Just Finished Reading: The Art of Rest – How to Find Respite in the Modern Age by Claudia Hammond (FP: 2019) [264pp] 

I think I picked this up during a period of increased stress at work – or at least in the aftermath of a stressful time. I honestly don’t deal with stress very well and, as much as possible, avoid it where and when I can. I think I am pretty good at resting though! I don’t feel the pressure of constantly needing to DO something and most certainly don’t suffer (as some of my friends have done much to my bemusement) of FOMO – the ‘fear’ of ‘missing out’, which is something I’ve never really understood. Whatever and how much you do, you will ALWAYS be missing out on SOMETHING – so, get over it! 

Anyway, to the book itself. Rather typically it has taken me around 7 years to read it, which means I’ve actually been retired and living the LOW stress lifestyle for around 6 years now. But it was interesting to see what I could have done to lower or recover from stress by relaxing more. The contents of the book are based on the results of a global survey essentially asking people what they did to relax and then ranking them 1-10 in reverse order. Each section covered the relaxation strategy and, as much as possible, the scientific underpinnings of why and how it worked. I was somewhat surprised, although not completely, by how many of the 10 I actually practiced before reading this. Some of them I felt were pretty obvious whilst others seemed a bit more niche (if not exactly unique to me!). 

The 10th most popular made me laugh a little – Mindfulness. Although I’m aware of the ideas underpinning the idea, my only direct experience with it have been at work where we received advice and a few short training sessions to help us reduce our stress. Much cynicism resulted as we were all convinced that the ‘trendy’ idea was being used purely to tick boxes for Head Office. Number 7 was a Nice Hot Bath which made me smile. For speed and convenience throughout the week it was a shower for me. But on Sunday, as I had the time to take my time, I had a bath instead just to soak there and think about nothing in particular. Perfect. Number 4 was Listening to Music. This I do whenever I can and wherever I can. I used to wear headphones often, plugged into an MP3 player with my favourite downloaded music (or ripped from my CDs). It always made me feel like I was in an MTV music video. Music was on in my house during every waking moment – as it is at this very moment – and it certainly relaxes me (especially the Classical music I listen to 15 hours a day). The top method for relaxation honestly surprised me – Reading. It's not that I don’t think that reading IS relaxing – I certainly relax that way – but that so many people agree with me that it got to number ONE on so many people’s lists!  

So, if you’re struggling to relax and take time off from the daily grind this could be the book for you. It’ll certainly give you some ideas of how to wind down and may well help you achieve a slightly more relaxed outlook. Rather than buying it though I’d recommend you pick it up from your local library. Reasonable.   

Just Finished Reading: The Scout Mindset – Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t by Julia Galef (FP: 2021) [238pp] 

Back in my youth I was always up for an argument. I generally didn’t go out of my way to start one, but I was always/often up to actively engaging in one. Part of that, being both young and rather naïve, was the (often erroneous) belief that I knew what I was talking about. I also liked ‘winning’. But that’s the young for you... 

One thing I did discover early on was that some people knew how to debate things – even abstract things – and others clearly didn’t. It wasn’t because some people were ignorant. Although I can’t deeply debate topics I know little about, I can still engage enough with the form and logic of what’s being talked about. What I found particularly interesting is when the topic was religion or belief. Back in the day I used to be a rather outspoken Atheist. As before I didn’t start the argument but was MORE than up for it (I’ve toned down a LOT since then). When a Christian said that they were happy to debate me I took them at their word. It quickly (and sometimes very quickly) transpired that they had no such intent. What they clearly had in mind was to convince me that I was wrong. OK, back then I had essentially the same objective, but I was, at least theoretically, open to the idea that I was wrong. The issue from the other side was that whilst *I* was engaging in what (to me) was essentially a philosophical argument, *they* were engaging in a personal existential one. Their religious belief was a vital integral part of their identity, and this was very much NOT up for debate despite what they originally said. It took me a while to clue into this (youth again) and learn not to jump into the debate with both feet. I transitioned to questions about how they came to their beliefs rather than if they were valid. This meant that things tended to fizzle out but at least the level of offense and feelings of personal attack were substantially reduced! These days I’m far more interest in WHY people believe certain things and not very interested in WHAT they believe. People, including me no doubt, believe lots of weird stuff and I actually find the reasons for that belief to be far more interesting than the (weird) beliefs themselves. 

So, what does all of that have to do with the book? One of the things the author brings out – not surprisingly considering the title – is that there are generally two mindsets which she calls the Soldier and the Scout. The soldier's job is essentially providing defence – so protecting what you already know and preventing outside ideas from causing confusion and unease. Its job is to stop you changing your beliefs every time you hear/experience something new or unexpected or every time the wind changes direction. This, most of the time and for most of human history, has been a most sensible approach. But whilst that can be OK if nothing, or very little, changes in the external world it’s not exactly the best strategy in a world with a diversity of people, opinions, environments or profoundly new experiences. In that kind of world you need to be open to change, you need to seek out solutions to new problems and you have to be able to question previously held beliefs about it, modify them and even, from time to time, reject them all together for new ones – ones that more closely represent the truth of things. That can be tough of course, most especially when strongly held beliefs are part of a person's core identity. The metaphor that popped into my mind was of a house. With a Scout mindset changing a picture on one of the walls or even changing the wallpaper, carpet or furniture layout might cause a bit of (temporary) upheaval and might, if you’re being particularly ‘creative’, take a bit of getting used to but in the grand scheme of things it's no big deal. Now imagine putting up a cute or funny picture in your bathroom that caught your eye in a thrift shop – but in order to hang it in place you first need to demolish the entire house and rebuild it from the foundations up. In the 2nd scenario it’s MUCH more likely that the picture will never get hung and don’t even THINK about changing the wallpaper the house came with when you moved in. 

If you struggle with changing your mind about things or want to be flexible in your approach to new information or unfamiliar modes of thought this book might help with that. The author has a very good ‘voice’ and fully understands how finding yourself in unfamiliar territory without a map or guide of any kind can be incredibly stressful to many people. Cultivating a Scout mindset, at least when appropriate or when required, can help and this interesting and thought-provoking book will provide you with the tools to do so. Despite already believing I’m primarily a Scout I still found this to be a valuable read. Definitely recommended.   

Just Finished Reading: Am I Normal? - The 200-Year Search for Normal People (And Why They Don’t Exist) by Sarah Chaney (FP: 2022) [268pp] 

If you’re anything like me, you have no doubt at some point in your life wondered if you’re ‘normal’. That question was certainly hovering in the back of my mind for a good chunky of my teenage years. But at some point, I, no doubt like many others, had to make a decision: Do I spend an increasing amount of mental energy trying to fit in with those around me (coupled with the resultant stress of wondering if my efforts would be good enough) or do I just say ‘Fuck It’ and decide to me more of myself – although never my WHOLE self – in public and let the chips fall where they may. You guessed correctly if you thought I went to route of increased authenticity...  

Apparently, hard as it is to believe, people in previous ages never questioned their normality nor thought of themselves as normal (or not). They certainly compared themselves to others around them but never held themselves up to a general standard of normality and tried to figure their degree of deviation from the norm. That is something quite new, quite recent, and only really goes back a few hundred years – at best. It also shouldn’t really exist. The well-known Bell curve or Normal Distribution was devised by astronomers to help plot the paths of celestial bodies. They were SO effective at this that statisticians in the 19th century began using them to plot other things, and quite effectively too (although they needed some ‘massaging’ from time to time to ‘fit’). It wasn’t long before human attributes were being charted and the growing insurance industry started using such curves to predict their liabilities and increase their profit margins. It wasn’t long after that that ‘normal’ or ‘average’ became optimal, preferred, something to be aimed at and attained. Normal was superior, anything else was inferior, wrong, abnormal. Less than average weight? Something is wrong. More than average weight? Some is, again, wrong. If you’ve ever been weighed in a doctor's office you’ll probably have been compared to a chart and told that your BMI (Body Mass Index) is too low or, more likely, too high. What they don’t tell you is that the BMI chart is largely based on data from middle-class, white, American males – and probably from some decades ago. BMI figures had to be modified to fit women, don’t apply to athletes and has great trouble applying to other racial groups. It's also far from alone in its divergence between normal/average and the real world. Simply put, the average human does not exist. The more attributes you measure, the smaller the likelihood that any one person will meet them. Sure, there are people of average height, but of average height, weight, skin tone, eye colour, age, education and.... Very quickly you eliminate everyone from the count. 

I’ve read a little bit about this before in ‘The End of Average – How to Succeed in a World that Values Sameness’ by Todd Rose where the author destroys the very idea of average anything. The problem with using the average or idea of the normal as a valuable target to be attained is its toxicity. If the Normal is the highest Good and very few people fit into that category then ‘normal’ becomes just a stick to beat people with and, of course, a BIG stick to beat yourself with. Are you ‘normal’ - whatever THAT means? Do you have a ‘normal’ body? Normal feelings? A normal mind? Is your sex life normal? Are your kids normal and, if not, is that your fault? No doubt you can feel the anxiety building already. In just one small example you can see what I mean – children's weight. One of the first things done to a new-born is being weighed. So, is the baby a ‘normal’ birthweight? Then is the baby gaining weight in line with normal expectations? Too slowly? Too much? I know that my mother was quite anxious to keep hitting that golden ‘normal’ growth line for my sister and, no doubt earlier for my brother and me. Obviously, no one ever questioned where exactly the chart came from and how the data was derived in the first place. But it's important to understand what is meant by this kind of normal especially when it hardly has anything much to do with messy reality. 

I enjoyed this a great deal. Much like the previous book by Todd Rose it made me question the very idea, the very concept, of normality. I’ve never really regarded myself as ‘normal’ in any particular sense. It was nice to see that the very idea of normality is a castle built in mid-air without any real foundation to speak of – most especially when ‘abnormal’ is SUCH a pejorative term. Definitely recommended for anyone who has ever struggled to be, or appear to be, normal... 

Just Finished Reading: The Unthinkable – Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why by Amanda Ripley (FP: 2008/2009) [229pp] 

When tragedy strikes why do some walk away when others die? Is it the luck of the draw? Is it just because they happened to be sitting next to the emergency exit or had popped out for a breath of fresh air during a fire? Or the fact that they went to the bathroom moments before the shooting started? Or is it something more and can that something be learnt? This is the heart of the authors investigation. 

Although the majority of the examples and interviews in these pages are US based, there’s a lot of general knowledge and advice throughout this intriguing book. Covering 9/11, a diplomatic hostage incident in South America, a stampede in Mecca, a fire at a club in Beverly Hills, the shooting at Virgina Tech and much besides the author shows what people do, how the human brain reacts to dangerous surprises and why such reactions – often (ironically) hardwired for survival – could determine life or death. Following the initial shock there is often a period of disbelief: this isn’t happening or why is this happening to me? Getting stuck there will, all too often, get you killed. Once disbelief has been banished the question is: what next? Strangely the most common reaction is to do nothing, to wait for direction or rescue. This too could get you killed. Once moving on to doing ‘something’, what exactly do you do? Again, the standard reaction is to see what others are doing. There is, often, safety in numbers – but it can also result in argument, discussion, group think and, again, death. What needs to be done is a quick analysis of what happened, where it leaves you and how to get out. So, where are your exits? Do you know how to get to the fire escape? Can you (or indeed should you) break that window? Do you know if it’s safe to open that door? Do you take anything with you? Do you help others? Surprisingly numerous studies have shown that people hardly ever panic but are actually very polite, will wait their turn and help others who are struggling. Which, ironically, can make evacuations take much longer than the buildings or aircrafts designers anticipated. 

This is an often fascinating and surprisingly multilayered look at how people react in ‘unthinkable’ situations. The author interviewed survivors asking them what they did, what they saw other people do (some of whom didn’t make it) and what they assigned their survival to. She also spoke to experts in the field to get their take on things including those who study the human brain to see why some people panic, some freeze and some take charge. I’m not sure if (as per the tag-line on my copy) that this book might save your life someday, but it does give a LOT of good advice and observations. One of my favourites is the idea of what to do after you check into a hotel. After you’ve dropped your bags in your room, you leave, find the nearest fire exit and follow it to reception discovering exactly where it goes and if there are any problems en route. Now THAT could indeed save your life! A very interesting read and definitely recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: The Little Book of Hygge – The Danish Way to Live Well by Meik Wiking (FP: 2016) [285pp] 

To be honest, as I usually am, I picked this up because it looked just so damned cute! The actual contents, text and photographs, came second. Thankfully they were both very good indeed. 

I’ve long been interested in different ideas of well-being from around the world and across time, so this looked like an idea light read. The Danes regularly score highly as the happiest people on Earth. Indeed, they get a little miffed (though not for long I imagine) when they periodically and very temporarily get knocked off the top slot. This being the case there’s little surprise that the Happiness Research Institute (who published this book) is based in Copenhagen. The question of WHY the Danes are just so damned happy is what the author attempts to answer. 

A huge part of that answer is, apparently, the concept of Hygge – pronounced hoo-ga which can be VERY roughly translated as ‘cosiness’. Imagine standing in your home (or the home of a dear friend) looking out the window as a snow storm is passing, dressed in a warm, cozy thick jumper, cup of hot chocolate, tea or coffee in hand, with a log fire burning and the sound of friends laughing behind you as they prepare food together, calling over to you to finish the pie everyone wants to taste – oh, and the room has numerous candles burning and there’s soft music playing, something classical or light jazz... That’s Hygge. 

Heavily illustrated throughout, with some quite excellent photographs scattered through the book, the book contains ideas for hygge events, food (complete with recipes), drinks (ditto), home decor ideas, places to visit (mostly in Copenhagen), places to eat (ditto) and a special chapter on a hygge Christmas. Well written (I found myself smiling throughout the entire read) and lavishly illustrated (I was most impressed as you might be able to tell!) this was a delightful read from cover to cover. Cute in itself as an object and full of good ideas. Highly recommended.      

Just Finished Reading: How to Make the World Add Up – Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers by Tim Harford (FP: 2020) [296pp] 

Numbers are everywhere. We are bombarded with them from media outlets, on the Internet and from politicians. But what, exactly, are we supposed to DO with them? When you’re told that inflation is down by 2% what exactly does that mean? When a government department has made a £5 billion deal is that a lot of money? When we’re told that migration is up by 15% since this time last year how are we supposed to react to that? 

Facts and figures thrown at us from every news programme or every tweet [side note: If tweets were part of Twitter, what do we call individual posts on ‘X’?] could simply be ignored as either lies, misinformation or just too complicated to think about (and do ‘they’ want you to feel that way about them?) but it doesn’t have to be that way. One thing you can, and the author suggests that you should, do is the pause a moment and think of how the number/statistic being presented makes you feel. Is it anger? Shock? Dismay? Elation? Or confusion? Now ask yourself: Was that emotional response the point of the figure you’ve just seen? If it is, it's time to dig deeper and start asking questions. 

Take the (made-up) figure I mentioned earlier – that migration was up by 15% since this time last year. If true (which it might not be), what does it mean? Is 15% a lot? In raw numbers does that mean hundreds, thousands or millions? If it's say, 10K what kind of percentage is that of the population? Does that number seem large to you or insignificant? So, was the 15% figure – given without context – designed to make you afraid/angry. If it was, maybe you shouldn’t trust that source about other figures. Then, of course, there’s the question of what constitutes a ‘migrant’ (a term I particularly loathe)? Does it include those studying here on 3–5-year visas who will be leaving on graduation? Does it include those who have been recruited to fill vital job vacancies in critical industries? Does it include seasonal farm labourers who will be gone in a few months? Or does it only include so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ many of which might legitimately claim refugee status?  

Once you start asking these sorts of questions several things happen – firstly you should expect to lose some of the emotional heat and then you start to LEARN things, like how things work, what figures really mean and that definitions (often unstated, sometimes on purpose) matter. After a while you stop being afraid of figures, stop being befuddled by statistics and stop being manipulated by those who suspect (rightly too often) that people tend to ‘switch off’ when they’re presented with a math problem. That, in a nutshell, is what this excellent book is all about – providing the intellectual tool-set that’s handy and easy to use when presented with facts and figures. Personally, I’m a sceptic by nature and probably always have been. This doesn’t mean I dismiss everything I see or hear. It does mean that I TEST things for logic, reason and, even sometimes, whether it makes mathematical sense. With this book I think I just got a whole lot better at the last bit. MUCH more from this author to come (I’ve already bought two of his other books). This was highly readable, fun (and often funny) and a much-needed aid for modern life. One of the highlights of the year. Highly recommended.   

Just Finished Reading: Post Truth – Peak Bullshit and What We Can Do About It by Evan Davis (FP: 2017) [302pp] 

Bullshit seems to be everywhere these days and not just in the political realm. Of course, it may be just because the level has been rising for some time now from the previous ankle deep to the present waist deep plus the fact that the smell is getting worse. It’s certainly nothing new and, contrary to some opinion has been around LONG before Donald Trump made its use increasingly blatant. 

We are, of course, used to BS in advertising. Indeed, I’m sure in some language advert & BS are synonyms. Over the decades we’ve individually and as a society developed mental defences against the exaggerated and (when they can get away with it) bogus claims of advertisers and discount most of what they say about any particular product or service. The good question is why do they continue to bullshit us if they know we discount it? Part of the answer rests with us – because we expect them to lie to us, if a company just told us the plain (unexciting) facts about a product we’d still discount it and be even less likely to buy it. So, bullshitting doesn’t ‘work’ but NOT bullshitting is an even worse option. 

Until relatively recently if a politician was caught to rights in a lie, they would initially deny it and then (generally) confess – often with some added BS to smokescreen things – and then, hopefully for them, we’d either forget about it or something would come up to distract the public. Being caught in a scandal – often presaged with a period of lying/bullshitting - would normally end a politician’s career at least temporarily. Today the playing field has shifted. Not only do politicians lie – as they always have – but now they lie more frequently and FAR more blatantly. As always, they use ‘political speech’ to say things in certain ways (often so that they can’t be accused of actually lying) but today the use of “alternative facts” - AKA bullshit of the 1st order – has taken things to a whole new level. When you can stand up and tell people not to believe their own eyes but to believe only what a politician SAYS is happening you know we’re no longer in Kansas. The problem – for us not them – is that far too many people either believe the bullshit or ignore it as irrelevant. Facts and actual truth (yes, it does exist) are no longer seen as important or relevant, at least not compared to other things. In a lot of ways this is OUR fault (and not just the politicians who spout this stuff or the media who reports (or ‘reports’) it. Politicians today know that they can get away with blatant lies because, even at the ballot box, there are no real consequences. When they’re caught in a lie they can simply deny it, attack their accuser, throw up smoke screens and 100 other deflections. Even when, much against their better judgement, they are forced to apologise everyone knows – including the person making the apology – that its far from sincere. Even if, in the very rare occasion it happens, someone is forced to resign over an issue you can bet that they’re back onboard their particular political gravy train in quick order. 

This was an interesting read despite the fact that I agreed with the author quite a bit – which usually means the book bored me (not true in this case). As an Economics journalist he’s had his fair share of bullshit to work through and has struggled through his whole career to understand WHY politicians and others use it knowing that we know what they’re doing and that they know that we’re discounting much of what they say. There’s lots of insight into the use of language – especially of the political type – and how we detect when people are bullshitting us. There’s also the sad truth that said bullshitting isn’t going away anytime soon. Although this was written 7 years ago now (so has only taken me 6 years to get around to) I really don’t think we’ve hit PEAK bullshit just yet. I do wonder (and hope against hope) when we’ll all get royally sick of it? Recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: Weaponized Lies – How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era by Daniel Levitin (FP: 2016) [263pp] 

One thing that my LONG educational journey – School, College and University – taught me well was how to create good arguments. Equally important was the ability to deconstruct arguments to see how they work or to show why they don’t work as well as they should. I was taught to spot assertions masquerading as facts and failures of logic. I actually enjoyed taking arguments apart, either in writing or verbally during a debate, and pointing out hidden assumptions, unstated beliefs, false equivalence and so much more. Debating was FUN. It also helped that, as far as I can tell, I’m a natural sceptic and I take some convincing about things I’m initially unsure about. It goes a long way to explain why I’ve been an Atheist from the moment I started thinking about the subject. But this isn’t about belief in gods. This is about the present we find ourselves in – were misinformation and disinformation are not only hyper-prevalent but weaponised to boot! 

Weaponised lies are nothing new. Such things have been around for as long as humanity has existed on this ball of dirt. What’s new is the speed, the power and the targeting of such lies – and they are lies not just debatable points – to influence people and, ultimately, get them to mistrust almost everything, even things (or maybe especially things) they see with their own eyes. So, can we do anything about it or are we destined to spend our lives liken frightened rabbits staring into the headlights of social media? Thinking *critically* is the key. When you’re presented with an argument or information the 5G towers spread Covid, or that the Earth is FLAT and not a globe, or that vaccinations make people magnetic or that we never landed on the Moon or that the world is secretly run by a cabal of alien lizards you can go... Hold on one second. How exactly is THAT supposed to work? Then you can start teasing the ‘argument’ apart and see if it stacks up to reality and exactly how it's all supposed to hold together. You might need to do some (proper!) research, you’ll probably need some basic knowledge of how things really work, and you might even need a passing acquaintance with mathematics but none of that is beyond most people – even those with busy lives. Red Flags are something that you should be aware of – like graphs without labelling of the axes or where they don’t explain why the scale changes as you move along one axis. A BIG red flag for me is FAST talking. If someone is bombarding you with ‘information’ and never pauses long enough for you to either think or interject it seems to me that they’ve got something to hide. Likewise, those who reject questions or requests for clarification. I particularly don’t trust people who get angry when you question what they’re saying. If they can’t put their argument over without shouting or attacking you (hopefully just verbally) then they’ve already LOST their argument in my view. 

Following on from his previous book ‘The Organized Mind – Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload’, this is a valuable read with a host of techniques anyone can use to check what they’re reading or hearing for validity or BS. Unfortunately, these days it seems that these are skills we need to have to hand at a moment's notice. But they’re nothing to be afraid of. Thinking critically can be learnt and can be utilised in a hundred different ways, from avoiding e-mail scams to working out if an offer in your local supermarket is really an offer or not. Most importantly it’s a skill that can be used to reduce anxiety and discover what’s really going on in the world rather than worrying about space lasers or pizza parlour paedophiles. Definitely recommended and more from this author to come.  

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Just Finished Reading: Splitting – The Inside Story of Headaches by Amanda Ellison (FP: 2020) [210pp] 

I can’t remember having that many headaches as a child, nothing notable anyway. I guess that I had them, probably, but nothing that springs to mind. Notable headaches started in my mid-teens, and it turned out that I needed glasses – eye strain and dehydration being two of the most common causes of headaches. Later, as I developed hay fever, my headaches revolved around sinus issues. Later still I had what I now consider to be mild migraines. They came in various shapes and sizes, sometimes in the classic thumping pain in the left temple behind the eye socket, sometimes preceded by the even more classic wavy lines on the edge of my vision and sometimes as what I referred to as my ‘molasses head’ where my brain seemed to be barely functioning although I felt no pain. This lasted for 24-36 hours and then went away helped by some pills. Interestingly, since I retired almost 3 years ago now, I’ve had like one very mild headache which passed barely noticed. It would seem that my most recent headaches (pre-retirement) were likely to have been stress related rather than a matter of low caffeine as previously thought. 

With the history of headaches briefly outlined above seeing this book for a mere £3 in my favourite Indie bookshop was a slam dunk. Rather oddly I’ve never actually done much reading or research regarding headaches before this. I suppose that I saw my long experience with head pain normal and, therefore, hardly worth thinking about. I’m glad I changed my mind and picked this one up. Covering 4 major types of headaches – Sinus (yup, in summer with hay fever and in winter with colds), Stress (yup, but not for a while now), Cluster (thankfully not as they sound truly horrible!) and Migraine (not for at least 3 years, not TOO bad when they do happen, not as bad as my brother who can be in bed with them for days, and not anywhere near as bad as the horror stories I’ve seen about them) - the author looks at the history of each type, how each type manifests in the brain and some of the methods of coping with the event itself, recovering as well as stopping them in the first place before they happen. 

Rather surprisingly, as the author herself mentions, despite all the research into the subject, there’s still a lot we don’t know about why headaches happen although we have a much better idea about how they happen whilst they’re in progress. Drugs can help, although they are generally anti-inflammatory so are really addressing a secondary effect rather than the cause itself. There are occasions where rather drastic surgery is the only answer to a truly debilitating series of Cluster headaches and I’m eternally thankful that I’ve never had to cope with that! But, unfortunately, there’s still a lot of work to be done understanding this often mundane but sometimes crippling condition. Proper hydration and stress reduction can help in many cases but that’s often nowhere near enough. If, like me, you suffer or have suffered from headaches this is definitely worth your time. It won’t offer you a solution to all of your problems, but it will give you a good idea of exactly what’s going on in your head and might give you some ideas of what you can do to mitigate the effects of your headache with or without medication. Recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: How Spies Think – Ten Lessons in Intelligence by David Omand (FP: 2020) [303pp] 

Before I tell you about this quite excellent book, I feel I must address the misnomer in the room. This book is not about how ‘Spies’ think, it’s about how Intelligence Analysts think, but I’m guessing the spies title was catchier and sold more copy [grin]. 

Anyway, with that out of the way we can move on. The first thing that really needs to be said here is that the author REALLY knows what he’s talking about. After joining the Intelligence world from university, he eventually climbed to the giddy heights of Director of GCHQ (the UK equivalent of the NSA in America). Along the way he advised Prime Ministers and military commanders during the Falkland’s Conflict, the breakup of Yugoslavia and the 1st Iraq War. He was, as it’s said, ‘in the room’. Naturally, also along the way, he learned a few things about information and how to separate the wheat from the all too prevalent chaff. These are the 10 lessons, SO required in today’s climate of misinformation, disinformation and Conspiracy Theory, that he passes on to the rest of us so we are well armed enough to know (or at the very least attempt to know) what is REALLY going on out there. It could not be timelier. Among the lessons we all need to take note of are:  

Situational awareness – recognising that our knowledge of the world is always fragmentary and sometimes wrong. 

Recognising the facts do not ‘speak for themselves’ and need explaining. 

Developing 'Strategic notice' to reduce the times we are caught completely by surprise. 

Accepting that it is often our own demons that are most likely to deceive us. 

This was SUCH a good read on a number of levels. The author is an *authority* in the old sense of being steeped in the world of data analysis and can speak with both clarity and gravitas on the subject. The insights into decision making at the highest levels was fascinating in itself but the in-depth look at how raw data is sifted for meaning and how misinformation (deliberate or otherwise) can have its effect minimised is a very useful skill to acquire (as we all know so well). There’s a lot to think about between these covers which makes this book anything but a ‘one and its done’ kind of read. This is the kind of book that can easily reward multiple readings spaced a year or two apart. In a world where we can barely believe anything anymore (and just wait until technology gets SO good that anything you see on a screen – no matter how ‘realistic’ - can be seamlessly produced on anyone’s laptop) it’s vital to have a mental toolset that can be used to help you discern the truth or closer to it. Definitely recommended for all truth-seekers out there!  

Just Finished Reading: Carpe Diem Regained – The Vanishing Art of Seizing the Day by Roman Krznaric (FP: 2017) [236pp] 

I’ve heard it said that spontaneity has its time and place. In a way the author would agree. In a rather counterintuitive move, he proposes that we can (or should) schedule in a recuring place where we have the opportunity to ‘seize the day’ and be more open to the unplanned moments in life. Today, with the all too pervasive “Fear of Missing Out” (FOMO), we tend to try to cram in as much of life as possible – by rigidly planning every moment of our waking lives. We are, in effect, attempting to seize our days by removing that essential quality that allows us to do just that. Rather than just ‘doing it’ we, instead, just ‘plan it’. No wonder so many people are increasingly frustrated and confused. With so much on offer to so many the idea of NOT having anything planned is anathema. Paradoxically this attitude reduces the possibility of carping that diem and sometimes eliminating it entirely. This is the thing that the author argues against most in this intriguing little book.  

Of course, it's easy to say that we should seize our (limited in number) days. If only things were that easy! The author readily recognises that we are not all free to do so. Some of those things stopping us can be, and he maintains should be, overcome. Our fears of failure, of public ridicule, of ‘standing out’, of being seen as odd or different, can be overcome. Other things are more difficult – responsibilities for example. It’s easy to say that we should capre when we don’t have children, or a mortgage to pay off or sick relatives to care for. It’s even easier to seize the day when you have some disposable income or time to do so. Many people simply don’t have the luxury. But even this shouldn’t stop you completely. Carpe Diem doesn’t simply mean dropping everything on a whim to spend the next year learning to surf in California. It means being open to possibilities, to be able to recognise that opportunity when it arises and being willing to seize that opportunity if you can do so. It’s not about living irresponsibly it’s about giving yourself the room to be you, to know what you want, to carve out some territory where you can be you.  

I’ve never really been a planner – at least not until I joined a planning team at work and had to plan for a day job. But I’ve never been particularly spontaneous either. I kind of relied on friends to be spontaneous on my behalf. They’d have crazy ideas and my part of the equation was deciding if I wanted to be involved in the scheme or not. On my crazier days I’d say yes – the author quite rightly says that we shouldn’t simply say ‘yes’ to EVERY opportunity that comes our way – and we’d have an adventure. On other days I’d say no and they’d go off and do stuff without me (often in a mildly confused state as to why I wouldn’t jump off something or whatever they’d decided to do with the day). To be honest the ‘Carpe Diem’ mindset is hard. It’s not just that it’s been hijacked by a ‘just plan it’ or ‘just buy it’ mentality (we all know how easy it is to think we’re being spontaneous by ‘impulse’ buying something we don’t need – or actually want – with money we don’t really have). To be aware of opportunities to take advantage of we first need to be generally aware of what’s going on around us rather than starring at our phones wishing we had other people’s lives. Then we need to courage to take the leap – however small – as well as the courage to stick with something or to let it go later. Too much Carpe can easily lead to disaster, too little to stagnation and boredom. This was an interesting read. I’m not totally convinced that the author made a strong enough case but he certainly gave me things, ideas and strategies to think about. A ‘sprinkle’ of carpe diem should, I think, be part of all of our lives. Reading this book might encourage you to add that sprinkle or maybe just to add a bit more. Recommended.      

Just Finished Reading: The Most Human Human – What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us About Being Alive by Brian Christian (FP: 2011) [271pp]

The Test existed, at least on paper, long before there were any contestants even theoretically capable of taking it. In 1950 mathematician and early computer scientist Alan Turing devised a way of determining if a machine was exhibiting intelligent behaviour. If it could communicate with others without them being aware that they were talking to a machine, rather than an actual flesh and blood person, then at least in theory it could be argued that the machine, computer or software programme exhibited recognisable intelligence. Essentially, in order to pass the Turing Test and win any prize on offer, the idea is to create a machine that can imitate human communication (hence calling it the ‘Imitation Game’) enough to fool a set of interrogators over a 20 minute period. The rules have varied over the years but, as yet anyway, the Turing Prize has yet to be won. But that’s only one aspect of what’s going on in Turing territory – as the author discovered.

The present Test has another aspect that I hadn’t known about until picking up this fun and fascinating book. Apart from the prize given to the Most Human Machine there is another given to the Most Human Human. As part of the test the set of interrogators ‘interview’ both the machine competitors as well as a few actual humans who’s remit is the act as human as possible. The author, coming from a background in both computer science and philosophy, knew that wasn’t anywhere near as easy as it sounds – so he decided to ‘train’ for the event by speaking to experts in the field of language, communications, chess programmes (including some world class players who are not amused at all at being beaten by computer programmes on a regular basis – so much so that many people the era of competitive chess is dead), video-game design, speed-dating, criminal law, neurology and psychiatry. It was an interesting ride! I’ve always had an interest in how we ‘read’ other people and especially how we can tell if other people are being less than honest with us. How the brain does that and how e-mail scammers try to circumvent that ability was just one of the avenues the author explored to help him ensure victory for humankind.

We increasingly live in a machine world – a world built by machines and, increasingly, a world built for machines. Algorithms help us pick our next book, our next movie or next meal. Algorithms increasingly advise us on who should be our friends and what news we should listen to. They do this, at least in part, by parsing what they can understand as ‘human nature’ into a digital format that can be processed, manipulated and fed back to us. Ironically it could be argued that the Turing Test is becoming easier year on year, not just because computers are becoming more powerful or algorithms are becoming more sophisticated but because we humans are becoming more machine like in our thoughts, our actions and our communications. The author, rather brilliantly, decided to go the other way and to display everything that makes human communication and humanity itself so interesting, so nuanced and so much fun (and so frustrating and a complete pain in the ass at times!). Definitely a unique look at AI, future tech and the world we’ll all be inhabiting much sooner than many of us expect and a guidebook to keeping hold of our humanity as we get there. Recommended.      

Just Finished Reading: Turn the Ship Around! – A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders by L David Marquet (FP: 2012) [216pp]

A few years back my work had an ‘Innovation’ event and we were all “encouraged” to go along and be ‘inspired’. Having seen this sort of thing before (many times) and suspecting that a) it would a waste of my time and b) wouldn’t change anything anyway I intended to avoid it as much as I could. Walking back through one of the atria full of stands and video presentations I couldn’t help but notice one table with several piles of books on it. Magnets & iron filings come to mind…. So I found myself standing next to said table and chatting to the person running/guarding it. ‘Books’ I grunted, pointing. ‘Yes’ she said. ‘Take?’ I enquired’ ‘Yes’ she said. ‘Free if you share’. So I smiled and I took. Ironically, of course, it’s now been a year since I left work that I get around to reading the second book I picked up. So I’m ‘sharing it’ with you.

I’m one of those lucky people who, despite having been of ‘management’ level never actually had staff or subordinates to ‘manage’. I liked it that way. The stories I could tell about other people’s headaches with their staff members. I went out of my way to avoid such things and never regretted that decision once. So naturally I’d pick up a (admittedly free) book on Management to read. Surprisingly though this was actually rather good. The author was a young naval commander in the US submarine fleet and, consequently, full of ideas for improving things. As XO of a ‘boat’ he’d tried a few of these ideas out and had some mixed results. Itching to take things further he accepted what many might have seen as a poison chalice – taking command of the worst rated boat in the fleet and, in only 6 months, turn the ship around. Not giving too much away here he managed just that – but in a whole host of interesting ways outlined step by step in this slim volume.

The one theme that really jumped out at me and gave me more than one ironic smile or occasional belly laugh, was his discussion on ‘empowerment’. This was a favourite topic at work and ‘empowerment’ talk rippled through my ex-organisation on a regular basis. Naturally they didn’t mean actually giving people more power over what they did or how they structured their day. That, no doubt they thought, would lead to organisational chaos as people went off and did their own thing. What they (my ex-organisation) meant was giving people responsibility for failure. The author recognised this very failing in HIS organisation and addressed it by giving people actual power over what they did – as long as they hit their targets exactly HOW they did so was entirely up to them. Failures still happened but rather than simply apportioning blame and moving on they found out WHY something failed, fixed it, and then disseminated the fix to everyone who needed to know so they could avoid that particular failure. The submarine had become a truly learning organisation.

Even if you’re not the commander of a multi-million dollar submarine or even if you don’t work on one this is still an interesting and likely useful addition to any managers (or subordinates!) off-line reading/training regime. It’ll give you LOTS to think about and maybe, if they let you, try out in YOUR organisation. As interesting, different and thoughtful read. Recommended.        

Just Finished Reading: Selfie – How the West became Self-Obsessed by Will Storr (FP: 2017) [336pp]

This wasn’t the book I was expecting. On picking it up, paying for it, and carrying it home I thought it was going to be on the Selfie ‘craze’ that swept the world some years ago and peppered the Internet with pictures of people having amazing times at amazing heights and, from time to time, falling off them. In passing it was kind of about that obsessive (and sometimes fatal) self-regard but it went deeper both in time and space and actually turned out much better than it might have been.

The author follows the idea of the individual and Individualism from identifying with the Tribe, to being the Hero in your own personal narrative (yet another thing we’ve received from the Ancient Greeks!), to ideas of Christian personal salvation, to the modern idea of self-actualisation and empowerment, to the uber-individualism of Ayn Rand and finally into the present of the perfect online persona complete with video evidence of once in a lifetime experiences (on repeat) and a full list of everything you’ve ever had for breakfast. Along the way the author tries out monastic retreats, Californian ‘let it all hang out’ experiences and meets up with semi-professional self-publicist’s who take selfies at funerals because they look good in black. It’s quite a journey if a bit tedious and self-indulgent at times (oh, the irony).

Apart from a few wobbles and meandering detours this is a pretty good exploration of the way we got to be the most self-absorbed and self-referential culture in human history – and what damage it’s increasingly doing, rather ironically, to our self-esteem. With significant increases in youth suicide – particularly amongst young women but also increasing in young men – an important element is the (often vain) attempt to keep up with your peers and to keep in the spotlight. With seemingly everything at stake – were ‘social value’ has become a matter of life and death to some – any obstacle which in more normal times would be viewed as a ‘bump in the road’ becomes an existential crisis that only drastic action can address. Where a belief in absolute perfectionism takes hold the fact that no one is, or can be, perfect is total anathema and inevitably results in a rejection of reality and the mental/emotional issues caused by the effort to maintain a fictional existence. It is, to understate the issue massively, not the way to live your life. I’ve added this into the ‘Self-Help’ label because of the final section ‘How to Stay Alive in the Age of Perfectionism’ which addresses some of the issues the perfection driven have to deal with. Overall this is a pretty good, if sometimes frighteningly depressing, look at the society/culture we have created. Recommended, especially if you’re struggling with the Social Media monster.   

Just Finished Reading: The Marshmallow Test – Understanding Self-Control and How to Master It by Walter Mischel (FP: 2014)

Imagine you are a child sitting in an empty room looking at a plate on the table in front of you. On the plate is a marshmallow, a cookie or a sprinkle of M&Ms. You are told that you can have the item(s) if you wish – but if you wait an indeterminate time (until the person returns) you can have double the amount. So you wait…. And wait….. and then what do you do? Surprisingly, in study after study from across cultures, socio-economic groupings and many other variations of humanity the same results seem to hold true – the longer you can wait, the longer you can put off gratification the more likely you are to do well in school, go to university, have a higher income throughout your life, live longer, divorce less, have fewer long term health issues and spend less time explaining yourself to the police or a judge – just from waiting a bit longer than the next kid who gives into their impulse and grabs the cookie now.

Of course nothing is quite THAT straightforward! For one thing the results are statistical rather than personally predictive. The longer you wait increases the odds that you’ll end up doing a degree but it won’t ensure it no matter how long you wait. Being able to put off instant rewards until after you’ve finished your assignment is what gets you to college – not that one time you waited 15 minutes for the extra sweet. It’s the ability to think ahead, see the consequences of your actions, to plan and not be distracted (most of the time) by friends who just want to have fun. After the initial tests back in the 1970’s Mischel and various team members over the years replicated the work, discovered others who had replicated/validated it and dug into the WHY of things rather than just accepting that deferred gratification is both a good thing in itself and something that pays actual real-world dividends. What is more they wanted to know if the skills used by the children to control their natural desires to have the cookie and have it now could be taught to those who failed to control their desires (apparently it can!).

I’d heard of the original Marshmallow Test some time ago – probably in school or from the TV – and this was a good way of finding out the complete ins and outs of the experiment. I was not disappointed. The author (who was at the centre of the original tests) not only goes through the thinking back in the 70’s but then goes on to explain exactly what was going on in those quite rooms as the child struggles with their desires for a tasty treat. Funnily when I went to college back in the late 70’s one of our teachers described the new intake as ‘Middle Class’ to which we all laughed! We were a very working class bunch (my father for example was a pipe layer on building sites) and thought the idea of being described as middle class the height of absurdity. But then he said two words – deferred gratification. We were putting off rewards now (a low payed dead-end job) for greater rewards (a better payed job with prospects) later. That, he said, was a ‘Middle Class attitude’. Maybe I would’ve done quite well in the Marshmallow Test if I’d been given it? Then again with two siblings it was every child for themselves……! This is a fascinating book for a whole host of reasons especially if you have young children (or to be honest any age children) or even if you’re struggling with self-control yourself. It shows how self-control works, why it’s so difficult to master it and ways you can take back control or teach other people to do so. Recommended.       

Just Finished Reading: The Joy of Missing Out by Svend Brinkmann (FP: 2017)

After really enjoying his previous book (Stand Firm – Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze which I reviewed back in May 2017) I was looking forward to reading his other two available works. I was a little disappointed that the book was only 97 pages not including notes, but, I thought, it will be worth every page…..

Unfortunately I thought this was thin in more ways than one. The general argument throughout the slim volume is this – you can’t have it all so don’t even try. Firstly you’ll be happier because of it and so will the planet when you stop striving to die with the most toys. Everything in moderation – essentially know when enough is enough and stop there. Stop working late at the office looking for that bonus to upgrade item X or event A because you won’t be satisfied with it once you get it anyway… so why kill yourself when you could (at least theoretically) be in a pub with friends actually having fun. So travel in Standard Class and stay in a 3* or 4* if you’re feeling flush, drive your more than adequate car for another year, stop trying to keep up with the Jones’s (who are actually trying the keep up with you) and just RELAX. Oh, and one last thing: If you’re in a relationship stop the constant looking to ‘trade up’ to a more "ideal" partner without at least giving things a chance – it’s really annoying!

That was essentially it: Get off that bloody treadmill and start enjoying the life that you have now. To me (who is a fully paid up rejecter of all things treadmill related – *long* before I retired) this all seemed rather obvious and possibly a little trite/patronising. But maybe my head wasn’t in the right place to find it all that useful. Full of good advice on the Good Life but preaching far too much to my particular choir for me to find it too informative or useful. Sadly a little disappointing.

Just Finished Reading: Notes On a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig (FP: 2018)

It came seemingly from nowhere – without reason. He was stuck, as if struck by lightning, into immobility. In the middle of a crowded shopping Mall he couldn’t move, overwhelmed by a sudden rush of terror. His girlfriend (and later wife) tried everything she could to get him moving again and, finally, she did so as tears ran down his cheeks as he moved slowly to the nearest exit. Although not his first panic attack it was one of the worst and, looking back, the one that made him determined to understand exactly why this was happening to him and to find ways to live in a world that made him so anxious so often.

I’m not exactly sure why I picked this book up a year or so ago. Sure, it was on offer but lots of books I pick up and put back again are in the 3 for 2 pile at my favourite book store. It’s not that I’m particularly nervous. I did have my one and (so far) only panic attack over 25 years ago whilst on a train on the way to work one morning but I wasn’t looking to this book to explain that. Interesting the author and I had (eventually anyway) a similar approach to the incident although to be honest my ‘attack’ was nowhere near as debilitating as the author’s. I felt a sudden wave of panic wash over me. It was as if I was in danger of imminent attack. My flight response was turned up to 11 but I was on a speeding train – unable to go anywhere until the next station. So I did the only thing I could – I threw all of my mental resources at it in an attempt to understand WHY I was feeling this way without any obvious external reason to be so. For about 10 minutes I worked at it eventually coming up blank. It was a normal day. There was nothing at work or in my life that could elicit the reaction I felt so I could not, and cannot to this day, explain it. After about 10 minutes the feeling vanished as quickly as it arrived. I got off the train at my usual stop and went to work musing on what had just occurred. Since that event nothing like it has ever reoccurred. I have had a few bubbles of random anxiety pop into my brain over the years (odd little things that they are) but, after acknowledging them, I wait until they fade which they do within 20-30 minutes. So I can certainly appreciate – to some extent at least – what the author has gone through and continues to experience.

This is an interesting little work full of sage advice. It’s the kind of book you can dip into for a thought of the day or to re-read a list of do’s and don’ts on negative thoughts, social media use and much else besides. He makes some very good points that I’ve seen alluded to in other books especially about social media and Internet use in general. Rightly he says that, because world news is immediately in our face 24/7 there’s no opportunity to pause and reflect. Everything is happening NOW. Big Picture analysis is almost impossible with alerts from multiple platforms ringing in your ears day and night. This, the author found, was his centre of anxiety – the all-consuming need to be constantly informed and to correct people on the Internet no matter that he hadn’t slept for 36 hours. Sleep – or lack thereof – that was another thing. We live in a 24 hour world now so if you don’t want to switch off you no longer have to. We have left the age where TV channels closed down at night or when we only knew people in our own Time Zone. It is not a world designed to make us comfortable in our own skins – most especially when we are encouraged to compare the worst of ourselves (in our private world) with the best of others (constantly on public display). All of which is encouraged by the fashion and cosmetic industries – and their fellow travellers. Consumerism is, by its very nature, designed to make us feel inadequate on every level and it’s very good at its job.

If you’ve ever experienced social anxiety or even had a panic attack at any point (even before the present weird time we’re living through) or know someone who has and want to understand things from the inside then this could be a useful way in for you. The author doesn’t hide how rough it can be to go through this sort of thing (and on your loved ones too) but does offer a great deal of useful insight into the condition, the causes and some coping strategies that work – at least for him. Recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: The Organized Mind – Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel Levitin (FP: 2014)

This was not the book I was expecting it to be. I thought it was more about how our IT systems and especially Social Media was overwhelming people in its relentless flood of tweets and pokes. It was somewhat about that but mostly it was about two aspects of the information environment we’re presently swimming in. The main focus of the work was from the neurological side – using the latest research into the human brain to both show its limitations (after all it evolved to keep us alive on the African veldt not on Social media) as well as the best way to organise things taking into account how the brain actually works (and not just how we’d like it to work). It appears that our ‘wetware’ bandwidth is pretty low by technical standards and that explains why we have problems dealing with too many things at the same time – somewhere between 2 and 5 we can just about cope with (and 2 is far better than 5). It was good to see the author repeatedly say that multitasking is a myth. I’ve long held that opinion so I’m pleased that it’s backed up by science. Multitasking is far more like spinning plates. We can keep a number of them spinning but in order to do so we need to rush from plate to plate and give them a nudge. It’s only a matter of time before the energy needed to keep moving between plates exhausts us and all of the plates come crashing to the ground. Naturally we can keep 2 plates revolving a lot longer than 5 or 10. That’s the reality of multitasking – it’s actually time-slicing and each switch of attention costs mental energy. That’s one of the oft repeated pieces of advice in this more than reasonable book: Pay attention to the lowest possible number of things at any one time in order to get things done. Categorise, Prioritise and Act.

The other recurring theme throughout the book is based on the limitations of the data retrieval functions of the brain. It’s entirely possible, as several theories attest, that you remember everything you pay attention to. The problem is getting an accurate and, more important, actionable memory back out on command. That’s not easy. What you can do though is externalise the memory in another form – notes to yourself, diary entries, prompts from your phone or other electronic system or, if you have the money and need such things, a personal assistant to orgainse your life for you so you don’t have to remember a thing except what you’re working on right now. Naturally some of these things are incredibly mundane and I did find myself rolling my eyes a little as the author recommended techniques for organising e-mail on your PC (something I HAVE to do at work if I don’t want to drown under the weight of them as they come in) and paper in filing cabinets. Ever a fan of categorising things the author recommends keeping things in piles as long as you know which pile holds what. This utilises the innate ability of the brain to locate things in physical (or virtual) space. Keeping something in the same place – like keeping your house keys close to your front door – ensures that you know where things are when you need them.

I did have a few issues with the tone of the book rather than (much of) it’s content. The brain/neurology bits where interesting but I did find the author repeated himself a LOT which was rather irritating. Another thing that grated was the fact that over 95% and probably close to 99% of the institutions, scientists and ‘highly successful people (HSPs) were American. This might be invisible to American readers but I think non-Americans might find it odd that it appears that, from the perspective of this book nowhere outside the US either exists or has had any impact or influence on anything he says. But with those caveats in mind overall this wasn’t a bad book at all. I was probably more than a little disappointed that it wasn’t the book I expected so this probably tainted my general opinion of it. I did think it was a bit prescriptive despite the fact that the author often said that individual styles are important in adopting the right information organisation strategy but with a bit of reading between the lines you can pick up on the essence of things rather than the actual list of Do’s and Don’ts. Both reasonable and reasonably helpful especially if you’re having real problems organising aspects of your life and need some pointers.         

Just Finished Reading: Originals – How Non-Conformists Change the World by Adam Grant (FP: 2016)

What make someone want to change the world rather than adapt to it? What’s the difference being a pioneer and a settler? Why are there so few originals around the world and throughout history? These are questions that the author tries to address looking at the case studies of original thinkers and original movers and shakers in a variety of business, political and artistic niches.

Creating something new is incredibly risky. There’s a reason that most new enterprises fail – breaking the mould is hard. It takes not only originality but effort and not a little blood, sweat and tears. In many ways having the original idea is the easy part. Most of us have come up with a handful across our lives. But it’s what we do then that really counts. Do we take the idea forward? Do we let obstacles get in our way? Do we get back up again when adversity knocks us down or the idea, no matter how original, simply fails? Do we have another idea in reserve…. And then another if that fails? The image of the genius inventor hides a great many things. They might be highly and successfully inventive and may have indeed thought up, built and put into production world changing ideas or technology. But what often is forgotten are the many, many ideas they had which failed, crashed and burnt before, between and after the world shattering ideas. Original thinkers do not simply produce the odd paradigm shifting idea and bring that one (or if they’re lucky two or three) to fruition. No, they have 2, 3, 5 ideas a day. They might have one good idea a week and one brilliant idea each and every month. They certainly don’t produce one great idea in a lifetime and then sit on it for 30 years until it hatches.

There is also the importance of timing. Do you rush to publication or production the moment the prototype proves itself – or before? Do you need to beat the competition to the punch and get ahead of the field? Or should you wait until the idea or product is perfected, when the ground has already been broken and the teething problems solved. Is being a settler a safer bet than being a pioneer (yes, actually. There seems to be a distinct advantage of being late to the party).

Can you create creative people or are they just born that way? There does seem to be a distinct step change in originality between first born and late comer siblings (although not always the case). Is it a case that the first born has already filled the choice position and subsequent children need to strike out into new territory or is it a case that first born children grow up in the company of adults where late comers grow up with other children? Or maybe it’s just a case that parents either improve their skills with each subsequent child (or rather perversely don’t have the time or energy to stifle the natural creativity or later children).

This book is chocked full of interesting ideas and observations regarding creativity and originality most of which, the author happily points out, are counter intuitive or counter cultural. Much of our thoughts (the author maintains) on originality is simply wrong because of the many misunderstandings and myths surrounding originality. Looked at in different ways originality can flow through future generations in greater abundance than ever before – just at the time that we need it most. We just have to be original about it. This is a very interesting read with much food for thought and would, I suspect, reward multiple readings to get the most out of the impressive number of ideas floated throughout its pages. Impressive and recommended.   

Just Finished Reading: Migraine by Oliver Sacks (FP: 1970)

I’ve had headaches for as long as I can remember – way back into my childhood. Looking back on them I think that a goodly proportion were probably eye-strain related. They were always worse in the summer with the heat, dryness and strong light. Getting glasses in my late teens was probably more than a few years too late. But growing up the headaches were the least of my worries. From time to time, apparently randomly, the headaches would develop into something altogether more painful and disturbing – a migraine. For those of you lucky enough never to have experienced such a thing a migraine is not just a bad headache – even a very bad headache. A migraine is something much worse. Imagine the worst hangover you’ve ever had…. Now double it and double it again. Then extend it for 24-36 hours followed by another 24-36 hours of a brain filled with cotton wool. That’s the kind of migraines I used to get. But reading this book I realise that I’m one of the lucky ones.

My migraines were intermittent. I have no real idea what caused them – something I ate, weird summer weather, stress – but I could go months or more without one. In this interesting if difficult read I was appalled to discover than some people experience migraines weekly – or even more often. To me that sounds like Hell. Likewise I discovered that my symptoms are towards the milder kind – pounding head pain, nausea, and (sometimes) visual pyrotechnics. I could always feel one coming hours ahead of time. The quality of the light changed and things became hyper-real. There was a sense of unreality about things and an almost hushed anticipation. If I was lucky I could head things off with some serious pain killers (a codeine based pill was best I discovered) but too often the only solution was to go to bed and suffer through it. Often, after 24 hours, the storm would have (largely) passed and I could function again. A day after that and it was like it never happened. My brother, unfortunately, is usually flat on his back for 3 days before recovering and that’s with the strongest pain killers on the market. Again, compared to some poor brutes mentioned in the book, we both get off pretty lightly. Not only do some people need sedating during an attack but the after effect can last long enough to melt into the start of another attack. Heavy duty drugs are the only way to deal with it. I honestly hadn’t realised just how complex migraines are. Although the book was rather dated (although it did contain some postscripts from later editions) it did make a fair fist at trying to understand how migraines appear and how they progress through their leisurely development so unlike the lightening surge of epilepsy.

What I found both bizarre and fascinating were the visual effects of a migraine episode. I sometimes experienced flashing lights of brilliant intensity like star-shells going off on the edge of my visual field. Even in the last 6 weeks or so I experienced vivid zig-zag patterns marching across my visual field that failed to develop into anything further (edged off screen by a quick pair of Ibuprofen tablets I always carry with me). But these are very minor events compared to some who suddenly see things in black and white, in 2 dimensions, pixelated or with visual experiences not dissimilar to painting by Picasso. I couldn’t help wondering how many artists throughout the 20th century – especially after the physical and psychological shocks of WW1 – suffered from some type of migraine symptoms which gave rise to whole new art forms like Cubism. More research needed I feel.

Probably the only real downside to this book (apart from its age) is the fact that it felt like (and I believe it was true) that the book was written by a doctor for other doctors – in this case from a professor of neuroscience to a General Practitioner audience. The book is peppered with medical terminology none of which is explained and pointers about patient care are constantly brought up. I did find myself softly skimming some areas of dense language once I got the gist of things which was manageable after some effort and concentration. Most of the book naturally revolved around the biology and neurology of migraines with only a small section at the end offering some advice on particular drugs and other techniques to reduce the severity of the attack or to head it off at the pass completely. I’m not sure how useful this was but I’m going to try a few things if I ever suffer another migraine event. Presently (apart from the recent light show) I’m migraine free and have been for several years – probably in the region of 3-4 I think. If you are a sufferer or know/care for someone who is I think this book might be of some limited value but I’d look for something a bit more modern as well as something a bit more non-medical professional friendly. Interesting over all but definitely hard going in places.