Health Benefits
Feb. 17th, 2012 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksI 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.
__________________
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-17 11:59 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Szabo's film, nor the Harewood play, nor indeed was I aware that they existed. The time frame you quote seems a bit of a cop-out, though. I'd have thought that the basic Twelve Years would be more appropriate (not because they cover the rise and fall of the Nazis, but because there's a sort of slow-motion train-wreck in Furtwangler's career spread across them, replete with personal rivalries and occasional heroics and all). It always struck me as odd that Furtwangler was vilified and Karajan was completely, er, let off the hook.
Nevertheless, I struggle to like the man personally, and I've never really been tempted to listen to his music. I suppose I'll have to dig out the Eighth now. It's a whacking great problem of a piece (as are his Fifth and Seventh), and Kingsley Amis hated it, probably with good reason. Unless it's absolutely perfect, it's just a bore-fest. Karajan was pretty bloody awful at it; Wand and Haitinck not much better. I think Antal Dorati conducted it at least once ... obviously didn't leave much of an impression on me. The only decent version that springs to mind is Karl Bohm -- ironically someone with a very similar "political" record to Furtwangler.
I understand, btw, that Furtwangler's 1942 recording of the Fifth is also a "must hear."
I should probably give up my silly prejudices and just put the damn vinyl on the turntable.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 06:26 pm (UTC)The point about the 1944 version is that the imminent defeat of Germany can be heard in every note --- or so it seems.
I don't have it myself and I thought that it was only available as a download, but apparently there is a Deutsche Grammophon recording.
PJ
no subject
Date: 2012-02-18 11:52 pm (UTC)I've never really been able to get beyond the fourth note in Beethoven.
I think I was even getting confused over the Eighth, incidentally, because I refreshed my memory from here (http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/furtwangler.html). Which means I was thinking about the Ninth -- almost the only one that Karajan got right, incidentally, and my very first classical LP. Not, I would suggest, a very healthy thing for an eighteen year old to listen to...
The first version of Bruckner's Fifth I ever listened to (it wasn't very good) was on a double LP, if your readers can stretch back that far. (Of course they can: they're all ancient old farts.) It was on a double LP simply because it's difficult to fit 65 minutes of music onto a single LP without grotesque distortion. But that left a tiny problem: after you've stuck the fourth movement onto the third side, what do you do with the fourth side?
Maybe a picture disc? A tasteful sepia silhouette of Anton in lederhosen, swigging back a pint of gluhwein against a background of the Austrian Alps?
No, these guys were more inventive. They actually got a bunch of doddering musos, born and brought up before the First World War, and put them around a table and got them to reminisce. The result sounded remarkably like a Goons sketch with Minnie and Henry as the feature artistes:
"Do you remember ... mnyuk, mnyuk ... do you, er, is that a butterfly?"
"Of course I do, of course I do, of course I ... no it isn't. What were you going to say?"
"Yes it is! Yes it is! Wait a minute! It's a moth!"
"You don't get moths in the daytime! We didn't get moths in the daytime when I was young. Of course, we couldn't afford moths when I was young, not even at night."
"It was never night when I was young. We had moonlight serenades in the middle of the afternoon. Heinrich, Franz, Clarence Seedorf, I remember them all. Those were happy times..."
"Yes, yes ... mnyuk, mnyuk ... I was never young myself, but I can remember the hopeless longing. The hopeless longing ... (shouts) Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail!. Did Johann say something?"
"Johann? No, he's comatose. He's been that way since that terrible incident on the 30th April. I told the man not to wave a gold-plated revolver around, but would he listen? Oh, no. Heinrich, Franz, Clarence ... what happened to them all?"
Pause.
Extended bird-song in the background.
Pause.
"Of course, they're all dead now, you know..."
-------
The only bit of that I made up was Clarence Seedorf. And, really, you can't make Clarence Seedorf up.
-------
Bruckner's Ninth FTW, and without, if you please, the insane notion of adding the Te Deum in as a coda.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-19 07:53 pm (UTC)And, after we've done the coffee-klatsch on that one, how about the "economic miracle" in China?
Who and why and wherefore is going to be responsible for the humongous defaults that provincial Chinese banks (and provincial Chinese administrations -- same thing, as far as I can tell) are racking up?
An interesting mirror-image, if I may so suggest.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-26 05:07 pm (UTC)Well, yeah. Thrice yeah, in fact.
But, as we all know, even the most dependable leads churn out crap every now and again. (I would posit James Stewart and Gregory Peck as counter-examples, not to mention Katherine Hepburn. And if we want to get foreign, Max von Sydow.)
And there's not much to cheer for in a director if the director isn't gonna take risks. Which, obviously, means that they are going to get less than EV on the odd film or two, possibly after the river but before the flop ...
Books are a wholly different thing, I feel. I went through a period of reading everything that Larry McMurtry wrote, simply because he was excellent when he aimed for good, and good when he merely aimed for average. But it looks like 2000 or so was a watershed in this respect. I don't see anybody coming through with the same level of dogged perseverance.
And I have no wish to spend what remains of my pitiful life reading the dog-eared remainders of 70+ year old novelists.