Tuesday 5 October 2010

Annual acorn-falling day

There are a couple of events by which I see the passage of the year. For instancde, the period in the spring when the sun shines through the right hand study window and I can't see the computer screen between about 9:00 and 10:00 (and the corresponding period in the autumn) Or the first day on which I see the constellation of Orion before bed.

One other event is the first day on which our oak tree starts to shed acorns - that is today. The oak tree is about 20 metres from my left hand window and as it remains warm enough to have the window open, I am disturbed by the constant sound of acorns falling. Peak flow this morning was about a dozen a minute, but finally I start to play music loud enough to drown out the sound.
Two years ago, when crashed out in a motorway service station in France in August, I saw Orion just as I was getting going in the dark at 5:00a.m. Now that completely confused my sense of the passage of time.

A quiet morning as I am on trading duties this afternoon. I have learnt from experience that to over do it in the morning has a very bad effect by 9:00p.m. Current reading, Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational - a light-hearted look at behavioural economics. Hopefully William Poundstone's book on the Kelly Criterion for gambling systems will arrive today from Amazon and provide this afternoon's reading.

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