Today at 6am another great British stereotype went up in smoke. England’s enclosed public spaces and workplaces became officially “smokefree”, following the recent examples of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. This means that the legendary hard-drinking, chain-smoking English pub regular will no longer be able to fill the air with acrid smoke as he props up the bar, and pubs may actually turn into pleasant places to be. Eastenders will certainly never be the same again. And what of that urban launderette experience of some pillock lighting up just when you’re folding your smalls?

That said, despite all the trumpeting about this being the best thing for our nation’s health in a generation etc, the Knackered Hack — who heartily approves of just about everything that’s healthy and life-enhancing — has his reservations. One of the founding principles of Knackerd-emia is to “do the opposite”*; in my case, most particularly to do the opposite of my nemesis, Michael Bloomberg, who allegedly tried to summons the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards for smoking on stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Where’s the satisfaction in that? Continue reading ‘no more coughing hacks’

I have recently been over-eating and putting on weight, despite a lot of exercise and the flaxseed oil (which in the past seemed to have helped contain appetite). The following video explains a large part of the problem. But I don’t suffer from the savoury-sweet dilemma that stymies Shuttleworth.

You can buy the record here.

However, today I instigated a strict left-over avoidance protocol, and the pounds have literally been not yet falling off.

We’re probably some of the last to notice it here, but 64-year-old Sir Paul McCartney has upped sticks and joined the digital music revolution.

He has left EMI after 45 years and gone to Starbucks’ Hear Music label as its first major signing. Yes, Memory Almost Full, McCartney’s 21st studio album since the Beatles, can be found nestling temptingly alongside the biscotti. As McCartney explained recently to the LA Times:-

I was bored with the old record company’s jaded view…They’re very confused, and they will admit it themselves: that this is a new world, and they’re a little bit at a loss as to what to do. So they’ve got millions of dollars and X budget … for them to come up with boring ways — because they’ve been at it for so long — to what they call ‘market’ it. And I find that all a bit disturbing. Continue reading ‘macca flees record industry dinosaurs’

Knackered Downunder observes a man who tests endurance to the limit

Seeing as the Knackered Hack is losing his faith in marathon running, he’s unlikely to find the example of American endurance runner Dean Karnazes as inspiring as I did.

Karnazes has just finished a tour of Australia and New Zealand, getting in some long-distance running (naturally) and promoting his book Ultramarathon Man, Confessions of an all-night runner. The book is well worth reading. If you walk away with one theme, it’s the value of sheer doggedness and determination and how far they can get you. In Karnazes’ case, it’s literally hundreds of miles. Continue reading ‘ultra-marathon runner tells all’

Taleb on Journalism, Blogs, and TV

Back in his days as a mathematical options trader, Nassim Taleb used to watch financial TV with the sound turned off. That way he could remind himself that the journalists and pundits — with their endless commentary and market predictions — were more noise than substance. He made that confession in his second book, Fooled by Randomness (2001).

As a former financial newswire journalist, with some 15 years’ Fleet Street experience, I have found his indifference to the fruits of my toil a little unnerving. But, there are some grounds for hope. Taleb has also written that journalism is important because it’s the way we find out about the world. But every time I’ve heard him speak, he is always quick to mention that he doesn’t read newspapers — so one should not ask what he thinks about the news, a Google IPO, or whether US real estate is in a bubble.

Real-time journalism has mushroomed since Fooled by Randomness was published, and besides the plethora of news providers, there are more blogs and self-appointed experts out there than you can shake a stick at. So I felt safe with the assumption that Taleb would still be screening out unnecessary sound and fury, that he’d be dismissive of this new technological Tower of Babel. But as he tucked into his Tandoori chicken, The Black Swan author told me that he’s actually an avid reader of blogs. Continue reading ‘Caveman lunch with taleb – part 2′