Low Life | 30 August 2008

What rain! And what gales! No wonder sales of thermal underwear have shot up by 50 per cent already this year. I live a stone’s throw from the beach and I haven’t had a dip in the sea once yet, let alone done a stint relaxing on the beach with the kids. And along at the far end of the beach, at the designated naturist section, only the most diehard nudists are sticking it out this summer.

The only thing to do in continuously foul weather like this has been to keep indoors and watch the Olympic Games. I watched as much as possible down at the local gym on the recently installed row of high definition tellies. It was marvellous. I saw the opening ceremony there, quite by accident. The gym was deserted and I was jogging on a treadmill directly in front of a screen when it came on. Watching with my nose against the large screen of a ‘high definition’ telly while jogging was perfect. I felt as if I was right there, trotting along on the track behind the Olympic flame relay, and then running with lengthened strides beside that nutter who ran a circuit of the roof.

I enjoyed the opening ceremony so much that from then on I made a point of working out at the gym only when the games were being shown on the telly. I was going flat out beside Christine Ohuruogu, for example, when she won the 400 metres. I was rowing like a man possessed in my support boat (on the rowing machine) when Katherine Grainger and the coxless fours were pipped at the post. And I was going like the clappers on one of the exercise bikes as our four-man pursuit team knocked two seconds off the world record in the Velodrome.