No pain, no gain.

George Soros, one of the most successful stock market players, revealed one of the clues to his knack for earning easy money in a BBC interview this week : his backache.

His son explained that his father knew when to invest because his back pain guided him. Soros gave a more interesting angle. He reckoned that when he was in a quandary about what shares to buy and sell this stress was reflected as backache. So the pain was actually psychosomatic.

So much for the mind / body division.

Tom