the times | Monday August 10 2020 1GT 5
times
COVER AND BELOW: GETTY IMAGESWhy this summer’s latest status
symbol is a pond By Harriet Walker
Below: Bob Geldof with
his wife, Jeanne Marinereason for anyone to build such
an ugly and out-of-keeping body
of water,” Sue Jones, a neighbour
of the Beckhams, told The Times
last month. Seems a bit harsh —
it’s just a lake in a field, after all.
There’s a whole district of them
at the top of the M6.
But wait, what’s this? Last year
folk near Sheeran’s gaff in
Framlingham, Suffolk, reported
sightings of a jetty, handrail
and caravan that may or may
not have been in use as a
“changing room” parked on
the shore of his “pond”. The
singer — who is best friends
with Taylor Swift, has dated
Ellie Goulding and is now
married to his childhood
sweetheart Cherry Seaborn —
is suspected by some locals to have
been using it for swimming.
The singer has retrospectively
applied for — and had approved —
planning permission for the handrail
and steps, but perhaps unsurprisingly
in this Leave-voting area, his locals
are not as bothered about the health
and safety measures Sheeran is
taking so much as how much fun
he might be having.
One neighbour complained: “I
believe the development of the site is
more about creating a ‘wild lifestyle’
rather than actual ‘wildlife’.” Who
could blame Sheeran if he
considered moving on the
basis of that joke alone?
Nevertheless, the surge
of interest in ponds among
the cognoscenti comes
alongside a vogue for
“wild swimming” —
swimming in an outdoor
body of water that isn’t
a pool. During lockdown,
with actual pools closed,
wild swimming became
even more popular. The
only problem with it —
for celebrities, that is —
is having to share the beauty
spots with Other People.
All three celebrity ponds
have been described as
“kidney-shaped”, just like
every hotel pool in Mallorca
and Tenerife — but that must
just be a coincidence.F
orget the clear azure depths
of the pool at the Hotel du
Cap-Eden-Roc, or the
glassy-surfaced infinity
version built into a Santorini
cliff face. Among the A-list there is
only one type of body of water that
will do this summer — and both it
and the planning permission it
requires are a little murkier.
Bob Geldof, who announced
last week that he planned to
build a 40m freshwater pond
and “wildlife haven” in the
paddock of his Kent home,
joins celebrities such as the
Beckhams and Ed Sheeran,
who have caused uproar
among locals by deciding
to install ponds, rather than
pools, in their roomy gardens.
Geldof, who was inspired by
Monet’s waterlilies at the artist’s
haunt of Giverny, wants to “reverse
a century of pond loss” in Britain
and dig his own, in a bid to restore
habitats lost or damaged by
pollution. The Beckhams — over
in Great Tew, Oxfordshire, just next
door to Soho Farmhouse — last week
had their own hotly contested plans
for a 3,000 sq m pond accepted by
the local council. Although at this
size — roughly half a football
pitch — it’s technically a lake.
Sheeran, meanwhile, built his
400 sq m pond in 2018 to “support
nature conservation... [and] wetland
invertebrates... and provide a source
of drinking water for birds”. These
honest-to-goodness celebrities cum
country squires are just doing their
bit for the planet by creating
watery habitats for the species
driven out of smaller ponds that
have dried up or been swallowed
up by housing developments.
Time was, adjacent niybys
(not in your backyard) would
raise complaints about their
razzy neighbours’ unsightly
Swedish-style pine saunas,
morally dubious hot tubs and
the sort of inviting waters
that might yield a party
guest floating face-down the
next morning. These days they
are kicking off about the, ahem,
newt kids on the block messing
with nature’s own plan. “There is nos b a w e j
that if you exercise you are also more
likely to be eating properly and
emphasises that it is not necessary to
take up endurance cycling: anything
that gets you a little bit out of breath,
be it brisk walking or ballroom
dancing, will help, as long as you do
plenty of it regularly.
“A little bit of exercise does you no
good,” he insists.
One of the things that agitates
Lazarus the most, however, is the
association between exercise and
weight loss. “NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!”
he shouts down the phone.
“Thirty-five years of research has
shown that is incorrect. The amountof energy you use as a normal person
exercising is minuscule compared to
the mountain of calories you need to
move to lose weight.”
If you go to the gym three times a
week, he says, and burn about 300
calories a time, it will take years for it
to have any impact on your weight. If
you are a professional athlete it is a
different matter, but for the average
person exercise is irrelevant to weight
loss. “Eat less to lose weight,” he says.
“Exercise to improve your physiology.”
He eats about 1,800 calories a day
and never, ever snacks between meals.
He has porridge for breakfast, a slice
of wholemeal bread and a piece of
cheese for lunch, then something
homemade featuring chicken, fish and
organic vegetables for dinner. He does
not like pudding or alcohol. He goes to
the gym three or four times a week, as
well as cycling, and starts every day
with corset exercises designed to
strengthen his back and stomach and
stop him getting a stoop. A stoop, he
says, can be a dangerous thing. It
suggests that there is an imbalance in
your musculature that has altered
your centre of gravity and makes you
more likely to fall.
He hopes that his book, the result of
a lifetime’s work in the field, will be a
wake-up call to the middle-aged that
might trigger the epiphany he had at
that lunch all those years ago with his
wife. However, he does not want to
preach. “What I’ve tried to do is give
the alternatives. I’ve said, ‘Listen, if
you don’t want to do these things,
that’s fine. You have to help yourself.
But if you don’t, then I assure you, the
last 25 years of your life are going to
be miserable.’ ”
The diseases you will get, he insists,
are not inevitable. They are not
diseases of ageing. They are diseases
that appear in old age because that is
how long it takes for your lifestyle
choices to reach a critical point. Yet
however old you are, there is
something to be gained by adopting
his approach.
“If you change your lifestyle, lose
weight, eat properly and love an
exercise enough to do it regularly, the
probability is that you’re not going to
get a disease. People say, ‘Oh, you get
old, you’re going to get these diseases.’
It makes me want to cry. It’s rubbish!”
The Lazarus Strategy by Norman
Lazarus is published by Yellow Kite
on Thursday in paperback, ebook
and audiodecay did not seem to be present.
Further investigation found that
they had the immune systems of
20-year-olds and the body fat of
teenagers. Everything about them was
in tiptop condition, from their hearts
to their hormones.
Intrigued, Lazarus and his
colleagues at King’s recruited a group
of highly active older cyclists, men
and women between the ages of 55
and 79, including himself. Most
belonged to a non-competitive
long-distance cycling club. They ran
a battery of tests, including how
efficiently their body was supplied
with oxygen when exercising, muscle
structure, physiology and mental
agility, and compared them with
people who did not exercise. They
found, he says, that everything was
better because they were exercising.
On virtually every attribute for which
they were measured they scored
significantly higher than people of the
same age who did not exercise.
“An extra surprise finding was that
these elderly cyclists’ immune systems
had been protected from ageing
effects,” Lazarus writes in his book. “It
is becoming clear that our behaviour,
our physical activity, affects not only
our whole body, but also all systems,
including the cardiovascular, immune
and nervous systems. The effects of
being active trickle down to cells and
even to hormones. The message is
clear. Just go out and move.” He adds
The way that
we approach
ageing is totally
inadequate
ALAMY; GETTY IMAGES