Reader's Digest April 2012

The vitamin that could help win medals: p94 CALM DOWN! Clever new ways to keep your cool

Meet the next generation of polar explorers

PRI L 2012 Digegt

"Photographing the Brighton Pug Meetup Group for the 'Best of British' feature was great," says Stuart Conway. "Pugs are so loveable, and the people were fun, too."

14

"Online shopping has become a real hassle," says freelance writer Richard Asher. "People may eventually tire of jumping through so many hoops just to buy a pencil."

34 Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 17 James Brown heads to Spain to re-enter the world of gigging Not-So-Naked Ambition Rupert Penry-Jones on wanting to play Bond, his OCD tendencies, and why he prefers to keep his clothes on

44 Antarctica: Now and Then Why the South Pole still attracts explorers today—just as it did 100 years ago Best of British: Clubs and Societies No matter what your interest, you'll find a group to cater for it

62 A Life Less Ordinary: Walking Back to Happiness

How one man is changing attitudes to mental health, one step at a time

68 The Maverick: "Internet Shopping Won't Change the World After All" Why real stores still win out over surfing and double clicking

72 Brenda Blethyn: "I Remember"The Secrets & Lies actress on how she was slighted at the Golden Globes—but came out smiling

78 "It Makes Me Mad!" Counting to ten doesn't work for everyone. So how best to stay cool?

87 Why Are These Men Dressed Like This? Turn to page 87 to find out what we're talking about

94 Sunshine Superstar Could vitamin D be our secret weapon in the Olympics?

98 How to Build a Refugee Camp We speak to three charities about their reactions to a crisis

"I first interviewed Brenda Blethyn in the 1980s," says writer Daphne Lockyer. "She's since achieved National Treasure status, yet has always remained wonderfully true to her roots."

Want an easy way to get to our website? Grab your smartphone and go to the App Store or Android Market, then download the free Digital Space app. Hold your phone about four inches away from the picture of Gill above, allowing the camera to focus. You'll then he magically transported our site. Reader's Digest the World's Biggest Magazine published in 50 editions in 21 languages

One of the many things I love about Reader's Digest is that it's so inclusive— you can read it, your other half can read it, your parent; can read it, and so can you' kids. That's quite a rarity in the magazine world!

Well now we've becorN even more inclusivebecause.we're letting you help us set the editorial agenda. Although we've always encouraged readers to write in or email ideas to us, now you can send in suggestions on Twitter, too. This month, for example, we've handed our regular "If I Ruled the World" feature over to yoi. And one reader suggested an idea...and ended up being a star of one of our stories—see p62! So join in the fun and follow us @rdigest, and send your ideas with the tag #RDTwissue in the message. Happy Tweeting!

Meet Ted from Bletchley. A month ago his cholesterol was 5.1. It's well below that now.

Lots of people like you have lowered their cholesterol using clinically proven Flora pro.activ. Find out how you can too. floraproactiv.co.uk pro.actiV. Actively lowers cholesterol.

WRITE ON...

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Pleased to tweet you, dear readers...

rdigest From the Reader's Diciest team all-our-readers Welcome to the Twissue! That cute bird hovering over some of this month's pages indicates that an article or column has been inspired by an idea on Twitter. In some cases, a feature started out as a simple tweet; in others, we asked the Twitter community specific questions. Look out for the blue bars along the bottom of our regular columns, too, where our writers tell you the most interesting names to "follow".

DiRgagt

But this is just the beginning—we'll continue to take article suggestions this way, so follow us a rdigest and send your ideas with the tag #RDTwissue in the message.

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ROUTE MASTER

With the days getting longer, now's the time to crawl out of hibernation and stride back out into Britain's epic countryside.

Covering more than 1,000 miles of routes, The Most Amazing Places To Walk In Britain —which arrives in our online shop this month—is a great, comprehensive guide to the best of Britain's countryside. Whether it's a circular walk round Holy Island, a yomp in the Cairngorms, or a potter past a priory in Somerset, there's something for everyone.

The clear maps and instructions help you judge the length of the walk, point out interesting features along the way, let you preplan the parking and—most importantly— organise where to enjoy the end-of-day refreshments.

AMAZING WALKS

DON'T FORGET that our Amazing Walks book comes in the form of an Amazing Walks App, too. Visit the iTunes music store to download it.

WE'RE ALSO... ON FACEBOOK.COM/READERSDIGESTUK II ON TWITTER.COM/RDIGESTO

Visit our online shop, where we now have over 1,000 items available (plus p&p is free)

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OVER TO YOU...

EMAILS, LETTERS, TWEETS AND FACEBOOK

£30 FOR EACH PUBLISHED LETTER, £15 FOR SHORTER EXTRACTS, £50 FOR THE LETTER OF THE MONTH!

SEE PAGE 4 FOR MORE DETAILS

LETTER OF THE MONTH

David Thomas's Maverick feature on the Olympics misunderstands some of the sports he wants to update or cancel, but it misunderstands dressage most of all. It's easy for those unfamiliar with equestrian sport to overlook this particular discipline —I also considered dressage to be "boring" until recently, even though I've ridden horses since the age of eight. It was only when I had my own dressage test that I realised it's the most important thing a rider can master.

Anyone who watches showjumping or crosscountry riding knows how exciting they are, but how often are they flawless? Even if a horse and rider complete a clear round, it may come at the cost of style. In dressage, the horse and rider must work together—they can't rush through to get a good time. Dressage is about the mastery of movement. David Thomas may not think that sports are art forms, but most sportsmen and women would disagree.

Amanda Aiken, Edinburgh

GOING IT ALONE

Harry Mount uses the word "inextricably" in Instant Expert to describe Britain's economic relationship with the EU. But what's stopping Britain entering into a trade agreement outside the EU, just as Norway, Switzerland and many other countries have done? It would take a couple of years to resolve, but—as we have a significant trade deficit in the EU's favour—it's unlikely that Britain would be isolated.

Gaston Dezart, Devon

The real effect of the euro was to tie all the participating economies to the Deutsche Mark. The only long-term solutions are for countries such as Greece and Italy to become like Germany, for Germany to subsidise permanently all the weaker members, or for the euro to collapse. There's little doubt that the last will occur.

Colin Buller, Kent

SWEET MEMORIES

James Brown's defence of small shopkeepers in "Reasons to Be Cheerful" brought back memories of the old-world sweet shop from my childhood in Scotland. The couple who

"As a society, we've failed them. We've created a feral upper class"

owned it made their own hoarhound (a hard brown rock), puff candy, tablet and fudge, and displayed them in a tray beside the counter.

Today's supermarkets have brought back some of these treats, but half the fun was being served from the penny tray—it made us feel important and grown up, the start of a lifetime of consumer bliss!

Carol Davis, Weston-super-Mare

SHOCK AND DISBELIEF

I was quite saddened by the extract from Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" in your Books section. Why was the tone so mocking? Granting our different viewpoints, it

seems a shame that belief in the Virgin Mary is described as "childishly irrational". I often feel bewildered these days that a polite exchange of views has been replaced with contempt.

George Jenner, Conwy, Wales

INTO THE WILD

The "microadventure" undertaken by Alastair Humphreys in January's "Wish You Were Here" reminded me of all the trips I enjoyed as a Girl Guide, then later as a Ranger.

When I was 18, I walked the length of Offa's Dyke along the border between England and Wales-177 miles from Chepstow to Prestatyn. We

"COME AGAIN?"

• "...As a person who regularly wrestles with sleep, I've battled to get sheep to jump over fences, but they stubbornly refuse. But I've substituted sheep with deer, and they obediently and effortlessly leap over..."

• "...'Listen' is an anagram of `silent'..." [That was the whole email]

• "...Why did you ever disconnect with nature in a smelly, overheated pool indoors?..."

• "..Where I worked there was a small diesel train. One year we had a new apprentice and we taught him how to steer the train using the wheel which operated the brake. He went on to become the factory manager..." [That was the entire letter]

• "...My daughter Wendy would not be here if my mother had not left a bottle of sherry lying about at Xmas 1953..."

spent two weeks hiking, and pitched our tents in a different place every night. I hope my two daughters can experience similar adventures one day.

Susannah Harrison, Brighton

He'd certainly fit right in on that score!

Esther Newton, Berkshire

GETTING THE BEST

"Work Better, Work Happy" made me think a lot about my own business. I have a small firm with only five employees, and I now realise that I could benefit from seeking their input rather than always taking everything on my shoulders.

Robert Webber, Cheshire

CHINA IN YOUR HAND

What an insight "Amazing Things You (Probably) Don't Know About China" proved to be. Typically, my husband was most interested to read their rules on etiquette, and how slurping and belching is thought to be respectful.

CAR CAMOUFLAGE

The Toyota Fun-Vii mentioned in your Motoring column, which can change colour with a touch of your phone, sounds like a criminal's dream. Imagine a witness describing a getaway car: "It was green, officer. No, red. No, blue. Or was it silver?..."

Anthony

Naylor, East

Sussex

CE=311111111111111

11 Katherine Birkett

o rdigest Thanks for choosing Martin Hughes-Games for your Wildlife column; that sunny smile of his at the top of the page never fails to brighten my day! The only problem is that the pic is too small for me to appreciate fully—do you have a larger copy?

YOU'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT...

"Untying the Knot", Tim Bouquet's article on forced marriages from November.

• The work carried out by the Forced Marriages Unit is fantastic. There are many victims crying out for the law to be changed to protect them from leading very unhappy lives.

Daisy David, New Barnet, Hertfordshire

• Being trapped in a forced marriage must be a horrific experience. But it must be equally traumatic to cut all ties with friends and family, and adopt a new identity.

Mayumi Sato, Cardiff

• It should be said that formal arranged marriages are very different to those pointed out in this article—it does the people who have arranged marriages a disservice.

Francis Glasser, Bury, Manchester

YOUR FAVOURITE MAGAZINE IS NO AVAIL ON THE NEM/SST; THE APPLE NEWSSTAND, THAT IS!

All you need is iOS 5 on your iPhone or iPad and away you go! You can buy either single issues of the magazine for £1.49 or—for just £11.99—you'll get a whole year's worth. What are you waiting for?

YOUR SHORT, SHARP GUIDE TO APRIL

Author and BBC2 Review

Avengers Assemble. The film that all comic-book nerds have been waiting for. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and various other superheroes get together to see off the evil Loki and his hordes. Or, to put it another way, our heroes are all that stand between the earth and oblivion. And since one of the team is The Hulk, it's a good day for the human race. Written and directed by the peerless Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), this is the best action movie

you'll see all year. The starpower alone—Robert Downey Jr, Samuel L Jackson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johanssonshould have you reaching for your sunglasses, and its whipsmart dialogue helps raise it high above popcorn fodder.

The Cabin in the Woods. Friday the 13ths don't come around often, so when they do, I think you're obliged to have the bejeezus scared out of x-

Show critic Natalie Haynes on the new releases

AR

you. Luckily, The Cabin in the Woods —co-written and directed by Drew Goddard (who also wrote the excellent monsterstake-Manhattan movie Cloverfield) —will see you right for the big day this month. Not only will I ruin it if I give away the ending, I'll ruin it if I give away the middle, too. So let's just say that it starts with a bunch of college kids who fancy a weekend away, then all hell breaks loose. It's much better than any horror film I've seen in ages, because it understands genre conventions and cheerily subverts them. It's also really frightening, so don't go alone. The Iron Lady. Streep's recreation of Thatcher is eerily impressive. Another Earth. A mirror earth appears in the sky. Intelligent sci-fi.

Gadgets

naTouch & Listen enhanced eBooks, each. "Teach Yourself" books have been urging us lazy English-speakers to ask "Ou est le

camping?" since 1938. Technology expert and , Answer 40 Me This! podcaster Oily Mann reveals the latest must-haves

The technology has gradually evolved from the printed word to cassettes and CD-ROMs—and now it arrives on the smartphone.

Choose from 60 language courses, each with embedded audio featuring native speakers, a pop-up dictionary, and live cross-referencing with Google and Wikipedia. C'est magnifique!

AND CHECK OUT... Pizza

"

£1.9 Deliriously fun 2D platform game—control a giant pizza and crush the corpses. Weird. Her Cool cylindrical plant-pots that prolong the life of fresh herbs. The fridge on the Starship Enterprise probably has several of these.

TruLink Wireless

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Before you splash the cash on a Smart TV, consider this cheaper way of watching online content on your existing telly: a wireless hub from CablesToGo. If your TV has a PC port, this simply plugs in, and within minutes you can be streaming movies or games from any laptop in the room through the USB transmitter. You can thank me via cheque or PayPal.

BBC 6 Music's Stuart Maconie's pick of the recent releases

Plumb by Field Music. rate Bush meets Vampire Weekend.

Wearsiders the Brewis brothers have been making precise and intelligent pop for several years now, but their cachet grows with each release. Plumb may be the record that sees them put their head above the commercial parapet. Complex but never ponderous, their tunes manage the neat trick of being rewardingly dense but often rather funky.

The Complete Studio Album by Madonna. mommy of them all. Her rotten films, her callisthenics, her brittleness, her various

husbands—don't let the baggage that's 4 attached itself (with her help, of course) to Madonna Louise Ciccone blind you to the fact that she's a trailblazer, the pre-eminent female pop icon of her generation, and the creator of some wonderful, wonderful records. True, The Immaculate Collection (an update is overdue) is Madonna in one handy package, but this collection of all her albums tells the whole story. And, in a way, the story of modern pop.

Home Again by Michael Kiwanuka. Think post-Britpob Bill Withers. Feted widely and the recipient of the increasingly prestigious BBC Introducing award, Kiwanuka is a name to watch—and learn how to spell. The 24-yearold singer and guitarist trades in a kind of classic, acoustic soul. And if the material can sometimes drift toward the bland, what remains consistently engaging is Kiwanuka's voice—mellow and a little world weary, speaking of life experiences beyond his tender years.

County Championship season starts, In recent years, this competition's schedule has been so indecipherable it seems like it's been formulated by a dyspraxic aubergine (for a start, it stopped for several weeks in the middle for a T20 competition) but it's still led to some thrilling last-day finishes.

Lancashire fans didn't so much bite their nails as chew off their arms as their team finally broke its 77-year championship drought with minutes to spare last year. Warwickshire, who were pipped like a steamrollered cantaloupe, should challenge this year— though Durham are favourites.

Marathon de Sables, The 27th staging of the world's most idiotic race will ALSO ON OUR A

AR

ESPNcricinfo cricket blogger, broadcaster and stand-up Andy Zaltzman previews the best of the month's action see hundreds of masochistic amateur runners pounding through the Sahara Desert— that's the real Sahara Desert, not a pretend version—for a week, running the equivalent of six marathons for a mixture of (a) fun, (b) charity, (c) an unfathomable inability not to run through the desert for a week, and (d) camel solidarity.

AND DON'T MISS... Major League baseball season starts April 4. The Boat Race April 7. The Grand National April 12-14.

April 8 Easter. April 9 World Coal Carrying Championship, Gawthorpe, Yorkshire.

April 22 London Marathon. April 26-29 The Sundance Festival, The 02, London.

Life's Too

Short, BBC1. Really well-written, great observational comedy.

LISTENING'

Live and Dangerous, Thin Lizzy. Coming from Dublin, I'm a big fan of these guys. I saw them perform recently and they still rock after all these years.

ONLINE guitartabs.cc

One of the best websites for the chords and notes of pretty much any popular song.

READING: Hope and Glory: the Days That Made Britain by Stuart Maconie. Looks back on key events 11 3 from the last 100 years or so. Funny, and quite sad in places. •

At times like this, we have local agents;'' to remove the hassle.

When disaster strikes, our local agent will be on hand to help you deal with it and progress your claim without unnecessary hassle. To us, that's real value for money and perhaps why we top the table of Which? recommended providers*.

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YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP...

9 My daughter, who balances a responsible career with a husband and two young children, uses an iPad for work that her son—a Smurfs fan —likes to "borrow" when she's at home.

This backfired when my daughter gave a work presentation to her team using the iPad. Halfway through, a message popped up on the screen: "A Smurf has returned to your village." ,;, West Midlands

91 I met my girlfriend for the first time when we both went swimming at the local baths. We arranged to hook up in the cafe afterwards for a drink, but it was very busy. I finally managed to pick her out in the crowd, and she couldn't stop smiling when I blurted out, "I'm sorry—I didn't recognise you with your clothes on." Yi‘ r

II I recently got an excited phone call from my mum, who informed me that my brother had got a

9 I WAS PROSECUTING COUNSEL IN A CASE INVOLVING a man charged with driving while disqualified. The defence council was appearing in his first Crown Court case, and frankly it showed—he had learned all the theatrical mannerisms from TV and the movies, but it wasn't impressing the jury.

He got increasingly irritated with the police witnesses when they refused to buy his version of what had actually happened. Finally, he threw his pen down on the table in frustration and demanded that the witness in the stand agree with him.

"People do make mistakes, don't they, Constable Lock?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," came the reply. "I'm Constable Webster."

He lost the case. roger Gray, St Albans, Hertfordshire

EVIDENCE FOUND THAT THE BRITISH REACHED THE MOON FIRST

Emma Teasdale. North Yorkshire

Walking into a clothes shop, I saw a display of male dummies leaning over the escalator. "Men's suits," I mumbled, grabbing the back of a jacket and screwing it up to see if it creased.

"What are you doing?" shouted the wearer of the jacket, a startled shop assistant.

erft.ss--Lo

"Botox so soon, Master?"

I My wife has been working as a temp in an office since the previous admin worker retired.

When she went to file some invoices, she was confused to find the "M" section of the filing cabinet almost full, while the other sections were practically empty. After checking, she realised that the last person had filed all the invoices under "Mr" or "Mrs".

Ray Heywood, Nottinghamshire

1 WHEN MY SISTER WAS manager of a hotel, she got many strange requests from her guests. But one from an American visitor had her stumped—he asked for a picture of Jesus to be sent

WIN £70 FOR YOUR TRUE, FUNNY STORIES. EMAIL excerpts@ readers digest.co.uk OR GO TO facebook. com/readers digestuk

1 A friend of mine works in a care home, and last Christmas an elderly gentleman presented her with a large bag of brazil nuts. Upon thanking him, he replied, "That's OK, I've already sucked all the chocolate off."

My grandchildren were out for a drive with their parents. "Look," said six-year-old Megan, "there's a McDonald's."

"That's not McDonald's," replied her three-year-old sister. "Old McDonald had a farm!" miil Sweet, Berkshire new job. Apparently he'd been "spear hunted".

up to his room. And when she asked what kind, he said he wanted a picture of "orange Jesus".

After much hunting around the shops, a picture of the Saviour was finally obtained, albeit not an orange one. But when my sister explained this to the guest, he pointed out that he'd actually asked for "a pitcher of orange juice".

WORD POWER

A little bird told Harry Mount these words...

All the words this month are suggestions via Twitter—and reveal a marked fondness for curious and fiendishly obscure words—if anything, they're even more tricky than the average crop. How many of these brain-teasing tweets can you identify?

Answer A, B or C.

syzygy n (sizz-ih-gee)

A rare happy moment

B line of three celestial bodies C electric surge

2 rodomontade n (rod-er-mont-aid)

A boasting B unbelievable denial C small horse

3 quincunx n (kwinkunks) A impossible

riddle B winter solstice

C arrangement of five objects

4 cunjevoi* n (kun-jihvoy) A Australian marine animal B gifted magician

C triple yellow line

5 flense v (flens) A to comb hair B flex muscles

C remove outer blubber from a whale

A word is born: Grexit

describes Greece's exit from the euro if its economy can't survive the necessary austerity measures to stay within the single currency.

RD Rating Useful? 7/10

Likeable? 6/10

6 bellicosity n

A keenness for war

B desperation to escape C over-eating grysbok* n (grisebock) A small antelope

B pub bore C elite spy

8 parturient adj (parrture-eeh-uhnt) A luxuriant

B about to give birth

C in deep disagreement

9 bilk v A to talk a lot

B cheat someone of money C join the army

10 postprandial adj (post-prand-eeh-al)

A after a meal

B harmoniously sung

C roughly carved

11 opprobrium n

A metal edge

B public disgrace

C political approval

12 coquettish adj

A hungry for seafood

B hungover C flirtatious

13 bumptious adj

A athletic B overbearing

C quietly charming

14 tmesis n (tmee-sis)

A insertion of a word into a word B decomposed food C heart attack

15 quidnunc n (kwid-nunk) A nosy

gossip B worthless coin

C scuffed shoe

*Thanks to the Countdown team for tweeting these words 21

STRATED BY DANIEL MITCHELL

WORD POWER ANSWERS

9-11 getting there 12-13 impressive 14-15 word-power wizard!

1 syzygy—B line of three celestial bodies. "Syzygy happened when the earth, sun and moon were aligned." Ancient Greek syzygia (conjunction).

2 rodomontade—A boasting. "My neighbour is a rodomontade specialist." Rodomonte is a character in "Orlando Innamorato", a 15th-century poem.

3 quincunx—C arrangement of five objects. "The five of spades is laid out in a quincunx pattern." Latin (five-twelfths).

4 cunjevoi—A Australian marine animal. "The cunjevoi is a type of sea squirt." Aboriginal.

5 flense—C to remove outer blubber from a whale. "Flensing left the whale's bones exposed." Dutch flensen.

6 bellicosity—A keenness for war. "Hitler exhibited bellicosity during the 1930s." Latin bellicosus (keen on war).

grysbok—A small antelope. "The grysbok is found in southwest Africa." Afrikaans grysbok (grey buck).

8 parturient—B about to give birth. "When

WHY EPICUREAN?

This is derived from the name of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who died in 2706c. His early followers backed his idea that the most important things in life were intellectual pleasures and emotional calm. In time, this philosophy got warped into one that placed sensory pleasure above all else. So an epicure came to mean someone with a refined, delicate taste in food and wine. The meaning has coarsened in recent decades—now an Epicurean feast is one involving vast, gluttonous quantities of food.

the cow was parturient, the farmer called the vet." Latin parturire (to be in labour).

9 bilk—B to cheat someone of money. "The bookie bilked me out of my winnings." Alteration of "baulk" (to refuse to proceed).

10 postprandial—A after a meal. "He felt in a blissful, postprandial mood." Latin post (after) and prandium (lunch).

11 opprobrium—B public disgrace. "The MP Play WP online: go to readersdigest. co.uk/wordpower

suffered opprobrium after a financial scandal." Latin.

12 coquettish—C flirtatious. "Marilyn Monroe was very coquettish." French coquet (wanton).

13 bumptious—B overbearing. "After he won the prize, he turned bumptious." From bump.

14 tmesis—A insertion of a word into a word. "Every-bloomingwhere is an example of tmesis." Ancient Greek tmesis (act of cutting).

15 quidnunc—A nosy gossip. "She was the quidnunc of the school disco." Latin (what now?). ■

IN THE FUTURE...

...we'll be packing up our cars, says Gary Rimmer

Urban crush

Bend it, bend it, just a little bit...

The Hiriko (meaning "urban car") Project, based in the Basque region of Spain, is a unique car-sharing initiative, inspired by the specially designed Hiriko all-electric vehicle. When this car isn't in use, it literally folds up. Imagine an artist's A-frame easel and how it closes together—the chassis pivots up at the front to allow the rear wheels to slide under, shortening its wheel base by about a third. This design from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is only one prototype under consideration for the Hiriko Project. But the potential this folding ability has on parking space is so dramatic we should expect to see folding cars on our streets by 2020.

Lawn lights

...the Hiriko Project from Spain...

Lack of infrastructure often makes solar energy a cheaper alternative than oil. (It helps that sunlight is plentiful and also, of course, the original source of most global energy.) ,atedtalks ra HansRosling

The Chinese are making a huge strategic push in this area, with a wide variety of solar-energy projects. One ingenious scheme is the possibility of paint made from the chlorophyll —used by plants to turn

a newscientist a Reuters

An earthy flavour

Neutrinos are subatomic particles that travel effortlessly through earth. They come in what physicists call "flavours", which they switch between depending on how far, and through what, they travel.

Scientists in Peru are now researching whether neutrinos might be used to "X-ray" the earth. They hope that, just as a mass spectrophotometer can identify specific molecules and atoms, so neutrino beams could identify oil and mineral deposits, and predict seismic activity. By 2025 we may be using neutrinos for applications we don't yet know.

sunlight into energy —in grass clippings. The developers envisage simply applying this coatinc to special glass roofing tiles embedded with nanowires. Expect many roofs to be green and green by 2030.

Every year thousands of people put their faith and trust in Cats Protection when looking for a new addition to the family. Behind each volunteer and member of staff is a wealth of experience and expertise which means when you adopt one of our cats, you can feel safe in the knowledge that he has been given the best possible care.

When he leaves Cats Protection, your cat will have been treated to a top-to-tail medical.

This means he will have been:

• Fully examined by a veterinary surgeon

• Vaccinated at least once against flu and enteritis

• Treated against fleas, roundworm and tapeworm

• Neutered if old enough

• Microchipped

We also provide four weeks' free insurance (terms and conditions apply) giving invaluable peace of mind and reassurance as you and your cat embark upon this lifelong friendship.

All he needs now is a loving home to make his dreams come true — over to you!

T: 03000 12 12 12

E: helpline@cats.org.uk

W: www.cats.org.uk

Reg Charity 203644 (England and Wales) and SC037711 (Scotland)

CARING FOR YOUR HEALTH

Heartening news for cardiac patients

Malaysia offers advanced, affordable heart treatments

DESPITE PUBLIC EDUCATION programmes in many countries to educate people on the risk factors that lead to heart disease and how to prevent it, heart attacks and ailments remain among the most prevalent health problems in the world today.

Even children are not spared. "Eight out of a thousand children worldwide are born with heart defects," observes Dr. Lim Miin Kang, a paediatric cardiologist at Gleneagles Kuala Lumpur.

Fortunately, rapid advances in medical technology are giving many heart patients a second lease of life. With the aid of health screenings, doctors are able to detect signs of heart ailments at an earlier stage and recommend suitable lifestyle changes or a course of treatment.

Datuk Dr. Zulkifli Ismail, a consultant paediatrician and paediatric cardiologist at KPJ Selangor Specialist Hospital, notes that interventional cardiology — correcting a defect at an early stage without open chest surgery — has changed the landscape of heart care in the last few

decades. "The key to interventional cardiology is early detection," he says. "Diagnostic tools, such as the echocardiogram, have become safer for routine use. Meanwhile, treatments such as angioplasties are minimally invasive and require less hospitalisation time, so patients can get back to their daily routines faster."

In children with congenital heart conditions, early detection and treatment are even more crucial. Dr. Lim notes that children with significant heart problems may have symptoms such as laboured breathing, inadequate oral intake and poor weight gain, among others.

Heart hub

With highly trained practitioners, state-of-the-art medical facilities, and advanced yet affordable treatments, Malaysia's private hospitals now

draw increasing numbers of heart patients from abroad, including both children and adults.

"Our procedures are very competitively priced, considering the level of expertise we offer," observes Dr. Tan Chiang Soo, a consultant cardiologist at Penang Adventist Hospital. "For AREASOFTREATMENTREADILYAVAILABLEINMALAYSIAINCLUDE:ANAESTHESIOLOGY

CANCERTREATMENT&PAINMANAGEMENT

COSMETIC&RECONSTRUCTIVESURGERY•CYTOGENETICSTUDIES•CRANIOFACIALSURGERY•DENTISTRY/ORTHODONTICS

• DERMATOLOGY•EAR,NOSE&THROATSURGERY•ENDOCRINOLOGY•fERTILITYTREATMENT•GASTROENTEROLOGY•GENERALSURGERY

• GENERALSCREENING&WELLNESSCENTRE•HAEMATOLOGY

HAND&MICROSURGERY

IMAGING&INTERVENTIONALRADIOLOGY

INTERNAL MEDICINE•NEPHROLOGY

NEUROLOGY&NEUROSURGERY•OBSTETRICS&GYNAECOLOGY

OPHTHALMOLOGY•ORTHOPAEDIC&REHABILITATION MEDICINE•PAEDIATRICMEDICINE&SURGERY•PSYCHIATRY•RHEUMATOLOGY•STEREOTACTICRADIOSURGERY&RADIOTHERAPY

example, bypass surgery often costs RM30,000 to RM35,000 (US$10,000 to US$11,700). This is significantly less than what is charged in many other countries for the same treatment" he notes. And we can also offer stem cell implantation during bypass surgery or angioplasty, which is still not available in many countries."

In another example of affordable care, the National Heart Institute in Kuala Lumpur offers radiofrequency ablation (RFA), a minimally invasive procedure that uses radio frequency waves to treat irregular heart rhythm. Depending on a patient's particular circumstances, this can be performed on an outpatient basis, saving the cost of a hospital room.

Malaysian medical professionals' ability to communicate well in languages such as English, Mandarin and Malay is a major plus for many

patients. Dr. Tan stresses that cardiac patients normally need considerable counselling about their post-surgical care and lifestyle habits. For example, he notes that some blood thinning medications can have negative reactions with vegetables such as broccoli or spinach that contain vitamin K.

MEDICALFACT

In 2011, some 578,000 foreign patients visited Malaysian hospitals for medical care. Most came for cardiac and orthopaedic treatments, plastic and dental surgery, fertility treatments and health screening. There are 49 private hospitals and healthcare facilities registered under the Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council (MHTC) to provide services to foreign patients.

H EALTHCARE

Quality care for your peace of mind

Before going overseas for treatment, contact your preferred hospital and provide your chosen doctor with your medical records and test results. Advance communication will not only speed diagnosis but help with scheduling surgery. "Much preliminary work has to be done to ensure that once you arrive, delays are minimised, especially when you need surgery urgently," notes Dr. Lim.

He advises patients to reduce contact with others and avoid public places in the two weeks before treatment to lower the risk of contracting even simple infections such as a cold. If you

arrive ill, surgery will be postponed because a weakened immune system hampers recovery. After treatment, a patient will require a recuperation period averaging two weeks in length, with up to a week in hospital and the balance in a hotel or apartment. Follow-up monitoring can normally be done by a physician in the patient's home country but many patients also choose to return to Malaysia six months to a year later for a check-up by their original specialist.

If cardiac treatment is a likely part of your future, consider seeking an opinion from Malaysia's heart specialists and a discussion of treatment options. You may learn welcome news!

For more information about Malaysia Healthcare, visit www.mhtc.org.my

INSTANT EXPERT

Professor Nic Jones, Cancer Research UK's chief scientist, on what's

lift THIS ARTICLE WAS INSPIRED BY A TWEET FROM CANCER RESEARCH UK

What are the latest cancer treatments?

We understand so much more about cancer now than we did even five years ago, which means we can treat it in increasingly different ways. One of the most exciting developments is "personalised medicine", where we tailor the treatment to the particular patient and the particular tumour. It's all about developing drugs that will be targeted at the things that make an individual tumour grow—these will be different from one tumour to the next, and from one patient to the next.

During the past couple of years there's been an explosion of information about all the changes that occur in a tumour cell, as opposed to a normal cell, and through an understanding of the biology of the cancer cells, we'll find out exactly what it is that makes a tumour grow. We can then target those changes (for example, inhibiting enzymes that might be causing a tumour to develop) and hit tumours at their most vulnerable point. We'll be able to understand what's gone wrong in a particular tumour and why each tumour is different. We're not there yet, but there are developments that give us confidence that in several years this personalised approach will be successful.

What role does technology play?

Huge. Think about it: sequencing the human genome can now be done for £3,000 in a few days; just eight years ago it would have taken years and millions of pounds to sequence one set of chromosomes. This computer technology really helps us get valuable information

Beating cancer

new in the fight against one of the UK's biggest killers

Any other advances?

A new development over the past couple of years is "synthetic lethality". This is where you can target pathways in a tumour cell that are normal, but that the tumour has become dependent on to survive and grow. You can use drugs to destroy the pathway without damaging the normal cells. This type of treatment is so specific it will lead to more effective and safer drugs in the future. There are examples of these sort of drugs coming through now— „ among the best are PARP inhibitors, which CANCER RESEARCH UK 0.11 work by preventing cancer cells that have • become damaged from repairing themselves, so they'll die. The • results from recent clinical trials are incredibly encouraging, and we're finding out more about the sorts of tumours that will be susceptible to these sorts of drugs.

Another stimulating area is the "tumour microenvironment". In the past, we've focused on the tumour itself—trying to decode which changes cause growth—but we now think the microenvironment the tumour sits within is just as important. Cancer cells are surrounded by healthy cells that allow them to develop. "Signatures" that tell us which tumours are most likely to progress (or not), are now being identified. In the future, if we hit the microenvironment as well as the tumour, my guess is that it will be a combination that could be pretty exciting. about every tumour we see. The key is being able to understand the data we get, and that's not easy—we still need to carry out basic research at the same time to help us turn our understanding into potential treatments.

25% of us fear cancer more than heart attacks, Alzheimer's and terrorism

50% of cancers could be prevented by lifestyle changes

And the future?

It's an incredibly stimulating time. The accumulated knowledge we now have of the changes that result in tumours developing is immense. The important thing is how we use that information. How do we turn what we discover in the lab into new drugs? Over the next few years, how we bring teams of multidisciplinary scientists and clinicians together to develop more new treatments is going to be very important—and challenging.

» Reader's Digest is donating the fee for this article to Cancer Research UK. III

IF I RULED THE WORLD Fazilet Hadi

RNIB—the UK's leading charity for people with sight loss—sent us a tweet to suggest we interview Fazilet Hadi, their group director for inclusivity. She began to lose her sight aged nine, and was blind by 20. Here's her perspective...

I'd stop avoidable sight loss. Many people don't realise that having your eyes tested isn't just about needing a new pair of glasses. The test detects conditions that you may have no idea are there, like glaucoma, the silent thief of sight. Early awareness can make all the difference to treatment.

It's partly a cultural malaise—we think it won't happen to us, but about 50 per cent of people in the UK are going around seeing less than they could. In many developing countries, the situation is more complex because of lack of funds for simple things like the right glasses or cataract operations. I'd educate children about disabilities. Helping children understand what it feels like to be disabled should be part of the curriculum. When I was a

teenager I was really selfconscious and tried to hide my sight loss from people I didn't know. I just wanted to be the same as everyone else. Kids can be incredibly cruel to someone who looks or acts differently. Yet we also hear wonderful stories of how teachers and friends have helped integrate partially sighted children successfully into school life. With the right education, I'd like to create that positive attitude everywhere.

'41

AI'd ban Aboards. If you have the confidence to wield a white stick, but then find yourself crashing into big signs on the pavement, it doesn't feel great!

I'd make more books and magazines available in alternative formats. It isn't cost effective for the publishers to produce braille and large print and only the top sellers make it into audiobooks so, at the moment, it's up to charities to help—the RNIB has run a

talking book service since 1935. The advent of the eBook is an exciting opportunity to change things—it'd be wonderful if all of them could be just as easily listened to as read.

I'd give every blind or partially sighted person access to a personal shopper. In our society, how you look affects your confidence and your chances of making new friends or getting a job.

I'd give more appropriate opportunities to disabled people in the workplace. The government spends millions trying to get people into work, but they need to be a bit smarter about opening up the market to those with different needs. One size doesn't fit all. Disabled people face various barriers to getting a job, from the practical challenges to overcoming employer attitudes. I'd ensure every business offered tailored work experience that gave disabled people the chance to get realistic, long-term jobs.

I'd ensure manufacturers of household items made their goods using more inclusive designs. This simply means

tt I don't want to live in a world where everybody assumes I can do everything on my own I can't

they'd have to think about how all sorts of things like washing machines, heating controls, TV remotes, meter boxes and so on could be designed in such a way as to make them usable by the disabled. If we've got the technology and the brains to make these things, surely it can't be that difficult to think of ways that everyone can work them.

I'd encourage people to talk to the blind and partially sighted. If you don't know what challenges and needs they have, then you can't help. Imagine you'd been independent all your life and then lost your sight— you'd be at sea in a totally different way from someone who's coped with sight loss for years. Nobody's a mind reader. I don't want to live in a world where everyone assumes I can do everything on my own—I can't. I'd prefer to walk down the street with someone helping than struggle on my own. There are a lot of people out there like me who want that human contact and support. Reach out.

As told to Caroline Hutton

» What would you do if you ruled the world? See over the page for our Twitter-curated special!

YOU RULED THE WORLD Readers' Tweets

We asked the Twitterati what they'd do if they wielded supreme power. Here are some of your responses— from world peace to obligatory hats for zoo animals (obviously).

jonathansebire

I'd make schooling mandatory until 18, but increase vocational classes.

SeldonMoore I'd assemble the greatest PR machine mankind has ever seen to ensure that nobody knew I ruled the world!

JulieTwistO9

Make drivers take retests every ten years. Too many people, of all ages, shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car.

Anothergreen I'd ensure the world's forests weren't stolen from indigenous people and destroyed.

mwmcdowell

Allow only two children per family. Or, as in our house, any action deemed by another to be annoying must stop!

Bushbaby387 All animals in zoos to wear hats!

Big_Pez More convivial public spaces, and shorter working hours in which to enjoy them.

KevSunshine I'd like to see compulsory classes in "Understanding Politics and Making Your Voice Heard" and "Personal Finance Management".

MsMarmiteLover I'd ban call centres. Instead, return to the idea of giving employment to locals and personal, knowledgeable service. Full employment!

Catiewilkins I'd make everyone in the top ten per cent of wealth give 20 per cent of their money to the bottom 50 per cent.

AnnPettifor

I'd transform the banking system to serve all of society, not just the financial elite/wealthy.

ShanMattShan Free WiFi everywhere. No wasps, ever. And all trousers to be worn at an appropriate height unless boxers are truly stunning.

carolinedjl3 All newspapers would be required to balance bad news with good, and children's safety would come first.

KatyFBrand I'd insist by law on free education for all children, boys and girls, in every country up to the age of 18.

corrielewis If you own a garage, you should have to park your bloody car in it! And, of course, I'd ban fascism.

PeterFlorence I'd have free dance classes for everybody.

polarben I'd shrink governments, invest in education, health, science and the environment, encourage personal responsibility—and have three-day weekends!

CpSingleton42 I'd teach kids more than just Shakespeare. There are so many wonderful writers that can inspire.

ti

If you own a garage, you should have to park your bloody car in it!

LillyLoveYou4 I'd ensure that people work only part-time.

LANDSCAPEGIRL Make Heritage the new "H" word. We must start promoting local heritage before it's lost for good.

AliShrops I'd ban the phrase "something for everyone".

lauralovelace I'd hold a community sports afternoon every Wednesday for all.

madasowt A woman my age shouldn't be allowed out drinking and dancing, unless she's accompanied by a sensible person!

muddybootsfoods I'd introduce confidence lessons to the national curriculum from seven years onwards

RalfLittle I'd remove bad TV.

ArthurPottsD I'd make the world economy and politics totally focused on the planet. The planet is human-kind's future.

Ecology over economy. •

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL 17. Ageing Rocker

James Brown

the campsites, hotels and apartments in Benicassim and the nearby towns rediscovers the filling up, and street cafes offering pleasures of live gigs English translations for lunch.

Unlike a lot of the great British It's time I started thinking about festivals—which have started to feel booking my plane and train ticket as corporate as a Westfield shopping to the Spanish seaside town of centre in, well, a field—there's still a Benicassim, near Valencia. The odds sense of excitement about Benicassim. are you haven't heard of it—unless It's easy to move between stages you're still going to music festivals, and get a good view, and they really that is. Benicassim is the festival on do book the best live bands around. the beach—sort of. It's actually a little

Because of the lure of the beach, inland, though within walking distance the first few years I went I took my of the beach, with three big stages on son. But last year the scheduling what looks like a council park. meant he was still in school, so I saw

Until you get there it's difficult to more music than ever: The Strokes, picture what the combination of music Mick Jones, Arctic Monkeys, Arcade festival and seaside town might mean. Fire. I had a fantastic time and wrote It's much smaller than Scarborough my first live review in years. or Hastings, so when the four-day music event begins in mid-July the

There was a time-1987, when town is engulfed by legions of Spanish I was the live reviews editor of and north European music fans in NME magazine—when I must have swimming costumes, straw hats and seen over 250 gigs a year. It was hangover tans. Imagine a marathon like a religion—any number could run of It's a Knockout or Total Wipeout be attended in a single night. under a grill and you're almost there. I adored the chaos of Glastonbury

In among it all, the Spanish go and the random discoveries of new about their business, happy to have bands from the sides of tiny stages. this invasion of people with tinnitus

But as I've got older, I've become to support their economy, with all so far removed from contemporary

LettersOfNote a blindfumble a Harry_Flowers aMsEllaSimone a DelaneyMan a LucyTweeti

music that car journeys are usually spent listening to Classic FM— a direct throwback to my Leeds middle school in the red-brick, back-to-back, inner-city student paradise of Woodhouse.

Although stack heels, Spider-Man and Don Revie's Leeds United ruled the day, we had a music teacher called Miss Bamforth who'd play us classical music at least once a week.

I'd already had my earliest delicious taste of pop music with my mum's Small Faces and Beatles 45s, my dad's Bob Dylan singalongs and the glam rock on Top of the Pops. But Miss Bamforth, who suffered from MS, would sit and explain the stories behind the symphonies. She probably wasn't very impressed with the fighting that broke out when Mario Fellicelli announced the Village People were gay, but she had a love of the music and a way of making us actually listen to the individual instruments that has stayed with me. Curiously, it's in electronic music like Kraftwerk's that I find most comparisons to the music she loved: the stories they tell through sound alone, the layering of the instruments and the journey their songs take us on. Now, it's bands like these that are luring me off the sofa and back into dark halls. The Specials, New Order and the Rolling Stones, too—often with stunning light and film shows to back up songs that have now lasted decades.

I still bump Into old friends from the music industry who now manage huge bands or run record companies and they ask me if I've heard the latest album by The Drawers or Quarter Wildfowl. I

If music has been a big part of your younger life, why should you have to give up on it just because you've got that bit older?

confess not to have, and I guess I'm missing something. But I've noticed a lot of the bands I wrote about 25 years ago are reforming and coming back for another crack at it. And why not? If music has been a big part of your younger life, why should you have to give up on it just because you've got that bit older?

Last week I went to a school hall in Rye to see A Band Named Sue turn out some excellent Johnny Cash and Screamin' Jay Hawkins numbers—

and my favourite local band when I was a kid, The 3 Johns, are touring next month. So I have every intention of asking them if I can jump in their van between Preston, Bradford and London, like I used to do. The big challenge will be how self-conscious I'll feel if I start dancing like a dying fly, just as I did 28 years ago. ■

James, founder of Loaded magazine, now edits Sabotage Times—an online magazine with the motto: "We can't concentrate, why should you?"

BUDDING AUTHORS, TAKE A BOW!

This heartbreaking tale of love and loss was one of thousands submitted for last year's 100-word-story contest that deserve a share of the limelight. See next month's issue for the winners of this year's competition.

Dispatches

Dear Sarah,

It's frickin' hot out here! If there was a beach and some sea it would make a good holliday (sic)! Morale's good—we've got loads of food and entertainment. How's your mum? I've been practising guitar—we're gonna start a band when we get back. Can you think of any names? Can't wait to see you. I love you. John x P.S. Will you marry me?

March 2011: "In other news, a British soldier has been killed on patrol in Helmand Province. His next-of-kin have been informed. There are no other details as yet."

Submitted by Neil Wolfson, Harrow, London

Neil says: "The word limit got me thinking about a short, personal message—a postcard or email. And the idea for the author of the message came from having watched documentaries following army tours out in Afghanistan. But the actual story is only revealed when the context of the message is (ambiguously) implied at the end."

Neil will receive a cheque for £70

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The UK's No.1 wellness range for specific life stages 4,

Some actors would happily accept sex-symbol status. But Rupert Penry-Jones has other ideas. Sainthood, perhan'

NOT-SO-NAKE AMBITION

When they first receive a script, actors often scan its pages to count how many lines they've got—or, if it's a TV series, to see if their character gets killed off. Rupert Penry-Jones is no different, but he's got an extra reason for having a thumb through—he wants to find out if he has any naked scenes. And he utters an almost audible sigh of relief when he discovers he doesn't.

"I'm not about to turn down roles because they involve nudity," he says. "But, given the choice, I'd rather keep my clothes on. You want to be doing something because you're a good actor, rather than because you look a certain way. You only get such parts for a while anyway, and I'll get less and less as I get older and my belly gets bigger."

The vulnerability of the 41-year-old sex symbol— who has disrobed in everything from 2001 film Charlotte Gray, where he played Cate Blanchett's lover, to BBC1 spy drama Spooks, where his role ►

BY TIM OGLETHORPE

BY CHRIS FLOYD

as Adam Carter made him a household name—is surprising. After all, his career as a dashing TV lead continues to go from strength to strength. He has a key role, as DI Joseph Chandler, in ITV1's ongoing detective series Whitechapel and, this month, he stars in a second run of BBC1 legal drama Silk. But the fear of unemployment weighs heavily on his mind.

"All actors want to achieve longevity; to discover some means by which they can go on and on getting work. If I knew what that was, I could relax a bit, but I don't. When I don't know what my next job is going to be, the worry has kept me awake at night. You think your time might be up. My mum (To the Manor Born actress Angela Thorne) was recently talking about all these big names from her era and I'd never even heard of them. They were massive stars who just disappeared. I don't want that happening to me.

"That's why playing Clive Reader in Silk is perfect." The barrister is a brilliant but arrogant and ruthless man, who's not above shafting his legal rivals to get ahead. "It's very much about what the character does, rather than how he looks."

Rupert may be nervous about what later life holds, but, when I meet him for our interview at a London TV studio, I'm struck by the fact that this middle-aged man is still a long way from losing his looks. A challenging fitness regime in his

home gym has kept the six-foot-one-inch, former public schoolboy looking toned and fit, and he is resplendent in an open necked shirt and jeans. He certainly has the lifestyle to match his stylish image, with a beautiful and talentedwife—Ballykissangel actress Dervla Kirwan—two children (Florence, seven, and Peter, five), a stunning home in the Meon Valley, Hampshire—complete with a swimming pool with its own wave machine—and a Mercedes coupe sitting in the drive. But, again, he's reluctant to rest on his glam orous laurels.

"Sex symbol wasn't a label that ever attached itself to me until I did Spooks, so I think it's more about Adam Carter than me. He was this brave, ultimate hero, prepared to

"SEX SYMBOL WASN'T A LABEL THAT EVER ATTACHED ITSELF TO ME UNTIL I DID SPOOKS, SO I THINK IT'S MORE ABOUT ADAM CARTER THAN ME"

put his life on the line for Queen and country. No wonder people thought he was wonderful.

"Even if it was, in any sense, about me, I've got a wife who wouldn't let me get away with an 'Oooh, I'm a heart-throb' attitude. When I've made a list of fanciable or stylish men, she's said 'they should see you first thing in the morning'."

Rupert's also prepared to admit to letting himself down in the style stakes in other respects.

"I don't think I am alone in this, but I do like things to be scrupulously neat and tidy, sometimes to the point of

Smooth operator: alongside co-star Maxine Peake in BBC legal drama Silk.

Inset: Penry-Jones (centre) in Whitechapel

obsession, so I suppose that might lose me a few cool points. My wife even thinks I show tendencies towards OCD, though I'd deny this.

"But I do have a bit of an addiction to buying music. It used to be CDs—I remember my accountant going pale when he saw how much I'd spent on them during one tax year—and, these days, it's downloads. It's all types of music—I have very eclectic and wide-ranging tastes."

Rupert wasn't particularly cool as a youngster, at Dulwich College, south London, either. He seriously underachieved academically, even falling asleep during his economics A-level paper. "Although, in fairness to me, I had already completed the multiple-choice questions," he says.

Initially, he thought about joining the police or the army. "There was, however, one fundamental flaw with this plan," he says. "I don't really 'do' authority. I hate people ordering me about and I wouldn't have taken kindly to taking instruction. My father [Colditz star Peter Penry-Jones] was the same, so I followed him into his profession, as has my brother Laurence [the 35-year-old has appeared in BBC dramas Waking the Dead and Doctors]. Maybe there's a gene in there somewhere that makes us rebel...."

Oddly, though—after starting his career in theatre in 1994, and enjoying a stint at the Royal Shakespeare

THE NAME'S JONES, PENRY-JONES...

Do you see Rupert as a vigilante in The Saint remake, a playboy in The Persuaders, or Daniel Craig's successor as Bond? Tweet your vote to @rdigest with the hashtag #RPJNextRolelit

4 Company at the turn of the century— most of Rupert's major roles have been lawyers, policemen and other figures of authority—albeit often with a slightly unconventional approach to their jobs.

THE SAINT?

THE PERSUADERS?

JAMES BOND?

His reasons for this are entirely pragmatic, however. "It's just to do with the type of programmes that are popular on TV. There are so many shows that relate to the law in some way that, if you work in TV regularly, it's pretty much inevitable that you'll be cast in some of them. Oddly enough, I have a very good actor friend who says he won't play any more TV doctors, detectives or lawyers, but I'm not sure how long he can keep that promise going. Such roles are an actor's bread and butter and I wouldn't have been nearly so busy without them."

Rupert harbours ambitions to play the ultimate hero of theBritishestablishment: James Bond. "I'm not chasing it down," he cautions. "But, if they asked me, I'd be delighted. I'm hardly going to say no to that one, am I?!"

Indeed, without him giving too much away about what certain TV and film executives have planned, he may already be angling for the sort of parts that could steer him closer to the big role. "I keep my eye on the projects that are being talked about and the idea of remaking The Persuaders (1970s UK TV action drama, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis) would interest me enormously. I haven't been interviewed or anything, but I'd love to play the Roger Moore role in that and a new TV version of The Saint, which is also being talked about."

But, so far, though he had supporting roles in the recently released film Red

Tails, about black Second World War pilots, and in the 2005 mystery film Match Point, movie stardom remains elusive.

"It just hasn't happened," he shrugs. "I've either had small parts in great movies or big parts in films that haven't been particularly good or very well received.

"The truth is that, at the moment, I'm not so concerned about going to Hollywood as I once was. I want to see my two children grow up, and spend as much time with Deryla as possible. She 'gets' me; she's my soulmate. I don't like being apart from her for very long at all."

Not that his family is always his first consideration when taking a role.

"Treasure Island [the recent Sky dramatisation in which he played the evil

Squire Trelawney] was the first drama I've been in that was really suitable for my kids to watch all the way through. But the assumption that I took the part for them is wide of the mark. A great script and cast, and the fact that it was being filmed in Puerto Rico were more important!

"Besides, Florence and Peter are not always—how can I put this?—as sympathetic to their poor old dad when they see him on the TV screen as they might be.

"They had Adam Carter's demise in Spooks [he was blown up by an al-Qaeda bomb] on playback and would shout: Again! Again! Again!' whenever it was clear he'd gone to meet his maker.

"Nice, children, aren't they?!" ■

IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING...AND IT'S VERY STRANGE

We expect the odd spring shower in April, although it could well be drier this year. But what if it wasn't raindrops that kept falling on your head?

There are many stories of weird downpours all over Britain, including well-documented lashings of herrings, sprats and frogs. In 1982, rumours spread in Manchester of a spontaneous shower of money, fuelled by a sweet-shop owner who was swamped all morning by children clutching dented coins. And, last December, motorists in Coventry were alarmed by apples bouncing off their bonnets. (Before you ask, there were no apple trees nearby. And they wouldn't be bearing fruit in December anyway. So there.)

Some meteorologists blame mini-tornados sucking up animals and objects—but then why would a tornado pick up only one type of fish? We prefer the rival theory from ufologist John Philip Bessor: UFOs are hungry animals who live in the atmosphere, and occasionally reach out to grab something tasty—then just discard the leftovers.

Family man: with wife and "soulmate" Dervla Kirwan

AND THEN..

One hundred years since the death of Captain Scott, we talk to the daughter of one of his heroic South Pole team. Meanwhile, two young Brits tells us what it's like to be at the bottom of the world today

TOM CREAN

Mary O'Brien reveals the Polar exploits of her legendary father

Tom Crean

The namesRobert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton bring to mind thrilling adventure and tragic sacrifice. But at the centre of their stories is someone many have never heard of.

Petty Officer Tom Crean was part of Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to

the South Pole—its members were taken mainly from the Royal Navy—and one of the last three men Captain Scott sent back (to conserve rations) before he and four others made the final, fatal 170-mile push to their goal.

On the 700-mile trek home, Crean had to pull a scurvy-stricken colleague much of the way on a sled and, when the sick man could go no further, Crean walked the last 35 miles back to base camp alone to get help. His bravery won him the Albert Medal. He was also a member of the search party

AMELIA HEMPLEMAN-ADAMS

Schoolgirl Amelia Hempleman-Adams, 16, made world news when she became the youngest person to ski to the South Pole on Friday, December 9, 2011, at 1.30am. These are edited extracts from Amelia's diary of the journey, starting at Union Glacier Camp in Antarctica, where the team waited to fly to The Farthest Point South-97 miles from the South Pole, where Ernest Shackleton was forced to turn back on January 9,

1909. The expedition was led by Amelia's renowned father, adventurer David Hempleman-Adams, who was the first Briton to reach the South Pole solo and unsupported, in 1996.

Day 1 (Nov 26). I wake with a frozen face because I kept pulling my balaclava off in the night and lost it in my sleeping bag. At breakfast I have a bacon sandwich and a hot chocolate. We wait for the briefing, and half an hour later we're told we can

fly out at about 2pm. The journey is five and a half hours. I think of everyone at my friend Grace's party back home as I stare out at the snow. Before landing we circle about 12 times—it's too icy, so we keep touching down and taking off again. The wing looks like it's going to hit the ground. I feel sick. When we do land, we unload our kit and set up our tents. Julian, one of the team, builds a toilet in the ice. I have one mug of hot chocolate and two of soup

that found Scott's tent, seven months after his last diary entry and death, probably at the end of March 1912.

Crean then went on Ernest Shackleton's TransAntarctic Expedition and was one of six men who, in 1916, sailed 800 miles across the Southern Ocean in an open boat to South Georgia to get help after the team's ship became trapped in ice. He finally retired from the navy to his native Annascaul, County Kerry, in 1920, aged 42.

So how did he feel about the Antarctic, all those years ago? We asked his 93-yearold daughter Mary (pictured left).

RD: You were born after your father's South Pole expeditions,

to keep me hydrated at the 9,000-foot altitude. We're in the middle of nowhere!

Two days in and hygiene goes out the window. It's so cold I use my pee bottle in the tent. Breakfast is porridge with sultanas, which I can't finish because it tastes like sick. We start skiing at about 12. We have a "munchy" stop every 50 minutes to keep our energy levels up. I fall over because the ice is very uneven, and it's so cold my toes go numb and my thumbs feel frozen. I wear a balaclava to protect my face—but my hair sticks to

so when did you first become aware of the extent of his exploits?

"Michael Smith's biography An Unsung Hero, published in 1999, opened my eyes. It was as late as that. Father didn't tell me that much about his adventures. They were different people, that generation. They weren't boastful."

RD: Didn't he give interviews?

"Oh no, never. There was a journalist from one of the British papers who came to see him and asked to borrow a picture from the house of him in the Antarctic. She said she'd take a copy and promised to return it, and he was foolish enough to believe her. He ►

it with ice, and the condensation freezes on my suit so I can't do up the zip.

On Day 3 (Nov 28) we walk for four hours at

Amelia with her dad David, who made the team salute Ernest Shackleton every day of the trek a

minus 35 degrees C. My shoulders ache so badly I have to use lots of Deep Heat. It doesn't help that we have to carry our

didn't give much away after that."

RD: Were you surprised when you heard what he'd done?

"I don't understand how he managed to survive at all! The most I've ever done is climb Mount Brandon [Kerry's 3,100-foot highest mountain]. The conditions in Antarctica were horrifying. They'd wake up in the morning and the clothes they were ' wearing had frozen solid—even their vests.

frozen poo in "wag bags" [it's policy to leave nothing behind].

As we're walking on Day 5 the ice keeps dropping several inches beneath our feet, making a loud noise like thunder, which is scary [the team thought this was due either to crevasse fields or large pockets of air compressing underground]. At one point as the ice moves beneath us, my teammate Susie screams. It is minus 40.

Day 7 and my neck and back really ache. Yesterday, one of our group was airlifted out because she

He used to tell me, 'You say more prayers when you're out there, because you're more dependent on the man above.' But he was as tough as old boots.

"In fact, Scott should have taken him on the final push to the pole, instead of Captain Oates [who, famously, went missing on the return leg]. My dad loved Oates! He was crazy about him. But his leg was gone—he'd been injured in the Boer War. Scott shouldn't have taken him to Antarctica in the first place. He wasn't able for it, and he got weaker and weaker.

"My dad once said he was glad to be with Oates near the end, though. Oates told him, 'You'll be going home, but I won't. You'll visit my mother, won't you?' Dad promised he would, and he did."

was struggling with the cold and showed signs of frostbite on her face.

I struggle to wake up on Day 9. The sky is bright blue and sunny. We walk for eight hours. Only 44 miles to go. I've got bad blisters on my thumbs and my elbows are painful. At the end of the day I collapse in the tent. There's a complete whiteout on Day 12, so it's hard to navigate. We walk for three hours and then the sun comes out. Dad said this was Shackleton blessing us with good weather. There's a small

rainbow either side of the sun, a rare sight.

Finally, Day 13 (Dec 8). We couldn't see the South Pole station because of the cloud cover, but when it clears we spot buildings in the distance. We walk for 11 hours. My legs ache, but I just want to get to the Pole. We finally reach the flags— I lead the last bit, which is amazing. My legs feel like jelly. Dad gives me a big hug and people congratulate me. I feel excited and exhausted.

I keep looking at the icy landscape all around me.

I never want to forget it.

DANIEL PRICE

Daniel Price, 24, from Cardigan, west Wales, is an environmental sciences PhD student at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He spent last November at Scott Base research station on Ross Island, a four-hour flight from the South Pole, where he was helping to develop ways of mapping sea-ice thickness.

"It seems dramatic to say, but Antarctica is sobering to the soul. The only colours are white, blue and black, and you have pretty

much the same vast view in every direction.

"But Scott Base is like a spaceship with everything you could need on board. There's a lounge, a library, a gym, a sauna and it can house up to 85 people. There are procedures to regulate everything you do, too, according to the weather. When visibility, the temperature or wind speed reach certain levels, for instance, no one's allowed outside.

"During the winter, though, a team of eight

people stay at the base for five months in nearpermanent darkness and the pilot who picks them up at the end of the season told me they're like another species when they get out—absolutely overwhelmed by colours when they get back to civilisation.

"We all had to do Antarctic field training—

Tom Crean

Captain Scott

Captain Oates

RD: Was your dad close to Scott?

"Scott belonged to the gentry. He could be aloof and stubborn; he always did what he wanted to do. Shackleton was a different man entirely. He'd sit with the lads and discuss everything with them. He was an Irishman, too, of course—from Kildare. But I never heard my dad say a word against Scott. He had the height of respect for him. Mind you, I never heard him say anything bad about anyone."

RD: What scene confronted your father when he returned with the rescue party?

"The three remaining men, including

just in case we ever got stranded by the weather— and I spent a night in a Scott polar tent, which is essentially a big, yellow teepee. The ice was five feet thick with about 1,500 feet of ocean beneath it. We couldn't see the water, because of the snow, but we went to sleep to the calls and whooshes of seals

Scott, were dead inside their tent. Dad cried when he found the captain, God help him. He was very upset—they were a long time together. Scott had put the other two in their sleeping bags, but he was lying uncovered— he'd been the last to die. So my father kissed him and covered him up."

RD: How did Tom feel about retiring to such a peaceful life in Ireland after all that drama?

"Well, he found it strange. The life they lived in Antarctica was so extraordinary. But he settled down fine. He was very simple and modest. He'd be out on the bridge every day, chatting away

swimming beneath us.

"As it happens, we were lucky with the weather, but there was one point when I was drilling through the ice to measure its depth and my hands got wet.

I couldn't feel them for about five minutes and it actually made me feel quite sick. I had to lie down and resort to the old-fashioned

trick of sticking my hands in my armpits. The wind was phenomenal.

I travelled on a sledge, attached to the back of a skidoo, for up to 60 miles a day to the test sites, and I had to cling on to avoid being blown off.

"We visited Scott's but at Cape Evans, 15 miles from Scott Base. It was

and smoking his pipe. He knew every schoolchild by their first name, and he'd give them sweets in the evenings.

"But part of the reason why he kept a low profile was that the Irish War of Independence had started. He was afraid, you see, because he'd served in the British navy. His brother, who was in the Royal Irish Constabulary, was killed in that conflict. A terrible time.

"On one occasion, the Black and Tans [the British paramilitary unit] broke into our house, looking for republican rebels. They found the Inverness coat my dad had worn in the Antarctic, and a large Union Jack.

perfectly preserved, because the atmosphere is so dry the wood doesn't rot. All the food cans were still there on the shelves— there was Heinz ketchup and Lyle's golden syrup from 1906—and there were even some old newspapers. Peering through the gloom, I could feel the isolation those explorers must have

They got such a shock. They just threw them on the floor and stormed off."

RD: Did he suffer any ill effects from his time in Antarctica?

"Oh, his ears were as hard as boards. There was no life in them at all. His sight wasn't too good either; it was affected by snowblindness. And he had to get boots specially made for his feet—the soles were very tender.

"He died in 1938 from a burst appendix. He'd be fine today, of course. That's a terrible irony after all he'd survived."

Interview by Tom Browne

felt alone in this extreme place, without all the modern aids like high-tech clothing, phones and numerous flights in and out we have now. It was humbling.

"One day, I ran up Observation Hill, which Scott's men climbed to see if they could spot him returning from the Pole. I sat down in awe at the view and really got a sense of escape and wished that I could charge off to the South Pole,1,000 miles away, there and then. It was an inadequate feeling, though, because a freedom to roam in the

Antarctic doesn't exist. It's a natural prison in which a storm or crevasse can envelop you in an instant.

"I have mixed feelings about man being in Antarctica. Just my presence spoils the natural beauty. And I fear that global warming will change it forever. But it's an environment that has inspired humans to be the best they can be in terrifying circumstances, and the efforts of the early 20thcentury British explorers should be an enormous source of pride.

"I'm going back this November—I'm very glad I don't have to say goodbye to the place just yet." ■

Getting lost in an activity is a well-trodden niche your interest, it's never been easier to

BY LOLA BORG

path to happiness. And however find a group to share it with... ►

THE BRIGHTON PUG MEETUP GROUP

If you're ever wandering through Brighton on a Saturday, you might rub your eyes at the surreal vision of some 30 to 40 pop-eyed pugs answering to names such as Mr Beau Jangles, Wigglebum or Captain Pugley. Yes, there's no mistaking the Brighton Pugs monthly gettogether. And, despite the comically squishy face, there's been a boom in pug-loving of late—all down to their lovable, easy-going nature, says club founder Kazz Robinson.

But any dog at all is a passport to making new friends, and there are clubs for every size and flavour of mutt imaginable, including designer dogs (labradoodles, cockapoos or puggles—mixtures of labradors, poodles, pugs and beagles). Sex and pugs and rock 'n' roll, as they say.

Brighton Pugs meet the second Saturday of each month at Preston Park, Brighton, Sussex. Get in contact through meetup.com

DAD'S ARMY APPRECIATION SOCIETY

Virtually every TV show has an appreciation society. Doctor Who? Tick. The Sopranos?

Tick. The Killing? Sarah Lund and her jumper have a Facebook page. One of the longestrunning clubs is for fans of Dad's Army—the comedy series about the useless, blundering Home Guard unit that ended 25 years ago. There are regular meetings in the UK and an annual get-together in Norfolk in May ("featuring members of the cast who have not yet passed away", as they charmingly > put it). Amusingly, their newsletter is called 2 Permission to Speak, Sir. Membership is £10 per year. For more details, go to dadsarmy.co.uk

"Jr

A statue in Leeds gets the "yarn bomber" treatment, and (beloN former vicar Dr Hook sports a woolly guitar

KNIT A BEAR FACE CLUB

It's knitting, but not as we know it. Describing themselves as a "radical guerrilla knitting group", Knit a Bear Face is one of thousands of groups of "yarn bombers" all over the UK. Think of it as woolly graffiti—bombers have covered everything from trees to telephone

Iboxes in knitted items, and in the US even the Wall Street Bull got a pullover. This group meets in a pub to click needles for "public knitting projects", says research " assistant Matthew Evans, one of the organisers. ► . Collectively, they decorate Leeds for the arts festival

Light Night that takes place each October. Last year, they accessorised the city's statues—hats and scarves for the owls on the railings outside Leeds City library; a jacket for a Henry Moore nude; and even a guitar for the statue of Dr Hook, one-time vicar of Leeds. "The knitting was so good that a lot of it got stolen," says Matthew. The group is currently knitting an entire crazy golf course—good luck with that, then—absolutely all ages, sexes and abilities are welcome.

Knit a Bear Face, Sheffield, meets at 5.30pm in the Victoria Hotel, Leeds, every other Wednesday. Find a local knitting group through the UK Hand Knitting Association (ukhandknitting.com)

THE PYLON APPRECIATION SOCIETY

As the blurb on the website says, it's simple: the Pylon Appreciation Society is a club for those—and there are around 600 of them—who appreciate electricity pylons. Includes pages of surprisingly haunting and arty photos of unusual structures from all over the world. Membership is E15 for life. Details can be found at pylons.org

THE DULL MEN'S CLUB

As they say, it's a place in cyberspace where dull men (and women who appreciate dull men) can share thoughts and experiences about ordinary things— corduroy trousers, shovelling snow, airport carousels. Founded in the 1980s by ex-tax-lawyer Grover Click, they have around 5,000 members and organise an annual "Dull Man of the Year" (last year's winner moves stones for two hours each day; in third place was the man who says, "Cashier Number Three, please"). Women can join, but not as a Dull Woman. We quote: "It's our committee's view that a woman cannot be dull. This is because women are exciting." Who can disagree? Visit dullmensclub.com for more. Membership is free ("If you're a dull man and you're enjoying this website, you're already a member")

THE TEST CARD CLUB

In 1963, two 11-year-old schoolboys from Derby had to do a school projeci on TV. They wrote to all 11 TV companies of the time and only one replied. In that tiny way, an obsessio 1 with the BBC began. Keitt Hamer now has the larger t collection of BBC Test Card recordings and 3,600 video recordings (including sorr e the BBC don't possess). He even advises the Beeb on the use of the card in period dramas.

The most popular was the iconic Test Card F, introduced in 1967. (The girl in the picture, Carole Hersee, appears in the Guinness World Records for appearing on screen longer than any other person ever.) "It's not just a pretty picture," says Keith, explaining (in mincboggling depth) how each time the Test Card changed it mirrored a new jump in technology. In Test Card every element is there for a reason—the X on the blackboard marks dead centre of the screen, anc the buttons on the clown test for shades of yellow. See test-cards.fsnet.co.uk for more. Membership is £12.50 per year p,

Testing, testing: Keith Hamer displays samples from his unique collection. The famous Test Card F can be seen on the bottom right

LONDON DIDGERIDOO CLUB

"A hobby that turned into a passion that turned into a business," says Jonny, founder of the LDC. Made from the bark of a eucalyptus tree hollowed out by termites (that's the didgeridoo, not Bear), playing one is relaxing, cathartic and even good for sleep apnoea (or, more prosaically, snoring), he says. Just rock up on the third Thursday of each month to try it out—you have to make a noise like a horse braying for it to work.

More details can be found at aboriginalarts.co.uk Membership is free

THE CLOUD APPRECIATION SOCIETY

"Life would be dull if we had cloudless monotony," says the manifesto. Pledging to fight "blue-sky thinking", the society was founded eight years ago by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, author of The Cloud Spotter's Guide, a best-seller turned down by 28 publishers. It grew, he says, "in the way things can only on the internetunited by an interest, not by geographicid location". It now has 28,000 members, ranging from a few weeks old (membersrip is a popular present for a godchild) up to 96 years. Members can learn to sort a cirrus from a nimbostratus, appreciate clouds in verse, art and photography, and talk about "all things cloudy".

So what's the lure of those white lumps? "We are all under the same sky, and clouds have a universal appeal," saes Gavin, who's not short of poetic things to say. "They're so omnipresent we can be blind to their beauty. And, of course. everyone has a relationship with the ski. People tend to think of cloud spotting ES a countryside activity, but in a city the sky is the last wilderness available. You can live in a tower block and have a fantastic view." People keep on asking him if he'll have a Cloud Convention. He's not keen. "Chances are it will be a blue-sky day." Join at cloudappreciationsociety.org to receive "cloud-related" emails. Membership is £5 x.

No more wandering

lonely: 28,000 people now share Gavin Pretor-Pinney's passion for clouds

"Everyone knows about historical clubs where people dress up and fight," says Natalie Walters, secretary of the Renaissance Historical Dance Society. "This isn't the boring bit of history. This is the fun, sociable, interesting bit."

The group was started by her grandmother in 1994 to bring history to life by music and dance—members research costumes, learn the moves, and then perform these all over the country. Everything is accurate down to the last ruff (apart from the fact they use a sewing machine). And proving there's much more to them than "Greensleeves", they cover different eras—Stuarts, Elizabethans, Medieval and also Natalie's favourite, Regency. Everyone is welcome—even those, she says, with "three left feet". For more information, go to rhds. org.uk. Membership is £5 per year

EDINBURGH FORTEAN SOCIETY

American journalist

Charles Fort (1874-1932) spent years in libraries in New York and London, scouring publications for instances of the occult, supernatural and paranormal. Today, the term "Fortean" covers raining frogs, UFOs, balls of lightning... you get the drift. The society was set up 12 years ago by "lifelong Fortean" Gordon Rutter (day job, biology teacher). Once a month, you can hear a talk on topics such as luck, superstition, conspiracy theories, cryptozoology (the hunt for mythical creatures such as the Loch Ness Monster) and paranormal Edinburgh. Rutter is keen to stress that it's not just a group for believers. "It's really a group of interested people getting together."

Curious parties can attend the next event listed at edinburghforteansociety.org.uk

BRITISH LLAMA

SOCIETY

Is Lynda Snell from The Archers a member?

With llamas Constanza, Wolfgang and Salieri, she should be. In fact, for plots involving her furry pets, scriptwriters are advised by the BLS.

If you, like Lynda, are one of the 4,000 or so llama (or alpaca) owners in the UK, this is for you. They have regular regional meetings all over the country, "though nine times out of ten we don't talk about llamas—we all go down the pub", says coordinator Liz Butler (aka "Llama Liz", even

when she's speaking to politicians). Domesticated, gentle, good-natured and easy to keep, llamas can guard chickens or lambs from predatory foxes. And llama walking is so relaxing it's used by frazzled US executives as a destressing technique. Visit britishllamasociety.org for details. Membership is £35 per year

UK SUCROLOGISTS CLUB

Whatever you're interested in collecting—old poison bottles, key rings, police memorabilia, breweriana (yes, the official term)—there's a club for you. Sucrologists, for example, ferret away sugar packets. "You collect a few," says David Phillips, editor of their magazine Sweet Thoughts, "then, before you know where you are, you're sucked into it." He now has "a small collection" of about 10,000, although some have hundreds of thousands. A popular route is to collect one packet from as many countries as possible. "But people always ask if you have any we from Afghanistan." See uksucrologists club.org.uk for more. Membership is £12 per year. Sucrologists meet once year to exchange, but not to buy or sell ■

Are you a member of a club you care passionately about? Why not let us know? Send us an email—with a picture if possible —to theeditor readersdigest.co.uk. There's much more in our Best of British series— including extra clubs and societies —at readersdigest. co.uk/magazine.

1111 11 M .

englandwalk

6curdigest I would be very happy to provide info on the walk so far and experiences of talking about mental health.

A Life Less Ordinary

He's suffered from mental illness for decades, but Stuart Jessup has found an unusual, if exhausting, way to beat the blues

Walking Back to Happiness

One sunny Sunday lunchtime last autumn, Stuart Jessup held a reunion of a dozen old Cambridge University, school and family friends at a cafe on the south side of London's Tower Bridge. They posed for photos, then set off on an afternoon walk, winding their way east past Canary Wharf, before pausing in Greenwich for a coffee by the Cutty Sark. But they didn't stop there. They kept going east until the daylight began to fade. Most of the group eventually had to drop out and go home.

Their feet were sore and their legs ached, yet Stuart and his old work colleague Colin Forster, 54, pressed on. By 6pm, they'd reached the Thames Barrier, ten miles from their starting point, where Colin also said his goodbyes. But Stuart's journey had only just begun. For October 9 last year marked the start of a gruelling 2,500-mile solo trek around the border of England.

That night, the 51-year-old bedded down in a cramped camper van he'd earlier parked in nearby Woolwich. The next day, he walked 16 miles to

BY ELLIE ROSE

PHOTOGRAPHED BY SAM FROST

A Dartford, Kent, before returning for his camper by bus. A similar tiring daily process—walking further along his route, then bussing back to sleep in or retrieve his van—would be his life for the next eight months. But Stuart, from Maidstone, Kent, was pushed on by deeply personal and important motivations.

Since school, he had suffered from long periods of feeling very low—though for years he didn't know why. He'd tried to explain how he felt to a university doctor, but was dismissed as a timewaster. So he carried on suffering, often for months, until, aged 33, he suffered a nervous breakdown while working in a high-pressure job designing mobile phones for big-name clients. He was diagnosed with chronic depression.

Finally finding out what was wrong with him was a big relief for Stuart. With treatment, over the next few years his low periods became less severe and frequent. He also quit his stressful job to start training for what he saw as a more worthwhile role as a teacher.

Things were looking up—then his wife Margaret was diagnosed with breast cancer and died in July 2005.

"Margaret's death made me realise you can't assume anything about the future," Stuart says. "Having spent so much of my life being miserable, I became even more determined to try and live life in a way that made me happy."

With the help of counselling, Stuart continued to overcome his depression. He completed his training, got a job teaching physics at a secondary school in Cambridge, and, in 2008, met Kate Atkin, a management coach. The pair got married the following year, but—keen to make his life as fulfilling and useful as possible—Stuart wanted to find a way to raise awareness about depression, to stop others suffering from the lack of help that had dogged his young life.

By March last year, he'd come up with Walking on the Edge, a trek

Stuart with his wife Kate and a determined-looking Poppy (above); pack up your troubles: friends promoting the mental-health charity SANE join Stuart on his hike (left)

around England sticking as close to the coast or the Welsh and Scottish borders as possible. As well as hoping to raise £30,000 for mental-health charities SANE and Anxiety UK, he'd also be able to talk to local media, community-group meetings and anyone else he met about his experiences of mental illness—and hopefully reach out to anyone who needed assistance. He started saving to fund what would be a long break away from earning money, resigned from work and found sponsors. Kate agreed to help him with the organisational and PR aspects of the project. Six months later, he was off.

Though his Journey initially headed east through Kent, after nine days he reached the sea at Whitstable, turned "right" and headed along the south coast. As Reader's Digest went to press, he'd followed England's border 1,495 miles to Morecambe Bay in Lancashire. Six days a week (with one day's rest), his life now consists of checking maps and bus timetables, and performing the "caravan ballet" to make sure he always finishes his walk with a place to sleep. He then spends seven hours walking about 15 miles.

Trudging on in winter, often through grim industrial ports, hasn't been easy. Stuart was laid up with flu in Cornwall for several days before Christmas, and during February's big freeze, while tackling the north Somerset leg of his journey, he woke up half-frozen to find thick ice on the inside of his van's windows and no water coming from the taps.

He's had moments when he's wondered what on earth he's doing. "But," he argues, "winter is the worst time for depression

"You get people talking about things they haven't felt able to come out 1th before"

for most people, so what better time to highlight the issue?"

Another low point was when his springer spaniel and constant companion Poppy tore ligaments in her tail climbing into the van near Lymington, Hampshire, in mid-November, and he had to drive her back to Cambridge to recuperate. ►

I He spent much of the next two weeks walking alone, missing her uplifting presence.

Kate has been able to join him for a few days each month, and Stuart's adventure has mostly lived up to his expectations. As well as experiencing some magic moments—gulping breaths of sea air from the top of the White Cliffs of Dover, witnessing a small tornado off the coast near Hastings, and celebrating New Year's Eve with Kate at a campsite near Land's End—he's raised £6,700 so far. And, he says, "I've had dozens of conversations about mental health, and Kate and I measure our success by that." Sometimes people walk with him after following his progress through Facebook or local radio; sometimes they come up to speak to him after he's given a talk; or sometimes a chat is the result of a chance encounter.

"People will meet me on a coast path and they'll talk to Poppy because she's so friendly. Then maybe I'll tell them about what I'm doing. Often, if I share my story openly with them, they'll share theirs—you get people talking about things they haven't felt able to come out with before."

One man, a retired chemist, revealed he'd suffered a heartbreaking loss at the hands of mental illness. "We were talking about walking, then he came out with this story about having had to sell his pharmacy because he'd suffered from depression for years and couldn't cope

any more. It was very sad, but I felt privileged that he chose to tell me about it. I could really sympathise and suggest ways of dealing with it."

Similarly, a successful 50-something businessman came up after the same talk, to tell him about his son's wife. "He said they'd just got married, but she'd become very anxious for no obvious reason and they didn't know what to do for her. He told me that my talk had helped him realise that she was depressed and needed help. It's conversations like this—when

you feel you've made a difference—that make my efforts worthwhile."

The walk has also helped Stuart battle his own problems. He keeps a mood diary, and has found that he's remained consistently upbeat. "In the past, my illness has left me feeling overwhelmed," he says.

"You want to be left alone and have some peace. Walking on by myself has provided that, and having a target for the trek helps me overcome the 'why bother?' attitude so characteristic of depression."

He's even found himself making big positive plans for his future, considering moving into voluntary work or supply teaching. "I really enjoy being a teacher, but I don't enjoy schools," he says. "I think my days of being a permanent employee have finished."

But for now he's more concerned with keeping on top of his peculiar daily existence. "The camper van was immaculate when I started," he says. "Now it's muddy, there's dog food on the floor and clothes strewn over the sofa. The heater's playing up, too. It's a lottery as to whether it'll start or not. "But for me it's all interesting. And I don't think I've gone completely mad yet—though there's still time!" ■

» To sponsor Stuart's trek, visit walkingon theedge.org.uk

NATURAL WONDERS: AMPHIOXUS

Of all the creatures featured in this slot, the amphioxus is probably the least photogenic. But scientists are fascinated by this obscure marine invertebrate. Although it lacks a brain or a face (or at least ones that we'd recognise), it serves as a modern-day equivalent of the first animals to evolve a backbone, as demonstrated by the nerve cord that runs the length of its body. Studying the amphioxus can potentially teach us far more about our ancestry than long-dead fossils.

Since our evolutionary paths diverged about 500 million years ago, the amphioxus has rarely been seen (and never heard). Interestingly, though, it was recently spotted in the waters off Tankerness in Orkney, during a survey of local marine life.

Stuart hikes along Offa's Dyke on the Welsh border; (below) Poppy in a field in Fairlight, East Sussex

THE MAVERICK

"INTERNET SHOPPING? IT WON'T CHANGE THE WORLD AFTER ALL"

Sure, it seems cheap and convenient now. But, says Richard Asher, buying online won't come close to replacing real stores

I have no taste for traditional shopping. Even by male standards, I despise trawling round clothes stores or pushing a trolley up and down the vegetable aisle at Tesco. By rights, that should make me a real onlineretail bunny.

Yet internet shopping is becoming even more vexacious than the in-store version. Every time you want to buy so much as a pencil, you need a log-in code, a password and probably your mother's maiden name. I've got at least 50 of those to remember already (passwords, not mothers) and I'm just one away from snapping. So although the popular belief is that online shopping is going to take over the world, frustrations like mine will keep "bricks-and-mortar" stores in business for some time to come.

On the face of it, the amazing deals you can find online make web shopping's continued rise seem irresistible. The much-higher overheads of local stores, shopping-centre outlets and even out-of-town supermarkets mean that they often can't compete on price, and UK online sales rose 11.3 per cent (to £28bn) in the year to January, while other shops' sales increased ►

by just 2.1 per cent. Smartphones and tablet computers are key drivers. According to research by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Google, mobile retail searches now make up ten per cent of the online total, up 168 per cent since 2010.

But internet business still only represents nine per cent of UK shopping and, although this proportion is expected to climb for another four years, Professor Joshua Bamfield, director of the Centre for Retail Research in Nottinghamshire, predicts that it'll stall at about 20 per cent.

But why? After all, web shopping can be cheaper and also convenient. Last summer, Tesco introduced virtual supermarket shelves on South Korean underground walls that allow commuters with fancy phones (in South Korea, that's everybody) to scan images of products for home delivery. What a great way to do something useful while you wait for your train!

a simple phone call or in person and insisted I go online. Twenty minutes and one unwanted account later, I was sorted—but the next time I go to a gig, I'll opt for a venue that lets me buy my tickets early-Nineties style.

And it's the same problem with everything from buying books to food. Faffing about with your computer may often, technically, still be faster than driving to the shops, but it sometimes doesn't feel like it. Although the process can be less fiddly once you have an account set up, that's not much help to the one-off customer, in whose existence retailers apparently no longer believe.

All too often, online shopping seems to be more about retailers making you sign up for an account so they can capture your personal data

"Another issue is the delivery process," says Professor Bamfield. "Unless there's some arrangement with neighbours or someone at home all the time, it can be awkward. The concept of special locked cages attached to people's houses hasn't taken off—nor have ideas about consolidating delivery using milkmen."

But, all too often, online shopping seems to be more about retailers making you sign up for an account so they can capture your personal data than it does about making life easier for you—and that can be very off-putting. Take the minor comedy club (in a pub!) that recently refused to let me book through

Collection from a parcel depot or an online retailer's local high-street branch can work, but if people have to travel some distance to get there, wouldn't it have been simpler for them just to have got their goods direct from a shop in the first place? Local convenience stores are also being used as parcel drop-off

points, but surely they'll only ever have limited capacity?

As for the price gap between online and other shops, rising petrol prices and, with them, postal costs could level things out. "Online buyers of low-cost single items are likely to be most affected," notes Professor Bamfield. And having everything delivered will never quite fit with the spontaneous way most of us shop. "UK households are visiting grocery stores an average of four times a week. It's not economical for these small amounts to be traded online."

Personal touch or double click—which do you orefer? Join the debate at facebook.com/ readersdigestuk or email readerslettersfa, readersdigest. co.uk

We still want to touch and try goods. Retailers must offer the "store experience" to show off their wares in the flesh and build their brands. Apple is an example: their customers are hardly afraid of shopping online, but they still pack out the firm's London Covent Garden store.

Lastly, for some reason, people enjoy real-life shopping. "It's a leisure activity," says Sarah Cordey of the BRC. "Internet retail mostly cannot replace that experience of going out to explore stores and having a wander round."

The recent trial "boutique" run by eBay in the West End of London offered physical examples of products but scan-led purchasing for delivery only (if you didn't have a smartphone, they'd lend you one). Ignoring the fact that this complicated system seems to merge the worst elements of online and ordinary shopping under one roof, the irony of a web-retail giant conducting such an experiment is clear. If that isn't a vote of confidence in bricks and mortar, what is? ■

FANCY THAT! THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING RAISIN FINGERS

Have you wondered why fingers and toes go wrinkly in the bathtub? It may not be the most urgent question confronting us, but, surprisingly, scientists still don't know the answer to this pruney problem.

A popular theory holds that, as water is absorbed into the outer layer of skin, it causes the surface to expand, resulting in wrinkles. Others point to a narrowing of blood vessels and nerve fibres on contact with water, which pulls skin structures downwards. But why fingers and toes, and not other parts of the body? It may be that the thicker layer of dead cells (our feet and hands are subject to more wear and tear) absorb more water, but an evolutionary explanation posits that wrinkles act as miniature drainage channels, drawing water away from the fingertips and improving grip in wet conditions.

Brenda Blethyn

...I WAS BORN BRENDA BOTTLE AND GREW UP IN RAMSGATE. Ours was a bustling, working-class family, and I was the youngest of nine—there were 21 years between my eldest brother Teddy and me. There was plenty of squabbling and fighting—not just between the kids, but also between my mum and dad, who had a sparky relationship. You'd get a clout if you did something wrong, but mostly I remember cuddles and laughter.

...THERE WASN'T MUCH MONEY TO GO AROUND. In fact, to be honest, we had sod all! For years, our bath hung from a hook in the kitchen, and we didn't get a telly until my brother brought home a big black-and-white Rediffusion from his travels in the merchant navy. Then, we felt like we had the Odeon in our front room. We never took a holiday either—then again, we didn't need one because we had the beach at Ramsgate. But we never felt remotely deprived, probably because everyone we knew was in the same boat.

...MY PARENTS WERE ABSOLUTE GRAFTERS—especially my mum, who always had at least three cleaning jobs on the go. Both my mum and dad had been in service so, when I watch shows like Downton Abbey, I invariably think of them. They'd also both lived through two world wars. My mum lost three brothers in various battles—can you imagine? Yet both my parents maintained a sense of humour all their lives.

...I WAS QUITE SHY AT SCHOOL, BUT I TRIED VERY HARD TO HIDE IT. I was a bit of a class joker. At infants' school, there was a dressing-up box

"I was about 17 and feeling glum, so my brother Bill bought me this ball gown and invited me to a dance at the University of London, where he was studying for a PhD. The ball was attended by the Queen Mother—we waltzed right next to her! It was wonderful"

Left: "This picture of my niece Val, 3, and me, 7, was taken on Ramsgate seafront in 1953. There used to be a Kodak cameraman there, snapping everyone who stopped!"

and I'd always go straight for the clown's outfit and parade around. My aim in life, even then, was to entertain— nothing changes.

...I DIDN'T GO STRAIGHT INTO ACTING. Until age 27, I was a bookkeeper and secretary working first for British Rail and then for an advertising company. Looking back, it seems like another life altogether, but there were things I loved about it. The camaraderie of office life, and Archie, the guy who came round with a tea urn and sandwiches—lovely!

...THE BREAKUP OF MY FIRST MARRIAGE CHANGED THE COURSE OF MY LIFE. It's what gave me the get-up-and-go to apply to the Guildford School of Acting. I'd married far too young—a day short of my 20th birthday. But in those days, where I came from, you were "on the shelf" if you weren't married by 16! My husband Alan Blethyn, a graphic designer, was a lovely bloke, and his missusthe woman he left me for—is great, too. I don't see them often, but they're really nice people. If I'd stayed married, I might not have been as willing to spend weeks on the road "in rep" [repertory theatre], which is where actors earned their stripes in those days. After finishing acting school, I was lucky enough to find a job immediately. I was at the National Theatre from 1975.

...OPTIMISM WAS ALWAYS A BIG PART OF MY PERSONALITY—so

I never thought about what'd happen if I didn't make it as an actress. My dad always said to me, "There's no shame in failing, Brenda, only in not trying."

...BECOMING A REALLIFE DETECTIVE. About 40 years ago, I tracked down my brother Teddy. He'd left the merchant navy and lost touch with the family, so I did that old-fashioned thing of going door-to-door with a photo. Eventually, I was told he was living in British Columbia with his family. In time, they came back to the

My dad always said to me, "There's no shame in failing, Brenda, only in not trying"

UK and, before he died a few years ago, I got to know him in a way that I never had as a child.

...I OWE THE DIRECTOR MIKE LEIGH

A GREAT DEBT. When I worked with him for the first time in 1981 on a film called Grown-Ups, he taught me a completely new way of working. Beforehand, I was a bit lazy, although I didn't know it. I'd never worked in a way where I had to immerse myself so completely in a character that I knew absolutely everything about them, even the stuff that wasn't on the page. Our working relationship really bloomed in the 1996 film Secrets and Lies in which I played Cynthia. I became her so completely that, even now, you could ask me any question about her history, her memories, or even what she'd like to eat for tea...and I'd be able to tell you.

...ATTENDING THE GOLDEN GLOBES

IN 1996. I'd been nominated for Secrets and Lies, and had borrowed a hugely expensive diamond brooch from Armani. In the loo, it popped off, and I was scrabbling around on the floor looking for it when I heard two women at the sinks

discussing the nominations for best actress. One said, "Well, whoever gets it, it certainly won't be Brenda Blethyn!" I was mortified, and waited for them to leave before going back to my seat. So it was doubly wonderful when my category came up and I heard the words, "And the winner is...Brenda Blethyn."

...IT WAS LOVELY TO GET SO MANY DIFFERENT AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS FOR THAT ROLE. But I'm also quite realistic about the way the industry works. There are so many brilliant performances every year, but many don't get nominated because the publicity machine hasn't got behind the film. So you can't allow yourself to think you actually gave one of the five best performances of the year!

...WORKING WITH TIMOTHY SPALL MANY TIMES. Aside from Secrets and Lies, there was the ITV series Outside Edge in the mid-Nineties, the film Mysterious Creatures in 2006 and, more recently, My Angel [2011], in which we play teachers. He's the most divine bloke and he's so many people's best friend—so, when I say he's my best mate, it doesn't necessarily

mean that I'm his! He lives close to me in south London and, when I got married, he and his wife were our only guests.

...MIKE [MAYHEW] AND I HAD TALKED ABOUT GETTING HITCHED A FEW TIMES IN OUR 30 YEARS TOGETHER. Once, I was in Las Vegas and called in the middle of night to ask if he wanted to get married. He said, "Hello? Who is this?" He's definitely a joker. Finally, he proposed to me on Skype while I was working on the first series of the ITV detective show Vera. I said, "You could get down on one knee, couldn't you?" He said, "OK then"—and promptly disappeared from my screen!

...THE WEDDING WAS A SMALL BUT JOYFUL AFFAIR. It was at Peckham register office in June 2010. The night before, I remembered I'd need a bouquet, so I rushed to the florist. I couldn't even tell her exactly what I was going to wear because I didn't know myself—so she made a couple, to give me a choice. I ended up wearing an orange silk dress that I'd worn previously for a photo shoot. Afterwards, we went down the pub with Timothy and his wife Shane and their kids [including their son, actor Rafe Span] and drank a toast. It was so stress-free.

...TYING THE KNOT MADE AN UNEXPECTEDLY BIG DIFFERENCE. Being married to Mike is like being

enveloped constantly in a warm cuddle. It also feels as though we are an extension of each other even though, apart from our sense of humour, we're completely different people.

...I WASN'T PARTICULARLY DRIVEN TO HAVE CHILDREN. The right time just never seemed to arrive, and I don't dwell now on their absence. Occasionally, you feel a sense of nothing continuing after you've gone. My mum and dad are no longer with us, but they continue through me and my siblings—and I won't be able to say that for myself. I'm lucky, though, to have many wonderful nieces and nephews.

...MANAGING TO STAY CLOSE TO MY FAMILY. We often have gettogethers, and we're all members of The Times Crossword Club. I'm

I called in fae middle ofthe night to ask if he wanted to get married. He said, "Hello? Who is this?"

especially inseparable from my niece Val, who happens to be roughly my age. Sadly, I've already lost my eldest sister and brother—I still dream of them, and about my parents. I find myself thinking, Oh I must ring them up...hang on, I can't. It's shocking when it lands on you like that.

...I'VE RUN THREE LONDON MARATHONS FOR THE CHARITY CHILDREN WITH CANCER. I love running and it's quite addictive, but each time I've done the marathon, I've suffered

Left: the wedding in Peckham, and right, with Aunt Fran at Buckingham Palace runner's toenails, where they actually drop off a few days later!

...GETTING THE OBE IN 2003. It was a great moment, but it was tinged with sadness, because I'd have loved to take my parents to Buckingham Palace. They'd seen my early success as an actress, but they wouldn't have been able to believe that I was getting the nod from the Queen. Fortunately, I was able to take both Mike and my aunt Fran, who was the last remaining sibling on my mum's side. I adored her but, sadly, she too died in 2010. Aunt Fran was pretty hilarious, though I'm not sure she meant to be. When I told her I was taking her to the Palace, she said, "Lovely, Bren. Will I have to wear...?"

There was a pause. I thought she was going to say, "a hat". But instead she said, "my false teeth"! I nearly fell off my chair, I was laughing so much. • As told to Daphne Lockyer

» Brenda stars in the new series of Vera, on ITV1 this month.

WHO'S DOING WHAT AROUND THE GLOBE: ETTERS FROM OZ

There are quirky ideas...and then there's Clothing for Correspondence, an Australian company that offers to write letters on your behalf in exchange for, yes, items of clothing. Advertising its services as a "win-win" propostion ("You don't have to search for the words to tell your landlord the camera he installed above your shower is not OK, and we don't have to shop"), they've covered everything from complaints to airlines to the rantings of jilted lovers. Examples of their somewhat offbeat letters can be found on their website (clothingforcorrespondence.com), along with photos of the "awesome hand-me-downs" they've received in return.

daraobriain

arrdigest How about "I am John's Bile Gland"? [Anger] might be a suitable subject for the internet generation #RDTwissue

Grumpy? Irritable?

Just plain furious? Then try one of these eight clever new ways to put a smile back on your face...

ti i CLLR= KU:D,

Social injustice, misbehaving children, being bumped into in the street—we all get cross about something sometimes. And, in a tricky economic period, we're more likely to get angry more often—from outrage about bankers' bonuses to indignation about pension cuts and job losses.

Of course, anger can be a positive thing, and bring a huge sense of relief when you finally get something off your chest. But getting mad too often also raises your levels of stress hormones, which may damage your immune system and heart, and has been linked to everything from stroke to depressed lung function. 0-

MAKES ME MAD!"

So if counting to ten has never quite stopped you losing your rag, these more imaginative expert solutions may help.

Pretend you're someone you admire. "Lots of people who get angry a lot do so because they lack self-esteem and feel frustrated," says Annie Hinchliff, a chartered psychologist from Hertfordshire. If you're starting to get cross, ask yourself what, say, Nelson Mandela or the Queen would do in your situation.

"One man I saw imagined he was George Clooney when he got angry," says Hinchliff. "That gave him the confidence and authority to deal with situations calmly and coolly."

Visualise your emotions. If a colleague sucks up to the boss and you find yourself thinking, What a slimy old toad (or something much worse), imagine, or actually draw, a picture showing an amphibian dripping with ooze. That way, you get to express the anger privately—with the added bonus that it's hard to stay furious when you're doing something so ridiculous.

Don't fool yourself. When you're caught in the heat of the moment, try to remember that anger causes delusion. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, it encourages your mind to see things in a superficial way and exaggerates the negative qualities of the person you're furious with, until they appear very unattractive, unreasonable and hopelessly faulty. This makes potentially damaging

HOW DO I COPE?

Kevin McCloud

Presenter of BBC2's Grand Designs

WHAT MAKES ME ANGRY

"I don't do angry. The last time I was even slightly grumpy was when I found a dog turd outside the entrance of a building I was going into. I get mildly frustrated by jobsworths and bureaucracy, but only for about ten minutes. I can't remember the last time I got really cross. Anger is wasteful and foolish. It usually ends up with someone hitting and breaking a piece of furniture—or their hand."

Kirsty Gallacher

TV presenter

WHAT MAKES ME ANGRY

"I'm a massive animal lover, so I get very upset if I see them being mistreated. Six years ago, on holiday in Bali, I noticed all these cockerels being carried around in tiny wooden cages, ready for cockfighting. Then I noticed all the neglected stray dogs wandering around that no one paid any attention to. Then a lorry packed tight with live chickens went past, and it was the most horrible sight.

"I was already beside myself when I saw a woman on the side of the road with a glass tank full of puppies for sale on what was a boiling hot day. So I lost it, got out of the car and told her what for. I don't know how much of my tirade she understood, but, though Bali is beautiful, I don't think I'll be going back. I even became a vegetarian for a while after that trip."

HOW I CALM DOWN

"I'm quite lucky because my job, be it presenting Grand Designs or documentaries about European architecture, is about celebrating things. Thinking like that becomes a habit and stops you getting too negative."

AS told to Simon Flemeirylii

» Grand Designs Live is at ExCel, London, from May 4-13. See granddesignslive.com

HOW I CALM DOWN

x „1 m good at seeing the reasons behind -4 angry behaviour. I was driving the other day when a guy got really cross about a E; manoeuvre I made (a correct one!), and -

u; threw his cigarette packet at my car. I just thought, You're a very sad person if you feel the need to lash out at something so petty.

< As told to Caroline Hutton

» Kirsty is supporting Sky Sports "Living for Sport", an initiative to improve the lives of young people across the UK. See skysports. com/living forsport

Jordan Scla re

Executive chef at Aqua Kyoto Japanese restaurant, London

WHAT MAKES ME ANGRY

"I used to work at Gordon Ramsay's restaurant in Chelsea. There was this idea that to be successful you had to be foul-mouthed, aggressive and vile. I had never sworn at school but now, at the age of 22, it was as though I had a form of Tourette's. You were pushed to your limit, which I think is a terrible way to get the most out of people. One day, the sous-chef blamed me • for something I hadn't done, so I defended myself. He went mad, pushed his face into mine, eyes bulging, veins popping, screaming and swearing.

"I knew it was time to change job when I found myself in my local Asda screaming, 'Coming through!' to make people in the aisles jump out of my way."

HOW I CALM DOWN

"Cook Japanese food! It needs to be Zen, to have the music and poetry of Japan flowing through it. If you can imagine wind chimes, that's the feeling you want to create in your dishes. Japanese cooking is the fusion of respect and passion—it looks to the best in mankind, not the basest." eugene Cos.

behaviour—such as shouting or even violence—seem more acceptable.

So as your anger rises, try to pause and make a real effort to see the reasons why this person is acting in a certain way—it could be anything from a rough childhood to hunger. Understanding someone is generally the first step to resolving a conflict.

Change your mental vocabulary. Stop thinking in words like "never" and "always" ("This always happens to me," or, "I never get recognition for my work").

Chartered psychologist Dr Saima Latif suggests balancing such thoughts with more encouraging phrases, such as "I'll try to handle this well," or "It might be possible to..."

Eat less sugar. Researchers at the Cambridge University Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute found, last year, that those who eat a lot of refined sugar are likely to get irritated when it isn't available. Dr Latif says that these withdrawal symptoms can be avoided by gradually reducing your sugar intake, and if that makes you feel prickly in the short term you can snack on something healthy, such as fruit, instead.

Have a nap. Not only is anger an exhausting emotion but, when you're sleep-deprived, you get more irritated more quickly. If you're at work, a practical way of giving your mind a break might be sloping off for a quick walk.

HOW DO I COPE?

Davina McCall TV presenter

WHAT MAKES

ME ANGRY

"I'm half-French, so I do cross quite well. On the Continent, you're allowed to have a rant and get it all off your chest. That's what I'm like. It's totally normal to feel angry—it's how you express it that counts. You've got to find an appropriate outlet.

"That said, I used to be a franticangry-shouty mother in the mornings. The whole getting-to-school thing freaked me out—'Where's your book? Have you got your sports kit? Hurry up, we're going to be late...' But, one day, I was actually crying at the school gates and another mother said to me, `You just have to wake up half an hour earlier.' "

HOW I CALM DOWN

"There's a really funny scene in the film Along Came Polly in which Jennifer Aniston gives Ben Stiller a knife to stab the decorative pillows that his ex always made him arrange on their bed in the mornings, then take off at night. I'm not saying we should go around stabbing soft furnishings, but a stint of boxing when I'm angry makes me feel great." CH

» Davina's new ITV1 series Long Lost Family starts this month.

WHAT MAKES ME ANGRY

"It's hard to explain why, but small things annoy me more than big things. I'll see something terrible on the news and think, / should be cross about that, but I'm not. Yet, if I'm trying to throw a crisp packet away and static electricity makes it stick to my hand, I get very agitated. Perhaps it's because I can turn off the TV, so I'm more in control.

"I was walking down the high street in my home town of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, recently when a bird dropped its load on my head. I was mildly irritated by that, but I took it in my stride. Then I got about ten yards down the road and it happened again. I don't know if it was the same bird, but I was still quite philosophical.

"Then it happened one more time, on my arm, and that did just tip me over the edge. My response was quite cartoonish. I shook my fists at the bird, which is exactly what you're supposed to do when cross.

"I do get very annoyed about language. Things like when people make a speech mark in the air with their hand, to indicate quoting something, and they only do it with one hand. There should be two. It's bad grammar. I think I get this from my dad. He wasn't a teacher, he was just a pedant."

HOW I CALM DOWN

"I try to practise what I preach. We're teaching our toddler to count to ten, but he reaches four and gets angry because he can't remember five. So we give him a biscuit. That's what I do now—a Penguin or a KitKat will normally stop any outburst."

SH

» Alex's tour Seven Years in the Bathroom starts in May. See avalonuk.com for details.

I get very agitated if I'm trying to throw away a crisp packet and static electricity makes it stick to my hand

Comedian

Play with Lego. 'A male patient found that concentrating on this one thing helped him ignore other frustrating aspects of something that hadn't worked out," says Dr Latif. "Any sort of hobby can be good. Another patient had too much time on her hands to ruminate about things, so she took up belly dancing and cross stitch."

Some people counter their anger better by releasing and others by relaxing, adds Dr Latif, so experiment to find out which type of activity is

HOW DO I COPE?

better for you. Women tend to benefit from using relaxing hobbies, such as listening to classical music, while men are more likely to have aggressive energy and might prefer contact sport.

Make yourself heard. Providing you don't get abusive or shout, there's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm annoyed," and expressing strongly how you feel a situation could be improved. You may even gain some respect for your cool assertiveness.

Milton Jones

Stand-up comic

WHAT MAKES ME ANGRY

"I'm very slow to get riled but, once I do, I completely flip. I take it and take it and take it, and then I don't.

"About two years ago, I'd been doing quite a lot of Christmas gigs and there were a lot of office parties in the audience who were more interested in getting off with each other than comedy.

"At this wine bar in east London, there was one chap who faced the wrong way the entire show and kept talking. He didn't heckle, he just ignored me, which is worse. So when I finished, I walked—well, ran—across the room and pushed him hard. He fell backwards, the bouncers piled in and there was a huge melee. It wasn't specifically his fault, it was a build-up, but I really did get a red mist. Fortunately, it all calmed down and he apologised for being rude. But that's the thing about comedy—you can go all the way up the ladder and then suddenly go all the way down the snake again and feel humiliated, even though you're effectively a middle-aged businessman."

HOW I CALM DOWN

"Playing football works because it's physically the opposite of what I do for a job. You can tell how bad my week has been by how aggressive my tackles are." As told to Bruce Dessau

» Milton is appearing at the Altitude Comedy Festival in Mayrhofen, Austria, March 26-31. See altitudefestival.com ■

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Robert Smith, Beverley

Ken Jones, Mold

John Block, Swansea

WHY ARE THESE MEN DRESSED LIKE THIS?

BECAUSE THEY'RE PRETENDING TO BE BEAVERS, OF COURSE. THEY'VE ALSO TRIED BEING INSECTS AND BIRDS-AND EVEN BUILT THEIR OWN NESTS. THE BIG QUESTION IS: WHY?

BY DANNY SCOTT

How does it feel to be a wild animal? To do without 21st-century human comforts, build your own home from sticks, and spend all day looking for food?

Wildlife filmmaker Matt Thompson, marine engineer James Cooper and animal trainer Lloyd Buck wanted to find out. So, last summer, they constructed man-sized hummingbird and wasp nests, and a beaver's lodge, and spent 24 hours acting like each of their inhabitants.

Their wacky project is documented in the new Nat Geo Wild series Live Like an Animal, which starts this month—but they gave Reader's Digest an exclusive insight into what happened...

No one would ever know: (from left to right) James, Lloyd and Matt got close to the beaver lifestyle by wearing wetsuits and fur hats

WATERY LODGINGS

The three men really wanted to challenge themselves during the experiment—so living as beavers, builders of some of nature's most spectacular houses, seemed a good way to start.

Led by James, and with the help of a back-up crew, they began work on their "lodge" on a rainy day last May, on the not-entirely-authentic,

but easily accessible Alexandra Park boating lake in north London. Beavers take almost a month to build their homes, but the human version took just under a week—though they had to cheat.

"With a real lodge, beavers plunge a few branches into the riverbed and build up from there, piling logs and branches on top of each other," says James, 37, from Gloucestershire. "We'd have needed a team of divers, safety experts and specialist underwater

equipment to do that, so we built our lodge on a wooden platform just below the water's surface. We also needed a wooden skeleton to provide shape and strength. The fact that beavers can do all this using just their teeth shows what brilliant engineers they are." (One lodge in northern Alberta, Canada, was 3,000 feet long and visible from space.)

The Inside of the lodge was lined with twigs and foliage, and no bigger than a two-man tent. But the three men didn't have to spend long in their uncomfortable accommodation during the day. Beavers are compulsive builders, so Matt, James and Lloyd spent much of the time gathering wood, and repairing and expanding their home.

"There was also a lot of eating," says Matt, 44, from Bristol. "Beavers mainly

eat bark, which humans can't digest, so I went foraging around the park for wild food. We tried lime leaves and burdock root, but the burdock gave us terrible wind.

"I have to admit, I didn't enjoy being a beaver," he continues.

"The lake was only about five feet deep, but I'm an awful swimmer and I hated being in the water all the time. At one point, a group of school kids came to see us and I developed a beaver-like shyness. We were in our own little world by that point, and I felt very vulnerable and territorial at being stared at. So I hid behind the lodge."

Lloyd, also 44 and from Bristol, who specialises in bird handling and has worked on numerous TV nature documentaries, was more relaxed about his experience. "Beavers spend their time doing a bit of DIY, hanging out with their family and eating. That's

The human recreation of the beaver's lodge was constructed from four tons of wood

A real beaver —just for reference

a lifestyle I can sort of understand."

But as night fell and the trio retired to the lodge, even he got unsettled. "Lodges usually have young in them, so, as an experiment, I decided to give birth," says Matt. "I unexpectedly produced this toy baby beaver—and everything went strange. Previously, James had been the dominant 'animal' among us, because he'd led the construction of the lodge, but suddenly

I was an alpha female. So a weird argument broke out between him and Lloyd as to who was now bottom of the pecking order."

"It sounds crazy, but it was pitch black, very wet and the sudden introduction of a 'youngster' tipped us into behaving as if it was all real," admits Lloyd. "There were no drugs involved—it was just the power of beaver psychology!"

LIVING FOR THE BUZZ

By July, the project had moved on to the grounds of New York's Museum of Natural History, to satisfy the demands of a joint British-American TV production team. Here, James, Lloyd and Matt attempted to build a wasps' nest.

Wasps build their homes— anywhere from attics to branches —by chewing wood off trees, fences and even garden benches, turning it into a mushy pulp and creating hundreds of hexagonal tubes that they layer on top of each other.

"Papier mache seemed the obvious choice for us to copy this," says James. "But we realised that, even though we had the help of the pulping machines at a local recycling plant, it was going to take weeks to make enough for the solid 15ft x loft nest we'd planned. So in the end, we had to just cover a scaffold with

bits of cardboard arranged like roof tiles. It was a very clumsy imitation of the real thing."

Actually, living as wasps proved

even more taxing. "Their world is totally alien to ours," says Lloyd. "All they do is rush around collecting food for the larvae. To simulate this, we had about 50 wooden tubes in our nest, each one containing a larva and attached to a cooking timer. The alarms went off at different times every five minutes to show that the larvae were hungry, and we spent much of our day rushing round resetting each clock to `feed' them. Imagine that! Fifty timers going off every five minutes..."

"I decided to liven things up by trying a few of the sort of insects the larvae eat," Matt grins. "We had some ready-cooked crickets to sample, which were awful—the legs kept getting stuck in my throat. But I found some fresh bugs in the park and they didn't taste too bad. I wasn't quite sure what they were, but I avoided the brightly coloured ones because they're usually poisonous."

"Though we had only a short stint as wasps, it was soul-destroying," says Lloyd. The nest, which would hold some 5,000 insects in the wild, is "almost Zen-like in its minimalism, and totally comfort free".

"And life is so functional," he adds. "You work for the colony, and you work until you die. You're constantly feeding children that aren't yours and, even if you're the queen, you don't get to relax—you're just pumping out larvae, a baby machine. After just a few hours, I felt my individuality slipping away. You fall into line so quickly."

WINGING IT

After the grim austerity of the wasps' residence, the team decided that their final location should be the relatively bijou home of the hummingbird. "Their houses are works of art," says Lloyd. "They steal spider silk, weave it around a branch to create a sticky pad, then knit a ball-shaped nest from soft, springy down, leaves and tiny twigs. The way they weave it allows it to stretch to accommodate between one and three birds."

The human version, constructed at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in August, was built on a steel platform, with around 1,000 feet of bungee rope crocheted into a four-foot-wide circular cup, giving it the elasticity to squeeze three middle-aged men inside. Instead of down and feathers, it was lined with duvets.

As well as enjoying more comfort, Matt was also looking forward to eating something a bit tastier. But it wasn't to be. "Like the wasp, the hummingbird has a fairly mundane life—flying in and out of the nest, fetching food. But it lives at maximum velocity [hummingbirds beat their wings up to 80 times a second and fly at over 30mph] and has to consume more than its own body weight each day in insects and nectar. So I spent 24 hours living off about three pints of a 1:4-ratio sugar-and-water homemade nectar. It was awful. I felt sick and kept fantasising about a fry-up!"

Though most of the men's time was

spent climbing down from their nest's eight-foot-high platform, getting nectar from a cool box—"our equivalent of a summer meadow", says Matt—then climbing back up again, they did have the odd interesting diversion.

"I had a go at recreating the male hummingbird courtship ritual," laughs Lloyd. "When it swoops down to impress its mate, it encounters a force of 9Gs. I tried that in a stunt plane at a nearby airport, but I was wrecked for three days—I couldn't think straight

As hummingbirds. We're loving those ties; (inset) the bird house and bemused onlookers and kept getting dizzy. Sex was the last thing on my mind!"

Overall, though, the project was an eye-opener. "The natural world has been part of my life since I was a child," says Lloyd. "But I was stunned by how much I learned. Animals manage feats of engineering that would tax our greatest architects." "We're so used to seeing nature programmes that we sometimes take for granted how incredible animals are," adds Matt. "The combined efforts of an engineer, an animal trainer and a natural historian couldn't even muster a proper wasps' nest. I've always respected animals, but when I really experienced what their daily lives involve, I just thought, Wow! •

» Live Like an Animal starts on Nat Geo Wild on April 8.

The case for more vitamin D in our diets has received a big boost with reports of a sharp increase in childhood rickets. But the health benefits are potentially much broader. Could vitamin D even improve our Olympic medal hopes?

BY JEROME BURNE

When it comes to vitamin D, we could learn a thing or two from the ancient Greek athletes—such as exercising naked in the sunshine. And with the Olympics coming up, sun-drenched training might even be a secret weapon in the drive for gold.

"This was something Russian and German sports doctors in the 1950s and 1960s were interested in," says Dr John Cannell, US psychiatrist and founder of the Vitamin D Council. "There are research papers showing that athletic performance peaks in the summer and is poorest in the winter. Vitamin D stimulates the growth of muscle fibres, and balance and reaction times both improve with higher levels in the blood. Forty years ago, both Russian and German teams used the equivalent of sunbeds to boost performance."

A recent paper published by the

American College of Sports Medicine highlights the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Many US athletes acclimatised to the high altitude and weather by training beforehand in Mexico—and as a result, they won more medals than any other country at those games, especially in outdoor sports. Others point to the success of Jamaican sprinters such as Usain Bolt, who are able to train outdoors all year round and may have better vitamin D levels than athletes who live in harsher environments.

"Most athletes aren't aware of the link between vitamin D and muscle strength," says Professor Tim Oliver, medical oncologist at Barts and the London Hospital. "We tested some boxers and found they had really low levels. We can't say how much it's affecting their performance, but since many sportspeople train indoors-

gymnasts, swimmers, track cyclists—there's no way they can be making enough vitamin D from the sun."

But there's still much to learn. Although German studies from the 1950s demonstrate that higher levels of vitamin D are linked with better performance, that doesn't prove a causal connection. The idea needs testing in a controlled trial—give one group extra vitamin D and the other a placebo, and see if the vitamin group's performance improves.

And how much is enough anyway? The idea that we should all be getting a lot more took a knock last year when the New England Journal of Medicine declared that the evidence for vitamin D being beneficial for anything other than bones was "inconclusive". But four months later, an equally impressive source—the American Endocrine Society—recommended that both children and adults should get their blood level to between 100-150nmo1/1 (nanomoles per litre, which is how levels in the blood are measured)."Vitamin D deficiency is common in all age groups," commented the lead author Professor Michael Holick of Boston University Medical Centre. "Everyone is at risk."

A big randomised trial of vitamin D is due to report in 2016, but Professor Oliver is in no doubt. "Ideally, you should have about the same level in your blood as someone from the Masai tribe in Africa—around 200nmo1/1," he says. "It makes sense to ask your GP to test your blood level, and if it's lower than that, boost it up with diet, supplements or sunshine."

A ROLE IN THE WOMB?

The importance of getting enough vitamin D starts even before childhood, according to Dr Oliver Gillie, one of the first British campaigners for increasing vitamin awareness.

Gillie is critical of the official position that women don't need extra vitamin D in pregnancy, and that babies don't need any until they're six months old at the earliest.

"This can't be right when we know that, in winter, 86 per cent of people

Sunlight is the ideal source of vitamin D—but levels can be low in the UK. If you want more than the current RD/ of 10-20mcg, raw Atlantic herrin g is the richest foodstuff, with around 40mcg per 100 grams. Eggs, mushrooms and fortified cereals are also good sources

in Britain don't have optimum levels in their blood," says Gillie, citing a 2007 study. "Many babies won't be getting optimum amounts in the womb."

The campaign group Shine on Scotland has urged the Scottish government to provide vitamin D supplements to all pregnant mothers as a way of tackling the country's "dire" rates of multiple sclerosis, a call echoed by George Ebers, professor of clinical neurology at Oxford University, who points to a strong link between MS and vitamin D deficiency.

Although experts have been cautious

WARDING OFF DISEASES

Vitamin D deficiency is certainly a factor behind the recent sharp rise in cases of the bone disease rickets among otherwise healthy children in the UK, with the highest rates in parts of the country that get less sunshine—Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. Computer games, TV and a lack of outdoor activities have shouldered a lot of the blame, but it's also attributable to the changing ethnic mix in recent decades (those with darker skin require longer exposure to sunlight to generate vitamin D).

Over the last year there's been something of a U-turn by bodies such as Cancer UK, who for years have been warning us to put on hats and sunscreen whenever we venture out in the sun. The official advice is now for everyone to get around 10-15 minutes in the sun a day (without sun lotion, if possible), making sure you don't burn. In addition, scientists keep coming up with evidence that higher levels of vitamin D later in life may protect against the big chronic killers such as diabetes and heart disease. Last year, a controlled study with 90 Type-2-diabetes patients found those given a vitamin-D-fortified yogurt drink lowered their blood sugar and lost weight compared with those getting yogurt alone.

Another study found that arteries are

less likely to stiffen up with good vitamin D

levels, which may lower the risk of heart disease. And if you're being treated for breast cancer with oestrogen-blocking drugs, a vitamin D supplement may cut joint and bone pain.

about giving supplements to pregnant women, a recent trial yielded positive results. Five hundred women took up to '00mcg (five times the current RDA) or a placebo during pregnancy. Those with the highest level of vitamin D were found to be he least likely to go into labour early, give oirth prematurely or develop infections.

"We didn't see a single adverse 'vent—it was absolutely safe and we

saw a lot of improved outcomes," says lead researcher Professor Bruce Hollis, a paediatrician at the Medical University of South Carolina.

DOSES AND

SUPPLEMENTS

The RDA used to be 5-10mcg, which is the equivalent of the other measure less commonly used: 200-400 His (40 IU = one mcg). Those pushing for optimum levels say we need 80-100mcg, but critics of this view claim that 20mcg (the current RDA) would be enough for 99 per cent of the population. In terms of supplements, there are numerous options available in liquid or pill form. Most chemists should provide you with 50mcg or even 100mcg per dose. Make sure you go for vitamin D3, generally reckoned to be the most potent ■

Children play at the Darawish camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, home to over 4,000 families

A REFUGEE

Thousands of people need your help. They've just fled a bloody warzone, they're hungry, thirsty and have nowhere to sleep. So what do you do?

BY E JANE DICKSON

tji

HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING THIS

BritishRedCross

1(i:9,2.:;i How do you set up a refugee camp? Cook, build toilets and tents for 2,000 people?

#RDTwissue

Charlie Mason is a humanitarian adviser for Save the Children. He helps coordinate the charity's response to up to a dozen conflict situations and natural disasters at any one time, both from its London headquarters and in the field

"If a crisis occurs and people need our help, we're always ready. We have staff in 120 countries, so we'll talk to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, other aid organisations and the country involved to find out what's needed, then often get supplies and workers to the scene within 24 hours.

4 "Contrary to what you might think, our first task in a refugee situation isn't to herd a load of individuals, scattered over a wide area, into one place and start a camp. People fleeing some big event tend to follow each other to safety, often congregating on high ground, just over a national border or near a river. And they don't generally want to go too far from their neighbourhoods—even if their homes have been destroyed—as they hope to go back to check on property and businesses.

When I arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after the January 2010 earthquake, some 200,000 people had just gone to the nearest park or golf course. So unless refugees are at risk of attack by rebel groups, say, and need to be moved further into a neighbouring country, we usually assess what an ad-hoc settlement needs and

The Croix-des-Peres camp in Leogane, Haiti, one of many supported by Save the Children

Al IN A DESPERATE SITUATION, PEOPLE

start to construct the facilities right there.

"Sanitation is always a priority. It's important that you protect human waste from flies, or they'll buzz around the camp and disease can become rampant. That means we have to construct what can be hundreds of latrines in a hurry. Each one can take five men a day to dig, and there might only be around 70 emergency workers from various charities

per 100,000 refugees, so we have to mobilise volunteers from the camp to help us. If they're too ill or weak, we may pay people from nearby towns and villages, but that's costly and it can undermine the local economy if residents can earn more from working at the camp than they do tending their farm.

"We give people food individually or install a voucher system, rather than just

MAY USE THEIR BODIES AS CURRENCY 33

li dump it all in one place and risk a complete scrimmage, where the strongest win and women and children are left on the sidelines. It's also a question of self:, respect. No one wants to be fed off the back of a truck like cattle.

• "It's a horrible reality but, in a desper•ate situation, people may be forced to use their bodies as currency in return 'L for food or other items. We try to protect

women and children by putting latrines in public places and lighting them with solar lamps. We're also careful that our emergency shelters are built with a black plastic inner core, so you can't see through them, even at night. Respecting privacy may seem like a small thing among so many urgent priorities, but it's particularly important for disaster victims to start to feel human again."

IN IT FOR THE LONG-HAUL

Geoffrey Dennis is chief executive of CARE International UK. Its most recent projects include providing shelter, food and medical care for more than 40,000 refugees escaping political violence in Ivory Coast and 50,000 flood victims across Southeast Asia.

"One of the tricky things about setting up a campis dealing with the resentment that the sudden influx of a huge number of people can cause. We've been helping some of the 200,000 or so Sudanese refugees who've fled to Chad to escape the ongoing Darfur guerilla conflict, and there have been scuffles between the locals and the incomers over scarce resources such as water. A key part of our job, then, is negotiating with host communities about land rights when expanding a camp and, where possible, trucking in water or building wells, and supplying firewood so women don't have to get it from nearby villages.

"When someone arrives at a camp, we give them a medical check, a basic kit

Newly arrived refugees from Somalia wait to be registered at the Dadaab camp in Kenya (such as a tent and cooking utensils) and three weeks' food. After that, rations are distributed twice a month, so people have a degree of independence in managing their supplies. They're calculated at a minimum of 2,100 calories per person a day and include staples like flour, rice, chickpeas, oil, sugar and salt—though malnourished children are given supplementary feeding, such as high-protein biscuits and cereals. We try not to turn

DADAAB WORLD'S LARGEST REFUGEE CAM BY NUMBERS

464,000 refugees, 270 aid-agency staff members, 1,600 refugee workers. 3,500 tons of food distributed every 14 days, and 7.5 millionlitres of water distributed every day, to provide refugees with 15 litres each. Source: CARE International UK

refugees away because we haven't got enough food, but we sometimes have to limit daily allowances—perhaps to just enough to keep everyone alive.

"Unfortunately, running a camp can be a long-term commitment. In 1992, when I was international director of the Red Cross, I worked in the Dadaab refugee camp, Kenya, which was then home to 158,000 Somalians who'd fled the civil war in their country. I went back a few months ago and, with a serious drought adding to Somalia's problems, the population had swelled to more than 450,000. In crisis-hit areas, news of a refugee camp can spread far and wide—if people reckon they'll get help by heading in a certain direction, they'll just start walking. And

it's often not possible for people to return to their original villages or towns for years, perhaps because they can't be sure it's safe or because it'll still be too hard for them to eke out a living there.

CARE now runs five primary schools for 15,000 children at Dadaab, along with greenhouses to grow food, and even IT learning centres.

"I've seen some heartbreaking things in camps. At Dadaab recently, I met a woman who'd lost her husband and had walked for 21 days from central Somalia, chronically short of food and water. She arrived at the camp with her son, who was about seven, walking beside her, and a starving baby on her back. She'd checked the infant every four hours, but when she got to the camp, the baby was dead on her back. If she'd arrived a few hours earlier, it'd be alive now

"But there are positive stories, too. I know a young woman who's been in Dadaab since she was three and now works for CARE, looking after female victims of sexual violence. She's one of 1,600 refugees helping us in East Africa. And I've seen amazing generosity in camps throughout the world—once, a severely malnourished mother gave up her ration to save an orphaned child.

"I believe the majority of the world's population are good people. They don't want handouts—they just want the chance to rebuild their lives." ►

THE BOX OF TRICKS

Tom Lay is an operations coordinator at ShelterBox. Since 2000, the Cornwallbased organisation has distributed its lifesaving "ShelterBoxes"—a supply kit that includes a tent, thermal clothes and water-purification equipment—to almost 200 crisis-hit communities.

"Part of what spurs us to help refugees is the strength of character they show in the face of adversity. I was in Somalia at the end of 200Z and people who'd just fled the conflict were simply standing up and getting on with life. They were making shelters from trousers and shirts, teenage girls were being giggly and chatty, just as they would be in Britain, and little boys were playing football with bits of litter instead of balls.

"Fortunately, though we're a relatively small charity based in Cornwall, we were started by Rotary Club member Tom Henderson and have the contacts to be able to help people all over the world. You'd be surprised by how many wellconnected Rotarians there are, from East Africa to Japan.

"I was deployed to Namibia in spring 2009, where13,000 people had been made homeless by river flooding. A load of ShelterBoxes arrived at the airport on a Sunday and the customs officials told us, 'We haven't got the staff to process these. Come back tomorrow.' But one of our

contacts had a direct line to the country's vice president, gave him a quick call and, suddenly, the officials were able to get our stuff through there and then.

"These local Rotarians also provide our box-distribution teams—most of whom come from a global network of volunteers, organised on the ground and from Cornwall by people like me—with things such as accommodation, translators and transport. And we've been able to set up distribution centres in places like Houston, Pakistan and Dubai, with about 5,000 ShelterBoxes in stock at any one time. The amount of boxes we send to an incident can range from a few dozen, if it's relatively small or if other aid agencies already have a big presence there,

Setting up a tent in Madagascar, for refugees made homeless by Cyclone Giovanna that struck in February

to the more than 16,000 we sent over four months to Haiti. Last year, we sent 15,000 boxes to 25 different disasters.

"There are occasionally drawbacks to distributing what's essentially a piece of kit worth several hundred pounds. In 2008, I was deployed to the Congo, where there was a lot of violence in the eastern regions. Giving people boxes would have made them a greater target for the advancing rebel forces than they were already, so, reluctantly, we had to hold onto the stock, finally distributing it a few months later.

"We try to provide more than the bare minimum for survival in our boxes. The tent is built to withstand the elements in

REFUGEE-CAMP SHOPPING LIST

LATRINE KIT including digging equipment, to serve 5,000 people: £800.

INFRASTRUCTURE set for temporary clinics, nutrition centres and schools. Includes tent, shading net, water filter, lamp, rope and barrier fencing: £1,950.

SHELTER REPAIR KIT (one per ten families). Includes an axe, hammer, nails, rope, work gloves and wire: £85.

any climate, and the children's activity pack we include is fun and has a practical purpose, too. Kids are kids around the world—when they're not at school they're getting under your feet. If a family is trying to keep them entertained, it means there's not much time for picking up the pieces of their lives. Similarly, the stoves we provide have a functional use but they're also a real 'hearth' for families—a sense of home. Our keywords are `shelter, warmth and dignity'. That's what we aim to deliver." ■

» For more information on all the charities featured in this article, and details of how to donate, visit savethechildren.org, care international.org and shelterbox.org

EMERGENCY HEALTH KIT, for 1,000 people for three months: £7,500.

HIGH-NUTRIENT PEANUT PASTE, enough to keep one child alive for a month: £26.

10,000-LITRE WATER TANK: £900.

MOSQUITO NET to cover ten children: £15.

STANDARD FAMILY SHELTER, with two plastic sheets, five blankets, one bucket, one jerrycan and cooking utensils: £70.

WINTER-READY FAMILY TENT: £170

HOW

TO...

BY LINDA GRAY

1,001 THINGS

Welcome to the pages that help make life simpler, easier and—we hope—more fun!

How to HIDE FROM YOUR NEIGHBOURS

IT MAY BE YOUR OWN BACKYARD, but that doesn't mean it's private, and you may want to screen it before getting out the sun lounger. But, as boundaries are a top cause of neighbour disputes, it pays to tread warily before putting up barriers of any kind.

Unless you're in a conservation area or the house next door is listed, you don't need permission to erect a fence or wall under two metres high (one metre if it faces a road). If you don't want to be peered at by passing traffic, plant a hedge. There's no height ban on these, though you can be charged with antisocial behaviour if your leylandii get out of control.

Councils can vary the rules, so contact the local planning department before you shut yourself in. Check your deeds for restrictive covenants and see where the boundaries lie—it's not always obvious. If there's any doubt, ring the Royal Institute

of Chartered Surveyors' helpline on 0870 3331600 (calls charged) for advice. Keep the peace by consulting the neighbours and give them plenty of notice, so they have time to relocate any precious plants. You can't force them to repair or replace "their" fence or stop them removing it—if they won't cooperate, be prepared to pay for the work yourself. It may rankle, but it's the very best way to mend fences.

How to UNDERSTAND KIDSPEAK

LOLZ! AMAZEBALLS! THAT'S BANGIN'! A message like that might as well be in Cantonese—which is the point, because teenagers need to exclude the adult world. But when you can't understand prime-time TV or need to decode a text, knowing a little "yoof speak" helps ease communication and prevent fogeyish faux pas.

LOL, for example, is not "lots of love" as you might think. It means "laugh(ing) out loud". As for LOLZ, it's from the reality show The Only Way Is Essex (or TOWIE), where z is used for plurals (so "laughs out loud") and abbreviations, as in WELL JELZ (envious).

TOWIE is also responsible for REEM, meaning hot (as in sexy). But, apart from its name, it can't be held accountable for acronyms and contractions such as TOTES (totally) and FUGLY (****ing ugly). For those we must blame texting and tweeting. Among the most common are OMG! (oh my God!) and WTF? (what the ****?). FYI, acronyms for "by the way" (BTW), and "to be honest" (TBH) are rather middle-aged.

Some terms are inspired by modern life. One is iFinger (the one kept clean so you can use a touchscreen when eating), another is UMFRIEND to describe a casual sexual partner (as in, "He's my, um, friend"). You'll find many more online at urbandictionary.com, and on TV (TOWIE, Made in Chelsea, Skins, and Summer Heights High). Listen and learn, but never repeat, because even the ubiquitous YAY! can mean cocaine. Which could be TOTES AWK.

* "Talk to you later"— in case you didn't know

How to BEAT COMPUTER BLUES

SWAP COMPLICATED TOOLBAR CHOICES for some nifty keyboard shortcuts. These are for Windows (sorry, Mac users), but using CMD instead of the Ctrl button may give the same results: Lifesaving. Hit Ctrl z (undo last action) if you accidentally delete a day's work, Fl to open Help in the program you're in. Speed-editing. Ctrl + the relevant letter

is the magic combo. Most are self-evident (Ctrl + s = save), though not Ctrl k, which links a word to a website, or Ctrl + or - to zoom in or out.

Housekeeping. Ctrl/ Shift/N creates a folder, F3 means search, and F2 rename. And add the date by pressing Alt/Shift/D to insert it—British style.

How to DOUBLE YOUR LEISURE TIME

WANT TO WORK HALF AS LONG instead of twice as hard? Yes, we're talking jobsharing—still possible even in a downturn, where no one dares object when asked to work late. True, it means persuading a company to hire two people to do the work of one, the opposite of the current trend. But, says Working Families, which campaigns for work-life balance, it can be done if you can convince the company it's good for them. Explain... Long hours mean less profit. "Presenteeism costs more than absenteeism," says Sarah Jackson, head of Working Families. Because they infect colleagues and customers, workers who come in when sick cost companies 1.5 times more than those who take a duvet day.

Have you seen BP's results? They're one of the blue-chip

companies running job-share schemes, along with Boots, Marks & Spencer, city firms Deloitte, Freshfields and KPMG, plus DHL, Centrica, and many banks. This is how it works. Show how you'll divide the workload (by time, projects, or splitting it into separate roles). Stress the advantages (that the job will be covered from 8am-6pm, say), and explain that you'll work together seamlessly by having a handover day. How about a pilot scheme? Suggest this if you sense resistance, and point out that job-sharing is rarely longterm—the average scheme lasts for just two years. You'll keep high-flyers. Research by employment consultants Capability Jane found that 90 per cent of high-powered women would consider leaving their job if they couldn't work part-time.

How to WALK AND TALK

IF YOU'RE TIRED OF WALKING SOLO, try walking with a group instead. But which one is right for you?

• Long and easy. There's more to the Ramblers than the grizzled hikers who, admittedly, are its core members. Ramblers also run groups for under-50s, plus flexigroups for short and special-interest walks. Otherwise, expect a sociable walk of five to 15 miles with time to drink in the view (and a pint) for £31 a year.

Chatting potential:

• Short and fast. Get fit in an hour on a free health walk organised by Walking for Health. Walks are usually two to three miles at a brisk pace (15-17 minutes per mile). If weight loss is your goal, pump your arms as well as legs, says fitness guru Joanna Hall, whose Walkactive courses

should shift eight pounds in six weeks (from £70 pa). Or try Nordic walking, which uses poles to speed you up and tone the upper body. Chatting potential: v

• Like minds. You'll find walking groups at work, universities and societies from the Rotary to the WI. The one drawback is that these are people you meet anyway, so conversation may stall.

Chatting potential: ✓✓✓

• Personal best. Hill climbing and longdistance hikes are endurance challenges— even group walks expect participants to complete 20-plus miles in a set time, say the Long Distance Walkers Association.

Chatting potential:

• Feel good. Almost every charity organises fund-raising walks, and the solidarity that comes from supporting a cause makes this the ultimate bonding experience. Chatting potential:

How to BREAK A HABIT

TIME TO THROW OFF THAT COMFORT BLANKET, or at least turn it round. Habits undermine our ability to rise to challenges, says psychologist Professor Ben Fletcher— instead of coming up with new strategies, we simply repeat what we tried before.

A sure way to spot stuck thinking is if a problem keeps recurring—so if parking tickets or hangovers mount up, it's time to act. Going without a watch, sleeping on the other side (or end) of the bed, changing your home page and walking down an undiscovered road disrupt set patterns of behaviour. "It's easy, fun and psychologically powerful, because small changes lead to big differences," says Fletcher, who lists them online at dsd.me and in his book Flex (£8.99).

Then think about your personality traits and see how it feels to be the opposite. Speak out or stay shtum, allow more time or less, make a detailed plan of the day or act on the spur of the moment—whichever doesn't come naturally. This alters our view of ourselves and our attitude to others, helping to counter train-track thinking, open up opportunities and even increase our enjoyment of life.

WHAT YOUR CREDITCARD COMPANY TELL YOU

My card could damage your credit rating. Though there are dozens of credit cards, there's only a handful of issuers and they don't allow you to have more than one card. As rejection can damage your credit rating, ring them to check before you apply. That way, it won't register on your file, says RD's finance expert Jasmine Birtles, author of Beat the Banks (£7.99). Card tarts don't bother me. They constantly change cards to get a 0% balance transfer deal. But if they forget to move before

the agreement ends, I'll hit them with up to 20% APR and they'll lose all they've gained. Unless they sign up to moneysaving expert.com's free Tart Alert, which sends them a text reminder. That £2,000 holiday could cost £3,216. And you could still be paying for it in 2019. Picking a pricy card and paying back the minimum can rack up debt. Pay it off as fast as you can or switch cards for a better deal. fr Don't blame me for huge transaction fees. Airlines, theatres and even the DVLA levy them as a way of making money, and it's so out of hand that the Government is clamping down. But watch out for other cheeky charges

—such as easyJet's new £9 admin fee.

• You don't need card insurance. The most you'll have to pay if your card is lost or stolen is £50, and I often waive that.

I can't even reject your claim if your PIN is used, unless I can prove you've been negligent. My interest rates are negotiable.

But it works both ways. If you always pay on time, I might agree to reduce the going rate or drop additional fees. But I only have to give my headline deal to 51% of

customers, so if you're feckless, I can charge you more.

I can save you a fortune. Where else can you get up to 56 days' free credit plus a refund on purchases if things go wrong?

Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act, I have to pick up the tab for faulty or no-show buys from £100 to £30,000 paid for by credit card. Even if you only use the card for the deposit, I have to refund the whole price.

• Two ways to lose a lot of money:

1.Withdraw cash. Interest (as high as 30%) starts the minute you leave the ATM, and don't forget the transaction charge (U.50 minimum).

2. Use your card abroad. As most providers charge 3% every time it's used, take out a prepaid card and load it with holiday spending money instead.

• You don't have to accept an interest-rate rise. I'm bound to tell you twice and give you time to pay

if you decide to close your account. If you do, check with an agency such as Experian that it's closed by you, not me, or you'll get a black mark on your credit rating. Let your laptop do the maths. There are 14 different ways of calculating interest, so get help online. Sites such as moneysupermarket. com and money savingexpert.com take seconds to show you if that 0% interest deal is worth the 3.5% fee. ■

MEDICINE WITH MAX PEMBERTON

*HOOKED

We sent out a tweet asking what you'd most like to read about in this column—the dangers of over-the-counter drugs was the clear winner

I was surprised when Janice, a middleaged, middle-class housewife, walked through the door of the drug-dependency unit. She didn't look like my usual patients, and at first she didn't talk about her addiction, but instead called it her "silliness".

For several years she'd been taking increasing amounts of over-the-counter painkillers. She was now consuming around six packets a day. The painkillers contained codeine, a mild opiate. Her local pharmacy had become suspicious because she was regularly buying so many tablets—so she'd developed an elaborate journey each morning in order to obtain enough to see her through the day. As soon as her husband, a City lawyer, left for work, she'd set out on her mission. She produced an itinerary for each day of the week, and used pharmacies grouped together by location so she didn't have to travel too far. She'd managed to fit this around her

other commitments, so that, for example, on a Monday when she volunteered in a charity shop, the chemists she visited were all nearby. As a piece of planning, it was mind-blowing in its rigour.

"Sundays used to be tricky, but I managed to combine getting the tablets with the weekly shop, since all the supermarkets stock them," she said.

"I can't be an addict; I pay my taxes and listen to Radio 2"

Her husband, of course, was blissfully unaware of the extent of her "silliness". "He's hardly ever at home, so he doesn't notice. I have to be careful about the packaging, though. I throw it all in the park bin, but I know I should recycle it really."

When I worked out exactly how much codeine was in each tablet and the number she took each day, I was horrified—she was taking so much opiate it was equivalent to a bag of heroin a day.

"But I'm not an addict," she'd repeat frequently. I often wondered if it was me

"I can't be an addict; I pay my taxes and listen to Radio 2."

It's a sad fact that people, for a whole host of reasons, sometimes turn to substances to help them cope with the realities of their lives, or to manage underlying psychological problems. Meeting Janice was a salutary lesson for me in understanding that addiction can afflict anyone from any walk of life.

It also taught me that just because a drug comes in a packet you buy over the counter, rather than wrapped in Clingfilm from a man wearing a hoodie in a dark alley, doesn't mean it can't be dangerous, and that it's not addictive.

NOW YOUM TION'

BLOOD PRESSURE TABLETS

WHAT DO THEY DO? This group of pills aims to reduce the "blood pressure" (or "hypertension") in your blood vessels. Over a long period of time, high blood pressure is dangerous because it increases the risk of having a stroke or heart attack, or other problems such as kidney damage.

HOW DO THEY WORK? There are five main types of pills:

1.ACE inhibitors control hormones that affect blood pressure. They mostly have names that end in "pril".

2.Angiotensin receptor blockers also act on hormones. Most of them end in "artan".

3.Calcium channel blockers relax blood-vessel walls. Their names usually end in "pine".

Max Pemberton is a hospital doctor, and the Mind Journalist of the Year 2010

NEXT MONTH: angina pills she was trying to convince, or herself.

4.Beta-blockers work by blocking the effects of the hormone adrenalin. This helps slow down the heart rate and so reduce blood pressure. They usually end with "Id".

5.Diuretics reduce the amount of excess fluid in the blood and thus reduce the pressure. These usually end with "ide". Sometimes people need more than one type of medication to reduce their blood pressure.

WHO TAKES THEM? Anyone who has high blood pressure— what's considered high depends on age. Also, people who have had a heart attack or stroke—to reduce the risk of it happening again.

HOW DO YOU TAKE THEM?

In the morning with a large glass of water.

SIDE EFFECTS?

All the pills have different potential side effects, but generally most people don't experience problems. The most common complaint is light-headedness, but this usually passes. Some people on ACE inhibitors complain of a dry cough. People with asthma shouldn't take beta-blockers.

COMMON TABLETS Captopril, losartan, amlodipine, atenold, bendroflumethiazide. ■

HEALTH

WITH SUSANNAH HICKLING TICK TOCK TICK...

Is Britain sitting on a tick timebomb?

New research from the University of Bristol found that 14.9% of the 5,000-plus dogs they examined had ticks, with 2.3% of these little critters carrying potentially deadly Lyme disease. So as the weather warms up and you head outdoors, here are a few fast facts to pack with your picnic.

FACT1You can only catch Lyme disease from an infected tick. It has to be carrying the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, but even then you might not develop it.

FACT 2 You'll probably only get a rash. It starts at the bite site and may spread, leaving a clear area in the centre. You may also get flu-like symptoms.

FACT 3 In an unlucky few, Lyme disease can get serious. It can cause meningitis, heart problems, arthritis, nerve damage, paralysis or blindness. Scary—but rare. And if you head off to the doc when you see the rash, antibiotics can prevent that happening.

FACT 4 There are up to 3,000 cases a year in the UK. But we're still a long way behind many other European countries.

FACT 5 Even suburban parkland can be home to these little pests. But the areas most affected are the southern counties of England, the Lake District, the Yorkshire Moors and the Scottish Highlands.

FACT 6 Ticks are the size of a poppy seed. The spiderlike insects are easy to miss. Check clothes and skin (including scalp and skin folds) and dog fur after a walk in the woods or long grass. Better still, wear long sleeves and trousers tucked into socks. You won't score highly on country chic, but you'll win on tick prevention.

I HAD 'ANCER few years before I "down there" for a

I'd had a problem OF THE was diagnosed in spring 2010 at 41. It PENIS started as a spot on the tip of my penis that got sore from time to time. But I resisted my doctor's advice to go to a sexual-health clinic. It couldn't be sexually transmitted—I was single after a divorce, but careful. I treated it with creams instead.

But it didn't go away. It was meeting the woman of my dreams that changed everything. Marlena urged me to do something. By the time I went to the clinic, the sore was the size of a 2p piece.

I was referred to the Christie, a cancer hospital in Manchester. I'll never forget my surgeon drawing a picture of a penis and then a line right through the head, to show me what a glansectomy would entail.

"I'm not having it done," I said to Marlena. I felt I wouldn't be a man any more. Because fewer than 450 men a year get penile cancer in the UK, there was no one to talk to. But after many rows, I went ahead.

It was worth it. I just wish I'd gone to a specialist earlier. The doctors rebuilt the end of my penis with skin from my thigh. It doesn't look the same and there isn't as much sensation, but the cancer hasn't spread. What's more, Marlena and I are expecting a baby next month!

Dave Sumner

BONE UP ON EXERCISE

WHAT'S GOOD FOR INCREASING BONE DENSITY AND PREVENTING OSTEOPOROSIS?

• Star jumps (above)

• Push-ups

• Walking

• Running

• Resistance (also known as weight) training

• T'ai chi

AND WHAT'S NO GOOD?

• Swimming and cycling—both build muscle, but don't put enough weight on the bones

HERE Wu GO!

Cycling might not do much for your bones, but it's great for brains when done as part of a video game, a New York study found. The virtual environments and interactive features helped "cybercyclists" aged 58-99 become more mentally agile. So if older people want to boost cognitive health, they should do this type of workout several times a week.

THE DIET DOCTOR

It depends on the type, says Dr David Ashton of Healthier Weight

According to the latest celebrity endorsements, the easy way to get rid of middleaged spread is to enjoy a nice cup of tea. Given that we Brits drink around 165 million cups a day, we should be among the slimmer populations in the world rather than one of the fattest.

But the tea that's usually referred to in the context of weight loss isn't standard British-brew black tea, but much more exotic leaves, especially green tea. Both green and black teas come from the same plant—Came/ia sinensisbut the leaves are processed differently. As a result, green tea contains a group of flavonoids called catechins, the most abundant of which is epigallatocatechin gallate (EGCG). Together with caffeine, found in both

THREE WAYS TO BEAT THE BLOAT

green and black tea, it's the activity of catechins—particularly EGCG—that's responsible for weight loss.

EGCG and other catechins are said to be "fat burners"—they promote the breakdown (oxidation) of fats, leading to weight loss. Several studies have shown that green tea does indeed increase fat oxidation at rest by up to 16%. With regard to weight loss, a recent analysis of 11 different studies showed that subjects who drank green tea lost—on average-2.9lbs more over a 12-week period than those in the control group. This is a significant, though modest, effect. And the sceptic might argue that this sort of weight loss could be achieved simply by switching from a standard cup of milky tea with one sugar (40 calories) to calorie-free green tea. Assuming you drink four 40-calorie cups a day, over a 12-week period this would lead to a saving of 13,440 calories. This equates to a 3.81b weight loss, slightly more than the 2.9Ibs in the study referred to above.

So whether or not green tea has specific fat-burning properties, if you are a regular black tea (or coffee) drinker with milk and sugar, switching to zerocalorie green (or other) tea could help weight loss. And anyway, digestives don't taste anything like as nice with green tea.

1.Sling the salt cellar. The sodium in salt encourages your body to retain water. So flavour food with herbs or grated lemon rind instead.

2. Chew slowly and well. Swallowed air can cause bloating—not to mention wind. So don't eat in a rush, and chew your food thoroughly.

3. Don't talk with your mouth full. Mum was right! Chit-chat and tension round the dinner table can lead to swallowed air. Relax before a meal by breathing in and out through your nostrils a few times. ■

like 90% of UK adults, you have ever had hickenpox, there is a 1 in 4 chance you will evelop shingles at some point in your lifetime.

hingles (also known as herpes zoster) is a condition that is caused by the reactivation of the chickenpox irus. Once you've had chickenpox, the irus stays dormant in your body until is reactivated, causing shingles. It is of fully known what causes the virus oreactivate, but anyone who has had ickenpox could develop shingles in er life, often many years after the riginal chickenpox infection. It tends to cur more frequently in people aged 50 ears or older. It usually causes a rash n one side of the body.

The symptoms of shingles are sually mild but can be very unpleasant r some. Shingles usually starts with a eadache, fever, and tiredness, and you re likely to feel unwell. It's very common ofeel a burning pain somewhere on e body, which may become extreme. ithin a few days to three weeks this ea of pain will start to develop a red !ash, which will turn into fluid-filled listers. When these painful blisters first they will then turn into sores that eventually crust over and heal. ost people recover but some people ontinue to feel extreme pain in the area the rash that can remain for many onths, or in extreme cases even years. his is known as post-herpetic neuralgia

(PHN). PHN can prevent sufferers from living a normal life, and for some even a slight breeze against the skin can be painful and distressing.

Shingles varies from person to person and some people will require treatment. See your GP as soon as possible, ideally within 72 hours of the rash occurring.

Most people do not have any long-term effects, but for some shingles can cause complications. If shingles develops in the eye it can lead to decreased vision or even permanent blindness in the affected eye.

It is possible to prevent shingles. See your GP who can give you more information.

Other sources of information include www.shinglesaware.co.uk or the Shingles Support Society, 41 North Road, London N7 9DP who have a helpline (0845 123 2305) and a website (www.shinglessupport.org)

Scan the QR code with your smartphone to access www.shinglesaware.co.uk

BACK TO BASE

Why do so many of us keep buying the wrong foundation?

Buying foundation is tricky. In fact, I reckon if all of us pooled our poorly judged purchases, we could paint the town, er, some kind of beige. So before you shop for a new one, consider three key criteria.

1.Skin Type. If you have dry skin, prone to flakiness or tightness, look at cream and liquid formulations with hydrating properties. Oily skin, which tends to shine a couple of hours after cleansing, will benefit from powder or mattifying varieties. If you only need to apply base to, say, your cheeks, assess the skin type in that area.

2. Decide what you most want from your foundation. There are so many out there, and although most are multitaskers, they usually boast one or two specific qualities. For instance, among the new launches, NYC All Day Long Smooth Skin Foundation, £3.99, is designed for staying power; Benefit Hello Flawless Oxygen Wow, £24.50, offers brightening, buildable coverage; and Estee Lauder

Invisible Fluid Makeup, £27, delivers fresh radiance in a super-light texture. Narrow down your needs. Do you

want to minimise pores, cover redness, or increase luminosity? Do you want a sheer or velvety finish? To help you consider your key requirements, check out the Clinique website, clicking on Foundation Finder—Meet Your Match. Or go to the counter for a foundation "fitting" and take away a 7m1 sample (five days' worth) of your recommended foundation.

3. Assess whether your undertone is cool or warm (not to be confused with your

skin shade or tone—you could be fair and warm or dark and cool). DIY analysis is not an exact science, but generally, if your complexion looks best when you're wearing a white shirt or silver jewellery, you're likely to be cooler. If a cream shirt or gold jewellery is more flattering, chances are you're warm.

Studying your undertone helps you develop a keener eye when you're looking at foundations. Your aim is to match your complexion exactly. Sure, you might be trying to hide redness or minimise shadows, but don't try to make your skin a shade you want it to be (like women in the Seventies who rushed to cover pasty legs with American-tan tights).

Neither are you buying something that looks pretty in the bottle. Pinky bases may appeal, but can have all the allure of calamine lotion, while those that are yellow-based are often more flattering.

Don't apply your usual foundation before you shop—though it can be useful to wear eye make-up and neutral lipstick.

Do take a hand mirror so you can walk to the window, or even go outside, to check trial shades in daylight.

Don't test on your hand—it's pointless.

Do apply lines of three "possibles" from your lower cheek down to the jawline, so you can begin to compare and contrast to hone in on the right shade.

Do look for a foundation that "appears to disappear".

Do talk to sales assistants—they usually have plenty of expertise to share.

Don't feel obliged to buy if you are unsure. You don't shell out for shoes that don't fit, so why for foundation?

FACT FICTION?

Sally Penford, education manager, International Dermal Institute, rates the validity of these skincare "beliefs".

Your skin will age just like your mother's. False. While we inherit certain characteristics, and chronological ageing happens to us all, factors such as lifestyle and exposure to UV light and environmental aggressors can influence how our skin appears as it ages by as much as 90 per cent.

Smoking ages the skin. True. It can contribute to the breakdown of collagen, the development of wrinkles, sallowness and uneven tone. Yet another good reason to quit.

Your skin gets used to products, leading them to become less effective.

False. But your needs change over time, so it's a good idea to have regular skincare analysis to ensure you're using the correct products.

COOL Fr

Serge Lutens' new L'Eau Froide, £60, is a fragrance designed to give the wearer a sense of a scented shiver. Along with its mintiness, it contains Somalian frankincense to mirror the coolness of the inner recesses a church. Distinctive without being overpowering. Amen to that. ■

CONSUMER WITH DONAL MAcINTYRE

SMOOTH CRIMINAL

Beware silver-tongued salesmen bearing insurance policies

Have you been shopping in the high street for a new computer? If so, you'll know that any purchase is followed immediately by an offer of a comprehensive insurance policy. That's what happened to me recently—and, in the process, I received a sales pitch that was simply extraordinary.

"If you take out this coverage —which you don't have to pay for now—you can simply, more or less, exchange your computer every two years for a new one," the sales assistant told me.

I thought I'd heard it right, and pressed him further. "So if I ring up and tell the insurance company I dropped my computer just before the end of the

coverage, I'll get a brand-new computer —and the price of the computer becomes the price of my insurance, if I nod and wink it through," I said. "Exactly," said the assistant. I was being sold fraud.

It got worse. He said that he'd try to get me a deal on the insurance, then disappeared, only to return to say that, because I was on the TV and a journalist, he could get me the coverage at half price. I said I'd think about it and left the store, shocked. What disturbed me most was the fact that my occupation not only didn't dissuade him—it positively encouraged him. What standing we journalists must have in the community! #consumertips

Donal answers your questions.

Please email queries to excerpts @readers digest. co.uk

Donal MacIntyre is an investigative journalist and a former presenter of ITV's London Tonight

al% If my car's %111satnav takes me the wrong way and costs me extra in petrol, can I sue the manufacturer for the extra cost?

A When you sign up to satellite navigation, you agree to take responsibility for the car and to use the system only as a

QCan I get a refund on a credit-card purchase put onto a different credit card or paid in cash? I was recently refused it —and accused of money laundering!

CYCLE OF MADNESS

guide. The system's small print reminds you that the satnav is not fully automated and that, while it's a useful tool, it's not foolproof. As the driver, you're ultimately responsible for—and in control of—all aspects of the car. But it won't be that long before our cars will be steered by robots, and then we'll be able to sue. Until that time, the answer has to be no.

A If you're entitled to a refund, by law you're entitled to it in cash. The store can't determine how you receive it. But you may have signed some creditcard agreements where the store's arrangement with the card providers only allows a refund on the card used (an antifraud initiative). However, there is always room for "discretionary common sense" if you have identification, the original receipt, and can argue politely. Where the original card is no longer valid, you should be able to get the refund put onto another card of the same name. At the very least, you could get vouchers.

I recycle *Sig& avidly— my ever- ik expanding MI Of household has two recycling bins, and every effort is made to place waste in the right one. So imagine my surprise when, two weeks in a row, the recycling police went through them. They were doing an audit of my bins and gave me a slap on the wrists. My sin? Putting kitchen towel and baby-milk cartons in the blue bin. They didn't meet local recycling requirements, even though both were made from recycled paper. It turns out that there's a metal strip inside the carton. But why the kitchen towel? Do we now need a PhD in paper and plastics to deal with consumables? Time for some good sense to be recycled through our busy council offices! •

MONEY WITH JASMINE BIRTLES

PLANNING A TRIP?

Get organised in advance and save yourself both hassle and money

With your holiday booked, all that's left is to make sure you've got everything sorted before you leave. Here are the essentials:

Travel insurance

Don't just accept the insurance offered by your tour operator. You can get much better rates by using comparison sites. If you travel at least twice a year you should opt for a low-cost annual multi-trip policy rather than a single-trip policy. Go to readersdigest.co.uk/ magazine for travel-insurance comparisons that will help you get the best price.

"Our policy only covers us for the trip to the airport..."

Remember, though, that with travel insurance, cheapest isn't always best. Check the conditions and the excess level to make sure it offers the right coverage for your specific needs, whether it's winter sports or automatic cover for your kids.

If you'll be in Europe, get a European Health Insurance Card—it gives you the same level of state medical care as-any citizen in the EU countries, as well as Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

Getting to the airport The rule of thumb when going to any UK airport is that the obvious option isn't always the cheapest, so shop around to get the best fares. If you're using a taxi to get to and from the airport, book in advance and agree a price rather than paying more at the airport, where taxis are very expensive.

If you're driving to the airport yourself, you could pay up to four times more than you need to if you park in the airport car park without prearrangement. Book online for good deals at places such as aph.com and holidayextras.co.uk.

Cancel deliveries

If you have your milk or newspapers delivered to your home, make sure you cancel them before you go away, otherwise it's money wasted. It's also an invitation to burglars...

Photocopy your documents Copy your passport, driver's licence and credit cards in case of theft. Take a copy with you (stored separately from the original) and leave one at home with a friend or relative.

Get a prepaid card

These are ideal for holiday spending. They have no credit facility, so you can't lose hundreds of pounds as you might if someone stole your credit card. They can also help you to stick to a budget—only preload the card with the amount you want to spend.

0

HIGH STREET

In this economic climate, shops are so desperate to sell they're now willing to do deals...sometimes even in department stores. That's good news for you and me! I managed to get a 10% discount pretty much instantly at a shoe shop the other day, just by asking.

1.Do your research. Thank goodness for the internet. Use a price-comparison service such as Kelkoo to see how cheaply you could get the item you want elsewhere, and use that as a bargaining point. Print off the page and ask if your local shop can match it or at least meet you halfway on price.

2. Pick on the right person. Try to use shops where the assistants are on commission, because they just want to get a sale and they're willing to give a discount.

3. Smile. Always be pleasant and don't take things personally. You're likely to get further if you're nice to deal with. If they say no then you haven't lost anything.

4. Cash is king. Even in big shops if you offer cash you're more likely to get money off. Having notes visibly in your hand can help!

5. See if you can get add-ons. Even if you can't get money off, you should be able to get things thrown in for free, such as delivery or a free carrying case. Try it—you might get a bargain even if not a discount.

JARGON BUSTER

111.11211.11.1

This is a contract that can be given a value and then traded on the market. It could be a share, a bond or a mortgagebacked security, and its value will depend on how safe it's considered to be and how much income it generates. The word can also mean something against which a loan is "secured". A mortgage, for example, is a "secured" loan because it's tached to our home—the "security". If you don't pay the debt, the lender can seize the security— your home— and sell it to get their money back.

THE ONE THING THIS MONTH...

...is start a new ISA. Yes, I know I said that last month was ISA month, but so is this month...for the new ISA season. The ISA term runs from April 6 to April 5, and the earlier you put money in, the longer you have for it to grow. Most of us don't really think about it until February or March, so we lose all those months of potential growth.

So if you have some extra cash now, start putting a regular standing order into an ISA-wrapped product every week or month. This year you can put up to £11,280 into a stocks-and-shares ISA, or up to £5,640 into a cash ISA (and the rest into a stocks-and-shares ISA up to a total of £11,280).

Personally, as I've said before, I put my money into stocksand-shares ISAs because I invest for the long term and cash doesn't keep up with inflation over the years. Stocks-andshares ISAs are certainly riskier, but in the long run, if you pick the right ones, they generally do better than cash. To find out how to choose an ISA to match your needs, go to readersdigest. co.uk/magazine.

"VINTAGE" CLOTHES ONLINE

An awful lot can count as "vintage" nowadays. Suddenly "second-hand" doesn't exist, and it's all chic nostalgia and cool antique-wear. Even clothes from just a couple of decades ago are being snapped up, so now's the time to cash in!

Have a rummage Look around all the charity shops in your area. The most collectable items often lurk at the bottom of the pile. Also, keep going back to any shop you think might have hidden treasures. The good stuff goes fast and two visits a week is not excessive for an enthusiastic collector.

Choose the right material Avoid artificial fabrics as they're very difficult to keep clean. Look for items that are made of high-quality fabrics, such as wool or cotton, and don't be too worried if an item has a small hole, is missing a button or needs to be hemmed up—this can all be easily fixed.

Don't overspend There aren't any particular items of clothing that make the

most profit, because it depends how much you buy for, the condition, the label and how limited the availability of the item is.

If you're just starting out, try not to pay more than £20-£30 for any one item. But with a bit of knowledge and a touch of good luck, finding a pair of £2 vintage shoes in a charity shop and selling them on for £40-£50 is definitely doable.

Cash in the attic Have a look through and see if by any chance you've got something in good condition that might possibly make you a profit.

Remember that even if you think an item is absolutely hideous, it might well be in fashion just now. Keep an open mind about

styles, colours and fabrics because, unless you're already an expert, you can never be too sure if you've come across the holy grail of, for instance, stilettos.

Who to se!! to Try specialist sites and auctions.

Of course, the first place people think of is eBay (ebay. co.uk). However, collectors and fashion addicts are getting wise to the scammers and time-wasters populating eBay, and now often seek alternatives. One of these is eBid (ebid.co.uk), which, unlike eBay, won't charge you a listing fee.

Another option is SpecialistAuctions (specialistauctions.com), which has a specific section dedicated to vintage wear.

THIS MONTH'S BARGAIN

Get 15% off fabulous flowers from Arena Flowers by using the code "READERS15" at the online checkout. Just go to arenaflowers. corn and use the code to get your discount. Valid until April 20.

DID YOU KNOW?

According to research by Direct Line Travel Insurance, eight million people have tried to make a bogus claim. 15% inflated the value of their travelinsurance claims; 5% said they fabricated their claim; and 27% lied about the value of their lost sunglasses. ■

Jasmine Birtles is a personal finance writer and the founder of moneymagpie.com

"Sandra is wearing British Heart Foundation, with accessories from the Sue Ryder collection"

FOOD WITH MARCO PIERRE WHITE

TIME FOR LAMB

Celebrate spring with this delicious new twist on a classic dish

A few months ago I said I'd choose brown chicken meat as my last meal. Cancel that. I'm going for lamb instead—with one proviso. I must be allowed my last meal at the start of spring, just when everything is gloriously on the turn. Eating lamb at this time of year is to celebrate the promise of warmer weather.

I want to emphasise that roast leg of lamb isn't just for formal Sunday lunches with all the trimmings. This month's dish is the perfect light supper. The meat is the star of the show, supported by a rich cast of mint-infused peas and broad beans.

To get this right, you must invest in a probe thermometer. It'll only cost around E5 and is well worth it. A lot of people like their lamb pink, but I've gone for medium-pink because it will contrast beautifully with the creamy veg. And I've done without potatoes—there are already enough calories on the plate. Some chunky bread on the side isn't a bad idea for wiping up the juices, but I'm trying to avoid that sort of thing.

Allowing the meat to rest for 40 minutes might seem a long time but it continues to cook. Whack it back in the oven before serving to make sure it's piping hot and savour every mouthful. Nail this and you'll never want a lamb kebab again.

Marco Pierre White, the "godfather" of modern British cooking, is a restaurateur and TV personality

ROAST LEG OF LAMB WITH MINTED PEAS AND BROAD BEANS (SERVES 4-6)

Two kilos of lamb, boned and rolled Olive oil

Fresh rosemary

6 garlic cloves

750g peas

750g broad beans

500ml double cream

Fresh mint, finely chopped

1.Seal the meat by rubbing olive oil all over it.

2. Stud it with the rosemary and garlic.

3. Place in an oven at 160C/320F/Gas

Mark 3 until your thermometer reads

MARCO'S

45C/113F when stuck into the centre of the meat (about two hours).

4. Take the lamb out of the oven and let it rest for 40 minutes.

5. Cook the peas and beans.

6. Warm the double cream until it's almost boiling, then add the mint.

Season with salt and pepper and leave to infuse for five minutes.

7. Add the cooked peas and beans. Keep warm.

10. Flash-heat the meat for ten minutes in a hot oven just before serving.

11.Serve the sliced meat on top of the peas and beans. ■

Just before serving, pour some of the roasting juices from the pan directly over the plated meat

DRINK WITH NIGEL BARDEN

BRITISH BRUT

Andrew Weeber is an interesting man. Born in Cape Town, he put himself through medical school in South Africa before moving to North Yorkshire to work as an orthopaedic surgeon. In 2004 the father of five bought Gusbourne Estate500 acres of land in Kent, overlooking the coast. He planted 51 acres with the classic Champagne grape varieties—Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, determined that his sparkling wines made by the "methode Anglaise" would rival those of the Champenoise. Weeber's grapes are handpicked by an army of pensioners—he regards retirees as the most reliable, and the older grannies as best of all! He feels that with global warming, the cool Kent climate is spot on for producing great sparklers.-The Gusbourne Estate Brut Reserve, Rosé and Blanc de Blancs are well made, classily packaged and justify their £20-odd price tag. Find out more at gusbourne.com.

HOME-MEAD MEAL

Beer used to be brewed for its nutritional value—and a hearty ale still works as a great ingredient for more than just beer-battered fish and chips.

1Before refrigeration, beer that went sour was often sold as malt vinegar. A tart cherry "kriek" ale makes a great vinegar substitute in salad dressings —perfect paired with bitter chicory.

I Salmon and trout steamed in foil on a bed of onions, lemons, cucumbers and dill, with stout poured over, is sublime.

I Mussels poached in wheat beer make a delicious change from wine—the sauce is very quaffable.

I Follow the Bavarians by basting a smoked ham with a rich, nutty ale: "rauch" smoked beer is perfect.

All the beers you cook with can be drunk alongside the dish—but, as with wine, never cook with a beer you wouldn't happily drink. ■

Nigel Barden is food and drink presenter on Simon Mayo's show on BBC Radio 2, and chairman of the Great Taste Awards

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WITH BOB FLOWERDEW

SEEING RED

Fed up with tasteless shop-bought tomatoes? Then grow your own

I want to grow some tomatoes outdoors again this year, but I'd like a couple of improvements —a bigger crop and better-tasting fruits. I grew Moneymakers last year as they were easily available.

AOutdoors is always more risky than under cover—if you could make some sort of frame covered in plastic, you get bigger, earlier crops and less disease. Watering is crucial, especially if you grow in pots or bags. Growing in the ground is usually more reliable. I find Ferline very disease- 4" resistant and a good cropper. Long recognised as the best-tasting tomato outdoors is Gardener's Delight, while some prefer Sweet Million. The French beefsteak Marmande series need a good summer, but they are very tasty.

'll RAPID GROWTH

I need a climber to go over an arch. It can't be too vigorous as the arch is rather lightweight, and to help keep it upright I've fixed it against a fence with a seat underneath.

A Unfortunately, many lovely climbers such as honeysuckles simply get too large too quickly, -nap although "vigorous" is not such a difficulty if you remember to cut back hard each year. In that case, one of the large-flowered clematis (left) might suit,

or even a grapevine (Siegerrebe or Boskoop Glory would be good). Jasmines are mostly too vigorous, though the dark-red Jasminum beesianum is more compact. Climbing roses (not ramblers!) are a classic choice—although some are a bit "stiff", the thornless Zephirine Drouhin is perfect. Sweet peas or trailing nasturtiums might be handy fillers this first summer, and then you can plant your final choice in autumn.

A FRUITY TOUCH

When is it too late to plant fruit bushes? I've been given enough materials to make a fruit cage, which I'll have finished by early summer so my crop can be protected.

AIt's still possible to plant potgrown plants as long as you water them regularly. Bare-rooted plants might survive, but are normally better planted in autumn. Anyway, you needn't rush to finish your cage as you shouldn't let plants crop in their first summer—they really need time to be established. One trick I use is to plant twice as many of the less-expensive ones such as strawberries and blackcurrants, allowing alternate plants to crop, removing them afterwards and leaving the others to grow on into bigger, stronger specimens.

Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener and a regular on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time. Send your gardening questions to Bob at excerpts(eoreadersdigest.co.uk

Sow, sow, sow, spring-fresh foliage hoe, hoe, hoe, and flowers. And mow, mow, mow! then back to it— And in any time getting all the work left, stop, sit completed this down and just month sets the look at the verdant garden up for the beauty of the rest of the year.

EADER'S TIP

Try using old tea bags to cover the holes in flowerpots before adding compost for new seedlings. These allow excess water to drain from the bottom of the pot without losing your soil. Choosing tea bags rather than pebbles has the advantage of adding some

extra nutrients to your pots. Submitted by Jenny Harden, Wales ■

» Email your gardening tips and ideas— with photos, if possible—to excerpts@ readersdigest.co.uk. We'll pay £70 if we use them on this page.

WITH MARTIN HUGHES—GAMES

LISTEN CLOSELY...

...that bird chorus could relax you, stimulate you—and maybe cut crime, too!

-4 y

The dawn chorus reaches its peak in April, but have you noticed birdsong in odd places? Sound guru Julian Treasure is on a mission to improve the sound of our world—where we work, when we travel and when we shop—and thinks that birdsong can make us feel more relaxed. It's also thought to boost shop sales by up to 30 per cent by making us stay longer, and, because it's associated with daybreak, can increase our mental alertness, too. Now, an intriguing University of Surrey project is examining our response to different birds, finding out which properties of the song work on us and how that affects our bodies, both physically and mentally.

EASTER BUNNIES

The first reference to rabbits in the UK is from 1176, when a warren was established on the Scilly Isles. In the 19th century, Augustus Smith—who owned most of Scilly—tried populating different islands with different-coloured rabbits. (They're still said to be mainly white on St Helens, black on Samson and dun-coloured on St Marys. I'm off to the Scillies soon and will find out!)

Rabbits were a great delicacy for the rich at first, but as they started to spread, they became food (and fur) for everyone. Rabbit

Julian supplied recordings of British birds to be transmitted for five hours a day through speakers on the crimeinfested main strip of the Californian town of Lancaster.

was prized in the Second World War, and it's said that during the miners' strike of 1984-5 there wasn't a rabbit left in Yorkshire.

A rabbit's foot (preferably the left hind foot) is still considered a lucky charm, but you can't mention a rabbit in Portland, Dorset—call them "underground mutton" or "long-eared furry things" instead.

Rabbits were thought to leave their burrows in quarries before a rockfall, so seeing a rabbit often presaged disaster.

(c9yourrucksack @katehumble (ccchamiltonjames (allayaPlass 'athrisGPackham

NIGHT With the night sky thronging with OF THE literally millions HUNT of migrating birds, comes a new insight. Most of our cities or larger towns have peregrine falcons hunting and, in April, nesting in them (tower blocks, and especially cathedrals, are excellent nest sites). You might think they'd feed on scruffy town pigeons, but my friend Ed Drewitt has discovered that the chicks get a much more exotic diet—water rails, woodcock, little grebes, even rare corncrakes.

As there's no way those birds live in a city, the peregrines must be intercepting migrating birds and, remarkably, must be doing this at night! This was a huge surprise, but a combination of city lighting and the peregrines' incredible eyesight (most of their skull seems to be eye socket) makes it perfectly possible. ■

Martin Hughes-Games is a host of BBC2's Springwatch and Autumn watch

FRIENDS ONLINE

The web is perfect for helping solve the growing problem of loneliness

Feeling lonely has a bigger impact on older people's life expectancy than smoking, top government adviser David Halpern declared earlier this year.

This shocking fact, given that loneliness is reaching epidemic levels in the UK—with 3.1 million over-65s going more than a week without seeing a friend or family member—has sparked quite a debate. Later retirement age is one idea for how the Government might respond, but I think we can make a change without waiting for new legislation.

My solution? Yup, you guessed it: the web. OK, I'm not mad enough to suggest that a modem is the magic-bullet antidote to loneliness, but I do, hand on heart, think that encouraging more older people to get online is the simplest and cheapest tool we can equip them with so they can rekindle old, or forge new, friendships.

One of my favourite jobs as Digital Champion is judging Age UK's Internet Champion of the Year Award. Looking through this year's shortlist, it was obvious that each entrant had been seized with evangelical fervour because of the way

the net had expanded their social circle. One of this year's winners, Brenda, has a terrific story that's both totally unique and also very typical. Brenda felt desperately lonely after her husband's death. Finally, she logged on. Having quickly got to grips with all the prosaic things, Brenda amazingly managed to make contact with a GI who had stayed with her family during the Second World War. Striking up their friendship again after a gap of more than half a century is the kind of miracle the internet has made us almost take for granted—but which would have been almost unthinkable just a decade ago.

Reading the shortlist, what also struck me was how far from rocket science getting older people online is—all most of us need

is a wee nudge, and a bit of help to find the nearest place with free web access and training.

I hope every organisation or individual working to tackle this epidemic of loneliness among over-65s embeds web-training into their programmes as a matter of course. It's crazy that every social-care setting in the country doesn't have a residents' web lounge. "Go ON Adopt a Care Home" is a new scheme that encourages schoolchildren to visit care homes and share their IT skills. Its makers, finerday.com, have also set up ouryesterday.org for older people, carers, and families alike—a great place to start getting an older person online.

ABOUT TIME TO (FT ONLINF

Give an hour of your time to help an inter net beginner. Go to go -on.co.uk for more. Or to find a taster session near you, call freeph one 0800

This month is Digital Unite's Spring Online Silver Surfers' Day (April 23-27). Last year, 2,500 events took place up and down the country—everywhere from pubs and hospitals to housing associations. The organisation has helped 150,000 older people benefit from the web to date. For advice about this year's event go to springonline.org. There are lots of tools that make the web fun for older people, too. Historypin.com lets you whizz through 75,000 photos, videos, audio clips and stories from the birth of the camera to today—"pinned" to an amazing digital world map. Anyone can upload their own history to help plot the past, or make a collection for someone they love. A recent competition called "My Grandparents Are Better Than Yours" allows young users to big-up their granny

or grampa by uploading a picture and adding a caption explaining why they're the bee's knees.

The same people are behind internetbuttons.org, which loads sites and services onto a super-simple personal url, so older internet newbies, who might not be ready for Google, don't drown in web content. We haven't even begun to think about the more innovative ways that technology can help us meet some of society's thornier issues—around health and social care, for example. I'd love the UK to be world leader in this but, in the meantime, it's worth remembering how many super-simple ways we can ..use to make life easier, better,

or more fun for each other by using the tools we already have—often just by putting them in places you wouldn't otherwise have expected them. ■

Martha Lane Fox is the UK's digital champion and founder of raceonline2012.org

MOTORING WITH CONOR McNICHOLAS I 'Am SO LONG TO SAAB

What happens to car companies when they disappear?

This January came the sad news that, after 65 years, the Swedish car company Saab, known for quirky-shaped cars and the occasional duck-egg yellow convertible, had ceased trading. The reasons were many, but essentially Saab was squished between the ever-expanding wheels of the global car business—it was just too small to survive alone.

Remembering the old swooped-backed Saab 96 from the Seventies or the rakish 900 Turbo got me thinking about other car brands of the past.

My father talks fondly of the enormous Armstrong-Siddeley his parents had when he was a child, affectionately called Mrs Hardcastle. Armstrong-Siddeley was formed in 1919 and made wonderfully luxurious cars until 1960. The name was eventually sold to Rolls-Royce in 1966.

The late Sixties saw a massive consolidation of UK manufacturing—great names such as Triumph got eaten up in the

creation of British Leyland in 1968. Land Rover, Jaguar and Mini eventually got out alive, but Austin, Morris and Wolseley are all now owned by Chinese company Nanjing Automobile Group.

As a car-nut country we're never short of rich businessmen buying defunct brands to kick-start—hence Invicta, maker of glamorous cars since 1925, but closed in 1950, is now back making the awesome 51 sports car. Likewise, the dandyish Jensen is back in a new form and reworking classic cars with modern underpinnings.

Thanks to the machinations of the global car business, other classic British marques have ended up all over the place. Riley is now owned by BMW; Humber and Hillman are owned by Peugeot.

But if you do have a Saab, a reborn Saab Parts UK is still operating service departments to look after you—the details are at saab.co.uk. A second-hand Saab is now quite a clever bargain buy!

Car, model's own: Saab's classic 96 coupe from 1965

ONE TO BUY

(about £15,000)

I love Alfas, love the quirky little Mito and love Fiat's new TwinAir engine, so the Alfa MiTo TwinAir is an excuse to open the Prosecco! Fiat has had its innovative, frugal but powerful TwinAir Engine in the Fiat 500 for a while, but it's finally reached its premium brand—you can now have a stylish MiTo that's super-green, nippy and still a head-turner.

ONE TO SPOT

;GPC (£41,020) Audi's cracking little Al has made big waves on the small-car scene offering large-car luxe in a cute package. Engines have ranged from frugal to perky but this new "whoa!"

version is the ultimate sock-knocker-offer in the range. Only 333 are being made and just 19 coming to the UK, so it will be a rare spot.

ONE TO DREAM ABOUT

Ferrari California Handling Speciale (£156,406)

Ferrari's folding hard-top California was designed to appeal to those Hollywoodtypes who want Ferrari thrills, but with less white-knuckle feel. Purists thumbed their noses and this is Ferrari's stunning riposte: a lighter, tauter, edgier car—and just about the most desirable thing on the road right now.

ROAD RAGE!

Wnat annoys you most on the road?

In its annual survey Admiral Insurance revealed that the biggest irritation is tailgating-79% say it raises their hackles. Next, at 70%, is not indicating, while 64% deplore cutting up, and the same hate others not paying attention.

After that, it's hogging the middle lane (55%), driving too slowly (52%),

and not saying thanks when you give way (44%).

But speeding only troubles 30%, and racing at traffic lights or junctions just 22%. Fast is a problem, yes—but getting too close is clearly worse! •

MY GREAT ESCAPE

Normally, I'd choose the wilderness over the city. But there are exceptions. St John's—capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, founded circa 1500—has a surprisingly contained feel, centred around its natural harbour. The lack of depressing city sprawl was a welcome distinction.

I spent a few days there on the way to see my sister in neighbouring Nova Scotia. With its brightly painted "heritage" houses, quiet parks, statues and murals of everything from musicians to Winston Churchill, the city offers something unexpected at every turn. For antique emporiums, tearooms and galleries, head uphill to explore. But there's really only one destination for a big night out: George Street is said to have the most pubs per square foot in North America. The live music is loud, the locals are

Nt friendly and the beer is plentiful; be prepared for a late one! One of my highlights was hiking up Signal Hill, which offers great views of the harbour, Cabot Tower, and the quaint fishing village of Quidi Vidi. On my last day I went out onto the Atlantic—

ISLAND LIFE

Discover the World has a Newfoundland Discovery self-drive package from £1597: 15 nights' accommodation, 12 breakfasts, personalised itinerary and some excursions (01737 214291: discover-the-worid.comk)

Adam Millward from Dorset found a new favourite in Newfoundland

Adam discovers the cod-kissing, rum-swilling side of this quaint North American city

St John's is meant to be seen from the water. We also saw a variety of jellyfish, seabirds and Cape Spear— the most easterly point—before taking part in the famous "Screech In" ceremony to become an honorary Newfoundlander. This involves chucking back Screech rum and "kissing the cod", which only one of our group of ten happily did (the hesitant codkissers could kiss the derriere of a toy puffin instead). Fish and chips will never be quite the same again!

Send us a photo of your favourite holiday, tell us briefly what made it so special, and if we include it on this page we'll pay you £70. See address on page 4.

TRAVEL WEBSITE

Walking-break experts On Foot Holidays have introduced an Amalfi route—Along the Siren Coast—and claim it's the only itinerary that covers the entire peninsular coastline, including a lesser-walked stretch from Positano to Sant' Agata sui Due Golfi—steep at first, but worth it for the views of Sorrento and Positano. April-Nov, from £710pp, including seven nights' posh b&b and route info; travel extra (01722 322652; onfootholidays.co.uk).

The World Shakespeare Festival kicks off this month, with everything from foreign productions of the Bard's plays at the Globe to Shakespearean libretti at the Royal Opera House. Plays will run until the end of the year in London, Stratfordupon-Avon, Birmingham, Newcastle and Gateshead. And there's a programme of events such as director talks and family workshops. More information at worldshakespearefestival.org.uk

For a stand-out getaway, try Montenegro. New summer flights and a brand-new tour operator have brought this picturesque country closer. ATOL-bonded Explore Montenegro has 40 properties, and direct Gatwick-Tivat flights with newly relaunched Montenegro Airlines mean they're only around two hours away. Seven-night packages start at £540 for two, including car hire and accommodation (020 7118 1002; exploremontenegro.com).

sleepinginairports.net This slightly bizarre community website makes for intriguing browsing. Flight delayed? Then this may be just the site to surf. It features the best and worst airports to sleep in, and useful tips for beginners. There are also guides to paid-entry airport lounges, lists of the terminals with camping beds, airport hotels around the world, and tales of good and bad airport-based adventures. ■

ENTRY TAKES LESS THAN 3 MINUTES!

•Hurry! Closes Midnight Wednesday 18th of April!

•Plus, you can try and find the £1000 hidden mystery word!

We've decided to give away ANOTHER E9500 Cash! ThIs Is your chance to scoop another bumper payout of E9500. But the clock Is ticking...we have limited the time for entries TO MAXIMISE YOUR CHANCE OF WINNING!

Let me start by telling you a secret—simply reading this article tingles you out as a member of a small and =Iroise Env!

How come? Well, the winners of my competitions are people just like you They also belong to this select group of shrewd people who actually read the article!

And, here's the really good news. The more of this article you read, the more you will understand why your chances of winning increase! Past winners always tell me they read the article in full before entering!

Other readers—less determined than you—turn the page, answer the phone or get distracted by some other interruption—and they never return!

Remember, the fact that you are still reading demonstrates that you already have what it takes to win...determination and guile!

Unlike other competitions that may attract hundreds of thousands of entries, this special skill competition appeals to relatively few. So why not join the small handful of people who go all the way—test your skill with our Wordsearch and find the missing words from the three lists.

One word from each list is missing—all you have to do is work out which ones.

It takes less than 3 minutes to register your answers but remember—the cloak is ticking.' Call our Correct Answer Hotline before Midnight Wednesday 18th of Aprilwith your three missing words. You will be told on the phone if your entry has been accepted. You will also be given the opportunity to register an answer to the Mystery Word Cash Prize Competition to win an additional prize of £1000 cash! All you have to do is find the hidden mystery word that has been hidden in the grid, but is NOT listed in any of the threewordlists.

"And finally... Congratulations!"

Welcome to the ranks of the chosen few, the select group of competitors who read the article in full!

This special prize—A MASSIVE £9500 CASH— is within your grasp, an call RIGHT HOW!

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Entrants must be over 18 years of age. You must be a UK resident to participate. This is a skill competition and is not connected to the Best of Chat publication. Maximum call cost £4.60. Other network charges may vary. Calls from a mobile phone or public payphone may cost considerably more. Participating in this competition constitutes the right to use the initials, Iasi name, hometown, testimonial and a photograph of any winners for advertising and publicity purposes without further consent. In most cases actors photos have been and will be used to represent genuine winners. If you have any queries about this promotion or wish to know the winner please write to: Wordsearch Cash Giveaway, 6 Castleham Road, St Leonards on-Sea, Th138 9NR or call 01424797531. There is one cash prize of £9500 to be won. Phoneline closes Midnight Wednesday 11th of April 2012. The Wordsearch Cash Giveaway competition may also be promoted in various forms of pant media and may also include different versions of the puzzle varying in difficulty levels. The winner will be selected at random from the pool of all correct entries on 11.05.2012. At the end of the call you will be asked if you wish to be transferred to another phone line to register an answer for the Mystery Word Cash Prize Competition. If you do choose to do so the second call will last 2 minutes and 45 seconds at a cost of £1.53 per minute. The Mystery Word Cash Prize competition is run in conjunction with a number of other Churchcastle wordsearch competitions and requires entrants to identify the mystery word as hidden in any one of these separate Churchcastle wordsearch puzzles. The 1 x £1000 prize will be drawn on 715 of January 2013. The winner will be contacted the following day by post. We will not pass your details on to third party companies. A Churchcastle Ltd 2012. Registered in England no. 4301808.

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T Rea he ders Digest

APRIL FICTION REVIEWED BY A N WILSON EXTRACTS FROM OUR FAVOURITE NEW RELEASES GROWING UP WHITE IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE MEN WHO RAN ACROSS AMERICA BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: CHARLIE HIGSON

April fiction

Silver: Return to Treasure Island

by Andrew Motion

(Jonathan Cape, £12.99)

Jim Hawkins, the boy-hero of Treasure Island, has turned into an old bore running a pub in the Thames Estuary. His son Young Jim, a wonderfully observant lad, has grown up with tales of Long John Silver and the pirates—and of his dad returning with the loot. He's then visited by a fascinating halfCaribbean girl called Natty,

A N Wilson finds melodrama, thrills and a daring sequel among the month's new novels

a tomboy who wants to recover the remaining treasure. She is none other than the daughter of Long John himself, now wizened, blind and living in London. Silver is a tremendous novel. The descriptions of the voyage stand comparison with Patrick O'Brian, and the plot is unputdownably exciting. Yet the truly spectacular thing is the touching relationship between Young Jim and Natty. Only a brave man would dare to cap Robert Louis Stevenson, but the former Poet Laureate is a great writer, equal to the task.

The Day of the Lie by William Brodrick (Little, Brown, £12.99) Father AnseIm, a barrister turned monk, has been William Brodrick's main

character for four novels now, including the bestselling The Sixth Lamentation. Here, he comes to the aid of his old friend John—a journalist— and RO2a, a mysterious octogenarian heroine of the resistance in communist Poland. The story, which unravels layer by layer, hops between three key times: the 1950s when I:262a was arrested for befriending a writer exposing the Stalinist horrors; 1982, when John

YOUR TWITTER CHOICE OF HIDDEN LITERARY GEMS

David Quantick, @quantick. Two very different books you should read but haven't: Peter Tinniswood, The Stirk of Stirk and Marc Behm, The Eye of the Beholder.

Jill Mansell, COillMansell. My gem is Jerrard Tickell's Odette. I want it to be read by a whole new generation.

Neil Gaiman, @nealhimself. The late John M Ford—amazing author, underrated in his lifetime. His book The Dragon Waiting is a classic.

covered the Solidarity protests and was the victim of a successful smear campaign; and nowadays, when the patient, quizzical monk tries to get at that elusive thing, the truth. This is a wistful novel, in which you're sometimes asked to consider propositions from Wittgenstein. But it's also one of the best-constructed and fastest-paced thrillers I've read in ages.

Life! Death! Prizes! by Stephen May (Bloomsbury, £11.99)

Stephen May's first novel Tag won plenty of plaudits—and this one deserves similar acclaim. Its difficult theme is two half-brothers coming to terms with the violent death of their mother. Can Billy, 19, cope with bringing up six-year-old Oscar? Will he avoid the heavy hand of the law and social workers? Will Oscar's hateful dad succeed in

snatching the little chap from his loving brother? The relationship between the boys, their chaotic social routines and Oscar's mood swings are all done with a deft touch— and so is Billy's obsession with his mother's killer, which starts to undermine his role as a carer. The story is beautifully put together, with a strong cast and, not least, an extremely satisfying ending.

Secrets of the Tides by Hannah Richeli (Orion, £14.99)

The Tides in Hannah Richell's forceful debut are a family. After a dramatic opening with a young

woman throwing herself off Westminster Bridge, we fast-forward 16 years to the present, where Dora is living in semi-bliss with a sculptor. On finding she's pregnant, Dora knows she must tell her family—and so unearth all over again the secrets that, among much else, broke up her parents' marriage and made her sister throw herself off that bridge.

Jennifer Lucy Allan, Jennlfer_A. Naïve. Super by Erlend Loe. And anything by Dorothy Whipple.

Sam Leith, @ questingvole. The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington deserves to be better known.

The revelations of what happened, and the burden of guilt the Tides carry, are powerfully evoked in a classy melodrama with very well-realised characters. Once you start reading, you'll be hooked. e Also look out for...

Mark Billingham, @ MarkBillingham. The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell.

Lynn Barber, @lynnbaba. Bird Brain by Guy Kenaway.

RD RECOMMENDED READ: 1

The past is a foreign country

To a white boy growing up in the 1960s, apartheid seemed perfectly normal. But then the truth began to dawn...

UNDER OUR SKIN

Donald McRae is a respected journalist, an acclaimed non-fiction author and the only person to have won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year twice. Now, he turns directly to the one thing that has, he says, shaped all of his writing: the fact that he was born and brought up in apartheid South Africa.

In the early chapters McRae does a beautiful job of seeing the country as it was through a child's eyes—which is to say that everything seemed perfectly normal (although he was a bit annoyed by the ban on the Beatles and television). There are some moments of unease, such as when six whites beat up a black man near the McRae home—and the black man is arrested. Even so, it's only with the isolation of his beloved sporting teams that some sort of penny starts to drop.

Once McRae reaches adolescence, this process accelerates. On the one hand, he's subjected to military training and propaganda that begin to seem obviously misguided. On the other, there's the news of police massacres in Soweto. By the time he's a student, McRae is becoming a full-blown radical, and heading for a showdown with his father about his determination to refuse to do his two years' compulsory national service.

One of the centrepieces in the book is a harrowing account of the torture of some of McRae's fellow student radicals. Yet, just as the police reaction to student protests in Soweto served to radicalise many of the black parents, this undisguised brutality also educated many white ones, including McRae's own—who end up as perhaps unlikely heroes.

At times, the book is as painful to read as it clearly was to write. But even then its undoubted power is always combined with a more reflective intelligence.

And here, from Chapter One, is the way things once were:

RD EXCLUSIVE DONALD McRAE'S CHOICE OF THE BESTEVER BOOKS ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA

Disgrace by 1 "I Coetzb

In this bleak, icy novel, South Africa's greatest writer lays bare the country's enduring conflict with stark power and precision. My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan Malan returns home, venturing deep into South Africa's dark, violent heart, and his own infamous family's past.

Internationally acclaimed in

DONALD MCRAE

(C C

,

The Holden picked up speed as we went looking for a black boy. On that Saturday morning in the South African spring of 1966 I rode upfront, next to dad, as we headed towards the coal dumps where the mining boys had been waiting since dawn. On weekends they tried to pick up extra work in pretty white gardens like ours. I thought the black miners were lucky to become garden boys for a day.

'Breathe in deeply,' dad murmured after reminding me that we lived in the most beautiful country in the world. 'Doesn't it make you feel good to be alive?'

Hundreds of natives waited on the dirt strips lining the tarred road. My father knew the kind of garden boy he wanted and so, having leaned out of his window, he made his familiar cry: Woo-hoo, John!'

As a smiling black boy ran across the road I asked dad a question: Why were all black boys called John?

'He's not called John,' dad said. 'It's just better to call him "John" than "boy":

The miner reached our car. 'Hello, master,' he said. 'Hello, John,' dad answered. 'You work hard, John?'

John nodded eagerly. 'Yes, master...'

'OK,' dad said, opening the back door.

John needed a good wash. But I knew dad would never invite him to use our shower. Boys like John knew their place—just like

This land is their land: daily humiliations for black people in the Transvaal of Donald McRae's childhood

Under Our Skin: A White Family's Journey through South Africa's Darkest Years by Donald McRae is published by Simon and Schuster at £20

our servant Maggie understood she had to scrub our bathroom without ever standing beneath the shower's jets of hot water or stretching out in our clean white bath. We could sack her on the

From left: spot if she dared be so cheeky. But Maggie was a Heather, Jess, good girl. She washed herself in a metal tub Ian and Don outside her room at the bottom of our garden. McRae in 1966

Later that day I watched Maggie make John his lunch. She cut off the thick ends of a brown loaf and smeared them with peanut butter—just the way a black boy liked it. I carried the plate out while Maggie followed with water. She said John would be very thirsty after working hard in the baking sun. 'Thank you, baasie [little master]; he said.

I sat under the shade of an apple tree. John had switched on the sprinkler and our dog Shandy put her furry face close to the tiny holes. Her face became wet as she barked and bit the water.

I might have laughed had John not started chuckling first. For a moment I almost joined him until I remembered the difference between us. I was white. He was just a native. Shandy was my dog and he was laughing at her.

'You're the stupid one,' I shouted, as I pulled my shivering dog away. In the cool of the kitchen I told Maggie that John was a stupid boy.

Once, when I was smaller, I'd run screaming into the kitchen because red ants had marched into my underpants and bitten hard. Maggie had stripped me and wiped every last ant off my bare bottom. And then she had dried my tears and sliced some chunks of peeled apple to keep me sweet.

'His name is not John,' Maggie said quietly. 'His name is...'

She said an African name so quickly I could not understand her.

COVER STAR RUPERT

PENRY-JONES'S favourite book? Tennis ace Andre Agassi's autobiography Open—"an amazing insight into both the man and the sport he played"

1989, it still resonates today.

To a Dubious Salvation by Etienne Leroux

An Afrikaans writer of imagination and subtlety, Leroux was admired by Graham Greene, but neglected by the wider world. This trilogy in particular is original and intriguing.

Triomf by Marlene van Niekerk

A huge, riotous novel that draws us deep into the poor white world of the Benade family as they await South Africa's first democratic elections with bewildered trepidation. Dancing Shoes is Dead by Gavin Evans

A book partly about the Soweto boxer Jacob "Dancing Shoes" Morake—but also about Evans's own journey into the political underground. The two worlds collide with poignant force.

RD RECOMMENDED READ: 2

Cross-country runners

•••

...except that the country they crossed was America. Twice. The stirring tale of two heroic athletes

On March 4,1928,199 men set off from Los Angeles for one of the most gruelling sporting events in history. "The International Trans-Continental Foot Race" to New York—first prize $25,000—meant running more than 40 miles every day for nearly three months. Known to the press as the "Bunion Derby", the race was organised by C C Pyle, promoter and all-round chanter.

The two main British contenders couldn't have been more different. Arthur Newton was a patrician pipe-smoking 44-yearold who'd been living in Southern Africa and hadn't started running seriously until he was 40—but already held the 50-, 60and 100-mile world records. Peter Gavuzzi, 22, was a workingclass south Londoner. Even so, the two struck up a friendship that lasted through Pyle's even tougher race from New York to LA the following year and on until Newton's death in 1959.

Mark Whitaker's calmly written but still astonishing book makes great set pieces of the two races. It continues to amaze when Newton and Gavuzzi earn money during the Depression with a series of extraordinary endurance feats. As professionals, they were frozen out of British athletics almost completely.

Later on, their lives turned more melancholy, with Newton obsessively embittered by the hypocrisy of amateurism and Gavuzzi increasingly lonely. In their final years, though, both men were given at least some of the respect they deserved.

In this extract, Whitaker describes the end of the second transcontinental race in Los Angeles:

((

dr, If there was any one day that Peter Gavuzzi would have turned over in his mind in the solitude of his Wiltshire retirement cottage, it was Sunday, June 16,1929. Together with the remaining band of Bunioneers [as the racers were nicknamed] he woke up four miles from Wrigley Field—the stadium where the climax to 78 days of running was to be staged, with a classic

a broadcaster ar historian. After a career as an academic, he joined the BBC and has presente BBC2's sports series On the Lim and Radio 4's File on 4. This is his first book

26-mile

marathon. The runners were told that because the streets would be so crowded, the four miles to the stadium were not part of the race.

• fi

Once everyone was there, the marathon would start. Gavuzzi held a ten-minute lead over Johnny Salo, and was entirely confident of overall victory. His year of dedicated training had, it seemed, paid off. The ship's steward from south London was on the verge of becoming a very rich man.

This is how Gavuzzi remembered it almost 50 years later: 'As I was coming along, there was a train and the gates went down and unfortunately it was one of those long trains and took five or six minutes to go by.' This was an inconvenience, no doubt, but Gavuzzi would have realised that it was precisely because of this sort of eventuality that the journey to the stadium was not to count for the race.

The ship's steward from south London was on the verge of becoming a very rich man

However, when Gavuzzi finally arrived at Wrigley Field he found that the marathon had started without him and Johnny Salo was already on his third lap. Gavuzzi had to attempt to catch Salo in front of a packed house of more than 10,000 spectators, all cheering the possibility of an unexpected American victory. C C Pyle might have got many things wrong during the epic journey across America, but he had certainly got it right on the final night. He had manipulated a stunningly exciting finish.

For a brief spell Gavuzzi did manage to overtake Salo, but by then it must have become clear to him that his defeat was being stage-managed, that Pyle had decided he wanted an American winner. The management had gone back on their word: the four miles to Wrigley Field were to be considered part of the race. 'We had run this entire race of 3,635 miles,' Peter Gavuzzi was II to recall, 'and I had lost it by two minutes and 47 seconds:

Only 3,000 miles to go, lads: the 1929 Transcontinental runners gather around race organiser C C Pyle's luxury motor-cruiser. (The runners stayed in tents or cheap hotels)

Running for Their Lives: the Extraordinary Story of Britain's Greatest Distance Runners by Mark Whitaker is published by Yellow Jersey Press on April 5 at £17.99

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Books that Changed my Life

Comedian and author Charlie Higson found fame writing and performing with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in The Fast Show. He's also written 14 novels, including five about James Bond's schooldays at Eton. The Young Bond series is reissued on April 5.

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake

I was 14 when I read this, and living a very conventional life near Sevenoaks, Kent. My father would commute off to work in the City with a bowler hat, like in a classic Monty Python sketch. We lived in the countryside, and I had a rather solitary existence, walking through the woods with the dogs the whole time. I read and wrote a huge amount. I loved books that took me out of my rather mundane life into different worlds. Gormenghast is so perfectly described—a vast Gothic castle in which there are so many characters that teenagers identified with, such as the disaffected Steerpike. The perfect fantasy novel.

POP.1280

1280 by

Jim Thompson

A fellow student at the University of East Anglia switched me on to American crime novels, a genre I'd previously looked down on. I'm not interested in detective stories where you try to work out whodunnit by following lots of clues1 like to get inside the mind of the killer and, in this sinister work about a small-town sheriff, you do just that.

Jim Thompson is the greatest of them all when it comes to darkness. He had a very troubled life and was an alcoholic—yet he was also a very fine writer. I don't think anyone before or since has written so well about the effect of the fragmented mind.

From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming

It was a great privilege to write about James Bond's teen years in my Young Bond series. This is the first Bond novel I ever read and it's an excellent starting point. Fleming's books are insanely readable and, after I read this one, I did that obsessively male thing where I went back to the very first—Casino Royale—and worked my way through the whole sequence in the correct order. Fleming wrote the template for plot-based action-adventures. •

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1 What number should replace the question mark?

00

0000

2 When each of the words below is rearranged, one of them can be used to suffix all the others to give five longer words. What are they?

PRISE TEND STIR VIE OR RISE

3 Take one letter from each sector to give the name of an Italian city. Take another letter from each sector to give the name of a Canadian city. The remaining letters will give the name of a city in Mexico. What are the three cities?

Beat the Puzzleman!

brainbox such as the Puzzleman only takes 20 minutes to answer these five questions. But can you, a mere mortal, match his standard?

4 A cycling group are on a five-day expedition. On the first day they cycle two-fifths of the total distance. The next day they cycle one quarter of what was left. The following day they cycle two-fifths of the remainder and on the fourth day half of the remaining distance. The group now have 18 miles left. How far have they cycled?

If 8463975 spells out LOBSTER, 5378 spells out BOLT and 3517 spells REST, what does 516 spell out?

The first correct answer we pick on March 30 wins E50!*

Email excerpts@ readersdigest.co.uk

Rearrange the following letters to give two eight-letter words. What are they?

UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland aged 18 or over. It is not open to employees of Vivat Direct Limited (t/a Reader's Digest), its subsidiary companies and all other persons associated with the competition. ■

So how did you score? A point for every correct answer

Here's the Puzzleman's verdict:

0-2 "April fool. Hang your head in shame!"

3-4 "A steady improver. Keep up the good work!"

5 "Top of the class. Give yourself a gold star!"

Laugh!

WIN £70 FOR EVERY READER'S JOKE WE PUBLISH. EMAIL EXCERPTS@ READERSDIGEST.CO.UK OR GO TO FACEBOOK.COM/READERSDIGESTUK

1 I went fishing at the weekend and there was this chap splashing about in the middle of the lake shouting, "I can't swim! I can't swim!"

"It's OK, mate," I shouted, pointing at a nearby sign. "It says no swimming anyway!"

1 I've just slipped on a banana skin. To be honest, it doesn't really fit me.

I No fly tipping? What if one of them gives exceptionally good service? Comedian Milton Jones, by Twitter

I When I was a child, I wanted to be a surgeon. But apparently I was too young.

Sey.n the 1HtE3rne: -

I I got my head scanned, then they shoved a camera up my nose and took pictures of my throat. I'm starting to suspect they don't like me in Jessops. Comedian Simon D Heaven. by Twitter

"In theory, the idea of GPs controlling their own budget is excellent, but..."

I A FARMER'S TRAILER WAS STRUCK BY A LORRY. IN court, the haulage firm's lawyer grilled the farmer over his claim for injury compensation. "At the scene, didn't you say to the policeman that you were fine?" said the lawyer.

The farmer replied, "Well, I'll tell you what happened. I'd just loaded my prize cow Bessie into the trailer, and began driving when this huge lorry came through a red light and hit us. I was thrown to one side and Bessie to the other. I was badly hurt, and didn't want to move.

"But I could hear Bessie groaning, and knew she was in terrible pain. Shortly afterwards, an armed policeman happened upon us. He could hear Bessie moaning, so he went over to her. He took out his gun and shot her between the eyes. Then he came to me and asked, `How are you feeling?' Now, what would you have told him?"

I I've got a meeting with Sean Connery this morning to discuss racket sports. Not sure what time, but I think it's about tennish.

1 When you're in a long queue, why is it that, when someone comes and stands behind you, you feel so much better?

i-, London

Searching for stuff online when you're drunk is called "beer Googles"

Seen at funnyon facebook.com

1 A woman returning from a fishing trip with her husband told her troubles to a neighbour. "I did everything wrong again," she said. "I talked too loudly, I used the wrong bait, I reeled in too soon...and I caught more than he did." Ken Mumford, Swindon

1 Research shows that six out of seven dwarves aren't happy. Melanie. Lodge, West Yorkshire ►

My husband thinks I'm crazy. But I'm not the one who married me!

LITTLE EPIPHANIES #12:

Comedian Alun Cochrane inhabits a daydreamy world of surreal realisations and whimsy. This is his monthly moment of revelation

We're incredibly blasé about technology. I recently saw a man at a comedy club walk towards me with six pints balanced on his laptop. How relaxed are we with expensive, complicated gadgetry that we'll use it as a transporting ledge for lager?

The satnav is a great anomaly. People get fed up with the terror that occurs when it falls off the windscreen at them, and eventually just balance it in the ashtray, or demand a passenger hold it. I love that gap between human ambition and execution. Humans have successfully fired satellites into space just to give us individualised directions on where we're going—amazing! Yet the bit where we stick it to the car windscreen...we're still not 100 per cent on that. "Leave us be—we have the Blue Tack team, the Sellotape guys and even some fans of Spider-Man all working round the clock on this!"

For many of my childhood years, we watched a TV with a coat hanger where the aerial should have been. The youth of today will never know the joy of standing behind a grown-up shouting, "There, there, stop! No, too far, it's fuzzy again!"

Will the future equivalent be my son saying, "The plasma TV's broken," and me replying, "OK...shall we try yogurt?"

444.;riii-

AN ALTERNATIVE TAKE ON ANGER

We asked celebrities what really riles them for our feature "It Makes Me Mad!" (p78). Chav-tastic comedian Lee Nelson gave a tongue-in-cheek variation on the theme...

"Speed cameras wind me up so much. They're meant to make the roads safer but the stats actually show the opposite. If the government is serious about slowing people down, they should replace each camera with two well-fit birds stood at the roadside snogging each other. I'd happily slow down for that."

How Lee calms down

"I take my two dogs, Benson and Hedges, for a long walk. It's relaxing 'cos I drive and they run next to the car." Lee currenfly tour natbmAede, See k?eft?ison..c,.,.,-1

KIPPING KITTIES

Sometimes, cats contort into amazing positions. And then they fall asleep. Seen at buzzfeed.com

1 I'm not being condescending— I'm too busy thinking about far more important things that you wouldn't understand.

Comedian Jimmy Carr

1 Dear Maths, Please stop asking us to find your X. She's not coming back, and don't ask Y, either!

Kamila Dura (aged 11), Hertfordshire

I Children do indeed make a difference to a home—but it can usually be repaired.

Paul Smith, Southport

1 A woman walks into an optician's to return a pair of glasses.

"So, what's the problem, madam?" asks the assistant.

"I bought these for my husband," says the woman, "but he's still not seeing things my way."

Grahame Jones, East London

60-Second Stand-Up

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Keith Farnan

FAVOURITE ONE-LINER?

A Woody Allen line: "I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam. I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."

BEST JOKE YOU'VE WRITTEN?

Well, I don't really want to say about one of my jokes, "You're my favourite!" The others would just be there going, "What about us?" I do have a line that gets me out of trouble, though. If a joke goes badly, I say, "Well, I like to practise tantric comedy, so there's no immediate satisfaction."

FUNNIEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU? One time, before I started doing stand-up, I was sitting with a friend on a bench with my hands in my pockets. Somebody told a joke and I laughed so hard that I fell backwards, with my hands still in my pockets, and bounced on my head. So a gag nearly killed me before I even started comedy—and there are plenty of jokes that have had goes at me since...

FAVOURITE TV SHOW?

It's got to be Blackadder—the entirety of the four series. It's just flawless. I really can't pick out a particular moment I love, because it's all so great— but I think the character of Blackadder himself is a genius creation. All the writing for him is perfect, and the way that sometimes you think he's got everything in control, and then he hasn't... It's just great.

FINALLY, WHO'S YOUR COMEDY INSPIRATION?

Dermot Morgan, pre-Father Ted. Everybody knows him from the show, but they don't realise that, before that, he was an incredible political stand-up in Ireland. When he was much younger, he was on the radio a lot, and my dad listened to him often. ■

Keith Farnan is at the Soho Theatre from April 12-14. For details, see soho theatre.com

Beat the Cartoonist!

WIN £100 AND A SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

FEBRUARY'S WINNER

Think of a witty caption for this picture and you could beat the experts at their own game. The three best suggestions will be posted on our website in mid-April alongside an anonymous caption from our professional cartoonist. Visitors can choose their favourite—and if your entry gets the most votes, you'll receive £100 and a framed copy of the drawing. Submit to captions @readersdigest.co.uk or the address on page 4 by April 10. Enter and vote online at readersdigest.co.uk/ caption. We'll announce the winner in our June issue. ■

IT'S A RIGHT ROYAL ISSUE!

We raided our archives— and uncovered a treasure trove of fascinating insights into the life and times of the Queen throughout her 60-year reign.

Don't miss next month's Diamond Jubilee special!

And it's a score for the cartoonists! Len Wiwkerm'

"I must say, your new loo is coming along really nicely" . off all pos contenders by a huge margin. Mayt 2012's scoreboard will be a little less one-side than it was last year?

SCOP ARO READERS CARTOONISTS

Turn your unwanted jewellery into a precious gift

Do you have a bracelet with a broken clasp, a necklace you never wear, even a single earring or cufflink? Any gold, silver or costume jewellery is valuable to us. Send us your unwanted jewellery and we'll recycle it to raise much needed funds to support people with dementia, their families and their carers. The Old Jewellery Appeal has so far raised over €750,000 to improve the lives of those affected by dementia. Every single donation makes a difference. Call us, or go online, and we'll send you one of our special Freepost padded envelopes. Alternatively, you can send your donation directly to the Freepost address below.

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