Mary Beard has said that she is becoming “a real slob” and is struggling to be disciplined with her work during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The historian and broadcaster said that she lacks “a bit of willpower” while stuck in her own home.
She told the Radio Times: “I’m becoming a real slob, partly because I lack a bit of willpower.
“My husband is trying to encourage me, rightly, to go up and down the stairs more often than I usually do.
“I did actually look at Joe Wicks.
“He does a wonderful exercise routine for seniors.
“I thought, ‘Right, I’m 65, I’m a senior’, and I did play it to myself and thought, ‘I can do that’.
“The trouble was, I never quite got round to it.”
She added that she is “working very hard” but is not being “as disciplined at home as I could be”.
“I have those moments when I think, ‘What shall I do now? Oh, I’ll have some more toast and Marmite!'”
Beard said that she is doing her broadcasting work from a study in her house in Cambridge and was shown how to conduct interviews for the BBC’s Front Row Late arts programme by the corporation’s staff.
“I’m not the heroic presenter; the only reason I can make broadcastable telly is because there is a BBC team behind me, explaining how to get better pictures on the iPhone, helping me to download vast files and showing me – remotely – how to set myself up with Margaret Atwood on Zoom for Front Row Late,” she said.
Beard added: “There has been huge support and I really hope that when I’m doing this from the study and it’s actually going out on the telly, people think, ‘God, they did well!'”
Read the full story in the Radio Times.
