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Kraftwerk are not just a man-machine, they are also a myth-machine. Uwe Schütte ‘Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany’

Kraftwerk is one of those artists that I grew up with a particular impression, cold, robotic, strange, almost comical. A lot of this was based on seeing Autobahn played on Rage late at night / early in the morning. However, my listening never really went beyond this. Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany offers an introduction to the band beyond first impressions.

Uwe Schütte covers the origins of the band in post-war Germany, with the influences of American culture and Andy Warhol. It then works through their various albums, the inspiration and intent around each, as well as how they were received. While the book ends with the legacy in regards to the New Romantics, inspiring acts such as Depeche Mode, and laying the ground work for acts such as Daft Punk and Aphex Twin, who are/were able to operate as something of ‘machine’ separate from the humans.

Throughout, the book, Schütte explores the way in which Kraftwerk were/are a ‘man-machine’ where they worked beyond the individual. This was in part captured in the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, or ‘total work of art’, where the act was more than just the songs, but rather the the whole package, including multimedia presentations and artistic representations. With everything being a part of the act, this in turn opened the door to various myths to fill the spaces left spare. For Schütte, this all comes back to the question about whether they were in fact as important for music as The Beatles?

What is Kraftwerk’s legacy? Were they as (or even more) important than The Beatles in the development of pop music? Could, for example, techno have emerged from inner-city areas of Detroit without them? And to what extent did their early decision to remain fiercely independent, running their own label and, more significantly, their own studio, set a model for other bands and producers? How did the overarching concept of the man-machine influence later (male and female) artists in the realm of electronic music? And are Kraftwerk not just a man-machine but also a myth-machine?

Source: Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany by Uwe Schütte

What I found interesting was that there particular legacy, when they released  Autobahn  (1974), Trans-Europe Express  (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), and Computer World (1981), was only a seven year period. Beyond that, they seem to have played on their legacy as a multimedia act. In that way, I guess they are similar to the Beatles? With regards to the legacy, it is hard to appreciate now the impact that they would have had at the time, when electronic music was not as accessible as it is today. This is something Dylan Jones captures in his book Sweet Dreams. I also cannot be helped thinking about TISM with regards to the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk.

With this in mind, it is strange how music comes in and out of vogue, how certain songs continue to live on, while other songs and artists slip back into the culture consciousness. I definitely came away from Schütte’s book with a deeper understanding of Kraftwerk, even more so than say Double J’s tour de force. Now to go back and listen with this new appreciation.

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I always think of the eighties as the alien tearing itself out of the body of punk. Toyah Willcox in Dylan Jones 'Sweet Dreams - The Story of the New Romantics'

I originally came upon Sweet Dreams – The Story of the New Romantics by Dylan Jones via an interview with Andrew Ford on The Music Show. However, it feels like one of those books that continually pops up in my feed, whether it be by Tony Martin in a conversation with Damian Cowell in episode 10 of Only the Shit You Love, the Podcast or in the Depeche Mode J-Files.

Sweet Dreams covers the period between 1975 to 1985. The book explores the music that influenced the New Romantics (Kraftwerk, Neu!, Giorgio Moroder, David Bowie, Roxy Music) and those caught up in the movement (Gary Numan, Ultravox, Visage, Orchestral Movement in the Dark, Spandet Ballet, ABC, Human League, Duran Duran, Adam and the Ants, Culture Club, Eurythmics, Wham, Sade, Depeche Mode, New Order.) Some bands were at the heart of the change, while others positioned themselves in opposition to it, however they were all a part of it in some way shape or form.

Although music is the through-line through out the book, it is more than just a documentation of the music of that time. The book explores various influences, such as the clubs (The Blitz and Hacienda Club), fashion (Antony Price and Vivian Westwood), culture (MTV and gay rights), the place of education (St. Martin’s College), and politics (Thatcherism and Falkland War).

As a text, Sweet Dreams is a behemoth, traversing ten years, including over 100 different voices, and spanning over 600 pages. As an exploration of the time, it dives in further than say the BBC documentary Synth Britannia. At the same time I was also left feeling that there was probably still so much that was cut out or possibly left silent due to access to sources or the artists. For example, although Jones touches on artists like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, I imagine he could have gone into some of these beginnings in more detail. In addition to this, I feel that this is also one of those books that you could choose a particular thread and explore further, based on Jones’ own bibliography at the end. Although, sadly or gladly, Malcolm McLaren’s autobiography is not one of them, clearly for a reason it would seem.

What I found intriguing was how so much changed in such a short time.

Carey Labovitch: When you are living through a period, you don’t think of it as a period.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

The book begins with the rise of punk and ends with drugs and stadium pop on the back of LiveAid. A particular part of this change was the revolutionary roll of technology. Gone was the punk ethic of learning ‘three chords’, this was instead replaced by electronics:

Phil Oakey: We laughed at the other bands learning three chords – we used one finger.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

This is something Damian Cowell discussed in the Only The Shit You Love: The Podcast, with regard to his purchase of the Roland TR-606, but Jones’ book really fleshes this out.

It begins with bands like the Human League deciding between buying a second-hand car or a miniKORG 700, Gary Numan rewriting a whole album after finding a Polymoog in the studio, or the Eurythmics getting a loan to buy equipment, including a Movement Systems Drum Computer, Roland Sh-101 and an Oberheim OB-X, and seemingly ends with unions passing a motion to ban the use of electronic devices.

When Barry Manilow toured the UK in January 1982, he used synths to simulate the orchestral sounds of a big band, after which the union passed a motion to ban the use of synths, drum machines and any electronic devices ‘capable of recreating the sounds of conventional musical instruments’. They were particularly concerned about the possible effect on West End theatrical productions, imagining orchestra pits full of ‘technicians’ instead of musicians.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

(On a side note, Massive Attack actually sold a car to replace the sampled strings on ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ with a proper orchestra.)

It is easy to write off some of these early sounds as dated or simplistic, especially as synthesisers and production techniques have ebbed and evolved over time. But this does not capture the significance of the change. (I cannot help be reminded of the quote, “There is more technology in an iPhone 5 than the first Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon.”)

Personally, I have an Arturia MiniFreak, Roland MC-101 and Roland JX-08. I imagine I could probably reproduce much of what was done in the early eighties and more and not really think much of it. However, this was all new and cutting edge.

John Foxx: I figured new instruments had always radically altered music in the past – for instance, the electric guitar. Here was the next major shift – the synthesizer.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

With this in mind, the book argues that the music produced between late 70’s and early 80’s was as influential to music, if not more so, as the changes that occurred in the mid-60’s.

Simon Napier-Bell: This period was as important as the original British invasion. If you really want to look back at pop culture, the first British invasion was during the first decade of the twentieth century, when every single musical on Broadway was British and Brits invaded Broadway. The second invasion was the one we call the first British invasion, which was the sixties. But the eighties one was equally relevant, and possibly more important, because the one in the sixties basically involved a lot of groups who sounded like the Beatles. There was much more variety in the eighties. The sixties were great because that was when we all discovered we could have sex every night, but the eighties were more creative.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

What amazes me now, thinking about bands that try and reproduce the ‘sound of the eighties’, is how different and diverse all the bands in the early eighties actually were, often from album to album.

Jim Kerr: The amazing thing about people in the eighties was their ambition. Not so much ambition for riches and fame – that was too far down the road – but ambition to do something glorious. And whether that was our band or spiky music like the Cure and Magazine or early Spandau Ballet and Duran. I mean, early Spandau wasn’t Tony Hadley’s chocolate box; from day one they were going to take over the world! And they did. And all of them were quite maverick. To me, it wasn’t so much any movement; it was more like there weren’t two or three bands like the Cure, there was the Cure. There weren’t two or three bands like the Human League, like the Birthday Party, like the Smiths, there was one. A lot of real individualism and wonderful imagination, to such a level that it was almost overwhelming. It was an incredibly political decade – the Berlin Wall coming down, Mandela being freed, the miners’ strikes, the poll tax, Tiananmen Square. It certainly wasn’t all shoulder pads, Rambo and Filofaxes.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

As Andrew Ridgeley argues, this liberation was made possible by punk.

Andrew Ridgeley: What punk did was liberate how people thought about creativity in the musical sense.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

Or as Toyah Willcox suggests, the eighties was an alien escaping from punk.

Toyah Willcox: I always think of the eighties as the alien tearing itself out of the body of punk.

Source: Sweet Dreams by Dylan Jones

With this sense of liberation and diversity, I was left wondering about the cross-overs, the bleeding between bands, the sharing of members, the different possibilities with the same technology. I also wonder what ‘shit‘ (to borrow from Brian Eno) was created that fertilised the success of others. Those bands that broke up in Wagga Wagga and did not have the luck or opportunity to get a loan to purchase synthesisers, like the Eurythmics. Sweet Dreams helped highlight that there is a world beyond ‘the hits’ or the satire of Wedding Singer and Zoolander, a world beyond the myth.

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Acting might look easy, but it’s actually very hard. In fact, if it looks like it’s easy, it means that the actor is doing something very hard very well. If it looks like ‘acting’, forget it. Sam Neill ‘Did I Ever Tell You?’

I came upon Sam Neill’s memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? via an interview with Sarah Kanowski on the ABC Conversations podcast. I had caught a part of the Australian Story as well. It occurred to me that as a person away from the screen, I really did not know much about Neill. After reading the book, it would seem that it was as much a personal choice on Neill’s behalf as anything else.

Neill was inspired to write the book after being diagnosed with cancer. In part, it was written for his children, in part for the reader, but really for Neill himself.

The thing is, I’m crook. Possibly dying. I may have to speed this up. Suddenly, for the first time in my life, I have time to burn, and time to think. And writing, jotting thoughts and memories down, is a salve. It gets my mind off things.

Source: Did I Ever Tell You? by Sam Neill

In some ways, this memoir presents Neill as an everyday sort of guy. He is not very sporty. Had a stutter when growing up. (Something interesting to consider alongside James Earl Jones experience.) Suffers from hemochromatosis. Enjoys the outdoors. Struggled through university. Grew up hitch-hiking places. Smokes marijuana. And stumbled into acting.

The book itself begins with Neill’s upbringing in New Zealand’s South Island, his family background (father was in the army), going to boarding school, as well as his Irish roots. However, it soon changes track as Neill’s life somehow falls into the world of film beginning with Sleeping Dogs and then My Brilliant Career. This seemingly opens him up to one opportunity after another, especially once he got an agent.

Although it is not necessarily a memoir filled with gossip, Neill cannot help but shares endless stories of the people that he has met along the way (this is epitomised with the private birthday bashes where famous musicians come and perform), the various life journeys he has been on (house in London, Sydney, a winery in Central Otago that is the closest to Antartica), the things that he has owned (the Ralph Hotere painting he lost in the divorce and the Porsche that Judy Davis caught him driving in). It is this side of the book that reminds us that although Neill comes across as humble, a man whose job it is to “sit in caravans”, he most definitely has lived a privilaged life.

The thing I enjoyed the most about the book was Neill’s eye for the odd stories, from Sir John Gielgud’s tale of the Sam Neill who “fucked absolutely everyone in London”, his mother trading a ride with a biker on the back of his Harley in lieu of a ride in her buggy, or recounting the spreading of his uncle’s ashes. What surprised me was how funny Neill is. The roles that I could remember were often quite serious characters, however they clearly do not capture Neill as a person. (On a side note, one of the things that surprised me about this book was how many shows and films he has been in. I could not believe how often I was left think, “Oh yeah, he was in that.”) He certainly has a dry humour, especially for someone going through chemotherapy. Chris Gordon compares reading the book as to being at a dinner party:

I finished this memoir feeling like I had been at a raucous dinner party, seated next to him of course, where tales are flung from one end of the earth to the other and the evening finishes with a lovely Two Paddocks pinot noir. And a relief that he is in remission.

Source: Did I Ever Tell You This? by Sam Neill by Chris Gordon

I think that I would agree with this.

The other thing that stood out throughout was Neill’s general fascination with life. Whereas others would disappear from a conversation, Neill often seems willing to persevere. He comes across as someone willing to hold on tightly and let go lightly. Maybe this is based on the spectre of cancer hanging over him, I am not sure.

However, this fascination is also balanced with being careful of his private life. Lucy Clark touches on this, highlighting the aspects of his life that somewhat absent.

In Did I Ever Tell You This? Neill shares quite a bit more of himself. Indeed he has laid himself quite bare and, like most actors awaiting the reviews, he wants to know how he did. As memoirs go, it is very funny and extremely entertaining, but with a judicious touch of poignancy. No self-pity here. He is an enormously good raconteur and also deliciously indiscreet in some of his tale-telling (co-stars behaving badly, take note). But still, he is careful with his private life. Details of past relationships are either omitted, as in the case of his most recent relationship with the Canberra press gallery journalist Laura Tingle, or referred to fleetingly as with his marriages to actor Lisa Harrow and to film makeup artist Noriko Watanabe. His four children and eight grandchildren appear as careful references to his life’s joy and great love.

Source: Sam Neill on his new memoir and living with blood cancer: ‘I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me’ by Lucy Clark

While Madeleine Swain suggests that there are few revolutions.

If you’re looking for gossip, you’ll find plenty to enjoy. But this is hardly the scurrilous slander mongering and barbed brickbats of a Hedda Hopper skewering or an ‘article’ in the National Enquirer. In fact, most of the people Neill mentions he seems to rate pretty highly. But when he does come across a curmudgeon or someone who behaved less than favourably on set, he tells it as he sees it. Though, to be frank, there are few shocking revelations.

Source: Book review: Did I Ever Tell You This?, Sam Neill by Madeleine Swain

I guess that is why this is a memoir, not an autobiography? Personally, I did not mind this. Did I Ever Tell You was the story the Neill wanted to tell and as always, it could have been different, but it wasn’t. Also, it was made all that more meaningful listening to Neill read it.

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I came upon Johann Hari’s book on semaglutides, Magic Pill, via an interview he did with on Radio National with Phillip Adams. I had not read any of Hari’s books before nor heard him speak. After listening to George Chidi share his journey on the Guardian podcast, I was intrigued in a book that balanced between the personal reflections of taking Ozempic, as well as an investigation into what semaglutides are and what they might mean for society.

In the introduction, Hari posits that there are three types of possible forms of magic made possible by the new semaglutide drugs, like Ozempic:

  1. They could be the solution to obesity issues.
  2. They could serve as an unintended illusion.
  3. They could have effects we could never have imagined at the start.

Throughout the book, he sets out to explore what sort of future we have entered into.

Hari begins by exploring the origins of these new drugs. He examines the way in which the hormone GLP-1 boosts satiety, the sensation of feeling full.

Satiety (/səˈtaɪ.ə.ti/ sə-TYE-ə-tee) is a state or condition of fullness gratified beyond the point of satisfaction, the opposite of hunger “Hunger (physiology)”). Following satiation (meal termination), satiety is a feeling of fullness lasting until the next meal.[1] When food is present in the GI tract after a meal, satiety signals overrule hunger signals, but satiety slowly fades as hunger increases.

Source: Satiety – Wikipedia

The problem is that in its natural form the hormone is short lived in our bodies and would require people to inject themselves several times a day. Inspired in part by the lasting effects of lizard venom of the Gila monster, scientists developed a copy of the hormone which instead remained in the body for longer and meant that users would only need to inject themselves once a week.

The problem found is that although people often see a significant lose in weight, they often put two-thirds back on after going off the drug, returning to the bodies pre-defined default. In addition to this, there are many strange side effects associated with being on the drug, such as constipation, burping and nausea.

[Carel Le Roux] likes to say that there are two kinds of drugs: drugs that don’t work, and drugs that have side effects. You become constipated because the surge of GLP-1 slows down your gut and its emptying. The food and waste sit inside you longer and find it harder to get out. Similarly, you burp because “the valve that sits at the bottom of the stomach doesn’t open as quickly. The air must go somewhere, so instead of it going down into the small intestine, people start burping.” You become nauseous because the drug creates a sensation of extreme satiety—that you are full and can’t eat any more. The human brain struggles to distinguish between extreme satiety and sickness: the two signals get easily mixed up, which is why, even for people who aren’t taking these drugs, after a really big meal you often feel a little nauseous.

Source: Magic Pills: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs by Johann Hari

Although semaglutides may serve as a possible solution to obesity, the question that remains is how and why we even got into the predicament we are in. Reflecting upon the competing cultures of his upbringing, sandwiched between his healthy eating Swiss father and fast-food loving Scottish mother, Hari examines the way these two diets have changed over the years. Over time, the high sugar and fat diet associated with the processed food coming out on top in the West. The problem with this is that the copious amounts of chemicals and additives used to sustain such a life-style meant that ‘food’ is not really food at all. (This reminded me of Jamie Oliver’s demonstration of how chicken nuggets are made using the whole chicken.)

The problem that we face is that processed food industry and the weight loss drugs are both responding to the same thing, satiety. Hari explains how processed food undermines satiety in seven ways:

  1. You chew it less.
  2. The unique combination of sugar, fat, and carbs seems to activate something primal and we go crazy for it.
  3. It affects your energy levels differently.
  4. It lacks protein and fiber.
  5. Processed drinks contain chemicals that may be actively triggering us to be more hungry.
  6. Flavor is separated from the quality of the food.
  7. It seem to cause our gut to malfunction.

Interestingly, this change to food begins from the start of the food chain, with big agriculture is doing to animals what the processed food industry is doing to us.

Thirty years ago, it took twelve weeks for a factory-farmed chicken to reach its slaughter weight, but now it only takes five to six weeks. Broiler chickens are three times higher in fat today than they were when I was born, and the standard factory-farmed turkey now has such an obese chest that it can barely stand up.
So how did they do it? It turns out it was partly by restricting the animals’ movement—lots of them can’t even turn around in their cages. But even more importantly, they totally transformed their diets. If you feed a cow the whole food it evolved to eat—grass—it will take a year longer to reach its slaughter weight than if you feed it something different: a newly invented kind of ultra-processed feed, made up of grains, chemicals, hormones, and antibiotics. Because the animals don’t like the taste of this fake food, the agricultural corporations often add artificial sweetness to it—Jell-O powder is popular, especially with a strawberry-banana flavoring. When you mix a sweet-tasting formula like this into their processed food, lambs will rapidly add 30 percent to their body weight.

Source: Magic Pills: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs by Johann Hari

With this all in mind, Hari suggests that semaglutides can be considered as an artificial solution to an artificial problem. The problem though is that although obesity maybe in part a cultural creation, the consequences are still real. They include an increased risk of diabetes, heart issues, joint problems and inflammation. Benefits therefore are simple, reverse obesity, reverse the health harms.

There are clear benefits with weight loss, but there is also a long history of similar such solutions in the past, each with their own issues. These include Redusols, ‘mother’s little helper’ amphetamines, sleeping pills (you can’t eat if you are not awake?), wiring the jaw and Fen-phen. Although each of these solutions demonstrated the ability to help with weight loss, they all came with their own significant drawbacks. With semaglutides, Hari summarises twelve possible risks:

  1. Saggy face.
  2. Saggy buttocks.
  3. Increased risk of Tyroid cancer.
  4. Nine times more likely to get pancreatitis.
  5. Stomach paralysis where your digestive system slows down and your body struggles to move food from your stomach to your small intestine.
  6. Potential lose of lean muscle mass.
  7. Malnutrition.
  8. Unable to purchase the drug.
  9. Purchasing an off-brand knockoff version.
  10. Unknown unknowns. For example, it took years a lifetime to discover the long term trends of anti-psychotics and the long term trends.
  11. Anhedonia and the potential of self-harm.
  12. Eating disorders and the supercharging of starvation.

As an alternative to the risks associated with drugs, Hari also examines less intrusive responses. The sad reality is that research has found that exercise rarely causes sustained weight loss.

“You can’t run off a bad diet.”

Source: Magic Pills: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs by Johann Hari

While the long term benefits of dieting is approximately 10kg. One of the reasons for the limited returns is that obesity is often a complex problem. Hari uses the bio-psycho-social model to examine some of the different factors at play. For example, some use food to solve the problem of a bad day, some stuff themselves based on poor development, or use obesity as a way of controlling the world around them and how people see them. It has been found that with bariatric surgery, another common weight loss treatment, the addiction with food can transfer to other things or produce an increase in anxiety, as such surgery does not solve any psychological problems. The challenge though is that at the end of day in an ‘obesogenic environment’, the odds are always stacked against individual willpower.

Rather than think this or that, the solution maybe instead multifaceted. Instead of seeing semaglutides as the sole solution, maybe they are simply part of a wider solution to a healthier life? Often those who are obese struggle to exercise, therefore the benefits gained from using semaglutides offer a kickstart to a wider set of changes for a healthier life. This includes appreciating our bodies for what they can do, as well as exploring ways that we can be better.

We have two tasks ahead of us—to learn to love our bodies however they are, and to learn to make our bodies as healthy and functional as we can.

Source: Magic Pills: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs by Johann Hari

In contrast to all this, Hari investigates Japanese culture and why they do not necessarily need semaglutides. From the perspective of food, he shares the following lessons he learnt:

  1. Each meal should have “five tastes, five skills, and five colors.”
  2. Meals should be eaten in a triangular manner, where you take small bits of the different parts, rather than eating sequentially.
  3. Combine the different ingredients in your mouth as a way of enjoying the different tastes and textures.
  4. Stop at 80 percent, so you are never full.

This eating practice is supported from the ground on up, with schools hiring chefs who prepare nutritious meals for staff and students each day, as well as in the supermarkets, where the shelves are predominantly lined with fresh produce.

In addition to eating, Metabo Law enforces workplaces to weigh and measure staff once a year and work with them to develop a health plan if they have gone up. Associated with this, companies often put in place different strategies, such as measuring steps, doing collective exercise together or sharing meals they are eating, as a way of fostering a healthy workforce.

In conclusion, Hari proposes five scenarios moving forward with the semaglutides revolution:

  1. Semaglutides are fen-phen Mark 2, where we a signficant heatlth risk is uncovered that we were not aware of.
  2. Semaglutides become like chemical antidepressants where the initial effect fades in time.
  3. Semaglutides become like statins which provide an ongoing benefit to elites who can afford them.
  4. Semaglutides are like statins and that they become freely available to anyone who needs them.
  5. Semaglutides provide a kickstart to wider cultural reset as to how we got into this situation and what a better future might look like.

As Hari elaborates:

There’s a fifth scenario—the most optimistic. It’s that many of us start to take these drugs, and experience significant weight loss, and see our health improve—and it wakes us up to ask: How did we get into this situation in the first place? How did we end up with a food system so dysfunctional that we need to engage in a program of mass drugging to protect us from it? Do we want our kids to have to drug themselves in this way?

Source: Magic Pills: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs by Johann Hari

I entered Magic Pill intrigued to find out more about Ozempic. However, this book is as much about obesity as it is about semaglutides being used to counter this problem. Previously, I had thoughts that we would all end up on these drugs at some point in the same way that we will eventually take drugs to fix degenerative knee injuries. However, this book now has me thinking that such ‘magic’ is never simple and always comes at a cost. As Carel Le Roux suggests, there are “drugs that don’t work, and drugs that have side effects.” 

I was particularly left perplexed by the world the Hari captured, one filled with buckets of fried chicken and cafe meals. I was left wondering what happens when you may already cook your own food? Don’t drink soft drinks? Drink black coffee? Do intermittent fasting? And you don’t eat KFC every day, if at all? (Personally, I feel that the Thermomix has been the best investment with respect to this.) Clearly my doctor’s advice to get off the station before my stop is possibly naïve?

I remember when I started drinking meal supplement shakes at work, a colleague who I was close with commented that even after months of drinking them that there was no visible sign of change, no magical weight loss. However, after reading Hari’s book, I wonder if there was something more to the story? I wonder if there are benefits beyond the cosmetic? Benefits to health? As a friend of Hari’s critiqued:

“If you were worried primarily about health, you would be talking to me about exercise and writing a book about that,” she said. “Exercise doesn’t lead to much weight loss, but my God, it leads to increased health, across the board. But you’ve barely mentioned exercise. Because it won’t make you more conventionally hot. So you talk about drugs, not exercise.”

Source: Magic Pills: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight Loss Drugs by Johann Hari

I also wonder if the ease of shakes is as much of a problem in that it strips us of the enjoyment of eating? In part, I had turned to them as a means of having to organise one less lunch the night before. Although it does not have the same high fat and sugar make-up, it is still a part of the easily consumable processed food revolution, right?

It also had me thinking again about Norman Swan’s assertion that Coronavirus was largely a ‘political pandemic’. I wonder then if the same could be said about obesity? This definitely has me seeing discussions of food advertising in a new light.

The Australian government has been investigating whether we should ban unhealthy food advertising online, and how it could work. In the United Kingdom, a ban on unhealthy food and drink advertising online will start in October 2025.

Source: Junk food is promoted online to appeal to kids and target young men, our study shows by Christine Parker and Tanita Northcott

All in all, it was an interesting book and proposed as many questions for me as it did clarity. I guess it is best to say, it’s complicated.

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My works can be regarded as stations along my life's way. All my writings may be considered tasks imposed from within; their source was a fateful compulsion. Carl Jung ‘Memories, Dreams, Reflections’

I first read in Memories, Dreams, Reflections as an introduction to the work of Carl Jung as a part of David Tacey’s class in university. I am not sure what it says about me, but I had not realised that the book was actually ‘recorded and edited’ by Aniela Jaffé. (Clearly, I skipped the introduction?) It was therefore interesting to return to it again all these years later.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections is not an autobiography that captures the events of life, rather it is better consider as Jung’s psychic reflection on the his journey with the unconscious. Edward Glover sums it up as follows:

The title is an apt one, for the main purpose of his recollections, dreams and visions is to illuminate his inner development, to trace the effect of his “confrontation of the unconscious” at various stages of his life, in a form unhampered by the necessity for scientific presentation and valuation. It is a personal testament and, above all, a religious testament.

Source: Illuminations From Within by Edward Glover

Glover also highlights the point that Jung requested that the book was not included in the official edition of his collected works. Eugene Kernes describes the book as a ‘detached autobiography’ that allowed Jung to share details that he would not usually have shared.

This is an autobiography, but a detached autobiography which enabled Jung to relate personal details that otherwise Jung would not have wanted to share.

Source: Review of Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl G. Jung by Eugene Kernes

I wonder if the request to have it excluded related to the fact that the book was co-written with Jaffé?

It had been proposed that the book be written not as a “biography,” but in the form of an “autobiography,” with Jung himself as the narrator. This plan determined the form of the book, and my first task consisted solely in asking questions and noting down Jung’s replies. Although he was rather reticent at the beginning, he soon warmed to the work. He began telling about himself, his development, his dreams, and his thoughts with growing interest.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

With this dual writing experience, it was interesting to read the analogy raised in the Prologue to life as being ‘rhizome’:

Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. Its true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away–an ephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

For me, I was reminded of the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

We are writing this book as a rhizome. It is composed of plateaus. We have given it a circular form, but only for laughs. Each morning we would wake up, and each of us would ask himself what plateau he was going to tackle, writing five lines here, ten there. We had hallucinatory experiences, we watched lines leave one plateau and proceed to another like columns of tiny ants.

Source: A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari

Grant Maxwell suggests that their concept is at least partially derived from Jung’s discussion of this concept.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections is split into distinct points of reflection, whether it be childhood, coming to analytical psychology, the meeting with and diversion from Freud, confrontation with the unconscious, the Bollingen Tower, experiences of other cultures, and thoughts on the afterlife. It is not necessarily about the people in Jung’s life, whether it be family or those he may have met throughout his life. Although they are a part of the story, at no point are they placed on centre stage. The book touches on this when we are told:

The finest and most significant conversations of my life were anonymous.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

Instead, we get a unique insight into Jung and his world. This includes the idea of being two persons:

Somewhere deep in the background I always knew that I was two persons. One was the son of my parents, who went to school and was less intelligent, attentive, hard-working, decent, and clean than many other boys. The other was grown up–old, in fact–skeptical, mistrustful, remote from the world of men, but close to nature, the earth, the sun, the moon, the weather, a living creatures, and above all close to the night, to dreams, and to whatever “God” worked directly in him.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

Something that has me wanting to re-read Donald Winnicott’s work on the true and false self, especially after reading Winnicott’s review.

Writing as guided by the unconscious:

The work is the expression of my inner development; for commitment to the contents of the unconscious forms the man and produces his transformations. My works can be regarded as stations along my life’s way.
All my writings may be considered tasks imposed from within; their source was a fateful compulsion.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

This reminds me of something that Jon Hopkins said about writing music. In a conversation with Jamie Lidell, he explained that that he wished that he could ‘choose’ the music he writes. Instead, he argues that we have no choice over what we do, the choice is about what our body gives energy for.

Mistakes involved in the path of individuation:

When one follows the path of individuation, when one lives one’s own life, one must take mistakes into the bargain; life would not be complete without them. There is no guarantee not for a single moment that we will not fall into error or stumble into deadly peril. We may think there is a sure road. But that would be the road of death. Then nothing happens any longer at any rate, not the right things. Anyone who takes the sure road is as good as dead.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

This is a reminder of the importance of mistakes and forgiveness.

Life after death through the unconscious:

If there were to be a conscious existence after death, it would, so it seems to me, have to continue on the level of consciousness attained by humanity, which in any age has an upper though variable limit.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

I wonder what Jung would make of the modern world and artificial intelligence? Does our data consumed and sitting on serves somehow add or augment the ‘collective unconscious’?

Loneliness as the inability to communicate what is important:

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.

Source: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (and Aniela Jaffé)

With so many spaces to broadcast, I wonder if the challenge with ‘communication’ is our ability to not only speak, but also to listen?

It is interesting reading some of the reviews and comments about Memories, Dreams, Reflections online, which explain that some of the medical practices have become obsolete. In addition to this, I was not sure what to make of some of the cultural observations.

Jung does not though come across as a man who is simply enjoying going to these countries, but sometimes can come off as a bit presumptious about the way he deals with other cultures. He can seem like he thinks he is above them, or their better and this does nothing for the autobiography.

Source: Book Review: “Memories, Dreams and Reflections” by Carl Jung by Annie Kapur

All in all though, this book offers an insightful introduction to Jung. Although it does not necessarily provide a clear summary of his work, it does provide context for it. It also includes some letters in the appendix between Jung and Freud, which I am going to assume had not been published before.

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The power of query in sorting out data in Sheets

The team I am a part of was recently asked if there was any work that we could possibly automate to save time and effort. Leaving aside the strange question of asking the boiling frog how the boiling process might be sped up, I was left thinking about the limits of automation when what is trying to be automated is not always straight-forward and often involves contextual knowledge. My suggestion in response was not to automate the task, but possibly automate the process.

Ever since I have stepped into my new role in the technical team, I have made a conscious effort to capture everything that I have learnt and store it in a canonical space as one of the issues I had early on was that it was too difficult to find anything. This then allows me to produce repeatable processes. (In some respects I imagine that organising information in this manner actually makes it easier for an AI assistant to support?)

In addition to automating the day-to-day, I recently built out a spreadsheet to help with a particular task of cleaning up duplicate records across the database. Given a list of hundreds of records to review, I felt that saving any time and effort was going to make a difference. My thought was to create a series of DECLARE statements to use to query the database, then copy the raw data, review it, create tasks for the relevant teams and produce a summary of the records changed and those that remained the same.

Doubling Down on the Declare

One of the issues I initially found when producing my query was updating all the variables each time. It therefore occurred to me that rather than changing the names and various IDs each time, which was always fiddly and prone to error, I could create a series of declare statements that I updated with the SQL statement each time based on a list of users and issues presented in a spreadsheet. This allowed me to leave the rest of the query the same:

="
DECLARE @Sur1 VARCHAR(30) = '"&D2&"'
DECLARE @Sur2 VARCHAR(30) = 'SUR2'
DECLARE @Pre1 VARCHAR(30) = '"&E2&"'
DECLARE @Pre2 VARCHAR(30) = 'PRE2'
DECLARE @Login1 VARCHAR(30) = '"&H2&"'
DECLARE @Login2 VARCHAR(30) = 'CECVIDS\UPN2'
DECLARE @Login3 VARCHAR(30) = 'CECVIDS\UPN3'
DECLARE @CNUM1 VARCHAR(15) = 'CX'
DECLARE @CNUM2 VARCHAR(15) = 'CX'
DECLARE @CNUM3 VARCHAR(15) = 'CX'"

In addition to this, I stripped out any additional information that was included within a text string of possible information and had this represented on unique lines after the initial list:

--"&IFNA( JOIN( CHAR(10) & "--", ARRAYFORMULA( LEFT( QUERY( TRIM( MID( SUBSTITUTE(J2, ":", REPT(" ", LEN(J2))), LEN(J2) * ROW(INDIRECT("1:" & LEN(J2))) - LEN(J2) + 1, LEN(J2) ) ), "SELECT * WHERE Col1 LIKE 'C%'" ), 16 ) ) ) )&""

The output then looks something like this:

--"
DECLARE @Sur1 VARCHAR(30) = 'Davis'
DECLARE @Sur2 VARCHAR(30) = 'SUR2'
DECLARE @Pre1 VARCHAR(30) = 'Aaron'
DECLARE @Pre2 VARCHAR(30) = 'PRE2'
DECLARE @Login1 VARCHAR(30) = 'CECVIDS\01234567'
DECLARE @Login2 VARCHAR(30) = 'CECVIDS\UPN2'
DECLARE @Login3 VARCHAR(30) = 'CECVIDS\UPN3'
DECLARE @CNUM1 VARCHAR(15) = 'C0000001'
DECLARE @CNUM2 VARCHAR(15) = 'CX'
DECLARE @CNUM3 VARCHAR(15) = 'CX'

--CECVIDS\30000001
--C1000001"

I commented the additional information out so that I could use it if required or simply run the updated script as it was. It also meant that I did not have to delete the quotations at the start and end that come across when copying an output from Google Sheets with multiple lines) every time. I did tinker with how I could get the additional logins and numbers to prepopulate within the declare statement, but hit a wall as the number of additional values was not consistent.

Streamlining the Analysis and Fix

Once I had all the records in the system, I then had to organise them into those to be retained and those to be updated. The first step was to create a conditional formulas using the following custom formula that quickly highlighted possible duplicate records:

=COUNTIF(C:C,C1)>1

This allowed me to then reorder the list and review the rest of the details.

Once I had cleaned up the data, whether this be sorting between records to be merged / deleted and retained, or deleting records that were not actually duplicates, I then created a summary of the data.

Often with my spreadsheets I create a config tab where I create various formulas that I can reference. This is particular important when using variable NAMED RANGES.

I’d always believed that Named Ranges in Google Sheets would only accept static ranges and not formulas like Excel, which makes them less powerful of course. (Check out the Named ranges sidebar and you’ll see what I mean. No place to add formula-based dynamic ranges in there.)

However, there is a clever trick using the INDIRECT function that DOES allow dynamic named ranges!

Source: How to create dynamic named ranges in Google Sheets by Ben Collins

As I wanted to make this spreadsheet somewhat self-contained, I decided to just use the first row of the sheet, which I then hid. This included a summary of the different community names in a single cell:

=LEFT( JOIN("/", UNIQUE(QUERY(F2:F, "SELECT F WHERE NOT F = 'NameExternal'"))), LEN(JOIN("/", UNIQUE(QUERY(F2:F, "SELECT F WHERE NOT F = 'NameExternal'"))) - 1 )

A summary of staff numbers in a single cell:

=IFNA( JOIN(",", UNIQUE(QUERY(G2:G, "SELECT G WHERE G LIKE 'C%' ORDER BY G ASC"))) )

And a summary of login records in a cell

=IFNA( JOIN(", ", UNIQUE(QUERY(H2:H, "SELECT H WHERE H LIKE 'CEC%'"))) )

Each was given a Named Range that could be easily referred to in other formulas.

Initially, I created a formula which combined these different attributes, but I soon realised I then had to explain what sort of duplicate it was. Overall, there are four types of duplicate records:

  1. User with multiple staff numbers and login records
  2. User with multiple login records
  3. User with multiple staff numbers
  4. User with multiple community records

To accommodate these differences, I created a formula using the named ranges to combine the IF and AND formulas:

=IF( AND( IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(G2:G, "SELECT G WHERE G LIKE 'C%' ORDER BY G ASC"))) > 1, IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(H2:H, "SELECT H WHERE H LIKE 'CEC%' ORDER BY H"))) > 1 ), F1 & " has multiple staff numbers: " & G1 & " and multiple login records: " & SUBSTITUTE(H1, "IDS\\", ""), IF( AND( IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(G2:G, "SELECT G WHERE G LIKE 'C%' ORDER BY G ASC"))) = 1, IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(H2:H, "SELECT H WHERE H LIKE 'CEC%' ORDER BY H"))) > 1 ), F1 & " ( " & G1 & " ) has multiple login records: " & SUBSTITUTE(H1, "IDS\\", ""), IF( AND( IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(G2:G, "SELECT G WHERE G LIKE 'C%' ORDER BY G ASC"))) = 1, IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(H2:H, "SELECT H WHERE H LIKE 'CEC%' ORDER BY H"))) = 1 ), F1 & " ( " & G1 & " / logins: " & SUBSTITUTE(H1, "IDS\\", "") & " ) has duplicate community records", IF( AND( IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(G2:G, "SELECT G WHERE G LIKE 'C%' ORDER BY G ASC"))) > 1, IFNA(COUNTUNIQUE(QUERY(H2:H, "SELECT H WHERE H LIKE 'CECV%' ORDER BY H"))) = 1 ), F1 & " logins: " & SUBSTITUTE(H1, "IDS\\", " ") & " has multiple staff numbers: " & G1, FALSE ) ) ) )

Using the IF and AND combination allowed me to quickly and easily produce a summary of the issue in one sentence to raise in our incident management system.

In addition to this, I created a SWITCH formula to provide the server listener name, as opposed to the IP address provided in the data export:

=IFNA( SWITCH( B2:B, "IP Address 1", "Listener Name 1", "IP Address 2", "Listener Name 2", "IP Address 3", "Listener Name 3", "IP Address 4", "Listener Name 4", "IP Address 5", "Listener Name 5" ) )

Summarising the Changes

In addition to the summary of issue, I also created a summary of changes that I could easily copy and paste into the incident notes once I had cleaned up the various duplicates. Using a series of NAMED RANGES, I initially started with this query:

={ "", "", "", "", "", ""; "Record(s) updated / merged:", "", "", "", "", ""; "", "", "", "", "", ""; SORT(Indirect(Table1)); "", "", "", "", "", ""; "Record(s) retained:", "", "", "", "", ""; "", "", "", "", "", ""; SORT(Indirect(Table2)) }

However, I found this to be cumbersome to copy and paste a number of cells. Therefore, on further investigation, I found this guide for combining columns.

So if we wanted to get all the elements within our column wrapped into one row we would just need to change that third parameter to the maximum height of our columns. We could use the

ROWS()

function to capture this number.

Merge Two Columns Using QUERY: Google Sheets (Step By Step Example) by Ryan Sheehy

In order to display all the results in one cell, I transposed the data to get the outcome I was after. I also added a few SUBSTITUTES to update some of the headings.

=SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE( SUBSTITUTE( JOIN(CHAR(10), TRANSPOSE( QUERY( TRANSPOSE({ "Record(s) updated / merged:", "", "", "", "", ""; "", "", "", "", "", ""; SORT(Indirect(Table1) & REPT(" ", 3)); "", "", "", "", "", ""; "Record(s) retained:", "", "", "", "", ""; "", "", "", "", "", ""; SORT(Indirect(Table2) & REPT(" ", 3)) }), , ROWS(TRANSPOSE({ "", "", "", "", "", ""; "Record(s) updated / merged:", "", "", "", "", ""; "", "", "", "", "", ""; SORT(Indirect(Table1)); "", "", "", "", "", ""; "Record(s) retained:", "", "", "", "", ""; "", "", "", "", "", ""; SORT(Indirect(Table2)) })) ) )), "NameExternal", "Name" ), "ExternalSystemRegistrationNumber", "CNumber" ), "IdamLogin", "IDAM/UPN" )

As the number of records varied, I had to create a NAMED RANGE for records updated / merged and records retained and used the INDIRECT formula to refer to them.

The first range Table1 contained the records to be updated / merged. The formula used was:

="C2:H"&MATCH("Database Name", Indirect(DThreeD), 0) + ROW(INDIRECT(DThree)) - 2

The second range Table2 contained the records to be retained. The formula used was:

=ADDRESS( MATCH("Database Name", INDIRECT(DUPLICATE!DThreeD), 0) + ROW(INDIRECT(DUPLICATE!DThree)) - 1, COLUMN(INDIRECT(DUPLICATE!DThree)) ) & ":I" & COUNTA(QUERY(D2:D, "SELECT D WHERE D IS NOT NULL")) + 1

As I was continually moving and deleting rows around in the spreadsheet, I found that these formulas kept on breaking these named ranges, so that is why I created two further NAMED RANGES to make the cell references static.

This was formula used for DThree:

"$D$3"

And this was formula used for DThreeD:

="$D$3:$D"

Again, all this ‘magic’ with NAMED RANGES was hidden in the top row of the spreadsheet.

There has been a lot spoken at my workplace lately about what it means to be proud. Personally, fixing 500+ duplicate records is not necessarily something I am ‘proud’ of or excited by, certainly not something that I would post on LinkedIn. (Note, I never post anything on LinkedIn.) However, I am proud of my ability to improve processes and identify ways in which my actions can make it easier for others to do their job. The challenge I often have is being able to hand over such solutions to others. Most prefer their own way of working, even if that means complaining that they do not have time for this or that. In the end, I feel that the challenge is finding the right balance between improving a process and creating more work.

For those interested, here is a link to the spreadsheet.

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The only path to expertise, as far as anyone knows, is practice. Daniel Willingham - Why Don't Students Like School

A few years ago, I wrote a post exploring the act of finding the right method for the moment and working on approaches like they were ‘pedagogical cocktails‘:

Every teacher is different – we just choose to deny it. Even though we may practise a certain pedagogy, it does not necessarily mean that it will be the same as the next person. Rather, everyone has their our own intricacies and twists on the way they do things. What then starts to matter more is the practitioner rather than the pedagogy.

Source: So Which Pedagogical Cocktails Are Drinking Today? by Aaron Davis

My thought was that what mattered is actually going beyond the what and how to address the why. I was thinking about this a bit after reading Daniel Willingham’s book Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom. I was recommended the book by someone and noticed that it was available in Audible so I dived in.

The book is broken into ten principles:

  1. People are natually curious, but they are not naturally great thinkers. Therefore, think of to-be-learned material as answers, and take the time necessary to explain the students the questions.
  2. Factual knowledge prcedes skill. Therefore, it is not possible to think well on a topic in the absence of factual knowledge about the topic.
  3. Memory is the residue of thought. Therefore, The best barometer for every lesson plan is “Of what will it make the students think?”
  4. We understand new things in the context of things we already know. Therefore, always make deep knowledge your goal, spoken and unspoken, but recognise that shallow knowledge will come first.
  5. Proficiency requires practice. Therefore, think carefully about which material students need at their fingertips, and practice it over time.
  6. Cognition is fundamentally different early and late in training. Therefore, strive for deep understanding in your students, not the creation of new knowledge.
  7. Children are more alike than different in terms of learning. Therefore, think of lesson content, not students differences, driving decisions about how to teach.
  8. Intelligence can be changed through sustained hard work. Therefore, always talk about successes and failures in terms of process, not ability.
  9. Technology changes everything … but not the way you think. Therefore, don’t assume you know how new technology will work in the classroom.
  10. Teaching, like any complex cognitive skill, must be practiced. Therefore, improvement requires more than experience; it also requires conscious effort and feedback.

Willingham explains that each of these principles was selected based on four criteria, that they are true all all the time, based on a great deal of data, have a sizable impact on performance and had to be clear about what was involved for a teacher. This focus on practicality is emphasised by the implications for the classroom provided at the end of each chapter.

There were a number of ideas that left me thinking and reflecting. This includes that logical thinking is often really just memory retrieval:

When we see someone apparently engaged in logical thinking, he or she is actually engaged in memory retrieval.

Source: Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel Willingham

The more dots you have, the more you can retain new information in the future:

This final effect of background knowledge – that having factual knowledge in long-term memory makes it easier to acquire still more factual knowledge – is worth contemplating for a moment. It means that the amount of information you retain depends on what you already have.

Source: Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel Willingham

Unstructured ‘discovery’ learning can lead to incorrect discoveries:

An important downside, however, is that what students will think about is less predictable. If students are left to explore ideas on their own, they may well explore mental paths that are not profitable. If memory is the residue of thought, then students will remember incorrect “discoveries” as much as they will remember the correct ones.

Source: Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel Willingham

Effortless is a myth, “practice makes progress:”

Replace the mantra “practice makes perfect” with “practice makes progress.”

Source: Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel Willingham

Everyone makes mistakes, the question is often how you respond.

I didn’t see the Big Boss very often, and I was pretty intimidated by him. I remember well the first time I did something stupid (I’ve forgotten what) and it was brought to his attention. I mumbled some apology. He looked at me for a long moment and said, “Kid, the only people who don’t make mistakes are the ones who never do anything.” It was tremendously freeing – not because I avoided judgment for the incident, but it was the first time I really understood that you have to learn to accept failure if you’re ever going to get things done. Basketball great Michael Jordan put it this way: “I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Source: Why Don’t Students Like School by Daniel Willingham

It is interesting reading through the reviews online for the book. Many praise its practicality, which I found helpful too. The issue I had was with the research and the statement of fact. For example, one commentator put it as follows:

The strength of this book is that it contains good educational advice (mostly); its weakness is its constant reference to a theory in science that I find fundamentally unconvincing.

Source: All it is cracked up to be? Some notes on Daniel Willingham’s ‘Why Don’t Students Like School?’

At the very least, I felt that it was a useful book to read as a provocation in and out of the classroom. As with various instructional models, these books offer a reminder of aspects to stop and consider. However, it also left me wondering about the rise of science as discussed by Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition:

Nothing indeed could be less trustworthy for acquiring knowledge and approaching truth than passive observation or mere contemplation. In order to be certain one had to make sure, and in order to know one had to do. Certainty of knowledge could be reached only under a twofold condition: first, that knowledge concerned only what one had done himself—so that its ideal became mathematical knowledge, where we deal only with self-made entities of the mind—and second, that knowledge was of such a nature that it could be tested only through more doing.

Source: The Human Condition by Hannah Arendt

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There’s a wise saying that goes like this: A real gentleman never discusses women he’s broken up with or how much tax he’s paid. Actually, this is a total lie. I just made it up. Sorry! But if there really were such a saying, I think that one more condition for being a gentleman would be keeping quiet about what you do to stay healthy. A gentleman shouldn’t go on and on about what he does to stay fit. At least that’s how I see it. Haruki Murakami ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’

According to Haruki Murakami, “A gentleman shouldn’t go on and on about what he does to stay fit.” I respect this principle as there is something strange about reflecting upon health routines. In part, it always feels like there is a danger of leaning into ideals that mask the reality. Like when the doctor asks about your diet or alcohol consumption. (We can’t all be like Charli XCX, can we, who recently stated on the TapeNote podcast, “I drink, I smoke, I use autotune.”) Maybe like Murakami, I clearly am not a gentlemen as I am talking about health routines, but I do so because the more I thought about it all the less clear it seemed. And as this is my space and domain, I am really writing this for me, in the hope of making some sort of sense out of it all.

This year I have started running again. Actually, probably not running, as such, maybe more jogging. How does one define such things? For the purpose of consistency, I will call it ‘running’.

Anyway, last year I turned to Ringfit as a means of getting fit again. RingFit is a game on the Nintendo Switch, which involves defeating a whole lot of monsters to regain the lost rings. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

The game’s main mode is a turn-based role-playing game in which movements and battle actions are based on performing physical activities using the Ring-Con and Leg Strap, with the Joy-Con’s motion controls detecting the player’s movement and a strain sensor in the Ring-Con detecting bending of that accessory. Other modes include guided fitness routines and party-style games. These activities are centered around common fitness exercises, making the game part of Nintendo’s “quality of life” goals in line with the game’s spiritual predecessor, Wii Fit.

Source: Ring Fit Adventure by Wikipedia

As you progress through the various worlds, you are rewarded with access to more and more exercises.

Really, it is just about doing the same thing, while the game progressively gets harder. I liked it as I could easily dip in and out of levels while cooking tea or doing the washing. It was something that I felt worked for me, rather than I worked for it. The problem was, I got to the end of the game. Although good for getting my fitness to a particular level, I felt it lost its appeal when the gamification no longer meant anything. I guess I needed an actual real goal?

Alongside Ringfit, I had also doubled down on walking. Growing up, I used to walk quite a lot. It was ingrained in me at an early age. For example, I used to walk 2 kms to meet my mum halfway when she’d walk 5kms home from work just because. However, as life has passed by, I have lapsed from this practice. Distances that once seemed small, all of the sudden seemed large. I therefore decided at lunch at work to start venturing out around the local park. I had always done this, but only ever for a short stroll and then back to the desk. I also started going for walks while waiting for my daughters at their various extra-curricular classes, rather than sitting in the car on my phone. I progressively explored and extended the distance I would travel in the time I had. In addition to these various escapades, I also started to walk instead of catching transport where applicable.

A few years ago, I went to the doctor for a check-up. Her response was to lose 10-20kg. Easy! (To be honest, I cannot remember the last time I went to a doctor and they did not say that, but anyway.) With two young children, her suggestion was to get off the station before and walk the difference. Although great in theory, not everyone is Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who runs on his own idea of success:

I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.

Source: The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Heading home I always feel under pressure to get to childcare and get tea underway, while heading to work, I always felt at the whim of others in getting out the door on time in the morning, let alone early. However, this year I started a practice of getting off earlier depending on the time. A part of my thinking was that when the Metro tunnel is finished, travelling further from the station to my work will actually be a reality, so best to deal with it now. As I started getting off earlier and walking that bit further I learnt a strange lesson, the city is actually a small place. With all the people, congestion and buildings, it can seem bigger than it actually is.

All this increase in exercise led to buying new shoes. I had a pair of old Asics Kayano 23s from a few years ago and they were still powering on. Maybe due to lack of use or that I am stubborn? Unlike some people who are happy to buy new runners almost religiously, I am reluctant to throw out what seemingly ain’t broke (I think this is what I like about Beau Miles) . The problem though was that they sort of were broken with a hole in the toe and minimal sole. I therefore went and splurged on a pair of Kayano 30s.

I am not sure if it was the guilt of having proper runners when I am just walking or the fact that they felt way better than my old pair, but I sporadically decided to run one night instead of just walking. I am not going to say it was easy, but I survived and I went on from there. When the venue for my children’s rehersal changed, I started afresh, venturing out bit by bit to find new paths. Over time, I developed a new loop.

I feel at this point I probably need to backtrack. With all this talk of a ‘return to running’, I fear I give the wrong impression that I am some “natural born runner”. Although I grew up walking everywhere, I was late to running. I remember doing 100m sprints in PE and always coming last. Although I played cricket growing up, there was very little explicit running involved. We never did any running sessions or anything at training, often as most also played football. Subsequently, for quite a while, I just never had the stamina for it.

I cannot exactly remember when I first took it up. I had a friend who ran with her dad. I think maybe she was the first impetus. We would sometimes go around the golf course near her house together.

From there I started running to my job as a cleaner when I was at university. As a solitary job after hours, it did not really matter how and sweaty I was. I think I may have also been inspired by Mark, the security guy, who told me how he used to run from Coburg into the city when he was younger and worked on construction.

However, again as life changed, whether it be moving out of home and starting full-time employment, I stopped running. I actually seemed to stop everything. This was noticed by older colleagues in my first two schools ‘invited’ me to go running with them afterschool. As much as they enjoyed running, I feel in hindsight that this was as much about me, not appreciating freedom of external attachments.

I am sure that there have been others who have influenced me since, but what stands out is that running is not a normal state. Running involves effort, it involves particular dedication, and it would seem that my life is something of tally between not running and making the effort? I am not sure.

All in all, I mention all this as a way of claiming my ‘return to running’ and the associated complexities attached with such as statement. So when I say I have returned, it is not some isolated habit I have taken up, but something that has history, that involves various choices and people. Although I am not sure how much sense I have made, maybe in the end the sense is that what may seem simple is often far more complicated.

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Good art reveals what we are usually too selfish and too timid to recognize, the minute and absolute random detail of the world, and reveals it together with a sense of unity and form. Iris Murdoch ‘On the Way to the Fen, Ethical and Aesthetic Quandaries Arise’

Not sure what led me to looking up ‘Iris Murdoch’ on Libby. It might have been The Mindfield podcast or In Our Time. Whatever the seed, it was an enjoyable experience to listen to Richard E. Grant’s reading of The Sea, The Sea.

The novel revolves around retired theatre director, Charles Arrowby, who has moved to Shruff End, a small coastal town, to escape London. He is in search of space and distance to write his memoir. However, things unravel, as his past keeps on popping up again and again, both mentally and physically. In particular, he discovers that by chance a love interest from his youth, Hartley, lives in the same town. His life unravels from there.

The Sea, The Sea is a strange book. On one level, it seems somewhat straightforward, a fictitious memoir. Whether it be reflections on a young romance, seeing a dragon or dreaming a death, I found it one of those books where I always felt real, where I knew what was happening or could confidently imagine the world portrayed. However, I often wondered afterwards if it was all true or if there was in fact so much more going on. Even the very nature of the narrative, where characters seem to come on and off the stage like it were a play with a script, or how Arrowby’s memory distorts time, I was left thinking of the world ignored or overlooked. This is something Arrowby touches on himself in the text:

Emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. In the middle they are acted. This is why all the world is a stage, and why the theatre is always popular and indeed why it exists: why it is like life, and it is like life even though it is also the most vulgar and outrageously factitious of all the arts. Even a middling novelist can tell quite a lot of truth. His humble medium is on the side of truth. Whereas the theatre, even at its most ‘realistic’, is connected with the level at which, and the methods by which, we tell our everyday lies.

Source: The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

All in all, there is always something seemingly unreliable in Arrowby decisions and reflections that always seems to leave things one step away from disaster. However, as John Pistelli suggests, the constant throughout is the sea.

Through it all, the sea sounds and resounds as a reminder of the transience, violence, and grandeur that is our native element.

Source: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea by John Pistelli

As a reader, it sometimes felt like we are placed on the stage, asked our thoughts and judgments on Arrowby’s various acts, especially when he locks Hartley up for her own good. We are left to ponder at which point he over-steps or was deluding himself. It is easy to judge him for this, but in judging it feels like we are somehow being judged in return. Asked how we might act? As Murdoch suggested elsewhere:

Good art reveals what we are usually too selfish and too timid to recognize, the minute and absolute random detail of the world, and reveals it together with a sense of unity and form

Source: On the Way to the Fen, Ethical and Aesthetic Quandaries Arise by Iris Murdoch, qtd. in Genese Grill

Or as Sarah Churchwell concludes in her review of the novel, all we can do is try.

All of her novels explore the contest between love and art as conduits to truth, and the ways in which contingency contends against form. Does art redeem? Does love? Or do we keep confusing our misunderstandings with metaphysics? Contingency is frightening, as all Murdoch’s characters know, capricious, unpredictable; but it is in the hazards of the fortuitous that life reveals itself. Love is also contingent, unpredictable, hazardous. Good art, Murdoch also said, is “the highest wisest voice of morality, it’s something spiritual – without good art a society dies. It’s like religion really – it’s our best speech and our best understanding – it’s a proof of the greatness and goodness which is in us.” Although Murdoch parses the grammar and traces the limits of love, she never stops believing in its moral force, or the spiritual potential of art. Art is impossible, so is love. And the only possible moral choice is to continue trying to achieve both, knowing that they are impossible.

Source: The Sea, the Sea – Sarah Churchwell on the making of a monster by Sarah Churchwell

The Sea, The Sea was a hard book to move on from. I actually felt that I could not start another book straight away, I wanted it to wash over me a little longer. Cheryl Bove argues that it stresses the necessity for acting with humility.

This novel stresses the interconnectedness of all things, the consequences of actions, and the necessity for acting with humility.

Source: Understanding Iris Murdoch by Cheryl Bove

I wonder if this is what left me thinking and reflecting?

Alternatively, it had me wondering more about Murdoch’s philosophical ideas, such as “unselfing” and “the fat, relentless ego”, and how these may relate to the book.

Iris Murdoch, for instance, once described looking out her window “in an anxious and resentful state of mind … brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige”. When suddenly, she observes a kestrel hovering on the currents of the air. “In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel.” Without going anywhere, contemplating the figure of the kestrel permits Murdoch to move from resentful isolation to contemplation — thereby enacting what she calls a process of “unselfing”, a certain diminishment of “the fat, relentless ego” in the face of a moral reality outside of ourselves.

Source: Ramadan — the discipline of solitude – ABC listen by Scott Stephens

All in all, it is one of those novels that I feel will stay with me for a while.

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Life is a massive balancing act from the molecules inside our cells, to our heart and arteries, to our immune system, our digestive system, our lungs, our kidneys and our brains. This set of balances, as you now well know, is called homeostasis. Give our bodies a bit of a push, then like a punching bag clown, our body bounces back upright, ready for the next punch. Too many punches, the bag starts to lean at an angle, and later it might deflate entirely. The battering has shifted the balance – the homeostasis – and that’s how we lose our youth. Dr Norman Swan ‘So You Want To Live Younger Longer?’

So many things have bounced back now that COVID is magically no longer a thing. However, one thing that remains in my life is the presence of Dr Norman Swan (and Tegan Taylor) via the What’s That Rash podcast. For me, TISM’s ode to Dr Norman Swan sums it up best:

Voice beautiful, despite its gloom
The Scots heard still, the vague
Whose resolute, calm, patient tone
Will guide us through a plague”
Data remains a plural noun”
“Some things, when lost, are gone”
Thus guarded must calm reason be
So we thank you, Doctor Swan
Some – quiet, strong
Spend all their lives waiting until they’re found
When feckless us in panic need
Those recondite but sound
Scream on, you Sky News buffoons who
With toddlers rage assert
Truth’s needlе should deflected bе
Because its sting may hurt
For soft and clear, his voice remains
When yours – futile – declines
He tells us what we need, not want
Truth is beauty… sometimes

Source: TISM – Dr Norman Swan

I remember during the pandemic hearing Swan talk about this life and books as a part of the Conversations podcast. I was therefore intrigued to dive into one of his books, especially as it was read by the author himself. I am always a sucker for a book read by the author. I therefore decided to dive into So You Want To Live Younger Longer?

I wondered if Swan’s passion for the theatre might somehow come through in his reading of the book. Sadly, the reading of the book was sometimes patchy as it tried to combine a series of after edits, which is always challenging with the human voice (speaking from experience.) However, I really enjoyed Swan’s writing style. He has a knack of bouncing between the hip granddad, with all his slang and hashtags, and the serious voice when required. (I am assuming that he might possibly say that the hippocampus can only tolerate so much lecturing?)

The book itself is broken up into ten parts:

  1. Sweat the big stuff
  2. Eating – not fasting – holds the secret
  3. Which pill and why
  4. Outrunning the clock – staying young with exercise
  5. Bugs, bowels and hormones
  6. It’s not so back to change what’s on the outside
  7. While you’re waiting on the magic pill of youth
  8. Does the mind matter?
  9. Here’s what you can do at any age
  10. The air we breathe

Each part is then broken up into further sub-parts, beginning with a short summary and a hashtag. Overall, there is a lot of intentional repetition, used to highlight particular key points. For example, I kept hearing Teagan Taylor’s gong every time Swan mentioned the ‘Mediterranean Diet‘. In some ways, it actually felt like an extended episode of the What’s That Rash? podcast as many of the topics delved into in podcast are covered in the book, such as botox, suduko, red wine and skin care.

For me, the book sometimes felt like a meditation on living a healthy life, as much as an explicit guide, in that there is no clear straightforward solution for how to live younger longer. Yes, Part Nine provides a summary of all the different things that you can do at each particular age and is probably the place to go if you want to get straight to the point, but as Swan continually touches on, this is all something of a continuum. For example, if you never smoked, you are obviously going to have a longer life expectancy than someone who does. However, this is not to say that there are not benefits for anyone at any age to kick the habit.

What I enjoyed about this book is that it tells you all the things that you can do knowing that nobody is going to necessarily enforce them all in one hit as that would be unrealistic.

The goal of this book regardless of your age is to help you get to your 90s and beyond in the body and with the brain of someone much younger. As you’ll discover, it needs a bit of work. So if you’ve picked up this book in the shop looking for an easy answer, don’t buy it. Get one that promises something simple and unbelievable.

Source: So You Want To Live Younger Longer? by Dr Norman Swan

What I found particular intriguing, beyond the endless discussion of the Mediterranean Diet, was the benefit of education on health. Swan explains that those educated often have more money to spend on health and make more informed choices.

So what is it about women’s education that makes the difference? Well, this is what the Taliban do know.

Caldwell and others concluded that a lot of it has to do with the increased autonomy that women get when they can read and write, learn maths and proceed to higher education if it’s available. Family income goes up and demand for basic healthcare does too.

Source: So You Want To Live Younger Longer? by Dr Norman Swan

The other thing that I found helpful was Swan’s reference to different points of measurement. Personally, I always get exhausted by BMI scale, and felt that his reference to ‘Size 34’ pants a more tangible measurement.

Basically, if you’re male, regardless of your race, if you take a size 34 in jeans then you’re significantly more likely to be in better shape and have a longer life than the guy next to you at the rack who’s trying on a size 40.

Source: So You Want To Live Younger Longer? by Dr Norman Swan

Overall, with the final part, the book felt like one of those novels whose closing chapter changes everything that happened before. Swan turns his attention to the seismic impacts on our health that impact our health, such as global warming and the alleviation of poverty.

Most of the solutions require political will more than technological innovation. Fossil fuel burning – the cause of climate change – causes millions of years of lost life each year, equating to 4.2 million people dying prematurely every year – at least. Those are lives which could be saved, disabilities prevented and climate change mitigated all at the same time by rapidly moving to renewable energy sources. We’ll live younger longer on a planet that will see less catastrophic change.

Poverty alleviation, sustainable agriculture, economic development and access to high value primary healthcare will continue to reduce family size, improve health and damage the environment less. If that’s tied to high quality education, then that will even further enhance the reductions in poverty and improvements in health, wellbeing and longevity.

Source: So You Want To Live Younger Longer? by Dr Norman Swan

This touches on a comment Swan made in an interview in 2021 that Coronavirus was largely a ‘political pandemic’.

Interestingly, with all the discussions of medical drugs and the potential, there was no mention of ozempic. I am assuming that this highlights how things that ebb and change in only a few years.

All in all, I think that this is one of those books that will sit in the back of my mind as a reminder that there is always something more I could be doing with regards to my health.