Reader's Digest UK Aug 2011

WINNER OF EDI OF THE YEAR AWARD 2011

HOW'S MIKE TINDALL FEELING ABOUT JOINING THE FIRM?

rugged-Up ritain: why it's ime to stop taking ur medicine nat your nolida ep won't tell you he best of ritish beaches

vest ave bees nwind alk on air ead a job ad

LUS Richard E Grant ayley Westenra

GtOUCESTefl GOODY PGROEMII

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For years we've made the UK's favourite toothbrushes. Now we've squeezed all our oral care expertise into our new toothpaste, Oral-B Pro-Expert. Unlike ordinary toothpaste. Oral-B Pro-Expert protects at the areas your dentist checks most.

AUGUST 2011 FEATURES

Digest

"Reporting from China is a dream," says Angus Walker of ITV News. "My wife and children, thankfully, share my enthusiasm!"

What's "cheese" in Chinese?

"For the vast majority, university is totally pointless," says entrepreneur Simon Dolan. "It deprives people of learning how the real world works."

Lit

"Horse sense is what stops horses from betting on people, according to W C Fields," says Jasmine Birtles, our new Money columnist. "But there are safer ways to gamble."

32 Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part 9 James Brown goes to Italy and discovers a whole new respect for pasta

36 Mike Tindall Meet the Royal Family's newest recruit . as he prepares for his marriage to Zara Phillips

44 Best of British: Beaches The prime spots for those who want more than just a bucket-and-spade break

52 Special Report: Drugged-Up Britain Spending on prescription drugs is out of control—and with an ageing population, it's only going to get worse. So what's the solution?

60 We're Back In Britain How does it feel to return home after living abroad—and what's changed?

66 Hayley Westenra: "I Remember"The New Zealand soprano recalls her early singing experiences

72 The Secret of the Long-Distance Runner To run 10 million metres for charity is a huge challenge in itself—but for Alex Flynn it's as tough as it gets...

78 China & Us Angus Walker, China correspondent, ITV News, on life in Beijing with his young family

86 Paul Newman Was Here Botswana's Wilderness Safaris offer luxury holidays—but some of the people staying there might come as a surprise

92 Home Sweet Cave Modern man tries Stone Age life!

100 The Maverick: "Want to be a Success in Business? Avoid University"says entrepreneur Simon Dolan

In the Future...

Instant Expert 30 If I Ruled the World: Bill Jordan

106 1,001 Things Everyone Should Know

112 Medicine: Max Pemberton

114 Health: Susannah Hickling

118 Beauty: Jan Masters

120 Consumer: Donal Maclntyre

122 Money: Jasmine Birtles NEW

126 Food: Marco Pierre White

128 Drink: Nigel Barden (below)

130 Gardening: Bob Flowerdew

132 Wildlife: Martin Hughes-Games

134 Digital: Martha Lane Fox

136 Motoring: Conor McNicholas

138 Travel: Kate Pettifer

141 The Reader's Digest— our recommended reads of the month

149 Books That Changed My Life: Richard E Grant

154 Beat the Puzzler!

156 Laugh! With Alun Cochrane

160 Beat the Cartoonist

Honestly. You wait ages for a Royal wedding to come along, and then... We catch up with the England rugby captain Mike Tindall on the eve of his wedding to Zara Phillips to find out how he's

planning to tackle (sorry) this next chapter in his life. It's a long way from serving fish and chips in a van in Otley, that's for sure.

Also in this issue, medical writer Jerome Burne kicks off our four-part campaign aimed at cutting the UK's staggeringly high £11bn-ayear drugs bill. Yes, drugs can be hugely beneficial when used correctly; it's their indiscriminate use that's the problem—and it's set to get worse still as the tidal wave of baby boomers approaches prime drugstaking age. Find out more about Drugged-Up Britain on page 52—and help us make a difference.

Gill Hudson

theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk

Infacebook.com/readersdigestuk twitter.com/rdigest readersdigest.co.uk/blogl/ rdmagazine

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AWARD-WINNING READER'S DIGEST!

Editor of the Year 2011

We were thrilled to win the Consumer Media Editor of the Year title at the PPA awards, the "Oscars" of the magazine world. See readersdigest. co.uk/magazine/ blogs for more!

Editor-in-Chief Gill with awards host Kevin Bridges (right)

@READERSDIGEST.CO.UK

Online this month

Are You Normal?

And what does that mean anyway? A new survey called "The Normal Bar" aims to find out by asking people about their experiences and relationships. To take the survey go to readersdigest. co.uk/magazine. You'll find out where you are on the bar and how your life compares with others'. (You might be in for a surprise.)

Want to win an unforgettable day? A chance to do anything from driving a Ferrari to enjoying a luxurious pamper day? Then go to our site to find out how to enter.

Editor Gill Hudsoninterviews Jasmine Birtles, our new Money columnist, and gets some great money-saving tips into the bargain.

PLUS: Word Power Online—play for fun or for cash!

DON'T FORGET To check out our fabulous apps! Go to the iTunes music store to download our iPad app and our new walking app.

Digest

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-Chief

GILL HUDSON

Managing Editor

CATHERINE HAUGHNEY

Design Director

MARTIN COLYER

Features Editor

SIMON HEMELRYK

Deputy Production Editor

TOM BROWNE

Assistant Features Editor

ELLIE ROSE

Editorial Assistant

RACHEL SMITH

Art Editor

HUGH KYLE

Picture Researcher

ROBERTA MITCHELL

Contributing Editors

CAROLINE HUTTON, HARRY MOUNT, JAMES WALTON

Health Editor

SUSANNAH HICKLING

Website Assistant

JASMINE BEGOM

ADVERTISING

Account Directors

DOMINIC EDDON, PAUL EYERS, NICKY NOBLE

Trade Marketing Manager (Magazines and Books)

SIMON NICOLL

Production Controller

CHRIS TRIBE

Magazine

Marketing Manager

JUSTINE BURROWS

Finance Business Partner—Magazine

ANJLI MEHTA

Magazine Executive

MARINA JOANNOU

Publishing Director

JAMES MALLINSON

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

THIERRY BOUZAC

President

DAWN

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 P4 FOR MORE DETAILS

LETTER OF THE MONTH

I felt like I'd been run over by a train after reading Calum Best's "A Letter to My Father". I couldn't believe how much it echoed my own feelings about life with my alcoholic father.

During the last years of his life, I harboured a lot of anger towards my dad—I could never work out why he loved drink more than anyone else, a question that can never be answered now. I longed to get close to him in any way, shape or form, but he died a virtual stranger to me.

Sadly, the fall-out from living with an alcoholic continues long after they have gone. I know deep down I wasn't to blame for his drinking, but it's taken me a long time to reach a stage where I feel comfortable with who I am.

I've just been in touch with the National Association for Children of Alcoholics, which I'd barely heard of before reading this article. Perhaps sharing my stories with kids who find themselves in the same position will help them feel less guilty and less isolated.

Lena Walton, Tadworth, Surrey

BEAUTIFUL HERITAGE

The "Best of British" article on churches by Lola Borg was a joy—clearly my wife and I are not the only people eccentric enough to visit churches other than for the usual ceremonies!

A recent trip to Somerset to view Bishops Lydeard, Kingston St Mary and Isle Abbots was a case in point —a gloriously sunny day, a lovely drive through small villages, and a feast of history and architecture.

Dennis Field, Tiverton, Devon

Lola Borg claims Framlingham is "nothing much more than a high street and a ruined castle". Has she been to Fram? Around here, it's considered to be a small market town with a hotel, numerous shops and several restaurants. Well worth a visit, in fact!

Fiona MacGillivray, Suffolk

RD: In our "Best of British" picnic spots (July), all the nonEnglish sites we'd chosen went onto our website but not in the magazine itself. Many apologies to all our Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish readers. It won't happen again!

If you have any contributions

"Clean your screen, mate?"

of your own for our "Best of British" series, please email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk.

A WORD TO LOSE

I strongly disagree with Linda Gray's remark in "1,001 Things Everyone Should Know" that "only black rappers can get away with using the N word". As a young black student, I'd like to say that no one should get away with this.

Our society is, unfortunately, blighted by a minority of black people who are ignorant of the history behind that word and the struggle to be rid of it. They may say they are reclaiming the term and using it as a form of solidarity, but I believe it should be left firmly in the past.

Victoria Ogunseitan, London

GAMES THAT WORK

I'm delighted that James Brown enjoys chess ("Reasons to Be Cheerful"). I learned to play it at school and took it up

again as an adult. I believe everyone should be taught chess—it aids concentration, creativity and logical thinking, and it's fun, too. I lose myself when I'm locked in battle!

Luke Hex, Denbighshire

NOT REQUIRED

Bear Grylls says in "If I Ruled the World" that "the Scouts desperately need more adult volunteers". I'm not sure about that. As a father of two and a parent governor, I'd expect them to welcome me with open arms. But because I'm an atheist, the Scout Association doesn't regard me as suitable. So it's hard to feel sympathy for an organisation that discriminates against almost half of the UK population.

Stuart Holm, Essex

"Escalators shouldn't be an excuse not to exercise." Well, I'm sure it's great to be fit and healthy like Bear Grylls, but why doesn't he use the stairs instead of forcing his way up escalators? It would keep him healthier and us safer.

Francis Glasser, Bury, Manchester

"COME AGAIN?"

• "...I just realised today that, in a working life of nearly 25 years, I've only ever had three boxes of staples..."

• "...Alanis Morissette once stated in a song that we're all bound to go a little crazy from time to time. She was right..."

• "...Obtaining un`parfumed' products is a real challenge. If you are a beekeeper this is a safety issue, as those smells make them aggressive. Trust the judgment of the bees—the stuff stinks..."

• "...Not too sure where Maidenhead is, but I'm told it's a nice place to be..."

• "...I hadn't given much thought to trees in general— including the 30 in my garden...."

AVOIDING THE CRASH

Sam Leith's analysis of a future property crash ("The Maverick") forgets that baby boomers will sell their houses to the "buyto-let" market if they can't sell them to younger people. This sector been growing since the 1980s, and it's possible that pension funds, insurance companies and fund managers will all pile in—we will become a more rent-orientated society. The free market, in other words, will find its own way to overcome the problem.

D B Lall, Chigwell, Essex

OPERATING ERROR

In regard to Max Pemberton's medical column, I'm not surprised that a surgeon

apologised personally when a swab was discovered inside his patient after an operation. But what surprises me is the dismissive attitude towards his patient's initial concerns— a clinician not listening to his patient is totally unacceptable. The surgeon should have ordered an abdominal scan without hesitation, which would have saved a lot of delay and misery. He was lucky to have such a forgiving patient.

Dr Khalid Shehzad, Bedfordshire

A QUICK SCRAMBLE

"Inside an Everest Expedition" vividly illustrated why climbing the highest peak is beyond most of us. But you can still experience the thrill of seeing Everest by trekking part of the route. We took four days to go from Lukla to the monastery at Tengboche, where there's a marvellous view of the peaks, including Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse. It was hard work, but we loved it!

Linda Fawke, Berkshire

mei ,is, sa I have a new found love for Reader's Digest. After being bored by all kinds of magazines this month, this is The One.

YOU'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT...

...our May interview with Brian Cox, "Let's Get Physicscal".

• I'm not a scientist, but my interest in stargazing led me to the subject. To understand the passions involved, you must appreciate what that passion has helped reveal—the truths scientists uncover are not just for scientists.

Darryl Hewitt, Birmingham

• Professor Cox's "science" reminds me of St Paul's warning to Christians not to have their "ears tickled" by "false stories". May we turn our backs on scientific false stories. L Los, Badsey, Worcestershire

• I was taken aback by two comments from Brian Cox, and also your inclusion of them on p37— "We bloody will!" and "Shut the f*** up!" What do others think? Brian Cave, Nailsea, Somerset ■

The new Jetta. Less expensive than you'd like to admit.

Completely restyled, with a sleek and sporty look and a spacious interior, the new Jetta is real value for money. But you don't need to tell anyone that. With its range of TSI petrol and TDI diesel engines, including the highly efficient BlueMotion Technology 1.6-litre, and the quality and reliability you expect from a Volkswagen, they probably wouldn't believe you anyway.

Benefit-in-kind tax of £79.54 a month for company car drivers: For more information call 0800 333 666 or visit wwwvolkswagen.co.uk

*Based on a 40% tax rate on the Jetta S 1.6 TDI BlueMotion Technology manual at £18,355 PhD Figures correct at time of going to print. All prices shown are recommended on-the-road prices. 34.9 (8.1) - 57.6 (4.9); extra urban 54.3 (5.2) - 78.5 (3.6); combined 44.8 (6.3) - 67.3 (4.2).

Das Auto.

value. Model shown is a Jetta Sport 1.4 TSI 160PS at £20,730 rrp plus metallic paint (£465). Official fuel consumption in mpg (litres/100km) for the new Jetta range: urban CO2 emissions 147-109g/km.

AGE RE-PERFECT

Pro-Calcium + SPF15

Trust science for skin that feels toned, smoother, '" more resilient.

Because you're worth it.

Jane Fonda

PARIS

A R YOUR SHORT, SHARP GUIDE TO AUGUST

Author and BBC2 Review Show critic Natalie Haynes on the new releases

N CINEMAS

The Skin I Live In. For younger cinema-goers, Antonio Banderas is the voice of Puss in the Shrek films. But I can't recommend enough that you don't take them to see this, his latest film. It's beautifully acted and photographed, but the Pedro Almodavar-directed tale has Banderas (above) as a plastic surgeon who exacts ugly revenge on the man who caused his daughter's suicide.

Super 8. Written and directed by JJ Abrams (co-creator of

Channel 4's Lost), this actionadventure feels like time travel. Not only is it set in the Eighties (the sight of a Walkman recalls an age when they were seen as high-tech) but it also even resembles an early Spielberg film (and he is the producer). A group of kids is making a home-made zombie film, but to.

accidentally record something very real, very alien and very scary. If The Goonies met JJ Abrams's monster movie Cloverfield, this thrilling tale of a town under siege would be the result.

DVDS

Source Code. Jake Gyllenhaal is always a good choice for a quirky action hero, and he doesn't disappoint in this Groundhog Day-style thriller. The panda-eyed lead must relive the same eight minutes until he finds a bomber on a train.

Limitless. If you were given a drug that enabled you to access the 80% of your brain you don't normally use, would you take it? That's the question at the heart of this pharmaceutical Faust. The Hangover's Bradley Cooper charms as a failing writer who finds that some pills really do need a childproof lid.

Gadgets and Games

Technology expert and Answer

Me This! podcaster

Oily Mann reveals the latest must-haves

British Library 19th Century Historical Collection App, free. Are you an e-book denier? One of those refuseniks who claims a backlit screen can never compare to a dusty tome plucked from an equally dusty shelf? Try this, then. It features more than 60,000 scans of antique books, original illustrations included, and takes in authors like Wilde and Dickens. To complete the British Library experience, simply whack up your central heating and get a friend to say "shhhhhhh!" every time you cough.

AND CHECK OUT...

Pac-Man & Galaoa Dimensions (Nintendo 3DS), £29.9C He may be 30, but Pac-Man shows no sign of slowing down in this latest incarnation of the arcade classic.

My favourite budget satnav now has live traffic updates.

Xbox 360, F Role play and shooting fun in a sci-fi cyber-punk dystopia.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, approx £399. Another month, another rival to iPad2. Will this one have Apple quaking in their iBoots? Probably not: Steve Jobs's lot invented the tablet computer and it's hard to shake the feeling that everyone else is just imitating them. But this is (slightly) thinner and lighter than iPad2, with a (marginally) larger display and (most vitally of all!) appears to have sharper graphics when I'm playing Angry Birds Rio on the loo.

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

Bon lver by Bon Iver

Think Nick Drake with cabin fever.

The first album by this US singer-songwriter (aka Justin Vernon), For Emma, Forever Ago, was a heartbroken, wintry collection of intimate folkish tunes that tugged the ears and hearts of critics and CD buyers alike. This long-awaited new record is more expansive in sound—hot on the heels of Lost in the World, a US hit single with Kanye West. But Vernon's desolate vocals are still at Bon Iver's emotional heart.

Circuital by My Morning Jacket

Think Lynyrd Skynyrd meets

The National. For some years now, My Morning Jacket have been the rock sound of the

American South, a staple of college radio and festival mainstays. But Britain has proved resistant to their charms, possibly because of their truly terrible name. That is set to change with this release. Their quirky, inventive take on the classic guitar-rock sound finds its best expression yet, and flagship single "Holdin' On To Black Metal" is simply irresistible.

Grace/and by Paul Simon

Think James Taylor joins The Bhundu Boys.

It's hard now to conceive of the furore that Simon's foray into South African music stirred up when it was initially released in 1986. Was it a cultural ransack and hijack by an exploitative Western pop star or a genuine attempt at cross-fertilisation?

One thing that was not in doubt was that Graceland became the biggest hit of Simon's solo career and produced a clutch of intelligent, radio-friendly evergreens that have become classics. For my money—political thorniness notwithstanding—this is one of the Eighties' undisputed pop masterpieces.

PAUL SIMON CRACELAND

Athletics World Championships, Daegu, South Korea,

Competitors will be seeking to win a natty chunk of metal on a ribbon and a psychological edge over their Olympics rivals. At the 2009 event, Usain Bolt emerged from the 100 metres and 200 metres with two gold medals, two world records, and one human race collectively spluttering on its milkshake in astonishment. Will injuries have dulled his edge this time?

Rolex Fastnet Race, A,:g

When a leopard takes on a rambler, your money would usually be on the big cat to emerge victorious. The walker's compass and flask of tea tend to prove little match for his opponent's speed, claws, teeth,

ESPNcricinfo cricket blogger, broadcaster and stand-up Andy Zaltzman previews the best of the month's action

spots, and naturally honed instinct to kill. But when the leopard and rambler in question are leading contenders in a yacht race along the South Coast to Ireland, the contest is a closer call. The /CAP Leopard has won the last two Fastnets, but George David's Rambler 100 has zipped across the seas like a frisky dolphin this year.

AND DON'T MISS... Football League season starts, August 6. Friends Provident Twenty20 Cup, finals day, August 27.

August 11-14 Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. August 19 National Hug Your Boss A AR Day. August 28-29 Notting Hill Carnival. August 3-29 Edinburgh Comedy Festival.

April Tones, 30, youth worker

WATCHING: True Blood (FX). I like the soaps, but this is more of an escape and has sexy vampires in it!

Who You Are, Jessie J. Her songs are catchy and she has a very different look—a weird mix of goth and pop.

Netmums.com. I've got two young kids, and this site provides advice from experts if I'm worried about them, and lets me chat to other mums so I don't feel isolated at home.

The Business by Martina Cole. A gritty gangland thriller. I'm quite a sensitive person, but sometimes it's nice to read something a little rough and cathartic. • AF

YOU COULDN'T MAKE IT UP...

'I When visiting my neighbour earlier this year, I overheard her chatting to a Census official on her front doorstep.

As he handed her the form, she asked what it was all about.

"We're trying to find out how many people there are in the country," said the official.

"Well, there's no point asking me," replied my neighbour, handing back the form. "I haven't the faintest idea."

Maria Urquhart, Cork

My brother is a keen golf player, but I noticed he wasn't playing with his usual partner any more and I asked him why.

"Would you play with a man who curses, cheats in the bunkers, alters his scorecard and never buys a drink in the bar?" he asked.

"Of course not," I said.

"Neither would he."

Ryan Webber, Cheshire

I I recently gave two old ladies a lift in my taxi. One was saying that her

I MY FRIEND WAS PULLED ASIDE BY POLICE IN Germany because he'd honked his car horn to greet someone on the other side of the road in a central zone.

"It's a fine of €50—payable now, please," barked the policeman.

My friend only had a €100 note, so he tooted a second time and handed over the note with the words, "Keep the change!"

Unfortunately, the law-enforcement officials had a sense of humour failure. The result was a second fine: €200 for defamation of a civil servant.

Anna Steger, London

SEND YOUR TRUE, FUNNY STORIES TO EXCERPTS a_ READERSDIGEST.CO.UK OR GO TO FACEBOOK. COM/READERSDIGESTUK

daughter was having difficulty getting hold of tickets for the recent Take That tour.

"She wants to go on the internet," the other suggested, "and see if she can get some off that U-boat."

David Corbishley, York

I "Grandma, how old are you," asked my three-year-old niece. "Guess!" she replied. "Twenty?"

"No, older."

"Thirty?" "Older."

"Forty?" "Older."

There was a silence.

"Grandma, are you dead?"

Sheralyn Snaith, Brixworth, Northamptonshire

I Working as an administrator in a school office, it was my responsibility to make sure all visitors signed in and out.

Checking the book at the end of the day, I was amused to see

1 I WAS FLYING BACK from Geneva on a British Airways flight when the cabin attendant came round with a trolley full of sandwiches. Stopping at my seat, she

FOR

EVERY STORY WE PUBLISH, WIN EITHER £70 OR OUR SPECIAL GOODY BAG WORTH UP TO £150. SEE readers digest.co.uk/ magazine FOR DETAILS

"He's all I could afford"

that our local vicar, under the heading "Representing", had written "God".

Jan Johnstone, Shropshire

I I returned to my job at a nursing home after an eightweek absence. When one female resident spotted me, she gave me a hug and said how much she'd missed me these past three weeks.

"But I've been gone eight weeks now," I said.

"I know, dear," the woman replied, "but I've only missed you for three."

Dennis Dook, Kenya

asked if I wanted anything.

"A bacon sandwich," I said, eyeing the choices.

"I'm sorry, madam," she replied, "we don't have any bacon sandwiches."

"But I can see it written

on the side of the packet," I insisted, pointing at the trolley.

With great politeness, she responded. "No, madam, that says ba.com."

Charley Henkey, Berkshire ■

WORD POWER

Harry Mount is a dedicated follower of fashion*

1 couture (koo-ture) n

A tailor's scissors

B custom-made clothes

C clothes label

2 tricot (tree-koh) n

A nimble sewing finger

B plain, knitted fabric

C long sock

3 cummerbund (kummer-bund) n A broad waist sash B dressing-gown cord

C complex stitching

4 bobby socks n

A socks embroidered with pop-star pictures

B socks with a spotted pattern C ankle socks

5 crinoline (krin-ohlinn) n A19th-century full skirt B glossy, 1950s bag material C neck ruff

6 crewel (crooh-el) n

A blunt needle B thin embroidery yarn

C light slipper

7 appliqué (app-leek-ay) n

A tailor's glue B thimble

C ornamental fabric

8 stipple v A decorate with dots B tear fabric

C drizzle with dye

9 twill n A military tunic

B diagonally ridged fabric

C wool vest

10 A-line adj A made of first-rate material

B of 18th-century cut

C narrow-topped, with flared skirt

11 tie-dye n A lurid

cravat B colour pattern produced by tying fabric

C tight collar

12 djellaba (jel-abb-er) n

A hooded cloak B curly slipper C elaborate belt

* August 1 would have been the 75th birthday of Yves SaintLaurent, the great French fashion designer who died in 2008. Answer A, B or C here to find out how au fait you are with the language of fashion.

13 batik n A wooden clog B wrinkled material

C coloured design

14 worsted n (woos-tid)

A tattered clothes B fine, smooth yarn C itchy wool

15 slip stitch 17 A bad

stitching B concealed

stitch for folded edges

C diamond-shaped stitch ►

COVER STAR MIKE TINDALL'S FAVOURITE WORD? "Sound. Everyone at Gloucester says 'Sound' when you ask them how they are. I say it all the time now."

A word is born: Wasband

meaning an ex-husband, was first recorded in America in 2003, but only really got going earlier this year, when the film Wasband was released over there. It told the story of a rich building-company owner facing meltdown over a divorce he isn't keen on, but his wife wants. In the first uses of the word, it was a highly critical term, usually chosen by ex-wives ("My wasband didn't even know how to unload the dishwasher!").

The film—which shows the wasband's recovery through falling in love with his assistant—may give the word a gentler edge. RD Rating Useful? 4/10 Likeable? 8/10

WORD POWER ANSWERS

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

1 couture—B custom-made clothes. "Jackie Onassis was a fan of couture." Early French cousture (sewing).

2 tricot—B plain, knitted fabric. "Tricot tends to be inelastic."

French tricot (knitting).

3 cummerbund—A broad waist sash. "His cummerbund concealed his girth." Persian kamar (waist) and band.

4 bobby socks—C ankle socks. "Frank Sinatra fans loved wearing bobby socks." From bob (to cut short) and Middle English boben (to strike).

5 crinoline—A 19th-century full skirt. "Her crinoline flowed on the dance floor." French.

6 crewel—B thin embroidery yarn. "You can use crewel for tapestry work and on clothes."

Middle English crule.

7 appliqué—C ornamental fabric.

"Appliqué work is cut out and attached to other fabric." Latin applicare (fold, fasten to).

8 stipple—A decorate with dots. "The stippled dress showed up

WHY SMORGASBORD?

The Swedish word smorgasbord literally means butter (smelt.), goose (gas), and table (bord). When old Swedish farmers churned cream, they thought the chunks of butter that rose to the surface looked like fat geese. These chunks were perfectly sized to spread on bread, so smOrgas came to mean buttered bread. When a series of these dishes was laid on a table, a smorgasbord was born. It now means a selection of herring, eel, salmon, sandwiches, cheese and hot dishes (in common usage, a medley or wide collection).

in the moonlight." Dutch stip (a point).

9 twill—B diagonally ridged fabric. "The lieutenant wore twill." Latin /icium (thread).

10 A-line—C narrow-topped, with flared skirt. "She wore an A-line dress to her first ball." Reminiscent of the letter A.

11 tie-dye—B colour pattern produced by tying fabric. "The tiedye was very psychedelic."

Play WP online: go to readersdigest. co.uk/wordpower

12 djellaba—A hooded cloak. "Djellabas are popular in north Africa." Arabic jallaba.

13 batik—C coloured design. "Batik uses wax and dye to decorate cloth." Javanese for "painted".

14 worsted—B fine, smooth yarn. "His suit was made of worsted wool." From Worstead, a wool-rich parish in Norfolk.

15 slip stitch—B concealed stitch for folded edges. "The slip stitch was invisible on the hem." Early Dutch slippe (flap) and Old English stice (prick). ■

IN THE FUTURE...

The latest in must-have fashion—an emotionsensing dress

Clothing in the community

Nowadays there are clothes that can generate electricity, while others can clean themselves, kill bacteria, change colour or scrub pollution—astonishing and stylish garments designed with more than a nod to fashion. The latest incarnation in clever clothes is sportswear with in-built motion sensors, heart monitors and accelerometers. Next? Diagnostic clothes—a nightshirt that monitors sleep disorders has just been unveiled by doctors in Boston.

Synthesise some of these ideas together and it isn't difficult to imagine self-cleaning garments laced with diagnostic chemicals and/or electronics. Come 2025, your shirt might be your personal physician, changing colour if there's something wrong.

Gaming challenge: win or starve

Domestic gadgets controllable by Android smartphones are likely to appear later this year. At first, these will probably be restricted to lights, locks, taps and timers, and maybe central locking for the home. But for computer garners, Android devices might soon take over as controllers, making for an interesting dual use.

By 2015, your home could be incorporated into game play (lighting levels adjusted to reflect game events, for example). It could also herald a new set of penalties: fail this game task and you'll trigger a donation to charity from your electronic wallet. Or your microwave won't work again until tomorrow.

New trick, old dog

After a heart attack, dead heart cells don't normally get replaced. But a small disc-shaped carbon implant, invented at Brown University, Rhode Island, has been shown to help regenerate this tissue. Safety considerations will restrict its use for now, but regulations on veterinary surgery are less strict. By 2020, pets may benefit from these implants, proving their efficacy more rapidly. For the next few years, cardiac care for Tiddles and Fido might be better than for people... ■

INSTANT EXPERT

Harry Mount reveals the facts behind the news

Twenty years ago, on August 6,1991, the first-ever website went live: info.cern.ch. The web's inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, now 56, posted a description of the new World Wide Web on the alt.hypertext newsgroup, and set up a link to download the world's first web browser. At this stage, the web could only run on (what were then) highly sophisticated NeXT computers. Not surprisingly, there weren't many users at the time who could take advantage of the new invention. The web was still at a simplistic stage, but all the essential elements were in place, and the hyperlinks had started connecting.

How did it all begin?

The clue is in the name of that first site. Originally standing for Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire, CERN then became the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Back in March 1989, Berners-Lee, a physicist and CERN fellow,

‘k here wrote a proposal explaining how information could be transferred across the internet—a network of computer networks—by using hypertext, the point-and-click system of information transfer.

As Berners-Lee himself modestly put it, "I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name ideas and—to-dai—the World Wide Web."

The computer that started it all: Sir Tim's NeXT machine

Was Berners-Lee planning an invention that would sweep the world?

Not really. At the time, all he wanted to do was link hypertext with personal computers and the internet to produce a single, shared pool of computer information for CERN physicists to access.

Was it called the World Wide Web even then?

Yes. As early as May 1990, BernersLee had developed a browser—a piece of software that allowed people to share information on the web. That month, he and his colleagues settled on the name the World Wide Web. That's why websites still have "www" at the beginning of their address.

The birth of the web IL,

What was on the first website?

The address was http://info.cern.ch/ hypertext/WWW/ TheProject.html, and on it you could find information about the web project. Hypertext was also explained, and instructions were given on how to set up your own web page and search the web for information. All very straightforward now, but utterly revolutionary then.

88% the percentage of websites that have no discernible traffic

$7.5m the most money ever paid for a domain name: business.com

How did it spread across the world?

In 1991, research was carried out into a browser that any computer could use—not just the sophisticated NeXT ones—and throughout the year web servers appeared across Europe. In December 1991, the first non-European server was set up in America—the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre in Stanford University, California.

The spread of servers was slow but steady. In November 1992, there were 26 of them; 11 months later, there were more than 200. A big breakthrough came in February 1993, when the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois developed Mosaic— the browser that opened up the World Wide Web to Apple Macs and PCs. The stage was set for the roll-out of the most influential invention of the last 20 years, perhaps the last century. ■

The webfather: Tim's desire to share information changed the world

IF I RULED THE WORLD

Bill Jordan

Bill Jordan is a co-founder of the cereal company Jordans. He grew up in Bedfordshire, trained as a miller, and started Jordans with his brother at the back of the family flour mill. The eco-friendly firm employs 350 people and has an annual turnover of £70 million.

I'd put a tax on computer games. They're as addictive as cigarettes and alcohol, and should be taxed in the same way. Then I'd put the proceeds into funding outdoor-adventure programmes—anything that encourages children to get outside, from exciting playgrounds to days at nature reserves. Our children spend far too much time in front of screens. They're never far away from computers, televisions and mobile phones, yet studies have shown that people are healthier and happier when they spend time in the open and are close to nature.

I'd offer incentives to people to volunteer in their communities. I'd give them vouchers to use at farmers' markets or local shops. There are so many projects that need help, and people should be recognised

for their contribution. Being involved in your community at its grass roots and shopping at local suppliers would help the economy. David Cameron's "Big Society" needs a bit of a helping hand.

I'd make it easier for people to walk or cycle to work. I'd encourage firms to install showers, personal lockers and proper bike racks. If you walk or cycle, you get to work with a clear head, you haven't jammed the roads and—as we all need 30 minutes' exercise a day—it's an ideal way of keeping fit. Businesses can help their employees towards better health by replacing company cars with bikes.

I'd make nutrition part of the school curriculum. It's vital for children to understand where food comes from and how to prepare healthy meals so that they can make informed choices about their diet. The obesity epidemic is frightening. The many health risks

associated with being overweight—including heart disease, joint problems and diabetes— mean that we can't afford not to educate children about nutrition, not just because of the financial cost to the health service and the loss of the workforce in society, but in global terms, too. There's a connection between the amount of meat we eat and the disappearance of the Brazilian rainforests, for example.

Fast food and our highprotein diets spell disaster. If we're not careful, our children will be dying before us.

I'd subsidise food produced in a nature-friendly way. Jordans has always helped British wildlife by using Conservation Grade farming. Our farmers take ten per cent of their productive land and use it to create habitats—it could be wild flowers on land that runs alongside hedgerows providing pollen or nectar, or perhaps grass for beetles, areas for birds or clover for bees. It's a simple management system for encouraging wildlife on farms, and I'd make it law. I'd also put pressure on highways agencies to have flowers on the side of roads, and I'd encourage people to have beehives and to feed birds. We

If we're not careful, our children will be dying before us

For more about Jordans and Conservation Grade farming, go to jordanscereals. co.uk.

need to restore the heart to our countryside.

I'd give all young people the opportunity to have work experience. They need to know what real jobs are like and to appreciate that they can be valuable members of the workforce; you shouldn't be measured on exam results alone. Learning to work as part of a team, dealing with competition and feeling good about yourself after a productive day are all important benefits to be gained from being part of a business. My brother and I worked at our parents' mill throughout our childhood, and it was this practical experience that gave us the confidence to set up Jordans with a £5,000 loan.

I'd encourage families to sit down to at least one meal a week together. We have two teenagers who are always off all over the place. My wife and I are just as busy as them. Unless we make the effort to come together on a Sunday evening, we rarely see each other. Eating together gives importance to food and communication. It's a busy world out there—sometimes it's good to slow down. •

As told to Caroline Hutton

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

9. A recipe for success

Atter experimenting with handmade pasta, James Brown develops a new appiciation for food cooked by others

I'm late for school again. Everyone else is already in class. My girlfriend looks at me with disappointment and an older German couple smile at me with understanding: Ah, it is the English way—always late, they seem to be thinking.

In my head I can hear my fifthform teacher saying: "Being late now means you will always be late. This will affect you when you want a job." And she was right.

I am late for cooking school in a beautiful old white fort amidst ancient olive groves in Puglia, Italy. It's just a day class so the friendly young chef doesn't demand an excuse in the way my old form teacher would have. ("I'm sorry I'm late, but I was reading Catch 22 by your fantastic pool and I didn't have any idea of the time. In fact, I was fantasising that I was in Ancient Rome," would have gone down particularly well in a Leeds comprehensive in 1981.)

We had driven down to the five-star Masseria Torre Maizza hotel in a smart

car the size of Pavarotti's lunchbox. The food is so renowned here that I've been wondering whether I'll be able to fit into the vehicle again at the end of the week. I have good reason to worry, as my girlfriend Lisa explains: "Many people say Italians make the best food in the world; Puglia is considered the home of the best food in Italy; and this is rated the best food in Puglia."

So, effectively, I'm learning to cook at the best restaurant on the planet. Once I've tasted what their restaurant has to offer, I have no reason to disagree. It has never occurred to me to go on an eating holiday before. Here, they have 20 different types of cake at breakfast. I am already planning on coming back.

Our first cookery lesson is how to make pasta properly. This makes me happy as I have had a lot of success with pasta. (I was once on a quiz team with the editor of French Vogue and the current education secretary Michael Gove—don't ask; during my 30s I fell in with a really bad crowd—and I correctly identified a piece of dried pasta as "radiatori". "How did you know that?" asked my old boss in amazement—a funny Jewish guy from Staten Island

with a fondness for Yakuza tattoos. "Well," I replied, trying not to make it sound too obvious, "it looks like a radiator.")

I check the work surfaces in the cool cooking cellar where the class is being held to make sure there are no sealed plastic bags of dried pasta, cans of peeled plum tomatoes or packets of grated Parmesan. It's true: the Italians definitely do it better.

I am given a burgundy apron and we

are divided into couples. Like The Generation Game, we partner up with the people we arrived with. To avoid "too many cooks spoiling the broth" we are all given our own ingredients to follow the master. I am already thinking "one cook will spoil the broth".

First of all we make a delicious sort of tomato-and-cheese-filled, deep-fried pastry. After that it's the pasta. Again I picture The Generation Game and visualise Brucie laughing at me trying to create little pinches of pasta—orecchiettewith the dough we've kneaded and flattened.

Our teacher has rightly made it look simple, but I think mine look like small ears of fungus. He reassures me that they will taste delicious. Someone with a degree of concentration could probably walk away from here with a very good grounding in pasta-making. Later, out in reception, I bump into Sue Lawley. We don't have a chat or anything; I really do bump into her. I am having an Inspector Clouseau moment with the receptionist. I am trying to say "E lei" and the receptionist is replying "Hellae" like a posh Scot. Eventually I step away from the circle of linguistic misunderstanding and tread on Sue's foot. As she edges away, gingerly lifting her foot and insisting all is well, I can ►

gg As Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver said as he poured liquor over his cornflakes: `A man must know his own limitations'

see Lisa at the back of reception biting her upper lip to stop herself laughing. For a moment it alleviates the worry about what lies ahead on the dining-room table.

To be honest, for once I'm not looking forward to dinner: it's the food we made ourselves. Everyone else looks happy with what they get; Lisa and I agree that I should be sacked as chef.

The next day I decide to leave the cookery school and let the chefs at Torre Maizza continue their fine work without having to try to educate an idiot Brit. I go back to the pool and my book and olives. I imagine I am back in

Ancient Rome again. And when lunch comes I eat the finest pasta I've ever tasted. Especially when compared with what I had created the night before. As Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver said as he poured liquor over his cornflakes: "A man must know his own limitations." ■

» If you think you could be a better pasta-maker than James, check out: masseriatorremaizzacom

James, founder of Loaded magazine, now edits Sabotage Times—an online magazine with the motto: "We can't concentrate, why should you?" You can follow James on twitter @jamesjamesbrown.

BACK IN THE DAY: THE ROLE OF WOMEN

Sexism? Perish the thought! But when it comes to past editions of RD, some of our comments on gender politics are best described as "pre-feminist".

► "When a woman marries, she is finally plunging herself into real life. She is at last taking on the task she has been aiming for since she first understood the difference between boys and girls." (When a Man Marries, November 1966)

► "Don't discuss the price or quality of your husband's apparel. His clothes are a basic necessity. Yours are sheer frivolity."

(What Not to Say to Your Husband, June 1959)

► "Women have a system of driving that is all their own. If she thrusts her arm out of the window, spr ading her fingers and pointing in all directions, it means she ∎ s drying her nail polish."

(A Bachelor's Guide to Marriage, July 1965)

► "There is a fundamental difference in the roles played sexual partners. The man's role is to take, the woman's to give. The man has an urge to conquer, the woman to surrender." (How Men Feel ALout Sex, July 1963)

HOW NUROMOL HELPED PUT A SMILE BACK ON SUE'S FACE

Earlier, Sue had strong period pain. She wanted pain relief that was going to last. Usually, Sue would reach for a paracetamol tablet, but it was clear she needed stronger and longer lasting pain relief.*

TIME FOR A NEW, UNIQUE* PAINKILLER COMBINATION

Our hard working scientists set themselves a mission. It's taken over 8 years, 1,898 late night takeaways, 14,832 cups of coffee and sheer, determined hard work to finally realise their goal.

NEW NUROMOL. PAIN RELIEF THAT'S STRONG AND LONG LASTING

First, we needed people in pain to test it on. We took over 600 people who'd just had their wisdom teeth out. That's a lot of pain.

HERE'S THE PROOF:

In our test, we looked at regular Paracetamol and regular Ibuprofen. Some worked quickly and faded after 5 hours. Others lasted longer. But our unique* Nuromol formulation combined the best of both, for strong and long lasting relief with just one tablet.

WEIEF

Of course Nuromol isn't just for wisdom teeth or period pain.

IT CAN BE USED FOR MANY TYPES OF PAIN: MIGRAINE, RHEUMATIC & MUSCULAR PAIN, BACK ACHE AND MORE!

In the end, our scientists were delighted with the results. But not as delighted as Sue!

WHEN REGULAR PAINKILLERS DON'T PROVIDE THE RELIEF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR, ASK FOR NEW NUROMOL

Only available from the pharmacy counter www.nuromol.co.uk

IX Nuromol tablet

Data from a dental pain study

Mike Tindall is built like an outhouse, can drink like a fish—and is about to join the Royal Family. He's also really rather sweet

It's not difficult to see why Mike Tindall has a reputation as rugby's most laid-back player. The man who is about join the Royal Family, when he marries Zara Phillips on July 30, has stretched himself out across a table at Gloucester rugby union club, face up to the window and smiling at the sun. He looks like he'll start purring at any moment. Is this any way to prepare for our interview?

"Are you comfortable there?" I ask.

"Mmmm...perfectly comfortable," he replies. "Always comfortable, me."

The 32-year-old could just as easily he talking about his attitude to life. He's 6'2" and 16 stone, with his bulk earning him the nickname "The Fridge", but he's completely comfortable in his own skin. He never looks worried or bothered by anything. He works hard, plays hard and gets on with his

life—an approach that has won the outside centre for Gloucester and England the hand of the twelfth in line to the throne as well as many other admirers.

"He's easily the most popular player around," says England coach Martin Johnson. "Everyone gets on with him."

Johnson's right. I've known Mike since he first burst onto the rugby scene in 199Z when I was editor of Rugby World magazine. Rugby Union was newly professional, but the 18-year-old from Otley, North Yorkshire, was entirely unfazed by the much-hyped new era and spread calm and smiles wherever he went. Three years later, I remember interviewing him before his first England cap against Ireland at Twickenham. He was lying flat on the grass outside the team hotel, chatting to fitness manager Dave Reddin and relaxing in the sun.

"Are you nervous?" I asked.

"No, I'm looking forward to it," he said with a smile, nonchalantly pulling grass out of the ground. All around him, experienced internationals paced through the gardens talking nervously about the match, but Mike just kept chatting.

Phil Vickery, the former England captain, says that Mike is simply "a really nice guy. There's no side to him at all. Proper, decent bloke."

Ex-England coach Brian Ashton is even more gushing: "He's an outstanding player and an outstanding individual whose positive attitude to life and those around him is inspirational."

Mike has suffered dozens of serious injuries in rugby (during a Six Nations match against Wales in 2008 he tore a two-inch hole in his liver, punctured his lung and spent five days in intensive care)

but he always bounces back. When England lose, he promises they'll win next time; when he doesn't get selected, he says he'll work harder. There's a touch of the Tigger about him—he just doesn't get stressed.

Zara Phillips is different. Friends of

Zara and Mike "The Fridge" Tindall just chilling out together at the Bernard Weatherill Cup charity polo match

the couple talk about how they are like ice and fire: Zara the fiery blonde with a stud in her tongue and navel, a beer in her hand and the propensity to explode if anything goes wrong. In her previous relationship with jockey Richard Johnson, there were reports of the pair fighting in the street. What a change it must have been to come across Mike—this gentle guy with a strong work ethic.

"The fire and ice thing is true to a certain extent," he told me once. "Being angry doesn't come naturally to me. Zara isn't like that. She'll say how she feels and show her emotions."

If words like "normal" are most

frequently used to describe him, that is a slight injustice. After all, he was a Rugby World Cup winner in Australia in 2003 and has stayed on top of the game for 11 years. But he's not the sort of guy you'll find staggering out of a fancy London nightclub too often—you're much more

likely to find him walking his dogs near his and Zara's three-storey Georgian townhouse in Cheltenham or drinking with fellow players at a rugby-club bar.

That said, it's certainly true that he likes a drink. At his stag do in Miami, he was pictured knocking back beer by a pool and downing a carafe of wine. And this was nothing compared to events on the trip back after the 2003 World Cup, when he attempted to break the in-flight beer-drinking record set by Australian cricketer David Boon in 1989 (he managed 52 cans). Mike got close, apparently, but no one will reveal how close. "He was impressive," says former

England player Jason Leonard. "Very impressive. He put us all to shame."

Mike's life has been coloured and shaped by rugby.He says that, as a boy, he wanted briefly to be a pilot but, for the rest of the time, he was set on sport.

His father Phil, a bank official, had captained the local Otley side, and his brother Ian also played. When Mike was 18, and studying at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield (the same institution that "Crossbow Cannibal" Stephen Griffiths attended), he was selected for the England Schools side to tour Australia. When he returned he was due to study psychology at Durham University but was offered a contract with Bath Rugby Club. So, after famously spending the summer working in an Otley chip van ("I wasn't trusted to do the cooking, so I had to serve," he recalls. "I spent months trying to understand what o-

drunk northerners were telling me"), he decided to put his academic career on hold.

Rugby even played a key role in meeting his future wife. He and Zara were introduced by England players Martin Corry and Austin Healey, who'd taken Mike out for a beer in Sydney in 2003 after he'd been dropped from the England team prior to the World Cup semifinal. Zara was in the same bar, on a gap year, and had met Healey, one of the senior players in the squad, many times at rugby parties.

"Later on, Austin gave me her number and said, She wants you to text her'," Mike recalls.

Healey has admitted since that Zara said no such thing but he thought they'd make a nice couple, and he didn't like the fact that Mike would never have a girlfriend with him. Most of his relationships had lasted just a couple of months, because he was so focused on rugby. "I just forgot to call them," he says.

They texted for a while, then Zara took the plunge and asked Mike to the North Cotswold Ball. They went as friends, but by Easter

2004 they were boyfriend and girlfriend, with Zara coming to watch rugby matches, and Mike seen at eventing competitions around the country.

The engagement came as a surprise to no one. "It was quite early on that you could tell they were going to be together forever," says Mike's best man lain Balshaw, who played with him for Bath and England.

Though it's not difficult to see what attracted Mike to Zara—a blue-eyed, blonde beauty with a pedigree cascading back through time—she must have had her pick of future husbands. A man described variously as looking like a boxer and a security guard, with a nose that lies almost flat against his left cheek thanks to seven breaks during his career, might not, then, be the obvious choice. He has a craggy face beyond his years and crooked teeth. He's not unattractive, but he's no Brad Pitt.

But according to Balshaw, the attraction is simple. "They are playful; they have fun. She's very happy with him and you can see they adore one another. He loves her for who she is, not what she is, and that's important to her."

On th hard, gets o

e ball: "He works plays hard and n with his life"

There's also the fact

that he's a rugby world champion, and for Zara—coming from a sportsmad family—that's a big thing. "To start with, people wondered whether our backgrounds were too different," Mike says. "But it's not a problem. I've been on the edge of her world all the time I've been playing rugby. I know William and Harry because they are great England supporters, and I've played against Peter [Zara's brother, who represented the Scottish Schools team]. Zara's mum is patron of the Scottish Rugby Union so I've known her for years. They're good, fun people—all of them. They're just a normal family."

Mike's parents still live in North Yorkshire. His mother Linda is a social worker and his father retired from the bank four years ago after discovering that he has Parkinson's disease. Retirement didn't suit him, however, so he now works as the finance officer at Wakefield's New Hall prison.

"He's strong, my dad, a real fighter," says Mike. Both parents have been "incredibly" supportive of his career. "I owe them everything. I think I'm quite like my mum, with a similar sense of humour and personality. Some people find it hard to talk to their parents, but I've never had that problem. I call her a few times a week and tell her everything."

From an Otley fish-and-chip van to...Westminster Abbey and the Royal Wedding

He says they were "totally unfazed" when he told them he was seeing the Queen's granddaughter. "They just want me to be happy," he says. "They can see I am, so they're not worried, and they love Zara."

The wedding will be much more intimate than the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in April. It is not a state occasion and Canongate Kirk, the plain, moderate-sized church in Edinburgh where they'll tie the knot, is no Westminster Abbey. There'll be no honeymoon for the couple, either, because Mike has to prepare for a World Cup warm-up game against Wales, and Zara has the Gatcombe Horse Trials the week after.

"But that's the way we like our lives," says Mike. "Low-key, with lots of sport and as much time together as possible." Is he looking forward to the wedding? "I'm looking forward to Zara being my wife," he says warmly, then collapses back down onto the table so he's lying as he was when I found him.

"Is that soppy enough?" he asks with a smile.

So with Mike Tindall joining their ranks, will the royals soon be scrumming down on the pitch? Overleaf: a rugby expert pulls together the dream royal team... to.

To mark the union of the Monarchy and Britain's toughest sport, Rugby World editor Paul Morgan picks a very special Windsor First XV

THE FORWARDS

Loose Head

Prop, Tight Head

Prop and the Hooker (aka The Front Row): The Queen's Corgis. Always nipping at people's ankles, they are pugnacious and well-built. Ideal at the front of the scrum.

Locks: Duke of Edinburgh and Captain Mark Phillips. The number 4 and 5 positions tend to be the line-out jumpers and key ball-winners at

restarts. With his height and belligerence the Duke is ideal, alongside the towering presence of Princess Anne's first husband.

Blind-side Flanker: dips. Having represented Scottish Schools, he is irresistible on this side of the scrum.

Open-side Flanker and No 8: Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Charles. These players work in unison at the back of the scrum and in rucks to force the team forward, so need to know each other's thoughts intimately.

THE

BACKS

Scrum Half:

Fly Half: Prince William. The half-backs are about partnerships,

with the scrum half passing the ball out of scrums, rucks, mauls and line-outs to the fly half. Prince Harry is slightly smaller so will be more adept at the quick pass needed to get his brother moving.

The Fly Half—the Jonny Wilkinson role—is the general of the team, responsible for positional and goal kicking, so with his military background, William is perfect. Plus, now he is married to the glamorous Catherine, he needs to keep his looks and he's Jess likely to get his nose broken here.

Left Wing: Pippa Middleton. Speed is of the essence in this position so her recent impressive performance in a charity 5,000m

secures Pippa this slot. She will also distract the opposition. LL

Right Wing: Zara Phillips. If she's as nimble on 0 the ground as she 0 is on a horse, she r should fit in well.

Inside Centre: rice Andrew. At more than 6ft, he can plug the gaps in midfield and place a vice-like grip on 0 opposition attacks. Outside Centre: Mike Tindall. Plays here for England, so the natural choice. U. Won't mind making Ui a pass at the right .6 wing, either. LL

Fullback: z

The Queen. Has been the last line L i:Lc' 0 of defence for the Monarchy for LI! almost 50 years so why change when the family's on the 8 rugby field? She'll be captain, too, obviously. •

There's nothing wrong with miles of glorious sand— and there's lots of that in the UK. But there are also plenty of unusual seaside spots for those who want more than just the bucketand-spade experience

* 1*

A soft landing: another visitor drops in on Traigh Mhor Beach in the Outer Hebrides ■

= FOR THE BEST ARRIVAL,

Arriving at Barra in the Outer Hebrides is about the most extraordinary landing you could hope for. The island's runway is, in fact, Traigh Mhor Beach, a two-mile cockle strand on a tiny, thin peninsula at the top of the island.

The plane, a Twin Otter, carries just 18 passengers, and flight times have to be flexible (as the airline's website quaintly puts it, the runways "disappear with the tide"). On windy days —and the Western Isles have a few of those—planes have to be tied to a pole. Just opposite is a perfect surfing beach popular with campers, but also good for seal spotting. Or visitors can pick and cook the freshest cockles they'll ever eat (as long as they don't stray onto the runway).

All this on a tiny, unspoilt spit of an island just eight miles wide. What's not to love?

Barra Airport, Traigh Mhor Beach, Barra, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Flights operate from Glasgow and other airports

FOR LITERARY CONNECTIONS

Margate is an unlikely place for a literary shrine. But it was here in October 1922, in a plain beach shelter overlooking Margate Sands (pictured), that the most important poem in English of the 20th century was written. T S Eliot, then 33, came to Margate with wife Vivienne to recover from a nervous breakdown. Each day, after taking a tram from his boarding house, he sat alone and composed his bleak elegy The Waste Land. The shelter is now a listed building.

Once a beach associated with every seaside cliché, "Merry Margate", as it was known, has also been linked with other creative types, such as artist Tracey Emin (born here) and the painter J M W Turner. It fell into decline with the arrival of the cheap foreign holiday, but has recently had an artistic boost with the new Turner Contemporary Gallery, opened by Emin and built on the site of the seafront boarding house run by Turner's lover.

Margate Sands, Kent

"On Margate Sands. I can connect Nothing with nothing.

The broken fingernails of dirty hands. My people humble people who expect Nothing."

T S Eliot, The Waste Land

A good wheeze: if you don't fancy the walk uphill from Clovelly Beach, Land Rovers are on hand to ferry you

FOR THE SUPERFIT

A small, pebbly beach at the bottom of an asthma-inducing hill—nothing remarkable there.

But Clovelly is a pretty village that grips onto the rocks of the north Devon coast and is probably so unspoilt becauseunusually—the entire village is owned by one family and has been since 1738, when it was bought by a lawyer.

Also unusually, cars are banned—to get to the beach from the car park, visitors must schlep 400 feet down the cobbled main street and then later haul themselves up again.

Clovelly Beach, Bideford, North Devon. Entrance: £5.95 per person (under-sevens go free), family tickets £15.90

FOR URBAN TYPES

It's only a sliver of sand overlooking the Thames, but it means it's possible for Londoners to be beside the seaside in the centre of town. Inspired by the Paris Plage—the little bit of the Riviera that pops up alongside the Seine every summerSouthbank Beach is Britain's first urban beach.

Proving popular with Londoners, it has all the trappings of the seaside: beach huts nearby (which contain art exhibitions), fish and chips, deckchairs, a funfair and celebrations to help mark the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. There are also beachside pop-up parties at night.

Until September 4. Southbank Beach, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London

FOR ATMOSPHERE

Antony Gormley (extreme left) is the most famous sculptor in the UK today— just about everyone knows the Angel of the North— and he's made a career out

of casting his own wiry frame. At Crosby, just outside Liverpool city centre, you can view Another Place-100 castiron, full-size replicas of

his body placed on the sand. All the eerie statues stare out to sea, echoing Liverpool's history during the 18th and 19th centuries as a departure point for •

emigrants—it's thought the figures represent the hope of a new life in "another place". View at low tide to see the full bodies (some are half a mile out to sea),

although it's equally moving when they're halfsubmerged by the water.

Crosby Beach, near Sefton, Liverpool

FOR NATURAL BEAUTY

It's the most famous spot on the Jurassic Coast, a slice of Dorset and East Devon that's been designated England's first "natural" world heritage site. Durdle Door might be familiar (it's been used as a backdrop for films such as Nanny McPhee and, yes, Cliff Richard videos), but it's still extraordinary: 140 million years old and a natural archway of limestone eroded by the sea.

The water is crystal clear and ice-cold, so it's an exhilarating experience for swimmers many come to "swim the door". You can also watch as mad fools jump off the top (known as "tombstoning") it's 95 feet, in case you're thinking of it. Not an accessible beach due to steep steps, the whole area is popular with walkers because it's a stunning part of the coast.

Durdle Door, Near Lulworth Cove, Dorset

FOR EXHIBITIONISTS

With views of Old Harry's Rocks and the Isle of Wight, Studland Beach and Nature Reserve is a glorious, four-mile strip of coast. Its dunes are crawling with wildlife and birds, but its biggest claim to fame is as Britain's most popular naturist beach. If you want to let it all hang out, this is the slice of sand to head for.

The nudey bit is the section known as Knoll Beach, popular with all ages. Dress is optional for those of a more conservative nature, and the National Trust patrol discreetly no saucy goings-on are allowed.

Studland Beach and Nature Reserve, near Swanage, Dorset

FOR NOSTALGIA

If you're looking to step back in time to around the 1950s, then come on down. At Steephill Cove, you'll find a refreshing absence of modern seaside trappings.

Accessible only by boat or by foot, this calm little cove is a wellkept secret—the prettiest spot on the Isle of Wight (those looking to recreate a childhood summer holiday will fall in love). Local family the Wheelers have fished here since anyone can remember—eat the freshest lobster, crabs and prawns alfresco at the Boathouse restaurant, or try a local crab pasty from the Crabshead.

Steephill Cove, Ventnor, Isle of Wight

FOR ROMANCE

Teetering on the cliff top of Downhill Beach, a sandy stretch of the north-western coast of Northern Ireland, is a one-time library, the Mussenden Temple. This rotunda, built in 1785 and modelled on the temple of Vesta (goddess of the hearth)

in Rome, has words from the poet Lucretius inscribed around the side —"Tis pleasant, safely to behold from shore/The rolling ship, and hear the tempest roar."

A famous landmark and a popular spot for weddings, the temple was built by the flamboyant fourth Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry, as a monument to his married cousin Frideswide Mussenden, with whom he was said to be wildly in love. The cliff top has eroded, so the temple is now perilously close to the edge. ■

The Mussenden Temple, Downhill Beach, Castlerock, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

Where do you go if you want to feel the sand between your toes? Please send full details and a photo to theeditor# readersdigest.co.uk.

There are more lovely beaches—and other finds from our Best of British series —at readersdigest. co.uk/magazine, and also on Facebook at facebook.com/ readersdigestuk.

NEXT MONTH: FOLKLORE AND LEGEND

How did we get to the point where £22m is spent on prescribing drugs—every day?

In the first of a four-part special, Jerome Burne launches our campaign to tackle

Drugged-Up Britain

When 54-year-old John arrived at a nutritional clinic in south London, he was in a bad way. Overweight, with chronic hip pain due to osteoarthritis, he also suffered from migraines, heartburn and severe mood swings. For the last six months, he'd been taking five or six different drugs a day—mostly painkillers, but also one for migraine and another to reduce acid in his stomach.

"Sometimes it was really hard to get up the energy to go to work," he says. 'All the pills made me feel woozy. They obviously weren't going to cure me; they just dulled the pain. The doctor said I should lose some weight, but eating was about the only pleasure I had left."

Aspects of John's situation will be familiar to many of us. You've got backache or your guts are upset; maybe

4 you feel constantly tired or you're depressed. So you go to the doctor and get a pill for one or more of your ailments. But while it might make you feel a bit better, the underlying problem doesn't always go away. And then there are the side effects—muscle pains, dry mouth, a loss of libido...

This situation is set to get worse. Every year we consume around £llbn pounds' worth of drugs in the UK, a spend of around £183 per head. Another way of looking at it is to say that an average of 16 prescriptions is written each year for every single person in England, at a cost of £22m a day. (The figures don't quite match up because you have to add in the rest of the UK to the second set of figures.) In England and Wales, the number of prescriptions went up from 500 million to 700 million between 1996 and 2003.

Or take a look at America, where the drug consumption is even higher. According to the sociologist Professor Donald Light, "Four-fifths of all Americans—including half of all children—take a prescription drug each week." And wherever the US leads, the UK is rarely far behind.

The overall picture is clear. We've created a system that encourages us to consume ever-larger quantities of expensive drugs at a time when deep cuts are being made in public services. Even worse, the number of us over 65 is set to soar. Next year sees the arrival of the Silver Tsunami, when the first of the baby boomers hit 65. By 2030, the number of people over 65 will be five million more than today, and about half of those over 65 are already taking five or more prescription drugs, according to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Welcome to Drugged-Up Britain.

But there's something we can do about it. Quite apart from the question of whether we can afford an ever-rising drugs bill, the experiences of people like John suggest that reaching for the prescription pad is not always the best way to handle many chronic health problems.

Of course, drugs can be lifesavers. If you've got a serious

KILL RATHER THAN CURE?

There were worries about the diabetes drug Avandia increasing your risk of a heart attack instead of cutting it even in 2000, when it was first licensed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). In response, the EMA asked Avandia's manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline to set up a separate clinical trial, which eventually concluded that the drug was safe. But a later investigation into the trial by the FDA, America's drug watchdog, queried these results. Avandia was eventually pulled from all countries in Europe last year.

Reaching for the prescription pad is not always the best way to handle many chronic health problems

infection, you need antibiotics; getting the right treatment after a stroke can be the difference between recovery and life in a wheelchair, or worse. Modern medicine is brilliant in emergencies. But if you have conditions such as pain or heartburn, or you want to cut the risk of a heart attack, drugs may not be the best place to start. Just as you'd shop around if you were buying a washing machine or life insurance, so it pays to be a canny consumer about healthcare.

Looking for the most effective and safest deal is what's sending John and thousands like him in search of treatment that offers a more personalised approach. What we all want to know is why we've fallen ill in the first place—and what we can do to get healthy again.

Over the coming months, Reader's Digest will be suggesting ways to make your search more effective. If you're looking after an elderly parent or relative, for example, it's useful to know about some of the ways their needs and risks can be different from somebody younger. Knowing about the remarkable benefits of getting enough vitamin D, for example—and not enough of us do—could help cut your risk of all sorts of chronic diseases in the future. And we'll be talking to GPs whose practices combine the best of the drugs approach with one that's more patient-centred.

A friend recommended that John try the south London clinic of nutritionist Lara Just. "The drugs weren't helping John to function well, so the first step was to find out what nutrients he was missing," says Lara. "Checking the amount of vitamin D in his blood was an obvious move, because weak bones have long been linked to low vitamin D. Recent research suggests much higher levels are linked with less inflammation and better mood as well. I also tested how well his guts were absorbing nutrients, and how much of the anti-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids he was getting."

It's an approach that many find more satisfying than that of a conventional doctor. "Treating bone or joint pain with aspirin-like painkillers is standard with doctors," says o,

STATINS: THE REAL EFFECTS

If you're taking daily cholesterol-lowering statins to cut your risk of a fatal heart attack, you need to know what long odds you're betting on (assuming you haven't yet had an attack). In 2009, an authoritative study of over 60,000 patients found that, out of 10,000 taking the drug for four years, seven would avoid a deadly attack. The reduction was so small it could have happened by chance. The Cochrane Collaboration, which reviews all the data, found that statins' effect on the risk of dying from a heart attack if you hadn't had one was small— about 1,000:1. Statins also come with side effects, so the risk of a bad reaction may be bigger than your chance of benefiting.

Just as you'd shop around if you were buying a washing machine or life insurance, so it pays to be a canny consumer about healthcare

Professor George Lewith of the Primary Care Research Unit at the University of Southampton, "but it raises the risk of irritating the stomach lining. That can make something like heartburn worse, and may affect how well nutrients are absorbed." Another painkiller—codeine—can also make your guts less efficient by causing constipation.

John was treated with vitamin D for his bone pain, along with omega-3 and -6 fatty acids to reduce inflammation, and probiotics to help his gut function. "My tummy is in a much better state than it has been for years," he says. "I get hardly any migraines, and the unbearable pain in my hip joint is manageable with just the occasional painkiller."

"It's remarkable how resistant John's doctor was," says Lara. "He ignored my request to do vitamin D and a couple of other tests. When we got it done by a respectable private lab in Harley Street, he refused to accept the result and sent John off for another test at a hospital—which also found that he was badly deficient. Then the doctor did give John a vitamin D supplement, but the amount was small (400IU) and it came with calcium in a form that was poorly absorbed." It was only after Lara put John on a supplement of 2,000IU a day that the improvement began.

Individualised treatments are common to many nondrug approaches, but they've come under attack because they're not backed up by the large-scale randomised trials that drugs have to go through. Critics say the benefits come from the placebo effect. Professor Lewith replies that many conditions—such as irritable bowel or premenstrual tension —are treated by GPs with drugs that have pretty poor evidence behind them, and a high placebo element.

But there's a bigger problem with exclusively relying on randomised controlled trials. They can tell you about what happens on average to people who get a treatment, but they aren't useful for testing individualised treatments.

If you have a sympathetic GP, however, you can always ►

A U-TURN ON LOW-DOSE ASPIRIN?

For years, over-50s have been advised to take low-dose aspirin to help cut their risk of a heart attack (it makes the blood less likely to clot). But in the last 18 months, at least six big studies have found that the chance of avoiding a heart attack (350:1) is about the same as the aspirin causing serious internal bleeding (400:1). The British Heart Foundation no longer recommends low-dose aspirin for "people who don't have symptomatic or diagngsed artery or heart disease", but it clearly hasn't had much effect.

Before the reports, doctors wrote 34 million prescriptions for low-dose aspirin —afterwards, it only fell to 32 million.

Two non-drug treatments are supported with mountains of evidence—a healthy diet and exercise. Every doctor recommends them

What Can You Do?

Try asking these questions next time you're given a prescription

Is this a drug that's only been licensed recently? If so, has your doctor received a lot of pharmaceutical promotion about it? When you start on a new drug you're effectively a guinea pig, because it will only have been tried on a few hundred people. Some drugs are heavily promoted, and it's worth knowing if this is one of them.

Is it a replacement for one that's just run out of patent? In which case, it's likely to be very similar but may have new side effects.

Is this being prescribed "off label", or has it been specifically licensed for your condition? Often drugs are licensed for one condition such as pain, but then drug marketing encourages doctors to use it for something else, which may lack scientific support.

Have there been any trials of the drug not financed by the manufacturers? Trials run by the manufacturers are four times more likely to be favourable.

Was the drug tested on the same sort of people as those most likely to use it? If older people are the likely users, was it tested on them or younger people?

Has the drug been tested against any drugs already in use, and how did it perform? New drugs often turn out to

be no better than older ones. And issues with older ones are better understood.

Are there any non-drug treatments that are more effective than drugs for this condition? Cognitive-behaviour therapy, for instance, can be superior to drugs for both depression and insomnia.

Have all the trials that have been done on the drug been registered anywhere, so we know what the results were? Did any trials show no effect or signs of problems? Results that aren't favourable might have been kept under wraps.

Does your doctor think that it's worth filling in Yellow Cards, the system for reporting side effects to the drug watchdog? Did they fill in cards for any patients taking the antidepressant Seroxat, or the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx, or for any other drug removed from the market because its side effects were too dangerous? If a doctor does fill in cards, they're probably more careful about side effects.

Is this drug likely to cause any vitamin or mineral deficiencies? Doctors usually don't know about this. At least, yours should know that statins lower levels of a very important antioxidant called coQ10, and that the diabetes drug Metformin may block the absorption of vitamin B12.

run your own trial. Professor Lewith explains:

"Drugs are tested against biomarkers. Trials ask: do they bring down cholesterol, reduce hypertension, or improve blood-sugar control? If you're following a non-drug approach, it makes sense to have such tests to see if the [alternative] treatment is working."

Two non-drug treatments are supported with mountains of evidence—a healthy diet and exercise. Every doctor recommends them. Unfortunately, getting people to change their lifestyle is hard, which is why most people with heart disease or diabetes find themselves on the pills. Realising they're not trained as lifestyle coaches, a few pioneering doctors are calling on the skills of people who are.

"Once we've diagnosed a chronic disorder, we're not really needed for treatment," say Dr Michael Dixon, Devon GP and chair of the NHS Alliance. "What patients need then is people who can tell them about diet, about new ways of cooking, really encourage them to do exercise, and so on. The results can be remarkable—and long-lasting." ■

BUDDING AUTHORS, TAKE A BOW!

We want to hear about your experiences of Drugged-Up Britain. Please email us at readersletters@ readersdigest.co.uk

Next month: the special problems of prescribing drugs for elderly people

This tale of thwarted ambition is another of the many 100-word stories submitted in our recent competition that we thought deserved a wider audience, even though it missed out on the main prizes.

Turning point

Today. Today's the day. Today, I'm going to be all that I can be, do all I can do. I'll answer every question, earn every grade, live every moment. A hero among teenagers. Today, students will admire me; teachers will seek me out for advice.

Today's the turning point: the first day of the rest of my life.

My shrill alarm interrupts me. Jumping out of bed, I pull the curtains aside to reveal the blanket of snow that has settled on the icy ground. It's snowing. School's closed. I go back to bed. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow's the day.

Submitted by Stephanie D'Costa, 15, Dartford, Kent

Stephanie says:When I heard about the competition, I wanted to write something that everyone can relate to and find funny: an optimistic, get-up-and-go approach, quickly followed by a resigned attitude when things don't go right. I've written a few stories before, and I hope this one was interesting and entertaining to read.

Stephanie will receive a cheque for £70.

Read a new 100-word story every day at readersdigest.co.uk/magazine

You've just come home, after living abroad for a few years. Since you've been away, has this country changed for the better—or for the worse?

By Andrea Kon

WE'RE BACK

If you've just arrived back in the UK after a fortnight's holiday, small changes have probably surprised you—anything from a local greengrocer suddenly being replaced by a mobile-phone shop, to someone in your street moving house. So how must things have altered to people coming back to Blighty after seven, ten or even 15 years living abroad? What changes in society can they see that the rest of us have barely noticed—or now take for granted? To find out, we asked three recently returned ex-pats.

The McCormacks (from left: Casper, Sean, Debi and Maisie) can't believe how popular reality TV has become here. "If my daughter said she wanted to be Kerry Katona, I'd go straight back to Australia!" says Debi

Debi McCormack is a marketing creative director who moved to Australia 16 years ago with her husband Sean, an IT project manager. Both now 41, they came back to Cheltenham, Debi's home town, in early 2008 so their children Maisie, seven, and Casper, four, could be near their grandparents.

Debi:When we left, Cheltenham was a town of white, middle-class families—all very conservative. We returned to a melting pot. The town is now home to numerous eastern Europeans and, strangely, lots of Australians, who come here mainly to work in hotels and tourism. There are several exclusively foreign shops, too, such as Polish convenience stores. In the early 1990s, there were none.

But, having been an immigrant myself; I admire people who go overseas to find a job or to expand their horizons. Maybe if I lived in an inner city where unemployment was high, I'd think differently, but I believe foreign settlers have improved this country because they're often more open-minded and harder-working than the natives.

They've made Cheltenham's restaurants better, too. We used to have to travel to Oxford or Bath for a fancy meal, but now a huge number of great establishments of various nationalities have sprung up here, helped by the fact that people seem to lead busier working lives and go out rather than cook more. My parents used to take us to restaurants only on special occasions, but we take our kids out once or twice a month.

Another change for the better is that every product in the supermarket has a detailed list of ingredients, including salt,

fat and calories. There are gluten-free foods for coeliacs like my sister-in-law, items for people with nut allergies, and a range of different kinds of milk and yogurt—fat-free, soya, lactose-free. In Australia, it's still just semi-skimmed and full-fat.

Being a British sports fan has become cool, at last. Until recently, we'd got used to being no good—there was a sort of "don't care" attitude. We were in Sydney for the 2000 Olympics and our team did so badly that admitting we were British was almost embarrassing. But I think there's been investment in training in things such as athletics and cricket since then. England won the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and regained the Ashes, and Team GB did well at the last Olympics. We seem to really want to triumph now Getting the Games in 2012 has helped, and the national feeling of pride in our sports people is palpable.

Interestingly, Australian sport is going downhill—they rested on their laurels for too long. And they hate that England's beating them at things like cricket. They're not good losers.

Overall, Sean and I believe the Britain we came back to is better than the one we left behind. The only major downside is reality TV. I don't understand what's interesting about people becoming famous for doing nothing. If my daughter said she wanted to be Kerry Katona, I'd go straight back to Australia! We did get into I'm a Celebrity..., but at least they give them challenges there.

Oh, and the Eurovision Song Contest has become hard to follow since the demise of the Soviet Union. I've no idea where most of the new countries are!

"The British have become obsessed with getting the right things in the right-coloured recycling boxes," says Kevin Coppard, fresh from Hong Kong

Kevin Coppard, 49, a financial adviser from the south coast of England, worked in Hong Kong for seven years. He returned home with his wife Wendy, 43, and family, in July last year.

Kevin: We'd been home for visits, but the first thing that hit me when we repatriated was how expensive living had become—renting, buying a car, feeding the family, higher National Insurance and VAT. There's no VAT or National Insurance in Hong Kong, so those rises came as nasty surprises. But I realise that some things have become more costly partly because the UK was, until recently, a growing economy, so it's not all bad. We were amazed by the number of

new energy suppliers, though, each one offering us cheaper/faster/better electricity and gas. When we left there was one, possibly two, at most. Now you're bombarded on the phone by different firms, each promising to outdo their rivals. It's the same with phone, internet and TV companies. It's so confusing, and I'm not convinced the standard of provision has improved much.

Similarly, before we went away, mature ladies or gentlemen used to gently wave charity tins under your nose in the street. Now it's assertive young people wearing bibs blazing out their charity's name. Some are quite nice, and I think it's understandable in recessionary times that fundraising has to be a little more ►

The only way is Essex for Christine and John Dixson, although they think people here are more suspicious than in Cyprus

• proactive, but others are too aggressive and chase you down the street!

The British have become obsessed with getting the right things in the rightcoloured recycling box. My wife even has a detailed list on the fridge, saying what should go where. All the different bins on our street, ironically, make it look less tidy, but it's good that the country has become more environmentally conscious. They're concerned about recycling in Hong Kong, too—the big thing there was a tax on plastic bags, which dramatically reduced usage. Maybe that should be the next step for the UK.

I don't think Britain has improved since we went abroad, but I wouldn't be too negative about it. People complain about

the weather, and I notice they tell you what the humidity is on the TV forecast now, which makes me laugh. You haven't felt humidity until you've lived in Hong Kong—and we're happy to be home.

Christine Dixson, 64, a retired hairdresser, and husband John, 71, a former car dealer, returned from Cyprus in 2008 after 16 years to be nearer their family while Christine was recovering from breast cancer. She and John have now settled in Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

Christine:As we flew home over Britain, both of us remarked how green everything looked. But the differences between the place we'd left behind and the one

we returned to were brought sharply into focus as soon as we landed.

To see policemen with guns in the airport for the first time was frightening —in Cyprus, they're very laid back and drive around in Ladas!—and I got pulled over by customs just for taking a cardigan out of my case in the arrivals hall.

Maybe it's to do with more drug smuggling and terrorism, but everyone seemed to be suspicious. Even the airport car-hire firm wanted a credit card rather than cash because they said their vehicles had been used in so many bank robberies.

As a whole, people seem more out to make a quick buck—to look after themselves rather than others—and they've become more wary. They assume you have an angle if you talk to them in the street, and that can be upsetting. I'm an East End girl and used to chat to my local shopkeepers, but the checkout girls in today's supermarkets seem frightened of getting told off by their managers.

The choice of coffees in cafes is ridiculous and the prices are outrageous! We were in a coffee bar with three of our grandchildren soon after we came back and I asked if they wanted a biscuit. I couldn't understand why my son asked,

`Are you sure, Mum?" When I got a bill for more than £6 for one cup and three biscuits, I couldn't believe it!

Lots of people are obese now, and girls walk round with their muffin-tops folding over their trousers, even if they're overweight. Young Cypriot women are very glamorous, as I remember British women used to be, but people here wander around looking scruffy and don't seem to iron their clothes.

What really amazed me is how newsreaders have local dialects. When we left, it was all BBC accents. I don't mind that, but why do presenters and guests sit around and talk over each other so much? They sound like my daughter and her friends. I want facts, not opinions!

But although I can see lots of things have gone wrong, I do love being in Britain. Some things have changed for the better, too. Those heating lamps outside restaurants mean people can eat alfresco all year, like in Cyprus. And the range of plants in garden centres is phenomenal. I could sit there all day with my tea and sandwiches looking at them.

This is still a green, beautiful country. I just wish more people would appreciate what they've got. ■

WHO'S DOING WHAT AROUND THE GLOBE: MEATY SMEP

► The French are famous for their sweet, sophisticated scents, but this latest wheeze has more than a hint of the British greasy spoon. Bacon Cologne is the brainchild of Parisian pig farmer John Fargginay, blending 11 essential oils with a "bottom note" of bacon. Whether French sophisticates go for this or not, Fargginay could be onto a winner here—Brits recently voted for frying bacon as one of their top ten smells, ahead of lavender, babies and lemon zest.

HayleyWestenra

...MY GRANDAD PLAYING THE PIANO WHILE I PRACTISED MY BALLET MOVES, aged five. Watching his fingers run up and down the keys is one of my earliest memories. We'd spend our holidays at my grandparents' house, south of Christchurch in New Zealand, near where I grew up. It was a humble abode— my grandmother worked in a factory and my grandad was a lorry driver. My grandmother loved to sing; sometimes they'd do a double act in local venues, and we'd all sing together around their piano—my younger sister Sophie, my brother Isaac and me. My grandparents' love of music has been an inspiration to me.

...BEING VERY SHY—BUT I LOVED TO SING AND DANCE. I started ballet when I was four. I didn't know what it was, but my cousin did it, so I wanted to, too! I danced with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and got a lot of boys' parts—I had to wear grey clothes while the other girls wore lovely pink tutus!

I had to give up dancing when my music career took over, which upset my ballet teacher—but ballet isn't one of those things you can just do on the side.

...EATING LOADS OF THE LAMINGTONS MY GRANDMOTHER BAKED. They're a New Zealand speciality: little cakes coated in chocolate and coconut. I've lived in London a long time, but I still miss them!

...MY FIRST SOLO SINGING PART WAS AS THE LITTLEST STAR IN OUR SCHOOL CHRISTMAS PLAY. I was six. I hadn't told my parents, so they were rather surprised when I stepped to the front of the stage—and even more so when my teacher told them I was pitch perfect. I'm very grateful to Miss Compton for recognising that I had a voice, something that needed to be nurtured.

...BUSKING ON THE STREETS OF CHRISTCHURCH, AGED TEN.

I'd been performing in a city choir, and, in our lunch break, a few of us realised we didn't have money to buy sandwiches. r

From the littlest

and

star (left, with grandfather

in school play) to the biggest (above): New Zealand soprano Hayley visits Ghana in her role as a Unicef ambassador

With a mixture of trepidation and excitement, we started to sing on the street corner—we soon earned enough coins to buy ourselves lunch! I busked every sunny Saturday after that, sometimes with my sister Sophie.

...WINNING A LOCAL TALENT QUEST

WHEN I WAS ABOUT 11. I won a CD player and a bunch of discs, and one of the judges gave me a Kathleen Battle CD and said, "You could sing like this one day."

The first album I bought was by Andrea Bocelli. I heard it on a listening post in a music store—ah, the good old days! I also bought CDs by Sarah Brightman, the Spice Girls and Celine Dion. I was drawn to Celtic music, too—it was around that time that I found out about my Irish heritage; my great grandmother had come to New Zealand from Ireland.

...RECORDING A FEW SONGS WITH A SOUND ENGINEER IN A STUDIO

WHEN I WAS 12. I wanted to sell the CD to people who'd heard me busking, or just give it to friends—we made 25. A journalist

suggested I send one to an A&R guy in Auckland. That decision changed my life. I released my first album aged 14, and my second soon after. Their success in New Zealand led to my being signed by Decca Records in London. Then, I flew to London to record Pure when I was just 15.

...ARRIVING WITH MY MUM IN A COLD, GREY LONDON. We were put up in a flat in Chiswick and really didn't take advantage of what London had to offer. We'd go to the local Sainsbury's and buy canned sponge puddings to eat in the evenings, and take the Tube to Oxford Street to shop in the discount stores.

...ALL THE PEOPLE WE MET, AND ALL THE PHOTO AND VIDEO SHOOTS. It was like a whirlwind. We went to Dublin to record parts of the album—it was even colder than London!

...MY GRANDMOTHER CUT OUT PICTURES OF ME AND RECORDED PROGRAMMES I WAS ON as I became well-known—but she was equally encouraging to my siblings. Once, she had a picture of me and one of Isaac, who'd been in a photo shoot for a supermarket. She said, "I can't put these up till I have one of Sophie, too!"

Hayley (right) busks with brother Isaac (centre) and sister Sophie

...WORKING WITH SIR GEORGE MARTIN, WHO WROTE ONE OF THE SONGS ON PURE. His son produced the album. It was quite something having Sir

I was only 16 too young and naive to realise it migat fail, and my mum and I could be sent packing

George in the studio—just being in the presence of the man who produced The Beatles felt like a big deal.

...MISSING MY FRIENDS. Those were the days before Skype and I couldn't call them because it was so expensive. At 15, missing out on my best friends' parties made me pretty distraught— your social life and friends mean so much at that age.

With

"I Terfel an

...PERFORMING WITH JOSE CARRERAS AND BRYN TERFEL IN WALES, at Terfel's three-day open-air opera event, the Faenol Festival. It was just before Pure was released in 2003. To perform between two such incredible legends was a great privilege. They're lovely men.

...PURE BECAME THE BIGGESTSELLING CLASSICAL ALBUM OF THE 21ST CENTURY. I was only 16—too young and naive to realise it might fail, and my mum and I could be sent packing.

...I ONCE PERFORMED FOR THE QUEEN THREE TIMES IN THE SPACE OF TWO WEEKS. The first was a private function; the second, the Royal Variety Show, and she came backstage to meet 'A the performers. She said, "Didn't I see you

earlier this week?" and I told her she'd be seeing me again the following week, too! It was pretty special to meet her in the flesh. I thought, Wow! Your face is on our coins!

...AUDITIONING FOR A PRIVATE EVENT ORGANISED BY ANDREW

egends"

d Carreras

LLOYD WEBBER. But when I got to the venue, there was just a guy I didn't know who asked me to sing from The Woman in White. I thought, Where's Lord Lloyd Webber? I started to sing and, just at the most difficult part of the song, I heard the floorboards creak behind me. I couldn't turn round as I had to finish the song, all the time thinking, Gosh, this is nerve-racking!

It was Lord Lloyd Webber, and at the end, he said, "Well, everything they say about you is true"—which I hoped was a good thing! The event turned out to be at the American Embassy, in front of George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell—but I was more concerned about making Lord Lloyd Webber proud of me than impressing all the dignitaries.

...BECOMING UNICEF'S YOUNGESTEVER AMBASSADOR WHEN I WAS 17. They took me to Ghana to get involved with a project that raised funds for

At just 24, Hayley's musical career already spans more than ten years

bicycles to help girls get to school. When I returned and saw the difference the bikes had made to their lives, I felt humbled. Someone wanted to take photos of me with one of the bikes, but the girls didn't want to let go of them for a minute. It was

hard to convince them I wasn't going to jump on and cycle off into the sunset!

...MEETING [ITALIAN COMPOSER]

ENNIO

MORRICONE

FOR THE FIRST TIME. He'd heard my voice and thought he might like to work with me. He made us little espressos that I felt obliged to accept because I was so honoured to meet him.

I don't even drink coffee usually—let alone extremely strong Italian ones!

I recorded Paradiso with him in Rome last summer—I'd asked if he would work with me on just one song, but he wanted to produce it all. Rome became like a second home to me—at lunch, we'd all go over the road to the local cafe for pasta and more espressos. Being a part of his team was incredible. Morricone is 82 now, yet his passion for his work is so inspiring. The age difference and language barrier were never a problem—after all, it's the music that's important. ■

As told to Caroline Hutton

» Hayley Westenra's new album, Paradiso, is released on August 29 on Decca Records.

WELCOME TO THE TALKING MAGAZINE

READER'S DIGEST is available in atalking edition for blind and partially sighted people. Each month, a selection from the magazine is recorded by National Talking Newspapers and Magazines and is available on two audio CDs or cassettes, DAISY disk (compatible with RNIB Talking Book players), MP3 download or digital full text, playable on a computer. The service is available for a modest annual subscription. For details, contact the National Recording Centre, 10 Browning Road, Heathfield, East Sussex TN21 8DB. Telephone: 01435 866 102; email: info@tnauk.org.uk, website:tnauk.org.uk. Donations to National Talking Newspapersand Magazines should be sent to the same address.

A Life Less Ordinary

Alex Flynn is hoping to raise Elm by racing around, the globe. But you'd never guess why.

By Lucy' Fry

►

The dry Sahara heat was topping 60°C and Alex Flynn's skin was burning as he ran through sand that stretched for miles ahead of him. izkg backpack, full of provisions, was weighing him down and his feet were beginning to blister when something new arrived on the horizon—a 3,000-foot mountain. The peak had steep sides covered in rock and sand—and it was obvious what was expected. Flynn, a38-year-old lawyer, was two days into the week-long,150-mile Marathon des SableS in Morocco in April last year; competitors had to overtome whatever they encountered en route—including mountains.

4 His arm was dead from a trapped nerve in his neck but, numbly, he began to pull himself up the peak, reaching for small hand holes, ignoring the fact that they could contain scorpions or snakes. Suddenly, as he prepared to swing up from one rock to the next, his right leg started jigging uncontrollably. He couldn't move it and was left clinging on with his fingers—inches from a huge drop.

He started to laugh. It's either that or cry, he thought. And I'm not going to cry.

Thankfully, after what seemed like several minutes, Alex regained control of his leg and carried on climbing. He eventually finished the race a creditable 528th out of 1,150.

But Alex's leg didn't shake because he was nervous—and he wasn't just battling the heat and exhaustion like his fellow competitors. Alex has incurable Parkinson's disease.

He was diagnosed in June 2008, aged just 36. For three dark months, he was devastated and frightened. He'd always been such an active man, combining working full time with training in the early mornings and evenings for various marathons. How could that continue?

"Then I realised that I couldn't just sit and wallow," he says. "It was probably better that I got Parkinson's than anyone around me. I've always been able to run distances because I'm mentally strong."

Instead, he decided to carry on with his athletic career and establish the "10 Million Metres" challenge. By running, swimming or cycling in events that will see him cover 10 million metres (6,200 miles) around the world by 2014,

he is hoping to increase awareness of his disease—which affects six million people worldwide—and raise Elm for the Cure Parkinson's Trust.

He kicked off with the 85-mile Ridgeway run from Hertfordshire to Wiltshire in August 2009, and has since completed 11 other events, including marathons—in locations ranging from Reading to Dubai —and last August's London triathlon.

Alex often battles intense pain, a result of his degenerative condition (which causes shaking and rigidity in his body and may one day stop him walking or even speaking), when competing with a heady mix of ibuprofen, other medication and strict mental techniques. When the physical strain begins to tell, he'll often, for example, imagine a white room containing a box. He sees himself putting his pain in the box, then walking away.

In September 2010, Alex accidentally overdosed on medication while on holiday and began having fits, then blacked out. His wife Aurelie slapped him repeatedly to try to rouse him, but he didn't respond. "I remember coming to, inside myself," he says. "I felt like I was being smothered by a blanket and there was a huge weight on my chest stopping my lungs from expanding. I was terrified that if I didn't fight to get conscious, I'd never wake up."

But even this didn't put him off his mission, and three days later he ran 135 miles in 52 hours in an "ultra marathon" race across the Bavarian Alps.

While running through the night, he fell asleep on his feet. "When I woke up,

I was on the edge of a deep, black gully with nothing but scree and rocks beneath me. A few more steps and I could've run straight off into the darkness."

His eyes are gleaming and wide open (a sign of Parkinson's, but also, in this case, excitement) as he adds: "Still, some people have drugs, some have drinks, some have food and I have races!"

His latest challenge, which he was expecting to complete on July 9 [just after we went to press], is his biggest yet, running 1,500 miles from London to Rome. His running companion is his friend and veteran triathlete Dave Clamp.

"There's certainly a one-track mindedness about Alex," says the 42-year-old from Cheshire. Dave was so inspired by Alex's vision for the 10 Million Metre mission that he decided to join him on the Bavarian marathon and hopes to become a regular partner on future challenges. "I was tootling along in life before and feeling like something special was going to happen. I think this is it."

Alex won't be resting for long after his return from Rome. In September, he'll compete in the 140-mile Henley Challenge, which requires him to run, cycle►

Alex completing the Marathon des Sables (above), and cycling (above right) and running (with Dave Clamp, below right) on the TransEurope Challenge last month —covering more than 1,400 miles from London's Marble Arch to the Circus Maximus in Rome

and, for the first time during his mission, swim. He's particularly nervous about this 2.2-mile leg of the race, because he nearly drowned in a friend's pool when he was five after falling off a lilo. "I panicked and struggled, then a calmness came over me as if my body was giving up. I remember seeing flowers diving into the poont was my best friend's mum in a floral dress. She saved my life, but I've been afraid of water since then."

Alex recently underwent hypnosis to overcome his fear so that he can train properly for the race. As a result, he's been regularly swimming 750 metres round a lake in Reading.

With the help of his main sponsor, financial-consultancy group deVere, Alex also plans to travel to South Africa in late September to complete the Otter Mountain Trail, then to Greece in November

to run the Athens Classic Marathon.

Plans for 2012 include long-distance triathlons in Australia and South Africa and a 3,000-mile run across the States.

Aurelie, who is also a lawyer, says she and their two young children do find it hard when he's away.

"I know he wants me to be more bouncy about all this, and I do try, although I get quite worried, especially on really long races. But I am very proud."

So far, Alex has covered around 1,500,000 metres-15 per cent of his target—and raised more than £25,000. There's a long way to go, but he remains focused and positive: "Every single donation brings us closer to the possibility of a cure, something I'm convinced we can find—even if it's too late for me." ■

» Visit alexflynn.co.uk to donate.

AMAZING WEATHER # 6 CATCHING THE RAYS, OR COWERING INDOORS

As the nation heads off on holiday—or just out into the garden—it's worth taking a little sun know-how with you...

CERTAIN TYPES OF THIN CLOUD CAN MAGNIFY THE STRENGTH OF UV RAYS

The amount of time you need in the sun to produce vitamin D varies from person to person, and depends on skin type, time of day, time of year, and where you live.

Dermatologists divide skin types into six categories, ranging from type 1 (fair skin that burns very easily in the sun and doesn't tan) to type 6 (darker black skin that doesn't burn easily). It's just a matter of common sense, really: make sure you get some sunshine as you go about your daily life, but not so much that you burn your skin.

By

Dr

Liz Bentley,

founder of the Weather Club (theWeatherClub.org.uk.), formed by the Royal Meteorological Society.

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Taking his family to live in Beijing was like jumping into the middle of the world's,' greatest story, says Angus Walker, China correspondent, /TV News

CHUNG

When old meets new: Angus with wife Noemi and children Julius and Saskia

HE MAGNOLIA TREE OUT-

SIDE my daughter's bedroom window has begun to bloom. It's the end of the first winter for my family in Beijing. We've now endured the cold (minus 15 at times) and the dry air (there was no rain for 160 days). The drought was ended by the city authorities using old anti-aircraft guns to fire silver iodide shells into the skies to "cloud seed". The next day, we and the rest of the 20 million population were treated to the first snow of the season— they called it "coaxed snow".

What coaxed us, a family with two children aged one and three, to China, the world's second-largest economy and largest polluter? For me, it's the chance to report from a country described by many as "the story of the century". For the family, we had to make a big decision. This is the city where our daughter's school has a flag system—a red flag flying in the corridor means no child is allowed outside (the air is too polluted). In the classrooms, there are hospital-standard air purifiers. My company ITN also provided air cleaners for installation in our new home. Luckily, for much of the winter we had "blue-sky days" when the air quality was relatively OK.

We've also been able to take in a city where you can just stand on the street

corner and be amazed. Amid the modern skyscrapers that would be at home in New York are the clues to an ancient civilisation: the red lanterns hanging from doorways down an alley formed by huge glass office blocks; the language and the writing; the wealth and the poverty (weaving through the brand-new BMWs, you'll see a man on a bicycle towing a trailer with a toddler perched on top of bundles of recycled cardboard). All this in a city where the Rolls-Royce dealership now sells more cars than anywhere else in the world.

WE'VE LOVED BEING IN CHINA SO FAR.

The children are surrounded by people who always seem ready to smile and laugh, especially at my language skills. I've managed to order what must have been frog when I thought I was ordering chicken (which made me wonder if they offer a "hoppy meal" in branches of a popular burger chain).

Our son, blond and 18 months old, is a major attraction wherever he goes. At first it shocked us that strangers would think nothing of sticking their hands into the pram and pinching the cheek of a rather startled toddler. One Sunday afternoon, I came out of a shop in the Hutong area of Beijing, where the old streets are spared from the bulldozers (for now), only to see a crowd around

"The children are surrounded by people who always seem ready to smile"

my wife and children. What dreadful accident has happened, I thought, as I ran up the road towards them. It was my son drawing an audience of locals, all keen to see the blond lao wei (foreigner) smiling away, his face ruddy with the winter air. At that moment I thought, This is a city of people who love family life.

A few weeks later, that lust for life could be heard for miles. Fireworks...more like World War Three. The end of the Chinese New Year two-week holiday is marked by the Lantern Festival. The compound management, who own our rented home, sent around a note in advance: "Please only set off fireworks in the designated area." Unfortunately, that designated area would be the basketball court just a few feet from our house.

Beijing Lond firew look coup quid's fired in a s back g made on's orks like a le of worth off oggy arden

Even before darkness fell, the opening salvos boomed out across the city. Fireworks here seem a lot louder. We'd lived not far from the River Thames before, so each year on New Year's Eve we were treated to the display around the London Eye. Beijing made London's celebrations look like a couple of quid's worth fired off in a soggy back garden.

The only way my wife and I could talk to each other was by shouting. The front door vibrated with each shock wave. Luckily, the children were managing to stay asleep because we'd cranked up the speed of the air purifiers, which produced enough white noise to block out the bangs. So they slept on, while we instinctively ducked with every blast.

Eventually, I went outside to see for r.

Rolls-Royce sell more cars here than anywhere else, but you can't beat the traditional rickshaw when it comes to exploring the narrow Hutongs (alleyways) of Beijing

4 myself that the city seemed to be exploding. The designated area wasn't the only place being used as a launch site— in the middle of the compound there's a roundabout, which now resembled a Chinese Cape Canaveral.

Fireworks aren't sold by the single rocket. You buy a tea-chest-sized container, a whole display in a box. Light one fuse sticking out of the box and retire— but not to a safe distance. Most people prefer the danger zone a couple of feet away. Twice I saw one of these boxes topple over, so high-powered rockets fired sideways just a foot off the ground into the watching crowd, then across a road of traffic and into pedestrians. This was all part of the fun, apparently.

ERHAPS

THE MOST striking symbol in China of how old and modern have collided in a disastrous way is a huge, ultra-modern skyscraper, charred and twisted like a log in the fireplace. This building, opposite the CCTV (Chinese TV) HQ, was burnt to a crisp when fireworks let off on Chinese New Year turned it into a towering inferno—a symbol of China's charge into this century destroyed by one of its oldest inventions.

The shell of the burnt-out building sums up the complexities of the Chinese capital that I'm only beginning to see: the Ferraris driving past communist party buildings; the global burger and chicken restaurants in a country where noodles ►

41 and street barbecue skewers must be some of the world's oldest fast food; and even the poorest scrap gatherers with their cardboard and plastic bottles are busy chatting into their mobiles.

This is a communist country, still ruled by "The Party", and uniformed authority is everywhere—although, as we know, rules can be bent and others make no sense. Take our trip to kit out the house. China has a huge Ikea, one of the largest in the world, and in the kitchen department I picked up two carving knives. While lobbing them into the trolley I was accosted by a woman in a green army uniform. "Passport!" she demanded, and I duly handed it over. I carry it at all times, as requested by the police. My name and number were taken. It was explained to me that this was because of the Expo (or World Fair) taking place in Shanghai. I thought about asking how noting down my details in Ikea in Beijing would stop me attacking someone at the Expo.

As for Ikea itself, "crowded" wouldn't do it justice. It was a public holiday, and entering the huge blue warehouse was

like being in the crowd walking into Twickenham stadium: there was that same excited expectation and I was being carried along with the surge; changing direction or pace was not an option. Once inside, the masses set upon the shelves like toddlers let loose in a ball pool. Bizarrely, the pots and pans, sofas and sheets were all so familiar, you could be in Croydon or Wembley.

I almost took a photo of the people actually asleep in the beds. I'm told some round-the-clock workers prefer the bedroom section of Ikea to the commute back to their small flats, which many share with flatmates on a shift basis—the so called "ant tribes".

Next, it was the "Buy Now" shopping centre—it sounds Chinese when said aloud. I did what the big sign on the door said and bought an iron, kettle and toaster. My free gift was "The Medicine Comforting Spirit Pillow", which I was told is full of herbs. As I inhaled the fragrance, I felt that China is now the place my family live and breathe. A country where history has been made, and is being made. ■

NATURAL WONDERS: TREEHOPPERS

Adapting to your environment is essential if you want to survive long enough to be written about in a magazine. In this respect, treehoppers have been more successful than most, with a lineage that stretches back 40 million years or more. These quirky bugs attach themselves to the stems of plants and feed on sap. They attract little attention because of their cunning camouflage—an enlarged "pronotum" (not unlike the dorsal fin on a shark or dolphin) that resembles a thorn. Scientists have suggested that these attachments evolved from normal insect wings that gradually fused together.

It's the kind of luxury safari holiday that most of us can only dream about—the preserve of the rich and famous. Or is it?

They offer a once-in-alifetime kind of holiday: Wilderness Safaris' camps, around northern Botswana's Okavango Delta, are the luxury settings for wealthy tourists looking to get close to big game in its natural habitat.

For up to £700 a night, this is adventure minus the discomfort. You might sleep under canvas—but on deeply sprung divan beds. You'll have en suite hot showers and flushing WCs, eat superbly and each day venture out into the bush with expert guides to photograph lions, leopards, elephants, zebra and antelope. And as night falls you can sit on your private verandah and listen to hippos squelching in the adjacent waterhole and the screech of monkeys overhead.

Even getting to one of these exclusive destinations is stylish. It involves taking a private plane from the small town of Maun, flying eye to eye with sea eagles and whitebacked vultures.

Now turn the page to meet some of those lucky enough to get to stay there...

NOT WHO YOU WERE EXPECTING?

That's because this is one of those times when would-be visitors find their favourite accommodation is unavailable. For several weeks every year, Wilderness Safaris opens up to local children instead, in a programme designed both to give support to poor youngsters and also to help ensure Botswana has a future generation of conservation-minded adults.

For six days, the wide-eyed children, many of whom have lost one or both parents to Aids-related illnesses, enjoy the camps, plus an intensive programme of education, encouragement and—most importantly—fun.

This month marks the tenth anniversary of the Children in the Wilderness (CITW) scheme, which has helped 1,000 Botswanan children aged 10-14 get back into education, learn life skills and get on track for jobs they want to do.

"If we can give them back their optimism, they can go on to great things," says Geoffrey Aupiti, 34, the programme coordinator in Botswana. "The kids who come here have never had time to play or just be children. They've been too busy looking after their younger brothers and sisters or even parents, as well as trying to get to school each day.

"Our aim is that, by the time they leave, they feel valued and aware of their potential. And because of where they

are, they also take away an understanding of how important wildlife is in Botswana. That it's not simply 'food' or `danger'."

They also know that Geoffrey's team will follow up with visits and that there's the possibility of returning for a second programme, Environmental Stewardship.

Unexpectedly, it's not the trappings of the 21st century that turn the children's heads. They don't enthuse over electric sockets or flushing toilets—although the beds, they all agree, are better than the floor they usually sleep on. Even when watching the movie Madagascar, the bags of popcorn prove just as appealing. The children have so little that their priorities are focused on the essentials: food, water, clothing, education—and love.

Naledl, 20, is a volunteer tent leader, watching over four boys, checking they have clothes without too many holes to wear, making sure they get up in the night to go to the toilet, and dealing with their fears. Naledi's father died when he was two, and his mother was struggling. He was invited to participate in a CITW camp when he was 17.

"There were 16 of us and the big message I heard was, 'How can I best serve myself?' I needed more education. I was always interested in the environment—I'd joined the environment club at school—but I learned so much more here in that week. And everything was so different. At home you do your jobs

and go to bed when it gets dark. If you're lucky, you talk to your parents about your day. AtCITW we sang, danced and had fun. So I started to study and I'll soon qualify as a guide."

Twelve-year-old Onkgo comes from the tiny village of Sankuyo on the southern edge of the Delta. She, her mother and younger brother live in a single room with a corrugated iron roof "near the tuck shop". (Every village worth its salt has one of these, a reminder of former British rule.) "I leave home at 6.50am to walk to school and come back when it finishes at 1.15pm. So I really hope I'll learn a lot here. I want to be a nurse.

"Yesterday we learned why we must

Pushing potential: Geoffrey Aupiti (above) and Leruo, one of his eager students

not kill all the animals. Today is health and hygiene—why we must wash ourselves because of bacteria; why we must not use the river for washing clothes.

"This is what I'll have in my home one day," she says, pointing to the en suite shower in her tent, with its brass taps and solar-powered hot water. "I'm using it three times a day. Usually, I wash in a bowl!"

Skinny 11-year-old Leruo stands at a flip chart in his too-small shoes and his too-big T-shirt and confidently tells the others what he's learned about tourism. He got nicknamed "the professor".

"I'd like to be a soldier," he says later, "because I want to help my nation. And soldiers get good clothes." What is his home like? "It's better here," he says. His one-room traditional mud-brick home doesn't even have a yard. Water has to be carried in from the village standpipe. The river is his bathroom.

Was he excited when the football World Cup came to neighbouring South Africa? He looks bewildered. With no radio or television, it had completely passed him by. He doesn't go out to play or to kick a ball with friends. He lives with his older sister and brother, and it's a hard life with no parents. "They died in 2006"—the date, when he was only seven, clearly burned into his mind. Were they sick? He nods. Tears form shiny tracks down his dusty cheeks. "It was better before," he whispers.

And of all the exciting things he'd seen here—videos, electric light, indoor bathrooms, cameras and computers— what would he take home to his sister and brother if he could? He considers the question politely. "Food," he says.

BUT WHAT'S PAUL NEWMAN GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Ten years ago, in August 2001, movie star Paul Newman booked a two-week trip with his daughter and friends to Namibia, Botswana and the Victoria Falls through Julian Harrison's Premier Tours of Philadelphia, the same company that supplied Maldives holidays for 2011 Oscar winners such as Colin Firth and Natalie Portman. South Africa-raised former safari guide Harrison selected Wilderness Safaris for the film star, who also founded the Hole in the Wall Camps charity for seriously ill children.

Newman's visit couldn't have been more timely. By 2001, hundreds of Botswanan children were being engulfed by the tragedy of HIV/Aids decimating their families. The tiny population of two million was shrinking, hit by 26,000 deaths a year from the virus (compared with 500 in the UK out of a population of almost 60 million). The average lifespan had fallen from 60 to 40 in ten years, and in June 2001 Botswana's president Festus Mogae had warned the UN: "We are in danger of extinction."

Unicef estimated there were 78,000 Aids orphans before the

Wilderness

Safaris

co-founder

Colin Bell

Star quality: Paul Newman playing with sick children from the Hole in the Wall Camps

government began to issue free antiretroviral drugs.

Campfire conversation came round to the Hole In the Wall Camps, explains Colin Bell, who co-founded Wilderness Safaris in Botswana in 1983 and ran it until 2006. "I started to wonder if the idea could be adapted for impoverished southern African children.

"At the end of his safari, Paul Newman came to my house and we brainstormed the idea. What really appealed to me was the idea of hosting kids in a caring, nurturing environment, with a structured

curriculum and great mentors to help them overcome their difficulties.

"We adapted Paul's programme and made it work for vulnerable rural kids who live round the boundaries of national parks and generally see wildlife and wilderness as a hindrance. We aimed to inspire them to continue with their schooling and to believe in the future. And to go back to their villages as torch-bearers for conservation and their region. Things moved quickly—we held our first camp in December of that year."

The Association of Hole in the Wall Camps also grew from the experience, adds Hole in the Wall's Steve Nagler. "In many ways our current programme, the Global Partnership Initiative [with, for example, Prince Harry's Sentebale project in Lesotho], is a direct outgrowth of our work with CITW."

Since 2001, CITW has expanded into Namibia, Malawi, South Africa, the Seychelles, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Almost 4,000 children have benefited directly, and thousands more from the messages they have taken home about health, hygiene, diet, relationships, their local economies and conservation. ■

» For more information, visit childreninthewilderness.com.

HOME SWEET CAVE

Post-holiday slump? Tired of the 9-5? lick Weston decided it was time to try a different kind of lifestyle altogether...

Ever since I studied archaeology at university and specialised in hunter-gatherer societies, I've been drawn to the simple life. I recently set up a huntergatherer school, specialising in foraging and hunting, near Lewes, East Sussex. I lived on a desert island for three months as the survival expert on Channel 4 reality showShipwrecked.And I spent six months in a treehouse for a book.

But I'd never really got back to nature properly. So I decided to take up the ultimate challenge—to spend a week living as a caveman, eating what he would have eaten, sleeping as he would have slept, and doing everything he'd have done during the day. My friend Al Humphreys agreed to join me and photograph the project.

We'd be shunning io,000 years of human de';/'Aslopment. It would be tough, but the US ►

1counter-culturalist John Zerzan has claimed that the hunter-gatherer period was the only time man successfully integrated into nature without exploiting it. Perhaps Al and I—and society—could learn something from our experiences?

So on a sunny evening this May, the pair of us were sitting in a pub, filling our bellies before heading into the woods to camp under the stars for a last night of relative comfort in sleeping bags before starting next day as Mesolithic men.

DAY 1

AFTER A SHORT SEARCH THE PREVI-

OUS EVENING, we had found a great location for our first camp. We wouldn't be in a cave initially—despite the name, cavemen moved around to wherever there was food. We were out in the open in a wood full of hornbeam, oak and birch that was surrounded by fields—perfect for hunting, trapping and gathering.

"This is going to be great fun," I declared, excited by the adventure ahead.

"I'm just looking forward to being offline," said Al. "Especially Twitter. My addiction is getting worrying."

Our first task was to start a fire. This would be the focal point of our caveman existence: a source of warmth, comfort and cooking, as well as a way of keeping any residual sabre-tooth tigers at bay. Soon, Al and I made a typical Stone Age scene—two men hunched over a hand drill made of elder twiddling it into a clematis stalk to light a bundle of dry grass. Thin wisps of smoke got thicker and we shortly had a roaring fire. Our most important job had been completed with ease—we'd started on a high.

Next, we had to build shelters and find

food, but, to do that, we needed some tools. Luckily, the caveman technique of flint knapping is part of the foraging course I teach and we were near the South Downs, a chalk landscape rich in flint, so we swiftly found some large pieces and began shaping them using an old antler. After an hour or so, we had our own Mesolithic toolkit: blades, scrapers, spearheads and a rudimentary axe. Time to start hunter-gathering! We

Clockwise from top left: making a spear; Nick uses an elder hand drill (above) and dry grass (below) to start a fire; Nick's haul of burdock roots

We cut strips of venison with flint blades and roasted them on hazel skewers. They tasted incredible. Our side dish was singed nettles

set our six wire snares (a concession to the modern world—it's illegal to use plant and wood snares, or a bow and arrow, in the UK) on some likely-looking rabbit runs and left them to work their magic. Then we turned to a more immediate source of sustenance: plants.

Spring is a good time for wild edible greens—nettles, sorrel, three-cornered leeks and hop shoots. But, after hours of scouring the woods and fields, we'd only

turned up some ox-eye daisies, the odd handful of hairy bittercress and a smattering of other uninspiring plants.

"Will we find any toast and jam in these hedgerows?" Al asked hopefully.

Mixing and matching leaves and flowers improved the flavour, although we still needed something more substantial. By around 4pm, we were lethargic, but still had no shelter, so, after checking our still-empty snares, we cut down lengths of hazel to build two half-dome frames, which we bound together with honeysuckle vines and waterproofed with bracken and hazel leaves.

We'd finished by early evening, but it got dark quickly in the woods. So, before it was too late, we gathered a stack of wood large enough to make a fire the length of our bodies to keep us warm overnight. We'd brought a lump of venison to give us a kick-start in the protein stakes (another small cheat, but we were jumping into this without any experience, and we couldn't hunt deer). We cut strips with flint blades and roasted them on hazel skewers. They tasted incredible with three-cornered leek and, although the only side dish was singed nettles, it was the high point of the day.

It was time for bed. Our mattresses would be two buckskins, which I had cured some months earlier, and a layer of bracken. They were actually quite comfortable and provided good insulation from the cold, hard ground. Our duvets were two goatskins.

"Hey, this is the perfect size!" exclaimed a delighted Al. In a moment of goodwill, I had handed over the bigger of the two skins to my taller companion. Mine barely made it up to my chest with my feet ►

Our stomachs weren't the only thing rumbling. The sound of thun poking out the bottom. Disappointing. I was hoping for a bit of banter to end the day, but as I started talking about the blog posts on my wild-food web site, a faint snore came from his side of the fire. He was out for the count.

DAY 2

WAKING UP SHIVERING AT DAWN,

barely covered by a fur, with a dying fire in front of you, is fairly unpleasant, but it came with a silver lining. The wood was slowly awakening and there was a magical hour as the birds began to sing and the first rays of sun poked through the trees. A buzzard drifted through the hornbeams and out into the field to begin the day's hunt, so I followed suit and went to check the snares, which by now must surely have come up trumps.

Dejection followed. Four had been ignored, one had only managed to snare tufts of rabbit fur, and the other had completely vanished—perhaps stolen by our main food-chain rival: the fox. Back at camp, Al had got the fire going

again and we both sat in our respective shelters burning off the morning chill. Several minutes of silence followed. Then, finally, Al muttered, "No coffee..."

This prompted an intense debate about coffee selection, filtration and consumption, followed by an interesting "Which is your favourite breakfast?" stream of consciousness. Throughout the morning, food was the main topic of conversation. In fact, it was pretty much the only topic. Between checking untouched snares and making more tools, we were getting hungrier and hungrier and this tipped into laziness and irritability. We spent hours just staring into space. We wanted to do and create things, to make the most of our short-lived simple life, but our empty bellies were getting the better of us.

We decided it was carbohydrates we needed, so, armed with a sharp stick, we went in search of roots.

Pignuts, dandelion and burdock roots were on the menu, but, though we found some burdock fairly easily, it has a habit of growing in uncompromising, stony

From left: meagre finds in the forest (top); chomping on strips of venison (below); Stone Age house building

der grew and the first drops of rain landed on our bracken roofs ground, and we used more energy digging the roots up than we were likely to gain from eating them. The few pignuts we found were smaller than a very small marble that's shrunk, so we decided to leave them in the ground.

"What I'd do for a potato," I groaned, staring down at our measly haul.

But we roasted the roots in the embers of the fire and they were pleasant—if no substitute for homemade chunky chips— and our spirits lifted. We went hunting with our spears, hoping a pheasant might appear, and, though lack of energy meant we gave up fairly quickly, we still had some venison left. It was beginning to whiff, but we spent the early evening smoking strips of it in the fire.

We didn't talk much again that evening—a little bit about our grand ambitions for the following year. But, out here in the woods, they seemed out of reach, and we settled into our separate shelters not long after dark.

Soon our stomachs weren't the only thing rumbling. The distant sound of

thunder grew closer and the first drops of rain landed on our bracken and hazel roofs. Bugger.

DAY 3

WE'D GONE TO SLEEP EXPECTING to wake up soaked, but, thankfully, the threatened deluge never arrived. This cheered us up a bit. We pottered about picking leaves to eat and collecting wood. Some time mid-morning (not sure when— didn't have a watch) a couple of 60-something female walkers appeared.

"What a lovely den you've built—did you sleep outside last night?"

I would have preferred the term Mesolithic hunting camp, but I politely explained what we were doing.

"You don't look much like cavemen," said the walkers. "You don't even have a cave..."

They were right. Though anthropologically accurate, our set-up reeked of modern bushcraft. We badly needed a change of scene. It was time to move. It didn't take long to find our cave.

Nick spears a carp

For supper, we wrapped the fish in burdock leaves and roasted it in the embers

There was no frantic searching while pursued by a mammoth—I knew a place a couple of miles away where I used to go as a young boy. Our eerie, dark, new home suddenly made me and Al feel much more prehistoric.

With our furs laid out and the fire set, we moved off in search of water. Three days of wood smoke, dried leaves and earth really gets into your skin, so we scrubbed ourselves down in a nearby lake using birch leaves, which are known for their cleaning ability. It was invigorating. Then we set some fishing lines and, much to our delight, caught a good-size carp—a pleasant change in diet.

Our mood improved with the prospect of protein, but we were increasingly aware that time had slowed down. We were spending five hours a day looking for food, but then we had nothing to do. I don't know whether Stone Age man suffered like this, but let's hope not—how would it feel for years on end? Maybe food, sex and violence were enough for him—he didn't know any better. But we did, and we were missing TV, books and the like more than we'd expected.

The confines of the cave were not helping the situation. It was damp, and the smoke made scores of spiders drop from the roof—false widow spiders at that, one of the 12 species in Britain that can give you a nasty nip.

For supper, we wrapped the fish in burdock leaves and roasted it in the embers. It was surprisingly good, but small. Smelling damp and feeling demoralised, I rolled up in my furs and tried to sleep. Yet all I could dream of was food.

DAY 4

SUNLIGHT WAS POURING INTO

THE cave when I woke up, which was very pleasant—even if the obscene, modern, red graffiti it illuminated on the wall was a far cry from the inspiring art created by our ancestors.

Perhaps having just one day to go had something to do with it, but I felt happier. Al and I tried some target practice with spears. The snares, inevitably, were still empty but the lake produced an unexpected find: four duck eggs. It's illegal to eat them, but we thought it gave us a reasonable excuse to wangle some

legitimate ones from a kind woman in a nearby cottage, who, tantalisingly, seemed to be in the middle of making a cake.

Sadly, the first two eggs exploded violently when we tried to cook them in the fire. But we managed to fry the rest on a piece of slate, and Al suggested fashioning some egg rings out of birch bark to prevent run-off. Genius!

That evening was peaceful and we were even reasonably chatty—though much of our conversation concerned what we'd eat or do when we finally made it back to the 21st century.

DAY 5

WE WOKE UP MORE rested on our final Stone Age morning. We had some venison left, so we spent the last couple of hours chewing strips and mulling over what we'd learned.

Life had been tough, for sure, but, on reflection, little things had made it a wonderful escape: catching a fish; not going to work; not using

a computer; not knowing the time. "Life doesn't always have to be fun to be fun," Al observed as we finally left camp and headed for a nearby greasy spoon. No full English breakfast has ever tasted so good and, as we ate, a mixture of relief and satisfaction at our achievement swept over us.

Was John Zerzan right? The huntergatherers lifestyle probably is the only way that humans can truly adapt to the planet—but that doesn't mean the caveman existence is better than ours.

BREAKFAST

Slate-fried duck egg with wild garlic and a unintended garnish of leaf litter

LUNCH

Line-caught carp wrapped in burdock leaves, accompanied by a handful of sorrel

DINNER

Starter: pignuts, with stinging nettles, bittercress and three-cornered leek.

Main: smoked venison, with a side of burdock and dandelion roots

DESSERT

Elderflowers, as God intended

HOW TO MARK OUT YOUR TERRITORY

On a recent trip to Luss, overlooking Loch Lomond in Scotland, most of the private parking spaces had a simple "No Parking" sign. However, the owner of this one left no room for doubt.

Submitted by Stephen Cooper, Doncaster

As Al said to me a couple of days later, "I've been hypersensitive since leaving. Food smells better, women look more beautiful and music has never been so appreciated." It certainly makes you realise how lucky we are to have so much—you really don't know what you've got till it's gone. So while rd probably cope if environmental disaster befalls us and mankind regresses to a Stone Age existence, I'd make sure I had a yo-yo, fishing rod and a big stack of books! ■

TAKA MYSPACE I BREAKA YOUFACE

YOUR DAILY

CAVEMAN DIET

THE MAVERICK

"WANT TO BE A SUCCESS IN BUSINESS? AVOID UNIVERSITY"

Further education is a costly waste of time if you're hoping to be the next

4011 Sir Richard Branson, says accountancy tycoon Simon Dolan

I was "asked to leave" school when I was 16. Apparently, I had too many questions and was generally disruptive. Little did I know that my headmaster was making the best possible career choice for me.

I couldn't go to university, so I started work on the bottom rung at a little accountancy firm, on £50 per week. But I worked hard, established my own practices and other businesses—and now I'm worth £100m, 703rd in The Sunday Times Rich List. I'd guess most of my contemporaries who got to college went on to graduate-training courses and are now simply middle managers shuffling bits of paper.

Not one entrepreneur I can think of completed a degree. Think Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell —all college dropouts. Closer to home, we have Sir Richard Branson, Richard Desmond, Sir Philip Green. Is it a recent thing? Well, no. Think Carnegie, Disney, Chanel and Ford.

My belief is that people are inherently good in business, but university sucks this ability out of you. To be a successful entrepreneur you need to be able to sell, I.-

Thinking differently!

■ work hard and not take rejection to heart. Don't these qualities exist in children? My six-year-old will ask me if he can have something and, if I say no, he doesn't get upset or embarrassed— he just thinks I must have misunderstood and asks me again. And again, and again He doesn't always get a yes in the end, but it doesn't stop

of £9,000 tuition fees and predicted £40,000 graduate debts won't help. If you leave university owing that much, are you going to try to start your own business or get a job based on your degree? You go for the job, of course, or all that money was wasted!

Not all university learning is by rote, you may cry—what him asking if he can have a swimming pool with the world's tallest water slide, fountains, a bridge and a pet dolphin.

All kids have this natural persistence, curiosity and belief that anything is possible, until around the time they go into higher education.

Of my 200 employees, not one was recruited on the basis of being a graduate. I don't even look for it on CVs

Why? Well, university courses have evolved to suit very specific interests, particularly in recent years. Almost anything you can think of has a course somewhere—from media studies to geography to "surf science and technology" at Plymouth University. But this means kids leave school and spend three years doing a comfy but narrow course that doesn't give them much experience of the real world. At the same time, universities are under pressure to get good exam results, so tutors spoon-feed youngsters set curricula that they regurgitate back.

All of this undermines youngsters' investigative spirit, ability to question and sense of potential. And the prospect

about tutorials where students are encouraged to think about and debate ideas? But the problem then is what they debate. In my companies, we talk about how to get more customers, how to cut costs, how to outsmart our competitors— things that have a tangible outcome.

At university, you don't discuss anything you can measure or resolve. What was Shakespeare thinking when he wrote this or that line? I don't know, you don't know and neither of us will ever know. But students get used to thinking about things that don't matter. The harsh world of business is a long way removed from this.

Do I think a degree is a waste of time for everyone? No—my lawyer has and needs one, as does my doctor. But, of my 200 employees, not one was recruited on the basis of being a graduate. In fact, I don't even look for it on CVs.

University would be so much better from a business point of view if instead

of learning all the theories taught even on a marketing course, you were told how to pick up the phone and ask for custom—something that would back up a child's natural ability to cajole. Or if, instead of spending six months learning how to write a business plan, you were told that you need to get off your backside and do something.

ersiti —pointless Join the cebook.com/ igestuk or dersletters rsdigest. .uk Univ degrees debate at fa readersd email rea a reade co

But it'd be difficult to justify £9,000 a year for that—so maybe you'd be better off starting at the bottom in a company and working your way up. When your friend, who went to college, joins you at your company three years later, who do you think will be better equipped to do the job?

What about those big City firms that only accept graduates, you might ask? But they don't just want graduates; they want the elite. Do you have a chance of getting a first from Oxbridge? Forget it, then—City firms don't want a degree in history from Essex University. Indeed, 78 per cent of all firms recently said they're insisting on a 2.1 when recruiting graduates—making 2.2s of marginal use, and thirds almost worthless.

If you want to do a degree because you like learning for the sake of it, then good luck to you—with new-graduate

unemployment now 2.3 times higher than the UK average at 18.5 per cent, you could argue that anyone taking on the cost of a course doesn't have much financial sense anyway. But if you want to get on in business, I'd suggest you spend £40 on just four books:

1 How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. A wonderful primer. A business is sales, and sales come from having great people skills.

2 Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves by Robert Ringer. All you need to know about the power of getting on with it.

3 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. A vision of a world without business innovators (it inspired Alan Greenspan).

4 How To Make Millions Without a Degree by Simon Dolan. Yes, I wrote it, but it shows you how to start your own company by someone who's actually done it rather well.

Read these and you'll be better equipped to succeed than any graduate—and about £39,960 better off. ■

» Simon Dolan owns SJD Accountancy, Easy Accountancy and PAYE firm Contractor Umbrella.

BEWARE, ALL YE WHO ENTER!

I spotted this sign on the window of one of our local shops: "No food or drinks to be consumed on these premises. Guide dogs only."

Submitted by M G Poole, Coventry

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What began as an ordinary day finished extraordinarily, thanks to Reader's Digest Bingo!

HOW TO... BY LINDA GRAY

1,001 THIN&

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

How to WALK ON AIR

FEW BEACH-BODY REGIMES EVER REACH THE FEET, which is bad news for their owners as well as onlookers. "Good-looking feet are healthy feet," says podiatrist Emma Supple, who runs the Supplefeet clinic in Enfield, London (supplefeet.com). "They should have a good arch, pale toenails and no obvious bumps." Above all, they should be clean, because ingrained dirt can cause hard skin and calluses. A slosh in the shower isn't enough: scrub them with soap and

How to PLAY TI-IP STOCK MARKET

FIVE PER CENT INFLATION BUT ONLY 1% RETURN ON SAVINGS. You don't have to be a genius to see that your nest egg is vanishing and you might do better. Your choices are bonds,

which mean you lend money to a company, or shares, where you become a part-owner. "With bonds you'll get your money back as long as the company doesn't fold. With shares, your return depends on how well they perform," says David Yeo, director of investment website The Motley Fool (fool.co.uk). If you want a flutter,

a long-handled pan scourer, then slather on a urea-based cream such as Eucerin.

Almost everyone Emma sees has corns, which can be removed surgically and the toes plumped out with dermal filler. The cause is invariably ill-fitting shoes. "Avoid slip-ons if you get corns —you need straps and buckles," she says. Flat shoes are not always best unless you have high arches, and even men may need a raised heel for support. To find your perfect heel height, extend your leg in front of you while sitting down. The more your foot droops, the higher your heels should be.

For ultimate comfort, try splitsole dance trainers that separate the heel from the toe box. To uncurl your feet, Supple recommends Beech toe-straightening sandals (beechsandals.co.uk). They improve your posture, stretch your bones and might even sort out your bunions, for £29 a pop.

A treat for your feet: Beech toe-straightening sandals

follow the Rule of 100, says Yeo. "Subtract your age from 100—that's the percentage of your portfolio you should allocate to shares. So if you're 55 and have £30,000 to invest, put £13,500 in shares and £16,500 in a savings account."

So what shares will you

buy? A low-risk option is a stock market index-tracker ISA, a marriage between a tax-free ISA and a managed fund that follows the FTSE index of top companies (see page 122).

Joining an investment club (find one through

proshareclubs.co.uk) can give you the confidence to start trading on your own. "But if you don't understand something, don't invest in it," says Yeo. True, you may miss the new Microsoft, but you'll also avoid the next Madoff.

How to UNWIND

IF IT TAKES A WEEK TO RELAX and enjoy that precious holiday, try these simple ways to achieve instant calm.

1. Walk the coast path. Being by water boosts the feel-good effects of exercising in green spaces, according to Essex University research.

2.Eat a grape sl-o-w-ly. Feel its texture, admire its colour, then taste the juice as it spurts from the skin. This minimeditation brings your attention to the moment, instead of worrying about what's done or yet to come.

3.Visit an art gallery, jazz cellar or museum while you're away. A little culture makes us more satisfied with life, and the effect is especially marked in men, according to recent research—so no sneaking off to the bar.

How to READ A JOB ADVERT

"SITS VAC" ARE HARDER THAN EVER TO PUZZLE OUT,

now that firms can no longer advertise for a "mature person" or "girl Friday". But it's worth reading between the lines to see if the job is really one you want. Watch out for these warning-bell words:

• Self-starter, flexible attitude. "You need to be motivated and able to gauge the long-term effects of changes," says Lisa Anthony-Righton, senior research manager at Cable and Wireless Worldwide. But it could also mean the company hasn't worked out what the job is yet.

• Good customerservice skills. Keep smiling—you'll be on the receiving end of all their complaints.

• Proactive, dynamic. Stressful. "Expect a

high level of responsibility," says Lisa. "You'll need plenty of determination and the ability to develop new skills."

• Challenging. Very stressful. Find out about staff turnover and how long the last person was in the post.

• Fast-paced, energetic. Buzzwords for time-pressured—expect long hours.

• Positive attitude, team player. How diplomatic are you? These innocuous terms can indicate a difficult workplace.

• Creative. They don't want you to channel Tracey Emin. "It means an innovator, who'll question how processes are set up rather than running an established team," says Lisa.

4 Attention to detail. Means more than boring, so beware. You may have to carry the can for everyone's mistakes.

How to START A TEA PARTY

THIS STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE is the perfect way to wow your friends and make the most of this year's bumper crop.

Preheat oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7. Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl, rub in butter and stir in sugar. Combine egg, milk and vanilla extract and pour into centre of dry ingredients. Mix to form a soft dough, place on a floured work surface and roll out to form a 19cm round. Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until well-risen and golden. Cool on a wire rack, then slice the cake in half horizontally. Set aside eight strawberries, hull and slice the rest. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks and stir in the yogurt, then spread thickly over the bottom layer, saving a little for the topping. Add the sliced strawberries, then put the top layer in place. Finish with a dollop of cream mix, and decorate with the reserved strawberries.

» Discover many more afternoon delights in Teashop Treats, published on August 26 by Reader's Digest (£9.99). Visit shop.readersdigest.co.uk.

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE (serves 8)

Base:250g self-raising flour; ltsp baking powder; 90g butter, diced; 3tbsp caster sugar; 1 egg, beaten; 80m1 milk; 'asp vanilla extract

Filling:350g strawberries; 90m1 whipping cream; 90g natural yogurt

How to SAVE THE BEES

BILL

BEES MAY BE IN DECLINE, but back-garden apiarists are thriving— membership of the British Beekeepers' Association has doubled in four years. But you can't just stock a hive and walk away, says BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull (pictured), author of The Bad Beekeepers Club.

"I keep an eye on my girls—and they mostly are girls. The males just sit around eating honey," he says. Bees need checking for disease, feeding with sugar syrup in a hard winter, and monitoring for mood in case the colony turns cantankerous. But you can't rely on collecting honey—in lean years, the bees scoff it all themselves! Add to this the risk of being stung (about six times a season, according to Turnbull) and you may struggle to see the appeal.

For Bill Turnbull, it's peace of mind. "I can't think of anything but the bees when I'm dealing with the hive," he says. And when you finally harvest your honey, it will taste better than any you can buy. Even so, you might prefer to save the bees the easy way, by adopting a hive. For £29.50, you'll receive a gift pack including c.-) • wild-flower seeds, beeswax lip balm and 1• a pot of British honey (see bbka.org.uk 8 for details). At least that warm feeling will • come from within, not a well-aimed sting.

WHAT YOUR HOLIDAY REP

WON'T TELL YOU

• Yes, I do call this work. I may be by the pool but I'm in a starchy uniform, working 12 hours a day, six days a week, throughout the season. No wonder reps say they'd rather sleep than have sex. Or that 70% quit in the first month.

• If I call myself a club rep, you've (probably) booked the wrong holiday. I'm paid to party with my frisky crowd—drinking games, simulated sex and stripping are all on my CV. If you're looking for a quiet stay, you want a holiday rep, and maybe a children's rep if you have kids.

• I'm not a tour guide. I may not even speak the

language. I'll have a basic knowledge of the resort, but don't ask me about the ruins.

• Sleeping with clients is banned. That doesn't stop us doing it, though. But I wouldn't be caught smoking in uniform—that's instant dismissal. If I look like a school leaver, I probably am. Most holiday reps are under 25 because the pay's low (I'm lucky to take home £500 a month), accommodation is cramped and the pace is frantic. But I have to be 18, so you can buy me a drink.

• If I'm not helpful, speak to the boss.

Ring the resort office and talk to the area manager, who has the clout to make things happen.

• I hate airport delays, too. I'm often on meet-andgreet duty all night and still have to look cheerful for

the Welcome Meeting at 9am. And before you ask, I don't know why the flight's late either.

• Want a rep you can trust? Try a smaller company. Big packageholiday companies have the lowest quality of reps, according to a survey by Which? Travel. Independent holiday firms often go for reps over 25, who don't depend on commission from trips and can cope in a crisis.

• Don't "request" a ground-floor room. Leave the "special requests" box blank. If you need easy access/ rooms together/ single beds, write it on another part of the contract booking form and make it clear it's part of your

contract with the company—that way, we can't ignore it.

A Our folklore experience/blue lagoon boat trip is cheaper in town. But please sign up with me or I'll miss my sales targets. If I don't sell enough tours or persuade you to hire a car, it's the end of my career in the sun.

e If you don't like your room, don't unpack. I make it my business to be on good terms with the hotel manager and I can often get you moved. But not to another hotel, especially in high season.

• Take photos and keep a diary as evidence if you want to make a formal complaint. If you just write in and whinge, head office will bin your letter—along with those from chancers who decide they had a bad

holiday because the sea was wet.

• I'm not your mum. It's amazing how adults start behaving like toddlers when I'm around. A lot of you leave your medicine at home or need the loo as soon as we're on the bus. But I'm sure you can read, so if you want to see dolphins, don't choose the volcano tour!

• Want directions to the hospital? I reckon I take someone there every week—I have a duty of care towards guests. After that, you're in the hands of your insurance company, so I'll get back to the pool.

*Read carefully before you sign. Be wary if I give you a complaint form to fill in. It could contain a get-out clause that lets me and my company off the hook. ■

YOUNG GUN

Can you really trust doctors who look like they've still got milk teeth?

"Excuse me," said Mrs Thorpe as I walked past her bed, "do you think I could have more mashed potato?" She smiled politely as she held out her plate. I hesitated and looked around the ward. I was the only person she could be talking to. "Erm, I suppose so," I said, smiling benignly. "You should probably ask one of the catering staff, but I'm sure it won't be a problem."

The woman looked a little puzzled. "Aren't you here to clear the plates?" she asked. "No," I replied. "I'm actually the ward doctor." The woman's eyes widened and she blushed. "Oh, doctor, I'm so sorry, I just assumed..." her voice trailed off. "I mean, you just don't look old enough to be a doctor."

As a fresh-faced 24year-old when I first started on the wards, I was often mistaken for one of the catering staff. Occasionally, patients assumed I was a cleaner, and once a patient was so convinced that I was on work experience that he

"You just don't look old enough to be a doctor"

demanded to speak to the ward sister before he'd let me take his blood!

Lots of junior staff have this problem, and it's difficult to know how to manage the reaction from patients—often a mixture of surprise and horror that someone who looks so young is now responsible for their welfare. But, in that first year, I learned that sometimes this can have its own therapeutic benefits.

The next day Mrs Thorpe went for her operation for breast cancer. In the days after her surgery I'd sit on her bed and we'd talk. She'd give me bars of chocolate and pieces of fruit, and chastise me for not eating properly. "You're always running around. I hope you're getting enough sleep," she'd grumble. She enjoyed fussing over me and we became close.

Each day, when the consultant did his round, she'd assure him everything was fine. But, one day, when we were alone, she began to cry. "I just feel so scared. I don't

want to die," she said quietly. She explained that she didn't feel she could discuss something so intimate with the consultant.

I sat with Mrs Thorpe and arranged for the breast-cancer-care nurse to visit her when she got back home.

I realised then that my youth could be an advantage. The older patients treated me as a son or grandson, and opened up to me in a way they wouldn't with more senior doctors.

Of course, I'm older and more senior now, but there's still a part of me that wishes someone would ask me for another helping of mashed potato. Just once in a while.

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

Max's new book The Doctor Will See You Now is out this month.

KNOW YOUR ORGANS

Although the ovaries are small —they're about the size and shape of an almond—they're the powerhouses of female reproduction. They sit either side of the uterus. Inside each ovary are immature eggs surrounded by cells known as follicles. Each month the ovaries take it in turn to release an egg. This is controlled by the hormone oestrogen, which triggers a complex set of interactions in the body.

FOLLICULAR CHALLENGE

A dip in the level of oestrogen in the blood occurs every month and triggers a gland in the brain called the hypothalamus to release a hormone called gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH), which in turn tells the pituitary gland in the brain to secrete folliclestimulating hormone (FSH) into the blood. When the ovaries detect this, 10-20 follicles begin to develop in the

ovaries. One of these will develop into an egg that's then released from the ovary to pass down the fallopian tubes into the uterus, where it may be fertilised. If fertilisation occurs, the follicle in the ovary secretes the progesterone that makes sure the lining of the womb grows and isn't lost through menstruation.

THE PO

The job of the pill is to keep oestrogen and progesterone levels in the blood high and thus prevent follicles in the ovaries developing and releasing an egg.

WHAT CAN GO WRONG?

Sometimes the follicles don't develop properly and become cysts. This can interfere with the hormone levels in the body—a complex condition known as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) that's linked with fertility problems.

ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET

Amazingly, a baby girl is born with one million ovarian follicles, which contain all the immature eggs she will ever have throughout her life. ■

NEXT MONTH: the testes

HEALTH WITH SUSANNAH

HICKLING

HOTAND HEALTHY

How do you stop a barbie feast from becoming a bug fest?

It's summer and that lovely aroma of grilled food is wafting across the neighbourhood. But with it comes the risk of tummy upsets. So make sure you:

• Allow your barbie time to get going. The charcoal needs to be glowing red, with a grey surface.

• Wash your hands, especially before preparing food and after touching meat. Clean surfaces before you start, too, and always wash salads. They can harbour harmful bacteria such as E. coll.

• Grill food evenly, so that everything is cooked all the way through and is piping hot. Don't take any chances with chicken—wings and

drumsticks can take a while to cook.

• Keep food chilled in the fridge until you're ready to eat it. Dips, mayonnaise and—yep---salads can attract bacteria if left out in the heat.

• Cover up the buffet to keep insects away. A housefly is a buzzing bacteria machine!

• Think twice about rice. Don't leave it out in the warm air for too long, and never reheat—this gives the bacterium B. cereus ample opportunity to multiply and give you food poisoning.

WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO AVOID BOWEL CANCER?

According to a new review of research into this condition, you should avoid processed meat and eat no more than 500g of red meat each week. That's about five or six medium portions of Iamb, pork or beef. So go easy on the sausages and on the booze, too, as that's another major risk factor for bowel tumours.

6EASY

MOOD BOOSTERS

1.Keep core muscles strong. This will give you better balance, help prevent backache, and tighten your mid-section. Try a hula Ile hoop or Pilates.

2. Take care of your teeth. Go to the hygienist for a good clean twice a year to prevent the build-up of plaque that can lead to gum disease.

3. Stand tall. Research shows we immediately look slimmer when we stand up straight, and it has a positive effect on mood and behaviour.

4. Shampoo less often. Washing your hair every other day—or less—allows natural oils to make it shiny. One shampooing per wash is usually enough.

5. Eat a protein-packed breakfast. Replace a carb-based brekkie with a protein one containing the same number of calories if you want to maintain or lose weight.

6. Have more sex. Need a reason? Research shows that a good sex life helps you look younger.

WHAT REALLY TRIGGERS YOUR MIGRAINE

In spite of what you might think, more often than not it's nothing to do with food

Source:

THE DIET DOCTOR

Dr David Ashton, of Healthier Weight, on how the mind can affect weight

The phrase "perception is all" doesn't just relate to how we view one another, it seems. Now, research from Yale University suggests that our perception of the food we eat could influence our ability to lose weight.

A key factor in appetite regulation is a powerful hormone called ghrelin (the "hunger hormone"). Ghrelin stimulates the appetite, so blood levels normally spike before meals and drop afterwards. People given ghrelin injections become voraciously hungry and, if given free access to a buffet, will eat 30% more than normal. Studies also show that dieters who lose weight and then try to keep it off produce more ghrelin than they did before

DOCTOR IN YOUR POCKET

dieting, which helps explain why most diets don't work—or at least not for long. In the Yale study, participants were given a 380-calorie milkshake under the pretence that it was either a 620-calorie "luxury" milkshake or a 140-calorie "healthy" shake. Researchers found that study participants who believed they were drinking the high-fat, high-calorie shake had a rapid fall in ghrelin levels after drinking it and felt full. On the other hand, those who drank what they thought was a "healthy" shake, showed little change in ghrelin levels and still felt hungry. These responses were close to what would have been expected had the study volunteers actually been given a 620- or a 140calorie milkshake.

It's a striking illustration of how just our beliefs can result in real alterations to body chemistry. In effect, the brain was tricked into either feeling full or unsatisfied, on the basis of an entirely incorrect perception. Along with _Jr other studies, this experiment gives important insights into how the mind and body work together to determine our responses to food.

Maybe the idea of thinking ourselves slim isn't that silly after all.

Want to find out straight away what that rash is or how to treat a throbbing insect bite? Now you can, just by answering a few questions on your smartphone. NHS Direct's new app gives access to all its 37 online symptom checkers and will either give tips for selfcare or get an NHS Direct nurse adviser to call you back. Download from Android Market or iTunes. (No smartphone? Check symptoms at nhsdirect.nhs.uk.) ■

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BEAUTY WITH JAN MASTERS

GLASSY-EYED

Sure-fire ways to pump up your specs appeal

I have a new accessory in my life. Glasses. Sitting at my computer, I'd started to notice that the text seemed less sharp. I figured further Googling was probably going to require goggles, so I booked a check-up at my optician's.

Turns out it was time for specs, so I went for a purple pair of 50s-style cat's eyes, and another ultra-slim pair in techno tortoiseshell with coral-pink arms—both from Paris-based eyewear designer Face a Face.

Without doubt, they make work less tiring, and I like to think they've given me fighter-pilot vision. But when it comes to looking good in specs, you may need some make-up tweaks. Here are some tips I've learned so far:

■ Glasses can create a micro-climate around the bridge of your nose, so experiment with a base that resists meltdown. Revlon ColorStay Foundation, £12.49, is a dewy but non-smeary formula, as is L'Oreal Paris True Match Minerals Foundation, £15.31.

■ It's worth brightening and concealing your under-eye area because frames can cast shadows.

Try Benefit's Erase Paste, £19.50. And don't forget to conceal any redness around the nose, so your whole look is cleaner.

■ Perform perfect topiary on your brows—they actually frame your frames. Maintain an elegant arch and avoid rounded shapes, which may fight with the curves of your glasses. Next, fill out with feathery strokes using a soft pencil, such as Rimmel Professional Eyebrow Pencil, £2.99. Keep application natural. Too-hard brows will compete with your frames.

■ Some lenses for short sight can make your eyes appear smaller—enhance with soft eyeliner and lighter eyeshadow in the inner corners, blending to darker shading at the outer corners. Conversely, if you're worried that glasses for longsightedness are magnifying your eyes, then be more sparing with shadowing, possibly skipping liner altogether, and apply mascara as precisely as you can. Don't focus all your coating effort on your upper lashes. Dramatise the bottom ones—it's the lower lashes that are often showcased when you're sporting a glazed look.

Do you always protect your hair on holiday? You really should, warns Kerastase hair and scalp specialist Jane Barnett: "Hot sun can scorch and bleach hair, making it brittle. Coloured hair is particularly vulnerable—as colour molecules can 'slip' out of hair causing colour loss.

"Swimming may compound damage. If you have light-coloured hair, the presence of copper in the water can sometimes give it a greenish tinge. Chlorine can also weaken the hair's structure, while sea water's high salt content can lift and roughen the outer cuticle," she says.

If you don't take action, there's a "solar debt" to pay

• because your hair won't be in good shape to deal with u, • future colour treatments or the onslaught of winter.

°

•For top-notch protection, try the L'Oreal Kerastase (&) Soleil range. For a super-glam shimmering finish, go for a ra CO et the Soleil Huile Celeste, £18.30, with UVA and UVB filters.

cn

•

•Treat post-holiday hair to Lee Stafford ArganOir Ff.8 from Morocco Nourishing Miracle Oil, £11.99, exclusively E from Boots. Great for hydrating and smoothing.

If you and your skin are feeling tired, Origins' new night cream is designed to help you relax as well as refresh your complexion.

THANK YOU... AND GOOD NIGHT

High Potency NightA-Mins® MineralEnriched Renewal Cream, £32, not only contains ingredients to nurture the skin, but also a cocktail of soothing oils. Indeed,

Origins report that in a sleep study, using a "wristwatch" device that measures the number of tosses and turns during the night, almost all the participants who'd used the cream had a more peaceful sleep. With added ingredients to plump the skin, this is the beauty product dreams are made of.

HOME AND AWAY

Britons are 88% more aware of the dangers of being in the sun than they were ten years ago, according to Gamier Ambre Solaire research. But when Gamier polled Mumsnet, 84% of respondents said they'd definitely apply protection on holiday abroad, but just 17% would on a sunny day at home! What's more, Gamier discovered that L T, only 16% of Brits '3 apply protection (= every time they go out in the sun on c' working days, < ce despite the risk of a 03 co getting sunburned ,(2 sitting in the park 2 or just being outside. The lesson? (±) Remember the sun Lou, cream, wherever you are. •

CONSUMER WITH DONAL MAcINTYRE

MONEY SQUEEZING

What's the cost of spending a penny?

After holidaying in the jungle, I found myself going a full week without using the loo for a number two— a personal record. As I returned to Gatwick Airport, the urge came over me in the passport hall—which is loo-free! The need followed me to the baggage hall—but the toilets were closed. By the time I got my luggage, I was race-walking to the facilities in the arrivals hall.

As I had no cash on me, I was relieved that the airport loos were free. Had I taken my commuter route through Waterloo station, where the facilities are 30p a go, my seven-day abstinence could have saved £2.10.

Admittedly not the best cost-cutting plan —but it made me think: how much does it cost to spend a penny across the country?

Central London is currently the most expensive: 50p for its array of superloos and private toilets—exactly twice the cost of going to the toilet in 1955 (considering inflation), when it actually did cost a penny

to spend a penny. (Westminster Council, it seems, has 22 free—or what I like to call "second division"—facilities.)

It's good news if you're caught short in Edinburgh—all facilities are free, though maybe not for long, as charging is on the cards.

All mainland rail stations charge 30p a visit. Mike Bone of the British Toilet Association says the UK average is 20p (though 30p in London boroughs). But let's face it: if you need to go, you need to go, whatever the price—it's what economists call "inelastic demand".

With ongoing council cuts, public-toilet numbers are likely to fall to just 3,500 nationwide over the next year from 7,500 at the turn of the millennium. At this rate, we may soon all be going behind the bushes.

You could, of course, hire your own portable loo for around £3 per day on a long-term hire, but maybe that's not too practical for the daily commute.

IF YOU DON'T ASK...

Donal answers your questions. Please email queries to excerpts @readers digest. co.uk

QIf, in the course of a business trip, you avail yourself of a London superloo, are you entitled to tax "relief" on the 50p spent?

AIt's certainly possible to argue that the 50p is tax-deductible as part of travel and subsistence, but on a case-by-case basis. That said, H M Customs and Revenue is unlikely to measure each bowel movement on its specific merits...

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

Q My favourite perfume is for sale online at a really good price—but too good to be true?

A Unfortunately, the whiff of a

scam surrounds the sale of top-brand perfumes on bogus websites across the Internet. They can look completely genuine, but don't be fooled. If the retail price is unbelievably good, then don't trust it. As a further safeguard, make sure the web address is preceded by "https" and that there's a padlock sign on the site indicating that it's secure for online transactions.

Another scam to watch out for is the gift-card scam. Social networking websites are awash with offers purporting to be from major retailers offering free gift vouchers. Be careful: the patter's the same— a great offer—but before you know it you've relinquished too much of your financial data, leaving you vulnerable to a financial tsunami.

In these tight financial times, let's lighten the mood with my current favourite money joke: "I went to a reincarnation conference last month. It cost me £5,000, but I thought, what the heck—you only live once."

STRANGE TAX RULES

belts are taxfree— it's just that if you add a buckle, prepare to cough up extra!

In Sweden the tax authorities can fine you if they disagree with the name you've chosen for your child. Incidentally, you can't name your child Ikea, but you can name it Lego. (In 2005, a child was called Google, and that passed muster.)

In the Netherlands training in the fine arts of witchcraft is now tax-deductible thanks to its enlightened courts, which found that a witch can declare schooling costs if that increases the likelihood of employment and higher personal income. •

THE BIG EASY

Want a really simple, no-frills way to invest your money? Go for a tracker

We all need to make our money work for us, and the stock market is a good place to put your money to build wealth for your retirement. But how can you do it without having to pay a broker or getting conned into investing in something that pays more to the fund managers than to you? One easy and cheap way is to go for an index-tracking fund, or "tracker".

WHAT'S THAT?

Index-tracking funds "track" a stockmarket index (like the FTSE 100, the FTSE All Share or the FTSE 250) through a computer program. The fund invests a small amount of your money in every company in, for example, the FTSE 100. As the index goes up and down, so does your money.

These funds are described as "passive"

"We rob the rich and give reliable investment advice to the poor"

because they don't have someone specifically choosing which companies to invest in, as "managed" funds (the ones run by highly paid investment managers in the City) have. They just invest in absolutely everything in that index, with the program deciding how much of your money to put in each company according to where it is in the index.

WHY INVEST IN THEM?

Because they're easy and they work! In fact, they beat most managed funds. A study by research firm W M Company has found that 82% of managed funds failed to beat the market over the course of 20 years. So you're better off simply tracking the market itself with these cheap funds.

Warren Buffett, the greatest investor in the world, recommends index-tracking funds for people like us who don't want to spend every day watching the market. He says, "A very low-cost index is going to beat a majority of amateur-managed money or professionally managed money."

One of the reasons trackers beat managed funds is because they don't take much of your money out in management fees. In fact, they generally charge well under 1% a year. Managed funds tend to charge more, even though they generally don't perform as well!

HOW DO YOU INVEST IN TRACKERS?

Easily. You can put your money in yourself, without having to go through a broker, by either investing online through the company's website (see the box opposite for a list of some of the main ones), phoning direct and

using your credit card, or by posting a cheque. If you're investing with a company for the first time, it will need the usual proof of identity for money-laundering-checking purposes, but otherwise it's straightforward.

You can even have your investment pre-wrapped in an Isa—just ask when you get in contact. You can put in a lump sum or set up a regular standing order to invest each month. Most of them have a minimum monthly investment of £25 or £50.

When it comes to choosing which funds to invest in, you need to think of two things:1) which index you'd like to track (in fact the FTSE 100 and the FTSE All Share tend to perform roughly the same, so you could go for either of those to start with); and 2) which company to choose. There's not actually a lot in the performance of different companies' tracker funds in Britain. Most do roughly the same, but some charge more in management fees than others, so you're probably best going for the ones with lower annual management fees.

You can invest in different indexes and with different companies each year. You could even move into global trackers to diversify.

Got defunct electronic gadgets cluttering up your drawers?

At new website weeebuy.co.uk, you can recycle laptops, sat-nays, hair straighteners, games consoles, e-Book readers, camcorders and MP3 players as well as mobile phones. Prices vary depending on the make, model and condition of

your item, but you could get up to £31 for an iPod Touch, up to £36 for an XBox and up to £109 for a Dell laptop. You'll get paid by cheque, BACS transfer, PC World

MONEY

asi or high-street vouchers. (I've heard that there have been some teething problems with payments, though, so let me know if you have any difficulties.)

Even if your old gadget isn't on their list, you can ask about it by filling in their online form. Weeebuy says it will respond with a quote to buy it from you within 48 hours.

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"Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on people," according to W C Fields. I'm certainly against gambling on the whole. I have far better ways to waste my money than losing it on the horses or the terrible National Lottery.

"The

game's Bonds. Premium Bonds..."

But there are a few ways to indulge your taste for a flutter without denting your bank balance too much and, surprise, surprise, even doing a bit of good in the process!

PREMIUM BONDS

The good things about Premium Bonds are that they're tax-free and you don't lose your cash, even if you never win anything, because they're backed by the Government (Premium Bonds are one of the ways it borrows

money). And there's always a chance that you could win the jackpot one day.

The downside of Premium Bonds is that the average return is generally less than you'd get if you put the same amount in a high-interest savings account. In fact, over time, your money becomes worth less and less because it's not growing while inflation is. That hasn't stopped thousands of us buying the bonds in recent years, though. In fact, they've been so popular

in the last decade that 87% of all existing Premium Bonds were bought between 2000 and 2010. Paradoxically, though, in that time the Premium Bond Prize Fund Rate—which is the amount paid out in prizes as a proportion of the total invested—has dropped, as has the likelihood of you winning anything.

If you still want to give it a go, visit their website at Nsandi. corn. You're allowed to put in a minimum of £100, and a maximum of £30,000. If you do decide to "invest", don't waste too much money. Use it as a bit of fun—like a raffle.

LOTTOAID

If you want to have a flutter and do good at the same time, go to the ActionAid website (actionaid.org.uk) and join Lottoaid. With this "game" some of your money goes into a draw and the rest goes to help the charity.

This isn't something you can just have a go at every now and then, though. You have to sign up to a monthly direct debit of a minimum of £4.34. This is because you play every week and each go costs £1 (which equates to £4.34 per month). For each play you get a unique number that's entered into the draw every week (players must be UK residents and aged 16 or over).

There are five winning tickets drawn at random by a computer each week. As there are currently only about 8,500 people playing it you have a much better chance of winning than with the National Lottery. Also, more of your money goes to charity than it does if you buy a lottery ticket. For each play, 25p goes into the prize fund and 75p goes to ActionAid's work to help people around the world fight their way out of poverty.

ONLINE SURVEYS

A really safe way to gamble, of course, is to do it without putting any money in at all. You can do this online by taking part in competitions or surveys. But be careful as many competition sites are just spam merchants, or worse.

There are one or two that can be trusted. For example, Greatsites.co.uk gives away a cash prize of £5,000 every six months and you are put in the draw if you just answer a few simple questions. The site is free to join and once you've registered they'll email you special offers and surveys based on the information you give them (ie, your profile).

The more you respond the greater your chance of scooping the £5,000, plus you'll gain access to the other competitions the company runs. ■

THE ONE ING HIS MONTH...

...is shop around for travel insurance. You can save Es by getting it through a comparison site rather than going with your tour operator. Try Confused.com or Gocompare.com. If you're over 65 or have a medical condition, go to Allcleartravel. co.uk—they specialise in travel insurance for those rejected by other companies.

MONEY

FACT

According to Barclays 2011 Equity and Gilt Study, there's a 99% probability of stock markets outperforming cash savings over a period of 18 years.

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

Form WITH MARCO PIERRE WHITE

FISH FRIDAY

It's traditional—but maybe not as you know it

The head chef in my newish restaurant in Lancashire put "wild halibut steak provencale" on the menu and was amazed by the reaction. He had to order more and more of this great fish to keep pace with demand. I wasn't surprised. This has long been a favourite of mine. It's rustic, flavoursome and very handsome. A bit like me, I hear you saying! (Actually, it's not like me at all because it's simple—and I know I can be a complicated so-and-so.)

Fish is big news at the moment. People are eating more of it than ever—which is a good thing. Halibut is the largest flatfish of them all. It's found in the freezing cold waters off Scotland, Norway, Iceland and Newfoundland. Just make sure you buy it from a reputable fishmonger who sources fish from sustainable stocks.

I read recently that there's something of a return to eating fish on Fridays—a Roman Catholic tradition that we adhered to in our household when I was growing up. And why not? I love tradition. It's one of the things that binds us together.

This particular dish is a classic highsummer offering. Serve it instead of a roast on Sunday—as long as you've invited the sunshine to join in. Actually, replacing a meaty roast with fish is not a very traditional thing to do. See what I mean about being complicated? ■

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

WILD HALIBUT STEAK

PROVFKALE

(serves 4)

16 black olives

4 plum tomatoes

8tbs olive oil

2tbs lemon juice

4 halibut steaks, about 200g each 12 large, fresh basil leaves to garnish

1.Stone and slice each olive lengthways into 3 segments and then slice each segment again lengthways into 2 or 3 pieces so that they look like petals.

2. Blanch the tomatoes in a bowl of boiling water for 30

MARCO'S

seconds. Drain, and let them cool, then skin, deseed and dice the flesh.

3. Mix a couple of tablespoons of olive oil with the lemon juice to make a dressing.

4. Heat the rest of the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the halibut for about 3 minutes on each side.

5. Pour the dressing into the pan and bring to the boil. Add the tomatoes and half the basil. Cook until the leaves soften slightly.

6. Serve the fish and tomato sauce, garnished with the olive petals and remaining basil.

Spread some tapenade (olive paste) on the fish just before serving for an extra kick of flavour.

DRINK WITH NIGEL BARDEN

A PERFECT TONIC

With so many new varieties, gin could be right up your alley

After years of vodka dominance, it's great to witness the gin renaissance. Long gone are the days of 18th-century bathtub gin, when one in four London households distilled their own and, as a consequence, more people died in the capital than were born. Nowadays, it's all about the different botanicals and flavours.

Hendrick's is flavoured with cucumber, and we're encouraged to drink it with a slice of the same. Sipsmith uses water from the Lydwell Spring, a source of the River Thames, and is birthed in "Prudence"—a copper-pot still.

6 O'Clock Gin from Thornbury, Somerset, contains coriander, angelica, elderflower and orange peel alongside the obligatory juniper. To complete a spirituous coupling, there's a 6 O'Clock Tonic, using natural quinine from the bark of an Indonesian tree.

The Spanish down more gin per head than anyone, mostly mixed with cola. Larios is the market leader, but Gin Mare from the Costa Brava is a newcomer—macerated for 36 hours with Spanish olives, Greek rosemary and Italian basil.

For the driest of Martinis, try Beefeater from London. They also distil a blackcurrant and hibiscusinspired summer edition (cinnamon, nutmeg and pine are in the winter version). Plymouth Gin is powerfully fruity, Bombay Sapphire is aromatic, and Tanqueray Export delivers a mighty punch at 47.3%vol.

We gin imbibers have never had it so good!

TO POP OR NOT?

Screw-top bottles may be handy for picnics, but for wine ageing, cork still wins. With screw tops comes the chance of "reduction" —a slightly sulphurous element due to lack of oxygen. In blind tastings of identical wines, the ones with corks had a fuller nose and the grape variety was more recognisable. What's more, cork is recyclable and sustainable, and the industry employs some 100,000 people. Despite a backlash (cork accounts for 70% of the stoppers produced annually, as opposed to 95% ten years ago), cork wines have never been better. "Corked wine", once a major black mark, is now less than 1%. ■

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

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GARDENING WITH BOB FLOWERDEW

COLOUR PALETTE

Dull patches in your garden? You need a few well-chosen blooms...

0What can I plant now for some colour this autumn?

APot-grown plants of Michaelmas daisies, Korean chrysanthemums and hardy fuchsias make good replacements for fading bedding, or for boosting dull borders—but remember to keep them well watered. If your garden's warm and sunny, you could even have zonal pelargoniums, French marigolds and petunias, which flower up until the first frosts.

BEING PICKY

I bought a miniorchard two years ago, and last year—as per instructions—I fed, watered and removed all the fruits. This year I'm letting the trees crop. But how do I know when it's time to pick each sort of fruit? I have an early, middle and late apple,

a self-fertile pear and a self-fertile plum.

AThe signs to look for are colouring up, becoming aromatic and softening. With most fruits, those in the warmest, sunniest positions will ripen first and those in the cool and shade last. If many fruits start dropping they're probably going over, though sometimes damaged or infested ones are dropped

early. For apples and plums, hold them firmly but gently and lift, bending the stalk back and up—if they're ready, they'll come away. If not, they can be left until a bit later, if convenient. With pears, it's important to take them earlier not later and ripen them in a warm, moist place.

SURPLUS APPLES

I have half a dozen apple trees, including a couple that crop very early. These are almost a waste of space as I can only eat a fraction of their crop—the rest shrivel and rot if I try to store them. Can I dig these two up and replace them with better, longerstoring varieties?

AThere are several issues here. It's better to plant some others elsewhere, if possible, as it's seldom a good idea to replace any plant with another of the same on the identical spot.

Secondly, these two may be essential for pollinating some of the other four, and any replacements might not be as effective. You'd need to know all the varieties to be really sure—although this is still a theoretical problem that may not apply in practice.

Thirdly, it would be possible to graft over your early varieties to better ones, which isn't difficult but requires precision and timing—perhaps your local horticultural society has someone who can help you? Or maybe it's time to find alternative uses for your surplus: juice and freeze, purée and bottle, or turn them into cider. ■

Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener and a regular on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time.

BOB'S JOBS:

Life gets a bit Carry on deadeasier now, as heading flowers you can probably and harvesting reduce mowing maturing crops, your grass to though—in just fortnightly sessions a few weeks from unless it's a wet now, they'll all month (the same be finishing. And goes for weeding), water everything and only a little in sight as often as sowing or planting you can, unless it's can be done. raining regularly!

READER'S TIP

If you have any problems keeping birds off your fruit and vegetables, try asking a local farmer for the nets they throw away when they open their round bales. It's the best material to use —tough, flexible, and free! Submitted by Rose Janes, Monmouth

» 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.

WILDLIF WITH MARTIN HUGHES-GAMES

MEET THE BEETLES

If you go down to the woods today, look out for these (very) creepy-crawlies

In the bowels of London's Natural History Museum is a card attached to some beetles that reads, "Dead tramp, New Forest, A M Massie". Massie was a beetle expert who, when he happened upon the body of a recently deceased tramp, saw it as a great opportunity. He and a friend took an end each and gently shook the corpse to see what beetles fell out.

Massey was looking for burying beetles —large, often brightly coloured, creatures

SNAKES GETTING BROODY

One of the high points of this year's Springwatch series was "Snakecam".

We discovered a compost heap near the studio that was crammed with grass snakes, so we rigged up a camera to watch them. As soon as the sun came out, the snakes emerged to warm themselves.

that specialise in finding recently dead creatures and burying them, digging the soil underneath using their strong jaws and legs. In about eight hours, they can bury the body of a mouse or a bird, and have even been known to amputate limbs to make the carcass easier to bury. Once it's hidden, the beetle injects chemicals into it to slow decay, then the female lays eggs. The remains provide food for the mother and her young. It might have taken a bit longer for the beetles to get the tramp underground, but I expect they were having a go.

,The heat generated in a compost heap helps the snake's eggs develop

The females are much bigger than the males and can approach six foot (the average length is 50 inches). We saw the males hunting for females, twitching their heads and flicking their tongues to "taste" the air and see if the female was receptive to mating. The female lays around 30 eggs, sometimes in a compost heap. Around now, the eggs will start to hatch and a beautiful miniature replica (about seven inches long) of an adult grass snake emerges.

My compost heaps are enclosed in those bins you can buy, but I now realise that that's no good for many animals, including grass snakes. So tomorrow I'm going to expose all the compost—maybe next year I'll find I've created a grass-snake haven.

FOLLOW THAT CUCKOO!

Go to readersdigest. co.uk/magazine to see dam Canning's wildlife videos. This month: ''the yellowhammer and the hummingbird hawk-moth

I wrote about cuckoos in June, but here's something new and amazing. No one knows where cuckoos fly to once they leave our shores, except that it's somewhere in Africa. There's been a shocking decline in cuckoo numbers (over 50% in the last 25 years), so it's important to find out where they go to see if any conservation measures can be put in place to help them. (Although cuckoos have been ringed for many years only one ring has ever been returned, from a bird found dead in Cameroon in 1930.) But all that's about to change. This year the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has managed to fit tiny tracking devices (see picture) to five cuckoos. These trackers transmit the cuckoos' exact location to a passing satellite then switch off for 48 hours while the minute onboard battery recharges before rt the next transmission. You can follow the as-ithappens progress of the cuckoos at bto.org/ cuckoos. The BTO have named one of the cuckoos after me, so I have a personal interest! •

Martin Hughes-Games is a host of BBC2's Springwatch and Autumn watch

DIGITAL WITH MARTHA LANE FOX

PICTURE THIS!

Ditch the dusty albums—here's how to jazz up and share snaps in a flash

device pretty much everywhere you go, meaning that nowadays we're documenting practically everything—from important stuff like weddings, bar mitzvahs, Arab revolutions or political demonstrations, to frivolous things like new hairdos, village fetes or pairs of shoes.

All this has caused a bit 0 of an overflow in our photo libraries. So what do we do with all those pix now that printing snaps out anI sticking

them in albums is so old hat?

The speed at which analogue photography has been consigned to history is truly breathtaking. Polaroid, today, is almost as much a museum piece as the diplodocus. Remember hand-cranking rolls of Kodachrome onto fiddly spigots in cameras' innards? Positively medieval.

But while a big rise in digital-camera ownership has played a part, it's actually the enormous strides made in smartphones' image-making quality that's prompted the seismic shift. Suddenly, not only is taking photos free, but you've also got a camera-like

TO STORE YOUR PIX

Flickr.com, a US-based company, is the world's biggest photo management site, with more than five billion uploads. It gives you a ringside seat as people chronicle urgent world events, but there's lots of messing around going on, too.

Have a gander at "groups", for example: 21,000 people are members of the frankly bonkers "What's in your bag?". Take your handbag, empty it, snap and upload it, and there you go. Silly, yes, but strangely fascinating.

Alternatively, you can have a hunt through by "interestingness"—a haphazard way to take the pulse of the world this week, as seen through the eyes of people all over the world. Or type in a place where you live or that you

BE A DIGITAL CHAMPION

love and see every photo that's been tagged by any of the site's millions of registered photographers.

• At the other end of the spectrum is the growth in restricted-access photo "streams". Many commentators predict that being "invisible" online will be increasingly valuable. I

joined one called path.com, which launched last year and lets you upload a visual record of your day; and, in an age when some people have thousands of Facebook friends, limits the network of those you can share pictures with to just 50.

• Another great thing about mobile photography is that there are lots of

instant apps that let your camera phone do things you'd once have only thought possible of a whizzy post-production lab. For achingly hip, artfully bleary and bleachy snaps, go to Hipstamatic and the Lomo app. For the opposite, Lytro.com lets you focus your pics after they've been taken.

• The elite postproduction company The Mill has a free app that lets you apply sepia, black and white, or Seventies styling to any photos you've taken. Instagram is a way to edit your snaps and share them, while Quadcamera lets you shoot photos in a burst of four.

• Of course, lots of us just whack pics on Facebook, and now that more than a third of us use our mobiles to access the web, it's easy to use your Facebook app to upload them.

Martha Lane Fox is the UK's digital champion and head of Race Online 2012.

Find out where you can share your digital skills with someone who's never been online, and learn the latest about our national campaign to build a bold and connected UK where everyone can use the web. Go to facebook.com/digitalchampions ■

flickrM

MOTORING WITH CONOR McNICHOLAS

BACK TO BLACK

With some dazzling colour options around, why do we stick to monochrome?

Even those who don't give two hoots about motors will have a strong voice on a car's colour.

It's a global business with two mega-corps battling it out at the top: BASF from Germany and DuPont from America. Both spend millions on colour-trend analysis, trying to predict what will be switching us on in three to five years' time.

But despite the huge investment, the predictions are usually wrong. For a decade they've announced that we'll favour greens and browns because we're feeling all earthy. Yet the monochromes of grey, black, white and silver still dominate.

Every year DuPont releases its Global Automotive Colour Popularity Report that tracks what colour cars people buy. Last year's figures once again show that monochromes are winning in the popularity stakes worldwide. Why is this? Automotive colour expert Mel McWhirter, principal colour designer at Land Rover, suggests: "There's something of a fear factor when it comes to colour, and it boils down to money. People are nervous of the effect a bold

Boring and safe are way out in front in the global colour choices for cars. Below: Range Rover's subtle Bournville

colour might have on the car's resale value."

Land Rover, however, is trying to chivvy people along, "At Range Rover we try and help people be more adventurous. We offer tinted black or silvers to help them feel they're not making too extreme a choice." (Range Rover do a wonderful purply chocolate colour called Bournville that I'd highly recommend.)

So what could we be choosing instead? BASF have just released their Global Trend Report 2011 and talk once again of the possibilities of indigo, mint, LED blue, sparkling black, apricot, rose, red-gold or a subtle grey-beige they call "greige". How much more exciting would our roads be as a result? The campaign for more car colour starts here.

ONE TO BUY

Peugeot RCZ "Asphalt" (£29,995)

The RCZ is one very special car. Peugeot has produced endless disappointing boxes in recent years, but the RCZ coupe looks like the kind of small flying saucer'60s sci-fi promised us we'd be driving by now. This special edition takes a stunning car and makes it even more dramatic with black alloy wheels and matt-grey paintwork. Highly recommended.

ONE TO s--)1"(7)-1

(£34,995) The new Chevrolet Camaro, directly descended from the iconic late-60s American muscle car, is (finally) officially hitting these shores as a right-hand-drive car. We'll only see about 200 of them, but it'll still make a huge impact: it's one of the most brutally pumped-up, imposing cars around, and will justifiably pop eyes and drop jaws wherever it rumbles.

ONE TO DREAM ABOUT

Pagani Huayra (£890,000) Italian boutique supercar makers Pagani are little known beyond petrolhead circles, specialising in topquality, sock-knocking-off, mega motors. This new, gull-winged monster is their second car after the hugely successful Zonda With ever more supercars growling into view, manufacturers seem to be scrabbling around for suitably evocative new names. This svelte chap is named after Huayra-Tata, a South American wind god.

CAN MORNING BREATH GET YOU NICKED?

If you've had a few drinks the night before, are you safe to drive the next morning? Nearly one in five drink-drivers are caught the next day because the alcohol hasn't fully left their system. A home breathalyser such as the AlcoSense Elite (£59.99, Halfords), uses the same technology as police breathalysers, and can help keep you within the law. But what to do when you discover that you're over the limit and can't do your usual commute isn't in the instructions. ■

Conor McNicholas

is the former editor of BBC Top Gear Magazine.

TRAVEL WITH KATE PETTIFER

MY GREAT ESCAPE

Reader Paul Corney packed his walking books and left for Patagonia

I'm always happier if a holiday involves walking boots. Chile had long been on the wish list, in particular the southerly region of Patagonia. So I made a resolution to go, and booked a place on a 14day trip last March.

From sultry Buenos Aires, where our boots and long-sleeved tops looked (and felt) out of place, our group of 16 flew south to Ushuaia in Argentina, a dramatic and picturesque town famed as the "last stopping post" before Antarctica. The town's imposing snow-capped peaks were just a taster of the delights to come in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.

We stayed overnight in Punta Arenas after a long bus ride from Ushuaia, crossed the Magellan Straits on a ferry, and then drove the final leg to the park. After so many years of wanting to visit, seeing the iconic three "torres" of towering rock brought a tear to my eye. One day, we were lucky enough to walk to the towers, although if you're not a keen hiker,

the boat trips to the brightturquoise Grey Glacier are just as enjoyable. I knew I'd love the Chilean national park; I didn't know that the Argentinian mountains would be the show-stealer. People often call mountains majestic, but these truly were. The Fitz Roy Massif looms on the horizon long before you get there.

We were based in El Chalten, a hippyish

EXPLORE PATAGONIA

Paul joined Explore's 14-day Adventure in Patagonia: from £2,899 including flights (0845 868 6355; explore.co.uk).

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The sight of the Torres del Paine in the Chilean National Park brought a tear to the eye of Londoner Paul Corney (left)

town that has grown to cater for the walkers and climbers who flock to it. We spent three days walking there: hiking dirt trails along the side of glacierhollowed valleys; watching shards of bright-blue ice break off glaciers and crash into the lake; trying to photograph herds of alpaca before they shyly dispersed. With a choice of longer and shorter trails each day, you don't have to be a good walker to love Patagonia, but you'd have to be soulless not to savour its scenery. 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 f70. See address on p4.

TRAVEL

GO NOW

STAY NOW

August is the end of the dry season, so it's the most dramatic time to go on safari in Kenya, as well as being the month when the wildebeest migration comes to town. See the game congregated around waterholes with Baobab Expeditions' ten-day safari, departing August 6, from E2,000pp (two sharing) including transfers, accommodation, game drives and park fees, but excluding flights (0844 826 8550; baobabexpeditions.com).

Combine a visit to a National Trust property with a garden tour. Patrol the borders at Powis Castle near Welshpool, at 11.30am on August 3 or 17 (01938 551929). Head gardener Alan will be leading a stroll around Stourhead near Mere on August 18 at 2pm (booking essential; 01747 841152). Spot red, fallow and sika deer on a guided walk at Yorkshire's Fountains Abbey on August 7 or 18 at 2pm (01765 608888).

BOOK NOW

Sardinia comes into its own at the tail of summer, when the Italians are back at work and sea temperatures are still balmy. Enjoy seven nights for the price of six at the Grand Hotel in Porto Cervo with Sardatur Holidays. This summer, the tour operator has set up direct flights with BA from Heathrow to Olbia—under one hour from the resort. From £504pp for seven nights' b&b, including flights and transfers (020 8940 8399; sardinia-holidays.co.uk).

cottages4you.co.uk This self-catering property site has teamed up with the Green Tourism Business Scheme to add eco credentials to its property gradings: marked bronze, silver or gold for how waste is managed, or for water and energy efficiency. Cottages4You has its own award for green properties outside the scheme. A handful of homes are on the site's "green page" already. Watch for updates as the scheme rolls out. ■

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T , Rea he ders Digest

AUGUST FICTION REVIEWED BY N WILSON EXTRACTS FROM OUR FAVOURITE NEW RELEASES oLiiIND THE SCENES OF YESMINISTER AND A FAMILY'S DIARY OF CANCER BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: RICHARD E GRANT

August fiction

The Vault

by Ruth Rendell (Hutchinson, £18.99)

Ruth Rendell is a marvel, and in the latest Inspector Wexford mystery she's on completely cracking form. Wexford has retired, dividing his time between Kingsmarkham in Sussex and his daughter's home in London, reading and going for long walks. But then an old colleague asks for help with a case. Three bodies —two women and a man—have been found in a coal hole in a pretty north London house. No one knows who they were, and in the man's pocket

is some mysteriously expensive jewellery...

The book's pacing is perfect. It starts gently as we, like Wexford, enjoy his new life of leisure. But once he puts his formidable brain to work, the violence kicks in. The result is a total page-turner—and one of Rendell's very, very best novels.

The Sense of an Ending

by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape, £12.99)

Julian Barnes's new book begins, like his first novel Metroland, with a group of intellectually adventurous, sexually clumsy London schoolboys. One is the narrator Tony, but the most interesting (and pretentious) is Adrian, who talks sophisticatedly about suicide and Albert Camus.

A N Wilson is left feeling absorbed, moved—and clubbed on the head

The years pass and at university Tony has a girlfriend, Veronica, who goes off with Adrian— who then kills himself. More years pass, and Adrian's mother dies, leaving Tony her son's diary; except that, as he discovers, Veronica has stolen it.

The rest of the book is about how Tony tries to get the diary back, but also how the past unfolds in an elderly brain. It is a tautly constructed, often melancholy, story with

Barne

CLASSICS CORNER: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

If the word "mole" makes you think of anything other than a small animal, it only goes to show the influence of John le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, republished this month before a new film in September. Here, of course, a mole is a double agent,

whose betrayal of British secrets brings George Smiley out of retirement and makes the book, among other things, such a terrific whodunnit. This is le Care (left) in his Cold War pomp, proving once again that a great thriller can also be great literature.

some wonderful dialogue, especially when Tony is at his most curmudgeonly. (There's a particularly good exchange with a barman about "hand-cut" chips.)

Say Her Name

by Francisco Goldman (Grove Press, £14.99)

Although this raw, painful and compulsively readable book is published as a novel, I'm not sure it really is one. In 2007, Francisco Goldman's much younger wife died while body surfing. With Say Her Name he's clearly revisiting the horror, as well as telling the story of their all-too-short relationship. Both as a diary

of grief and a depiction of what felt to him like pure love, it is unbearably moving, and I sometimes found the tears streaming down my face. Even so, if I were a bookseller, I'd shelve it under Memoir rather than Fiction. After all, Goldman never hides the fact that he himself has undergone the events he describes here in such searing detail.

The Blue Book

by A L Kennedy (Jonathan Cape, £16.99)

The effect of reading A L Kennedy's fiction is not unlike someone sneaking up behind you and clubbing you on the head.

Her first novel since she won the 2007 Costa Book of the Year with Day, is notionally the story of Beth, a young woman crossing the Atlantic with her boyfriend, and having a shipboard romance with Arthur, a man from her past. The feel of the ship, and the sex between Beth and her two lovers, are beautifully captured. But the encounter with Arthur proves much more disturbing than that— because in their earlier life, he and Beth had been successful con artists, pretending to be spirit mediums. (One section, in which Arthur hoodwinks a Rwandan woman and relives scenes of rape and massacre, is especially distressing.) Everything they did back then was fake. Yet, in the act of recalling it, they summon up real demons.

A hugely powerful novel, from a writer at the peak of her powers.

QUICK QUIZ

Can you guess the subject of this non-fiction book, out in paperback this month?"In 1940, some people approached life in this small Buckinghamshire town from the more rarefied end of the social scale. One veteran recalls with glee the privations inflicted on 'the debs', the glamorous upper-class girls drafted in through family connections and suddenly finding themselves having to live in suffocating little houses near a main railway line, 'where the occupants kept their coal in the bath, and there was lino everywhere'." Answer on p146

No, Prime Minister

One of Britain's greatest comedy writers on the art of jokes—and why Mrs Thatcher shouldn't have given up the day job

)■11:1)Y

Jonathan Lynn was in the Cambridge Footlights with John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Eric Idle and Tim BrookeTaylor. These days his name may be less famous than theirs—but his work certainly isn't. Lynn has acted in TV comedy from Doctor in the House to The Good Life. He's directed both plays and films (most notably My Cousin Vinny). It's as a comedy writer, though, that he's made his most indelible mark.

Lynn's first sitcom scripts included, perhaps surprisingly, several episodes of On the Buses. But then in 1980 came a show where three men in suits discussed government policy—with hilarious results. Yes Minister, co-written with Tony Jay, remains so much part of British life that nearly a quarter of a century after it ended (by then, as YesPrime Minister) an officious civil servant is still known as a "Sir Humphrey".

Now Lynn reflects on his long career in a book loosely structured around no fewer than 150 rules for producing good comedy—although the first is "There are exceptions to every rule in this book. Except this one." Between them they confirm yet again that "You can't analyse comedy" is one of those phrases that's somehow managed to become a truism without being remotely true.

Along the way, Lynn also supplies plenty of good gossip. We learn of John Cleese's fury when the critics decided that the real star of those early Footlights revues was Bill Oddie. Paul Eddington apparently begged to play Sir Humphrey rather than minister Jim Hacker because it was a much better part. (For the record, Nigel Hawthorne, who did play Sir Humphrey, ended up winning four Baftas; Eddington, none.)

But one award that wasn't so welcome came in 1984—and it appears in the book under Rule 117: "Try to resist if the Prime Minister wants to join your writing team"...

...the future politicians he knew at Cambridge: "The speakers [at the debating society] included a number of ambitious and smug young men like John Selwyn Gummer (left) and Michael Howard, who undoubtedly saw themselves as future members of a Tory government. Distressingly,

less than 20

JONATHAN LYNN ON...

'(The award that everyone seems to remember was from Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers' and Listeners' Association. We wondered whether to accept, and concluded that it wasn't up to us to approve or disapprove if her association liked our programme. Then we heard that Mrs Thatcher, who urgently needed a popularity boost, would be presenting the award. Then we heard that this was to happen live on [Radio 4's] The World at One. Finally, two days before the event, a scarcely believable message arrived from Number Ten: Mrs T had written a Yes Minister sketch, which she intended to perform with herself playing the PM, Nigel as Sir Humphrey and Paul as the Minister for Administrative Affairs.

Paul and Nigel both rang me, begging me to help them get out of this humiliation. .I could do nothing; I explained that they had been asked and it was up to them to say yes or no. Though dreading it, they feared Prime Ministerial wrath even more, and with deep reluctance they agreed. The following day the script was rushed to them, and copied to Tony and me. To say it wasn't funny would be an understatement. We wondered if the Prime Minister had really found time to sit down and write this crap, or whether her Press Secretary Bernard Ingham was the real author. Not that it mattered.

"But when I read it to the Cabinet, they all said it was hilarious": Mrs Thatcher, comedy-sketch writer, presenting the award to Nigel Hawthorne (left) and Paul Eddington

Comedy Rules by Jonathan Lynn is published by Faber at £14.99

-4 The awful day dawned. We all went to the church beside Broadcasting House. A big basement room was packed with journalists and cameramen. The whole thing had been expertly timed by Bernard Ingham to be covered not only live on the radio but on the evening TV news and in the following morning's papers. The sketch began, with everybody reading their lines rather badly: Mrs Thatcher couldn't act, and Nigel and Paul were reading badly in what looked like a half-hearted attempt to dissociate themselves from the whole embarrassing event. Then a strange alchemy occurred: it started to be funny just because, like Mount Everest, it was there. It was so ludicrous that we started laughing...

Meanwhile, if you've ever wondered why Yes Minister still seems so eerily topical, Lynn has a simple answer for that, too: in politics quite a lot of things never change. When he and Tony Jay began writing Yes Prime Minister in 1986, they looked up the main stories from 30 years before. In 1956, these included whether Britain should be in Europe, the crisis in the NHS and what to do about the Middle East. Going back further still, he quotes Francis Bacon, the Elizabethan writer (and civil servant) on secrecy, a quote Lynn felt was key to the programme, but that certainly applies in the age of super-injunctions. "He that would keep a secret," said Bacon, "must keep it secret that he hath a secret to keep."

...AND THE QUICK QUIZ?

That was from Sinclair Mackay's The Secret Life of Bletchley Park (Au rum, £9.99), a largely oral history of the codebreaking centre from surviving veterans. Many Bletchley Par Bletchley staff were billeted with locals—almost none of whom, it seems, were so indiscreet as to ask what ,n1' ,g° was going on at the park.

MIKE TINDALL can't decide whether his favourite book is Dan Brown's Digital Fortress or State of Fear by Michael Crichton.

41 years later, that's who they were."

...politicians in general: "Most politicians set out to do some good, but as they climb higher and higher, they are forced to accept one compromise after another until they have lost their souls. Even though they mostly end up unprincipled hypocrites, I'm sorry for them. And sorrier for the rest of us."

...the genesis of Yes Minister: "Tony Jay mentioned an idea he had for a situation comedy about the civil service, set in Whitehall, and asked me if I'd write it with him. I thought it sounded boring, and I had just renounced sitcom writing. I told him I wasn't interested."

The pain of saying goodbye

How an award-winning travel writer watched his mother make the hardest journey of all

When Rory MacLean's mother Joan was diagnosed with terminal cancer in late December 1999, he and his wife Katrin took her in for what her doctor thought would be the last eight weeks of her life. In fact, it proved to be the last five months. All three kept diaries of their time together, but only now does Rory feel able to publish them.

In the diaries the MacLeans explain their feelings with great honesty. In Joan's case this means not hiding her dislike of Michael Schumacher or her exasperation with Tim Henman. It's also clear that one reason she survived for so long was her determination to be at her daughter Marlie's wedding to Mike on April 29. (Having achieved that, she died a month later.) Both Rory and Katrin admit to horribly guilty moments of resentment. Nonetheless, the overwhelming impression is of deep family love.

We also discover what a remarkable woman Joan MacLean was: somebody who'd risked almost everything for the man she married. Oh yes, and before that, she'd been Ian Fleming's secretary, typing up the manuscript for Casino Royale—and serving as a possible model for Miss Moneypenny.

Here are three brief extracts from the book...

'CSUNDAY APRIL 16.

Rory: Another day. One day less. Mum feels the cold. I turn up the heat, wrapping her in a fleece and a blanket, but she throws them off, determined to keep moving. She orders herself out of the chair. 'Get cracking, Joan.' She's breathless after two steps. I did not believe she could walk any slower.

My fingers can now encircle her thinning forearm. Again I tell myself to make use of this gift of time, to sit with her, to ask her questions. But she is less and less able to concentrate. 'It's so precious talking to you but it's tiring me out,' she whispers. 'I have to conserve my energy.'

Rory MacLean has written seven acclaimed and best-selling travel books. They include Stalin's Nose, for which he travelled across newly liberated eastern Europe in a Trabant car, and Magic Bus—about the old hippie trail to India.

SATURDAY APRIL 29.

Rory: The simple civil ceremony is moving and sincere. [My brother] Andrew and I sit either side of Mum, helping her to stand and sit, guiding her to Marlie afterwards. She whispers while kissing her, 'Darling, darling Marlie.' The euphoria—and the steroids—lift her strength. She wants to walk unaided to the garden for champagne but the queue bunches up behind her so we whisk her back into the wheelchair and out into the sun.

'I don't want the chair in the photographs,' she gestures and Andrew spirits it away.

Mum sips champagne, kisses new relatives. She looks both radiant and tired and needs to lie down for half an hour before the meal. She eats her salmon starter but hardly touches the lamb. After the speeches she tells Andrew she's ready to leave.

As we wait for a knife and plates, Mum worries that she hasn't s oken to all

Ma, )s in happier times, at Rory and Katrin's wedding in 1992

He alerts the ambulance crew but she changes her mind. The cake is still to be cut. As we wait for a knife and plates, she worries that she hasn't spoken to all the guests. When coffee is poured, she tries to get to her feet. 'I think I'd better go home now, darlings.'

Joan: M looked v. elegant, beautiful and rather Spanish with flowers in back of hair. Her and Mike's pledges were touching—whole setting attractive. Sorbet delicious—lamb disappointing. Spirit of love in the room. I left in an ambulance, I think discreetly.

TUESDAY MAY 2

Rory: For four months Mum has beaten the cancer, answering visitors' enquiries with 'Quite well today, thank you' I wonder if now I should help her to find a new goal. But I don't want to sugar her with false optimism.

Her physical condition has changed dramatically these last weeks. Her swollen liver is squashing both her stomach, killing her appetite, and her bladder, giving her the sensation of needing to urinate. Instead of the usual 20 minutes, CancerCare Carole stays for over an hour. Afterwards at the front door she says to me, 'It's magic wand time'

'Do you have a wand?' I ask her.

'It's the one thing they didn't give me'

Gift of Time by Rory MacLean with Joan and Katrin MacLean is published by Constable at £12.99

Books that Changed my Life

Actor Richard E Grant's career spans three decades of theatre, film and television— including his legendary performance as the titular drunken actor in Withnail and I. He appears as evil headmaster Vic Van Wrinkle in Horrid Henry: the Movie, in cinemas now.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe

Growing up in Swaziland, I found the story of a man stranded on a desert island quite personal—our subtropical climate was more identifiable with Crusoe's landscape than the misty, muddied streets of Dickensian London.

The tale of somebody succeeding against the odds resonated when I was continually told I wouldn't make it as an actor. Then, in 1986, I was rereading a leather-bound copy en route to my first film audition. As I left the tube station, the heavens unleashed a monsoon, so I arrived totally sodden, clutching the novel. It turned out to be one of the director's favourite books. That connection, and my rain-soaked state, proved the perfect ingredients for my audition for Withnail and I. I got the role and it changed my professional life beyond my wildest dreams.

Peter Pan

by J M Barrie

The childhood terror of seeing Captain Hook and the clock-ticking croc in the Disney film version had me under my cinema seat longer than I managed to sit on it. The Queensway cinema in Mbabane, Swaziland, was our local, and

Alice in 7'"'igitti Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll

My parents gave me the record featuring Joan Greenwood, whose guttural, swooping voice made for the most extraordinary Alice imaginable. The Queen yelling, "Off with their heads!" became a catchphrase, and I spent much of my boyhood looking for rabbit holes to plunge down. I never tire of reading it and, the older I get, the more convinced I am that it's a code book for understanding all that is British— individualistic, hilarious, mordant and anarchic.

the only so-called bug house that played two features a week. It was straight out of The Last Picture Show. Ever since seeing and then reading this masterpiece, I've longed to fly off to Neverland. More than any other book I can think of, it holds the key to the door back into childhood. ■

& Macauley Publishers CGC-33-01, 25 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5LQ 0207 0388212

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Year round conservatory living

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Fot 20 years Thomas Sanderson, the UK's leading conservatory blinds specialist have helped over 100,000 conservatory owners transform their rooms into stylish and comfortable spaces that can be enjoyed all year round. Each conservatory blind is individually measured, handcrafted and installed meaning Thomas Sanderson can fit to any size or shape window or roof panel in your conservatory.

Available in over 1000 colour and styling combinations and with advanced solar reflective fabric technology that reflects the sun's rays during the summer and retains the heat during winter, you can transform your conservatory into a room you'll never want to leave.

Complete your details below for your FREE brochure and to dim 3 for 2. Send to: Thomas Sanderson, FREEPOST, Hants P07 7UW

How to claim 3 for 2 on conservatory blinds

Transform your conservatory for less with the Thomas Sanderson 3 for 2 sale, for every two conservatory blinds, choose a third absolutely FREE. To claim this discount and to order your FREE brochure call 0800 220 603 and

You've every reason to enter our prize draws!

REAL WINNERS

More than 360,000 people have won with us so far, and more are announced each month at www.readersdigest.co.uk Two of our recent winners are pictured here and, just for the record, they're both realnot actors!

REAL MONEY

We give away every single penny of prize moneyfso far over £24,000,000!). All the cash is held on deposit in a NatWest bank account in the City of London and it's just waiting to be paid out to its rightful winners — maybe you!

REAL VARIETY

Did you know that, as far as prizes go, our £126,500 Grand Prize Draw is just the tip of the iceberg? We run hundreds more prize draws every year, giving away everything from iPods to champagne and from cars to even more cash!

REAL CHANCES

Each prize-draw entry number you receive is unique and presents a very real chance to win. And, because every draw is overseen by independent observers, Haysmacintyre, you can rest assured that each chance is fair and square.

REAL EASY

It doesn't matter which draw you receive an invitation for — the key to success is simple: if you enter, you could definitely win. All of our winners returned their entry documents as instructed. So return your entry documents todaywhat could be easier?

Find out more today at:

Fortune favoured KEN JONES of Mold. He made sure he sent his numbers back early and won the £100,000 First Prize plus an extra £20,000 bonus in our 104th Grand Prize Draw in February 2011.

PEOPLE WIN

PRIZES EVERY SINGLE MONTH AND YOU COULD BE NEXT!

ROBERT SMITH of Humberside was thrilled to be the First Prize winner in our 103rd Grand Prize Draw in August 2010.

Beat the Puzzler!

The Puzzler takes 20 minutes to answer these five questions, and he's confident you won't be able to match him. Can you prove him wrong?

1 Use the letters given to complete the pyramid, so that one seven-letter word, one five-letter word, one four-letter word and three words of three letters can be read. What are the words?

2 The top half and bottom half are on rotating systems. When they move round, they'll realign so that four types of birds can be read downwards. What are they?

3 What numbers should replace the question marks below?

49 36 2 35 15 5 83 24 2 74 ? ?

4 Assume you're using a basic calculator and press the numbers in the order shown, replacing each question mark with a mathematical sign. Plus, minus, multiply and divide can each be used once only. What's the highest number that can possibly be scored?

5 4 ? 2 3 4

5 The following words have a connection. What is it?

ANNOY

So how did you score? A point for every correct answer. Here's the Puzzler's verdict:

0-2 "Back to the drawing board with you."

3-4 "Safely negotiated—except the last hurdle.

5 "At last, my position feels threatened!"

The first correct answer we pick on August 3 wins E50!* Email excerpts@ readersdigest.co.uk.

Tom, Edward, Keith, Craig, Ian, Richard and Clive all play cricket. What sport do Grace, Nancy, Isabelle, Lisa, Wendy, Olga and Barbara partake in? (answer will be published in the September issue)

Answer ily's question: 634—in all the other numbers, the first two digits total the third digit.

And the winner is... Annette Hennessy from Somerset

The small print * Entry is open only to residents of the 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.

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TEST-YOUR-KNOWLEDGE CROSSWORD

1 Poker stake (4)

3 Professional charges (4)

6 Old Testament prophet (5) 10 Piece of rock or metal from outer space (9)

11 US state, capital Boise (5)

12 Japanese warrior (7) 13 Earthenware (7) 14 Individual unit (4) 16 Male goose (6)

18 Venomous snake (3) 21 Genesis woman (3) 22 Opposed, loath (6) 23 Abominable

enues sewevi sieal zs luelqequI OE unls 6Z alelod sz asdelloJ SZ aml EZ uepewed OZ many 91

Dtwapo3 l!qqed ueld LL leTuawewO 6 qsv 8 lenseD s daalsV L :SSO213V Pel LE slupd Lz em2410 9Z Peal-Pad VZ eweJa zz sD!ciway lZ Jabwiel4 61 stag LL eu!papuoj SI rued Pt alcloN 01 !PIIV L euaddqnS 9 HIND S lelseped g eu13 Z DnenoinV

Laugh!

1 Q: What do you call twin policemen?

A: Copies.

Charlotte Primrose, Essex

1 Q: How do you make a lawyer smile for a photo?

A: Say "fees".

Lucy Robinson, Reading

1 Everyone likes the smell of a newborn baby, yet I suggest it as a candle scent and I'm chased out of the room.

Comedian Tom Craine

1 My neighbour knocked on my door at 2.30am. 2.30am! Can you believe it? Luckily for him, I was still up playing my bagpipes.

Stephanie Caplen, Pembrokeshire

1 At US immigration, an announcement says, "Welcome back, Americans!" If the UK had that, it would say, "Oh. You're back. Stand there for a bit."

Comedian Matt Green

1 Exit signs—they're on the way out, aren't they?

Comedian Tim Vine

"Well, let's see if there's any cash in the attic..."

1 JACK PHONED HIS WIFE SALLY AT WORK.

"Sorry, dear," said Sally. "I'm up to my neck in work at the moment—I can't really talk."

"But I need to tell you something. I've got some good news and some bad news."

"OK, but I'm short of time, so just say the good news."

"Well...OK then. The airbag works."

Grahame Jones, London

1 They say you should drink as much water as you can. But this really slows me down when I get to a lake.

Comedian Milton Jones, by Twitter

1 My dog Groucho Barx hates the Hoover. So, as a compromise, I get him to do the dusting.

Comedian Zoe Lyons, by Twitter WALK THE LINE...

TOP TWEET FROM OUR DAILY WORD POWER COMPETITION Follow @rdigest on Twitter and Facebook to submit a funny definition for our word of the day

Louis P

_

rdigest Torque = The "no-nonsense" attitude shared by the inhabitants of Torquay. Often criticised, as in,"You're all torque, you #wordpower

1 How does the rabbit get inside the headlight in the first place?

Comedian Gary Delano),

1 I said to my boyfriend in the middle of January, "You know, we've been together for four years-1 think it's about time we

LITTLE EPIPHANIES

# 4:

What do you take if you're allergic to Piriton?

Comedian

Maff Brown

started talking about the future." I expected him to just say, "Oh God." I thought he was going to run for the hills—but he didn't. He just smiled at me.

Then he went, "What, like flying cars, and that?"

Comedian Alun Cochrane inhabits a daydreamy world of surreal realisations and whimsy. This is his monthly moment of revelation

We need more rigorous enforcement of the train quiet-coach rules. Lately, the contraventions of silence I've experienced have been too great even for my saint-like patience.

It is depressing that the world is now so loud we have to allocate a carriage just for some calm. But it is even more depressing that peace is broken by ignorant people on mobile phones (take it to the vestibule), or the eating of crunchy apples (take it to the vestibule like a polite mobile phone user), or the eating of crisps (same rules as apples, surely?), or the wearing of jangling bracelets that have a mastery of perpetual motion the likes of which a Swiss watch would be proud of (seriously, I recently endured two hours and nine minutes of constant cacophony from the assorted adornments of one flowery-dressed woman).

The worst infraction I've seen was a lady who brought an elderly deaf relative into the quiet carriage, and proceeded to bellow, "NO, WE CAN'T TALK IN HERE GRANDAD—WE'RE IN THE QUIET COACH!"

I didn't point out that with a swift removal of his hearing aids, every coach would be a quiet coach to Grandad. Instead, I picked up my aviary of canaries and my bag of cymbals, and went into the non-quiet Coach E, hoping for some peace.

BOOKS THAT WON'T CHANGE YOUR LIFE FROM 1V411-T ER

Imagine if the authors of the finest works in the literary canon had been a bit more, well, dull. Twitter users shared hypothetical boring titles under the hashtag #lessinteresting books.

III Harry Potter and the Chamber of Commerce

Lord of the Files Gatsby

Nineteen EightyFour-Year-Olds

U Lord of the Onion Rings Realistic Expectations

Gulliver's Staycation Fear and Loathing in Lytham St Annes

HM Treasury Island

The Train Traveller's Wife

Where the Wild Things Aren't

Camaraderie on the Bounty

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galapagos Islands George's Prescription Medicine

No Ado About Nothing

Stephen King's LT.

War of the Wolds

A Brief History of Thyme

Mental note: actual notes work better

Of course, the team at RD Towers couldn't resist having a go...

II A Tale of Two Suburbs

The Unbearable Lightness of Bing Crosby

Paradise

Temporarily Misplaced

The Chronicles of Naan Bread

James and the Peach

ify die

OOPS, THEY SPELED IT RONG! These howlers are inked onto their unhappy canvasses for life...or at least until they can afford some laser tattoo removal

a47 e ir

1 The Queen's visit to Dublin cost £26 million. She must have booked late with Ryanair.

Comedian Maff Brown

1 BBC News: "Net-connected devices set to boom". Surely they should be taken off the market if they're that dangerous?

Comedian Tiernan Douieb, by Twitter

1 I don't like political jokes—too many of them get elected. Catherine Hiscox, Hemel Hempstead

1 If time is money, then aren't all ATMs time machines? Seen on the internet FOR EVERY READER'S JOKE WE PUBLISH, WIN EITHER £70 OR OUR SPECIAL GOODY BAG WORTH UP TO £150. SEE readersdigest. co.uk/magazine FOR DETAILS

60-Second Stand-Up

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Craig Campbell

FAVOURITE ONE-LINER?

"I married a Chinese girl, way too young. That was her name"—Stewart Francis

FUNNIEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU?

The funniest times I've had have been while up to my neck in a hot tub, rather intoxicated, having a philosophical chat with two or three like-minded souls.

BEST HECKLE YOU'VE EVER HAD?

I did a gig in Auckland, New Zealand, and told a story about a New Zealander friend who came to visit me back home in Canada. He asked if we could go and look for a bear. After trawling the woods, we didn't find any—only bear pool—and my friend was exhausted. The gig I told this anecdote at was full of New Zealanders, and a woman shouted from the back of the room, "I think he might have said 'beer' "—which, in a New Zealand accent, sounds just like "bear".

FAVOURITE TV SHOW?

Craig Campbell begins his new tour in September

I used to watch the cartoon Beavis and Butthead. In one episode, the two very juvenile title characters hop the fence into a nudist camp. They come across a voluptuous woman who welcomes them, and from behind you can see the outline of her naked body as she talks. Then she leaves, and they just stand there, frozen in a time-lapse montage, appearing as sundials as the sun goes down behind them. I watched this and rolled around on the sofa with laughter.

FINALLY, WHO'S YOUR COMEDY INSPIRATION?

My grandfather. He was an absolute wind-up merchant—never giving a straight answer. He inspired me.

Beat the Cartoonist!

WIN £100 AND A SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

JUNE'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-August 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 the original, signed drawing. Submit to captions@readers digest.co.uk or the address on page 4 by August 10. Enter and vote online at readersdigest.co.uk/caption. We'll announce the winner in our October issue. ■

All three of the i... captions shortlisted this month gained good support in what was an incredibly close vote. But it was cartoonist Len Hawkins who eventually emerged the winner wit "Then at half past, apparently there's a flyon-the-wall documentary about us." Setter luck next time!

SCORE 'ARD READERS 10 CARTOONISTS 11

MONTH 'eg! oc They didn't have these on Taransay... Ben Fogle looks ba amazement"'

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SIMPLY CLEVER SKODA

The award winning Fabia range has just got even better. The new SE Plus is packed full of equipment and comes with 3 years free servicing when purchased with SKODA Solutions 7.9% APR representative. 03s5% Pl 0 aVe E1:778 skoda.co.uk

The new Fabia SE Plus includes all the features of SE, + leather multi-function steering wheel with radio controls + climate control air conditioning + MP3 connectivity + rear electric windows + sunset glass. '3 years or 30,000 miles free servicing (whichever comes first). Available when purchased with Solutions. 7.9% APR representative. Available on all new retail orders subject to availability before 30th September 2011 excluding Octavia 1.6 MPI. Indemnities may be required. Subject to status. Available for over 18's. Excludes the Channel Islands. Skoda Finance. Freepost Skoda Finance. Terms and conditions apply. *Reduction equivalent to 15% VAT applied to original base price including factory fitted optional extras on all new retail orders subject to availability before 30th September 2011 excluding Yeti, Roomster DSG, Octavia 1.6 MPI, Octavia Scout and all Superb diesel engines. VAT is still applicable and will appear on the invoice. Not to be used In conjunction with any other offer. VAT saving based on Fabia SE Plus Estate 1.2 T51105135 7spd DSG at £14,785.00. Prices and specifications are accurate at time of print. Model shown varies from UK specification. Offers may be varied or withdrawn at anytime. Official fuel consumption in mpg (litres/100km) for the Fabia SE Plus range: Urban 38.7 (7.3) - 55.4 (5.1), Extra urban 62.8 (4.5) - 78.5 (3.6), Combined 51.4 (5.5) - 67.3 (4.2). CO2 emissions for the Fabia. SE Plus range 128 -109g/km.