When a programme strand has been going for 40 years it suggests something more than luck is responsible for its longevity. Probability is the kind of subject as well that only the Horizon strand would likely tackle on UK TV. Although last night’s programme was not directly about creativity, it threw up some very interesting insights into the creative process, and shone a light on the very basics of human consciousness–the formation of language.

Synaesthesia is a syndrome in which the sense of one thing, for instance sound or number, generates the sensation of another, for instance colour. The examples cited, like the barman who tastes earwax when he hears the name Derek, tended toward the bizarre. However, the phenomenon, though strange, is not that rare. The suggestion is that our use of metaphor, which is central to the creative process, is essentially synaesthetic.

There was a reference to Shakespeare, as a master of the use of metaphor. This served to remind me that one of my next reading experiments is to trawl through Shakespeare, having read an interesting observation recently that for all the business literature on leadership nothing of substance has been added to what Shakespeare had to say four hundred years ago. Another motivation was mathematician John Allen Paulos’ reporting a famous physicist’s observation that reading complex texts (in his example it was the Bible in Hebrew) facilitates the simultaneous study of difficult subjects such as quantum physics. I guess this is the correspondent of cross training for athletes (rowers riding bikes and cyclists swimming.)

The food companies could learn a thing or two from Nike about how to make a profit from making people unhealthy, and then extract the same rent from making them healthy again. As a pioneer of the training shoe market, it’s latest offering, Nike Free, is a complete reversal of years of bringing more stability and cushioning to the feet of athletes and non-athletes alike. The Free shoe is basically designed to allow the foot to emulate movement as if it was barefoot. Orthodoxy was that pronation and supination, the natural tendency of some feet to rotate excessively, need to be prevented. No surprise that the emerging orthodoxy is that what is natural should not be discouraged. Nike explains, quoting Leonardo Da Vinci, that the foot is a masterpiece of engineering, containing 26 bones. Modern shoes, of which the company has been perhaps the most eager proponent, restrict the foot’s natural movement, reducing its inherent strength, as well as the rest of the leg. This may well be responsible for a lot of lower leg injuries in athletes. Some coaches have long incorporated barefoot running either on grass or sand into their training schedules, resulting in greater speed, strength and resilience to injury. Nike has worked with some of these groups to design a show that protects the foot in environments where barefoot running would be dangerous (pretty much everywhere these days.) The new shoes were released just a few weeks ago. Having just recovered from injury, I’d heard about them on the runner’s websites and went today to pick up my pair. The word from the shops is that other major shoe producers are moving in the same direction, and their reps are declaring the structured shoe, will all but disappear over the next couple of years.