Why do some small things give us so much pleasure? Tidying up the desk, putting on new socks or changing the washing-up sponge, all seemingly insignificant and yet capable of providing us with an immense sense of joy and satisfaction.

In this week’s podcast, we discuss pleasure. We ask why we routinely undervalue the things from which we derive pleasure, if we spend too much money on big things and not enough on small things, and whether the removal of pain is the same thing as the manifestation of pleasure. Nick also outlines his taxonomy of pleasure generation. Finally, we discuss the most prominent predictors of happiness and share our own memories of sheer bliss.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• The Sun surveys Britons to find the top fifty ‘simple pleasures’
• What correlates with happiness and life satisfaction?
• The World Happiness Report
• What government interventions improve wellbeing?
• Velten et al. (2018): Lifestyle Choices and Mental Health

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg, Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing Nick's new frying pan. I haven't been this excited in a long time, Nick. Let's hear all about it. Oh, it's joyous. Did you go cast iron? Has it got Teflon? No, I know everyone is like cast iron pan mad, but having now tried to cook an omelette for about a year and never successfully having got it out of my pan, I decided to go for a non-stick, I'm afraid, but it was a Le Creuset, so it was preposterously expensive and extremely good. And at the same time I got one of those spatulas, those silicon spatulas that these chefs use and it is an absolute joy. It's so nice. You move the eggs around and they move. You push them and they move. They move to where you're trying to make them move. They don't just sit there. And they don't fall apart. No, it really is a life changer and now I can make omelettes, I can make delicious fried eggs without having to scrape them off. This might sound rhetorical, but it's not. How did anyone do fried eggs before? I think the problem here is you. We've got some old non-stick, in inverted commas, I'm doing air quotes here, non-stick frying pans, but the non-stick has, over the course of about 20 years, lost its non-stick character. So now they're basically stick frying pans, especially when it comes to eggs. And it really made me think, well, you know, this was not, it's not cheap, a Le Creuset non-stick frying pan. We're talking above a hundred quid, right? But it is bloody worth it. I mean, I'm going to have that pan for, I'm going to have that pan for, you know, 20 years, more. Don't put it in the dishwasher. So we're talking about, you know, a five for a year for what is essentially a flipping brilliant frying pan. And I just, the joy of being able to do that is so easy. It's so nice. And it just made me think, well, look, do we spend, like, that's not very, not a great deal of money. If you think about the length of the frying pan will be in your house. Do we spend too much money on big things and not enough on like the small things? So how the little pleasures in life of having a nice frying pan, you know, do we, do we neglect them too often in pursuit of things like a new car? Brilliant question. Yes. I was about to say that's a, it's actually quite a lot to spend on a little pleasure, but it's, as you've explained, really, it's not really, if we compare it to like a house or a car or something, I mean, the obvious, the obvious direction at this moment, it seems to be to ask each of us, what's the one small thing in your life that, you know, has really changed things for you? And then I guess we can launch into the, I mean, we could do that at the end, but let's do it now. Okay. Chris, you look like you're ready to leap out. Well, not really,

not, not especially, but I'm, I'm, I'm sort of picturing Nick's, Nick's eggs floating around his, his, his frying pan, like, like an air, air hockey table or like a super, super conductive.

That's exactly what it's like. You tilt the pan by, you know, half of a degree and all of the

eggs all slops down. It sounds brilliant. Yeah. And I would, I would say that, um, I am with Nick on having, we've also, um, well, actually we, we inherited some, uh, quality frying pans from my, from my mother and they, they are revolutionary and, you know, decent frying pans are so much better than not decent frying pans. The gulf in, in quality is, is, is huge and it seems very undervalued. But if, um, if I were thinking about, uh, something that I paid quite a lot

of money for. Hold on, before you do, I want to hear more about these pans that you inherited. Are they Le Creuset type things? I mean, what is it that distinguishes them? Yeah, I think one is

a Le Creuset, um, uh, sort of nonstick thing. And it is, it is literally that, that, um, things like omelets or, you know, um, pancakes or whatever that, just the way they, they, there is no issue about, you know, turning it and. It must turn it into a much more relaxing cooking experience, stress-free. Yeah, but it's better, it cooks better quality. The pancakes kind of, um, they just cook more cleanly across the board. You know, you get this, this real sort of

distribution of the heat and so on. Out of interest, what kind of pancake are we talking? Is it as kind of American style? Oh, not an American, a Le Creuset style. So let's hear, sorry, I interrupted you. You were going to say, well, this is what we did.

There's a recent purchase that I made, which, um, isn't, isn't necessarily a sort of utilitarian one. So it's not like, Oh, that's so much more, but you know, the functioning of it is so much better. But it was a pair of, um, a pair of trainers. Um, so I bought a pair of, um, Vans trainers, high tops. Um, and they basically, I bought them because they reminded me of the Marty McFly trainers, except his aren't actually high tops. Everybody thinks, Oh yeah, you know, you picture Marty McFly running around in high tops, but they're not. Which one? Back to the future or Back to the Future 2? Yeah, Back to the Future 2 is obviously, I think where the, where the, the confusion comes in because he's got those, um, those future, future trainers, but, um, so, so yeah, but I bought them and, um, I've always been like, I used to hate sex in the city or rather I used to hate that whole ethos around it of, you know, um, the, the, the kind of cult of shoes, you know, and I thought this is just preposterous shoe, you know, especially shoes that are not practical or comfortable, but I've now sort of got this pair of shoes that I get a huge amount of pleasure from just sort of looking at on my, on my feet and just, you know, it's totally

true. You know, they're like, are you wearing them right now? No, no, these are Vans, but these are not, these are not the ones. I must say you're looking quite natty. Oh, well thank you. Yeah, no, those are, are they quite new, those shoes? Yeah, I bought them at the same time. I went,

basically I went into the, I went into the Vans shop and, and the, and the guy, yeah, there were these like four teenagers in the Vans shop.

Did they say something like, are you here to buy shoes for your grandson? No, they were, they were all like, you know, ogling these, these shoes and, but the, you know,

the, the, the shop attendant basically just sort of kind of was, you know, keeping an eye on them, making sure they weren't stealing them, but basically ignoring them. And then I waltzed in, you know, and he was like, he was like, ah, I think I know just the shoes for you.

Chris, are they a little young for you? Oh, undoubtedly. And that's the thing. It's like,

you know, you sort of think you look at that guy in his, you know, his open top car with his leather jacket on and his Ray-Bans and you think, well, I'm never going to be that guy. And then I was like, oh yeah, but these things are, are brilliant. Maybe I could be that guy. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that was, that was me, my Vans high tops.

Nice. Peter. So yeah, this is a concept that's not new to me. I've, I've, I've been a bit, a big fan of what I call sort of small real life pleasures for a long, long time. But I, my, the scale of mine, I, it goes down a notch even less, even further. So, so a really good example is when you've been doing some washing up and you sort of suddenly become aware of how scabby your washing up sponge is. It's been, maybe been in service for a couple of weeks, a month. And it's, and it's looking a bit tired. So you, and it's such an easy thing to do is to have a stock of them, but you can buy them in sort of 20 at a time. In shops, in shops. In shops, you buy them in shops. I buy mine on Amazon, but I get them in lots of them. But then just changing the sponge revolutionises the washing up experience and makes it so much better. I feel happy just hearing you describe it. Yeah. So, but other, other examples are like finally, you know, like washing the windows or something. So you could suddenly things become clearer or a big, I'm a big fan of wiping my sort of working desk space. So I sort of get a wet rag, wipe the monitors, the keyboard and clean it.

And those are, those are sort of tasks, aren't they? Or those are like existing items or things that you have improved. Well, I've got a bit, a bit of an autonomy. Which I think is, is similar to why we like, you know, it's touching on the same kind of thing as why we like a really good product. Yeah. Yeah. Because wait, wait, hold on, hold on.

Other recent examples, purchase wise. Because so far it just sounds like really mundane, boring stuff that you enjoy doing. Because I do a sponge. I don't enjoy the lifetime. Yeah, exactly. It's hard, but so the cleaning, like cleaning windows, don't necessarily enjoy doing it, but the result is fantastic. For the cost. The cost of doing, yeah. But being recent purchases, so, well, relatively recent purchases. So I, I tend to go through, I go through periods of standardising my socks. Oh God, what have we let ourselves in for? One thing I hate doing is the, I don't mind hanging up the laundry or putting the laundry on. The task I hate the most is putting the laundry away once it's dry. Okay. And the thing I hate the most about that task is pairing up socks. Yes. So, um, I'm due for a bit of a refresh soon, but I tend to buy, uh. I wonder what that smell was. Big bolts of socks. So I'll buy 200, 250 quid's worth of socks. What? At once. That is more socks than anyone could. Yeah, but they, but they. That'd keep you going for all your life. I buy a few pairs. Do you bin all the other socks? Yeah, and then bin all the, all the Gabby ones. So that, so that all my socks are then the same. So there's no question about pairing. You just pair. Ah. I remember when they brought out these socks about 10 years ago with the colored. That's what I have. That's what I do. Yeah. And, and, and the argument that they made was, well, this makes it easier to find the pairs. And I was like, but you'd only need to find the pairs because you put stupid different colors on them. Yes, exactly. Like, why can't I have an orange toe and a blue toe together? In the old days, they would just be black socks. So my strategy is I go on a sock scout and I buy different types of socks, try them out for a few months, see which ones I like the most. And then take them back to the shop if you don't like them. Well, no, just, just, they just go into like the junk socks collection, which is heroic obviously. It's a skip. It's a skip. So now I have settled on a mate and a style of sock that I like for basically everything. I will now go and buy maybe 10 pairs of that sock. And that'll do me for five to 10 years. Okay. I mean, we're, we're just so unsurprised, aren't we? Um, yeah, it does seem very Petery. It's absolutely spot on.

I've got to say socks though are, are another item, like putting on new socks. I, I, I sometimes think if I was a, you know, gazillionaire that I would just have a new

pair of socks every day, every day. So I, I have, um, I've got some data. No, but I want to talk about my favourite thing. Oh, go on then. Okay. And you're going to like it as well. All right. By the way, socks, I, I have many pairs, but for about 11 months of the year, if not more, I never wear socks. Actually in December, I don't wear socks. In your little village in Guatemala. So listen, you're going to like this, Nick. So I do have a small thing in my life, which gives me an enormous.

There's no way to talk about your wife.

No, so you're going to like this. Okay. I, I was here once in a podcast recording. Okay. And you did something that made me just go, yes, I like that. Right. I'd love to know what it is. What it is, out of your pocket, you got yourself, um, an extendable back scratcher. Okay. And he's reaching for one and there it is. Yeah. And he started scratching his back. Exactly as you're doing now. Okay. Now I often get quite an itchy back. Okay. And I saw this and I thought, yes. And that same day I went onto Amazon, um, and I bought myself, you get something like five for a quid or five for a fiver. And, and if I don't have it with me, but I take it everywhere. And in fact, if I'm going away for the weekend, I will, there's only at least two things that I make sure I've got to have those two things. And it's toothbrush and a back scratcher. If I got my back scratcher with me, I am happy. Okay. I love it. Well, I'm very pleased about is all of these examples fit very nicely into this taxonomy that I've developed and bear in mind that this is primarily anecdotal, right? Because there's not really data on what people get find pleasurable. So you have to do things like look at, um, Reddit threads called what's better than sex and stuff like that. But having looked at a number of these now and boiled them down, I think we basically there's, I think there's basically five things, right? Which, um, are, uh, the stuff that people consider to be essentially either cheap or free or just, you know, relatively easy to get pleasures. And they are, first of all, sleep. I can't boil it. I can't put that in another category. It is simple as that. As humans, we need to get some good sleep and people love a good sleep. Um, second physical relief. So this is where the old scratching an itch comes in, right? But also a really good wee or a good poo. You know, we've all, we've all been there. You know, that there's that line, isn't there? In Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, where he says, did you ever take a shit? Which made you feel, feel like you've slept for 10 hours, you know, um, and, uh, you know, or, or a good, uh, you know, good sneeze. Um, you know, after, after you've been wanting to sneeze. So there's that. But also things like a cold drink when you're, when you're feeling hot or a nice meal when you're hungry. Um, but also I would put into this category, the removal of a painful condition. So, uh, you know, I get surgery or you get that, you know, the tooth, uh, out, which has been bothering you or the, um, you know, in my case, I'd go for micro suction for my ears every six months and it's wonderful. They get rid of, well, they get rid of the wax by sucking it out with a hoover. And it's like, this was a thing. Joyous. So then I would put all, almost, uh, I've considered putting these in the same category, but I think they're different, which is sort of strategic life level relief. This is quitting a bad job or quitting or getting, or, you know, dumping someone, uh, who is annoying or, um, you know, uh, or, or one of the key ones, this crops up all the time on these lists, something that you're dreading gets canceled, you know, meeting you really don't know how to go to is canceled or, you know, it was wonderful. But also having, you know, removing the sort of financial worries about, about things, you know, getting rid of essentially removing a sort of dread. I think all of that boils into removing dread, removing an annoying, mentally annoying, whereas the last one is sort of physical. This one is sort of mentally annoying things get removed, um, finishing stuff. I think I would put, I think I'm feeling really relaxed now, just listening to this and having a house cleaned, but also doing a task. Just simply getting a thing off your to do list is a really nice feeling. And finally, um, is freedom. Uh, now I, into this category, I would put some diverse sounding things, but I think they belong together. First of all, going to bed after a hard day, knowing you don't have to get up the next day. Um, uh, going home, playing a computer game, raining outside, a patter of rain on the windows, nice music playing, uh, or driving down an empty road, possibly in the South of France with some music playing, uh, you know, that basically freedom, like I don't have to be anywhere and I can do what I want. So there we are. So just to summarize, sleep, freedom, finishing stuff off and mental relief and physical relief would be my five things. And then we can talk about what, what our strategy should be, like how, what we could recommend to people. What's a good way of getting one of those things. Hold on. Where does our things like our back scratchers and pans fit into all this? Physical relief for that one. And in the case of a pan, I would say I'd put it into the relief category because it's basically removing a nuisance. The nuisance being my eggs were sticking and they're no longer sticking. And it's like, that is exactly like scratching an itch to me. Maybe it should be like strategic life stuff though. It should be in there. Change jobs. Should we do more of that? Unless of the, you know, buying a new sponge, but it, but I think, I think it is interesting if you think about it before we move off.

Yeah.

Basically. I think a lot of the things we talked about actually come down to removing a nuisance. Yeah. They're not, Oh great. This pan is brilliant. And that takes me up a level. It's very much. I'm now in the pan club. I used to be annoyed by eggs and I'm not now I'm not annoyed by them anymore. And that feels like a relief to me. So I want, I'm not quite sure where we're going with the discussion. Do you know what? We've been talking quite a while already, but I'm really enjoying it. I want to hear from Chris and then Peter, take it whichever way you want to go.

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking this idea of sort of, you know, whether something is removing a, an annoyance or increasing a pleasure. I, I feel like that's almost, I haven't explored it mentally, but I feel like that's almost a false distinction in, in, in some way that the, you know, pleasure is, you know, it's difficult to think, well, how much, how much more unsticky could my frying pan get? But you know, is that improving things? No, it's, you know, it's, it's not. But I sort of feel like the absence of, of pain is, is in essence, the kind of the manifestation

of pleasure, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're on, they're on a spectrum and it's. I'd definitely rather remove a pain than have pleasure. But they're different though, because sorry to interrupt. I have, I would like to venture, especially as there's no women here who've had amongst us who've had children, right? I would like to say, I think I've been in more pain than anyone in this room. Because you've had a baby? Because I have had, no, because I've had so many accidents and one of them, you know, my arm's broken really badly. And my point is this, I think there is a difference because I remember thinking and lying in a world of pain and thinking, you know, once this is gone, life is going to be so good. And I'm, I will forever appreciate not being in pain. But the reality is, of course, is that when it goes away, you just go back to your normal grumbles and stuff. So I think there's a difference between not having pain and experiencing something that's pleasure.

Yeah. And I suppose, I suppose the other thing is, is about sort of perception. And so if you're, you know, if you're searching for, if you're searching for value, you know, you probably want to find the things that, you know, if you want to find your simple pleasures that you can, you can afford and that are going to give you a disproportionate pleasurable effect or, you know, disproportionately remove discomfort. You want to find the things that, that are particular to you that aren't to other people, you know? So you want to sort of look for, like Peter and his socks, it might be other people don't get as much pleasure out of socks. So Peter can, you know, buy his maximum amount of pleasure in that field because most people, you know, aren't sort of, aren't interested. Yeah, aren't sock orientated.

But for me though, it's the absence of the pain in the bum of Perry. You're wearing your socks in the wrong place, by the way. Yeah, it's the, it's the pairing issue is a major driver for me. Yeah, but I think I'm also the, of having socks because I hate cotton socks because they're always uncomfortable. Um, so nobody buy me socks, please, for God's sake, don't buy me socks because I will just not wear them. It sounds like you've got enough to be honest. Um, yeah, but it's like having a nice comfortable pair that I can then also just have the convenience of not having to worry about pairing them when I'm. Yeah, yeah. Silk stockings. Just by the way, I wouldn't have normally brought this up, but you've got some sort of logo or something on the bottom of your socks, Peter. Yeah. And also, so those need to be paired. First of all. Second, this is. He might have another 200 identical. Yeah, but presumably the text, does the text, there is a left and a right. No, these aren't. These aren't. These aren't left. What do they say? Danish Endurance. Yeah. These are nice merino sports socks. And by the way, for late September, as we record this, it's really hot to be wearing socks like that. Anyway, I'm getting to. I've got a sock theory, which that's not a podcast. Another podcast, I think. Peter, are we drilling into what makes happiness happen or are we just talking about socks? Well, I think the interesting thing from your analysis, none of those sort of pleasure centres, pleasure taxonomy centres. Generators. Generators are about owning a thing. That's right. They're not like, oh, nobody says, oh, buying a new iPhone makes me extremely happy. Yeah. And none of them are about sort of like social notoriety or being famous or anything like that. And they'd be saying, oh, I had my, you know, my Instagram video went viral and therefore intrinsically happy as a result of that. It's all about just sort of, as you say, removing displeasure. I mean, so is the implication that we ought to spend more time removing? Well, as I said, you know, I think this comes down to kind of removing nuisances primarily. I feel like that's the first thing to do. Should we spend more time doing that and less time trying to be, you know, YouTube influencers and stuff? Yeah, new cars, holidays.

This is where the distinction I feel sort of is difficult because maybe, right, anonymity is the displeasure. Right. And fame is the removal of anonymity. Right. But or you could say, well, they're chasing, you know, they're trying to go up a level, you know, that I don't.

Yeah, I see why it's problematic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, if something is, how can you tell what's the difference between really wanting to do something and desiring to remove the desire to do that thing? Right. So, you know, if you want to be famous and you're not, it feels like a pain. Yeah. You know, I'm sitting here bothered by this weight of not being famous. So, you know, becoming famous is the removal of that weight. I agree. Well, look, do you want to know what actually makes people happy? I do. But before you do, I mean, we need to start sort of moving towards a conclusion. Well, I was about to do that. Brilliant. What makes people actually happy, right? What does the evidence suggest? Tricky because there just is not the data for, you know, people are happier if they have tidied up in the kitchen before going to bed. There isn't that kind of level of data. But in general, wealth and health are like the two big predictors of happiness. You can explain most of happiness with those two things. But also learning stuff, becoming more skilled at things seems to, now that could be because it leads to wealth or health. But, you know, there are those things, being employed and doing something useful, creating stuff, just having a job. But the environment seems to be quite important as well. So, you know, having, and this comes down to Peter and his clean windows, I think, you know, living in a place that is orderly and nice seems to be a predictor of happiness. Another key thing is social inclusion. Yeah. You know, being involved in social activities. So I think I'm veering towards a strategy here, a life strategy. Yeah. And I would say it's this. First of all, remove small nuisances at little cost. But also, if you can do that in a way that promotes one of these drivers of life satisfaction, even better, you know. So if waiting for a bus annoys you, just walk. It's only 10 minutes walk, for goodness sake. Do that. And then that's going to help you on the health front as well. And physical activity also driver of happiness. So I think that's it. I think, you know, a cheap way of making your life better is to remove nuisances and try and do it in a way that gives you one of those things. That's the kids kicked out. Well, yeah. So I've got a question that I want to ask, which actually ties in nicely what you just said there. However, before I do, any last comments, anything to say?

I was just going to say that I'm quite interested in the commoditization of happiness, but particularly within objects like purchased objects, you know, and that actually that sort of pleasure may in part not be related to the quality of the thing itself. So if you look at something like, you know, wine tasting or food tasting in general, you know, our kind of working assumption is that the flavor is in the food, right? The flavor is not in the food. The flavor is kind of caused by the food, but is generated by our brain, right? And so, you know, this act of sort of buying something expensive and supposedly nice tasting in and of itself contributes to the nice taste of that thing. It's why visual inspection of wine is... The first taste is with the eyes. Exactly. Has an influence over the flavor. And you can, you know, you can tell people about, you know, you can influence people's perception of flavor by, you know, preloading them with information.

And it's nice to read the label. Yeah, my rule with wine is I only buy bottles of wine where the label looks like an invite to a party I would go to. That's a good one.

But my point is that essentially by buying something that is supposedly better quality, just that act in itself helps create some quality and some pleasure within the object. So, yeah, you know, it's an argument for going out there and buying stuff.

Yeah, quite. Peter, anything to say before my question? Um, no, I just, just that the, the, the, the kind of delayed pleasure definitely works. So I wouldn't want to replace my sponge every day because then I wouldn't, I'd miss out on the... You wait till you're on belly on air and you'll be getting a sponge every minute. Even then, because I'd miss out on that sort of step change in quality from a scanty sponge to a really good one.

And that comes back to your point about like the more displeasure you remove, the better it is. And maybe it's, you know, it's more satisfying to save all that.

Not actually. And I'm sorry to just string this out, but there's actually evidence very much in support of what Peter's saying in that people's improvements. So we know that the level, for example, of wealth is a key driver of happiness, but also improvements in wealth improve happiness more than, than just the level of winning the lottery. Right, exactly. So I think Peter's, what Peter's suggesting is that you need to string it out over a long period of time. There's no good just buying, you can't just buy one really good sponge every year. But at the same time, you don't want to just always have a new sponge. In order to enjoy that improvement, you've got to string the improvement out over as long a period as you can. So I think a new sponge a day, it might be the optimal, but we'll find out, we'll test that. I think, yeah. You can't have a good sponge without the evil sponge. Yeah. Yeah. What is, you know... But also how evil do you want it? Okay, question. Yeah. I want a moment from you, a moment. I want a moment where you, where not only were you happy, and it was probably a sensory thing, right? It was probably a sensual thing. But not only a moment where you were just in bliss, okay? But you realized that you were in bliss, right? I want you to think about that. Okay, I can give you that. Go for it. Yeah, I mean, it was about five years ago, we were going on holiday in Switzerland. And it had been a very long drive. And we finally got to Switzerland, to our place where we were staying, which had a swimming pool. And it was pretty luxurious. It was an Airbnb. And it was, they had like an ice making machine in the bar. Wow. There was a bar in this place. Yeah. Awesome. But we got there, very hot day, immediately removed all my clothes and jumped in the pool. Yes. And it was like, this is how life should be all the time. Of course, if it was like that all the time, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much. Exactly. Exactly. Peter or Chris? Yes. So mine is a removal of pain example. So I've got terrible back problems that go back many years. And a more recent problem I developed was after a terrible mountain bike crash. And so I had a big crash and I probably nearly killed myself, actually, but I didn't. I developed this sort of big, what felt like a big sort of rock in the middle of my back, top middle, so between the shoulder blades. Jesus. That built up over, of course, about two months. Yeah. Just the tension in my neck and back was getting worse and worse and worse. And I was seeing a physiotherapist and it sort of suddenly, one session suddenly got much better. Yeah. And he was doing a bit of manipulation and a bit of stretching. And I just, the thing literally clicked back into place. Something clicked. And it hurt like hell at the time. But instantly after, it was much better. I feel relieved just hearing it. Yeah. And since then I've been able to sort of reproduce that kind of, when it starts tensing up again, which it does all the time, I can, there's some floor exercises I can do and sort of force a gentle click and it just is. Well, a lot of people say that, you know, you never do anything that might risk back pain because it will dog you for your entire life. Having suffered from it for 20 odd years, back pain is a real... You would probably, if there was a magic wand that you could wave, it would be removed the back pain. Forget about the billion pounds, the back pain would come first.

Yeah, that's true. It's true. Yeah. Well, interestingly, if you, apparently, if you ask people to remember a happy memory, a lot of the time they will come up with something that involves being outdoors, being with friends and it being in their childhood. Those are the three sort of things that people often conjure up in a happy memory. So with that in mind, I think one of the things I...

It's when you were on your own. Yeah, when I was on my own in a cellar as an elderly man. That was brilliant.

Yeah. None of those stupid children around. No, I remember an occasion as about, I don't know, an eight or nine year old having a backy on somebody's bike and going through these trees and it just being like, you know, we were totally out of control and should have been terrified, but it was just... It felt alive. It felt alive, exactly. It was just that sense of like, this is brilliant.

Uh, you should smash the like button with your very expensive frying pan in a slapstick comedy way.

Indeed you should. Thanks for listening. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Peter Coghill, Nick Hare, and Chris Wragg of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.