Now that I'm a grown up...

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-I've just been diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol.I have to take pills for the hbp,and I might have to for the hc.,but first I'm trying to change my lifestyle.Animal fats out,even more cycling and walking.

Dave, if you're trying to help the high blood pressure / cholesterol with non-pill methods, can I suggest you pop down to your local Julian Graves (or visit the website if you don't have a store near you), and stock up on some raw macadamias? They are excellent for both conditions, as well as type-2 diabetes. I was sceptical about the health benefits of all the various nuts when I started work there, but I got my mum on the raw macadamias as she'd been diagnosed with type-2 and high cholesterol some months previously. Well, the effect has been rather remarkable - both her cholesterol and her blood sugar dropped to almost normal levels within a couple of weeks. I was still sceptical, but the proof came when we were out of stock of the macs for about a month - she couldn't get them anywhere else, so had to do without, and at her next appointment the blood sugar and cholesterol had rocketed back up. Seriously, give it a try. They're a bit expensive as nuts go, ours are nearly four quid for 200g, but worth a try to see if they help. You eat ten a day, every day.

Oh, and walnuts also help with cholesterol. As long as they're not on top of a Walnut Whip.

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What you reading Beth?

I've just finished 'The Interpretation of Murder' by Jed Rubenfeld, which was one of those huge hyped bestsellers a couple of years ago. I made a point of not reading it then because I'm an elitist snob who doesn't like hype.

It sounded right up my street, though - set in New York during the week in August 1909 that Freud and Jung made their only visit to America, hoping to spread the then-revolutionary theories of Freudian psychoanalysis. There's some mystery about that week because although Freud's lectures were considered a great success, he later displayed a weird (one might say neurotic) attitude to both his visit and America in general, and biographers have speculated that he might have endured some sort of trauma whilst there. The author has used this as a premise to imagine the two great psychoanalysts being caught up in a murder with psycho-sexual connotations. Great premise, and I really enjoyed the book right up till the last chapters, when the denoument was building. Aargh, it was a let-down! So disappointing when the explanation was given.

The character portrait of Jung is pretty hilarious though, that was the best thing. I'm very into Jung at the moment. Quite a remarkable man.

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Dave, if you're trying to help the high blood pressure / cholesterol with non-pill methods, can I suggest you pop down to your local Julian Graves (or visit the website if you don't have a store near you), and stock up on some raw macadamias?

OK,that's one I hadn't heard of-thanks for the tip,Beth! (can you get me any under the counter,nudge nudge? ).
But (semi-)seriously,there's bound to be a Julian Graves in Bath,(darling) .

Oh, and walnuts also help with cholesterol. As long as they're not on top of a Walnut Whip.

I never could stand those things.Actually,I don't much like walnuts.What about pecans?
And have you got a cure for moping about old girlfriends? *ouch*

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On the subject of reading,I've just finished a book you might enjoy,Beth,called 'Music and Men' by Helen Fry,which is a biography of Harriet Cohen. Harriet (if you didn't know) was a concert pianist who also came to know all kinds of people like GB Shaw,Ramsay McDonald,Einstein and before WW2 started to develop her Jewish conscience in helping the Jews in Europe fleeing Hitler.
She was also stunningly beautiful and had affairs with many notable names,most enduringly with Arnold Bax,a relationship that has fascinated me for many years. When Harriet died in 1967,she bequeathed all her correspondence-3000 letters-to the British Museum on condition that they weren't opened for at least 30 years. They were finally made public recently and form the background for this book. The passionate,-and for the time,very candidly erotic-correspondence between her and Bax is the central source. I can't make up my mind about Bax-I love a lot of his music,but he was an unashamed romantic dreamer,and in his dealings with Harriet was often a complete bastard,although it seems very few people are ready to say so. Anyway it's fascinating stuff,even though the book itself isn't particularly well-written.
Just today there was a radio programme about Harriet on R3 which you can no doubt hear again this week,well worth it,via bbc.co.uk/radio3.

Concurrently,I've been reading the latest version of Lewis Foreman's biography of Bax,which is also updated because of the opening of the Harriet archive,AND four other books, all at the same time! (why? dunno)-including -Miles Kington's 'What shall I tell the dog?' (about the cancer which eventually killed him-Miles was a friend of mine,he lived down the road and we played jazz duets quite a lot; I played at his funeral last year); Roger Deakin's (also posthumous) nature notes from his last years in Suffolk,beautiful,passionate writing about the environment; and a book which has made a lot of 'best-of' lists lately,Alex Ross' 'The Rest Is Noise',a vivid,probing book about music in the twentieth century.

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On the subject of reading,I've just finished a book you might enjoy,Beth,called 'Music and Men' by Helen Fry,which is a biography of Harriet Cohen. Harriet (if you didn't know) was a concert pianist who also came to know all kinds of people like GB Shaw,Ramsay McDonald,Einstein and before WW2 started to develop her Jewish conscience in helping the Jews in Europe fleeing Hitler.
She was also stunningly beautiful and had affairs with many notable names,most enduringly with Arnold Bax,a relationship that has fascinated me for many years.

Oh yes, I first read about Bax and Harriet Cohen when I was a teenager, just discovering his music. I'll put that book on my list.

I can't make up my mind about Bax-I love a lot of his music,but he was an unashamed romantic dreamer

'Saga Fragment' is still one of my favourite pieces of music ever. But I know what you mean - I think the thing I find slightly off-putting in some of his pieces is the overly-romantic, mythologising Celtic thing. It rubs me the wrong way (speaking as a Celt )

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Having said that about Romantic Celtic legend stuff-The Garden of Fand is one of my all-time favourites. Just an incredible piece of music. Not to mention the orchestration...
Strangely,I don't know Saga-fragment.Have to check that one out.

And here's a direct link to the BBC iPlayer Radio 3 prog about Harriet-just go and listen
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hwwjp

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Well I found a stash of Macadamias in Julian Graves,Bath today.I got the unsalted/unroasted ones; I might have preferred them but I have to go easy on the salt.As it is they taste of nothing at all,so it could be worse. So I should be able to manage popping ten a day. I had to resist buying lots of tempting pink and yellow sugary things as well.
And the nice shop assistant gave me 2 bags for the price of one (didn't seem to be a special offer,perhaps she took a fancy to me).
What pleasant staff Julian Graves employ.
I shall let you know how I'm going on,Beth.

[RobB]

Dave Soundworld,swinging from a tree near you.
Go easy on those nuts, Dave?

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Well I found a stash of Macadamias in Julian Graves,Bath today.I got the unsalted/unroasted ones; I might have preferred them but I have to go easy on the salt.

Oh goodness yes, it's the raw ones you want - steer well clear of the roasted and salted!!

I had to resist buying lots of tempting pink and yellow sugary things as well.

Aha, SO many yummy sweets in there. Luckily I am now unable to indulge in most of them, since I've become a vegetarian - a surprising number of our sweets contain beef gelatine. Just as well though for me, I was developing a serious Jelly Baby habit at one point.

And the nice shop assistant gave me 2 bags for the price of one (didn't seem to be a special offer,perhaps she took a fancy to me).

Sorry to disillusion you love, but they're on BOGOF at the moment.

What pleasant staff Julian Graves employ.

Well of course. *preens*

Actually because it was a family company until late last year, with many staff who've been there for the whole 21 years it's been going, there is very much an emphasis on good manners and being helpful and friendly in the old-fashioned, common sense way (NOT the 'Americanised customer service' way that is now being imposed on us by Holland and Barret, who bought us out. Ugh. It borders on harrassment, as far as I can see. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be followed around a shop by a member of staff haranguing me to buy stuff I might not want, you know?)

Anyway glad you got the macs, I'll let you know whenever they're going on offer as they are just a tad bit pricey.