Walking is for the birds

I really don't like walking. But I know I'm supposed to do it, for the health of my heart, lungs and knees.

Now that the weather is more amenable I've done some walks. The most enjoyable are woodland and riverside walks alongside the St Austell river (aka the River Vinnick and The White River) in Cornwall. It gets very muddy and I therefore have to wear my least favourite footwear:

I bought these ugly things for a Christmas holiday in the Caingorms, having been advised that there would be ice and snow through which I would be obliged to wade to get my winter exercise. As it turned out, it rained continuously for the whole week, temperatures were mild and hence no ice or snow. I could have worn sandals. There is no way I will wear these for everyday use in sunny Cornwall. They make driving difficult. But I can put up with them for muddy walks.

The thing I like least about walking is the sheer pointlessness of it. It can be ameliorated by chatting to people on the way but better still I've discovered Merlin.

Not Merlin the wizard or merlin the falcon but Merlin the bird sound app.

I'm currently not walking but sitting in my lounge writing this. With the windows open so that I can hear the birds. More importantly so that my Merlin app can identify the birds from their calls and songs. Other sounds - people talking or heavy traffic - can mess it up but I have put signs outside my house saying No Talking and employed Stop The Oil to close the nearby road that's only occasionally a nuisance.

I currently have 53 species on my Life List which sounds a lot but really isn't. You'd be amazed how many species exist or pass by in a semi-urban setting. Some of my species were heard on my walks, almost all woodland. I'm desperately hoping that one day I'll see or hear a kingfisher by the river but I've never even seen a fish in it so it's not surprising.

The app analyses sounds in real time and matches them to the birdsongs on its database. I don't think it claims to be 100% with its identifications but only rarely does it throw up unlikely suggestions. On my most recent woodland walk it "suggested" an Eider duck. Given that this species is a sea duck and nests in coastal locations, even though I was probably no more than a few miles from the sea, I was in the middle of woodland and I couldn't actually hear the sound myself or see the bird; I didn't feel that was definite enough to add to my Life List.

I did get a green woodpecker on a recent walk. You can get interesting birds transiting the skies above your garden. I've had a Tawny owl at home, a Long-eared Owl above Gordon Road in Whitstable and a Marsh Harrier also at home. Living a mile or so from the sea there are lots of gulls of course, the most interesting of which is a Yellow-legged Gull which is a variant of (or similar to) the common Herring Gull. It's been persistent for many months so I am inclined to believe it; it's on the list!

The other way of making my walks interesting are listening to podcasts. I have lots of these - politics and football mostly. I'll tell you about those another time.

Not much happening outside my window today - just the usual garden birds such as sparrows, robins, blackbirds and wood pigeons. There's usually a noisy pair of magpies around but they've gone elsewhere today. I'll go out for a walk in a bit and let you know what birds I hear.

Spinach, broccoli and blueberries

I don't eat many vegetables. I eat lots of fruit and usually accompany my fish or meat with salads. I'm not sure this is a healthy, balanced diet, so I asked ChatGPT (I know, don't believe everything it tells you) "is it OK to eat lots of fruit but no vegetables" (I don't bother with question marks - if ChatGPT can't figure out it's a question then it's stupid). 

Answer: not really, because I'm missing various nutrients and "phytonutrients" (it can't resist showing off). "Would you like tips on how to include more vegetables painlessly?"

Sure.

"If you dislike vegetables, you might try blending greens into smoothies or pairing raw veggies with dips".

That's why I'm sitting here, waiting patiently for tonight's key Arsenal match, nothing else to do except write a blog post, and eating/drinking a smoothie containing spinach, broccoli, blueberries, 15 grams of protein powder, cinnamon, cocoa powder and peanut butter. What a weird mixture! But it's actually remarkably refreshing - so try it!

ChatGPT recommended frozen cauliflower for a creamy texture, so that's on tomorrow's shopping list. 

As for the dips, I checked out the nutrition stats on the labels of various types (I like to minimise carbohydrate intake) and ended up with aioli, which I tried last night with raw carrot. I'm not at all sure whether this aioli is healthy or not:

(per 100g)

• 2.7g carbs (that sounds good)
• 79.0g fat (that sounds horrendous)
• of which saturates 5.9g (that's OK then - or is it?)

I THINK that means that the 73.1 grams of unsaturated fats (beneficial for heart health) are OK. Phew!

I would actually like to make an effort to lose some weight, so I'm going with this and actually not even drinking 0% alcohol for a week or two. I see that the can of 0% Guinness in my fridge contains 16.7 grams of carbs, so that's it - in the bin! (Not actually; I may need a celebration after tonight's match, or alternatively a consolation drink). And the blueberries are much better than bananas in my smoothies.

In case you're thinking "Nigel, you should get walking", I'll be covering that in due course.

(I guess that's different from "Nigel, you should get out more")

Tips for nutrition, smoothies, painless vegetables (no potatoes) and weight loss welcomed!

Geography quiz

I was given Prisoners of Geography: the Quiz Book. Subtitled "How much do you really know about the world?". That's your challenge for today. All questions are multiple choice. Results in a week. I'll trust you to not use an atlas, Google or ChatGPT.

1. Which country in Europe has the longest coastline?

a) Norway 

b) Russia 

c) Greece 

d) UK

2. Which of these sequences correctly describes how the Rhine River flows from its source?

a) Slovenia, Austria, Czechia, Germany, Belgium, France

b) Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, France, Netherlands

c) Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark

3. The size of the continent of Africa is roughly equivalent to which of these?

a) Greenland

b) The USA, Canada and Europe

c) India and China

d) Russia

4. Can you name the US President who first declared a "War on Drugs", targeting the movement of narcotics from Central and South America?

a) Woodrow Wilson

b) John F. Kennedy

c) Richard Nixon

d) Bill Clinton

5. When did humans last set foot on the Moon?

a) 1969

b) 1972

c) 1975

d) 1979

6. Approximately how many languages are said to be a spoken across the whole of the continent of Africa?

a) Between two and three hundred

b) Around five hundred

c) Just under a thousand

d) As many as two thousand

7. What notable event occurred in New Zealand in 2022 for the first time since records began in the 1850s?

a) The sheep-to-human ratio dropped to lower than five to one

b) Fossil fuels generated 0% of New Zealand's energy

c) Military spending was less than 5% of GDP

d) A species of indigenous land snake was discovered

8. Which resource makes Tibet so important to China?

a) Coal

b) Gold

c) Water

d) Lithium

9. Which US state is the largest by population?

a) California

b) New York

c) Texas

d) Florida

10. Can you name the Indo-European language that is the official language of Iran but with variants spoken in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, among others?

a) Pashto

b) Farsi

c) Balochi

d) Armenian

Not sure why

After two years and three weeks, I've decided to get back to blogging.

If I start with football, I lose half my audience. But it's been a bad football few days and getting it off my chest will hopefully improve my gloomy mood. Maybe later.

I recently stopped playing computer games. My much-loved Civilization VI game was superceded, obviously by Civilization VII, and I was excited in anticipation of the February launch. Until it turned out it wouldn't run on either my laptop (expected) or my desktop (unexpected). So a choice of spending substantial money on a new PC or an upgrade or examining whether I wanted/needed to play turn-based strategy games any more. I chose - for the moment - to live without computer gaming.

This decision was in part influenced by my new obsession - chess.

I've played on and off for much of my life - off more than on - at the level of knowing how the pieces move. There was an English chess player named Nigel who became a Grandmaster at the age of 19, eventually ranked number 3 in the world and played a world championship match in 1993 against the legendary Garry Kasparov. That however wasn't me (there are plenty of other well-known Nigels but I'm not going there at the moment) - it was Nigel Short. Of course as a young man I followed the famous Bobby Fisher vs Boris Spassky cold war match, in the same way I followed Ali v Liston in boxing and other iconic sporting battles. Later I followed Kasparov vs Anatoly Karpov in 1985 - I was a sporting nerd. Actually a sporting spectator nerd.

One of the things Fischer was famous for was his queen's gambit opening leading to a stunning world championship victory and this inspired the 2020 Netflix series of the same name - also referencing the cold war - based on a novel by Walter Tevis. This caught my attention and that of millions of others, particularly as the world was in Covid lockdown at the time. Enter (historically) Deep Blue.

Deep Blue was a computer program developed by IBM, which defeated world champion Kasparov in a game in 1997, thus signalling the end of the world. Gradually chess 'engines' improved to today's level where the top Grandmasters simply cannot beat them.

In 2007 the chess.com website was launched and became the 'go to' online platform for ordinary humans to play each other over the internet. So when the dreaded lockdown occurred in 2020, and The Queen's Gambit screened, the stars aligned to create a major "chess boom". I, of course, ignored it as I was starting blogging.

In late 2023, at the Sea Farmers Dive Taproom in Whitstable, a seminal chess match was played. A 13 year old young man, distantly related to me, asked if I played chess. I obviously mentioned I hadn't played for years but knew how the pieces moved. I don't exactly remember why there was a chess board there but anyway we played. I'm going to spare the young man's blushes and not mention the result but the main outcome was that my son (who had been watching) and I decided to join chess.com and we have played each other (and occasionally others) online ever since. Here's the state of our current game:

That's me at the bottom (playing as black) in my Ipswich Town celebratory gear (if it's possible to celebrate relegation). It's my son's move. No helpful suggestions in the comments please - that is officially cheating!

The question remains whether I have the patience to continue blogging regularly. I hope so but comments are very welcome and I'm hoping family members in particular can spread the word. Bye for now.

Match Of The Dull #MOTD

Let's face it, Match Of The Day is one of the dullest TV programmes.

Aired at a time when sensible people are in bed, it shows brief highlights of the Premier League matches of the day. It's so predictable that, if your team was involved in in a drab 0-0 draw (that's you, Chelsea!), you'll know that you're for the ten minutes to midnight slot. Clips are so short that they inevitably give a distorted view of the match.

Then there's the presenter and so-called pundits. Ex footballers who tell us what we already know and can see (if the highlights haven't missed it) - that Spurs don't score in the first half of games, Chelsea need a number 9 (they actually have one but he's on loan in Italy), that James Ward Prowse is the best free kick taker in the world, that Bruno Fernandes is a whinger, etc.

To fill in the time - it's a 90 minute programme with approximately 50 minutes of football - the ex footballer buddies joke with and about each other on sofas, reminiscing about their days on the sacred green turf ("we would never have allowed that behaviour in our day") and generally having nothing new to say.

What would be a better idea would be to show extended highlights of the football, without presenter or pundits ruining it. It's TV, we can use our eyes.

Wait! That's happening tonight? Terrific. I'll be there.

The Bleedin' Obvious

There are some ideas that are so obviously stupid that it's not worth the effort setting out the arguments. Like sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. And Government-appointed football regulators.

The Government's White Paper is driven by a "fan led review". Have you ever seen a football fan, Mr Sunak**? These are morons who, bare chested in the middle of winter, stand up - blocking the view of those seated behind them - and yell obscenities at the opposition (and sometimes their own) players and the officials*. Obviously they should regulate football.

Governments wouldn't dream of interfering in other private businesses. Football isn't special. It's not a cultural icon that needs protection, like the Royal Opera House (don't get me onto that). Go and regulate an industry that's out of control, like electricity providers.

There may be an upside, though. When Kier Starmer, an Arsenal season ticket holder, becomes PM, he might appoint Jeremy Corbyn - another - to be Sports Minister, thus enabling a Golden Age of Gunners success. Let's do it!

* This pretty much accurately describes me in front of the TV watching football. Without the bare chest, obviously. Many years ago I stopped taking my young sons to football matches, because of the foul language and obnoxious behaviour. That of the fans too.

** I'm guessing that's a No.