Running in the rain

It was tipping it down with rain when I woke up this morning, so, instead of walking up to the village, I decided to take myself to Jackson's Lane to work. Sadly, as I arrived at the theatre, I was greeted by a closed door and the information that the cafe opened at 10, so I had no option but to take myself through the rain and up to the village with the knowledge that the damp air had made my T-shirt smell like broken biscuits.

We watched a show about ageing on the telly last night, one of an almost bewildering slew of shows about or made in Scotland. This one was great fun and actually made by a friend of ours, Paul. It was presented by Angela Rippon who, at 71, was representing old people. Ms Rippon is known in the industry as having a photographic memory. She can literally look at a piece of script for a second, read it through once and then deliver it faultlessly to camera. Bizarrely, this skill doesn't seem to be diminishing as she gets older. As part of the programme she was given a cat scan which revealed, where the majority of 71 year olds can expect 25% shrinkage of the brain, hers had only shrunk by 5%!

Later on, she was put into a US Airforce test which demonstrated her ability to concentrate. The idea was to take the test and then attach electrodes to her scalp to see if the results improved. The only issue was that she scored 100% first time round! The guy running the test simply didn't know what to say. His youngest, brightest students would normally not get higher than 75%!

Anyway, if you want to live longer, the advice seems to be to exercise, to learn new skills, to have a vegetarian diet and to eat plenty of naturally purple food!

Friday mornings are busy mornings at Costa. It's the time those pack-hunting animals, the yummy mummies arrive en masse to take time off their gruelling schedules of charity work, shopping, nanny-ordering, and driving their dogs to the Heath in giant Chelsea tractors.

I came home at lunchtime and went running in the pouring rain. I've always enjoyed running in the rain. It feels incredibly liberating.

I spent the afternoon writing new brass parts for the ensemble members who are also players in this summer's show. It was important to get the parts out as soon as possible because they're going to need to get their playing up to scratch to perform the music properly. I don't feel any guilt for asking them to work hard. If their actor musicianship is up to scratch then they're much more likely to get decent work when they go out into the big wide world. You've got to be cruel to be kind!