wine sipping and snack munching under duress.

Kimburli | 08.03.23 - 4:32 p.m. | #











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