An external stimulus such as music can actually block some of the internal stimuli trying to reach the brain such as fatigue-related messages from muscles and organs.

FORBES: Best Workout Playlists For Summer

The best hope now is that the European Union, the world's biggest trading block, seizes the baton of free trade from America something Sir Leon Brittan, the external-trade commissioner, boasts it has done already, for instance in last year's financial-services and telecoms trade deals.

ECONOMIST: Creeping protection | The