There's no such thing as a free lunch...Or is there?

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It's official. The next president of Indonesia is former army general Prabowo Subianto. Quite how the next five years will pan out is anyone's guess but hopefully the foreign pundits who always bring up his dodgy human rights record will be proven wrong. Nonetheless, on policy making, Prabowo's popularist move to literally offer the poor 'a free lunch' every day of the week does not augur well for the future. Such a policy - if it ever came to fruition - would cost a phenomenal amount of money and likely lead to huge inefficiencies (food waste) and poor incentives (make people lazy). Another concern is Prabowo's strong nationalist bent. Thus, in the possible event that he finds himself with his back against the proverbial wall in the face of stern economic challenges, there is a big chance that he will simply scapegoat foreigners. But he will have to be careful. Construction of the new capital city, Nusantara, for example, is highly dependent on foreign in
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Running around Wembley Stadium (the wrong way)

Being a bit bored with the fitness center I thought I’d try something different at the weekend and go for a real run instead of running on the treadmill like I usually do.

But where do go?

Not the streets for sure: I don’t want to get run down by a bus.

But one good place in central London is the magnificent Wembley Stadium.

But I’m not alone at the stadium – there are plenty of other runners there as well.

And guess what? Like in every other country in the world, everyone has chosen to run around the stadium anticlockwise.

Just to be different I run the other way. It isn’t that busy, but one other runner tells me “You’re running the wrong way around the stadium”.

“Why is this the wrong way?”, I reply.

He doesn’t answer.

I’ve tried to find out the answer on the internet but to no avail. My guess is that it’s got something to do with the left and right sides of our brains or something. Or is it that we are conditioned to run this way from watching professional athletes run this way on TV? If anyone knows, do let me know…

Comments

  1. Anonymous3 April 2012 at 06:30

    You know, I do this too and I don't know why. I've only just started running around the stadium and I run anti-clockwise too. I've never really thought about it though. I remember thinking it was a bad idea during the winter because as soon as you start seeing asda around the curve, the wind was crazy painful! I'm going to go the other way just for fun now!

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