For some reason I have always quite liked Gary Lineker, right from when he was “just” a football player rather than a commentator and presenter. Bright and perky, apparently intelligent, always cheerful, what’s not to like? And then yesterday I heard he is going to take a £400,000 pay cut!! Yes, that’s £400,000!!!
Here’s a list of the BBC’s current top earners:
1. Gary Lineker - £1.75m
2. Zoe Ball - £1.36m
3. Graham Norton - £725,000
4. Steve Wright - £475,000
5. Huw Edwards - £465,000
6. Fiona Bruce - £450,000
7. Vanessa Feltz - £405,000
8. Lauren Laverne - £395,000
9. Alan Shearer - £390,000
10. Stephen Nolan - £390,000
Now that Gary Lineker has agreed to take a pay cut the list changes and some people are crowing about the fact that for the first time a woman is the highest earning. And all of those on the list earn obscene amounts of money.
The 25% pay cut seems to be part of an agreement so that he can continue to host Match of the Day for the next five years. He must enjoy his work, as usually people take pay rises rather than pay cuts to remain in a job. But the new BBC director general is setting strict social media guidelines for all BBC staff and Gary Lineker, a bit outspoken to say the least, has apparently agreed to be more careful in his use of Twitter to push political causes, such as Brexit or the TV license.
But just imagine a pay cut £400,000! Imagine accepting it without batting an eyelid! Of course, he might be quietly seething about it all behind closed doors, the closed doors of his undoubtedly expensive house that is. But he’s taken a pay cut equivalent to the salary of a college principal for 4 years, or the salary of a well qualified and experienced teacher for about 15 years. No wonder he can comfortably offer to invite a refugee / asylum seeker to live in his home! Good for him. I still quite like him, even if earns far too much money!
Something like 1000 schools in the UK, or maybe just England, are now affected to some degree by Coronavirus. And testing still causes problems. Now, I read this in today’s Guardian online:-
“Passengers flying between Rome and Milan will from Wednesday have to present negative results for coronavirus as part of an experiment by the Lazio region that could be rolled out on international flights.
Travellers leaving either city will have to take a rapid test for coronavirus at the airport before boarding the so-called ‘Covid-free’ flights or within 72 before departure.
Nicola Zingaretti, president of Lazio, described the initiative as a ‘European novelty’.
“The Lazio model is [for those] with a [flight] ticket to have a quick swab test to ensure the flights are absolutely safe and do not carry people who are positive,” he wrote on Facebook. “It will be a great help to the economy and a model for tourism that we want to replicate on international routes.””
If this is possible, why is there such a problem with testing in the UK? Or maybe the problem is largely an IT matter. i heard on the news last night about people in Kent (I think it was Kent) being told to go to Aberdeen. If they put an Aberdeen postcode into the system, however, they were given a slot in Kent. Now, that shouldn’t take weeks to sort out, should it?
After the story about orcas attacking boats around the Straits of Gibraltar area, I came across another intelligent sea creature report, this one more favourable. Within weeks of the Coronavirus causing ferries to shut down in Hong Kong waters, dolphins returned. Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, also known as Chinese white dolphins and pink dolphins, are native to the Pearl River estuary, but typically avoided the waters between Hong Kong and Macau because of the high volume of high-speed boats. When the boats stopped running, the dolphins returned. Dolphins are a lot like humans and get stressed. According to a scientist observing them, “From visual observations the dolphins are spending much more time socialising, splashing around on the surface, quite a bit of foreplay, quite a bit of sex. Hong Kong dolphins normally live on the edges, they’re stressed, they spend their time eating and resting. So to see them playing … to see them having a good time, that was really great to see.”
Now they need to find ways to keep the dolphins unstressed and playful. Just as we need to find ways to keep pollution levels down - they dropped during the lockdown but are creeping up again as more people get out and about in their cars again,
There will be more car travel as the nights draw in and people are less inclined to walk places. Like the dolphins people will get stressed Those of us who can should follow a Scandinavian concept called “friluftsliv”, more or less “outdoor living”. I love the fact that there is a word for it. I found it in something Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett wrote about seasonal affective disorder, SAD:
“There are of course things we can all do to mitigate a lack,of sunlight, from diet and exercise to spending as much time outdoors as possible, especially between 11am and 3pm. One of the upsides of the pandemic is that it has taught us to savour all the time outdoors that we can. It is more of a challenge incorporating it during autumn and winter but it is not impossible, as Scandinavian societies show with their commitment to spending time outdoors every day and to winter activities. There’s even a name for the Nordic concept of getting outdoors and spending time in nature – friluftsliv, which was popularised by Ibsen and directly translates as ‘open-air living’. “
There you go. I think I’ve done my bit today by cycling to and from the market in Uppermill.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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