How to live a longer life

Well! Quite a bit of news this week about how to live a longer life and none more surprising than the results from a decade-long research project led by Winthrop Professor Leon Flicker at The University of Western Australia. Professor Flicker and his team assessed 9,200 men and women for their health and lifestyle as part of a study into healthy ageing. They found that adults aged over 70 years who are classified as overweight are less likely to die than adults in the normal weight range. Published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the study sheds light on the situation in Australia, ranked the third most obese country after the United States and the United Kingdom.

This of course is going to be great news for many of us who struggle to lose those spongy areas around the middle and just don't see ourselves in jogging pants and singlets at the gym.
Personally, I'll stick with the "healthy and lean" school of thought. I remember the advice of a great US tennis player from way back called Gardner Mulloy. He played at top level well into his 40's and attributed his fitness to the fact that each year he would reduce his daily food consumption. Just a bit. This  corresponds with what most of us  generally believe, that as we age our metabolism changes and we need less food. And speaking as somebody who as a 16 year old enjoyed six rolls for lunch each day...I would concur!
So despite the pain in the knees and elbows I'll be carrying on with the daily weight training, especially since hearing that it improves our cognitive functions. Yes that's the case, according to a study at the University of British Columbia  into the effects of weight resistance training amongst 65 to 70 year olds.

Then there is the research that shows that red wine is good for us. Apparently it contains an ingredient that is a proven anti-ageing agent. Again I was swayed by anecdotal evidence. Especially as it came with divine support from a dear old cleric I knew. He explained how the clergy benefited from a low incidence of cardiac problems due to their habit of finishing off the communion wine!!     Yes. I was swayed towards the red wine idea!!

Then there was the other good news that high cocoa chocolate is good for the heart. So a slab of Sainsbury's finest was duly placed amongst the red wine when shopping yesterday. And finally I read that good old leafy green veg... spinach, broccoli etc., are not only good for iron intake as we already knew, but also do wonders for our cognitive and memory systems. Apparently we get more synaptic flexibility.  So the broccoli will be coming out of the freezer today....better make a note so that I remember.

Actually that isn't the final news to share. This comes from that article about the research in Australia into the overweight. It seems that women are twice more likely than men to suffer the adverse consequences of a sedentary life style.
So chaps....next time you're asking "who's getting up to make the coffee?" ...be considerate and let your "other half" do it!!

I think I can remember when I couldn't catch a cricket ball!

Trajectory projection! That was my mistake. All these years I never knew why in sport I couldn't deal with a moving ball of any size. Seeing feats like the "The Catch" by Willie Mays in the 1954 World Series never helped.  Mays turns his back and seeming to predict the ball's flight path, he races to the fence, catching the ball over his shoulder.  Current collaborative research in virtual reality labs in universities in New Zealand and North Carolina is discovering the reasons behind May's success and my failure. It's fascinating to learn that it was to do with "optical acceleration cancellation" (OAC) and "linear optical trajectory" (LOT) and not just about me being useless at sport.

I do admit I'd lost a bit of my appetite for scientific research!  I read recently that my daily dose of Ginko Biloba was doing nothing for short memory. But I could have told them that!
But now I'm greatly encouraged and once again enthusiastic about it. And again would give credit to escience news ....especially for this week's gem. It seems that contrary to popular belief ageing does not necessarily bring on memory depletion. In fact the opposite seems to apply. "A new study has found promising evidence that the older brain's weakened ability to filter out irrelevant information may actually give aging adults a memory advantage over their younger counterparts. A long line of research has already shown that aging is associated with a decreased ability to tune out irrelevant information."
So the good news (I think)  is that we remember more. The bad news is that it tends to be irrelevant.
Oh dear! Is that when we start to take forever to get to the point and get sidetracked in prolonged reminiscing.
Never mind. It's not all bad news. The other research article they published is that us older guys can see off the young dudes when it comes to holding our drink. Way to go wrinklies!!

Required...Strategic thinker who keeps a cool head!

Here we are then...January 16th...we had our white Christmas and now the snow has finally melted.
It's been a slow start to the year for most people it seems. I've heard lots of comments like "I just hibernated between Christmas and New Year!"  or "I simply didn't want to get started again!"

The snow has probably had a lot to do with that. And if your local council performed like mine, and if your car is as useless in the snow as mine, then like me you probably got to enjoy the necessity of working from home.
Not really sure where they got it wrong with snow clearing this year?  But we sure were neglected, especially pedestrians who risked injury just walking to the shops. Local government has of course seen a tremendous change in its service and resources mix from the "good old days" when I worked there. It was different back in the 60's and 70's...like we had road sweepers!

Remember them?   Guys like Trigg in "Fools and Horses" whose pride in their barrow and broom could match a cavalryman's for his horse and lance. "Triggs" were the people that actually did sweep the roads ...and the footways ...and the channels. Parked cars didn't deter them! And of course when snow covered the roads they would come out and clear it... and then spread salt on icy footways. Then the "Time and Motion man cometh!" Bringing with him wonderous ways of improving productivity like the introduction of the mechanised sweeper. You know... that buggy with rotating brushes that drives up and down spraying water around the wheels of parked cars. Not very good on snow covered roads apparently. The Productivity Improvement years were followed by the Privatisation years and "Trigg" was outsourced, never to return.

Council Officers who had served their "apprenticeship" in the service they now delivered morphed into Managers with MBAs from the private sector. The old style Chief Officer became a Director who talked about Mission Statements and Values and Visions. Even we Ratepayers were changed... and now we are Customers within a "customer-centric business model."
And clearly it was that strategic thinking, together with the risk assessments and cost benefit analyses that benefitted us customers over the last few weeks as they concluded...no need to panic....the snow will eventually melt. And do you know....they were right!