About me – things I like (part three)

This is the last post about me that I’m going to write for a while.  Normal service will be resumed next week!  Don’t forget, if you want to read about getting stronger in your garage, check out the archives.

So this is a brief description of a few of the things I like.  I’ve already talked about how I enjoy:

• Coffee
• Science fiction 
• Mountains
• Real food
• Animals
• Wild camping

Here are a few more things that I really enjoy…

Podcasts

For two years, I had a fairly lengthy commute to work.  I had to get up early in the morning and drive for an hour to get to the office and then another hour home in the evening.  During those years, I acquired a visceral hatred of morning radio and, consequently, a love for quality podcasts.  My morning commute isn’t quite so bad now but I still maintain my podcast habit.  Some of my favorite stations to tune into are:

• Superhuman radio
• Mike Robertson’s In the Trenches Fitness
• The Strength Coach Podcast
• The FitCast

But if I could only listen to one, it would have to be Superhuman radio.  Keep up the good work Carl!

Music to train to

I don’t understand how people can train effectively with a newspaper to read, a video to watch or pop music on in the background.  For me, if there’s no intensity to your surroundings, your workout is going to be poor.

Obviously, music is only one aspect of your surroundings but I think it is an important one.  I have picked up a few albums over the years that I like to play when I’m really going for it in the gym.  These are some of my favorites:

Disturbed: Indestructible

Rage Against the Machine: Rage Against the Machine

Evanescence: Fallen

David Attenborough

This is a bit of a wild card to finish with but the sentiment is no less genuine for that.  To understand the affection I have for this “greatest living mammal”, you first have to appreciate that I grew up in a household in which television was rationed quite strictly.  It wasn’t possible for us to just switch it on and channel surf.  We had to present a case for it to be switched on and it had to be a viable one!

As you might imagine, David Attenborough was a pretty safe bet, with the (largely) educational component of his work.  So we watched pretty much every episode that he made.  Thinking back, I remember that when the first documentaries came out, they were very different from the more recent series, such as the impressive Planet Earth.  The episodes were longer and more technical, the clothes more self-consciously fashionable, the hip-wiggle more pronounced.

But whether you’re watching him as a skinny and youthful forty-something in flares, holding forth in the cut-glass tones of received pronunciation, or as a rheumy old grandpa looking back on a life as full as any have lived in the 20th century, the intensity that comes from his genuine enjoyment of presenting life in all its wondrous variety shines through.  He is a perfect example of someone who has lived life to the full and taken every opportunity that came his way.

Quite simply, David Attenborough is a national treasure and has to be seen to be believed.