The BBC has recently compiled a series of amazing documentaries which show what life was like for ordinary people in Northern England in the first years of the 1900s. The documentaries (click here to view on YouTube) derive from the work of pioneering film makers Sagar Michell and James Kenyon (more about them here), and have been restored to their former glory by the National Film Archive in the UK having been lost for many years. Documentary film of ordinary people's lives is commonplace now, but in 1900 - only five years after the invention of the film camera - people were still experimenting with its possibilities. There are many things that can be said about this film series, … [Read more...] about Movement/life in early 20th century England
Sitting is the new smoking…really, again!
As a follow up to the piece I wrote earlier this week, this article in Vox this week is interesting. … [Read more...] about Sitting is the new smoking…really, again!
Sitting is the new smoking…really?
Sitting, we are told, is the new smoking (see, for example recent articles in Runner's World, Wired, LA Times.) Apparently, 'Sitting for hours on end, every day, is bad for your health. Sitting at work is bad for you. Sitting after work is bad for you. Sitting is the new smoking, except that the furniture lobby probably isn't as powerful as the tobacco one' link. Now while I don't for one moment decry the volumes of research that are supporting this recent phenomenon, my question is why now? Why has prolonged sitting become what Gilson, Straker and Parry recently described as 'a contemporary and highly topical area of study within public health research'? It's not like people … [Read more...] about Sitting is the new smoking…really?