A Time of Magic

OK, we should all get out, do more exercise and eat better but that’s not always quite so easy to fit into a busy lifestyle so many of us look towards quick fixes which generally means some kind of medication.

The diet pill industry has produced quite a staggering range of products in recent years to tackle the various reasons behind weight gain. Thus, you’ll find dietpills that burn fat (ie speed up your metabolism), those that bind fat (ie stop your body integrating the fat from foods into your body) and many other variants.

Which type will suit you best depends on the reasons behind your excess weight. So, if it’s because you eat lots of fatty foods then a fat binder may work well (though be wary of the common side-effect of leakage with these). Similarly, if it’s because you’re stuck at a desk all desk all day then perhaps the fat burners are the way to go.

Whichever type you try, do keep an eye out for side-effects.

One of the “problems” that I have at the moment is that I’ve run off the end of the degree that I’ve been doing part-time over the last seven years.

Now, I could just do nothing from this point, but I would miss the gradual accumulation of new facts and ideas that I’ve been acquiring over that time and besides there are loads of interesting courses in the prospectus. Yes folks, I’m a compulsive prospectus reader.

When you leaf through a prospectus the sheer range of courses is quite amazing. There’s everything from archaeology through to physics with lots in between. Actually, the archaeology course is one of those “in-between” courses mixing aspects from the art world and from the scientific one and there are a surprising number of such inter-disciplinary courses around.

It’s been on the art side of things that I’ve been working on over the last seven years and, all being well, I’ll have a modern languages degree by Christmas. Whilst in “art mode” I had a look at courses on the history of art (definitely not me), history (interesting but a tendency to delve into very detailed lists of events) and even English (not me either). For a change I also looked at the science courses of which geology (not suitable for me this year), integrated science (a full credit course, which is more than I want to do) and planetary science (the most likely contender for the coming year). Oh, and, of course, the archaeology course which sounds really fascinating but has a start date that’s awkward for me in the coming year.

So what’ll I do? Well, I was thinking of taking a year out but I really do fancy the planetary science course so I may enrol on that one in the next few weeks.

When you’re looking for a decent gift, watches feature high on the lists of many people.

However, moving up from the cheapo brands leads to something of a confusing range of choice. It’s fine to buy a no-name watch at $10, you know the good names at the $500+ level, but what about the gift level of $100-$200? In that range you’ll find a whole host of brands and each of them with quite a wide range of prices from their various models. For example, you’ll find Festina watches from under $100 to around $500 which means that you’ve quite a range to choose from and with quite subtle differences between the models at particular price points eg if you’re looking for a diving style watch you’ve different colours of the same model, ones that go to different depths, those with rotating bezels and so on.

For the ladies… if you’re choosing a watch for your man those little details are important, so don’t just grab the first diving watch that comes to hand!