Christmas Movies

I have an enduring fondness for It's A Wonderful Life, as I remember warmly hanging out at home for the holidays as a college student in the 80s and being able to see that movie pretty much 'round the clock on dozens of cable and local channels. Any scene, any time of day. In the early 90s they clamped down a bit on the copyright and showings were trimmed way back, which is a shame. Nonstop Zuzu was a nice holiday tradition. Oh well.

In that spirit, here are my choices of a few underviewed Christmas movies [I'm not including A Christmas Story since hopefully that's well-viewed... or does that count as including it?]

Scrooged
Not a great movie, but one I rewatched with the kids last year for the first time in many years, and it held up well. I don't have much tolerance for "Christmas Carol" retellings, as I usually find them tedious, but this one I liked.

Love, Actually
Very much a Christmas movie though you'd never know it from the title. Kind of like a romcom greatest hits album done as a Christmas fantasy.

Hogfather
Wonderfully adapted-for-TV Pratchett, crafted with such obvious affection and care by all involved that it is absolutely charming. Becoming something of a family holiday tradition now. Very strongly recommended.

5K

Using a handy list of certified running courses, I just ran my own personal 5k time trial in 21:27(!!), exceeding my expectations. That's faster than I've ever been. My Nike+ iPod thing underestimated the distance, but was close, at 4.8k. I plodded on to hit the nike 5k mark in 22:30 so it will give me a bit of credit when I sync. Previous nike sensor+shoe combinations routinely slightly underestimated distances on me as well, which I prefer so that I don't overestimate my workouts. Now I get to be a smug old git the rest of the weekend.

"Sorry, This Will Sting A Bit"

Ah, the joys of getting older. Touch of solar keratosis diagnosed and treated at the dermatologist today. Getting liquid nitrogen sprayed into the side of my face by an overly cheerful doc was a new experience for me. It felt cold for the first half a second, then felt more like I was getting something spot-welded onto my temple.

Mixed Milk Message

I used to be able to get raw fresh milk from a guy with a herd of Guernseys who sold at the old Islington farmer's market. Not sure if he's still around, but it was a real treat. I loved it.

I just picked up some (pasteurized) whole milk from Jerseys & Guernseys. The product copy on the website rightly describes the higher-fat virtues of the milk from these cows, using terms such as "rich taste and creamy texture", "better levels of fat, protein, and calcium", "Higher levels of Fat". It has just over 5% fat compared with 4% for normal whole milk.

So what does the copy on the carton itself brag about? "95% fat-free!"

Why Nutrition Researchers Are Rightly Considered Bad Scientists

And as I've harped on before, awful journalism doesn't help either.

A recent headline screams, "High Salt Intake Directly Linked to Stroke and Cardiovascular Disease". Well, that's pretty attention-grabbing. Seems like it should have "!!!" at the end. I'm intrigued by the "directly" statement. As far as I knew, observed dietary salt intake links with various maladies were observational and ambiguous.

So what does the article say? Here are some excerpts.

The link between high salt intake and high blood pressure is well established,

um... it is?

and it has been suggested that a population-wide reduction in dietary salt intake has the potential to substantially reduce the levels of cardiovascular disease.

that's true -- it certainly has been suggested.

[....]
Collaborative research conducted by Professor Pasquale Strazzullo at the University of Naples, Italy and Professor Francesco Cappuccio at the University of Warwick, UK analysed the results of 13 published studies involving over 170,000 people that directly assessed the relationship between levels of habitual salt intake and rates of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

Again with the "directly". These are just observational studies. "Directly" is meaningless editorializing here.

Differences in study design and quality were taken into account to minimise bias.

But of course.

Their analysis shows unequivocally

"unequivocally"!! what, a 100% CI?

that a difference of 5 g a day in habitual salt intake is associated with a 23% difference in the rate of stroke and a 17% difference in the rate of total cardiovascular disease.

Is that supposed to sound scary? Those hazard ratios are pretty low. But I'm sure there are no confounding factors.

Based on these results, the authors estimate that reducing daily salt intake by 5 g at the population level could avert one and a quarter million deaths from stroke and almost three million deaths from cardiovascular disease each year.

Aha! In other words: the authors of the study unequivocally stated, "we are not credible scientists, please do not take us seriously". The authors then went on to assess a direct link between shoe size and math ability in over 170,000 children and their analysis showed unequivocally that a 5-size larger shoe is associated with 100% improved math ability. Based on these results, the authors estimate that providing all children with shoes 5 sizes larger than their current ones will double the math aptitude of the school-age population.

Furthermore, because of imprecision in measurement of salt intake, these effect sizes are likely to be underestimated, say the authors.

Heh. It's funny that imprecision gives them even more confidence in their conclusion.

The Mutton

I love mutton. Much more than lamb. Shame it's such a rarity these days. Having lived throug some winter before slaughter, then dry-aged like beef, it's got a wonderful depth of flavor that lambs can't match. I did an oven-braised leg of mutton with curry the other day (onions, coconut oil, coconut milk, curry powder, chili paste; served with fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime) that turned out really well. The butcher thoughtfully hacked through the bottom third of the leg so that it would fit into the pan. As a bonus, I selfishly ate all the marrow while pulling the cooked meat off the bone to mix back into the cauldron of curry. Cook's treat.

Autumn At The Butcher

Had some fantastic venison last night. Also tried some nice game sausage. I love the butcher's stock in fall. Currently on offer in addition to the usual fare: duck, wild duck, wild rabbit, venison, pheasant, mutton, and some seasonal sausages.

No Carb "Cardio"

I do like to put my (potential) misery where my mouth is. Went on a 10 1/2 mile run yesterday, with nary a carb in sight. I did it as a large loop, too, so if I got in trouble I'd have a long hike home. Felt good.

Thanks, Royal Mail

I haven't looked into the UK postal strike issues in depth, but from what I've seen the posties seem to have legitimate gripes and I would normally have some sympathy for their cause, but it's hard to muster when I receive an open, mangled, and empty envelope from my son's school. A couple years ago when I was still participating in a dvd rental-by-mail scheme, I had to stop using local post boxes because too many DVDs were never making it to the return address. Maybe it's just a Hackney thing.

No Love For BlackBerry

Anyone else find it bizarre that the theme for the ad campaign for BlackBerry is "love"? Of the hundreds of people I've known and worked with who've had to use the things, none of them loved it. At best they thought whatever new version they had was pretty good for what it's supposed to do, which is extending office automation apps off the desktop and onto your person, especially so you can keep up with work email. Interestingly, a few years ago a survey at my workplace at the time found that making remoting in to work (via a home PC) easier was broadly seen to be an improvement to "work-life balance", whereas blackberries were broadly seen as a detriment to that balance. A more realistic ad campaign would be the guy who comes in to work in the morning to face the usual 314 unread emails in his inbox, vs. the smug blackberry owner who has no unread email because he's compulsively tended to them round the clock.

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Immensely likable. Clooney excellent as always. And Ewan McGregor is great. He does some awful movies (e.g. The Island, e.g. Star Wars 1-3, not always his fault), but every now and then just delivers a role beautifully. Almost a cross between The Big Lebowski and Three Kings, but really it's its own movie. [I admit I only wrote that sentence so I could write "it's its".]

The only disappointment was that I subconsciously expected both JK Simmons and Bill Macy to make appearances.

Mixed-Use Paths

Mixed-use paths -- e.g. bike + pedestrian -- generally don't work very well. London canal paths are a good example. They used to be for pedestrians only. Then there was an initiative to create more bike paths for some millenium project or other, so some typically genius government folks decided that the canal paths would do, and took credit for "creating" all that additional mileage. The paths are treacherous when busy. You get pedestrians who think that having the notional right of way means they can ignore all others, and you get cyclists pedalling away in some sort of velodrome hallucination zone. I run, walk, and cycle on the paths at various times, but with caution, and I find it very helpful to take a very calm and unhurried attitude onto the path with me. The lakefront path in Chicago is another good example. At busy times you get all manner of bikes, walkers, runners, pushchairs, dogs (mind the lead!), and rollerbladers sine-waving side to side. These are the kinds of things that are brilliant when no one else is on them, but most of the time they are recreational (and potentially dangerous) rather than transportational.

To be useful, mixed-use paths have to be pretty wide. Victoria Park works because the mixed-use path is as wide as a 2-car road. Ideally you have a path wide enough to segregate bike from pedestrian traffic (in which case it's no longer a single mixed-use path). Switzerland has a few dedicated bike-only paths, separate from both roads and pedestrian paths, and these are a tremendous luxury. But Switzerland in general is incredibly bike-friendly. This doesn't seem likely or practical most places. And bigger dreams for cyclists seem entirely out of the question. Imagine if the Crossrail project (a new east-west rail line underneath London) included an additional tunnel for bike-use only.