Hello again and welcome once more to Something Rimes with Purple. This is a podcast all about words and language,

and it is presented by me, Jars Brandruth and my friend colleague and the world's leading lexicon

griver that she doesn't describe herself as that. But it is what she is, and she is Susie Dent.

How are you Susie? Hello and hello to all the purple people listening. I'm fine actually.

Thank you Jars. I am feeling okay. I have to say I did have a week where I completely flumped

and slumped and couldn't quite get the energy to do anything which is not like me at all.

But I've come out of it a bit. I'm glad you have, but if you were like that, you were as the people

are because there was a report out this last week from University College London. They'd can

for some 70,000 people and found that in this lockdown, everybody or most people were more

lethargic, less active, more so droopy than during last lockdown. And there'd been quite a big drop

in the amount of people getting involved in hobbies, volunteering activities, a reduction of

going out to do volunteering of about 36%, 13% had decreased those general activities. And as we

know, happiness depends on pursuing your passions. And while listening to the radio is interesting

and watching TV can be fun, we do need to be actively engaged in things. I've been going

loopy at this end genuinely when there was the snow 10 days ago. I thought, oh this is amusing.

And my wife found me in the garden, she said, what on earth are you doing? You're naked. I said,

I'm not totally naked. I'm wearing this sort of cardigan. She said, what are you doing? I said,

I'm taking topless photographs of myself. I've seen Liz Hurley doing it and she's gone viral.

My wife said you will get viral. You'll be arrested. Come on in. So I did. But we're all going

a little bit mad, aren't we? I mean, have you been going a bit loopy or just feeling limp?

No, not loopy, luckily. I just, I think throughout lockdown, I've been operating by

being slightly manic in that kind of working, working, working, getting everything done and feeling

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