Reader's Digest UK Feb 2016

Contents

FEBRUARY 2016

features

12 It’s a mann’s world

Home-based professional Olly Mann wonders if the dream job really exists

e ntertainment

20 t HE CH an GI n G

o F t HE H om E GUard

Toby Jones and Michael Gambon discuss the longawaited Dad’s Army film

26 “I r E m E mb E r”:

andY C ol E

The former Premier League footballer on his life and career Health

34 F or GIVE n E ss I s

G ood m E d ICI n E

How letting go can heal you emotionally—and physically Inspire

52 loVE I n lat E r l IFE

Meet the couples who prove divorce doesn’t have to mean the end of happy ever after

66 bE st oF br I t I s H :

C Ho C olat IE rs

Forget gifts for Valentine’s Day—you’ll want to buy these edible delights for yourself

travel & a dventure

76 tHE world Is not FallInG aPart

The heartening facts that show you don’t have to believe the dire headlines

84 a loVE storY

Italy’s beautiful Lake Como is the perfect place to reconnect —or reminisce technology

62

100- word -storY

C om PE t I t I on

It’s your last chance to enter and be in line to win £2,000!

110 H ow a I w I ll

CH an GE o U r l IVE s

Why Artificial Intelligence will revolutionise everything

natIonal trE asUrEs don’t come much bigger than Dad’s Army, which arrives on the big screen with a brand new cast this month. We’ve been showing off our Captain Mainwaring impersonations here at Reader’s Digest—but more importantly, we also chatted with two of the film’s biggest stars, Sir Michael Gambon and Toby Jones. You can read their thoughts on p20.

For a lot of us, though, February means only one thing: Valentine’s Day. In order to assist those looking for gifts, we’ve hunted down the very best chocolatiers in the UK (it’s a tough job sometimes) and published the results on p66. And if you’re currently unattached, you may take inspiration from the couples on p52, all of whom found love long after they’d given up looking.

Finally, don’t forget to submit your entries for our 100-Word-Story Competition. The closing date is fast approaching, so get your skates on! Full details can be found on p62.

tom Browne

theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk

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A lively figure.

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edItOr-IN-ChIef Tom Browne

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All you need is love

With Valentine’s Day upon us, we’ve gone gooey and filled the website with all things lovey-dovey. Discover the secret language of flowers and the ten most common reasons relationships don’t quite work out. You can also learn the history of matchmaking and take our quiz to find out if you’re a good kisser. Phew! If all that doesn’t guarantee a loved-up month, we don’t know what will…

Looking for romance?

Reader’s Digest dating is a safe and secure way to meet a like-minded companion. Built specifically for those aged 40+, simply set up your profile, browse other singles and start chatting. Who knows, maybe 2016 will be your year of love. Go to readersdigestdating. co.uk to sign up!

Scenarios that all third wheels will relate to…

Over to You

LETTERS ON THE DECEMBER ISSUE

We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others

✯ LETTER OF THE MONTH...

I liked James Brown’s final column “Love, Laughter and Dick Emery”, about his friend’s wedding reception.

My first wedding was in East Africa, to a British Army colonel’s daughter. He refused to pay for her wedding on the grounds that she should have married one of his favourite second lieutenants. He attended and gave me the drinks bill as we left for the honeymoon. Sadly, the marriage didn’t last many years.

I promised never to marry again—but who was it who said “never say never”? I was back in the UK and “she” walked into my office. Our eyes met and we clicked. Her dad refused to pay for the wedding reception “second time round” because she was a widow. So once again I paid, and as we were about to leave for our honeymoon the hotel manager gave me a bill for extra drinks consumed by my new in-laws, totalling £55.

We’ve now been married for 38 years. When her dad passed away, he left me £55 for the drinks.

ALAN ANDREWS, Devon

FRAUD-PROOF FUTURE

I was grateful for your article “Be Scam Aware”. I was a victim of fraud last year. Someone opened an account at a department store in my name and bought a laptop on my credit card—it

was even delivered to my house when I was out, with the fraudster waiting outside for delivery. I knew nothing until I got my credit-card bill.

I’ll be more aware in future!

JONI COOPER, London

RECONSIDERING JIMMY

I read “I Remember” with interest. As a teenager in the 1970s, I was much more into The Kinks or the heavy rock of Led Zeppelin. The Osmonds stood for just about everything I hated in pop music —they were too clean-living and overly happy, in my opinion.

But reading Jimmy’s reminiscences of his time in that era gave me a new respect for the man and his music. He and his brothers were extremely hard-working and loyal to each other. The only things that really mattered to them were the family times. They even did things rock bands were famous for, such as losing a fortune then working their socks off to get it back.

I’ll be looking out for him and his brothers in any performances they do in the future.

ANDREW BERRY, Lincolnshire

SOLE EXCEPTIONS

I was particularly intrigued by “The Only Ones”. I’m an only child and I’ve never once felt sorry for myself. Now, almost 40, I realise that being an only child has lots of advantages. I think I’m more independent, more successful, more focused in my career and more sociable, since only

children tend always to be looking for friendship and understanding.

ALAN JACOBS, Cheshire

VENICE ON THE CARDS

I always enjoy your “Travel & Adventure” section. Visiting Venice has long been on my bucket list, and after reading about John Hooper’s travels through this beautiful city in “My Secret Venice”, I’ve put the wheels in motion and will be there later this month!

Beautiful, romantic and with so many attractions, the city is great for walking. There are magnificent churches, squares and shops, not forgetting the 400 bridges over 150 canals. I cannot wait!

SHONA LLOYD, Denbighshire

A LIFE OF BRIAN

After reading “If I Ruled the World”, I’ve realised that Brian Blessed is a man after my own heart.

Among his wishes was stopping the senseless killing of animals. I recently saw a video showing the barbaric treatment of animals on fur farms in China. The poor creatures were literally being skinned alive and it sickened me to my stomach. I wish Brian did rule the world!

ELERI WEBBER, Cheshire

photos: © Carl Warner

...differently

When Carl Warner gets a hunger attack at work, his resolve is really put to the test…since relief is only an arm’s length away. Although the bounty before him isn’t there to feed, it’s this London photographer’s financial bread-and-butter. A second glance at his images reveals that they’re fanciful miniature worlds constructed largely from edible building blocks. Don’t be fooled though: “playing with food” like this is actually quite hard—the bread volcano among the broccoli forest, for example, took Warner about two weeks to construct.

We all get fed up with our jobs, says Olly Mann, but maybe we’re guilty of worrying too much

Is Chasing the Dream Worth It?

Olly Mann is a writer, LBC presenter and serial podcaster, with shows including Answer Me This!, The Media Podcast and The Modern Mann

I’ve been I nvI ted to cha I r a debate entitled “Is There Such a Thing as a Dream Job?” It’ll be an afterwork, ties-off, canapés-and-cocktails affair, a free event for City types who feel directionless in their current role— despite the fact they themselves are probably management consultants or recruiters, and thus spend their days instructing others how to improve their careers.

I’ve agreed to the gig because I like talking, and the idea of being paid to talk about anything still seems an impossible fantasy. I’ve enjoyed talking ever since, aged two, I realised I could enliven my afternoons by pointing at a passing cleavage, shouting out “Boobs!” and sitting back in my pram to leave Mum to deal with the consequences. I enjoy talking so much that I went on to make podcasts for years, for free, for fun, albeit eventually leading to professional broadcasting. I guess that’s why I’ve been approached to host this event: I’m proof that the right career is out there waiting for everyone, if they follow their passion.

e xcept I know the realIty. I know that by imparting the home truths of my employment—the seemingly endless tax returns, the self-doubt that mires my self-motivation, the choking paranoia of freelance existence, the role of sheer luck in my fortune—chances are I’ll put folks off from pursuing their dream job, rather than inspiring them to chase it. Having

Illustrat I on by a . rI chard a llen

emotionally and financially benefited from deciding, a few years back, to plunge into the world of being a selfemployed rent-a-gob (see, I’m bad at glamorising it), I’d hate to be in the position of deterring others.

After all, if you really want to set up your own business these days, or find a creative outlet, technology proffers a plethora of free platforms with which to experiment: you can crowd-fund the gadget you firmly

believe will revolutionise the world of dog grooming, or tweet your incisive commentary on this year’s Junior Eurovision and get instant feedback from a real, international audience.

As Franknfurter proclaims in The Rocky Horror Show: “Don’t Dream It, Be It.” If you’re the kind of person who would sign up to hear me and a panel blabber on for two hours about dream jobs, I fear you’re probably already too far down the path of procrastination, when what you require instead is the avenue of inspiration.

So here’s some inspiration. I read recently about a French celebrity chef, Bernard Laurence, who made his name by blogging delicious pudding recipes, recently spun off into a cookbook and TV series. For years he worked as an air steward for Air France, never feeling brave enough to develop his hobby into a culinary career.

impetus to chase his dream, and he’s now wildly successful.

but w e must be caut I ous when drawing lessons from such stories. However fabulous your current job is—interviewing movie stars, driving the Large Hadron Collider, headlining Glastonbury—you’d probably down tools right now if you discovered this was your last day on Earth. No job is quite as important as spending time with your family and friends; no deadline quite as pressing as one after which you actually die. It’s always worth, I think, reminding ourselves that we only grace this mortal coil for a limited period.

However fabulous your job is, you’d probably down tools right now if you discovered this was your last day on Earth

Then, on June 1, 2009, the plane on which he’d been scheduled to be working crashed into the Atlantic, killing everyone on board. It was only thanks to his last-minute decision to avoid that particular shift that he survived. The shock of facing his own mortality finally gave him the

Are you happy to have spent 43 hours this week being employed as you are?

Really, that’s the only question you need to answer, isn’t it? Viewed through this existentialist prism, all your persistent doubts about whether chasing your dream might negate your ability to pay the mortgage, school fees, two holidays a year or whatever else it is that keeps you awake at night, rather fall into place.

But there’s a sting in the tail to Bernard’s story: he still works, parttime, for Air France. Pourquoi? He

enjoys the variety. He likes spending time with his colleagues. He doesn’t need the money, but he wants his pension plan. He feels, I presume, that there’s only so many puddings one man can make in a week without going mental.

I wonder, therefore, if rather than asking, “Is there such a thing as a dream job?”, the delegates at the event I’m hosting should instead explore the question, “How can I improve the job I have?” Perhaps by moving part-time, indulging their creative pursuits on the side.

Perhaps by attempting to define a new role within the organisation where they currently work, playing to their strengths.

Or perhaps they should just stick with what they do now—not because they’ve surrendered to its drawbacks, but because they’ve understood that even a dream career can get tiresome over time. Virtually no one cartwheels into the office, grateful to have tackled that morning’s sweaty commute.

That said, if any of them do quit their jobs, they can call me for a chat when it all falls to pieces. I charge extra for that.

A GROUP OF QUESTIONS

can you match the collective noun with the animal? answers below.

1. a shrewdness of...

2. a tower of...

3. a conspiracy of...

4. a romp of...

5. a crash of...

6. a cauldron of...

7. a shadow of...

8. a band of...

a) Jaguars

b) apes

c) otters

d) Gorillas

e) Giraffes

f) rhinoceroses

g) lemurs

h) bats

nswers:a

SOURCE: MMn.COM

Films

by tom browne

Movie of the Month

Under fire: Helen Mirren and Bryan Cranston in Trumbo

■ biopic: trumbo The title of this absorbing film refers to Dalton Trumbo, one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed screenwriters who nevertheless found himself blacklisted in the 1940s and 1950s for his past ties to the Communist Party. Although the movie is rather conventional in narrative terms, Bryan Cranston (of Breaking Bad fame) is consistently excellent in the lead, and there are fine cameos from Helen Mirren as the Commie-baiting gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and the always-reliable John Goodman as Frank King, the down-atheel studio head who gives Trumbo and his colleagues anonymous work when no one else will touch them. Special mention should also be given to John McNamara’s hilarious and street-smart screenplay, of which Trumbo himself would be proud.

■ comedy: pride and prejudice and zombies This very loose take on the Jane Austen classic once again focuses on the burgeoning love between the redoubtable Elizabeth Bennett (Lily James) and the class-conscious Mr Darcy (Sam Riley)—but this time set against the backdrop of a 19th-century England overrun by the undead. Austen purists will be choking on their toasted teacakes, but there’s much grisly fun for the rest of us.

■ drama: chronic Tim Roth has often stolen the show with well-judged supporting roles, but here he takes centre stage as a troubled and reserved home-care nurse who has to juggle his own problems with those of his terminally ill patients. The film is unsparing in its details and shorn of any sentimentality; as such, it may be too emotionally raw for some, but it’s worth checking out for Roth’s performance and a screenplay that scooped an award at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

■ thriller: a bigger splash

A partial remake of the French classic La Piscine, this focuses on ailing rock star Marianne (Tilda Swinton) and lover Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts), whose holiday in Italy is interrupted by a visit from Marianne’s old flame Harry (Ralph Fiennes) and his vampish daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson). This oddly uneven psychodrama functions best as a showcase for its stars, with Fiennes and Swinton impressing in particular.

■ comedy: dad’s army The boys from the Home Guard first hit the big screen in 1971, but this version boasts a whole new cast, including Bill Nighy, Tom Courtenay, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Gambon and Toby Jones (see interview on p20). Expect slapstick laughs and incompetence aplenty. All together now: “So who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler…?”

DVD of the month

■ the martian*

Matt Damon plays an astronaut stranded on Mars in this gripping and humorous sci-fi.

On Your Radar Colin Bullen, retired

Watching: West Wing (box set) I’m again going through the full series of the best-ever political drama.

Reading: the road to nab end by william woodruff

A reminder that our current prosperity was not gifted to us but earned by previous generations.

Online: bbc news I prefer reading to going online, but I visit this website daily to keep up with the latest news.

l istening: la traviata by Verdi This is my favourite opera and I’ve just purchased a new recording. A great love story set in the most beautiful city in the world.

Fancy appearing in this section? Send your current cultural favourites, along with short descriptions, to readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk

Music

by mandi G oodier

you’re a man now, boy by raleigh ritchie

Album of the Month

Raleigh Ritchie is the stage name of actor and singer Jacob Anderson (whom you may recognise as Grey Worm from HBO’s Game of Thrones), and this—his debut album—cements the feeling that he’s on the verge of becoming one of the biggest pop-soul acts in the UK.

As the title suggests, You’re a Man Now, Boy deals with the shift from adolescence to adulthood. But despite the lyrical insecurities, this is an album full of optimism. Mixing R&B, hip hop and soul, Ritchie has produced a fine collection of radio-friendly contemporary pop music that manages to retain a strong sense of identity throughout.

Key tracks: “Bloodsport ‘15”, “The Greatest”, “You’re a Man Now, Boy”

Like this? You may also like: Disclosure, Jessie Ware, Frank Ocean

overlooked record from the past

Volumes 9 & 10 by desert Sessions

The idea behind this music collective—founded by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and featuring heavyweights such as P J Harvey, Mark Lanegan and Twiggy Ramirez— was to take a bunch of musicians out to a ranch and record a heap of material on the spot. The sessions ran from 1997 to 2004, and the last of these was by far the most accessible. Incorporating the disparate styles of the various members, from bluesy tunes to solid rock numbers, it also produced songs later recorded by Queens of the Stone Age: “I Wanna Make It Wit Chu” and “In My Head”.

On Our Radar

Glasgow Film Festival, Feb 17–28, Innovative movies from emerging and established talent.

london Fashion week, Feb 19–23, The finest finery on the capital’s catwalks.

rhyl 10-mile run, Feb 21, Beat your personal best on the North Wales seafront.

Changing

The Home of the Guard

As a new film version of Dad’s Army shoulders arms and prepares to march into cinemas, Joy Persaud chats to Toby Jones and Michael Gambon about reviving a national institution

Think of T he words

“ d ad’s a rmy” and it’s likely that an image of the band of men who dominated one of the most popular British comedies will sneak into your mind’s eye. Or perhaps you’ll recall the theme tune, with its teasing “get lost” message to Hitler.

This month, the largely inept crew of much-loved characters will be revived on the big screen, played by a cast that boasts Sir Michael Gambon, Toby Jones, Tom Courtenay and Bill Nighy. But after nine successful TV series, being in the shadow of this national treasure surely can’t be easy?

“At first, you think it’s a terrible idea,” admits Toby Jones, who plays the cranky Captain Mainwaring. “You think, I don’t want anything to do with that; it’s a ridiculous idea. Those characters and actors are so lodged in the national imagination. I mean, it’s gone beyond being a TV series into being a kind of legend of the country.

“But, weirdly, having people like Michael and Tom and Bill involved in the show, and seeing the quality of the script and how brilliantly it respected the tradition of the show —but also reinvented it, in a way— I suddenly thought, Why would I want to deny myself being involved in that fun, of being with those actors?

“I don’t think it ever went away, the fear that we were desecrating some tradition. But we all had such fun that we were able to forget about it while we were making it.”

michael gambon, in contrast to his affable and loquacious co-star Jones, is a man of few words. But the 75-year-old bellows his deep, gravelly

laugh frequently and utters sporadic quips that elicit mirth from those around him.

Asked about his part in Dad’s Army—Gambon plays the bumbling Private Godfrey—he’s not exactly evasive, but won’t or can’t say how he’s reprised the role, paring it down to a simplistic, “He’s just a very nice man who doesn’t say much. I don’t

know what he is. I thought the actor playing him originally was brilliant, so I just copied him, really. The same voice and the same pottering around…I don’t know, I can’t really answer the question.”

Gambon and Jones clearly have a strong rapport. When asked whether this chemistry existed on set, Gambon enthuses, “Oh yes, we all like each

The Home Guard, with Toby Jones as Captain Mainwaring (front) and Michael Gambon as Private Godfrey (far right)

Dad’s Army on parade, with Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson (Bill Nighy) at the head; (right) journalist Rose Winters (Catherine Zeta Jones) interrogates Corporal Jones (Tom Courtenay)

other and we had great fun and we just did it. It was very happy, wasn’t it?”

while acknowledging that, at 49, he’s too young to speak personally, Jones believes there was a nostalgia for the camaraderie that developed during the war, something Dad’s Army reflects.

“The idea that they have huge affection for each other isn’t shown; it’s implied. It’s the idea of a war that

Jones agrees, and stresses that an admiration for his fellow actors, many of whom have decades of experience in the business, was key for him.

“It’s not intimidating, but you’re respectful of those actors,” he says. “You quickly realise what makes them so brilliant is that they’re able to relate to younger actors very quickly. So we gelled because there was no standing on ceremony. We all tried to make each other laugh.”

one would have liked to be part of— unlikely communities were formed, like this platoon, and you adopt the nostalgia for that time.”

Jones’ character Captain George Mainwaring, famous for his rejoinder, “You stupid boy!”, is a bank manager who lives in fear of his wife. “She’s the only person he fears,” laughs Jones, who surmises that, as a grammarschool boy, Mainwaring feels inferior to his second in command both in the Home Guard and at the bank, Bill Nighy’s ex-public schoolboy Wilson.

“I think he’s constantly intimidated by that, and the way he deals with it is by attacking,” observes Jones. “He’s abrasive, so he’s a bit short-ish with everyone. He’s like those guys who aren’t very good at football, but they arrange the football for everyone. Or they arrange the cricket team because they’re enthusiastic about cricket. People depend on them to set the team up, sort out the tea, sort out the bus and sort out the cars. Then they enjoy the cricket and complain about the guy who’s arranged it all.

“I think there’s that kind of nobility about him—he’s a noble character, but because he’s irascible, he’s often unlikeable. He’s a classic pompous buffoon and, a bit like me, he likes the sound of his own voice.”

T he home guard, made up of volunteers ineligible for military service due to their age or profession, was tasked with defending the south coast of England from invasion. The men were initially armed only with

old shotguns, museum relics, pipes with knives fastened to them and air rifles. They were expected to fight against trained German troops with basic weaponry, buying the army time to form a frontline defence.

“The stakes are both high and very low,” observes Jones. “There’s a war going on [in Dad’s Army], but you’d never know it. There’s that sense that although they should take it seriously, they find a way not to take it seriously. There’s the reassurance that you know exactly how each character is going to respond. So it’s gentle in that way; there are no great shocks.

“It’s very reassuring for people and the whole family can watch it; it’s not going to offend anyone. But it genuinely has great moments of slapstick or stupidity or idiocy. The primary thing is that we hope people come out as a family and laugh at it. It’s like visiting an old friend.”

Dad’s Army is released in cinemas on February 5 and is previewed on p18 a

Brits are known for being reserved—so much so that these words relating to love have no english-language equivalent (as seen at boredpanda.com): Cafuné (portuguese): to run your fingers through a lover’s hair.

Koi No Yokan (Japanese): when you meet someone you know you’re destined to fall in love with.

Mamihlapinatapei (Yaghan): the look of desire between two people, both of whom are too shy to make the first move.

Andy Cole, 44, is a former professional footballer— playing for Newcastle, Arsenal and Manchester united during his 19-year career. Now retired from the sport, he’s recently opened a restaurant in london

“I Remember” Andy Cole

…growing up with six sisters and one brother. I’m the second youngest and it was no doubt a lot easier than being one of the older ones—they’d already been though the strife and tribulations. We had a very good relationship. You get doted on when you’re the second youngest, don’t you? I’ve only really appreciated it at the age I’m at now—when you start growing up—that it’s a lot easier for me. They looked after me very much. I’m extremely lucky.

…my father was a coal miner and my mother was a caretaker at a private school. My father was very quiet. He came here from the Caribbean in the 1950s. He was hard-working, trying to raise his family to the best of his capabilities. He was always working Monday to Friday and I was surprised if I saw him at the weekend, to be honest. He’d go out and enjoy himself and then we’d see him again on Monday morning when he was on his way to work. That was that.

Andy Cole was one of the top-scoring strikers for Manchester United during his six years at the club

…my mother was the backbone of the family. Her role was to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible. The Caribbean way of growing up is totally different to the British way. Mum is expected to raise the kids— do everything possible for them— and dad is expected to come in and provide the financial resources every Friday. They were the first generation from the Caribbean— that’s the way they grew up, that’s the way they knew. They instilled it in their children to do exactly the same thing.

Coming to Britain, you can instil

your values to a certain extent—but then you can go no further than that, because Britain is totally different to the Caribbean.

…my family was very sporty. My sisters were all great at athletics, my brother could play cricket and football, and I could play the majority of sports without a problem. I remember playing a lot of cricket when I was young and, if I’m brutally honest, I’d have played cricket [professionally] if it were up to me.

…loving my primary school. I got on well with the majority of my teachers there and it was a lot of fun. But when I went to senior school, I don’t know…if I had my time again, I’d do it a lot differently. I should have taken senior school a lot more seriously than I did—it’s my only regret. But when you’re in it, you think you know better.

My focus was on sport, which was wrong because I was given the opportunity to do well academically at school. A couple of my teachers and my head of year were very good. They were constantly pushing me because they knew I could have done better.

…leaving school aged 14 and going to a place called Lilleshall [a centre of excellence for sports], where the focus was really on trying to become a professional footballer.

rsto

Andy in his Arsenal kit

I signed for Arsenal when I was 14 and joined when I was 16. At the time I got the placement, I wasn’t really fussed. I hadn’t left home before and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But it was the best thing I could have done—it kept me out of a lot of trouble and strife when I was younger. It gave me the opportunity to play at the highest level. It was a great grounding for me and I grew into a young man very early. It was a big responsibility, but one that I needed. I could have stayed at home and done what my mates did and got myself in a lot of trouble.

…when i was 16, i had to do a lot of things by myself. Then, when I got to 18, a lot of the Arsenal players took me under their wing—people like Paul Davis, Michael Thomas and David Rocastle. They told me I had talent and would succeed if I got my head down and worked hard. So I looked up to those guys as key figures to help me get where I needed to go. To this

day, Michael and I are very good friends. David Rocastle passed away, but Paul Davis is also a good friend. It was very generous of them and I appreciated what they did. I knew that when I became a senior professional, I wanted to do the same and be exactly what they were to me. I’d help any young player in any way I could to help move them forward.

…walking out of a rsenal when i was 16 and saying I wasn’t going to go back. I remember sitting down with my sister, talking about it and then going back. My mind at that

Andy (centre) with his fellow footballers: (left to right) David Beckham, David James, Sol Campbell and Mikaël Silvestre

age, well…I’d had enough. I just became a bit disillusioned about the way I was treated by the coach. I made the decision to go back and work as hard as I could—that was my big break. It was a matter of swallowing pride. When I was that age, I made all the decisions. It was never the case that I could turn around and say, “I blame you.” The only person I could blame was

myself. Even now, I never look to blame anybody but myself.

…when my grandfather vincent passed away. That was tough. I was in my early 20s. He was a big figure in my life and never saw me achieve what I wanted to achieve in my career. You try to become a better person. He came from the Caribbean to set up a home for his family—he was very determined, very strong-minded. A lot of things I’ve got come from my grandfather and the way he was.

The majority of men who came from the Caribbean were mentally strong, moving to Britain to make their life better and having to work as hard as they could do to make something good for their family. My grandfather was extremely dedicated and loved his family. He was feisty at times when he needed to be. He was a disciplinarian, but I had a bond with him—a very special one.

…meeting my wife at a friend’s wedding over 20 years ago. I went to the wedding and spoke to a young lady, but at the time I didn’t think anything was going to come of it. I was being a bit of a boy and everyone seemed to be with a partner, and I thought, Oh dear. Then, She looks like a nice girl. I had a chat with her, then a couple of dates and the rest, as they say, is history. I wouldn’t have believed at

Andy with Shirley, his wife of 24 years

that wedding that I’d be with her 24 years later.

Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke and Gary Neville

celebrate Manchester

…realising i knew where my dad was coming from as i got older. My dad coming to Britain and appreciating what Britain was all about and [dealing with] the racism and all of that…it was tough. There’s a lot of stigma attached to black footballers—when it’s cold they don’t play, they can’t be trusted or whatever. It’s a lot easier for the young black generation to come through now in professional football. But society is what it is—it changes to a certain extent and then it goes back

United’s victory in the FA Cup final in 1999

to the dark ages. That’s the way of the world. People say it’s a lot better, then six months later something else happens. You have to take the rough with the smooth. At any stage there could be a comment made and you know at the back of your mind there’s always something that could happen.

…accepting that racism is still there. Racism can’t stop because people say, “Ahh, let’s stop it now.” You have plans in place like Kick Racism Out of Football [now Kick It Out], but just because you’ve put up these initiatives and people

say, “Fantastic, let’s stop racism,” it doesn’t work like that. At the end of the day, everyone’s stuck in their way—I’m not just talking racism from the 2000s, I’m talking racism from slavery days. It’s become better, but it’s still there. It’s water off a duck’s back for me. My kids understand it— it’s easier for them because it’s a lot more covert now. When I was growing up, it was in your face and you had to deal with it.

…opening m, my first restaurant, early last year. I always wanted to try my hand at investing in a restaurant. A friend

of mine, Martin Williams, used to head up Gaucho and wanted to strike out by himself, so we set up M near Threadneedle Street [in London].

Fingers crossed it’ll continue to grow the way it has done. The restaurant business is certainly tough but I’m enjoying it, and I often pop down and have a look. I can cook but I don’t—my wife is an extremely good and I’m fortunate that I don’t have to do a lot.

As told to Joy Persaud

andy’s second restaurant has now opened in London’s Victoria. Visit mrestaurants. co.uk for details

a senten C e L i K e a L ine OF WO rds

Creative writing can be a challenge, as demonstrated by these questionable metaphors found in student essays:

“Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.”

“he was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.”

“John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.”

“her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a thigh Master.”

“The red-brick wall was the colour of a brick-red Crayola crayon.”

“she walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.”

“The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.”

sourCe: MisTupid.CoM

New research reveals that “letting go” can heal you emotionally—and physically

FORGIVENESS GOOD MEDICINE is

BY LIA GRAINGER

FOR WEEKS, KARSTEN MATHIASEN had been consumed by rage. Several months earlier, the Danish circus director’s wife had left him to live with another man. Overwhelmed with hatred for his wife’s new lover, the 40-year-old lay awake at night, a knot of pain growing in his stomach, angry thoughts swirling. He began drinking in the evenings to get to sleep.

PHOTO: © ROBERT KOOPMANS/GETTY IMAGES

Eventually, it was the concern of his two young children that persuaded Karsten he should meet this man, towards whom he felt so much anger.

When the two met at a Copenhagen coffee shop, Karsten knew he would forgive his wife’s new partner. Instead of one cup of coffee, the two men had many, talking for hours.

As Karsten headed home, he was amazed to discover that his anger and sadness were gone. But more than that, he felt physically good—for the first time in months. He slept like a baby that night and awoke with a clear mind and a relaxed body.

“Forgiveness was a great gift I gave myself,” says Karsten.

WE OFTEN THINK OF FORGIVENESS as something we do for the sake of someone else, but new research shows that’s not the whole story.

“It changes their physiology when people engage in forgiveness,” says Dr Robert Enright. As the founder of the International Forgiveness Institute and the author of The Forgiving Life and 8 Keys to Forgiveness, Enright has been researching the power of forgiveness for three decades.

“It helps you get rid of what we call toxic anger,” he says. “The type that can literally kill a person.”

In a 2009 study published in the journal Psychology and Health, Enright and his team examined the effects of forgiveness on heart health in cardiac patients. They found that

those subjects who had engaged in forgiveness experienced significantly improved cardiac blood flow, even four months after the forgiving had taken place.

Physiologically, these findings make sense. When thoughts of anger and revenge invade your brain, both halves of the autonomic nervous system are activated at once: the sympathetic, which charges you up, and the parasympathetic, which calms you down. Think of the former as a car’s accelerator and the latter as its brakes. What would happen if you slammed on the brakes while accelerating? You’d be in for a rough ride, and these are the mixed messages your heart and body receive when you’re feeling constantly resentful.

And it’s not just the heart that can

PHOTO: © YAGI STUDIO/GETTY IMAGES

be healed. A 2011 study presented to the Society of Behavioural Medicine showed that forgiveness can help relieve sleeplessness, and a study conducted at the Duke University medical centre in North Carolina found that forgiveness can strengthen the immune systems of patients with HIV. With every passing year, new research is revealing that forgiveness can help heal everything from insomnia to—maybe—cancer.

ROSALYN BOYCE’S LIFE unravelled in 1999 after a man broke into her London home and raped her as her

deteriorated, Rosalyn realised she would have to heal herself. Through therapy and her own study, Rosalyn discovered that the only way was to forgive her attacker.

“To me, forgiveness meant that I no longer had to feel any attachment to my rapist and I could free myself from the crime. Once I chose to perceive forgiveness in these terms, a massive burden was lifted.”

In July 2014, Rosalyn was able to meet her attacker and forgive him face-to-face through a restorativejustice programme.

“Afterwards, I was euphoric,” she

Forgiveness is a reframing—viewing an incident through a more compassionate lens

two-year-old daughter slept in the next room. Three weeks later, the perpetrator, a serial rapist, was caught and given three life sentences.

But for Rosalyn, the nightmare was far from over. The memory of the attack filled her mind, and she was forced to move out of her family house to escape it. Eating became impossible. Doctors diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder and reactive depression, and prescribed Prozac and tranquilizers. She began drinking a bottle of wine every night to block things out.

As her mental and physical health

says. “I no longer think about the rape. It disappeared in a puff of smoke.”

FEW HAVE A BETTER understanding of what forgiveness is than Marina Cantacuzino. A former journalist, Marina is the founder and director of The Forgiveness Project, a website and exhibition series that uses personal stories from around the world to explore the limits and possibilities of forgiveness.

“Forgiveness isn’t about condoning or excusing,” explains the British woman, dispelling the myth that to forgive means to say what happened

was acceptable. Another common misconception is that forgiveness demands reconciliation with the perpetrator—it does not. You can forgive and choose not to resume the relationship. Instead, forgiveness demands a reframing of the past— viewing the incident and perpetrator through a more compassionate lens.

Marina Cantacuzino also says that offering forgiveness doesn’t mean giving up the right to justice. You can

beings instead of monsters, I realised I’d passed my own test.”

In 1984 she helped to found the centre for Lebanese studies at Oxford University, where she strives to promote forgiveness as a tool for healing. In her work, Alexandra says she often encounters people who have become ill. She describes one woman living in Rome who’s stayed with her unfaithful husband for many years, and who’s now dying of cancer.

It can take many forms, but at its most basic, forgiveness is the offer of goodness to the one who has hurt you

forgive someone, but they may still have to go to prison or a pay a price for what they have done. One of her favourite definitions comes from a prison inmate: “Forgiveness is letting go of all hope for a better past.”

AFTER MOVING FROM BRITAIN to Lebanon in 1966 and watching as the country was torn apart for 15 years by civil war, Alexandra Asseily was consumed by her incredulity at humanity’s capacity for violence.

“I needed to forgive the people who brought Lebanon from being a lovely place to destroying it,” says the psychotherapist. She decided to spend time with men who’d been brutal combatants in the conflict. “When I could see them as human

“She’s bitter—I think she’s eaten herself up inside,” says Alexandra, who acknowledges that a correlation between anger and cancer hasn’t yet been scientifically demonstrated.

That may not be the case for long. Robert Enright has teamed up with Slovakian oncologist Pavel Kotoucek on a study that will examine whether forgiveness can even help in the battle against cancer. Kotoucek says he’s had many cases in Slovakia and Britain in which a patient’s bitterness appeared to be suppressing the immune system. “There’s strong evidence that if you can improve the immune profile of a cancer patient, you can control their cancer.”

The study is to take place across the continent through Myeloma Patients

Europe, and will provide patients with guided forgiveness therapy alongside conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation and marrow and stem-cell transplants.

FOR AZARIA BOTTA, a 33-year-old teaching assistant from Vancouver, Canada, it was a falling out with her best friend that opened her eyes to the healing powers of forgiveness.

It was the summer of 2004 and Azaria was off on a backpacking trip in Europe with one her oldest friends. The two young women set off, travelling through the UK before arriving in Paris. It was there that Azaria’s friend announced she would be taking a week-long romantic trip with a Columbian backpacker.

Azaria was infuriated. She passed the week alone in Paris, filled with anger. She also developed strange headaches and an upset stomach. Azaria continued to stew even after her friend returned to Paris, showering her with apologies.

Back in Vancouver, Azaria’s anger stayed with her—and so did her headaches and stomach pain. It was

only after a pleading apology from her friend and a tearful reconciliation that Azaria’s head finally cleared and her appetite returned. It was then she made the connection: her anger had been making her sick.

“I felt lighter,” says Azaria. “Letting go of that anger was the first step.”

EXPERTS ARE ADAMANT

that there’s no one specific path to forgiveness.

“It’s different for everybody,” cautions Marina Cantacuzino. Over the years, some people become worn down by hatred and fear, and decide to make a change. Others, she says, might meet someone like the offender or see a TV programme that triggers them to think differently.

Enright agrees that forgiveness can take many forms, but at its most basic, it’s the offer of goodness to the one who’s hurt you.

“This can take the form of respect, or a returned phone call, or a kind word about them to someone else,” he says. “The paradox is that, as you have mercy on those who haven’t had mercy on you, you heal emotionally and—sometimes—physically.”

DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?

This true story from reddit.com will make you wonder:

“Before we were even introduced, I got one look at him and thought, Oh, that’s the guy. S***. What am I going to do? I’m going to have to break up with my boyfriend and move out of the flat. That was April 1989. We’ve now been married for over 20 years.”

Embarrassing Ailment? Seek Help Discreetly

NO MATTER YOUR AGE, if you’re suffering with an embarrassing ailment it can be hard to know where to turn. If you find it difficult to talk about your symptoms with your partner, friends or even a doctor, you’re not alone.

You’ve probably heard of the “doorknob question”. This is when a patient comes in with a straightforward complaint such as a cold, but at the last minute mentions another sensitive health problem, the one they actually wanted to talk to the doctor about.

Research suggests that it’s often men who are guilty of this. It could be because women are more likely to have regular contact with health professionals throughout their lives to obtain contraception, during pregnancy and so on, while men may go decades without seeing a doctor. This can make it difficult for men to seek help when it is really needed.

There are all sorts of conditions we find it embarrassing to discuss. For example, anything relating to our sex lives, such as sexually transmitted infections, erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation. All of these can be difficult to talk about, even with

a medical professional, for various reasons. Older people who think they have contracted a sexual infection can worry that this is something more often associated with younger people. In reality, STIs are becoming increasingly common among the older generation, making it even more important to seek professional guidance if you’re concerned.

By contrast, a 40-year-old man experiencing erection problems may believe the misconception that this is a condition only older men have,

and find it difficult to address these worries with a doctor.

Of course, no matter what the ailment, your doctor will have heard it all before, so there’s no reason to feel uncomfortable about seeking medical advice. If you would still prefer to avoid a face-to-face appointment there are other options, such as obtaining your treatment online. If you do decide to take this route,

remember to use only a registered online pharmacy selling genuine medications.

Often the ailments that we see as “embarrassing” are the most common, from haemorrhoids and incontinence to sexual-health problems. Fortunately there’s a wide range of treatments available to ease your symptoms and help you get back to living life to the full.

For more information about treatment options for these and other conditions, visit our online clinic at onlineclinic.co.uk/readersdigest.html

What’s True Or False About Love?

By sus A nn AH H ick L ing

Susannah is twice winner of the Guild of Health Writers

Best

Consumer Magazine

Health

Feature

IS THIS MUCH-fê T ed e MOTION really so mysterious? We separate the facts from the fallacies.

LovE ALwAys sTArTs wiTH LusT—FALsE

Scientists at Rutgers University in New Jersey studied fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans of the brains of couples in love. Their finding? There are three core brain systems for mating and reproduction—the testosterone system triggering sexual desire, the dopamine-rich regions of the brain promoting romantic attraction and the oxcytocin-related region prompting feelings of long-term commitment.

It seems these brain systems don’t work in any particular order, so you could fall in love starting with lust or even with deep feelings of attachment—when you fall for a friend, say.

wE FALL in LovE wiTH THE

wAy somEonE Looks FirsT—FALsE

The things that make us lose our heart are complex. Looks certainly play a part, but we draw up our own mental list of what we’re looking for in a long-term partner, from personality traits to their background. There are also differences between the sexes. Several studies suggest that men are more interested in beauty and vitality, while women prioritise intelligence, self-confidence and social position. But the bottom line is when we meet someone who ticks the right boxes, then you’re going to be in the mood for romance.

you cAn FALL in LovE AT FirsT sigHT—TruE

According to research from Syracuse University in New York, the process of falling in love uses 12 areas of the brain and takes as little as a fifth of a second! But how quickly you fall in love is determined by genetics (how quickly did your parents fall head over heels?) and past experience (the once-bitten-twice-shy principle).

you cAn kEEp THE mAgic ALivE ForEvEr—TruE

US researchers carried out brain scans on couples who’d been together for 21 years on average and who claimed to be just as in love after that time as they were at the beginning. The scientists found that a small part of the brain was as active as it would be if the lovers had just been swept off their feet. But to stay in love it’s important to keep doing new things together—go travelling, take up a new hobby, have an adventure.

morE TEAs, vicAr!

There’s nothing better than a warming brew on a chilly February day. Choose a herbal tea and it might do you some good too.

smile—it’s camomile. several of its compounds act as antispasmodics. They may relax the muscles lining the digestive tract, relieving indigestion.

Be lulled by lemon balm. Its mild moodboosting and sedative effects may help with sleep problems, anxiety and depression.

Digest well with dandelion root. This tea stimulates gastrointestinal function and is often used to ease indigestion and mild constipation.

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mEn’s HEALTH: THE pAinLEss TEsT THAT couLD sAvE your LiFE

around 6,000 people a year die of an abdominal aortic aneurysm (aaa), a swelling in the major blood vessel that runs down from the heart through the abdomen. an aaa is symptomless—unless it bursts. at that point it can be fatal, with only a fifth of victims surviving. It affects mostly men, and being over 65 puts you at higher risk. That’s why, since 2013, the Nhs has offered men a oneoff ultrasound scan to screen for the condition when they reach their 65th birthday. you can request a scan even if you’re older than that. simply approach your local screening service directly (find yours by going to nhs.uk and searching “abdominal aortic aneurysm”). small or medium-sized aneurysms will be monitored—and if the scan finds a large aneurysm, you’ll be referred for further treatment.

Sweet As…

Sugar is now seen as the great health Satan, linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Here are some simple ways to cut back:

1. Cut down slowly. Reduce sugar in tea or coffee by incremental halfteaspoons. Try eating half a chocolate bar rather than a whole one.

2. Choose sugar-free and reducedsugar alternatives to foods such as baked beans and ketchup. Cereal should have less than 8g per serving.

3. Only eat puddings on odd days of the month. Make it your new rule to have raw fruit for pudding the other half of the time.

4. d on’t keep a tub of ice cream in the freezer. Ice cream should always be a treat worth travelling for.

5. d on’t skip meals. This causes your blood-sugar levels to drop and you’ll crave high-sugar foods.

6. Take care with cocktails. Did you know the average G&T contains more than three teaspoons of sugar? Stick to beer or wine.

7. Go for a walk when you crave something sweet. Studies show that athletes’ preference for sweetened foods declines after exercise.

Resetting Your Health

Given up on your resolutions already? It could be because you made rigid promises to yourself that were just too hard to keep. Why not try a few smaller pledges in some of the main areas of your life?

sLEEp Ideally we should be getting about seven hours’ shut-eye a night. Studies show that shifting your wake time by 90 minutes or more reduces energy and increases body fat. So go to bed at the same time every night as far as possible and, crucially, get up at the same time.

DiET Try eating differently rather than simply eating less. Plan three to five days of menu ideas. Make sure you get the right ratio of nutrients on your plate, with protein every meal and greens every day. Ditch one poor food choice from your diet—sugary puddings is an obvious candidate. Or add a nutrient-rich food such as kale.

ExErcisE This helps you lose weight, increase muscle strength and feel good. Choose an activity you enjoy— otherwise it’ll become a chore and you’ll just give it up. Start small and build up a little every month until exercise is simply part of your routine.

sTrEss mAnAgEmEnT Resolving to control stress is no easy task, so keep it simple. Take on less, learn to say “no” and implement some stressbusting techniques, such as deepbreathing and massage. Make sure you build laughter into your routine, perhaps by watching a funny film.

HEAr ALL ABouT iT

Turning the telly up to the max? having trouble hearing people at parties? you might be going deaf. To find out if you need to seek help from your gP or an audiologist, try action on hearing loss’s natty little online test (actiononhearing loss.org.uk). It’s also available as a free iPhone app.

Painting Over The Cracks

By max pem B erton

Max is a hospital doctor, author and newspaper columnist

I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT DECORATING. This became apparent a few weeks ago when I spent a weekend attempting to get emulsion to adhere to a damp patch and trying to remove a blob of gloss from the carpet (neither of which is possible, I’ve now discovered). I gave up and called in the professionals. After all, they know what they’re doing and I clearly don’t. That’s why we have professionals—they’re trained to do jobs that others can’t.

But there’s a strange anomaly that, to me, makes no sense. While most health-care professionals are expected to have a certain knowledge base, too often those working in nursing homes are undertrained and lack basic awareness about the treatments their patients are on.

OVER THE COURSE OF MY CAREER, I’ve covered various care homes. A few months back, I was called by one of the staff as they were worried about Mrs Jacobs. She’s in her 70s and has dementia. I examined her and she had the beginnings of pneumonia, so I discussed the case with the medical team at the local hospital and we agreed that she should be started on antibiotics. I wrote her antibiotics on her drug chart, explained to the staff what was wrong and how I was treating it, then left. Fairly straightforward.

A few days later, I phoned the care home and discovered Mrs Jacobs was getting worse, not better. I rushed over. She was short of breath, cold and clammy. I didn’t understand it.

“What‘s her blood pressure?” I asked the carer standing behind me.

I was met with a blank stare. No basic observations had been done, because the staff didn’t know how to do them and didn’t know why they were important.

you came last, they didn’t have those at the pharmacy, so we’re waiting for them to get them in stock.”

By Dan M I tchel l

I raced into the office and began to arrange for an ambulance to take Mrs Jacobs to hospital. She was in extremis, and if she didn’t receive urgent treatment she would die. It was then that I looked at the drug chart. Where I had written her antibiotics, the boxes that should be signed to say it had been given were blank. I looked at the carer.

“Has she had her antibiotics?” I asked.

He shrugged. Another carer piped up, “The drugs you prescribed when

I stood open-mouthed at their ignorance. But why should they know that you can’t wait three days before treating a pneumonia, any more than I should know you can’t wash gloss paint off with water?

The staff at many nursing and care homes are paid a pittance and not trained appropriately, yet their jobs are vitally important. We need to invest in the people that look after society’s weakest members.

Mrs Jacobs was transferred to hospital, and a week later she had recovered. She was lucky. But we need to face up to the problems in nursing homes—not try and gloss over them.

Short-Haired Dogs Don’t Trigger Allergies

WHere DID tHe

mytH Come From?

For those with allergies, a man’s best friend can be more of an enemy. There are a number of short-haired breeds—and breeds such as poodles that don’t shed hair—that have become increasingly popular because it’s thought that they’ll be better tolerated than those with long hair. Allergies are on the rise and this myth probably arose because people want a dog that won’t trigger a reaction.

WHat’S tHe trUtH?

What people often don’t realise is that it’s not the hair that causes the allergy, but rather the dog’s skin and their saliva. Dogs shed microscopic flakes of skin—called “dander”— all the time and it’s this, combined with proteins in their saliva from when they have licked their coat, that’s inhaled by people and triggers a reaction. Research has shown that poodles are actually one of the most likely breeds to trigger a reaction because they produce a lot of dander.

So, WHat’S tHe anSWer?

People do sometimes discover they are more allergic to one dog than the other, but this isn’t to do with the length of the hair or how much they moult. Some studies have found that the most important factor is the oiliness of the dog’s skin, which can vary with breed. Overall, the lowest allergen-producer was found to be the labrador retriever—but there’s no breed that’s safely hypoallergenic.

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In Later LifeLove

Does a divorce after decades of marriage mean the opportunity for lasting love is over? Not according to these couples, who were given a second chance at happiness

BY EIMEAR O’HAGAN

“It felt like I was sitting with an old friend”

Joy and John Eerebout married in 2012, four years after meeting on an internet dating site for over-50s.

Both were married before: Joy for 31 years and John for seven years. Joy has two grown up sons and a sixmonth-old grandson

“A few months after my first marriage ended, I decided to try online dating,” says Joy, a 58-yearold retired teacher. “I was nervous because when I’d last dated the internet hadn’t even been invented, but at my age how else was I going to meet someone? And after so long in an unhappy and lonely marriage, I craved companionship and fun, someone I could laugh and relax

with. Marrying again definitely wasn’t on my mind though.”

After chatting online for several weeks, the couple met for lunch and Joy admits she immediately felt John, a 63-year-old retired London tube driver, was special.

“It’s a cliché, but it felt as if we’d known one another for years. It was so natural and easy from that first date. John is a very jolly, talkative person and I felt completely at ease with him. I knew soon after that first date he was a keeper.”

Says John, “It felt like I was sitting with an old friend of many years, not a woman I’d only just met.”

Joy first married when she was 22. “I thought I knew it all, and had great expectations of what marriage and family life would be like. But I can see now that my ex-husband and I weren’t compatible, and the marriage quickly became an unhappy one,” says Joy.

“Having children just put it under more pressure, and over time we came to be living separate lives under the same roof. We were together in name, but there was no bond.”

Joy resolved to stay in the marriage until her sons were grown up and had their own lives. “It was hard and I was often very lonely. I couldn’t have dreamed then that I’d find such happiness later in my life.”

While the couple each have their own interests—he likes to fish and play golf, while she enjoys cooking

and reading—they say it’s their shared passions which lie at the heart of their happy relationship.

“We have two huskies and love to walk them together,” says Joy. “We have a home in France that we travel to regularly for holidays, and we both enjoy eating out and trips to the theatre. Being together is what makes us happy and if we’re apart, even for a few days, we really miss one another.”

experience, including having been married before, means we prioritise having fun, laughing, enjoying life and trusting one another. Those are the cornerstones of our relationship,” says John.

Being together is what makes us happy— if we’re apart, even for a few days, we miss each other

And they both credit their mutual happiness to meeting later in life.

“Being older and having lots of life

For Joy, with age has come a confidence she didn’t have in her first marriage, which has made her relationship with John a far happier one. “If something is bothering or annoying me, I’ll just say it, then we can move on. I know now the key to lasting happiness is just taking each day as it comes. That’s what we do and we’re so happy.”

John and Joy “prioritise having fun”; (above left) tying the knot in 2012

“We both learned lessons from our first marriages”

“They say love can blossom in the most unusual places and that’s certainly true for us—we actually first met on a petrol-station forecourt!” says Kenny Linton, 68, a retired IT company owner.

“I was waiting to fill my car up with petrol and growing impatient because the woman in front of me couldn’t work out how to get the petrol cap of her new car open.

“I got out of my car to help her—and hurry her up—and we got chatting, decided to go for a coffee together and we’ve been together ever since. I fell for her that day.”

When they met, Kenny had been divorced for ten years and Audrey, who’s an NHS maternity auxiliary, for three years. He’d been married for 26 years and she for 27 years, and together they have five children and 16 grandchildren.

“We weren’t very tolerant of each other and I’ll admit that I was selfish with my time. I did what I was interested in, like keeping horses for racing, and thought everything else should fit in around me. There was blame on both sides and eventually things just broke down.”

Audrey admits that had she not met Kenny, she probably would have stayed single following the end of her first marriage.

Now I join Audrey for trips to the theatre. Life isn’t about me any more, it’s all about my marriage

“My ex-husband and I led very separate lives. He worked away a lot so I was often alone, raising our sons by myself. And when he was around we didn’t socialise together or really spend much time with one another. We were two people who were married, but we weren’t a couple,” she says.

“So when we divorced, I already had my own life and wonderful family and friends to support me, and didn’t think I needed a new partner. Then I met Kenny and he changed everything.”

“I married my first wife when I was just 21, and we were very young dealing with all the problems life can throw at you. There were financial pressures, we were trying to raise a family while working, and our personalities just weren’t right for one another,” says Kenny.

When they met, Kenny and Audrey were living almost 100 miles apart, so after eight months of travelling back and forth to see one another, Audrey moved into Kenny’s home in the Scottish Borders in May 2004. And in September 2006, on the third

Audrey and Kenny: “We cram in as much fun and love as we possibly can”

anniversary of their first meeting, they married at a local church in front of 160 family and friends, followed by a reception at a nearby hotel, complete with a full pipe band.

“We both learned lessons from our first marriages, and they’ve helped make our relationship such a strong one,” says Kenny.

“I learned to be more tolerant and to give time and respect to the other person’s interests, not allow my own to dominate. So now I join Audrey for trips to the theatre, which she loves, and instead of spending all my time on horse racing we go on holidays together. Life isn’t about me any more, it’s all about my marriage.”

For Audrey, expecting more from this marriage than her first has helped contribute to its success.

“As I’ve got older and more mature, my sense of self-esteem is higher. I know now I settled for too little in my first marriage. I want more love, time and respect this time, and Kenny gives me all that, which makes me very happy.”

The couple, they admit, are known for being inseparable. Says Audrey, “I wish we’d met earlier in life, but we try not to dwell on that. Instead, we cram in as much fun and love as we possibly can, both determined not to waste a second of the time we have together.”

“We both wanted to make a serious commitment”

It was a whirlwind romance for Ann and Clive Brewer, who married in June 2014—just one month after they first met in person, and six months after meeting online. The couple, who split their time between the UK and their home in Brittany, fell in love and got engaged before even laying eyes on one another.

“I admit it’s an unusual way to begin a marriage, but we forged such a deep connection online that it felt natural to us,” says Ann, 54, who’s an artist.

“We met on Facebook through mutual friends. I posted something silly one day in December 2013 about my dog’s astronomical vet bills, Clive made a jokey comment that made me laugh and we started messaging one another. From there it evolved into phone calls that lasted for hours, as I was in France and he was in London.”

self-deprecating sense of humour and a passion for cookery and good food.

Their engagement began as an April Fool’s Day hoax, but quickly became real.

“We did it as a joke at first, changing our relationship status on Facebook to ‘Engaged’, to wind up our friends,” says Clive. “But then we thought, Well, why don’t we get married? Even though we hadn’t met, we knew we had strong feelings for one another, and we’re both ‘seize the moment’ kind of people.”

“We’ve both lost loved ones in the

The couple bonded over similar upbringings in London, a shared

past to illness and that’s encouraged us to make the most of life,” adds Ann. “It was a spontaneous decision but not a flippant one—we both wanted to make a serious commitment.”

A month later, in May 2014, Ann flew to London to meet Clive for the first time—with both confessing they were nervous but excited.

“I ate a whole packet of mints while I waited to collect Ann from the airport,” laughs Clive. “I knew our first kiss was imminent!

“As soon as she arrived, any nerves I had faded immediately. There was no awkwardness, we were both too excited to be together finally. We spent a wonderful few days together in London before she had to leave, but we knew then our days of being apart were numbered.”

They married in a friend’s garden in Twickenham a month later, surrounded by friends and family. This is Clive’s first marriage, but Ann was married previously for 13 years

and has two grown-up sons. Her first husband was a French sailor five years her junior.

“I met him when I was 27 and on a girls’ holiday to Corfu. He was docked there with his ship. A holiday romance turned into a serious relationship and we married a year later, in 1988.

“Nothing terrible happened, but we realised our relationship had mainly been founded on a physical attraction. Once that had faded, there wasn’t enough common ground to sustain us. We separated in 2001. But we remain good friends, and I don’t regret that marriage because I have two wonderful children from it,” says Ann.

“It’s completely different with Clive. He’s a free spirit like me, and we give each other space to be individuals. We don’t live in one another’s pockets like some couples do.”

Although Clive had been in relationships before meeting Ann, none had progressed to marriage.

“There just wasn’t the connection I felt with Ann, and I think I met her at the right point in my life.

“Meeting later in life means we’re able to focus on what’s important; laughter, good food, pottering in the garden and our four dogs. We’re not under pressure to have a family, we’ve established our careers and for the most part we can do what we like. It’s the perfect recipe.”

If you’re looking for love, turn the page to read about Reader’s Digest Dating

It’s Your Chance To Find Someone!

ONLINE DATING for the over-40s has evolved significantly over the last decade. This modern method of finding love no longer raises eyebrows and it is a great way to meet people outside your social circle. All you need to do is visit our website: readersdigestdating.co.uk. We recently launched the site for our readers and hundreds of people have already signed up to find love and companionship. Your match could be waiting!

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Reader's Digest Dating offers our readers a chance to find people who have similar interests in life and will enjoy spending quality time together. Our main goal is to provide a platform from which mature singles can find long-term companionship.

OUR WEBSITE – OUR READERS

The Reader’s Digest Dating website is convenient, easy-to-use and a safe

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Story competition 100 Word

It’s your last chance to get your entries for our annual shortstory competition! The tales opposite might inspire you…

Terms and conditions

■ There are three categories—one for adults and two categories for schools: one for children aged 12–18 and one for children under 12.

■ In the adult category, the winner will receive £2,000, and two runnersup will each receive £200.

■ In the 12–18s category, the winner will receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (8.0, WiFi) and a Samsung Gear 5 watch, plus £150 for their school. Two runners-up will each receive £100.

■ In the under-12s category, the winner will receive a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (8.0, WiFi), plus £100 for their school. Two runners-up will each receive £75.

■ Your stories should be original, unpublished and exactly 100 words long. Please submit them online at readersdigest.co.uk/100-wordstory-competition by February 20.

■ The editorial team will then pick a shortlist of three in each category and post them online on March 6. You can vote for your favourite, and the one with the most votes will scoop the top prize. Voting will close on March 27 and winning entries will be published in our June issue.

■ The entry forms are on our website, along with details of the prizes.

Would you like help to write your own autobiography? Turn the page for details.

Fleur Smithwick

“One more, Mum! Mum, just one more.”

“Just one then, sweetie.”

The whistle blows and Sarah goes back to her book. Daniel twitches with happy anticipation.

They watch the Reading train arrive. Out of the carriage steps a man she’s seen many times as he’s steadily progressed from graduate job to expensive suits and a wedding ring. He glances at Daniel and strides off towards the exit.

She no longer minds that this stranger’s life moves along its track while Daniel’s stopped at the station 22 years ago.

She comes here to be calm with her book and her son.

■ Fleur Smithwick’s How To Make A Friend is out now in paperback, published by Black Swan.

Elizabeth Evans

The walk to the toilet scared Ella, but wet sheets were worse, so she walked.

Her return trip brought a reward: the always-locked door to the attic stood ajar; the doors to the family bedrooms, closed.

Wary, she flicked the light switch. The dusty staircase jumped into view. One peek, she vowed—but what was in that trunk?

A miracle. Boxes of dolls. In rustling crinolines, wooden shoes, black lace mantilla, velvet beret. From Santa come early? Deep in dolls, torn-open boxes, she missed the footsteps on the stairs before her mother howled, “That’s years of your Christmases and birthdays!”

■ Elizabeth Evans’ As Good As Dead is out now, available in the Reader’s Digest Bookshop.

Rules: Please ensure that submissions are original, not previously published and 100 words long (not including the title). Don’t forget to include your full name, address, email and daytime phone number when filling in the form. We may use entries in all print and electronic media. Contributions become world copyright of Reader’s Digest.

Entry is open only to residents of the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland. It is not open to employees of Vivat Direct Ltd (t/a Reader’s Digest), its subsidiary companies and all others associated with this competition, their immediate families and relatives living in an employee’s household. The judges’ decision is final.

Spring Into Action

&Write Your Life Story!

Th E pa SS ing o F win TE r and the arrival of spring is traditionally a time when we look forward to the coming months, but equally it can be a time for reflection—a time for looking back on events and a time for remembering people we’ve met and loved, and possibly also those we’ve lost.

Certainly, the world is rapidly changing and each year

seems to herald the introduction of some kind of new technology that affects everyone’s lives in one way or another. But what remain constant are the values we hold and our feelings of love and commitment for our family and friends. It’s exactly these sentiments that lie at the core of the LifeBook philosophy.

LifeBook is a bespoke autobiography service that uses professional ghostwriters and interviewers to allow people of all ages to tell their own story in their own voice and in their own words. Each LifeBook author has specific and personal reasons for creating a written account of their life; for some a LifeBook might be a way of recording a world that’s all but disappeared, for others it might be the chance to relate tales of youth and derring-do.

However, the one thing that LifeBook authors have in common is a desire to share their thoughts, experiences and ethos for living

(some perhaps never before recounted) with those closest to them.

So who writes a LifeBook? Everyone and anyone! LifeBook authors come from all walks of life and from all backgrounds. At LifeBook we believe everyone has a story to tell, and this is borne out by our authors who relate varied and fascinating tales of what’s essentially modern social history in the making. Common themes include growing up in the Second World War, employment and business in what was a very different kind of workplace, life in the services or abroad, bringing up children in a bygone era, or anecdotes and stories that have gone down in family lore.

relationships that have shaped them as people.

But perhaps what makes the LifeBook experience so special is the pleasure our authors tell us they feel in simply recalling and talking about their lives and achievements as they relive, over a series of faceto-face sessions, the events and

At the end of a LifeBook project, each author receives five beautiful linen-bound and stitched books containing the stories and photos they have selected for the enjoyment of not only their family and friends, but also of generations to come.

Why not spring into action right now and start writing your life story for your family today, for future generations, some as yet unborn. To discover more about the LifeBook experience, how we can help you write your own autobiography and how it can benefit you and those you know and love, just call us on 0800 999 2280 or email us at digest@lifebookuk.com

Best Of British

Chocolatiers

Never mind gifts for loved ones on Valentine’s Day—you’ll want to buy these edible delights for yourself…all year round

BY FIONA HICKS

Choccywoccydoodah

BRIGHTON

A cornucopia of curiously gothic shapes, bold colours and fantastical arrangements—if Alice in Wonderland had a chocolatier, this would be it.

“Choccywoccydoodah are a team of eccentrics, from the artists that design the cakes and chocolate, to the people that sell them,” says creative director Christine Taylor. “Everything is made by hand by Doodahs, not machines. Choccywoccydoodah is a cult crossed with an asylum, dipped in chocolate.”

After perusing the wide variety of delectable wares, we suggest you take yourself upstairs to the Bar Du Chocolat. This is a decadent cafe space where you can indulge in a two-hour extravaganza of chocolate dipping pots, chocolate cakes and Belgian hot chocolate. Needless to say, it’s a popular joint. Make sure you try…“Banoffee Bar”

■ Visit choccywoccydoodah.com for details

Coco Chocolate EDINBURGH

This establishment holds the honour of being Edinburgh’s only “bean-tobar chocolate maker”. This means that the chocolate is made in very small batches, often using beans from a single origin. Crucially, it also means that it’s very, very tasty.

“Our chocolate infusions are

inspired by our local heritage,” says creative manager Ania Czerwinska. “We use Scottish producers where possible to get the best quality product, such as the Isle of Skye sea salt.”

The shop—which is tucked away on Bruntsfield Place—is beautifully designed and feels like an adult version of a sweet shop. Dark wooden

shelves house handmade packets of chocolates, a blackboard lists the hot drinks on offer that day and there’s even an elegant jug of lemonflavoured water in case you’d like to cleanse your palate between tastings. Make sure you try…“Rose & Black Pepper Dark” chocolate bar

■ Visit cocochocolate.co.uk for details

Co Couture

BELFAST

A visit to this boutique is a rite of passage for any chocoholic. The heady aroma of the shop alone is enough to knock you off your feet, but wait until you try their secretrecipe hot chocolate. Smooth and rich, it comes with cream and a marshmallow—and will certainly set a new standard for your taste buds.

You can sample the artisan creations for as little as 70p. Says chief chocolatier Deirdre McCanny, “Co Couture was founded to create pure, fine chocolate that’s accessible to all; it’s this ethos that drives everything we do. Our most difficult creation to date has been our vegetarian marshmallow—it took over two years to perfect that recipe!” Make sure you try…“Irish Whisky Truffle”

■ Visit cocouture.co.uk for details

Choc Amor LANCASHIRE

Belgian couverture chocolate…even the words sound delicious. This is a type of chocolate that contains extra cocoa butter, resulting in a beautiful sheen, a firm snap when breaking and—most important—a wonderful creaminess on the palate.

Outside of Belgium, a top spot for tracking down this special treat is The Chocolate Rooms in the village of Tarleton, Lancashire. Owned by Paul Williams, the man behind local brand Choc Amor, this offers not only chocolates, but also cakes and lunches.

“Choc Amor specialises in amazing flavour combinations,” claims chocolatier Paul. “The chocolate is made in small batches on site at The Chocolate Rooms. You not only get to taste and find out which is your personal favourite, but also enjoy food prepared by our chef using locally sourced ingredients, followed by one of our homemade cakes, then our luxury hot chocolate…”

In other words, you should prepare for a long lunch. Make sure you try…“Salted Liquorice Slabs”

■ Visit chocamor.co.uk for details

Gorvett & Stone OXFORDSHIRE

Single estate, bouquets, blends: there are lots of similarities between wine and chocolate. This was certainly the view of Elinor Gorvett and Matthew Stone—who met while working for an eminent wine merchant—when they founded their company in Henley-on-Thames. Their shop is certainly as refined as anything in the world of wine and, perhaps more pertinently, their products are infused with a sense of fun and humour that’s similar to the effects of a bottle of vino.

They even serve “Fish And Chips” —a sweet re-imagining of the meal created with Valrhona chocolate. Make sure you try…“Exploding Bar”

■ Visit gorvettandstone.com for details

Pump Street Bakery SUFFOLK

This may be a bakery by name, but don’t let that fool you: the selection of chocolate you’ll find here is superlative. “We believe that using only the best-quality ingredients, along with obsessive attention to detail in production, yields the best bread and pastries, and the same applies for chocolate,” say the owners.

They’re on to something there, as their chocolate is exquisite. All the beans are sourced from family firms and co-operatives, and are roasted, winnowed, ground and conched on site. After maturing, they’re ready to temper into bars. It’s not a quick

process, but that’s what really makes the flavours sing in this Suffolk-born delicacy. If you’re unable to get to the cosy cafe-cum-bakery in Orford, fear not—you can also find their creations at a number of stockists across the county and beyond.

Make sure you try…“Rye Crumb, Milk & Sea Salt 60%” chocolate bar

■ Visit pumpstreetbakery.com for details

Paul A Young LONDON

There are three Paul A Young shops in the nation’s fine capital, but our favourite is the flagship (and coolest one) found in Soho. Step through the iconic purple door and you’re presented with a sea of cocoa confectionery, all arranged artfully on wooden furnishings.

Starting as a pastry chef in one of Marco Pierre White’s restaurants, the eponymous Paul quickly developed a love for the hard, brown stuff and set up on his own in 2006. He’s since been named “Outstanding British Chocolatier” by the International Chocolate Awards and, even more impressively, a “chocolate giant” by

The New York Times. Says Paul, “I’m passionate about seasonal ingredients and work in a truly artisanal way. At every stage we use fresh ingredients—no compounds, concentrates, essences, preservatives or additives.”

Dedicated to his craft, Paul can still be found in the kitchen on occasion and—such is his reputation —spotting him is akin to seeing a real-life Willy Wonka.

Make sure you try…“Passionfruit Curd Filled Chocolate”

■ Visit paulayoung.co.uk for details

Which chocolatier tickles your taste buds? Email us at readersletters@ readersdigest.co.uk and let us know!

Writer and comedian Ruby Wax OBE has campaigned tirelessly to raise awareness about mental-health issues and in 2013 gained a Masters degree in Mindfulnessbased cognitive therapy from Oxford University.

If I Ruled the World Ruby Wax

I couldn’t tell other people how they should behave. I mean, it’s nice of them to ask me to rule the world, but I’m kind of busy. I’d let people do what they want, whatever makes them happy. It’s pretty narcissistic to think I could spread a message. The human race is a mystery—I only know what works for me and for the people I love.

I’d encourage curious minds. If I could name the key to happiness, I’d say it was curiosity. Curiosity keeps your mind from disintegrating as you get older. Closed minds, the immovable among us, are the ones in trouble. My parents were so completely incurious they could have been bookends. Einstein had a great quote: “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must see the world anew.”

I’d have masseurs available 24 hours a day. That’s the greatest luxury there is. Not the ones where they just rub

a bit of oil into you and stroke you gently. No, I like it when they dig their elbows hard into all those tricky spots and make me feel free. I’d also have a private jet to take me to the Maldives and other beautiful islands.

I’d surround myself with scientists. They could tell me all about their latest findings and that would make me happy. I once sat next to Brian Cox, but he was so good-looking I couldn’t think of anything clever to say. I particularly love neuroscientists because at least I can understand a little bit of what they’re talking about.

Kids wouldn’t be hothoused in school. It’d be great to get children to pay attention in ways other than constantly reminding them their lives depend on their grades. So teachers would look at what gets a particular kid’s attention and use it to inform learning in all subjects. For instance, why did they like a particular painting? What was it that interested them? Can we use that interest to enthuse them in other areas?

People might realise that they’re frazzled. They say that by 2020 it’ll be stress-related illnesses that wipe us out. The difference between being human and being frazzled is this: your printer goes wrong and you shout and feel angry. That’s normal. But if that feeling lasts all day, it’s indicative of something more serious.

I needed to buy a carpet recently, so I went through the entire Google list of carpet suppliers, compared prices, ordered a lot of samples, didn’t buy one and moved onto lampshades. Someone didn’t invite me to a dinner party and I wondered if I should jump off the roof. That’s frazzled.

My hopes would lie with the next generation. Perhaps they’ll learn how to step back and acknowledge that the cortisol levels are rising when they feel angry and find ways to manage their emotions. So when really big decisions need to be made, they can consider all options and negotiate rather than fight. Terrorists are just people who haven’t got anything else going for them.

I would be able to drop into any university lecture anywhere in the world. I’d wake up and think, Oh, I’ll do a bit of astronomy today! Stanford University in California has a programme that allows older people to come to their lectures for free, and the more opportunities there are for people to hear the most brilliant minds at work, the better.

I would be 32 forever.

As told to Caroline Hutton

Ruby’s new book A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled is out now. Ruby will be on tour this year with her show Frazzled. Visit rubywax.net for details

Poverty, crime and violence are down. Freedom and democracy are up. guess what… By

The World Is NoT Fall INg a parT

It’s a good tIme to be a pessImIst. isis, ebola, deadly policemen and gangs—who can avoid the feeling that things are falling apart and the centre cannot hold?

but as troubling as the headlines have been, they deserve a second look. it’s hard to believe that we’re in greater danger today than we were during the two world wars, the nuclear confrontations of the Cold war, or the eight-year war between iran and iraq that threatened to choke the flow of oil through the Persian gulf and cripple the entire global economy.

So how can we get less hyperbolic about the state of the world? Don’t look to daily media. News is about things that happen, not things that don’t happen. We never see a reporter saying to the camera, “Here we are, live from a country where a war hasn’t broken out,” or a city that hasn’t been bombed or a school that hasn’t been shot up. As long as violence occurs somewhere, there will be enough incidents to fill the news. And since our minds estimate probability by the ease with which we recall examples, we’ll perpetually perceive that we live in dangerous times.

We also have to avoid being fooled by randomness. Entropy, pathogens and human folly are always present in our lives, and it’s statistically certain that disasters will frequently overlap with one another rather than space themselves evenly in time. But to read significance into any such clusters is to succumb to primitive thinking and cosmic conspiracies.

Finally, we need to be mindful of orders of magnitude. Shooting

rampages and terrorist attacks are riveting dramas but, outside of war zones, kill they relatively small numbers of people. As the political scientist John Mueller points out, in most years, bee stings, deer collisions, ignition of nightwear and other mundane accidents kill more people than terrorist attacks.

The only sound way to appraise the state of the world is to count: how many violent acts has the world seen compared with the number of opportunities, and is that number going up or down? Follow the trend lines, not the headlines. When we do, we can see that the trend lines are more encouraging than a newswatcher would guess.

Murder

About five to ten times as many people die in police incidents worldwide as die in wars, and in most of the world the rate of murder has been falling. The American crime decline of the 1990s, which plateaued at the start of the century, resumed in 2006; defying

bee stings and other aCCidents kill more PeoPle than terrorists do

the conventional wisdom that hard times lead to violence, it continued during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 and through to the present.

Britain, Canada and most other industrialised countries have also seen their murder rates fall in the past decade. Among the 88 countries with reliable data, 67 have shown a decline in the past 15 years. Although numbers for the entire world exist only for this millennium and include estimates for countries that don’t collect data, the trend appears to be downwards, from 7.1 murders per 100,000 people in 2003 to 6.2 in 2012.

The global average, to be sure, conceals many regions with horrific rates of killing, particularly in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. But even in those hot zones, it’s easy for the headlines to mislead. For example, the gory, drug-fuelled

killings in parts of Mexico can create an impression that the entire country has spiralled into lawlessness, but two factors can help dispel that notion.

One is that the 21st-century spike hasn’t undone the massive reduction in murder that Mexico has enjoyed since 1940. The other is that what goes up often comes down, and the rate of Mexican murder has declined in the past few years. Other notoriously dangerous regions, from Colombia to South Africa, have also experienced significant turnarounds. Many criminologists believe that a worldwide reduction in murder by 50 per cent in the next three decades is a feasible target for the upcoming round of goals to be set by the UN.

Violence against women

The US media coverage of athletes who have assaulted their wives or girlfriends, and of episodes of rape on university campuses, has suggested to some observers that the country is witnessing a surge of violence against women. But victimisation surveys from the US bureau of justice statistics show the opposite: rates of rape or sexual assault and of violence against intimate partners have been declining for decades, and they’re now a quarter or less of their peaks in the past. Yes, far too many of these crimes still take place, but we should be

Rate of Battle Deaths in Armed Conflicts, 1946–2013

Battle deaths per 100,000 people

Rate of Deaths in Genocides and Other Mass Killings, 1989–2013

pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_onesided_ violence_dataset/ census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop/ table_population.php

encouraged by the fact that a heightened concern about violence against women has incited progress —with more to come.

While few other countries compile comparable data, there’s reason to believe that similar trends could be found elsewhere. In 1993, the UN General Assembly adopted a declaration on the elimination of violence against women, and polling data show widespread support for women’s rights, even in countries with the most antiquated practices.

Many nations have implemented laws and public-awareness campaigns to reduce rape, forced marriage, genital mutilation, honour killing, domestic violence and wartime atrocities.

Violence against children

Similarly, news reports on school shootings, abductions, cyberbullying and sexual and physical abuse in the US can make it seem as if children are living in increasingly perilous times. But the data say otherwise: kids are certainly safer than in the past. In a review of the literature on violence against children published in 2014, sociologist David Finkelhor and his colleagues reported that “of 50 trends in exposure examined, there were 27 significant declines and no significant increases between 2003

Uppsala Conflict data Program; Peace research institute oslo; “Updated statistical analysis of documentation of killings in the syrian arab republic”; human rights data analysis group

and 2011. Declines were particularly large for assault victimisation, bullying and sexual victimisation.”

Genocide and other mass killings of civilians

The recent atrocities committed by ISIS, together with the ongoing killing of civilians in Syria, Iraq and central Africa, have fed a terrifying narrative in which the world has apparently learned nothing from the Holocaust and genocides continue unabated. But even the most horrific events of the present must be put into historical perspective.

By any standard, the world is nowhere near as genocidal as it was during its peak in the 1940s, when Nazi, Soviet and Japanese mass murders, together with the targeting of civilians by all sides in the Second World War, resulted in a civilian death rate of 350 deaths per 100,000 people per year. Even though the ruthless actions of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong in China kept the global rate between 75 and 150 through the early 1960s, it’s been falling ever since.

At the same time, the decline has been punctuated by periodic spikes of mass killings: Biafra (1966–1970; 200,000 deaths), Sudan (1983–2002; one million), Afghanistan (1978–2002; one million), Indonesia (1965–1966; 500,000), Angola (1975–2002; one million), Rwanda (1994; 500,000), and Bosnia (1992–1995; 200,000). By

keeping these numbers in mind when considering the current horrors in Iraq (2003–2014; 150,000 deaths) and Syria (2011–2014; 150,000), we can see that they aren’t signs of a dark new era.

Overall, the trend lines for genocide and other civilian killings point sharply downwards. The world’s civilians are several thousand times less likely to be targeted today than they were 70 years ago.

War

Researchers who study war and peace distinguish “armed conflicts”, which kill as few as 25 soldiers and civilians caught in the line of fire in a year, from “wars”, which kill more than 1,000. They also separate “interstate” conflicts, which pit the armed forces of two or more states against one another, from “intrastate” or “civil” conflicts, which pit a state against an insurgency or separatist force, sometimes with the armed intervention of an external state. In a historically unprecedented development, the number of interstate wars has plummeted since 1945, and the most destructive kind of war—in which great powers or developed states fight one another— has vanished altogether. The last one was the Korean War.

The end of the Cold War also saw a steep reduction in the number of armed conflicts of all kinds, including civil wars, and recent events have not

reversed this trend. In 2013, there were 33 state-based armed conflicts, a number that falls within the range of the past dozen years and well below the high of 52 that occurred shortly after the end of the Cold War. The Uppsala conflict data programme has also noted that 2013 saw the signing of six peace agreements, two more than in 2012.

But another development in wars is less positive: the number of wars jumped from four in 2010 (the lowest since the end of the Second World War) to seven in 2013. This jump— the steepest since the end of the Cold War—brought us to the highest number of wars since 2000.

The worldwide rate of battle deaths has also risen, mostly because of the Syrian civil war. Even so, this increase must be kept in perspective. While it has undone the progress of the past dozen years, the rates are still well below those of the 1990s and nowhere near the levels of the 1940s to the 1980s.

Look for the hope, not the hype

As we can see from the different facts and figures, the world isn’t falling apart. The kinds of violence to which most people are vulnerable—murder, rape, child abuse—are in steady decline in most of the world. Wars between states, by far the most destructive of all conflicts, are all but obsolete. Might there be a better way to understand the world?

We can start by ignoring the pundits and columnists who are maximising the impression of mayhem and brushing up on our history instead. By focusing on the actual evidence rather than on the inflammatory headlines, we’d see many benefits. It would inform and calibrate our national and international responses to the magnitude of the dangers facing us and also limit the influence of terrorists, school shooters, and other perpetrators of violence. We can reawaken, again, the hope of the world.

writer aaron gillies’ wife cries a lot—so he began noting down the reasons:

“she found out swans can be gay and thought it was really nice.”

“she was hungover and saw a picture of a piglet.”

“I waited until it was dark and pretended to be the babadook.”

“the fluffy bunny escaped from an arctic fox in a documentary.”

soURCe: HUFFINgtoNpost.Co.UK

High performance cordless pet vacuum

The cordless AirRam K9 is the 4x4 upgrade of the original AirRam, complete with extra tough features. Designed not only for great cleaning performance, but to withstand the extra strain pet hair can place on a vacuum cleaner – clogging the mechanism and making it wear out faster.

Tougher

AirRam K9 is specially designed to lift embedded hair from carpet bres, but minimise the amount of hair that gets wrapped around the brush-bar, so less cleaning for you.

Stronger

The K9 is strengthened by zinc alloy components, to resist the wear and tear caused by the toughest cleaning environments.

Sweeter

And, it features re llable oral scented lters to leave your room smelling clean and fresh.

All the great features of the original AirRam

We all dearly love our four legged friends, but cleaning up after them makes vacuuming even more of a chore. Stubborn hair embedded in the carpet, the brush bar choked up… not to mention the smell.

popular: Mains powered upright vacuum

Added to that are all the great features that have made the Gtech AirRam so popular: Mains powered upright vacuum performance†; Lightweight (3.8kg); 40 minutes run-time*; 4-hour charge-time; ‘one button’ simplicity and easy one-click assembly.

Power, performance, simplicity

Without the weight or cord holding you back, you can glide from carpet to hard- oor without stopping, unplugging or changing any settings.

Suitable for all domestic pets, or just the busiest homes, the K9 compresses the hair and dirt into bales. A removable tray lifts out, allowing you to drop the debris into the bin, without the dust cloud you can get when you empty a cylinder.

Photo: © massimo bassano

The lake’s sole island, Comacina, is popular for its landmark restaurant

The soothing shore of Italy’s Lake Como was the perfect place to celebrate our life together

By l orenzo Car C aterra

AStoryLove

“W

ater is God’s tranquilizer,” Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, once said —words Susan cited regularly. If ever we needed tranquillity it was now, and Lake Como, ringed by quiet towns, elegant holiday villas and snow-crowned mountains, offered the perfect mix of scenery, culture—and views of God’s tranquilizer.

“This will be great,” I say as Susan and I make our plans. “Eat, look out at the lake, converse, look out at the lake, stroll, look out at the lake. By day two we’ll just look out at the lake—and be the most relaxed we’ve ever been.”

An hour’s drive north of Milan, Lake Como has seduced visitors since Roman times with its extravagant natural setting in the foothills of the Alps, temperate climate and, later, grand villas. I already knew we’d stay at perhaps the best known of these, the luxurious Villa d’Este.

Which is what we’re looking for as we pull into Cernobbio, a vintage resort town on Como’s south-western shore. The lake, walled by steep mountainsides, glitters under an afternoon sun. Before us, baronial buildings and pavilions—including the main residence, built for a 16th-century cardinal—have arranged themselves along the lakefront, punctuated by gardens filled with palms, cypresses, flowering plants and the whiff of camellias.

I reach over and take my wife’s hand. She turns towards me and

smiles, then gently rests her head against my shoulder.

“This,” she purrs, “is the most peaceful place. I could stay forever.” I nod and hold her hand tightly.

For Susan, forever is just a few short months away. We’ve been married for more than 30 years, raising two children in the process. We’ve had our ups and downs, interspersed with many glorious days and nights. Through it all, we’ve remained what we’d been from the very start—each other’s best friend.

Susan’s illness—stage-four lung cancer—froze me. I withdrew, confused and angry. We had always valued honesty and used humour as a shield against any obstacle. But would either be enough to weather the severe storm she faced?

“Let’s take a trip,” Susan had said one morning, washing down a dozen pills with a smoothie. “I want to get one more trip in while I still can.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Some place that can make me forget,” Susan said.

“Is there a land of such supreme and perfect beauty anywhere?”

Shops on Salita Serbelloni in Bellagio, with a view of the lake in the distance

wondered the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow after a visit to Lake Como.

And so we set our story here. Susan, of course, is determined to make the most of every moment. We’ll walk the acres of gardens at Villa Carlotta, north of Cernobbio in Tremezzo, where the lush plantings, marble sculptures and blooming flowers make us feel as if we’ve dropped into another century. We’ll ride the boats that operate as buses, transporting locals and tourists from Varenna, midway up the lakeshore, west to Menaggio, then south to Bellagio, “the pearl of Lake Como”.

In Lenno we taste locally grown Vanini olive oil, then continue to neighbouring Mezzegra, where we hike up the hillside for a view that’ll

Food at the Locanda dell’Isola Comacina restaurant—said to one of the best in Italy; (below) owner Benvenuto Puricelli offers his special brew of coffee, sugar and brandy to ward off the island’s “curse”

leave me as breathless as the ascent. We stop in Laglio, the lake-front town where the actor George Clooney owns a villa.

And we visit the island of Comacina, to dine at what some consider one of the best restaurants in Italy, the Locanda dell’Isola Comacina. As Susan and I board a small boat for the quarter-mile-long crossing, I fill her in on Comacina’s history.

“Almost no one set foot on the island from the 1100s to the 1940s,” I intone, “thanks to a curse imposed by the bishop of Como.”

The restaurant fills the top floor of a two-storey villa overlooking the lake. We sip a crisp Soave Classico

wine as we dine on owner Benvenuto Puricelli’s cooking: smoked ham, grilled trout, chicken baked in a wood stove, slabs of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Then Puricelli emerges from the kitchen and pours brandy and sugar into a copper pot that has been filled with rich coffee, telling us that drinking his special brew is the only way to leave the island curse free.

Susan takes two sips. “It’s too strong for my taste. But good.”

“You’re going to finish it all, right?” I ask, having downed my portion.

She shakes her head.

“But you have to,” I say. “Otherwise the curse will follow you off the island.”

The early afternoon sun seems to hover over her shoulders, the deep-blue lake sparkling behind her. I realise how foolish I sound, jabbering about some curse to a dying woman. She turns, looks out on Lake Como and is silent.

Finally she says, “I’m beyond the reach of any curse.”

The towns along Como’s shores have constituted one of the world’s great silk centres since the 18th century, thanks to an abundant supply of water (needed to boil the silkworm cocoons for their silk fibres) and mulberry trees, which the silkworms feed on. Today Lake Como’s silk works supply such high-end fashion houses as Versace, Ungaro and Hermès.

“Silk helped turn this region into

a destination of choice for those in need of rest and relaxation,” a visitor from Milan tells us one afternoon. “These days, I suppose there’s one man in particular to thank.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Ralph Lauren. He bought the silk for his clothes here when he first started his business.”

One century-old Como silk house, Mantero, frames its craft as “weaving emotions”. Susan and I have strolled past its headquarters and showroom on Via Volta in Lake Como’s provincial capital, also called Como, a few minutes’ drive south of Cernobbio. Through the windows we make out a shimmering rainbow of silk scarves, ties and shawls. I’m ready to step in when Susan spots one of Como’s other gems, the 12th-century Basilica of San Fedele. Places that have stood the test of time now call to her.

“Let’s sit for a bit,” she says, pointing to a freshly painted wood bench.

Susan grabs my hand and rests it on her leg. “I need you to promise me something. Not for now, for after.”

I take a deep breath and find it hard to form words; all I do is nod.

“I want you to do the things you always talked about doing but never did,” she says. “The house on a lake you wanted. Buying the vineyard that will use up all your money. Just don’t let too much time pass before you do. Each day is like a year, as I found out the hard way. And I want you to be happy, as I always have been.”

“I don’t want to do any of that without you,” I say. “It won’t mean the same.”

“It’ll have to be without me,” Susan says. “That decision has been made.”

She leans against me and stares out at the lake. “Promise me that,” she whispers. “It’s one last promise.”

I kiss the top of her head and close my eyes. “I promise,” I whisper.

We sit on the bench until late afternoon, temporarily setting aside our fears and concerns yet bracing for the reality that soon we’ll have no choice but to face them all head-on.

Lake Como is the perfect place to visit when starting a new chapter in life—a new romance, a marriage— or to enjoy the company of someone with whom you’ve shared much.

It also, I’m discovering with some pain, is a loving place to say goodbye. Susan and I find ourselves often gazing at the lake, compelled by its shape-shifting waters, shading from an ocean indigo to a deeper midnight blue. We’re at its shores at sunrise, warm cups of coffee in

hand, watching the first waves cross its surface. We make a point of being by it at sunset, when snow on the hillsides seems to melt right into the lake as the landscape slowly descends into darkness.

We also walk and talk a lot, going over the life we’ve shared, smiling about the many good times, shaking our heads at the mistakes made along the way. Other than shortness of breath, Susan shows no sign of the war being waged inside her body. The lake seems to lift her spirits and put her mind at ease.

“This time will stay with me always,” she murmurs one night, her voice soft. “People who live here are lucky to call it home. They wake to such a beautiful sight. It never leaves them.”

It’s as if time has frozen for us. The woman I love will forever be next to me, staring at the still, blue waters, talking about her hopes for our children, the plans she wants to make—and the places on Lake Como she still wants to see.

Five-year-old oliver giddings asked royal mail how much it would cost to send a letter to mars. Keen to answer the little space enthusiast’s query, royal mail turned to experts at nasa for accurate calculations. The answer? one letter would cost £11,602.25, or the equivalent of 18,416 first-class stamps.

When you write or update your will, please remember the work of the British Red Cross.

Making your will need not be complicated.

Our FREE simple will planner helps you pull together all the information you need to prepare before meeting your solicitor.

To download your FREE will planner now go to redcross.org.uk/willplan1 or call 0300 500 0401 to request your copy

The British Red Cross Society, incorporated by Royal Charter 1908, is a charity registered in England and Wales (220949), Scotland (SC037738) and Isle of Man (0752).

BY CATHY ADAMS

My Great Escape: Love In Florence

Carolyn Ross from Buckinghamshire visited the most romantic of all cities for Valentine’s Day

Cathy has danced in Rio, been microlighting in South Africa and hiked the mountains of Oman

WHEN A WAITER ASKED ME on the morning of February 14 what my husband had given me for Valentine’s Day, I replied, “This. Florence.”

“Not bad,” he said.

Florence! Treasure trove of Renaissance paintings, sculptures, bridges and domes. The city, like its paintings, dazzles in rich colours and intricate design. And like the portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Urbino housed in the Uffizi Gallery, the city presents to visitors only its best side. Close to the Uffizi is the Galleria dell’Accademia, where every year thousands flock to Michaelangelo’s marble statue of David. More than twice life-size, it stands in a vaulted space that you can walk around (treading carefully over art students drawing it from every angle).

The crowds are considerably reduced in February, and it’s warm enough to sit outside for a cappuccino before strolling across the Ponte Vecchio towards the Palazzo Pitti, then moving to the equally breathtaking Boboli Gardens at the back. From the Kaffeehaus, an elegant 18th-century summer pavilion, the view across Florence is worth every step.

PERSONAL PHOTOS FROM CAROLYN

Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore; (below) The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna

Across the River Arno is the fabulously ornate Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiori. A ruthless climb to the top of the duomo is rewarded with an unparalleled panorama of the city. Ancient towers, tiled roofs, domes and spires stretch beyond on all sides as you gaze down onto the narrow streets and piazzas.

That night, in a romantic trattoria, we tucked into maccheroni alla Tuscana and bistecca firenze, happily toasting each other with a rich and fruity chianti.

“Not bad” was the understatement of the century, never mind the year.

■ FLY TO FLORENCE

British Airways flies to Florence from £58 one way (0844 493 0787; ba.com).

Postcard From ... Iran

IRAN HAS LONG been off travellers’ itineraries thanks to ongoing safety concerns. This is due to change now that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has improved its travel advice to this spellbinding nation, meaning it’s back on the agenda of many tour operators. This includes Cox & Kings, which has recently relaunched its ten-night trip to Iran. The itinerary is a checklist of beautiful, historic sights: stunning Islamic architecture in Shiraz; the former Persian capital of Persepolis; and also Tehran. Iranian travellers are wonderfully friendly too.

■ VOYAGE TO IRAN

Cox & Kings tours start from £1,995pp (020 7873 5000; coxandkings.co.uk).

Tell us about your favourite holiday (send a photo too) and if we include it on this page we’ll pay you £50. Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Things To Do This Month

QUÉBEC CITY IN TWO MINUTES

■ DO: WINTER SPORTS Come winter, the wider Québec province is a snowy haven ripe for snowmobiling, dog sledding and cross-country skiing— all just a short drive out of the city (quebecoriginal.com).

■ STAY: FAIRMONT LE CHATEAU

FRONTENAC Recently renovated, the historic heritage resort—part of the luxury Fairmont Group—is inside the walls of Old Québec with blockbuster views over the St Lawrence River. Visitors rave about its Champlain Restaurant. Rooms from around £113 per night (fairmont.com).

■ SEE: QUÉBEC WINTER CARNIVAL

The annual celebration in Québec City is the biggest winter carnival in the world. Expect snow sculptures, parades and other snowy fun for all ages. January 29–February 14 (carnaval.qc.ca/home).

SHORT/LONG HAUL: ROMANTIC HOLIDAYS

SHORT: The Lake District You don’t always have to travel far to find romance. Hole up in the modern Brimstone Lodge in the Langdale Valley, which comes with vast eggshaped baths and Berghaus hiking gear. Rooms from £260 a night (0153 943 8062; brimstonehotel.co.uk).

LONG: Kyoto, Japan Here they hold a very different tradition: women are expected to buy chocolates for the men on Valentine’s Day, rather than the other way around. Jacada Travel offers tours of Japan from £7,182pp (020 7619 1380; jacadatravel.com).

TRAVEL APP OF THE MONTH

BringFido, Free, iOS. Sometimes man doesn’t want to be without a man’s best friend—even on holiday. This app allows you to search dog-friendly hotels, restaurants, parks and beaches all over the world.

According to an investigation by the Daily Telegraph, retired savers could be owed thousands in compensation as they estimate that 1 in 4 pensioners who took out a private pension could be entitled to a larger pot.

Bad Pension Products — Could You Be Owed Money?

IT’S ESTIMATED that inappropriate deals were sold to up to 100,000 people a year between 2007 and 2013.

Most of these people are not even aware that they are affected.

The wrong annuity contract

One of the biggest scandals in the Financial Services history

Ros Altman—the Minister of State for Pensions—was asked to estimate the scale of this mis-selling scandal and her belief is that in the last ten years it could amount to £8.5bn.

1 in 4 pensioners could be entitled to a larger pension

If you have been sold the wrong annuity for your circumstances, it could be materially affecting your retirement. Experts believe that this is going to open the floodgates to claims.

When you get to retirement, most people trust the company they are with to find them the most appropriate annuity (pension) for their circumstances. Unfortunately, in most cases this has not been the case.

For most people, the annuity you receive defines your income in retirement and affects everything from the holidays you can have to your general standard of living. If you have

Reader’s Digest has teamed up with My Champion, a specialist company in this area. If you think you may have been affected, call us today on 0800 380 0090 to speak to an expert

been placed in an annuity that’s paying you a smaller pension than you were entitled to, then you may well be due compensation.

What are some of the main categories of people affected?

■ People who have ill health

■ People who are married

■ People who were not given something called an “open-market option” (The ability to shop around for the best annuity)

■ People with trivial pension pots (less than £10,000)

What can I do about it?

The first step is to talk to an expert. These can be complicated issues and it is important to ask the right questions of your pension company.

A Recipe To Make The Most Of Your Money

One of our biggest expenditures is the weekly grocery bill, but don’t let a tight budget stop you from eating well

Andy Webb is a money expert at the Money Advice Service. Visit money adviceservice. org.uk for details

If you’re concerned about how much you spend on your grocery shop each week, there are some simple ways to bring down the cost before you even leave the kitchen.

Each year, the average household spends £470 on food that goes in the bin, rising to £700 for a family, according to Love Food, Hate Waste. Here are some easy steps to cut down on waste—and save money.

Check dates

Each day, try to check the dates on fresh foods. “Use by” dates refer to food safety and should be eaten before expiry. “Best before” dates refer to the quality of the food, so they can still be consumed even if they’re no longer at their best.

Help food last longer

One of the most wasted foods is bread. If you freeze half the loaf it’s still decent enough for toast, while the fresh half will last long enough for sandwiches.

Salad leaves are also among the most thrown away, but you can keep them fresh for longer by adding a piece of kitchen roll to the bag (it’ll help absorb the water).

Rearrange your fridge

Make sure you put anything with a shorter use-by date near the front of your fridge so it won’t be forgotten.

Use your leftovers

If you cook too much, chucking the leftovers in the bin isn’t your only option. Most meals can be frozen to use another time or fashioned into another meal for the next day. There are hundreds of blogs online that specialise in interesting and exciting ways to adapt your leftovers.

Plan your meals

As much as you can, work out what you’re going to eat for your meals throughout the week. Try to base your choices on ingredients you already have, then make a shopping list only for the other things you still need. Of course, life is unpredictable and there will be some weeks that are difficult to plan, so make sure you

have emergency leftover supplies in the freezer.

Trade down brands

When you’re at the supermarket, try choosing a different or ownbrand equivalent. Many products are made by the same manufacturer —sometimes with the same recipe —so you’re often just paying for a brand name. If you don’t like it, you can always switch back.

Eat fewer ready meals

These may be convenient, but they cost you more money than making it yourself. Even if you’re not a whizz in the kitchen, there are many simple meals anyone can make at least a couple of times a week.

Why Switching Suppliers Is Easier Than You Think

There are potentially hundreds of pounds of savings available if you find the best gas and electricity tariff for you and your usage. But many of us have never switched, due to these frequently believed myths.

MYth: It tAkEs tOO lONg

Switching energy is actually a reasonably quick task if you have your previous bills to hand. It’ll take you just a few minutes to enter

your details into a comparison site and see what different tariffs are on offer.

MYth: thE gAs Or ElEctrIcItY MIght NOt BE As gOOd

When you switch supplier nothing stops, nothing changes. It’s exactly the same energy being delivered to your home through the same pipes and wires. It’s simply who you pay that’s different.

MYth: lOYAltY pAYs

Sometimes you can save money through being a long-standing customer—but not with energy. There’s also no haggling to keep your business, as you find with mobile-phone contracts. There’s simply the price they charge.

MYth: YOur lANdlOrd WON’t lEt YOu

If you’re paying the bill directly to the energy supplier you’re entitled to choose who you pay—and find the best deal. You can also chose to move from a pre-payment meter to a credit meter. However, you should let the landlord or agency know first.

Can You Resist The Spending Impulse?

Last year, 15 million Brits justified spending money to treat themselves or cheer themselves up by saying, “You only live once.”

Research by the Money Advice Service found clothes and eating out top the table of purchases we’re most likely to make this way, with takeaways and holidays close behind. And there’s no reason to not do this— if you have the money.

Unfortunately, some people spend today without thinking about the effect it could have on their finances tomorrow. A third of people need to cut back for the rest of the month, while more than a quarter of these treats are paid for by a credit card. More than two million people have been pushed into debt as a result of impulse spending, averaging £293 each.

If you know you’re likely to want to treat yourself, the best thing you can do is acknowledge that it’ll happen and plan for it. It doesn’t have to mean financial disaster. To help, on the right are three ways to ensure you don’t get pushed into debt.

tAMINg YOur trEAts

1. Decide your treat budget for the month and factor it into your other spending, so you know you’ll have enough cash.

2. Shop around for the best price on your treat spending, so you treat yourself for less.

3. If you’ve bought something on impulse, take some time after to think if you really want it or need it. If you decide you can’t afford it, in most cases you’ll be able to take it back to the shop.

Love e Languedoc

You don’t need to be rich to drink wines you’ll love, or that will impress your other half. Proof? Start in the lovely Languedoc….

SAY HELLO TO THE LANGUEDOC-ROUSSILLON

The popular and very expensive regions of Bordeaux and Burgundy, get all the attention….but it’s the lesser-known area of the LanguedocRoussillon that’s turning heads and hearts, for a fraction of the price!

Based in southern France, the Languedoc’s gorgeously hot, sunny and dry climate is a grape-growers’ dream.

A QUESTION OF QUALITY…. THE TABLES HAVE TURNED

Mass overproduction of cheap table wines is a thing of the past. Talented winemakers are now focusing on older vines, lower yields and higher-quality wines that really pack a punch.

The best bit? The French still can’t quite get their heads around the step change in quality and remain suspicious of anything higher priced. Which means us UK folk benefit from a load of high-quality exports.

LOOK CLEVER IN FRONT OF YOUR LOVED ONES

Not only are you quids in for saving a mini-fortune on overhyped wines, but you’ve also uncovered some hidden gems that taste a treat.

Reds are big and ballsy, with oodles of juicy fruit. Look out for Carignan, Mourvèdre, Syrah and Grenache. White wines are usually unoaked, fresh

Katie Jones and husband, JeanMarc - winemakers in the Languedoc

and zesty. Keep your eyes peeled for fresh-as-a-daisy Picpoul de Pinet and Sauvignon Blanc.

MEET KATIE JONES…

A REAL LANGUEDOC LOVELY

Katie Jones is one of the talented independent winemakers crowdfunded by Naked Wines’ “Angels”. Based in the Languedoc, Katie turned to Naked after vandals poured her

entire year’s vintage down the drain.

Thanks to Angel funding, she was back on her feet in no time, making a selection of seriously robust and juicy red wines—chock-full of tasty fruit and the wild herbs and character from the area.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s £30 off a 6-pack of mouth-watering Languedoc Lovelies to try for yourself.

Every one of these wines is sure to make you fall in love for a song. Visit nakedwines.com/rdlang to redeem your £30 voucher now.

Easy-to-prepare meals and accompanying drinks

Spaghetti Arrabiata

By Rachel walke R

Rachel is a food writer and blogs at thefoodieat.org

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, there’s all sorts of pressure on a romantic meal—pity the person who spends the evening shucking oysters and tenderising expensive steaks.

In my book, there aren’t many more loving things than a beautiful bowl of pasta with a sauce made from scratch. So rather than splashing out on sirloin, treat yourself to really quality versions of the ingredients below. It’ll still be a fraction of the cost, meaning you can use the difference to buy a special bottle and make a real night of it.

Serves 2

• 1 chilli, deseeded and finely sliced

• 2 garlic cloves, crushed

• 2 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped

• 1tsp dried oregano

• 400g tin chopped tomatoes

• 200g quality dried spaghetti

• 12 black olives, pitted

• 2–4tbsps freshly grated parmesan

• 2tbsps flat-leaf parsley

1. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the chilli, garlic cloves and anchovies. Cook on a medium heat for 2–3 minutes, making sure the oil doesn’t brown. [Note: anchovy fillets might seem an odd ingredient to add, but they melt into the sauce and impart a delicious saltiness rather than any sort of fishy flavour.]

2. Add the oregano and then the chopped tomatoes into the frying pan. Lower the heat and let the sauce

gently simmer uncovered for 8–10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a pan of salted water to the boil and cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packet.

4. Once the spaghetti is almost cooked, stir the olives through the pasta sauce, taste and season accordingly.

5. Use tongs or a spaghetti server to lift the spaghetti from the water and transfer it to the pan of sauce. Move it carefully in the pan and stir it gently to make sure all the strands are coated in the sauce.

6. Divide the spaghetti and sauce between two plates. Garnish with the flat-leaf parsley and top with the grated parmesan cheese.

TIPS…

Good-quality spaghetti makes a huge difference. Look for 100% durum wheat on the ingredient label and peer through the pack to examine its texture. Authentic spaghetti has a course texture, which means the sauce clings to it.

Finding Your Wine

t here’s certainly romance in tailoring a meal to your loved one’s tastes. As well as cooking their favourite foods, why not pair this year’s Valentine’s dinner with a bottle of wine they’ll love too?

If you’re not sure where to start, then look no further than the concept of “vinotyping”, pioneered by master of wine Tim Hanni. He argues that everyone perceives tastes differently— so what one person finds delicious, another won’t like at all.

What’s interesting is how Hanni’s theory undermines the way we currently buy wines, which is often based around expert guidance or shop recommendations. Hanni has

created a quiz to help people work out which vinotype they are, so they can buy wine according to their “persona”: Tolerant, Sensitive, Hypersensitive or Sweet. It asks participants simple questions such how they take their coffee or whether they like spicy foods.

Just think how your loved ones would answer the quiz and surprise them with a bottle they’ll love...

■ Take the quiz at myvinotype.com

Rachel Recommends…

■ ToleRanT: Fans of bold reds should look to Portugal and argentina. try The Waxed Bat Reserve (£9.49).

■ sensITIVe: this category contains the most adventurous drinkers. try The Society’s Pinot Noir (£7.25)

■ hyPeRsensITIVe: dry or off-dry whites will woo hypersensitive drinkers. try Tu Meke Pinot Grigio (£8.99).

■ sweeT: Sweet vinotypes should ease in to drinking wine. try Tim Adams Clare Valley Riesling (£9.75).

Pudding of the Month

Scotch Pancakes

These are just as simple and delicious as Frenchstyle crêpes—and perfect for Pancake Day.

• 200g self-raising flour

• 75g caster sugar

• 2 eggs

• 300ml milk

the Ways of the Wine, Simply Media, £9.99. Fascinating docudrama following top sommelier Charlie Arturaola.

BUdGeT

• 20g butter

To serve: fresh fruit, fromage frais, your favourite toppings

Tip the flour and sugar into a bowl and make a little well in the middle. Add the eggs to the well with a big splash of milk. Whisk into a thick batter, then slowly add the rest of the milk, whisking it constantly to make sure there are no lumps. Melt the butter in a non-stick pan and use a tablespoon to make circles of the batter round the edge. When bubbles start to rise, flip the pancakes using a spatula and cook for another half-minute on the other side. Serve with your favourite topping.

Frozen fruit is brilliantly cost-effective. Turn into compote to serve with your Scotch pancakes, Tesco, £2/500g.

Blow-oUT

nom living pasta bowl. Serve the spaghetti arrabiata in this beautiful handthrown dish. £15 each.

BY LYNDA CLARK

Lynda Clark is a homes, property and interiors expert, and is editor of First Time Buyer magazine

In The Pink Get The Look

YOU MIGHT THINK THAT PINK is far too feminine to incorporate into your living space—but this trendsetting colour can look very sophisticated if used in the right way. Everything from pale blush right through to bold fuchsia will add warmth, glamour and a touch of fun to a room. Don’t be afraid to use different shades of pink in the same space—they work especially well if teamed with navy, grey, crisp white, chocolate, copper or silver.

Jolie chair, £449; weave cushion, £12; Verona floor lamp, £199; Conran Dalton corner sofa, £2,099; Conran Dalton storage footstall, £469; Harper footstool, £279; Peru kilim rug, £139; chevron embroidered cushion, £17.50; Peruvian cross-stitch cushion, £35; Peruvian birds cushion, £19.50.

■ Available at Marks & Spencer (marksandspencer.com)

Bold yet elegant, these accessories are an easy way to breathe a touch of spring into your home.

■ Coco chair in petal, £575, Oliver Bonas, oliverbonas.com

■ Pink Asiatic Pheasants cake stand, £49, Burleigh, burleigh.co.uk

■ Floral rug, £299, Frith Rugs, frithrugs.co.uk

GROCER TO GARDENS

Waitrose has branched out into horticulture with their new website. They offer a great variety of plants, including topiary, herbs, fruit trees, herbaceous flowering plants, seeds, gardening tools and a range of pots, sheds, storage and outdoor furniture. Prices are very competitive and all plants come with handy, clear growing advice.

Select the perfect pan for Shrove Tuesday TIME TO GET FLIPPING!

Classic frying pan. The thick thermic base ensures the batter cooks consistently. From £10, Judge Cookware (judgecookware.co.uk)

Lightweight 30cm crêpe pan. This heats rapidly and evenly to make crêpes quickly. £48, Stellar Cookware (stellarcookware.co.uk)

Celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh (above) is also on hand to offer his trademark greenfingered tips, as well as recommending the top 50 gardening products for each season.

■ Visit waitrosegarden.com for details

Classic 25cm crêpe pan. A strong ceramic coating means an easy release for the perfect flip! £75, Scanpan (inthehaus.co.uk)

the machines are taking over!

From what we eat to how we care for the elderly, humans are creating technology that will transform our society— but is it for the better?

By Am A nd A Riley-Jones

The Bold Hearts have a kickabout, competing in the football RoboCup

the machines are taking over!

coined in 1956 By compuTeR pioneeR John mccARThy, artificial intelligence (ai) can be defined as the creation of computer systems that mimic “human” behaviours—such as visual perception, speech recognition and decision-making. after steam power, mass production and digitalisation, many people are describing the arrival of ai as the fourth industrial revolution. some say that creating intelligent machines would be one of the biggest achievements in human history and could solve the world’s problems.

However, some high-profile thinkers, including Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates, have warned that machine intelligence could pose a threat to our survival—a persistent theme in films from 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Matrix to last year’s Ex Machina.

“It’s tempting to dismiss the notion of highly intelligent machines as mere science fiction,” Hawking and others wrote in an article published in The Huffington Post. “But this would be a mistake, and potentially our worst mistake ever.”

We have the beginnings of AI around us: in computers that predict our preferences, mobile phones that understand voice commands, automated financial transaction systems and (soon) driverless cars. On the horizon, there are big breakthroughs in food production, medicine and healthcare that could bring huge benefits to us all.

Feeding a hungry world

One of the biggest problems facing us is that we’ll need to produce twice as much food by 2050. Professor Simon

Blackmore, director of the national centre for precision farming at Harper Adams University, Shropshire, says, “We need a paradigm shift—a new system to make crop production more efficient and good for the environment and society.”

The statistics he gives are food for thought. Here in the UK, up to 80 per cent of weeds have become herbicideresistant and up to 90 per cent of the energy going into cultivation is being used on repairing soil damaged by heavy machinery.

Professor Blackmore predicts that British farms will have mini robots moving up and down the fields, inspecting plants, recognising and lasering weeds, and administering dots of chemicals and fertiliser where needed. Crops will be monitored by aerial and ground vehicles using sensors and hyperspectral vision. This will bring huge improvements: without soil-compacting tractors, there will be no need for ploughing (reducing CO2 emissions), soil will stay absorbent longer and less fertiliser means healthier waterways.

Professor Blackmore and students with a prototype vineyard robot; (right) a rendering of an automatic weed-sprayer

A gp in your pocket

We’re also entering a new era of healthcare. AI can sift through vast amounts of data and knowledge in a way that’s not possible for a human brain. Already, IBM’s supercomputer Watson can draw on troves of data and patient records to provide personalised recommendations on treatment in seconds.

A robot-scientist developed by Ross King, professor of machine intelligence at the University of Manchester, can screen over 10,000 compounds a day in the search for new drugs to beat tropical diseases.

Professor King predicts, “Biological systems are so complex that humans cannot understand them without help from computers. I believe that most diseases will be treatable, if not cured, in the next 50–100 years.”

Smart technology will also give us more personalised, democratic health systems. “AI will make healthcare unrecognisable in the next ten years,”

declares British-based engineer and entrepreneur Dr Ali Parsa. For £7.99 a month, his smartphone app Babylon enables subscribers to text simple queries and have virtual consultations. Users can add fitness monitors and if they show stress and high blood pressure, for instance, a doctor can proactively make contact.

“I don’t believe AI will replace doctors,” says Dr Parsa, “but it can play a crucial role in assisting with simpler queries, giving doctors more time to focus on complex conditions and patients that need a greater level of care.”

This spring, Babylon is launching in Rwanda where there are only 1.2 doctors to every 20,000 people—but 75 per cent of the population have mobile phones with internet access.

“We’re aiming to place immediate, comprehensive and affordable healthcare into the hands of every person on Earth,” says Dr Parsa.

is bionic man the future?

Surgical robots, which enable surgeons to operate with precision instruments using robotic arms, have been with us for over a decade. A new generation of sophisticated wearable robotics, or “powered exoskeletons”, will soon be stepping out of the movies and will hopefully help thousands of people paralysed by stroke or spinal-cord damage. The EU-funded AXO-SUIT is being developed to help the elderly or infirm stand up or walk, while another prototype moves a human’s feet to stop them falling.

Scientists are now combining artificial body parts with artificial intelligence—for instance, bionic limbs with onboard processors that sense the environment and even predict the user’s intentions. But Swiss social psychologist Bertolt Meyer (who himself has an artificial lower arm and hand) has warned of the ethical minefield ahead. Who should have this amazing technology? Injured soldiers? Civilians? Should

The stroke glove—a type of sophisticated robotics dubbed “powered exoskeleton”—was developed last year to help the rehabilitation of stroke sufferers

the rich be able to buy bionic body parts to make them stronger and faster? Could there be a day when humans and robots merge?

caring for the silver generation Thanks to longer life expectancy, 16 per cent of the global population will be over 65 by 2050. And smart technology is set to help the “silver generation” live independently in our own homes for as long as possible.

Scientists at Sweden’s Orebro University have developed a telepresence robot (think an iPad on a telescopic pole with wheels) that enables family and healthcare professionals to make virtual visits to the house. Here in the UK, an ordinary-looking semi is home to two prototype domestic robots, the adult-size Care-O-bot® and the smaller Sunflower®.

Scientists from Hertfordshire

The Care-O-bot® was created to support independent living for the elderly; (below) the Sunflower® robot has a similar caring function but is designed to be smaller and less intimidating

University have set up Robot House to see how human volunteers and robots interact. Kerstin Dautenhahn, professor of artificial intelligence, explains, “The house has an elaborate network of omnidirectional cameras and contact and heat sensors, so the robots know what’s going on anywhere in the house. When the robot senses the kettle has boiled, it will approach the human to tell her.” The robots can even “see” that a guest has brought flowers and autonomously offer to fetch a vase.

How To Get The Best Protection For Your Home

Whether we live in a house, bungalow, flat or rented property, we all love and treasure our homes, so protecting your property with a comprehensive home-insurance policy should be a priority. But what should you consider when purchasing your next home-insurance policy?

ACCIDENTS DO HAPPEN

It may surprise you to learn that 1 in 4 home-insurance policies do not include accidental damage cover. This is essential—even the most careful person could accidentally knock their television when vacuuming the carpet or decorating. It’s important to make sure this essential cover is included in your policy.

VALUE YOUR VALUABLES

mobile phones, tablets and handbags. When buying home insurance it’s wise to discuss this, as a policy that provides overseas cover means you can save money on your travel policy—because you won’t need to insure these items twice.

WATCH OUT FOR WATER

If there’s damage to your property caused by an escape of water, you may incur additional costs in removing and replacing any other part of the building while accessing the source of the leak. Trace and access cover is important as it could save you a substantial amount of money should your property develop a leak.

We all take items away from our homes such as jewellery, Reader’s Digest Insurance Services provide a range of home-insurance policies from leading insurers such as Aviva, Ageas, Axa, Allianz and Legal & General. To discuss your home insurance and to obtain a competitive quotation, call us today on 020 8069 3102.

In the future, a robot could notice its human hasn’t had water all day and offer a drink. But there are big ethical issues about privacy and data ownership to address first. Professor Dautenhahn elaborates, “When and how much information should the robot share? A user doesn’t want the robot watching and monitoring every time they have a piece of cake.”

sharing the wealth

Thirty-five per cent of UK jobs are at risk of automation in the next 20 years, according to the University of Oxford. How will humans fill their time and find a purpose if intelligent machines are doing all the work?

In his book Surviving AI, British author Calum Chace raised the

spectre that “homo sapiens may split into two: a handful of gods and then the rest of us”. Many are warning that the economy could collapse unless we find ways to share wealth—perhaps by giving humans a guaranteed income, or profit-sharing schemes that enable people to share ownership of AI and robots.

But Professor Alan Manning from the London School of Economics is more sanguine. “There’s a very long history of believing that new technology will destroy jobs,” he explains. “While there have always been some workers who have lost out, most workers have gained. Almost everybody today is better off than they were 100 years ago because of new technology.”

cele BR i T ies TA l K BR i TA in tv personalities share their thoughts on our fair nation:

Danny Dyer on etiquette: “gonna watch a bit of #questiontime while munching on a toasted crumpet...sophistication.”

Kevin Bridges on the Royal Family: “it must be pretty surreal, being Prince harry and William on a stag night. Just you and your mates, stuffing pictures of your gran into your lap-dancer’s bra.”

Karl Pilkington on having a stiff upper lip: “i’m really happy. i just don’t choose to show it.”

Frankie Boyle on English-Scottish relations: “in scotland we have mixed feelings about global warming, because we’ll get to sit on the mountains and watch the english drown.”

SOURCE: BUzzFEED.COm

From flossing to typing, the latest generation of gadgets turns life’s most mundane tasks into...

New-Fashioned Fun

BY OLLY MANN

Olly is a technology expert, LBC presenter and Answer Me

This! podcaster

PHILIPS SONICARE AIRFLOSS, £50.99

The biggest lie I tell each year is the one I tell my dentist: “Yes, I’ve been flossing.” Leaving his leather chair with a bag of new toothpicks and the best of intentions, I get home and realise there’s no part of my daily routine into which flossing quite fits. Flossing while watching TV? Rank. At my desk? Weird. Airfloss, however, sits on a charging station next to my electric toothbrush, so I just use it after brushing. It squirts high-pressured blasts of water or mouthwash between my teeth to remove plaque and improve my gum health, and is oddly fun to use. I’ll be telling my dentist.

APPLE APP OF THE MONTH:

SLASH, FREE

Fed up of typing the same things over and over again into text messages? With Slash, you programme your own “slashes”: lines of text you insert into messages

by typing “/” and selecting the shortcut you wish to use. For example, when you write “/home” it pastes in your entire home address, so you needn’t write out the whole thing. It also makes adding weblinks and map locations a cinch.

TRNDLABS SKEYE PICO DRONE, £39.99

This Dutch company’s claim to have built the “world’s smallest drone” is almost certainly true: the Pico is just over 2cm wide and weighs only 7g, complete with LED lights. Yet it’s powerful enough to hit the ceiling in under a second when all blades are spinning and—like any decent quadrocopter—with a bit of practice on the remote control you can get it diving round your garden and even doing a loopthe-loop. There are drawbacks to its novelty size, though: it quickly becomes too hot to touch, gets caught under or behind furniture and, of course, there’s no room for an on-board camera.

QWERKYWRITER, £230

Some of the most prolific writers of our age—including Danielle Steel, P J O’ Rourke and Woody Allen—continue to bash out their works on old-fashioned typewriters. Why? There’s an undeniable satisfaction to the tactile act of typing, which gets a bit lost in all our modern brushed-aluminium keyboards. The Qwerkywriter is a metal-cladded, wireless keyboard with clicky, clunky typewriter-style keys and even a sliding chrome carriage. It’s compatible with your computer and also has a little groove in which to place your tablet.

ANDROID APP OF THE MONTH: PHOTODIRECTOR, FREE

This neat photo-editing app originates in the Far East and, like many Chinese smartphones on the market, makes special features available for free.

The basic stuff is well-covered: a series of simple swipes and pinches are all it takes to crop, adjust or overlay your image. But the fun filters are the star attraction: edit your snaps so they look like they’re in neon lights or even on a Western-style “Wanted” poster.

BY GEORGINA YATES

Georgina is a fashion and beauty editor for numerous travel titles and a blogger at withgeorgia.com

Prime Cuts

JEWELLERY DESIGNER, painter, sculptor and musician...Sam Photic is a man of many trades, and he’s also largely self-taught. The Devonshire-based artist has always been creative and sought out apprenticeships at an early age. “I got lucky and several wonderful makers took me under their wing,” he says. “I spent a lot of time with a lovely and talented silversmith, Nigel Price, who gave me continual encouragement.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Finding an affinity with jewellery design, Sam (pictured below) set up his own studio and began creating his colourful and complex jewellery collections. His designs radiate a zest for art in all its forms, which makes his work vibrant, striking, cleverly conceived and a joy to wear.

Seeing Green

Khaki has taken over both the shop shelves and the beauty counters as the go-to colour to see this spring.

■ Next’s skirt combines this key colour with the utility trend (£28; next.com).

■ Pull on these khaki leather boots from BHS for comfort and style (£49; bhs.co.uk).

■ Accessorise with matte-look khaki nails (£6; marksandspencer.com).

Each piece is often comprised of several components. “I always put the design first and then find the perfect materials to make it work,” says Sam. “This leads me to a huge range of materials from traditional precious metals to wood and plastic.”

Moreover, Sam cuts his own stones —a very rare skill in the industry and again a discipline that he has taught himself.

“I began to cut stones because every part of every piece of work

I make is important to me. By settling for off-the-shelf cuts, I was losing control over what’s a significant part of the design,” he explains. “It’s a timeconsuming, dirty and hazardous process due to the harmful silica dust, which is probably why very little is done in this country now!”

Visit samphotic. co.uk for details

HIS AND HERS

A unisex fragrance is a foolproof Valentine’s investment— if your partner doesn’t like it, perhaps you will!

The boutique fragrance

Ormonde Jayne is a boutique perfumery that creates interesting and delicate scents. Their Isfarkand fragrance (£90; ormondejayne.com) is popular with both men and women, balancing notes of bergamot with pink pepper and lime.

The luxury-label scent

Jo Malone’s recently released Orris and Sandalwood Cologne

Intense (£105; jomalone. co.uk) combines a warm base of sandalwood with a floral top note of violet and orris.

The high-street perfume

Marks & Spencer have answered the call for gender-free fragrances with the light and fresh Classic Tropical Bamboo Eau de Cologne (£18; marksand spencer.com).

Sewing To Success

What began as a teenage pastime became a career for Cornish textile artist Poppy Treffry, who launched her eponymous company in 2004. In just over ten years, Poppy has gone from supplying local galleries to luxury giants such as Liberty and Fortnum & Mason.

“Believe it or not, I couldn’t sew at school, but my granddad found an old Singer sewing machine at the dump and brought it home for me,” she says. “I started to sew and surprised myself by becoming quite proficient. At the time, I didn’t ever think that this hobby would become my business.”

Poppy remains in charge of design for the company, which still draws inspiration

from the South West. “I sketch nearly every day—anything from the rooftops of St Ives to Cornish fishing villages.”

She and her team still use 1930s Singer sewing machines too. Says Poppy, “They can cope with the amount of sewing my designs require!”

■ Visit poppytreffry.co.uk for details

HIDE AND SEEK

Help your skin recover from the party season with Green People’s award-winning Age-Defy+ Tinted DD Moisturiser (£34.95; green people.co.uk). One dollop of this organic moisturiser delivers a good dose of shea butter, cotton, almond and linseed oils, along with seafennel extract. The result is a sumptuous product that’s rich, hydrating and fills in fine lines, while its tint helps to reduce redness.

Give each other peace of mind as well this Valentine’s Day

Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way

THE RIGHT ADVICE could help you protect what you’ve worked hard for, allowing you to pass as much as possible of your hard-earned wealth to your loved ones, in the fullness of time. There are a number of threats to your wealth in later life, and only with good planning at the right time can you protect your home and savings.

LONG-TERM CARE FEES

The rules are changing this year with the introduction of the Care Act 2014, but the new rules are complex, and research by independent experts and charities shows very few will benefit. Planning and protecting what you’ve worked hard for has never

been more important, but requires specialist advice.

MENTAL INCAPACITY

Many people wrongly assume a spouse or children can automatically step in, but the truth is that without an Enduring or Lasting Power of Attorney in place, both solely and jointly owned accounts could be frozen. A long, complex, intrusive and expensive court process then awaits your loved ones to gain control of your affairs.

KEY SERVICE BENEFITS:

■ Free home visits

■ Specialist legal expertise

■ Value for money

■ All work fully insured

Taking advice from a specialist is vital and you can take the first step by requesting your FREE information pack. Call Reader’s Digest Legal on 0800 031 9516 and quote ref RDL9

An old hand and a debut writer deliver new novels, both of which make for captivating reads

February Fiction

James writes and presents the BBC Radio

4 literary quiz

The Write Stuff

Cometh the Hour

by Jeffrey Archer (Macmillan, £20)

I’m possibly not the first person to say this, but Jeffrey Archer really can spin a cracking yarn. In the sixth volume of The Clifton Chronicles, the main characters have reached the 1970s—and, given that they remain a socially distinguished bunch, we get not only a multi-generational family saga, but also high politics, low politics, a full-on Cold War spy story, two courtroom dramas and lashings of business skulduggery. There’s even a walk-on part for an emerging politician called Margaret Thatcher— whom everybody agrees is a “remarkable” woman.

Not even Archer’s greatest fans could claim that he’s an especially subtle writer. The characters often tell each other things they already know, for our benefit. (“You’re the West German Foreign Minister,” one man says to his friend early on.) And yet, somehow the normal rules of writing don’t seem to apply—because I defy anybody, however elevated their literary tastes, to read this book and not enjoy it to an almost embarrassing extent.

NAME THE AUTHoR

(Answer on p128)

Can you guess the writer from these clues (and, of course, the fewer you need the better)?

1. A quote of hers was, “A woman should say: have I made him happy?”

2. She had a long entry in Who’s Who.

3. Her daughter became Princess Diana’s stepmother.

The Butcher’s Hook

by Janet Ellis (Two Roads, £14.99)

Seeing as Janet Ellis is a former Blue Peter presenter, you might expect her first book to be the normal lightweight celebritynovel fare: a breezy portrait of life on a children’s TV programme, perhaps. In fact, it’s a highly accomplished piece of work, set in Georgian London and told in the compelling and entirely convincing voice of a 19-year-old woman.

When the book begins, Anne Jaccob is still grieving for her little brother who died two years before. But she’s also feeling increasingly suffocated by the gloomy atmosphere at home—and outraged by her father’s plans to marry her off to a ghastly middle-aged business contact. Much more to her liking is the local butcher boy…

For a while the result looks as if it’ll be a straightforward, if high-class, historical novel, with an appealing but never remotely sentimentalised heroine. About two-thirds of the way, though, it suddenly becomes something far wilder. In fact, this transition is probably a bit too sudden—and the final third, while certainly exciting, probably a bit too action-packed. Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that Janet Ellis is an author of genuine talent.

pApERbAcks

■ Go Set a Watchman by Harper lee (Heinemann, £12.99). Find out what all the fuss was about in the (sort of) sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. A cheaper edition follows in July.

■ Things I Wish I’d Known: Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood (Icon, £7.99).

Honest, thought-provoking and funny collection of essays from women writers about becoming a mother. A must for all new mums—and maybe old ones too.

■ Paras by Roger payne (Amberley, £9.99). True-life stories of men who fought in the British airborne services during the Second World War.

■ Friday on My Mind by Nicci French (penguin, £6.99).

Latest in the best-selling series of superior crime fiction featuring psychotherapist Frieda Klein.

■ Up With the Lark by Joan bomford (Hodder, £8.99).

Memoirs of the 2015 winner of the Countryfile Farming Hero award—who’s still farming at 83, 75 years after driving her first tractor.

Think you’re hard to fool? This fascinating non-fiction tome may have you second-guessing yourself RD’s REcoMMENDED READ

The Confidence Con

What makes somebody particularly susceptible to being conned? The alarming answer, according to Maria Konnikova, is being human. For good evolutionary reasons, we’re hard-wired to trust each other—or, putting it more starkly, to be gullible.

And that’s by no means all. Several other, often admirable, human characteristics also make the con artists’ job easier than you might imagine. We tend, for example, to be unreasonably optimistic about how things will turn out. Psychological tests have also proved time and again that our primary response to almost everything is emotional rather than rational—yet, because we rationalise it later, we remain convinced that we’re simply being objective.

Konnikova has plenty of scientific evidence to back up these and other

The Confidence Game: the Psychology of the Con and Why We Fall for It Every Time by Maria Konnikova is published by Canongate at £12.99.

equally fascinating arguments. But she also has lots of eye-popping tales of how con artistry has worked in practice: the fake surgeon who carried out life-saving operations in the Korean War; the fake monk who founded a Christian college; the fake governor who ran a Texan prison. (And they were all the same bloke.)

Drawing on experts’ wisdom and confirming that victims of scams aren’t necessarily the type of people we’d expect, she shows that we’re all suckers for a good story…

Mamoru Samuragochi was a musical phenomenon. Not only was he one of Japan’s most prolific and popular composers—his composition Hiroshima, inspired by his parents’ survival of the bombing, had sold an astonishing 180,000 copies—but he had a remarkable story that made his accomplishments all the more impressive. He was deaf. When he turned 35, a degenerative disease caused the loss of his hearing —and despite it all, he’d gone on to compose beautiful pieces of art. The ‘modern Beethoven’, the media dubbed him. In 2001, Samuragochi told Time magazine that his deafness was ‘a gift from God’.

He remembered well the moment he’d lost his hearing: he’d had a dream —he wrote in his autobiography—in which he was pulled slowly underwater, losing the ability to hear as the water hit his ears. When he woke up, he went immediately to the keyboard. He couldn’t hear a thing. He was distraught. Composing was his life. It was then that he decided to try a small experiment: could he hear Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in his head and recreate the notes from memory? He could. His resulting score perfectly matched the original.

RD EXclUsIVE: MARIA koNNIkoVA’s FAVoURITE coN books

■ The Big Con by David W Maurer (1940). One of the most entertaining glimpses into the lives of con men ever written. Maurer is a linguist and it shows: the language of the street is mesmerising and will hook you on cons if you’re not hooked already.

■ The Great Impostor by Robert crichton (1959). A page-turner about one of the 20th century’s master impostors. Rivals any fiction.

■ The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville (1857).

Melville’s last novel is tough going—but an essential part of con history and a fascinating glimpse into a con man’s mind.

■ The Talented Mr Ripley by patricia Highsmith (1955). One of Highsmith’s most famous novels for good reason. A sheer pleasure from start to finish.

■ The Long Goodbye by Raymond chandler (1953). This classic noir novel isn’t normally considered part of the con pantheon—but the layers of deception are monumental. It doesn’t hurt that this is one of my favourite books of all time.

It was only after he’d lost his hearing that Samuragochi’s career took off in earnest. Hiroshima, his birthplace, chose his composition to commemorate the bombing in a ceremony in 2008. In 2011, he became the only living composer to be included in a list of favourite classical CDs in Recording Arts magazine.

would be used in the Olympics by a Japanese skater. ‘I could not bear the thought of skater Takahashi being seen by the world as co-conspirator in our crime.’

But there was more, Niigaki said. Samuragochi wasn’t even deaf. The illness had been largely faked for the benefit of the story. Alone, the

Samuragochi’s tale seems crazy, but when we become swept up in a powerful narrative, our reason often falls by the wayside

AND THE NAME oF THE AUTHoR Is… Dame Barbara Cartland (who published more than 720 books before her death in 2000).

music might have been good, but not remarkable. Together, the story became irresistibly incredible—so much so that a number of red flags were ignored. In one interview, a reporter noticed that Samuragochi was responding to some questions before the sign interpreter was done making his interpretations; another time, he’d reacted to a doorbell ringing. Samuragochi was a con artist of the highest calibre, the media concurred. But part of the blame, wrote Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s most widely read newspapers, was with the press. ‘The media must also consider our own tendency to fall for tear-jerking stories.’

On February 5, 2014, Samuragochi made a stunning confession. Since 1996, he had employed a ghostwriter. Takashi Niigaki was a 43-year-old lecturer at a Tokyo music college, and for almost 20 years had written on Samuragochi’s behalf. He’d been paid approximately $70,000. He’d wanted to stop, he told the press, but Samuragochi wouldn’t have it: he threatened to commit suicide if the deception were to come to light. For Niigaki, the breaking point was an unprecedented piece of publicity: one of his ghostwritten compositions ’’

Samuragochi’s tale seems crazy. But when we become swept up in powerful narrative, our reason often falls by the wayside.

Books THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Dr Janina Ramirez is a presenter, lecturer and researcher. She specialises in interpreting symbols and examining art works within their historical context. Her latest book The Private Lives of the Saints is out now.

Ecclesiastical History of the English People

BY BEDE

Written by the monk

Bede in Latin in the eighth century and covering the political and ecclesiastical history of England from Julius Caesar’s invasion in 55BC to 731, this book is never far from my side. It wasn’t love at first read, but over the years I’ve turned to Bede again and again to find the nuggets of information that fascinate me: who killed who in battle, what miracle happened where. To me, Bede is the ultimate scholar and bibliophile.

Wuthering Heights

BY EMILY BRONTË

My mother had a wonderful book collection and let me stay up as late as I liked, so long as I was reading. This was the first grown-up book I read.

I was only seven and will never forget the emotional sensation of finding myself weeping when I got to the last page. That a book could cause such a reaction was extraordinary to me.

The Faerie Queene

BY EDMUND SPENSER

I’m a bit of glutton for a punishing read. When I studied English at Oxford, I set myself the task of reading this massive (yet unfinished) poem from cover to cover. I’m so glad I did. It was written to honour Elizabeth I, but you start to feel Spenser’s growing disillusionment with the Tudor court amid the beautiful, restless poetry. Much more than a clichéd Arthurian legend with knights and princesses, it becomes an insight into Spenser’s emotional breakdown. I realised then that I could happily spend my life studying medieval texts and history. As told to Caroline Hutton

You Couldn’t Make It Up

Win £50 for your true, funny stories! Go to readersdigest. co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

MY FRIEND’S 17-MONTHOLD BABY was crawling around when we last went for a visit. He’d had an accident in his nappy, so my friend picked him up and said, “Oh, isn’t he adorable? Joe’s made a gift for his Daddy.”

My partner, sitting next to me, muttered under his breath, “This man must be really easy to buy something for on Father’s Day.”

GINETTE

HUGHES, Hertfordshire

I HAD TO SMILE when I overheard a teenager asking his mum on the bus what amnesia meant.

Without pausing, she responded, “It’s a condition that allows a woman who’s gone through childbirth to consider having children again.”

GENNA BURTON, Denbighshire

THE OTHER DAY, my daughter Bethan was watching cartoons on TV and was obviously puzzled by something.

“Mummy,” she asked, “Why does

“At least I know this one’s from you— it’s got a beer stain on it!”

Bugs Bunny wear no clothes, but when he goes swimming he puts on a swimming costume?”

SUZANNE ROSWELL, Isle of Wight

A FRIEND WAS TELLING ME how the first-aid classes he attended had prepared him for an emergency. He said he saw a lady hit by a car and she had many serious injuries.

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, thanks to my first-aid training I knew how to handle the situation,”

BY STEVE JONES

he explained. “I sat on the kerb and put my head between my knees to stop me from fainting.”

BRENDA RAINBOW, Suffolk

I WAS RECENTLY IN PARIS and saw the following sign:

Coffee: 4 Euro

Coffee, please: 3 Euro

Good morning, coffee please: 2 Euro

It’s not only in the UK that people need to be reminded of basic manners!

FIONA MCGARRY, Hampshire

ARRIVING LATE FOR WORK, my colleague launched into a full-scale rant to anyone who would listen about the increasing number of cars on his route and the fact that the traffic lights always seemed to be against him. The young trainee receptionist sitting at the front desk nodded sympathetically.

The next day he got in even later and was clearly in a state of some agitation, having arranged to meet an important client first thing.

“Is Mr Kim still in the building?” he demanded of the girl at reception. “Did you tell him I’d been delayed?”

“Don’t worry.” she replied reassuringly, “He’s waiting for you. I explained that you’d probably got tied up in the red-light district again!”

BELINDA HARDISTY, Hertfordshire

MY DAUGHTER WAS PESTERING ME and my patience was wearing thin. I told her I didn’t want to hear the word

“Mummy” for at least ten minutes. There was a pull at my coat and a little voice said, “Mrs Roberts, can I...?”

SEREN ROBERTS, Flintshire

AT MY SISTER’S PLACE OF WORK, a shoplifter was caught stealing a bottle of whisky. He was interrogated and the manager of the store gave him a severe telling off. He told him that if he bought the bottle he’d let him off this time, and mentioned the price of the whisky.

The shoplifter cheekily replied, “That’s more than I was intending to spend. Can you show me a cheaper bottle?”

LOIS JONES, Clywd

ONE OF MY GRANDCHILDREN, who was about five years old at the time, was staying with his aunt and uncle for a day or two.

The doorbell rang one morning and standing on the doorstep were two policemen, who informed my daughter that they were responding to a 999 call made from her address. She apologised profusely and presumed the culprit had been her youngest son. However, it turned out to be her nephew.

The consequences of making such a call were carefully explained to him and he said he’d never do it again. But it had been hard to keep a straight face when he first owned up, as he’d insisted it was a mistake—he’d meant to call the fire brigade!

THOMSON, Fife

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it pays to increase your

Word Power

Over 70 years ago, we launched “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power”, which soon became one of our best-loved features. To celebrate, here’s a little treat: a goody bag of Word Power words from 1945. Have fun! Answers are on the next page.

1. malevolent adj—A: homely. B: wishing evil. C: bad-tempered.

2. hirsute adj—A: hateful. B: hairy. C: horrible.

3. cartographer n—A: leader of a chorus. B: one who arranges a ballet. C: map-maker.

4. sacrosanct adj—A: sacred. B: profane. C: wealthy.

5. antithesis n A: proofreader’s term. B: marked dislike. C: the direct opposite.

6. abrogate v— A: override brutally. B: to abolish, repeal. C: judge unfairly.

7. torque n—A: turban. B: jest. C: that which produces a twist.

8. punctilious adj—A: minutely particular about details and forms. B: financially careful about

trivial matters. C: cautious about important subjects.

9. limpid adj—A: calm. B: relaxed. C: clear.

10. attrition n A: state of being worn by friction. B: condition of bitterness. C: lack of nourishment.

11. entomologist n—A: specialist in word histories. B: specialist in insects. C: student of birds.

12. euphemism n—A: an affectation of elegance in writing. B: loss of memory. C: less offensive expression.

13. enervate v—A: to frighten. B: strengthen. C: weaken.

14. inveigh v—A: to carry. B: rail bitterly. C: entice.

15. fetish n—A: anything decayed. B: Arabian dancer. C: object of blind devotion.

Answers

1. malevolent—[B] wishing evil. “I’m going to the other room to avoid his malevolent stare.”

2. hirsute—[B] hairy. “If I don’t shave, I’ll look rather hirsute.”

3. cartographer—[C] map-maker. “Even though he’s a cartographer, he needs driving directions sometimes.”

4. sacrosanct—[A] sacred. “Any secret you tell me is sacrosanct; I won’t reveal it to anyone.”

5. antithesis—[C] the direct opposite. “When it comes to whether a film is good or bad, her opinion is often the antithesis of mine.”

6. abrogate[B] to abolish, repeal. “I’ve decided to abrogate your curfew because you’ve done all your chores.”

7. torque—[C] that which produces a twist. “To bowl a good leg break, the bowler uses his wrist to create a potent torque.”

8. punctilious—[A] minutely particular about details and forms. “His very punctilious nature makes him the perfect person to organise the office.”

9. limpid—[C] clear. “I actually enjoy getting emails from him because of his limpid writing style.”

10. attrition—[A] state of being worn down by friction. “Their constant battles resulted in the kind of attrition that would end any relationship.”

11. entomologist—[B] a specialist in insects. “My father is an entomologist; he’ll know what kind of ant that is.”

12. euphemism—[C] a less offensive expression. “My uncle doesn’t like to call himself a bin man; he prefers the euphemism ‘sanitation expert’.”

13. enervate—[C] to weaken. “Lying in the sun for a couple of hours tends to enervate me these days.”

14. inveigh—[B] to rail bitterly. “She inveighed against the extra fee.”

WORD OF THE DAY*

SLUBBER: to stain or sully

Alternative suggestions:

“to lubricate with saliva.”

“an eraser used to rub out dribble stains.”

“the trail left by slugs.”

“Whale drool.”

“a baby crawling around in a very wet nappy.”

15. fetish—[C] an object of blind devotion. “His car fetish is so bad that he spends thousands of pounds buying classic vehicles.”

VOcABULARY RATingS

9 & below: sub-par. 10–12: standard. 13–15: splendid.

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BrainTeasers

Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles and mind stretchers, then check your answers on page 139.

By MARCEL DANESI

STAIR TRAINING

Proceeding up the staircase, the numbers form a logical sequence.

What number belongs on the top step?

GRIDLOCK

This grid follows a secret rule. See if you can spot what it is and fill in the missing digit.

WHAT’S THE RULE?

What number is missing from the fourth figure?

FINAL COUNT

Including those formed by overlapping figures, how many triangles are there in the image below?

ROUNDABOUT

What number should appear in place of the question mark?

* Entry is open only to residents of the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of Ireland aged 18 or over. It is not open to employees of Vivat Direct Limited (t/a Reader’s Digest), its subsidiary companies and all other persons associated with the competition.

BrainTeasers: Answers

STAIR TRAINING

840. Each number is found by multiplying the preceding one by the number that corresponds to the position of the step. The number on the second step is twice the preceding number (7 x 2 = 14), the number on the third step is three times the preceding number (14 x 3 = 42) and so on.

GRIDLOCK

1. The Roman numeral at the top of each column indicates the number of 1s it contains. Therefore, column IV must contain four 1s.

WHAT’S THE RULE?

32. The number in the top triangle of each figure is the sum of the two numbers in the lower triangles plus the number of symbols inside the rectangle.

FINAL COUNT

38.

ROUNDABOUT

4321. Starting at the top and moving clockwise, the four-digit number in each circle begins with one of the digits between 1 and 4 in ascending order. The three remaining digits always stay in the same order they occupied in the preceding circle.

£50 pRIzE qUESTION

Answer published in the March issue

Which is the odd word out?

caravan realise busiest climate blanket

The first correct answer we pick on February 4 wins £50!* Email excerpts @readersdigest.co.uk

ANSWER TO jANUARy’S pRIzE qUESTION

The missing number is 71

AND THE £50 GOES TO…

John Royal, Durham

Laugh!

Win £50 for every reader’s joke we publish! Go to readersdigest. co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

A MAGICIAN WAS WORKING on a cruise ship. The audience was different each week, so he did the same tricks over and over.

Unfortunately, the captain’s parrot saw all the shows and began to understand how the magician did every trick. He started shouting in the middle of the show: “Look, it’s not the same hat. Look, he’s hiding the flowers under the table. Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?”

The magician was furious but, as it was the captain’s parrot, there wasn’t anything he could do.

Then one day the ship sank and the magician found himself floating on a piece of wood with the parrot. They glared at each other but said nothing.

Finally, after a week, the parrot said, “OK, I give up. Where’s the boat?”

SEEN ONLINE

I WENT TO WATERSTONES and asked the woman for a book about turtles. “Hardback?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “And little heads.”

COMEDIAN MARK SIMMONS

WHEN DAN DISCOVERED that he was going to inherit an enormous fortune when his sickly father died, he decided he needed a woman to enjoy it with. So one evening he went to a singles bar where he spotted the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her natural beauty took his breath away.

“I may look like just an ordinary man,” he said as he walked up to her, “But in just a week or two, my father will die and I’ll inherit £20m.”

Rather impressed, the woman went home with him that evening. And, three days later, she became his stepmother.

LAWRENCE JENKINS, Denbighshire

ON VALENTINE’S DAY, you have to come up with this s*** every year. Last week I just wrote, “I still love you, see last year’s card for full details.”

COMEDIAN MICHAEL MCINTYRE

A YOUNG COUPLE GETS MARRIED and the groom asks his bride if he can have a dresser drawer of his own

that she will never open. The bride agrees. After 30 years of marriage, she notices that his drawer has been left open. She peeks inside and sees three golf balls and £1,000.

She confronts her husband and asks for an explanation. He explains, “Every time I was unfaithful to you, I put a golf ball in the drawer.”

She feels three times in 30 years isn’t bad and asks, “But what about the £1,000?”

He replies, “Whenever I got a dozen golf balls, I sold them.”

SEEN ONLINE

I WENT TO A KARAOKE BAR last night that didn’t play any Seventies music. At first I was afraid. Oh, I was petrified.

COMEDIAN STEWART FRANCIS

A TAXI PASSENGER tapped the driver on the shoulder to ask him a question. The driver screamed, lost control of the car, nearly hit a bus, went up on the footpath and stopped inches from a shop window.

For a second everything went quiet, then the driver said, “Look, mate— don’t ever do that again. You scared the daylights out of me!”

The passenger apologised and said, “I didn’t realise that a little tap would scare you so much.”

The driver replied, “Sorry, it’s not really your fault. Today is my first day as a cab driver. I’ve been driving a hearse for the last 25 years.”

SEEN AT ACTIVEJOKES.COM

HAPPY VALENTINES?

These people should have probably stuck with flowers and chocolates... (as seen on the internet)

THE DEPRESSING THING about tennis is that no matter how much I play, I’ll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They’re relentless.

COMEDIAN MITCH HEDBURG

PETE AND LARRY hadn’t seen each other in many years. Now they were having a long talk, trying to fill the gap of those years by telling each other about their lives. Finally, Pete invited Larry to visit him at his new flat. “I’ve got a wife and three kids and I’d love for you to visit,” he said.

“Great. Where do you live?”

“Here’s the address,” says Pete. “There’s plenty of parking behind the flat. Park and come around to the front door, kick it open with your foot, go to the lift and press the button with your left elbow, then

enter! When you reach the sixth floor, go down the corridor until you see my name on the door. Then press the door with your right elbow and I’ll let you in.”

“Good. But what’s all this business of kicking the front door open and pressing buttons with my elbows?

Says Pete, “Well, surely you’re not coming empty-handed?” SEEN ONLINE

A MAN SHOWS UP at his friend’s fancy-dress party in the nude and carrying a woman on his back. The friend answers the door and, shocked, asks, “What are you supposed to be?”

The man says, “I’m a snail.”

His friend asks, “And who’s she?”

“Michelle,” the man says.

GLORIA WILDING, Merseyside

ANIMAL NATURE

Other creatures are always a bit mysterious. Here are some unedited tweets that sum up our thoughts and relationships with other species (even if you hadn’t quite realised it yet):

@audipenny Do storks carry anything else or are they just like obsessed with babies?

@Scphietab My mum was too embarrassed to tell the vet our tortoise was called voldetort so she just said his name was Susan.

@plant and mineral Today a 6 yr old girl asked me if butterflies are flowers that escaped.

@tarashoe Some cats are like “i hate this dumb name you gave me.” But i like the ones that are clearly saying “FOOLS! COWER BEFORE THE IRE OF WAFFLES!”

Beat the Cartoonist!

Think of a witty caption for this cartoon—the three best suggestions, along with the cartoonist’s original, will be posted on our website in midFebruary. If your entry gets the most votes, you’ll win £100 and a framed copy of the cartoon, with your caption.

Submit your captions online at readersdigest. co.uk/caption by February 12. We’ll announce the winner in our April issue.

December’s Winner

It’s gone from closely fought to one-sided. Reader Margaret Bain’s caption, “I presume you don’t want me to help you gathering firewood?” secured an enormous 55 per cent of the online vote, trouncing cartoonist Peter King’s original, “Oh yeah? And just how can I be making it worse for myself?!” Like turkeys voting for Christmas, our professionals seem like a lost cause.

IN THE MARCH ISSUE

“It’s All I Ever Want to Do!”

TV chef James Martin opens up about his passion, the success of Saturday Kitchen and why the long hours are worth every second

Plus

• The Making of a Jihadist

• Best of British: Market Towns

• Fighting Lung Cancer

• “I Remember”: Robson Green

60-Second Stand-Up

We chat to deep-thinking funny man

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE OF YOUR OWN JOKES?

I wouldn’t say I’m a fickle comedy writer and performer, but it’s whichever one’s working best.

HAVE YOU FOUND ANY PARTS OF THE COUNTRY TO BE FUNNIER THAN OTHERS?

Sometimes I’ve done gigs where they’re a bit uptight and a bit buttoned-up, and you think, this is very south-east England

WHAT’S YOUR MOST MEMORABLE HECKLE EXPERIENCE?

I once saw a very bad magician who was being heckled by a woman in the audience for being terrible and generally not very nice. He decided to get her up as a volunteer. She walked onto the stage, put her hand into her knickers, pulled something out and threw it at his face. I’ll never forget that—if only because I’m glad it didn’t happen to me.

IF YOU WERE A FLY ON THE WALL, WHOSE WALL WOULD YOU BE ON?

ANY FUNNY TALES ABOUT A TIME YOU BOMBED ON STAGE?

They’re not that funny. In fact, the longer I do I this the more I think the test of being a stand-up is controlling your destructive inner voice.

I’m not interested in other people. Nowadays, if you want to be invited into someone’s life, you just have to open your computer or turn on the telly. Everyone’s an over-sharer.

Alun is touring nationwide with “A Show With A Man In It”. Visit aluncochrane.co.uk for details and to book tickets.