Watching a video on YouTube, with Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Matthew Walker about caffeine and it’s effects on sleep.
Caffeine is, as they discuss, a psychoactive drug, and a stimulant. According to Walker caffeine is the second highest traded commodity after oil! I’ve heard it said before that coffee is the drug of capitalism/consumerism. If Walker’s claim is true, nothing could better illustrate the link between this drug and our self-medicating slave-driver culture.
‘Caffeine is a sleep disruptor, there’s no question about that,’ says Chatterjee. Two answers these guys give are de-caff, or, better still, no coffee, or caffeine – tea, inc. green tea, also contains caffeine – after midday. The third and more radical option is to go tee-total, and simply cut caffeine out altogether.
Just ordered a copy of this.
According to the very little skimming of Google I’ve just done on Walker, in light of this YouTube vid and re buying his book, he’s ‘in love’ with sleep. So am I! But I imagine his love for and knowledge about sleep are far healthier than mine!
One reason I love sleep is that it’s an escape from the constant and oppressive demands of waking life. And I suspect that both this basic fact about my love of sleep, not to mention my actual sleep habits themselves, are not as healthy as they ought to be.
Anyway, a very interesting and informative podcast style YouTube video, well worth watching. And I’m looking forward to reading Walker’s book.
There has been change, even if not discernibly so!
I didn’t take any more sleeper pics. Or rather, more accurately, I did. But they don’t show the progress I made. I basically levelled the sleepers better, and raised the soul with the spaces. Esp’ along the edge that’s going to be the footpath, along Ruben and Anne’s side (the left as you look away from the houses!).
I’m trying to maintain the FODMAP diet. And I’m convinced that my tummy is less distended than formerly. I’m not sure I’ve lost much if any weight. I just think I’m carrying a little less gas around in my guts! Sometimes it’s hard to be motivated over food choices. That’s when any diet is at greatest risk.
Today’s lunch. Sausage omelette (!?) and salad.
Today I made a three-egg omelette, with two Heck sausages (high meat content, no gluten containing cereals or dairy content!), fried in olive oil and chopped up. The orange cubes are Red Leicester cheese. I’m glad I can still have cheese, as I love it. I just have to keep portions small.
The salad was a leftover from yesterdays dinner. And speaking of leftovers, our dinner tonight was the remains of Satay #2, with the addition of rice, edamame beans and water chestnuts, some Thai red curry sauce and gluten free soy-sauce, all drizzled with lime juice.
Both lunch and dinner were, thankfully, delicious, nutritious, and FODMAP friendly.
I’ve even started to add some little bits of exercise into my daily routines. I’ve started doing timed squats. The idea is to work up to 30 days of 30 mins (in smaller bite sized chunks) squatting on flat feet. And I want to add some free hanging in to the mix as well…
I’m trying to cultivate other good habits. For example I’m doing a Stick Control ‘Summer Challenge’: trying to do at least a page a day of Stone’s ancient but venerable tome. Hopefully by summer’s end I’ll have finished the whole book?
Teresa liked my previous satay so much she asked me to do it again! That’s nice. I’ll take that!
But I didn’t have quite the same ingredients to hand this time. We did, however, have chicken. So in that respect I was truer to the orig’ recipe. But in several others, I wasn’t.
We still had carrots, broccoli, pak choi and green beans. But we had no beansprouts or bamboo. Gluten-free soy, peanut butter and ginger, etc, made up the home-made satay. And the whole thing was finished with sesame seeds, ginger and chilli flakes.
I put in twice as much of the latter this time. As previously we couldn’t really taste it!
Chester likes to daydream in this planting box!
We ate dinner outside, in the muggy heat of a summer evening. Chester was chilling in the greenhouse, whilst we quaffed first Portuguese then Spanish red wines. Nice!
This satay recipe is a good ‘un; easy and very tasty. A one pan (wok) wonder, if desired. That is, one pan if using noodles. But two if, like us today, you go with rice.
I’m still doing the FODMAP diet thing. Which means I’m cooking a lot more than previously. Trying to make sure I get a good diet, and yet avoid FODMAP triggers is quite demanding! Recent food shops have required more thought than usual.
I cooked this turkey and veg’ (chicken in the orig’ recipe; but I had turkey on hand!) satay stir-fry on wednesday. The picture above is my leftovers lunch, the following day. That following day, the 21st, we had a Chinese take-away – quite poss’ not entirely FODMAP? – as a treat, celebrating the sixth anniversary of moving in to our March home!
Chicken & Veg Satay:
Ingredients * 1 tbsp olive oil * 2 carrots, peeled and cut into batons * ½ head broccoli, chopped pw 400g/14oz chicken breast (turkey for us!), cut into strips * 2 pak choi, shredded * 225g tin bamboo shoots * 150g/5½oz beansprouts * 1 tsp grated fresh root ginger * 300g/10½oz rice noodles * 1 lime, wedges, to serve * 4 tsp sesame seeds, to serve Sauce * 4 tbsp gluten-free light soy sauce * 1 tbsp tamarind (didn’t use this!) * 2 tbsp peanut butter * pinch chilli flakes * 2 tsp sesame oil
Method 1. Heat the oil in a wok or large wide pan over a medium–high heat. Add the carrots, broccoli and green beans and stir-fry for 2–3 minutes. 2. Add the chicken and stir-fry for 3–4 minutes. Add the pak choi, bamboo shoots, beansprouts and ginger and continue to stir-fry for another 2–3 minutes. 3. Meanwhile, bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Add the noodles and cook for 3 minutes, then drain. Add the noodles to the wok and stir through. 4. Whisk all of the sauce ingredients together in a bowl, along with 4 tablespoons water. Add to the wok and stir to mix. 5. Serve immediately, with a wedge of lime and a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
Just recently I’ve begun trying a FODMAP diet. To see if I can lose weight and get my bloated stomach down a bit. I think it’s been a little over a week now since I started.
But whilst my lunches and dinners and snacking have all changed, up until today my breakfasts hadn’t. Or rather they hadn’t in some respects. Yes, I’ve switched from dairy milk to oat milk and/or lactose free milk. But I was still eating cereals every morning, albeit avoiding wheat based types.
I’ve actually felt, for quite some time now, that I ought to change my breakfasting habits. But I’m sooo not a mornings person! And I’ve relied on Teresa, who gets up very early for her work commute, to supply our breakfast needs.
Anyway, I got up at 6am today. And was downstairs in the kitchen, whilst Teresa readied herself for her working day, frying two turkey breast escalopes and two eggs, as a his n hers breakfast of turkey and egg.
Fried in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. What a difference from the usual cereal start! I’m wondering if a change in breakfast habits might also help me train myself out of my usual morning lethargy and into a more dynamic early riser lifestyle!? That’s part of the plan, or hopes!
I have a mini-military hobby blog, which I’ve more or less stopped doing. Not a plan! Just an evolution. That one actually had readers. Not many. But some.
Now I’m focused more on this here blog. And I wonder, should I (can I?) bring the other blog – AQOS, or A Question Of Scale – over to sebpalmer.com?
Actually I also had another one, on a musical axis. That’s still out there on ye inter web. But I’ve not posted to that one in even longer than I’ve not posted to the wargaming and modelling one.
And then there are the why bother?/who cares? aspects. But, for the time being at least, I find blogging a sort of therapeutic form of modern journal.
I’d like it if others read it, or found things interesting. But that’s not essential. It fulfils a purpose for me by merely existing. A kind of online notebook for me, as well as some sort of reassurance that I actually exist!
I’ve never been much of an extrovert or performer, to be honest. So in a way I’m quite happy ‘performing’ to the void!
Yesterday I bought this handsome set from a Facebook seller locally. We were on our way to Anglesey Abbey, for a lunchtime picnic. That didn’t work out, for reasons I’ll cover in another separate post.
But en route we stopped over at an address in Chatteris, and I bought this delightful set of Mr Men books for a tenner. A tenner!!!
Each individual book is £2.50. Fifty at that price translates to £125 in total. I fully expected that the boxed set would – obviously, surely? – be somewhat cheaper. After all, you want to make the bulk buy attractive, don’t you?
The entire series.What? No bulk buy discount!?
So I was surprised to see that this set has, printed on the reverse of the hard-case, the full £125 asking price! This makes the tenner I paid even sweeter. And the condition of the set is immaculate. Brand new in all but name.
We don’t have kids. But these will not only potentially come in handy as and when kiddies are visiting us. But, truth be told, we adore them ourselves. They’re so sweetly innocent and charming. And most of them are a part of our own childhoods.
After the trauma of yesterday’s vehicular disaster (see this other post), reading a few of these today was a massively uplifting experience. The inner child lives on lustily in both Teresa and myself!
The (Mr) Man Who Wasn’t There!
I read Mr Nobody to myself. I find the theme here quite attractive. Almost Zen!? It’s not really intended that way. As Mr Nobody’s ‘nothingness’ – beautifully and so simply conveyed by his being see-through – is a bad thing, to be corrected.
I then read two to Teresa, putting on voices like a parent to a child. And it was wonderful. Not having children of our own, being, simple and childlike ourselves can be a real balm. A release from the unceasing cares of adulthood!
First I read Mr Rude, a later title (as was Mr Nobody), which I hadn’t had or read as a child, as it’s far more recent. Mr Happy forces himself on Mr Rude, as a house-guest, eventually helping Mr Rude find his better self. Lovely!
Delightful!
Teresa wanted me to read Mr Uppity. This is one I did encounter first many, many moons ago. Roger Hargreaves’ delightfully playful works occasionally use what Tolkien called ‘fairey’. And here we find Mr Uppity visiting the Goblin Kingdom, and thereby learning to be politer and nicer.
Utterly charming, and conveying simple homely morality, wonderfully illustrated in such a beguilingly naive and simple manner. Just lovely!
I told myself that, at least in part, I was getting these as illustration work type reference material. And so it is. But in truth I just love these books. And I’m very happy to own this set. Both as possible inspiration for my own work, and as little gems in their own right.
Hmmm!? Laid up, unwell, at home. Ironically due, I think – thinking and knowing are two different things; a theme for this post? – to our 13th wedding anniversary meal, at the above pictured pub, on Monday.
Teresa’s birthday was last week, and the day after was ‘friday the 13th’. She always remarks on being grateful not to be born on the 13th. And I usually reply that it’s only a number.
So next I’m looking for a ‘lucky 13’ image for another blog post. Poss’ even the one that mentions going out for the meal? Anyway, here I am, thursday, having had to come home early yesterday, just over half way through my teaching, due to the diarrhoea I’ve had ever since said anniversary meal on monday.
Next comes the dystopian experience of trying to see a doctor locally. Even just trying to contact the doctor is so thoroughly depressing – the amount of time and effort required, to only eventually be fobbed of with a totally inadequate response – it’s truly appalling.
When I reflect on this train of events, I’m not at all inclined towards superstition. But for some reason I think that puts me in a minority. And not a happy one either. I can’t recall who said it. But someone said the most common element in the universe is not x (carbon, or whatever element from the periodic-table it may be), but stupidity. I’m inclined to agree.
This connects to another long term theme of interest to me. The ‘human condition’. Or, for that matter, the ‘animal condition’, or – why not go the whole hog? – life. What’s it all about, Alfie?
Mr Natural, way ahead of the game scooter-craze wise.
Robert Crumb’s Mr Natural is apt here: ‘Mr Natural! What does it all mean?’ ‘Don’t mean sheeit!’ Or, coming at it all rather differently, this one:
What’s the point of the pursuit of truth or greater awareness if the truth is unpleasant and greater awareness just leaves one depressed? This is obviously why the human mind/brain favours encouraging or reassuring (or in some other way utilitarian) nonsense.
But, to get back to Nr Natural, and his frequent partner, Flakey Foont, for a moment… there’s also this’n:
Oh how I love R Crumb!
I’m 50 now. And without kids. For most of humanity’s brief existence on this planet I’d be unlikely to have lived so long. And what have I done? If I was anything like Crumb, I might be far more candid than I’m going to be. But unlike Crumb I haven’t turned confessionals into a form of self-therapy livelihood. So I’ll keep schtum!
But, just as with my life writ large, this post lacks focus. To try and tether it to earth and bring it back; I was motivated to post it very largely due to the dissatisfactions of certain aspects of modern life. And in particular the gulf between the whole ‘promise of fulfilment’ that the cyber-domain so powerfully exerts, and the reality of social isolation and disappointment that it all too often actually delivers.
But try as I might, I cannae help but digress (although I do feel my wanderings are all connected!)… As I move through life I see that some folk appear much better integrated into things than others. But that still leaves a great many less so. And appearances can be deceptive. One might be even worse off if compelled to appear to fit in happily if it’s just a front.
Such lines of thought are totally normal for me. And possibly just habitual. Maybe they’re even/also not useful or productive? But I seem unwilling or unable to wean myself off of them. For better or worse such thinking seems to have become my nature.
And then I think about folk I know, eg, some friends and/or some family, who appear to go at life differently. I’m thinking now of the religious believer folk. To me their belief seems like a form of madness or mental illness. It seems to totally fly in the face of easily and daily observed reality.
But I can see, sort of, why they might behave as they do. It might be – I believe it’s clearly the case – that humanity has evolved such that in order to function we need to be capable of believing utter nonsense. That in fact we might function – possibly both individually and collectively – better, or even at our best, only by labouring under delusions that bear no real scrutiny.
I have to confess I find such thoughts rather scary and depressing. But then again I also find quite a lot of life scary and depressing.
And, rather strangely, given my stance on religion in general and Christianity in particular, it makes the Biblical myth around the tree of knowledge, in which awareness/consciousness is a curse on humanity, a very apt and powerful if disturbing insight.
But then again, having said all this, maybe, as Shakespeare (and many other writers) was occasionally wont to do, I can attribute all this dark foreboding to impaired digestion? It’s certainly true, in my experience, that physical ill health is a breeding ground for the toxic germs that also feed into mental ill health.
All this rambling discursive cogitating seems to me to eternally run circles around the plethora of thoughts that teem, inchoate (I love that word!), on one’s mind!
Another prompt for this post was the state of public healthcare in the UK these days. I’ve already alluded to this above. And a similar thread, but possibly even worse, could be spun regarding dental health, as well. But that’s another story for another post.
Rather serendipitously, whilst typing this, during a quick Facebook fix, I saw a post from a fellow drummer, on a drummer’s FB Group. That post concerned the ‘black dog’. And I wanted to chip in with my ha’porth. But I decided not to. ‘Cause, although I’m a lot better (I think?) than I once was, I felt the overall current state and my ‘outcome’ might not be helpful to the OP.
Is one of the reasons I’m happier these days due to my having more or less abandoned my musical dreams? If one is continually barking up the wrong tree, at what point does one concede this and adjust, rather than battering one’s fragile ego against a hard unrelenting reality?
And – uh-oh, getting ‘deep’ – what is reality? The great thinkers and the more subtle philosophies all converge around ideas of our perception of reality as an illusion. And yet, deep down, we all know, intuitively, that, to use the parlance of the street, ‘this shit is real’.
And so my post comes full circle. From wildly discursive digressions back to my bowels! And I can’t escape the reality that right now my digestive system is screwed. And I can also see how it’s been affecting me psychologically. As well as being washed out and queasy, I’m pissed off and angry!”
Wow! I do love YouTube, for giving us all the chance to stumble across gems such as this. Thanks also to the NFB, or National Film Board of Canada.
Bill Mason, who made this film, and ‘stars’ in it, is Canadian. I have Canadian family and ancestry, on my dad’s side. So these facts set up something of a sympathetic resonance for me.
Then there’s Bill Mason himself, the man: he is, or rather was, an outdoorsman and artist, who made, I’ve subsequently discovered, numerous utterly gorgeous and fascinating films, of which this is one of the best.
The chief charms of this are simple yet kaleidoscopically rich, like the environment in which the film is set, on and around Lake Superior.
One of the things Bill addresses, a vexed issue for me, is spirituality. This was the only note struck in this otherwise perfect reverie of sound and vision, nature and culture, that – if not necessarily jarring – gave me pause for some (Indian!?) reservations.
But I’d like to take this post as an opportunity to consider a few things, and there are many, that this film either touches upon directly, or stirred in me by association.
First there are the ‘renaissance man’ and self-reliance aspects. Bill, who formerly worked as a ‘commercial artist’, was a conservationist, famed canoeist, artist, writer, family man, and all sorts. I love all of that! I have my own aspirations to living a multi-faceted life. Richer, one hopes -not fiscally perhaps, but in other better more important ways – than the monomaniac furrows our society drills us into pursuing.
So, there are many things Bill’s example encourages: to spend more time in, and pay more attention to, nature, and indeed all our environments. Art, get up, and out, and make some. Buy or build a canoe; get out and start messing about in the water!
It was also interesting to learn that Bill’s health wasn’t terrific. A sickly child, he has severe asthma all his life. And yet he didn’t allow this to stop him from adventuring. Maybe his derring-do contributed to his early demise? But then again, maybe not? And at least he lived a rich and inspiring life while he lived.
Some might laugh reading this next bit. And it may indeed sound facile. But I truly couldn’t care less! And that’s the fact that I like his style. And I’ve gone as far as to add elements of it – some were already there, others just a little tweak in already beloved themes – to my own sartorial repertoire.
I already had the neckerchiefs (though mine are too small!), and brown leather walking boots, and many a checked shirt. But the red outdoorsman socks are new! And so too is the very particular red and black check ‘lumberjack’ shirt!
Bill’s particular style of art – he favours palette knives over brushes, and cites J. M. W. Turner as his chief inspiration and influence – is terrific, albeit not entirely to my normal tastes. But that he does it all, is inspiration. It was interesting to see that he, like myself and several artists I’ve known personally, is highly self-critical bout his work, and often destroys what others. Might regard as decent work, because he’s unhappy with it.
Then there’s music. In other Mason films he strums guitar or plays harmonica. It amazingly, one might add. And his family aren’t exactly fulsome in their appreciation (does this remind any of us of our own domestic musical life? Or is it just me!?). But for Waterwalker, the music is supplied by (?) and (?). (?) is a star in his own right. And the music totally suits the subject!
Some of it, such as the actual ‘theme tune’, might induce cringing amongst some listeners. I’d understand why. It has a ‘new agey’ earnestness. But I love it.
Another facet of the whole thing that some might find they react to differently than I do, is the whole tenor of it all. It’s definitely dreamy, romantic, and perhaps even somewhat solipsistic? And it’s no surprise such movies helped created a cult of Bill Mason. But as a ‘fellow traveller’, and sympathetic romantic introvert soul-mate, I love it all. As did critics, numerous of his films, inc’ this one, winning a variety of awards and accolades.
Also interesting to me, is how stuff like this leaches into other areas. For example, I noticed, whilst watching a recent Jack Stratton ‘Holy Trinity’ episode, on YouTube, that he had created a logo and a whole invented Vulf Films thing suspiciously akin to the Canadian NFB (National Film Board) doodad.
Just as Bill Mason’s film is simultaneously about following one’s own individual and sometimes lonely paths, it’s also about connections. Be they to nature, or each other, immediate or indirect. Love it!
Ouch!!! Red in tooth and claw, Mother Nature in the raw…
Our beloved pussy cat, Chester, attacked me savagely yesterday. Only now, the following day, am I really starting to get over the shock and process it.
I had to go to the local minor injuries hospital unit, for a tetanus jab, a script for some penicillin, and to have the wounds checked, cleaned, etc. The worst of the three areas of wounds – all claw scratches except for this one – was a big and deep bite to my fright fore-arm.
Chester hasn’t been neutered yet, and the vets reckon it might be due to him getting frisky, picking up the scent of local lady felines, and then objecting strenuously to me taking him back indoors. He’s been caterwauling aplenty recently. Even hissing a bit when picked up to be taken back home.
Left hand; lesser lacerations!
But his all out frenzied attack yesterday was a proper shock!
I didn’t get any pics of the profuse effusion of blood. Kind of wish I had. As all that remains now are rather pathetically inconsequential looking plasters. But I’m told not to be complacent, as infections from cat bites can be nasty!
I’ve had cats around most of my life. The better part of my now half-century. Never had an experience even close to this before. Bit of a shock to the system!
