Fortune Favours those with Four Features

Lucky people possess four basic characteristics. They can juggle many activities and take the consequent advantages. Their decision-making is based on positive, gut instincts. Then there is the 'bounce' factor in picking themselves up quickly after trouble. Finally, those who see themselves as fortunate, structure potential risks in terms of opportunities, not problems.

Just How Happy ?

A 'league table of happiness' devised by David Kahneman and colleagues appears in the current issue of the New Satesman. Not surprisingly the maximum pleasure-rating of 4.7 on the index is set against 'Sex' that apparently accounts for an average of 0.2 hours per day. On the bottom is the 'Morning commute' with a score of 2.0 and a time-rating of 0.4 hours. In the positions contending for the lead are 'Socialising after work' 4.1 for 1.1 hours duration; 'Dinner' 4.0 for 0.8; 'Relaxing' 3.9 for 2.2 and 'Lunch' 3.9 for 0.6. Another strenuous activity takes up 0.2 hours of our time per day and it is 'Exercise' scoring 3.8 on the scale. Other recordings include 'Napping' with 3.3 for 0.9; 'Computer at home' with 3.1 for 0.5; and there is that activity that results from the morning commute. It is 'Working' - with 2.7 after a 6.9 hour commitment. Is it all worth it ?

High Price for a Diner

The suicide of the highly-acclaimed French chef, Bernard Loiseau, brought to light some of the pressures in running an upmarket restaurant. Someone calculated that the high fixed-costs of maintaining a fine establishment with a large staff means that every customer costs the owner $70 before any food or drink is consumed.

From Ga-ga to Go-go

Getting on in life is about negotiating that tricky passage from juvenescence, being young, to quiescence, being dead. The treacherous bits of the journey involve adolescence, when it's easy to lose direction, and 'ga-ga-escence,' by which time the important essentials of life have been spent. However, the computer revolution has meant, in some ways, the elimination of distance and, in many ways, increased access to others and their information without the expenditure of excess energy or finance. How these features assist both young and old of the current generations to 'get on' better than those of previous generations.