Reader's Digest UK Jul 2018

Rupert Everett On Love, Death And The Internet

Brian Blessed “WOMEN ARE MY RELIGION”

+ THE MAN WHO NEVER FORGETS A FACE SUMMER READS 12 Books For The Beach

Contents

Features

16 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

Olly Mann is on a mission to improve Britain’s hotels

ENTERTAINMENT

20 INTERVIEW: RUPERT EVERETT

The actor-turned-director on his biggest project yet

28 “I REMEMBER”: BRIAN BLESSED

The actor reminisces on his childhood and career

HEALTH

36 TIME TO STOP TICKS

Tic-borne illnesses are on the rise—but treatment is slow

INSPIRE

62 BEST OF BRITISH: SKY GARDENS

We pay a visit to some of the best British sky gardens to enjoy the sun in

72 THE MAN WHO CAN’T FORGET A FACE

Meet the super-recognisers assisting our police forces

TRAVEL & ADVENTURE

82 VIVA LAS VEGAS

Tamara Hinson quickly discovers that there’s more to Las Vegas than gambling

90 JAPAN: LOST IN TRANSLATION

Is successful solo travel around Japan possible, without speaking Japanese?

100 A SHORE THING

Searching for the perfect sandy getaway? Richard Mellor has the inside scoop on the best beaches

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In This Issue…

Sat on a flight to Rome to interview Rupert Everett, I didn’t know what to expect. Would I encounter the witty, handsome voice of reason of My Best Friend’s Wedding? The hilarious cad of An Ideal Husband or the cheeky star of countless celebrity chat shows? The answer was somewhere between the three. The Rupert Everett I met was warm, funny and gave me the immediate sense of sharing devilish anecdotes with an old friend. You can read the resultant interview on p20, where Rupert talked of the London gay scene he loved in the 1970s, the role he was “born to play” and why he believes we’re living on the cusp of a revolution.

Anna

Did you know that Brian Blessed was friends with Agatha Christie and she would frequently make him tea and play Clair De Lune on a broken-down piano for him? The great actor recounts this, and many other incredible stories from his life for us on p28. After that there’s a whole other set of stories for you to delve into this summer as our resident book reviewer James Walton reveals some of his favourite holiday page-turners on p124. From a side-splitting portrait of parenthood to the off-the-wall story of FIFA’s fall from grace, there’s bound to be something to whet your appetite for a delectable read.

Eva

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Over to You

LETTERS ON THE MAY ISSUE

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

LETTER OF THE MONTH...

I enjoyed reading Olly Mann’s article “Home from Home.” A couple of years back my wife and I found ourselves living in my old bedroom at my parents’ house for six months until we got ourselves back on more solid financial foundations. We too found it to be a period of family bonding. At the time my father’s health was deteriorating rapidly and my mother was grateful to have us “on site” to give her much needed respite from her caring role. It also helped me to realise just how exhausting looking after my elderly father was and after we moved to our new house I made sure we visited more often to give my mother some much needed free time. Like Olly, we also got caught out by the generational “thing” for switching all the plug sockets off at night. For the first three weeks we lived there we seriously thought that mum had a

really poor internet deal which only worked until 9pm each night! Despite the odd problems like this I would not have had it any different and the bond between us and my mother was made stronger because of it, especially now that my dear father is no longer with us.

Andy Bedford, West Yorkshire

It was interesting to read Olly Mann’s article about staying with his in-laws. But on reflection doesn’t that show something of what’s wrong with our society today? The family structure has been “rent asunder” by the perceived need to “leave’ home,” find a job, settle down and get on with life.

Many civilisations lived with several generations under one roof. The family ties were therefore a lot stronger, and life was easier and cheaper. No babysitting costs, no retirement home and everyone would assist in the general running of a household.

Some may say, “But these are poorer countries, they don’t have too many other options.” But are we any richer because we have money in the bank, a nice house (so we all have our separate rooms), a car sat in the drive and luxury holidays abroad?

Maybe we need to rethink the definition of a family—a dictionary definition is “A group consisting of two parents and their children living together as a unit.” Isn‘t that a bit limiting?

Martin B Dymond, Somerset

LONG LIVE MR. WALLACE

Danny Wallace should rule the world in my opinion. I agreed with his views on allowing kids to write from the heart, not write to be scored. Children should be inspired, not nagged to get good marks.

I think it’s more important that children are sleeping well at night, climbing trees if and when they want, focusing on basic skills, playing sport or playing an instrument. Parents need to demonstrate a positive attitude towards education to children so they would feel better about going to school.

And it’s important to note that research in the US has shown that teenagers who spend more time with their parents have higher self-esteem and confidence.

Geoff Sumner, London

Oh, Danny Wallace! You can certainly sit at my dinner table anytime—I can just imagine the conversation, no PC with you! How right you are about rudeness; I’m amazed at the people who never say “please” and “ thank you“ but, of course, that has to be learned from parents/carers. As are all manners! And as for creating a voting test, I’m pretty certain that almost 99 per cent of the country had little or no idea how complicated Brexit would be! (I’m sure I would have failed the test though!)

Janice

Reynolds, South Devon

BEATING BURGLARS

One of many people’s worst nightmares is returning home following a day out or a trip abroad, only to find the house ransacked; having been turned upside down by burglars, with many valuable possessions stolen. And I should know. I was burgled twice in the same house when I lived in Norfolk, and once when I lived in Spain.

So your article “How to beat

burglars” was a must-read. Thank you for all the good advice.

The trouble is none of us tend to take enough security measures until we’ve been burgled. But it’s not worth leaving it until it’s too late. Since taking your suggestions on board, I can now stand outside my house and say, “How would I get in?” and I now know I can’t—without a key! Many thanks.

Jessika Cooper, Devon

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY

“How to stop worrying” could have been written just for me, because I am one of the world’s worst worriers. Everyone worries. It can be helpful when it spurs you to take action and solve a problem. But if you’re preoccupied with “what ifs” and worstcase scenarios, worry becomes a problem. Unrelenting anxious thoughts and fears can be paralysing.

Reading about mindfulness set me thinking. There really is no way to cure worrying, but I can learn to get better and better at recognising it and gently guiding myself back to a sense of perspective and what matters. By training my brain to stay calm and look at life from a more balanced and less fearful perspective. I felt a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I read this article. Thank you.

Jayne Moynuex, Flintshire

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PHOTO: © IMAGO STOCK&PEOPLE

...differently

When the rivers and canals of southern Bangladesh are suddenly teeming with activity, it’s a sure sign that the guava harvest is underway. The sweet, yellowish-green fruits are often picked from the water and sold directly from the farmers’ boats. Fruit grower Niripen (previous page) uses a long stick to pluck the ripe fruits from the trees. A small net attached to the end of the rod stops the guavas from falling to the ground and getting damaged. Once they’re safely on board his boat, he can sell the freshly harvested fruits at one of the many floating markets.

Hotel Room Mann-Ifesto

This month Olly Mann lends some friendly advice to budget hotels on how to improve their service

I’ve been travelling, for work. Staying in a lot of hotels, paid for by my employers; satisfyingly, I’ve now reached the “…and will you be providing a hotel?” stage of my freelance career. But I’m not exactly being put up at The Ritz.

Left alone in a series of dispiriting business hotels, I’ve had plenty of time to consider what might improve my experience. I will now share these thoughts with you. (I could have filled out a customer feedback survey, but this isn’t the first time I’ve abused the privilege of being a published columnist and it won’t be the last, so strap in.) Here are my Olly Mann action-points for improving budget hotels. My Mann-

Olly Mann presents Four Thought for BBC Radio 4, and the award-winning podcasts The Modern Mann and Answer Me This!

ifesto, if you will. Let’s hope senior management are reading…

Let me start, as I frequently do, with coffee. Britain is a nation transformed: no longer are we exclusively tea-drinkers, lorded over by those freaky flat-capped cartoon Yorkshiremen, fearful to order a cappuccino lest we seem too Continental. We now expect our hotel breakfast buffets to proffer a range of coffees and they dutifully, uniformly, oblige: filter, espresso, foamed milk. Many hotels even have a branch of Starbucks or Costa in the lobby, so you can depart holding a hot branded beverage in your hands, like you’re Sarah Jessica Parker getting papped in Manhattan. Yet, in the bedrooms themselves, caffeine provision has remained unchanged for decades: a kettle, tea, and sodding Nescafe.

Every enlightened Englishman now considers instant coffee granules a mere simulacrum of

BY KEVIN WALKER

hotel. What if I overly-lubricated my feet, slipped on that bright plastic floor and tumbled straight out of an un-barred window?

Next: the TV. Whilst it’s true that on-demand media is slowly usurping linear broadcasting, most hotels have finally cottoned on to the fact that decent wi-fi is esssential—so, if guests wish to watch Netflix or whatever, it’s safe to assume they will do so using their own devices. When they switch on the telly, by contrast, they want a quick fix. Perhaps it’s 6am and they want the news headlines and the on-screen clock. Or it’s 2am, and they’ve drunkenly crawled into bed with a kebab, and coffee, just as we’ve come to realise Sunny D isn’t really orange juice, Angel Delight isn’t really strawberry mousse and many of our Facebook “friends” have no idea who we are. So, why do hotels still give us instant?

The obvious upgrade would be coffee pod machines, or even drip filters, as in American motels. But there are a range of cheap alternatives: cafetieres, coffee bags, liquid espresso. Even those “baristastyle” granules, if you really insist. How can it be that it’s possible get a “proper” coffee on a budget airline 30,000 feet above Gatwick, but you can’t get it in your bedroom at the airport hotel? Madness.

Next, let’s consider toiletries. Shampoo and shower gel are the clear priority here, so I’m pleased to report that only one establishment has recently failed to provide me with these—and that was the one where the room was constructed from wipe-clean bright plastic, like a 1980s McDonalds restaurant, and the window had bars on it so you couldn’t kill yourself.

But what about toothpaste, eh? We’ve all turned up at a hotel and forgotten toothpaste. Yet, despite complimentary toothpaste being a staple of hotels across Asia, for some reason European hoteliers have failed to follow suit, preferring instead to offer us… body lotion.

I have never in my life cracked open a bottle of body lotion in a budget

“What if I overlylubricated my feet, slipped and tumbled straight

out of an unbarred window? ”

crave a bit of Family Guy. Or they’re in town for a wedding, and want to check the weather.

These people want to pick up the remote, press “1” or “3” or “7” and be entertained. What they definitely, DEFINITELY do not want is to have to navigate a bespoke “smart” TV menu that offers them the opportunity to peruse a slideshow of steaks available in the hotel’s underwhelming grill restaurant. Nor do they wish to stream media from a USB stick, because no-one, literally no-one, ever thinks to come to a budget hotel prepared with a USB

stick full of media content to dock into the TV.

Oh, and dare I mention… the Bible. Why is there a Bible in my drawer? Am I on Desert Island Discs? Why would a hotel which doesn’t see fit to provide coat-hangers or drinking water bother providing that? Look, I know that this is technically a Christian country—in the same way that Cheryl Cole is technically a singer. But, whilst it is charming hospitality to offer Bibles to Christians who actually request them, if a book must be left in my drawer, I’d prefer something less controversial, and certainly less evangelical. Perhaps something by Fern Britton.

Finally, please can we have adultsized glasses for orange juice?

Orange juice isn’t a shot. It’s very much a tall drink, I would say.

There. That’s it. You get all my advice, for free. Everything’s premier but the price.

DOUBLE THREATS

These celebrities can play more than just characters:

Anthony Hopkins plays the piano and composes his own music

Jimmy Kimmel is a master of the bass clarinet

Steve Martin plays the banjo and regularly performs at jazz festivals

Condoleezza Rice plays the piano and dreamed of becoming a concert pianist as a teenager

Joaquin Phoenix learned the guitar for his role as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line

Rupert Everett:

“

You Have To Be The Failure They Want You To Be”

The actor-turned-director speaks to Anna Walker about his most ambitious project to date

“YOU

IT’S A PERFECT SUMMER DAY IN ROME and I’m sat beneath the leafy shade of Hotel Locarno’s botanical courtyard. The sun creeps through gaps in the wisteria, warming my skin. There’s hardly a sound besides the chirping of birds, the rumbling of passing traffic and the clink of ice cubes slowly losing their battle against the Roman sun.

“Look at that bird! It’s trying to f**k the other one!” Rupert breaks the silence.

Rome has been Rupert’s home since January. He’s here filming an upcoming TV adaptation of The Name of the Rose, and there’s still another month until they wrap. But today we’re talking about a bigger project—one that’s been ten years in the making.

Several critics have described Rupert’s turn as the Irish playwright, poet and infamous wit Oscar Wilde in The Happy Prince (a film he also wrote, directed and produced) as the role he was “born to play.” But when I ask if he’s comfortable with that notion, he shifts in his chair uneasily.

“Well I always think it’s quite a dangerous thing to say. It has slightly reductive undertones…but that’s if you’re being paranoid and going over it asking, ‘what does that mean?’ ” He pulls an agonised face, disarmingly goofy as he contorts his handsome features.

“No, I think Wilde is a great role for me, so I agree. What I loved most though,” he grins deviously, “was working with me as a director.”

I laugh, caught off guard. Would he say that he’s his favourite of all the directors he’s worked with?

“I aaam actually,” Rupert purrs, the corners of his mouth curling like the Cheshire cat, his voice like butter. “Because I made my own performance so much better in the edit. I managed to make it into much more of a world class performance.”

Although he would love to direct again—“God, I could do so many things with me as a director”— Rupert fears that he’s discovered this particular passion a little too late. “I’m quite old really. The trouble is, it’s a young person’s game.”

I protest that, at 58, he hardly counts as over the hill.

“

The trouble with a screenplay is that it’s dead if it’s not made. So I just thought, ‘f**k it. I’ll make it myself’ ”

“I am,” he fires back. “I can’t even do catch up on the TV.”

However happily he’s taken to directing, the journey here was hardly a smooth one. Having performed in several Wilde plays, and two successful films (An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest) it struck Rupert that he’d be rather well suited to playing Oscar himself.

So, he wrote a script. Not about the adored Oscar, darling of Victorian high society, but the other Oscar. The Oscar who endured two years in prison charged with “gross indecency” when his homosexuality was made public. The Oscar who lived wildly beyond his means,

almost as a vagabond, avoiding England, “the natural home of hypocrisy” and relying upon the generosity of his loyal friends until his untimely death, aged just 46.

RUPERT FINISHED THE SCRIPT in 2008. It’s sparklingly witty, desperately sad and perfectly Oscar. Scott Rudin—one of Hollywood’s most sought-after producers—read it and loved it.

“I just thought, kerching!” Rupert explains, snapping his fingers. “I’ve arrived!”

“Then Scott said, ‘But you’re not playing Wilde. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is.’ He probably didn’t think I was a good enough actor. I said no.

Critics have clamoured to dub Rupert’s turn in The Happy Prince “the role he was born to play”

And from then on things just got harder and harder.”

What followed were months of liaising with directors, during which time Rupert describes himself as “on the other side of the mirror, trying to get back in.” He’d been riding the crest of a Hollywood wave that began with My Best Friend’s Wedding and ended with the universally panned The Next Best Thing, co-starring his former best friend, Madonna. After two years, all six directors he’d approached had said no.

“The trouble with a screenplay is that it’s dead if it’s not made. So I thought, F**k it. I’ll make it myself.”

“Show business is like being in the water, and now and then you get

swept into a current. You can really feel that sometimes, the current taking you along.” Crucial to getting into that current was the early attachment of an all-star cast, including Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Tom Wilkinson and Colin Morgan. Firth in particular, who Everett affectionately refers to as “Frothy”, provided emotional support as well as his star credentials.

“If he’d dropped out of the film, it would have collapsed. The nice thing about our business as you get older is that if you can keep working, it becomes much more fun. When you’re young you’re so desperate to work and desperate to be handsome and desperate to be sexy. When

Rupert became a household name when he starred alongside Julia Roberts in 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding

you’re older you don’t really care so much and you’ve developed a whole lot of relationships along the way. Frothy is just very supportive and kind and generous with his time. So yes, he’s my best, best, best, best, best friend.”

ONCE OUR LAUGHTER HAS SUBSIDED,

I wonder aloud if Rupert’s insistence on one particular aspect of casting—playing Oscar Wilde himself—had anything to do with what he describes as Hollywood’s “anti-gay” culture. Was there a sense that such an important figure in the history of LGBT rights—a man so significant that Rupert regularly describes him as Christ-like—should be played by a gay man?

“I wasn’t quite so unselfish,” he chuckles. “I really just wanted to make a good role for myself. I’m not against straight people playing gay roles but I think it should be a twoway thing and it just isn’t.”

Rupert has spoken openly about his sexuality for so long now, it’s easy to forget that there was a time when this wouldn’t have felt as effortless for him.

“It’s a difficult thing for people to grasp now, but when I came out as gay in London in the mid-Seventies, being gay had only been legal for six or seven years. When I used to go to gay bars at 16 or 17, I would go around the block so many times making sure nobody who knew my

“ When I came out in London during the mid-Seventies, being gay had only been legal for six or seven years ”

family was there before I would dip into the club.”

“The police, who were always very slow to pick up new liberal laws, decided that anything that happened in public, ie, me touching your leg, or having a snog, was still illegal. There were tons of raids, tons of arrests and tons of queens being herded into paddy wagons just to be humiliated.”

“What was amazing about the end of the Seventies was that the gay scene felt classless and ageless. Because the scene was so small, you could have a 70-year-old Duke talking to a 25-year-old plumber. It was a sort of masonic world, it was still secret, and you counted, in a way, just for getting there.”

A secret world no longer. “It’s only been a second since then, but everything’s changed. In the gay culture now, there aren’t even any clubs. They’ve given up on all that because everything is happening virtually, online. I really object to the

“YOU

“ I think dying is a great thing. It’s the end and that’s it. You don’t have to think about anything after that ”

virtual world and I think in 100 years’ time when we look back on the chaos that I [predict] is about to come, it will be because of the internet.”

And it’s not just the changes in gay culture that have Rupert concerned.

“Somehow [the internet] turns everyone into an extremist. The voices that can be bothered to come out on all the subjects are normally the most extreme ones, and so you suddenly get a world where the extreme voice looks like the norm but actually it’s not.”

“No one can disagree with anyone anymore and it’s brutal. It’s a kind of fascism and it will lead us to revolution, I think. And personally, I don’t think there’s ever been a revolution that’s brought about anything good, so it’s really rather a strange moment.”

The internet age has also transformed the nature of fame. Has this ever made his own celebrity hard to handle?

“Well, everyone wants to be famous so it’s a waste of time thinking it’s too much. No, it’s never

enough! What’s difficult is when fame disappears.What normally happens is that you become very successful when you’re 22 and everyone tells you about how fabulous you are and how you’re much more talented than your little raisin greedy eyes actually are. They say you’ve got lots of hidden depth, which you don’t.”

Rupert laughs and it’s clear who we’re really talking about.

“You start to believe it all, and then the river moves away from you, but you’re still surrounded by a gang of your own goons. If you go on being that person then your life is going to be a disaster. You have to be the failure they want you to be, and then wait for another time when you can wooomf,” he makes a squeaky sound and mimes poking his head above the ground like a meerkat, “climb back up the ladder.”

Rupert first realised he had “made it” while starring in his debut West End play. “There were posters of me all over the underground and on all the buses. It was so wonderful that I couldn’t stop looking. I had a copy of the poster at home and I would look at it every night, going over every single corner. The sad thing is, you always want more.”

OSCAR WILDE’S

LEGACY—the legacy that inspired The Happy Prince—extends far beyond plays and poetry. He began a discourse on

the nature of love that many consider the beginning of the fight for gay rights. When I ask Rupert about his hopes for his own legacy, he clearly becomes uncomfortable.

“I don’t know…” He toys with his glass, that famous voice so quiet now that the clink of the ice in his orange juice threatens to drown it out. “I can’t really think about that stuff. I don’t think it will be anything.” There’s a long silence. “I don’t think I’ve done enough to have a legacy really. Maybe as a diarist, a Samuel Pepys-type character. I mean… I think dying is a great thing. It’s the end and that’s it. You don’t really have to think about anything after that.”

“The thing about Oscar was that

even at the end he was a like a clown. He retained a sense of humour, even if it became a slightly gallows sense of humour by the end. Sure, he fell in the gutter, but I think my film is encapsulated by that quote of his, ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’ ”

Rupert has certainly endured his own fair share of gutters in his career but looking at him now, that striking face etched with lines that animate each time he talks about his life’s passion— “show business”—it’s obvious that the stars have never left his eyes.

The Happy Prince is in cinemas across the UK now

Rupert’s The Happy Prince took an impressive ten years to make it from script to screens

Brian Blessed I REMEMBER…

The charismatic, deep-voiced star of stage and screen, Brian Blessed, 81, is best known for his roles in Blackadder, I, Claudius and Flash Gordon…

…MY MOTHER’S FACE, funny that— that’s the first thing I recognised. My eyes didn’t open for several days and then when they did I remember my mother. I’ve always had an extraordinary memory. Actors and explorers consult me because of my memory.

…WE LIVED IN GOLDTHORPE, a coal mining area, and nearby was the Doncaster plant where they made trains like The Flying Scotsman. Judi Dench, Keith Barron and Patrick Stewart lived nearby so the early days, those war years, were vibrant and wonderful.

…ALL THE COAL MINERS COULD RECITE HAMLET AND JULIUS CAESAR and they put on productions of operas and musicals and plays the length and breath of

the Don Valley, from Sheffield to Doncaster to Mexborough. They were very artistic, the coal miners.

…MY FATHER, BILL, WAS VERY HEROIC—he played cricket at the weekends and he moved around 18 tons of coal a day. He would sometimes work naked, as it was so hot down there.

…WE HAD A LOVELY COUNCIL HOUSE ON PROBERT AVENUE. It had a garden with a big tree and an air raid shelter in it and I remember sitting in the grass with my mother saying, “Hidey, hidey, hidey,” to me.

…THERE WERE THOUSANDS OF CATS everywhere, and a big cat came into our house one day. It was red and I called it Tibby—I was about

© STEVE COWELL

three or four—and he loved me and sat with me on a little chair as I sat in the garden. He’d come onto my lap and he became part of the house. When I was seven, I’d walk down the road and he would walk with me.

…IN THE EVENING I WOULD see my father coming down the road with this great helmet on with the light on it and his face would be black. He’d pick me up and I’d be reading the Beano and the Dandy and he would take me into the house. It was like an Ovaltine advert.

…MY FATHER ONCE TOOK ME INTO THE SITTING ROOM and then went into the bathroom, stripped off and got in the bath so I could wash his back. It was purple from roof falls always hitting him. And then when he was all clean, he stood up. Now, people can look good even with a

(Top left); Brian cuts a cake after winning “Best Actor of the Season” for his role as Branwell Bronte. (Left); Aged 11 with his then four-yearold brother Alan

poor figure with a suntan, but to see that man stand up—white with great muscles—looking like Achilles, I was so proud of him.

…MY MOTHER SAID TO ME WHEN I WAS SIX YEARS OF AGE, “Would you like to have a brother or sister?” I said yes and she said, “Well then, you’ve got to collect as many milk tops as you can, Brian.”

I filled bags of them over the weeks and months though I couldn’t understand why my mother was getting fatter and fatter. I’d ask, “Have I collected enough of them yet?”

And she said, “I think so—you’ve got enough bottle tops, we’ll have a baby soon.”

My brother was always a cheerful lad and he was my biggest fan. They were halcyon days.

…MY BROTHER ALAN NEVER KNEW A DAY’S GOOD HEALTH but I was always so fit. He was always cheerful but when he was one he got pneumonia. Until we got the NHS, we only had one midwife and a doctor in the area and my brother was dying.

Pneumonia was a terrible thing to get and it came to a great climax. My father couldn’t stand it, he walked out of the house and down the road, my mother weeping, putting hot poultices on him. Alan’s breathing

became faster and faster and the doctor said, “He is going to die,” and then it became slower and the doctor said, “He is past the crisis; he is going to live.”

…AN EXTRAORDINARY THING WAS THAT THERE WERE TWO CINEMAS and we had Flash Gordon on in black and white. Afterwards, at the end of each episode, we would come out and run down the embankment to watch The Flying Scotsman and I would jump down the embankment over bushes and pretend to be Voltan.

I never dreamt that in the future I would actually play him. I walked

With dogs Hamish and Nick. (Right); Starring alongside Kenneth Branagh in Henry V

into the studio at Pinewood and there was a great painting of me on the wall. They said, “This is the painting of Voltan from the comic strip,” and I said, “No, it’s me”. They said, “That’s what we think— it’s you”. People criticised Flash Gordon, saying it was camp, but it’s not. Flash Gordon, as Ken Branagh or anyone will tell you, is a great movie. It was a childhood dream come true.

…BOLTON-UPON-DEARNE HAD A VERY MODERN SECONDARY SCHOOL. We had marvellous teachers and we won everything. I was the best fighter in the school and so I was the best boxer too.

I became the Yorkshire schoolboy boxing champion. There were great

designs to make me into a cruiser weight, but my mother was appalled.

…I DID A LOT OF AMATEUR

THEATRE with Patrick Stewart. We dreamt of becoming professionals but thought it impossible. We were working-class boys—me a coal miner’s son and Patrick the son of a milkman—with no qualifications.

…I WAS AT RAF UPPER HEYFORD for two years doing my National Service. It was a great big American base—it was so powerful it could have invaded Britain. When it ended I went down to Bristol, did an audition and was offered a position as a student for two years with a bursary. My mother wept, my father

(Left) posing with Joe Brady and Jack Dempsey. (Right); Starring in The Cherry Orchard at Birmingham

wept, nobody could believe it. It was impossible for a working-class boy to do that—it was a wonderful, exciting day, and I had two fantastic years at the Bristol Old Vic.

…WHEN I WAS AT BRISTOL, I developed a very strong relationship with Peter O’Toole—he was always competitive with me—and one day he and I were running across the suspension bridge at 3am as a test of courage. We were met by two great British theatre critics and they were crying their eyes out.

They’d just seen Sir John Gielgud in The Seven Ages of Man and they said, “He had such a phenomenal grasp of the text, it was wonderful, you must go and see him”.

When they left, Peter O’Toole looked at me and said, “It’s amazing isn’t it? They were so enamoured by Sir John Gielgud that they didn’t realise that you and I are stood here bollock naked”.

…I WAS IN NOTTINGHAM AT THE PLAYHOUSE, building sets, stacking cupboards, marking out the sets, cueing the actors, doing the lighting, everything. Then one day the door opened and there was Agatha Christie. Everyone was jealous of my relationship with her. She’d make me tea and gather props with me and tell me all about her life.

She’d had two or three nervous breakdowns. She had been a nurse

“I think women are different creatures altogether. They’re superior. Women are my religion, really”

and that’s how she knew all about poisons. She used to visit the police to learn about the latest ways that murderers were killing people.

She once played me Clair de Lune on a broken down piano. When she left, she gave me her wooden radio. Somebody stole it or I’d have it to this day. She was a delightful woman. I’ve always been lucky meeting people like that. I met Stanley Kubrick in the 1970s—it was fascinating walking with him through some fields.

…I BECAME LEAD ACTOR at the Birmingham Rep. I was there for 14 months and then I was in Z-Cars with 28 to 35 million viewers a week.

…I, CLAUDIUS WAS THE BIGGEST THING THAT THE BBC had ever produced and I won awards all over the b****y world. In the first press meeting they asked the director Herbert Wise, “What made you cast Brian Blessed as Caesar?”

He said, “Because no one can shoot c**p like Brian,” and he was right. The BBC just kept casting me.

…LISTENING TO WAR OF THE WORLDS by HG Wells. My biggest love in life has always been space. People ask me, “Isn’t it dangerous, Brian? All the things you do—going up Everest and going to the North Pole and South America?” I say the most dangerous thing in life is not taking the adventure—it can be in your garden shed, or greenhouse; it could be on a zimmer frame but that is an Everest, you know? We are the children of stardust and we are yearning for the stars.

…BECOMING INVOLVED IN THE SPACE PROGRAMME. I did 600 hours training in Moscow at the space centre and about the equivalent with

NASA and want to promote exploration to Mars. We need to get out there because the Earth has got to rest.

…WHEN I WENT TO THE NORTH POLE, I shared a tent with two women who really looked out for me. I think the strength of mankind is women. Most men don’t like women—they want to go to bed with them, but they don’t like them. I think women are different creatures altogether and they’re superior. Women are my religion, really.

As told to Joy Persaud

Brian Blessed’s latest book, The Panther in my Kitchen is out now (Pan, £8.99)

Brian in 1990 with his wife Hildegarde Neil and their dogs, prior to his Everest expedition

Gitte Larsen’s journey to diagnosis and treatment was long and arduous

Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses are on the rise in Europe, yet authorities across the continent are woefully behind in addressing this serious health problem

STOP TIME TO TICKS

BY LISA FITTERMAN

PHOTO BY LARS BERTELSEN

ONE DAY SEVEN YEARS AGO, Gitte Larsen woke up with a headache. It wouldn’t go away, not after a week, or a month, or a year, or two. The headache became the percussive accompaniment to her agonising journey through Denmark’s healthcare system and beyond.

At the time, she’d just turned 40, a tall, slim woman in the prime of life, a “futurist” whose work was predicting health trends. She lived with her husband and two daughters in a house in the forested countryside north of Copenhagen. At various times doctors diagnosed her with a host of conditions, from fibromyalgia to hypothyroidism.

As time went on, Gitte, now 47, became too weak to work. She and her husband moved the family to

GITTE TESTED POSITIVE TO A HOST OF LYMERELATED CONDITIONS: ARTHRITIS, DEPRESSION, DEBILITATING FATIGUE, AND HEADACHES

ticks. But after walking her dog in the country, she’d always checked him, methodically running her fingers through his coat because ticks were so easy to miss. And she couldn’t remember ever getting the rash which looks like a bull’s eye. According to medical authorities, it’s the telltale sign of a tick bite containing the borrelia bacteria.

Her Danish doctors insisted she didn’t have the condition. Desperate, in January 2016 she travelled to Augsburg, Germany, where Dr Armin Schwarzbach tested her at his clinic, which specialises in detecting tickborne diseases. The test proved positive for a number of Lyme infections, including arthritis and neuroborreliosis, and Lyme-induced psychoses that included psychiatric conditions such as depression. Finally, Gitte knew what ailed her.

an apartment in Copenhagen to be closer to medical services. The couple exhausted their savings in the search for answers and a cure.

Then in 2015, as Gitte recounted her symptoms at a meeting for people who have metabolic issues, someone said it sounded like she had a variant of Lyme disease. Could it be? She knew Lyme disease was spread by

TICKS HAVE BEEN AROUND for millions of years—members of the arachnid family that stealthily latch onto their victims, anesthetising the skin so that their visit goes undetected. The nearly 30-odd pathogens they carry are very dangerous, from tickborne encephalitis to tularemia, a highly infectious condition that attacks the skin, eyes, mouth, lymph

nodes, and lungs. In Europe, the most common condition is Lyme borreliosis, named for the US town in Connecticut where clusters of it were first diagnosed in 1975.

The US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are 329,000 new cases of Lyme disease each year. It acknowledges that this estimate is likely low, given that not all cases are reported. Across the Atlantic, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) estimates there have been 360,000 cases in the last two decades. Why such a difference?

Perhaps because the ECDC doesn’t track cases per se, or have a central registry. Instead, its spokesperson, Anca Paduraru, says it’s the responsibility of each member country to compile statistics—or not.

In Spain, for example, Lyme disease is not considered an “Obligatory Statement Disease,” so there are only estimates: 0.25 cases per 100,000 inhabitants each year. And Germany doesn’t record the incidence of the condition on a national basis, period; instead, certain regions, such as Bavaria, have opted to track cases on their own.

For specialists such as Dr Schwarzbach, the lack of hard data should be a clarion call to action. He likens ticks to dirty needles because no matter how small they are, they are full of bacteria and viruses that can make you very sick, for a very

long time. “The last few years there have been more ticks in general because temperatures in Europe have been higher year-round,” he says. “This means the ground does not freeze, even if it may be covered in snow.”

Only a few years ago, ticks could not survive in the Alps at more than 700 metres above sea level. Now they thrive at altitudes as high as 1,500 metres, says Jean-François Cosson, an expert in veterinary medicine and evolutionary ecology at the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) in France. “Warmer temperatures have meant vegetation growing higher on the mountains and an increase in the deer population,

HOW TO AVOID TICK BITES

n Wear clothes that cover you when outside, regardless of whether you’re weeding in your garden, walking up a mountain, or playing in a park

n Use insect repellent, even though it smells awful. Repellents that contain diethyltoluamide, or DEET, are the most effective

For information about tick populations in your region, check out the map section on the website,

which ticks use for transportation,” he continues.

In response to the increasing threat, Cosson notes that INRA has teamed with the French health ministry to launch a free, interactive smartphone app, Signalement TIQUE (Tick Alert) to track the little parasites as well as provide advice should someone be bitten.

Dr Jose Antonio Oteo, who heads the department of infectious diseases at La Rioja’s Center for Biomedical Research in Spain, says the official response is never enough. “Research

antibodies linked to the condition. But studies have shown the test is far from accurate, with labs incorrectly or inconsistently replicating results for Lyme antibodies more than 50 per cent of the time.

RESEARCH TO DEVELOP SENSITIVE MICROBIOLOGICAL TESTS SPECIFIC TO TICK DISEASES SHOULD BE SUPPORTED.

Like its hardy bacterial brethren since time immemorial, Lyme borrelia are survivors, changing, hiding, and adapting to their hosts’ physical weaknesses. That’s why they may be found burrowed into a joint, or in the heart or liver. And that’s where the more controversial Enzyme Linked ImmunoSpot test comes in: those specialists who use it, claim it is so sensitive, it can detect even one Lyme reactive T-cell (so-called because they develop in thymus gland) in a sample.

But it gets even more complicated. With Lyme, many experts maintain that if a patient doesn’t have accepted symptoms such as the bull’s eye rash, then it isn’t Lyme disease at all, which means there’s no merit to prescribing antibiotics.

to develop sensitive and specific microbiological tests should be supported. And we could control the numbers of large animals that carry ticks and exacerbate the problem.”

WHEN IT COMES TO Lyme disease, a big part of the problem seems to be the difficulty of diagnosis. Right now, the go-to test around the world is the Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Serum Assay, which looks for

For years, the US approach to Lyme Disease mirrored that of most countries in Europe: if you didn’t have the telltale bull’s eye rash, you hadn’t contracted the condition, and it was a relatively rare occurrence limited to several states in the northeast. Times have changed. Although there’s still debate over the existence of chronic Lyme Disease, at least now the CDC recommends that doctors who suspect Lyme is the cause for their

PHOTO BY LARS BERTELSEN

patients’ symptoms prescribe antibiotics even if tests prove negative.

For the same reason, some states have stepped in; in 2013, for example, Virginia passed the Lyme Disease Testing Information Disclosure Act, which requires doctors to inform patients that a negative test does not necessarily mean they are Lyme-free. Maryland followed suit in 2016.

In Europe, countries base their treatment protocols on outdated Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines which state that no more than a month’s worth of antibiotics is all it takes to cure the condition. But in 2016 the National Guideline Clearinghouse, run by the US Department of Health and Human Services, removed them from its database of evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, replacing them with those of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). Developed in 2014, the ILADS guidelines take into account the possibility that patients may not get better right away, and recommend longer courses of treatment and, for potentially chronic cases, repeated rounds of antibiotics.

This has led to the suspension of specialists such as Dr Kenneth Sandström, a Swedish physician who’s been treating Lyme patients for over

five years and last year was forced by the country’s college of physicians to stop practising because he was not adhering to the prescribed guidelines.

For Gitte Larsen, the suspension completely misses the point— that after years of suffering and misdiagnoses, patients are being helped by unconventional practise. She refuses to name the lone doctor in Denmark doing the same thing for fear the authorities would suspend him, too. “I know that with Lyme borreliosis, not everyone gets the bull’s eye rash, and that medical authorities in Denmark and in much of the rest of Europe are behind the times.

“I also know that I am very mad and I don’t want this to happen to anyone else, if I can help it.”

What to do?

Dr Christian Perrone, head of the infectious diseases department at Raymond and Poincare University

For Gitte Larsen diagnosis and treatment of her Lyme disease has meant a new lease on life

Hospital in Garches, a community just west of Paris, says things are starting to change but not quickly enough. The author of The Truth About Lyme Disease, he says he has seen patients who were given two to three weeks’ worth of antibiotics and then told to go away because they were cured. But they weren’t. Some have sought treatment in other countries. Others choose to commit suicide.

“Most medical authorities are still skeptical of the existence of chronic Lyme disease. They think that if you come back with complaints, there must be something wrong in your head. It’s a health scandal,” he says.

Dr Perronne has devoted much of his professional life to making colleagues in Europe and beyond realise that chronic Lyme disease, in all its physiological and neurological iterations, exists and needs to be urgently addressed. “We need to be creating dedicated hospital wards for Lyme patients and to be incorporating the latest scientific research in our practice.”

Long-time patients are heeding the call. Matthias Lacoste, a former financial analyst, started the activist group The Right to Heal, after being diagnosed with Lyme disease in December 2015—13 years after he began to suffer symptoms that were misdiagnosed at various points as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer. The married father of two, who lives in the

village of Vesseaux in the Ardéche region of southern France, was put on corticosteroids and underwent chemotherapy, all to no avail.

The group currently has about 700 members across the country and is growing every day. Matthias says he wants to experience several days, or weeks, in a row when he can pick up his children, or run outside to toss a ball, or sleep through the night. “It’s not too much to ask, is it?”

Back in Copenhagen, Gitte Larsen, who now uses cannabis oils and various foods to treat her symptoms, helped found an activist group called DanTick last October.

“For Europe to properly handle these new diseases, it needs to start over because health-care systems are so outdated,” she says. “Politicians are always the last to change their minds. It’s going to be a big fight.”

PHOTO

PHILIPPE SCHULLER

Frenchman Matthias Lacoste waited 13 years for an accurate diagnosis

Photographic Memory

Pictures can improve everyone’s powers of recall, says our memory expert Jonathan Hancock

It’s easy to take our mind’s eye for granted—that miraculous ability we have to project pictures inside our brain. Think about the images that fill your mind naturally when you remember people and places. Consider famous works of art, or the logos designed to be memorable messages for brands. Imagery and memory are intertwined: your brain is built to harness the power of pictures.

So, when you hear a name or come up with an idea you don’t want to lose… think of a picture to represent it. You can even learn several items at once—by putting up imaginary pictures in the real space around you. Try it now: choose a “trigger” image for each of the countries below, then

picture them around the room you’re in; the first four on the walls, and the fifth projected onto the ceiling.

The world’s top five most-visited countries are: FRANCE, USA, SPAIN, CHINA and ITALY.

So what can you see? Perhaps…an Eiffel Tower poster on the left-hand wall; Donald Trump in front of you; a Spanish dancer on the right; the Great Wall of China spread out across the back wall; and, on the ceiling—how about a big bowl of Italian spaghetti?

See it all in your mind’s eye—then check your artistry has worked. Can you remember the words, in the right order: after five minutes, a day, a week? Try to use pictures to power your memory whenever you can.

THE CHALLENGE: TO MEMORISE TEN RANDOM WORDS IN ORDER:

DOG, HAT, CAKE, GRASS, TRAIN, CLOWN, GIRAFFE, BICYCLE, PAN, SAND

The technique: go to a different room, and this time picture pairs of images on the walls and ceiling: a dog in a hat; a cake covered in grass; a train full of clowns…

The test: cover the page, “see” the pictures around the room in your mind’s eye, and say the ten words aloud from memory. (Can you even do it backwards, too?)

Planning and Funding Long-Term Care Finances

The trend towards an ageing population in the UK has had a dramatic impact on family structures and saving practices, leading to increased demands on health and welfare services. Meanwhile, declining fertility rates entail the cost of caring for ever more elderly people will fall on ever fewer shoulders

There is no way of knowing whether you will require long term care in the future but it is probable that this is something many of us will have to consider, either for ourselves or a loved one. Thinking about the emotional and financial implications and investigating the options in advance will help in the long run.

It is well reported that the UK is facing a shortfall in money set aside to provide for long-term care. While the state can help in times of most critical need, the system has it’s problems and health authority funding can be a postcode lottery. Local authorities are under enormous financial pressure in a time of continuing austerity and are becoming less able to assist. Increasingly, it would appear that the government expects that the majority of individuals will need to provide for the costs of their own care and those of their relatives in the future.

Placing a relative in long-term care can be a di cult and emotional decision for a family to make. Seeing loved ones unable to look after themselves in the autumn of life can be heart-breaking and financially challenging for thousands of families who are faced with funding long-term care.

Care provision is expensive and these costs are going up rapidly each year. Since 2012 the annual cost of the average residential home has risen by 23.7% from £27,404 to £33,904, and 2017 alone saw a rise of 10% from the previous year. This increase is also outstripping the incomes from pensions, which have risen around on average by 10% over the same 5 year period.*

In addition to the financial and emotional pressures, there are many options for funding long-term care to consider and they can often be complicated to

*Source: Prestige Nursing & Care

understand. People will often have to make quick and di cult decisions about their own or a loved one’s care needs and with often changing policy around tax and inheritance issues, it is harder for people to make informed decisions.

• Make sure the appropriate people have the correct authority to help you manage your a airs (e.g. Power of Attorney).

• Liaise with care providers, local authorities and health authorities over financial matters to make the process as stress free as possible.

Long-term care can impose a financial strain on any family, and seeking the right solution is crucial. Reader’s Digest work with independent financial advisers Flying Colours. The benefit of talking to a financial adviser is that they can help you with the following:

• Help you navigate care funding through practical, friendly, jargon free advice.

• Make sure you have access to all relevant state benefits.

• Understand your financial options through ‘self-funding’ assessment.

• Provide advice on the treatment of your property.

For more in-depth information you can download the Flying Colours brochure on Long-Term Care at flyingcoloursweath.com/longtermcare or you can get in touch on 0333 241 9919 to arrange a free initial consultation with one of their friendly and highly knowledgeable advisers. ■

7 Health Hypes That Matter

Always hearing about the latest health trends and wondering if they’re just a fad? Here are a few which seem to deliver on their promises

1 HIGH INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING

A workout just a few minutes long that has the same effect as sweating it out for a long spell in the gym—too good to be true?

Apparently not. Research shows that a short, frantic burst of cardio or strength training (for example, sprinting or riding a stationary bike) of up to a minute, followed by a minute or two of rest, and then repeating the cycle for about ten minutes, gives your heart and metabolism the same boost as if you were exercising for much longer.

Susannah Hickling is twice winner of the Guild of Health Writers Best Consumer Magazine Health Feature

2 COFFEE

Brits have enjoyed coffee as a pick-me-up since the 17th century. But in recent times, it’s been touted as being bad for your heart and digestive system, for example— before being rehabilitated. Health benefits are now said to include a memory boost and lower risk of liver disease, liver and uterine cancer, and of dying from a stroke. But limit yourself to three or four cups a day.

3 STAYING SOBER

Cutting back is becoming cool and there’s evidence it can have a dramatic effect on your health. Banishing the booze for a month can lower blood pressure. On the other hand, even moderate drinking has been linked to breast cancer, and a

recent study of 600,000 drinkers showed that drinking five to ten glasses of wine a week from the age of 40 could actually shorten your life by six months.

4 HEALTHY FATS

Avocados, almonds, pumpkin seeds, fish and olives—what do these foods have in common?

They’re all packed with unsaturated fats. Unlike saturated fats (think dairy, fast food and cakes), these good fats help to lower cholesterol and your risk of heart disease.

5 MINDFULNESS

Paying attention to the here and now and being more aware of our thoughts and feelings is a centuries old concept, but it’s only become really popular in the last decade. Sitting with a clear mind and listening to your breathing can reduce stress and depression and even help with chronic pain and addiction.

6 SLEEP

Getting a good night’s sleep is a modern-day holy grail. And with good reason: there’s evidence to show that it not only makes you function better mentally, but that it protects the brain, fights heart disease, and even promotes healthier eating. Irregular sleep patterns, on the other hand, can lead to metabolic and memory problems.

7 PLANT-BASED EATING

Vegan, flexitarian, plant forward—there’s a whole new vocabulary growing up around the trend towards eating more fruit, veg, wholegrains, legumes, nuts and seeds, and less meat. Research indicates these foods contain nutrients that might protect against chronic diseases.

Are Hot Tubs A Hazard?

Brits are mad for this outdoor spa experience, but how healthy are they?

The good news is that hot tubs are blissfully soothing, meaning they’re great for stress, aching muscles and arthritis. A small study of people with diabetes suggested that immersion in a hot tub could lower blood glucose levels, while a dip before bed is reputed to help you sleep better. It may lower blood pressure too.

The bad news

Here’s where we throw cold water on all the talk about health benefits. Your back-garden spa can incubate germs if the water isn’t changed regularly and kept clean with disinfectant. The result can be rashes—or worse. Lurking in your bacteria soup might be pseudomonas bacterium, which can cause folliculitis, where red, itchy bumps

spring up around hair follicles or, more dangerous still, mycobacterium, which causes lung infections, and legionella, which is responsible for Legionnaire’s disease.

You also need to be careful spending too much time in hot water if you’ve got certain health conditions, such as heart disease.

How to make your hot tub healthy

Follow maintenance instructions carefully, adding disinfectant regularly and changing water every two months.

Before getting into any hot tub, do the smell test—if you can detect chlorine, it’s fine. Then dip a transparent plastic cup in the water. If the water’s cloudy, don’t get in.

Always dip a toe in first to make sure the water’s not scalding and make sure the drain cover is intact, to minimise the risk of a child being caught in the powerful drain suction.

Dr Andy Cope

Ask The Expert

Psychology’s “Dr Happiness,” Andy Cope, recently co-authored Shine, which offers advice on rediscovering happiness and purpose

How did you become an expert on happiness and positivity?

I studied psychology back when it was about paranoia, schizophrenia, depression. I discovered positive psychology in the mid 1990s in America, and thought I’d do Britain’s first academically-driven study seeking out happy people and finding out what we can learn from them.

What makes happy people happy?

Happiness isn’t a thing with a shape, a mass and a form that you can buy. Happiness is an emotion you create through your thinking. Choosing to have a positive approach to life opens you up to being happy on a more regular basis.

How easy is it to shake off feelings of grumpiness?

Being negative is learned behaviour. The more you do it the more it becomes who you are. So letting go

of that is about learning to live in the moment and recognising that life is full of nows.

What quick, practical tips can you offer for becoming happier?

Make a list of ten things you really appreciate but take for granted. It will include family, democracy, running water—we’ve got so much to be thankful for. Wake up every morning and be grateful you haven’t got a toothache. It helps reprogramme your thinking.

How do people stay happy?

Practice makes permanent in positive psychology. The more you practise being a more cheerful, grateful version of you, the easier it becomes in the long run.

Visit artofbrilliance.co.uk for details on Andy’s workshops

A Night Of Moon Madness

Is there anything to the old wives’ tales about full moons and insanity? Max Pemberton finds out…

There have been many theories about mental illness. These range from the ancient, such as the idea that wombs can wander round the body, becoming tangled in the brain and causing irrational behaviour, to the modern; that it’s caused by a complex biochemical and genetic phenomena.

When I was training I had a job in A&E, taking psychiatric referrals. I was put on the front line, dealing with all the acutely mentally unwell patients who walked—or were dragged—through the door. The senior members of the team were at home, tucked up in bed. If you want to see someone who’s really mad, try waking up a consultant at home.

Max is a hospital doctor, author and columnist. He currently works full time in mental health for the NHS. His latest book is a self-help guide to using CBT to stop smoking

Usually things were manageable. But on one shift early on in the job, I was unlucky, though rationally, I know it was just one of those things; some nights are busy, others less so.

“Ready for your shift then?” asked a nurse as I wandered into the A&E department. She said this with the kind of smirk that made me feel that everyone else there was in on a joke, and that somehow I was implicated in the punchline.

“What do you mean?” I asked her, gingerly.

“You know what tonight is, don’t you?” she asked, wide eyed. I shook my head. “It’s a full moon”, she whispered. Cue dramatic music and the sound of wolves howling. This irrational fear of the full moon harks back to the ancient Greeks. They thought madness was caused by too much moisture in the brain. Just as the moon affects tides, so they assumed it must be linked with mental illness. The Romans shared

this belief and thanks to them we have the word lunatic, from the Latin luna, moon. In fact, it was commonly accepted by the medical profession until very recently that the phases of the moon exacerbated madness. And if I’m honest, while I know it’s only anecdotal and that research has proved no causative link, everybody who works in A&E knows that a full moon turns everybody a bit dotty. To make matters worse, I was working a 13-hour shift. Yes, 13.

By 3am I’d seen eight patients, and admitted four. And they were still coming in thick and fast. The rooms where I normally interviewed patients were full, so they were being stacked up by the nurses’ station. Just as dawn was breaking, and the full moon

began to fade, I came to my last patient. She was well known to the department, frequently attending with thoughts of harming herself.

“Hello, Mrs Armstrong, sorry about the wait,” I said, wearily sitting down. “It’s because of the full moon.”

“Don’t tell me you believe that!?’ she scolded. Perhaps it’s ridiculous, perhaps I was being superstitious. Perhaps in years to come people will look back at our modern theories of mental illness and laugh at how ridiculous they seem. I finished my shift, walked out of A&E into the sunlight and made my way home, reminding myself that I was a man of science not superstition. Even so, I was mindful not to let any black cats cross my path, just in case.

The Doctor Is In

Dr Max Pemberton

Q: I’m concerned about my partner’s alcohol intake. What started as a few evening drinks a couple of times a week has become several drinks every day. How can I confront him about it sensitively?

-Elizabeth, Surrey

A: It’s always difficult when you start to worry about someone else’s drinking. It’s hard to know what to say without making things worse. It may be that he’s also worried and that broaching the subject will be a relief as he can confide in you. However, you must prepare yourself that he will respond to any attempts to talk to him about his drinking with irritation, anger or a flat refusal that there’s a problem. Do perservere though.

You need to explain your concerns to him. Be gentle and kind and choose a time when he’s not had a drink already or would normally be drinking. Choose a quiet place so if he wants, he can talk to you more. Don’t be put off if he doesn’t respond how you want him to—agree that you’ll leave it but you’ll

talk to him again about it. If necessary, there are great support groups for people with family members who are problem drinkers, so seek extra support from them.

Encourage your partner to go to his doctor in the first instance. They can check out his physical health. Depending on how much he’s drinking, this may be fine. Getting a full bill of health though doesn’t mean there’s noting to worry about, it just means the damage being done isn’t yet detectable.

It’s likely that he’ll be offered psychotherapy through alcohol services. If he remains ambivalent about changing his habits, then he might try Motivational Interviewing with a psychologist which can help a patient who is unsure they want to change their drinking to focus on the cost and benefits to them of continuing to drink and addressing their problems.

Got a health question for our resident doctor? Email it confidentially to askdrmax@ readersdigest.co.uk

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How True To Yourself Are You?

Is it a case of “what you see is what you get?” or is there a mismatch between how you appear to others and the way you feel inside?

For most people, the answer is: “it depends” We’re ourselves with some people, but put on a façade with others. More often than not, when we wear a mask, it’s to protect ourselves—we put on a show of bravado to hide the fact that we’re trembling inside. We laugh and smile to ingratiate ourselves with others when inwardly we’re bored, resentful or sad.

You’d think the extent to which we present ourselves falsely would depend solely on our personality or our circumstances, but new research suggests we become “more true to ourselves” as we get older—or at least we think we do.

Two US psychologists sent

Jo Carlowe is a psychology and health journalist. She writes for numerous newspapers, magazines and specialist journals. Visit jocarlowe.com for more

questionnaires to over 250 volunteers and asked them to rate how true they are to themselves.

“True self” was defined as: “Being made up of the characteristics, roles, or attributes that define who you really are—even if those characteristics are different than how you sometimes act in your daily life.”

Participants were asked to indicate how much overlap there was between their true self in the past, how they believe they are today, and how they perceived they will be in the future. A clear trend emerged— most people believed they were closer to their true self now than they had been in the past, and that the gap would close even more as they got older. What’s more, the participants believed their quest for happiness would increase as they became more authentic.

The idea that authenticity is closely linked to psychological wellbeing is well established.

“This above all: to thine own self be true”

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Polonius in Hamlet Act 1

In an earlier British study, participants were questioned on selfawareness, communication style, and openness, to test their authenticity. This was matched against measures for self-esteem and happiness. Those who reported as most “authentic” also scored highest on self-esteem and happiness.

“Being authentic and aligning your innermost thoughts, feelings and desires with your public behaviour is good for you because it doesn’t require the energy-sapping vigilance of constantly self-monitoring. People are naturally happier when their outer and inner worlds are operating in close parallel and they feel they’re able to be themselves,” says chartered psychologist, Professor Hew Gill, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Elizabeth Seto, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Colby College in Maine, author of the US study, agrees. “Being true to oneself confers many psychological benefits. We tend to experience greater life satisfaction,

more positive emotions and reduced anxiety and distress.”

Despite this, there are those for whom life is a performance—the great pretenders who go through the motions of saying and doing the right thing (which can make them appear rather charming), but whose relationships are superficial. Yet most of us probably fall along a spectrum in terms of trueness.

“I would argue that it’s highly improbable that a person can be authentic 100 per cent of the time,” says Seto. “There are important social norms to follow and some characteristics of one’s true self may not be desirable. But generally, life is too short to live behind a façade, and people like genuine people.”

Indeed, authenticity is deeply rooted in our culture. The message of

“keeping it real” is everywhere.

“It’s in novels, movies, and advertising. It’s an idea dating back at least to the ancient Greeks,” says co-author Rebecca Schlegel, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Texas A&M University.

Deep-down it would seem that most of us already know this, otherwise authenticity would be less highly prized, Hollywood films wouldn’t always end with the protagonist finally “finding

themselves,” and the students in Seto’s and Schlegel’s study would not have claimed to have become more authentic.

Whether we do really become more true to ourselves over time, or whether it’s only our perception that changes, is hard to prove, but I rather like the researchers’ conclusion:

“If these observations are at all reflective of how people feel in real time, it’s possible that people believe they will be the closest they have ever been to who they really are when they reach the end of their lifetime.”

QUIZ: HOW TRUE TO YOURSELF ARE YOU?

1. An acquaintance you admire plays a tune you can’t stand. She declares it her all-time favourite song. How do you respond?

A: I change my opinion, because the song is actually better than I remembered it being

B: I joke about how different our tastes are

C: I tell her I love it, even though I still hate it

2. When you tell a lie, how does it make you feel?

A: As though I’m a bad person

B: Uncomfortable

C: No idea, as I never ever lie/I lie often so it doesn’t bother me

3. How important is it for other people to know the truth of what’s going on in your head?

A: It’s good to reveal nice thoughts but best to keep nasty ones hidden

B: It’s very important, otherwise I’d have to pretend to be something

I’m not

C: What’s in my head is my business and no-one else’s

4. “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” (Carl Jung, Swiss psychoanalyst). What do you think of this statement?

A: It’s an impossible aspiration

B: It’s something worth striving for

C: I don’t agree with it

5. How much do you talk about yourself?

A: A fair bit, but only really with my closest friends

B: I like to share personal stories with others

C: I like getting others to share their inner thoughts with me

6. Which of these statements best reflects what others would say of you?

A: You’re always eager to please

B: What you see is what you get

C: You’re fun to be around but I don’t feel I really know you

Mostly As

You value people who are genuine and would like to be as true to yourself as possible, however, it’s not always easy to achieve this. If someone asks your opinion, the first thing that comes to your head, is not, “What do I think?” but rather: “What is the right answer? What do they want to hear?” By the time you’ve come up with an answer the moment for authenticity is lost. It’s not all bad though, because deep in your heart you know there’s room to change.

7. What’s more important:

A: Being liked?

B: Being authentic?

C: Being successful?

8. Telling the truth is…

A: A risk because people might not like what I have to say

B: Usually the best option so long as it doesn’t mean hurting people

C: Okay, so long as it doesn’t mean compromising myself

ANSWERS:

Mostly Bs

You are good at expressing your true feelings, and have no problem being yourself with other people. You value truthfulness and authenticity both in your friendships and in how you present yourself. However, on occasion you’ll adapt your behaviour or keep some feelings from bubbling to the surface in order to create or maintain harmony. Your genuineness and ability to not hide behind a façade is likely a sign of high self-esteem.

Mostly Cs

You’ve likely been called a “social butterfly” for your tendency to befriend many people. However, few of them know who you really are. Sometimes, when around other people, you get a sense of unreality, as though you are an actor in a play. There’s some disconnect between how you present to others and who you really are, although at times you’re not too sure if you even know yourself. It might be worth reflecting on what really matters to you and engaging in a bit of soul-searching.

Lee Child is the author of the global bestselling Jack Reacher series

IF I RULED THE WORLD Lee Child

I’d immediately investigate the abdication option because it sounds like an awful lot of work and responsibility to rule, and I’m sure that the world deserves somebody better than me in charge of it.

I’d make teachers the most respected and the highest paid professionals. I’d set up a situation in which people would be desperate to become teachers and compete for

that qualification and an enormous salary. Looking ahead, we’re facing all kinds of problems and education is the thing that’s going to solve them for us. It’s all we’ve got. I want a reversal of the situation where, normally, as a teacher, you don’t get paid much or get much respect. I’d like to change that radically so that we’d look up to teachers as if they were movie stars and they all made a million bucks a year.

I’d abolish all political parties and develop some that would represent what [most] people want. When you get to know the population, both in Britain and in the US, most of them are this huge giant wedge in the middle: lovely people, perfectly OK, full of decency—and yet nobody’s representing those people. We only represent the lunatic fringes—the people on the right or the left—while the people in the middle are left to make their own way.

I’m sure [the royal family] are all lovely people, but a hierarchical structure like that, where you’re born to something, alters the shape of people’s expectations. Even now in Britain, there’s a feeling that if you’re born in the wrong place and the wrong class, you’re going to have a limit to what you can do. The royal family gives the country the wrong shape, i.e, the idea that the head of state is born rather than elected.

I’d fund the BBC with whatever it needed and let it do whatever it wanted. Everybody’s s so concerned with the British media, but when you look at it in relation to what’s happening in the US or other parts of the world, it’s actually pretty good. I think the BBC is really Britain’s secret weapon. It’s the very definition of soft power, so to in any way attack or undermine it is treacherous—it damages the country.

I would protect the book because it’s under a lot of pressure at the moment for very strange reasons. The high street retail situation is so pressured— landlords have been jacking the rent up to the point where only certain kinds of stores can survive and bookstores are not that kind of store. Not because people don’t want to buy books—they love them, but they don’t buy them quite fast enough and there’s not enough margin in each sale to compete. Books are really important and I think that even now, in 2018, there’s nothing better than getting lost in one: you’ve got the whole world in your hands.

I’d definitely make it law that Aston Villa could never be relegated and that if they finish in the bottom three, they get a special pass that protects them. I think that would be absolutely vital. I’m still a supporter even though it’s been an up-and-down experience…

I’d take away all those boring warning signs and trust people to be smart—and if they’re not smart then that’s Darwinism in action. When you live in the US and come back to Britain you feel nannied to death.

As told to Joy Persaud

Lee Child will chair the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, July 19–22 harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crimewriting-festival

Bathtime Blues

With the passing of years, reduced mobility can make everyday tasks, such as taking a bath, more difficult. This can be due to a specific health issue such as arthritis, but mobility can also just vary, resulting in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days when using the bathroom is less or more of a struggle.

It is also a fact that ageing can make us more prone to falls. Around one in three adults over 65 living at home will have at least one fall a year, and about half of these will have more frequent falls. The likelihood of falling can be increased in certain environments, such as in a bathroom, where floors can be wet.

The fear of getting stuck in the bath or slipping whilst taking a shower might deter you from bathing altogether. This can affect your confidence and reduce your independence and in turn, your wellbeing.

A POPULAR SOLUTION

Replace your old bath or shower with

an easy-access shower with an ultra-low tray. Other safety features such as nonslip flooring, safety grab bars and rails, thermostatic controls and folding seats are fully customisable.

For low maintenance and improved hygiene, you can choose easy-clean screens and wall boards. Importantly, you don’t need to sacrifice style for safety, as there are many finishes and colours available for walls and floors.

By adapting your bathroom to your individual needs and taste, it can remain a place in which to relax and revive, not a room to avoid. n

SKY GARDENS

If you're in search of some botanical inspiration for the summer, just look to the skies…

BY ANNA WALKER

SKY GARDEN LONDON

Situated on the 35th floor of the iconic “Walkie-Talkie” building in central London, this stunning garden sprawls over three stories, combining Mediterranean and South African planting.

The space is multi-awardwinning garden designer Jack Dunckley’s favourite British sky garden. He told us, “The garden temperature here is monitored around the clock to mirror the conditions these plants would experience in a warm temperate climate. The temperature is always kept between 15-20 degrees which is adequate for the individual plants chosen to work in harmony with the very particular quality of light and warmth found under the roof canopy.”

“There are no seasons in the Sky Garden, so many plants flower all year round. Amongst the flowering plants are African Lilies, Red Hot Poker and Bird of Paradise.”

skygarden.london/skygarden

OH ME OH MY LIVERPOOL

Situated opposite Liverpool’s historic waterfront, this hidden gem serves as a charming tea house by day and a glittering events space by night.

Bedecked with fairy lights, they even offer colouring sheets of the view from the balcony to keep the little ones entertained.

If you’re looking for a little more privacy, why not join one of the venue’s “secret sessions” where a select group of visitors can enjoy brunch and Bellinis or a hearty roast dinner, all accompanied by live acoustic music.

Says events manager Sarah Lovell, "There's nothing better than sitting in the roof garden and taking in the stunning view with a cold drink and an open sketchbook." ohmeohmyliverpool.co.uk/roof-garden

BAMBALAN BRISTOL

Bristol’s Bambalan restaurant burst onto the scene in 2016, and the hype around this summery spot hasn’t died down since.

Known for its laid-back atmosphere, it’s planted right in the middle of the city centre and the stunning outdoor terrace offers some unrivalled views across Bristol.

With Mediterranean and Middle Eastern food on the menu, this is the

ideal place to bring a group, and enjoy the views and fresh décor as you share some tasty treats.

Says events manager Meg Pope, “Hidden in plain sight above Bristol's bustling city centre, our roof terrace is a true hidden gem. With resident DJs every weekend and an alfresco bar serving local beers and specially created cocktails, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were somewhere altogether more exotic than Bristol!” bambalan.co.uk

BIRMINGHAM LIBRARY BIRMINGHAM

Hidden away on the seventh floor of Birmingham’s public library is a scenic rooftop garden offering a stunning secluded spot to enjoy a good book in the sun.

Created entirely by volunteers and reached via glass elevator, the bright garden showcases the red of sedums, resplendent green grasses and soft blue curry plants. Gravel paths lead visitors around the space, offering spectacular views over the city.

The plants in this garden (all 3,500 varieties of them) have been carefully selected to ensure the terrace will offer blooms all year round, so that visitors to this unique library can enjoy the inspiring views any time they please.

Wildlife thrives in this garden, with bird and insect boxes nestled amongst the plantings. If you plan a visit to the shelves, be sure to check out the thriving herb and vegetable plot on the third floor too!

birmingham.gov.uk/libraries

LANARK ROOFTOP GARDEN LANARKSHIRE

With stunning views from the roof of an old mill building in the heart of the New Lanark World Heritage site, this garden isn’t one to miss.

Says marketing officer Melissa Reilly, “Created on the 9,000 square feet roof of our historic mill, the New Lanark Roof Garden is the largest of its kind in Scotland. Imaginatively designed, the garden contains decorative planting with over 70 different plants and shrubs, a water feature and animal sculptures.”

The garden was originally created by the philanthropist Robert Owen, who owned the cotton mills here during the early 1800s.

Speaking in 1817 of his plans for the rooftop, which he intended to benefit the local community, he said, “They will be surrounded by gardens, have abundance of space in all directions to keep the air healthy and pleasant: they will have walks and plantations before them, and well cultivated grounds, kept in good order, as far as the eye can reach”. newlanarkroofgarden.co.uk

THE PRINTWORKS MANCHESTER

The bee is the symbol of the city of Manchester and in the last year, it's become synonymous with Mancunian strength and defiance. At the Printworks—an unexpected oasis perched atop the roof of an entertainment complex that hosts restaurants, bars, shops and a cinema—you can discover Mancunian bees buzzing away in their natural habitat.

Says the centre’s director, Fred Booth: “For the last five years our rooftop has hosted a garden with 25 different fruit and vegetable varieties

alongside beehives. The bees were originally endorsed by Bez from the band Happy Mondays. In the following years, over £7,000 has been raised for the Booth Centre and Forever Manchester charities from the sale of honey from the hive.”

As well as the buzzing of bees, visitors can expect to spy chicken coops, a wild flower meadow, orchard and herb garden.

Incredibly, all the produce here is grown using state of the art hydroponics units—a way to grow plants without soil, using nutrients in water solvent instead. theprintworks.com

VARSITY HOTEL CAMBRIDGE

Open all year round, the roof terrace of Cambridge’s Varsity Hotel brings the quintessential English garden to dizzy new heights. Views of the nearby Cambridge colleges with their iconic architecture, an impeccable lawn and delicious hotel menu make this spot unmissable.

By night the Varsity becomes the most romantic spot in Cambridge and the perfect place to watch the sun go down while enjoying a champagne cocktail or gin and tonic.

Says hotel manager Roberto

Pintus, “What makes us really special is our amazing location on the banks of the River Cam. Our roof terrace and panoramic restaurant boast breath-taking views of Cambridge; I can think of no better place to spend an evening! We take great pride in offering our guests a highly personalised experience, something a little more bespoke.”

thevarsityhotel.co.uk/rooftopterrace-bar-and-garden

Do you have a favourite sky garden for enjoying the long summer evenings?

Email us about it at readersletters@ readersdigest.co.uk

Unique healthy meals service makes fridge and freezer obsolete

IT’S the storecupboard recipe for the future, home-cooked ready meals that combine the traditional taste of fresh-picked goodness with cutting-edge cooking techniques. Parsley Box meals are ready to pop in the oven or microwave straight from their box. ey’re delivered to your home and then you pop them in the pantry – not the freezer or even the fridge, unlike other meal services, because this is high-tech cuisine.

e dishes, slow-cooked to perfection, can be stored for long periods because of the innovative steam fresh packaging system that’s taken a year to perfect. It’s based on something used in Michelin-star restaurants called sous-vide (French for under vacuum) and gives six months’ storage without using preservatives. Parsley Box is perfect for those who are getting older and who don’t want the trouble of cooking (or even defrosting), and yet it is just as handy for those short of time, whether singles or those with fast-moving families.

MOTHER OF INVENTION

It’s the brainchild of Adrienne and Gordon MacAulay who were looking for easy, nutritious food for Adrienne’s mother a er the couple and their children (who used to love coming up with desserts for gran) moved away.

e result is a compendium of Adrienne’s favourite recipes reborn into a 21st-century library of dishes for the home.

“

ey take just 1-2 minutes in the microwave and taste delicious,” says Adrienne. “We have just started on our journey as a family business, so expect lots of new recipes to make the way out of our kitchen.”

NUTRITIONAL BALANCE

Already there are more than 30 dishes on o er, all wholesome and nutritionally balanced, from comforting favourites such as cottage pie to the sophistication of a coq au vin or the curry house charm of a rogan josh. ere are also pasta dishes,

GOODNESS BOXED IN Home cooked meals

steam fresh packed allow long shelf life and no preservatives or freezing required.

Mediterranean rice and plenty more curries. Starters too, such as the rich tomato and red pepper soup, as well as side dishes and a number of sponge pudding desserts.

What’s far from modern are the prices. Soups are £1.99, main courses £2.99 and puds only £1.25 – and a special launchbundle serves up to 10 main courses for £19, only £1.90 each. As a bonus there’s a free Parsley Box tea towel and, like all orders, it comes with free next day delivery.

is is the taste of things to come and it couldn’t be easier to enjoy.

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This man never forgets a face. And that rare ability is helping police catch criminals

Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere?

BY TIM HULSE

AUSTIN CABALLERO HAD BEEN GETTING AWAY WITH IT for years. A shoplifter who targeted small, high-end shops in London’s wealthier districts, he had helped himself to more than £100,000 worth of jewellery and designer clothing over an extended period.

“He was good,” says Detective Sergeant Eliot Porritt of the Metropolitan Police. “I hate using that word for him, but he was well dressed and calm. He would go in and engage the staff in conversation, and as soon as their backs were turned, he’d steal stuff.

Sometimes it wasn’t until two or three days later that

Eliot Porritt: one of the London police’s “super-recognisers”

they’d realise something was missing from the display. Then they’d look on CCTV and call the police. But he’d be long gone by then, so he always had the advantage.”

Caballero would probably still be getting away with it were it not for individuals such as Porritt, who is one of a team of so-called “super-recognisers” who have been operating at the Met’s headquarters at New Scotland Yard since May 2015 and who last year lent their help to the police in Cologne, Germany.

They sound like characters from a Marvel comic and indeed their talents are close to superhuman, because they have an uncanny ability to remember and recognise faces— even faces that are only partially revealed or highly pixelated.

So when a member of the unit saw a picture of the then unknown

Caballero on the Met’s computer database of CCTV images of known suspects last summer, he decided to check to see if he had been caught on camera before. It’s a matching process the unit calls “face snapping”, named after the game of snap, in which players look for identical cards.

After a weekend of searching, he’d snapped ten other images on the database. Eventually, after looking at tens of thousands of images, he would end up with around 40 identifications. It was clear that Caballero was a serious repeat offender.

A media appeal was launched for further information and in due course Caballero was found and later convicted of 40 offences of theft and one of racially aggravated assault. He is currently serving three years and nine months in prison.

“Some of these pictures of Caballero went back to 2012,” says Porritt, an affable character with a ready smile, who is fiercely proud of the successes of the unit. “He was probably thinking, ‘I’ve committed all these offences and no one’s ever come to see me, so I’ve got away with it.’ But that’s all changed. We’re

identifying all these prolific offenders who’ve gone under the radar for years because no one’s ever linked up CCTV images of them.”

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SUPERrecogniser unit go back to the serious civil disturbances in London during the summer of 2011. It became clear then that the Met had no systematic way of dealing with large numbers of CCTV images. So the first step was the creation of a computerised database of images that could be searched by various criteria such as ethnic appearance, clothing and hairstyle. When the database was put into use, it became clear that certain officers had an uncanny ability for recognising faces.

“I first started hearing about super-recognisers in 2011,” says Acting Police Sergeant Paul Smith, who developed and now manages the seven-strong unit, plus a network of around 170 other superrecognisers, both officers and civilian staff. “When we started using the database, it became clear that certain The average person can memorise 20 to 50 per cent of faces, but super-recognisers can memorise 90 per cent

officers, like Eliot, were giving repeat identifications—not just one, but four, five, six, and on a regular basis.”

Porritt had no idea he had a special talent until Smith contacted him to tell him he was on his superrecogniser list. Now 37, he joined the force in 2008. Growing up in the leafy north-west London suburb of Belsize Park, he’d dreamed of working in the public services and making the world a better place, and it was after a job as a civilian assisting a child abuse investigation that he realised the police force was where he wanted to be.

“I’ve always been good with names and faces but I was never aware when I was a kid of people going, ‘Oh my god, how did you remember

Porritt and colleagues regularly attend large-scale events, where they can help to identify known offenders. “A couple of the guys were at the Notting Hill Carnival in London looking at a live feed of TV images and feeding information back,” he that?’” he says, laughing. “It’s strange, it’s only through working at the super-recogniser unit that I realise people don’t see other people the way I do. In the past I’d be looking at two pictures and go, ‘That’s the same person,’ and someone else would

Porritt went to Cologne to help police investigate a huge number of sexual assaults and thefts last New Year’s Eve say, ‘Are you sure?’ And I’d go, ‘Are you blind?!’

“We super-recognisers can remember faces we’ve seen years ago. The average person can memorise 20 to 50 per cent of faces but academics tell us we can memorise 90 per cent.”

BETWEEN ONE AND TWO PER CENT of the population has this special skill, and scientists are baffled as to why. However, it can be scientifically tested, and all the members of the super-recogniser unit have been proven to share the ability. And it’s paying dividends.

“Since the unit started in May 2015, we’ve made more than 1,800 identifications,” says Porritt. “And that’s led to more than 900 completed cases.”

says. “They could tell there were two gangs next to one another, so they were able to give a warning and avert a serious disturbance.”

Ten super-recognisers were also assigned to the high-profile case of Alice Gross, a teenager who went missing in west London in August 2014 and was later found to have been murdered. Their work was crucial in finding her body, which had been concealed by her killer under logs in a river.

“The key breakthrough was when we found a tiny flicker of a head lamp that had been missed by all the officers initially viewing the CCTV images in the area,” remembers Porritt. “It was a clue that the main suspect had returned to further conceal the body. The area had already been searched, but as a

result of our information there was another search and she was found. From there we built a case.”

AT THE BEGINNING OF LAST YEAR,

Porritt and a colleague went to Cologne to help police investigate a huge number of sexual assaults and thefts mainly thought to have been carried out by North African refugees during the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. It was the first time the unit had helped a foreign force.

“There were 1,546 crimes that night, including 532 sexual assaults,” says Detective Superintendent Thomas Schulte, the German police officer leading the investigation. “It was night time, so the CCTV quality was very bad. Scotland Yard called us to offer their help. I’d heard about super-recognisers before, so I was interested.”

“We were there for two weeks,” says Porritt. “They’d already identified three officers who had made a lot of idents and were clearly super-recognisers, so we gave them some training. When we got there, they had pictures of ten or 20 people on the wall. When we left, the wall was full of suspects.”

THE RISE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY

Keyless doorbells

A so-called “smart doorbell” named Chui can be programmed to recognise the faces of friends and family members, allowing them instant entry.

Detecting health issues

Scientists at the University of Oxford have now developed a program that can scan faces in family snaps and detect potential genetic disorders.

Online course supervision

KeyLemon’s “biometric user authentication technology” not only confirms online students’ identities, it can also make sure they are paying attention, based on the angle of their heads and how much they blink.

Interactive cars

Ford and Intel are collaborating on technology that will allow a car to recognise the driver and automatically adjust certain features. For instance, if a teenager is driving, a parent might want to limit the car’s speed.

Good news for cats

The CatFi Pro feeder is able to distinguish between one cat and another, allowing owners and breeders to monitor the diet and weight of individual kitties.

“I was surprised by how successful they were,” admits Schulte, who says they’re now thinking of introducing superrecogniser units in Germany. “We always think about technical solutions, but this shows that the human mind is kind of interesting.”

It’s a good point. The US military recently purchased 500 pairs of socalled “X6 spy glasses” that enable a user to match a face in real time to one on a computer database. But while facial recognition software has its uses and is becoming ever more prevalent in other areas, the superrecognisers demonstrate that, for now at least, the human brain has its advantages.

“Almost every image that we’ve got a conviction out of would never be picked up by facial recognition software,” says Porritt. “That relies on perfect conditions, so I don’t think it will be good enough for years. CCTV cameras are usually positioned

looking downwards. Angles, lighting, pixelation, facial expressions: all these completely change things, and that’s why you always need that human element.”

And unlike a machine, superrecognisers never stop working, and find themselves spotting wanted criminals—not to mention celebrities—in off-duty moments.

“We’re always on the look-out,” says Porritt, who on more than one occasion has also been grateful for the fact that so few people share his ability—as when he found himself late at night waiting for a bus next to someone he had once arrested. “Luckily, he didn’t recognise me,” he laughs.

DID YOU KNOW?

France was still executing people by guillotine when Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope hit cinemas in 1977.

SOURCE: IMDB.COM

X6 spy glasses

ENHANCE YOUR LATER LIFE INCOME

Equity release is one of the UK’s fastest growing financial services and is becoming a popular way for over 55 homeowners to fund their retirement income. We explain what it is and how it works

What is equity release?

Equity release schemes allow you to access the cash tied up in your home without having to sell and move out, meaning you benefit from the value of the property but can continue to live in your own home. To be eligible for equity release you must be 55 or over with a UK property worth at least 70,000. There are several options available for how you release your cash.

How it works

The most popular scheme is called a lifetime mortgage: the interest on your loan accumulates and is repaid along with the capital when your house is sold after you and your partner die or go into care. Accessing some of your property wealth now will reduce the value of your estate for use in the future. However, any excess can be passed on as part of your estate. Boosting your later life finances with taxfree cash through a lifetime mortgage may

also a ect your entitlement to meanstested benefits. An adviser can provide you with a personalised illustration of the features and risks.

Alternatively, under a home reversion scheme you sell a percentage of your property, with the rest a guaranteed inheritance for your children.

Flexible Lifetime Mortgage

With this scheme you can take as little as £10,000 tax-free, leave funds in reserve and your property remains your own. If you wanted to pay some of the money back into your property, you can do so with optional repayments of up to 10 per cent per year of the amount you borrowed. Like any other borrowing, an interest rate is charged and any interest you choose not to pay is simply added to the total and paid when you or your heirs eventually sell the property. The interest rate is fixed for life, so you can be sure of what you are being charged. No matter how much you take with this plan, you will never owe more than the value of your property.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

To find out how much tax-free cash you could release from your home visit www.readersdigest.co.uk/equityrelease. Our handy calculator will give you the information you require. You can also call 0800 029 1233 to discuss your needs with a view to arranging a home visit with one of our financial advisors.

LAS VEGAS Stripped Back

There’s more to this iconic city than neon lights and the drama of the casinos, as Tamara Hinson discovers…

Full disclosure: I’ve never performed an autopsy, or had any real desire to. But I now suspect I’d do a pretty good job. I’ve also discovered a knack for crime scene investigation, and the ability to identify a murder victim’s age by the condition of their bones. These somewhat unexpected realisations take place at Las Vegas’s Mob Museum, more specifically its latest attraction, the interactive crime lab.

Yes, Las Vegas might have casinos galore, dancing fountains, flamingofilled pools and rollercoasters wrapped around its hotels, but venture away from the neon glow of the Strip and you’ll discover a very different side to Sin City.

THE AFOREMENTIONED

Mob Museum is a fantastic example. Opened in 2012 inside a low, three-storey former courthouse (once Las Vegas’s tallest building), the exhibits provide an insight into the darker days of the city’s history. It’s a noholds-barred exposé of a time when a small number of mobsters made enormous amounts of money, mostly by skimming casino profits. I learn about Al Capone (whose gun is on display), Ben “Bugsy” Siegel, Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and Sam Giancana, and how many of the city’s most notorious gangsters were sent to Las

Vegas from Chicago, where the gambling scene was also controlled by the mob. In fact, one of the most striking exhibits is the original, bullet-riddled wall of a Chicago warehouse. This was where, in 1929, seven members of the fearsome North Side Gang died in a hail of bullets fired by hitmen connected to Al Capone.

Equally gruesome is the gas chamber chair in which some of Las Vegas’s most notorious gangsters died, although there are plenty of less grizzly exhibits, too. In the section which looks at how casinos tackle the issue of cheating, there are displays of devices used by cheaters and a lump of plastic-flecked cement retrieved from the depths of nearby Lake Mead. Years ago, casinos got rid of old casino chips by embedding them in concrete blocks which were then unceremonioulsy dumped in the lake.

include the original Stardust and Golden Nugget signs (my guide, Emily, explains that the “1905” on the latter was a nod to what many see as the year of Vegas’s birth) and

“Years ago, casinos got rid of old chips by embedding them in concrete and dumping them in the lake”

I learn about sign-makers’ penchant for subliminal messaging. For example, when the letter S was used, it was often designed to resemble a dollar sign, in an effort to persuade gamblers to part with more money. And some of Las Vegas’s most iconic logos have now been brought back to life, thanks to Brilliant!, the museum’s new night time sound and light show which uses hi-tech lasers to light up the signs, restoring them to their former glory.

A LITTLE LESS DARK (in more ways than one) is the nearby Neon Museum, a resting place for Vegas’s most famous signs. What’s become known as the “neon bone yard” can only be visited on group tours due to the value of the signs, so it’s worth booking ahead. Highlights

But a word of warning: although this downtown area of Las Vegas, seven miles north of the Strip, is being regenerated, certain areas are still a work in progress. If you’re visiting at night time, consider using a cab to travel the short distance between the two museums and the area’s biggest attraction—Fremont Street, an undercover entertainment

Next page:

Clockwise L-R; Previous signs make for an exciting exhibit at the Neon Museum; displays at a Vegas art gallery; displays and the exterior of The Mob Musum

The infamous Las Vegas Strip

district where you’ll find the city’s longest zip line. In true Las Vegas style, riders are spit out of a giant slot machine.

Another advantage of calling a cab? You’ll have more room for all your purchases from the nearby Las Vegas North Premium Outlets, where you’ll find 175 stores, including Michael Kors, Neiman Marcus Last Call Studio and Nike. Recent additions include Escada, funky Rhode island-based jewellers Alex and Ani and Shake Shack, where I gorged on what might just be the world’s best (and largest) milkshake.

LAS VEGAS IS SLOWLY shunning its reputation for super-sized food and unconstrained excess. Sure, Fremont Street has a restaurant called the Heart Attack Grill where waitresses dressed in surgical whites serve up 9,982 calorie “Quadruple Bypass Burgers”, and yes, you can ditch cutlery to gnaw on chicken bones while knights joust metres from your

“In the Heart Attack Grill, waitresses dressed in surgical whites serve 9,982 calorie ‘Quadruple Bypass Burgers’ ”

table (that particular spectacle takes place at Excalibur), but the Strip is now also home to a number of fine dining restaurants too. One of the most recent additions is the MGM Grand’s China Tang, famous for its high-end Chinese fare. I also love the Cosmopolitan hotel’s vintage-themed Beauty & Essex eatery, where I eat the best salmon ceviche of my life, but only after plucking up the courage to walk through a side door in the pawn shop which acts as a false front for this speakeasy-style restaurant.

At the iconic nearby Caesars Palace, the newest restaurant is Hell’s Kitchen. I arrive to be greeted by an angry, swearing Gordon Ramsay

LAS VEGAS

(albeit a virtual one whose profanities are dutifully bleeped out) and take my seat by an open kitchen staffed by chefs wearing red and blue uniforms—a reference to the show’s two teams of contestants. Tiny pitchforks (the hit television series’ logo) adorn the walls and the menu is filled with Gordon’s signature dishes, including his beef Wellington and crème brûlée. Michelle Tribble, who recently won season 17 of the show, is head chef. “I’ll tell you one thing,” whispers my waiter conspiratorially, nodding towards the kitchen. “Michelle’s a chef who won’t hesitate to show anyone the door if they’re not pulling their weight.” Luckily, my beef Wellington lives up to the hype and I have no reason to risk her wrath with any complaints.

There are various ways to escape the madness of Las Vegas. At the art deco-themed Four Seasons Hotel Las Vegas (the only hotel on the Strip without a casino), the walls heave

with priceless pieces of art, fresh flowers scent the air and thick cream carpets muffle the faintest of noises.

My highlight? The spa, which was given a major refurbishment in late 2016, has 12 beautiful treatment rooms and one of the most snoozeworthy relaxation areas I’ve ever come across.

And then there’s the greenery of MGM Resorts’ outdoor space, The Park—vast expanses of the stuff, complete with art installations, park benches and beer gardens, bordered by some of Las Vegas’s best bars and restaurants. My favourite? Beerhaus, with its leafy patio and German beer hall-inspired interior, and Sake Rok, where you can feast on sushi while your waitress takes part in a lip-sync battle with her colleagues. Sounds odd, but it works.

And while the crowds flock to the Bellagio for the nightly fountain shows, consider heading inside to the Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens, where 140

horticulturalists reinvent the garden every winter, spring, summer and autumn. Previous gardens have included a Capri-themed creation featuring enormous lemons made out of flowers, and a winter wonderland, complete with poinsettia polar bears and flurries of artificial snow.

MY TOP TIP? DON’T TAKE VEGAS too seriously, and don’t miss an opportunity to see how the other half live. On my final night, we head over to ARIA Resort & Casino’s JEWEL Nightclub, a 24,000 square feet playground for Las Vegas’s beautiful people—many of whom flock to the luxurious VIP suites. It’s certainly an eye-opener. At clusters of seats on the other side of a velvet rope, I spot a gaggle of Rolex-bedecked clubbers placing orders for bottles of Dom Pérignon. Bottle after sparkleradorned bottle arrives at their table, carried by waitresses who resemble Victoria’s Secret models. Then again, a glance at the menu reveals that a Methuselah (six-litre) bottle of champagne would set me back well over £20,000, so the least they can do is throw a few sparklers in.

As I sip my bottle of Corona (minus the sparklers, although served by a scantily-clad waitress who gives me serious guilt pangs about last night’s buffet-related indulgences) I realise I can’t remember the last time I was in a

Travel Tips

nightclub—and it’s certainly not because of Dom Pérignon-induced memory loss. But I’m fairly certain it didn’t look anything like this. Then again, Las Vegas is the one place in the world which will always defy expectations, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Visit lvcva.com for more information

LODGING

Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, from £49 caesars.com/ flamingo-las-vegas

INFORMATION

Return fares from London to Las Vegas with British Airways start from £398 per person

A Greek Adventure

Immerse yourself in authentic Greek culture and join us on a twin centre walking holiday exploring the beautiful islands of Ithaca and Kefalonia, designed for single and solo travellers.

DEPARTURE 29TH SEPTEMBER 2018

7 FROMNIGHTS£1225pp

Fancy wandering through the authentic, unspoilt Greek islands of Ithaca and Kefalonia? Then this is the walking tour for you. These islands are relatively secret compared to most holiday destinations meaning you will be able to explore and observe the well-preserved lands just as a local does.

HIKING PARADISE

This 7-night tour will take you on 4 treks through the rugged mountains, fishing harbours and sandy beaches of these beautiful Ionian islands. Discover secluded coves, endless vineyards and beautiful vegetation and soak up the centuries of history and culture as we explore mountain monasteries, abandoned villages and the picturesque capital of Ithaca. Following a successful day’s ramble you can soak up the Greek atmosphere with some traditional food and wine, relax as you enjoy the panoramic sunsets and dip your toes in the crystal-clear waters.

UNCOVERING HISTORY

On the island of Ithaca, famous for Homer’s The Odyssey, you will learn of this epic story as you follow it’s footsteps and trace history. On the island of Kefalonia you will notice the beautiful influences from Venetia and Italy that are spattered throughout at you wander the secluded and authentic towns. They’ll be plenty of opportunity to unwind and relax – in harbour front cafés, sipping a frappe as you watch the World go by, reflecting on your day as you enjoy a delicious meal in a traditional Greek taverna or enjoying an evening swim in the Ionian sea.

For more information visit or call: www.readersdigestsolotravel.co.uk

HAPPINESS WITHOUT WORDS

Can you travel around Japan without speaking Japanese?

BY SILKE PFERSDORF

FROM SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Crowds on the street at sunset in the Shinjuku district

I CAN SEE THE CHARACTERS. I just don’t know what they mean. Some look like simple stick men, others like tangled tree trunks. I’m sitting in a kind of snack bar in Kyoto, confronted with a menu written entirely in Japanese. I’m hungry, clueless, and, worst of all, completely unable to communicate. In the end, I decide to take pot-luck. “Fish,” says the man behind the counter and gives me the thumbs up. Fish sounds good. As for the rest of it, I’ll just have to wait and see.

There are plenty of restaurants in Kyoto that display plastic replicas of their dishes in the window so you just have to point to the one you want. But they don’t always have them in the side streets of the old geisha and entertainment district of Gion. Here, red and white lanterns sway in the gentle breeze in front of small, halfhidden restaurants that make no effort to attract tourists because there are plenty of other customers passing by.

I find a cosy seat at the counter in one of the narrow wooden houses and watch the cook as he fries my food. The couple across from me are feeding each other with chopsticks. They smilingly raise their glasses to me. I smile back, as I look forward to my fish or whatever it is I’ve ordered. I’ve already started to understand that in Japan, happiness has no need of words.

JAPAN WITHOUT A WORD OF Japanese. Lost in translation.While I’m in downtown Tokyo, I don’t feel quite so far out of my comfort zone—almost everything, including

the metro map, is also written in our Western alphabet. But all that changes as soon as you start traveling around the city on the green circle line to places like Nippori in the ancient district of Yanaka. Tiny shops, stray cats roaming the alleys, a wonderfully quaint cemetery. This is Tokyo at its most authentic—and indecipherable. Like a shipwrecked sailor, I find myself wading through an ocean of alien symbols. My eyes desperately search for one of the paltry 26 letters that they’re familiar with. But all they find are shops that I will need to enter if I want to know whether what they are selling is something to eat, a pair of flip-flops, or a new hairdo.

I’m thirsty, what to do? Through an open shop door, I spy a shelf with bottles containing a transparent liquid. My brain rashly jumps to the conclusion that it must be water and tells me to buy it without delay. Whatever the drink really is, it is sickeningly sweet. My taste buds grumble and my brain sulks before suddenly being gripped by panic:

Every day, tens of thousands of people cross the street at the famous Shibuya intersection

how will we ever find our way back to the train station? Perhaps wandering around aimlessly wasn’t such a great idea, when all the while you feel like a child who has lost her mother in a big department store.

I spot a little old lady with a purple rinse. “Nippori?” I ask her tentatively. She immediately starts explaining how to get there—in Japanese. I try to memorize the sequence of her gestures. Straight ahead, then right, then left. And I do get there in the end, albeit one hour later, after having the way explained to me by a further four people.

THINGS ARE MUCH EASIER in the city centre. Ten years ago, some Japanese people would run

away in terror if a tourist asked them for directions in English, because they were frightened of the embarrassment that would be caused if they didn’t understand. But with just a little over two years to go until the Tokyo Olympics, language courses are booming.

“Can I help you?” I’m in the middle of the bustling Shibuya district in the centre of Tokyo, at what is probably the world’s most famous crossroads. When the lights turn green at its six zebra crossings, the streets are engulfed by a flood of humanity. I’m standing there with my map and suddenly there’s a Japanese man next to me, guiding me first one way, then another. The man is wearing a dark suit and carrying a

briefcase, and was obviously on his way home from work. But instead of continuing on his way, he takes the time to show a foreign woman to the Hachimangu shrine, which must be at least half a mile away. Then he bows and wishes me a pleasant stay in Japan. In actual fact, I’ve already started enjoying my time in this country—I now feel sure that everything’s going to be just fine.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” But that doesn’t stop me from going to Kyoto. It’s easy enough to catch a Shinkansen (bullet train),

embarrassment, the man I ask doesn’t know either, but he still insists on showing me the way. I have no choice but to follow him and ten minutes later we find ourselves back at the station. He bows low, mumbling an apology, and quickly scuttles away. So I head for the station’s tourist information office where they draw directions on my map. I could have worked it out for myself, if I’m honest.

MUCH TO HIS EMBARRASSMENT, THE MAN I ASK DOESN’T KNOW THE WAY EITHER, BUT HE STILL INSISTS ON SHOWING ME

HIRING A BIKE FOR THE DAY costs around £8. Kyoto is as flat as a pancake, the hills are all off in the distance. There are 1,600 temples and 400 Shinto shrines. On the way to the Golden Temple, I get lost in the maze of side streets. A beginner’s error—why didn’t I just stick to the main road?

even for a novice like myself. The ticket office staff in the larger train stations speak English, and the signs are very clear.

Once I arrive at Kyoto station, my next challenge is to find the bicycle hire. According to the information page I consulted, it’s just three minutes away. But in which direction? Much to his

I spot a policeman standing in front of a small building with a red light. I read that these mini police stations are called koban and are found in every neighbourhood. I point to my destination on the map, and the policeman repeatedly signals right and left. I assume he’s giving me directions—in Japanese. In the end, he fetches a bicycle and rides ahead of me until we reach a crossroads from where all I have to do is go straight on.

You learn as you go along. Two days later, I’m en route to the sacred mountain of Kōya-san. This is definitely something that should only

(Clockwise from above) Hundreds of Buddha statues guard the tranquil graveyard at Okuno-in; not only breathtaking, the Golden Pavillon also appears on the list of Unesco World Heritage Sites; plastic models of the food on offer are commonplace in Kyoto’s restaurant windows

be attempted by advanced learners. Once south of Osaka, I’m forced to rely on local trains. I find directions online, stick rigidly to what the GPS on my phone tells me, and make it onto the train, where there is standing room only.

The train may be full, but at least I’m sure it’s the right one thanks to the sign on the platform. Once

I’m on board, though, I find myself looking at all the different adverts and trying to guess what they’re selling. This must be what I felt like when I was a small child. Completely clueless, the world around me a total mystery. I hear announcements that I don’t understand, then suddenly I’m alone on an empty train. Everyone’s getting off, don’t ask me why. An old

man gesticulates and tries to explain in his broken English. Finally, I get the message—the train won’t be going any farther. I don’t even know the word for “station,” but here I am standing on yet another platform.

A young man tells me, this time in pretty good English, that the train has broken down but a replacement is waiting for us on the opposite platform. He bows and apologises

clacking of wooden geta sandals on tarmac, the monks chanting in the temples, wind whispering through the cedars. You can stay the night at most of the temples; they even do half board. I booked my lodgings at the Muryoko-in temple online.

TWO TOILET DOORS, TWO INSCRUTABLE SYMBOLS. DO I GO FOR THE CUBE ON LEGS OR THE INTERLOCKING BOOMERANGS?

This is the home of Genso, a native of Switzerland who came to the Kōya-san some 18 years ago. He’s only too happy to tell people what to see and do while they’re up here. And he does so in several languages including my own. Naturally, he accompanies me on my walk through the ancient Oku-no-in cemetery. A 100,000 stone lanterns and Buddha statues watch over the graves of religious leaders, feudal lords, and samurai, the centuries-old stone covered in moss.

as if he were personally responsible for the delay. You would never catch even a railway employee making such a display of contrition back home, not even if the service had been completely cancelled.

On the mountain of 117 temples, at least, my enforced silence is a wonderful thing. When I finally arrive after a tortuous two-hour train journey and cable car ascent, it’s picturesquely shrouded in mist. If you can’t listen in to other people’s conversations, you automatically concentrate more on the sounds and sights of the place itself. The

THEN IT’S TIME FOR A COFFEE and a visit to the toilet. It’s a disaster waiting to happen: two doors, two inscrutable symbols. Do I go for the cube on legs or the interlocking boomerangs? A man emerges from the door with the cube, so I plump for the other. When I come out, a child is laughing and its mother giggling behind her hand. Did I get the wrong one after all? Then I realise I’m still wearing the plastic slippers provided for use in the toilets. It’s a classic faux-pas for foreigners visiting Japan. Any thoughts I may have had of blending in with the locals evaporate in an instant.

ON MY FOURTH DAY, I make my way to the Hakone mountains some 40 miles from Tokyo—without incident.

Mount Fuji is showing well, with two wisps of smoke rising above its summit. I enjoy perfect views of this volcanic landscape, before heading off with my rucksack. I want to walk to the top of Owakudani. It’s no great feat, just a hike of a couple of hours or so. I see an old lady coming toward me. “Owakudani?” I ask, simply to make sure I’m going the right way. She looks at me apologetically, cocks her head, and takes a deep breath. Perhaps she didn’t understand me?

Then she says something and crosses her hands. I’ve read that in Japan this gesture means “no good.”

At that very moment, an American shows up and explains that the path is closed because the sulphur vents are currently spewing out poisonous vapours. I’m learning that the Japanese are incredibly polite and friendly, but don’t necessarily express what they want to say very clearly.

It’s evening and I’m lying in the onsen at my hotel. The Japanese are crazy about hot springs. I’ve prepared well and know what do to: first of all, I sit on a small wooden stool and pour buckets of water over myself, dutifully subjecting my body to a thorough scrubbing. Only once I’ve removed every trace of soap do I climb into the bath. But I needn’t have bothered looking up the correct onsen etiquette

beforehand—it's clearly displayed on two wall charts where little cartoon men show you what to do.

Two evenings later I’m back in Tokyo, feeling like a heroine. I take one last stroll through a city awash with alien characters. Every character is a picture, the city itself a picture book. For the last time, I enter a restaurant and point at words I can’t read. It’s fun not knowing what you’re going to get; somehow everything is always delicious anyway.

I say “arigato” as I leave. Thank you. The only word of Japanese I managed to learn on my entire trip. A man at the bar claps and the cook congratulates me from behind the counter: “Good Japanese”, he laughs.

FROM: SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (NOVEMBER 10, 2016) © SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Kimonos are traditional dress at Yasaka Pagoda, Kyoto

My Great Escape: “

Korean Capers

Mark Dabbs from Walsall talks about his fascinating trip to the mysterious country of North Korea…

You’ll be shot! You’ll be blown up!”—those were just some of the concerns people voiced when I learned I was going to North Korea. And that’s not surprising, really, the place is shrouded in mystery and speculation—but then, what did I really know about the country?

So off I went to Dandong in China—the rendezvous point for the Koryo Tours three-night, four-day marathon tour. At Dandong railway Hotel we gathered for a briefing from Greg, our Hungarian tour guide: no photos were to be taken of building sites or the

military, nothing that makes the country look bad; no flags or books on South Korea, and absolutely no religious texts or bibles. Finally, we couldn’t go anywhere unescorted— Lanzarote this was not!

Next morning, we assembled at the railway station, leaving China behind and crossing the Yalu River. Every once in a while a village would emerge, its station walls festooned with propaganda photos and the ubiquitous Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il portraits. Devotion to leadership seemed thorough and unflinching.

Finally we arrived in Pyongyang— recognisable by the Ryugyong, a pyramid-shaped hotel which had lain dormant for 30 years without guests.

We were greeted by our North Korean guides, Ms Pak and Mr Choe, who took us for dinner and a bus tour of the city, which was to become our chief means of transport. We made our way to the hotel which was dated but comfortable and warm.

The breakfast options were either English or Korean, and I plumped for English: thick slices of bread and an omelette with Korean tea and hot water: a bizarrely popular drink in this region! Our first stop was Mansu Hill, a famous sight in the DPRK, containing two 50ft statues of Kim Il sung and Kim Jong-il.

The marathon came on a Sunday and we were paraded on the stadium as visiting guest athletes. The race started and I had to stop at ten miles because my stomach was upset. I sat down and contemplated what to do, but knew that “failure was not an

option,” so I got to my feet and carried on, feeling a little better. I knew I had to finish because I was never going to come back here again, and if I ever managed to run the Seoul marathon, I would have medals from both Koreas, another unique achievement. The reaction when I finished was great, although it took over four hours!

On our return to China we were taken to the stamp shop to send our postcards—which were sure to be heavily censored—and all too soon we were saying goodbye to our hosts and on our way.

All in all, North Korea was like nothing I had ever experienced. If you stick to the rules and don’t mention politics, it’s an amazing experience.

Tell us about your favourite holiday (send a photo too) and if we print it we’ll pay £50. Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk

BEACHES: A SHORE THING

FOR THE RESTLESS: THE DANISH RIVIERA

Inntravel’s gentle, self-guided Scandi cycling break follows Copenhageners to Zealand, an isle of forests, meadows, castles and, yes, fabulous white-sand shores. Pootle about, and stop off whenever you please (inntravel.co.uk).

FOR CLASSICISTS: GREEK ISLANDS

FOR FILM FANS: CHESIL BEACH

Seen On Chesil Beach yet? Starring Saoirse Ronan, the Ian McEwan adaptation was filmed on location at Dorset’s 18 mile-long shingle spit. Though its hotel was fictitious, seaside Moonfleet Manor makes an apt substitute (moonfleetmanor hotel.co.uk).

FOR SAFARI-GOERS: USHONGO

Zanzibar is the classic post-safari beach stop—but it gets so busy. Try Tanzania’s quieter mainland instead. At ultra-chilled The Tides Lodge, seven bungalows line palm-flanked, turquoise-watered sands (thetideslodge.com).

New for Sunvil this summer, Kimolos is an escapist, little-visited Aegean Sea speck which ticks all the boxes— good walking, greenery, waterside tavernas, whitewashed villages and, somehow, over a dozen beaches (sunvil.co.uk).

FOR FLY-AND-FLOPPERS: HUELVA

Sweet for Spain, but sick of crowds? The province of Huelva promises endless, emptier sandstrips. Selfcater at Isla Canela, near the Portuguese border, and drive east to smaller resorts where small beach bars stay open all night (spainholiday.com).

by Richard Mellor

Travel app of the month

WESWAP, FREE, ANDROID & IOS

Bid adieu to bureau du change rip-offs via this clever platform, whose users can swap currencies among themselves at cheap rates. A free Mastercard is provided upon registration.

4 Rules For Choosing A Scam-Proof Password

Whether we embrace it or begrudge it, huge chunks of our lives now take place online. To keep your details safe, follow these four simple rules…

1

MAKE YOUR PASSWORD COMPLICATED

The most simple passwords are the easiest to hack, so don’t go for the obvious. To toughen them up, start by swapping letters and digits (e.g. a 3 for an E) or substitute symbols (e.g. $ for S).

A further option is to try three or four different words joined together, but best of all is a random sequence of characters. Some accounts will offer you the option for a randomly generated password like this.

Whatever you pick, it’s worth testing at howsecureismypassword. net. Enter your password and the site will tell you how long it would likely take a computer to crack.

2 USE A DIFFERENT PASSWORD FOR EACH ACCOUNT

Now you’ve got a super strong password, it’s tempting to use the same one on all your accounts. But don’t. If just one account gets hacked that leaves all your other accounts vulnerable. Where possible, make sure each password is unique.

3 DON’T WRITE YOUR PASSWORDS DOWN

Of course, having so many different and complicated passwords can prove troublesome. Research by Experian shows that a quarter of over 55s have 11 or more unique passwords. No matter how good your memory is, keeping track of all those is going to be beyond most people, and more mistakes can happen as a result. Writing passwords down on a piece of paper by the computer, or letting the computer remember them itself can leave accounts vulnerable. Instead, consider an online

Andy Webb is a personal finance journalist and runs the award-winning money blog, Be Clever With Your Cash

password manager. You have one master password to access your account, and there you’ll have access to all your other login details and passwords. You can even store extra information such as memorable information you might also be asked. Both LastPass and Dashlane are free, so you’ll always have access to your details when you need them.

4

SET UP DOUBLE AUTHENTICATION

Double, or two-factor, authentication requires more than a password. It could be using an app to approve the log-in, or a secondary piece of hardware to produce a code. Doing this adds an extra level of security, and makes it far more difficult for hackers to break through.

My Mum’s Money

GETTING GADGETS GUARANTEED

You might be aware already that your rights when buying in shops can vary. In fact, retailers don’t need to accept anything you return unless it’s damaged or faulty. Of course as long as you have your receipt many places will give you your money back even if you’ve just changed your mind.

However, as my mum recently discovered, that goodwill policy isn’t necessarily consistent, even at places such as John Lewis.

On one hand, return a jumper to the department store with your receipt within 35 days and you’ll get your money back, no questions asked. But it’s a different story with technology and electronics.

My mum recently noticed a sign saying if you’ve opened the box then you won’t necessarily be allowed to return your device. Staff in-store told her that if you’ve seen something in the shop you should be able to make a decision as to whether it’s suitable. But we all know that isn’t always the

case. You might get the gadget home and realise it’s not right for your living room or kitchen. And these items can often be quite expensive, so being stuck with something you won’t use is bad news.

So what’s the answer? Well, my mum knows a workaround to boost her consumer rights.

When you buy things online you always get a statutory 14 days to return something after you receive it. So she’ll always make sure to click and collect on electronics, or get them delivered. Then she’s got the time to check it’s what she needs, and return it if not.

My mum’s money tip:

It’s good practice to order online for any retailer where there’s no guarantee you’ll get your cash back if you change your mind.

Money App Of The Month

If it’s hot outside during the summer it’s important to keep yourself hydrated. Yet with some shops selling small bottles of water for close to £1, doing this isn’t necessarily cheap when you’re on the go.

And each time you buy a new bottle of water, you’re also picking up another bit of plastic. Almost half of these (44 per cent) end up in landfill, or worse, in the sea, rather than recycling. Not ideal.

However, a new app called Refill will save you money and help you to cut waste. Open up the app on your phone or tablet and you’ll be able to explore a map of the UK. Then tap on the blue

refill icons to reveal the locations of shops, bars and cafes near you which will give a free refill of tap water. There are 1,600 of these refill stations across the UK, with more being added all the time.

You obviously need to have an empty bottle on you, so decide to either reuse a plastic one from the shops (though don’t keep these for too long), or buy a more environmentally friendly bottle that can be reused and easily cleaned in your dishwasher.

Sadly you can’t see the maps on a desktop computer, so if you don’t have a smartphone, you can look for a refill logo in shop windows—or just ask!

A BOTTLENOSE BY ANY OTHER NAME…

Scientists have proven that dolphins—widely considered one of the smartest animal species on Earth—routinely give themselves names in the form of distinctive whistling noises when communicating with one another. They first develop the sound in their infancy and, incredibly, they can recognise their individual name even when the sound is produced by an unfamiliar voice. It’s the first time that scientists have recorded evidence of wild animals exhibiting this behaviour.

SOURCE: NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM

Ratatouille With Lamb Leg Steak

This is a great dish for a barbecue because you can make it the day before. I think it’s best served at room temperature, and though it makes a good vegetarian option (topped with feta and basil), ratatouille is a great side for barbecued meat.

Serves 4

• 4tbsp olive oil

• 2 aubergines, cut into chunks

• 3 courgettes, cut into chunks

• 1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced

• 2 red onions, sliced

• 3 garlic cloves, crushed

• 1tsp hot smoked paprika

• 2 x 400g tinned tomatoes

• 1tsp sugar

• 1tbsp balsamic vinegar

• 4 lamb leg steaks

• Greek yoghurt

• Optional: chilli flakes or pul biber

Rachel Walker is a food writer for numerous national publications. Visit rachel-walker.co.uk for more information

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, flatbottomed saucepan and cook the aubergine in batches for 5 minutes— so the flesh is starting to turn golden.

2. Repeat with the courgette chunks, cooking them until they just start to colour. Remove them from the pan, and set aside with the aubergine.

3. Add a splash more olive oil, if needed, and cook the red onions on a medium heat. Once they start to soften, add the onion, and cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Stir in the garlic cloves and hot smoked paprika and cook for 1 minute, until fragrant. Then add the tinned tomatoes, sugar and balsamic vinegar. Return the aubergines and courgettes to the pan and simmer gently for at least 15 minutes—though 45 minutes will create an intense, richly-flavoured ratatouille.

5. Cook the lamb leg steaks, either on a barbecue or in a griddle pan. Whack up the temperature as high as possible, and griddle for 2 minutes on each side, for medium rare.

6. Put a large scoop of ratatouille in a bowl. Slice the lamb steaks against the grain and top with yoghurt and garnish with chilli flakes or pul biber.

BY TIM & ZOË HILL

Drinks Tip…

Pair with a gently oaked Chardonnay or a light red like a Pinot Noir. Waitrose’s Vasse Felix Filius Chardonnay, £12.99, or Marks and Spencer’s Domaine Mandeville Pinot Noir, £9, are perfect.

JAM BOSTOCK

Jam-making season is all about preserving summer fruits for winter, but when the kitchen is filled with the heady scent of bubbling fruit it’s impossible not to dip in straight away. Bostocks are a quick and easy treat. Think of it like French toast and enjoy with coffee.

1. Lightly toast the brioche slices, so they are just starting to colour.

2. Meanwhile, whisk the butter and sugar until pale. Add the eggs, ground almonds and plain flour.

3. Start to make-up the bostock by spreading a generous amount of jam over each slice of toasted brioche. Divide the almond paste between the slices—don’t worry about being too neat, as the paste spreads as it cooks. Sprinkle over flaked almonds, so they sit in the almond paste.

4. Cook at 180°C until the paste is puffed and the flaked almonds (if using) are golden and toasted. Top with icing sugar and serve.

Serves 4

• 6 (thick) slices of brioche

• 120g soft butter

• 120g caster sugar

• 2 eggs

• 120g ground almonds

• 25g plain flour

• 6–12tbsp jam

• Optional garnish: flaked almonds or icing sugar

Sorbet Shades

This summer, brighten up your interior with a rainbow of powdery pastel hues

Gone are the days when pastel schemes were confined to children’s nurseries and beach huts—this classic colourway has been given a sophisticated makeover and its cheerful tones are sure to put a spring in your decorating step. With a versatile palette of muted shades that work together harmoniously, it’s easy to mix and match the colours that suit your tastes and build up a tailored look, whether it’s a dusky pink, duck-egg blue, soft lilac or pale peach.

Consider using pastel colours in place of more traditional neutrals to give any space a modern update and add personality. These delicate

Homes and gardens writer and stylist Cassie Pryce specialises in interior trends and discovering new season shopping

hues will instantly lift a room’s décor and can be worked into the look as much or as little as you prefer; if a rosy pink feature wall seems a little too daring, start by introducing accent pieces such as rugs and soft furnishings in a pastel palette to sit against a more subdued backdrop. This colour scheme is particularly effective in small rooms that require just a flash of colour, as bright or jewel tones can often feel overpowering if not given enough breathing space. The key to working with this chalky colourway is to create a visual balance by introducing white, neutral or even dark breaks in the décor—this will stop the look becoming sickly sweet and allow the colours to pop rather than blend together as one. This can be achieved simply by keeping walls, floors or furniture pared back and allowing playful pastels in small doses to take centre stage.

Colour Burst

Bella snuggle chair in sundance teal, from £449; Wellington sofa in Windsor champagne, from £699; watercolour printed rug, from £119; abstract cushion, £18; stripe cushion, £8; barkweave green cushion, £5; oversized grey clock, £20, all Dunelm

Dunelm 0345 165 6565; dunelm.com

Welcome Wildlife To Your Garden

Entice wild plants and creatures to give your garden an informal corner that’s full of character

Endless entertainment can be provided by the small creatures that find your garden. Imagine a spring garden without birdsong or a summer garden without butterflies and you realise how much pleasure would be lost.

brambles, so leave some piles to encourage them.

For creating a successful wildlife pond, make sure that there is easy access to the water for small amphibians such as frogs and newts. You can speed up the naturalisation of a newly made wildlife pond by adding a bucket of mud from a neighbour’s wildlife-rich pond. It will be full of larvae, including the eggs of water snails, which help to keep the pond clean.

To tempt birds, food is one of a garden’s chief attractions with water and shelter being equally enticing. Hawthorn berries provide winter food for many birds, and small mammals such as bank voles. These creatures are particularly dependent on garden supplies as hedgerows disappear. Field mice, moles, voles and shrews may spend much of their time in gardens, but are very shy and prefer to stay under cover. Even so, during quiet contemplation of your garden you could spot one of these creatures feeding unawares.

Hedgehogs tend to be active at night when they eat slugs, beetles and caterpillars. They hibernate among piles of dead leaves in sheltered places under shrubs or

Rather than waging constant war on rampant plants, discover what benefits they offer. In the right place, their overenthusiasm can be a real boon for reducing maintenance and attracting wildlife. Put them in the awkward corners and let them flourish.

The best starter plants for attracting wildlife:

• To make a nettle patch more suitable for butterflies, cut a third of the plants back to ground level in early summer, and cut another third a month later

• Comfrey (Symphytum oficinale) is excellent for ground cover and bears pretty white and pink spring flowers. It is also a speedy compost activator

• Use small spring-flowering bulbs to fill any gaps in your garden. For summer, bluebells are happy in semi-woodland conditions

Have you ever been told you have a story to tell?

Barbara had a story …

Iwanted

to write to you and say how pleased I am with the finished product. I have received great feedback from my family, who said it was interesting, well-written and easy to read. My daughter told me that she wanted more after she had finished the book!

From my first enquiry to LifeBook, who responded with examples, instructions and costs, the information provided made me realise that this was my road to travel. I couldn’t do it alone.

and

Throughout, I was assisted and encouraged, the writing was checked and facts made more accurate etc. I know halfway through I would have given up but for the constant encouragement. Eventually, my book came to fruition. I couldn’t have done it without LifeBook. I am delighted with the results and the work that was put in by all involved. So, many thanks to everyone involved in the process; those who read my rambles and corrected them many times: the interviewer, the ghostwriter, those who sorted my photos and anyone else who played their part.

Mrs Barbara Guttridge

Gadgets For The Garden

All the technological wizardry you’ll need to be crowned king or queen of your annual summer garden party…

The sun is finally out! (At least— it was at the time of writing this. If summer is effectively over, apologies: fun while it lasted, eh?). Here are some ways to make the great outdoors even greater…

BOOST YOUR BATTERY

If you find yourself separated from friends at a festival, or to pluck an example from my own recent experience, take one too many adorable photos of your toddler next to an alpaca at the village fete, then power-up your iPhone with the Juice Junkie clip-on emergency power bank (£19.99). Eye-catchingly

Olly Mann presents Four Thought for BBC Radio 4, and the award-winning podcasts The Modern Mann and Answer Me This!

designed in the shape of a lighter, it weighs virtually nothing, sits comfortably in the hand and provides a 50 per cent top-up.

BARBECUE BETTER

I’ve become accustomed to the taste of burnt flesh and charcoal, but if you insist on actually cooking meat rather than incinerating it, check out Meater (£79.99) a wireless meat thermometer. Stick it in your steak, chuck it on the grill and consult the app for info on when to turn, remove, and serve.

I could easily imagine forgetting to charge the battery but hey, oldfashioned thermometers require wires hanging out of your food. So, still an improvement.

DANCE IN THE MOONLIGHT

Time was, my garden parties were soundtracked from a hi-fi dangled precariously out the window. For a

more sophisticated look, try UE Wonderboom (£69). Trust me, I’ve tested a LOT of portable Bluetooth speakers, and for an outdoor experience at under a hundred quid, this cannot be beaten. It looks cool, has 360 degree sound and 30m range, and can be immersed in water for up to 30 minutes so you can even take it in the pool.

CHILL OUT

When I saw that a Slush Puppie machine (£49.99) had hit the high street, I squealed with delight. It’s not exactly the classiest machine to grace my kitchen worktop but you can recreate the sugary treat of your youth in your own home. And, even better, you can experiment… lime beer slushy, anyone?

FASHION

A Dress For All Seasons

I'm a strong advocate for buying less, but buying better. Whether it's a pair of summer sandals, a sundress, or a dress to attend a wedding, I avoid buying anything in the "fast fashion" category—mainly because if I like something enough to spend my money on it, I want it to last. It reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote: "When you know better, do better." Well, I think when you know better you buy better.

Here's a real life example where spending a bit of time thinking about my investment in a new dress paid dividends. I recently needed to buy a dress in the "occasion wear" category. While I wanted to buy something new and festive, it felt deeply wasteful to buy a dress that was just going to hang in my wardrobe gathering dust once the wedding was over. So, I set myself

Lisa Lennkh is a banker turned fashion writer, stylist and blogger. Her blog, The Sequinist, focuses on sparkle and statement style for midlife women

the goal of finding a dress that would be perfect for a destination wedding and that would work well for future summer beach holidays. A lot of you may find yourself in similar situations, so I thought I'd let you know my criteria for a truly versatile dress.

First, the right dress should go well with heels and a clutch for the event, but it should also work with sandals and a big hold-all bag for its second life on a beach holiday.

Second, it should be in a colour that's versatile for you and where you live. For me, pastels are too limited to warm weather, but a bright bold colour I can wear year round.

Third, the fabric needs to be an allrounder. If it's too shiny (like silk or taffeta) you're really restricted to occasion wear. Who wants to worry about sunscreen on silk? I hate to be precious about what I'm wearing. Ideally, you also want a fabric that packs well and doesn't crease.

Fourth, you want something that isn't overly trendy. Instead, go for something fairly classic. Those cold shoulder cutouts may look good now, but in a few seasons, they'll be very dated. It sounds like an impossible list of criteria, but I was spoiled for choice! A good shift dress or maxi dress in a faff-free fabric is available almost in any high street shop. I narrowed my choice down to this Grecian, oneshouldered number, and I'm confident it'll serve me for many summers and events to come.

Putting The Personal Into SPF

This month, Jenessa Williams explains the importance of picking the right SPF for your holiday in the sunshine

We all know the virtues of an SPF, but as holiday hysteria heats up, so many of us find ourselves dashing through duty-free, picking up whatever is on offer and paying little consideration to whether we’re choosing right for our skin type. This summer, plan ahead and make sure your sunscreen is as highpriority as your passport.

While most of us are aware of the harmful effects of UVB rays (such as sunburn and skin cancer), UVA rays account for 95 per cent of radiation reaching the Earth's surface, and play a significant part in the development of skin ageing and wrinkles. Broad spectrum SPFs are the only type that protect against both, so be sure to check the bottle before purchasing. Two tablespoons are advised to cover the entire body, and you should always wait 30 minutes after application before heading out.

For those who find that SPFs

aggravate their oily skin, look for a lightweight, fragrance-free formula. Heliocare’s non-aggravating 360 Gel Oil-Free product dries matte as a great base for make-up, whereas Bioelements facescreen offers moisture for drier complexions. With so many products on the market, research is key, and you should be looking to spend upwards of £20 for a true all-encompassing product. It’s an investment worth making.

Hero Products

Bioelements SPF 50 facescreen, £48 for 2.3oz

Drunk Elephant Umbra Sheer Physical Daily Defense SPF 30, £34 for 3.0oz

Heliocare 360 oil-free gel £22 for 50ml

over 100+ superb products for back pain and an independent lifestyle

Best back help ever - Mrs H, Cumbria I’ve been using a Backfriend for driving and wouldn’t be without it. It’s given back my joy of driving, which had disappeared in the years I struggled with persistent low back pain.

I have to admit that the seat has been and still is phenomenally successful and exceeds all expectations I had for it. To be honest, I harboured a few reservations as to the literature's claims when I ordered it. But these were put to bed within three days of receiving it. I have absolutely no reservations in recommending it to anyone as a sure fire workable aid to chronic back pain.

WHITNEY

Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald delves deep into the scintillating career and sorrowful life of Whitney Houston

By now, we’re all so familiar with the pop diva’s tragic life story that any filmmaker who decides to try his hand at documenting it on film, puts himself under enormous pressure. Whitney, the latest offering of the topic, comes just a year after the last doc on the megastar, directed by Nick Broomfield, but it stands up to its predecessor in every respect. From the uncompromising interviews to the clever editing, it expertly manipulates our emotional response through a carefully structured narrative, interspersed with perfectly timed tracks. But perhaps its biggest ace is the never-

before-revealed, shocking truth about Whitney’s aunt Dee Dee Warwick who, as the film alleges, molested the singer as a child. While there’s an undeniable exploitative tinge to uncovering this fact, it does add to the ongoing conversation on what led to Whitney’s untimely death. Ultimately though, Whitney reiterates the profound sadness of the strange and isolated lives of celebrities. In a particularly chilling instance, a close confidant recalls how Whitney would meet her friend Michael Jackson in a hotel room just so they could sit together in silence—because they understood each other’s predicament like nobody else in the world could. It’s a heavy and unsettling watch but an absolute must if you’re a fan of the late diva.

HORROR: MARROWBONE

An abandoned old house— check; a family with dark secrets—check; an allconsuming dread of an impending tragedy—check; Marrowbone is a film embedded in bona fide horror tradition. A mother and her four children move to a dilapidated old mansion to escape their traumatic past, but little do they know that the real trouble is only about to begin. Not only does the film build suspense with pitch-perfect pace and grace, but it’s also a visually stunning affair: drenched in seaweed-

greenish hues, the cinematography resembles 17th-century Dutch painting: disturbing yet utterly gorgeous. Also featuring spectacular performances by young future stars of the silver screen.

COMEDY: SWIMMING WITH MEN

Rob Brydon brings us pure cinematic joy in this life-affirming comedy. The story revolves around Eric (Brydon)—a middle-aged accountant who gets stuck in a bit of a rut. But his life’s about to change when he meets a group of mismatched-but-charismatic amateur synchronised swimmers. A bit twee? Sure—but it’s a solid feel-good number to turn to when you’re down in the dumps.

ACTION: A PRAYER BEFORE DAWN

There’s an undeniable appeal to boxing movies—we’re always drawn to stories of athletes pushing themselves to physical extremes. But rarely are they as jawdropping as this true story of Billy Moore—a British boxer in a notorious Thai prison, fighting in tournaments to earn his freedom. Brutal and tactile, this dramatisation is no easy watch, crawling under your skin to the point where you can smell the sweat and blood oozing from the prison corners. Prepare to be blown away by Joe Cole whose central performance is the flesh and bones of this violent, no holds barred tale.

by Eva Mackevic

JON RICHARDSON ULTIMATE WORRIER: SERIES 1 (DAVE; UKTV PLAY)

What is it? This perversely enjoyable showcase for likable stand-up Richardson plays something like the BBC’s Room 101, only more neurotic. Each week, two guest comedians are invited to add to the host’s patented Worry Index—a rolling database of niggles that range from the apocalyptically serious to such matters as “green crisps”.

Two, in which Sara Pascoe’s worries about her wonky walk inspires an empathetic Richardson to walk a mile in ladies’ thigh-high leather boots.

Why should I watch it? The world can seem a worrying place—it’s oddly reassuring to know others share your concerns.

Where did we leave it? One early highlight: the body-themed Episode

Best episode? Our host’s response, in Episode Four (“Humanity”), to the surgical possibility of printing human organs: “At the moment, I can’t even print gig tickets.”

by Mike McCahill

WHAT TO STREAM THIS MONTH:

ATLANTA: SEASON 1 (BBC IPLAYER )

It’s been Donald Glover’s year: May saw his alter ego Childish Gambino’s This Is America video debuting to great acclaim, his Lando Calrissian lit up the recent Star Wars prequel Solo, and his sharp, funny HBO series about misadventures in the regional rap game was bought by the BBC— binge it now on the iPlayer.

THE DEFIANT ONES (NETFLIX)

Rap also features prominently in this ultraengaging documentary on late 20th century American music—a vast subject approached from the crisscrossing perspectives of unlikely pals Jimmy Iovine (producer for Springsteen, U2 et al.) and hip-hop supremo Dr. Dre. Inevitably, the soundtrack is superb.

FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER: SERIES 5 (4OD) TV’s best played sitcom returned earlier this summer, still managing to find reliably hilarious variations on its basic theme: a North London clan reconvenes to start the weekend with a meal, only for chaos of some kind to break out. Interrupting matters this year: violins, ventriloquist’s dummies, and some very old tinned meat.

ALBUM

OF THE MONTH: THEMES FOR TELEVISION

BY JOHNNY JEWEL

Imagine a danger-induced thrill of latenight dive bars, set to the sound of eerie cries of a lonesome saxophone, flavoured with some grimy Eighties synths—if this kind of scenario sounds up your alley, you should drop everything you’re doing and get hold of Johnny Jewel’s latest spooky little treat. Jewel is an American record producer and a member of several bands such as Chromatics and Glass Candy, but he’s also been garnering accolades for his film collaborations with the likes of Ryan Gosling, Nicolas Winding Refn and, most importantly, David Lynch, whose recent revival of the cult show Twin Peaks features Jewel’s music. Themes for Television is a great foray into his work and does exactly what is says on the tin: entrenches you in rich, highly-stylised soundscapes that transport you into a mystrious, Taxi Driverlike state of mind. An intriguing, downtempo compilation, it’s bound to expand your sonic frontiers.

by Eva Mackevic

READER RADAR: ANDREW WILLIAM BEDFORD, HGV DRIVER

WATCHING: RE-RUNS

Our household has effectively “cut the cord.” When we do watch television it tends to be series such as Friends or House.

ONLINE: SAFARILIVE (YOUTUBE)

A daily channel streams live safaris from the South African Djuma reserve. You ride with the guides through the reserve and it’s as close to a real safari as you can get without being there.

LISTENING: PODCASTS, PETE COGLE He showcases the latest unsigned talent from around the world, searching for new music that the big labels haven’t discovered yet.

READING: ESCAPE THE COMING NIGHT BY DAVID JEREMIAH This book by an American TV pastor is an in-depth study of the Book of Revelation and how it relates to the unsettling times we are currently living through.

July Fiction

This month domestic scenes both familiar and strange reveal their secrets with a sparkling wit…

Why Mummy Swears

by Gill Sims (HarperCollins, £12.99)

Gill Sims’s Why Mummy Drinks—still riding high in bestseller lists—has become one of the publishing sensations of recent years. Now main character Ellen is back with another funny diary of modern motherhood.

The book opens at the start of the summer holidays, with Ellen determined to keep her two children entertained. Like many of us, though, she’s hoping to do it largely by imposing her own pre-digital childhood on them. Unfortunately, 11-year-old Jane prefers watching make-up videos on YouTube to reading Anne of Green Gables; while Peter, 9, seems to find Enid Blyton less thrilling than online games. And even when, to Ellen’s relief, the

James Walton is a book reviewer and broadcaster, and has written and presented 17 series of the BBC Radio 4 literary quiz

The Write Stuff

holidays end, the reasons to swear—which she does both often and rather imaginatively—continue.

Luckily, so do her endlessly sharp observations on family life (although, even by the standards of contemporary literary husbands, Ellen’s is implausibly hopeless). As a result, almost every page contains at least one moment guaranteed to make any parents reading chuckle with recognition. Or possibly wince.

The Wives

by Lauren Weisberger (HarperCollins, £12.99)

For most people, I suspect, the people in Lauren Weisberger’s latest book won’t be quite so recognisable. Not, that is, unless you happen to be a former supermodel married to a US senator who’s “six feet and two inches of expensively groomed masculine perfection”. Or a hotshot New York lawyer whose husband has just made such a fortune that you’ve retired to

one of America’s richest suburbs. Or a glamorous PR consultant to many Hollywood stars.

Weisberger made her name with The Devil Wears Prada and here she serves up another shameless romp through American high society. The plot begins when supermodel, Karolina, is arrested for drink-driving in a vicious plot by that hunky husband of hers. She then calls in the other two main characters to help: Miriam the lawyer and PR woman Emily, whom Weisberger readers will know as the former assistant to The Devil Wears Prada’s fearsome Miranda Priestley—memorably played by Meryl Streep in the film. (Later in the book, Miranda herself gets a scene-stealing cameo.)

Revenge is duly taken—but the real, if slightly guilty pleasure of the novel is in its gleeful spilling of beans about what the rich get up to when we’re not watching.

Name the author

Can you guess the writer from these clues (the fewer you need the better)?

1. He was Britain’s biggest selling nonfiction writer of the Noughties.

2. He also wrote Britain’s biggest selling book of 2017: 5 Ingredients.

3. His surname is the same as the Christian name of a Dickens character born in a workhouse.

Answer on p128

Paperbacks

Some Kind of Wonderful

by Giovanna Fletcher (Penguin, £7.99)

Rising star of women’s fiction—the hardback outsold Joanna Trollope and Sophie Kinsella—with the tale of a dumped girlfriend reassessing her life.

Get Me the Urgent Biscuits

by Sweetpea Slight (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £8.99)

Terrific memoir of working in the London theatre in the 1980s. Slight’s job was lowly, but she has plenty of great anecdotes—not all of them particularly discreet.

Places in the Darkness

by Chris Brookmyre (Orbit, £8.99)

The much-loved crime writer adds a large dollop of science fiction to the mix, as murder is committed on a space station.

Mythos by Stephen Fry (Penguin, £8.99)

Fry retells Greek myths with wit, charm and infectious enthusiasm.

The Good Doctor of Warsaw

by Elisabeth Gifford (Atlantic, £7.99)

Heart-wrenching historical novel, based on a true story from the Jewish ghetto in wartime Warsaw.

RD’S RECOMMENDED READ

Foul Play

With the World Cup—and Fifa’s self promotion—in full swing, Red Card couldn’t be timelier.

Ken Bensinger’s research into decades of Fifa corruption is both impeccable and jawdropping. (Basically, however bad you thought Fifa was, it was worse.) Yet he’s also shaped his findings into a page-turning book.

The revelation of Fifa’s rottenness began in 2011 when a US tax official called Steve Berryman, discovered that Chuck Blazer—American soccer administrator, Fifa insider and very rich man—hadn’t paid taxes for years. The subsequent investigation was, as Bensinger puts it, “like pulling over someone for a tail light only to discover a trunk stuffed with bodies”.

Before long, Berryman had come across so many suspicious dealings that he called in the FBI, who used tactics more commonly deployed against the Mafia. Blazer was

Red Card; Fifa and the Fall of the Most Powerful Men in Sports by Ken Bensinger is published by Profile at £16.99

“flipped” (he turned informer in exchange for more lenient treatment) and sent to talk to his cronies while wearing a wire. Those cronies were flipped until the full story emerged. Finally, on May 27, 2015, Swiss police carried out a dawn raid at the luxury hotel where Fifa was meeting, and several of the wealthiest men in world sport were led away in disgrace.

At the centre of the book is the Confederation of North, Central and America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF), presided over for 21 years by Trinidad’s Jack Warner, whose speciality was selling off television and sponsorship rights for less than the market price—but only if

the sporting-rights companies gave him lots of money.

In 2011, Warner’s behaviour became too blatant even for Fifa and he resigned—at which point naïve observers thought CONCACAF would clean up its act. The bribers, though, knew better. One of them was Enrique Sanz of sporting-rights company Traffic—now faced with the problem of who to pay off instead…

‘‘

The question of exactly whom to bribe became much clearer in February 2012 when Sanz, conferring with contacts in the Caribbean, learned that the confederation’s next president was almost certainly going to be Jeffrey Webb.

An affable 47-year-old from the Cayman Islands, Webb was elected president of the Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA) in 1991. Eventually he worked his way onto Fifa’s Internal Audit Committee and its transparency and compliance committee.

Good-looking, sharply dressed, almost debonair, he seemed the antithesis of Jack Warner: approachable where the Trinidadian was threatening; compromising where Warner was rigid; clean and respectable where the longtime president radiated gangsterism and self-interest. But despite his low profile, Webb had built an influential network of friends in the Caribbean thanks, in great part, to his day job.

Four More Great Football Books

Best and Edwards by Gordon Burn Gripping double biography of two of Britain’s greatest footballers. Duncan Edwards (“The best player I’ve ever seen,” according to Bobby Charlton) lived in a world of landladies’ digs before dying in the 1958 Munich air crash aged 21. Just a few years later, George Best heralded a completely different era of wealth, fame and glamour—but, thanks to booze, his own glory days didn’t last much longer.

All Played Out by Pete Davies

Inside story of Italia ’90, the World Cup that did so much to rekindle football’s popularity in Britain. Prepare to shed Gazza-like tears.

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

Still the best account of the whole weird business of being a football fan.

I Am Zlatan by Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Whether talking about his troubled childhood or his own footballing brilliance, Ibrahimovic is just as frank, belligerent and, at times, bonkers as you’d hope.

Since 1990, Webb had worked at Fidelity Bank Cayman Limited, rising to become manager of business development. In that role, he helped numerous Caribbean soccer officials set up anonymous offshore companies and bank accounts where they could receive payments without drawing unwanted attention.

Working fast, Sanz approached Webb even before the man had officially announced his political intentions, offering Traffic’s full financial support for his campaign. Sanz also delicately made it clear that, should Webb be elected, he could expect to receive ‘side payments’ in exchange for awarding Traffic the rights to qualifying matches for both the 2018 and 2022 World Cup cycles.

Webb, it turned out, didn’t require much explanation. In fact, the banker immediately understood what Sanz was hinting at, seemed to be expecting the offer, and was clearly of the opinion that such payments were a standard perk of the job, ones he’d been looking forward to receiving. But he also made a special request: Sanz

And the name of the author is…

“He helped numerous officials set up offshore bank accounts”

Jamie Oliver (Oliver Twist being the aforementioned Charles Dickens character).

should never negotiate bribes directly with Webb, but instead with a close friend, a British-born Greek-Cypriot named Costas Takkas, who had briefly served as CIFA’s general secretary a decade earlier.

Takkas controlled several holding companies in the Caymans and the British Virgin Islands that had bank accounts at Webb’s bank. Soon after talking with Webb, Sanz wired $50,000 to one of Takkas’s companies, calling it ‘candidacy’ money.

No rival candidates ever declared, and by late March, Webb had won the support not only of most of the Caribbean, but several Central American officials as well. On March 26, Webb accepted the formal nomination to be CONCACAF’s next president, resigning his position at Fidelity Bank. ‘I am humbled by the tremendous outpouring of support and encouragement received from so many of the member countries,’ Webb said. ‘If elected, it is my intention to build on that unity through collaboration, transparency, integrity, engagement and accountability.’”

UNSURPRISING NOTE: Jeffrey Webb was among those arrested on May 27, 2015.

Books

THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

One of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin’s latest book is her own memoir: ALifeofMy Own, published by Penguin

Queen Elizabeth I

BY J .E. NEALE

I chose this from a bookshop in Welwyn Garden City where we lived during the war. Aged 12, I found it thrilling. I learned about politics, culture and the difficult and dangerous life of this great queen. I admired how Elizabeth worked hard but was fun as well; she enjoyed flirting and was much loved. It brought home how a well-written biography can make you feel absolutely at home in the past.

The Love Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft to Gilbert Imlay

short-lived but her letters are a wonderful insight into her modern mind. I felt such connection with her— we were both pregnant journalists living in the same part of London— that I wrote a piece about her. My book, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, came out in 1974.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

EDITED BY ROBERT LATHAM AND WILLIAM MATTHEWS

I came across this during maternity leave and I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of this pioneering 18thcentury feminist. Imlay was an American businessman and, although they didn’t marry, they had a daughter. Their relationship was

What makes Pepys such an extraordinary chronicler of life in the 17th century is his curiosity and honesty. When I wrote his biography I found a lot of new information about him and it pleased me to feel I was doing him credit—I think Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self is my best book. When I write about someone, I end up feeling very close to them, like a kind of love. That experience was so intense with Pepys that I wept when I wrote about his death. As told to Caroline Hutton

© ANGUS MUIR

You Couldn’t Make It Up

Win £30 for your true, funny stories! Go to readersdigest. co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

MY HUSBAND AND I FREQUENT the same petrol station each week with our children in the back seat and we often comment on the excellent customer service of the regular male cashier.

On one such visit my husband went into the garage to pay, taking our small son with him.

"Look Daddy, it's the man you love," our toddler announced to the bemused cashier. Needless to say my husband uses pay at the pump now!

HANNAH OAKES, Buckingham

MY DAUGHTER'S CAT suffers from regular health problems. At the end of their last visit to the vet, the receptionist spoke to her as she left.

"If he gets any worse, remember we're at the end of the line."

My daughter, quite upset by this point, assumed this meant that there were no more options for treatment. Luckily the receptionist then added, "Just call us".

It turned out she was only referring to the phone line!

LUCY PESARO, Middlesex

A FEW NIGHTS AGO my daughter looked at me studiously, before suddenly announcing, "Mum, when you're dead, I might put you in a museum so that everyone will know what you used to look like and how big you were."

Thanks darling!

JENNIE GARDNER, Bath

DURING ONE OF OUR children’s recent dental appointments, they

GUTO DIAS

had to have some fillings done. The dentist wondered if they had a "highsugar diet" and advised cutting down their sugar intake, saying it’s best to have only one sweet treat a week.

Later that day we were eating our dinner and my daughter asked for some pudding. I tried to remind her of the dentist’s advice and asked her: "Do you remember what the dentist told you today?"

"Open wide," she replied, nodding and taking a big bite of cake.

ALSU REMI, Coventry

WE WERE TRYING TO CONSOLE

our son Tomos because our dog, Skater, had recently died.

"You know," said my wife, "it's not so bad. Skater's probably up in Heaven right now, having a grand old time with God."

Tomos sniffled back and asked, "What would God want with a dead dog?"

ADAM BARNES, Clwyd

I RECENTLY COMPLETED 34 years of working at the Royal Free Hospital and decided to begin my retirement.

My work colleagues very kindly presented me with a watch to mark the occasion.

check up. The nurse was asking all the standard coordination questions—touch your nose, put your hands up, jump, etc.

Being a healthy, capable little devil, she was doing everything fine.

Then, the nurse said, “Stand on one foot.” My little sister looked at the nurse, looked down, and hesitated. Then she walked over and stood on one of the nurse’s feet!

JANE WHITAKER, Kent

I WAS SPENDING AN EVENING luxuriating at home in my lovely warm bath as a violent thunder storm raged outside.

Suddenly, there was a bright flash, and thunder boomed out, followed by the clattering of several feet racing up the hall. With an almighty leap, my dog jumped into my bath on top of me causing a tidal splash.

I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the dog !

JANICE REYNOLDS, South Devon

FOR SEVERAL YEARS I'd been bothered by a neighbour's yappy dog so I ordered a ultrasonic dog bark controller and fitted it on my garage, pointing into the neighbour's garden.

"Great," I thought. "For the first time in my adult life I don't have to follow a schedule and now I own two watches!"

MICHAEL MELIA, Kent

MY THREE-YEAR-OLD SISTER was at the doctor’s office for her annual

When the dog was next out it barked briefly and stopped. Then for the next few weeks it went totally quiet. I assumed the device was totally effective—until I discovered that the neighbour had moved out!

PATRICK BROADHURST, North Yorkshire

It’s never been easier to enjoy the World’s favourite magazine!

Each must-read monthly issue covers life, culture, health, books, films, food, humour and travel alongside in-depth news features, memoirs and celebrity profiles.

YES I want to subscribe to Reader’s Digest Magazine for just £3 for 3 issues (a saving of £8.37 on the shop price of £11.37 based on the cover price of £3.79 per issue). I understand that if I do not wish to continue receiving Reader’s Digest after my first 3 issues I can simply cancel my subscription by contacting customer services. If I do want to continue to subscribe after my first 3 issues I need do nothing and my subscription will automatically be renewed at the low rate of £7.50 for every 3 issues until I decide otherwise.

Word Power

Before you splash in a pool, bask on a beach, or potter in your garden, master this list of summertime words. You won’t find a lemonade stand on the next page, but you will find answers.

BY EMILY COX & HENRY RATHVON

1. torrid adj. —A: blooming. B: scorching. C: perspiring.

2. deluge n. —A: heavy downpour. B: water gun. C: greenhouse.

3. verdant adj. —A: sandy. B: green. C: buggy.

4. tack v. —A: hook a fish. B: upend a raft. C: change course of direction when sailing.

5. pyrotechnics n. —A: sunspots. B: fireworks. C: heat waves.

6. chigger n. — A: fastball. B: biting mite. C: beer garden.

7. estivate v. —A: lounge outdoors. B: nurture until grown. C: spend the summer.

8. pattypan n.— A: playground. B: heat rash. C: summer squash.

9. alfresco adv. —A: served with cheese sauce. B: outdoors. C: in a fresh state.

10. hibachi n. —A: raincoat. B: charcoal griller. C: An Asian variety of aubergine.

11. pergola n. —A: umbrella. B: trellis. C: paid vacation.

12. glamping n. — A: cave exploring. B: glamorous camping. C: sunbathing.

13. plage n.—A: lawn tennis. B: lightning strike. C: beach at a resort.

14. espadrilles n. —A: rope-soled shoes. B: hedge pruners. C: a pair of matching beach chairs.

15. horticulture n. —A: seaside community. B: pond wildlife. C: the science of growing plants.

Answers

1. torrid—[B] scorching. This month has been torrid!

2. deluge—[A] heavy downpour. Tatiana threw on her waterproofs and headed out into the deluge.

3. verdant—[B] green. Vermont is famous for its verdant scenery.

4. tack—[C] change direction when sailing. The boat had to tack quickly to avoid the floating debris.

5. pyrotechnics—[B] fireworks. Every Diwali, my neighbours enjoy pyrotechnics until the early hours.

6. chigger—[B] biting mite. Miranda doused herself in bug spray to ward off chiggers.

7. estivate—[C] spend the summer. After cricket season ends, the Myers family estivates by the ocean.

8. pattypan—[C] summer squash. Has that pesky rabbit been nibbling my pattypan again?

9. alfresco—[B] outdoors. “Whose idea was it to dine alfresco?” Ira

grumbled, flicking an ant off of his carefully prepared sandwich.

10. hibachi—[B] charcoal griller. Come on over—I’m going to throw some burgers on the hibachi tonight.

11. pergola—[B] trellis. Legend has it that couples who kiss under this pergola will live happily ever after.

12. glamping—[B] glamorous camping. Hayden goes glamping with then tells everyone he “roughed it.”

13. plage—[C] beach at a resort. I never hit the plage until I’m completely slathered in sunscreen.

WORD OF THE DAY*

14. espadrilles—[A] rope-soled shoes. Melissa used to live in flipflops every summer, but nowadays she prefers espadrilles.

SNOLLYGOSTER: a shrewd, unprincipled person.

Alternative suggestions:

“What the BFG calls a rollercoaster”

“One of Willy Wonka’s new lollipops”

“Gusts of snow on the holly tree”

15. horticulture [C] science of growing plants. The coveted Horticulture Award is a statuette of a green thumb.

VOCABULARY RATINGS

9 & below: warm 10–12: hot 13–15: blazing

Brainteasers

Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles, then check your answers on p138

A-TO-K FIT-IN

Insert the letters A to K, one per square, so that no two consecutive letters in alphabetical order touch, not even at a corner. Five letters have been placed to get you started.

TANGO TIME

Five pairs of dance partners went tango dancing last week, each pair on a different evening from Monday to Friday. Tango requires one person to lead and the other to follow. The leaders’ names are Pat, Romeo, Samantha, Victor and Wes. The followers’ names are Armida, Carl, Ella, Filomena and Ines.

1. Armida danced on Monday, but not with Wes.

2. Samantha danced on Wednesday.

3. Romeo danced on Friday, but not with Ines.

4. Victor and Filomena danced together the day after Ella went out dancing.

Can you identify each pair of dance partners and the day they danced?

Locate 12 treasures in the empty cells of this grid. The numbers outside the grid indicate the number of treasures in each row or column. Each arrow points directly toward one or more of the treasures. An arrow may be immediately next to a treasure it points to, or it may be further away. Not every treasure will necessarily have an arrow pointing to it.

SLIDERS

Slide one of the columns up or down any number of positions to make three of the five rows in the yellow box form correct mathematical statements.

MINIMALISM

This network has lots of redundancy: there are many ways of travelling from one blue node to any other because of all the loops in it. The cost of travelling along any connection is shown. Your job is to remove connections until:

n There is only one route between any two nodes (in other words, no loops in the network).

n No route from any node to any other node costs more than 21 to use.

DARREN RIGBY; (HIDDEN TREASURE) FRASER SIMPSON; (MINIMALISM) DARREN RIGBY

BRAINTEASERS

Brainteasers: Answers

TANGO TIME

Monday: Pat and Armida.

Tuesday: Wes and Ines.

Wednesday: Samantha and Ella.

Thursday: Victor and Filomena.

Friday: Romeo and Carl.

SLIDERS

Slide the second-last column up two positions so the top row in the yellow box reads 13 + 4 = 17. The other two correct statements will then be 47 ≥ 14 × 3 and 18 = 26 − 8. HIDDEN

£50 PRIZE QUESTION

Answer published in the August issue

Test your vocabulary with this verbal teaser. We’ve provided four definitions for the first word, but only one is correct. The others are designed to confuse you.

SPECIOUS COMPLICATED FALLACIOUS AFFECTIONATE PECULIAR

The first correct answer we pick in July wins £50!* Email excerpts@ readersdigest.co.uk

ANSWER TO JUNE’S PRIZE QUESTION

TFISO = foist

AND THE £50 GOES TO… Kenneth Ian Forster, Essex

Stand-Up

We chatted to comedian and drag queen extraordinaire, Bianca Del Rio

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE OF YOUR OWN JOKES? Me! I’m the biggest joke there is. I mean, have you seen me? It’s a visual.

WHO INSPIRES YOUR COMEDY?

Joan Rivers. We’re both old and bitter. It’s all about self-deprecation—if you can’t laugh at yourself, how are you going to make fun of somebody else? You know, I’m a man in a wig. When you see me looking like that, you realise I know what a joke is.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY TALES

ABOUT A TIME YOU BOMBED ON STAGE? a “Gay and Sober” night in New York. They’re a group of people who are recovering and there I am in the midst of it, not realising,

and I walked on stage with a drink, took a sip and asked them, “Do you miss it?”

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE ONE-LINER? “There are only two types of Trump supporters: billionaires and idiots. Check your bank account to see which one you are.”

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

Judge Judy—she should be president. She would get this s**t together in a minute—with no commercials.

HAVE YOU FOUND ANY PARTS OF THE WORLD TO BE FUNNIER THAN OTHERS? Amsterdam. I mean, they’re smoking weed while on a bike— what’s more dangerous than that? I love their carelessness.

WHAT SUPERPOWER WOULD YOU

I’d like to live forever—just to see what happens. I could just sit back with a cigarette, going, “Y’all don’t know what it was like when Trump was president.” That would be great.

Get tickets to the Blame It on Bianca tour at seetickets.com/ tour/bianca-del-rio FOR

Laugh!

Win £30 for every reader’s joke we publish! Go to readersdigest. co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

I ASKED MY GIRLFRIEND to describe me in five words.

She said I’m mature, I’m moral, I’m pure, I’m polite and I’m perfect.

Then she added that I also had a fundamental lack of understanding about apostrophes and spaces.

SEEN ON REDDIT

A HORRIFIED ZOOKEEPER SPOTS a visitor throwing £10 notes into the elephant enclosure.

“Why on earth are you doing that?” asks the keeper.

“The sign says it’s okay,” replied the visitor.

Confused, the zoo keeper insists that the sign says no such thing.

Petal Peekaboo

Photographer Miles Herbert tip toes through tulips to capture images of these adorable harvest mice, (via boredpanda.com)

“Yes it does,” the visitor replies. “It says ‘Do not feed. £10 fine.’ ”

SEEN ON REDDIT

I HATE IT WHEN PEOPLE ask me where I see myself in a couple of years.

I don’t have 2020 vision.

SEEN ON REDDIT

MY PERSONALITY IS kind of like a coconut. I have a hard to break, tough exterior, but once inside…

It’s honestly not worth it.

COMEDIAN NICK ALEXANDER

THE ORIGINAL VERSION of Planet of the Apes is a fantastic film.

It’s got an amazing shock ending. What happens at the end of the original Planet of the Apes, is that it turns out that on their planet, they’ve made an exact replica of the Statue of Liberty.

And it’s never explained why.

COMEDIAN STEWART LEE

require that they commit a crime first.”

COMEDIAN KEITH LOWELL JENSEN

I THINK GOD JUST remixed animals when he was trying to make new ones. Think about it.

A squirrel is just a remixed rat. A moose is just a remixed deer. A human is just a remixed monkey. God is just Puff Daddy in the Nineties.

COMEDIAN ARI BENET

COMEDIAN MIKE BALDWIN

SONY, PANASONIC, BOSE, Yamaha. There are just too many stereotypes.

I’VE BEEN TRYING BLIND dating sites recently, as in, dating sites for me to meet other blind people. It hasn’t worked out that well though. Every date ends the same, with her telling me that we should see other people, and then me trying really hard to suppress a giggle.

SEEN ON REDDIT

MY FIVE-YEAR-OLD asked me what prison was. That’s a hard thing to explain to a child.

“It’s like this. As a society, we have decided that we’re okay with feeding and housing needy people, but we

THINGS WILL NEVER GET BETTER for redheads. So what shall we do about it? Are we going to get together to protest? Are we going to march?

What if it’s sunny?

COMEDIAN STEVE HOFSTETTER

I DATED A STRING OF psychic girls recently. For the first, I brought 12 red roses. She said that was too much, and nothing came of it.

For the second, I bought one single rose. She said that wasn’t enough. No second date.

For the third, I bought six roses and she loved them. I finally found a happy medium.

SEEN ON TWITTER

Dating Disasters

People take to Twitter to reveal the worst date they’ve ever been on:

@HeatherDSM: “During a first date he showed me pictures of his house plants and explained their watering schedules.”

@Because13WhyNot: “During an awkward silence he began drumming his fingers on the table while mumbling, ‘topic, topic, topic.’ ”

@Jeff_Hoffman: “I decided to be brave and ask if she’d like to go out with me again. She said she was going to take a break from dating for a while…”

@Big_Shuk: “She said she’d just gotten out of a relationship with a man who sounded like my friend, Mark. I texted Mark. It was Mark.”

CROSSWORD ANSWERS

Across:

A LADY WALKED INTO A PET shop and admired a parrot that she saw there.

The owner warned her, “This bird might use offensive language as it came from a house of ill repute.” The lady took a shine to the parrot and bought it anyway. When she got home she took the cover off it’s cage.

“Nice house,” the parrot said looking around. Then the lady’s two daughters came into the room. “Nice girls” said the parrot.

Finally the lady’s husband walked in. “Charles,” said the parrot. “Good to see you!”

MICHAEL MELIA, Kent

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, getting air pumped into your bicycle tyres was free at the petrol station, but the other day they tried to charge me £3.50.

When I asked the attendant why, he just said, “inflation.”

SEEN ON REDDIT

I ASKED MY FATHER WHAT it was like learning Braille, but he didn’t want to tell me about it.

I didn’t realise it was a touchy subject.

SEEN ONLINE

A SNAIL THOUGHT THAT taking off his shell would make him faster.

But he found he only felt more sluggish.

SEEN ON FACEBOOK

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 midJuly. If your entry gets the most votes, you’ll win £100.

Submit to captions@readersdigest.co.uk or online at readersdigest.co.uk/caption by July 9. We’ll announce the winner in our September issue.

June’s Winner

Our cartoonist trailed in joint second place this month with his caption: “I’m sorry I snapped at you.” He failed to win over the popular vote, and so this month’s crown goes to our reader

Kelvin Jay, who won with an impressive 46 per cent of the vote. His clever caption: “It makes me nervous when you watch programs with Steve Irwin” got you all voting. Congratulations Kelvin!

Interview: Rob Brydon

The actor opens up about his career and the pressures of being a famous funnyman

Barry Cryer

The writer and actor reminisces about his life and career

• LIFE AFTER CANCER:

Why it doesn’t end after you’re given the all-clear

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