WE’RE mid way through a chilly February and Sleb Safari is thoroughly enjoying reading about hot, talented men in the public eye with a penchant for sewing and knitting.
It started with the cute as a button Olympic diver Tom Daley explaining to Grazia magazine that after a hard day jumping in and out of the pool he likes to pick up his crochet hooks.
“I don’t do anything strenuous after training. To unwind, I like knitting and crochet,” he enthused.
“Since lockdown, I’ve been knitting hats, scarves and ponchos. I crochet jumpers and headbands.”
That’s the wardrobe for the entire British Winter Olympics team sorted then.
Tom continued: “You can just be in the moment and switch off and step away from your phone before bed.”
It makes sense that Tom enjoys making layers of clothing when he has spent most of his adult life in swimming trunks which must surely be size ‘Boys age 11-12’.
The next man happy to talk about his nifty hands is George Clooney.
George was chatting to AARP – the American Association of Retired Persons – about lockdown life when the subject of home repairs came up and George explained that he had used pandemic down time to do a little DIY plus rewire his assistant’s sewing machine.
And then he casually dropped this in: “I do a lot of sewing the kids’ clothes. And my wife’s dress that tore a couple of times.”
George Clooney just got even hotter.
He continued: “I was a bachelor for a long time and didn’t have any money, and you have to learn how to repair things.
“If we were on an island and you had to pick somebody to help you survive, I would pick me. Ask all of my friends and they would pick me, too. I can make a waterspout out of this and a pitcher out of that."
One group of men who could do with taking a handmade leaf out of George and Tom’s book is the Handforth parish council.
They held a ‘lively’ Zoom meeting with Jackie Weaver at the helm. Crikey they were an angry bunch.
“Read the standing orders,” one yelled. “You have no authority here Jackie Weaver” another blustered.
No sooner had the video gone viral than Alexa was being asked “Who is Jackie Weaver?” and “Does Jackie Weaver have any authority?”
Always game for a laugh, even if her voice never betrays her, Alexa answers the first question with “Do you mean Britney Spears?” in reference to the council’s musings about whether a Zoom username carries any weight.
And to “Does Jackie Weaver have any authority?”Alexa replies: “As long as there is reasonable behaviour, she has authority here.”
Although the men of Handforth parish council seem more suited to cross stitch, imagine how Zen they would be if they picked up knitting needles and a ball of yarn and made themselves a nice, cosy, woolly jumper. Be more Tom, gentlemen. Be more George.
Spinach is sening emails now
SPINACH is really having a moment.
Not content with being the leafy green you have to eat a mountain of to get even a sniff of iron, it’s now sending emails about landmines.
Scientists have created spinach plants with electronic sensors in their leaves which help it detect when it comes into contact with certain chemicals, including the ones found in explosives.
The spinach then sends an email wirelessly, presumably in a panic and not bothering about typos, warning the scientists about lundmanz.
And you thought you were going to lose your job to a robot.
One hot minute later and spinach is back on our radar courtesy of a story from Ashley Graham about the time she was walking around the Met Gala with a fragment of a landmine detector between her teeth.
Kim Kardashian came to her rescue. Ashley says Kim “saw that spinach and took it right out”.
“I was so grateful. Kim is such a girl’s girl. She wants the people around her to look and feel good.”
Do we take it as a given that the spinach had emailed Kim?
I'm here live, I am not a cat
AND so to another Zoom call that didn’t go to plan – that of Texan lawyer Rod Ponton who turned on a cat filter and couldn’t turn it off again.
Game to keep the cogs of the justice system turning, Rod tells the judge his assistant is trying to remove the filter but in the meantime he’s happy to carry on with proceedings, adding: “I’m here live. I’m not a cat” as his cat’s eyes dart back and forth to the corner of the screen where you just know an icon is being clicked on frantically.
From henceforth “I’m here live. I’m not a cat” will be Sleb Safari’s Zoom username.
