Last Friday, my friend Arnold asked me what I was doing for the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going climbing,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cClimbing. The only climbing you\u2019ve ever done is of the social variety!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI happen to come from a long line of Jewish mountaineers; my uncle, Sherpa Rosengard was obscured on Everest by Tenzing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d Arnold said. \u201cWhat kind of climbing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m becoming a belayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that like being an Amish?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a climbing qualification. One person climbs up the rock face and I, the belayer, hold on to the rope. If they fall off, I stop them plunging to their death. It\u2019s quite important.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow long does this course take? One, two years?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo hours.\u201d I said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a very intense two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow intense?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to do knots and things.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Arnold knows, generally the terms \u201cexercise\u201d and \u201cPeter Rosengard\u201d are mutually exclusive. But two weeks ago I did go running in Oxford Street.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d got out of my car to pay for the parking by phone and glanced back to see my car half way across the road and picking up speed. I\u2019d left the handbrake off.<\/p>\n
I ran after it like Usain Bolt in the 20-yard sprint, and if it had been the 25-yard sprint I definitely would have caught up with it before it ran into the back of that taxi.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve still got a niggling groin injury, but you should have seen the taxi.<\/p>\n
Last September, I joined a gym in St John\u2019s Wood, but when I asked if I could watch a comedy programme on the TV monitor, the assistant said: \u201cSorry, we only play music here\u2026 the other members don\u2019t like comedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s nobody else in the gym,\u201d I protested.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry\u2026 it\u2019s the rules,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That was when I lunged for the remote control.<\/p>\n
\u201c I\u2019m the only member here,\u201d I shouted as she dialled for Security.<\/p>\n
I then found a small gym in Mayfair where they let me play my own Larry David DVDs when I\u2019m on the running machine.<\/p>\n
I was laughing so much I didn\u2019t even notice that I was doing any exercise!<\/p>\n
I\u2019d found the perfect gym.<\/p>\n
But after watching the entire series 250 times, I haven\u2019t been back. I\u2019m waiting for the new season\u2019s shows to come out.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m thinking of opening a chain of gyms, just for middle-aged Jewish men who want to watch Larry David all the time. It will be called Laughter First.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
THE END.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Peter Rosengard<\/p>\n
July 16 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last Friday, my friend Arnold asked me what I was doing for the weekend. \u201cI\u2019m going climbing,\u201d I said. \u201cClimbing. The only climbing you\u2019ve ever done is of the social variety!\u201d \u201cI happen to come from a long line of Jewish mountaineers; my uncle, Sherpa Rosengard was obscured on Everest by Tenzing.\u201d \u201cSure,\u201d Arnold said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff-written-by-me"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"timeline-thumb":false,"portfolio-thumb":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-xxxlarge":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-xxlarge":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-xlarge":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-large":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-medium":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-small":false,"portfolio-one-thumb-xsmall":false,"testimonial-thumbnail":false,"blog-two-thumbnail":false,"project-image":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"xCulture","author_link":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Last Friday, my friend Arnold asked me what I was doing for the weekend. \u201cI\u2019m going climbing,\u201d I said. \u201cClimbing. The only climbing you\u2019ve ever done is of the social variety!\u201d \u201cI happen to come from a long line of Jewish mountaineers; my uncle, Sherpa Rosengard was obscured on Everest by Tenzing.\u201d \u201cSure,\u201d Arnold said.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosengard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}