Rainy weekend part two

I'm having an indoors day, so I might as well use the lull to write another post. So ... this weekend begins the smoking ban in indoor public places in England. Including pubs! Apparently 1 in 4 people smoke here - I can't decide whether I think that's a high percentage or not. Most people I know here don't smoke. Anyway, rest assured there will be belligerence and controversy. Though, locally, perhaps not as much controversy as this shocking ban will elicit. Has anyone ever been punting without booze involved? The whole ritual is based around Pimm's and champagne.

Since I'm otherwise studiously avoiding the news at the moment, I've been surfing the web for a little light entertainment. I checked out the new Rufus Wainwright video and nearly snorted Diet Coke out my nose about a minute in. (Another narrow escape for my laptop.) I've always gotten a kick out of purportedly macho men in the little unitards worn for athletic activities around the turn of the century. It reminds me of one of the many old books that has charmed me at the summer cottage in Quebec. (Only three weeks until I'll be there!) I present to you Frank Eugen Dalton and his magnum opus:


He apparently developed his own method, 'the Dalton method', which as you can see was a particularly masculine approach to swimming:

He used his (no doubt) long-suffering wife 'Mrs. Frank Eugen Dalton', she of the Pre-Raphaelite locks and grim smile, to represent the 'beginner'.


Among the many topics covered in the book is how to swim with your clothing on, an 'exciting feat guaranteed to be a hit at swimming exhibitions' and that 'never fails to inspire admiration and wonder in onlookers.' Has the fact escaped him that women always swam in a full set of heavy and hindering garments? (Including shoes!) Here's another little gem from the book: 'Swimming is a tonic alike for muscle and brain. The smallest child and the weakest woman can enjoy it equally with the strongest man.' The inside front cover of the book is inscribed with the name of a predecessor of the cottage's current owners, who would have been elderly at the time. I like to imagine a prim and proper Victorian woman, tired of fanning herself on the veranda on the hottest days, determined to learn how to swim ('scientifically', no less) in the lake just outside her door, the lake in which her children and grandchildren spent most of their time. It reminds me of how I, at the mature age of 25, finally got upright on waterskis while my twelve-year-old cousins (expert skiers themselves) encouraged me with a mixture of excitement and fear for my obviously fragile health.