se71

July 25, 2006

Invasion

So, ABC have dropped their alien invasion show - Invasion

I'm not really surprised, in fact, I'm surprised it lasted so long. There were great performnces from the leading cast members. It was moody and occasionally intriguing. It was just too damned slow however.

Posted by se71 at 09:01 AM | Comments (0)

March 31, 2006

Waterloo-City Line Closing

This is the last day for commuters, myself included, to take the one stop line up from Waterloo to Bank station. The line is closing for the whole summer period for refurbishment. My day is already a very long one, I spend around three hours a day travelling. Now my five minute tube portion will definitely take longer.

I have many friends in the same situation, and we're all trying to work out what to do. We know that alternative routes by tube will be very slow and crowded.

Some people are going to try and run. Some have purchased folding bikes. Some are thinking about getting a motor-bike - and some have already done so. I'm contemplating a brisk walk - we'll see just how long that takes next week.

Posted by se71 at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

Government Targets

Do the government have targets for absolutely everything?

I know I can only drink so many units of alcohol a week. I know I have to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. But now I discover that I'm supposed to have 150 minutes of exercise every week too. That's two and a half hours. That's thirty minutes a day, five times a week.

I train a lot, I'm trying to get fit enough for a triathlon. In an average week I will meet and exceed this target, mostly due to a long bike ride at the weekend. If I miss the bike ride I do not make the 150 minutes, and yet still feel as if I get more than enough exercise.

I know very few people who take exercise as seriously as I do. The survey by Deloitte mentioned on the BBC website says that nearly half the population meet the target - I think this is complete rubbish. Do a straw poll of your friends and see if I'm right.

To eat five pieces of fruit and veg is actually quite difficult to manage every day; you have to constantly try and remember to do it, or else make a big change to your daily routine and shopping to keep your house filled with the stuff. Fruit is also expensive. I do my best but I'm constantly falling behind my 'target'. Constantly failing like this is demoralising, and the big temptation then is just to give up. Likewise with this exercise target - not many people will put in the time, and most will just resign themselves to being couch potatoes. I'm also pretty sure it used to be twenty minutes of exercise, three times a week.

I think this is another example of the government giving us unrealistic targets in the hope that we try and meet them, and in doing so, actually do enough. More realistic targets will be much more effective, and will do more good in the long run. If you find yourself regularly meeting the target, you might even get a buzz out of exceeding it occasionally.

Update: Just remembered the Eight Glases Of Water post I did a while back.

Posted by se71 at 07:39 AM | Comments (1)

January 09, 2006

Drink 8 glasses of Water a day - Urban Legend?

Update: The BBC have a new program called "The Truth About Food", and they have also debunked this theory.

Posted by se71 at 08:56 AM | Comments (1)

January 03, 2006

New Year Resolutions

It's great to have an aim I think. Something to work towards concentrates the mind and really does help you to achieve what you want to do.

Some resolutions are easy to make, but impossibly hard to maintain, and actually end up a bit counter productive. "Run 10 miles per week" or, "Write a blog entry every day for the whole year". These are possible, but make you more an addict to the letter of the resolution, rather than achieving the goals.

So you might have a cold, and really not feel like a three mile run in the middle of February, but go out anyway so as not to spoil your record. Then you make yourself really ill and are forced to break the resolution anyway. And you might post inane drivel to your blog, and in the process actually bore people away from reading it, just so that you can point to 365 entries at the end of the year.

That's why I try to make my resolutions a bit wishy-washy, a bit unfocussed. "exercise more", "eat better (but NOT less)", "write an interesting blog". These are better resolutions than the ones the anally retentive side of my personality would actually like me to make, and happily, I've missed two days blogging this year already.

Posted by se71 at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)

October 22, 2005

Norwich Union

The BBC News Magazine sometimes has interesting items.

Take this image for example from a current Norwich Union billboard advert. I've studied it quite a bit over the last few weeks and wondered how it was done.

So it's actually an old person, and a young relative at the opposite ends, and some computer morphing trickery for the middle two images.

Interesting, and something I expected I'd never find out.

Posted by se71 at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)

October 14, 2005

Jobs

What on earth is going on with work recently.

I've just been offered a 3rd really good job in central London at a really good rate. I'm already working on a contract for at least the next six months, so it's really frustrating not to be able to take up these opportunities.

Are jobs like buses then?

Posted by se71 at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)