What You Should Watch:

“Beckham” - Netflix

I always love a good sports documentary… but this isn’t that.

David Beckham and The Spice Girls (in the UK certainly and I’d wager most of the world..) was peak 90’s/00’s nostalgia. They were huge cultural icons in their own right.

Looking back through unseen archival footage and getting David Beckham’s, Victoria Beckham’s reactions as well as the reactions and opinions from all the people involved in his story felt like a peek into a wormhole. The past dredged up.

It’s not exactly a feel good documentary but more of a deep dive into the Beckham story – both his rapid rise to the limelight and the dark moments that came with it.

What You Should Read:

“Salt” Mark Kurlansky

Merchants in ancient Venice formed one of the first aggressive armed trade cartels all over access to salt!

I like stories about geopolitics and history and this is one of the craziest stories in world history and it involves a simple kitchen condiment of all things…

Salt was always a completely essential resource for any culture sustaining itself on agriculture. Initially in Venice they were trying to harvest it from the salt water until they realised it would be more profitable to just trade salt within the Mediterranean instead.

The government started paying large subsidies to salt shippers and soon they were able to start shipping everything else around the Mediterranean for cheaper than any other country because they were making so much money on their salt trade.

Due to their salt trade they maintained a dominance over the Mediterranean for 200 years and the only thing that changed it was when explorers started discovering north and south America and the Atlantic Ocean became the dominant ocean for trade instead of the Mediterranean.

Life Updates:

I started at a new hospital last week in the midst of doctors’ strikes. Don’t worry, I’m not a “scab” that crosses the picket line.. I was assigned to be on call for an emergency shift so legally I was not allowed to take part in the strikes.

Suffice to say that doing an on-call shift without an ID badge or any form of IT logins or passwords was.. challenging..

My new hospital is also an hour drive away from my house compared to my old hospital which was a 5 minute drive away = less sleep in the mornings!

Fine in summer but in peak winter I suspect I will suffer..

The final episode of season 1 of my podcast will go live next Tuesday and then I’ll take a brief hiatus before coming back from season 2. It’s been a gratifying experience speaking to such a wide range of guests, all who offer unique expertise.

For me right now, life feels slightly hectic – between the social media stuff, starting at a new hospital, random personal stuff, my dog and trying to squeeze in time for me… I’d love to fast forward 6 months to see what happens.

The biggest positive of my mental slump has been a renewed passion for the gym – I’ve been going harder than ever and it feels pretty good. Maybe I should keep the stress up!

The Sphere Of Influence:

Think of things you can control as being inside a big sphere. How much money you spend weekly, who you choose to interact with etc

Things which are outside your zone of influence… factors outside of your control remain outside this sphere.

We spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking and stressing about external variables that lie beyond our active control.

I say this as someone who has recently been overly focused on things which lie outside my sphere of influence. This has contributed to undue stress, anxiety and a loss of focus in my daily life.

However acknowledging this is part of the solution to regaining some perspective.

Is There A New Type of Taste?

Ok so you’ve already met sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami… but scientists believe they’ve identified a new basic taste….

Ammonium chloride

We’ve known for decades that the tongue responds to ammonium chloride but now scientists have precisely pinpointed the receptors on the tongue that react to it – a protein called OTOP1…

This is the same receptor that picks up on acidity which we taste as a sour flavour like lime juice or vinegar…

Ammonium chloride is a sharp taste which we are likely hardwired from an evolutionary point of view to avoid… but humans can learn to enjoy it just like we’ve acquired a taste for spicy foods… the ammonium chloride flavour is also prominent in salt liquorice candy

Project 100,000

Project 100,000 also known as McNamara’s Folly, was a controversial 1960s programme initiated by the US Department of Defense during the Vietnam war to recruit soldiers who would previously have been below military mental or medical standards.

Typically the US Army had a legal floor of IQ 80 to enlist, but due to escalating workforce requirements in the Vietnam war, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara lowered this legal floor IQ and lowered the IQ barrier…

Those recruits below IQ 80 were estimated to have died at 3 times the rate of other Americans in the war.

The number of soldiers reportedly recruited through the programme stands between 320,000 to 354,000 – both voluntary enlistees and draftees.

These soldiers included those unable to speak English, those who had low mental aptitude scores or minor physical impairments.

Suffice to say, Robert McNamara was despised in the public eye.. this was just one of the reasons why.