Reader's Digest UK Feb 2011

Drat

MEET THE APE WOMEN

"I'm the surrogate mum to a baby orangutan"

WHERE'S KIKI?

What happened to the "miracle boy" rescued from the Haiti earthquake?

DISCOVER

THE FUTURE... of work, of food, of health

PLUS

Stephen Tompkinson

Sarah Millican

Ken Livingstone

"ALL that nipping and tucking? No thanks!" Alex Kingston on plastic surgery, Doctor Who, and paranormal experiences...

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o Contents

36 Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3

James Brown travels the long and rocky road to true love

40 There's a Ghost in My House: Alex Kingston on how her own experiences with the supernatural helped in herlatest role

46 Miracle Boy Amid the horror of the Haitian earthquake, the smiling face of Kiki Joachin captivated the world's media. One year on, how are he and his family coping?

54 vn“, foh ir 7030 Why existing trends point to a revolution in the workplace in the next zo years

62 X-rays Go Xbox New ways to scan the body—using the same technology as computer gamers

70 ,.cure of Farming? How shrinking agricultural space may lead to a whole new way of growing crops

76 I Remember... Stephen Tompkinson recalls playing nice guys, acting in the wild and giving up booze Reader's Digest the World's Biggest Magazine published in 50 editions in 20 languages

82 Oh, I Do Like to Freeze Beside the Seaside Whythe British coastline reveals its true pleasures in the winter

88 My Family and Other Orangutans

The women whose job isto cuddle up to and care for orphan apes in the rainforests of Borneo

98 Four People Who Want to Change the World Meet the pioneers tackling pollution, poverty and overpopulation

104 Opinion: Don't Park That Here Memorial benches are a lovely idea, but do there have to be so many of them?

108 Treating Your Genes Designer drugs are just one of the new, personalised ways of dealing with cancer

It must be love! See p88 formore "aahh" moments with orphaned apes

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY ALEX D. JAMES

My mum always used to say it's just as well you don't know the future, because she felt it would be all too disturbing. But that doesn't always have to be the case. Sometimes an expert's insight into what lies ahead can be uplifting. That's why this month there's a strong"Future"theme: we've taken a look at some of the big developments in three key areas—work,food production and health. And there's a lot of good news in store!

Even more feel-good is our feature about the dedicated team of women nursing orphaned orangutans back to health in Borneo. But be warned: it'll makeyou want to adopt one. Resist!

And it could beyet more good news, if you're a fan of our cover star Alex Kingston— she's dropping strong hints that she might just be heading back from the US to the UK. Find out why on p40.

Gill Hudson theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk twitter.com/rdigest readersdigest.co.uk/magazineblogs

Regulars at the front

Regulars

PAPER FROM SUSTAINABLE FORESTS. PLEASE RECYCLE

Editor-in-Chief Gill Hudson Managing EditorCatherine Haughney Design Director Martin Colyer Features EditorSimon Hemelryk Deputy Production Editor Torn Browne Editorial Assistant Ellie Rose Art Editor Hugh Kyle Picture Researcher Roberta Mitchell Contributing EditorsCaroline Hutton, Harry Mount, James Walton Online Editor Marc Webber Online Editorial AssistantShade Lapite

Account Directors Dominic Eddon, Paul Eyers, Nicky Noble, Chris Shepperson Trade Marketing Manager (Magazines and Books)Simon Nicoll Production ControllerChris Tribe Magazine Marketing ManagerJustine BurrowsFinance Business Partner—Magazine Anjli MehtaAdministrative Assistant Marina Joannou Publishing DirectorJames Mallinson David Titmuss

President and Chief Executive Officer Mary G. Berner President, RD Europe

Dawn ZierVP, Global Editor-in-Chief Reader's Digest Peggy Northrop © 2011 Vivat Direct Ltd (tia Reader's Digest). British Reader's Digest is published by Visas Direct Ltd, 157 Edgware Road, London W2 2HR. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner, in whole or part, in English or other languages, is prohibited. Reader's Digest is a trademark owned and under license from The Reader's Digest Association, Inc and is registered with the united States Patent and Trademark Office. All rights reserved. Reproduction by FMG. Printed by Polestar Chantry, Polestar UK Print Ltd. Newstrade distribution by Advantage.

MIKE LAWN

SET FO T E DAY. ALL DAY.

SILVIKRIN [- HE UK'S MOST TRUSTED HAIRSPRAY.

Writers

• "Summer beaches are boring, overcrowded and too hot," claims comedy writer and actor ,who has appeared in shows as diverse asPeep Show andEastEnders. "Go there in the winter and you can have the place toyourself—and you don't need sun cream." Page 82

• "Memorial benches are a lovely wayto remember the dead," says Sophie Radice, a journalist and aspiring novelist with two nearly grown-up children and two Jack Russells. "But I wonder if the time has come to reclaim beauty spots for the enjoyment of the living." Page 104

• "We don't have to be in an office sitting at a desk to earn our living anymore," says Richard Donkin,a writer and presenteron workplace issues. "A lot of today's work can be undertaken anywhere we choose —all we need is a screen, a signal and an understanding employer." Page 54

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Have your say

LETTER OF THE MONTH

Identity crisis

My partner's Italian family had a similar experience to Amy Ferguson ("Can I See Some ID Please?") when they visited Britain on holiday. They were keen to visit a traditional pub, so we directed them to our local. My partner's 22-year-old nephew, the only one who spoke English, ordered some Pimms. When asked for proof of his age, he handed over his Italian ID card, which was refused. The reason? It could have been a forgery (even though he'd already used the same card to enter the UK) and he looked under 18. The bar staff ludicrously claimed they were trying to clamp down on underage "binge drinking". He was with his mum, dad and younger brothel; for goodness sake! What planet were they on?

M Tansley, Ilford, Essex

I remember a Monty Python sketch called "Election Night Special", in which one of the Silly Party's pledges was to raise the school leaving age to 43. This presumably would also have meant raising ID checks to a similar level, or at least the introduction of a Think 50 scheme. Maybe Amy should consider herself fortunate?

Mike Godfrey, Bedfordshire

His Italian ID card was refused. The reason? It could have been a forgery...

If Amy Ferguson is annoyed at havingto produce identification, I can only warn her that it gets worse later in life.

A recently widowed woman I know was lookingto open a bank account for the first time—her late husband had previously dealt with all their affairs. But in order to do so, she needed at least two forms of ID. Driving licence? She doesn't drive. Utility bill? They're all in her husband's name. Passport? She's never had one. Marriage or birth certificate? Lost in afire 6o years ago.

In short, the bank manger was unable

Make money by writing in! £50 for the letter of the month, £30 for all others. See page 4 for details.

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to open an account, as he'd be liable for a fine. Never mind that she's lived in the same town all her life and everyone knows her personally—even the bank manager!

Steve Dawe, Callington, Cornwall

Prisoner of conscience

"My Friend Aung San Suu Kyi" neatly coincided with Suu's release from prison in Burma. But, sadly, this historic moment is just the tip of the iceberg. There are still more than 2,000 political prisoners in Burma, out of a population of 6o million (almost the same size as the UK). That's an awful lot of citizens living without basic human rights.

Let's hope that Suu's liberation marks a new beginning. She certainly deserves to achieve the best for her beloved country.

Malcolm Walker, London SE9

Giving Gail. a chance

As a huge Beatles fan, it was great to read about Gail Renard's "work experience" as John Lennon's PA ("John &Yoko & Me"). When I was in Montreal earlier, thisyear, I couldn't help paying a visit to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel—mooching around the

Meet the next Attenborough!

Interested in wildlife? Then you'll love the work of zoyear-old Adam Canning, who emailed us to say how much he loves our regular wildlife column.

Adam—who lives in the West Midlands and has "a passion for the

Aung San Suu Kyi certainly deserves to achieve the best for her beloved country

foyer allowed me to bask briefly in the history. It may seem tackyfor the hotel to cash in on the infamous Bed-In, but it's a good way of preservingthe moment.

Paul Haynes, Disley, Cheshire

Lip-smacking nosh

The wonderful Christmas food in "The Moveable Feast" reminded me of a family trip to South Africa a few years ago. We tried one Christmas speciality called Bobotie, which was so delicious that I asked the chef to email me the recipe. I'd recommend it highly—though it's difficult to beat a good turkey roast.

Ryan Hammett, Ness, Cheshire

RD: Bobotie is indeed delicious! lfyou want totryout Ryan's recipe for yourself, go to readersdigest.co.uk/links.

natural world"—films, presents and edits his own documentaries. So we've asked him to create some short films for our website,focusing on wildlife we should be looking out for. View the first film atreaders digest.co.uk/links, where you'll also find details of his website.

Once upon a time...

Our family used to spend the evenings watching TV or playing on the computer, but that's all changed since we entered your 1°o-word story competition. Even the children have had ago—win or lose, we've enjoyed taking part.

I was wondering whetheryou might include a story each month from readers, maybe with a smaller prize?

Scott Milton, Cambridgeshire

RD: Many thanks to everyone who has sent in a ioo-word story—we hope to feature as many as we can in issues later this year.

Goodwill to all

Sam Leith's proposal for the government to set aside funds for a National Community Spirit Day ("Our Christmas Manifesto") seems doomed in this age of cuts. But we shouldn't be disheartened. I belongto a Muslim sect that encourages those less fortunate than us to share our festivities. We go to old people's homes with gift packs, share food with our neighbours and even visit prisons. It would be great if we could all share this kind of work—it's more rewardingthan sitting in front of the TV.

Saeed Anwar, Bradford, West Yorkshire

ATTENTION PLEASE!

Prize Draw winners!

• One of this month's Prize Draw winners is Betty Gunter from Bristol. Betty (pictured with her husband Ray on their golden wedding anniversary) came fifth in the Grand Prize Draw, winning Esoo. "It's a nice surprise," says Betty. "I've sent my sister-in-law in Majorca a gift subscription to RD. We'll be visiting her soon, so the money will come in handy!"

F

>> Visit readers digest.co.uk/ prize-draw or read moreat readersdigest. co.uk/rdprize drawblog. Follow us onTwitter at PrizeDrawNicki

Correction: In our December feature "Meet the Modern Butler", we quoted butler Prem Anand J Rao as sayingthat he once requisitioned a cruise-ship Christmas tree for a guest without tellingthe purser. He'd like us to point out that, while he did indeed take the tree, the purser was in on it. Thanks for clearingthat up, Prem! •

WE WANT YOUR SUBMISSIONS!

Do you have a tasty recipe? Maybe a quirky gardening or beauty tip? Or perhaps some health advice? If so, we want to hear from you. We welcome reader contributions to all our regular columns. It's agreat chance to see your name in print—and earn some money in the process. We pay ESC) for all published submissions to Health, Beauty, Food, Drink, Gardening and Wildlife Watch (see p4 for details of other regular contributions). Send an email to excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk.

hebr,ary e to

Never Let Me Go. This handsome adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel portrays a Britain where human clones are bred purely as organ donors. Carey Mulligan (centre), fromAn Education, stars, alongside a decidedly unglamorous Keira Knightley (left)—her character has several organs removed.

For less subtle tastes, James Cameron returns with his latest 3D epicSanctum. LikeAvatar,it has a distinctly blue setting, with a group of divers exploring the most inaccessible cave system on earth. Inevitably, they get trapped (by a flash flood) and have to battle raging currents and deadly terrain to stay alive. —)

It's Marriage Week from February 7-14. Dave Percival of advice site 2-in-2-1*, has these tips for a happy union. Hold hands while arguing.It'll helpyou keep

your focus on your loved one and what's important for the relationship. Nothing is OK."What are you thinking about?" "Nothing." Ladies, he's telling the truth—he's just wired differently. Give him some space and he'll relax and talk eventually. Put the children last. Make sometime just for the two of you. The kids will see your marriage is important. You want what's best for your children even when they're a pain, so why not want the same for your partner when they're being difficult?

LISTEN

Radio 2's Stuart Maconie's pick of the recent music releases

Faith by George Michael Think the suburban Stevie Wonder for the Furry Dice generation. If drug tsars really want to impress upon ouryouth the deleterious effects of the "jazz" cigarette, they could do worse than point to George Michael's recent career. Remember him this way, though, with a deluxe reissue of his most successful record, somewhere between the fizzy confectionery of Wham and the darkchocolate sophistication of his later period. Great tunes, great hooks, appalling haircut.

Coals to Newcastle by Orange Juice Think if The Byrds had come from Bearsden. Edwyn Collins is best known for the radio staple "A Girl Like You", but this compendious box set chronicles his adorable earlier work with the most fun and tuneful of the post-punk bands. If "Felicity", "What Presence?!", "Blue Boy" and "Rip It Up" don't put a spring inyour step and a smile on your face nothing will.

Stand Still by Emma's Imagination Think the middle sister of Laura Marling and Ellie Goulding Because of her provenance—Skyl's X Factor alternativeMust Bethe Music—there'll be sneers at this debut by Emma Gillespie. But this tuneful set of coffee-shop confessionals seems no worse than the work of more feted artists who gain five-star reviews.

BUT DON'T GET CAUGHT

The first Monday in February is unofficially National Sickie Day, the high point of theyear for people calling work to saythey're "ill". Join the duvet-day legion with these tips on foolingyour boss, from Dr Caroline Schuster of psychology consultancy At Change.

» Phone them personally, rather than getting a partner to do it or emailing. It looks like you have less to hide. Do it early so it seems as if work is a priority.

>> Speak slowly, put a hanky overyour mouth or hold your nose to sound unwell. Give lots of gory details about your illness, such asyour high temperature, profuse sweating and sayyou're at "the infectious stage". Cough loudly.

>> Sound genuinely concerned about havingto take time off. >> Ideally, end the conversation by sayingthat you need to go to the toilet—"urgently".

4 DRINK AT BRITAIN'S BEST PUBS

The Campaign for Real Aleannounces its Pub of the Year this month, judged on factors including service and ambience. Whoever wins, an inviting pint awaits at any of these four finalists.

The Harp, Covent Garden.Who said the West End was all trendy bars? This

traditional pub has awardwinning sausages in baps, real ciders and perries. Hotel, Sedgley, West Midlands.

The original onsite brewery was built by Sarah Hughes in the i86os. Her grandson John reopened it in 1987, using Sarah's old recipes.

The Salutation Inn, Ham, Gloucestershire. Set in the lovely Severn Valley, this features a skittle alley and is a haven for walkers and cyclists.

The Taps, Lytham St Annes.Has eight real ales on the bar at any one time, and landlord Ian Rigg is clearly an engaging wit: the pub's website has a page dedicated to his jokes.

LUXURIATE it

If you're fed up with this most frigid of winters, why not invest in an over-the-top spa bath? These and other creations will be on display at Spatex, Brighton, Feb 5-7.

MyShow(below). Has a built-in flat-screen TV and

seats designed to make you feel likeyou're at the cinema.

The Love Tub.Features waterfalls and lusty purple lighting.

The Tan by.More of a pool than a spa, with lights that change colour to fit the bather's mood.

Tidal Fit(below). Slightly harder work this one, with exercise attachments includinga rowing machine and weight ropes.

TIME TO... read

42: Douglas Adams' Amazingly Accurate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, Peter Gill (Beautiful Books, £8.99) Adams' classic

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Martin Freeman was in the film, above) featured a computer that spent 7.5 million years calculatingthat the meaning of life was...42.

But for Peter Gill, this was no joke. Citing everything from illusionist David Blaine's 42-day-long fast to the angle of the refraction of light in a rainbow (between 41 and 42 degrees), he sets out to prove that this seemingly innocuous integer is actually highly significant.

Bright Particular Stars: A Gallery of Glorious British Eccentrics, David McKie (Atlantic Books, £25) Did you hear about Sir Thomas Phillips, the Victorian book collector who amassed the largest private library of his time, but was left with no room to sit down to dinner? Or Yorkshireman Ralph Ward Jackson who suddenly decided to build a new town the size of Liverpool and started a riot in his local church?

McKie fills in these and other gaps in our historical knowledge with 26 tales of the visionary, but nearly mad.

Matron Knows Best, Joan Woodcock (Headline, £12.99) Aged 16, cadet nurse

Joan Woodcock found herself in a Blackburn X-ray room holdingthe hand of an 8o-yearold with axe wounds so deep her bones were visible. It was an unforgettable inauguration to a 40-year NHS career, detailed here, taking in everyone from sexual-assault victims to patients who ate forks.

"Now Dave expects the red carpet treatment all the time"

Go on, spoil yourselves, the family said, but Saga did it for us. We were chauffeured from home, wined and dined, waited on and entertained. We didn't even have to carry any money on board — no wonder we felt like royalty! For a brochure call free on Emo pmgam quoting RDGNC or visit saga.co.uk/brochure to find out more. We've got people talking

WHAT I'M DOING

RD reader Rachel. Stevens, 35, administrator

WatchingWonders of the Universe (BBC2). Professor Brian Cox is so clear in explaining how space works—luckily for me!

Listening Anthems

Electronic 8os, Ministry of Sound. The songs remind me of watchingTop of the Pops when I was a child— and, more recently, sitting in beach bars in Ibiza.

Online lonelyplanet. com. I like its info on Britain, because it tells you all the hidden places to see on your doorstep.

ReadingBearers of the Black Stuff,by Terry Brooks. I'm a big fan of fantasy novels and Brooks's characters have huge learning curves.

TIME TO... MAKE A DIFFERENCE blic trarsport

Rising rail fares, slashed bus services ..no wonder commuters are seeing red when it comes to greener transport and turning back to their cars.

According to the Campaign for Better Transport, by 2015 many of us will be paying Ei,000 more for a rail season ticket, and increased fares will lead to four per cent fewer rail journeys. Travelling by bus produces a third less carbon dioxide than cars, but with continuing cutbacks can we rely on buses to keep us moving?

'So, how can you get public transport back on track?

Start by...Addingyour name to Fair Fares Now, which is campaigning for reliable rail services at realistic prices. You can also help spread the word by collecting signatures atyour local station. Then you can...Use your passenger power. Pauline Vaughan from Blackburn did and, thanks to her persistence, her local bus service was reinstated. She petitioned residents, lobbied the council and made a barrage of calls to the bus company. Her advice: "Don't give up."

Taking it further...Set up an action group. From the Friends of Walkden Station to the South East Northumberland Rail User Group, communities around the country are banding together to boost their bus and train services. You can "adopt" a local station and fill it with litter bins and flowers to entice passengers, or use posters and press interviews to get your campaign in the news.

For more information, visit readersdigest.co.uk/links

Helen Gent •

specsavers.co.uk Specsavers £69 range or above. Monday - Friday. Cannot be used with other offers. One pair of complete glasses only. Excludes reglazes, safety eyewear, contact lens products, non-prescription sunglasses. Discount not transferable in whole or part for cash. SKU 25056341. ©2010 Specsavers Optical Group. All rights reserved.

POWER OF ONE

How people like you are making the world a better place.

By Susannah Hickling

The young wife who turned personal tragedy into an inspirational cancer campaign

Valentine's Day will be a time when Leah Gorry—like manyyoung wives— will be thinkingabout her husband. It's also the day the 26-year-old from Widnes in Cheshire will be launching"Love Your Balls", a cheeky awareness campaign during which she and her team of volunteers will visit local businesses to persuade male staff to check their testicles for lumps.

This is Leah's latest attempt to raise awareness of the symptoms of testicular cancer—the disease that killed her husband Mark, aged 24, in November 2009. She's devoted the last year to running the Mark Gorry Foundation*, which runs information campaigns, and hopes to raise El million for the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology, where Mark was treated.

Leah was i8 when she first met Mark; he often came into the pub where she worked. She noticed that the software designer was always surrounded by people of all ages. "He drew everyone in," she recalls.

Afriend told Mark that Leah liked him and within months they had moved in together. But the fairy tale fell apart in June 2008 when Mark developed chronic back pain. He was diagnosed with testicular cancer and told that it had spread to his lymph nodes, liver, stomach and lungs.

Months of chemotherapy followed, leaving Mark very frail, but he and Leah decided to marry. In October 2009, he pulled himself from his wheelchair to accompany his new wife down the aisle.

Mark had never had a lump, but he knew that survival chances were high if men noticed this sign early. So he started setting up his foundation, organising a fund-raising evening in a local pub that brought in £goo for Clatterbridge. He was thrilled when he received an email from a man who'd read about the event, found a lump and gone to his GP. "That's what it's all about for me," he told Leah.

Mark and Leah Gorry on their wedding day in October 2009. Mark died the following month; (below and inset) members of the foundation promoting the "Love Your Balls" campaign

Do you know of inspiring stories in your community? If so, please email the details to theeditor@ readersdigest.co.uk

:(E) He wanted the foundation to grow, but knew he didn't have long to live. "Who's going to look after it when you're not here?" Leah asked.

"You," he said simply.

At first, Leah felt pressured. How could she run a charity and deal with his loss? But theytalked and she realised it might be the best way to channel her grief.

Mark died just a few weeks later. Leah threw herself into fund-raising events such as sponsored cycles, giving talks at local colleges and running stalls at community events. As well as informing hundreds of men about cancer, the foundation has so far raised £40,000 for Clatterbridge.

"It's baby steps at the moment," says Leah. "But Mark would be really chuffed." •

Martin Bell, Unicef ambassador for humanitarian emergencies, needs you to help the Pakistan flood victims

47,400 sweaters, 14,80o pairs of shoes, provided water tanks, hand pumps, blankets, soap, buckets and school supplies. But a further Ei6o million is urgently needed.

In July last year, the biggest humanitarian disaster in recent years hit Pakistan as torrential rain pounded the Northern Swat valley.

During the night, children awoke floating in their beds, surrounded by debris and the muddy river. The water spread through a third of Pakistan, killing at least 1,5oo people. Today, the situation remains dire for millions

who have lost what little they had. As temperatures drop as low as minus 50 degrees C during the winter, the need for shelter, safe drinking water, food and health care becomes more and more urgent.

"A whole generation of children is growing up in refugee camps," says Martin Bell, Unicef ambassador and former war correspondent. "Unicef has distributed

"The people of Pakistan have experienced much pain. In any emergency, women and children suffer the most. We simply must do everything we can to help put things right."

To donate to Unicef's Pakistan Children's Appeal,please call0800 037 9797and quote "Reader's Digest" or visit unicef.org.uk/readers digest. Cheques are payable to Unicef and can be sent to Reader's Digest/ Unicef Appeal, Freepost, CL885, Billericay, Essex CM12 OBR.•

and a car for nil advance payment with air conditioning, Electronic Stability Programme. electric front and rear windows and USB/RUH connections as standard Hyundai 130 Comfort 1.6 CRDi Pluto

NO, REALLY!

My friend was busy preparing a mealwhen the doorbell rang. Her young daughter went to answer it and returned looking rather unsettled.

"Who was at the door?" her mother asked, a little impatiently.

"I don't know," replied her daughter, "but there are ten of them."

Slightly puzzled—it was the wrong time of year for trick-or-treaters or carol singers—my friend went to investigate.

On the doorstep were a pair ofyoung ladies, who introduced themselves as representatives of the cancer charity Tenovus.

Miriam Hartill, Worcestershire

I was struggling to recall people's nameson a cruise holiday when I was introduced to a nice couple called Bill and Monica.

"Your names will be easy to remember," I piped up. "Clinton and Lewinsky."

"Well, we won't

"It's OK, I'm from IT Support"

Win

for your true f unny stories. Write to the address on Page 4

remember yours;' Monica angrily snapped back. Sadly, that was our last conversation. Beware the perils of word association!

Audrey Pollock, Hertfordshire

El My friend has a good way of dealingwith sales calls. He tells them that he's busy and passes them on to the "lady of the house"— his five-year-old daughter, who's happy to chat away at length on the phone. They seldom call back and it provides a free babysitting service!

Thomas McGrath, Corby, Northamptonshire

I recently enjoyed one of the best "real ales" in Britain, which has the following slogan on its label: "Hook Norton Brewery, where progress is measured in pints". The capacity of the bottle: 500m1.

Harold Gough, Reading

A work colleague was having trouble with her computer.

"I've got this picture of Ross Kemp on my screen and I can't get rid of it," she complained. "I've tried everything, even controlalt-delete."

I glanced at the screen. "Touch it," I said.

She moved the mouse about. "See? The cursor isn't even showing up."

"No," I replied, "not with the mouse."

She reached out a finger to the monitor. As she made contact, the picture someone had stuck over her screen fell off.

James Casey, London W14

I was trying to explain to my granddaughter why I was getting smaller.

"Our backs are made up of discs that have a jellylike substance between them," I said. "As we get older, the jelly wears away and we get shorter."

After a few minutes' consideration, she asked, "Grandma, doesyour back play music?"

Pat Nelson, Eastbourne

"I'm now going to open the floor to questions"

My brother, who is rather mean, told me he'd taken a girl home in a taxi the night before. "She was so beautiful, I could hardly keep my eyes on the meter!"

he enthused.

Luke Thomas, Denbighshire

ff After attending a recent meetingat my town hall, I went to look at the noticeboard. My friend Gordon joined me.

"I'm just getting over one of the worst colds ever," he croaked.

"Oh dear, really sorry to hear that;' I replied.

There was a pause as we surveyed the various messages. I noticed that Gordon was reading an appeal for victims of the Asian flood disaster.

"That was terrible, wasn't it?" I said.

"Yes;' said Gordon with feeling. "And I'd only just got over a bad cold the week before."

Malcolm Ainge, Durham

My mother had a heated argumentwith my father and went out for a bit to cool off.

When she got back, my father was studying their marriage licence. When she asked why, he replied, "I'm searchingfor a loophole!"

Leonie Hex, Ddinbych, North Wales •

It's never too late to learn 99

Not everyone had a great experience with learning in their early years. Even if you did, you may find there are some subjects you'd like to explore further later in life.

That's why we're open to all, whatever your age, background or previous qualifications. Whether you're keen to build your confidence, prove something to yourself or learn simply for enjoyment, we'll help you get there.

"I found the study style really suited me — it's completely different to what I remember of school:"

Patrick Jubb, Open University student

Arts and Humanities

Our most popular Business, Management courses include: and Finance

Introducing the social Computing and ICT sciences (DD101)

Environment, Development and Discovering psychology (DSE141)

International Studies

Science starts here (S154)

Environment:journeys Languages through a changing Mathematics and world (U116) Statistics

Beginners' Chinese (1197) Psychology

Vivace: Intermediate Science Italian (L150)

Social Sciences

The arts past and present (AA100)

WORD POWER

dim sumn A overrated teacher

B clay plate C selection of Chinese dishes

sinology(sign-ology) n A study of China B Chinese singing C psychiatry

wushu (wooh-shooh) n A clean laundry B ship's hull C martial art

qi(chee) n A physical life force B thick mud C filing cabinet

cumshaw(come-shaw) n A tip

B two-man motorbike C balaclava

kaolin(kay-er-lin) n A sharp blade

B golden dome C fine, white clay

7 yenn A calm soul B addict's craving C rich miser

8 shantungn A soft silk B irritating

criticism C coal miner

koan(koh-arn) n A hidden pocket

B impossible riddle C poisonous gas

nankeen(nan-keen) n A spoilt child

B dining table C pale yellow cotton

Pinyinn A cart track B romanised spelling of Chinese C sacrificial lamb

Keemun(key-moon) n A madman

B black tea C building site foreman

; fan-tann A political obsessive

Harry Mount, language guru, tests your vocabulary

Chinese trade is booming all over the world—and not for the first time. There was a bulk import of Chinese words into the English language in the 18th century, when opium and tea started pouring into Britain. So how about marking Chinese New Year by finding out how many of these words you know? Answer A, B or C below

B peacock's tail C Chinese gamblinggame

14 cheongsam(chong-sam) n

A long dress B dockyard worker

C letter holder

kumquat(kum-kwot) n A small, golden orange B powerful weedkiller

C dustbowl

A WORD IS BORN

Truthiness

"Truthiness" was coined by the US comedian Stephen Colbert on the satirical news programmeThe Daily Show. He used it ironically, to mean a "truth" a person claimsto know intuitively even though it doesn't bear examination (something the person wishes was real, but isn't). Those he accused of using truthiness included President George W Bush and the Wikipedia website. Since Colbert first used the word in 2005, it's spread like wildfire in the US and also to Britain. Interestingly,the word already appears in theOxford English Dictionary,meaning real "truthfulness" or "faithfulness" (so the opposite of Colbert's meaning).

RD RATING Useful? 7/10 Likeable? 8/10 JEN gr,

WORD POWER

dim sum—C selection of Chinese dishes. "We were starving before the dim sum arrived."

sinology—A study of China. "The sinology professor got his intonations just right."

How

Did You Do?

9-11a good attempt

shantung irritated her sunburn." Shantung is the province where the silk was originally made. koan—B impossible riddle. "The railway timetable was a koan." Mandarin gongan ("official business").

12-13 you're starting to impress us here 14-15 you're a word-power wizard!

wushu—C martial art. "I was going to complain about the food, but then I saw the owner's wushu certificate."

qi —A physical life force. "Despite the crush on the Tube, his qi kept him calm."

cumshaw—A tip. "He was a bit stingy with the cumshaws."

kaolin—C

A fine, white clay. "Kaolin is used for porcelain and china." Named after the town in Jiangxi province.

yen—B

addict's craving. "He had ayen for chocolate after skipping lunch."

B shantung A soft silk. "Even the finest

nankeen—C paleyellow cotton. "I insist on vests in only the best nankeen." From Nanking, where the cloth was manufactured.

Pinyin—B romanised spelling of Chinese. "Pinyin was officially adopted in-1979."

Keemun B

black tea, often used in English Breakfast. From Qimen Country (Keemun was the English spelling in colonial days).

13 fan-tan C

Chinese gambling game where players guess the remainder after a number of hidden objects are divided into four groups. Literal meaning is "repeated divisions".

cheongsam—A

More Word Power on the Web!

For more vocabulary-building fun online, go to readersdigest.co.uk/wordpower.

WORD JOURNEY

Feng-shui is derived from the Chinesefeng (wind) andshui (water). Originally, as used by the Chinese, it referred to the art of arranging buildings, particularly tombs, so as to enhance the flow ofqi (physical life force).

Over the last zo years, the art has been borrowed by European and US interior decorators to describe supposedly harmonious ways of arrangingyour furniture and charging you extortionate prices for the privilege —so quite a leap in meaning.

long dress. "Her cheongsam looked pretty." 15 kumquat A small, golden orange. "The fruit bowl was delicately topped off with a kumquat pyramid." •

If you have a word-related question or language teaser for Harry, please email theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk.

NOT IF, BUT WHEN...

Love is just a click away

Gary Rimmer takes a look at what the future has in store

Reactors under the bonnet

Ice-free winter

Britain has struggled once again with ice and snow this winter, but help could be at hand. In November, Harvard scientists revealed an ingenious material that stops ice forming in the first place. As ice forms, it becomes a base for a thicker ice sheet to develop on top. The secret to the new material is its surface—a jumble of nanostructures shaped so the first ice crystals run off before they can stick. A surface treated with this material doesn't need scraping, gritting or de-icing because it never ices over.

The material works down to minus 30°C— colder than any winter's day—and is currently being tested for durability.By 2015,expect no-ice roads

The latest must-have console game for the Nintendo DS in Japan is called Love Plus +, which allows "gamers" to build and sustain a relationship with a virtual anime girlfriend—just in time for Valentine's Day. So popular has it proved that some hotels and restaurants have cashed in with themed Love Plus + events. Add in the avatar quality to be found on massive multipleplayer online games, such as Second Life, and combine the emerging capabilities of chatterbot technology—computer programs designed to converse with people— and by 2020everyone could have their own computer paramour.

Fiftyyears ago, the sciencefiction dream was nuclearpowered cars—but technical realities, nuclear mishaps and well-founded fears put paid to that. Now, thanks to a new kind of uranium, sci-fi may become fact. Scientists at the Los Alamos research lab in New Mexico have created

uranium nitride—safe enough to use uncontained as a fuel itself or as a catalyst to dramatically improve the efficiency of carbon-based fuels.

Meanwhile, a group of amateur physicists who call themselves "fusioneers" have built their own fusion reactors*. Cost? About £20,000. Backyard nuclear reactors? In the shed (and the car)by 2025. •

IF I RULED THE WORLD

...I'd find a way to lose weight when you use your brain. I never exercise, so imagine how great it would be if, every time I read a book or saw David Attenborough on the telly, I lost a few pounds. Wouldn't that be amazing? People could still watch things likeX Factor but, to balance it out, they'd have to watch something on the Second World War. And if you ever felt you were getting a bit thin you could readTake a Break or watch This Morning. ...I'd bring back waving in cars. One of the main reasons I recently learned to drive—apart from a sense of independence and being able to get home at night—was

This month, lays down the law to Caroline Hutton

because of the waving. If I let someone pull out in front of me I expect a little wave and it makes me feel wanted. I like waving at strangers to thank them for any courtesy on the road, although I've noticed in London that everyone is far too busy being in the wrong lane to do any waving at all. If people waved a bit more everyone would be a lot happier.

...I'd invent magic shoes. I'd get a lot more done if I could just click my heels and be somewhere else. Like if I had a spare hour I could just pop round to see my mum and have a cup of tea—because she's normally two hours 4o minutes' drive away and that's with no traffic. I'd get scientists working on the shoes—they'd be flat and comfortable because my mum always says I look like Dick Emery when I walk in heels. But I wouldn't take the scientists off really important tasks like curing illnesses and things—I'm not that selfish.

After winningthe 2008 if.comedy Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Fringe,SARAH MILLICAN has quickly become one of the most critically acclaimed comics in the UK. She's a regular guest on the Radio 5 Live series? Day Sunday and writes and performs her own Radio 4 comedy show,Sarah Millican's Support Group.

...I'd make time off obligatory for workaholics. When I had an office job I was always pretendingto be sick or have nose bleeds so I could go home. But if you're selfemployed and loveyour job, like I do now,you very rarely take anytime off. Yet it's so important. The other day I sat with my family; we got pizzas in,

drank cups of tea and put the world to rights for about six hours. We remembered how much we liked each other. I'd definitely make people see their families more—although there would be a caveat in case they were horrible.

...I'd have carveries in service stations. At the moment we're stuck with a choice of burgers or sandwiches so I think a carvery would go down a storm. They're brilliant because you can have a proper hot dinner and be in and out in zo minutes. Plus they're healthy because you can have loads of vegetables and massive Yorkshire puddings and then you've got no room for anything else. With the amount of time I spend on motorways they'd have to be open 24 hours. If I ruled the world I'd want to be able to get a roast meal at four in the morning.

...I'd find a way to have permanent make-up. When I get my make-up done before a show it makes me feel lovely and more confident. I'd like to wake up every morning looking like that. Normally my skin is patchy and dry in places, and I've got a moustache.

>> Sarah Millican is currently on tour with her live showChatterbox.For more details,visit readersdigest.co.uk/links

WORLD TRAVELLER

Who's doing what around the globe

► Parking just got a whole lot : easier inFRANCE. SmartGrains, based in Paris, has launched ParkSense, a fix for that age-old problem of finding a space. Sensors in each bay in the car park feed data to a free ParkSense app, which tells users which spaces are available.

► InHOLLAND,website Tweetjemee is helping amateur cooks set up as neighbourhood chefs. The chefs advertise their menus, location and pick-up times on the site (which also processes payments), then all the customer has to do is turn up and collect their food.

► There's a new beer on the market for those with expensive taste.AUSTRALIA's Nail Brewery is selling an ale made with melted ice from the Antarctic. Bottles have sold for nearly Ei,i5o, making it the world's most expensive beer.

► Lingerie firm Triumph has launched a talking bra inJAPAN,which it hopes will boost tourism. The bra can say "Welcome to Japan" in Chinese, English and Korean. But that's not all. It comes with a skirt that unfolds into a map of the country's landmarks. •

Many thousands of people are alive today, thanks to those who remembered in their Will

In 2008, Linda Phillips was looking forward to her daughter's wedding.

I got news you never believe you'll hear. Just weeks before my daughter was due to get married, doctors told me I had breast cancer. At first, I felt numb with shock, but my doctors reassured me and told me about the best treatment options.

World class research funded by Cancer Research UK has underpinned today's treatments for breast cancer, such as those recommended for Linda, saving countless lives. What many people don't realise is that more than a third of this life-saving work is only possible thanks to the generosity of those who remembered Cancer Research UK in their Will.

As a mum, it was unthinkable that I wouldn't be there for my daughter's special day. Although treatment needed to start as soon as possible, one of the first things I said was 'This won't stop the wedding: My doctors and nurses were brilliant. I had a mastectomy but could still join in the fun at the hen weekend. Once I'd finished chemotherapy, I started taking tamoxifen.

inda enjoys aking part

Cancer

esearch UK's ce for Life

Cancer Research UK has been at the forefront of huge advances in the way cancer is prevented, diagnosed and treated. Its work shaped the use of the drug tamoxifen, which has revolutionised breast cancer treatment and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

People who remember Cancer Research UK in their Will make an invaluable commitment to future generations.

By looking after loved ones first and leaving a share of what remains to help fight cancer, those special people who remember Cancer Research UK in their Will provide funding for vital work. Work that has just this year helped to develop a screening test that could reduce death rates for bowel cancer by nearly half. Work that has been at the heart of the progress that has seen cancer survival rates double since the 1970s.

Linda is one of hundreds of thousands of people who know first-hand what a real difference this work makes.

I was thrilled to enjoy my daughter's wedding with her. I'm so grateful to Cancer Research UK and all its supporters.

More than a third of our life-saving work is funded by people who remember us in their Will. Please find out more about leaving a gift to Cancer Research UK in your Will by requesting an information pack.

Call our legacy helpline on 0300 123 1862 or write to: Legacy Information Officer

Cancer Research UK

Angel Building 407 St John Street

London EC I V 4AD

you the facts behind the news

When Space Shuttle

Endeavour launches for the last time on February 26, we'll be saying goodbye to a piece of technology that's essentially of the 19705.

Yes, it's been constantly updated with the latest in avionics, but its capabilities remain much the same as in 1981, the year the first test flights were held. When the shuttle programme was first planned in 1954, it was predicted to last for ten years and ioo launches29 years and 135 launches later, it's no surprise that the shuttle's usefulness has come to an end.

The shuttle's reputation was not helped, either, by two tragedies: in 1986, Challenger blew up 73 seconds after launch; in 2003,Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. In both cases, all seven crew were killed.

For all the precautions now in place, launching a spacecraft powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen remains a very risky exercise. The shuttle can't be launched if there's any threat of lightning. Even birds are a a danger—which is why Nasa uses inflatable owl decoys to keep them away from the launching site.

INSTANT EXPERT

But the age of the shuttle programme, and those disasters, should not obscure its very real triumph as the first reusable spacecraft that can land like a conventional aeroplane. The shuttle has been a tremendously flexible vehicle. It has launched space probes, the Hubble Telescope and many satellites. It's been used for scientific experiments and to build the International Space Station. _ Yet, despite its long service, the shuttle is still hugely expensive. Each launch costs about £290 million, and Endeavour,the most recent shuttle, needed around Eli billion. The programme's total price over the years is roughly Elio billion. Because of budgetary constraints, President Obama and Nasa have yet to decide on a shuttle replacement. Instead, Nasa is concentrating on its next mission to Mars, using a new rover vehicle called Curiosity. The interplanetary mission will be launched this winter and is due to arrive on Mars in August 2012. Its aim is ambitious—to prove whether there has ever been life on Mars. •

Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3

What does love really mean? I think I know now—but it's been a long and tortuous road

Do you remember those "Love is..." cartoons? They had them on stickers and key rings—some cute naked male and female figures looking bashfully at each other? Back when I couldn't get on with the world, they used to make me sick.

Nowadays, after I've endured a cavalcade of mad women and a failing, lengthy marriage—and finally had the sense to go out with someone who clearly likes me—I reckon I could write some of them.

Love is...your girlfriend introducingyou toFamily Guy, Die Hard, mustard and the books of David Sedaris.

Loveis... your girlfriend not complaining when you ring her company and waste her and her staff's time by pretending to be a business client called Rodrigez Hernandez (every day).

Love is... when your girlfriend takes you to the Belles Rives Hotel in Cap d'Antibes, France, and then laughs when you whip your trunks off and dive into the sea naked to shock the other guests.

Love is... still staying awake for hours in bed giggling, after you've been going out with each other for a fewyears.

Love is...the joy of findingthe right person—a choice that only age and experience allow us to make. I never got that "old and lonely" thing. I always felt the older you were, the more people there'd be to go out with. I'm just glad that I broke the cycle of choosing inappropriate people to fall for and have finally realised how fun and rewarding a relationship can be. I was telling this to my mate Liz the other day and she said,

James Brown

"Well, you had enough practice." I can admit it: I'm having a really good time and it's never been like this before.

I'd seen aglimpse of what fun a relationship might be when I was on Mariella Frostrup's chat show with Bret Easton Ellis and Jane Horrocksyears ago. Duringthe show, Horrocks admitted that she and her husband liked to get down on all fours and roam around the house, barking like dogs. That sounded great. Afterwards, she came up to me and in her broadest Lancashire accent said, "I like cocko van," which sounded even more fun.

Sir Paul Smith, the great British fashion designer—and the most playful knight of the realm—once said to me, "It's important to be childlike, not childish." We were talking about business but it works in a relationship, too.

My girlfriend often asks me about my "vivid imagination", if I've been "so unusual with other women", and I reply, "No,you just make me really happy." She capped this by saying, "I've always wanted to go out with someone... mental. I loveyou." When I posted that line on Facebook, it got a lot of "likes" and "thumbs up", not least from people who've 1 D

I do feel a relief now that my private life is full of fun, not resentment and anger

\ WI been very successful and singularly driven, and probably aren't very normal.

The real thing I've learned—particularly from no longer being able to live with my son (I was divorced five years ago)—is that you have to nurture a relationship. You also have to have tolerance, or at least be able to say it. The first time mygirlfriend and I had a serious row, we were driving and she was really angry with how short-tempered I was about her map reading. In the middle of this tense row, she demanded I be more "torelant" of her. I let her finish and then said with a smile: "Sorry,you want me to be more what?"

Catching her solecism punctured the heat of the row and she couldn't stop grinning back. Since then, I've tried to be a lot more "torelant" of her.

Kingsley Amis said that losing his libido was like being unchained from an idiot

he'd been with. I do feel a relief now that my private life is full of fun, not resentment and anger. A key thing that helped was when my girlfriend told me, "It's important that the two of us are together and not against each other." That was a new one for me.

Just before I sat down to write this, I truly discovered the Meaning of Love. Love is... when you thrust open the door of a darkened bedroom, turn a light on, ask your girlfriend to turn off Radio 4 and insist on reading extracts fromShut It!, the new book aboutThe Sweeney—a programme that aired theyear she was born. And her being "torelant" enough to go along with it. •

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

This month,tiny wee frogs

Microhyla nepenthicola (left) is a species of frog that inhabits the Kubah National Park in Borneo. Measuring just 15mm, it was originally assumed to be the juvenile of another species. What gave the game away was its croak, which is made by adult frogs only (the croak was likened by scientists to "a fingernail dragging along a comb"). So a new species has been discovered—albeit an unassuming one that's unlikely to frighten you in the bath.

F LOWE KARD

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Send fresh flowers in a personalised card... sent direct from Guernsey to arrive on the day you want We have sent over 250,000 flowercards to satisfied customers direct from our nurseries, right here in the lovely Channel Island of Guernsey...the home of the finest quality flowers"

• The flowers are freshly picked and wrapped in a sealed water oasis.

• Our vivacious white and green posy, hand-pieced from fresh Guernsey blooms, sits so pretty among these lush watercolour violets.

• They don't need watering but if watered can last up to 2 weeks (a pipette is included for watering).

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IN THE NEW TV DRAMA MARCHLANDS, ALEX

KINGSTON IS HAUNTED BY A YOUNG GIRL.

BUT LIFE CAN BE STRANGER THAN FICTION

THERE'S A IN MY HOUSE

She's one of an elite group of British TV actors who've made it big in the US, but Alex Kingston admits she's a bit, well, weird.

"For some reason, I really love being scared out of my wits," explains the former star of American hospital drama ER. "I've always been a sucker for ghost stories, I think the Alien films are amazing, and can you believe that one of my favourite childhood memories is hiding behind the sofa when the Daleks were chasing Doctor Who?"

So it's no surprise, despite her Stateside fame, to see the 47-year-old back on British telly this month in ITV's spooky new drama Marchlands.The five-part series follows three families—living in the same house during the 1960s,1980s and the present day—who are linked by the mysterious death of a young girl.

"It's more than a ghost story" adds Kingston, who plays Helen, the 1980s mother (left). "It's about the dysfunction that can exist within families. The fki`

I'm a believer: "There's something out there that doesn't obey the logical rules we apply to our lives"

death of this girl creates a sadness and a presence that's felt through all of them over 50-odd years."

Does she believe in ghosts? "Absolutely!" replies Kingston, who made her name as Moll Flanders in the 1996 ITV bodice-ripper. "There are too many strange things that go off in the world. How can anyone say, categorically, that there's no such thing as ghosts? After we die, is that it? No one knows. Personally, I believe there's something out there. Something that doesn't obey the logical rules we apply to our lives."

There's an intensity to Kingston's voice that suggests she's had first-hand experience. Sure enough, she's got her own ghostly story to tell. Just after the birth of her daughter Salome in 2001, Kingston arrived at her LA home to find the living room reeking of rotting flesh.

"It was the most awful smell," she remembers. "Like rancid chicken. My husband [German journalist Florian Haertel] came home and we tried to get rid of it. We opened all the doors and windows, but it wouldn't leave. We went to bed and later the smell appeared in our room. The temperature dropped like a stone. It was freezing!

"My grandfather had died just before my daughter was born. I'd always been very close to him. He loved travelling and he really wanted to come to the US to see his great-granddaughter, but he became too ill.

"My husband said, 'Do you think this is your grandfather? Has he come to check on you and the baby?' Now, my husband is not the sort of man who

believes in this sort of stuff, but he was terrified. All of a sudden, he started talking to nothing. He said, 'Granddad, I don't know if this is you, but if it is, hello. As you can see, Alex and the baby are both doing fine. I have to say that I'm a bit scared. I hope you don't think I'm being rude, but I'd appreciate it if you would leave the house. We'd all like to get back to sleep.'

"Immediately, the smell vanished and the temperature of the room went back to normal. Whatever had been there had gone!"

That's not Kingston's only brush with the paranormal. In her twenties, she was invited by her mother to join in a Ouija board session. "I was always petrified of those," she admits. "It felt like opening a door to a world you wouldn't necessarily want to experience."

In Marchlands: "I pictured Helen with a headscarf and baggy dungarees. Eighties fashion was a lot of fun!"

But Kingston took a chance. "Almost as soon as we sat down, the glass started to spell out things about all of us that no one could really know. Don't ask me why, but I knew that it wasn't one of us pushing. Was it a spirit? I don't know. Maybe it's some sort of unconscious energy channelled through us.

"I'm sure people will smile when they read this, but think about it. Think about all those things that happen that you can't explain. There are energies out there that modern life hides from us.

"We all know that animals can tell when there's a thunderstorm coming. I reckon we had those instincts in the past, but we've lost them. We all have this amazing potential and we let machines do all the work...we're losing that desire to go beyond the obvious. To really connect with the world."

Blimey! No wonder Kingston was

picked to play the reality-bending action hero Professor River Song in Doctor Who. She first appeared in 2008 and was killed off, but thanks to time travel she has a major role in the new series, later this year.

Although the part was reportedly offered to Kate Winslet, executive producer Russell T Davies was obviously pleased that Kingston decided to take it. "Alex Kingston! I bloody love her. Alex Kingston is the Doctor's wife!' he wrote in an email to Doctor Who Magazine's Benjamin Cook.

Although she was a huge hit in the US in ER inwhich she played straighttalking surgeon Dr Elizabeth Corday for seven years, reputedly earning nearly £100,000 an episode—it seems as if British TV has kept calling Kingston back home. In 2003, she starred as Boudica in a Brit flick of the same name and 0

followed it up with the likes of ITV's Lost In Austen and the BBC crime caper Hope Springs. Now she's delighted to be returning to Doctor Who.

"I'm not allowed to breathe a word about the new storylines...otherwise, they take away my sonic screwdriver," she laughs. "When I was first offered

that Kingston isn't keen on answering questions about that particular part of her life.

"That is really nobody's business,"

It's a tough job, but...With " Daniel Craig in Moll Flanders...

the part, I had no idea how successful the new Doctor Whowas because I was in the US. But as soon as I read the script, I fell in love with River. She provides a very complex link to the Doctor's life [hinted at by Davies's email] and ever since I saw Alien, a little bit of me has wanted to run around a spaceship shooting intergalactic monsters."

Kingston's frequent appearances on UK television have obviously led to speculation that she's planning a fulltime return—fuelled somewhat by reports of the recent breakdown of her marriage to Haertel. After her distressingly high-profile split from Ralph Fiennes in 1997, which ultimately led to her moving to America, it's no surprise

...with George Clooney inER...

she says in a firm-but-stillfriendly voice. "Surely you understand that some things are called 'private life' for a reason. Because they're private!

"Now, if you want to talk about me coming back to the UK...yes, I have thought about it. I do seem to be getting more work in the UK at the moment, and commuting all the way from LA is not really practical. But upping sticks would be difficult, because my daughter is at school in the US. She's nine and I'm very committed to her education. If we move, it would have to be during a natural break in her schooling.

"It's a tough one, though, because we have a lot of friends in LA and America has treated me very well. When I was working on ER, I didn't have to worry about a thing. You get the beautiful house and the car, and you're hanging out with George Clooney! And, yes, you

get used to the money. The cheques arrive and everything's wonderful!"

Sadly, Kingston's stint on ER didn't end quite so wonderfully. She was allegedly booted off the show for being too old and had quite a moan about that in the press. "Hey, a lot of those stories at the time completely misquoted me.

had trouble lighting my face and it was making me a bit self-conscious. But it was definitely not about getting old! All that nipping and tucking? Sticking stuff in your lips? No, thank you!

...and with Matt Smith in Doctor Who

"Yes, ageism happens in the US, but ageism happens everywhere. Mind you, I have to admit that it's not as ruthless in the UK. There always seem to be plenty of good female roles for actors in their thirties and forties. Look at some of the great soap characters. Maybe British audiences enjoy seeing more realistic TV."

Sounds as if somebody's missing home...

Just to make one thing clear, ER was extremely kind to me!"

Asked if she would consider surgery for the sake of her career, Kingston explodes with a fruity guffaw. "I had a bit of facial fat removed when I first started on ER, because they always

"Who knows what's going to happen two or three years down the line," she says coyly. "My daughter enjoys being in the UK, though. She's got lots of family here. And she absolutely loves the British weather! When everyone else is complaining about the rain and snow and grey skies, she's running around shouting, 'This is brilliant!' " •

›) Marchlands starts on ITV1 this month.

RYING OUT FOR ANSWERS... OR MAYBE NOT

Answers.com is a handy forum for those seeking enlightenment. But among the many tricky, puzzling and bizarre queries, there are some that have drawn a blank:

How many spoonfuls of food does it take to make you burst?

Where does the white go when snow melts?

What is the current price of ilmenite in Pakistan?

How do I get an owner's manual for the Singing Deer toy? What is the shelf life of envelope adhesive? How many square feet does one ton of rock salt cover? What is the biggest problem in Madagascar?

Miracle Bo

By Kenneth Millet

Shelley Getty Images

"FREE AT LAST!"

Kiki and the unforgettable smile that tivated the t)

It's almost exactly a year since Kiki Joachin was pulled from the rubble of Haiti's earthquake after eight days of unimaginable suffering. But what's happened to him since? 4

Photographed by Allison

Deep in the Haitian countryside, three hours from teeming, quake-torn Port-auPrince, Moise "Kiki"

Joachin shares a tworoom wooden shack with his older sister and younger brother, their mother, her parents and four or five other relatives.

Coconut and banana trees grow in the dirt yard, but a recent flood has wiped out the family's garden. So they buy food from vendors down the road—a strain on their minuscule budget.

"They're really struggling," says photojournalist Allison Shelley, who tracked the family down to the village of Depale for Reader's Digest in November. "The adults share a couple of mattresses on the floor, and the kids sleep on piles of clothes and blankets." Even so, the Joachins are better off than many in this beleaguered country, where more than one million people still live in tent cities, and more than 1,600 have died in a cholera outbreak. An estimated 100,000 children were left orphaned by last year's earthquake, but Kiki, luckily, is not one of them.

Even around his parents, however, Kiki is a timid boy, given to one-word

answers, still struggling to find his place in these new surroundings. Asked which he likes better, the quiet village— where he has spent the past twelve months—or his bustling hometown, eight-year-old Kiki answers without hesitation: "Port-au-Prince."

That's where he was on January 12, 2010, when a massive earthquake struck Haiti. As the ground began convulsing, Kiki's mother Gracia Raymond ran from the porch of their apartment building in search of her five-year-old son David, who was outside fetching water. Bloodied by falling breeze blocks, she began frantically burrowing through the crumbled concrete towards her five other kids. She could make no headway.

Kiki's father Odinel was trapped in his office at the Haitian customs service. It would take him two days to find his wife. When she told him that five of their children were buried in the wreckage of their home, "I asked a neighbour to chop off my head," Odinel recalls, "because I had no reason to live."

For eight days, Kiki was buried beneath the ruins of his apartment building. He and Sabrina, 11, huddled in a tiny space under tons of rubble, with no food 1)

Dad °dine( spends most of the week in the city looking for work to help feed his children (left to right) Sabrina, David and Kiki, and wife Gracia

t or water, barely able to move; nearby lay Titite, four, and the bodies of sisters Yeye, nine, and Didine, 15 months.

"When our house fell down, I thought I was going to die," Kiki recalls. On their fifth day in the ruins, he says, "I saw my brother die right next to me." He remembers weeping as Sabrina covered little Titite with her T-shirt.

Then on the eighth day, a neighbour rummaging for her possessions heard Kiki's faint cries for water. Two US firefighters, Chris Dunic and Brad Antons, spent the next four hours cautiously drilling through the debris and finally reached Kiki and his sister.

"The hardest thing was getting him to come up," says Dunic, who was wearing a helmet and face mask and wielding a jackhammer. "We were scaring

"I like school, even the homework." Kiki attending classes at Ecole Renovation in Jacmel, Haiti

him." Finally, Kiki's aunt reassured him. Dunic reached down and handed the boy to her.

As Kiki was raised from the hole, he broke into a blazing grin and flung out his arms in a victory gesture.

In the midst of a disaster that killed 220,000 people, Sabrina and Kiki's rescue was a welcome bit of good news. "I smiled because I was free," Kiki told reporters. "Because I was alive."

After being treated at an Israeli-run field hospital, the children and their family fled the chaos of Port-au-Prince for Gracia's home village, Depale.

During the week, Odinel haunts the streets of the capital, camping under a tarpaulin near the ruins where his other children remain interred. His job

at the customs office has been cut back to three days a week; on his days off he returns to Depale when he can afford the bus fare.

Kiki, Sabrina, and David walk three miles each morning to a school called Ecole Renovation, in the town of Jacmel. In Port-au-Prince many kids still haven't resumed their studies because most schools were destroyed by the quake. "I like school, even the homework," Kiki says, though the ordeal left him and his siblings so distressed that they failed all their classes last term.

Like most schools in Haiti, Ecole Renovation charges tuition, nearly £60 a year per child. Unable to keep up with the payments, Odinel owes £250

Outside the but in Depale, Haiti, where Kiki now lives with nine family members

and worries about how he'll settle the debt. "We're not living very well," he says, "but I want my kids to continue to go to school. Afterwards, they can learn a trade—any one they want."

Kiki tells adults he hopes to be a mechanic when he grows up, or a truck driver, or perhaps an engineer so he can help rebuild his shattered country.

But even talking about his dreams, Kiki is subdued. In the months that followed his rescue, the joy that transfigured his face a year ago has seldom returned, his family says. Often he is silent and withdrawn.

Recently, however, he's started to move on. His teacher says he is opening up in classes, talking a 4f)

"Nobody's really helped Haitians to create jobs. Nobody's given them the chance to participate in a sustainable society" LfILL Clinton on Haiti

Former US president Bill Clinton spends time every day running the William J Clinton Foundation.Its signature endeavour is the Clinton Global Initiative, which has helped nearly 3oo million people in over 170 nations gain better access to health care, safe drinking water and job training. Its members have underwritten reforestation efforts and medical research, and made thousands of small loans. Clinton sat down with Reader's Digest to talk about the role of his Initiative in Haiti and what else should be done.

RD:You've been involved with Haiti for 35 years and you obviously care about the Haitian people. But to many, it seems that Haiti won't get back on its feet unless it has a political system that works better.

I'm convinced they know that without a political and governance system that can produce good decisions, they cannot build a sustainable country. A commission has been set up—which is half Haitians and half donors —to build the capacity of Haitian society and the capacity of the Haitian government to make Haiti a self-supporting country

fa` little bit more, and trying his best to make progress.

Kilo's country, meanwhile, has barely begun to dig itself out of the rubble. At the time of going to press, just £567 million of the £3.63 billion in reconstruction funds promised by 130 countries had been delivered to Haiti.

"The money isn't getting to these

over the long run. Whether or not we can do it, I don't know, but we're trying.

RD:In Haiti one of the big problems is that the forests were cut down manyyears ago and never replaced. Why are we still grappling with the false choice between jobs and environmental protection? For most poor people in the world where deforestation is a problem —and not just in Haiti— it's not a false choice. It's a real choice because nobody's really come to them in their area and helped to create jobs. Nobody has given them a

people," says rescuer Dunic, who follows the situation through news reports. "They're no better off than they were right after the quake."

As the delays stretch on, families like Kild's face choices that people in richer nations rarely have to contemplate. Food or school? Tent in the city or shack in the country? Stay with your loved ones or travel to look for work?

chance to participate in a sustainable society. All they know is their kids have to eat tonight—if they cut this tree down and sell it for charcoal, they can stay alive for a few more days. You have to give them another way to make a living.

0 RD:You talk about giving

Bill Clinton visiting Haiti in January last year, shortly after the earthquake struck

advice to young people coming out of higher education today. Would you tell them to enter politics, journalism or philanthropy?

I would say first of all that they have something most human beings in history didn't have: the ability to make such a

"My dream is to start a business for my family," says Odinel, "maybe selling rice and beans, to be able to put another room on the house so the kids can sleep better."

Meanwhile, he and Gracia are grateful for what they have. "It was a miracle," she says. "God didn't want us to lose all of the children." •

choice. The vast majority of people who have lived since we first stood up on the African savannah thousands of years ago had no choice whatsoever in how to make a living. So it's a great privilege to be able to choose what you do. So I would say, find somethingyou care about; that's most important. Then I would say, if you go into the army, teaching, inherently serving others —give it all you've got. And if you go into a profession you find interesting that has no connection to other people except indirectly, where you can acquire some financial success, then take some part of your life to do something for other people because the world is interdependent.

Carl Cannon

Helping Haiti

Save the Children provides health, nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and child-protection services to children like Kiki. To donate, go to

We take a look at what's in store for us all in three key areas, starting wit the world of work...

YOUR JOB IN

Beyond formal education

The internet has allowed small businesses to reach a global marketplace from their living rooms. The result is a profusion of cottage-industry start-up firms—many young people no longer see their future in terms of formal training or a structured career.

Take my son Rob (pictured left), a 24-year-old graduate. For 18 months before leaving university, he taught himself to use Adobe Flash software in order to make computer games. The internet has thousands of freeto-use games that earn money through advertising. Rob had a hit with "Panda Tactical Sniper"*, which has been f )

riplayed more than ten million times. So instead of seeking a company internship after graduating, he carried on making games, earning the equivalent of a good graduate salary within five months. He recently sold another game for £18,000.

As tuition fees increase and university courses concentrate on broad, often non-vocational academic disciplines, there are going to be more people like Rob, building their expertise in a pickand-mix approach to education. They often draw their most relevant learning from internet forums, where new skills are passed on and new collaborations forged every day.

Rob enjoys being a one-man business. "In large companies, it's easy to become a tiny cog in a big machine," he says. But that doesn't mean self-employed internet workers like him can do without marketing, accounting, sales and the other skills traditional companies rely upon. They'll need to acquire these, too—whether through formal training or using the internet—and become expert generalists. Innovative advertising will also be important, as they try to get their product noticed in an extremely competitive marketplace.

Last October, for example, Belfast filmmaker George Clarke posted a clip from the 1928 Charlie Chaplin film The Circus on YouTube, in which a woman appears to be using a mobile. Within a week, it had clocked up four million views and been featured on the BBC and The Tonight Show in the US. It put Clarke's Yellow Fever production company firmly on the map.

2. The rise and rise of women

If the workplace is still a man's world, it won't be for long. In the UK, the number of women in employment— which has been steadily increasing since the Second World War—has risen close to that of men and could soon overtake it. In the US, females may already be in the majority.

With women dominating offices, the atmosphere—already different to that of previous generations—will be transformed. Amanda Royce, 62, of Royce and Co solicitors in Fulham, south-west London, has an all-female staff. "I used to work at a newspaper and, though it was fun, it was very macho—there was lots of teasing and sexism. Women tend to be more focused and better organised. You could say this makes for a more boring office, but the emphasis is on getting the job done."

Bosses doing deals with friends on the golf course, or promoting people mainly because they get on, will also decrease in favour of a more meritocratic approach. Karen McKean, 42, who runs Liverpool training company Business Standard Solutions, previously worked in a male-run engineering firm. "A lot of business was done in the pub. This kind of networking needn't be a bad thing—and I'd encourage women to do more—but there's a balance."

A more feminine workforce may be more intelligent and higher achieving, too. Recent research by the Higher Education Policy Institute revealed that 49 per cent of college-age British women were attending university, compared with 37.8 per cent of men. And

some two-thirds of female graduates achieved first- or upper-second-class degrees, against six in ten males.

3. No more hierarchies

Most people born after 1980 were brought up with the intemet and it's had a profound influence on the way they think. With social-networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter, they've got used to being "friends" with anyone from the boy next door to Sir Alan Sugar, sharing details of their personal lives, collaborating on online projects and having their opinions given equal billing to those of MPs on web forums. As a result, they have less time for traditional hierarchies and are less willing to be subservient employees who leave all the decisions to their bosses.

Jeremy Brown, who founded strategy consultancy Sense Worldwide in 2000, is one employer who's already realised this. "We established a flat set-up from the beginning. We need to have some structure, but it's a pretty fluid organisation in the way we exchange ideas. Everyone has a point to make and everyone deserves to be heard."

4. Extending your work

As we live longer and our pension funds struggle to maintain us, many of us will have to work well past 65. But this doesn't mean we'll be carrying on with our old careers. They may be too tiring, we may cause resentment by blocking new talent from coming through, or it may be difficult for us to keep up with changing skill sets.

With few exceptions, the only forms of work for the over-65s are relatively low-skilled roles, such as working at B&Q, or executive-level consulting. Mid-level jobs are rare. Workplaces may evolve to provide new roles for senior employees, but it's more likely that older workers will have to carve out second careers, perhaps starting a business or building on largely untapped skills.

That's what Doris Addison*, who retired as a primary school teacher ten years ago, has done. "I'd been a housewife, then a supply teacher for ten years

"Our firm is pretty fluid in the way we exchange ideas. Everyone has a point to make and deserves to be heard"

Jeremy Brown

f.) after getting divorced," says the 75-year-old from Devon. "I was only full-time for the last 15 years, so didn't accrue enough pension to live on. I'd briefly been a professional actress in my early twenties, so I decided to have another go. Since then, I've been an extra in TV programmes and I work in a museum playing historical roles."

She also has a regular job pretending to be a patient in diagnostic exams for medical students. "I've had a huge variety of medical conditions. It's a strange way to make a living, but more fun than sitting at home knitting."

5. Ditching the commute

Some people might still see working from home as a bit of a skive—but in the next few years it may become the norm. BT is a front-runner in this field. The company has decided to encourage homeworking, partly to reduce overheads, partly because it sells the broadband

services and other technologies that make working from home easier, and partly because it can make the lives of its employees more manageable. About 10,000 of its 9Z000 staff have taken up the option on a full-time basis and many more do so part-time.

Naomi Fitton, a member of BT's HR team, has worked from home in Lancaster for two years. "It means I can do the school run and make up for it in my own time," she says. "I couldn't balance my work and home life without it. It's about productivity, not the fact that I'm at my desk"

Much of her training is delivered online through the internal company network, where she can access tips on homeworking. She can also talk to a colleague or manager by video link-up. "We may be discussing some document that we can edit as we're speaking. There's no need for travel."

Some of BT's employees who would have previously worked in call centres also now work from the comfort of their own houses. "The person on the other

"[Working from home] is about productivity, not the fact that I'm at my desk"

Naomi Fitton

end of the phone wouldn't know that they were speaking to someone who wasn't in an office," says Fitton.

r Preparing for the end

Advances in medicine will mean that many of us will be able to extend our lives, but there's no guarantee we'll be able to afford the treatments we'll need indefinitely. So we'll need to do more thorough planning for our demise.

Dignitas, the Swiss-based assisteddying group, could be just the start of a much greater movement devoted to allowing people with chronic conditions to die on their own terms. Such deaths and the implications for family and friends will require far more sensitive preparations.

A conference this June, held by Bath University's Centre for Death and Society, will be discussing "death and the digital age"—how undertakers should counsel people on how to deal with a dead relative's Facebook page, for example, or other "digital possessions" such as online photo albums. Death consulting—covering everything from how to mentally prepare for your imminent demise to inheritance tax issues —is not yet a profession, but it could be in the future.

7. A new Localism

Environmental destruction and dwindling fossil fuels are already making us aware of the need to reduce unnecessary travel. But other scenarios could turn the concept of the global village on its head almost overnight.

As terrorists increase their capacity

to develop explosives that can't be detected by scanners, a coordinated attack on the world's airlines-30 planes blown up over major cities at the same time, perhaps—is conceivable. Should this happen, people might retreat into fully integrated local communities.

Farmers' markets are already fighting back against the big supermarkets and they could go mainstream. Tomorrow's village may see the return not only of the butcher and the baker, but also the candlestick maker.

8. Increased monitoring

Much of our work is parcelled up into chunks or projects, rather than nine-tofive work routines. This emphasis on performance will lead to an increasing use of performance measurement, often managed within software systems with capabilities in tracking the progress of individual employees.

Human resources software marketed by US firm Success Factors enables managers to run searches of their databases to identify people with certain skills or knowledge, such as a language or an understanding of some technical process. It could also flush out people whose talents are no longer meeting the company's needs.

9. In sickness and in health

If employers will be trying to get more out of us by monitoring our performance, they'll also be doing it by monitoring our health.

For example, Dr Paul Litchfield, chief medical officer at BT, decided it was time to do something when he noticed

that 26 of the company's employees had died prematurely from heart-related illnesses in a single year. This led BT to launch Work-Fit, a voluntary programme where staff submit themselves to diet, health and fitness regimes.

"A lot of people were telling us they hadn't succeeded in losing weight when they'd tried before, but with the encouragement of a programme that provides a series of small achievable targets, they found it much easier," says Dr Litchfield.

Since Work-Fit began, absence rates have been reduced by more than a third, saving some £30 million a year. Looking at wider benefits—recruitment, retention and better productivity—the company may have saved up to £100 million in the five years since the programme started, for an outlay of not much more than £1 million.

But how much should employers

know about our health? They've been discriminating on medical grounds for years, and still do, often citing healthand-safety concerns. Even obesity can be a barrier to work. Two years ago Maire Parker, a driver with more than 20 years' experience and a clean licence, was turned down for a bus driver's job in Northern Ireland because of her body mass index. In other parts of the UK, bus drivers have been put on health regimes to shed weight so they can keep their jobs.

Some employees are already monitored for alcohol and substance abuse. Will smoking enter the frame in future? It's already happened. In 2005, the World Health Organisation announced it would no longer hire smokers "as a matter of principle". Expect more of the same. •

0 Richard Donkin is a financial journalist and the author ofThe Future of Work (£26)

The Age UK Guaranteed Funeral Plan

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Nowadays, so many people are gaining the comfort of knowing that they can save their loved ones from the added distress of having to make all their funeral arrangements at the time. That's why Age UK introduced the Guaranteed Funeral Plan.

The Plan guarantees to cover the cost of a cremation funeral

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X-RAYS GO XBO

There's a new way of scanning the body—and it's nothing like the fuzzy blackand-white images you're used to

By Jerome Burne

Soon all medical scans will look like this And, incredibly, they could be done by your GP using just a laptop and an Xbox controller. These pictures contain basically the same information as a murky black-and-white photo from a CT or MRI scan.

But they look a world away. What makes these so incredibly clear and detailed is that they've been fed through a new piece of software wizardry called BodyViz, which owes far more to computer games than conventional medical imaging. Instead of the flat 2D image usually seen when you are scanned, the BodyViz process uses the information to produce images in full-colour 3D. And while some

THE LIVER OPERATION

The large red area on the left is an infected liver; up to 75 per cent of it must be removed. Calculating the liver's size in advance is vital and can be done in a few minutes with BodyViz. This dramatically speeds up the surgeon's planning. Even more important is deciding where to cut without slicing through blood vessels. With a normal CT scan this can take hours and needs a certain amount of guesswork. The big unknown is the location of the blood vessels—everyone's layout is different—but BodyViz allows the surgeon to see the blood vessels just by pressing a control button that takes him or her right into the liver in seconds

THE HEART OPERATION

This patient—who is lying on his back with ribs top and bottom—is waiting for a "keyhole" operation to use a blood vessel in the chest wall for a heart bypass. The two orange and red "sausages" at the front are major blood vessels leaving and entering the heart, and the twig-like branches are arteries in the lungs. While 2D scans give information on the whereabouts of arteries, muscles and bone, the BodyViz program makes them instantly visible. First,trocars (surgical tools) are inserted—you can see them poking out at the top. Then the surgeon slides lights and other tools down, which have to be very precisely placed: close enough to remove the blood vessel but leaving enough room to manoeuvre

1 P, CT scans do produce vivid colour pictures of organs, BodyViz lets surgeons, at the touch of a button, look at different aspects of your body to show only veins, or bones, for example, or to turn the image through 360 degrees.

The program was developed at the Virtual Reality Applications Centre at Iowa State University, one of the most advanced computer research centres in the US. Using it, surgeons can in minutes make preparations for an operation that previously would have taken hours. Working out the safest way into the body is easier, more accurate and therefore less invasive.

"This system allows surgeons to perform virtual operations before doing the real thing," says Curt Carlson, CEO of Ames, which markets BodyViz. "It lets you swoop through any part of the body as though on a fly-by mission." So you can travel through organs, and check for, say, early signs of cancer in the colon or blockages in the arteries. And because BodyViz relies on computer gaming technology that's already widely used, it only costs about £4,000, and could be available to GPs in a few years.

BodyViz is already transforming the way doctors work. "In the past, I'd go over the scans with the radiologist, but I'd still have to plan, draw pictures, imagine and finally guess at the best approach," says Dr Thom Lobe, paediatric surgeon at Blank Children's Hospital, Des Moines, Iowa. "This means that when we open a patient up we're not entirely sure what we'll find; sometimes fri

/

This is inside the brain of a nine-year-old girl born with a defect that allows a dangerous build-up of cerebrospinal fluid. Without an operation her skull will gradually expand and she may have convulsions. You can see that two thin tubes have been inserted. On the right is a shunt to remove excess fluid; on the left a sensor that's triggered when the pressure gets too high. Here, BodyViz is being used as a fast check that the shunt is in exactly the right position and there are no leaks or blockages. The success of most operations depends on precise measurement. Existing systems for measuring from scans are accurate but complex, and can take time to learn. BodyViz allows the surgeon to take measurements quickly and easily

PAUL SOVELIUS, PLATO'S CAVE (ABOVE AND OPENING SPREAD)

THE KIDNEY TRANSPLANT

If you know your anatomy you'll notice the kidney in this scan is in the wrong place. Normally, the kidneys are either side of the spine, just below the ribs. Here, the brown object nestling in the pelvic bone on the right is a transplanted kidney; the red area directly above is the spleen, and the soft red lin to the left the liver. Kidneys are initially transplanted int: the pelvis because the area easily accessed and avoids more complicated surgery in the abdominal cavity. BodyViz speeds up pre-transplant checks on the blood supply from the body's main artery (the thick brown tube). But in this post-operation scan the transplanted kidney looks too pale; it should appear redder, like the spleen. This could suggest a blood clot, which may mean another operation to remove it

Do you have 3D specs? If so, go to readersdigest. co.uk/magazine to see these amazing pictures in 3D

This is the same patient viewed from a different angle and with all the bones digitally removed. The purplish lobes are the lungs; below the top left one the livershows deep red. Being able to shift points of view fast makes it easier to see that there is a good blood supply— delivered by the body's main artery running down the middle—to the new kidney before operating and to check progress afterwards.Shifting viewpoints is also a boon for radiation therapy. Although specialised machines help to safely target beams at tumours, BodyViz makes it easier

1" there are unexpected obstructions and you find you're flying by the seat of your pants. BodyViz cuts that out and speeds things up. I can see instantly what's happening from the scan. It means there's less chance of any surprises during surgery."

But it's when surgeons practise on the patient before operating that the link with computer games is most obvious. At the click of a button on the handheld controller—identical to those used for playing games on an Xbox—up pops an equipment list. But instead of swords or laser blasters there are scalpels and other surgical tools. The surgeons can plot how they intend to cut or probe on the body with incredible accuracy. Clear pictures allow the small incisions used in keyhole surgery to be made in exactly the right place, and possible obstructions can be seen in advance.

PAUL SOVELIUS, PLATO 'S CAVE

The first hospital to install BodyViz was The Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, last February. Dr Brian Butler, head of the Radiation Oncology Department, explains that working with people outside your field brings a whole new perspective.

"Computer garners immediately understand the idea of wanting to blast one area but protect others nearby," he says. 'And that's what we have to do with radiotherapy: get the

FRACTURE OF THE PELVIS

This patient has had a serious accident. Top left is a fracture, and there's more damage where the hip bone joins the pelvis. Blood vessels (not seen) can be shown in a second with a touch on the Xbox controller. If they're damaged too that will compound the seriousness of the injury. The surrounding organs can also be easily checked. This is much harder to see on X-rays, and with CT scans the surgeon needs the radiologist to interpret, losing precious time in an emergency. Scans such as this are already in certain hospitals and, as the software is relatively cheap, surgeons can run it on their laptops without having to wait to access a central computer

maximum dose to the target and the minimum everywhere else." Doing that with a 2D image from a conventional scan is tricky "3D lets us see exactly where each beam goes through the body."

Already, other hospitals are referring patients to The Methodist for a second opinion before an operation. The scans are projected onto a huge screen. "The graphics are unbelievable," says Dr Gregory Kolbinger, clinical director of the Iowa Simulation Centre at Des Moines University. "It's like walking inside the body." This hyperreal image allows experts from different specialisms to agree on what they're looking at—not always the case with 2D scans.

BodyViz could also give patients a valuable new insight. "Regular CT scans don't give cancer patients any idea of what's going on," says Dr Brian Butler. "But now doctor and patient can get a sense of what's happening, and that's less scary."

So will BodyViz be used in the UK? "We've had systems for presenting 3D scans for some years," says Richard Evans of the British Society of Radiographers. "But BodyViz's more sophisticated software results in wonderful, high-quality images. It could play a very useful part in training and in dry runs for operations."

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With food production under threat from population growth and concerns about food miles and shrinking agricultural space,Tim Bouquet investigates the most radical solution yet

It's a grey, drizzly day at Paignton Zoo in south Devon. Sensible animals are taking shelter, but people's noses are pressed to the plastic skin of an unusually lofty greenhouse. Their mouths are wide open, too, but their eyes are not deceiving them-11,000 plants really are on the move: massed trays of rocket, spinach, pak choi, chicory, chard and herbs on eight levels of trays circulating slowly around the building. Every so often, each tray stops at computer-controlled feeding stations where water, oxygen and nutrients are introduced through a funnel. The plants—which are grown without soil—then drift slowly on like parts on a car production line. Europe's yr.

fr) first "vertical farm" may look surreal, but similar sights could soon be common across Britain.

"By building upwards in an area half the size of a tennis court, with the temperature controlled, we're producing the same amount of crops as a threeacre field," says Kevin Frediani, Paignton Zoo's curator of plants and gardens, and the driving force behind the farm. "We only use five per cent of the water, too—all of which is recycled."

By 2050, farmers face the challenge of feeding an extra three billion people worldwide. Their combined thirst will mean 18 per cent less water for agriculture. Since 1970, population growth has almost halved the amount of arable land per person to half an acre.

"The soil-based farming model will no longer be sustainable," says Dr Dickson Despommier, who leads research into vertical farms at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Colombia University, New York. Both he and Frediani believe that the new type of agriculture on display at Paignton could become essential for the planet and humanity's well-being.

Frediani, 43, first got involved with the project in August 2008. The zoo was hosting its annual Green Solutions Festival, celebrating all things environmental. One exhibitor, Valcent Products, a Canadian firm with a base in Launceston, Cornwall, had brought a model of a vertical fresh-leaf growing system called VertiCrop. The firm already had a pilot project up and running in El Paso, Texas, growing algae crops as biofuels.

In half the time it took to explain the system, Frediani was convinced it had a place at Paignton.

Not only could vertical farming feed the zoo animals a nutritious diet, he realised, but the implications for growing fresh food for humans in spacecrunched urban settings—reducing transport bills and carbon emissions— or in places with very little water were also clear.

"If you're one step ahead of the crowd you're considered a genius; two steps ahead, you're a madman," smiles Frediani, previously head of gardens at Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, one of the world's oldest botanical gardens. "But I wanted to prove that there was a new way of feeding people."

His enthusiasm won over the zoo's directors and the £28,000 460-squarefeet building was erected in September 2009 in an old elephant paddock. Valcent covered the approximately £50,000 cost of the growing equipment.

Despite the automated appearance, the system does require some human effort. Planting and harvesting are done with gardening scissors and the trays are lifted up and down on a forklift.

But it's been a big practical and commercial success. Because it's indoors, it's protected from weather-related crop failures and doesn't need to use herbicides or pesticides. It's feeding all of the zoo's animals (bear in mind that one hippopotamus can munch through 100 pounds of vegetation every day) at ten per cent less than the old cost—and Frediani hopes to increase this to 25 per cent soon.

Kevin Frediani in Paignton Zoo's vertical farm. Crops are stacked around ten feet high

Saving money doesn't mean the quality of the animals' food has suffered either. VertiCrop can grow as much lettuce as a conventional 1,970-squarefoot greenhouse, but Frediani dismisses lettuce as "green water with some nutrients", saying, "Rocket has two-anda-half times the nutritional value and I can grow it for the same price—which you can't outside."

He believes that all these benefits, and more, could be replicated if VertiCrop was used to feed humans.

"Hospitals, schools, offices and supermarkets could all have vertical farms growing from seed to leaf, producing

fresher food where we live and work. As well as being cheaper, it would cut down on food miles, create local jobs and make a quality diet much more accessible, combating health problems such as type 2 diabetes and obesity."

Dilapidated urban areas could also be rejuvenated, with former warehouses or factories converted into farms using solar-powered LEDs and plasma lighting in place of direct sunlight.

And, surprisingly, this vision is already within touching distance. The Paignton project has attracted numerous corporate visitors and Valcent is now in r.

High-rise food passes the crucial Jumbo taste test

rd advanced discussions with one of the country's leading supermarket suppliers of ready-washed salads. It currently imports all its green leaves from Spain by truck but is looking at building a 2,630-square-foot vertical farm in southern England.

"It should be up and running in the first half of this year," says Valcent's head Chris Bradford. "And we're talking to one of Europe's leading vegetable processing companies about setting up a trial growing unit at Launceston."

Valcent is also talking to Britain's biggest farmer, the Co-op (which has 60,000 acres), and representatives from Manchester, Birmingham, Wakefield and Glasgow councils. All of them have disused industrial buildings that, according to Bradford, they're keen to turn over to urban farming.

Visitors from Australia, Singapore,

India and Hong Kong have also beaten a path to Paignton Zoo, and Valcent has possible tie-ups in Canada and the US, too.

Meanwhile, in Berkeley, California, a company called Sky Vegetables plans to grow crops hydroponically (without soil) in greenhouses on top of grocery stores, eliminating up to 80 per cent of the cost of production, packaging and distribution. And Dr Despommier is trying to raise £12 million to build a 33-storey vertical farm in New York that could feed 50,000 people. Fifty more would feed the entire city.

Frediani has had articles about his work published in several academic journals and he's presented papers at the World Botanic Garden Congress in Dublin, inspiring more than 500 school and university students to come to Paignton. Their enthusiasm for the

project suggests a real willingness among the younger generation to embrace the new farming method.

"They find it incredibly exciting when they see the computer controlling the feeding programme and realise how much can be grown in such a small space," he says.

"There's no university that teaches hydroponics in the UK at present," he rues. "But go to Malaysia and see what people do there to grow hydroponic fresh vegetables on their windowsills or roofs. The thought

SinapSchicKt

of not growing hydroponically isn't on the agenda."

Vertical farming, or other hydroponics systems, may not totally replace traditional agriculture or unseat the nation's barley barons from their combine harvesters just yet, he says. "But we do have to move away from mono-agriculture towards a more integrated approach where we use our land more efficiently.

"Horticulture hasn't ever been regarded as the sexiest of professions— but that could be set to change." •

TV Licence Fees

by Ben Schott

The BBC licence fee has become increasingly controversial over recent yearsnot least because of the antics of several highly paid performers. However, it is worth noting that the United Kingdom is not alone in charging a TV licence fee. Charted below are the 2009/10 licence fees for a range of European countries:

Ben Schott is author ofSchott's Almanac. From April 1, 2010, the UK licence fee increased to £,145.50, but this was frozen for six years last October. [Source: BBC/Broadcasting Fee Association. Licences run for a calendar year except the UK which runs from 1 April to 31 March. Euro exchange rate used as of 1 January 2010 (£.1=€1.14). Cost is total per licence to domestic customer for TV and radio. t = includes VAT]

Stephen Tompkinson on Ballykissangel, staring down an elephant and giving up booze

i me men

No sudden moves: Stephen with his co-star Dawn Steele in Wild at Heart

...the first time I went to Africa. I took my parents there for a holiday in 1999. As soon as I stepped off the plane, it felt different. In Africa the earth feels alive—you see a giraffe and you think, My God, you've been here for thousands of years. You can almost taste the history around you. There's a conservation area called the Cradle of Humankind, about half an hour from where we film [ITV drama] Wild at Heart. They found 1111401160111 • in

a skull down there from a woman they called Mrs Ples. She is one of the missing links—two and a half million years old! Africa is literally where we all come from.

...working with wild animals. You never forget the first time you see a lion up close. Your heart misses a beat! It doesn't feel scary on set, but when you're out in the bush you have to be careful.

One time, we saw a fully grown male elephant no more than 30 feet away. I looked at him and he looked at me—just for a second, I got the feeling that he knew he was in charge. Man might have risen to the top of the tree, but out there, on your own... you wouldn't stand a chance!

...appearing in a family production of The Wizard of Oz. I was very lucky because my Uncle Joe used to work at the local school and, during

the holidays, he let my brother John, my cousins and me use all the drama facilities. We were just kids, but we had tons of valuable equipment to make our own costumes and special effects.

No matter what play we did, I was immediately drawn to any comic elements. When I watched Eric and Ernie with my parents, I was fascinated by how this TV programme [Morecambe and Wise] could make the grown-ups laugh. I always thought there was something noble about that. 4-.)

r, ...going to mass every Sunday as a kid. It left a big impression on me—the church full to bursting, the priest in his robes speaking to a captive audience. When you think about it, I could be describing an actor in a theatre.

I did think of joining the priesthood. The priests I knew were all terrific—very funny men; men you could turn to if you had a problem. And if one of them actually came to the house...blimey, that was a major occasion. You can see why a young lad would be attracted to that; it seemed such a glamorous life. Sadly, I got distracted by cricket, Guinness and girls (not necessarily in that order!). All of.a sudden, the priesthood didn't seem quite so appealing.

...watching myself on telly for the first time.I was about 20 or 21, and it was my first TV job after drama school. It was called All at Number 20 and featured a bunch of lodgers living in a house looked after by Maureen Lipman. I played a copper. A young Martin Clunes was in it, too; even then he was brilliant.

I was quite excited about the whole thing, but I wasn't one of those people who went around saying, "Hey, everyone. I'm on

TV next week" You hear about some people who have a party and invite everybody round. I could never do that. What if you're rubbish?

...Drop the Dead Donkey. As soon as it went out, people started talking about it. And, of course, all the papers were writing about it, which meant it got great publicity.

I think the media types who watched it knew someone like Gus, Damien, Henry or Sally—it was the first show to really lift the lid on that world. For years, we'd watched the news on TV and believed what they told us. When I found out some of the things that went on behind closed doors, it made my hair stand on end. They didn't just fib a bit—some of it was outright lies!

Young blood: (top right) Stephen's first role, the copper in All atNumber 20; (below) hitting the big time as reporter Damien Day in Drop the Dead Donkey

...Ballykissangel. Working on the show (right) was wonderful, but it was the one time when I felt I was losing control of my private life. It Ec_ was getting fantastic ratings and became big news. When the papers got wind of Dervla [Kirwan] and I being together in real life, it all went a bit bonkers

...getting recognised on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town. It was the first day of the new millennium. Mum, Dad and I were watching Nelson Mandela's boat travel to Robben Island—this time

he was a visitor. It was a wonderful moment, a new era. Next to us was a group of South African ladies. All of a sudden, one of them turned round and said, "Hey, you're that priest, aren't you?"

My dad just shook his head, looked embarrassed and said, "I really can't take you anywhere, can I?"

...realising I was never going to play the romantic lead. Some actors can get by on charm and good looks—let's face it, I'm not one of them. Ladies of a certain age might find me appealing, but I know that I'm never going to be hunk of the month.

I suppose I see myself as Mr Everyman. Luckily, most stories have that easy-going, bloke-next-door character— which hopefully means I'll never be out of work. And if you play decent blokes, people tend to assume you're a decent bloke. What happens if you've spent your life playing villains? Does everybody hate you?

...delivering my daughter Daisy. Nicci—my wife at the time— and I got to the hospital and she gave birth less than an hour later. I remember thinking, Well, that wasn't difficult. I'm

.1) sure Nicci wasn't quite so blase. She was in a birthing pool, which was brilliant. Everything was going well and the doctor said, "Would you like to deliver your daughter?" The next minute, out came Daisy! I got her head above water, cut the cord and...bliss. A new chapter of my life.

...watching Daisy sing a duet of "It Must Be Love" with Suggs from Madness. I was the MC at a charity event and to see her there on stage was wonderful. I'm a huge Madness fan, so I was pinching myself all night. I became very emotional at one point. Actually, emotional isn't the word—I was a mess!

...deciding to stop drinking. I'd occasionally given up for Lent, but in 2004 I thought, Let's see how long I can last. The weeks turned into months and suddenly

Daddy's girl: with daughter Daisy, now aged ten

I didn't feel like drinking any more. Like a lot of people, I overdid it a bit in my twenties and thirties, but I was starting to find that it took me longer to recover from a big night out. Your body can't take it. The first thing you notice is that your energy levels go up—you're able to give your full attention to the things As told to that really matter. • Danny Scott

marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince --

William reaches fever pitch, we want z your help! What we're looking for is first-hand stories of the happy couple. Have you ever met either Kate or William? Do you have any daft, amusing or interesting anecdotes to tell? Or some cherished photographs? Any that we use in a future issue will receive £100,so please send your entries toreadersletters @readersdigest.co.uk by February io*. 0

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Who needs Tenerife, 30-degree heat and babes in bikinis? The frigid British coast n is where it's at in , winter, says comedian Alex Kirk

BE THE SEASIDE

Deserted beach huts at Kingsdown, Kent

It's dark when you get up for work and dark when you get home. It's wet, cold and the wind is usually blowing. Yes, winter in Britain can be pretty grim. I guess that's why some 11 million people feel the need to jet off abroad for the sun in these chilly months.

But they're making a terrible mistake —the ultimate winter destination is the British seaside. Let me set forth my case. (I'm not nuts, honest!)

I grew up in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, in the 1970s. It may not seem the most glamorous of places, but it does— like many other resorts—have the key elements I love about the British shoreline when summer has finished: glorious empty beaches, a twee-but-charming town centre and half-abandoned tourist attractions that seem to remain open especially for me.

As a kid, I always looked forward to the end of the holiday season, when the trains would pull out with the last of the tourists and the roads would slowly empty. Us locals would mark the occasion with a little celebration at the Wonderland amusement park, which, for a small fee, would give the town's residents a book of tickets to have a go on all the rides.

I remember half our school being there, settling scores on the dodgems, being sick on the waltzers and trying to win on that stall where you hook floating plastic ducks with a rod and get a big teddy bear or an ancient stick

of rock. When I say win, I mean cheat—you just waited until the cashier went to collect some money from a punter on the other side of the stall, then leaned over, put a duck on your line and feigned surprise and jubilation when he turned round again.

Anyway, that event signalled the start of a magical time of year when my friends and I knew the town was ours and we could roam the beaches unhindered by windbreaks and hordes of

Frozen fishing boat at Hastings, East Sussex

It's snow-going on the Brighton and Hove seafront

red-faced paddling tourists. If we wanted to play beach football, there wouldn't be any drunks trying to join in and show us how skilful they weren't.

One year I headed out on Christmas morning, aged ten, after getting a fivespeed racing bike as the best present ever. I decided to test it on the flat, hard sand at low tide. It was freezing and started to rain but, with a fierce tailwind behind me, I felt as if I were breaking some land-speed record.

Then I heard a policeman shouting at me from the promenade. He thought I'd stolen the bike—someone had reported a similar one missing—and I was

A brush with the law, aged ten, had only made my newbike-onan-emptybeach experience all the more thrilling

marched home, my wet flares flapping in the wind like a rubbish version of Steve McQueen about to be thrown into the cooler. I was terrified, but my mother soon put the PC's mind at rest and made him a cup of tea while I went to the shed and washed the salty sand from my spokes. The narrow brush with the law had only made my new-bike-on-anempty-beach experience all the more thrilling. The sense of space and personal freedom never tasted so sweet. I even thought about getting a tattoo.

As a 47-year-old now living in London, I still head to the coast come winter time, be it Cleethorpes, Southend, Whitstable or even Scarborough. My 4`)

Brighton—fish, chips, but no takers? it first port of call is a local cafe for a quick cup of tea—or maybe a massive fry-up—before taking a stroll around the town itself.

I love the little museums and churches, staffed by knowledgeable old folks in tweed. They don't have to wear tweed, of course, but if you're lucky they'll tell you all about the town's history and people. If you're unlucky, they'll tell you all about their knee operations and bowel problems.

Then you can make your excuses and go and see the ruins of a local castle or abbey, or stroll down pretty narrow streets to a small harbour with a few bobbing boats and salty fishermen. There may be vast promenades with deserted amusement arcades; great to wander around and fritter away some cash on fruit machines. You might even find an old game of Space Invaders or

one of those laughing sailors in a glass case. Put in 20p and watch him go. The sight will stay with you for ever, though not necessarily in a good way.

But, of course, it's the solitary beach walks that I love most about the winter months. The sea smashing into the rocks or racing up long golden sands seems to be doing so just for you. It's no problem if you have a dog, as most beaches lift the canine curfew come October. When I was a kid, no one had heard of pooper scoopers (if you saw someone picking up faeces, you assumed they were mental), so you often had to spend half an hour scraping your shoes with a lollipop stick. But that's rarely a problem now And once you stamp nothing more than sand off your shoes—your cheeks glowing bright red—you'll be ready for the king of all

"When Votirelikyourself at a totation that woulcVjae-bListling in July,

winter seaside foods: fish and chips. I once saw an ad in a chippie that read, "Fish and chips! Everything you need in one meal." Well, I'm not sure where the five portions of fruit and veg are (though mushy peas must count for something), but this most traditional of British foods is hearty. There's nothing better after a long walk than tucking in, sitting in your car, the heat from the chips gradually warming you through and steaming up your windows.

Speaking of fish, another thing you can enjoy if you're feeling adventurous is a spot of angling. As teenagers, two mates and I had the idea of going fishing all night—at the boating lake. I was sent to the off-licence to buy crisps, fags and cider. I came back minus the fags and cider, as the owner rightly guessed my age to be 14. We almost froze, scared ourselves with tales of ghostly boating-lake

attendants ("Come in, number 38. Your timrrtmrnmeis up!") and caught nothing. But we all walked home feeling that we'd achieved something manly.

And this is the essential appeal of the British seaside in winter. Being out there in the cold, damp weather with those huge overreaching skies makes you feel strong and almost patriotic.

You don't need to go as far as night fishing at a boating lake, but there's a definite charm to this type of activity out of season. Others might think you're demented, but when you're by yourself at a location that would be bustling in July, you feel like you've found the key to your own secret world.

The wild, windy beaches await. You won't get an all-over tan, you might get a cold—but it's all good for the soul. •

),> Alex Kirk's new BBC Radio4 comedy series Living With Mother starts this spring

A cold stroll with the dog in Sea Palling, Norfolk

>> Now we've whetted your interest, why not try a winter stay at the seaside?We've launched a new fltitel-booking service offering great deals on over 4,000 locations throughout the UK, including'some of Britain's finest resorts. Go tohttp://hotels.readersdigest.co.ukto-start your stay!

My Family and Oth Oranguta

Deep in the jungles of Borneo, a group of women nurse, teach, cuddle and sing lullabies to orphaned apes, 24 hours a day. In their first interview with a Western journalist, they reveal what it's like to be a surrogate mum to an endangered animal

V1/2„ After being separated AR from their mothers, the baby apes are often traumatised and need I round-theclock care

Getting to the top of the tree: Aryani gives climbing lessons in a forest clearing

here was a time when 30-year-old Kumie considered orangutans to be her enemy. Some 40,000 of them live in Borneo's rich, ancient jungles, but many locals consider them aggressive pests who bite if approached, damage crops and need to be controlled. So it was with some trepidation that in 2003 Kumie (many Borneans do not use surnames) took a job caring for orphaned baby orangutans. "I only heard stories about them from my parents," she says, while tenderly bottlefeeding an infant ape. "It turns out that they are very cute and behave exactly like infant humans."

Kumie is one of 47 "babysitters" at the Nyaru Menteng Orangutan Reintroduction Project in central Borneo, which is home to more than 650 apes. These forests. They also help build bonds bewomen, recruited from villages where tween the creatures and humans who secure jobs are rare, act as substitute threaten their existence. parents to the young animals, looking Nyaru Menteng was set up in 1999 after them almost as they would their by Danish conservationist Lone own children, until the orangutans can Droscher-Nielsen—with the backing of graduate to the project's protected the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF). She was desperate to preserve a species that shares 97 per cent of its DNA with humans, was once found across south-east Asia, but is now restricted to Borneo and Sumatra, where its habitat is still being cleared for logging and oil palm plantations.

Babysitter Sri cuddles her tiny charge

Homeless, hungry apes wandering near villages are shot, hacked to death, used as bushmeat or even set on fire. For every orangutan rescued, it's estimated two to three lose their lives due to habitat clearance yet 100 years ago there were 100,000 on the island. Surviving infants, who are often left clinging to their dead mothers, are frequently sold into the pet trade where as few as one in 15 survive being shipped to neighbouring countries in tiny crates. Droscher-Nielsen devised the

babysitter system to give the traumatised young apes—rescued from captivity or the wild—the security and unconditional love they need to survive. "It is the dedication of these wonderful women that gives the apes the will to continue living and the confidence and skills to, one day, graduate to a life on their own in the wild," she says.

"They know we protect and take care of them," says 24-year-old sitter Mia Puspita. "When they want attention, they come to you with a pitiful face, cry for a touch or sit next to you and put their arm on your lap." More confident youngsters pull hair, bite and "play around", she says, but the greatest joy is "to see baby orangutans smile".

The school run, ape-style. Babysitters take their charges to lessons on how to surviv in the wild, including how to swing from tree and find fruit

The Nyaru Menteng women rehabilitate the young apes in two main stages. First, the animals go to the "Nursery" where they have round-the-clock care. The youngest are unable to crawl or walk and many spend much of their time clinging onto their surrogate mothers who feed them powdered milk, fruit and vegetables and put them in nappies to stop the spread of infection.

During the day, the women take them to a small adjacent area of forest and encourage them to explore climbing frames and small trees. Youngsters who lost limbs when their mothers were killed need extra help. "We need to carry them more than the healthy ones," says 34-year-old Ursulae, a

former voluntary worker for a religious organisation. "But, after a while, they start to learn how to climb using whatever they have."

At night, the women tuck the baby apes into bed (plastic laundry baskets with pillows and blankets) and sleep nearby so they can comfort them if they wake and protect them from wild animals, such as snakes. Several babies sleep on the bodies of the sitters and Ariani, 2Z adds, "Sometimes when they have trouble settling down, I sing them a lullaby BatiruhAnak [Sleep child] and caress their heads."

The sitters also receive training on how to treat ill youngsters, giving them papaya water to improve their immune system and cleaning their living quarters to keep mosquito numbers down because, just like humans, orangutans get colds and malaria.

But for some of the orphans, patience and time will be the biggest healers.

"Two babies, Melissa and Bolang, are still so afraid they do not want to interact," says Mia Puspita. 'All they do is hug each other. I see them talking in their sleep, as though they're having nightmares."

When the apes are healthy and confident enough, they move up to Forest School One where the real learning begins. The women teach

BABYSITTER

MAY SUMARNAE, 32, ON MICKY

"Like almost all the youngsters that come here, Micky is a former pet.He resisted being cared for by other sitters and would sometimes bite. He became my `backpack'. I carried him wherever I went and we were rarely apart. One day, he cried and gestured that he wanted to be with me as I left for lunch. That was when the seizu res started and we rushed him to the clinic.

"He was put in intensive care and we had to avoid any changes around him or he'd have seizures that could only be treated with a sedative. He also had eye-twitching, cramps and constant diarrhoea. I spent 11 days tendingto him, with the help of medical staff and fellow sitters. I rested at night but would be back by his side as soon as the sun came up. Over the next year, Micky also had intestinal cramps and malaria. Only a few orangutans with all these conditions have pulled through—but Micky did.

"Today, he's as healthy as he can be. He's living semi-independently on an island, and still responds to my voice when I visit and call him. We have an unbreakable bond."

the orphans to climb, hunt termites, build the huge nests in the trees where orangutans live, find edible fruits (by putting fruit on low-hanging branches) and even flee predators (with the help of rubber snakes). At night, they put the apes into a large communal enclosure.

Their curiosity and intelligence has surprised all the babysitters. "Orangutans are smart; they can imitate us," says Dewi, a 21-year-old sitter who used to work making bricks. 'And they are funny and unique. One individual is different from the other."

"I never thought they could be taught," confirms Ursulae. "And although nobody taught him how to do

THE PALM-OIL CRISIS

• According to Friends of the Earth, palm oil production is the greatest threat to orangutans and the biggest cause of the destruction of their habitat. Some estimates put the deforestation rate at 3o square miles per day

• Indonesia and Malaysia produce up to 9o% of the world's palm oil and production is expected to double by 2020 it, Micky can open the door to the enclosure by himself."

• An estimated 5o per cent of packaged UK supermarket products (including bread, margarine and biscuits) contain palm oil, according to the World Wildlife Fund

When they're about three years old,the youngsters leave their substitute mums and move up to Forest School Two. Local men called "technicians" (the orphanage employs 51) look after them in a mature forest area with larger trees.

The orphans usually sleep out at night in nests, but can come back to sleeping quarters if they prefer.

"I am happy when the orangutans move on, because they have to prove their independence," says Dewi. "But probably they are a bit sad, for they are young and depend on their sitters very much."

After about another three years, the

Room for a little one?

After a long day playing in the forest, these baby apes deserve a lift home

apes go to live semi-independently on one of the centre's five rented islands. Human contact is reduced to twice-daily visits from technicians who monitor and feed them from a distance.

The project's ultimate aim is to release as many orphan orangutans as possible back into the wild, in areas of rainforest far away from logging, mining and poaching. Last summer, it

t secured a piece of land and hopes to start letting the first batch of apes go this spring. "We will feel sad," says Kumie. "My friends and I have been spending a lot of time with them. But we will also feel happy and proud because we succeeded in teaching them to live independently."

The project, and other work by BOSF, is proving a success story for Borneo's humans, too. At Nyaru Menteng the foundation employs 120 staff and also gives jobs to fruit growers and construction workers.

Nyaru Menteng's staff are running educational programmes to increase Borneans' understanding of the great apes and the need to preserve their habitat. And, with local support, BOSF has established a second sanctuary that houses 229 orangutans, restored rainforest at Samboja Lestari and runs the Mawas Conservation Programme, trying to protect one of the last tracts of forest supporting wild orangutans.

"Local people disagree with land clearing for oil palm plantations which only lead to one-sided profit for big companies" says Mia Puspita. "They really fear that deforestation will cost them flood and disappearance of wild animals."

"I hope that more British men and women help us in funding conservations," says Kumie. "I hope that the forest stays fertile and green and orangutans can survive."

>> For information on how you can help, go to readersdigest.co.uk/links.

SRI HAYATI, 27, ON DELVI

"Before a local citizen decided to hand her over to the authorities, Delvi, one of my 'babies', had spent four years in domestic captivity, in a cage much too small for her, confined to a sitting position. By the time she arrived at Nyaru Menteng, the muscles in her legs had deteriorated so much, she had lost the ability to walk. And she was in really bad shape, mentally.

"As her babysitter, I had to provide her with care and physiotherapy. Fortunately, Delvi is the type who refuses to quit and likes to learn new things every day. She became one of our most hard-working orangutans.

"After a couple of months of therapy, Delvi began to learn how to walk and was enrolled in Forest School One. But she was slower and weaker than the others. It was my dutyto help her develop confidence. I accompanied her to school every day, and she gradually bonded with the other orangutans.

"Delvi has now graduated to Forest School Two. She is one of the best nest-builders and sometimes spends the night out in her nest, rather than coming back to the communal enclosure. This is the independence we have always wanted for her. When I see her confidently walk, climb and swing like every other orangutan, I feel immense pride— just like a mother."

Going ape: a baby orangutang learning how to swing. Inset: Delvi in the jungle

four people who want to chan the world

Poverty, pollution and overpopulation. Will these huge problems ever be solved? Not everyone has given up the fight, as Gary Rimmer reports

Victoria Hale Philanthroharmacist

There are plenty of medicines to treat illnesses that afflict people in rich countries. But for those in the poorest countries, the medicines needed to treat many diseases simply don't exist, because pharmaceutical companies can't commercially justify the cost of developing them.

According to Victoria Hale, however, all that's needed to make those medicines is a little science, some expertise and money— and to expect the unexpected. The problem comes when you're obliged to make a profit.

So, in 2000, Dr Hale—then a San Francisco-based pharmaceutical chemist —used her training and experience to get philanthropic funding to open the Institute for One World Health (iOWH), the world's first "non-profit" (or "charitable") pharmaceutical company.

It has changed the world. Though some people said it couldn't be done, Victoria's gamble has paid off. After getting funding of nearly £ioo million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of i0WH's most impressive achievements has been to bring

Victoria Hale, taking the fight to diseases "11%,, that affect the world's neediest

t a drug called paromomycin to the world's poor as a treatment for the disease visceral leishmaniasis, sometimes known as kala-azar—the world's second-largest parasitic killer (malaria is the first).

Every year, there are an estimated half a million new cases and 6o,000 deaths. Though paromomycin was originally identified as a potential treatment in the -1960s, it was abandoned as unprofitable. But now it illustrates the contribution pharmaceutical companies can make, with not-for-profit medicines that can treat the world's poor. A three-week course of paromomycin costs about £6.50 and completely cures over 90 per cent of visceral leishmaniasis cases.

Ami r has chan ged the world by gi ving the p oor acce ss to netw orks

But, for Dr Hale, the biggest surprise was finding new drugs, which has been a lot easier than anticipated. What proved difficult was gettingthem to the people who need them—what she calls "gettingthem the last mile".

So now she's trying to change the world again. She's involved with a new enterprise: Medicines36o, a self-sustaining, nonprofit pharmaceutical company dedicated to treatingthe diseases of women and children. Dr Hale believes the best wayto ensure a child's health is to give its mother a mix of both medicines and education— not handed down from above, but as requested by those who need them at the bottom. It solves the access problem, too. As she points out, people know what they need the medicines for.

In his final year at business school, Amir Hasson, 34, was asked to devise a business plan for something that could reach a billion people. In what he describes as almost a joke, he and some friends came up with the idea of installing a Wi-Fi "dongle" on a bus—everywhere the bus drove, it could pick up and drop off data.

The idea touched a nerve. Amir had also solved the lastmile problem. In this case, how to deliver a service in areas where infrastructure costs are high but user numbers are low. So Amir soon found himself setting up a prototype network for the Karnataka state government in India, using public buses to enable rural villagers to access their land records.

Nearly ten years down the line, Amir has built extensively on his original idea, establishing similar bus- or motorbikebased data networks in Cambodia, Costa Rica and other parts of India—each of them connecting rural, developing-world villagers with the global-communications network. From a "kiosk" in each village, local people can send or receive a voicemail, a text message, an email or a web search, which is picked up or delivered when the bus next comes through.

But however empowering such a

service might be, even at a marginal cost, Amir found there was surprisingly little demand. Flipping the idea of "the last mile" on its head and thinking about it instead from the users' perspective (or "the first mile"), Amir realised that what most people want are goods. So he added e-commerce to the mix and introduced his "E-Shop", an online retail service provided through local village merchants and delivered by bus. Suddenly, even the most isolated places could buy goods online (albeit "off-line").

Amir likens the service to Sears Roebuck, the catalogue retailer that opened up rural frontier America. The latest step is enabling rural villagers to buy and sell their own goods through the network—an

eBay style service, not that Amir would call it that.

There's another social benefit, too: so successful has Amir's idea become, it's now a partner in spreadingthe kind of health education foreseen by Victoria Hale (see page 98).

Amir has changed the world by giving the rural poor access to the global market. Recently, he has migrated the service onto SMS, through a specialist phone app, allowing access by mobile phone as well as computer. Already over i,000 merchants have registered for the service at Amir's United Villages and First Mile Solutions offices in Jaipur in Rajasthan. But there's still a way to go—Amir estimates there are about 650,000 rural villages in India alone.

Spreading the word: Amir Hasson with his Wi-Fi gadgetry

Cement meister: Nikolaos Vlasopoulos at Imperial College, London

Cement is arguably the world's most versatile building material, but its manufacture generates an enormous quantity of carbon dioxide: every ton of cement generates at least 65okg. This all adds up to the rather astonishing fact that the cement produced worldwide in 2009—a total of 2.8 billion metric tons —contributed around five per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. That's more than the aviation industry.

But now Nikolaos Vlasopoulos, a 32-year-old chemist in London, has developed a process that may change all this. Nikolaos has founded a company called Novacem, which has developed a cement rich in magnesium that absorbs as much as lookg of carbon dioxide for every ton produced.

The idea behind Novacem first occurred to Nikolaos in 2oo4 as a PhD student at 4

Imperial College, London. There was no "eureka moment", he says—just the right idea in the right place at the right time. Even so, it will take time for his invention to be accepted on a wide scale and to deliver on carbon reduction.

For now, at least, the cement industry seems to tolerate his innovation. As a process first patented nearly200years ago, cement-making has not seen heavy investment in research and development for some time. But there are always those who resist change—and those who would prefer they controlled the Novacem process themselves.

So it's no surprise that Nikolaos was obliged to keep exact details of his research confidential while patents were applied for. That any investors remained interested was almost certainly down to the prestige which came with his Imperial College credentials.

4Helmut F Schulze

Water bearer

Helmut, a German art restorer, was working to preserve an ancient Egyptian sandstone statue when he had an idea: if he could cover grains of sand with a water-resistant coating, they could be used to create artificial bedrock beneath desert farmland to prevent water run-off. Water loss is a huge issue in the Middle East, where up to 85 per cent of water is used for irrigation.

If Helmut succeeds in greening the desert, it will have a massive impact

So Helmut took his idea to backers in the UAE for funding for his company DIME (Desalt Innovation Middle East) Creations to build a factory near Al Ain in Abu Dhabi.

Novacem has recently unveiled a prototype reactor—the first cement plant in London since Roman times. It will be a fewyears yet before the company can move into full production, but if Novacem can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by even five per cent, it'll change the world for the better.

Nikolaos is not unaware that one day Novacem could make him lots of cash. He already knows what he'll do when that day comes—encourage new blood and invest in innovators just like him.

The factory produces "HST rolls", a kind of high-tech waterproof-sand sandwich that can be laid beneath previously arid land like a pool liner. So far, the rolls have been laid out beneath a dozen farms to test the product, and the first farm is set to harvest its first grass about now.

Aged 64, Helmut has given up all thought of retirement. He believes his factory can provide enough HST rolls for all the UAE's needs within 8-io years. If he succeeds in greeningthe desert, it will have a massive impact on the future. •

DON'T PARK THAT HERE

BY SOPHIE RADICE

PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARC BURDEN

Sitting down in one of Britain's parks or open spaces is no longer simply about taking a welcome breather on a strategically placed bench. These days, it's hard to find one—particularly in picturesque spots—without a name, two dates and a few carefully chosen words on it to mark the end of someone's life.

For those of us who have no particular religious beliefs or who just want a place outdoors to feel close to someone who is no longer alive, the bench t

Memorial_ benches are a lovely idea. The trouble is, we all want one...

Sophie Radice turns her back on some of the (many) commemorative benches on London's Parliament Hill

I) offers a great way to remember that's both utilitarian and sentimental. If the location was a favourite of the person who has died, then benches can be even more poignant: "A spot that Mum loved so much—hope you enjoy it, too."

Some benches are public-spirited, speaking directly to future sitters: "They could do with one here!" (London's Hampstead Heath); or "Sit down and eat your chips with me!" (Brighton seafront). Others are directed to the person who died: "To my Guardian Angel"; "Happy dancing days", or, more often, a name, a profession, and dates.

reading the dates and totting up what age the person was when they died. If they've had a "good innings" you feel relieved and can relax. But it's almost impossible to sit on benches for children (often overlooking playgrounds) or teenagers without thinking of the pain

)) RIP MEMORIAL BENCHES?

'PER PLAN— The National Trust

says that there are many places where memorial trees are welcome, such as parks and gardens that are part of a conservation programme, or in the establishment of avenues, hedgerows and new woods. You can also dedicate a woodland area at Kew Gardens. Your dedication will be recorded on their Commemorative Touchscreen Register. Some hospitals, libraries and schools will put up plaques to commemorate those who have made donations.

My friend Joanna has a bench on Hampstead Heath for her sister Sara, who died in a car crash in Jamaica at the age of 34. Jo and her family go there on Sara's birthday to open a bottle of champagne. "This was where Sara came to bunk off school and smoke with her friends," says Jo. "I was lucky because a bench had fallen into disrepair and Sara's replaced it. That's why I'm never upset if it's been vandalised or beer cans left on it because I know Sara wouldn't have minded. I feel particularly close to her here. It's as if she's sitting here sometimes."

LA L , 4 l=abs People can write down their memories and upload photos. Facebook pages can also keep alive the memory of the person who has died.

of those who donated the bench, and you find yourself quickly moving on.

The trouble is, once you start noticing memorial benches in parks or beauty spots, it can make for a rather grim walk, particularly in winter. You can't help

The bench as memorial object has become increasingly popular in the last 30 years, probably as society has become more secular. Most people would agree that it's a good way to mark a life, but the problem is we all want one, either for relatives or ourselves. And while some councils in less beautiful parts of the country actively encourage the bereaved to pay for benches that are needed anyway, crowds of commemorative seats make the most lovely of

places look like an outdoor waiting room. They restrict free movement, clutter the view and create a funereal atmosphere. This morning, looking at what must be the most spectacular view of London, I had to block out the random mess of wooden benches that are dotted around Parliament Hill. Which is why those managing Britain's loveliest spots have been developing zero tolerance towards memorial benches. Kew Gardens isn't keen even to be mentioned in the same sentence as commemorative benches, because it's so afraid of floods of phone calls from the bereaved, and tell me in no uncertain terms that it stopped installing new ones in 2004.

Michael Wellbank, chairman of Hampstead Heath management committee, says they'd decided to keep the Heath as wild as possible and are not putting up new benches. They used to have a ten-year waiting list, but are now pausing to stop people seeing the Heath as "one big memorial park".

In 2002, Pembrokeshire ramblers got fed up with the 95 commemorative seats along the coastal path (many in memory of walkers) feeling it spoiled the landscape and was "depressing". Access officer Anthony Richards agreed and said there was "anecdotal evidence that the experience of walking the path is getting a little too sombre". Now, the park only permits benches around

harbours, car parks and urban fringes.

In 2008, South Lanarkshire Council put the brakes on memorial benches, trees or plaques. Following complaints, it was felt that personal touches adorning benches and trees were spoiling the ambience of public parks. In a report to councillors, Gerry Convery, the council's convener of community resources, said complaints had been rising over the years: "This has been a growing problem for the last five years and in some areas it has reached epidemic proportions. It was agreed...that the cemeteries and the crematorium are the appropriate place for memorials."

As might be expected, The National Trust is sensitive but firm. "The open and wild nature which makes Trust places so special would cease to exist if we allowed physical memorials in these areas," it says. "There is an optimum and finite number of benches needed at any property and we would not wish them to proliferate to an extent where they become obtrusive."

Quite. Benches are a lovely way to remember the dead, but open spaces are for the living, and we should be able to go for a walk, run about, or even fly a kite without being constantly reminded of our impending demise. •

>> Do you agree with Sophie that commemorative benches are ruining our open spaces? Email readersletters@ readersdigest.co.uk or join the debate at readersdigest.co.uk/benches.

`Whatever" has topped a poll to find the most annoying phrase in the English language. The slack-jawed utterance garnered 39% of the vote, followed by the ever-popular "like" with 28%. "You know what I mean?" came third. Source: Marist

You wouldn't dream of buying clothes that don't fit, or shoes way too small. Yet when it comes to treating cancer, you're given toxic one-size-fitsall drugs that simply won't work on some people. But all that could be about to change, says Jerome Byrne._

TREATING YOUR GENES

So that most scary of things has actually happened: you've been diagnosed with breast cancer. After the shock, what you want most is information. What are your chances? What treatments will be best for you? Will you need chemotherapy, or are there other options?

Last year, Charlotte Fleming, a 48-year-old consultant gynaecologist, found herself facing exactly these choices. "What made it so hard was that the arguments for and against chemotherapy were so evenly balanced," she says. "I didn't want it if at all possible—I didn't want months of being bald, feeling w.

Photographed by Alexander Kent

poorly and missing work. On the other hand, I didn't want to look back and think: I really wish I'd had it."

Breast cancer affects 45,000 women every year in the UK and kills 13,000 women under 50. The tricky choice facing thousands, after a tumour has been removed, is whether to follow it up with chemotherapy in case some cells survived and are spreading, or whether to avoid that gruelling option

variants of a group of genes a person has—tumbles from millions of pounds to hundreds, it's becoming more feasible. So treatments in the near future won't involve blasting every tumour with one-size-fits-all toxic drugs. Instead, you'll get more of a designer cocktail, aimed at the particular type of tumour you have.

All tumours start from one cell that's begun to go slightly rogue because it's

WE'RE ON THE EDGE OF A REVOLUTION IN CANCER TREATMENT

and hope for the best. "My tumour was small and had been spotted early, but the cancer had spread to the key lymph node in my armpit," says Charlotte. "The surgery removed that, but there was still a risk that some cancerous cells had already spread to others parts of my body." So what to do? Then Charlotte heard from her oncologist about a gene test that could tell her if her chances of benefiting from chemotherapy were high or low.

We're now on the edge of a revolution in the way all cancers are going to be treated.It's been a long time coming. The promise of a more personalised form of medicine based on changes in our individual genes has been around for more than 20 years. But in the last few years, as the cost of sequencing genes—finding out what

developed one or two dangerous mutations. It could be one that causes the cell to keep on dividing indefinitely, or one that blocks the immune response that would normally kill off such a changed cell.

So each tumour has a set of genes almost identical to the rest in your body, but not quite. The more the tumour grows, the more mutations appear. It's these mutations that affect how likely the cancer is to metastasise (spread), or how vulnerable it is to chemotherapy and other drugs. Being able to detect these changes will make treatments far more personalised.

Already, every patient in the UK who takes a drug called Erbitux for colon cancer has a test to check that their tumour has the "normal" version of a gene called KRAS. If they have a different version—and about 40 per cent

do—the drug has no effect. To find out what's going on with the genes affecting breast cancer, however, you have to turn to private health care. There are two tests, and both can predict whether you have a high or low chance that your tumour will spread. If low, you're very unlikely to benefit from additional chemotherapy, but if it's high then there is a good chance you will.

Charlotte used a test called OncotypeDX, widely used in the US and costing around £2,000, which analyses the level of activity in 21 genes in the tumour. "The result came back `low'," she says. "My mother had breast cancer, so without the information the test gave me, I'd probably have gone for the follow-up chemotherapy."

Research published last year found that after seeing the results of this test, 30 per cent of US doctors changed their minds and cancelled chemotherapy planned for their patients. The other test, MammaPrint—also used in the US—examines 70 critical genes linked with breast cancer. A recent report confirmed that patients it picked out as highrisk did benefit from chemo, while the low-risk ones did not.

Soon tests won't be limited to predicting

whether you are at low or high risk for metastasised breast cancer. Already, researchers at Washington University School of

Charlotte Fleming took a • ene test to determine the chances of her breast cancer returnin

AL.

NE. Medicine in St Louis have identified four different types of breast cancer. Chances of survival and which treatment is most likely to be effective depend on which you've got.

One is the well-known HER2-positive. The others are less familiar: luminal A, luminal B, and basal-like. When the test for distinguishing them has been checked for reliability it will change the way treatment is performed.

"Luminal A is not very responsive to chemotherapy but, luckily, it's not very likely to spread," says Professor Matthew Ellis, co-author of the research. "Luminal B is very aggressive and likely to spread, but it's also pretty resistant to current therapies. The basal type is also aggressive but does respond well to chemo." The hunt is on for a drug that can target luminal B.

Scientists are also now homing in on finer details such as what a tumour needs to start metastasising. If you know that, it's easier to find ways of throwing a spanner in the works. Dr John Condeelis, professor of anatomy and structural biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, has found that cancer cells don't just spread on their own—they need three companions on the journey. These are a cell found in the lining of blood vessels; a type of immune cell; and a protein called Mena that makes cancers more invasive. Only when tumour cells have these three nearby, a condition dubbed "THEM", are any likely to set off. Disrupting THEM is the next goal.

Just as valuable as knowing the risk

of your cancer spreading is knowing whether you are going to benefit from the drugs that are available. Two genes found in 20 per cent of breast cancers can make several commonly used drugs stop working, according to recent research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The drugs are a type called anthracyclines, given after surgery to reduce the chance of cancer returning. Spotting who has these two genes should raise the chance you'll get a drug that works for you. A testing kit could now be ready within a year.

"Previously, we were blind to all the mutations that occur in a given cancer," says Dr Stanley Nelson, professor of human genetics at UCLA. "Now we can see every one, so there is no chance of missing a mutation that may be causing the disease."

)) FOR MORE INFORMATION on OncotypeDX or MammaPrint tests, go to readersdigest.co.uk/Links

So how long before any of this is available in the UK? "At the moment, the cost of sequencing the cancer genome still puts it quite a long way in the future," says Dr Kat Arney of Cancer Research UK. "But the new genetic findings might mean that some older drugs will be found to hit new, more specific targets."

What about the use of the OncotypeDX or MammaPrint tests to see which breast-cancer patients will

benefit most from chemotherapy? "It's difficult to compare the use of treatments and tests in the US and UK," Arney says. "There are big differences in the approach taken by British and US oncologists. US oncologists are more ready to use chemotherapy, for instance. But when these tests are properly verified in large UK trials, we hope they'll become available on the NHS."

Just

how much testing of cancer genes should be done is being hotly debated in the US. But for some, the future is already here. At Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, for example, all cancer patients are now screened for 130 abnormalities to see if treatments can be more effectively targeted. This provided a bonus for one lung cancer patient recently who was found to have a fairly rare mutation in the ALK gene. "We knew a drug that targets ALK was being tested, so we put her in a trial," says Dr Leif Ellisen of Harvard Medical School. "Her tumour has now disappeared."

And Charlotte Fleming? She's pleased she opted for a gene test and avoided chemotherapy. Her cancer has not, so far, spread and she says she's "100 per cent normal and back at work".•

COUNTRYLIFEASYOU'VENEVERSEENIT

My daughter and I spotted this notice in our local theatre. It led us to expect an X-rated interpretation, but sadly not! "Due to the severe weather conditions, the lorry containing the set and costumes for Lark Rise to Candle ford has been detained en route to Scotland. This evening's performance of the play will go ahead as scheduled—fully performed by the complete cast, but not dressed." Submitted by Lorna Taylor, Aberdeen

1,001 things... is compiled and written by

Linda Gray

WELCOME TO THE PAGES THAT HELP MAKE LIFE SIMPLER, EASIER AND, WE HOPE, MORE FUN! STARTING HERE WITH...

1,0111

IF VALENTINE'S DAY SEES YOU CRYING INTO THE KLEENEX,you're probably a "sticker", clinging on to a failed relationship, says marital therapist Andrew G Marshall. (If it makesyou feel better, "leavers", who initiate the break, are likely to spend the day wracked with guilt.) His new book Heal and Move On (£5.99) contains 25 years of wisdom to help you recover, so it's worth wiping your eyes to consider these key points. 1. A timeline of your relationship can show it

as it truly was.Plot major events on a horizontal line and rate them against a pleasure-pain scale on the vertical. The graph shows the highs and the humdrum as well as the lows, putting things in perspective so you can take the appropriate amount of responsibility.

2.Don't text, don't ring, don't put prawns in the curtain pole. Hopeless devotion and vengeance are equally unhelpful, says Marshall. If you're still yearning, make a conscious effort to switch off your loving feelings, swapping negative thoughts ("I can't live without him/her") for positives ("Now I can watch the match/Loose Women"). If you're bitter, resist the impulse to shred your partner's clothes because revenge only prolongs the connection. Send them back instead and see how good it feels.

3.It's too soon to be friends.If the "leaver" is too nice, the sticker might read hope into every kind remark. "She was making a new life while I was looking for signs that we could go back to the old one," said one of Marshall's clients when he finally got the message.

4.Don't take the moral high ground. Be honest: you're not angry becauseyour ex was late returningthe kids. You want to punish them for the past five years and now's your chance.

5.Take a year out.That's what it takes to get over a major break-up, says Marshall. He suggests a dating embargo of three to six months and no getting serious before12."The most debilitating pain of all comes from throwingyourself into a rebound relationship that's bound to crash," he says.

HOW TO ...show off paintings

OVER THE SOFA OR IN THE HALL?

Alone or in a group? Working out where to hang a painting can be every bit as hard as choosing it, so start with a process of elimination. Anywhere above a radiator or in direct light should be avoided, says the Fine Art Trade Guild, who are experts in presenting pictures. And beware of hanging art over a mantelpiece (smoke, candles...) or above a table at splash height. Beforeyou pick up a hammer, lay the pictures out on the floor, soyou can choose what to group and what to hang singly. If you go for a group, align it at the top to give cohesion and treat it as one unit, centring it over a focal point. Don't be afraid to mix shapes and media—an oval frame or a carving gives an element of surprise that can energise the whole set.

Though "gallery" height, around five feet from the floor to the painting's centre, is often recommended, eye-level is best, advises the Guild. Each picture needs to be hung from two hooks, quarter of the way in from each side—but ifyou have a picture rail, use it. There's no need to stare at

HOW TO...sit comfortably

SINK DEEP INTO YOUR ARMCHAIRif you want a healthy back. Recent research shows a more relaxed posture is better for your spine than sitting upright, which puts more pressure on the disks, says physiotherapist Sammy Margo. But don't slump —your back needs to be supported at all times. "When you're working, turn yourself into a desk sandwich," says Margo. "Your tummy should be touching it while your back rests against the chair."

unsightly cords: transparent Perlon thread (£3.35 for ten metres from Lion Picture Framing Supplies) all but disappears when the pictures are hung. And, of course,you don't have to hangthem at all. Prop pictures on a shelf and you have a flexible gallery you can move wheneveryou want.

HOW TO ...make orchids flower

AT AS LITTLE AS £5 A THROW,it's hard to resist sneaking an orchid into the supermarket trolley. Trouble is, most are moth orchids, which are tricky to grow. "They'll survive in a house where the heatinggoes off at night but they need constant warmth to bloom-25°C is perfect," says Henry Oakeley of The Orchid Society of Great Britain. "And with the right conditions,you can keep them floweringfor ten months of the year."

To maximiseyour chances, findyour phalaenopsis a hot spot that's light but out of direct sun. Once a week, stand it in a sink of water for a minute or two,then drain, feeding with quarter-strength tomato fertiliser from time to time. When it stops flowering, whisk it off to a cooler place (18°C) but only cut it back if it looks dead— flowers can grow from the stem. Water with tomato fertiliser every fortnight and it should bloom again in two months. Unwilling to doubleyour gas bill to cosset a £5 orchid?

Oakeley recommends slipper orchids, though they'll only bloom for a few months ayear. Or head to Kew Gardens from February 5 to marvel at the hundreds of orchids packed into the Princess of Wales Conservatory. They'll provide the inspiration, or consolation,you need.

MOST DOG OWNERS ARE SUCKERS FOR ANYTHING WITH ADORABLE

EYES

AND A WAGGY TAIL.According to the Kennel Club, 6o% choose a dog for its looks and almost half do no research on its needs or personality. And, too often, a dog really is just for Christmas: 60,000 were abandoned last year, says the Dogs Trust.

The problem is that dogs are designed for work, not lounging around at home. "Good pets are dogs that are easy to train, with low hunting and guarding instincts," says Beverley Cuddy, editor ofDogs Today. "They also need to be child-proof, whether or not we still have a child at home—many horror stories involve grandparents' dogs." So what are the options?

Pedigree dogs.Retrievers (golden and Labs), cavalier, cocker and springer spaniels, German shepherds, boxers, and bull, border and West Highland terriers are top choices, say the Kennel Club. If you're at a loss, fill

in a questionnaire*or read a guide, such asHow toHave the Perfect Pup (£6.99). Watch out for euphemisms such as "protective" (aggressive), "stubborn" (nightmare to train) and "active" (destroys the house unless exercised). Inbreeding can cause health problems, so buy only from Kennel-Club-accredited breeders. Rescue dogs.Not to be dismissed, as sometimes it's the owner who's the hopeless case. The Dogs Trust offers aftercare, and organisations rehoming older dogs will sometimes pick up vets' bills, too.

Cross-breeds.There's nothing wrong with a mutt, as the popularity of "doodles"—poodle crosses— shows. Beverley Cuddy thinks it's a great way to reinvigorate a breed, pointing to the new cocker/papillon cross (inset) designed to create a new Cavalier, free from diseases caused by inbreeding. "I suggest calling it the Cavalier Queen Catherine Spaniel—the perfect present for William and Kate," she says. V./

HOW TO ...drive safely at night

WE'RE ALL MORE SHORT-SIGHTED AT NIGHT, says Dr Susan Blakeney of the College of Optometrists. Perfect vision dims by 50% and those of us less blessed are left even more in the dark. As this is when most road accidents happen, it's not a good idea to drive on and hope for the best. Instead, take a few moments to prepare.

Start by cleaning the windscreen and your glasses; dirt scatters light, making everything blurred. While you're at it, wipe the headlights—it's amazing how mucky they get. Now find the night setting on the rear-view mirror (look for a small lever underneath). If it's not there, look for a dot on the mirror, which means it dips automatically.

By nowyour sight should have adjusted to the dark—important because your pupils need time to dilate—and you can set off. If you're bothered by glare from oncoming lights, slow down and glance towards the left-hand kerb. Spec lenses with anti-reflection coating are a boon, especially if you see multiple lights. But don't bother with tinted lenses or blue nightdriving lights, which contract the pupil, making night vision worse.

Still dazzled? Then see an optician. If you're over 5o, it could be the first sign of cataracts.

What your card-shop owner won't tell you

>> Valentine's Day is one of my most profitable times, after Mother's Day and Christmas. I just don't like the fact that £1.96 is all you're prepared to spend on a card for your beloved. >> Beware the funny Valentine.You can buy an anti-Valentine's card with a message like "Love sucks", but I'd advise against it. People like a dash of realism along with romance, but which would you rather read—"You rock" or "You'll do"?

>> Your mantelpiece is my lifeline.I don't see you switching to e-cards any time soon. Only14% of you sent e-greetings last year—and of those, only five in ioo were willing to pay. People like cards they can display and Brits spend more on them than anywhere else in the world—£24 a head, or £1.5 billion a year.

>> There's always something to celebrate.You can congratulate your pals on their divorce, gay wedding or successful IVF,your kids on losingtheir braces (or their virginity). And when it comes to achievement, nothing is too obscure. I can offeryou cards praising your prowess in dressage, martial arts and dieting.

>> 1 have a top shelf, too. It's where I keep the raunchy cards unsuitable for family viewing. More than two million are bought each year. I sometimes hide them inside "modesty sleeves" marked 18, so staff won't sell them to children.

>> Birthday-card sates are rising-92%of you buy them. Four out of ten

buy for Mother's Day, but you're getting Scroogelike at Christmas, because one in ten have stopped sending cards then.

>> There's a reason for all those teddy bears.We call it "emotion marketing" because that's what cards are about. True, the rhymes can be icky, but your cliché may be my heartfelt sentiment.

>> Women buy 85% of all cards,but not 85% of the time. The statistics are skewed because women are in charge of buying them at Christmas.

>> Fart jokes are bestsellers.There's an insatiable appetite for toilet humour, and companies from Hallmark to Zazzle (which features 193 unsavoury designs) know it.

>> Personalised cards are booming.You can change the greeting, the verse, or upload a photo for only £2.50 a card and even get them sent direct to the recipient. But ifyou sign them yourself, it looks like you've made an effort.

>> We're multicultural. There are cards for Eid, Diwali and Hanukkah, but we're not multiracial. You won't find many cards featuring ethnic minorities, which can be a problem when it comes to weddings or births.

>> You can buy cards everywhere,because one in six retailers sells them.

But it's more difficult to tempt you into stores now there's so much choice online. Moonpig, which has 9o% of that market, doubled its profits last year.

>> I sell cards for ages up to 100and for diamond anniversaries, too (they're not always on show). You'll get a card from the Queen then, though you'll have to wait five more years for the next.

>> Anyone can sell handmade cardsor set up a small publishing business. But do the maths. At £2.50 a card, you'll have to sell io,000 to turn over £25,000.

>> Cards help you get closer to God.The Church of England suggests using them as an aid to prayer. Please Lord, keep them awayfrom the top shelf! •

on the Ward

Max

Pemberton

has nothing but admiration for those who care for the sick and elderly

The weakest, most vulnerable people in societyare also the ones who can be on the receiving end of neglect and abuse. This is particularly true in dementia care where, sadly, as a doctor I've come across dehumanising and cruel behaviour towards patients at the hands of the very staff

It seemed incredibLe

that ,-7;c1"11.1F who was totally shut off from the world could still interact with people"

trusted to care for them. Thankfully, there are also many kind, dedicated people working in this area, and while it's undoubtedly difficult and demanding work, they rise to the challenge.

"I'm sure he's not very well. He's often like this

when he's developing a urinary-tract infection," said Mark as he showed me through to the lounge of the nursing home I was visiting.

He knelt down by Mr Kelly, took his hand and held it gently. "You can tell from his face," said Mark. I looked closely at Mr Kelly and Mark watched me intently. "See?" he said expectantly. I wasn't sure I did. All I saw was an elderly man with his mouth wide open and dead, expressionless eyes.

Mr Kelly has Alzheimer's disease and I looked through his notes while Mark sat him up so I could examine him. "There!" said Mark triumphantly. "Did you see that?"

I looked again at Mr Kelly. Still nothing. "He curled his lip slightly," said Mark. "He always does that when there's somethingthe matter. Usually it's because he's

hungry or thirsty, but he's been doing it for a few days now." I stared at the patient. In all honesty, I could barely see any change in him.

It seemed incredible that someone who was totally shut off from the world, utterly incapable of any form of communication,

could still interact with people. But what was most striking was that Mark knew his patient so well he could detect these minute, idiosyncratic changes in facial expression and deduce from them something was wrong.

Even after examining Mr Kelly I could find nothing, but Mark was so insistent that something was the matter that I arranged for Mr Kelly to be transferred to hospital for a full investigation. There they found he had a urinary-tract infection that had spread to his kidneys. This must have been acutely uncomfortable. But, thanks to his close relationship with Mark, Mr Kelly's suffering was discovered and put to right.

I was more grateful to Mark than he could possibly know—not just for his insight into Mr Kelly's infection, but also for showing me how things can be when the people caring for those with dementia actually care.

KNOW YOUR ORGANS he Skeleton

Your hip bone's connected to your thigh bone,your thigh bone's connected to your knee bone...but things are a little more complicated than that. There are 206 bones in an adult skeleton and 27o in a baby (as we grow, bones fuse together). Bones provide vital protection for several delicate organs, such as the brain, heart and lungs, and are integral to movement and to the support of the body. They're certainly not bone idle

Bones don't just help us stand up. They also act as reserves for important minerals such as phosphorus and calcium and help regulate the pH levels of our bodies. Other functions include releasinggrowth hormones, regulation of blood sugar and fat storage. They even help detox the body of any heavy metals that are ingested! Bone marrow—in the centre of large bones—is involved in making blood. 1 feel it in my fingers...

Far from being just hard, solid lumps, bones consist of two distinct elements. The outer part, known as "cortical bone", is hard and compact and gives the bone its strength, while the inside, "trabecular bone", is made up of a porous network that ensures it remains light and strong.

Bone crunching—what can go wrong

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

Bones can break—or fracture—although clever cells known as osteoclasts and osteoblasts help them remodel and heal. Osteoarthritis is caused by wear and tear to the cartilage at the ends of bones. Rheumatoid arthritis is a result of the immune system destroying the cartilage, causing pain and difficulty when moving a joint. MP

Next month: the bowel

Every year, ten million cases of cancer are diagnosed worldwide. How can you cut your chances of being a statistic— without being a killjoy in the process?

7 wa s to fend off cancer

1.Have a beer tonight. Beer protects against the bacteriumHelicobacter pylori, which may be linked to stomach cancer. But don't overdo it. More than one or two alcoholic drinks per day may increaseyour risk of other cancers.

2.Ask your partner to feed you grapes.They're a great source of resveratrol, the cancer-protecting compound found in wine, but minus the alcohol. Plus, getting close strengthens your immune system.

3.Take a 30-minute walk every day.That's all it takes to cutyour breast cancer

0 By Susannah Hickling

risk, according to a study of 170 overweight, inactive women in Seattle. Moderate exercise reduces oestrogen, a hormone that's been implicated in the disease.

4.Sprinkle spring onions onto your salad.Delicious! And it just so happens that a diet high in onions may reduce the risk of prostate cancer by 5o%. The effects are strongest

when they're eaten raw or lightly cooked.

5.If you want a healthy glow, go for a spray tan. Unlike sunbeds, there's no evidence they increase your skin-cancer risk.

6. Buy a cantaloupe melon.Then helpyourself to several pieces every morning. Cantaloupe is a delicious source of carotenoids, plant chemicals shown to reduce the risk of lung cancer.

7.Phone a friend and go bowling.A US study found men with high stress levels and few family or social contacts had higher levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in their blood, a marker for prostate cancer. Bowling reduces stressand gives you quality time with a friend.

What's down your loo

A survey from sanitation charity

Toilet Twinningreveals that only one in five Britons cleans their loo every day, as they recommend. That's scary given thatyour toilet bowl could be home to 2 3.2 million bacteria per square inch!

O Below, we lift the lid on some of the T, unsavoury guests lurking in and around your lay. Oh, and make sureyou close the lid when flushing—germs can O spray up to six feet, lightly mistingyour toothbrush. Yum!

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

There's a ton of scientific research testifying to the power of love to helpyou stay healthy, live longer and feel happier. Why? According to the experts, Dr Cupid can: Prevent illness.Happily marrieds have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and pneumonia. Lower blood pressure. Hugging can bring women's readings down dramatically, say doctors in North Carolina. Ease pain.Marriage can bring relief from rheumatoid arthritis, head and backache and even pain from an electric shock. Lift depression. A long-term relationship makes you less likely to be depressed or anxious or to commit suicide. Give you a natural high. Scientists in New York recently confirmed that the buzzyou get when you fall in love is similar to a cocaine hit—and of course it's cheaper, harmless and perfectly legal! Happy Valentine's Day.

Swap and drop

Struggling with that new-year diet already? Make these simple changes and you could lose a stone in 12 months—without even really trying

SKIP A YOLK Use oneyolk in meals that require two eggs (think omelettes). A whole egg has 5g of fat, but there are onlyi6 calories and no fat in the white. So you save 59 calories and 5g of fat.

DROP THE POP Replace just one can a week of fizzy drink with a glass of iced water (no calories). Add a squeeze of lemon, cucumber slices or mint leaves for a refreshing flavour. Save 140 calories.

SNACK SMART Tame those munchies with popcorn. A 28g bag of crisps has 150 calories and log of fat. Swap that for one cup (28om1) of popcorn microwaved in a paper bag with 31 calories and no fat. Save up to 119 calories and log of fat.

GO FISH If you normally eat beef a couple of times a week, change one meal to fish. A 75g serving of grilled steak has 23o calories and 14g of fat. The same amount of grilled cod has just 8o calories and ig of fat. Save 150 calories and l3g of fat.

SWEETEN THE DEAL Rather than a bowl of premium strawberry ice cream at 50o calories and 16g of fat a week, try a bowl of strawberries at 56 calories. Save up to 444 calories and 16gof fat.

ADD IT UP

This change once a week slashes 3,068 calories a year— almost one pound.

ADD IT UP

Cuts out 7,280 calories a year —more than two pounds.

ADD IT UP

Saves 6,188 calories a year —almost two pounds.

ADD IT UP

Wipes out 7,800 calories a year —just over two pounds.

ADD IT UP

Offloads 23,088 calories a year —almost seven pounds.

The magic of mascara

Jan Masters looks forward to the new trend for high-tech, uber-glam lashes

Long. Ink black. Winging out at the sides in fab feline fashion.When it comes to cosmetics, mascara is my desert-island staple. Which is why this season I'm in my element, given the host of imaginative lash-livening varieties just out.

TakeChristian Dior's Diorshow 360 Mascara,£29.50. At a twist, the brush swirls in a waythat replicates the technique professionals use to apply mascara—a mix of zigzag, rolling, straight and spiral movements. What's more, its "lash wax" is inspired by hairdressingformulas.

The menu continues at Clinique with its newBottom Lash Mascara, £io,starring a micro-mini brush, designed to target tiny, tricky-to-reach lower lashes with a long-wear formula that can last 24 hours, minimising the tired and emotional panda effect it's easy to end up sporting at the end of a long day. Or night.

Over at Estee Lauder, Sumptuous Extreme Lash

Multiplying Mascara,£22,is for those who love drama. The mousse-like formula contains three different types of fibre to give you ago-faster flutter.

When it comes to faking it, I've had lash extensions in the past, a salon treatment involving single, synthetic lashes being laid on top of natural lashes one by one, a process that makes stuffing a mushroom or peeling a grape seem like easy tasks. But despite the fall, the results can be deeply desirable. And they last for weeks. I'm not good with classic false lashes. On me, they look vaguely cartoonish. And once prised off they sit menacingly on the dressingtable

like critters from I'm a Celebrity.So I prefer my tried-and-testedMax Factor Lash Extension

Effect Mascara, £10.99, and new MAC False Lashes,£17—both serious magic wands.

And here are my tips for fabulously fluttery lashes.

DO •Use an eyelash curler (unless your lashes are really weak) on days you want make-up to look particularly perfect.

• Focus on the outermost top lashes fora sexy, eye-widening kick. If your eyes are narrow, though, play up the centre lashes.

• Apply a little mascara to the top side of upper lashes first if you want a highvolume finish.

DON'T •Pump the mascara too much. It encourages air into the barrel.

• Use tissues to wipe off excess from the brush—they can contain loose fibres. Try kitchen roll.

• Keep mascara too long. Depending on use, that's around three or four months. Toss it if it smells stale or is drying out.

Beware "screen face'

Even if you're not getting square eyes from TV,you might still be developing "computer face" from sitting atyour PC. One of the country's leading cosmetic doctors, London-based Dr Michael Prager, says those who work at screens for long hours every day could be at more risk of developing saggy jowls due to the shortening of the muscle around the neck and jaw, as well as lines around eyes from squinting and frowning. Dr Prager's solution is a judicious treatment with Botox, which he uses to soften wrinkles and create a neater jaw line. You may find it cheaper and easier to use thick books to raise your computer screen to avoid a drooping jaw in the first place—the top ofyour screen should be at eye level. Or try smoothingthe appearance of your skin with:

* Origins new Starting Over Age-erasing Eye Cream with Mimosa,£25, soothing and brightening.

Emma Hardie Amazing Face Rejuvenating Night Cream,£56, for use on the jaw, neck and décolleté as well asyour face—its delicate aroma relaxes and calms.

TRIED AND TESTED

We salute...atrio of beauty products that have truly stood the test of time.

• Launched in 1982, Estee Lauder's Advanced Night Repair, from £38, is still a high-performing favourite. Batiste, the UK's number-one dry shampoo, first appeared in the 197os and it's still one of the easiest ways to refresh your hair when it's a bit blah and you haven't got time to wash it. Look out for Batiste Brit, £2.09, a newly launched unisex version, too.

• The little round Bourjois Eye Shadow, £5.99, was originally created for Parisienne actresses in 1863. Today, around six million are sold everyyear. •

Financial planning: what you need to know

Traditionally, financial advice has centred on flogging products to clients. But with financial planning the focus is more on giving advice that considersyour personal as well as your financial needs.

"Afinancial planner looks at the whole picture," says Nick Cann, chief executive of the Institute of Financial Planning (IFP). "They'll talk with you to identify what you want to achieve, look atyour income and your expenditure, prioritiseyour needs and create a strategy foryour short-, mediumand long-term goals."

Who is it for?

Absolutely anyone, regardless of their wealth, can benefit from financial planning.

Andrew Strange, policy director at the Association of Independent Financial Advisers (AIFA), says:

"One of the most important times people seekfinancial planning advice is in the five

years prior to, and the five years post, retirement, to help make the most of their pension pot."

However,many people need financial planning advice at a much earlier stage and experts stress that financial planning is about building a relationship that lasts.

Some advisers may only take clients who earn a certain amount of money, but Strange says

that 75% of I FAs claim still to offer financial planning to those approaching retirement with assets of less than £25,000.

How do you find a reliable IFA?

Whenit comes to choosing afinancial planneryou obviously need to find someone affordable and offeringgood value.

Strange advises people to find existing clients and ask

for recommendations. He also suggests using the I FP and AI FA websites or searching online for an adviser. (For more tips, see our panel, right.) All advisers will meet with you for a free introductory session where they can spell out their service and charges.

So how much will it cost me?

Advice is never free and traditionally IFAs receive commission on every product they sell on toyou. For an investment such as an ISA or pension this could be as much as 8% of your entire lump sum or regular savings plan. If the product sale does not come with quality financial advice then you're being ripped off.

Many advisers opt for o less commission in favour of 0 getting an annual or "trail" ' commission (around 0.3-0.5%), which can make 0 1E, it a bit more likelythat the adviser will stay in touch and 0 keep you advised. Maybe!

2 All advisers are obliged to 11 offer afee option to clients 0 c) in order to call themselves an IFA, but most are only interested in the commission. The danger of commission is that advisers ca, will "churn"you from policy

to policyto generate commission for themselves. The advantage of fees is that you know the adviser is working foryou, but it can be expensive.

However, in 2013 I FAs will have to charge a fee agreed between the two of you.

Typical fees could be: initial report, £.4o-£2,000; monthly retainer, E50-£25o; hourly fee, Doo-£25o. A good benchmark is 1%a year. If you're wealthy, it should be less; if you're not, it could well be more.

What about my bank?

Most banks now offer the option of paying for financial advice and planning. But banks generate income by selling products, and strict targets mean staff don't have much time to talk about all your financial needs.

"I wouldn't expect the highest standard of financial planning from banks," says Steve Martin, managing director of Smart Financial Planning. He says they have a tiny range of products and becauseyou're often not given full details of all that are available, it can be worse than searching onlineyourself.

FINDING

Questions to consider:

Are the people in the company qualified?

Someone should have the certified financial planner—CFPqualification (search for CFP professionals on the IFP website, which

Ialso has more detailed advice on how to find , an IFA). Or they should be working towards chartered financialplanner status.

Do they have a clear proposition?

Do you understand what they're charging you for?

How long have they been around?Does the office feel professional?

Do you trust them?Do you feel that they are treatingyou as a person--or as a walking cash machine? Are they happy to talk about their business?

Online scams

10 top tricks to part you from your cash

I Dating scamsAfter earningyour

Ai trust, an online cheat may askyou for moneyto cover travel expenses so they can visityou, or say they need money for a medical treatment. Some give out a fake phone number that will charge extortionate amounts when you call.

2Competition scamsHad an email to sayyou've won a Caribbean cruise in a drawyou don't even remember entering? Chances are it's a competition scam. It's likelyyou'll be asked to pay a fee or to hand overyour bank details in order to claim a "prize" that almost certainly doesn't exist.

3Spyware scamsThese use a virus that people unknowingly download via email attachments or internet popups. This can then monitoryour internet usage and make it easier to steal private information such as passwords and bank details.

4 Ticket scams One in 12 people who buy tickets online is caught out every year by fraudulent websites sellingfake entries for music, sporting and theatre

events, says the Office of Fair Trading. Buying tickets via unofficial websites or agencies can leaveyou not just out of pocket, but also with your personal details compromised.

IM Boiler room scamsAlso known as "share scams", the ploy is to sell shares that are completely worthless. Those who operate these rackets usually work for overseas firms and target victims by cold-calling, email or internet ads.

aShopping scams Online auction and LP shopping scams are the most common form of fraud. You may end up forking out for goods you never receive, while sellers may send the goods and never get paid.

7 Phishing scamsBy usingfake I websites and emails that cleverly

imitate legitimate companies, online swindlers can trickyou into handing over your personal details. They may pretend to be from a high street bank, for example, and askyou to confirm your account details or click on a link to access your online bank account. Never do this!

0Money-mule scamsInnocents are lured into transferring cash or goods from one country to another, often totally unaware that the items are stolen. Money mules are recruited using fake ads sent via spam emails, adverts on genuine recruitment websites, or instant messaging. Falling for a scam such as this could putyou at serious risk of identity fraud, and you could also be prosecuted for breakingthe law.

0 Social-networking scamsSites such as Facebook and Twitter are frequently used by those lookingto steal personal details. They can hack into your account via dodgy Facebook applications: for example, by posting bad links on your profile page or sendingyou phishing emails.

1

n Anti-virus scamsFraudsters

LA typically pose as staff from legitimate IT companies and try to sell fake security software by warningyou thatyour machine has been infected by a virus. They then claim you can fix the problem by buyingtheir "anti-virus" software.

Victoria Bischoff is a personal finance reporter at Citywire Money, an independent website that helps people make the most of their money. See citywire. co.uk/money

THE COST OF TRAVEL SICKNESS

If you suffer from a serious medical condition,your travel insurer may either refuseyou cover or charge a fortune. But specialist companies can provide affordable options. Fiona Macrae is operations director of specialist insurance company Insurancewith.com and a former breast-cancer sufferer. "The true risk is often not as high as you'd imagine it to be," she says. "Insurers generally ask five or six questions, which is not enough to get a true feel for the risk of the condition. We offer better deals because we ask more questions about the individual and their illness."

Macrae says they recently offered one breast-cancer sufferer travel insurance for £97, after she was previously unable to find cover for less than £1,500. Charities that support your condition can usually provide a list of more insurers. Or contact the Association of British Insurers or the British Insurance Brokers Association. But Macrae advises steering clear of price-comparison websites. "Medical conditions are so varied they can't be commoditised, even when the condition is common, such as diabetes." she says. •

LiverLover

Combining classic dishes really raises the culinary bar says Marco Pierre White

This month I want to show you a traditional dish with a twist—even though the twist itself is traditional if eaten on its own.

Devils on horseback are a staple canapé that always hit the spot at parties. Most people regard them as relics of the Seventies, but that's no bad thing. Food and nostalgia are closely connected—and long maythat continue. Whythe name? No one seems to know for sure. It might have something to do with the spookily dark shades of black and red, and is almost certainly connected to "angels on horseback" (oysters wrapped in bacon).

The combination of the devils with the liver in this recipe is delicious. And comforting, too. Most of our mothers would have served liver to us when we were young because it's full of proteins, vitamins and minerals. It's also low in calories. That's the good news. Unfortunately, it's a concentrated source of the wrong kind of cholesterol. My advice would be to eat it only once a week.

I insist on having lots of strong English mustard with it. Dijon just doesn't, well, cut the mustard. Traditionally, liver is served with mashed potato, but boiled potato will do just as well. Remember that you only need to frythe liver in the butter for about one minute on each side. There's nothing worse than overcooked, chewy liver, but give it the respect it deserves and it will repayyou several times over.

Marco Pierre White is donating his fee for this column to Macmillan Cancer Support.

LIVER WITH DEVILS ON HORSEBACK

(serves 3-6)

Tabasco sauce, to your taste 60g mango chutney

6 Agen prunes, stoned

6 rashers good-quality streaky bacon

6 slices calf's liver

Plain flour

Clarified butter or extra virgin olive oil

1.Prepare the devils on horseback first. Add the Tabasco to the mango chutney; then spoon a dollop of the chutneyTabasco mixture and a prune onto each bacon rasher; roll uptight. Grill, turning once or twice, until the bacon has caramelised.

2.Dust the liver in the flour and place in a heavy-based frying pan and fry in foaming butter or olive oil for a minute on each side.

3.Remove the pan from the heat, but leave the liver to continue cooking briefly in the gentle heat of the pan.

4. Place the devils on top of the liver and serve.

Vanessa Rainbow from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, on a great way to enjoy pasta with a root vegetable

1tbsp of olive oil; 2 parsnips, sliced thinly; 1/2tsp salt; lAtsp paprika; knob of butter; 4 rashers streaky bacon, chopped; 1 garlic clove, crushed; 150m1dry white wine; 200m1 single cream; ltbsp chopped fresh parsley; 25g grated Parmesan; 250g tagliatelle

1.Heat the olive oil in a roastingtin under a grill. Add the parsnips, sprinkle with the salt and paprika. Grill for ten minutes until golden brown and crisp, stirring once.

2.Melt the butter in a frying pan and cook the bacon for five minutes. Add the garlic and fry a further minute. Add the wine and boil on medium heat for about five minutes until reduced. Lower the heat, add the cream and parsley and stir. Season with salt and pepper.

3.Meanwhile, boil a large pan of water and cook the pasta according to instructions. Add the sauce to the drained pasta, stir well. Serve on warm plates, place the grilled parsnips on top and garnish with parsley and Parmesan.

>> Want to share a recipe? We pay £50 for any we publish. See page 11 for details.

Sherry Winters

This old favourite is the perfect tipple to warm the cockles of your heart, says Will Lyons

Sherry has come a long way since the days when it languished at the back of your grandmother's drinks cabinet. Back then, it was served by the thimbleful and inevitably tasted sickly sweet.

Not any more. Today, you're likely to be served sherry in the world's top restaurants. It works particularly well as an aperitif in the winter months when there's really nothing quite like it to whet the appetite.

TryMajestic's Hidalgo

Manzanilla La Gitana NV Sherry (£7.99). As a quick guide, Fino sherries are pale, straw-coloured and smell of almonds. One of my favourites is Tio Pepe Fino (£9.49) from Waitrose. Oloroso is the richest style and has a pronounced nuttiness; in between is Amontillado, which can have a smoky character. Sainsbury's have a brilliantTaste the Difference 12-yearold Amontillado

Sherry(around £7). One final word: serve with olives and nuts for a classic winter treat. •

LSolutions

Bob Flowerdew answers your gardening questions

nLast year I started running 1/4.4 an allotment, but I took on far too many different crops all at once and couldn't harvest half of those that did well. I want to simplify, grow fewer varieties and have a longer period when I produce useful amounts of food. What should I concentrate on?

A If they grow well for .M you, onions and garlic can be available fresh from early summer and stored until the next; the same goes for early potatoes. Leeks, parsnips and winter cabbages stand for many months,

while large rooted carrots can be left in the ground (if covered with straw or similar) from autumn through to winter.

Hard white cabbages will store, beetroot will stand or can be pickled, and you can sow any number of fresh salad leaves and herbs in small successional amounts.

Last year I was given three sweet potato plants. I put them in my allotment, where they were slow to grow. When I dug them up, the tubers were small and full of holes, but they were so delicious I want to grow better ones. How, please? Buy a sweet potato from the shops— either scrub it gently to wash off any anti-sprouting agent orget an organic one. Place in damp, sterile compost in a warm place to sprout. Detach the sprouts when finger length and pot them. Harden them off (bygradually exposingthem to the elements so they adjust to outdoor conditions) and plant out in May through black plastic into pre-warmed ground —or, better

still, into large tubs of sterile potting compost, as this avoids most pests. Don't let the stems trail but tie them up in the sun on canes and strings.

If you take the tubs under cover before the frosts, you can get an extra month of growth and a much bigger crop. They store until the new year undisturbed and dried off in their tubs.

n All my winter %.4 brassicas have been demolished. The tops have almost disappeared, but not neatly. Is it worth Leaving the stumps?

AThe most probable culprits are wood pigeons—they'll have left distinctive triangular holes. And they'll return to peck off any regrowth, so you need to keep them off with nets or fleece.

The kales and sprouting broccolis will shoot again, the cabbages will produce leafy shoots and may even give several small heads if a cross is cut in each stump.

>> Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener and a regular on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time.

JOBS FOR February

• Buy gladioli, lily and other summer-flowering bulbsto grow for cutting—much cheaper than buying as many bunches of flowers!

• Service your lawnmower beforeyou need it in a hurry.

• Get some early potato sets and start them now in big pots of compost in any warm, light place. You won't get record yields, butyou'll have tasty new potatoes when everyone else is plantingtheirs.

READER'S TIP: HANGING BASKETS

They may brighten up exteriors, but hanging baskets can have a short shelf life. Just ask Roy Campbell from Ellon, Aberdeenshire, who noticed that his blooms quickly withered due to the drain of water through the coconut husk fibre. Luckily, an innovative solution was to hand:

"My wife always comes home with about so plastic bags from the weekly supermarket shop. I replanted each basket with a carrier-bag lining. Tesco bags have two small holes at the bottom—just enough to retain all the moisture the plants need and also sufficient to stop the compost seeping through and making a mess."

Email your gardening tips and ideas—with photos, if possible—to excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk. We'll pay £50 if we use them on this page.

A WINTER STOAT

Dogs, bucks, jacks and hobs: bitches, does and jills—it sort of scans, doesn't it? But in fact these arelh names for male and female stoats. The stoat is fierce, furious and fearless. it will take on animals many times its own size, dispatching them with a deadly accurate bite to the neck with its pinsharp teeth. This time of year our northern stoats will pull off the astonishing trick of turning white—called being "in ermine"—as better camouflage in snow.

White stoat fur has been a mark of status for centuries— even today the Pope and members of the House of Lords wear ermine-trimmed robes. In days past, the white stoat was a symbol of purity— the Renaissance writer Thomas Peacham reminds us to "keep our minds and consciences as pure as the ermine keeps its fur".

Thankyou, Thomas!

FLYING SCOTS

Good news: lastyear was a record-breaker for our biggest eagle, the white-tailed or sea eagle. In October I went to the Scottish island of Mull to film with my Autumnwatch co-presenter Chris Packham. I'd never been before, and I fell in love. So much so, I had to go back, and have just returned.

As well as playful otter cubs, magnificent red deer, curious seals and exotic divers, I watched in awe as a white-tailed eagle soared overhead. With an immense eight-foot wingspan, they are sometimes, disrespectfully, known as the "flying barn door"! The white-tailed eagle was shot and poisoned to extinction in the UK but in 1985, after years of intense effort, there was the first successful breeding of reintroduced eagles. Last year, there were a record 52 breeding pairs in Scotland. To see a white-tailed eagle soaring among the snow-capped mountains of Mull is a glorious sight— recommended!

BUSY BEES

What is happening inside a bee hive in February? Do the bees hibernate? Well, no; they're still active, and something fascinating is going on. However cold it gets outside, the worker bees will keep their queen in the hive at a cosy 35°C. How on earth do they do it? Once the outside temperature hits 18°C, the workers inside the hive cluster around the queen. As the

Martin Hughes-Games on heating hives and eagles as big as barn doors

temperature drops, the cluster gets progressively smaller and tighter. Then, if the temperature falls below freezing, something amazing happens; the bees start to vibrate their flight muscles, generating heat. They then take turns to move from the colder outside into the hot core of the cluster, ensuring

all of them keep warm. In this way bees can withstand temperatures well below freezing—the whole process fuelled by the honey they collected back in the warm, lazy days of summer. •

Martin Hughes-Games is a host ofBBC2's Springwatch andAutumnwatch

My best holiday ever*

Being married to an Italian made Dee La Davera from Wiltshire yearn for the heady romance of La Dolce Vita. A week's trip to Rome proved to be the perfect tonic

When friends invited my husband and me to Rome, I thought this would get me a bit nearer to fulfilling my fantasy of re-enacting the midnight bathing scene in the Trevi Fountain from the filmLa Dolce Vita. But the real Rome is better than any fantasy—from Roman remains to boutiques; from purple-sashed bishops eyeing up Parma hams and Parmesan cheeses in shops, to

starched policemen eyeing up pretty ragazze. Around every corner are fountains bursting with muscular gods and sinuous nymphs, and huge conch shells spouting water. The Trevi fountain is such a surprise— a tiny square with an eruption of sculptured horses and figures from the buildings behind.

We got sore feet from walking up steps to churches and down to crypts. We walked in the footsteps of gladiators in the Coliseum and senators in the Forum. We sat on the Spanish Steps and watched students and lovers taking photos of each other, and gawped at expensive handbags and silk ties in the Via Condotti. What a pleasure to sit down for an espresso, gelato or pizza al forno in a cafe overlooking a piazza. I can't wait to go again!

* Send us a photo of your favourite holiday, telling us briefly what made it so special, and if we include it on this page we'll pay you £75. See address on p4. AIN

Creg‘fo8,44879 has two-night breaks, in Rome from £252pp, imreturrtGA--, om Ga two nights' b&b at the four-star Hotel Oxford

DISCOVER.

SHARE.

Edited by Kate Pettifer

GREAT ESCAPES

WINTER SUN SPOTS

TourSri Lankaat its driest, from capital Colombo to the west coast. The nineday Elephants & Spices tour from Travel Collection (01306 871164*) starts at £995.St Luciais now at its tropical best. Tropic Breeze (01752 880 880*) has seven nights' b&b, plus a £130 spa voucher, at lovely Ti Kaye from £1,258pp. Head to just-warmCyprusfor the peace and price tag. Planet Holidays (0871 871 2234*) has seven nights' b&b at the five-star Aphrodite Hills Resort from just £524pp. All prices include return flights.

RIVER ROMANCE

Helpful Holidays has added a gorgeous property to its self-catering books—the Bath House, on the banks of the River Dart in south Devon. In February, prices start at £354 for a week's stay. The Grade-II listed property is on the Sharpham Estate near Ashprington; it has a double bedroom with French doors opening onto a balcony, an

additional single room and, on the top floor, a living room housed in the original octagonal bathing house, with spectacular river views.

SAVING ON SAFARIS

Group-travel experts

Explore have launched a new collection of Budget Tours, which pare back the inclusive elements to give you more freedom to choose restaurants and excursions. Value safaris are hard to come by, so it's good to see a 12-day game tour included in the collection. The Big Game Safari in Malawi and Zambia takes in the Liwonde park in Malawi, plus Lake Malawi and the fantastic South Luangwa park in Zambia. From £1,729 with flights (08444990901*). • WEBSITE of the month

Getaways with lovey-doveynessare the focus of this hotel-bookings website. Browse by collection—choose between New, With a spa, With a hot tub, Honeymoon or Budget boutique. Hotels are mostly Europe-based, with a smattering in Turkey, America, Australia and Morocco. Each comes with a fact file, plus a review, map, gallery and booking pages arranged in simple tabs. All the inspiration you need for a second honeymoon!

A great home insurance deal

We've teamed up with home insurance specialists, S&P Direct, to bring you quality cover at a great price.

S&P Direct's cover gives you all this:

,/ Automatic cover levels of f5oo,000 for buildings and £55,000 for contents

„/ Flexible cover options to suit your needs and your budget

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./ No Claims Discount that won't be lost altogether. It's merely stepped back, depending on the nature of the claim.

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Call now for a quote or visit www.readersdigestfs.co.uk quoting ref: RD4 for more details. Even if your renewal date is not due now, you can still get a quote and be in with a chance to win £i000 cash!

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Prize Draw Information

£1,000 Instant Cash Quote Draw - Closing date to enter the prize draw is 28th February 2011. Please visit www.sandpdirect.co.uk/readersterms.asp for full terms and conditions.

THE RD CHALLENGE

Love is in the air this month...but that's not going to help you solve these strictly logical problems from the high-IQ society Mensa. Allow yourself 20 minutes and get cracking!

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Answer to January's question Theodore Roosevelt. This month's winner: Carol Gabriel from Ponteland, Northumberland

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1. In a company there are twice as many admin staff as accounts staff. Two more people do marketing than accounts and the communications department has one fewer than the marketing department. The communications department has six staff. How many staff does each department have?

2. On each row place a word beginning with W to fit the clue given. When completed a word will be read down the shaded column. What is it?

Type of biscuit

Anxiety

Incorrect

Use carelessly

A timepiece

3. A car has travelled 80 miles at 50mph. It started with ten gallons of fuel, but its tank has been leaking throughout the journey and is now dry. The car completes 40 miles per gallon. How many gallons of fuel does it leak per hour?

4.Rearrange the letters of NETS LEFT IN FORD to give the name of a cartoon character. Who is it?

5. What number should replace the question mark?

PRIZE QUESTION

Send us the answer to this question—the first correct one we pick on February 1 wins £50!* Email excerpts @readersdigest.co.uk

Place the same two letters in the exact centre of each of these words to give six longer words. What are they?

WIRY HOST LIAR PALS GETS FIST

The answer will be published in the March issue

SO HOW DID YOU SCORE?

One point for every correct answer

0-2 Evening in the pub.Call that a big night out?

3-4 Meal at a restaurant.All very nice; all rather predictable.

5 Trip to Paris.The perfect Valentine!

Samantha Womack on the Comic Relief front line

Inside the mind of a stalker

Diabetics: beware hospitals! We reveal why Meet Britain's most prolific inventor WhyMartin Hughes-Games

PLUSStuart Maconie, James BrownandDaisy Waugh

READER'S DIGEST: SMALL, BUT PERFECTLY INFORMED

FEBRUARY'S BOOKS

A N Wilson praises two fine novels, a rich memoir— and the way the young, like, speak nowadays

BIRD CLOUD by Annie Proulx

(Fourth Estate, £16.99)

Bird Cloud is a house that Annie Proulx has had built in the wilderness of Wyoming. Homes and houses define us, as this superbly observant writer evoked so well in her great novel TheShipping News. In this non-fictional work, the prospect of settling down in the house that she hopes will be her last prompts a whole series of reflections about where she comes from. As a French-Canadian working-class man, her father felt ashamed of his origins—a shame only made worse by the fact that Annie's mother was of old American stock.

The book is described as a memoir, but it reveals very little about its author beyond her brilliance as a writer. Instead, it prompts many thoughts about geology, ornithology, natural history, the history of America and, above all, that secret history, our family history, which we all carry within us. It is a masterpiece.

THE LANGUAGE WARS

by

Henry Hitchings (John Murray, £17.99)

We all worry sometimes that we're not speaking or writing "proper English". Yet is there such a thing? Clearly,there is proper French—it is the language decreed to be correct by the French Academy. But proper English? As this gloriously

THE LANG A E WARS A HISTORY F PROPER ENGLISH HENRY HITCHINGS

sensible, comprehensive history shows, our greatest writers have broken all the rules of the pedants. And even the pedants themselves are really anti-pedants by French standards.

This is a superb survey of the subject, taking us from Elizabethan schoolmasters to the world of "global English". Nancy Mitford (she of "U and non-U" speech) gets a mention, but I wonder if the eminently reasonable Hitchings realises how much insecurity about language in Britain is really insecurity about class— which is why I rather rejoice at the strange new English spoken by, like, the young, in which, like, everything is a question? And they seem to have put behind them the weird world of shibboleths—both social ("toilet" versus "loo") and academic (caring about split infinitives).

THE

CHAMPION by Tim Binding (Picador, £12.99)

Towards the beginning of Binding's new novel, the appalling teenage anti-hero, Clark "Large" Rossiter, shows off to his mates by lighting his cigar with a £2o note. Large wins all the fights, pulls all the girls, but his mates are the ones who go to university, while he gets a menial job.

But then we watch the appalling rise of the philistine, money-grubbing Large, who becomes an emblem of Eighties Britain—and of everything which, in the view of this passionate, angry novel, destroyed the country. A fantastic read: very funny in parts, deeply serious in conclusion.

THE

MEETING

POINT

by Lucy Caldwell (Faber, £12.99)

Caldwell is a highly accomplished young playwright, who's also possessed of the very different skill of being able to write fiction. You would expect a playwright's dialogue to be good, but how well she depicts place: lush, cold, wet Northern Ireland; and Bahrain, to where the heroine Ruth accompanies her clergyman husband. She thinks he's going to be the chaplain of the English church. In fact, he's involved with the highly dangerous business of smuggling Bibles into Saudi Arabia.

The book hinges on Ruth's relationships with heryoung Arab neighbours: a 19-yearold boy with whom she falls in love, and a furious, spotty teenage girl. Both are tenderly and truthfully described. The result is a disturbing but hugely enjoyable exploration of the fragility of marriage and of religious faith.

RD BOOK CLUB WITH JAMES WALTON

Each month, James Walton —RD books editor and presenter of Radio 4's book quiz The Write Stuff—invites you to read our recommended paperback and let us have your comments and marks out of ten. Our professional critic A N Wilson then reads the same book and James reports on how your views compare.

FEBRUARY'S CHOICE

Kate Atkinson'sWhen Will There Be GoodNews? begins with the shocking murder of a mother and two of her children as they walk home through a Devon cornfield. Only six-year-old Joanna survives. We then cut to 30 years later, when Joanna is an Edinburgh doctor with a child of her own and a husband who may not be as respectable as he seems (and he doesn't seem that respectable). She then hears that her family's killer is about to be released...

THE VERDICT

This was a hugely popular choice. Before the thrillers featuring private eye Jackson Brodie (When Will There Be Good News? is the third), Atkinson wrote more conventional literary novels—and the consensus amongyou was that the book combined the best of both forms. While the various crime plots kept things rattling along,you also appreciated the depth of the characters, the sharp sense of place and the seriousness of the themes.

Atkinson does rely heavily on coincidence—but nobody minded that either. On the contrary, in fact. "Coincidence is part of the novel's genius," wrote Joseph Goldsmith of Wexford, "an instrument of destiny deliberately and brilliantly woven into the story". Nonetheless, even for Joseph "my favourite aspect was the characters".

For more book reviews and to add comments of your own, please go to readersdigest.co.uk/ magazine mesh together. I also loved the rich cast of vividly drawn characters.

"An intelligent page-turner," added Carol Griffin of Dublin.

None of this found any argument from A N Wilson. "I loved the book," he said. "The characters are believable and strong and the plotting is in the Ruth Rendell class"—which, as anybody who's read A N's Rendell reviews in RD will realise, is quite a compliment.

And so, after last month's difference of opinion about Stuart Maconie (basically, A N didn't like it, everybody else did), a happy consensus was restored. He gave it 9/10—as, on average, did you.

Our Critic of the Month is Valerie Richards from Ayrshire who wins £100 in book tokens for this enthusiastic but thoughtful review: "'A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.' So says Jackson Brodie here, and that could be a metaphor for this complex and wonderfully engrossing book. The necessarily harrowing introduction gives way to an intricately constructed mystery. But this is not just a detective story. It's a thoroughly satisfying mix of suspense, humour and insight into human behaviour. One of the great joys of the novel is trying to guess how the multi-stranded storylines will eventually

"To sum up: a marvellous, beautifully written twisting

story, which I'd thoroughly recommend to Reader's Digest readers.10/10."

COMING UP

MarchOneDay by David Nicholls (Hodder, £7.99).

April The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson (Vintage, £8.99) And new for May...

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Vintage, £7.99). A disastrous wedding night in 1962—how the disaster happened, and the lifelong effect it has on the newlyweds...

■ Was McEwan able to do justice IAN Mc EWA N

to his subject in such a short novel?

■ If so, how did he manage it? If not, what was missing?

Please send your comments and marks out of ten by March 15. (The deadline forThe Mighty Walzer is February15.)

Comments, thoughts and reviews of all kinds and lengths are welcome. Write to RD Book Club, Reader's Digest, 157 Edgware Road, London W2 2HR, or email bookclub@ readersdigest. co.uk.In return, we'll give Doo in book tokens to the Critic of the Month and publish their verdict—in edited form—here. Happy reading!

BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Ken Livingstone has lived in London all his life. He was the leader of the GLC from 1981 to 1986 when the office was abolished under Margaret Thatcher—and Mayor of London from 2000 to 2008. He is Labour's mayoral candidate for 2012.

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

by George Orwell

This remains the most significant book I have ever read. When I was 13, at the height of the Cold War in 1958, it made an immense impression on me: its sophisticated handling of the tyrannies of communism fired my interest in politics and helped define my views on dictatorship and freedom.

I remember how strange it was when the actual year 1984 came to pass—it had seemed so far in the future when I read the book. But the bit I found scariest of all was when Winston is in his cell and imagines what it would feel like to cut his throat with a razor blade. I've only used an electric razor ever since...

EARTH ABIDES

by George R Stewart

This remarkable science-fiction novel was published in1949, but it has proved to be

truly prophetic. Stewart explores what might happen if a deadly disease were to wipe out 99 per cent of the population.

As a teenager it gave me an awareness of the extreme fragility of life on earth—I was an eco-warrior long before I became a politician. And now, as we face the issues of global warming and climate change, I'm very pessimistic about our existence on earth. We've probably got less than a decade left before we reach the point of no return, and I'm not sure there will be anything recognisably like human civilisation by the end of this century.

THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960 by Theodore

H White

I remember reading this book and being completely transfixed. All the glamour of the election of John F Kennedy gripped me—it was so much more exciting than anything going on in this country. It tipped my interest in American politics into the realm of obsession and eventually led to my involvement in British politics; I joined the Labour party in 1969. But the American political system has always remained attractive because it's more open than ours and makes it easier to achieve change; no pandering to the people above as you make your way up the greasy pole. As told to Caroline Hutton

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE!

"Open wide!" shouted the dentist as he began an examination of his patient's teeth. "Goodness! You have the largest cavity I've ever seen! Goodness! You have the largest cavity I've ever seen!"

"Please, doctor," said the shaking patient. "I'm nervous enough without you repeatingyourself."

"I didn't repeat myself," said the dentist. "That was an echo."

Roy Berry, Lancashire

Militant feminists! take my hat off to them. They don't like that.

Milton Jones, comedian

A stark naked, drunk woman jumped into an empty taxi. The driver just stared at her and made no attempt to start the engine.

"What's wrong, love? Haven't you ever seen a naked woman before?"

"I'm not staring at

jokes Write to the address on Page 4

r

Captain's Log. Stardate 54329. The search continues for a compatible format with which to access Sulu's holiday videos...

you. That wouldn't be proper," he said.

"Well, if you're not staring at me, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Honestly, I'm thinking to myself: where's this woman keeping the money to pay me?"

From allowe.com

What's with trainspotters? I counted 27 of them on the way here

Rich Hall, comedian I just poured some superglueinto a non-stick

Mothers of teenagers know why some animals eat their young

Beatrice Webb, Aberwheeler, Clywd

pan. Somebody's goingto be proved wrong. Seen on the internet

A visitor to a quaint little villageasks a local chap if the village boasts any eccentric characters. "Oh aye," says the local. "See old Jack over there? Put a pound coin in your right hand and a ten pence piece in your left, and tell him he can have whichever he chooses."

The visitor complies and is saddened to see the old man immediately go for the ten pence piece.

"Jack," he says gently,

DOUBLE TAKES

It's amazing what you can do with a camera and an eye for perspective

"don'tyou realise that the coin you didn't take is worth ten times more than the one you chose?"

"Of course I do;' Jack scoffs, "but if I take the pound coin, people will stop giving me ten pence pieces, won't they!"

Tony Lazenby, Doncaster

Last night my kids and I were sittingin the living room. I said, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on a machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

So they got up and

unplugged my computer, then threw out my wine!

Rita Anderson, Middlesbrough

On Tuesday, my wife brought home a new puppyand I really love her—the puppy, not my wife, silly!

That was a joke, I totally love my wife...for bringing the dogto us.

Hal Cruttenden, comedian

So what if I can't spell "armageddon"?It's not the end of the world.

Stewart Francis, comedian

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE!

I'm not what you'd call a risk taker.I'll throw caution to the wind—but it has to be underarm and away from any glass.

Zoe Lyons, comedian Zoe's Ctownbusting tour starts on February 3

- I was sacked from my first job.I used to work for a skincare company. One morning I arrived at work, desk cleared,E45... Tom Wrigglesworth, comedian. Tom's show Nightmare Dream Wedding is touring until April 2

I asked my gran what she wanted for her birthday."Ooh,something from the Body Shop please," she replied. Hope she's got enough room in the flat for the front wing of a Fiesta.

Seen on the internet

A lot of smug people will be very embarrassed when we discover the first bicycle-riding fish

Bill Corbett, comedian

You've got

If a chicken could write a letter to the world, what would it say? The website asks users to submit imaginary correspondence...

Dear World,What makes you think I'm easy?

Yours sincerely, Piece of Cake.

Dear World,I've crossed the road many times for many reasons. Now please let that be an end to it. Yours sincerely, Chicken.

Dear World,I think we should seriously consider changing the saying to, "There are plenty more birds in the sky." Thoughts?

Yours sincerely,BP.

Dear World, I'mlost and starving, I have no idea where I am and it's been 14 days. Send help!

Yours sincerely, Wally.

Dear World,Please learn to makeyour own decisions. Yours sincerely, Rock, Paper and Scissors.

A magician started work on a cruise ship. But the first night on stage, an obnoxious parrot kept spoiling his act by shouting, "It's got a false bottom!" or, "He's got another in his sleeve!" or, "There's another ring in his pocket!"

The next day, the ship hit a rock and sank. The magician and the parrot managed to cling on to a piece of driftwood.

For several hours, neither of them spoke. Then the parrot said, "Oh OK, I give up! Where's the b****y ship?"

Ray Parkes, Stoke-on-Trent

"Look out! Speed camera!"

A new member of staff called Johnis being shown around the office by his new boss. They enter the IT department and John sees a man usingtwo keyboards at the same time. John says, "That's incredible. Trust a geek to use two keyboards at once." His boss replies, "Hey! That's stereotyping."

Steve Fanning, Leamington Spa

I read a great novel on my e-book reader. It was a real button-presser. Peter Bacanin, Stoke-on-Trent

Animal antics

My dog worries sheep. He sits on the fence and explains to them the real possibility of a huge meteorite striking the earth and causing another ice age.

The dog is a Border collie. It only stays with me during the school holidays.

I had to buy the cat a new cat flap. He was having real difficulty taking off.

Comedian and musician Boothby Graffoe's CD Songs for Dogs, Funerals... is out from February 21. His tour The Return of Boothby Graffoe begins in Wolverhampton on March 1.

WOULDYOU SPARE10MINUTES TOPREVENTA STROKE?

Strokes are the third most common cause of death in the UK. Yet the National Stroke Association says 80% can be prevented. Some simple screening tests can help put your mind at rest. Should anything be detected early, you and your GP can act now before it's too late.

Your risk of a stroke doubles every decade from age 50 onwards. Almost one in four men and one in five women aged 45 can expect to suffer a stroke if they live to 85. Wouldn't it be comforting to know you had reduced your chances of having a stroke or suffering a debilitating condition?

So, don't ignore possible health problems. Call Life Line Screening FREE now on 0800 046 7988. You could also save £101.

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Walk-in baths

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BEAT THE CARTOONIST

WIN £200 AND A SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

Think of a witty caption for this picture and you could beat the comedy experts at their own game. The three best suggestions will be posted on our website in mid-February alongside an anonymous caption from our professional cartoonist. Visitors can choose their favourite and if your entrygets the most votes,you'll receive £200 and the original, signed drawing. Submityour captions to captions@readersdigest.co.uk or the address on page 4 by February 10. You can also enter and vote online at readersdigest.co.uk/caption. We'll announce the winner in our April issue.

DECEMBER'S WINNER

Well, it's another sound kicking in the creative proverbials for the cartoonist this month. Steve Way's "It's hard to survive on the street, man" came in last. And the winning entry from Dorothy Bowkett of Cardiff —"Did anyone get the number of that hit-and-run snowplough?"—had ten times as manyvotes. Backto the drawing board, Steve. Or perhaps not.

SCOREBOARD READERS 15 CARTOONISTS 8

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