Terry Jones

I don’t seem to need to sleep as much as some. I’m perfectly happy with 4 hours a night, can probably go indefinitely on 6 hours a night, and anything more is just cream. That’s not to say I don’t like sleep. I love it. I’ll happily stay in bed for 12 hours if I feel like it. I think I’ve been like this my whole life – my parents told me that when I was a kid they’d just leave me in bed awake when they went to sleep. My son is perhaps also like this, he never wants to go to sleep – though he’s often determined to sleep in.

When I’ve slept 4 hours, I don’t feel impaired in any way. I’m happy to then get up and work 16 hours – certainly not as efficiently as some people, but that’s just me, it’s not because I’m tired.

So I always wonder about sleep advocates who insist that all humans need 8 hours of sleep a night, or else. It feels like a conspiracy of people who really do need that much sleep, trying to stop those of us who can work much longer hours from getting ahead.

After all, have you ever heard that you really need to sleep 8 hours from someone who only needs 4 hours a night?

I didn’t think so.

Large passenger planes have two aisles. When leaving the plane, the right hand side always moves much faster than the left.

I think this happens because the door is on the front at the left and at the moment when the two lines meet the people coming from the right side have some momentum up, they’re going straight ahead, and they don’t need to turn a corner and merge to get off. The people from the left side have to inject themselves into this stream. Everyone is tired and maybe the people from the right are less inclined to politely let someone in from the left.

Whatever it is, the effect is pronounced. On some flights the right side will drain completely while there are still dozens of people left on the left. I’ve watched this many times. I’ve asked a couple of stewards, and they agreed but hadn’t noticed or didn’t know why.

Random thought for the week.