Summer? A new word. Some facts about famous folk.

A sunny day! I could almost think that summer has arrived. We shall see. But, as the man in the roadworks hole outside our house commented, we only need a week of fine weather for someone to start shouting about drought and hosepipe bans. 

It’s almost worth getting up early for … well, relatively early! 

I’ve recently heard a lot about the benefits of getting up at five in the morning. But now it seems that the latest research suggests that night owls, those who stay up late and do their best work in the small hours of the morning are not lazy and ill-disciplined but actually score higher on cognitive tests. It’s all a lot of speculation, of course, as none of us can live twice over and see if we work differently as larks or owls!

Here’s a new word I’ve come across today: proprioception, which means your body’s sense of where it is in space. This is what helps good footballers take penalty shots at goal without obviously looking at where the ball is situated, or so I am told. For most of us lesser mortals it seems to be an awareness that helps us keep our balance. Here’s link to an article about proprioception and how to improve it.

Here are a couple of odd bits of information about some famous people. The mother of actress Helena Bonham Carter has the wonderful name of Elena Propper de Callejón Bonham Carter. She is the daughter of Eduardo Propper de Callejón,  a Spanish Jewish Diplomat to France who saved 30,000 Jewish lives from the Holocaust during WWII. There you go: quiet bits of heroism. 

Helena Bonham Carter herself, failed to get into Cambridge University, entered herself in the actors directory Spotlight with some photographs taken by her father in their back garden in Golders Green, landing a role in TV commercial for stereo equipment aged 16 in 1982…. after taking the leading role of Room With a View in 1985 she has never looked back. Although nowadays we seem to see her more in sofa adverts! 

Then there’s music legend Joan Baez, the child apparently of quakers: 

“Joan Chandos Baez was born in New York City in 1941, although she spent much of her childhood traveling around the world. Her family's religious and social beliefs influenced her music over the course of her lengthy career and helped shape her into one of the most well known Folk singers and interpreters of music in American history. Her parents became Quakers when she was a young girl and her family believed in peace and social justice before war. Her father, Albert Baez, was an esteemed physicist, but he refused to contribute his knowledge to the nuclear arms race during the Cold War.”

Well done, Albert Baez for his refusal to help blow up the world - something which is a frighteningly real prospect nowadays as certain politicians talk lightly using nuclear weapons. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!