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Never Listless
The Top 3 of almost Everything

Hello

This week I bring you …
The joy of being a guvnor,
Expansive barristers,
Green tights,
Nuclear-powered humans and
The smallest shorts ever seen in professional sport.

Welcome to Never Listless #4.

Andrew Weaver
https//3ology.fun

(Personal)
My Weekly Top 3

1. The Guvnor

I have become a Guvnor.

Not the Paul Ince model. Nor the Guy Ritchie standard.

But a School Governor, which I’m pleased to report, involves no shouting, shooters or bodies bundled into the back of an S-Type Jag.

Instead, my first meetings have left me in awe of teachers and their dedication to the craft.

As a feckless student who emerged from the chaotic state education of the 1980s with barely a GCSE to my name, it’s given me long-overdue respect for a profession that every day has to handle 100’s of kids with wildly different abilities, ambitions and circumstances and give every one of them a fair crack of the whip.

2. The Barrister

I love a good barrister.

Having spent eight years working with and for one of the UK’s leading Barristers Chambers, I was lucky enough to see up close the fluency and precision of the most effective advocates.

Which brings me to Paul Gilroy KC.

Anyone following the Manchester City saga and trying to navigate the knee-jerk, ill-informed punditry emerging from a million podcasts could do far worse than listen to him calmly explain what might actually happen next.

Clear. Precise. Persuasive. No manufactured outrage required.

Every other piece of “analysis” should be viewed through the lens of his articulation.

Watch this episode of The Overlap and go straight to 54:20 for Barristerial insight.

If interested in taking a deeper dive into the minds of high profile barristers I recommend “Inside The Case” - here is Michael Mansfield KC talking about the Jill Dando Case.

3. The Snorkel

Despite living in this age of the ubiquitous camera phone, there really are some moments that don’t need preserving.

Before I tell you why, an admission. I have previous for wanting to avoid the intrusive iphone.

Early 1990s, living in Melbourne, I briefly worked as a waiter at a themed American restaurant and being the resident “Pom”, my theme was Robin Hood.

And so it was that I worked my eight-hour shifts, in green tights.
Thankfully, no photographic evidence survives of a role that hasn’t made my Linkedin profile.

This week I found another reason to keep a low profile.

Designed to improve cardiovascular fitness, I began using a training snorkel which can best be described as inelegant.

Thankfully, no cameras are allowed poolside.

(Sport + Fashion)
Top 3 Sporting Greats with
Questionable Fashion Choices

And whilst grappling with my newly acquired breathing apparatus, I started to consider which sporting legends achieved greatness, despite rather questionable fashion choices.

Here’s my Top 3.

1. Cathy Freeman - The Suit

Sydney 2000.
Home Olympics.
Almost unimaginable pressure.
And local favourite Cathy Freeman emerges in a full-body hooded “swift suit”
before taking gold in the 400m.

Unsure about the fashion choice,
Convinced by the legend.

2. Andre Agassi - The Denim

Andre Agassi and Roger Federer met each other 11 times - for the Tennis nerds,
Roger triumphed 8 times.

But the real missed opportunity was to see them meet across the net during their fashion low points - Agassi arriving on centre court in his denim shorts, alongside Federer in his mincy white jacket.

It’s a very close call but we think the Las Vegas mullet wins it on a lack of tie break.

3. Australian Rules Football - The Shorts

My final choice is an entire sport and a particular era.

Aussie Rules in the 1980s.

A turbulent decade for Australia’s national sport as budgets became tight, but not as tight as the shorts.

Enormous, frighteningly athletic men were playing one of the world’s most brutal sports in shorts that made your eyes water, just fitting them on.

Warwick Capper, was a poster boy for the sport, and for the shorts, with the added benefit of sporting another Las Vegas mullet.

(Technology)
Top 3 reasons
to celebrate the unsung pacemaker

The pacemaker has always been an underappreciated contributor to human performance.

When Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, he had two pacemakers — and, aside from niche pub quizzers, nobody remembers either of them.

Four years later, a very different pacemaker was implanted into a human being for the first time. This week marks that anniversary.

At a time when we worry about technology taking over our lives, here’s one that has been quietly saving them for almost 70 years.

Time to celebrate the pacemaker.

1. The Prototype Lasted Three Hours

On 8 October 1958, Arne Larsson became the first person to receive a fully implanted pacemaker. It lasted around three hours, another start up example of fail fast?

But a replacement was fitted the following morning and Larsson has lived another 43 years, whilst receiving more than 20 pacemakers along the way.

Not a bad outcome for a product whose first version didn't make it to lunchtime.

2. The Nuclear Option

Early pacemakers had a problem.

Battery life.

So in the 1970s, medicine arrived at an admirably uncomplicated solution:

Put plutonium inside people.

This was some 40 years before the Russians decided that putting radioactive material inside people might have other applications.

In the pacemaker’s case, plutonium-238 could provide power for decades, reducing the need for repeated battery-replacement surgery.

It worked — although having a radioactive power source inside a human being does make eventual disposal rather more complicated.

3. The Heart That Powers Itself

And the strangest chapter is still being written.

Researchers have developed experimental pacemakers capable of converting the mechanical energy of a heartbeat into electricity.

Early prototypes have generated around 10% of the energy needed to stimulate the next beat. So after decades of batteries, wires and even plutonium, the ultimate power source for the pacemaker may turn out to be: the heart itself.

A machine powered by the thing it is helping to keep alive.

There’s something rather beautiful about that.

3ology at play …

This weekend we stopped promoting, and started playing with a fun game alongside neighbours.

Lots of great reveals not least the zero points gained by one husband who failed to name any of his wife’s Top 3 ice cream flavours. I suspect he was asked to sleep in the spare room last night.

This week, we’re taking 3ology out of the box and into the real world, hosting our first 3ology Social Quiz Night at David Lloyd in Acton.

With the snorkel safely hidden, feel free to iphone away.

To purchase copies of 3ology and/or find out my Top 3 ice cream flavours …
check out the new 3ology website

Read our earlier newsletters

Never Listless #3 : Scottish Shortbread, Ways to Spot a Liar
Never Listless #2 : Reasons I Love About The Dutch, Autumn Equinox
Never Listless #1 : AI Features You’ll Find Useful, Hanks by Hanks

Never ListlessThe Top 3 of almost Everything

The Guvnor, Expansive Barristers, Tight Shorts