I’m a little bit in love with Ros from Spooks – her icy demeanour, her skinny yet agile body, the way she can outrun FSB agents while wearing stilettos… And how refreshing that a fortysomething woman is more or less the star of the show (Richard Armitage’s character is just eye candy; he couldn’t fight his way out of paper bag in those sprayed-on 1980s-style jeans.)
I actually find Ros totally believable. I used to watch a great series called ‘SAS: Are You Tough Enough?’, which featured a load of super-fit contestants (mostly twenty-something men) being put through army training in the desert – yomping with full packs in 90 degree heat, being subjected to psychological torture, etc, etc – until there were only a handful still standing. Far from being a foregone conclusion, the final would always feature one or two middle-aged ladies, usually vets or GPs from the home counties. There was one episode where the contestants were put in stress positions and shut in a cell for hours, with white noise blasting incessantly. Grown men emerged weeping, but the lady vet/GP came out looking about as ruffled as she might be if she’d encountered a slightly longer-than-average queue in Marks & Spencer’s food hall. Come to think of it, my own GP is exactly that type – brisk to the point of ruthlessness. Which explains why, when she removed my coil recently as if she was yanking on a faulty pull switch, she nearly dragged my womb out with it.
Not waving but ironing 