Age and Time - Silverback's theory of Relativity

I find mathematics a fascinating subject. Having come 1st in the year-end school examinations back in 1957 maybe I'm mathematically gifted?  After all I can still remember how to calculate trigonometry ratios ...something that leaves my grandchildren surprisingly unimpressed??
I think it's the reassurance of maths that I find so satisfying. To be able to say with complete certainty that the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees.   Which is why I found a recent edition of BBC TV's Horizon To Infinity and Beyond a bit unsettling.  The write up did offer a warning..

"Mathematicians have discovered there are infinitely many infinities, each one infinitely bigger than the last. And if the universe goes on forever, the consequences are even more bizarre. In an infinite universe, there are infinitely many copies of the Earth and infinitely many copies of you. Older than time, bigger than the universe and stranger than fiction. This is the story of infinity."

And the story was told by a group of extremely clever mathmeticians who discussed amongst other things:-  The largest number...something called a googolplex. Is there such a thing as infinity? Is space infinite? If infinity exists, why in theory a monkey should be able to type the complete works of Shakespeare!!

With much respect to the charismatic "Taffy" Evans who taught me back in 1957 I don't think my GCE "O Level" fully empowered me to participate in this lecture. And although totally engaged by the wonderfully malevolant Steven Berkoff's linking questions and summaries, I did lose the plot occasionally...but not infinitely!

But then I had one of those "Eureka" moments! Mathematics is also about theorising on the unfathomable. And the programme has inspired me to start work on my own theory of age and time relativity... to be developed around these "unfathomables:"

- As a year is made up of 365 ever slowing revolutions of the earth each year is actually getting longer.

- The years only seem shorter as you get older because when you were 6 years old a year was 1/6th of your whole life, whereas when you're 60 it is only 1/60th.

- People who are several years younger than us seem our age, whereas people that are our age seem so much older than us.

So mathematical and social reasoning proves it. It's all to do with comparison. Forget how old you are, and time and ageing will slow down. Quod Erat Demonstrandum

How to live longer - some good suggestions here

Do you agree that worrying about getting old is probably the biggest mistake we make? I think so, and I can honestly say that I don't give it much thought. Of course I do get reminders. Like my girls calling me "the old fart!" ....or when I talk about the '66 World Cup with people who weren't born then!
But to me my view of life hasn't aged much and I guess that's how I see myself....from the inside out. A positive perspective on age that I maintain with the help of the odd article or survey. Like the one I just read compiled by Norwich Union actuaries and reported in Timesonline.  As you would expect of a survey by actuaries it offers quite precise predictions on the added years available by various means. And amongst the expected good habits like not smoking, avoiding obesity, enjoying a healthy diet, and getting a good night's sleep, I especially liked these.
Enjoy a good laugh!  Apparently there are lots of health benefits to be derived from a 15 minute daily laughter work out. Good for the heart and lungs....all those endorphines and stuff!  And it's good for an extra 8 years!
Have a positive outlook! A definite favourite of mine this one. It seems that with an optimistic outlook we are less prone to viruses and we also recover quicker from illnesses and injuries. Not surprisingly a positive outlook also leads to a healthier,more active and social lifestyle. And the prize for that another 9 years!
There are some new and quite surprising tips, like.
Floss your teeth!  That bacterial build up can contribute to cardio-vascular disease. So floss another 6 years onto your life.
Then there are some new but somewhat challenging tips, like.
Be born later? That is a bit challenging....although it is worth an extra 6 years.
Be a woman and live in Eastbourne!! Now there is a limit to what I'm prepared to do to live longer. Even though the aggregate benefit is another 10 years I am not going to live in Eastbourne!!
Returning to my particular favourites....a good laugh ...and a positive outlook. Adopting these two as habits is a real "no brainer" isn't it!  Whenever I meet colleagues and I get asked "how you doing?" I always tell them "Things are great!" often followed by "Life treats me far better than I deserve!"  It always prompts a smile and often a laugh and we both of us feel good. And what if being positive doesn't add any extra years? ...I'll never get to know anyway!   

Power to the people!! Especially the older ones.

Who said "there's nothing any good on the telly?" Well I guess anyone could who happens to watch the popular channels on a Saturday evening. Which is why I found myself on BBC2 and stumbling across "Virtual Revolution!" It's a brilliant programme.

Fronted by the compelling Dr Aleks Krotoski the series began by taking us back to the origins of the internet.  I vaguely remember reading somewhere how the need to link computers at US military bases gave us the first network. Then how Tim Berners-Lee came along with a system that enabled computers to talk to each other. That was the World Wide Web.

What I didn't appreciate was that the early settlers of Silicon Valley had been the free loving, spliff smoking, flower power beautiful people of 60's San Francisco. And that the culture and vision that drove the development of the Web was that same anti-establishment, free speaking attitude.  

I always hoped that I was "where it's at!" in the 60's. And felt I was in harmony with San Francisco's flower people. I did once fly to San Francisco. It was on an unofficial company "jolly." We were rumbled and summoned home the next day.  I didn't want to talk about it much. But I did feel spiritually connected and could see myself when returning home greeting everybody I knew with "Peace and Love!" They were all too busy smirking over my enforced return!!

But clearly that spiritual connection remains. The anarchy in me still burns. And Dr Aleks's reporting of the attempts by corporations and governments to limit or manipulate that freedom kindles those old anarchic attitudes in me.

But that wasn't the igniting moment. Half-way through watching the programme my two daughters call and instruct me to remove a newly posted blog!!!. Can you believe it??? Inverted parental censorship!!!

So come on fellow children of the 60's. We are the original cyber warriors! Get your blogging slippers on.  Power to the people....especially the older ones!    

How do we handle it Fabio?

It's been the football story that just ran and ran. No not the one about John Terry, his apparent extra-maritals, and whether Fabio Capello should strip him of the England captaincy?  I mean the one about my grandson Max and his friend Clifford. (Names withheld pending deal with publicist.) Who play for a team of 8/9 year olds that compete in the local Saturday morning league.

It's great fun to go and watch them play, and even greater fun to watch the competitive dads getting into the game. Of course there are many occasions when they really do get into the game! In fact such has been the level of passion, that last year the local officiating body had to get the dads and mums together and appeal for better behaviour.

 And of course it is the mums as well as the dads that get so deeply involved in supporting the kids. Which brings me back to Max and Clifford and an alleged "off the ball incident!"  To be precise it was an alleged on the way to school incident with one of their team mates.  You know? One of of those something and nothing exchanges that kids have all the time? Except that this one got mentioned to the other lad's mum. Who with what seemed to be an overwhelming attack of misplaced  maternalism decided to "caution" Max and Clifford the following day.  

Now this is where the plot thickens! Because the husband of said mum only happens to be the team coach and responsible for player selection! And according to spectators at the next match he did seem to be giving Max and Clifford unwarranted amounts of  "verbals" from the touchline. So when Max and Clifford are dropped from the team for the following game what are the fans to think?

Anyway, this morning...yours truly prompted by entirely appropriate feelings of Grandpaternalism thought it's time to show a bit of touchline support, and perhaps take the opportunity to offer some wisdom to the coach!  Then a waterlogged pitch and a match cancellation intervened. I reckon it was divine intervention.  As it very likely saved me and the kids from one of the Silverback's embarrasing "losing it" demonstrations.  Because we all do it don't we?  We hear about a situation second-hand...we form a pre-conceived and biased view of it...and then we react in an over the top way!
And of course that was the case here. It turned out to be a "something and nothing" situation... and all is good both on the pitch and in the dressing room.
As a Chelsea and England fan I can only hope for the same outcome....and in the process reaffirm my support and admiration for John's inspiring captaincy ...whether he is playing at home or away!

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!