Motoring to work this morning - heck, if I'm going to fork out the big money to get the thing fixed, I might as well use it - an idle thought popped into my head: wonder how my biorhythms are today? Been a while since that particular synapse had fired; no idea what chain of associations set it off today. Below is half-inched from a web page:

Interpretation of the above bar chart (that a histogram?) from the web says:

• physical: your efficiency is high - use it!
• emotional: back down, if you can; avoid contacting people you have plans with, because you won't make the best impression
• thinking logical? no problem! just finish the pending tasks in time so you don't have to do them when things are worse

Back to basics - there are three rhythms of differing lengths: physical is 23 days, emotional is 28 days and intellectual is 33 days. They start at zero when you're born and intially head upwards. Your emotional wave, for instance, peaks at 7 days, then dips down, goes from positive to negative after 14 days, and is at the bottom after 21 days. Then, although still negative, up it comes again to be back where it started once 28 days has elapsed. Get the idea?

Since they vary in duration, on any given day, in theory, you could be up physically, down emotionally, and up intellectually. Like me today. I suppose that physical and emotional speak for themselves, while intellectual is meant to govern your sharpness and decision-making skills. Although you might think it must be worse when all three are negative, attention is paid more to when any rhythm crosses from positive to negative or vice versa. Those are the days to stay under the covers.

Sometimes I'm up
Sometimes I'm down
— Serious Drinking (not sure of the track: Jeff's borrowed my CD)

Of course, like Henry Ford's history, it's all bunk. Look no further than other titles in the same Amazon sub-sub-category of Mind Body & Spirit, Thought & Practice, Disciplines & Techniques:

• Indian Head Massage: Discover the Power of Touch
• How to See and Read the Aura
• Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs

I learned about the subject yonks ago, and even had a chunky paperback from a guy named Bernard Gittelson full of anecdotal evidence — "has helped airlines to avoid crashes" — plus charts to calculate your own highs and lows. We didn't have no PCs back then, our kid. Which brings me nicely to...

...my O-level Computer Studies class, where each of us had to devise and code a medium-to-large BASIC program. I was ahead of the game, and chose biorhythms as my topic. Can't be sure what went wrong: too ambitious? Too lazy? Either way I struggled badly, so much so that when Mr Fairweather had to select three projects to send to the examining body to demonstrate top, middle and bottom of the class, mine was bottom. As Morrissey said, I can laugh about it now but at the time it was terrible.

Be seeing you!

Ed