Voicing Opinions

The obsession, almost a paranoia, about avoidance of dietary fat, especially the saturated variety, was never based on a scientific consensus. It drives me mad to hear people caught in this web of misdirection.

I started a high fat diet 3 years ago to counter the yo-yo effects of hypoglycaemia on my moods, thinking, and irritability levels. I can now go 5 or 6 hours between meals, whereas before it was 1 to 3 hours between meals or snacks. This stability of blood-sugar levels alone is justification for me to maintain the diet. But it also feels natural, and meals rarely distend my stomach as they are smaller in volume.

But a more visible benefit is there to see … and feel. After decades of dry skin, it very swiftly became smooth after the dietary change. Now, most areas of my skin, even where exposed to regular sunlight, are silky smooth and elastic, and becoming more so each month, it seems. I cannot ever remember my skin feeling this good.

Those who indoctrinate us rarely talk about such effects. Skin specialists talk about ex-foliating dead skin cells, as if dealing with a problem too late is ever going to have a long term effect. Fat – and especially saturated fat – is a vital component of skin cells, along with many other sites in the body (where the dreaded cholesterol is also vitally important).

But the emphatic, ever-repeated message that fat leads to the furring of arteries reminds me of political spin – one unfounded aspect of a matter is give the spotlight, taking attention away from other very important matters. I would love to see the skin of someone who eats a low fat diet for a few years, and to compare to mine.

And if you think that skin is not so important, you are marginalising the largest organ in the body in am afraid.

An Italian friend recently enrolled on a photography course, but canceled before it completed because she deemed the teacher to be inept. I was wondering if I should teach her some photography basics, and then pondered how I would approach this.

From what I understand from her, the teacher explained which settings to use to take certain types of photographs. But he did not explain this well, so she failed to understand.

The key to good education is not just the imparting of knowledge but the rationale behind the knowledge – the understanding.

If I were to teach my friend, I would start with an explanation of how light passes through a lens, limited by the aperture, and converging (or not) on the film or sensor. How the diameter of the aperture affects light rays pass through, converging more readily through a narrower aperture and hence at a narrower angle. But too narrow an aperture can generate fringe effects. And too wide an aperture puts demands on the accuracy of the lens surfaces. And how the shutter curtains sweep across – at high speeds the second follows shortly after the first because they cannot move fast enough to retain a completely open window for light to pass through. And so on.

Only then would I talk about settings, since only then would they be understood for their effect. Their understanding would give them a model of operation that they could also extrapolate from.

I suspect that the heavy emphasis on teaching for the exam in school often fails to teach an understanding. The net effect is that extrapolation is not easy, so any problem that deviates from what they are taught can throw them. They become helpless without a true understanding, trained in a mechanical fashion rather than empowered with the mindset to think for themselves.

I suffer immensely with boredom – what used to enthrall me as a young person now fails to grab my attention.

I propose that boredom is an emotion, and like all emotions, there is purpose in its negativity, as it seeks to steer us away from what we are doing.

There seem to be two distinct faces to this emotion. First, there is the boredom that even (and especially?) children face when confronted by a vacuum of things to do. Paradoxically, this is actually good for children, and parents should ensure that the ‘schedule’ of their offspring is sufficiently slack that there are periods of emptiness that can solicit boredom.

The reason is that these children are driven by the boredom to then engage their creative and foraging minds in generating activities of interest. They explore and fabricate and thereby gain autonomy, something that is desperately lacking in many young people today.

The other class of boredom is where the subject is actually engaged in activities, but they are so dull or repetitive for that person that they grow restless and struggle to apply themselves.

For creative people, such as myself, I believe that this form of boredom is an emotional force urging us to avoid the mundane and seek out activities that best suit our creative minds or abilities.

So both classes of boredom seem to be related to creativity. Is it not the case that those in mundane, repetitive jobs are more suited to these roles because they are not creative types? An accountant has to repeat the same kinds of detailed numerical processes time and time again with great attention to detail. If his mind were apt to wander and speculate, as the creative mind does, how could he sustain the concentration required?

So if you are beset with boredom, try to understand what your mind is telling you.

Personally, I find myself regularly becoming bored writing up 100+ pages of teaching notes for computer programming that I want to teach. I wonder if my boredom is telling me that I have simply spent too many years now engaged in writing books (and hence that I should move onto new work), or that it is the subject matter that is too familiar, having spent 40 years as a programmer. So the question I ask myself then is whether will I enjoy the one-to-one programming tuition that I plan to offer? Having committed myself to the latter via the efforts in this book and in paid advertising for my services, I need to find out by staying the course. It is impossible to guess how the teaching will pan out – I suspect well because the focus will likely be on the nurturing, enabling aspects of tuition rather than the subject of the teaching.

This is very highly opinionated book. I disagree with some of his directions, but found a lot of insightful reading, and thought it appropriate to record some snippets here.

When a high achieving student said “You are asking us to just get in a race for the traditional rewards. What else is there?”, his teacher said “There was a large hole where his soul should have been.”. The pupil had been groomed to think that educational agendas and a mainstream job was the only plausible rout in life.

“School teaches history in the same way that it teaches grammar, syntax and word-preference: in terms that guarantee our exile from its passion and transformation”.

Research has shown that only about 15% of children do best in an academic environment, and that this does not necessarily include all the smart ones.

The US president was urged to break up the especially powerful corporations :

With all the resources of interlocking directors, interlocking bankers and interlocking lawyers, with all their power to hire thousands of employees … their power to give or withhold millions of dollars worth of business, with all their power to contribute to the campaign funds of the acquiescent … they are as dangerous a menace to political as to economic freedom”.

This sounds very current, of course, but the adviser was Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1936 to President Franklin Roosevelt.

Abraham Lincoln had this to say about corporations :

Corporations have been enthroned … money power will endeavour to prolong its reign … until wealth is aggravated in few hands … and the republic is destroyed”.

Even more true now, of course.

On the less obvious effects of technology :

Between 1828 and 1960, almost all observers who looked for psychosis or schizophrenia in technologically under-developed areas of the world agreed it was uncommon.

A 1973 New Guinea survey found that mass society correlates with schizophrenia.

On the mental health DSM (Diagnostic manual) :

Davis sees the book-genre of the DSM-IV as that of a merchandise catalogue, which allows its customer doctors to sell to its customers.

1922 on IQ tests :

If the impression takes root that these tests really measure intelligence, that they constitute a sort of last judgement on the child’s capacity, that they reveal “scientifically” his predestined ability, then it would be a thousand times better if all the intelligent testers … were sunk in the … sea

And finally :

In the 1900s, there were more than 20,000 miles of trolley tracks and nearly 5 billion trolley passengers yearly. How did it happen that an inexpensive, efficient, relatively nonpolluting form of transportation – already paid for – was replaced by an expensive, polluting, and congesting one? General Motors, through economic and political pressure, forced the abandonment of more than a hundred trolley systems, the paving over of the tracks, and the replacement of bus systems. GM, through its National City Lines subsidiary, bought and dismantled dozens of extensive urban electric rail systems, including the nation’s largest in Los Angeles. Even if one prefers interstate railways, urban sprawl, suburbs, and traffic jams, it is public record that an oligarchy, not a democracy, made this choice for society. In 1948, GM and its co-conspirators, Firestone and Standard Oil of California, were convicted in US federal court of criminal conspiracy and anti-trust monopolization. Its sentence and penalty for dictatorially changing the social and cultural face of America? A fine of $5,000.

As a slow learner, I acquired an understanding of English with a snail’s pace, and an appreciation of fine literature only years after leaving school, when I read for the joy of reading.

A problem with much that we are ‘taught’ in school is that we are rarely engaged in the subject – it is poured forth and frequently washes over us.

The consequence, for myself, is that I never felt the beautiful elegance of the works of Shakespeare. Instead, I had to learn them parrot-fashion, an exercise almost perfectly designed to do the opposite of what was intended. Now I hated what I had memorised because it felt like a chore.

So when I encountered a short quote by William Shakespeare in the book on teaching I am currently devouring, my tendency was to skip past. But I am glad I chose not to :

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.

Whilst the phrasing is, in a sense, awkward by modern standards, the more I re-read it the more I saw a talent for using words to convey meaning that is beautiful in its succinctness. It feels like clever, fancy words were used to remain economical, but as you can see, none were. It is the choice that was clever.

I play football most Saturdays with friends in a nearby park. The games are informal, with rucksacks used for posts. Players change each week, and the ability is very variable.

One recent problem is that the games have become too successful – they now attract to many players.

On a dull wet day, we may start with a 6-a-side game but as players arrive, as much as an hour late (the games last a long time…), the games stretch to and beyond 11-a-side. Sometimes, we manage to split into two games. Often not, though, with as many as 40 players chasing a single ball.

So I have had great experience of various numbers of player numbers. And I have no doubt that 7 or 8 a-side is my favoured number. 5-a-side is simply to tiring. But 11-a-side really does feel like too many players, and yields too few goals.

Of course, you may say, 11-a-side was determined as the optimal number for football games, amateur or professional. But it is my contention that there was no decision made. Or rather, the original choice was arbitrary – 1 goalkeeper and a round number of outfield players. By the time this was established, it became entrenched. And it is far far too late to change that.

But I still maintain that 7-a-side or 8-a-side gives the best balance of spread, engagement and goals.

Leading in the semi-finals of the Wimbledon tennis juniors as I write, Liam Broady is a British player that looks to be the real deal.

My prediction is that he will become World class for the following reasons :

* His steely determination – and the sheer look in his eyes
* His devastating forehand
* His stamina
* His stability of mind and game
* His lack of fear
* His joy of the challenge
* His speed
* His athleticism
* He is left handed

Already, he has practiced with Djokavic, and turned down a hit with Nadal.

He is also a pretty blond boy and simply looks to be a sensational prospect.

The abscess I was afflicted with just before Christmas kept me awake until 5am on the day it erupted into full glory. So I reluctantly signed up with a new dentist, the last no longer accepting me because too much time had passed since my last visit.

I was surprised to be checked by a Spanish lady. You would be hard pushed to find another here in Cardiff, where the weather is the antithesis of Spanish sunshine.

She gave me antibiotics and told me to book an appointment for the extraction and bridge building (to cover the gap). But she failed to let me know what I was in for.

Why do they assume that their patients know that after the tooth is extracted the bloody gap between will be too sensitive to allow any food to be consumed for 3 hours after the tooth is removed? I might have been able to work that out I guess, but is not hard to inform patients in advance.

In the dental chair, I also had two teeth drilled and filled – without any injection. So how strange for the pre-treatment anxiety to disappear and be replaced by a relaxed, happy state. I had no idea this was going to happen. How could I? Why on earth did my mind choose such a strange situation in which to express a rare calmness?

She had injected me, however, before these fillings for the subsequent extraction. Five injections no less. She kept pushing on my tooth and jaw, and I sat there wondering when she was actually going to do an extraction type manoeuvre. You know, a movement upwards. But then she stopped all activity. Remarkably, it was all done and dusted. The tooth (now a fabulous, but unusual souvenir) lay in the tray in front of me. I had felt no pain whatsoever.

Which is quite the contrary to how I feel now in the evening. The pain that the injections had smothered was now roaring its voice. And the gap still kept weeping. I had been given swabs in case it started bleeding again. But when is a weep a bleed? Again, the dental establishment fail to see the patient viewpoint. So I oscillate between swab and no swab. But the worst is behind me. Unless I awake with a bloody pillow ..

Matthew Syed became British number one table tennis table, but was always recognised as a great spokesman for the sport. So it was no surprise that he eventually rerouted to a writing career, and his articles for the Times are lucid and informative.

His recent book “Bounce” on the unexpected factors that made him and others reach the top of their sports continues his superb writing and is highly recommended. So much so that it is a rare entry in the candidate book list for a current book award. I hope he wins.

The critical factor in sporting excellence concerns effort rather than talent. And not just sport either. To excel in your specialisation, it appears that you need to put in something like 10,000 hours of directed and focused practice. It is not enough to go through the motions – you have to concentrate when practising, and ensure that you practise correct techniques. Essentially, you ingrain the fundamentals so that they are second nature.

And this is where the title of the article comes in. Practice makes perfect the proverb says. But this misses the point. Practice, when carried out correctly, solidifies the basics more than anything else.

It was Tim Henman, commentating on a recent tennis match who paraphrased this expression to make much more sense :

Practice makes permanent

And this now makes entire sense. But it also illustrates the danger of misdirected practice – that bad habits also become permanent. And this underlies much of the differences between amateurs and professionals : whereas the professional repeatedly practices the basics, the amateur focuses on more esoteric matters. The professional creates a platform on top of which excellence can flourish, whereas the amateur tries to add flourishes to a shaky foundation, ignoring the tedium of the basics. Odd, then, that the more advanced player focuses more on the low level matters than the amateur.

I sat in the roof garden of a local cafe/bar this morning to relax in surprisingly warm sun for November. A group of young adults were already satin the garden, engaged in lively conversation. But I found it a little alarming that made no effort whatsoever to temper either the content or the sound level of their conversation. Were they really unaware that I might not want to hear about their antics of the previous night.

They were having a great chat, and necessarily engrossed in that, but were they that unaware that a man sat trying to read his book might find it a little tricky to do so when there loud conversation addressed matters such as crotchless panties.

I may well be wrong, but suspect that the combination of an increased sense of importance that schools give to children was combining here with a disinterest in empathising with older people.

I was not too prudish to ignore them – I enjoyed a chat with them. But there still remained this strong feeling that whatever they might choose to talk about was far more important than any respect that they might show for someone who might want to sit quietly and read.