Douro Valley - Porto Adventure Day 2

Day 2 and I wanted more sleep. This wasnt work"! Fy But I had a goal, and that was the 0920 with train swap at Campanho , annoyingly. Breakfast was up at the top level, and I was first out, having to wait. It was actually a bit too cool to sit outside maybe and it was less pfaff to just gather coffee etc . No museli today but I amanged to stay slightly healthy Sandra the hostess, was a tiny, super glamerous woman and very easy to make contact with. There was what in Norway be juded a flirt! Packing done, I was working out my route and decided not to go the wrong way to attempt the Metro over Dom Luis, it looked like a quick 20 mins to Sao Bento. Now came the rub. I had elected to take a suit case with wheels with me due to wanting to look posh with Panama hat and linen jacket. Fashion and vanity were winners for pragmatism's sad loss. There were steps. The route took me first up, then down to the bridge. Time was tight, but ok. I could take some quick photos in the hazy morning light. A gang of pensionist cyclist filed past on the Dom Luis, reminding me of how internationally binding sports are and how the same string of septogenarian types can be seen from my office windown in Arendal a few mornings a week Now , now came the rub. No furnicular, but there were Steps. A LOT OF STEPS. about 100m of height to gain at least. FInally a steep little alley way and pang, out in the melay of the top of town, with a stoop down to to Sao Bento Time was going, this was now tight, maybe just 6 or 7 mins to get on board. Luckily I had downloaded the app I think and got the ticket to Pochinos booked. I arrived, 2-3 mins to spare, phew! I was soaking with sweat. Now I could see why Sao Bento doesnt have many loco hauled, regional trains, but rather local electrics. It is smaller than Marlebone and reminiscent of maybe Liverpool , a station in the lgiht, which then immediately runs into tunnels. There didnt seem to be points for locos to run around so I guess the 0720 Douro which does run from there, is allowed to back down or has a pilot 1400 take her in. The trouble was here though despite it being a small terminus station with only three trains waiting , now at 0918 I paniked!!, which bloody train??! They dont all go to Campanha there I had to change for the Douro route. It was like my dream was about to be taken away from me and I would be left there for an hour or two in a sweaty shirt with a suitcase and nap sack. I think there is a 1020 though, but this was what I had set the alarm for! As if by magic, the qeue at the station information desk disspated , like the clouds opening to reveal a holy angel in a Comboios do Portugal uniform, I could rush in and ask the guy, who saw my angst and pointed Platfohrm Tooo. I was on. As were hundreds of tourists and locals, Were they all doing the Douro route !? I was overjoyed, but now the next challenge to my nerves came. The train had like plus 3 mins at Campanha to get over platforms. 0920 came and went. 0923 came and went. Finally we were off on a " zero" and I had no idea if they guaranteed connection. As it turned out they no doubt know a hundred to more tourists will use Sao Bento to do the route. I guess there is a Norway In a Nutshell type set up with train, boat and bus to vinyard included. Anyway, a lot of far eastern tourists. But my dreams could still be quashed if I couldnt get over the platform in time to see a 1400 thrash off Or worse. The one modern DMU train might be out on this turn. Then I would have refused it and waited for the next train. Fears avoided, I was soon on the platform with the old set and an orange red stipey thing at the front whistling away. The front coach was a stretch for the tourists, so I got there to find it quite empty to begin with. The first " drop light" , railway talk for door window in the vestibule area, wasnt even occupied! I cant remember if there were any fellow enthusiasts, but the portuguese bloke next to me seemed interested in the loco. We were underway. This was living the dream Or rather reliving a misspent youth. I had used four years of my life chasing around on trains. Following the big sisters of the 1400s, the EE type three class 37s on the west highland line, the far norht, a failed attempt down Bristol and Newport way and on the infamous Cambrians in 85. I expired and was withdrawn from general traffic when a new social life and interests emerged and the 37/4s turned up, so i felt my era was passing. I do not regret it. I saw the end of the other big sister to the 1400s of CP, the class 40s and the planned end of steam heat was upon us, so that was it. I began to lose interest. Venture Scouts, hill walks, cycling, and the possibilities of the opposite sex all became more important and although I would often take a WHL train home to visit my old mum, I didnt go out my way to chase 37s any more. I guess I just grew out of it, with the start of 6th year at school that autumn. Fortmative years though. I met people from working class areas of Yorkshire, Birmingham and London. Cardiff and the valleys. Some scouse tractor bashers. I had my eyes opened to the community in and around the railway. The great craic as we would call it now in the sub culture of enthusiasts who chased haulage by locos, the bashers as we called ourselves. It seemed like a very distant echo of my past. A parallel heaven I had come to. We dashed off and the loco thrashed. After the intial excitement, it all felt a little different. Less impressive in a way. These locos are far better than the type 2s in the UK and put in a damn fine performance for all of their 1350hp. But it wasnt quite the same as a steam heat compo on a saturday morning on the Arrochar move, meeting up with fellow enthusiasts as usual. Something had gone. Something gained though too. I was on a holiday with many possibilities. Would I just do the route up and down a few times? Find a walk to a hilltop winery? Drink beer all day? I had no real plans. The train thrashed off through the Porto suburbs, picking up quite a speed after its late departure. At top speed, maybe 70 mph or more, the bogie began to oscillate like an old 303s over Milton straights. Soon we were out following the Douro river, and things started getting fantastic. The views, the vegetation, Hardly any new buildings. The earhtyness, the rustic nature of it all. Exotic birds flew out of trees on the route. River boats plyed their routes. The line got more and more wild it seemed, the valley deepened and got narrower past Pinhao. I had elected for the full shebang to Pochinos then the short way back to Tua where I was staying to get it out the way if there werent many 1400s out - that is to say, the same locos and the use of a DMU. The route becomes amazingly wild and beautiful past Tua. It climbs a fantastic valley side grade half way on that last leg, and stops at small almost abanonded looking stations like Vesuvia. The river loses its vinyards and becomes a rugged ravine with only scrub and cactus growing. By this time it was warm. Probably 35 c! I asked the gaurd if there was a little buffet, "NOH NOT EVEN WATER" without a sorry to follow. Just a tone of annoyance either with me as the unprepared tourist, or with CP and their unprepared train. The whole atmosphere of the landscape became really very spagehetti western. Cactus in a ahalf arrid landscape. The route mysterioulsy breaks into more open, high plateau like countryside at Pochinos after the tunnel cuts a bend in the river. The landscape too is straight out of a western. The line is single from Regua so passing causes issues, and they have a first come, first forward policy I believe. I think we waited at Tua for an "up Porto" service. Anyway, any thoughts of a beer move at Pochinos were dashed as 50 mins became 30 mins and then only 20. There is an option to take a later train back but there are only two cafes at Pochinos I believe and it isnt very noteworthy. The line used to continue to Salamanca and onwards to the Spanish network, but was closed in 1989. WIth three and a half hours to the now terminus there, you can maybe see why the route became uneconomic. A grand viaduct further up stands in testimony to this being once an important route no doubt. In terms of refreshment, even the vending machine didnt want to play ball, it took euro coins. Which i didnt know if i had. My last water long finished on the upper leg, I was parched but only had 40 mins odd down to Tua before I could bail for my hotel. Which had AC !!! The room was delicously cool and had a fridge. The host confirmed the water was safe to drink! I cant quite remember the series of events now, but i had armed myself with St Michaels best peanuts and a half bottle of aforementioned Scotch so anyway, a beer at the local bar, and in the still searing heat, I elected to do the Pochinos move to make the evening go faster. How glad i was i did. There was a jovial crowd from a cafe de fonto in Candelo district of the city. They had been treated to the tour and a meal at the local restuarant, postpoingin my own dinner as it was closed for their private function and a kids birthday party. I wasnt very hungry in that heat. But they turned out to be a really eclectic and extrovert bunch who really raised my holiday experience to a new height. The cafe is owned by a S.African family who looked to be of UK ancestory. They were pragmatic about SA but as usual not very pleased about the take over. They had run with their cash and set up in Porto. Grant, their son, was a rugby loving , malt whisky fan so i have promised to visit the cafe. The local lads turned out to be not only employees but some of the cafe's better customers. With a beer cooler to boot! One had worked on a trawler in Norway out of Tronheim fjord and vardø or the like, while he said his father had worked for Johnny and James Graham of port fame. Johnny it seems sold out and runs Churchill, making a superior plonk indeed of the Port Wine type. The cameradery reminded me in the most nostalgic way of my days on the west highland line and other routes, meeting fellow travellers and enthusiasts, and that evening really did rekindle a lost spirit and fulfilled what i was looking for- a new experience while being a homage to a quite important part of my youth in terms of freedom, personal responsibility and egalitarianist view point it turned over in me from a rahter snobbish middle class lad. It was weired meeting such friendly, slightly intesnly extrovert people. We raced down the valley, heads out of windows, enjoying the dusk light and the cooling air. We saw a hawk and many vinyards, and old buildings, a mansion house by the line with its neighnbouring chapel. And the wonderful views of the gorge sections before it was time for me to alight and promise to see the guys anouther time. Now it was about 8pm and I got a table in the restaurant and order octopus, Polvo, and a wild boar stew. I was advised not to take large portions by the waitor! The octopus was tender and amazing, i dont know their technique but it is far from the chewy " interesting" set up we get at home. A shame to eat them maybe but they are plentiful in many areas still. The wild boar was a bit bob bob to be frank, fårekål like sections, a lot of bone, some few good bits of meat, a lot of picking and varied taste. It was worth trying, but hmm, not that cheap a cut again. I did though order a nbottle of the loccal wine, I had got in touch with them iupon advice from the hotel for a tour of the winery. It was 30 euros, but hey, that is a local wine. At 14.5% and a rich, malbec flavour and body it was good to support the local growers and splash out a bit. Dinner was something like 600 kr including wine. The winery came up trumps the next day Refusing the unit

Douro Fantastico! Porto Tour! The First Evening

There was quite a threshold for this holiday. I was doing it "solo" as t'internet users love to call it now. On my todd. No attachments. My erstwhile GF hadnt committed despite offer of payiner her plane ticket. So there I was. The first holiday "abroad" on my own, with no friends or family to meet me, for 26 years when I came to think of it. I was very nervous about it all, and felt such despite the internet, in fact because of the overload of info and the nature or bias'es of info marketing wars. At the same time, you can get a much better feel as to where places are and what the district is like, the way to walk there etc. But it isnt the same as a good old paper map, which had a solidity to it. I think zooming and the info overload make phones a bit flimsy, and also you feel vulnerable with your x hundre quid priceless possession and connection to the world waving around for passing muggers to see. The scale stays the same on a printed map, so you get a better feel for distance often. Anyway, hotel #1 was booked down town Porto. It looked a bit of a ropey area outside from Street View. I was nervous about the driver, was he decent? A dodgy crook? Would he turn up? The plane route was a bit weird. We flew down over south land and exited Norwegian airspace maybe at Farsund or the like. Sea and clouds Then the French country side in late afertnoon sun and over biscay. We then flew past Porto and northwards over the city, which is apparently a frequent route, I think the last time I flew I sat on the outside but it is Starboard out you should book to get the vista of the city as the plane enters its final approach to OPO Wow. There she blows! The city which had impressed me was there spread out in the sunset looking amazing, the ribbon of the Douro curving up like a dark snake , with those wonderful bridges strung over making the town and Gaia side seem two halves of the same beating heart. After a delayed flight and 40 mins wait for baggage I had to wait more for my driver. But low and behold a bit of a thin, slightly deshevelled man appeared at Starbucks He was very friendly, but drove like a nut. By this time it must have been seven thrity , eight o clock. We had major diversion round Gaia, but then we descended into the ancient part of the south bank, following narrow cobbled streets and passing countless Port wine bonds. The hotel took a little of rangling with Pin code to get in, but wow, it was beyond my wildest expectations. It was classy despite being up a shabby side street, and only 2 mins from the main Sandemans experience, cable car, Dom Luis bridge etc.... And it had a pool on the roof! I was glad I had brought a secret dram with me, but once showered ventured out for a beer or two. Returning to my room, in the excitement I had forgotten my PIN for the room, and had left my phone inside. Somehow I remembered it. After shower and shift I headed out to try and find a really cool little side alley we had driven along. There was a string of bars there, and it looked like many locals drank there which meant , yes, nicer stuff and communication with the real people and not the usual crappy tourists and banal conversations. I compromised after a 15 min tour, and it was getting late. I dropped the red eye train for the 0920 ex Sao Bento, but that meant getting up at 0730.So I stopped at a less generic tourist trap pizza place on a Y junction just really where the tourist stip starts to think about getting going, but it was stylish and warm enought to sit out in shirt sleaves I Elected to have a last beer in the rather shabby cafes on Rua Cuindad dos Reis there I was living. The staff were nice, and the interior belied the plastic furniture outside. It was bit too well light. Back to the hotel then having only met a couple of waitors, and a business group and advised them on food. Where shall we eat, do they have a table for 6. Gubber kjerringer, and a token babe. Tired, slung together for a work " jolly" with thaht slight boysterous intensity business types get when off the leesh of the conference room. I felt like both a seasoned traveller but also jamais vu! back to the hotel and a final swm and chat up a woman from strasbourg who was having a relax on the balcony there. It was a whirlwind, but also I was able to take it all in MY own way, I decided, I met people and didnt have my uncertain or contrary woman friday with me. It was suddenly all very be-freeing. How I did wish she was there, but also, now I was on my own adventure

Was it the Wilson Stains or the Thatcher Breeze Block Universities?

Was it the snobs at Oxbridge who saw 'stains' of the Harold Wilson as devaluing the whole Unversity system or was it Thatcher and her Breezeblock universites?

The cynic in me writes- what use a university degree?

Well Wilson's children who went to the 'red brick' universities got to lick the cream of a rapidly growin economy in the majority of the seventies and the need for better qualified managers, administrators, technocrats and engineers. They got their choice of jobs, often without a vocational degree, and managed to hold onto their career paths while my generation fought against downsizing and delayering, and ended up what we are - lost and up to our eyes in debt.

I take my Mr Average five career changes now out of necessity to have a local job. Most of my friends have ended up in something they didnt study for, alhtough the entry often did require that bit of paper. Financial advisers, accountants, jobbing General Practictioners, personnel managers.

If you take all the arts degrees and life sciences, then really you can look at a degree being a bit of a waste of time, in light of the fact that very many have done a masters in a vocational subject or significatn training and extra studying on the job to pass professional exams like financial advisor or within insurance or other areas like IT. Management and economics degrees fair better, while those sought after IT graduates are actually the new assembly line grunts and only in demand so that there is over supply!

The 'professions' and real engineering fair much better out of it all, with the working class lad or lass made good a very true thing for my generation. Now that is evapourating a little at least.


Career wise for my school mates and fellow graduates, well it has been reaching middle age and not even in what used to be middle management, We are coal face 'managers' with the baby boomers our line bosses until death do us part.

I am just a little resentful, but I have no debts from my studies what so ever. Imagine being a decade younger and laden with all that, and exposed the the UK or US rentier economy, where you basically need to take out more loans just to rent your life and keep moving on the career ladder? It is that bad for some, those without rich parents.

That is the clue. None of my compatriots had parental networks. The old boy thing disappated for a while, to then reassert itself even more insidiously and politically too in many organisations. Little hand picked fascists. We never had power and influence, those who came after us realised that it had to be fought for tooth and nail, as did their 70s urban upwardly mobile parents too. The formula for success changed, not what you know , but who you can influence!

Neuro Needs A New Name..

Neuroticism has a bad press.

Without people being neurotic and doubting and questioning, we would never have allowed science to take us to the moon, nor offer our own destruction in a single war it has to be said.  Being concerned that things are not going to go well and need further work and investigation holds back the exceesses of flagrant abandon and 'it will sort itself out'.

If you read Fredrants then you will know I am a good old neurotic yet extravert. But the name has a negative connotation which is most unfair. It is there with the picky, insecure old maid, or the over protective mother, or the ball breakingly pedantic boss no one likes, or just losers in general. But the reverse is true. Many people who suceed in their chosen fields, esepcially science and technology, or in furthering other professions like law are what you would describe as neurotic, but dont have the failings of not being able to act upon their doubts, concerns and questioning.

It is in fact linked to creativity and great achievements. Self doubt is in the picture of course, because we neuros dont soak up praise very often, in fact we are invariably suspicious of praise, However we may well seek approval and recognition, we rarely are satisfied by it. There are some crowning moments when we bathe in accolades, because in fact neurotic people are often the most successful. Why? Because they dont accept things the way they are!

In this Am'Science Article the author gives an amazing, candid and easy to read summary of the extravert-introvert, stable-neurotic type axis and shows they are not really truly mutually exclusive nor are they always polar.,

But back up on they write. Neurotic people, or a branch of them, do indulge in risk tak,ing behaviour. They have an internal angst, a dissatisfaction which they have to exorcise in the real world of people.

So when I was wee, I was bashful. I would run in and grab girls breasts as a three year old when my brother had visits, much to embarresment and amusement. This type of crass behaviour continued, even including meeting my spouse! I had to kind of strike out at the world to see if it moved, to feel I was engaging with it, to overcome my own massive inhibitions with some seemingly uninhibited outbursts.

This now explains me as I reach old age at a rapid pace it seems, just over the hill of life really, Yet it also confirms I am damn right about my career choice and hobbies and so on.

I have learned my way out of the crassness and attention seeking because of so much negative feedback from being like that, I have meta inhibited the angst driven routes to overcome my deep inhibitions.

So I go well tooled into the last third of my career life and the second half of my fatherhood and the last half of my entire life quite well equipped with self knowledge and some tools.

For example, I never did get shy people and thought they were just boring. Nor did I understand that life is full of bullies, idiots with no doubts and that they are looking for weakness in others all the time to make up for their emptyness. Now I get shy people and am prepared to stick my chin out and laugh at or with bullies.,

So Neuro is a bad old label, We could be called Pedantos, or Questionos, We are seekers who never find quite what we set out to look for. Some of us are more social and extravert, some are more seclusive and shun company. But it has to be asked are we first neurotic worriers whcih brings us foreceably out of our shells in trying to resolve the angst of being locked up alone?

Certainly I lack some of the socialk antennae skills which many people have, and I worry about things, and even avoid eating the peach.

Recently for example I decided to stop being crew on boats and go back to more helming. It is a tough decision in one way - I have to turn my back on an interesting bunch of folk. But there is no point in hanging on to it if I want to practice helming and being in command of a vessel! You have to just eat the peach if it is there for you, and I got loaned a boat.

Also at the weekend I decided to stop worrying about a lot of job related things and just said fuck it, I will get something better and I will just tell them that I am highly competant in my profession. I know I am, I have been battling demons in only my own mind. I just dont get on with everyone or fit into very admin heavy specific jobs.. So yeah, I have been fired and I have resigned but I just have to grab the bull by the horns inow and say, fuck it , I am really good at this but hey guys, here are my shortcomings and I will have it in writing that they are accepted and taken and not to be used against me in a review.

Life goes on then to get better because I have a stonger self assertion, and can work on or around weaknesses of being the way I am and reacting to the world the way I do. So I cans stop crassness, develope shy friends, and realise that me being a Questionos as I would prefer, makes me a little superior to those who take things at face value or rush in.

In many ways I feel now wise, almost 50, and suddenly wise.

FODMAP - Keep It Up!

If I have done one thing for my health in the last five years, then it is the low FODMAP diet.

I am just going into week 5 and i can say it is good to be a little constipated a few times a week, to be honest after years of bad old jobbies.

Apart from splendid stools of solid substance, I also have a better satiation at dinner times, all less hunger pangs ie longer 'satiety'.

The clues have been there for a very loing time, way back before I had a nasty dose of presumed campylobacter way back in 1995.  When i was training a lot in cycling and mountain tours i would do huge logs before or after, and often struggle to eat enough energy to keep going. I was basically avoiding dairy products and strong coffee from cafetieres or cuppachinos, a double bad.

I put on my first big weight gain around the same time I got food poisoning. My appetite got bigger and i started getting the pavlovian munchies with beer which i hadnt had before. I exercised less, drank more. 15 stone. Then by 1996 I was 18 stone. That was three stone in two years. I had been around 13 from age 16 to 24, and that is thin for my height and build.

I was a bit of a beer monster in those years, it has to  said, but I really didnt drink more than many of my thinner buddies. I did eat a bit more and was less satisfied with ordinary portions.

I only lost weight in 1996 by some pretty hefty training and dropping of beers to just a few a week, and a couple of chinese starters as a weekly treat. I was miserable too! Edge of hunger for months on end.

I put on a bit of weight back on the summer of 96, with sailing being 5 days a week usually a beer of an eve' there with of course. Then I lost weight again when living in a B&B , pub dinners and only an hours walk or swim each day. Something odd was going on!

Beers and big eati in 98 -99 and despite a lot of exercise some weekends, i was by 2000 at a massive 20 stone.

Back to the gym and i was down to 18 snd quite muscly but still a peristent beer gut and w worseing 'toilet habit' with several visits a day, stress jobbies and intermittant constipation. The need was often and what came out varied.

Once again, big mountain tours and big bars resulted. I thought maybe my cuppacino habit was to blame, but in fact it was my healthy eating which was in part to blame, with piles of fermentable fruits and sulphurous onions and garlics on top of my frothy coffee dependency. Off these and especiaøly milk and red pasta dishes, and i would normalise and reabsorb obviously a lot of water.

I started getting bloaty days back in the early 2000s when my gut and side wings seemed to be extra wobbly, often during sport. I should have maybe connected this with losing s lot of fluid in my stools.

Now thisnhas changed, dramatically. Week 1 was awful, lots of diarheoa dribbly crap, but after that , hey presto. Onions and more than a glass of full lactose dairy and i am back to square one.

At week six i can start reintridocing food types to see how i get on, but also i am a bit inspired to diet. I stead of bread i have been having half a packet of crisps with lunch or as a snack when dinner is going to be late. I do allow myself a small dose of wheat, wholemeal per day.

All because i happened to listen to a BBC radio 4 inside health on the issue, and knwew it couldnt hurt to try, since rice, potatoes and a small amount of oats are all allowed !

For more serious IBS then i guess it may tske longer for the 'flora of the gut' to rebalance. For most of us it means no return to some foods which are triggers, like lactose milk products.

Talking Shit...FODMAP diet three weeks on

  More talking shit then.

Let us get the dirty stuff out of the way, shit lovers, haters, proctologists.

For years and years I have had variable loose, runny shit, pelllety shit, fruity smelling shit, irregular shit, three times a day shit, uncomfortable must shit now shit, farty shit, and the odd bit of constipation amongst this. Also I have a decided issue with appetite and losing weight, being about three stones over where I should be or about 20kg.

As in the last blog, I never ever saw the link between a day in 1995 when I bit into a burger to find it stil frozen in the middle and had a bad dose of food posioning as they call it, most likely campylobacterial in basis. After that time I started to put on weight and certainly my appetite altered.  In 1996 I forced myself to do a lot of exercise in the winter and spring while unemployed and working part time. I used to work out at the gym with aerobic 20 mins to half an hour some weight training, followed by a mile swim in the pool and then I would walk home. I crept down in weight a little avoiding beer and maybe having a chinese take away once a fortnight. I was miserable and had an odd kind of hunger. I lost maybe 3 kg in 3 months and started to put it back on.  I Some years later with a relatively high level of activity in 1997/8, i lost very little weight at that time too, and I really eat pretty normally. I did put on some muscle in these three years with weight training, but my trouser size of 34/36 went soon up to 38 by 2000 and has kind of sat there ever since, with the gut being a bit tighter sometimes than others on the waistline.

A couple of years ago, or maybe longer than that actually, I started to notice that my middle aged spread went up and down. I could get quite bloated during exercise or after of course meals, but a while after. I thought back and could remember feeling very flabby during long tours in the mountains. Ah, maybe I was retaining water. Well as Billy Connolly says, " Retaining Pies and Pints of Lager"  more like. I eat well you may say, and I drink well. In fact though, I do quite a lot of exercise too. However I did put this all down to just my roaring appetite, and that a two week shift to cutting way down on extras, beer, wine and upping exercise from 4-5 hours a week to 8 hours.

I did the latter and felt that I was a fair bit healthier for it, but old summer shorts were dug out and were just as tight as the last time I tried them, and also those photos of me in a tight grey t-shirt!  Flabby. But a beer gut and odd, high side wings around a pretty solid guy who exercises a lot. Then I heard a BBC Radio 4 science programme about FODMAPS, and thought well there could be something in this. I have essentially a mild IBS or abnormal bowel behaviour as you read above. I dont have pain, just lots of trips the loo for #2s and discomfort with urgency you could say. So what the hell?

Now I am three weeks into the low FODMAP diet - that is avoiding fermentable oligosaccharides, and some di- and mono-s too. According to some researchers into the Gut Biome, our bacterial populations are severly disrupted from that which is healthy by too much of in particular, fructose and lactose in our diets. There is then an extended list of other saccharides and the sulphurous onion family is to be avoided.

I found a list on a pdf from a reputable source, with recommendations for daily intakes of low and medium FODMAP foods. Basically it sticks around what you might expect. In essence it is a gluten free, very low lactose diet with avoidance of those smelly farty foods like cabbage, onion and garlic. In fact there are some recommended daily 'doses' of the bad or medium bad stuff too. In the table it is not fully clear though on some low fodmap is how little of some things you may be allowed to eat.

It meant not such a huge change in fact, the biggest things being cereals, fruit juices *apart from some tomato- and of course, the biggy here for Norway especially,  bread. Ok you can have gluten free bread and cereals but they are a bit mediocre. One thing which is allowed is a bowl of common or garden oat porridge, which is a saviour, although without the dried fruit I prefer. Oddly sucrose and glucose are ok in the scheme of things, but not in large amounts. Apples and pears are out, bannanas and a small amount of milk chocolate is in. I use lactose reduced milk and the odd expensive lactose free milk, both of which are long life incidentally which is handy.

Three weeks in? Well a week in I noticed the difference, I had four days of very diarrheoa like stool followed by a little constipation and then more ordinary stools there after by in large. I kept on checking my menu in the house. Some more things went out.

Things went well then. I felt less bloated too, and also I started to notice I was more satisfied from food and a little bit less hungry in general. Stools getting by in large bigger and better, a little hard occaisionally. And once a day's worth you may say, more if it was a little constipated and I gave up pushing.

Then in week 3 we have national constitution day in Norway, and I said, what the hell,  patients had talked about ' lettiing loose' once in a while. The day is an onslauight of refined wheat and most of all lactose. Ice creams all round,  at every opportunity and cream cakes, and strawberries and cream, and coffee with cream for once not black.Also we had our traditional beef cakes made with onion and bit of garlic, so it really was a test. Right enough, squits and more trips to the loo for two days.

After three days of being a good boy, and moving to lactose free milk, I was back to better stools and less trips to the loo. My appetite is lower and most of all I feel I can avoid the daddy dreadful eating up what is left because it is less than a portion for anyone tommorrow, or eating up after the kids refuse one more bit. I do get hunger pangs and then there is  no biscuit to take them up, just bananas which in moderatioon of up to three a day, are very low FODMAP friendly apparently and good for fibre and potassium.

I feel now that I can concentrate on actually calorie counting because I am less hungry already and hope that some of my flab was indeed water retention due to a disturbed gut and years of excess fluid excretion. Energy is up and down a bit, especially week 2 was tough but going into week 4 it seems more normalised.

What is stil naughty? Well portions of dinner were a very, very big issue for me, and that is reduced. Also snacking or need a starter is reduced. But because I can eat crisps, potatoes are way ok, then I do, so that has to be cut out. But I feel empowered by a new, natural STOP sign on my appetite.

Now by trade I am actually a molecular biologist, which included a lot of biochemistry and microbiology , so I will have to look more into what fermentation reactions are being avoided and how the bacterial population balance is maybe being achieved, out of interest. For you dear shitty reader with IBS or working out but not losing weight nor appetite, a low FODMAP cant really hurt anyway- consult your doctor of course disclamier discalimer.

When I was a kid, there were very very few folk who were on gluten free diets, while lactose was a minor issue you heard of once in a while. We just arent supposed to drink cows milk really, lactose is not something we can metabolise or readily digest,. Bacteria though can metabolise lactose directly. There have been studies which show that cows milk can actually lead to opiod biproducts which would certainly explain some of my drowsiness in the mornings post breakfast. Between lactose and Casein, cows milk just isnt for us in the amounts we consume it in, and a mixed diet with oily fish and vegetables can supply enough calcium. I still eat cheese which is nearly all low lactose, because those said bacteria consume the sugar in producing cheese after most of the lactose is actually seperated away in the whey from the protein rich curds.

Our western diets are an odd cultrually influenced mix of foodstuffs which reflect mostly our farming heritage and supply chain which provides infact, if you look at the figures historically and relative to family incomes, extremely cheap commodity food, and very affordable small luxuries. IBS is a very major cause of ill health and sick leave in otherwise healthy living people, and as with myself being a little atypical in not having pain and discomfort, but typical stool disruptions, are going under the radar and possibly building up problems for the future.

Talking Shit, FODMAP Crap that is

After sitting on the shitter while shitting out a shit, I came up on a ditty as you should

I realised that in fact I have been shitting out bubbly , fruity craps for years and they have become the norm instead of a once a week annoyance. I have in fact a form of irritable bowel syndrom and I can trace this back to of course me getting a dose of food poisoning from a frozen in the middle burger up in Aviemore in 1995. I was ill for months with it and had to go on a simple lemonade diet and semolina for weeks, but in fact I never recovered

It can be said that about the same time I started to put on a lot of weight, but it can also be said that I was partying more and cycling a lot less, while retaining my appetite from that, Howevver it still has to be said that from 1995 to 2000  I put on loads of weight in successive bouts, losing some maybe in 96 and then 97, but after Ireland just getting  a bit big and tittied, I was a bit cgubby for years and then only thin with the stress of moving to norway, which may actually be a fact that the new water and gut bacteria thing here helped me get thin

Research in this area has been poo-pooed a bit, pardon the shitty pun, Many dieticians will point to the solid fact that obese people eat a lot more and a lot more fatty and sugary foods, than ordinary BMI folk, However I am quite active and dont eat all that much more, and have tried dieting and atkins without a lot of success, I have varied from 108 to 122 kg for years now,

I did say fuck it all, so what, eat and bevvy and as long as your heart rate is ok and your waistline doesnt get bigger than 40" fuck it, I am healthy, Only I am not, I have an acid reflux problem which has come back and I have irritable bowel witout the pain, just the bloating and potential water retention and tendency for something worse to develope,

I heard about FODMAPS, fermentable sugar species not that long ago and how they are thought to generate the symptoms of IBS by altering the proportion of the bacteria in the gut to a fraction where disease is the result. If these fermenting bacteria were doing somethign else then? Making more simple sucrose or actually starving the body all the time so that it on the one hand stays hungry while on the other hand it lays down fat in contemplation that starvation may get worse?

I will have to see if my theory is borne out in any of the research, but it has a nagging little ring of truth to it. I find that my appetite is bigger now and I am not as satisfied with my food,.

Or rather I did because now I am nine days or so into a low fodmap diet. I have gone for the near total exclusion of gluten and lactose as two prime culprets, but aslo a pile of other things like pears and apples. I allow myself a couple of rye wheat crackers with lunch most often and the odd white flour based thing if I am on the move or ;rude not to; sitiuation., The first few days I had diarheoa, but that I think is to be expected. Suddenly the bugs used to nice fermentable mono, di and poly saccharides are starved, and kick up a fuss as they maybe die back, while others caused commotion, After a week though I was down to a little hard stools but much more even shitting it has to be said, although I am only a few days into that.

I wonder also if this has affected my energy levels for years too, I have been up and down this last week or two but before that I was often vapourised in the afternoons and mid evenings, only to regain a kind of high later on in the evening to my annoyance. Perhaps all that sugar fermentation lead to a sugar rush, or perhaps I was a little drunk on alcohols produced from the fermentations?

It is recommended cutting drastically down on coffee which I have not yet managed, but my bowels dont seem to be going at 100mph like they used to, Often I would be shitting three times a day at the worst times.

It isnt a drastic diet, and I have allowed a major unhealthy thing in - chocolate. The key carbos are oats, bannanas, rice and potatoes, so you cannot go wrong there. Fruits are limited it has to be said. All meats and fish which is not processed is admissable, and simple sucrose is also ok. It is glucose and fructose you should avoid apparently, they get more easily fermented in their basic form rrather than the disaccharide made up of the two. 'Corn syrup' is very high in fructose and it is used as a sweetener increasingly this side of the atlantic, having been long established in the USA. 

Wheat starch, gluten and lactose are the other big evils and you hear more about this generally with food allergies to them a bounding in the under 30s. I wonder then if the big change in the generations from eating potatoes as the staple, to eating more pasta based dinners and more auxilliary dairy like yoghurts and refreshing drinks are a big cause for the jump in IBS? or was it one of those diseases people didnt bother going to the GP about before, or just it wasnt in the media? My dad had some form of IBS< but that was in part from poor nutrition and a shrapnel injury during WWII.

Historically sucrose, glucos and fructose have been very low constituent parts of mans diet, as can be seen from the evidence of tooth health in ancient remains through to the early 19th C, where after dental caries starts to predominate in autopsies.

I would like to feel more satisfied with my food, have less in between meal hunger attacks, have less bubbling down there are generally reduce my appitite while increasing my exercise levels a bit. This diet now is going to stick for the forseeable,. when you can then reintroduce slowly and to a lower level, some FODMAPS and see which ones in isolation by reintroduction, really kick you off. I am a lot less farty and have regular solid stools for the first time in years, while also going to the loo lest often for those no.2s, I have still attacks of the tireds, but now I felt today that my hunger attacks were much abated. There is probably a pyscho somatic thing there two, which is good, because it will keep me off snacking and help me push trhough to the controlled portion meal times, which is my next challenge in terms of taking this further and losing some weight.

I am trying to do 8 hours exercise a week, although our 57' N spring is doing its worst to get in the way of this. I kicked this all off with what turned out to be the biggest day out in the hills for well over a decade for me, and it went very well, a couple of concentration exhaustions that was all, on a perfect day bar the huge patches of snow we had to wade through. Health is important, and you cannot ignore an long term altererd bowel issue and just carry on regardless. The same with mental health, sleep, aches and pains, that bad back from sitting in the office too many hours, and of course finally kicking smoking or three nights a week down the boozer. It is never too late and it is not that huge an effort for the benetfits, particularly if you involved more exercise. For me that meant upping my 4 to 5 hour a week to 8 hours , not always making that target, but that being there and much higher, so that I get an average maybe of about 5 or 6 in reality over a month.

If you are lucky your GP or dietician will know now about FODMAPs and the exclusion diet, and I have no doubt that this will be first line treatment for IBS because there is no other proven treatment so far, apart form perhaps faecal implants *repopulating the microflora from another, healthy person" or a total antibiotic kill back followed by what would be effectively the same FODMAP approach more or less., with a simple diet building up until you hit a trigger foodstuff. IBS is very disabilitating in its moderate to severe forms,  with people being embarressed to go to work, on the one hand, while on the other hand being in so much pain and discomfort they take their own lives. I have done that dastardly of anti intellectual, stupid society things and self diagnosed myself but of course there is really no risk what so ever, beacuse the low FODMAP diet is really very healthy and probablyy lower calorie in the course of a day. I could say that taking multivitamins is a good idea because you do miss out on a lot of fruit in the first six weeks which are super low FODMAP weeks.

If you have IBS< or are over wieght, or have unusual variable bowel movements, or are too thin, or suffer from sudden tiredness with no other symptoms, then give it a  go, the low FODMAP but also of course, disclaimer disclaimer, visit your doctor for advice,.

Career Advice -Addressing the MSc Masters in Marketing from Strathclyde UNi

It has been a long time since I blogged about career advice for graduates from Strathclyde Uni's MSc Marketing, whcih I completed myself back in the early nineties.

There is a good reason for that - print media falls away, PR has changed to sound bite and fakish news, and online digital is a different beast from where even I was 7 years ago when I last worked in it.

So detailed advice on career paths is not something I can advise on, and unlike the old tweed jacketed fuddy duddies who worked in careers services 25 years ago, I am not getting paid for this, and you can take it or leave it as more general advice!

From hard, bitter experience and on the other hand many high points and having met a lot of sort of Euroyuppies, what do I advise now?

1) Get on the Ladder And Jump Up Rungs on The Ladder Sooner Rather Than Later

A thing I noticed was that a lot of people I met in marketing from around 2002 onward, had a recipe for success. Nearly all had treated their first graduate job as initial work experience, and bailed out pretty early if they were not on a Blue Chip career path internally. Even then they had moved up asap.

I always was under the impression that you had to get a year on the CV, but that is really wrong. Now more than ever what you need to be doing is looking for the opportunity to advance your career in its early stages before I would advise strongly, settling down for 3 to 5 years work at a company. I have been stung several times, even as a grey haired old timer, by accepting jobs to keep me in work, and then finding out that they were not as committed to me as I was to them, and being left in the lurch.

 I was at the executive job club on St Vincent Street twice in the 90s, both times asking to be on it after just a couple of months unemployment. There the leader said a strange thing i thought was very odd or off-hand at the time - " When you get a job, keep looking for other jobs". He obviously knew even then in the mid 90s that work was a lot less stable for those coming new to the market and those getting a little long in the tooth on the unemployment statistic. The point for you is that there is always going to be a better opportunity for the vast majority of graduates sitting in their first, often rather tedious job they think as a good career step. Get the Hell Out of There if you can get something which works better for you!

Looking for the opportunity means yes applying for other jobs, doing plenty of open applications to while in a job, and getting used to doing this. In the UK especially, the disposable, project telated worker is a thing which is spreading upwards in society as the entitled boss and owner classes can use the minimal legal requirements and treat staff even in intellectual value added positions, as a commodity, or as something whcih can be hired in and out. You should be very aware that companies expect on the one hand loyalty and hard work, while on the other they will dispose of you very rapidly when they see that there can be some 'down time' or a chance to stress the organisation and get higher productivity with fewer staff.

Opportunity also means conversely to this last statement, being open to running with the ball of new projects to taking new career directions. It means a deal of networking, which just means circulating yourself a little and asking people about their work, their companies, their needs for solving problems and completing tasks. You should I think take the option of something like project managing a new building or working as a quality manager in high tech if that is there for you for some reason. You need then to see what the opportunity is and how your personality and abilities could match it, rather than thinking within a small box of job and marketing. This goes internally and externally to where you work.

2) Relocate

This is the big bug bear for many folk from Scotland. We love where we come from and we hate the idea of working in the big smoke, London and the SE.

Basically unless you have a first class honours from your previous degree or a job in Scotland is tailor made for your combination of BA/BSc and MSc, then you are up against huge competitiveness in the market for marketing jobs. Nepotism is rife in marketing and Scottish private business, so if you don't have that on your side, then you are competing with folk that do.

When relocating then, dont think of London and the SE as all bad. I actually love the area, but then again I only ever stay in Hotels or with friends it has to be said. It is highly expensive but there are solutioins to that and in any case if you try hard.

Dont forget that the Manchester - Liverpool area is home to a lot of major brands and on line retailers, and in fact is only 3 hours from Scotland on a sunday night.

It took me five years of temp jobs and rubbish in Scotland to realise that I didnt' have a nice unique combination of qualifications which was so very sought after, and I was competing with old school ties, positive discrimination for women, nepotism and uni' hack networking. I moved to Manchester and never looked back, had a fantastic time. After two and a half years I had my pick of jobs and was able to move from mostly trad' marketing over to internet projects in 1999 at the right time for this.


3) Get Blue Chip on the CV

It is very hard to get into many blue chip organisations in marketing, because they often have a weird formula for success which has nothing to do with marketing qualifications. Quite a few major brands recruit only from Oxbridge and take people like English graduates who were in the debating society or so on. However it is worth trying and worth re-trying again with open applications etc. Here you can take that personnel are actually very often your worst enemy, they are gate keepers, You are far better networking your way to bosses in marketing.

It can be hard for MSc graduates to use sales in corporates as a way into marketing, as many want long term sales people to build "strong and stable" customer relations over many years, or very dedicated go -getting career sellers. However it is not that hard either especially if you can combine your first degree in terms of what you offer a company.

Also you don't need to work directly for a Blue Chip orgainsistion, you as a marketer may find it easier to get a job with an agency who deliver marketing services,  or be in sales and marketing in a quality supplier to the Blue Chip customers, and be able to put those names in what the job was about.

Blue Chip names really help your personal branding and make you shine. But there are alternatives in the career route.

2) b)   Choose Gazelle Companies and Sunrise Industries

This is a very fruitful approach, but you can get burnt by bankruptcies or buy outs and down sizing as a result. Gazelle companies are those with high growth rates, often explosive growth but investors refer to them as those with growth in top end sales of over 20%. Very often they dont advertise positions other than senior administrative management, because they are known in their industries and attract talent via open applicaitons and networking.

 This is because they are very attractive to work for . Very often there are new internal opportunites for more interesting jobs and promotion sooner than in lack lustre blue chips, who are always on the look for 'right sizing' and subject to the knives of merger and aquisition butchers. Gazelles are tommorrows blue chip companies, just look at Apple, a quirky home computer company which now is the worlds highest valued corporate!

Sunrise industries often have many companies who are not on the Gazelle listings you may find for your region or industry. THis is because many of them are in the start up and cash-burn phase rather than actually creating revenue. There are hundreds of app' boutiques, programming away for that next giga-app for mobiles for example. There are the biotechs, there are the nano materials, there are the AI companies. These can be risky to work for, because they run mostly on investor monies , burn capital, and so can have the rug taken out from under their feet and be forced to down size, But they are tommorows Gazelles and nowadays they are often run by people who truly want to build something and not just sell out once they reach a milestone or threaten the market leader.

These are great for the CV, and if things are going a bit pear shaped, then you have a good excuse for getting out when you go to other interviews.


2 c) Go Ugly Early

I have had a good few bosses who have indeed worked for 'blue chip' companies as managers, but not the type of glamerous FMCG ones you might expect. They have worked for faceless industrial supply or finanical services companies, or been managers at lesser known suppliers of marketing services or other supply in the bigger blue chip supply. In effect they went ugly early, they took a management career route in what externally seems a very dull company, a name you see by the motorway in Birmingham or a sign on the main industry area in Slough.

People management skills are actually quite few on the ground because so many companies are delayered. Many product managers these days have no line management resposibities, no longer do they have a 'gofer' assitant PM. Managing a department takes good people skills, which can be honed out in an area with smaller egos perhaps in a less glamerous company before you  move over to something a little more sexy shall we say.

3) Get Super Qualified

Dear MSc graduate, you need more  education I am afraid!

For movement into mamagement then you need to have better than that poor old one year MSc. An MBA is still a ticket into management, and the MSc counts towards units for Strathclydes programme last time I checked. Very often you will find yourself being managed by non marketing qualified bosses who got an MBA and decided they liked marketing best.

A part time MBA is also a good networking opportunity even if you take several years to complete it, or defer it a year or two and so on.

In a technical area from your first degree or perghaps a route you find yourself in, it can be worth doing further on the job certification or just as many courses as you can. Many marketeers end up on different careers because it can be a bit pyramidal and hard to get a management position as a marketer beyond product manager or say PR manager.

In the period of transformation from Trad' Marketing to Internet, I realised I was missing out on skills and knowledge in a lot of meetings, and had pathcy kind of IT knowledge. I did some training while working at the Uni in 1996, but also applied for the reknowned MIS (management for information systems) at Stirling Uni with a view to becoming more of a project manager than in marketing, and earn a lot more at that point in time at least. I deferred entry for about four years in a row because I would have to have funded it myself and gave up, but it would have been an excellent career boost for me at a time when the market for skills was changing rapidly.



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Marketing is a very, very competitive career to get into and you will be surrounded often by very competitive people who can have rather sly ways of winning internal trophies and battles. It is a great career, interesting and varied I found. However dont' be precious with it, if you get an opportunity to be a manger in a different direction, or retraining internally as somethign which pays well, then take it.

I have made the jump over the fence so to speak into supply chain management, which for a marketer is going ugly late ! I still need more courses and certification to really get on, but enjoy it a lot more than I expected and as a middle aged man now, find that the tasks and ways of managing things, and not least the people and their attitudes to suit me quite possibly better than had I stayed in marketing.

Careers are about two things I think - committing to a route and then being opportunistic to get the best pole position to advance your career, and not being sentimental about jumping jobs or relocating.