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Health Benefits
Feb. 17th, 2012 11:42 amI can't believe how quickly I recovered from last week's set of muscle strains. By Monday I was ready to train at about 90% of capacity, fully expecting to take two days to recover before another session on Thursday. Instead, I went training (admittedly mainly cardio) on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then put in a full 100% session on Thursday. OK, maybe not a "true" 100%, because that would include some kind of personal best attempt. But definitely a tough one. I felt a bit of a flare-up in one of the muscles strained the previous Monday week (an "inner-gluteal" if any of you have a map of body muscles to hand).
I learnt a lot over the few days of injury on how much work your so-called bum muscles do. A lot of the things which you think you do with your back, in fact you do with a complex set of muscles in your bum, some of which twist and curl from the spine to the femur.
I also learnt that fitness means you recover a lot quicker. No longer do I suffer cramp in bed. No longer do my shoulder muscles "stiffen up" because of a cold draught of wind. When I pulled a hamstring about eight years ago, it took me about three weeks to recover. I did worse than that to 10 different muscles a couple of weeks ago, and 10 days later I felt fully recovered. I don't want to become evangelical about this, but, for me, it was one of the best things I ever did --- starting about a year ago this week.
+++++++++
I must have more than 100 films on disc that I haven't watched. Some comment in the film-reviewer section has led me to record it, then burn it to disc because the Hard Disc Drive on the DVD-recorded is filling up, and then forget about it.
I tried to catch up with a couple of these (at random) earlier in the week, mainly because I was getting utterly bored with online poker, and I wanted some time away from sitting in front of the PC. Sitting in front of the TV may not seem much different, but it's a different medium and a different room. I still don't feel comfortable or natural watching TV programmes on the PC. Eventually I'll get round to figuring out the (user-unfriendly, obv) Internet connection to the TV.
Anyhoo, the first of the films that came up was "All The Pretty Horses", which opens with all of the enticement of an afternoon made-for-TV special. But one of the leads is Matt Damon, and then I see that the film is directed by Billy Bob Thornton, based on a book by Cormac McCarthy. At least I now knew why I had recorded it.
But it supported the thesis that an awfully large number of films can come with a great pedigree, and still be not very good. I lasted about 20 minutes before realizing that the leaden pacing, uninvolving characters, and generally boring aspect made this a film unworthy of working with.
I read up on it afterwards -- there were a number of difficulties in the production, and apparently there's a near four-hour version (the "director's cut") that may one day be released. Perhaps it's a "Heaven's Gate" awaiting rediscovery. But, for the moment, it's a miss.
So I tried another random movie. "Taking Sides", directed by Istvan Szabo, covered a short period in the life of the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, when he could no longer work as director of the Berlin Philharmonic after the fall of Nazi Germany, because of suspicions that he was a collaborator (charges of which he was eventually cleared, but he seemed a broken man and died nine years later). The film focuses on his Beethoven recordings, with one exception. That is when the interrogator (played by Harvey Keitel in a rather over-the-top uncultured manner) plays a piece of music and asks Furtwängler (well acted by Swedish actor, er, Stellan Skarsgård). if he recognizes it. Furtwängler says, yes, of course he does, it's the adagio from Bruckner's Seventh. Major Arnold (Keitel) says "yes, and this is what they played, your recording, on the radio when they announced the death of the Führer".
The point here is that it is for Bruckner rather than Beethoven that Furtwängler really deserves to be remembered. In 1944 in Vienna he recorded Beethoven's Third and Bruckner's Eighth with the Vienna Philharmonic. The former is great; the latter (recorded in October 1944) is unparalleled. It was in December 1944, after conducting in Vienna. that Albert Speer advises Furtwängler to flee to Switzerland. This is shown in the film (which is based on a 1995 play by Ronald Harwood).
But the film struggles with its material. Furtwängler, like the young Dylan, was inarticulate outside of his music. His persecutor, Major Arnold, was apparently emotionally blinded by the film he saw of Jewish corpses being machine-shovelled into mass graves.
The fillm therefore needs two other characters, played by Moritz Bleibtreu and Birgit Minichmayr, to add emotional resonance. It's an artificial addition and it shows. But the film is worth watching if only to see how one of the great conductors of the 20th century just happened to end up on the wrong side.
This was an international production and the film version in the UK was in English and German (with English subtitles). The BBC showed the American print, which is all in English (although without any dubbing). It would be nice to see the European print.
++++++++++++++
Interesting times re Greece. I've been looking at the financial numbers for 2011 this past couple of weeks and two things has become eminently clear: (1) banks and life assurers and pension funds have spent the past two years generating shedloads of operating profit. (2) They have been using this to write off Greek and Portuguese bond debt.
What does this mean? It means that if Greece defaulted tomorrow, there (probably) would not be global financial carnage. To take one example, the French insurer Axa generated €6.3bn in cash last year, and it took €8bn in impairments, thus reducing its book value by €1.7bn (about 5%). OK, the Axa writedowns were aggressive and related to a lot more than Greek debt, but the point is that if you look at nearly all of the financials results for 2011, you will see a drop in bottom line profits and a rise in cash generation (or operating profits). The banks and insurers spent 2011 getting their retaliation in in advance. Those higher insurance rates you have been paying? Nothing to do with you being a bigger risk. A lot to do with reinforcing the balance sheet.
I don't think that the Greek politicians have quite figured this out yet. But it looks to me as if 80% of the damage that it could have done 18 months ago has now been written off in advance Any Greek sovereign debt that has not been sold off to hedge funds at a discount has been written down by about 78% on the balance sheet. That's virtually at the stage where the companies (if not the German government) will be saying "do your worst".
I still think that the euro will prove to be a crock of shit this year. One reason that James Mackintosh spotted makes a lot of sense. It relates to China. When things are going well in China (when its reserves are going up), it diversifies from dollars to euros. But when dodgy things are happening (as they are at the moment, relating to a lot of bad debt in the rural banks again) this freedom to diversify away from dollars is constrained. That strengthens the dollar and weakens the euro.
Target before the end of the year is €1.00/$1.07. That makes me a serious outlier at the moment, but I was that when I was talking about $1.27 when it was €1.00/$1.50.
__________________
I learnt a lot over the few days of injury on how much work your so-called bum muscles do. A lot of the things which you think you do with your back, in fact you do with a complex set of muscles in your bum, some of which twist and curl from the spine to the femur.
I also learnt that fitness means you recover a lot quicker. No longer do I suffer cramp in bed. No longer do my shoulder muscles "stiffen up" because of a cold draught of wind. When I pulled a hamstring about eight years ago, it took me about three weeks to recover. I did worse than that to 10 different muscles a couple of weeks ago, and 10 days later I felt fully recovered. I don't want to become evangelical about this, but, for me, it was one of the best things I ever did --- starting about a year ago this week.
+++++++++
I must have more than 100 films on disc that I haven't watched. Some comment in the film-reviewer section has led me to record it, then burn it to disc because the Hard Disc Drive on the DVD-recorded is filling up, and then forget about it.
I tried to catch up with a couple of these (at random) earlier in the week, mainly because I was getting utterly bored with online poker, and I wanted some time away from sitting in front of the PC. Sitting in front of the TV may not seem much different, but it's a different medium and a different room. I still don't feel comfortable or natural watching TV programmes on the PC. Eventually I'll get round to figuring out the (user-unfriendly, obv) Internet connection to the TV.
Anyhoo, the first of the films that came up was "All The Pretty Horses", which opens with all of the enticement of an afternoon made-for-TV special. But one of the leads is Matt Damon, and then I see that the film is directed by Billy Bob Thornton, based on a book by Cormac McCarthy. At least I now knew why I had recorded it.
But it supported the thesis that an awfully large number of films can come with a great pedigree, and still be not very good. I lasted about 20 minutes before realizing that the leaden pacing, uninvolving characters, and generally boring aspect made this a film unworthy of working with.
I read up on it afterwards -- there were a number of difficulties in the production, and apparently there's a near four-hour version (the "director's cut") that may one day be released. Perhaps it's a "Heaven's Gate" awaiting rediscovery. But, for the moment, it's a miss.
So I tried another random movie. "Taking Sides", directed by Istvan Szabo, covered a short period in the life of the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, when he could no longer work as director of the Berlin Philharmonic after the fall of Nazi Germany, because of suspicions that he was a collaborator (charges of which he was eventually cleared, but he seemed a broken man and died nine years later). The film focuses on his Beethoven recordings, with one exception. That is when the interrogator (played by Harvey Keitel in a rather over-the-top uncultured manner) plays a piece of music and asks Furtwängler (well acted by Swedish actor, er, Stellan Skarsgård). if he recognizes it. Furtwängler says, yes, of course he does, it's the adagio from Bruckner's Seventh. Major Arnold (Keitel) says "yes, and this is what they played, your recording, on the radio when they announced the death of the Führer".
The point here is that it is for Bruckner rather than Beethoven that Furtwängler really deserves to be remembered. In 1944 in Vienna he recorded Beethoven's Third and Bruckner's Eighth with the Vienna Philharmonic. The former is great; the latter (recorded in October 1944) is unparalleled. It was in December 1944, after conducting in Vienna. that Albert Speer advises Furtwängler to flee to Switzerland. This is shown in the film (which is based on a 1995 play by Ronald Harwood).
But the film struggles with its material. Furtwängler, like the young Dylan, was inarticulate outside of his music. His persecutor, Major Arnold, was apparently emotionally blinded by the film he saw of Jewish corpses being machine-shovelled into mass graves.
The fillm therefore needs two other characters, played by Moritz Bleibtreu and Birgit Minichmayr, to add emotional resonance. It's an artificial addition and it shows. But the film is worth watching if only to see how one of the great conductors of the 20th century just happened to end up on the wrong side.
This was an international production and the film version in the UK was in English and German (with English subtitles). The BBC showed the American print, which is all in English (although without any dubbing). It would be nice to see the European print.
++++++++++++++
Interesting times re Greece. I've been looking at the financial numbers for 2011 this past couple of weeks and two things has become eminently clear: (1) banks and life assurers and pension funds have spent the past two years generating shedloads of operating profit. (2) They have been using this to write off Greek and Portuguese bond debt.
What does this mean? It means that if Greece defaulted tomorrow, there (probably) would not be global financial carnage. To take one example, the French insurer Axa generated €6.3bn in cash last year, and it took €8bn in impairments, thus reducing its book value by €1.7bn (about 5%). OK, the Axa writedowns were aggressive and related to a lot more than Greek debt, but the point is that if you look at nearly all of the financials results for 2011, you will see a drop in bottom line profits and a rise in cash generation (or operating profits). The banks and insurers spent 2011 getting their retaliation in in advance. Those higher insurance rates you have been paying? Nothing to do with you being a bigger risk. A lot to do with reinforcing the balance sheet.
I don't think that the Greek politicians have quite figured this out yet. But it looks to me as if 80% of the damage that it could have done 18 months ago has now been written off in advance Any Greek sovereign debt that has not been sold off to hedge funds at a discount has been written down by about 78% on the balance sheet. That's virtually at the stage where the companies (if not the German government) will be saying "do your worst".
I still think that the euro will prove to be a crock of shit this year. One reason that James Mackintosh spotted makes a lot of sense. It relates to China. When things are going well in China (when its reserves are going up), it diversifies from dollars to euros. But when dodgy things are happening (as they are at the moment, relating to a lot of bad debt in the rural banks again) this freedom to diversify away from dollars is constrained. That strengthens the dollar and weakens the euro.
Target before the end of the year is €1.00/$1.07. That makes me a serious outlier at the moment, but I was that when I was talking about $1.27 when it was €1.00/$1.50.
__________________
