III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
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THE ADBUSTERS
CANADA
Advertising is Brain Damage
by Nathan Adler
July 30, 2007
.As global warming deepens, and a somber, new reality sinks in, people are starting to ask some uncomfortable
questions: Why am I being told to buy a new car a dozen times every day? Why am I constantly being urged to
splurge on myself ‘because I’m worth it’? Why, in this ecological age of ours, do we need a $500-billion
industry telling us thousands of times each day to consume more? In the affluent West (where 80 percent of the
global ad dollars are spent), don’t we already consume enough?
The industry is trying very hard to ward off this kind of thinking. Al Gore was given the rock star treatment at
its annual bash in Cannes this year. Young & Rubicam ceo Hamish McLennan, recently told the New York
Times: “The consumer sentiment out there is just palpable . . . we have to change the way people consume.”
MTV’s slick new campaign, created by six of America’s top agencies and slated to be shown in 162 countries,
is all about “environmentally friendly lifestyle choices among youth.” The copy on their web site,
MTVswitch.com, reads: “OK, so we like to consume – that’s fine – Switch isn’t here to tell you to start hugging
trees and become an eco-warrior – although it’s fine, if that’s what you’re into. Nah, all we’re here to do is ask
you to make little changes to the way you consume. So small are these changes that you won’t even notice
them.”
Andrew PeatMeanwhile, an even more ominous threat to the industry is looming: People are starting to blame
invasive advertising for the stress in their lives. A few of generations ago, people encountered only a few dozen
ads in a typical day. Today, 3,000 marketing messages a day flow into the average North American brain.
That’s more hype, clutter, sex and violence than many of us can handle on top of all the other pressures of
modern life. So, to avoid the stress, the invasion of privacy, the information overload, the erosion of empathy,
people are switching off on ad-infested TV, magazines and web sites. There are also fledgling movements now
to tax ads, to ban them from schools and even cities (see “São Paolo: A City Without Ads,” later in this issue).
The fun image that advertising has traditionally enjoyed is now giving way to a much darker picture of
advertising as mental pollution. As more and more people make the connection between advertising and their
own mental health, the ad game will be changed forever.
2
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
It's in his face
August 15, 2007
Australian pop singer Peter Andre was second behind American actor and rapper Will Smith as the most attractive, or
masculine, among a list of 10 male celebrities selected at random.
Australian pop singer Peter Andre was second behind American actor and rapper Will Smith as the most attractive, or
masculine, among a list of 10 male celebrities selected at random.
A man's face shape appears to be a crucial factor in determining how attractive he is to the opposite sex, a study has
found.
Researchers at Britain's Natural History Museum have come up with a simple calculation to measure a man's sex
appeal based on his face.
Museum paleontologist Dr Eleanor Weston said the distance between the lip and brow was probably immensely
important in determining attractiveness.
"The evolution of facial appearance is central to understanding what makes men and women attractive to each other,"
Weston said.
According to the research, men have evolved short faces between the brow and upper lip, which exaggerates the size
of their jaw, the flare of their cheeks and their eyebrows.
At puberty, the region between the mouth and eyebrows, known as upper-facial height, develops differently in men
and women.
But, unlike other facial features, the difference cannot be explained simply in terms of men being bigger than women.
Despite being bigger, men have an upper face similar in height to a female face, but much broader.
Weston studied 68 male and 53 female skulls, dividing the distance between the brow and upper lip by the width of
the face.
The lower the result, the more masculine the face appeared.
Australian pop singer Peter Andre was second behind American actor and rapper Will Smith as the most attractive, or
masculine, among a list of 10 male celebrities selected at random.
Museum staff applied the calculation to photographs of the celebrities on the list.
"It is difficult to explain why men have evolved shorter, broader faces, if it is not because women find them more
attractive," Weston told Britain's The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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3
THE GUARDIAN
Going with the flow. With warnings of increasing floods, there have been suggestions that living on water
could be a solution. But floating homes were not always so sought after
by Simon Busch
Wednesday August 15, 2007
It will come as little consolation to the victims of the recent floods in Britain, but there may already be a
solution to the apparent creeping inundation of these islands: not to flee the rising waters but to rise above them.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba), signalling concern at the government's plans to build tens of
thousands of homes on the floodplains of the Thames Gateway in south-east England, recently published a
report frankly subtitled Visions of a Flooded Future. In it, some suggest drawing on the mode of living of those
people who are among the least likely of all to be fazed by floods: houseboaters.
Floating solutions are in vogue, and it is not only fear of the weather that makes them so. Simple lack of space
for housing and the monotony of so many developments have also focused attention on aquatic alternatives. In
the Riba study, two of the authors propose building houses on telescopic legs along the Thames. Like
amphibious structures already being tested on the banks of the Danube in Budapest, they would rise and sink
with the floodwaters. Other dwellings, they suggest, could roam free, like the original houseboats.
But houseboaters have not always been considered in such high esteem. They were once considered a lowly,
despised lot. Part of the current appeal of houseboats is that, tightly adapted to conditions, they vary so greatly narrowboats built for the 7ft-wide locks of the English canals, improvised reed-and-oil-drum rafts in Asia, the
rustic floating cottages of Holland - but what they have in common is their origins in poverty.
An exhibition in Amsterdam - capital of a country 70% of which lies below sea level - is marking the rich
history of water dwelling in the city and is exploring how it could yet transform urban life in the face of the
predicted future floods. Ties Rijcken, a Dutch engineer and houseboat visionary who contributed to the book
that accompanies the exhibition, describes how barge skippers living on the British waterways would paint
pictures of cottages and flower gardens on their vessels because they were too poor to afford them.
The 500-houseboat village on Lake Union, in Seattle, one of the largest, longest established floating settlements
in the world, also began, typically, as an extension of skid row. One local resident and a historian of the lake,
Jeri Callahan, has been living afloat for decades. She says that "there were houseboats here as early as the 1890s
- primarily working-class folk.
"It was cheap housing: you might say one step above homelessness. Lumbermen, fishermen - folks good with
their hands - could always find some cedar logs floating on the lake. They would lash them together and build a
simple shelter against the winter storms, which was much cheaper than the fleahouses on dry land."
Callahan, now in her early 70s, describes a sense of common purpose among houseboaters: "It's like the boating
community. If a boater has a problem, any other boater will go and help him. There's a commonality about
being drawn to the water," she says. "People so often associate only with people they grew up with or business
associates, but on houseboats you can have a longshoreman living next to a professor and nobody cares who
your grandfather was or how much money you make."
Houseboat spirit
Rijcken describes the houseboat spirit as one of being "willing to make do with less, to tilt a bit, to go out in
stormy weather to tighten the ropes". Yet an, "I'll march to my own drummer" mentality, as Callahan describes
it, and the associated wild architectural heterogeneity seem to stick in the craw of the authorities. In south
London, in 2003, following landlubbing residents' complaints of unsightliness and noise, mayor Ken
Livingstone sought to evict the 70 or so inhabitants of the tugboats, Humber keels, freight carriers and sail
barges moored at Reed's Wharf, Southwark, although he failed in the face of a protracted and clever multimedia
campaign.
The mayor of Seattle, in 1962, with a World's Fair to organise, similarly wanted to rid himself "of all the scuzzy
houseboats", as Callahan puts it. "We were still cheap housing then - students, artists, retired folks. He made it
very difficult for the houseboaters." Their response, courtesy of a charismatic local political leader, seems
paradoxical: they renamed their dwellings "floating homes" and asked to be subjected to property tax - to
become, in other words, legitimate.
The strategy worked, but it may have been the beginning of what many long-time houseboaters see as the end:
gentrification. Thanks in part to a concentration of Microsoft millionaires (the company's headquarters are
nearby) a houseboat-mooring alone on Lake Union can cost $700,000, a price to which some of the new houses
- boxy, albeit buoyant, things, complete with stars and stripes - will add another $1m. In London, people seeking
alternative affordable accommodation have been dismayed to find a narrowboat costs little less than a flat; the
same disappointing scenario applies in Amsterdam.
The houseboat pioneers must feel theirs is a familiar story. Like loft living in Manhattan and warehouse
dwelling in Hoxton, east London, artists and other creative livers carved out alternative abodes only to be
pursued by types with ample money but less soul.
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Agata Adamska
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
But houseboaters may yet have a kind of revenge. The advocates of the floating life at the centre of the
Amsterdam exhibition complain that, on houseboats, the staid mores of settled life still prevail. "Generally
speaking," as Jord den Hollander writes in the exhibition book, "'who floats stays' still hold true." He sees in the
essential mobility of houseboats the potential for "a completely groundbreaking urbanity, where public squares,
cinemas and playgrounds" could follow the population, rather than the reverse.
Disused, windswept sporting fields could, he suggests, become a thing of the past. He envisages "[a] city with
an ever-changing face ... precisely the image that every port city used to have in its heyday".
The old salts of houseboating might have another, slyer satisfaction at the appropriation of their way of life.
Living on these latterday arks is not as suited to rugged individualists as you might think. There are not only the
risks - rare on dry land - of sinking and collision and the constant struggle, as described by one Amsterdam
houseboater, Maarten Kloos, against "rust, rot, algae, dirt and mussels". There is also, a mere gangplank away
from your neighbour, "no privacy whatsoever". Once balanced on your sea legs, twitching lace curtains must be
a breeze.
4
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Monster hurricane hits hotel strip
August 21, 2007 - 5:14PM
Hurricane Dean, a huge category five storm, lashed Mexico's Caribbean coast today with howling winds and
driving rain that hit beach resorts where thousands of tourists huddled in shelters.
Seas churned as the storm, which has left a trail of destruction and killed 11 people so far on its rampage
through the Caribbean, began to strike Mexico's Mayan Riviera hotel strip.
Tourists squeezed into a hotel serving as a shelter for 400 people in the Playa del Carmen resort, with as many
as 12 people sharing some rooms.
"We could be two or three days without water or electricity,'' said Italian tourist Emanuela Beriola, 41, who
stockpiled canned meat, energy drinks and cans of tuna fish.
Category five hurricanes - the strongest possible - are rare but there were four in 2005, including Katrina, which
devastated New Orleans.
The higher number of powerful storms in recent years has reinforced research that suggests global warming may
increase the strength of tropical cyclones.
Out to sea, Dean was packing winds of 256kmh, and the eye of the storm was 240km from the shore.
Some visitors were unfazed before the worst of the storm.
"I am very calm. It's fun,'' said French tourist Sylvie Salei.
Dean was due to make landfall in a marshy zone near Mexico's border with Belize early tomorrow.
Troops and police patrolled the area to enforce a curfew declared by the state government.
Shop owners boarded up windows along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, a strip of beach resorts with
white sands and turquoise seas that is yet to fully recover from the devastation of Hurricane Wilma in 2005.
Wilma, the strongest Atlantic storm recorded, wrecked Cancun and other beach resorts. It washed away whole
beaches, killed seven people and caused $3.2 billion in damages.
The sea around the tourist island of Cozumel, normally bustling with yachts, diving boats and cruise ships, was
ominously free of vessels as the waves became choppy.
Mexico's state oil company was closing and evacuating all of its 407 oil and gas wells in the Campeche Sound,
meaning lost production of 2.65 million barrels of crude per day.
Heavy rain fell in Belize, a former British colony that is home to some 250,000 people and a famous barrier
reef.
Belize's government encouraged people to move inland and long lines of cars formed the highways heading
west toward higher ground in the capital of Belmopan and San Ignacio, a town close to the Guatemalan border.
"Absolutely this is one of the most dangerous and biggest hurricanes we have had so far,'' said Robert Leslie,
cabinet secretary of the Belizean government.
Dean swiped Jamaica at the weekend, ripping the roofs off buildings and blocking roads with toppled trees and
power poles. Police said two people were killed, bringing to eleven the death toll from Dean. Haiti was worst hit
with four people dead there.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon was to cut short a visit to Canada, where he met US President George W
Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to return home tomorrow to oversee the emergency effort.
Dean was due to cross the Yucatan Peninsula and come out in the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow night before hitting
land again in the Mexican state of Veracruz.
Reuters
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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5
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Choose Canada
by Alexander Aitken
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 09/08/2007
The Telegraph says that junior doctors in Britain, because of a recruitment system fiasco, are thinking of
emigrating. This is reported with a certain amount of trepidation: leave the wonderful United Kingdom - oh,
horror of horrors!
This writer emigrated to Canada in 1978 (a lawyer admittedly, not a doctor) and has travelled in all of its
provinces and lived and worked in three of them.
He has lived in Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto and in Gopher Creek, Manitoba - that's the place where you can
sit on your back porch and watch your dog run away for three days!
And he has to tell you, young Mr (and Miss) Doctor - you should get over here! You could do a lot worse. In
fact, I doubt if you could do any better.
Choose Canada
Choose Canada: the country offers plenty of scenic grandeur, but also a sense of freedom and people who are
'happy, polite, helpful and amiable’
Firstly, there is the weather. Everybody knows about British weather. Canada, of course, is the "Great White
North" and the winters in Manitoba can be teeth-chattering.
Forty below at times, but never fear: the houses have huge furnaces the like of which you have never seen; cars
have engine block heaters that plug into posts; and people wear parkas and fur hats.
Not all the provinces are as cold as Manitoba but some feel cold because of the humidity - just like Scotland.
How do you think the Scots floated to the top of the pioneer society in these inhospitable winters in the days
before central heating?
Size and variety
Then there is the size and variety of this country. We don't, admittedly, have that variety over short distances
that you have in Europe. Here, if you like mountains, you get 500 miles of mountains; if prairies turn you on
there's another 500 miles of them. Manitoba has 10,000 lakes; Ontario has a hundred thousand.
If you are adventurous enough, there is poet Robert Service's "bleak bald-headed North".
For something completely different you can visit Newfoundland - pronounced by the locals with the emphasis
on the last syllable - where the population are really not Canadian but "Newfies", or Prince Edward Island with
its red earth and dainty white houses with picket fences where you will be Anne of Green Gables-d to death.
But most attractive of all, I think, is the lifestyle. Beautiful summers and unrivalled scenery combine to make
this a recreational paradise, available to you at reasonable cost.
No private this or private that, water rights, fishing rights, and all the other regulations that Little Britain has
created over the centuries to ensure access to the best for the best.
Here, without parting with an arm or a leg, you can fish the lakes, golf on the finest courses in the best of
weather, ski on the mountains, sail on world-famous lakes, camp and caravan on the best sites in the world and
cook big Alberta steaks over campfires like an ageing boy scout.
I had a friend in Scotland who was accosted while fishing on a river.
"Do you know that this is private water?"
"No. Where is the public water?"
"Up there, beyond the bridge."
"Well, I'm just waiting for it coming down!"
You won't have that problem in Canada.
You can have a good dinner at half the British price, pay half for petrol and accommodation and earn more.
And, unlike Australia and New Zealand, it is not at the end of the earth. You can fly back to Blighty in six
hours.
The world at your feet
You young doctors have the world at your feet; you have youth, mobility, a great profession, the guarantee of
financial reward, and Joe Public still thinks the world of you.
All you need is room to spread your wings, and if there is one thing we have, it's room.
But we have much more than that. Once you throw off the old homesickness which gets us all for a while, you
will notice certain things about Canada.
The most common phrase - heard a dozen times a day to describe our life experience - is "lots of fun".
People are happy, they are polite, helpful and amiable. They drive a hundred miles to hockey games, take a rise
out of their neighbours to the south, end phrases with "eh?" and hail new immigrants in January with, "cold
enough for yah?" or in June with "warm enough for yah?"
They help each other because they know they are all immigrants of some generation, and they neither
understand nor give a damn about the class system, which you are welcome to leave at home.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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Canadian by choice
I left the UK when Margaret Thatcher was just getting going and I thought it was time for me to get going.
Now I'm Canadian by choice, British by birth (and not a little proud of it) and Scottish by the grace of God, and
if I want a little European flavour I can drop over to Quebec to practise the old parlez-vous and dine in its
wonderful cafés.
Someone once said, "go west young man!", pointed east and two hundred young men fell into New York
harbour.
Well, the advice is still good for you young physicians suffering from the political snarl-ups of that once great
nation.
As a Canuck might say: "Get your ass over here!" You won't regret it.
6
THE AFTENPOSTEN
FINLAND
Every autumn cloud has a silver lining, according to forecast
by Kristin Solberg and Cato Guhnfeldt
This summer may have been unusually cool and wet, but the autumn will at least be warmer than usual,
meteorologists say.
The autumn will be warmer than usual, according to a forecast by the European weather centre in Reading, UK.
Even by Norwegian standards, this summer has been cool, wet and cloudy. Figures from Statistics Norway
show that the month of July was the wettest in 67 years, and that the duration of sunshine in the entire month
was as low as 115 hours, less than half the average for July.
However, a new forecast suggests that it is indeed true that every cloud has a silver lining. The autumn will in
fact be warmer than usual, according to the forecast from the European weather centre in Reading, UK.
The average temperature is expected to be between 0,5 and 1 degree Celsius above normal in September,
October and November, according to the forecast. Temperatures will be particularly high in areas such as
Trøndelag, Møre og Romsdal and northern Norway, while areas such as Aust-Agder and Vest-Agder in
southern Norway will have temperatures closer to average.
The forecast from the European weather centre only includes temperatures, and not expected wind speed or
rainfall. It therefore remains to be seen whether the autumn will be as wet as the summer.
Moose cut communications
by Kristin Solberg
Thousands of people in northern Norway were left without telephone and internet connections earlier this week
after a clumsy moose destroyed a switching station.
A month before moose-hunting season kicks in, one of the so-called "kings of the forest" launched a
coincidental pre-emptive attack, hitting man where it hurts the most and disrupting his tools of communication.
The moose apparently ravaged the outdoor box containing key switching equipment on Tuesday, cutting
telecommunications service to thousands of people in the district of Sør-Helgeland.
The accident cut telephone and broadband connections over a wide area, reported Norwegian Broadcasing
(NRK).
The switching station was quickly repaired, however, and all the telephone and broadband customers had their
connections back by Thursday, according to telecom company Telenor.
Angry moose chases joggers by Nina Berglund/NTB
An angry and aggressive moose has been chasing residents of the Norwegian city of Molde, mostly when
they're out jogging in the woods that border on a residential neighbourhood.
Moose mothers are known for protectng their young, but one in Molde appears overly aggressive.
Kari Holmås is among those who suddenly found a moose on her tail during an otherwise solitary jogging
round.
"I just managed to see the moose's face before it hit be from behind," Holmås told local newspaper Romsdals
Budstikke. Holmås suffered injuries in her leg, thigh and hip, but says she's glad she survived.
Arne Inderhaug had a similar tale to tell. He went out jogging on Sunday afternoon, just after the local soccer
club had won Norway's national cup, and also was attacked from behind. Inderhaug said he managed to dodge
behind two trees, but hit his head in the process.
The same moose is believed to have targeted a third jogger as well. Martin Haanæs was out with his dog when a
large female moose suddenly emerged from the woods and stopped on a trail about 20 meters ahead of him.
When the moose started approaching him, Haanæs and his dog backed away and took a major detour. "Luckily,
I had the dog on a leash," Haanæs told the newspaper.
The moose has two calves, and females are known to protect their young. This one, in the forest known as
Moldemarka, is seen as a threat, however, and wildlife officials are now trying to hunt down both her and the
calves.
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As of Tuesday, they hadn't been successful. The officials tracked her down, but "she understood we were out an
another errand than the joggers, and she ran off," said Nils Bjørn Venås of Molde Township.
Venås claims Molde residents can still feel safe in their local woods, noting that the chances of being attacked
by the moose are lower than being hit by a car.
"But everyone needs to show respect, and retreat if you meet a moose," he said.
7
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Make the big move a wise one
by Alison Steed
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 28/06/2007
British expats are risking up to £10,000 in assets when they move abroad, after failing to make the most of
exchange rates when they leave the UK.
Whether you are moving overseas for work or retirement, planning how to make the most of your assets before
you go could save you enough to nearly pay for a family hatchback.
Around 380,000 people emigrated from the UK in 2005 according to official figures, with Australia the most
popular destination, followed by Spain and France.
You must take off your shoes before you enter a house in Turkey, but in The Netherlands it’s just the opposite you 'never’ take off your shoes
With sterling performing strongly against world currencies, anyone taking their assets overseas "should be able
to get a reasonable bang for their buck", said Mark Bodega of currency exchange specialists HiFX.
He said: "On average, a UK family emigrates abroad with assets of £250,000 from the sale of a house, car and
some savings.
"While they carefully plan their new lives in minute detail, what many overlook is the potential cost of leaving
their currency exchange in the wrong hands.
"By transferring their worldly goods to their new country via a high street bank, the average family risks losing
up to a staggering £10,000 of their assets.
"According to our research, banks typically charge 4 per cent more than currency specialists in unfavourable
exchange rates.
"Making the decision to move to a new country is a big undertaking, both emotionally and financially. The last
thing that any family taking the leap would want to do is unnecessarily lose as much as £10,000 in the process.
"Unfortunately though, this is exactly the case for the many people who entrust the transfer of their assets from
old to new country to their regular high street bank.
"This huge loss could be avoided simply by people being aware of the alternatives and making sure they get the
best rate for their money, early on in the process."
However, there is more to think about than just how to transfer your money abroad successfully, whether you
are working or retiring overseas.
Jane Matthews, of Abbey International, said: "It can be daunting when you draw up a list of all the financial and
practical matters you need to sort out before leaving the UK, but there is actually a lot of help available.
"Your employer should be able to give you guidance on contract, residential and health matters, while an
offshore bank will be able to provide you with day-to-day financial information about the offshore savings and
investments.
"Choosing the right offshore bank can mean the difference between being able to call on skilled staff who
understand the needs of expat workers, or having to rely on local services which may not be adequate or suitable
for your needs."
If you are retiring abroad, you do not have the benefit of an employer to fall back on, but you can get
information on emigrating from the Foreign Office.
Steve Travis of independent financial adviser The Fry Group, said: "The main consideration for people retiring
abroad is what is going to be the tax treatment of your pension.
"You can arrange to take it out of the UK tax system and taxed in the country you go to, but there will be some
form filling.
"I would normally also recommend moving deposits offshore. Many of the banks now have people to pick up on
these things, and I would say that you should not be in the UK system."
Dos and Don'ts
1. You must take off your shoes before you enter a house in Turkey, and in Sweden it is also generally the
custom to remove shoes. But in The Netherlands it's just the opposite - you 'never' take off your shoes.
2. Dubai's working week is mainly Saturday through to Wednesday. An increasing number of businesses do
work Sunday to Thursday.
3. Don't ring for the taxi in Dubai if you can hail for it outside where you are - the fare is much cheaper. The
hotel takes a cut for ordering the taxi for you.
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4. When looking to buy electrical goods and furniture in Dubai, don't go to the big shopping centres - go to the
neighbouring emirates such as Sharjah or Ajman which are only 20 minutes drive away and pick yourself up a
bargain. Better still, go to the Dragon Mart in International City where you can barter.
5. In China, if someone gives you a business card you must keep it in your hand until you are out of their
presence.
Source: HiFX and Dubai City Moves (Int 44 20 7474 7421)
Top tips for reaching a brave new world
Removals and Goods
Think about getting quotes for moving your worldly goods at least three months in advance of your departure.
Be mindful that the shipping process can take two to three months to places like Australasia.
Check that the removals company you use are members of the British Association of Removers Overseas
Group.
Consider what is cost effective - for example you may be better off selling an old sofa and buying a new one
once you have migrated rather than paying to ship it. Also bear in mind whether your electrical goods will be
compatible on overseas power systems.
Flights
When booking your one way ticket tell the airline that you are emigrating - many of them will increase your free
baggage allowance.
If you are migrating to Australia or New Zealand and go via Los Angeles, you will have a larger baggage
allowance, but if you tell the airline when you book the tickets you are migrating they will probably up the limit
further.
Currency
The exchange rate you achieve will have the biggest impact on you new life as it will directly impact on your
future wealth. Speak to a specialist currency broker early to discuss your options for changing your money.
You do not have to have your funds available to you and even if your money is tied up in your assets, such as
your house, you may still be able to secure an exchange rate.
Bank Accounts
You may be able to set up a bank account before you emigrate but be aware that banking systems are slightly
different all over the world. For example banking in Australia and New Zealand is not free, so make sure you
are getting the best deal for you. Many large banks have accounts specifically for migrants so ask what's
available.
Tax and Pensions/ Financial Planning
Speak to a specialist tax and pensions adviser about the most cost effective way to move your money.
advertisement
It is worth considering that if you migrate just after the start of a tax year you could effectively work tax free for
a month or two as you will still have your full year's tax allowance. It is possible to move your pension fund and
if you are already drawing your pension then exchange companies can set up a regular payment.
Cost of Living
Once you have emigrated try not to work out the comparative price of things to sterling. Unless your income is
coming from the UK in the form of a pension or rental yields, you will be earning in local currency and so
therefore the cost of living will be in local currency - the fact that things may be more or less expensive in the
UK is interesting but irrelevant.
Relocation
Stepping off the plane into your new home country can be quite daunting. Be prepared - book accommodation
and any cars you may need in advance.
Contact Details
Set up a roaming email address, such as hotmail, that you can access anywhere. Once you have left the UK you
may not have a permanent address straight away and you may take a while to organise phone numbers and other
contact details.
Healthcare
Very few other countries offer NHS-style free health care. Make sure you have health insurance so that you are
covered for any illnesses or mishaps.
Source: HiFX
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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630 CHEDDAM BRITISH COLUMBIA FREE PRESS
$100,000 worth of jewelry stolen from home of former WWF champ Hulk Hogan
at 11:50 on August 18, 2007, EST.
MIAMI BEACH, Florida (AP) - A burglar has made off with approximately $100,000 worth of jewelry from
the home of professional wrestling champion Hulk Hogan, authorities said.
Hogan's family was moving out of the home when the theft of a platinum diamond watch and two dog tags was
noticed, according to a Miami Beach Police Department report.
Hogan's son, Nicholas, told officers he had left the items wrapped in a T-shirt in an upstairs closet. When he
went to get them at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday, they were gone.
Hogan was born Terrence Gene Bollea. He recently starred with his family in the reality television show
"Hogan Knows Best."
It was not clear where the family was moving.
9
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Hard work. 50 ways to enjoy the countryside
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 17/07/2007
TACKLE NEW – BUT MODEST – HEIGHTS
Although there are plenty of mountains open to climbing aficionados, there are some great peaks and hills for
tackling at a relaxed walk: the Brecon Beacons, the gentle Malverns, the Berwyns, the Clwydian range – and
that’s just in Wales and the Welsh Marches.
The last of these is a 22-mile (35-km) chain of undulating hills that separate the Vale of Clwyd, in North Wales,
and the Dee Estuary.
Thousands of Merseysiders make it out to the area every year, especially to the Loggerheads and Moel Famau
country parks.
Then, of course, there is the magnificent Peak District, which is one of 14 National Parks we are lucky to have
in the British Isles, and which is said to be the second most visited national park in the world.
A little closer to sea-level are the North Downs and South Downs Ways. These are both within easy striking
distance of London.
The former is 153 miles (244km) of National Trail running from Farnham on the Surrey-Hampshire border to
Dover, through the Surrey Hills at about 700ft (213m) and Kent Downs Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
There are plenty of circular walks that you can take, too, using the “Way” as a start point. The South Downs
Way has pretty villages, great pubs and 100 miles (160km) of walking from Winchester through Hampshire,
West Sussex and East Sussex to Eastbourne.
(See www.nationaltrail.co.uk for suggested shorter routes along sections of each trail and, indeed, for other
national trails in the rest of England and Wales, such as the 630 miles/1,000km of the South West Coast Path –
not for the faint-hearted.)
LEARN NORWEGIAN
Use 45 per cent more calories than if you were strolling, increase your upper body strength by 40 per cent and
reduce the impact on your joints (ankles, knees, hips) by 26 per cent compared with running.
These are the proven benefits of Nordic walking – or walking with poles.
This style of exercise arrived on these shores in 2004 and has been gaining credibility (and fans) ever since.
There is now a nationwide register of instructors (see www.nordicwalking.co.uk).
Nordic walking might look a little silly but it is serious stuff. It is also a great way to experience the outdoors
and get yourself super-fit.
If you want to use your walking to improve your fitness, this could be a good all-over-body approach. Using
poles engages your arms and upper body a lot more than ordinary walking, increasing your heart rate and hence
the increased calorie count.
Poles cost around £35.
SCRAMBLE
Part hill walking, part rock climbing, scrambling is often dismissed as being a half-way house between the two
activities, but it can provide exhilarating adventure in its own right.
Scrambling exploits the ruggedness of Britain’s mountains to their full potential. Clambering along an exposed
mountain ridge, off the usual beaten track, with the panoramic views it can offer, can be breathtaking.
Little specialist equipment is needed for scrambling, with a pair of stiff walking boots and suitable mountain
clothing being enough for the easiest of routes.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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More advanced scrambles may require a rope for both safety and piece of mind on some of the hairier sections.
For a good introduction, the North Ridge of Tryfan in Snowdonia and Jack’s Rake on Pavey Ark in the Lake
District are excellent places to find out if scrambling is for you, before you move up the grades to some of the
hardest routes such as Broad Stand on Scafell, the Lake District, when you gain experience.
For scrambles around the country visit www.ukscrambles.com, and surprisingly not all of them are found buried
deep in the mountains. Buying a good guidebook is recommended as is carefully planning any trip.
The usual warnings about walking in the hills apply more so in this activity, and always tell someone where you
are going and when you expect to be back. You could even consider hiring a local guide with prices ranging
from £25 per person up to £200 for a party of six.
CLIMB
The only three real sports, according to Ernest Hemingway, are bull fighting, car racing and climbing.
The rest, he claimed, were all games. And certainly rock climbing could never be classed as a game, but few
now also choose to climb for sport.
In the last five years, rock climbing has seen a real boom in popularity as bored city dwellers and country
residents alike have sought more adventurous ways of exploring the outdoors.
For an introduction to the climbing world, most people start at their local indoor climbing wall.
Most big cities now have at least one artificial indoor wall where climbers go to practise their techniques. It is
well worth taking a short course at one of these to learn the basics.
Courses generally cost around £30 at most climbing walls. Once you have nailed those basic techniques, and the
rather perplexing jargon, it is best to move to the real stuff.
Whether you are interesting in “multi-pitch” climbs that wind their way up a mountain face for hundreds of feet
or more, or in the friendlier atmosphere of crag climbing which rarely involve a long walk to reach and are
usually less than 100 feet, the rush of reaching the top never wears off.
For some of the best beginners climbs and accompanying views it is best to stick with the well-established
classics. Agag’s Groove provides a spectacular route up a long slab of rock on the famous Buchaille Etive Mor,
near Glencoe, Scotland.
The Cullin Ridge on Skye also provides a memorable, if long, day out. In the Lake District, Needle Ridge which
runs beside one of the country’s most distinctive climbs Napes Needle, is another must.
The aptly named Flying Buttress on Dinas Cromlech in North Wales is another classic, but if large mountain
routes don’t appeal, then look for the smaller, friendlier crags such as Stanage, near Sheffield, or the famous
Bosigran in Cornwall.
Before embarking on any climb, it is wise to buy a good guidebook and a map of where you are going.
Finding the start of a route can also be a challenge, so don’t be afraid to ask other climbers in the area – they are
generally a friendly bunch. And for your first trip out, a lesson with a local guide is recommended.
THEN BE EXTREME
Head for St Kilda. This is Ben Fogle’s chosen extreme escape.
The tiny Hebridean archipelago is a World Heritage Site around 100 miles away from mainland Scotland.
Hirta, the main island, is only 1.75 sq miles in total. Only 2,000 visitors are allowed to visit St Kilda each year
by prior booking (www.wildernessscotland.com).
10
THE AFTENPOSTEN
FINLAND
'Hytte' building threatens last wild reindeer herds
by Nina Berglund
Widespread development of new real estate projects in the mountains of Norway, fuelled by demand for a holiday cabin
known as a hytte, already has raised environmental concerns. Now there are fears the hytte projects threaten Norway's wild
reindeer population.
Landowner Harald Tveiten wants to build cabins on his property around Blefjell, and rejects claims it will harm local
reindeer.
Norway is obligated to take care of Europe's last flocks of wild reindeer. Hytte developments near the reindeer's traditional
grazing and migration areas have worried not only conservationists but state officials as well.
Newspaper Aftenposten reported over the weekend that authorities from the state control agency Riksrevisjonen have
warned several local government officials that they need to better regulate development projects in their areas.
Powerful landowners, who often are politically well-connected at the local level, have won approval for hytte developments
on their property. Now some of the projects are being ordered halted.
"The development is out of control," Bjørn Kaltenborn of the research agency NINA told Aftenposten. "No one has an
overview over the consequences of the massive development of hytter in Norway."
It's believed that more than 4,900 holiday cabins, most involving road systems and associated infrastructure as well, were
built between 2001 and 2005 near the conservation areas set aside for reindeer. That defies Norway's obligation to preserve
the stocks of wild reindeer, which can easily be scared off by human activity.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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The local approvals granted for the developments also defy a measure in Parliament that prohibits development on the
mountain plateaus where the reindeer roam. After some warnings from state authorities, county authorities in Buskerud
have halted a hytte development at Vegglifjell, near the popular Blefjell area.
Landowners aren't pleased. They claim development restrictions will choke off growth and prospects for future generations.
They also reject claims that their projects threaten the reindeer, contending that reindeer haven't been seen in the area for
years.
"The authorities need to choose whether they want to develop business here, or whether they want to take care of reindeer
that aren't here," said landowner Harald Grønvold, one of those behind the Vegglifjell project. Grønvold doesn't want to
only build cabins, but hotels as well, to create jobs and income.
He notes that the Norwegian Mountain Trekking Association (DNT)'s own marked hiking trail goes right through the
reindeer's territory, calling that a bigger problem than his cabins.
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INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
PARIS
Review: Poems From Guantánamo
by Dan Chiasson
Friday, August 17, 2007
Poems From Guantánamo; the Detainees Speak. Edited by Marc Falkoff. (72 pages. $13.95. University of Iowa Press.)
This short book prints 22 poems by detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that have been cleared for
release by the United States military. The poems — some by accomplished writers, others by first-time poets — suffer
"some flaws," as the book's editor, Marc Falkoff, himself a lawyer for 17 detainees, puts it. It is hard to imagine a reader so
hardhearted as to bring aesthetic judgment to bear on a book written by men in prison without legal recourse, several of
them held in solitary confinement, some of them likely subjected to practices that many disinterested parties have called
torture. You don't read this book for pleasure; you read it for evidence. And if you are an American citizen you read it for
evidence of the violence your government is doing to total strangers in a distant place, some of whom (perhaps all of
whom, since without due process how are we to tell?) are as innocent of crimes against our nation as you are.
All of which is to say, reading "Poems From Guantanamo" is a bizarre experience. "The Detainees Speak" is this book's
subtitle: but putting aside the real question of whether lyric poets ever "speak" through their art, in the sense of revealing a
historical person's actual life story (they have rarely done so through poetry's long history, and often poets "speak" least
revealingly precisely when they claim to be telling the truth), in what sense could these poems, heavily vetted by official
censors, translated by "linguists with secret-level security clearance" but no literary training, released by the Pentagon
according to its own strict, but unarticulated, rationale - "speak"? Given these constraints, a better subtitle might have been
"The Detainees Do Not Speak" or perhaps "The Detainees Are Not Allowed to Speak." But the best subtitle, I fear, would
have been "The Pentagon Speaks." To be sure, it's hard to imagine a straightforward propagandistic use for the lines
"America sucks, America chills, / While d' blood of d' Muslims is forever getting spilled"; but you can't help suspecting
that this entire production is some kind of public relations psych-out, "proof" that dissent thrives even in the cells of
Guantanamo. (Does that sound paranoid? Can you think of another good reason the Pentagon would have selected these
lines out of thousands for publication?)
You have to be in the mood for some death-defying Orwellian back-flips, then, to read "Poems From Guantanamo." When
Martin Mubanga, an "athletic kickboxer" and a "citizen of both the United Kingdom and Zambia" (the poems come with
extensive biographical notes, often more evocative than the poems themselves) refers to "hard-core detainees like you an'
me" - is this a case of the Pentagon's missing the irony or, more likely, has the Pentagon deemed that analogy so absurd as
to reveal a dangerous criminal mind-set? Since the poem, written in an absurd ersatz-gangsta patois, possesses exactly zero
literary interest, what is a reader to do besides try to locate the governmental cunning in clearing it for publication?
But the bulk of these poems are so vague, their claims so conventional, that they might have been written at any point in
history by anyone suffering anything. "What kind of spring is this, / Where there are no flowers and / The air is filled with a
miserable smell?" Even though these lines were, we are told, carved into a Styrofoam cup (the detainees were for a time
denied pen and paper), they mimic the kinds of things sad or frustrated people have always written. But surely being
imprisoned in Guantanamo rises to a level of wretchedness beyond mere sadness or frustration. When Sami Al Haj, a
detainee whose biography says he was "tortured at both Bagram Air Base and Kandahar" before ending up at Guantanamo,
writes that "hot tears covered my face," he sounds like a teenage sonneteer, not the victim of nearly unimaginable physical
cruelty. Such are the unfortunate diminishing returns of poetic figuration, which, except in extraordinary cases, blunts
where it purports to sharpen, blurs where it promised focus.
The effect of this volume is therefore curiously to make Guantanamo and our abuses there unfold on an abstract "literary"
plane rather than in real life and real time. That's too bad, since Falkoff and the other lawyers behind this project have acted
in enormous good faith and some day will be recognized for their legal work as national heroes. But imagine a volume of
Osip Mandelstam's poetry released by the Soviet government in 1938, or an anthology of poems by Japanese internment
prisoners released by our government during the Second World War. The government's disingenuous resistance to this
book's publication aside (a wooden official statement denounces the book as "another tool in their battle of ideas against
Western democracies"), the Pentagon ought to get an editor's credit on "Poems From Guantánamo."
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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12
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Animal magic. PAWS FOR THOUGHT
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 17/07/2007
Tracking can bring alive the most monotonous of walks, and can be especially fun for children. Learn how to
recognise paw prints. Here are some of the basics to look out for.
# First of all, think about what animals there could be in the area (it narrows the field and although imagination
is a wonderful thing, it’s much better to make your assessment based on probability).
# Four toes on both front and hind feet means that the print will be from the dog family (a fox or domestic dog),
the cat family (feral or household cat) or the rabbit family;
# If the print has small triangular marks in front of it this will indicate claws, which narrows the possibilities to
the foxes and dogs (cats tend to retract their claws when they are on the move).
# Four toes on the front and five on the hind indicate a rodent (mouse, rat or squirrel – yes, squirrels are rodents)
# Five toes on both front and hind indicates a badger, otter or mink;
# A two-toe track will mean deer. Squirrels can leave quite interesting tracks as they bring their hind feet ahead
of their front feet, so the larger print is ahead of the smaller, which make an impression side by side; rabbits are
similar, except that their smaller front prints won’t be parallel.
SADDLE UP
Horse riding might be a risk sport, but if you are prepared for that risk then being an equestrian for the day can
be one of the most exhilarating ways of exploring the countryside.
The British Horse Society approves riding centres around the country and this is the place to start to search for
establishments that reach a certain standard of performance (www.bhs.org.uk/Content/inf-Riding.asp?page=
Approvals takes you to a map – click on area – to find a list of approved centres offering riding holidays, or ring
08701 202244 ).
Before booking, do everything you can to establish the type of riding the centre provides and the terrain: will it
be slow-going along mountain tracks, or fast along empty beaches. Ensure that you are fully insured.
SMELL THE FLOWERS
A better understanding of the world around us is no bad thing. Britain has a rich floral life and whether you are
on the coastline, up high on the moors, climbing among alpines, or just strolling through meadows, it is good to
know something of the plants surrounding you.
It would be impossible to cover the thousands of flowers that are native to the British Isles in this small space,
but start to learn some of the common plants around you. Here are just a few to get you started.
Bugle (Ajuga reptans): a creeping perennial that flowers in May to June and thrives in damp woodland, scrub
and grassland.
HeatheR (Calluna vulgaris): a much-bunched evergreen shrub with narrow spikes of flowers (often purple) from
July to September.
Kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneria): its stems terminate in compact heads of numerous flowers (yellow, red,
purple, orange, white or a combination of all) from April to September. It is found in grassy and rocky places.
Thrift (Armeria maritima): a cushion-forming perennial found in salt-marshes and coastal cliffs, with pink or
purplish globe heads, flowering from April to October.
Yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus): about 47in (120cm) tall, with six segments, leaves are stiff and bluish-green.
It is found in wet places and flowers early in June and July.
Yellow pimpernel (Lysimachia nemorum): a creeping perennial with small flowers about 4in (12mm) across
with five petals, which flowers from May to September and is found in damp, shady places.
BORROW FOUR LEGS
There has been news of late of an enterprise about to come to Britain: it’s a rent-a-dog business, from which you
can hire a four-legged friend for a day or a weekend.
The customer gets their emotional fix and de-stresses at the expense of one itinerant canine.
How confused and stressed the dog is by the constant changes in its environment is open to question.
This, we would like to argue, is different to walking your neighbour’s dog to give them a break, or dog-sitting
for a friend while they go off on holiday, or taking a friend’s familiar hound out with you to some woods or to a
beach for a treat.
It will be a great way to get you out into the countryside. But remember, if the dog is not your own, it isn’t
going to return automatically to you when you call.
It will know its own owner’s voice much better than it does yours. Don’t let an unfamiliar dog off the leash.
Keep it with you on an extending lead unless you are 100 per cent sure it will return to you.
TOADY UP TO FRIENDS
Frogs, toads, newts and all things reptilian.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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Bearing in mind, at all times, the rules of the countryside (ie, that you don’t disturb wildlife) frog-spotting can
be great fun, especially for children.
For heaps of knowledgeable information about the life of amphibians take a look at www.froglife.org.
It has expert contacts, survey projects you can get involved in, toad patrols and incredibly useful identification
notes on native species.
STAY OUT AFTER DARK
Nature changes its personality once the sun goes down, but if you can arrange to be outside when the moon and
stars are out, you are guaranteed to have a memorable time.
The night is the best time for seeing moths and other bugs.
Take some sort of identification kit with you, also a camera with a decent flash and macro so that you can catch
on film some of the amazing creatures that land next to your camp light.
And it goes without saying that this is when you will see some great bat acrobatics. Crucially, if you are out all
night, you will get to hear the dawn chorus, too. Birds start to sing about an hour before dawn.
The RSPB has a whole catalogue of birdsong on their website (www.rspb.org.uk), which you can play and
become familiar with before you go out into the woods and fields.
SEAL IT
They are cute. There is no doubt about it. And there around 113,000 grey ones and 45,000 common ones living
in British and Irish waters.
Summer is a good time to see the latter (which have a flatter face than the grey, and are often seen bobbing
around in harbours and basking on sand banks.
Good spots are: Blakeney Point, in Norfolk; Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel; Cardigan Bay, in Wales;
Murlough in Northern Ireland; the Moray Firth, in Scotland; and the Farne Islands, off the Northumberland
coast.
Binoculars are invaluable when seal watching. They will guarantee that you get at least one good look at them.
TAKE A BIRD’S EYE VIEW
You’ve got the bins. You have learnt the bird song. Now go and spot the birds.
This is not about becoming a “twitcher” (someone who chases sightings of rare species around the country) or a
“birder” (a bird-watching generalist who always has his binoculars and notepad to hand), it is just about
enjoying recognising the wildlife you come across while out and about.
There are 259 species of birds in the UK – visit www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/a to start the process
of identifcation.
LET THEM BUG YOU
A net, a plastic box, a magnifying glass and an identification guide can add an entertaining bug-filled dimension
to your outdoor activities. And it’s not just something for the children to enjoy.
Creepy crawlies are never more fascinating than when they are being peered at safely rather than running up the
inside of your trouser leg.
But first you have got to catch them. For fact sheets on some of Britain’s most common bugs from biting lice to
springtails, visit the conservation organisation www.buglife.org.uk.
13
THE AFTENPOSTEN
Reindeer may get own tunnels
by Ole Mathismoen
Plans for a new highway over the mountain plateau known as Hardangervidda have sparked calls for tunnels
that wild reindeer can use to get over, or under, it.
The state is working on a new Highway 7 over Hardangervidda, but local conservationists fear it can have
dramatic consequences for the wild reindeer that roam the plateau.
"It will be a priority for us to make sure that it's possible for the reindeer to cross the road safely," said Karl
Baadsvik, chairman of the new center dedicated to the local wild reindeer at Skinnarbu (Norsk Villreinsenter)
The center was being formally opened on Friday by Norway's minister for the environment.
Baadsvik views himself and others at the center as being "the reindeer's ambassador." He wants to prevent the
reindeer's grazing areas from being split up or otherwise interfered with.
Norway has the last of Europe's wild tundra reindeer, scattered over 23 different mountainous areas in southern
Norway. The total reindeer population is estimated at about 30,000.
"This gives us a unique international responsibility," said Baadsvik, who also works as senior adviser to the
Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (Norsk institutt for naturforskning, NINA)
The reindeer population continues to be threatened by road building, holiday cabin development, other
construction projects and climate change. Warmer weather can lead to another type of vegetation that can crowd
out what the reindeer eat, Baadsvik said.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
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INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE PARIS
The 20 most expensive celebrity weddings
by Lea Goldman and Tatiana Serafin
Monday, August 13, 2007
The celebrity wedding is the Super Bowl of event planning. Since budgets are typically a non-issue, superstar
nuptials are beyond lavish. But it's the access enjoyed by celebrities that truly differentiates their receptions
from those of even the very wealthy. Renowned designers personally oversee made-to-order gowns; celebrity
chefs are wrangled to handle catering; and even venues typically off-limits or prohibitively expensive to the
general public are fair game for the famous.
In Forbes' first-ever search for the 20 most expensive celebrity weddings, we surveyed A-list nuptials during the
past 20 years. (Our estimates are not adjusted for inflation.) We factored in estimates for all the major
components of a wedding and reception--the venue, flowers, catering, entertainment and gown. (Honeymoons
were not included.) Forbes only considered weddings where information was available.
When possible, we considered miscellaneous expenses. For example, Donald Trump and Melania Knauss hired
upscale "floral designer" Preston Bailey to manage their wedding. His fees typically begin at 73,416 euros.
(Compare that with the cost of the typical American wedding, which on average costs roughly 19,675 euros,
according to The Wedding Report, an annual survey of wedding trends.)
The figures on this list are best estimates given available information. Forbes made every effort to solicit
feedback and comment from the celebrities on this list. Forbes determined the tie-breakers based on available
information.
Exclusive coverage awarded to various magazines--now a common component of the celebrity wedding--was
also used to gather information. In some cases, celebrities donated the proceeds of the sale of their wedding
photos. People magazine reportedly paid 734,136 euros for exclusive access to the 1991 wedding of Elizabeth
Taylor and Larry Fortensky at Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch. Taylor then donated the monies to AIDS
research. Paul McCartney and Heather Mills are believed to have turned down various offers for coverage.
Instead, they sold pictures from their 2002 wedding to whoever was willing to shell out £1000 (1,175 euros),
with the proceeds going to their pet charities.
Selling rights to cover the wedding is one way for celebrities to control the media maelstrom surrounding their
nuptials. Tiger Woods foiled paparazzi plans by renting the entire Sandy Lane Resort on Barbados, plus the
island's only helicopter charter company, when he and his bride Elin Nordegren wed there in 2004. Michael
Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones required all guests at their 2000 wedding in New York City to arrive with
their invites, which had been embossed with holograms to thwart crashers who might have dummied fake
invitations.
Yet other celebrity couples seem to relish the limelight. The ill-fated Manhattan marriage of Liza Minnelli and
David Gest in 2002 caused a near standstill of city traffic thanks to the caravan of limousines dropping off
celebrity guests like Mia Farrow, Diana Ross and Michael Jackson (the best man) to the church. They then had
to wade through a battalion of photographers to attend the ceremony.
When Mariah Carey wed Sony Music boss Tommy Mottola in 1993, she paraded before photographers and
onlookers decked out in a poofy Vera Wang ivory silk confection, tailed by a 27-foot train and topped off with a
diamond-encrusted tiara, ala Princess Diana. (The comparisons didn't end there. Fifty flower girls tended to her,
and she walked down the aisle of New York's St. Thomas Church serenaded by a boys' choir.)
Marc Anthony and Dayanara Torres, who renewed their vows in San Juan in 2002, held their reception at the
Cuartel de Ballaja, a Spanish garrison built in 1854. It's an unusual, if not off-limits, venue for a wedding. But
stars on the whole enjoy access to some of the most exclusive locales on the planet for their ceremonies and
receptions.
Castles are a recurring theme. Six of the couples on the list tied the knot in fairy-tale settings. Both Madonna
and actress Ashley Judd wed at Scotland's Skibo Castle, now a sporting club. Accommodations cost nonmembers roughly 1,615 euros a day. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wed at the privately owned Odescalchi
Castle in Bracciano, Italy, in November of 2006. Elizabeth Hurley and businessman Arun Nayar wed twice in
March, both times in castles. The first ceremony was held in the U.K., at the Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire.
A few days later a second, Hindu ceremony occurred at the Uman Bhawan Palace, where suites fetch as much
as 7,342 euros a night.
Another popular celebrity wedding destination: the backyard. Tori Spelling wed Charlie Shanian in 2004 at the
56,000-foot Beverly Hills estate of her father, famed TV producer Aaron Spelling. Elton John and David
Furnish celebrated their 2005 union at John's Windsor Estate, where guests milled about in two giant tents
erected on his lawn. Liz Taylor married Larry Fortensky in 1991 at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, in Los
Olivos, Calif. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston tied the knot in 2000 at the Malibu estate of TV producer Marcy
Carsey. Donald Trump and Melania Knauss held their 2005 wedding reception in the Versailles-inspired
ballroom of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
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And proof that like begets like, celebrities often recruit their famous pals for wedding assistance. Madonna
enlisted designer Stella McCartney (Paul's daughter) to design her gown; Tom Cruise secured his dear friend
Georgio Armani to design Katie Holmes' gowns (there were two). The original celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck
catered Tori Spelling's affair. On the menu: herb-crusted rack of lamb. Natalie Cole sang "Unforgettable" at the
reception for Liza Minnelli and David Gest; pop-rock band Hootie & the Blowfish performed at Tiger Woods'
wedding.
Even celebrities, however, can't pay for guarantees. Forty percent of the couples on this list ultimately split-proof, perhaps, that even in Hollywood, money can't buy love.
And proof that like begets like, celebrities often recruit their famous pals for wedding assistance. Madonna
enlisted designer Stella McCartney (Paul's daughter) to design her gown; Tom Cruise secured his dear friend
Georgio Armani to design Katie Holmes' gowns (there were two). The original celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck
catered Tori Spelling's affair. On the menu: herb-crusted rack of lamb. Natalie Cole sang "Unforgettable" at the
reception for Liza Minnelli and David Gest; pop-rock band Hootie & the Blowfish performed at Tiger Woods'
wedding.
Even celebrities, however, can't pay for guarantees. Forty percent of the couples on this list ultimately split-proof, perhaps, that even in Hollywood, money can't buy love.
15
THE AFTENPOSTEN
FINLAND
Queen wasn't welcome in Parliament
by Wenche Fuglehaug
Queen Sonja, who turns 70 this week, had a hard time being accepted in a male-dominated Royal Palace after
first becoming crown princess in 1968. Now politicians are finally talking about how she wasn't even welcome
at the opening of Parliament after she became queen in 1991.
The former Sonja Haraldsen was a commoner who was forced to wait nine years before her marriage to thenCrown Prince Harald was approved by Harald's father, the late King Olav. She faced new struggles for
acceptance when she became queen.
Rumours abounded shortly after King Olav died that Sonja, Norway's first queen since the late 1930s, might be
barred from attending the opening of Norway's Parliament along with her husband, the new King Harald.
Within days of Olav's death on January 17, 1991, controversy started swirling within the highest levels of
Norway's government over whether Sonja should accompany Harald to Parliament. His first task was to take the
oath as monarch, which occurred four days after King Olav's death. The next formal Parliamentary appearance
would come on October 2, when the king was to officially open the new parliamentary session.
Queen Sonja was at King Harald's side on both occasions, but newspaper Aftenposten reported Tuesday that her
presence had its detractors.
Jo Benkow, the former president of Norway's Parliament (Storting), told Aftenposten that he'd been asked, at
the end of a meeting with cabinet secretary Magne Hagen at the Royal Palace, for his "evaluation" of whether
Sonja should be present at the opening session.
"I wasn't asked for direct advice," Benkow said. "I said that the Parliament didn't have any position on the
matter, but we discussed pros and cons." It was an issue, he said, for the king to decide.
Benkow wouldn't reveal the arguments against Queen Sonja's presence, but Aftenposten reported a "broad
feeling" among politicians that Sonja's "strong personality" would overshadow King Harald and detract from his
role.
'Unnatural'
Gunnar Berge, a Labour Party politician who headed his party's parliamentary committee at the time, was
among those who wasn't in favour of her presence. Even though all the other Labour members of his committee
supported her participation, Berge told Aftenposten that "since Queen Sonja didn't have any constitutional
function, it was natural to me that the king, and not her, should meet in the Storting."
He claimed his opposition, which was overruled, had nothing to do with Queen Sonja's personality.
A compromise was eventually agreed upon, which called for the queen to appear with the king only when a new
parliament is constituted every four years after national elections. That was also criticized, and Queen Sonja
started appearing regularly from 1993.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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16
THE JAPAN TIMES
Cell phones may turn into boomboxes
by PETER CROOKES
Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2007
Batteries just don't generate the respect they deserve. Imagine how much poorer your lifestyle would be if all of
the miniature power cells you use just up and disappeared. Panasonic, as one of the many companies whose
profit margins very much rest on these humble gadgets, knows their value and often overlooked abilities. The
electronics maker showcased both of these recently with an extraordinary car that runs at 100 kph-plus and is
powered by 192 AA-size batteries. Admittedly the power cells, Panasonic's own Oxyride creations, pack 1.5
times more power than the average alkaline battery but their new-age fuel achievement remains impressive. The
car, a 3.3-meter-long craft with an F1-style cabin complete with fin and rudder, was clocked at a top speed of
122 kph, enough to leave its mark in the record books. While neither the car, nor any obvious derivative of it,
can be expected to hit the showrooms the feat remains one of the more remarkable bits of advertising.
The sound of smallness: A Panasonic feat of technology that is more likely to hit the heights of commercialism
is a new approach to speakers. The company's nano bass exciter technique uses porous carbon to help conjure
high-fidelity bass notes from compact speakers. The key trick is nanometer-sized pores that absorb air
molecules in the speaker when a bass note is produced, forcing a sudden drop in air pressure in the speaker's
cabinet. This gives the speaker's diaphragm the ability to move like that in a much larger speaker, and as such a
greater capacity for rendering low sounds. A best (worst?) case scenario could have the new technology
empowering the tiny speakers of mobile phones to produce the kind of thumping notes reminiscent of
boomboxes. There is a reason that God gave us headphones.
Silent running: Sound is also a defining motivation behind a joint project of Hitachi and NEC. The pair are
crafting a liquid-based cooling system for computer hard drives. The claim to class for the system is that it
makes a PC a third quieter, producing less noise than a digital video recorder. Apart from a new concept in
circulating coolant it also involves wrapping the computer's entire hard disk in a noise-absorbing material.
Augmenting the effect is that the system can use a quieter, low-speed fan than what a typical air-based cooling
set up needs. If you doubt the virtue of such a fresh design just cock an ear to the rumblings from your
computer. These machines should be seen and only occasionally heard.
Dirt be gone: Noise and heat are just some of the failings a computer user needs to address. Keeping your
keyboard up to some standard of hygiene is perhaps an even more fundamental, albeit lower-tech, one. Elecom
addresses the need with some cute new cleaning brushes, its KBR-Shippo series. Looking a bit like something
from a man's shaving kit the brushes come in a walrus with a shell motif, and also in a cat with bamboo
decoration. Check them out at: www.elecom.co.jp/news/200707/kbr-shippo/
Big things in small packages: Sony nixed any pretensions to cute characters with its remarkably useful little
Pocket Bit mini-USB key line. It has updated them with its new USM-HX drives that will come in 1-gigabyte
and 2-gigabyte capacities with both sizes available in two contrasting colors — black or white. The devices
weigh in at a paltry 1.5 grams and measure 14.5x32x2.7 mm, making them smaller than most of the keys that
they can dangle with in your pocket. The upgraded drives support Windows Vista's Ready boost feature and
sport both encryption and compression software. Capping off the small package, they work with both Windows
and Mac computers and have both clips and covers. Priced at ¥4,000 for the 1-gigabyte model and ¥6,200 for
the larger version, the storage marvels go on sale Sept. 1 with more information at:
www.sony.jp/products/Consumer/media/pocketbit/products/usm-hx/
Ideas never die: Tamagotchi may have long since retired to the gadget hall of fame but it is still capable of
summoning up an imitator. This time it is Solid Alliance paying the ultimate compliment with Tengu, a USBpowered virtual pet. Developed by the English artist Crispin Jones, and about the size of a white cigarette pack,
when connected to a host computer its LED face lights u on the unit. The face changes expression in reaction to
sound, with different reactions to such inputs as rock music and jazz. A prolonged period of silence puts it to
"sleep." The beastie goes on sale here for ¥4,480 by the end of the month with details available at:
www.solidalliance.com/press/press.html#0802
Insect bomb: Think mosquito repellent and a thin stream of smoke curling up from a greenish spiral springs to
mind. So much for the simplicities of youth. Outlaying ¥1,400 gets you something more complicated. The
repellent is placed inside a "bomb" that in turn resembles a bowling ball, which sits on a wooden platform with
a pair of "mice" standing on it, perhaps fearing the worst. More information on Nodaya's creation can found at:
www.nodaya-net.com/ins2.htm/ Whether the device is meant to double its effectiveness by offering a visual
clue to the unwanted insects is a matter for speculation.
In thin air: Pampering pooches might be deemed to be as sensible as sending money up in smoke, but the
AirPress company can see the value of canines. It has come up with DOGS 02, a device that acts as a smaller
version of the see-through chambers that people clamber into so they can indulge in an oxygen treatment.
Details can be found at: www.air-press.com/ Now those beautified pet owners can treat their dogs to the same
indulgence.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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17
THE JAPAN TIMES
Beauty beheld in brutalism
By TOMOKO OTAKE
No matter how wild or wacky their hobbies or obsessions, in the age of the Internet no one need feel isolated
any more, and by casting all inhibitions aside almost anyone is assured of finding like-minded others out there
in cyberspace — if not just around the corner from home.
Beauty in the brutalism of functional industrial construction is well represented by this nighttime shot of a
petrochemical plant in the waterfront Honmoku district of Yokohama (above), while smoke billowing from a
huge chemical complex in Yokkaichi, Mie Prefecture (below), adds an ethereal touch to an otherwise entirely
mechanistic scene. TETSU ISHII PHOTOS
Tetsu Ishii is no exception. Through the Web, the freelance illustrator from Tokyo's residential Suginami Ward
has astonishingly found thousands of men and women, young and old, who all share the same passion as him:
they love factories.
Factories? Those lifeless, air-polluting, giant metallic structures? How could factories be attractive to anyone?
But according to Ishii, who heads an 8,000-plus-member mixi (social networking) Web community titled "Kojo
Kombinato Ni Moeru Kai (A Group in Love With Factories and Industrial Complexes)," those gargantuan,
steam-spewing constructions have an aesthetic all their own.
"Factories represent functional beauty on a scale that is never seen in other structures," Ishii, 40, explains at a
cafe in Tokyo's Akihabara district, which is known as the nation's mecca for all things "geeky."
To date, Ishii has visited dozens of industrial plants around the country to capture their majestic beauty with his
camera at various times of the day and seasons of the year.
Whether his viewfinder is filled with the long evening shadows cast by a gigantic, steam-belching
petrochemical complex, or ocean-front gas-storage tanks lit up surreally against the sea and a dark night sky,
Ishii is in awe of them all.
Finally, in March, Ishii's hobby turned into a photo book titled "Kojo Moe (Factory Love)," which features his
images of gargantuan steel plants, towering oil refineries and chemical factories billowing clouds of who knows
what.
The book has sold more than 30,000 copies, which is unprecedented for its genre, according to the publisher,
Tokyo Shoseki Co. Ltd.
Ishii says the roots of his infatuation lie in science fiction, which often features factories in the backgrounds of
futuristic films, manga and anime.
While he was long vaguely aware of his love for these cathedrals of industry, he says it was not until his teenage
years that he clearly acknowledged his own deep feelings.
"I was watching 'Blade Runner,' " this native of Ikeda City, Osaka, recalls, referring to the 1982 movie starring
Harrison Ford. "It's set in a gloomy future Los Angeles, and the lead character has a flying patrol car. I was
glued to the city's metallic landscape — I found it so beautiful."
After high school, Ishii went to work in Tokyo. Soon afterward, he says, he was naturally drawn to places in and
around the metropolis where he could view petrochemical complexes and huge industrial sites. At such venues,
Ishii would spend hours marveling at the way they kept working throughout the night, with their bright lights
on. Yet for years, he says, it was hard for him to express his feelings to others, let alone share them.
That changed, however, when he found a handful of like-minded souls who had written about their fascination
with factories on the Web, and he met up with them several years ago.
Factories fan Tetsu Ishii, who heads a Web community with some 8,000 members who behold beauty in sights
most consider eyesores. TOMOKO OTAKE PHOTO
"It was winter, and we organized a tour of factories in the Kawasaki area (of Kanagawa Prefecture)," he says.
"Until then, I had thought there might be something wrong with me, for feeling so excited about factories. But
then when I met face to face with these people, I discovered that they were even more deeply in love with
factories! I felt relieved."
Ishii says that everyone has a different reason for being attracted to factories, noting that some do feel sexually
turned on by the metal creations, what with all those thrusting columns and sinuous pipes. Ishii, though, insists
he finds "zero sexual appeal" in them, even though his book's title contains the word "moe" — a word that
Akihabara wanderers started to use a few years ago to express their romantic feelings for costumed "maids" and
young female characters in anime and comics.
Ishii says he put "moe" in the title simply because he wanted the book to appeal not just to photo geeks or
industry experts, but to ordinary people as well. Others he knows personally who regularly gathered to view
factories, Ishii says, include academics who are researching ways to narrow the gap between industry and
citizens, artists fascinated by their complex forms, and those who actually work in them and love the
atmosphere.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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Whether they are seen by night, like this oil refinery in Yokohama's Negishi district (above), or in broad
daylight, such as this huge complex in the Ukishima district of Kawasaki, massive industrial plants are things of
great "functional beauty" for the many people with eyes to see them that way. TETSU ISHII PHOTOS
Oyama, who spent his childhood in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, says that he has many fond memories of going
on bicycle rides with his father to the industrial area in his neighborhood. Oyama says he wants to resist the
"fixed thinking" in society which has it that people can only be moved by rural landscapes or nice-looking
streets. "There is nothing wrong with feeling nostalgic for factories," he says. "It's no different from being
touched by the sight of the setting sun."
But don't these factory freaks have any reservations about expressing their attraction to something with a dark
side to it? After all, Japan is widely known as a birthplace of kogai (industry pollution), with polluted air and
water from factories having caused tremendous health damage to people living nearby from the 1950s through
the 1970s — even killing some and causing life-changing disabilities to other adults, babies and fetuses.
While he acknowledges that his group has yet to attract self-proclaimed "eco-friendly" types, Ishii says that
people should learn more about factories, whether they love them or hate them.
"Eco-friendly people care a lot about food and where it comes from. But we hardly ever think about how our
lives are tied to factories," he says.
"However, we should not shun factories, because shunning them makes it even more difficult for us to
understand what is happening in our society."
Tetsu Ishii and Ken Oyama will co-host "Kojo Night," a talk show/slide show on images of factories,
showcasing some of their photos, from 4 p.m. on Aug. 25 at Tokyo Culture Culture in Odaiba (nearest station
Aomi on the Yurikamome Line). Admission is ¥1,500. For more information, visit tcc.nifty.com
The Japan Times: Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007
18
THE AFTENPOSTEN
Aquarium owner has close encounter with killer whales
by Peter Markovski
An aquarium owner in western Norway set off in a small boat on the Sognefjord to take photos last week and
suddenly found himself in the middle of a group of killer whales.
As soon as he saw the fins, Bjřrn Skanke Sande knew he was in the middle of a group of killer whales.
Bjørn Skanke Sande, who owns the Sognefjord Aquarium, is also a hobby photographer and merely meant to
capture some shots of the winter landscape around scenic Balestrand.
Instead he had a close encounter with what the Norwegians call "spekkhoggere" or orcas, also known as killer
whales.
"I heard something breathing very heavily behind me," Sande told Aftenposten.no. "When I turned around, I
saw the fins that stood straight up and knew right away they were orcas."
He said the whales were only about three to four meters from his small boat. "Suddenly I was in the middle of
the flock," he said.
The killer whales, who stay together in family groups, swam around Sande's boat for about five minutes.
"I just took pictures like crazy," he said with a laugh, not least with the idea of showing them at his aquarium,
which is often visited by school groups. One of his photos shows five whales, but he thinks there were a total of
seven of them around his boat.
He said one of the whales quietly came out of the water as if to orient itself, and then disappeared again without
making a sound. "It was a powerful sight," he said.
Whales are not unusual off the coast of Norway, which is often criticized internationally for its commercial
whale hunt. Pods of orcas are also known to follow the local herring streams and feed off the coast in the winter.
When the famed whale Keiko made his appearance in Norwegian waters a few years ago, it was hoped he would
join such a pod. He never did, though, and later died.
Sande noted that it was unusual, however, for so many orcas to congregate so far up the fjord. Even though he's
in the aquarium business, he'd never been so close to whales before.
"This was quite different from looking at them with binoculars from a distance," he told Aftenposten.no. "It was
a fantastic experience."
Sande shared some more of his photos with Aftenposten.no
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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19
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Our cheating hearts
Author Pamela Druckerman ... "Everyone has flaws in their marriage."
August 2, 2007 - 10:57AM
Last year, A Gallup poll on moral issues revealed that Americans were more offended by adultery than they
were by either polygamy or human cloning. Forget mortgages, politics and footy, the real dinner party stopper is
talk of infidelity. But if it's so abhorrent, how do so many of us find ourselves caught up in it?
For Angus Black (not his real name), a brief affair three years ago highlighted some self-esteem issues. "I was
feeling neglected by my wife.
Her career was powering ahead while I was stuck in a job I hated," Black says. He met a woman at his local
pub's trivia quiz night and he admits he felt flattered by her attention. "My wife was travelling interstate a lot, so
it was easy for me to kid myself that she didn't really care and that this woman and I were just friends." They
exchanged numbers and before long he was seeing her several nights a week under the guise of going for a jog.
"Affairs become an intoxicating high, which is a fantasy and an escape," says Canadian Anne Bercht, whose
Beyond Affairs Network (www.beyondaffairs.com) and Passionate Life Seminars provide support to people
devastated by a cheating partner. Bercht argues that affairs don't involve all the minutiae of regular life that
marriage brings. After her husband's philandering, she wrote a book entitled My Husband's Affair Became the
Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me, detailing the trauma and how their marriage survived.
Before emails and mobile phones came along, infidelity was generally imagined as extramarital hot sex, seedy
hotels and naughty lingerie. Now the term is more ambiguous. Sure, if you are sleeping with someone outside
your primary relationship, you've crossed a line. But are you really "just friends" with the woman from work,
your flirty male pal at the gym or the "virtual" stranger with whom you've been exchanging emails? Where and
when does cheekiness morph into cheating?
"From my perspective fidelity is about trust and being unfaithful is a betrayal of that trust and a betrayal of self,"
says Chris Meney, director of the marriage and family office for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.
However, Meney also recognises we are fallible. "Temptations are a part of the human condition. We all have to
confront and deal with those realities."
This challenging aspect of the human condition provided the rich material for a new book, Lust in Translation:
the Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee, by former Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent Pamela
Druckerman.
Her survey investigates the varied practices of infidelity, globally. Every country has different terms and mores
and plays out infidelity according to a different "script", Druckerman says. "Everyone has flaws in their
marriages, things that aren't quite perfect," she told The Observer earlier this month. In the UK and the US, she
says, if you want to justify your cheating, "you start complaining about your marriage, and that way, you're not
some lousy guy who cheats on his wife because he wants sex, you're a puppy dog who's looking for love".
But other nations don't have the same guilt. "The French, for example, are much more comfortable with the idea
that their affair partner is just that - an affair partner," Druckerman said.
According to Druckerman's research, Australians rate fairly well in the fidelity charts. In 2002, some 2.5 per
cent of men and 1.8 per cent of women in Australia who were cohabiting or married, had had more than one
sexual partner in the previous year (see table, next page).
Hard figures, though, can be difficult to collate. In Australia, while infidelity is recognised anecdotally as a key
relationship buster, the Australian Bureau of Statistics collects solid data on marriage and divorce, but not on
cheating.
Gary Banks, principal clinical psychologist at the Sydney Counselling Centre, warns that research into cheating
is complicated. "There's an inherent [problem] in infidelity research," he says. "If we are dealing with a breach
of trust, then research into the behaviour of secrecy and lying may be inherently flawed."
So with all this confusion about where to draw the line, how do we decide where infidelity starts?
Whether you meet and cheat in person or online, the general consensus is that infidelity is the same whether it's
via protein or pixels. Last year, research by Dr Simone Buzwell and her colleague Elizabeth Hardy, from
Swinburne's Australian Centre for Emerging Technologies and Society, revealed that of the 78 per cent of adults
who used the internet, 13 per cent were using it to form online social relationships additional to their primary
relationships. "It appears that the internet is replacing traditional routes to friendship and romance," Buzwell
says.
For those wanting to betray, the internet has plenty of opportunities. "People don't come here looking for a
scrabble partner," says David Miller, founder of Loving Links, a British extramarital dating service, now in its
12th year of business.
"In the old days we advertised in the quality press like The Guardian, and we run a forum that is terribly
erudite," he says breezily down the phone.
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"We also offer a one-to-one consulting service where we meet people and match them, and charge lots of
money," he says with relish. Men are charged a hefty £1500 ($3500) but women only £350, an indication that
male clients are easier to come by.
What does he think drives people to seek affairs? "Adults now don't want to grow up," he told The Guardian.
"We're told that we should be having this, this and this, and we feel hard done by if we don't. It's also the case
for the baby-boomer generation: we're all Peter Pans, and no one's yet sent us a letter saying we have to stop
having fun and sex."
Others have found unconventional ways to resolve the desire to stray.
Sydney's Couples Club - an inner-city swingers' club - is going strong after 17 years. John*, its proprietor for
the past five years, explains that the club allocates special nights for couples and women only, as well as
"couples plus" sessions, which admit couples plus single men. John estimates about 15 per cent of guests are
repeat visitors and believes that many people use a visit to the club to spice up their relationship, rather than
splitting up and going their separate ways. "If people are playing together, are they being unfaithful to each
other? I doubt it, because it's consensual," he says.
Many who want hard evidence of a partner's infidelity contact a private detective. Glenn Ryan is a licensed
private inquiry agent who has made his living chasing down cheats. He switched from computing to detecting
after being inspired by the TV series Magnum, P.I. His business, Caught in the Act Investigations, has attracted
more than 2000 clients in the past five years.
He says: "By the time you have picked up the phone to call us, you have gone through stomach-churning events
and a roller-coaster of emotions because you have found a number of clues that caused your suppositions."
Ryan says 99 per cent of his clients have already confronted their partners before contacting him and estimates
that about 15 per cent of the cheaters are using sex workers.
"Jogger" Angus Black's affair came to an end when he was made redundant in the same week his wife endured a
health scare. "I realised that it was my fault, not hers, that I was in a dead-end job," he says.
He immediately broke off his other relationship but, after an internal debate as to whether or not to confess,
decided to keep quiet. "In the end I just didn't want her to feel worse," he says. "We were waiting on the biopsy
results and I'd been pretty unsupportive of her career and detached; I guess I was jealous."
Black quietly undertook to counselling and, after a few "very confrontational" sessions, he concurs there was an
element of self-preservation involved in his decision to keep his secret. "She would never trust me ever again if
I told her," he says.
20
THE AFTENPOSTEN
Princess' 'warm hands' treated sister-in-law Mette-Marit
by Nina Berglund/NTB
Crown Princess Mette-Marit has said that the unusually warm hands of her sister-in-law Princess Märtha Louise
treated and cured her of a pelvic inflammation.
Mette-Marit's testimonial of the princess' treatment is found in an official biography of Princess Märtha Louise
that was written by author Erik Fosnes Hansen six years ago years ago in connection with her 30th birthday.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who was joining the royal family at that time, said she wanted to talk about her
sister-in-law’s hands in the book.
"It may sound strange, but she has a completely special warmth in her hands," the crown princess said. "There
are, of course, many people who have warm and good hands, but she almost has a little sun inside her."
Mette-Marit told Fosnes Hansen she was "a bit nervous" the first time Märtha Louise treated her, "but it was a
very relaxing and relieving treatment that helped me a lot."
Princess Märtha Louise was back in the news this week after she launched a web site for a new business venture
called Astarte Education. The princess claimed on the web site that she’s had supernatural powers since she was
a child, and now wants to train others through "readings, crystals, healing and hands-on treatment."
She caught the most attention for saying that she has contact with angels and will teach others how to contact
their own angels.
Courses starting next month are reportedly fully booked, not surprising given all the publicity the princess'
commercial venture has received. Neither the princess, her secretary nor officials at the Royal Palace will
comment on the venture, and her parents, King Harald and Queen Sonja, haven't commented either.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
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21
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Rogue in a voyeur's paradise
July 13, 2007
Wanted: "Mature single woman for a long-term relationship culminating in marriage." This is what Des
Campbell was looking for on the online dating website Filipina Hearts in May 2005. The disgraced former army
paratrooper and police officer had described himself as a divorced 47-year-old male with no children. In fact his
previous wife, Janet Campbell, had died only eight weeks earlier, and he had a daughter from an earlier
marriage.
The inquest into Janet Campbell's death has heard Campbell had several sexual relationships with women,
before, during and after his marriage to Janet. He had met many of the women online on sites such as
RSVP.com.au and Schoolfriends.com.au and overseas sites Match.com and uDate.com.
He was a serial and simultaneous dater, and several women told the inquest they had feelings for him. He asked
several to marry him, and assured at least one she was the "only woman in my life". Inevitably their hearts were
broken when Campbell dumped them, sometimes by text message, or they found out he was seeing other
women.
Only one seemed to realise Campbell was "a player ... who was on those internet sites ... out to meet people and
have sex". She freely admitted most of their time together was spent having sex, and she would have been naive
to assume he was not seeing other women.
Hearts can be broken as easily in the real world as the virtual one, but online dating is a more effective medium
for simultaneous daters, and might lead people to drop their guard, says Anne Hollonds, the vice-president of
Relationships Australia.
More than a million Australians use online dating sites, according to Nielsen//NetRatings NetView. "Everyone
is on there to meet as many people as they can," says Lija Jarvis, the spokeswoman for RSVP (owned by
Fairfax, publisher of the Herald). "You have to accept that your inbox is full, and so probably is the other
person's [whom] you're dating."
Says Hollonds: "It's a voyeur's paradise: you log on and there's all these women, ostensibly waiting to meet you.
It's very easy to make contact. For someone who is more of a predator there is that opportunity for them."
It is easier to misinterpret what people are saying, and harder to spot inconsistencies if you communicate only in
writing because you miss the non-verbal clues, Hollonds says.
The internet leads people to be much more intimate than they would if they met face to face. The anonymity
makes them lose some of their inhibitions and take more risks in sharing information, she says. Often people
play out their fantasies more online. "When you [eventually] meet that person it's possible that some of your
radar might have been switched off in the sense that you might not be assessing them in quite that critical
fashion," she says.
This is especially so if someone is vulnerable or has low self-esteem, needs attention, needs to feel attractive
and the other person tells them what they want to hear. It becomes easier for them to ignore misgivings when
they start to feel uneasy about the other person, she says.
Many of the women in Campbell's life were middle-aged and slightly overweight. Some had children from
previous relationships. While he told his colleagues his ideal woman was the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell,
he nonetheless dated them, while behind their backs complaining "all I seem to get through this blasted internet
dating is fat people".
The embarrassment the women felt at being so publicly exposed for having fallen for someone like him was
palpable in court.
The main complaint by users of Yahoo 7! Dating, one of the top five dating sites in Australia, is that they have
not yet met Mr or Mrs Right on the site, says its business manager, Karen Lawson. She says online dating offers
people a chance to really get to know each other online first. "Many people fall in love online You get to a
deeper level of meaning. There are no other signals to confuse you."
Online dating offers a new avenue of meeting people once you have exhausted your own networks, she says.
Lawson and Jarvis insist the stigma of online dating has disappeared in the past few years.
It may also be more efficient, faster and easier to find what you are looking for online because you can define
your criteria, says Hollonds. And the internet also caters for men and women alike who are looking for a casual
relationship or casual sex, she says.
Another of the top five sites, Adult Matchmaker, allows users to select their match by sexual predilections.
Whether they are looking for group sex, bondage or just want to watch, they can state their preference on this
site. It might be harder to elicit that information when meeting someone in a bar.
Users of RSVP are representative of the community in their professions, Jarvis says. While most users of online
dating are in their 30s and 40s, most sites claim to cater for the 18- to 80-year-olds. Clearly, those in middle-age
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have often been in long-term relationships, maybe divorced or have children, and often find it harder to meet
new people.
It does not pay to lie in your profile, or put up a fake photo, if you aim to meet in person, because you will be
found out, says Lawson.
It would be wrong to suggest the internet is a haven for predators, says Hollonds. Many people also lie about
themselves in the real world. It is just that the risks increase when people date someone outside their circle of
friends or work network, and they don't know anyone else who knows them, she says.
"We are the caretakers, the mums and dads or the friends to find out is this a decent person," Lawson says.
Yahoo!7 Dating allows users to report improper behaviour and users have to accept a code of conduct, she says.
This includes those who claim to be single when they are not. "If they are not a decent person we make sure
they are not on the site."
RSVP also allows feedback, but Jarvis says: "We don't really get involved in member-to-member issues ... If
something goes wrong on the first date, that's not part of our area of responsibility."
By all accounts, the women who dated Campbell may have been able to see warning signs once they met. Many
described his erratic temper. More than one woman mentioned his sudden mood swings, and arguments out of
the blue. Some were asked to get out of the car all of a sudden. Others went on a cycle of break-ups and
reconciliations.
Several women were warned by him not to be too inquisitive. To one he emailed: "DON'T ASK QUESTIONS
ABOUT MY WORK OR WHERE I MAY OR MAY NOT LIVE."
Janet Campbell did not meet Campbell on the internet. They met in Deniliquin. She had been warned about him
by family and friends. She died before she could find out about the other women he was seeing.
When people fall in love, they see each other through rose-coloured glasses, Hollonds says. "That's like saying
love is blind."
22
THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD
New Maori King stresses importance of education, identity
5:02PM Tuesday August 21, 2007
Amid numerous tributes to him and his mother, King Tuheitia stressed the importance of education and identity for Maori
in his first public speech.
Speaking on the first anniversary of his coronation, the former Te Wananga o Aotearoa tutor said education for children
and adults was a vital pathway to success for Maori.
King Tuheitia lauded kohanga reo, the Maori language pre-schools which his mother, the late Maori Queen, had been a
strong supporter of.
"They promote a belief that our children and mokopuna can succeed in all that they do if they know their language, culture
and identity," the King said in a speech delivered entirely in Maori.
"As parents and grandparents we need to nurture the next generation to excel in all that they do, pursue excellence and be
tireless in their determination."
King Tuheitia said learning would play a big part in allowing Maori and other Pacific peoples to reach their potential.
"As we commit to our Maori way and world view we open doors to peoples of all cultures, their language, knowledge and
even create the potential for trading opportunities alongside the Maori economy."
King Tuheitia also paid tribute to his mother, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who died on August 15 last year, saying she had
added greatly to the legacy of the five Maori kings that preceded her.
"I pay tribute to their wisdom and leadership to ensure that Maori people will continue to shape this nation of Aotearoa, our
lands, our mountains, our rivers, our forests, our oceans and our people," he said.
"We strive to lead opportunities for our people without fear but with courage and determination, secure in the knowledge
that collectively we have the capacity to charter new waters and new horizons."
King Tuheitia spoke from a rostrum after a religious ceremony and some four hours of tributes to him and to his mother.
Speakers included Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples, Western Samoa head of state His Highness Tui Atua Tupua
Tamasese Efi, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis and numerous Maori leaders.
Others in attendance included King George Tupou V of Tonga, Princess Kekaulike Kawananakoa of Hawaii, Prince
Teriihinoiatua Joinville Pomare of Tahiti, Niue Deputy Premier Fisa Pihigia and Cook Islands representative Sir Frederick
Goodwin and New Zealand Governor-General Anand Satyanand.
Following his speech, the king's three waka taua, with 120 paddlers between them, saluted him and dignitaries beside the
Waikato River, for which Tainui and the Government this year signed a guardianship agreement in principle
- NZPA
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23
THE JAPAN TIMES
Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007
Mere death needn't be a barrier to enjoying a nice cup of tea with the deceased
by RAJU THAKRAR
'Tick, tock, tick, tock," goes the clock of human life. Living with regrets is one of the hardest things to do. What if
your dad died and you hadn't had that last cup of tea with him? Not much you can do about that — or so you might
think.
Indeed, one man decided he wasn't going to accept that mortal imperative — and he decided to have his dad made
into a teapot so they could have that last cuppa together again and again. He turned to 43-year-old potter Neil
Richardson to carry out his wish.
Recently, while Richardson was here on a visit, I was assigned the task of interviewing this man who has devised a
unique way of preserving people for posterity. I can't say I was keen to meet him, but I hadn't been talking long to
Richardson before I realized he wasn't some ghoulish Michelangelo-cum- Mengele who spoke like an irate Darth
Vader. In fact, the soft voice and friendly manner of this resident of Carmarthen in beautiful west Wales put me quite
at ease.
Richardson explained that he came up with the idea to incorporate people's ashes into his works when his own father
passed away in 2003. "I've never understood why people would just want to keep their loved ones' ashes in an urn.
It's such a morbid reminder of a person's death," says Richardson. "That's when I decided to use my dad to create a
tasteful and respectful piece of art."
The "commemorative artwork" he creates is done in the Raku ("freedom") style of pottery, which dates from 16thcentury Japan and is the traditional way of creating tea-ceremony bowls.
In Richardson's case, due to the delicate nature of the undertaking, he is especially careful to keep his working area
clean and not spill any ashes. He uses about 15 to 20 grams of ashes mixed with the glaze he brushes onto a vessel to
be fired in the kiln. The ashes increase the randomness of colors and patterns. Each of the pottery forms he creates
from a catalog of 12 shapes — from vases to cylinders, inverted cones and bowls — has swirls and patterns as unique
as the people therein.
"My dad liked fishing, so it's funny that the pattern on his urn looks a bit like a fish," says Richardson. "But perhaps
that is my imagination."
Renowned love of animals
Then, when Here in Spirit, a company Richardson set up with his business partner Peter Coates, was featured last
year on BBC TV in Britain, viewers reacted favorably. In fact, he received a call that night from a woman in her 30s
who had recently lost her husband. "She called me to say that she would like to commission a piece for his remains,"
Richardson says. "Then one day she sent me an e-mail to say that her bowl had arrived on her late husband's birthday,
and that it was as if he had come back home. She was so grateful."
To date, Richardson has made 30 cremation creations in pottery. Prices range from $700 for a 25- to 28-cm-high
piece, to around $1,300 for a bigger one. For his own dad, Richardson says he decided to make tall cylinders —
"because he was a tall, upright man."
Meanwhile, considering British people's renowned love of animals, it is perhaps not so surprising that Richardson
reported some have had their pets "immortalized."
One woman came to him, he says, to have her late pooch's ashes pottered into a brandy glass-shaped piece that was
pinched in at the top so that from above it looked like a teardrop.
But though Here in Spirit has been well received on the whole, Richardson says there has been some disapproval of
human remains being used in this way.
Nonetheless, attitudes are changing. The Cremation Society of Great Britain's 2005 figures show that 73 percent of
people in England and Wales were cremated when they died — a roughly 25-percent increase from 40 years before.
"Cremations are much cheaper than burials, and they take up less space," says Richardson. "Most people have their
ashes scattered in a ceremonial garden behind the crematorium. On the other hand, I create minimalist pieces of art
that are a celebration of a life once lived."
In case you were wondering — as wonder you might — the purpose of Richardson's trip to Japan was to research
how to break into the market here.
"Many people have responded positively, partly because my works take up less space than the Buddhist altars they
have in their homes," he says.
But worry not if you don't fancy having a loved one spend their eternity looking shapely on a shelf. For a mere
$30,000, one company will compress ashes to make a "diamond" for a ring or pendant. Another option is to have
some of the ashes put into a decorative paperweight — while Richardson says he has "heard of a guy who left
instructions for his remains to be put in a rocket and blasted into the sky from the beach where he often went with his
family. He didn't want anyone to feel sad, and told them to have a party there as he headed for the heavens."
It sure beats being snorted by your Rolling Stone son, if you know what I mean.
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24
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Golden age of romance
by Michelle Hamer
July 29, 2007
Demi Moore, 43, and and Ashton Kutcher, 28: despite a 15-year age difference they remain besotted with each other.
Tom Cruise celebrated his 21st birthday in 1983, the same year that his future wife, Katie Holmes, started primary
school. Twenty-two years later he was bouncing on Oprah's couch to proclaim his love for Holmes, sending gossip
magazines into a frenzy over the couple's 16-year age difference.
But does age really matter when it comes to love?
Not according to Elwood couple Tara Cossey, 33, and her fiance Neil Zouaoui, 24, who have been together for 18
months and plan to marry next March.
"Age is not an issue for us," Zouaoui, an engineer, says. "It just doesn't come up."
He believes this is partly because Cossey has so much energy and enthusiasm for life. "She looks and acts much
younger than her age," Zouaoui says, "and I act much older than my age would suggest I am."
Cossey, an international-travel consultant, agrees: "I have the best of both worlds with Neil; he is youthful and fun,
but he has an older head on his shoulders."
She has heard all the jokes about being a cradle-snatcher and having a toy boy, but says the relationship hasn't drawn
any real criticism.
"The people who know us, know that our relationship works and that's all that matters," Cossey says. "A good
relationship is more about a connection with another person than age."
Anne Hollonds, the vice-president of Relationships Australia, says an age difference of up to 10 years between
partners is not considered unusual.
"It raises more eyebrows if the difference is 20 years or more, but an age gap is still less of an issue now than in
previous generations," Hollonds says.
The changing attitude towards relationships reflects a loosening up of society and leaves singles free to hook up with
a much broader range of partners.
Hollonds says most age-gap relationships feature older men, but there is anecdotal evidence that suggests the number
of partnerships involving older women and younger men is increasing.
Yvonne Allen, a psychologist and founder of the Yvonne Allen Introduction Agency, says her female clients are
becoming much more demanding about the qualities they seek in men, and often want younger partners.
Hollonds and Allen agree there are some pitfalls to be aware of with age-gap relationships.
"You have to be very clear about any limitations or opportunities within the relationship. For instance, where a 30year-old bloke is partnered with a 40-year-old woman with children. He may not want children in his 30s, but may
change his mind in his 40s when it is too late for his partner," Hollonds says.
According to Allen, a significant age difference could become more pronounced as a couple grow older. "Sometimes
the older partner can develop poor health which leaves the other partner as a caregiver."
She says there is also the potential for the older partner to ultimately feel insecure about their ability to keep their
younger mate.
"Many times I have seen men form a relationship with a younger woman, but then once the novelty wears off they
realise that they have nothing in common - from their tastes in music, entertainment and travel. The reality hits hard,"
she says.
"I don't think this sort of relationship is good to get into if you're the insecure type."
So is there an ideal age gap? Allen says we should focus first on shared interests and values.
"We're far too ageist," Allen says, adding that many singles may be missing out on relationships by limiting
themselves to a specific age group.
Typically her agency, which deals with hundreds of singles each year, aims to match couples with age differences of
up to three years.
However, many of her clients - men and women - are looking for younger partners and aren't interested in meeting
anyone their own age or older.
"I think that if they focused less on age and more on a person's qualities, they would be much happier," she says.
It's a formula that has proved successful for McCrae couple Emma Gill, 25, and Simon Streader, 34, who have been
together for 18 months. Both see distinct advantages to their situation.
For Gill, an early-learning teacher, having an older partner has meant sharing his extra knowledge and experience.
"He has travelled extensively and last year he took me to the US and Mexico and showed me around and that was
wonderful," she says.
"Financially he is also a step ahead of me in buying a house and setting himself up. For me, being just three years out
of university, I wasn't in that position yet."
It is Gill's youthful energy and zest for life that Streader, a self-employed builder, sees as the greatest advantage to
their age difference, although before meeting her he had clear boundaries about dating younger women.
"I wasn't interested in dating anyone younger than 27 - five years younger than me," he says. "But then I met Emma."
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At just 23 she was well below his self-imposed cut-off age, but he quickly decided that personality was more
important than age.
"We had a lot of similarities; a lot in common," Streader says.
Family is the next challenge for the couple. Streader doesn't want to be an older father, but he knows that Gill is not
ready for children yet. It's a conversation he says they need to have soon - and one that Cossey and Zouaoui have
already had.
"Neil would say yes to having a baby tomorrow, Cossey says, "And given that I can't be waiting too long, that's really
great."
Hollonds says life's big issues can be a challenge to relationships with a significant age gap. "Younger people are still
working out their priorities in life, so there is a risk that fundamental agreements about the relationship won't hold a
few years down the track."
Partners born decades apart can have very different values about issues such as parenting. "Sharing similar values is
very, very important to the longevity of a relationship," she says.
Hollonds believes that one of the risks of a relationship with a large age gap is that it might be difficult for either
partner to establish a peer group who can understand their situation.
"There may be times for instance when you feel old because you're with this younger man, and there may not be
anyone around who can empathise with this. That sort of isolation can put more pressure on a relationship," she says.
While Gill says there are no real disadvantages in their age difference, she says it's when they spend time either with
her friends or his friends that they notice the gap the most.
Streader agrees. "Her friends all want to drink down at the pub while most of my mates are married and having
children," he says.
But despite the challenges, emotionally mature partners who addressed any issues could gain benefits from an age
gap.
"This sort of relationship can be fantastic," Hollonds says.
"A younger man with an older woman can be freed up to enjoy a different life course, and a younger partner can be
invigorating."
Cossey says although she was instinctively drawn to the energy of a younger man, she did have initial concerns about
the age difference.
"At first I did think it might be a bit weird, especially when I'm 50 and he's still about 40, but that thought
disappeared very quickly and has never come back," she says.
"It was a case of love at first sight for me," Zouaoui says. "Our ages weren't important because being together felt so
natural."
Hollonds says the answer, as with any relationship, lies in communication. Falling in love is easy; converting that into
an effective partnership can be the hard part.
"It's important that as a couple you have a shared vision of the future and that you are able to articulate that at the
start; that you open up important issues for discussion and have the capacity to resolve disagreements without
diminishing the relationship," she says.
Yvonne Allen reminds romance seekers to be realistic. "It boils down to what you want in a relationship - do you
want someone who you can share your life with, or someone who is a specific age."
A-listers with an age gap
Madonna and Guy Ritchie - 10 years
The Material Girl and her younger partner have morphed into respectable family types with their three children.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes - 16 years
The TomKat married in lavish style last year and now have baby Suri to complete their happiness.
Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher - 15 years
Happily married Moore and Kutcher are besotted with each other, despite their decade-and-a-half difference.
Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford - 22 years
Calista doesn't seem to mind Harrison's age-battered appearance and the two are happily raising her adopted son.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones - 25 years
Michael and Catherine were born in different generations, but with their marriage lasting longer than the gossip
magazines predicted, it appears they have managed to bridge any generational differences.
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25
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Pleasure or pain?
By Lenny Ann Low; Keith Austin;
July 10, 2007
She says
I came late to pashing. And hickeys. Girls in my year at high school were always turning up in the playground
with horrible bruise-like marks on their necks, making everyone impressed. I'd just feel vaguely repulsed. These
yellowy, bluish, light brown and crimson blemishes were wounds, as far as I was concerned.
A group of the cool girls would gather to comment on the love bite's size and hue, thus measuring the love
biter's ardour for the recipient. Girls with marks the size and colour of a grapefruit soaked in blue, yellow and
brown ink were treated like queens long after the love bite had faded. Those with hickeys resembling a small,
less than fresh cumquat were feted for only a few days. I remember some girls fiercely rubbing their necks in
the toilets in the hope of raising a mild blotch and maybe a ripple of interest from the love-bite raters. But they
couldn't be fooled. The hickey arbiters knew a faux-suck. Only a determined boy, who loved you more than
anything and wanted to marry you and live with you in a really big house with a swimming pool and a walk-in
wardrobe and lots of sports cars, could cause the blood vessels on a girl's neck to rupture in the correct way.
Many of the more legendary hickey owners managed exactly that after leaving school. I often see them wearing
turtlenecks. - Lenny Ann Low
He says
Who hasn't had a hickey, eh? Even the Virgin Mary had a hickey at one time. She didn't? Well, there's as much
proof of that as there is that she was a virgin, so let's just go with it, shall we?
Hickeys (aka love bites, love marks, passion marks or slag tags) are a temporary mark or bruise on the skin that
result from kissing or sucking forcefully enough to burst blood vessels beneath. We've all had them. But mostly
we had them in our early teens. Thirteen or 14 seems to be about the optimum age - old enough to be interested
in getting partially jiggy with that cute boy or girl, but still a bit iffy about the whole tongue-in-the-mouth thing.
I mean, when you think about it, that's pretty disgusting. Much better to let the boy or girl just suck on your neck
for an hour or two.
They are, children, not attractive. It makes you look as if you've been got at by a vampire with no teeth. But I
have a solution. First of all, parents - accept that you will not stop your young ones getting at least one in their
lifetime. Second, kids - violinists often get a similar mark on their neck from the pressure of their chin rest so a
good retort is: "Is it cos I is a violinist?"
And, if that fails, you can always use that age-old comeback: "And who are you? The Virgin Mary?" - Keith
Austin
26
THE GUARDIAN
Do older people really struggle with technology?
by Stuart Jeffries
Tuesday August 21, 2007
Just as you can't teach an old dog new tricks, you can't teach the over-50s new manual tasks, such as operating
DVD recorders or iPods. Or so new research suggests. On the plus side, older people probably find it easy to
turn this page in white-hot rage.
Researchers at Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde universities claim that physiological degeneration in the connections
between cells in the frontal lobe means that older people are allegedly flummoxed by new-fangled things such
as taps that you pull rather than twist.
Researcher Dr Lauren Potter says: "Older people will have problems when forced to adapt to a new way of
doing things. For example, they will find it harder to adapt to digital TV, drive a new car with unfamiliar
controls and use other modern household tools and utensils."
The stereotype of ageing duffers befuddled by new technology is not new. In 1993, Toby Young wrote in the
Guardian: "Why is it that no one over 30 can operate a video recorder? My mother can manage the household
budget ... but she is totally baffled by the VCR." How stupid Young must have felt when he turned 30 and found
that he could still operate a VCR.
By contrast, at 27, I could not programme my VCR - chiefly because it was designed by Satan. Nearly two
decades later, despite age-related frontal lobe degeneration, I can use DVD players and iPods, partly because
they are more user-friendly than the VCR ever was.
Moreover, it is untrue that the older you are, the less able at manual tasks you will be. Potter recognises this. She
says of the over-50s that "some perform poorly while others consistently cope well. The key for future work is
to find out why this is the case for some but not other people as they get older."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
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27
THE GUARDIAN
Website logs deaths of MySpace users
Here are the headlines: Hillary Rutledge, 19, was killed when the car she was driving hit two tractor-trailers;
Desirae Scott, 19, passed away from an accidental drug overdose; Nathan Benner, 22, drowned and his body
was found in a gorge; Mat Hirstein, 30, died when he fell off a ladder and hit his head while trying to catch a
raccoon.
Welcome to the world of mydeathspace.com, a website set up by a 26-year-old legal clerk from California that
records the deaths of MySpace users. Since its launch in December 2005 the site has accumulated 3,000
obituaries and 11,000 members.
Unsurprisingly, given the nature of the networking site MySpace, most of the deaths are of young people, many
of them suicides, drug-related or road-related.
"Life can end at any moment," said Mike Patterson, the website's founder. "Kids are kids: we have every kind of
death imaginable on the site. Most of the deaths are car accidents and teens behaving irresponsibly. Most of
them are preventable."
While Mr Patterson has claimed an altruistic motive for the website - he bills it as a precautionary forum to
warn young people of the consequences of irresponsible behaviour - it may carry greater significance as
showing how customs are changing. Death and mourning were once treated with reverence, spoken about in
hushed tones, if at all; on an internet forum the tone is anything but restrained.
"How people mourn is changing," Mr Patterson said. "There are so many memorial websites now, it's easier to
do. I can't go and mourn someone who died across the country but I can visit their website."
Such is the speed with which mydeathspace lists the recently deceased that many still have functioning
MySpace profiles. Take 18-year-old Ashley Miller who, in the words of the site, was one of two motorists
"killed in a head-on collision caused by text messaging". Her mydeathspace entry links to her MySpace page,
where she states that she is "off to college - now for the real partying to begin".
In cyberspace, it appears, you never die: the company's policy is to remove an inactive profile only at the
request of a family member.
Scroll down Miller's page and tributes to the dead woman appear, most of them conventional messages of
condolence expressing grief and sympathy, albeit with some irreverence: "OK babicakes, we had some fun
times swimming in our backyard."
The site includes foreign deaths, the bulk of them involving US soldiers killed in Iraq. "They're usually a lot
more sombre," Mr Patterson said. "They usually say things like 'thank you for your sacrifice', even though most
of our people are young and don't necessarily support the war."
He denies he is exploiting the deaths of others or treating them inappropriately. As well as the deadpan
headlines on the obituaries the site has a death map, showing the locations of the recently deceased: a figure in a
black shroud indicates a death, a red devil with horns a murder.
The website features banner advertisements for insurance companies but Mr Patterson says he does not make
any money from the site: "I do this on the side. If someone says we're exploiting these people or profiting from
their deaths, that's just not right. This isn't a money-making enterprise. I have a full-time job."
28
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Posh pens fashion bible
August 17, 2007 - 10:46AM
Victoria Beckham has some fashion ideas for you.
HarperCollins announced today that the Spice Girl and wife of soccer star David Beckham will have a book out
in November, That Extra Half an Inch: Hair, Heels and Everything in Between.
"I've always been a girl's girl," Beckham said in a statement.
"And I know from experience that making the very best of your self is something any woman can do.
"I was never the 6-foot-tall pin-up. I've always been the girl-next-door who got lucky. I've come a long way in
the last ten years, but this book isn't my attempt to tell you what or what not to do. It's just to share some of what
I've learned."
According to HarperCollins, That Extra Half an Inch will offer guidance on everything from how to dress on
special occasions to "how to feel confident and look great every time you leave the house."
Beckham's ability to sell books, at least other people's books, has already been demonstrated.
Last spring, she was seen holding a copy of Skinny Bitch, a diet guide by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin
that soon became a best seller.
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29
THE JAPAN TIMES
Moses trying to help less fortunate hurdle obstacles (part 1) by ED ODEVEN
Edwin Moses was an untouchable, unbeatable performer as a track and field superstar during his heyday in the 1970s and
'80s.
His performances as a 400-meter hurdler put him in the most exclusive athletic fraternity — of one, or make that two if a
guy named Superman decided to don shorts and sneakers and compete in track meets.
Moses, a USA Track and Field Hall of Famer and two-time Olympic gold medalist, is also an awe-inspiring speaker.
With an easygoing manner that comes from having satisfaction in one's life, he recounts tales of his global travels, athletic
accomplishments and unique background as a physics and engineering student from a small college without a track to a
world renowned gold-medal champ.
And the scope of his kindness, the depth of his convictions, are as deep as the Grand Canyon.
This engaging personality was on display in Tokyo on Aug. 3, when he was a special guest at a Foreign Sportswriters
Association of Japan dinner and discussed his career, his current projects and the state of track and field today (more on the
latter in upcoming editions of The Japan Times).
As the chairman of Laureus World Sports Academy, Moses leads an organization that is actively involved in trying to
create a level playing field for all of mankind.
"Wherever you are in the world, it doesn't matter what country you live in, there's always somebody that doesn't have a
chance, or because of the circumstances in their lives is behind the eight-ball," Moses says.
In short, Laureus seeks to move that metaphorical eight-ball.
At the inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards banquet in 2000, Nelson Mandela stated in eloquent, passionate words what
would become the organization's mantra.
The ex-South African president said, "Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to unite people in a way
that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only
despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of
discrimination."
Mandela should know. His life is a living testament to hardship and courage as a 27-year political prisoner in his homeland
(he was released in 1990), and then in the next decade as a driving force for positive change.
Moses observed this man's extraordinary message and learned from it.
"He spoke from real experience because when he was in prison on Rikers Island, I guess the only perk that he had was that
they let him read the sports pages, only the sports pages and nothing else — no news or anything," Moses says.
"So he knew who I was. He knew who (boxer) Ray Leonard was. He knew who (ex-basketball star) David Thompson was
and (runner) Seb Coe, he knew all of us, almost personally, because he had been reading about us for years.
"He was the one who really solidified in all of the minds of the academy what our responsibility was — that we could take
advantage of if we took the bulls by the horn."
That message was followed. In its infancy, Laureus started working with one ambitious community-based project, the
Mathare Youth Sports Association, in the slums on the outskirts of Nairobi.
Moses recalls that it's "a project that (helped) over a thousand soccer clubs with kids in one of the most atrocious places on
Earth you can live.
"(There are) a half a million people living right on top of each other in Kenya, on what we would basically consider a
garbage dump, where people discard trash and garbage everywhere and kids swimming in water that if you or I touched
and it got into our blood or got on our lips, we would probably be dead in two or three days. But kids recreate in this kind
of atmosphere."
Soccer, of course, helps them to cope with the challenges of survival, gives them joy and discipline and camaraderie.
The Mathare Youth Sports Association was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. It became the model program.
"We had six projects . . . and over the past seven years we've grown that into seven national foundations, which they are
non-profit organizations in each of these different countries and 46 projects in 19 different countries," Moses says, citing
homeless children infected with AIDS in South Africa, to boy soldiers in Sierra Leone, to ghetto youth in Brazil.
"We've put in about 232 days a year where academy members are actually on the road traveling and doing projects. It is
just a fantastic organization."
Laureus doesn't have any current projects in Japan, but Moses, who resides in Orange County, Calif., said the organization
would be interested in projects here that deal with issues such as helping children from broken homes, domestic violence,
attention-deficit disorder, diabetes, obesity and retardation.
Japanese judo legend Yasuhiro Yamashita, however, provided instruction at the 2004 New York Inner City Games, another
of Laureus' projects.
Moses' athletic career took him to dozens of places, including Taiwan, Kenya, Japan (in 1978-79), Jamaica, Brazil,
England, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, the then-Czechoslovakia and Russia before he retired from track and field in
1988.
Moses estimated that he's also traveled to 25-30 more countries since joining Laureus in 2000.
He made this visit to Tokyo to help promote the Laureus World Sports Academy's new photo-essay book, "Let The
Children Play," which showcases the organization's 46 current projects.
The 45 Laureus Academy members, living legends from a wide range of sports, include gymnast Nadia Comaneci, tennis
greats Martina Navratilova and Boris Becker, ex-NFL running back Marcus Allen and figure skater Katarina Witt.
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Japanese tennis icon Kimiko Date, actor Hiroyuki Sanada and Hong Kong action-movie star Jackie Chan joined Moses to
promote the new book in Tokyo on Aug. 3.
" 'Let The Children Play' is really a photo essay on conditions all over the world dealing with many of our projects," Moses
says.
Asked about the most significant of Laureus' projects, he pointed out one that's featured in the June issue of Watch
International: the Spirit of Soccer program in northern Cambodia.
"There have been so many (memorable projects)," Moses says humbly. "But if I had to choose one, it would be a visit I
made to northern Cambodia a year ago with Jackie Chan. There are still lots of land mines there, and studies have shown
that 98 percent of mine casualties are civilians. In fact, in this region over five million people, in around 6,000 villages, are
at risk.
"Jackie and I went to one school where we saw lots of kids without arms and legs. And the crazy thing was that the other
kids knew the same thing could happen to them at any time. You walk across a piece of land and before you know it, you're
crippled. It's something that we can't imagine. But for them it's completely normal and they just get on with their lives."
This project continues to make a big impact.
"(Soccer legend) Sir Bobby Charlton and (skateboard pioneer) Tony Hawk were in Cambodia last week doing a project
working with kids that live in areas inundated by minefields that were formerly held by the Khmer Rouge," says Moses.
"So we have a soccer program where we encourage the kids to play in areas which are safe and also teach them how to
identify ordinance — 500- or 1,000-pound bombs that were dropped back in the '60s and '70s into the mud and during the
monsoon season dries up 25 years later and the detonator is sticking up out of the ground.
"We have a program to teach kids how to identify mines, whether they are shells or grenades or bombs or anything in the
ground, and at the same time, locate safe areas for them to play soccer."
30
Moses trying to help less fortunate hurdle obstacles (part 2) by ED ODEVEN
Edwin Moses was born on Aug. 31, 1955, in Dayton, Ohio. The second of Gladys and Irwin Moses' three sons, he grew up
during a time of profound changes in the United States, when President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert F.
Kennedy, and black leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were assassinated.
At the same time, boxer Muhammad Ali was arguably the most famous person on the planet.
When Moses was 16, his life changed forever. He watched the 1972 Munich Olympics and saw the gold medal-winning
exploits of Ugandan John Akii-Bua, a 400-meter hurdler. To this day, Moses can recall with vivid details the profound
impact that short race had on his life.
"I would have been 16 years old when that happened and just started running hurdles and also ran the 400 meters when he
won the Olympics in 47.82 (seconds)," Moses says. "I wasn't even running 51 seconds with no hurdles back then. But it
was like my fantasy, and little did I know that four years later I would break his world record."
Wow. How else can you sum up Moses' ascension to superstardom?
In the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics, the little-known runner from Morehouse College in Atlanta, stunned the masses,
capturing the gold in 47.64 seconds.
"For me between ages 16 and 20, everything changed in my life, things that I never would've imagined — that I would be
an Olympic champion, going to a college (that) was academic, it had no track, no athletic program to speak of," he says
now. "We had to get in cars and jump fences to go and train. No trainers, no track, no weights, no nothing.
"So to go from watching John Akii-Bua at age 16 to four years later being the Olympic champion is just something that just
doesn't really make sense.
"The only reason I can explain it is that I just love track and field so much that even if there were no rewards, no guarantee,
no concept of winning a medal, I just went to track practice every day because I just loved the sport."
Then the ugly reality of the Cold War interrupted Moses' glorious career in 1980, when he was in his prime.
Why? Due to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter ordered the nation to
boycott the Moscow Summer Games the next year.
And how does Moses reflect on that time in his life now?
"It's been so long the Russians are out of Afghanistan and the Americans are in," Moses notes. "It is a total turnaround.
Who would have ever thought that would be the case? It's the same country, the same problem.
"I was absolutely at the top of my career at that point in 1980. I had broken the world record in 1980, so it's just a part of
life, a part of the sacrifice that I made for sports. It's a part of my legacy and most people don't know that in 1976 the
Africans boycotted the Olympic Games."
"In 1980, the Americans boycotted. In 1984, the Soviet Union boycotted. . . . It was all fruitless. It was a total waste."
And yet after all these years Moses admits he still yearns to discuss the matter with President Carter.
"I've met him once since then," he says, "but didn't have a chance to talk to him. In fact, I have it on my agenda to get a
meeting with him to discuss it because so much happened politically behind the scenes that led to the fall of the Soviet
Union and what not, a lot of the policies that Carter put into place before (Ronald) Reagan" became president in 1981.
"Ronald Reagan was in place when it all happened," Moses continues, "but Jimmy Carter was the guy that started turning
the screws on the Soviet Union back in the late '70s, of which the boycott was an unfortunate part, but nonetheless it was a
part because it denied the Soviets billions of dollars in TV revenue and tourist revenues and all that from the American
side."
In this time of heightened political tension during the Cold War, Moses met his teenage hero in England. He recalled that
he raced against Akii-Bua in 1979 or 1980 in England. At the time, the Ugandan was a political refuge in Germany. He
passed away a decade ago.
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The BBC is currently working on a documentary of the African great, and it's a project Moses is honored to be a part of.
"I am going to go down there and be interviewed by his coach and the people that he stayed with," Moses says proudly,
"because I've got quite a few pictures and notes in my diaries and things like that that I hadn't looked at in 20 years until
they told me that they wanted to do this documentary."
Above all, Moses' distinguished athletic career was defined by The Streak.
For nine years, nine months and nine days, Moses was the undisputed king of the 400 hurdles. From Aug. 26, 1977, to June
4, 1987, Moses finished first in 122 consecutive races, including 107 finals.
Talk about excelling under pressure.
It was LeRoy Walker, a one-time U.S. track and field coach, who best summed up Moses' brilliance as a competitor.
Listen to Walker's observations from an ESPN.com story:
"In an art gallery, do we stand around talking about Van Gogh? Extraordinary talent is obvious. We're in the rarefied
presence of an immortal here. Edwin's a crowd unto himself."
So what made him a consummate winner?
Did it take more mental strength or physical stamina?
"For me, the training was more physical," he reveals. "You have to rely on the mental in order to complete what you need
to do in training every day. Because generally when you get tired, your times increase. My training philosophy was that
once I start training, whatever I'm doing, my times will continue to go down, which was totally irrational and different from
what everyone else was doing.
"In the meets, it was mostly mental. My philosophy and the way that I did it was I've done everything that I can do in
training, I'm totally prepared. You don't have time to think when it comes to competition. Actually, the competitions were
easier for me than the training sessions."
"In training, I would sometimes run the equivalent of three or four races within an hour or an hour and a half. In the meet,
you go in with unlimited rest and after that you have unlimited rest. You are just running at like a 20 percent faster pace for
the whole thing.
"By the time I got to the competition my mind was clear, because physically I knew that the only thing I had to do was
keep from making major errors. And at the end of the race, you are going to be dead tired anyway, and I accepted that from
the beginning.
"The races were easier for me than the training, much easier. The race was easy."
His mother's advice — "Get out fast and run like hell" — helped, too.
"That's all I can say when it comes to track," he continues. "That's the bottom line. After the training and everything, get
out fast and run like hell," he adds, pausing to laugh.
Moses was also an innovative tactician in a sport known for pure speed and power to be able to race 400 meters and leap
over 10 obstacles that stand 3.048 meters (10 feet) tall.
Competitors routinely took 14 steps between hurdles. Moses refined the process, taking 13 steps in his races.
The reason?
"I had long legs and a long stride," he says, "so fortunately for me the 13 steps was pretty close to what I was going to be
running anyway. . . . My application of it was to make sure that from the seventh hurdle to the 10th hurdle that I had
enough power to maintain it, so I kind of geared my training program to being able to maintain 13 steps and be able to
continue to hurdle when you are tired. Those factors are, like, where the science came in."
It is rare to hear the marathon, a 42.19-km race, and 400-meter hurdles mentioned in the same conversation, but Moses
believes those events have one similarity: they are the most difficult running events.
"In the marathon, you run at a slow pace until you run out of gas," he says. "In the 400 hurdles, you run and jump at a fast
pace until you run out of gas. In the marathon, the trick is to keep moving when you know that physically you are going to
be out of energy and you are going to hit the wall at 21 (or) 22 miles, probably the (elite) guys at 23, 24 miles.
"And in the 400 hurdles, theoretically they say the sugar in your muscles is going to be about enough fuel till about 270
meters, so you've got about 130 meters where you are basically out of gas, and out of that 130 meters, you've got hurdles
Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10."
But remember this: Edwin Moses performed like Superman on the track, so those final 130 meters looked as easy as the
first 130.
The Japan Times: Sunday, Aug. 19, 2007
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31
THE AFTENPOSTEN
FINLAND
Princess' pupils start school
by Nina Berglund
Thursday was the first day of school for those who have paid NOK 12,000 in the hopes Princess Martha Louise can help
teach them to contact angels. The princess' so-called "angel school," meanwhile, has now been charged with snitching its
name from another small business.
Lillian Festvåg, a physiotherapist and researcher in the state health system, now feels pressured to change the name of her
own business, because the name the princess and her partner chose for theirs is so similar, "and I neither can nor want to be
associated with angels and princesses."
Festvåg started her own small business nearly five years ago to handle her public speaking engagements. She registered her
business as Astarte Lillian Festvåg with state authorities.
In June, Festvåg received a call from Princess Martha Louise's business partner Elisabeth Samnøy. "She didn't mention the
princess, only that they wanted to start a school named Astarte," Festvåg told newspaper Aftenposten. "Samnøy also
wanted to buy my domain name (www.astarte.no). I said 'no' to this, and urged them to find another name for their
operation.'"
Festvåg claims Samnøy wasn't interested in discussing the matter. When news broke last month that Princess Martha
Louise had emerged as a self-professed clairvoyant, and that she and Samnøy were launching Astarte Education to help
students "create miracles in their lives with angels," Festvåg felt defeated.
"It's now impossible for me to keep my firm and domain names, even though I was first out with them," Festvåg said.
Neither the princess nor Samnøy, which ultimately took the domain and firm name Astarte Education, could be reached for
comment on their refusal to negotiate with Festvåg.
'Excited' student
Among the princess' students starting at Astarte Education's school, meanwhile, is a 65-year-old woman from Lillehammer
who told newspaper VG that she and all the others had to sign confidentiality agreements, regarding what they learn about
other participants in the course.
Inger Middelthon doesn't see anything wrong with that, and said she looked forward to begin. She's a big fan of Princess
Martha Louise, and admires how she's "stood upright" while controversy has swirled around her.
"Martha Louise is strong, warm, brave, has integrity and knows what she’s talking about," Middelthon told Aftenposten.no.
"The criticism against her has been evil and below-the-belt."
She doesn't think Martha Louise should give up her royal title, to avoid conflicts of intererest, and she's delighted she was
selected for admission to the princess' school. "I don’t know how the admissions process functioned, and thought I
wouldn’t get in," she said.
"This is going to be very, very exciting," Middelthon added. "There are a lot of Norwegians who recognize other
dimensions." She wants to meet them, and share experiences.
32
THE JAPAN TIMES
Manga frenzy proves that we're all kids at heart
by KAORI SHOJI
That whole deal about growing up and behaving like an adult? Scrap it, you don't have to — at least not in the Japan of
recent years. Adult responsibilities, adult worries, adult concerns — while we all know such things exist, it's become
possible to dodge them well into your 30s and 40s, in a kind of sedated state of child-nirvana.
Japanese culture — especially after the nation's surrender in World War II, has nurtured a child-fixation that deems
childhood as the ideal state of being. Perhaps the hardships of war, the humiliation of defeat and subsequent dramatic
collapse of prewar values — sacrificing your life for the common good and prosperity of the family and nation —
prompted people to seek a psychological escape hatch.
In any event, while prewar Japanese media paid hardly any attention to children, the postwar media came to be overrn by
okosama bunka (kiddie culture), manga and anime being the prime examples.
In the 1970s, the otona (grownups) of the nation still frowned on television anime and considered reading too much manga
as harmful for the brain (no wo kusaraseru, meaning "rotted brains," was the popular phrase of the era when it came to kids
and their cartoon-strip obsession). They also claimed that children could not differentiate between idoru (idols) on the box
in every home from Hokkaido to Okinawa.
Now, the generation that grew up watching anime and immersed themselves in manga has come of age and, far from
scowling, will sit down in front of the TV with their kids and watch hours of anime or fight over who gets to play the
Nintendo DS or Sony PlayStation.
This is a generation that has been trained to know their idoru, name each and every one of the "Momosu" (short for the allgirl pop group Morning Musume), sing J-pop star Kumi Koda at karaoke if the occasion calls for it, and download pictures
of boy-band Kat-tun to use as screen savers. Who these celebrities are is far less important than the fact that ii otona (fully
grown people who should know better, as adults used to chime way back when) will actually spend a chunk of their waking
hours doing this stuff.
Indeed, the whole concept of "otona" has shifted over time under our fidgety feet. At the beginning of the 20th century,
many Japanese went to work straight out of elementary school, married at 19 or 20, were drafted into the army and often
died on the battlefield or during childbirth. Survival meant returning to nonstop giri (obligations) and otonano shigoto
(adult duties). They most often died between the ages of 45 and 50.
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Reaching kanreki (one's 60th birthday) was cause for major celebration, whereby the family hosted oiwai (festivities) for
the noble elder, as he sat in the obligatory akai chanchanko (a flaming-red vest, reserved for kanreki festivities). The age of
70 was called koki (turning 70)and living to that age put one on par with a minor deity.
Now of course, the Japanese are among the longest-living people in the world. Getting to 60 years old is nothing, and rare
is the person who celebrates the occasion with a red vest. Mada wakai (still young) is now the remark afforded to those in
their 60s and, as for people in their 30s and 40s, well they're just babies. The popular belief now is that in terms of
knowledge, wisdom and joshiki (common sense), today's 35-year-old is the equivalent of a 20-year-old of 50 years ago.
Little wonder that our most popular J-pop band consisting of guys approaching 40 is called Mr. Children.
Fortunately — or not — it's now possible to live in a semipermanent state of extended childhood, which is probably the
reason why less and less Japanese are willing to get married or have kids of their own. Jibun hitorinokotode seiippai (I have
my hands full just looking after myself) has become a common and perfectly acceptable reply to the question, Naze kekkon
shinaino (why don't you get married)?
In the meantime, we must rely on best-selling books like "Otona Yoseikoza (A Crash Course in Adulthood)" to get in touch
with what otona really are, or were. Whatever. It's the real kids one feels sorry for. Speaking from personal experience,
reading manga and filling your head with idoru tidbits was far more gratifying when the adults scolded and yelled and
thrust hardcover editions of Meiji Era (1868-1912) literature into your reluctant hands. What's the fun in being a kid when
the adults are going to act in the exact same way?
The Japan Times: Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007
33
THE JAPAN TIMES
When the way of the 'samurai' was pointless self-annihilation
by PHILIP BRASOR
Before the war there was a famous woman commonly referred to as Mrs. Inoue, though after the war people stopped
talking about her.
Mrs. Inoue's husband, an army lieutenant, was being sent to Manchuria, and, on the eve of his departure, Mrs. Inoue
stabbed herself in the throat and died. In her suicide note she expressed joy at her husband's assignment and said she
was killing herself so that he could enter into battle without hesitation, the idea being that if he worried about never
returning to see her again he couldn't fight to the bitter end.
Local newspapers called Mrs. Inoue a hero. More than 1,500 people attended her funeral, and her alma mater closed
for a day in her honor. Later, other soldiers' wives formed home-island defense teams in her name. She became the
subject of not one but two feature films.
According to historian Hisae Sawachi, there is reason to believe that Mrs. Inoue's tale is not all it seems to be. For
one thing, her husband remarried almost immediately. It was common during the war for the media to exaggerate
"beautiful stories" (bidan) for propaganda purposes.
Mrs. Inoue was on my mind as I watched a series of documentaries aired on various NHK channels last week. Many
were rebroadcasts of programs first shown a year or two ago, but the decision to broadcast them all within a week of
the 62nd anniversary of Japan's surrender gave them extra significance. People still argue over whether or not
Japanese forces committed atrocities against Asian civilians, but what seems indisputable after watching these
documentaries is that Japan's leaders committed atrocities against their own people.
The military suspected it had lost the war sometime after the Battle of Midway in June 1942 but kept up the illusion it
was winning in order to maintain morale. By late 1944, the end was well in sight, and in desperation Japan's leaders
reinforced the concept of gyokusai, which is usually translated as "fighting to the bitter end." The English term
implies fighting because there is no alternative, and while it is assumed one will die in the process, death is not the
ultimate purpose. With gyokusai, however, death is the only purpose.
It is a central component of the Field Service Code (senjinkun), according to which a soldier must die rather than be
taken captive. One of the NHK documentaries was about Japanese prisoners of war at Camp Cowra in Australia.
Former POWs discussed how they were constantly thinking of ways to die, despite the fact that they were well cared
for. In the beginning, the prisoners were mostly infantrymen, but as the war progressed more officers were forced into
battle, and when they arrived at the camp as prisoners themselves, they were appalled that the soldiers had not yet
killed themselves. They decided that everyone should attempt an escape — not to return to Japan or to the front,
which would have been impossible, but for the express purpose of being shot while trying to flee. On the morning of
Aug. 5, 1944, 1,100 Japanese prisoners tried to escape and 234 were killed.
The 21,000 Japanese stationed on Iwo Jima in early 1945 were there to carry out gyokusai. Clint Eastwood's movie
paints a gritty but sentimental picture of the battle. The tone of NHK's version is different. The campaign lasted a
month, but long before it ended the Japanese government was telling its citizens that all the soldiers had died
honorably (1,000 survived). One survivor recalled it was anything but honorable: "We were killing each other over
water." Soldiers were told that if they were taken prisoner their family registers (koseki) would receive a red mark
that branded them as cowards forever. Starving Japanese soldiers remained holed up in caves, refusing to come out.
The Americans became impatient and just threw grenades inside. "Death had no meaning," another survivor said.
Tokyo extended the idea of gyokusai to civilians. Three thousand residents of Saipan died, many at their own hands,
when the Americans landed. According to another NHK documentary, they were ordered to do so. An old film shows
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an official telling citizens that it is their duty to fight to the death with sharpened sticks if necessary. "I thought I was
a bad Japanese," one woman said about her failure to die, and this feeling haunted the survivors long after the war
was over and made it difficult for them to speak about their experiences.
This reluctance to come forward and go on the record has so far allowed the minority of outspoken revisionists to
insist that the war was a noble cause fought nobly.
The residents of Okinawa have protested the government's recent decision to remove references from history
textbooks of military-ordered suicides during the American invasion. They know what happened to them, even if
written evidence no longer exists.
The NHK programs show that gyokusai became the sole impetus for continuing the war. All frontline deaths, whether
military or civilian, fueled the government's perverse propaganda machine, which saw self-annihilation as the only
recourse. As shown in the recent American-made documentary "Wings of Defeat," the famous tokkotai (kamikaze)
pilot program was developed not for strategic purposes — very few planes reached their targets, much less crashed
into them — but rather as a propaganda tool, as an example to the people of Japan, who were expected to die just as
"gloriously" (read: pointlessly).
Last week, NHK also aired a dramatization of manga artist Shigeru Mizuki's memoir about his experience as a foot
soldier in New Guinea, where gyokusai was the only battlefield option. Mizuki's squadron is ordered to charge to
their deaths, but they return after their leader is wounded and shoots himself to take responsibility. "If they don't die,"
says the commanding officer, "they'll bring shame on our unit." So he orders them to either commit suicide or go
back and try again. Feel free to laugh if you can.
34
THE AFTENPOSTEN
FINLAND
Crown Princess Mette-Marit chided for smoking
Norway's crown princess was caught smoking at a wedding recently, and that's disappointed officials at the
country's cancer society.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit, like many other members of the royal family, enjoyed her cigarettes for years until
she finally claimed she'd kicked the habit while pregnant with Norway's new heir to the throne.
It appears she's gone back to puffing, though. Magazine Se og Hør published photos this week of the crown
princess smoking at a wedding this summer.
The photos have prompted the head of the Norwegian cancer society (Kreftforeningen) to offer Mette-Marit
courses on how to stop smoking.
"The crown princess is one of the country's most photographed and visible women," said Anne Lise Ryel,
secretary general of Kreftforeningen. "It's negative and sad that she's seen as a smoker."
King Harald, like his late father King Olav, was also a heavy smoker, but reportedly quit when he fell ill with
bladder cancer two years ago.
35
THE GUARDIAN
The tent that thinks it's a hotel room
by Kate Burt
Monday August 20, 2007
Travelodge and glamour - not words that often occur within the same sentence. But cast aside, for a moment,
those Alan Partridge connotations and feast your eyes on the Travelpod; the budget-hotel chain's futuristic foray
into posh camping - otherwise known as "glamping" (that's glamour plus camping, in case you don't work in
marketing).
The Travelpod - the prototype of which is launched today - is a "mobile hotel room" designed to be set up
anywhere you might otherwise erect a tent. It's exciting news for anyone who books into B&Bs at music
festivals or panics when rugged friends try to bully them into a camping holiday.
Yes, there has always been the caravan/motorhome option - but the Travelpod goes further. For the same price
as a Travelodge hotel room (from £26 a night) guests will be able to book a night in one of the company's spaceage 6 x 2.4m clear polycarbonate boxes, which can be delivered - ready assembled - to any location in the UK.
You also get air conditioning and heating, a flat-screen TV with DVD player and selection of films, a double
bed, carpet and - the piece de resistance - an en suite washroom and "biodegradable" loo.
"We want to make our hotels accessible everywhere," explains a spokeswoman for Travelodge, "and with the
popularity of outdoor sleeping we saw a definite niche in the market for something a bit more up-market."
So who does Travelodge think will be hiring these luxurious tent killers? "One woman wanted 20 of them for
the guests at her garden wedding to sleep in. People are interested for music or sporting events - one man
wanted one delivered to a beautiful spot in the Lake District, so he could propose to his girlfriend in it."
As far as camping goes, the Travelpod may well be glamorous - but getting down on one knee in a Travelodge
room? That's still about as stylish as Alan Partridge.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
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36
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
School uniforms could have tracking devices
August 21, 2007 - 6:32PM
A school uniform maker in England is considering adding satellite tracking devices to its clothing range so
parents will always know where their children are.
The move comes after the Lancashire-based manufacturer Trutex commissioned an online survey of more than
800 parents and over 400 children aged between nine and 16.
It found 44 per cent of the adults were worried about the safety of their children and 59 per cent would be
interested in uniforms with satellite tracking systems.
While nearly half of all pupils aged 12 and under said they would be prepared to wear the tracking devices in
uniforms, teenagers were more wary.
"As well as being a safety net for parents, there could be real benefits for schools who could keep a closer track
on the whereabouts of their pupils, potentially reducing truancy levels," Trutex's marketing director Clare Rix
told The Guardian newspaper.
The tracking device idea comes after another English clothing company, Bladerunner, last week revealed it was
selling stab-proof t-shirts, hooded tops and school blazers to parents worried about their children being attacked.
The company has received orders from as far away as Australia, including from parents in Perth, Melbourne,
Darwin and Sydney.
37
THE GUARDIAN
Take now, pay later
by Deborah Cohen
Antibiotics consumption is rising again, despite warnings over their misuse. Deborah Cohen asks the experts
how we can avoid taking them unnecessarily
Tuesday August 21, 2007
Charlotte Hays is a busy working mother. She admits that she knows antibiotics don't work for coughs and
colds, but that doesn't stop her from going to her GP to get them for minor infections. "I know about antibiotic
resistance, but it's a bit like climate change - it's someone else's problem," she says. Hays, it seems, is not alone
in this attitude. Despite multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis challenging healthcare workers globally (although it is
not yet present in the UK) and evidence that other harmful bacteria are becoming resistant faster than we can
create new drugs, antibiotic use is on the rise again.
Hays puts her reliance on antibiotics down to her busy schedule. "I can't wait for the illness to take its course. I
want antibiotics to make it go away."
Recent research led by Dr Andrew Hayward, a senior lecturer in infectious disease epidemiology at University
College London, found that, despite official guidelines, GPs are prescribing too many antibiotics for common
infections. His survey, published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, showed that antibiotic
prescription varied widely according to the condition, with 44% of upper respiratory tract infections (coughs
and colds), 64% of sore throats over 80% of chest infections and sinusitis receiving prescriptions for antibiotics.
"The majority of simple coughs, colds and sore throats are viral, and those that are bacterial only benefit a little
from antibiotics because they will get better anyway. GPs are prescribing more antibiotics than necessary for
these conditions," Hayward says.
The reasons for this trend are complex. "Historically, antibiotics have been seen as a harmless way of treating
people, even though the evidence for their effectiveness on some infections hasn't been great," says Hayward.
"Doctors are also concerned about the risk of complications [the infection spreading from localised to systemic]
even though such a risk for most common infections is low."
Adding to the confusion is the fact that people may sometimes be given an antibiotic not to treat a virus, as it
will have no effect on the virus itself, but to help prevent bacterial infection when the body is weakened. People
with underlying conditions, such as chronic bronchitis, asthma or heart disease, are more susceptible to such
complications.
"I don't think there's a doctor in the country who would say they've always prescribed antibiotics because they're
100% sure the person has a bacterial illness," says Dr Anthony Harnden, a GP and expert in antibiotic
prescribing at Oxford University. He points to recent changes in the way out-of-hours GP services are delivered
and walk-in centres as reasons for the increase. GPs are not necessarily familiar with them and it's more difficult
to have an informed consultation about the pros and cons of a treatment. "Children appear ill especially at night
because their fevers are higher. Perhaps doctors are more likely to give them antibiotics in that circumstance,"
he says.
There are other circumstances in which GPs may feel pressured into prescribing antibiotics. "Most GPs have
had their arm twisted to prescribe in situations such as examinations or weddings," Harnden says.
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Hays admits she has done exactly that. "My 17-year-old son had a sore throat and was finding it difficult to
swallow. It was during his exam period and I felt I had to do something. I could feel myself putting pressure on
my GP even though I knew it would probably get better on its own."
One tactic GPs have adopted is what they call "delayed prescription". This involves the doctor writing out the
prescription but advising the patient not to cash it immediately or take the medicine unless they feel a lot worse
within the next 24 to 48 hours.
"There's quite a lot of research," says Harnden, "that suggests delayed prescription of antibiotics is a useful
prescribing strategy for the doctor, who can reassure the patient they are taking their illness seriously, but don't
feel they need antibiotics at the moment. This strategy has been shown to reduce antibiotic consumption."
But if someone does feel that they have been wrongly prescribed antibiotics, Fleming suggests that they should
be direct. "They should ask in their opinion how likely it is that they've got a bacterial infection rather than a
viral infection. That will then at least engage the doctor on the issues," he says.
Research also suggests that the way antibiotics are used might contribute to an increase in resistance. So while
doctors need to prescribe correctly, it is up to the patient not to misuse them. Different antibiotics are used to
treat different bacteria and doses able to kill or stop the bacteria vary, so people should avoid taking their
medical treatment into their own hands. "If you have an antibiotic prescribed, you should use it for the complete
course of treatment. If you are haphazard about dosage regimes and you don't completely eradicate the germ
concerned, a resistant organism is more likely to develop," says Dr Douglas Fleming, a GP and director of the
Disease Surveillance Research Unit at the Royal College of GPs in Birmingham.
A recent survey for the Health Protection Agency found that 10% of people have unfinished courses of
antibiotics tucked away in cupboards at home. Nearly half these people kept them in case of future need and
18% of these had taken the drugs without medical advice. The worst offenders tend to be better educated,
younger, female, and more knowledgeable about antibiotics.
Dr Cliodna McNulty, the author of the study, says: "One explanation may be that well-educated people are
confident that they can make their own decisions about antibiotic drug use, and this may be particularly relevant
when their infection is less severe or appears to have cleared up."
If, however, you are not feeling better after completing a course of antibiotics, you should insist on having tests,
says Dr David Livermore, an antibiotic resistance expert at the Health Protection Agency. "Ask to be informed
of the bacteria found and the antibiotics to which they were resistant or sensitive," he says.
But he warns that it is important to be open-minded about taking antibiotics. "Expecting never to take an
antibiotic is as inappropriate as wrongly demanding one for every cough or cold," he says. "If someone has a
contagious infection, such as tuberculosis or gonorrhoea, they run a high risk of passing their infection on to
other people."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
38
THE GUARDIAN
To have and to hold
by Stuart Jeffries
A new scheme that allows us to hire pets in the same way we hire cars suits an age increasingly marked by commitment
phobia. But where does this lack of loyalty leave our personal relationships? By Stuart Jeffries
Monday August 20, 2007
In 1978, the chief executive of the Dogs Trust, Clarissa Baldwin, devised the slogan "A dog is for life, not just for
Christmas". Her aim was to emphasise the virtue of commitment on the part of pet owners, at a time when thousands of
dogs were abandoned after being given as presents. Nearly 30 years on, you can have a dog for Christmas rather than put
up with the bother of having to look after it for life. But here's the twist: you can have one without guilt. Commitment, you
might be forgiven for thinking, is no longer a virtue.
This October, an American firm called Flexpetz will open a branch in London. It will enable customers to spend just a few
hours or a few days with one of Flexpetz's dogs, all of whom, says the website, are very lovable and fully trained. After
you've spent Christmas nuzzling, chasing, making home movies of and surreptitiously feeding turkey under the table to the
dog (its eyes filled with glowing, if temporary, adoration), someone from Flexpetz will even pick it up from your home or
office. There may be some tears on parting, but you would get over the loss. Perhaps by hiring a different dog the following
day. Flexpetz is surely symptomatic of a new age in which commitment is on the wane and there is a great deal of money to
be made from services that offer traditional pleasures without the pain of ownership. It's one in which the commitment to
owning and maintaining consumer durables (cars, handbags and - if it isn't too ludicrous to put the next two under such a
heading - pets and partners) seems just too much of a bother.
For example, what is the point of washing a car, checking the tyres, water and oil, paying road tax, residential parking
charges, insurance, and all the other boring blah of car ownership, when you could get someone else to take on those
responsibilities? Instead, you could just walk up the street and climb into a VW Golf you've pre-booked on the internet
when you want it. This, at least, is the raison d'etre of Streetcar, Whizzgo and other car-pool firms that have sprung up in
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recent years. Paradoxically, Streetcar urges you to give the car a name. But the suggestion is poignant: it surely indicates
that, even as we are less likely than ever before to commit to anything long term, the sentimental, perhaps even selfdeluding, pleasures of attachment remain with us - like ghosts of old ways of being.
Commitment-lite schemes that minimise risk exposure are increasingly common. Why buy a bicycle, and enter into a
dreary committed relationship with it (change brake pads, maintain the chain, repair punctures etc), when instead - if you
live in Paris - you could pick one from 750 special racks and cycle it for free, thanks to the Vélib scheme run by the city
council? Why buy a £4,000 Fendi handbag when you could rent one for that swanky evening from fashionhire.co.uk Initial
three-month membership costs £9.95. Among those currently on offer are a Jimmy Choo Mahala, which is a black leather
tote with suede side panels. It's yours for £85 a month.
But, you may well ask, is there anything significantly new in these trends? Surely we have always had everything from suit
hire to lending libraries? And surely these demonstrated that commitment was always a sliding scale?
This is true, according to Zygmunt Bauman, emeritus sociology professor at the University of Leeds, who writes in his
book Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds: "In lasting commitments, liquid modern reason spies out oppression; in
durable engagement, it sees incapacitating dependency." His point is that we are all liquid moderns now - we prize fluid
relationships, disposable goods, dogs that don't stick around. Ties, bindings and bonds make us nervous: "There is neither
need nor use for them that liquid modern rationality of the consumer could justify." Bauman's disturbing suggestion is that
we treat all our relationships this way these days - it's not only rental dogs we get rid of once they have enchanted us for a
few happy hours, but lovers too.
What is new, according to Bauman, is that we have slid markedly towards the end of the scale that prizes flexibility over
commitment. Fashions for handbags, lovers, dogs and lifestyles change faster than ever and, in this dizzying world, one
must arm oneself with the means not to get left behind. "The skill I really need to acquire," Bauman writes in the draft of
his looming new book, Art of Life, "is flexibility - the ability of fast forgetting and disposing of the past assets turned into
liabilities, changing tacks and tracks at short notice and without regret, and avoid swearing lifelong loyalty to anything and
anybody. Good turns, after all, tend to appear suddenly and from nowhere, and equally abruptly they vanish; woe to the
suckers who by design or default behave as if they were to hold to them for ever."
The last thing liquid moderns want to be is suckers. And the suggestion is that those who commit are. Indeed, those who
see commitment as a virtue in itself are deluded. It has been redefined for our age. "Commitment," wrote Adrienne
Burgess, journalist and co-founder of the Fathers Direct UK agency, in her 2001 book Will You Love Me Tomorrow?, "is a
spin-off from other things: how satisfied we are with our relationship; whether we see a viable alternative to it and whether
moving on would cause us to lose important investment (time, money, shared property, children)." Burgess, for all the
ostensibly offensive nature of her categorising (when did children become investments?), comprehends our post-millennial
zeitgeist perfectly: everything to which we relate can, and often is, based on a consumer model.
I ask Bauman what he thinks of this: "Consumer objects," he replies, "are for one-off use and immediate disposal.
Consumerist syndrome is transposition of that pattern on all other areas of life." His suggestion is that consumerist
syndrome has contaminated our society. Long-term commitment to a lover as set out in marriage vows is no longer
compelling to everybody. In Liquid Love, Bauman puts the matter this way: "The romantic definition of love as 'till death
us do part' is decidedly out of fashion - having passed its use-by date because of the radical overhaul of kinship structures it
used to serve and from which it drew its vigour and self-importance."
Love, if it involves entering into a relationship filled with passion and romantic hopes of long-term felicity (of the kind that,
say, Jane Austen never dared describe for her marrying couples), seems folly to liquid moderns - it is a bad bet, a
commitment that, entered into in haste, will be repented at leisure. The era of liquid modernity may be catastrophic for
romantic notions of love.
We use our skills, wits and dedication to create provisional bonds that are loose enough to stop suffocation, but tight
enough to give a needed sense of security now that the traditional sources of solace (family, career, loving relationships)
are less reliable than ever. The liquid modern is forever at work, forever replacing quality of relationship with quantity always panicking about being left behind or becoming obsolete. Hence, no doubt, speed dating, leaping from one chatroom
to another, texting addictively. We want relationships to be more like shopping - arousals readily met, easy pleasures
quickly consumed and, fingers crossed, negligible suffering. We want love to be like it too - with receipts, statutory rights
and legally enforceable promises of satisfaction.
But love doesn't yield so easily to such commodification. It doesn't obey economic rules. Love has always been difficult,
but now more than ever when we seek both freedom from love's bonds and at the same time yearn for the security it seems
to offer. That is why love is insufferable today and why, too, no liquid modern worth the name gets embroiled in it.
Bauman's account of how consumerist syndrome poisons everything helps explain a term coined in 1987 by relationship
experts Steven Carter and Linda Sokol in their book Men Who Can't Love: How to Recognise a Commitmentphobic Man
Before He Breaks Your Heart. Commitment phobia has since become big business. There are books on how to overcome
the phobia, self-help tapes, and even an online commitment readiness test (queendom.com/tests). The latter consists of 38
questions, which should put off the most commitment phobic.
Commitment phobia is now not gender specific, nor sexuality specific. Recently, when publicising her role as the cartoon
Princess Fiona in Shrek the Third, Cameron Diaz said her career had suffered because of her inability to choose roles: "I'm
really bad at commitment. I just hate committing myself to anything. It's probably comes from me being a total spoiled brat
and always getting my own way."
Diaz explained why she felt commitment phobic towards men. "Each time I hope that this one will be different, that I won't
run away. When forced to make a choice I almost freeze in panic ... the only thing I can think of is how to get away from
this source of anxiety." For Carter and Sokol this is classic commitment phobia: "Sometimes it is so pervasive that it
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interferes in their ability to make simple everyday decisions and on the larger scale, of managing and maintaining their
life."
This difficulty in making decisions is a feature of late capitalism, in which we are confronted by endless choice (TV
channels, gourmet coffee, downloadable ring tones, perhaps ultimately even interchangeable lovers) and are terrified of
making choices. Some of us are temperamentally more prone to that freezing anxiety than others.
But such dithering is economically untenable. The Nobel prize-winning economist Herbert Simon once said that any firm
that tried to make decisions that would maximise its returns would bankrupt itself in a never-ending search for the best
option. Instead, they "satisfice", which means they content themselves with results that are "good enough". In business, it's
not the utility maximiser who is prized but the decision-maker. In this context, to be a good decision-maker does not mean
that you make good decisions, just that you make a decision. But what Simon didn't recognise is buyer's remorse - and that
is what stalks the nightmares of commitment phobics such as Diaz.
At the heart of these issues is the question of what commitment means now. Burgess argues that commitment is not about
prenuptial pledges. "Trying to force a partner to make a commitment is a waste of time," she says. "Not only does it
provide no guarantees, but it also causes resentment and hostility, which undermines any loving feelings. In relationships
with a real future, therefore, commitment usually develops at much the same rate on both sides. But promises of
commitment are meaningless in the long term, too - commitment isn't an act of will."
Freud wrote in Civilisation and its Discontents that civilisation is a trade-off between freedom and security. The suggestion
now is that we have traded off more security in favour of more freedom. Bauman argues that one fear of pledging
commitment is that the relationship risks "curdling and clotting". He says: "It stays pregnant with vague threats and sombre
premonitions; it tells of the pleasures of togetherness in one breath with the horrors of enclosure."
That is not to say that those who don't commit are more content than those who do. Anxiety about what one is missing may
well be everyone's fate. Indeed, Bauman, while suggesting no cure, argues that the liquid modern, so used to disposing of
those they don't like, is temperamentally incapable of doing the thing that many great religions have called a golden rule,
namely to love one's neighbour as one's self. Such love - which promises no advantage or reward - has been difficult to
manage at any time. Today it is all but incomprehensible.
The figures seem to suggest that we are indeed becoming commitment phobic and that we will become more so in the
future, at least in Britain. The 2001 census showed that the proportion of households that are home to married couples fell
by 10% in 10 years to 45%; in Britain in 2005 there were 2.2 million cohabiting couples and the Office for National
Statistics predicts that figure will rise to 2.93 million by 2021.
In this climate, the Law Commission recently published proposals to give unmarried couples rights to share each other's
wealth (property especially) if they split up. Some fear that this could undermine that institution of commitment, marriage.
Those seeking a change in the law argue that the proposals address a terrible unfairness - married couples have such rights,
as do lesbian and gay couples whose relationships are covered by the Civil Partnership Act. Why can't cohabitees not
covered by that act be eligible for such entitlements too?
Yet these trends, and the suggestion that non-married couples should have property rights, outrage conservative columnists.
Melanie Phillips, who defends the institution of marriage and is not keen to extend property rights to cohabiting couples,
says: "The law is based on justice; justice requires that you don't get something for nothing. You don't claim rights if you
don't enter into obligations."
But Phillips' argument is dubious: the point, of course, is that if a cohabitee seeks property when a relationship breaks up,
the court would seek to find out what compensation is fair; the idea is that you get something for something (helping to
raise a kid, listening to your partner whinge about how rubbish work is on a long-term basis etc), not, as Phillips worries,
something for nothing. These things, surely, show commitment, albeit of the provisional, practical, liquid, modern kind.
Committing to marriage by making vows, as Burgess says, may mean very little; real commitment comes from staying in a
relationship and making it work. Commitment, if seemingly ailing, is not quite dead.
39
THE SUN
Tycoon forgets £80k luxury car
by ONLINE REPORTER
August 21, 2007
A TYCOON abandoned his £80,000 luxury car in a pound for three months because he was too busy to collect it.
Parisian multi-millionaire Bertrand Des Pallieres, 39, owes thousands in congestion charge penalties and parking fines and also drove
without road tax. His Maserati Cambiocorsa has been at a DVLA pound in White City, west London, since May. It had been spotted
without tax and was towed by Transport for London from a square in Knightsbridge. Each day the car is left in the pound adds another
£25 to his bill. He said he had been distracted by setting up his new business, the £170million SPQR fund, since leaving Deutsche Bank
in April and losing his personal assistant. He told a newspaper: “The truth is I was so busy I did not have time to deal with sorting the
congestion charges, paying my road tax and getting my car out of the pound.
“I have been setting up a new business and, as you can imagine, it requires all my focus.
“I have been running around the world raising money for my fund and setting it up.
“For a while I did not have a PA but now I have one, so this will get sortedout.”
Owners of lower value cars get around seven to 14 days to pick them up before they get scrap or auctioned.
Mr Des Pallieres, who says he only uses the car in the summer, said: “In mydefence, I would say that parking in the TfL car pound is not
that expensive relative to the cost of parking in central London.”
A spokesman for NCP Services, the enforcement contractors who run the pound on behalf of the DVLA, said: “The reason that this car
has not been wrecked is that it is an expensive and quite an unusual car. It has had to be looked at by specialist dealers.
“The owner still has the chance to get the car back, presumably if he pays all the outstanding fine.
“It is safe and secure in the pound but it cannot be held forever.”
40
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
Stolen Elvis Presley Gun Is Recovered
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 21, 2007
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) -- A handgun stolen from an exhibit during last week's commemoration of the 30th
anniversary of Elvis Presley's death has been recovered.
Surveillance video showed a man reaching into a display case at the ''Elvis After Dark'' exhibit at Graceland, Presley's
mansion, and removing a black, 9 mm Smith & Wesson pistol on Aug 14.
Travis Brookins turned the gun over to police Monday after the theft was reported by news media.
Brookins said he was cleaning portable toilets behind the exhibit hall last Thursday when he found the gun in the
muck. Unaware the weapon had been stolen, Brookins took it home and cleaned it.
''He called us and said he thinks he had the gun and brought it to us,'' Memphis police Lt. Jerry Gwyn said.
Gwyn said he believes the thief may have accidentally dropped the gun into the toilet.
''Of course, whoever dropped it wouldn't go in there,'' he said.
Presley died at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977, and is buried in a small garden beside the house.
Tens of thousands of fans were in Memphis last week for various ceremonies marking the anniversary of Presley's
death.
41
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Courts Block Laws on Video Game Violence
by SETH SCHIESEL
August 21, 2007
As video games have surged in popularity in recent years, politicians around the country have tried to outlaw the
sale of some violent games to children. So far all such efforts have failed.
Citing the Constitution’s protection of free speech, federal judges have rejected attempts to regulate video
games in eight cities and states since 2001. The judge in a ninth place, Oklahoma, has temporarily blocked a law
pending a final decision. No such laws have been upheld.
The latest state to have its tentative game regulations stymied by a judge’s interpretation of the First
Amendment is California. This month a federal judge in San Jose, Ronald M. Whyte, declared unconstitutional
a 2005 bill that would have made it a crime to sell or rent certain violent games to minors in that state.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has said he plans to appeal the ruling, but he is merely the latest in a
line of politicians whose attempts to regulate video games have been frustrated by federal courts. “It’s more
than a trend,” said Ronald Collins, a scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington. “It seems the cases
are moving uniformly down the same track, and that is that such laws are unconstitutional. Such uniformity in
declaring a category of laws unconstitutional is very rare.”
New York will probably be the next state to try its chances in court. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has declared regulating
children’s access to video games a priority. The State Assembly passed a game-regulation bill in June, and the
Senate could take up the measure when the Legislature reconvenes as soon as next month.
The New York bill has been phrased in an attempt to pass constitutional muster, but it will almost surely be
challenged by the same game-industry legal team that has successfully opposed game regulations around the
country.
“Video games are a new medium, and while people are used to scary stuff in the movies, they aren’t as used to
having scary stuff in interactive media, so there is political value in passing these laws even if they are
ultimately rejected by the courts,” said Paul M. Smith, a partner in the Jenner & Block law firm, which
represents the game industry. “I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people who passed these laws knew they were
unconstitutional, and they did it anyway.”
Put simply, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution as allowing states broad leeway in
regulating minors’ access to sexually explicit material. That is why it is illegal around the country to sell
pornography to children. Courts have not, however, said that states have a similar right to regulate media based
on violence. Most of the city and state video game laws that have been struck down in recent years have tried to
ban the sale or rental of certain violent games to minors. In many of those cases, states and cities have tried to
translate the legal rules for pornography into a new system for regulating violent media.
“One of our major arguments was that when it comes to minors, violence should be treated similarly to sexually
explicit material,” said Zackery P. Morazzini, the California deputy attorney general who argued the recent case
for the state. “We allow states to protect children from sexually explicit material, so to us it is a logical
extension to take that lesser obscenity standard and apply that in the context of violent media.”
The United States Supreme Court has not taken up the matter, but judges appear to have taken a dim view of
that approach.
The opinion in the first major video game case was written in 2001 by Judge Richard A. Posner of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In blocking an Indianapolis ordinance that would have
regulated public game arcades, he wrote that exposure to imaginary violence — whether in “The Odyssey,”
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“War and Peace” or Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 — can play an important role in the development of a child’s
moral, social and political outlook.
“Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of
culture both high and low,” he wrote. “It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar
with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to
the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it
would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.”
Judge Posner is not known as a First Amendment liberal. He wrote an opinion in 2003 that has been credited (or
blamed) with beginning the erosion in the reporter’s privilege that many news organizations have cited in
refusing to turn over reporters’ notes to government agencies.
The federal judiciary is hardly monolithic, but as courts around the country have considered video game
regulations in places including St. Louis County, Mo.; Washington; Illinois; Michigan; Minnesota; Louisiana;
and now California, they have generally followed Judge Posner’s basic arguments.
Many politicians, however, see regulating games not as a First Amendment matter but as a public health and
safety issue.
“We prohibit children from smoking,” said Adam Keigwin, a spokesman for State Senator Leland Yee,
Democrat of San Francisco, who helped draft the California law. “We regulate driver’s licenses. We prohibit
alcohol. We prohibit lots of things from children, and we think it’s logical that kids should not be able to
purchase these games on their own.”
Considering the track records of other states that have tried to defend their game restrictions, New York, with
Governor Spitzer’s prodding, is taking a novel approach. Under the bill passed in June by the Assembly, it
would become a felony in New York to sell or rent to a child any game that includes both pornographic images
and egregious violence. Games that are violent but nonsexual would not be regulated.
“If the governor were to be honest, he would have to say that this provision does not change anything in terms
of the current state of the law and does nothing to address video game violence,” said State Sen. Andrew J.
Lanza, Republican of Staten Island, one of the bill’s sponsors and a proponent of a separate measure to make
ratings on video games mandatory. “They want to be able to say they did something about video game violence,
and I think it’s a little disinengenuous to say you did something that you didn’t do.”
Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for Governor Spitzer, said he was confident that New York’s proposed bill
could hold up in court.
“Protecting children from violent and indecent video games is one of the governor’s priorities,” she said. “He
proposed legislation this session to do just that, which differs from other legislation enacted or proposed in other
states. This legislation would give a new tool to district attorneys to use that expressly applies to video games.”
42
THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD
Virus throws its weight about
by Steve Connor
5:00AM Wednesday August 22, 2007
Most experts say a sedentary lifestyle is one of the major causes of obesity.
Obesity can be caught like a cold, showing that a common infectious virus can turn human cells into fatty tissue,
scientists say.
It is well established that the human adenovirus-36 causes respiratory and eye infections but now scientists have
discovered that it can also transform adult stem cells found under the skin into the fat cells of adipose tissue.
The scientists also found that there is a specific gene in the virus that appears to control this fatty transformation,
which they observed when human stem cells grown in the laboratory became infected.
The findings were presented yesterday to a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The research suggested that the growing global epidemic of obesity may involve more than just a lack of exercise and
a love of high-calorie food.
"We're not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity
cases may involve viral infections," said Dr Magdalena Pasarica of Louisiana State University.
"Not all infected people will develop obesity.
"We would ultimately like to identify the underlying factors that predispose some obese people to develop this virus
and eventually to find a way to treat it."
Previous research on animals suggested that adenovirus-36 - along with two related viruses known as Ad-37 and Ad5 - can trigger the tendency to get overweight or obese.
Another study found a high prevalence of adenovirus in overweight people - about 30 per cent of obese people were
infected with Ad-36 compared with 11 per cent of lean people.
This led to suggestions that respiratory viruses may play an important role in triggering the tendency towards obesity
in susceptible people with the sort of sedentary lifestyle that favours putting on weight.
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The latest study appears to support these claims at the cellular level by looking at how the virus interacts with human
stem cells growing outside the body in laboratory cultures.
Dr Pasarica obtained the stem cells from fatty tissue which she obtained from a broad cross-section of patients who
had undergone liposuction.
She exposed half of the stem cells to Ad-36, while the other half were not exposed to the virus.
After about a week of growing in the laboratory, most of the adult stem cells that had been infected with the virus
developed into fat cells whereas the non-infected stem cells did not, Dr Pasarica said. "A common virus appears to
target stem cells in humans to generate more and bigger fat cells," Dr Pasarica said.
"The results are clear. Ad-36 prompts adult fat-derived stem cells to convert to pre-fat cells, rather than other cell
types.
"Furthermore, these fat cells accumulate lipids - fats - at an increased rate.
"We conclude that human adenovirus Ad-36 increases the number of fat cells and increases their fat content in
humans, which might contribute to the development of obesity," she told the meeting.
The spread of obesity around the developed world is one of the fastest growing epidemics today.
However, the idea of it being even partly the result of viral infections is contentious.
Most experts say it is mainly attributable to a change in diet and lifestyle.
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YAHOO!
10 Back-to-School Fashion Essentials. These items will stretch your budget as well as your wardrobe
from Deb Hopewell, Yahoo! Shopping Editor
As the last days of summer count down, the inevitable rush to the mall begins as back-to-school shopping hits
full swing.
This year shoppers are expected to spend an average of almost $232 each on clothing and accessories, for a total
of $7.6 billion, according to a study by the National Retail Federation. While pre-teens will chip in about $15.38
toward those costs, and teens about $31.19, almost two-thirds of parents say that their children will determine at
least half of the back-to-school items purchased.
Probably the biggest trend for both girls and boys this year is layering; it allows not only for a lot of creativity in
putting together looks, but is practical as well. For instance, instead of just one big, heavy coat for winter, a
medium-warmth jacket can go from fall to winter and then into spring with the addition – or subtraction of
layers. A babydoll dress can be worn with tights or leggings, then over jeans when the weather turns cooler.
For the guys, the “athletic lifestyle” look, influenced by the skateboarder and surfer culture, is seen in
everything from shoes to shorts, shirts and hoodies.
And as always, jeans and tees – for both girls and boys – continue to be the two wardrobe staples.
With a little planning, kids (and their parents) can get the most from their spending dollars by choosing some
key items that will update their wardrobe with the newest looks, while still working with things they already
have in their closets.
For Girls:
• Babydoll dresses: This is one of the hottest looks for fall, worn alone or layered over a tank or hooded shirt.
Prints are bold, and solid colors are muted – think earth tones, black, grey or dusty roses and blues. When paired
with leggings or tights, a babydoll top makes a cute mini-dress that’s still appropriate for the classroom. When
the mercury starts to dip, slip it over a pair of jeans.
• Leggings and tights: This is one of the season’s most versatile layering pieces. Leggings or tights can go
under skirts, jumpers, dresses or babydolls to add warmth and coverage, and it will extend the time you can
wear the piece well into fall.
• Plaids: Whether a skirt, jumper or shirt, plaids are big this fall. Re-invent preppie chic by layering a plaid skirt
with leggings and a solid tee under a simple white blouse. Plaids are also showing up in everything from
Bermuda shorts to hair accessories.
• Jeans: It isn’t all about skinny anymore – this season there are plenty of styles to choose from, including high
waisted, classic straight legs or wide-legged trouser. But they all have one thing in common: a dark, inky wash.
And detailed pockets continue to be the defining embellishment.
• Flats: There’s no end in sight to the popularity of ballet flats, the must-have shoe of the year. For fall, patent
leather is popular, as are metallics.
For Guys:
• Cargo pants: Cargo pants are still a staple of the guys’ wardrobe, but this season they’ve been stripped of much
of the bulk for a cleaner, more classic line denim, twill and corduroy. Look for cargoes that zip at the knee,
letting you detach the bottom to convert them into shorts.
• Jeans: This season’s jean has a relaxed, not baggy, fit, in dark washes or a softer finish. The five-pocket bootcut remains a wardrobe classic.
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
• Tees: Forget about logos or phrases, today’s tees feature big graphic prints on solid colors as well as stripes.
They are the building block of the guys' wardrobe, so wear them alone, or layered under a button-down shirt or
sweater vest, or over a long-sleeve tee.
• Hoodie: The hoodie is a layering essential for guys, whether in light cotton, warm sweatshirt material or soft
fleece. The lighter hoodies can be worn underneath a graphic tee or long-sleeved shirt; when the weather turns
chillier, fleece hoodies are great for layering under jackets.
• “Skater-style” Shoes: Both comfortable and functional, the skater-inspired shoe continues to be the footwear
of choice for guys.
44
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Tuscan Hills Are Alive With Amateur Archaeologists
by ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
August 21, 2007
CASENOVOLE, Italy, Aug. 16 — The Etruscan tomb was hidden in such a remote corner of Tuscany that
Andrea Marcocci, the archaeology student who found and identified it about a decade ago, was not very worried
that anyone else would stumble upon it.
Then, this year, woodsmen began to clear brush in the area, and Mr. Marcocci — who had believed the tomb
would be safe as long as it was concealed in a forest — realized he had to act.
“I became worried that what’s supposed to be the patrimony of mankind would become the patrimony of an
individual,” he said.
Armed with a permit from the archaeological authorities (in Italy, anything found underground belongs to the
state), he and a handful of volunteers began to dig.
What they found last week was a complete surprise: a tomb dating back more than 2,000 years with a cache of
almost perfectly preserved ceramic and bronze funerary objects, including cremation urns for more than two
dozen people.
“It was an incredible moment,” said another archaeology student, Giacomo Ghini, who was the first to spot the
tops of the urns buried in dirt in the burial chamber. “We weren’t sure there would be anything there.”
The find, experts say, is not particularly exceptional in terms of the rarity of the unearthed objects. The burial
chamber, about six feet long and almost as wide, is not painted, and the objects, probably Hellenistic and dating
from between the first and third centuries B.C., are quite modest in nature. They are now in safekeeping at a
nearly city hall but they will be turned over to state archaeologists to be cleaned, restored if necessary and
studied.
But as far as this local group of archaeologists is concerned, finding the tomb was like stumbling on King
Tutankhamen’s gold.
“It really brought locals together; it made them proud to live here,” said Carla Bonsanti, Mr. Marcocci’s wife
and a member of Odysseus, the amateur archaeological association that carried out the dig in this part of the
Tuscan Maremma, a remote, hilly region southwest of Siena known for its horseback-riding cattle breeders.
If it weren’t for amateur groups like Odysseus, much of Italy’s ancient heritage would be even more at risk to
random plundering by tomb robbers, said Gabriella Barbieri, who is the state official in charge of protecting the
area’s archaeological heritage and granted permission for the excavation. “The more citizens are concerned,
they more they can help us,” she said. “The state can’t be everywhere at once.”
Inadequate protection of Italy’s archaeologically rich soil is one reason many plundered antiquities have ended
up in private collections and public museums around the world. But in recent years Italy has increased security
at archaeological sites and has created a special police force to investigate looting.
From 2001 to 2006, the art theft squad recovered 345,320 purloined archaeological artifacts (including
individual fragments). Because of the very nature of the finds, “it’s impossible to estimate the amount that has
been actually excavated,” a spokesman for the squad said.
Italy has also tried to curb the illegal antiquities market through an aggressive and high-profile campaign,
including moral persuasion, to reclaim artifacts. After successfully lobbying for the return of works from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Italy announced an accord
with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles on Aug. 1 providing for the return of 40 pieces.
Yet archaeological experts say vigilance is critical, because what has emerged from the ground is only a fraction
of what still lies underneath.
Speaking of the tomb robbers, Maria Grazia Celuzza, the director of the archaeological museum in Grosseto,
about 12 miles south of here, said, “As long as there are Etruscan tombs to be found, there’s going to be the risk
of tombaroli.”
The monetary value of the objects aside, scholars argue that every time a tomb is violated, potential knowledge
of ancient civilizations is lost.
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
There is much still to be learned, for instance, about the Etruscans, an ancient population with a distinct
language and traditions that dominated what is now central Italy for about a millennium, until they were
conquered by the Romans.
Groups like Odysseus as well as university archaeology programs (both national and foreign) also provide
crucial manual labor to the state’s cultural heritage authorities, who simply cannot afford to finance hundreds of
archaeological excavations each year.
Because the tomb at Casenovole is not a major site, only local amateur archaeologists like Mr. Marcocci and
Mr. Ghini would be likely to have an interest in excavating it. Since both are about to graduate with degrees in
archaeology, it was not difficult for them to obtain a permit.
Ms. Barbieri, the government official, said that the Italian government grants such permits only to people with
experience, and that all aspects of the dig are supervised.
Mr. Marcocci said, “There are always archaeological emergencies in Italy and this system helps the state keep
up.” Fortunately, he added, “there are a lot of passionate people” to serve as volunteers.
His permit expires on Aug. 27, but the Odysseus association will continue to seek out new hidden treasures.
“Here,” he added, “any hillock can be good.”
45
E! ENTERTAINMENT ONLINE
More Misfortune for Cruise's Valkyrie by Sarah Hall
Tom Cruise's Nazi movie has hit yet another bump in the road.
Eleven extras were injured Sunday when they fell off the back of a German army truck while filming a scene for Valkyrie
in central Berlin, officials said.
The truck was reportedly rounding a corner when the back panel flew open, sending its passengers flying. Police said a bolt
apparently came loose, causing the wooden slats across the back to dislodge.
One individual remained in the hospital after the accident; the others were treated and released.
"No one suffered anything more serious than cuts and bruises, though one of the extras was kept in the hospital overnight
for observation," United Artists said in a statement Monday.
Though filming was halted following the incident, "it is not expected to have any impact on the production schedule," the
studio said.
Neither Cruise nor director Bryan Singer was on set when the accident occurred.
Valkyrie stars Cruise as Count Claus Shenck Graf von Stauffenberg, a German war hero at the center of a failed plot to
assassinate Adolf Hitler in July 1944.
The WWII film has been mired in controversy from the start, with German officials initially professing suspicion of
Cruise's dedication to the Church of Scientology, which Germany considers a cult as opposed to a religion.
The German Defense Ministry said in June it would not permit the film to shoot scenes at national military sites because
Cruise had "publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult."
United Artists immediately went on the defensive, with Cruise's producing partner Paula Wagner issuing a statement
clarifying that the actor's "personal beliefs have absolutely no bearing on the movie's plot, themes or content."
"Even though we could shoot the movie anywhere in the world, we believe Germany is the only place we can truly do the
story justice," Wagner added.
Officials later revised their stance on the ban, stating that previous bad experiences with production companies, and not
with Scientologists, were the reason they did not want the movie to be shot at the military sites.
However, producers of the film were ultimately granted permission to shoot at every location except the Bendlerblock, the
site of Stauffenberg's execution. Once again, German officials stressed the decision had nothing to do with Cruise's religion
of choice.
"We granted all permissions but the one, for the Bendlerblock, because the dignity of this place should not be violated,"
government spokesperson Torsten Albig said last month. "These circumstances show that the religious beliefs of the actor
are without relevance."
Meanwhile, location issues haven't been the only problem the production has faced.
German officials have expressed concern that Cruise will fail to do justice to Stauffenberg's legacy, while the war hero's
son told reporters the actor "should keep his hands off my father."
Speaking on behalf of United Artists, Wagner said Cruise would portray Stauffenberg "as the heroic and principled figure
he was."
"We believe it will go a long way toward reminding the world that even within the ranks of the German military, there was
real resistance to the Nazi regime," she said.
Assuming nothing else goes wrong, the film is due in theaters August 2008.
United Artists announced last week that it had secured $500 million in financing through Merrill Lynch, providing the
studio with the coin to cover both Valkyrie and Cruise's other forthcoming project, the Robert Redford-directed Lions for
Lambs, as well as 15 to 18 additional films over the next five years.
Specific terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
46
BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
7 Tips for Divorcing Parents
No magic words can eliminate the hurt of divorce for your kids, but you can take steps to minimize the impact
on them.
Avoid making the kids feel torn between you and your ex.
Divorce is an unsettling experience for a child. Even under the best of circumstances, your kids are bound to get
caught in the middle of disputes between you and your former partner. No magic words can make the hurt of
divorce go away, but you can take steps to minimize the impact. The key is to set aside your differences and
follow these seven decrees:
Don't compromise on custody. Custody arrangements fall into three categories: traditional, joint, and split. In a
traditional arrangement, children live with one parent (who makes all the decisions), and visit the other parent
on a regular basis. Joint custody is similar except that visitation is more flexible, and both parents agree to make
parenting decisions together. In split custody, the children divide their time equally between each parent.
If possible, try to work out a traditional or joint arrangement. Split custody may quell your guilty feelings, but it
only hurts your children. In fact, it's the most potentially disruptive arrangement for your kids. It often disrupts
their academics, interferes with the formation of stable friendships, and breaks the continuity of discipline and
routines.
Agree on regular, yet flexible, visitation. To soften the effects of divorce on your kids, make sure they have
regular contact with the noncustodial parent. A predictable visitation schedule helps your children feel secure,
although flexibility has its pluses. A less rigid schedule is more in tune with the ebb and flow of real life,
creating a sense of normality and reducing the frustration that accompanies an unyielding routine.
Take good care of yourself. Studies show that the better the custodial parent adjusts to divorce, the better the
children adjust. If you're the custodial parent, make sure you avoid falling into the trap of self-sacrifice. Get
what you need to feel fulfilled.
Avoid unrealistic promises. Many divorced parents try hard to please their kids. As a result, they sometimes
make unrealistic promises. Your children would rather that you keep your promise on an ice cream cone,
however, than break your pledge of spending a weekend together. If an ice cream cone is all that you can
deliver, tell them the truth. They'll appreciate your honesty.
Try not to compare households. In a perfect world, you and your former spouse would agree on everything
concerning the kids, including rules, expectations, and discipline. In reality, your philosophies and methods of
child-rearing will differ.
Such differences won't confuse your children as long as you and your former spouse clearly state what you
expect from your kids and consistently enforce those expectations. However faulty your former partner's
disciplinary style may seem to you, forget abut trying to compensate for it.
Treat one another with dignity. More than anything else, children need to have positive perceptions of both
parents. A negative impression of one or both parents almost always leads to a negative self-image. Try to keep
all of your negative opinions of one another to yourselves.
Resolve your conflicts. A child's adjustment is at risk when conflicts continue after divorce.
47
E! ENTERTAINMENT ONLINE
Bend It Like Luigi: The Next Becks Thing?
Beckham mania has swept Los Angeles, especially now that the foxy footballer has scored his first goal for the
Galaxy, thereby reminding us that the international stud is actually as famous in most places for playing sports
as he is for being half of an über-rich, oft photographed, impossibly gorgeous couple.
So, if you're feeling some football fever starting up, we suggest you get your kicks with Nintendo's spin on the
sport: Mario Strikers Charged!
You get the whole gang, Mario, Peach, Toad, Luigi, Wario and, of course, Bowser. Like Becks himself (who,
alas, has nothing to do with this Nintendo title), the game is larger than life.
And out of this world. We're talking special moves that employ rockets, bombs and everything else you need to
bend it like, well, you know.
As a Wii exclusive, you can battle other Euro football fans online—and who knows, maybe Peach, Posh and
Becks can share clothing tips while conquering the universe? We can dream, can't we?
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
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BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS
What Children Understand About War. Expert advice to help you comfort your children in times of
conflict.
by Ellen Neuborne
Be prepared to talk about war with your children.
Introduction
What do children understand about war? More than you may think. Experts in child psychology say that
American children today, who have absorbed news of the attacks of September 11, are likely to have more of a
fix on the nature of war than their peers of previous generations.
"It's not as foreign a concept as it might have been in years past," says Mary Polce-Lynch, assistant professor of
psychology at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. "Because of the terrorist attacks, war is not going
to be as abstract to most of our children. We have experienced a massive killing recently and many of them
know what that means."
This makes it all the more important that parents and caregivers prepare for how children will react to war and
its many effects. How you behave and how you address your children on the topic of war should vary, based on
the age and temperament of your child or children. Infants and toddlers obviously require different approaches
than school-aged kids and teens. But in all cases, it pays to be aware of developmental differences. Here's advice
on what to say and when to say it.
Infants
Even though your baby can't discuss war doesn't mean she's completely immune from the emotional fallout.
"Infants get their feelings from the way their parents treat them. If they hear worried tones or arguing, that has
an effect," says Dr. Alice Sterling Honig, professor emeritus of child development at Syracuse University. Body
language is especially telling at this stage, she explains. "This is a primary way an infant knows if mommy or
daddy is worried -- and they will react to that."
Because infants are sensitive to touch, you may want to monitor your behavior. Are you watching the news
while feeding baby? Holding or playing with her while you discuss current events with another adult in the
home? Keep in mind that during these times, while you might not be addressing your baby directly, she's aware
of your reactions to the conversation. Try to ensure that bonding activities like feeding and playing aren't
clouded by your own anxiety or concerns about war.
In addition, be aware of the amount of time you spend watching TV with your baby in the room. While infants
certainly can't understand the content of a newscast, the sights and sounds will still have an effect. "We know
from research that even infants will orient to the picture on the TV and that it can have an emotional impact
even if the child can't make sense of it," says Honig.
Toddlers and Elementary School-Age Kids
At this age, your child may be developing the verbal skills to converse, but that doesn't mean you should talk a
lot about war with your child. In fact, some experts recommend you discuss the topic of war sparingly, if at all.
"Children have a huge right not to know something at an age when they can do little about it," says Dr. PolceLynch. "In many cases it is inappropriate for a young child to know about people being bombed or killed. Often
all that the discussion will do is make children feel unsafe."
If your young child raises the topic of war with you, make an effort to respond succinctly and specifically to the
question, rather than launch into a lengthy discussion of war. Often parents will give more information than a
child wants or needs, says Dr. Polce-Lynch. "If your child looks at the television and says 'What's that?' your
response might be something like: 'That's a news story about a war in another country.' You are not required to
offer up more detail than the child has asked for."
In fact, remember that a lot of detail may overwhelm a child. It's akin to the "Where do babies come from?"
question. Parents may feel compelled to offer the long version of the sex education conversation when all that
was required was a short, one-sentence response.
Other tips for parents and caregivers:
* Restrict the amount of time your young child spends viewing images of war on TV or the Internet. Consider
watching news accounts and even discussing news of war when the kids are not around.
* If you do talk about war with your child, emphasize that she is safe in her home, her school, and her
neighborhood.
* Be observant. If you see signs of regression in your child, be aware that war fears may be a cause.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
49
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Hawaii Surfer Donates Boards for Gazans
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 21, 2007
JERUSALEM (AP) -- An 86-year-old Jewish surfing guru from Hawaii is bringing good vibrations to the
impoverished Gaza Strip.
Dorian Paskowitz, a retired doctor, donated 12 surfboards to Gaza's small surfing community on Tuesday in a
novel gesture to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
''God will surf with the devil if the waves are good,'' Paskowitz said. ''When a surfer sees another surfer with a
board, he can't help but say something that brings them together.''
The chiseled Paskowitz emerged shirtless at the Israel-Gaza crossing after handing over the dozen boards to
Gaza surfers waiting on the other side. He said he was inspired after reading a story about two Gaza surfers who
could not enjoy the wild waves off the coastal strip because they had only one board to share between them.
Arthur Rashkovan, a 28-year-old surfer from Tel Aviv, said Paskowitz's project was part of a larger effort called
''Surfing for Peace,'' aimed at bringing Middle East surfers closer together. He said eight-time world surfing
champion Kelly Slater, who is of Syrian descent, is expected to arrive in Israel in October to take part in the
drive.
Paskowitz, whom Rashkovan called a ''guru'' to Israeli surfers, has surfed in Israel several times over the past
five decades.
Paskowitz, a father of nine, served in the Navy during World War II, practiced family medicine for more than
half a century and has published books on surfing and health. He said he has surfed for 75 years in locations all
over the world, and he ranks the waves off the coasts of Israel and Gaza as among the world's best.
''It's really quite remarkable how good they are for modern surfing,'' he said.
50
THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD
Women really do prefer pink, researchers say
11:45AM Tuesday August 21, 2007
The study indicates women have a preference for pink.
LONDON - Boys like blue, girls like pink and there isn't much anybody can do about it, researchers said in one
of the first studies to show scientifically that there are gender-based colour preferences.
Researchers said these differences may have a basis in evolution in which females developed a preference for
reddish colours associated with riper fruit and healthier faces.
Recent studies have suggested there is a universal preference for "blue," and there has not been much previous
evidence to support the idea of sex differences when picking colours, said Anya Hurlbert, a neuroscientist at
Newcastle University who led the study.
"We speculate that this sex difference arose from sex-specific functional specialisation in the evolutionary
division of labour," she wrote in Current Biology. "There are biological reasons for liking reddish things."
In the study, the researchers asked a group of men and women to look at about 1,000 pairs of coloured
rectangles on a computer screen in a dark room and pick the ones they liked best as quickly as possible.
Afterwards, Hurlbert and colleagues plotted the results along the colour spectrum and found that while men
prefer blue, women gravitate towards the pinker end of the blue spectrum.
"Women have a very clear pattern. It's low in the yellow and green regions and rises to a peak in the purplish to
reddish region," she said.
Hurlbert believes women's preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for
blue.
"When you add it together you get the colours they intrinsically like, you get bluish red, which is sort of lilac or
pink," she said.
For men, thinking about colours was less important because as hunters they just needed to spot something dark
and shoot it, Hurlbert said.
As for Eve, Hurlbert added, maybe there was a different reason she picked that apple.
"Red was the colour of a good ripe fruit," Hurlbert said.
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
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III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. J. Kochanowskiego w Krakowie
Most wanted readings: INTERMEDIATE 5
Agata Adamska
45