I was this morning reminded again (not that I need it) of my perception of time; specifically, my slippery grasp on its increasingly rapid passage. The excellent Sue Thearle ended her stint as sports news correspondent on BBC Breakfast … after thirteen years. Thirteen years!! Hang on a minute there, that can’t be right, can it? This is as much to do with her unassuming and underexposed demeanour. It is a pleasure to listen to a reporter who doesn’t speak to you as though you are a child, a simpleton, or a semi-demented pensioner. (I SAID, IT’S… A… PLEASURE… TO… LISTEN…. Oh forget it.) Turns out she’s been the subject of chauvinistic criticism in the past, because some shallow adolescent types don’t consider her pretty enough. Well, she looks fine to me. Rather her than some spoilt, over-hyped celebrity hag who’s spent too long being beautifully lied to (take your pick), or some vile Ptolemaic ego. Sue comes across to me as neither a kiss-ass, nor ass-kissed. She’s just bloody good at what she does.
We were treated to a montage of Sue’s exploits, including demonstration of her ability to play keep-up with a football far better than I ever could, and her pronouncement upon finishing her marathon that echoed my own: “I am never doing that again.” Time smoothes the grains of sand in an hourglass, such that they fall through faster; whereas, after 21 miles, I felt as though sand had been thrown into the bearings of my football-worn hip joints (I could virtually hear the grating).
Anyway, turns out she’s only going up the corridor to BBC News. Which means that, in the unlikelihood of my becoming more time-efficient, I might start getting home earlier and so will see more of her. Personally, I think she would make an excellent science correspondent; then maybe the BBC could spare us the imbecilities of Fergus (“This really is Frankenstein science!”) Walsh.
These things matter, you know.
Lee Turnpenny 
I don’t watch/listen to the BBC, but your post reminds me of Karen Allen, the heroine of Indiana Jones and the crystal whatnots.
Hi – How so? Haven’t seen, or desire to (soon as I hear that turgid John Williams music I recoil).
Well, she isn’t a young stick-insect of a teenager, which is what you are saying about this Sue Thearle? I didn’t want to see Indiana Jones either, but it was a family outing thing.
(There is a good review of the movie on Nature Network, characteristically idiosyncratic: see Work blog)
Unpretentious and not up her own… is what I mean. She seems likeable (is that how Karen Allen comes across?).
By the way, my cinema recommend for the week is Honeydripper.
Not sure if KA came over as likeable – I think she is supposed to be “feisty” but the script is a bit lacking for everyone in the movie except Harrison Ford who gets all the good lines. However, certainly she is more likeable than Cate Blanchett or the ants.
Bronwen’s IJ Protocol among other things shows up the “recipe, mechanical” nature of the enterprise.
I think that is it for me for the movies for the next 6 months or so. And to think I used to go once a week, in “the olden days”.