10,000
Posted: Thu 23 February, 2017 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Cynicism, Domestic, Health, Laziness, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last couple of days, there’s been some coverage about an American scientist (which seems to be a pretty endangered species in the Age Of Trump) claiming that fitness trackers and pedometers are pretty arbitrary, and not necessarily the best way to go.
Which, I think it’s fair to say, we can file under “Sherlock, Shit, No”.
Of course that 10,000 steps a day advice is arbitrary. Even the figure tells you it’s arbitrary – those nice round numbers for ‘ideals’ simply don’t occur that often in reality.
Hager claimed the 10,000 steps target dated back to a 1960s Japanese study that showed there were health benefits for men who burned at least 2,000 calories per week through exercise – roughly equivalent to 10,000 steps each day. An early pedometer was known as the manpo-kei, which means “10,000-step meter” in Japanese.
Really, if anyone is taking anything from these devices as gospel truth, they’re a fucking moron. At best, these devices are indicators.
The heartrate monitor is well known to not be accurate – but so long as it’s fairly consistent per user/wearer, it’s a decent-enough indicator of where you stand. And if it suddenly dropped to reporting 10bpm (or 200bpm) then anyone vaguely sensible would take themselves to a GP for a proper check.
The same’s true for the sleep monitor (which I do use). It’s not gospel truth. But it’s a decent-enough indicator of awake vs. disturbed ‘sleep vs. actual REM sleep. Do I believe it innately? Hell no. But does it consistently show me my bad nights vs. less-bad ones? (I’m yet to have a good night’s sleep) Yes.
And if you can’t rely on those indicators, why would you rely on the step monitor? Simple, you wouldn’t. Can you game it and mess figures simply by swinging your arms more? Yep. But what’s the point of doing that, unless all you’re interested in is attaining that arbitrary [x],000 steps in a day? The only benefit in that is you, and you’re just cheating yourself.
However, it does make for a useful indicator, and a reminder to actually move more. I can understand (kinda) why people make these things into targets, but really all that’s important is being more active. And that’s what counts.
Attention Span
Posted: Thu 5 January, 2017 Filed under: Charm School, Cinema, Cynicism, Domestic, Films, People, Seeing Films, Technology, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Yesterday, there was a bundle of news coverage about Apple’s supposedly-upcoming “Cinema Mode” for iPhones and iPads as part of the next iOS release.
This will (again, supposedly) allow people in cinemas – and other darkened environments, one assumes – to check their phones without disturbing those around them, mainly through use of a ‘dark’ colour-scheme, so the display doesn’t glow like a lighthouse.
In fairness, this annoys me on a regular basis at the cinema – there’s always some fuckknuckle who wants to check stuff while ‘watching’ a film, leaving their phone’s volume up, or some other piece of vacuous self-centred idiocy. But really, a phone mode to cater for that?
It irritates me that so many people now seem to be utterly incapable of sitting for a couple of hours and watching a film. There’ve been a couple of films I’ve seen recently where it seemed like everyone else was eating popcorn (or sweets, or both) from rustling paper bags throughout the film, and/or then sodding off out to the toilet and whatever else.
As has been noted before, I really don’t understand people. I don’t get why someone would pay to see a film, spend even more on food and drink, then either not be able to sit through the film without breaks, or without checking their phones. If you’re going to do all that, why not wait til it comes out on disc/download/TV and watch at home, where you can pause, rewind etc., and not worry about missing bits while you go to drain your microscopic bladder?
Mind you, I also don’t understand why cinemas insist on putting all their food/refreshments in noisy paper bags. Surely there must be another option by now? A fabric version or similar? Or larger bags/tubs that allow hands in and out without touching the sides?
Final Weeks
Posted: Fri 25 November, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Festering Season, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, London, Milton Keynes, People, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »We’re coming to the end of 2016, and things are (kind of) calming down a bit here.
Mind you, in the next month the main events are
- Seeing Glenda Jackson in King Lear at the Old Vic in London
- Seeing The Tempest in Stratford-upon-Avon
- A Festive BurgerCrawl in London – only Christmas Special burgers allowed. (That’s pretty much planned already)
- Meals at five Michelin-starred restaurants, including one for New Year’s Eve
and alongside that there’s also
- at least one techie meetup/socialisation night
- two social things with other friends and contacts
- a minimum of three films (that’re already booked) including Rogue One and Passengers, plus any others I choose to see
That’s about it – except for the standard stuff around the Festering Season as well.
And yet still, that’s a lot quieter and calmer than a lot of the year has been. Which just goes to show, sometimes I can be a spectacularly busy idiot…
Damage, Stupidity, and Repair. (And food)
Posted: Mon 21 November, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Food, Health, London, People, Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Just before the weekend, either Thursday or Friday, I twisted my ankle. Nothing major, nothing broken – but painful, and a joyous shade of purple by the Saturday morning. I’ve no idea what I actually did to it – there was no noteworthy twist, trip, or knock, but I’d obviously done something stupid to it.
However, because I’m a massive idiot, I wasn’t going to let something like that stop me from doing the stuff I had planned for the weekend.
So on Saturday I took the train down to London in order to go to Taste London‘s Festive Edition, down at Tobacco Dock. I went earlier than usual, because – again, despite that slightly twatted ankle – I was planning to walk from Euston to Tobacco Dock, meet friends, go round the event, and then decide what I’d do from there.
The walk went surprisingly well, made a decent time – albeit a bit slower than usual, for obvious reasons.
I got there hugely early, which meant I was at the front of the queue, but that’s fine. Met up with friends, covered the whole of the Taste Festival, and had a good time.
And then, because I’m still a massive idiot, we walked back from Tobacco Dock, first to The Alchemist on Bevis Marks, near the Gherkin, for a couple of cocktails (they’re brilliant, hugely creative, and decently priced – for anywhere, rather than ‘reasonable for London’) and then on to Honest Burgers at Tottenham Court Road before getting back to Euston. All told, somewhere around 13 miles of walking on a still-stuffed ankle. By the end of it, my leg was extremely sore, but it was well worth it.
On the Sunday, I had a quieter day planned – out in the evening, but nothing planned for the day. So I took it a bit easier, did a load of domestic stuff, but without doing a lot of walking. The leg and ankle were still sore, so I didn’t want to exacerbate the damage any further.
Then in the late afternoon/early evening, over to friends, and thence to Northampton for food at a place they’d recommended and like (Sol Y Luna in Northampton) for epic tapas and then a couple of drinks at The Olde England pub before heading to their and then home.
So it was a pretty epic weekend of food, with added twattery and pain.
And this morning, when I no longer need to do a load of walking, of course the ankle is now pretty much back to normal. Of course…
Birthday Weekend
Posted: Mon 7 November, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, London, People, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »In general, I don’t really do much on/for my birthday, or surrounding it. Birthdays aren’t something I see as generally important, they are (to me) just another day. I try to recognise them for others and so on, but honestly, I’m not that bothered when it comes to my own.
This year, though, the weekend of my birthday turned out to be a fairly epic one – albeit still not massively social, and more because of the way things worked out, rather than anything else.
The first indicator that it would be a non-standard weekend came a lot earlier in the year, when I discovered that the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) was going to be showing one of my all-time favourite films, Aliens, with the soundtrack being performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I’d have booked it for any damn time of the year, to be honest – but the fact it was being done on the day after my birthday made it even better. So I booked tickets for myself and a friend to see it. Happy day. And really, that would’ve been enough to make it a good day/weekend.
But then same friend suggested we make a day of it, and do a decent lunch before the film. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s some decent places just up the road from the RAH. So he booked a table for us, as well as his wife and son. (Who wouldn’t have let him eat around there without them, all being foodies) Where? Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Because? Well, why not?
But both of those were for the day after my birthday. So, with the Solo Dining project in mind as well, I decided to book somewhere for lunch on the actual day. And ended up with a booking at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, which had been on my list for a while, and was generally regarded as being bloody good.
And that’s what happened.
And you know what? It was bloody good. I’ll write more during the coming week, but safe to say, yeah, it’s been a good weekend. Although today I do feel just a bit broken. Sad, but true.
Apprentice Thoughts
Posted: Fri 14 October, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Cynicism, Domestic, People, Television, Thoughts 2 Comments »Once again, the BBC has a series of the Apprentice running. And yet again, every single contestant currently appears to be an inveterate fuckknuckle with all the business skills of a bundle of second-hand scrotum skin.
What I don’t understand about the competitors (more even than being so massively underprepared and underqualified) is what think will happen afterwards. This year, there’s 18 competitors, and that means that 17 are going to lose, and go back to reality.
But anyone who has seen the programme will know that they’re insufferable, incompetent, and in most cases utterly vile human beings who couldn’t truly run a business if their lives depended on it.
So – what happens when they look for new work? Or even just return to the job where they’ve managed to negotiate a break or sabbatical? (Come to think of it, that situation might be even worse, with the added weight of expectations etc.)
I know that if, regardless of whether I were interviewing or being interviewed, any single one of them were in the room, I’d know they’re (at best) useless, gobby, opinionated, and shit at their supposed job; and wouldn’t work with them. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d do the same.
All told, pretty mind-boggling.
Eating Well For Less
Posted: Mon 22 August, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Brands, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Food, Health, Laziness, People, Shopping, Television, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few weeks, I’ve been watching the BBC’s “Eat Well For Less” series. It’s an interesting concept, helping people with their eating habits (and more accurately, their spending on food) by removing all the labelling and branding from food in people’s houses, removing all the prejudices etc. around their food spending. They replace expensive branded stuff with ‘own-brand’ or cheaper alternatives (and in some cases with more expensive, but better/healthier options) and also leaving some things alone. Additionally, they help people with recipes for their favourite meals, rather than buying pre-packaged and so on.
A lot of it is insanely annoying, but the core information is (in my opinion) worth it, for both the families on the programme, and people watching it.
But oh Dear God, those families are fucking pathetic. There’s lots of preconceptions about brands being preferred “because they wouldn’t be so popular if they weren’t the best” and so on, which drives me crackers.
The most recent one tonight, though, drove me crackers. One family member had been diagnosed as coeliac, and had spent six years eating salads he hated. Six. Fucking. Years. How does anyone end up eating stuff they don’t like for six bloody years? There’s no logic in it that I can see – unless they haven’t done any enquiries or research about what’s got gluten in and so on?
In this case they were buying loads of pre-packaged food – and I get that more, because they were so worried about cross-contaminating from their foods to his, and making him ill – but with no thoughts or understanding. I think the peak point for me was buying pre-packaged “gluten-free” rice, not understanding that all rice is gluten-free, in the name of Jesus H Pant-shitting Christ.
So yeah, it’s been an interesting series, but Holy DogEggs, some people are fucking lazy/stupid/pathetic*.
(* Delete as applicable)