Sex, sleep, eat, drink, dream

Believe it or not, King Crimson released a single (what were they thinking?) in 1995, called “Sex, sleep, eat, drink, dream”. The song was from their album Thrak. This YouTube clip (link only as embedding has been disabled) made by a mad German lets you hear the song, though unfortunately you don’t get to see a performance by Messrs Fripp, Belew, Levin, Gunn, Bruford and Mastelotto, the celebrated double-trio incarnation of the band.

Last week the Economist published the slightly related graph above (click on the image to enlarge) showing how many hours a day people in various OECD countries spend eating and drinking (vertical axis) and sleeping (horizontal axis). There is no mention of sex or dreams, though these may occur during or after the other three activities:

Enjoying a leisurely meal or just getting enough sleep can seem like luxuries. But not so in France, where people spend more time dining, imbibing and snoozing than anywhere else in the mostly-rich countries of the OECD. Americans also get a lot of shut-eye, but (fond of fast food) probably suffer indigestion along with neighbouring Mexicans and Canadians. South Koreans and Japanese reportedly survive on an hour's less sleep than the French.

We can take pride in the fact that New Zealanders score so closely on both measures to the French. All we need now is something like their sense of style.