I DOWNLOADED one of them there walking apps one evening this week, as I lay on the couch watching a truly terrible movie and wondering how many calories you burn while crocheting.

I thought it would be interesting to see how many steps a day I do now and whether it fulfils its promise to inspire me to do more.

Although if we keep having torrential downpours at lunchtime, I’m never going to make it round the Lawns, especially since my loosely termed ‘walking buddy’ (well, we don’t drive to the pub) has the kind of hair that frizzes if you so much as say drizzle to her.

Anyway. By the time I went to bed I’d managed 36 steps. If I’d bothered to put the pizza in the fridge, I could have fitted in a few more, I’m sure.

Today will be my first full day of officially moving, although I’ve already made coffee, had a bath, made breakfast and more coffee and I haven’t picked up my phone yet so I feel a bit cheated... I may have to bump up my total at the end of the day.

As I drank my second cup of coffee, I was sitting (damn, another opportunity missed) listening to the radio and my interest was piqued by a conversation between a Scrabble champ and a professional hockey player.

Mr Scrabble (17 points, incidentally) insists that concentrating for long periods of time on the game makes you fitter and burns calories and therefore it should be classified as a sport.

Great news, this can count as at least some of my exercise throughout the week. Move over crochet, Scrabble is going to be the key to getting fit.

Ms Hockey Player concurred, saying the brain is a muscle like any other so exercising it is a form of fitness. It isn’t. The brain isn’t a muscle. You can’t physically flex your brain. No triple word score for you, lady.

Biological tomfoolery aside, it’s an interesting debate - what does qualify as sport?

I’ve just nabbed the Oxford English Dictionary (another 12 steps, I thank you) and it tells me that sport is: “An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.”

So I’m sorry but I don’t think Scrabble qualifies. If it does then we’ll need to allow celery eating in the Olympics as everyone knows that burns calories. Or crochet.

Behold the satellite of love not war

MY friend with the dog and I went on one of our weekend adventures last weekend but they’re just not like they used to be.

Tradition has it that he drives and I ‘navigate’. Now I don’t think I’m bad at map reading, but he disagrees - vehemently and to a degree that sometimes involves a bit of shouting and low level rumblings of fury.

But not these days. I have been ousted from my duties in favour of a sat nav app on the phone (even though I pronounce the road names better). No, my job is simply to repeat loudly what the man on the phone said (Athuttyfifftitoo = A3052).

In the absence of tantrums and reciprocal sulking, we marvelled at the genius of science that has allowed the exact location of our little car to be pin-pointed on a little map on a little lump of metal.

So I was interested to read in the paper this week that young people are being challenged to come up with ideas on how to use satellite data to improve life on Earth - and they could win £10,000 in the process.

The SatelLife Challenge, run by the UK Space Agency, is looking for inspirational ideas from people aged 11 to 22, linking satellite and space data and its application to everyday life.

Frankly I can’t think of anything better than using outer space to stop people in cars having horrible rows. Thank you, sat nav, my work here is done.

The award goes to...

I’M entering this year’s press awards in the category of best columnist in the world ever (or something like that) and I’m finding the whole ordeal rather stressful.

For a start, I’ve got to write 300 words about myself in support of my application. Ironic, eh? Should be easy for someone who burbles on for near to 1,000 words on a weekly basis in the newspaper. But nope, I’m struck dumb, I have writer’s block, I’m rendered incapable.

But I’ve got to do it otherwise I may miss my chance to be called up on to the stadium to receive my glittering award amidst rapturous applause as they announce ‘the winner is...’. And then to be called back down again while they announce that actually the award was meant for someone else.