Life

Sleb Safari: The Hills Are Alive... with the sound of Robbie Williams and family

Maeve Connoly

Maeve Connolly

Maeve is the deputy digital editor at The Irish News. She has worked for the company since 2000.

Robbie Williams, his wife Ayda Field and their four children have decamped from LA to Switzerland
Robbie Williams, his wife Ayda Field and their four children have decamped from LA to Switzerland Robbie Williams, his wife Ayda Field and their four children have decamped from LA to Switzerland
By Maeve Connolly

FROM a life-sized cake of Colin Firth as Mr Darcy to mark the 25th anniversary of the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice to a Wotsit measuring 10.66 metres setting a record for being the longest puffed corn snack on the planet, what a roll call of celebrations there were last week. What a time to be alive.

Cake maker Michelle Wibowo is responsible for turning 20kg of flour, 20kg of butter and 45kg of sugar into Mr Darcy and is feeling pretty pleased with herself.

“I’ve created cakes of everyone from the Queen to Beyoncé, but Mr Darcy officially tops the list as the most delicious model I’ve ever made,” Michelle said.

This just in from Queen Liz: “Off with her head”.

This just in from the Beyhive: “Did she diss our Queen?”

Slice of Mr Darcy, anyone? Picture by David Parry/PA Wire
Slice of Mr Darcy, anyone? Picture by David Parry/PA Wire Slice of Mr Darcy, anyone? Picture by David Parry/PA Wire

In other news an indoor plant with four leaves has sold for £4,000 in New Zealand. When Sleb Safari thinks of all the house plants with four depressed leaves that it has turfed into the garden waste bin over the years. Sigh. What would super-early retirement be like? Blissful, one imagines.

People would ask Sleb Safari how it made its millions and Sleb Safari would reply nonchalantly “Oh, sold a plant or two, no biggie”.

Someone who isn’t spending his time or money bidding on house plants is Robbie Williams. He’s too busy living on the side of a Swiss mountain with his wife and their four young children.

Robbie and la famille decamped from California to Switzerland in a no-expense-spared effort to avoid catching coronavirus. If this has been added to the ‘wash your hands, wear a mask, keep your distance’ advice, perhaps as a recent appendix, Sleb Safari is all for it. Whose credit card do we use to book the flights?

According to the updated in real time Covid-19 global map from John Hopkins University, Switzerland has suffered 2,013 deaths and 43,217 of its 8.6 million residents have tested positive for the virus.

Robbie said he was “somewhere in Switzerland up a mountain” during a chat with Steve Wright on BBC Radio 2.

“That’s social distancing in the extreme isn’t it?” Steve suggested, to which Robbie explained: "Well, I’m a bit neurotic and I thought where can I place myself where it won’t get me?

"And I thought, well I’ll just live up the Mont Blanc for six months… it’s really warm actually, it’s really lovely."

Sleb Safari is very much in favour of this new Robbie von Trapp character. It expects to see four little Williamses dressed in old curtains, skipping across a mountaintop holding hands and trilling “The Hills Are Alive…” .

This might just be The (Swiss) Sound of Music sequel we didn’t know we needed.

The Von Trapp family
The Von Trapp family The Von Trapp family

Sally Phillips is having the same pandemic experience as you

THERE’S no need to beat yourself up that you haven’t tidied that one kitchen cupboard where all the junk gets ‘stored’ or finished the book you started in March or got fit. And do you know why? Because practically everyone is in the same boat. Even celebrities.

Sally Phillips is having exactly the same pandemic experiences as you, right down to your homeschooling disasters, which she shared with The Times.

“My family have found our way into a new routine, but so much of that involved failing. Our homeschooling included making short films on topics with cuddly toys. But really I failed. One of the kids’ early lessons was how to dye mum’s hair. Catastrophic!”

Sally Phillips
Sally Phillips Sally Phillips

And she hasn’t learned a second language or ran a 5k.

“I’ve been going for walks with the dogs to relax. I’ve downloaded a birdsong app, kidding myself that I’m going to become some kind of Simon Barnes figure. But I can’t tell the difference between a goose and a train most of the time.”

You see, everyone’s in the same boat.

Line of Duty is back, fella

FURTHER celebrations with news that Line of Duty has started filming again in Belfast. Jed Mercurio has been teasing us by tweeting pictures from set. Filming of series six had to be suspended because of you know what but it will be well worth the wait.

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