Hyrox poo-er<\/a>. Not because of any coprophiliac inclinations, you understand, but because the idea of exerting myself to the extent that I might lose control of my bowels is so out of my realm of personal possibility that I am increasingly intrigued by the question of whether Joanna Wietrzyk and I technically qualify as the same species at all.<\/p>\nAgain, for the uninitiated\/hitherto and possibly blissfully ignorant, a recap: Hyrox Beijing is an intense indoor fitness event and Wietrzyk one of its world record- holding contestants. About halfway through the insanely difficult competition, which comprises a series of horrendous things \u2013 I don\u2019t know precisely what, I passed out after reading the word \u201cburpees\u201d \u2013 Wietrzyk suffered what was later termed \u201ca severe faecal event\u201d, which went down her leg but didn\u2019t stop her progress round the course.<\/p>\n
Cue a roar of outrage against her and the organisers, who didn\u2019t disqualify her immediately before she touched any other equipment, and eventually an apology from Wietrzyk and a forfeit of her points.<\/p>\n
To hell with the critics, say I. Biohazardry be damned! You push yourself so hard you crap yourself and keep on going, you\u2019re a winner in my book. Now, someone unwrap this Mars bar for me. Typing is exhausting, you know.<\/p>\n
Thursday<\/p>\n
Not all heroes wear capes. Or a light coating of faeces down their legs. Some of them are headteachers who suspend 25 students in the first week back after the summer holidays, including one for the crime of zipping his bag too loudly. The head\u2019s name is Dan Jeffries and, while he denies parents\u2019 claims of suspension for minor infractions, it is clear that whatever measures he has indeed taken, he has no regrets about any of them.<\/p>\n
Parents of some of those suspended from Frome college have compared the school to \u201ca military base\u201d and say the strictness demotivates pupils. Whatever, whatever. The world is made up of two types of people: those who want to hear the children\u2019s side of things and those of us who just want Jeffries put in immediate charge of a new government department called The Whole of Modern Life, Starting With Quiet Coaches on the Train and After That I Have a List.<\/p>\n
\u2018I mean, sure, you can sprinkle flowers everywhere and sell jam, or you can have mad shinty skillz like me. You decide.\u2019 Photograph: Victoria Jones\/ShutterstockFriday<\/p>\n
My mother summons me and my sister home. Apparently she needs to clear out the attic before she dies, but ideally before Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happening on Sunday?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cSunday,\u201d she replies.<\/p>\n
Deadlines by fiat were a mainstay of my childhood and so I ask no more.<\/p>\n
My mother has lived in our house for 50 years. We brace ourselves for a hard 48 hours\u2019 work and climb up into the loft.<\/p>\n
Three small cardboard boxes of stuff await us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are \u2013 there are just three small cardboard boxes of stuff up here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d she says. \u201cI can\u2019t believe I\u2019ve let it get this bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
We bring them down.<\/p>\n
My wedding shoes and some papers \u2013 including my first book, The Story of Esmerelda, written when I was nine and some letters home from university \u2013 are in the first one. The second one contains my son\u2019s baby clothes. The third has my sister\u2019s childhood attempts at making a working model of Sizewell B and some postcards she wrote to Dad when he went on his first trip to America. \u201cCome hom. Shez insane.\u201d On reflection, she shouldn\u2019t have given them to Mum to post.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcellent,\u201d Mum says. \u201cWe can bin the lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ah, fiats. Ah, memories.<\/p>\n
God, AI really is coming for all of us. Photograph: Vernon Yuen\/Nexpher\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Monday It\u2019s funny, isn\u2019t it, how many things we take for granted in life? How many things go…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}