Reader's Digest UK Jun 2011

The faces behind 'famous voices

Climbing ,Everest.21st-century style

"The reality TV show that changed our lives forever" ,Discover Britain's best 'churches

Pets who 'save lives

HOW TO

Dress the part

Keep urban ,chickens

Beat bedbugs

Rescue a lawn

Update your political correctness

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson Howl Won the Yellow Jumper by Ned Boulting

JUNE 2011 FEATURES

Amanda Riley-Jones is fascinated by the bond between humans and animals, "so reporting on a crack team of 'biodetection' dogs was a dream come true".

"Taking a photo often means you're putting a face to the name," says Marc Burden. "This time it was about putting a face to the voice."

Comedian Alun Cochrane, who writes the Little Epiphanies series in "Laugh!", says he "allows his mind to wander—so yours doesn't have to".

Stories featured on the cover are shown in red

atp 41* 4x. • to "Any more 4 $, 411" chocolates for you, 1p Ambassador? They're • excellente!" a Meet the faces behind • the voices I* 41 1 IF O. 19"

34 Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 7:What is it about chess that makes James Brown stay up playing it until 4am?

38 A Letter to My Father Calum Best speaks out about the trials of growing up with an alcoholic dad

46 Most Trusted Brands From games consoles to cars, our poll reveals the products we Brits put our faith in

52 Inside an Everest Expedition We join the latest trek to discover cutting-edge high-altitude technology

62 Best of British: Churches From humble chapels to soaring cathedrals, we select this country's most striking places of worship

70 "The Dogtor Will See You Now" Meet the lifesaving dogs who can sniff out medical emergencies before they've even happened

78 The Face Behind the Voice Their soothing tones are familiar—but who are they and what do they look like?

86 Small Screen, Big Vision How one British family's appearance on a reality TV show turned from "something very silly into something life-changing"

92 The Maverick: "Property Isn't As Safe As Houses" With a glut of unaffordable housing and retiring baby boomers looking to sell, could property prices be about to plummet?

96 Simon Callow: "I Remember..."The actor on Shakespeare, Amadeus and Jamie's Dream School

REGULARS WELCOME

the front

11 Over to You...

15 Radar: Your Guide to June

20 You Couldn't Make It Up...

23 Word Power

28 In the Future...

30 Instant Expert

32 If I Ruled the World: Bear Grylls

...at the back

106 1,001 Things Everyone Should Know

112 Medicine: Max Pemberton

114 Health: Susannah Hickling

118 Beauty: Jan Masters

120 Consumer: Donal Maclntyre

122 Money: Victoria Bischoff

126 Food: Marco Pierre White

128 Drink: Nigel Barden

130 Gardening: Bob Flowerdew

132 Wildlife: Martin Hughes-Games

134 Digital: Martha Lane Fox

136 Motoring: Conor McNicholas

138 Travel: Kate Pettifer

141 The Reader's Digest—Our new section for people who love books!

149 Books That Changed My Life: Melvyn Bragg

154 Beat the Puzzler! 156 Laugh! With Alun Cochrane

160 Beat the Cartoonist ...at

On our cover: Calum Best photographed by Stuart Conway for Reader's Digest. Contributor photographs by Seamus Ryan. Thanks to Paul Lussier for his design work.

It can't be easy having a really famous dad. When everybody wants a piece of his action, sons and daughters can soon find themselves pushed to the back of the attention queue. Much harder still, then, when your dad is also an alcoholic—which was certainly the case for the young Calum Best with his football-legend dad George. At times, it looked as though it was going to be a case of like father, like son. But a chance encounter with a charity dedicated to helping the children of alcoholics has proved to be a turning point for him, too. With Father's Day on the horizon, Calum reflects on some of the heart-rending scenes from his past, and reveals how he's finally come to terms with a man who, despite his many failings, he's still proud to call dad. Read his moving account on page 38.

Gill Hudson

theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk facebook.com/readersdigestuk readersdigest.co.uk/magazineblogs twitter.com/rdigest

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READER'S DIGEST PRIZE DRAW

(and you thought no one won!)

In the last 40 years, we've given away over £35 million to 487,633 winners! In addition to our £100,000 Grand Prize every six months, there's a wealth of other goodies up for grabs—from a few hundred pounds to a few thousand (not to mention cars, holidays, laptops and TVs), we have winners every month. Ken Jones of Flintshire is our first Grand Prize Draw Winner of 2011. Ken was quick off the mark with his entry and replied within seven days, which meant he qualified for our £20,000 bonus—making a grand prize total of £120,000!"I'm absolutely gobsmacked," said Ken. "I've never won anything, not even a tenner on the Lottery."

readersdigest.co.uk/prizedraw or read more

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

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

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

*Based on a 40% tax rate on the Jetta S 1.6 TDI BlueMotion Technology manual at £18,355 P11D value. correct at time of going to print. All prices shown are recommended on-the-road prices. Official (8.1) - 57.6 (4.9); extra urban 54.3 (5.2) - 78.5 (3.6); combined 44.8 (6.3) - 67.3 (4.2). CO2

Das Auto.

Model shown is a Jetta Sport 1.4 TSI 160PS at £20,730 rrp plus metallic paint (£465). Figures fuel consumption in mpg (litres/100km) for the new Jetta range: urban 34.9 emissions 147 -109g/km.

@READERSDIGEST.CO.UK

Online this month...

Visit our Facebook page (see address below) and you could be in with the chance of winning a brand-new iPhone 4!

Go behind-the-scenes of our interview with actor Simon Callow, who chose to talk to us in Pret A Manger rather than a swanky members' club.

We hit the streets to find out what you think of the property market. See "Property Isn't As Safe As Houses After All" on page 92.

Adam's Wildlife Watch—tune in as our popular nature addict reveals his latest video.

Editor Gill Hudson interviews one of our star columnists

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

DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT OUR FABULOUS APPS! GO TO THE iTUNES MUSIC STORE TO DOWNLOAD OUR iPAD APP AND OUR NEW WALKING APP.

Digest

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-Chief

GILL HUDSON

Managing Editor

CATHERINE HAUGHNEY

Design Director

MARTIN COLYER

Features Editor

SIMON HEMELRYK

Deputy Production Editor

TOM BROWNE

Assistant Features Editor -

ELLIE ROSE

Editorial Assistant

RACHEL SMITH

Art Editor

HUGH KYLE

Picture Researcher

ROBERTA MITCHELL

Contributing Editors

CAROLINE HUTTON, HARRY MOUNT, JAMES WALTON

Health Editor

SUSANNAH HICKLING

Website Assistant

JASMINE BEGOM

ADVERTISING

Account Directors

DOMINIC EDDON, PAUL EYERS, NICKY NOBLE, CHRIS SHEPPERSON - -

Trade Marketing Manager (Magazines and Books)

SIMON NICOLL

Production Controller

CHRIS TRIBE

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JUSTINE BURROWS

Finance Business Partner—Magazine

ANJLI MEHTA

Magazine Executive

MARINA JOANNOU

Publishing Director

JAMES MALLINSON

THE READER'S DIGEST ASSOCIATION INC

President and Chief Executive Officer

TOM WILLIAMS President, RD Europe

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Reader's Digest PEGGY NORTHROP

THERE'SMORETOLIFETHANBEINGIN CRUISECONTROL.THAT'SWHYTHEVOLVO S60R-DESIGNISHERE.

The lowered sports chassis and upgraded suspension settings of the S60 R-Design allow you to take back control. While its unique styling including dual tailpipes and 18" alloys make it as good to look at as it is to drive. And all available in a choice of petrol and diesel engines, including DRIVe. To arrange a test drive visit your local Volvo dealer or call 0800 400 430.

Some people do look slovenly when they chew, absolutely.

And in a job like mine, Mars just not on. You've got to look presentable.

Although Ironically gum can actually help with that. It helps take care of your teeth, I know that much.

Ultimately, It comes down to how you go about it, It's not hard to chew with a bit of subtlety, after all.

OVER TO YOU...

EMAILS, LETTERS, TWEETS AND FACEBOOK

£30 FOR EACH PUBLISHED LETTER,

£50 FOR THE LETTER OF THE MONTH! SEE P4 FOR MORE DETAILS

LETTER OF THE MONTH

I had to respond to your article "Busting the Bogus Bankrupts". In my opinion, there should be two types of bankruptcy, to differentiate between those who have recklessly spent other people's money and those who have tried to keep genuine businesses running. But it feels as though the latter group is disproportionately punished.

For instance, it's tough for bankrupts to get work after years of self-employment, because many jobs are not open to them (whatever the reason for the bankruptcy). It's also difficult to rent a home due to credit checks. Then there's the implication that the bankrupt is always guilty of something.

I was discharged from bankruptcy in January, but my case remains open due to the large amount of property I owned. As it stands, people like me—who put their last penny into trying to keep going while the bank rates went up 0.25% every month—still have another six years of problems even after being discharged. Business owners who find themselves in this position deserve a degree of sympathy. Name and address withheld

ROYAL APPROVAL

How delightful to read in "My Royal Appointment" that Prince William's favourite sandwich is Marmite and banana. Over the years, I've had to put up with scathing remarks from colleagues along the lines of "How can you eat that?" But it's the best possible snack if you want something to stave off hunger until lunchtime. Way to go, William!

Edith Pickin, Devon

Although your insider's guide to the Royal wedding gave me lots of detail, I spent the big day packing a bag for charity rather than watching TV. Even though, in view of the economic climate, the wedding's costs were kept down, I felt no amount of tourism could justify the huge expense of this spectacle.

Shula Clarkson, Great Yarmouth

CONFUSED CARE

The "RD Special Report" on diabetes has raised a lot of doubts in my mind about the care provided by the NHS. A few years ago, I needed an emergency operation on my hand, but the hospital staff didn't seem to know how they should deal with

"Have you met my publicist?"

my high blood-sugar level. At first they were reluctant to do the operation before my level went down, but in the end they carried it out anyway because they couldn't control it. They didn't involve the specialist nurse or refer me to her afterwards.

In fairness, the operation was very successful, and the specifically diabetes care I've received at the same hospital has been excellent. Brian Oseman, Bury

MODERN TRAPPINGS

It was good to read in "Sink or Swim" that teamwork and cooperation can help troubled teenagers. I do wonder if youngsters feel isolated from older generations these days because TVs, computers,

Pods, mobiles and social networking occupy so much of their lives. Also, fractured family groups caused by separation or relocation make it difficult to stay in contact, especially with the distractions of technology. I have to admit that I enjoy using all of the above, but I'm retired!

Lin Bevan, Yeovil

AN ELITE FORCE

Having spent many years in the West Country, I found Johnny Kingdom's "If I Ruled the World" truly fascinating. He has the views of a man who's lived life to the full.

One of his ideas is to bring back National Service, and with good reason—I was a wild youth when I joined the Royal Navy and it certainly straightened me out. But the modern navy is very high-tech, attracting intelligent and motivated people. Training can take years rather than weeks. Certainly, when I left after 25 years, it was very different from the organisation I joined. Thomas Rothwell, Oxford

"COME AGAIN?"

• "...I auditioned for the Tin Man, but I had to be a tree. The play was awful. My costume had no armholes for branches. I just had to stand and be pelted. It hurt and I didn't understand the story..."

• "...I'd suggest to those who feel they can't relax without a joint that they pay a visit to their local swimming pool and do half a mile..."

• "...Concerned about the chemicals in air fresheners? Why not use cheap aftershave to spray the toilet?..."

• "...I worry about what I'd do if one of my grandchildren choked on their food. Would putting a vacuum-cleaner nozzle in their mouths and holding their noses be successful?" [Don't go there, folks]

• "...I've sent a card to Donna and Lance. Don't know when they'll get it. You'll be dying to see them..."

LIFE-CHANGING ADVICE

Your feature "1,001 Things Everyone Should Know" really impressed me. And in terms of timing, it was absolutely perfect—I'd applied for a new job and, thanks to the tips on how to shine in interviews, I got it!

Jade Symonds, London

A MATTER OF STYLE

Why are we now seeing so many American-style dates being used in magazines, rather than the correct and logical British style?

Harry Mount's article on the census ("Instant Expert", March) has a sentence beginning, "On March 10, 1801..." rather than having the day, month and year in that

order. If this continues, there will be non-stop confusion as to the month and day. What do other readers think?

David Brown, Hampshire

SHAMELESS PRAISE

Ever since Reader's Digest changed its layout, the positive edge of your regular slots has worn off on me. Not only have I been more keen to receive my monthly Digest, but I've been reading the concise titbits more thoroughly. All that and a friendly handbag size, too! Excuse my gushing, but it's such an enjoyable read I simply had to let you know. Natalie Colgate, Epsom, Surrey

CORRECTION: In our Money item on pensions in May, we said, "If you don't make any contributions for three tax years, in the fourth you can contribute up to £20,000." The amount should, in fact, be £200,000. Many apologies for the error.

twitter* TWEET OF THE MONTH

Ameemabackwards Glenn Cocoa

I sent 10 jokes to Reader's Digest. I checked every month to see if any of them ever made it in the issue... No pun in ten did. ;) 11th time lucky, eh?

YOU'RE STILL TALKING ABOUT...

Benji Wilson's article "From Soap to Slum" (March), about EastEnders star Samantha Womack and her trip to Africa for Comic Relief, still has you scribbling.

• I've done charity work in South Africa and I find it hard to believe how many people won't help because they feel it's not their problem.

Genna Burton, Corwen, Clwyd

• This feature reminds us that actors are just that —their real lives are usually a far cry from the roles they play. Philippa Sampson, Newton Abbot

• My son went to Africa to do voluntary work and came home with only the clothes he stood up in, because he gave all the rest away. I was very proud of him—he's only 14. Harri Bryan, Liverpool ■

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CO2 154 — 114g/km. Model featured is the Hyundai ix20 Active 1.6 auto in Ice Blue metallic paint with £199 advance payment. Offers are subjectto availability. *To qualify for these offers you must be in receipt of the Higher rate Motability Component of the Disability Living Allowance or War Pensioners' Motability Supplement. Offers only valid where the application to Motability occurs between 1 April 2011 and 30 June 2011 and subject to acceptance of Motability application. The Motability Contract Hire Scheme is administered by Motability Operations Limited (Registered company No. 1373876). City Gate House, 22 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 9HB. Full written details, including terms and conditions of the Motability Scheme are available on request from Motability. Please note 20,000 miles per year are allowed on the Motability Contract Hire Scheme. 5 Year Triple Care terms and exclusions apply. Please see www.hyundai.co.uk/owners/triple5 or ask your local dealer.

YOUR SHORT, SHARP GUIDE TO JUNE

Comedienne, author and BBC2 Review Show critic Natalie Haynes on the new releases

IN CINEMAS

X-Men: First Class The blockbuster season is upon us and you know what that means: superheroes. The latest film in the X-Men franchise takes us back to when Professor X (usually Patrick Stewart) was whippersnapper James McAvoy and just forming his team of do-gooding mutants.

Fans will flock to see the finest special effects of the summer and January Jones (Mad Men's Betty Draper, above, with Kevin Bacon) in white leather, but this movie

series is smarter than your average popcorn fodder. It's about integration and our fear of those who are different from us—albeit different in the sense of having superpowers and being impossibly good-looking.

Senna If you think that Formula 1 is basically fancy gokarts going round in a circle while Bernie Ecclestone rolls on a bed of tenners, this biopic IP

about three-times world champion

Ayrton Senna may surprise you. It's engrossing and touchingSenna died in a crash aged 34.

DVDS

True Grit. A great Western with whip-smart dialogue, queasy violence and a pulsing story.

Hailee Steinfeld gives the performance of her career (not too hard, since she was only 13 when she filmed it, but still...) and Jeff Bridges is a drunken delight. Inside Job. An Oscar-winning, jaw-dropping documentary about the financial "masters of the universe" blamed for the recent crisis. One of them has a pinstriped jet. Yes, really.

Gadgets and Games

Technology

expert

and

Answer Me This! podcaster Oily Mann reveals the latest must-haves

Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, DS, 3DS), around £35. This puzzle-solving and fighting video game takes its inspiration from the Disney movies, with all the treasure, adventure and baffling plot holes that implies. Its big appeal is that Lego doesn't bleed, so kids can slice a pirate's stomach and he'll simply collapse into his component parts (presumably to be resurrected as a Lego tree house or an implausibly rectangular space station). You can play as more than 70 different characters, too.

AND CHECK OUT...

SagemCom Si ; phone, £99. Recreates the style of a 1950s rotary dial, but is actually cordless, hands-free and digital. Eton Raptor, £99.95.A solar-powered mobile-phone charger, with built-in torch, radio and—yes!--a bottle opener. AA lime Machine AIM 0.79. See maps of your street from the 1800s onwards.

simplehuman sensor bin, £250. I've got a computer in every room and several iPods, yet never once have I considered my faithful old kitchen rubbish bin was in need of a turbocharged replacement. Until now. This fingerprint-proof beauty boasts a sensor that swings open the lid when you wave your hand above it and closes it a few seconds later. Hygienic, and as sexy as a bin can be. Which is more than sexy enough, because no one wants to have sex with a bin.

BBC 6

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

The Very Best of Morrissey Think Alan Bennett sings with T. Rex.

Morrissey has been a solo artist for much longer than he was ever a Smith, but the shadow cast by his former band still tends to obscure his later career. Which is a pity since his solo output is studded with gems. And not just obvious ones such as "Suedehead" and "Everyday Is Like Sunday", but oft-overlooked infectious ditties like "Dagenham Dave". An accompanying DVD has several quifftacular promo videos.

Witchazel by

Matt Berry

Think if Nick Drake had been inThe IT Crowd. The cover of this second outing from

comic actor Berry gives a wry hint at the contents. Bearded and Tolkienish, Matt—best known for his deep-voiced hamming in The IT Crowd and The Mighty Boosh—stands in a thicket with a pheasant on his wrist. The implication would seem to be Seventies-ish British folk rock with a quirky sense of humour. And that's a reasonable summation of Witchazel. Even though there are songs about badgers, the record never veers into parody. It's a hazy, gauzy selection of psychedelic with a lopsided charm.

Think Cate Blanchett

as Joan Baez.

In person, Emmylou Harris exudes the timeless regality and elegance that suffuses her songs. She's regarded as the queen of country music, but, in truth, her music is more expansive than that, a distillation of all that's pure in American folk, pop, country and rock. This latest collection of original songs is an exercise in clear-eyed simplicity— largely autobiographical, heartfelt and crystalline.

Hard Bargain by Emmylou Harris

YOU ,,OULDN'T MAKE IT UP...

1 Having lost one of our goldfish, I went to the pet shop to pick a replacement. Among the dozens in the tank, I pointed one out to the shop owner, who stood with net poised.

On seeing the net, the fish darted to the other side of the tank. Pursued by the shop owner, it then darted in the opposite direction. This went on for a while. Due to the frenzy in the tank and the shop owner's stress, I opted instead for any fish, and one was quickly caught.

On revisiting the shop weeks later, I saw a new sign: "Personally chosen fish, 50p extra."

Kathryn Murray, London

1 I thought I'd ask my son a philosophical question: "If you could spend an evening talking to any person, living or dead, who would you choose?"

After a pause, he replied, "The living one."

Phil Reilly, Edinburgh

1 A man standing next to me at a car-boot sale asked a stallholder the age of an

"Don't you want the case for it?"

AFTER A LOVELY DAY PLAYING SOLDIERS IN THE WOODS WITH MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD SON, I was baffled when his mother rang me up later to complain.

"We agreed we weren't going to do anything to turn our children against our partners," she fumed.

Seeing as I'm rather fond of her new man William— we often play tennis and drink together—I asked where on earth this idea came from.

It turned out our son had been firing imaginary bullets at the poor fellow, screaming, "Death to the enemy!" When challenged on this, he admitted that daddy had told him to do so.

After much head-scratching, I realised I'd spent the best part of our day commanding him to "Fire at will..." Shihab Salim, Brighton

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

item. She said she didn't know— it had been purchased by her late husband. As the man started to walk away, she shouted after him, "Hang on, he's here now."

"But you said he was your late husband," the man protested.

"He is," she insisted. "He should have been here 30 minutes ago!"

David Benjamin, Neath, Wales

1 I was struggling to reach some biscuits in the supermarket when an elderly lady with a walking stick hobbled towards me.

"Which ones do you want, dear?" she enquired.

"The ones with the gold wrappers," I replied.

"Get ready to catch them!" she warned, before poking the required biscuits off the shelf with her stick.

Christine Miller, Bolton

1 A customer at my bank told me that she was on her way to deliver a urine specimen, but

1 WE HAD A COAL FIRE IN OUR HOUSE when I was growing up, and a chimney sweep came every six months to clean it.

On one occasion, the usual man arrived with a

"You say, 'Comedy catchphrase,' the law says, 'Bomb threat'"

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

FOR DETAILS

the only suitable container she could find was a whisky bottle. Minutes later, she rushed back into the bank. Apparently a thief had been rummaging through her bicycle basket and had made off with the whisky bottle...no doubt thinking it was his lucky day!

Marilyn Yurdan, Oxfordshire

1 Our son was doing his homework and called out, "Dad, where are the Alps?"

"Ask your mum," was the reply. "She's always putting things away!"

Jade Symonds, London

fancy new electric cleaner. When the job was done, he presented my mother with a rather large bill.

She queried the inflated amount and the sweep explained that the extra

cost covered the price of electricity as well. Satisfied, my mother settled up. It was only after he'd gone that we realised it was our electricity supply.

Anne Casey, Tyne and Wear ■

Try this sponge cake: it's perfect for a Marie Curie Blooming Great Tea Party!

Everyone loves a summer tea party, don't they? It's a British institution, after all. So why not throw your very own Marie Curie Blooming Great Tea Party? It doesn't have to be a grand affair—just a simple cup of tea and cakes in the office can be a great way to get everyone involved. But if you want to host a full-blown party for friends and family—well, please be our guest. We'll even help you with the planning by sending you a free fundraising pack to get you started. Then, when

GENOISE SPONGE CAKE

(serves 8) flour

4 eggs 1teaspoon

110g caster baking powder

sugar (plus 60g melted extra for butter sprinkling) 115g strawberry

55 teaspoon jam

vanilla essence 325m1 cream

100g plain for whipping

1 Grease two 20cm straight-sided sandwich tins and line with baking parchment paper. Pre-heat oven to 190C/3758/ Gas Mark 5.

2 Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence in a large bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until thick and creamy. Sift flour and baking powder into the bowl and carefully fold into the creamed mixture followed by the melted butter.

3 Divide the mixture equally between the two tins and spread evenly. Bake for 20 minutes or until cakes are well risen and springy to the touch. Turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

you're tucking into a slice of something delicious, you can pat yourself on the back knowing that the money you're raising by charging for the tea and cakes is helping provide care to people with cancer and other terminal illnesses, in your local area. We're hoping to be able to pay for 50,000 hours of nursing care—but can only do this with your help.

4 Place one cake upside down on a serving plate and spread evenly with the jam. Whisk the cream until it's just thick enough to hold its shape then spread evenly over the jam. Place the second cake on top and sprinkle with caster sugar.

or visit www.mariecurie.org.uk/ readersdigest for more information and to get your free Blooming Great Tea Party fundraising pack, which includes a step-by-step guide to organising a tea party.

TO TAKE PART

Call 08700 340 040

2 Throw your tea party between June 12 and July 12 (although we don't mind if you do it earlier or later!).

3 Send in your funds.

All those who take part in the Marie Curie Blooming Great Tea Party are eligible. For your chance to win, answer this simple question and post this coupon by 6/9/11 to: Marie Curie Cancer Care, Blooming

WORD POWER

1 bouillabaisse (boohyuh-base) n A heavy ladle

B flour base to a sauce

C fi 17 stew

2 griddle n

A round iron cooking plate

B kitchen refuse bin

C fried onion

3 fricassee (frick-uh-say) n

A fried bread

B type of omelette

C meat in white sauce

4 bara brith n A Welsh fruitcake B cheese on toast C seaweed soup

5 soufflé n A whipped

cream B spongy baked

dish C hot meringue

6 ramekin (ramm-eh-kin)

n A small dish B chef's

knife C toasting fork

7 toque n A chef's

hat B hot spice

C strong aroma

8 digestif n A glass

of milk B strong alcoholic drink C muesli

9 ratatouille (ratt-ahtooh-eeh) n A vegetable

dish B enormous fridge

C light vinegar

10 clapshot n A game

bird B tea strainer

C mixture of potatoes and turnips

11 Amatriciana (Amatrish-i-ana) adj A smoky

B spicy C bland

12 ramen (rah-men) n

A apron B noodles in broth C slatted

wooden dish

13 fondue n A dirty plate

*The US chef and writer Anthony Bourdain has proclaimed Blood, Bones and Butter: the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton (out this month) the bestever book by a chef. But how good is your cooking vocabulary? Answer A, B, or C, to find out.

B Michelin-starred chef

C food dipped into hot sauce or oil

14 gratin (gratt-ahn) n

A cheese grater B dish with browned crust

C head waiter

15 boudin (boo-dahn) n

A black pudding B pie

filling C intensely high oven heat

COVER STAR CALUM BEST'S FAVOURITE WORD?

"Beijo—it means kiss in Portuguese. I love Brazil!"

A word is born: QR code

Created in 1994, QR (Quick Response) codes use both horizontal and vertical barcodes to store maximum data. Normal barcodes carry a maximum of 20 digits; whereas QR codes can store up to 7,089 digits, letters or characters. The QR code is already used over here on smartphones, but it's much more popular in Japan. There, a QR code on a piece of jewellery can store details of blood type, allergies, and medical conditions; and codes on gravestones link to memorial websites and virtual guestbooks.

RD Rating Useful? 10/10 Likeable? 5/10

WORD POWER ANSWERS

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

1 bouillabaisse—C fish stew. "Bouillabaisse is particularly popular in Provence." French bouillir (to boil).

2 griddle—A round iron cooking plate. "Eggs over easy tasted best straight from the griddle." Old French gredil (gridiron).

3 fricassee—C meat in white sauce. "The fricassee is made with stewed or fried meat." French fricasser (to cut up).

4 bara brith—A Welsh fruitcake. "Bara brith is the perfect teatime snack." Welsh (speckled bread).

soufflé—B spongy baked dish. "They turned up late for dinner, so the soufflé was spoilt." French souffler (to blow).

6 ramekin—A small dish. "Ramekins are often used for baking individual portions." French.

7 toque—A chef's hat. "The Muppets chef had an enormous toque." French.

8 digestif—B strong alcoholic drink. "He had a digestif after his dinner." French.

WHY CAMERA?

The familiar photographic device gets its name from the Greek kamara, meaning an arched room; a term borrowed by the Romans for the Latin camera. This then led to the expression camera obscura, meaning "a dark room". The earliest camera obscura was used for projecting an image through a small aperture onto a wall inside the darkened room. From this, there came the idea of a small, portable box—or camera—which would not only project an image, but also preserve it on film.

9 ratatouille—A vegetable dish. "Ratatouille contains peppers, aubergines, courgettes, onions and tomatoes." French dialect.

10 clapshot—C mixture of potatoes and turnips. Originated in Orkney.

11 Amatriciana—B spicy, as in a pasta sauce. Italian, from the town of Amatrice in northern Lazio.

12 ramen—B noodles in broth. "The chicken

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

ramen tasted delicious in Beijing." Chinese /a (to pull) and mian (noodles).

13 fondue—C food dipped into hot sauce or oil. "He dropped his fork in the fondue." French fondre (to melt).

14 gratin—B dish with browned crust. "The gratin bubbled and turned a lovely golden colour." French gratter (to grate).

15 boudin—A black pudding. "The boudin was a lovely addition to a full English breakfast." French. ■

HAVEYOUGOT TOTHEROOTOF BAD BREATH?

Like many young mothers, Karen Stevenson had always planned to go back to work after taking a couple of years off to start a family. "I was 29 and had worked in IT, so I didn't think I'd have any problems getting a job," she says.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP

Karen Stevenson went from jobless mum to industry manager— thanks to The Open University

But, despite securing several interviews, Karen, from Swindon, didn't receive a single offer. "As soon as I mentioned that I'd got a family and might need slightly flexible working hours, I was crossed off the list. I felt like I'd been thrown on the scrap heap!"

Looking at ways to improve her chances, Karen noticed there was a gaping hole in her CV—she didn't have a degree. "After I left school, real life sort of swept me along," she explains. "I never really thought about university."

She knew that returning to education would be difficult. "I couldn't expect my husband, Dave, to look after the family and pay all the bills and course costs! I needed a degree that was affordable and would fit around my life. That's when I thought about The Open University."

Karen embarked on a mixed BSc in Technology, Maths, Business and Social Sciences in 1992. "Most of my work was done in the evenings after Dave got home. But if I had a weekend tutorial in Cheltenham, we'd turn it into a family day out. We made the situation work for us."

Dave was made redundant three years into her course.

"I suddenly had to look for work, but the beauty of the OU is that it helps you cope with whatever the world throws at you. I was able to put my studies on hold."

Karen didn't return to her degree for two years. "By then, I had a full-time job in the pharmaceutical industry, but the OU allowed me to carry on studying whenever time allowed. I took breaks along the way and finally finished my degree in 2009."

Karen, 51, is now a production manager and also chairs the Pharmaceutical Committee for the Institute Of Mechanical Engineers. "Studying for an OU degree did wonders for my self-confidence and showed potential employers that I was still challenging myself. I don't think I'd have reached manager level without it."

"Would I recommend it to others? Absolutely! Life presents you with all sorts of problems, but they shouldn't be a barrier to education. The OU meets the needs of the way we live now."

IN THE FUTURE...

A robot on your shoulder: the Teroos at a 111 recent Japanese technology fair

Virtual company

Imagine being somewhere—experiencing sounds, sights, even touch—when you're not actually there at all. "Telepresence", currently used in robot surgery and search-and-rescue missions, is about to enter our everyday lives. (It's said that Apple already has a prototype.) A telepresent robot is a mobile talking video camera, remotely controlled. It could replace shop assistants, tour guides and estate agents.

Teroos, a recent model, is like a parrot perched on your shoulder, enabling friends to accompany you virtually. Over time, this will creep into almost everything. By 2020, expect to play golf against a telepresent robot controlled by a friend.

It's only natural "Bio-mimicry"—copying nature's tricks to utilise resources and energy efficiently—is inspiring many of today's engineers.

In March, scientists revealed "artificial leaves",

solar cells the size of playing cards that mimic photosynthesis. Other ideas include turbine blades based on whale flippers, self-repairing plastic aircraft fuselages (which "scab over" when breached) and

Good hair day

Will baldness soon be history? Over the centuries men have tried everything from cow spit to honey to restore thinning hair. Now a chance discovery may have identified a possible cure.

Scientists know that some of the side effects of chronic stress, including hair loss, are triggered by a chemical called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). They've now discovered that hair loss in mice genetically modified to produce excessive CRF is dramatically reversed by astressin-B, a chemical that blocks CRF's effects.

We're still a long way from an over-the-counter medicine, but by 2025 your chemist just might have a cure for baldness.

solar-power stations that can simultaneously "green" the desert.

Best of all, insect hills are proving inspirational for ventilation control. By 2030, skyscrapers could look like termite mounds.

INSTANT EXPERT

Harry Mount reveals the facts behind the news

This month, the television licence marks its 65th anniversary. A colour licence— covering multiple TVs in a household—now costs £145.50. But with the rise of digital streaming, is the licence under threat?

a

As a result of the growth in new media, the television licensing authority has drawn up new rules for licences to catch those illegally watching BBC programmes. The licensing law— a criminal law, not a civil one, with a maximum £1,000 fine—now governs computers, games consoles, Sky+, Playstations, digital TV recorders and mobile phones, too.

If you're watching a BBC programme on any of these devices at the same time as it's being broadcast on a traditional television, you're criminally liable if you don't have a licence. If you have one, you can watch these programmes anywhere you like outside the home, as long as the device is "powered solely by its own internal batteries".

You don't need a licence to watch "on-demand" services (after they've been shown on television)—and that includes the BBC's iPlayer "watch again" service. Nor do you need one if you use your digital box only to listen to sounds and have nothing displayed on the screen.

And the switchover to

None of this is affected by the move from analogue to digital, which began in 2008 and finishes next year. After this, everyone in Britain will need a digital TV or a digital box to watch telly. You'll still need a licence to watch or record programmes as they're being broadcast.

The TV Licence

Gotcha! A detector van on the prowl for unlicensed TVs

Wn a

If a tenant has a separate tenancy agreement, then they need their own TV licence if they watch or record TV. But if they have a joint-tenancy agreement, one licence can cover the whole house, depending on whether or not you have exclusive access to a toilet or washing facilities. If you live in self-contained accommodation like a flat or annexe, you need your own TV licence.

ckv4 maw catch people without a licence?

There are a number of methods. The television licensing authority uses the national database of nearly 30 million unlicensed and licensed addresses. Enforcement officers then check unlicensed houses to see if they are watching TV or not. Using hand-held detection devices, they can measure the strength and direction But what if I of a television signal. only watch ITV? They also have a fleet Nice try, but the of detector vans that traditional excuse—that can detect the use of the unlicensed viewer "TV-receiving equipment never watches the BBC at specifically targeted —won't wash in court. addresses in 20 seconds".

1,750

The number of radio/ TV licences issued by the end of 1946, the year they were introduced. If you had a radio but no TV, you needed a separate licence up until 1971

What about hotels?

If you're staying in a hotel, hostel or campsite, the business owner must have a valid licence, which can cover up to 15 accommodation units on a single site (there's an additional fee for every five extra units, or fewer).

.

Aii. rn a student at nome for the summer holidays

You need your own licence while at university—the one for your hall of residence won't cover you. But you can get a refund for the time you're away, as long as the licence is still valid for three full months and you don't need it again before it expires. •

IF I RULED THE WORLD

Bear Grylls

Best known as a TV presenter and intrepid adventurer, Bear Grylls has scaled Everest, crossed the frozen North Atlantic in an inflatable boat and flown a powered paraglider to 29,000 feet in the Himalayas. He is chief scout of the UK Scout Association and lives with his wife Shara and their three sons.

I'd ban local councils from wasting money on crazy things, such as fighting me to remove a tree house that I'd built for my children. Sadly, the council won and threatened to chainsaw it down, which was infuriating. But then I built my three boys a much better tree house in the woods—and the council hasn't found it yet!

I'd take my boys parachuting. It's a crazy rule to have to be 16! My eldest is seven years old and he's 100 per cent fit to jump.

I'd make sure every one of the 33,000 young people in this country who's on a waiting list to join the Scouts gets the chance to be part of the fun. It's all about introducing kids to adventure, camaraderie and empowering life skills. People

Ksee the Scout Association as a fantastic vehicle for positive change in our communities, and families want to be part of that. Now the Scouts desperately need more adult volunteers to keep up with the massive increase in membership in recent years. I'd make sure everyone who wants to join in the adventure can.

I'd reintroduce national service. I'd make it compulsory for every UK citizen to do a three-month period of service as soon as they leave school—either for

Agovernment community agencies, a recognised

31 UK charity or the military. This would re-foster the sense of collective responsibility that so many have lost. It would serve as a reminder that this nation is greatest when we all pull together, and give young people the sense of pride that comes from knowing they can make a difference. It would help broaden their horizons, provide focus, discipline and life skills, as well

as help break down class barriers, and benefit the country as a whole. Tell me young people wouldn't grow as a result of having such an experience before they embark on adult life!

I'd take the climate sceptics on a journey to see some of the sights I've seen. It's so easy to pontificate from the security of our Western world but, while we deliberate, many of the world's poorest communities are fighting for survival from freak flooding and droughts. How many more of these so-called freak phenomena do sceptics need to see before they realise climate change is having a devastating effect on low-lying and tropical countries—countries where millions of people live? It's the responsibility of all of us to stand up and insist on dramatic carbon-reducing, alternative-energy-producing action from the powerful countries in the world.

I'd make the Alpha course available for every youth offender. With its central concept of giving people the opportunity to explore the meaning of life, I've seen it turn around many lost lives and help provide those who most need it

Tell me young people wouldn't grow as a result of doing national service!

Series 6 of Born Survivor starts on the Discovery Channel on July 25.

with a simple faith and a sense of gratitude, healing and love.

I'd give thanks to Christ. It takes a proud man to say he never needs any help. And I have yet to meet an atheist in a lifeboat or in the death zone on Everest. My faith has been the secret strength that has carried me through so much in my life.

I'd fine people who stand still on escalators and block the way. They're there to speed you up, not slow you down! They shouldn't be an excuse not to exercise—I love running up escalators.

I'd indulge myself with the occasional game of tennis with Roger Federer. Maybe I would make him a little longsighted as well, to give myself a chance to win the odd point here and there. I admire his work, family values and talent, as well as his ease of movement. As a climber, I understand it— and envy it a little as well.

I'd Invent a teleporter so I could get my kids and Shara to be beside me when I'm out filming Born Survivor. I really miss them when I'm away—that's the hardest part of my job. •

As told to Elizabeth Adlam

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

7. Knight takes ro6<

You can discover a lot about yourself while locked in battle over a chessboard— as James Brown has discovered Recently, I was telling a friend that I'd been up at 4am watching a Les Dawson documentary on TV. When he enquired why I was up at that time, I explained that I'd been playing chess all night (four victories, one defeat, one stalemate). He looked at me as if I were a weirdo.

As it was, it seemed perfectly normal at the time. My girlfriend was away in Rome, while my housemate Matthew had arrived home at midnight with a hunger for a feast of spicy chicken kebabs, and was looking for trouble on the chessboard. It would have been foolish to turn away from either. Not that this is a rarity. Three or four times a week we end the day like this—though normally it's all over by midnight.

Our tussle over the board is an extension of what we used to do on a tennis court. The novelist Martin Amis mentioned both games in a tribute to his friend, the writer Christopher Hitchens, during which he complained

that he'd once been beaten 6-0 by a doctor friend on the court, which he put down to having an off day.

In my experience of watching and playing sport for almost 40 years, you never lose 6-0 because you have an off day. That's a thrashing. You lose 6-0 because the person you're playing is better than you.

This never happens with me and Matthew during tennis or chess because we're pretty evenly matched. In fact, this is how our friendship initially developed: sporting combat in which neither of us would go away feeling depressed or frustrated. Neither of us wants to lose but we're always very accepting if the other wins. Neither can predict who'll be the victor, and Matthew best describes our chess games like this: "It's mainly a case of playing move for move until one of us loses concentration."

We're not great players by any means. Indeed, my ten-year-old son can almost match me game for game now But with Matthew, who's 38, one in three games will invariably end in total surprise, when a move will be made that results in checkmate without either of us realising it. This can even go against the run of the game, with a surprise counter-attack. For boys who grew up playing war in

inner-city woods with sticks for guns, this is the adult equivalent.

Not that we'll sell ourselves short and give pieces away—it's just that we have no formal training. The only trick I know is the four-move mate known as Blitzkreig, and one simple pawn move can end that. Given the hour at which we play and the state he often plays in, it's fair to say our games more frequently resemble a post-pub one-on-one street brawl than

the slow and deliberate mind games of the serious players.

That's not to imply I always take advantage of his fondness for a few scoops after work (as I did on this night in question). He can just as easily rack up a hat-trick of victories when my mind's elsewhere. There's nothing more infuriating than to lose your queen because you're so busy focusing on the attack you ignore the defence.

If anything, Matt's a wolf in pawn's o-

Checkmate! James Brown stumbles into another trap

gg If we were chess pieces, he would be the provocative and good-humoured knight, whereas I would be the fat, lazy rook

clothing. Just as I came to realise on the tennis court that he's far fitter than he looks, so I now know from the chessboard that he's far cleverer than his perpetual grin suggests. With me it's the opposite. I'm neither as fit nor as smart as I think I am.

If we were chess pieces personified he would be the provocative and goodhumoured knight, whereas I would be the fat, lazy rook: happy to let others do all the work before I start pulling my weight in the battle.

But let's not over-analyse this. I like

playing chess with my mate. It's that simple. All you need are 32 pieces and a board. You can even play it on the beach with sand and pebbles. As our shared love Woody Allen said, "I failed to make the chess team because of my height," but Matt and I are self-styled giants of our own gladiatorial arena. Your move. ■

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

BUDDING AUTHORS, TAKE A BOW!

Of the thousands of 100-word stories submitted in our recent competition, we thought many deserved a special mention, even though they didn't win, so we'll be featuring one a month from now on.

Just a short note

Just a short note to say your dinner's in the oven. I've ironed your best shirt and there are plenty of clean socks in your top drawer when you need them. Your new pyjamas are in the next drawer down. I've folded all your sweaters in the bottom drawer—apart from that nice one I bought you last Christmas, which I just couldn't find. That is, until I saw it today on the floor of my sister's bedroom when I popped in to borrow a scarf. You'll notice all my drawers are empty. Don't forget to unload the dishwasher. Submitted by Lyn Millman, Penarth, South Wales

Lyn says: With only 100 words, I decided that a letter format could convey more of a story by leaving so much unsaid. Is her desire to finish the housework and tidy everything away part of an unhealthy obsession, or is she just saying a loving farewell to her cheating husband in the only way she knows? Lyn will receive a cheque for £70

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FATHER'S DAY EXCLUSIVE

His football-legend dad's boozing almost ruined his life. Now Calum Best is sharing his memories in a bid to help other children of alcoholic parents

A LETIER TO MY FATHER

BY ANGELA NEUSTATTER PHOTOGRAPHED BY•STEWART CONWAY

Dear Dad,

I did know you loved me, but it would have meant so much if you could have shown me. I think often about the relationship we could have built together; the fun we'd have had. It hurts me how much we both missed out.

When I talk out about what your drinking did to me, I don't want to disc you, but I think it's important the world knows where I'm coming from. I wish I could take you back in time and introduce you to NACOA [National Association for Children of Alcoholics] so you could get help with your drinking and save yourself.

You could have had such a great second chapter to your life after football. And I'd have been by your side, loving yoiti I always have, as you grew older. ►

AN ENGAGING SMILE FILLS CALUM BEST'S face as he bounds into Henry J. Bean's bar on the King's Road, London. He's ten minutes late for our interview, but has the best possible excuse. He'd been stressed and unsure about our planned intimate conversation about his late father George, and how alcohol got in the way of him being a father. Calum had then bumped into his mother Angie—who lives in Oxfordshire, but was in town on business— and she'd taken him for coffee and pointed out that now, more than ever, he has a valuable reason for telling his tale.

Since early last year, Calum has been a patron of NACOA*—a charity that helps some of the 1.3 million British children with drink-addicted parents. When he talks publicly about what happened during his early years he boosts the charity's profile and helps other affected youngsters come forward and get help.

Calum got involved with the charity after fronting the BBC Children in Need documentary Brought Up By Booze in November 2009. During filming, he met the children of alcoholics and had a session with a counsellor at a rehabilitation centre. "Within three minutes of starting to talk to her, I was in tears," he says. "I hadn't cried since Dad died and I bawled. I felt so much better."

it operates a helpline allowing children and adults to talk about, and find out how to get help for, the problems caused by their parent's alcohol abuse—he was well aware what a valuable service they offered.

"When I met Hilary Henriques, who runs the charity, I was so impressed with her energy."

People hoped Calum's arriva George up, bu optimism was that baby I might sober t their initial soon dashed

He sat with one of the young female volunteers manning the phones, who told him how even elderly people would call to talk about the emotional trauma their parent's boozing—and subsequent behaviour, such as physical abuse—had caused. The helpline gets 36,000 callers a year.

So when the documentary later took Calum to NACOA's Bristol HQ—where

"I know how much what Dad did hurt me and filled me with demonic anger," he says. "I'm sure if there'd been a charity like NACOA, it would have helped."

George was addicted to drink before

"MUCH OF WHAT DAD DID HURT ME AND

Calum was even born in 1981. The Manchester United legend, and strikingly good-looking ladies' man, had been a heavy boozer since the late 1960s.

THE NEWSPAPERS SUGGESTED THAT Baby Best could save George from the bottle, but within months, Angie, his first wife, had to admit it hadn't happened.

Yet there are two photographs from those early years that haunt Calum. They show the potential that George had to be the hands-on, caring dad Calum has spent the rest of his life yearning for.

"One is of him washing me in the bath as a small child. In the other, I'm sleeping on his chest," says Calum. He hesitates, his voice growing shaky: "But Mum has another picture of Dad that tells how it was so much of the time. He is raising

his hands to the friends gathered around him while I'm there tugging at his leg, trying to get his attention."

When Calum was five, his parents divorced and Angie took him to live in LA. They moved in with Cher (Angie was her personal trainer) but Calum still made regular visits to Britain to see George.

"Mum explained that he drank and it was problematic, but she never wanted to stop me going," Calum says. "Besides I always wanted, desperately, to have father-son times to cherish."

But all too often it didn't work out that way. "He'd take me to pubs most of the time. If I asked if we could leave, he'd say, 'Can't you see I'm having a drink with mates?' When I was big enough, I'd often have to carry him home and tuck him into bed." -

"I

DIDN'T DARE ASK 'WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?'

1 On one occasion, when Calum was just 11 years old, George took him to his first Manchester United game. After the match, he went on a drinking session and left the youngster all alone in a hotel room, with only staff members to talk to.

"He came back a day and a half later, but I didn't dare ask 'Where have you been?' He always hated it if I made him feel guilty and would have probably disappeared again."

"I used to th 'Why do you ch drink over me?'"

Calum kept returning to see his father, daring to hope that there might have been a transformation. He knew George, whose mother Ann had died of alcoholism, had shown the desire to give up drink, using stomach pellets and visiting—if not sticking with—Alcoholics Anonymous. But nothing worked.

"In the Manchester pubs, the locals would tell me how proud he was of me," says Calum. "I used to think, 'Then why do you choose drink over me?'

"Since getting involved with NACOA, I understand better how alcoholics push away everyone for the next drink, believing it will bring salvation. And Dad was from a Belfast culture where you were a 'pussy' if you refused a drink.

"There were good times. When I stayed with Dad I couldn't wait for him to wake up each morning because, although he started drinking immediately, there were a couple of hours when he was just tipsy and witty and we could be cool together. And everywhere we went, people still regarded him as a hero. I felt so proud. But we never did normal father-son stuff—no cuddling. He didn't talk about feelings."

CALUM RETURNED TO LIVE IN THE UK aged 21, by which point his father was very ill and had to have a liver transplant. He was hoping to get to know him properly before it was too late.

"Dad phoned once and said, `Bestie'— we called each other that—`I'm a bit down. Will you meet me?' So I went to the Fulham pub where he was.

HE HATED IT IF I MADE HIM FEEL GUILTY"

I had never drunk full-on with him before, but he really wanted me to join him. I remember the brandies coming. We were laughing, there were girls coming by and flirting. It was all fun—we were both pretty gone.

"Then I gave him a jokey hit and said 'Hey Bestie....' His glasses fell off and broke and he just flipped. He shouted, 'What are you doing, you little s***? You are not my son. I hate you', and he stormed out. I was devastated. That night I went out with mates and got wrecked."

But it was when his father died in November 2005 that Calum "lost the plot completely". So long as George was alive, he'd hoped that they'd get close, but that hope had now evaporated.

"I stopped bothering about my health, my appearance, my good friends. I had been doing some classy modelling work with the likes of Mario Testino, but I began doing drugs, drinking, going with the wrong women, hanging out in clubs, waking up with a hangover and doing very little during the day."

His mother realised he needed help and came to London in the summer of 2007 to try to get him steady.

"Luckily, I had an epiphany, looked at myself and thought, Urgh, this is nasty," says Calum.

He'd been appearing in a range of tacky reality-TV shows that were "not a good career move". Calum decided he wanted to do something more worthwhile, so he went to acting college and started looking for better TV projects.

Then, last year, he trekked through Vietnam in aid of The Children's Trust, and decided to take on the NACOA role.

As patron, Calum—now 30, and single—attends corporate fundraising events and gives talks about the charity's work He's able to use his own experience to make it clear how serious having an li alcoholic parent really is.

"What makes Calum so valuable . 11 le 4 to NACOA," says Hilary Henriques, ►

44

"is that his story is so similar to stories we're hearing all the time."

Calum recalls a recent talk he gave to a travel-industry audience that's typical of his work. "I wondered how they would take it, as most of them were drinking away, but I just said what I felt I had to about parents needing to be aware of what excess boozing may do. I like to think some of them thought about it. They were all very friendly and enthusiastic afterwards and wanted to know more about the charity."

Calum frequently writes about NACOA on Twitter, where he has 40,000 followers, and has posted many photos on Facebook featuring him and others wearing NACOA T-shirts. "It may seem trivial," says Hilary, "but it's hugely important in encouraging youngsters to gain the courage to ask for help".

Calum is hoping to help raise the

£130,000 it costs to keep NACOA going each year by climbing Kilimanjaro in the near future.

His infectious smile spreads across his face as he tells me that he at last feels good about life. Working with the charity has made him feel accepted by people who understand what he's been through, and that his father's drinking was not his fault—something many children can assume. He has TV presenting opportunities in development that focus on sport rather than dodgy reality shows, a part in British film Light the Lights, and his own range of fragrance and clothing due later this year—just like his father once had.

"It's been a tough journey getting to like myself enough to say, 'This is who I am,' " he says. "But I also want the world to know that I'm dead proud to be George Best's son." ■

NATURAL WONDERS: THE VAMPIRE SQUID

We've learned to cope with the occasional jellyfish while paddling in the surf, but you'll have to plumb the depths of the ocean to encounter the vampire squid. Around 3,000 feet deep, in fact—despite its fearsome appearance, it wouldn't be able to survive in any other environment. Like a lot of deep-sea cephalopods, the vampire squid has an extremely low metabolic rate, which means it has to conserve energy.

Its main weapon isn't ink (since it isn't, strictly speaking, a member of the squid family), but a mucus containing orbs of blue light. These dazzle predators and allow time to escape. Another bluff is the "pineapple posture" (bottom right)—it folds upwards to look bigger and presents a row of harmless-but-nasty-looking spines. Mind you, at that depth the threats are minimal— you won't find the vampire squid on a restaurant menu.

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Contains ibuprofen. Always read the label * in the healthcare aisle

Which

products and firms do you have the most faith in? Our exclusive survey has the answers

Last month we revealed your most-trusted people and institutions. This month we turn our attention to the products and services you buy, from the toothpaste in your bathroom to the people taking you on a cruise around the Caribbean (in which case, lucky you).

For our eleventh annual Reader's Digest Most Trusted Brands survey, we asked more than 1,000 people nationwide which was their most trusted brand in 29 different categories, including bank and building societies, food retailers and washing powders.

Turn the page to see who's triumphed this year—and see how many of the products 0 you use in our Trusted Brands perfect home (opposite).

By Simon Hemelryk

MADEIRACANARIES.EGYPI

PALESTINE- SYRIA.CYPRUS

no7a)-''

BANK/BUILDING SOCIETY

COSMETICS

GAMES CONSOLE

THE KIT YOU NEED

Full down suit (this one's by Marmot): this is like wearing an eiderdown from top to toe. Usually worn above 22,000 feet, this suit keeps the climber warm and dry en route to the summit. The only disadvantage? You need a trapdoor sewn into the rear for going to the loo!

Oxygen mask and reservoir bottle: the bottle at David's side fills as he breathes out to maximise the oxygen drawn in from the cylinder (on his back). The mask includes one inlet for pure oxygen and another for ambient air, plus an exhaust valve to breathe out of.

Climbing harness and ascending device: the ratchet device at David's waist enables him to climb fixed ropes the team sets up as they climb. Ropes are used from the North Col (23,000 feet) to the summit.

Double boots: without these, David would lose all his toes. They consist of an inner pair of boots (where some climbers install electric boot warmers), and an outer plastic shell (leather would freeze).

Gina Waggott

David Hempleman-Adams is currently nearing the top of the highest mountain in the world. We talk to him to find out what it takes to get a team there-21st-century style

EVEREST EXPEDITION

BY LOUISE JOHNCOX

"Everest is the big one," says David Hempleman-Adams, 54, "She's magnetic, majestic, awe-inspiring. Wanting to be on top of the world motivates many a mountaineer, but success can never be taken for granted."

Hempleman-Adams is speaking from Base Camp in Mount Everest, where, any day now, he hopes to lead a group of seven to the summit to help raise E1 million for Alzheimer's Research UK, and aid medical trials into high-altitude sickness. Given this medical research, the Duke of Edinburgh agreed to be patron of the expedition and the team was awarded the honour of carrying The Explorers Club flag.

"Planning a trip as a leader rather than a climber [HemplemanAdams climbed Everest in 1993] is a major difference this time," he says. "I brought light, warm, high-tech gear and top-of-therange technology. But at Base Camp we couldn't use the satellite phones because Everest was in the way! Four laptops died and only two mobiles worked. We had to get Chinese sim cards powered by solar energy; if it wasn't sunny we had no signal.

"We had the best communications equipment in the world, but still occasionally had to send a yak herder off as a runner to ask for more coffee or whatever we needed!"

21st-century advances mean that some climbers start their expedition in surprisingly comfortable conditions.

"We had by far the best mess tent at Base Camp!" says Hempleman-Adams of the luxury tent (shown above) where his team has been eating gourmet meals. The group even took a shower and toilet tent to Base Camp.

Hempleman-Adams chose an eclectic set of people to be part of his trip, including Iceland food group CEO •. Malcolm Walker, 65 (who brought chef Chris Bates with him); his son, Richard, 30; former Red Arrow Graham Duffy; and top mountaineer, Graham Hoyland, who was the 15th Briton to climb Everest.

4 ALL YOU CAN EAT

Communications manager Gina Waggott called us from Base Camp to tell us what the team has been eating: High-calorie snacks (chocolate, nuts, biscuits). "At high altitude, your body literally starts to consume itself, so climbers need extra calories to keep going. On the day they go to the summit, they will burn more than 30,000 calories. The Kendal Mint Cake was given to us as a present because it was taken on Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's successful expedition to Everest in 1953."

Juice powder, tea and coffee. "To combat altitude sickness, climbers should drink three litres or more a day. As water can get very boring, we try to spice it up with different kinds of tea or juice. You'll notice what the lack of air pressure and altitude has done to the Tang bag. Exploding bags of food are a common problem at altitude!"

Chilli sauce or spices. "Loss of appetite is also common at altitude, and food can taste bland and unpalatable. We often stir salt, pepper or chilli into our food just to make it interesting."

Tinned meat and fish. "We obviously have no access to fresh meat here, and even if we had, it would freeze and heat up during the daily weather cycles and spoil quickly. Sherpas eat little meat, but we try to slip some into our stews and soups to keep protein levels up."

Loxton's expedition sous-vide food. "This gourmet food is what makes this expedition special, and keeps our morale up. At base camp we were happily tucking into these meals most days." ►

giotum

Special

thanks to Gina Waggott, Justin Packshaw, Graham Hoyland and Graham Duff for all the pictures taken on Mount Everest

THE UNDERWEAR THAT REALLY MATTERS

Woolly or beanie hat: the ears must always be covered, and most climbers wear a beanie all day and even all night in bed!

Head torch: most power is solar, so this is a vital piece of gear for climbers stumbling around the camp at night, and also on summit day—for a dawn summit the departure time is around 10pm the night before.

Glacier or polarised sunglasses: you can go snow-blind in less than 30 minutes without these, resulting in excruciating pain for days.

The UV levels at altitude are extreme.

Oxygen mask connected to regulator: on the summit of Everest, the air pressure is a third of that at sea level, so you need supplementary oxygen. This is usually used above 22,000 feet.

Thermal base layer: wicks sweat away from the skin, otherwise it freezes on your skin and could lead to hypothermia.

Ice axe: used on and around glaciers for cutting steps, and also to help break a fall. Waterproof salopettes/overtrousers: these high-cut trousers keep your kidneys warm and act as an additional waterproof layer. Down mitts: usually worn over another two pairs of gloves to prevent frostbite in extreme cold temperatures.

Corsair memory stick: most climbers take hundreds of pictures or videos and back them up on one of these, because they're virtually indestructible, and computers often fail at altitude.

Handheld GPS: vital for locating the start of routes or sharing interesting waypoints up the mountain. Also prevents climbers from losing their way in a storm.

12-point crampons: this is a four-wheel drive for humans; these spikes will grip an ice slope almost vertically. Just don't wear them inside a tent...

Gina Waggott

PAINTING EVEREST

Alan Cotton is with the team as the official expedition artist "Everest is a totally new experience for me," he says. "It's the drama of it that appeals. I'm painting the whole landscape, including places nearby like the Rongbuk Monastery.

"I'm paying particular attention to the colour, light and shade of the mountain and keeping a visual diary that's a combination of notes and drawings. I do some A3 drawings using different coloured pens and make some written colour notes to translate into paintings in my studio back at home. I also have some watercolours with me to help capture the changing light. I love the early-morning light here.

"I'm protecting my hands from the cold by wearing silk undergloves and medium-thick gloves—and I'll also be taking some chemical hand warmers!"

The Everest Exhibition will be at Messum's Fine Art Gallery in London from September 12 to October 1, 2012.

Pal

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE BODY AT HIGH ALTITUDE?

David Hempleman-Adams invited world high-altitude medical specialist Dr George Rodway (pictured), who is a professor at Utah University, to be responsible for ensuring the health and safety of his expedition team. In collaboration with the US Army Institute of Environmental Medical Research, Dr Rodway is testing how the body works with an essential amino acid called leucine. The aim is to improve soldiers' performance in high-altitude

environments, such as Afghanistan. "We have two food bars," says Dr Rodway. "One is a placebo and the other contains leucine. We expect to find that the team members who had the leucine bar will maintain their muscle mass better."

The body goes through a number of changes at high altitude including:

■ Headaches, nausea, vomiting, an inability to walk straight and a decline in mental status if you become ill.

■ There are two basic types of high-altitude illness: high-altitude pulmonary oedema (HAPE) and high-altitude cerebral oedema (HACE); both are potentially

Avso

fatal. Pulmonary oedema occurs when the tiny air sacs in the lung, the alveoli, fill with fluid that leaks out of small blood vessels, and the movement of the blood through the heart becomes pressurised; if there's a constriction of the pulmonary veins at high altitude you can drown in your own fluid. This is as deadly as cerebral oedema, which causes swelling and fluid collection in brain tissue, compressing the brain, and the individual may lapse into a coma.

■ The key to success on a mountain like Everest is staying healthy. Explains Dr Rodway: "When you climb in developing countries, there is a range of illnesses that can sideline plans. To avoid altitude

To donate to Alzheimer's Research UK, go to readersdigest.co.uk/links

sickness we took daily acclimatisation treks from Base Camp. We climbed 1,000 to 2,000 feet then returned to the camp.

Over the course of two weeks we started moving up to Advanced Base Camp, which is almost 21,000 feet up, and then slowly climbed further up."

■ Viagra can enhance physical performance on Everest. Says Rodway, "In a high-altitude environment Viagra works in the same way as for erectile dysfunction; the drug dilates the pulmonary vessels, so more blood can move into the pulmonary veins to improve the exchange of oxygen in the lungs—and the blood-oxygen level can be kept much higher."

■

NEW SERIES

Many of us only visit them for weddings, christenings and funerals, but there's a gloriously idiosyncratic collection of churches in Britain just waiting for you to discover. And you don't have to be religious to take something from the experience...

BY LOLA BORG

The stunning stained-glass windows at All Saints' Church in Tudeley, Kent, by Marc Chagall

THE BEAUTIFUL STAINED GLASS

All Saints', Tudeley, Kent

There are 12 distinctive windows in the church, all designed by world-famous artist Marc Chagall. They were commissioned by a local family whose daughter —a fan of Chagall's work— drowned in 1963, aged 21. It took Chagall (a Russian Jew, whose only other stained-glass commission was for a synagogue) 15 years to complete. The final window was installed in 1985, the year he died. Look for the sad east window (above)—in it, a young girl floats in a wave while a family grieves nearby.

THE GOTHIC "WOOL" MASTERPIECE

St John the Baptist, Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Wool was the oil of the Middle Ages—it brought power and money (it's no accident that the Speaker of the House of Lords sits on the Woolsack). Luckily for us, there was nothing much to spend your money on in medieval times, so we have a legacy of beautiful "wool" churches—sales of the white, fluffy stuff fuelled an ecclesiastical building boom.

This one in Cirencester is a classic of the style (Perpendicular Gothic, if you must know), but what's unusual is the porch (below). Once an important place where local merchants would do business, this one is three floors high—the very first office block.

St John the Baptist Church, built using profits from the medieval wool trade

St Wendreda's, March, Cambridge

Carved angels are a signature touch of East Anglian churches, and these are generally considered the most beautiful of all (there are also lovely examples in Mildenhall and Needham Market, Suffolk, although many were vandalised during the Reformation). The beams in the roof, built at the end of the 15th century, are covered by nearly 120 angels. Look out for the space between the arches on the north side, where there's a "Prince of Darkness"—known as a "spoiler" —to stop the church being too perfect.

THE EXTRAORDINARY PAGAN IMAGES

St Mary & St David, Kiipeck1 Herefordshire

The Normans followed their invasion in 1066 with a fury of church-building, and this tiny building is a perfect example. Lost in a beautifully rural setting, the church draws visitors chiefly with its semi-pagan sandstone carvings. It has extraordinary, grotesque corbels (brackets)— including an almost cartoonstyle dog and rabbit (pictured), an upside-down pig, and even an explicit fertility symbol (a "Sheela na Gig"). It represents "all the life of a busy, bawdy village". This is the best-surviving example of the Herefordshire school of architecture, and has a wonderful carved porch, too.

THE MINICATHEDRAL WITH GARGOYLES

St Patrick's Church was originally valued at the princely sum of £22 in 1786. It's famous for its many carvings (above)

St Patrick's, Patrington, East Riding of Yorkshire

National Trust chairman

Simon Jenkins rates this church "the loveliest in England", and it's certainly

one of the most beautiful parish churches. Known as "The Queen of Holderness" (the region in which it's located) and built in the 14th century, it's a perfect mini-cathedral in a pale silver limestone, with a magnificent steeple (used for centuries as an aid to navigation). What sets it apart are the carvings. It's covered in gargoyles and statues: over 200, many based on locals in the village. It's the pinnacle of English Decorated Gothic, a joyous style that died out with the advent of the Black Death (some historians believe that the plague directly inspired more sombre styles of architecture).

"The steep climb from the old port of Whitby is the most exhilarating approach to any church in England," says Simon Jenkins

THE SEA CHURCH

St Mary's, Whitby, North Yorkshire

Climb 199 steps high up on the cliffs overlooking Whitby to get to this church and you'll find yourself in another world.

A real hotchpotch (it's been described as a "dog's dinner" of styles), St Mary's still has all its box pews and a triple-decker pulpit. There's even a stove in the middle! You may almost feel at sea, as it's bursting with memorials to captains, sailors and others who perished on the waves.

St Mary's is also famous for making a brief appearance in the novel Dracu/a—written by local Bram Stoker—as is the nearby romantic ruin of Whitby Abbey.

THE BEAUTIFUL TOMB

St Michael, Framlingham, Suffolk

At this sweet village in Suffolk—with nothing much more than a high street and a ruined castle—the church was rebuilt as the burial place of local family the Howards. Six tombs (the four main ones date from 1550-1560) house their remains, including one of Henry VIII's illegitimate sons by Catherine of Aragon's maid, and a duke who was beheaded for plotting against Elizabeth I. Most beautiful, though, is the tomb of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, flanked by exquisitely carved and painted kneeling figures.

THE OVERNIGHT SENSATION

Rosslyn Chapel, Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland

It's true that visitor numbers quadrupled after Rosslyn featured in The Da Vinci Code, but it has always lured tourists. In 1660, an inn had to be built next door to house them, and it was a must-see for Victorian poets and painters.

Built by William St Clair, Prince of Orkney, in 1446, Rosslyn survived the Reformation (not intact, though) and Cromwell (whose general used it as his stables). Known as "the Bible in stone", it's rightly famous for its unique carvings—just about every inch is covered. Particularly interesting are the Apprentice Pillar (right) and the Lady Chapel, where there is a series of angels playing musical instruments (including the bagpipes). There are also magnificent Green Men—pagan symbols of either new life or fertility—as well as the supposed "Masonic" symbols. ■

Rosslyn Ch" scaffolding) is u major consery

The Apprentice Pillar, which dates from the 15th century

With thanks to: Simon Jenkins, National Trust; Charlotte Dodgeon, Places of Worship; Heritage Lottery Commission; Diana Evans, English Heritage; Constance Barrett, The Churches Conservation Trust; Matthew Saunders, Friends of Friendless Churches; John Winton, Churches Tourism Network Wales; and lona Matheson, Historic Scotland.

Do you have a favourite church? Tell us why you like it and where it is. Email theeditord readersdigest.co.uk.

For more on the best of British churches, and to find churches near you, visit readersdigest. co.uk/magazine.

NEXT MONTH: PICNIC SPOTS

Man's best friend just got even friendlier. A pioneering UK charity is training a squad of canny canines to sniff out illnesses— from plummeting blood-sugar levels to prostate cancer

"The dogtor will see you now"

BY AMANDA RILEY-JONES

"My dustman found me unconscious in the street once," says 35-year-old Londoner Philippa Coplestone Warren. "Another time, I was in Los Angeles and got separated from my friend. A fire engine picked me up 20 miles away because I was staggering in the street. All I have is a vague recollection of getting on a bus."

When she was 18, doctors told Philippa she was unlikely to make it to 21. She has a very rare combination of Type 1 diabetes and borderline Addison's disease, leaving her struggling to keep both her blood-sugar and hormone levels steady.

Like many diabetics, Philippa doesn't get warning symptoms before a hypoglycaemic episode (or "hypo") when her blood-sugar levels drop too low. If not brought under control, a hypo can lead to confusion, convulsions, loss of consciousness and even death. "Sometimes I was having several a day," Philippa says.

In June 2008, Philippa had to give up her City job as a

strategy and change consultant ("When you have a hypo, people tend to think you're drunk, mad or rude."). A few months later, she and husband Andrew got a boisterous Yorkshire terrier.

Initially, Philippa was upset that the dog, Poppy, would sometimes bite and then run away from her, but then Andrew realised that the dog only did it when Philippa was about to have a hypo. The couple contacted Medical Detection Dogs, a unique charity based near Milton Keynes, that trains dogs to alert their companions when they sense they're about to have a hypo. With half a dozen sessions during as many months, trainers built on Poppy's instinctive response, but modified her reaction.

"Now, when Poppy detects that my blood sugar is dropping, she sits and stares at me. Then she'll nibble my fingers. If that doesn't work, she backs away and starts barking until I do a blood test and have something to eat or drink," explains Philippa.

Poppy, two, goes almost everywhere with Philippa, who divides her time between strategy and change management consulting, film producing and mentoring. "Poppy even sits in on my yoga lessons," she says. "After her final assessment this autumn, we'll be able to fly abroad together! Poppy's adorable and very intelligent. She may be small, but she's my guardian, keeping me safe."

So how does Poppy do it? It's all down to her superb olfactory detection. The canine nose is an amazing organ. It's around 100 times more sensitive than a human nose, leading experts to believe it can sniff out tiny chemical changes in humans.

Animal behaviourist and uber-dog trainer

Claire Guest claims, "Now we know that dogs are able to detect human disease by its odour, and that different diseases have different odours, the potential is just incredible."

Three years ago, she and retired orthopaedic surgeon John Church set up Cancer and Biodetection Dogs [as it was initially called]. They carried out trials in collaboration with the Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust that proved that some dogs could detect bladder cancer from the odour of urine samples. Claire explains: "The trick was to train the dogs by rewarding them when they stopped and sat only beside samples that we knew were from patients with cancer."

The charity went on to look at how dogs' extraordinary sense of smell could help people strugThanks to her dog's —gling to cope with diabetes, incredible sense of and now they supply and train smell, Philippa Hypo Alert Dogs. While natCoplestone Warren ural instinct stirred Philippa's isn't living in terror terrier into action, other dogs of her next hypo need to be trained to raise the alarm when they detect a physiological change. New recruits have three months of scent discrimination training in the home of an expert or volunteer with diabetes. The first stage uses cloths previously impregnated with the body scent (breath or perspiration) of a diabetic person about to have a hypo. Stage two sees the dog living with his new companion, with trainers teaching him how to raise the alarm.

Medical Detection Dogs have so far placed 12 dogs, and another four are currently in advanced stages of training.

Coco, one of their star pupils, is the first dog in the world to be trained to assist a person with Addison's disease. That person is 41-year-old Karen Ruddlesden, who lives in Broadstone, Dorset. Her four-legged, waggy-tailed companion doesn't just help her stay out of hospital and lead a normal existence—he saves her life on a weekly basis. ►

BITES & PIECES

1 PROSTATE CANCER BREAKTHROUGH?

Now researchers working with dogs are turning their attention to the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Staff at L'hopital Tenon in Paris are already reporting good results, and John Church of Medical Detection Dogs confirms, "Current screening is inadequate. We are hoping that our urine studies will show that prostate cancer leaves a signature in the urine that dogs can detect." If it does, men could potentially be screened with a simple urine test.

The charity is working with endocrinology

44 Addison's disease is a rare, chronic condition brought about by the failure of the adrenal glands. This means Karen doesn't make enough hormones, such as cortisol and adrenalin, and suffers from bouts of severe pain, vomiting, plummeting blood pressure, convulsions and loss of consciousness, which can be fatal.

Karen used to pass out two or three times a week "I could be cooking dinner one minute and collapse the next. Several times I ended up in hospital for two to three weeks. Once, I wasn't expected to last the night. It was impossible to plan ahead. I had to give up my job, and I became a hermit," she says. She turned to Medical Detection Dogs for help. Meanwhile, a family had donated a lively chocolate Labrador to the charity. They channelled Coco's energy into distinguishing between body scent with average and low cortisol levels. "By the time Coco came to me in June 2009, it was as if my long-lost dog had come home!" smiles Karen.

Over the next four months, Coco was taught to alert Karen by licking her hands or sniffing her breath. He then trots off to fetch her injection kit, which he carries in his Medical Alert Dog vest when they're out. "My life used to be in turmoil," Karen says. "But I've not been in hospital since having Coco. With him by my side 24 hours a day, I'm not scared anymore. I trust him with my life."

When a loved one can collapse at any time, the strain on the family is huge. So when a chocolate Labrador called Buttons bounded into Geoff Gower's house in Buckinghamshire in February 2009, his wife couldn't have been more relieved.

"Sharon would have had a breakdown if it wasn't for Buttons," says retired electrician Geoff, 58, who

Bites & Pieces cont.

• specialists at Bristol NHS Trust and researchers at Bristol University. Animal behaviourist Claire Guest explains, "If we could discover what the dogs are sniffing— the particular volatile organic compounds in that type of cancer— the next step would be for scientists to develop a 'virtual nose' to detect it."

Despite such vast potential, the charity is struggling to get funding. "I have the dogs trained and ready to do the work, but we need £50,000 of funding to continue this research," Claire says.

2 HELPING DIABETIC CHILDREN

In what's thought to be another world first, the charity has trained assistance dogs to help diabetic children lead a more normal life. Five-year-old Noah Beelby-Brown and six-year-old Rebecca Farrah are being watched over by loyal Labradors Bianca and Shirley.

rilliant: Buttons elps Geoff ower control his lood-sugar levels and lead a more normal life ,

lost a leg to diabetes. "If Sharon wanted to go out, she had to take me with her, or arrange for a neighbour to pop in," he explains. "I'd have hypos in the middle of the night and be so bad I couldn't even swallow. I used to wake with the ambulance people talking above me and my wife's scared eyes looking down at me. We knew that, unless she woke when I was having a hypo, I could die. I was afraid of dying in my sleep. Sharon was exhausted."

Buttons was trained by Kimberly Cox, herself a diabetic, to sit and stare if she senses that Geoff's blood sugar is too low. Geoff adds, "If that doesn't get a reaction, she'll paw my leg until I do a blood test and go and get something to eat."

Sharon can now pop out when she wants. "Buttons is my constant companion. She follows me from room to room and sleeps on the bed with us.

Bites & Pieces cont.

3 STAR PUPS!

A breeder of working springer spaniels has given two dynamic pups to the charity. Named Rigel (after one of the brightest stars in the sky) and Sirius (the Dog Star), the sky's the limit for what these dogs can achieve.

4 KENNEL CLUB DONATION

The Kennel Club Charitable Trust has given over £25,000 to Medical Detection Dogs since 2008.

5

HELP WITH NARCOLEPSY?

Claire is currently training a dog to see whether it can help a young person suffering from narcolepsy. "It's too early to say whether it will work, but the indications are that any major change in the body produces an odour," she says.

6 "SNIFF FOR LIFE" CAMPAIGN

Medical Detection Dogs has also launched a "Sniff for Life" campaign to raise donations 01.

Teacher's pets: dog trainer

Claire Guest and some of

It does get cosy!" he laughs. "I couldn't imagine life without her now She's my security blanket."

Angela Kearton, who lives in Durham, was a sceptic—until her own dog was trained. "I thought dogs predicting hypos might be a lot of baloney, but we had to try it," says Angela. Her husband Cherry Kearton is a Maths lecturer at Durham University. After 30 years of diabetes, he'd stopped getting warning signals before a hypo.

"He collapsed on the way to work three times in as many months," says Angela. "Strangers would call me from his mobile to tell me an ambulance crew were injecting him to bring him round. Other times, he'd stagger home, barely able to remain upright. He's a man of few words, but I knew he felt humiliated. I always felt anxious until he got home."

In desperation, Angela called the charity, and Claire Guest came to stay one weekend to devise a training programme for their Labrador Zeta. Within a fortnight, Zeta had learned to alert her master by licking his hand or lifting her front

Bites & Pieces cont.

to support their training, which costs £10,000 per dog. "We get hundreds of enquiries every year, and would like to raise enough money to train at least 50 dogs in the next three years," Claire says.

7 IT TAKES ALL SORTS...

A scruffy black dog called Little Eddie (pictured below) is thought to be the first ever Affenpinscher to be trained as an assistance dog. "He's now in the final stages of training, with a view to being placed in the near future,"

says Rob Harris, training coordinator for Medical Detection Dogs.

paws in the air. "Zeta will do anything for a bit of cheese!" laughs Angela. "But the first time she did it on her own, it brought tears to my eyes."

Zealous Zeta, five, has gone one step further and taught herself a new skill. She also warns Cherry, 65, when his blood sugar is too high, which can, over a long period, damage the retinas, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels.

Zeta goes everywhere with Cherry—on the bus, to the allotment and even to tutorials.

"When people see her Diabetic HypoAlert Dog jacket, they often stop to say they're diabetic, too," Angela says.

"Cherry is much more open to talking about his condition now Zeta has given us both peace of mind."

The preponderance of Labradors in this story is no coincidence. Claire says, "Seven out of our 13 working assistance dogs are Labradors, retrievers or crosses. For centuries, they've been bred and trained as gundogs. They want to collaborate with humans—it's in their genes." ■

WHO'S DOING WHAT AROUND THE GLOBE:

► Office workers might know the annoyance of having a sandwich stolen from the communal fridge. But now there's a cunning use of the "yuck" factor, courtesy of US designer Diana Paisis. The Lunch Bug Sandwich Bags are adorned with realistic-looking creepy-crawlies, including flies and cockroaches, to deter potential bread thieves.

For further information or to donate: call 01296 655888 or go to readersdigest. co.uk/links for a link to the website

► Sandwich-eaters in Japan, meanwhile, can get cheap ingredients via Tada Yasai ("free vegetables")—a web-based initiative that sends registered users a selection of local produce in exchange for shipping costs (the farmers get profile pages on their website). This is food that would otherwise go to waste, because it fails to meet supermarkets' visual standards.

Clever duo: Doctor Kearton and "Dogtor" Zeta

THE WAY

THEY SPEAK

IS KNOWN TO MILLIONS, BUT HARDLY ANYONE KNOWS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. UNTIL NOW...

PANZEE FROM CBEEBIES' ZINGZILLAS PENNI TOVEY

When aspiring actress, dancer and singer Penni Tovey recently saw a cloth monkey on a shelf in her local Early Learning Centre, she knew that, on one level at least, she'd made it. "I squeezed the doll and out came my voice," she says.

The 35-year-old from Reading has been voicing Panzee, a singing chimp in the hit CBeebies TV music show ZingZillas, since April last year. She'd heard about the part from her friend, CBeebies presenter and actress Sarah-Jane Honeywell, who plays Panzee's body (inside a large monkey suit).

"She told me the producers were looking for someone who sounded `husky, enthusiastic, but a bit bossy and with the energy of a small child'. I thought, That's me!"

Penni, who also controls Panzee's animatronic eyes and mouth, has had a varied past. She's travelled the world as a dancer for the likes of the Spice Girls and Bon Jovi, and had a top-ten hit with dance act Ruff Driverz (1998's "Dreaming"). She's also a choreographer, and played Tinker Bell in this year's High Wycombe pantomime Peter Pan—alongside Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell in EastEnders) as Captain Hook.

But she's happy to have found most fame among the under-fives. "I love Panzee and now have cupboards full of dolls," she says.

Mini-Me: Penni Tovey with her alter ego Panzee

THE CHANNEL 4 CONTINUITY ANNOUNCER

GARY TERZZA

You might not realise it, but Gary Terzza has probably played quite a part in your life. He's introduced you to Friends, shown you Hollyoaks, invited you to Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, and even told you about some Desperate Housewives. The 51year-old from St Albans, Hertfordshire, has been a Channel 4 continuity announcer for 20 years—and he's on E4 and More 4, too. "I'm going out to millions of people, but in my head I'm talking to just one person," he reveals. "That's the only way I can do it."

Unlike voice-over artists, continuity announcers write their own scripts and watch the programmes as you watch them. "The idea is to be an unintrusive chum. You're not advertising and you're not the programme."

The big fear in continuity is talking over a show or commercial. "Knowing when to shut up is just as important as knowing when to speak," he says—and admits to once proclaiming, "Can anyone hear me?" over US sitcom Different Strokes in the early Eighties during an announcing stint at ITV.

But Gary, who also spent some of the Eighties as an ITV children's presenter and now trains others to do voice-overs*, knows that he has a great job. "At the end of the day, I'm getting paid to watch TV!"

"AND NOW ON CHANNEL4, IT'S TIME TO DROP IN ON THE BIG BROTHER HOUSE"

"WELCOME TO ORANGE ANSWERPHONE"

THE VOICE OF ORA RUTH C

When 29-year-old Ruth Gibson d a series of auditions in 2006 to voice the Orange network's phone services, she was given the almost-impossible task of trying to appeal to very different people. The mobile giant wanted a voice that, on the one hand, sounded formal enough to appeal to businessmen yet, on the other, had a youthful credibility. But Ruth's sensuous, down-to-earth speech hit the spot—and since November 2007, when Orange's 17 million UK customers have turned on their phones, it's been she who says, "To listen to your messages, press one..." Ruth, who lives in north London, is a stage and TV actress. Her roles include a jury forewoman in BBC One's Judge John Deed and a nurse in Doctors. She can also shoot, knows sign language and has a diploma in cordon bleu cookery. She works for Orange once every two weeks.

"I recently spent 16 hours reading the electoral roll for a voice-recognition system," she says. "The Orange voice isn't how I talk usually: I drop my pitch and round my vowels. But I feel for my husband. Not only does he have to listen to me go on at him in person, I'm there whenever he picks up his phone, too!"

THE HONEY MONSTER

GARY MARTIN

He grew up loving Looney Tunes characters such as Bugs Bunny. So it's fitting that Gary Martin has spent 23 years as a Sugar Puffs-obsessed creature who resembles a cartoon character come to life.

The 53-year-old landed the role—famous for the catchphrase, "Tell 'em about the honey, Mummy"—after playing a man-eating plant in West End musical Little Shop of Horrors. That character's deep, rasping tones were just what the ad men were after. He's since played other characters in some 3,000 cartoon episodes— he was Pie Face in BBC One's Dennis the Menace— and his film-trailer voiceovers include Saw 3D, Despicable Me and The Young Victoria.

"People still ask me to call their mum as the monster!" he says. "I'm rather proud of that."

THE COMMERCIAL MAN

JONATHAN KYDD

Forty-six-year-old Jonathan Kydd is one of the most prodigious advertisement voice-over artists of his generation. His tones have been heard plugging products on more than 4,000 radio and TV commercials since he broke into the industry in 1990.

In recent years, he's featured in adverts for Actimel, Lemsip, Anglian, PG Tips, Yellow Pages and L'Oreal. But his most famous commission was playing the male parts and providing the commentary for an infamous 1993 Ferrero Rocher advert. It was Jonathan who uttered the immortal words, "The ambassador's receptions are noted in society for their host's exquisite taste," and, "Excellente!"

His voice ranges from manic wackiness— a recent Duracell Bunny commercial had him as an excitable football commentator—to the more subtle tones used in the L'Oreal ads (the director's instruction was "be sincerer").

"To have a good advertising voice you need to have a good ear," says Jonathan, from London. "If you can't pick up a tone or accent, you can't copy it. Then you've got to deliver the work fast —studio time costs big money, so you need to give the perfect line in the second or third take."

He makes a good living from his job, but not the millions some think. "I work for one of the best agencies in the country, but I get £200 for a studio session, then sometimes a small repeat fee when the commercial is aired."

"THE AMBASSADOR'S RECEPTIONS ARE NOTED IN SOCIETY FOR THEIR HOST'S EXQUISITE TASTE"

"STAT MAN" FROM THE WEAKEST LINK

Aged 15, Jon Briggs visited BBC Radio Oxford and fell in love. "They let me behind a microphone to do a mock news bulletin during an open day. I instantly knew that broadcasting was for me," he says. "That was the start of a 30-year affair."

Jon was helping out at the radio station by the time he was 16, had his own show as soon as he left school and was Britain's youngest breakfast-show presenter at 20. He became a reporter on Radio 4, was a newsreader on Radio 2 between 1993 and 2000, and has presented numerous other radio and satellite TV programmes.

When the call came from Jon's agent saying that a new daytime quiz, presented by Anne Robinson, needed a scores announcer, the 46-year-old from Marlow, Buckinghamshire, wasn't excited by its prospects. "But we first aired in 2000 during the Olympics and anybody who hated sport found us. From there, we grew and grew. The show's part of the fabric of popular culture now, and I love that."

Jon can also be heard on Garmin satnays, National Geographic documentaries and King's Cross station announcements. He runs talent agency Excellent.

NOODLE FROM GORILLAZ

HARUKA KURODA

Many youngsters seek rock-star status but, for Haruka Kuroda, the star found her. Back in 2000, she'd just left the Guildford School of Acting when her agent called. "There's a new band forming and they want the voice of a Japanese girl," he said. The role was that of an 11-year-old nicknamed Noodle—largely because "noodle" was the only word she could speak in English. She was part of the experimental new cartoon band Gorillaz, created by Blur frontman Damon Albarn.

"I was shown a drawing of her, then I just came out with a string of schoolgirl Japanese punctuated with 'noodle'," says 32-year-old Haruka, originally from Kyoto. She recorded speech for some promo videos and prerecorded "interviews", then forgot about Gorillaz. But three months later, she was in Top Shop in London's Oxford Street, when she saw Noodle on a huge screen, "She was in a video [for debut single 'Clint Eastwood']. I thought, This could be big."

Gorillaz have now sold more than 20 million records. Haruka performed on the videos for the first two albums and went on a world tour with the "band", talking between songs and doing backing vocals. "The musicians and I were behind a screen on which the cartoon group was projected. The audience could just see our outlines."

Haruka can be seen in the flesh as Yasuko in BBC Three sitcom Ideal. ■

Haruka Kuroda: "People mobbed me at airports, shouting, 'Noodle, we love you!' "

"IN A TENSE FIRST ROUND, FRED IS THE STRONGEST LINK"

Span creel A Life Less Ordinary BigVision

For Lynn and Robert Nestor and their three children, charity didn't begin at home—but on a "silly" TV programme

BY CELIA DODD

THE X FACTOR, BIG BROTHER, COME DINE WITH ME...REALITY TV can be very entertaining, but it's all about shallow emotions and shortlived fame really, isn't it? Does it ever achieve anything worthwhile? In the case of one family from West Norwood, south London, the answer is a resounding yes.

In 2001, Robert and Lynn Nestor and their children Daniel, then 13, Chloe, eight, and Callum, four, agreed to take part in a new Channel 4 series, Going Native.The producers selected the Nestors (or the NestorFrushers, to give them their full name) because of their love of home comforts and typical modern liberal values. They then made them live for three months in a thatched but in Shongwe, a Swaziland village with no electricity, no running water and a hole in the ground for a toilet. Lynn, an advocate for young offenders, had to behave like a Swazi wife, waiting on the men hand and foot. Daniel had to walk miles to school. Robert, a lorry driver, found himself herding cattle.

It was not a happy experience—Lynn still gets upset if she watches the programme. She constantly rebelled against customs such as women ■

Now and then: The Nestors at home in south London—and (inset) not enjoying Swaziland as part of Channel 4's Going Native in 2001

not being able to eat eggs, and had to be persuaded not to return to London within a few days. They even absconded to a hotel for an evening.

Despite all this, the village had a profound effect on the family. They gained a rare insight into the struggle that life can be when 69 per cent of the population live below the poverty line, and 39 per cent have HIV/Aids. They realised they could never leave Shongwe behind.

"A lot of Britons might hear about somewhere like that and want to help, but not really know what to do," says Robert. "We had a big head start." The next year, he returned to Shongwe to ask the elders what the family could do. "We were very clear that we didn't just want to throw money at the community, but to make it more sustainable."

The villagers' first request was for a communal tractor that would make their farming more productive and could be rented out to other communities to give the village a new income stream.

Robert and Lynn organised a charity ball—the kids helped as waiters—and Robert ran in two marathons in order to raise the necessary £5,000. Next, they organised Christmas and summer fairs to provide the village with more chickens and pigs, and established an efficient breeding system.

Then in 2004, Robert and Lynn decided to take things up a notch. Remembering Daniel's experiences trekking for hours in the blazing sun, they decided to build Shongwe a school. They persuaded the charitable arms of big businesses—such as Swire, the major shareholder in Cathay Pacific—to provide

funds, and got the Swazi government to agree to run the school once it was finished. The local community helped to build it, and the tractor was invaluable for transporting materials.

Lynn devoted hours of her spare time to coordinating the project from London, while Robert used around three weeks of his annual leave for the next three years to oversee the work. They also appointed young villager Senzo, whom Daniel had played with during Going Native,as project manager to keep things ticking over in their absence.

By January 2007, the Nestors had raised around £15,000 and three classrooms had been completed. Days later, the school's first intake of 37 children arrived.

Thanks to the fund-raising by the Nestors, and considerable financial help from the British children's charity

The Angus Lawson Memorial Trust, the school expanded, with new classroom equipment, textbooks and an accommodation block for staff. Many of the pupils were orphans, so the Nestors organised foster families for them. In March 2008, they introduced a daily feeding programme for the pupils, many of whom had malnutrition.

Yet the family were soon to suffer a bitter blow. In ►

From reality TV to the reality of Africa: (clockwise from top) the school; Robert with the sign; the new pre-school; the tractor that started it all; and just some of the children who've benefited

PHOTOG

The Nestors had a rare insight into the struggle that life can be when 69 per cent of the population live below the poverty line

January last year, Robert and Lynn had a text from Senzo saying that an 11-year-old pupil had died of starvation during the holidays. She collapsed while out playing.

"To lose a child, at that age, is just awful," says Lynn. "Her parents had died when she was five and her grandmother was bedridden. The worst thing was that I'd realised the term-time-only feeding programme was a problem, but I thought I'd deal with it later."

Come on you Rs: Robert (right, pointing to the boots) and the boys of Hamsey Rangers

Lynn and Robert instantly set up a year-round scheme. A group of mothers now provide 100 orphans with maize and vegetables daily.

In the last two years, the school has expanded to seven classrooms and 170 pupils. Last December, Robert and Lynn flew out to put the finishing touches to Mungo's, a pre-school that doubles as emergency accommodation for orphans. Robert also set up the Hamsey Rangers football team for teenagers.

A lot of the organisation is now done

by Senzo and others, but Lynn—Robert is now usually busy with work in Britain—goes out to Africa four times a year and oversees the project from London. It's not unusual for her to be texted about some crisis, which means dropping whatever she's doing to sort it out— whether it's finding money for new textbooks or organising medical care for a sick orphan. Worrying about the project often keeps her awake at night. "But I'm very practical," she says. "So while I have moments where I'm really upset, it usually sorts itself out. If not, I'll come up with a plan B."

What keeps her going is that, despite the heartbreak, there's been so much to be happy about. Three of the smiling faces on her mousemat belong to Mkhanyiseli and his sisters Gcinile and Nelile, who were left alone when their father went to find work. The project found them a family to live with, gave them clothes and got them into school. On Lynn's next visit, the children proudly showed her their glowing reports.

When Lynn is In Africa, she and her own children miss each other terribly. She has a recording on her mobile phone of each of them saying goodnight. "It gets lonely in my but with just a portable radio. When I'm there, people come at me from all directions. There is so much need that it becomes overwhelming."

So far the Nestors have raised around £80,000 for the project. The three

children remain as involved in fundraising as school and work permit (Daniel's now a benefits officer). All three have been back twice, most recently to help with building work "Going to Swaziland makes you grateful, because you see what people your age have," says Chloe. "When I was eight, I was mainly concerned that they didn't have toys. Now it's electricity, hair straighteners and TV"

Robert and Lynn happily admit they have a volatile relationship—perfect for reality TV!—but Lynn believes the project has given a focus that's brought the whole

family closer. "I never thought I'd say this, but I'm eternally grateful to that TV programme. Out of something very silly, came something life-changing."

"Until Shongwe, we were just going our own sweet way," agrees Robert. "Now it is part of us. It's how we think."

And what, above all, makes it worthwhile for Lynn? "The children," she says firmly. "Actually, not thechildren—they're our children." ■

» For more information on the Nestors' project, go to readersdigest.co.uk/links.

AMAZING WEATHER # 4

BRITISH SUMMER TIME—OR ANOTHER DAMP SQUIB?

THE SAYING

It's not unusual for people to have fond memories of British summers—sunshine, crowded beaches, picnics, ice-cream vans, uninterrupted cricket matches. But our perception of what happened is often different from reality.

"TWO FINE DAYS AND A THUNDERSTORM"

BEST DESCRIBES A BRITISH SUMMER

For instance, a recent study looked at the links between our emotions and memory. It showed that positive emotion improves our memory, so we're more likely to remember the good things.

Over the last 100 years, only a handful of summers have offered up prolonged dry, hot and sunny weather throughout—namely 1911,1933, 1959, 1976 and 1995. We experience complete washouts just as infrequently (1988 and 2007 are examples).

Prolonged periods of heavy rainfall in the summer months are often referred to as the "European Monsoon"—the westerly winds from the Atlantic, which weaken at the end of spring, pick up during the summer and bring wind and rain in from the west.

By

Dr

Liz Bentley,

founder of the Weather Club, formed by the Royal Meteorological Society. Visit readersdigest.co.uk/ links for more.

It's not clear why this occurs, but theories include the retreat of snow and ice from northern Canada and the shift of the subtropical jet stream over Asia.

THE MAVERICK

"PROPERTY ISN'T AS SAFE AS HOUSES AFTER ALL"

They live in homes worth a small fortune. But, ask.. Sam Leith, when the post-war generation retires and tries to cash in on its assets, who will be able to buy them?

Four years ago, with queues of panicked depositors forming outside Northern Rock, and affordable mortgages evaporating like spring mist, we seemed on the verge of a collapse in the property market on which so many of us have staked our futures. Bricks and mortar had seldom seemed less solid.

By the beginning of last year, though, there was a flicker of optimism—a cautious, collective release of breath. Faltering signs of economic growth appeared and house prices, albeit tentatively, were making gentle upward progress again.

Crisis over? Well, maybe. But logic suggests we're overlooking a much bigger problem that's coming towards us in slow motion—locked into the structure of the market like a mammoth frozen into a glacier.

In the next decade or so, a generation of older homeowners will want to downsize and sell their properties, but not enough people will be able to afford them. It seems likely that there'll be a "Boomer Bust" that could put the last property slump in the shade.

Here's the proposition. The generation reaching •

Thinking differently!

retirement has lived through a golden age. Born between the end of the Second World War and the early Sixties, the Baby Boomers have experienced uninterrupted peace and an unprecedented increase in prosperity Meanwhile, a growing population living in smaller family units has made it much harder for everyone to find somewhere nice to live.

Consequently, if a Boomer bought a house in their twenties or thirties, their investment has seen enormous returns. In 1975, the average house cost around £12,000. In 1985, it was £31,000. Today, it's £162,215. Even in real terms, prices almost tripled between 1975 and 2009. Meanwhile, real-term average earnings went up by just 64 per cent during the same period. This means that younger people—not helped by the recent squeeze on mortgage lending— have struggled to get onto or move up the property ladder. Forty per cent of domestic-property equity is now in the hands of the over-65s, while just five per cent is held by the under-35s. But that still seems like good news for the Boomers approaching their late sixties and seventies, who will be able to top up their retirement income by selling their detached or semi-detached houses and moving somewhere smaller.

According to the estate agency Savills, last year around 50,000 homeowners unlocked £6.5 billion of equity by downsizing (about 11 per cent of total housesale proceeds). By 2021, say Savills, the figures could be 110,000 homeowners and £22 billion.

Forty per cent of domesticproperty equity is now in the hands ofthe over-65s. Just five per cent is held by the under-35s

But, as growing numbers of the most populous group in the country put their homes on the market, so the number of potential purchasers from younger generations who can afford the hugely inflated prices will reduce. After a while, the properties will stop selling and the Boomers will have to substantially reduce their asking prices, with a knock-on effect on the rest of the market. In short, there'll probably be a big crash.

If all that seems overdramatic, consider this case. May and John* are a well-paid, double-income, middle-class couple in their late thirties with a baby. They live and work in London, but neither has ever been in a position to buy a property in a reasonable area (average prices in the capital are now £408,000).

They are renting a two-bedroom flat in an indifferent location, and have little immediate prospect of buying anywhere decent. They might eventually get inheritances totalling around £200,000, but, realistically, that won't be until their

early fifties. And with a budget of, say, £360,000 at today's levels, they won't be able to afford more than a tiny terraced house in a middling London neighbourhood.

Property: a winning hand

—or a busted flush?

House prices are lower in other parts of the country, but so are salaries. And our couple won't even be able to stretch to the relatively modest four-bedroom Home Counties houses their parents have lived in since their thirties—now worth about £600,000. In theory, if their mothers and fathers wanted to sell to similar younger couples, they'd have to drop their asking prices by 40 per cent.

a market-moving amount. And, anyway, the Boomers will increasingly have to use their houses' equity not to give their kids a leg-up, but for a more pressing reason.

Join the debate at facebook.com/readers digestuk or email readersletters(a' readersdigest. co.uk

Sue Anderson of the Council of Mortgage Lenders argues against this. 'An awful lot of people who are propertyrich have begun transferring their wealth to the younger generation, often providing the deposit for a home, by releasing equity from their own," she claims.

But doing this by remortgaging is only an option for the comfortably off— the alternative, an equity-release scheme, is unattractive to many people who don't want to give some or all of their property to a commission-taking firm in return for an annual payment. Last year, only 20,000 homeowners did so against a total of 885,000 house sales—hardly

Former health minister

Lord Warner, who's drafting plans to rework government residential care for the elderly, told a conference held by the think tank Reform, "Any fantasy about 100 per cent universal state provision: forget it." A place in a care home costs £36,000 a year on average so, for many, some or all of the money tied up in their properties will have to fund these costs. In 2009, it's thought that some 60,000 people were forced to sell up to fund their care (it's illegal to rid yourself of assets by transferring your home to your kids so that the Government has to help).

Sue Anderson counters that the Boomer generation is a broad one and if sales are spread over, say, 15 years, there won't be a price shock. But that still leaves open the chance of a slow asphyxiation of the market.

The property assets the Boomers thought would see them through old age are looking shaky In a few years, the phrase "safe as houses" may be used in a rather different way. ■

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WRITE!

On the way home the other day, I spotted a filthy white van. Predictably, someone had scrawled, "I wish my wife was as dirty as this," in the grime. Below, another had added, "Oh, but she is!" Submitted by Catherine Thorp, Isle of Wight

Simon Callow

...GROWING UP POOR BUT HAPPY.

I was born in Streatham, south London, and spent much of my early childhood there. It had an idea of itself as being genteel—it called itself "the Hampstead of the South". I thought it was the most wonderful place on earth, and when I lived in Africa later on, I used to dream about Streatham High Street.

My father went to work in Northern Rhodesia when I was 18 months old, so my mother and I lived in a room in my grandmother's semi. But my grandmother was an extraordinary woman, who made it seem like a magical palace. From the garden you could see the library on Streatham High Street, with its big green dome, and she'd say, "The beauty of the architecture! Many people have told me it reminds them of the Taj Mahal"—which they hadn't, and it doesn't!

She and I had a very intense relationship and a lot of my theatricality comes from her. We used to dress up in her clothes. She'd wear

something outlandish and make up stories. We lived in a sort of dream world.

...BEING AN IRREPRESSIBLE CHILD.

I had uncontrollable energy, great curiosity and a fantastic desire to please. I also had an addiction to making people laugh—I talked non-stop. But underneath all that, I was quite uncertain of myself, of who I was, and of what sort of impact I was making.

...HAVING A DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP WITH MY MOTHER.

She must have felt threatened by this very noisy child. She'd swallowed Dr Spock [author of the bestselling Baby and Child Care] whole, so my entire life was run according to his principles. Some of them were quite tough, such as letting a child cry until it cries itself out. I'd sometimes cry for 24 hours and she'd still leave me alone.

But she had a wonderful view that you should always give

St I-lie young

ost 1955—and, the hhnee similarity? m_ilari Simon ri y? ien, oapptoday

4 a child something to look at. We were frequently going out to museums and to films— almost always educational. I was never bored.

...FALLING IN LOVE

WITH SHAKESPEARE,

AGED FIVE. My mother was a secretary at a school in Goring-on-Thames called Elmcroft, and my education was thrown in as part of her salary. So the headmaster's mother—a wonderful old, hairy woman called Mrs Birch—taught me to read. We'd listen to plays on the radio, and one day we heard Macbeth. All these pictures came into my mind, without me really knowing what the play was about, but there were witches and dead men walking and murder. There was a very strange atmosphere about it, too, which I found very exciting. And frightening. Fortunately, I was on Mrs Birch's lap, so she could reassure me.

"o , ftkits "A terrible mistake": Simon's father and mother' (right) during their ill-fated time as expats in Africa

for a reunion with my mother. He just wanted to force her to divorce him. So she and I left. I was very aware, at the time, that my mother was on the verge of, I would say, actual insanity. She behaved most bizarrely. We had to get out.

...COMING

HOME.

...MY

PARENTS' BREAK-UP.

My father had gone to Africa because he couldn't earn much money in England. He led the life of all of those expats: unending booze and sunshine, with maybe a little light work here and there. He was supposed to come back, but he didn't. Instead, he asked for a divorce, but my mother was Catholic so she wouldn't agree to it. Then, most unexpectedly, when I was nine we had a letter from him saying, "I've made a terrible mistake. Come to Africa."

It was a disaster. We stayed for three years, but it foundered immediately because it was evident he had no desire

I couldn't wait to get out of Africa, but the moment I came back to England, I knew I wasn't the same person that had gone away. I'd been on safari and, when I went to boarding school in South Africa, I travelled on a train past the Victoria Falls, through the Kalahari Desert, past Cape Town and Table Mountain. When you've done all those things and you suddenly come back to England, it all seems very small and very, very grey.

...THINKING OF MYSELF AS UGLY AND ROUND.

The feeling diminished as I got older, but it never entirely goes away. I think if that's how you feel about yourself as a child, that's what you're going to feel about yourself always.

"My mother was on the verge of, I would say, actual insanity. She behaved most bizarrely. We had to get out"

"If you like it so much, why don't you come and work here in the box office?"

I met him many times while working there, but not in a very meaningful way. He'd potter into the box office and try to make small talk with us—he wasn't very good at it. He would come in and say, "Oh the box office, how exciting! Money for tickets! You sell tickets; you get money!"

...SNEAKING ONTO THE STAGE AT THE OLD VIC. On Monday nights, the actors used to rehearse at the theatre and I would slip in and watch. There were some very great people involved, such as Peter Brook directing John Gielgud, or Tyrone Guthrie directing Colin Blakely.

...WRITING TO LAURENCE OLIVIER.

I left school not really knowing what I wanted to do. I was terribly impressed by the National Theatre, which Olivier then ran at the Old Vic. It was the most exciting, most fashionable theatre, and everybody wanted to go there. I thought, Wouldn't it be wonderful to be part of something like this?So, on an impulse, I wrote Olivier a three-page letter. He wrote back and said,

One Monday, when we were coming out through the front of house to go home, I let the others go ahead. I just went onto the stage and I said, "To be or not to be, that is the question." And I must, by some absolute accident, have found a spot on the stage where the voice really echoed magnificently. I thought, Wow! I shocked myself with the power of that thing. And then I was thinking, / must find out if I've got any ability at all as an actor

...GOING TO QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY BELFAST TO ACT, BUT REALISING I WAS TERRIBLE AT IT. Then I knew I needed to go to drama school, so I o.

"Come on love, give us a tune": Simon as Mozart with Felicity Kendal inemadeus

went to the Drama Centre in London. My really big break after finishing there was in Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus [Simon played Mozart in the original 1979 production at the National]. It became such a hot ticket. Years later, I was in a film with Meryl Streep, Postcards from the Edge. She said to me, "It's so wonderful you're in this movie. I saw you in London, and if I'd only been more famous at the time, I'd have come backstage and told you how great you were."

...TALKING OPENLY ABOUT BEING GAY IN MY BOOK BEING AN ACTOR IN 1984. I'd been trying to tell the press that I was gay for years. They just wouldn't

"I was the first wellknown actor to come out. I was very proud to do that"

print it, because they don't like to be told—they like to find you out. A journalist from a tabloid once asked me if I was bisexual. "How dare you!" I said. "Oh, aren't you?" she said. "Absolutely not," I told her. "I'm strictly homosexual." The interview never appeared.

If I'd identified myself publicly as gay ten years earlier, that would have ruined my career. But I never experienced any backlash. I was the first well-known actor

to come out voluntarily. I was very proud to do that. It was a useful thing to do.

...LIVING IT UP. My lifestyle was extravagant—more than it should have been—but I really did think I was in the big time. I was very lucky, too, because a play agent—an extraordinary woman called Peggy Ramsay, who was very much in love with me—said one day, "Would it be nice if I gave you a flat?"

I said, "No, you mustn't. It's too much. It's too big"—but she told me not to be so bourgeois. So I had very little expenditure. No rent or mortgage.

...NARROWLY ESCAPING DEATH.

It was 1990—I'd been driving through Texas in a rainstorm and the car was weaving weirdly. Next day, I asked the crew on the film I was directing to have a look at the car. They came back ashen.

"The axle is hanging by a thread," they said. It could have broken at any second—and I'd been driving, as everybody does in Texas, at 120mph. I haven't been all that frightened in my life, but a sort of retrospective fear came to me after that.

...FIRST READING THE SCRIPT FOR FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL. I was directing My Fair Lady at the time, and I was on a plane with the producer. I said to him, "I've just been offered this film. It's called Four Weddings and a Funeral. I bet you I'm the funeral." [Simon played Gareth, who dies of a heart attack in the film.] It was an incredible part to play because it's about a gay man who dies, but not of Aids. It was very important then to say that gay men aren't defined by disease. I.

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Action man: Simon in Jamie's Dream School

...TEACHING SHAKESPEARE TO DIFFICULT TEENAGERS IN JAMIE'S DREAM SCHOOL. It was humbling.

I'm not a trained teacher, so I was inadequate. I started out with supreme

faith in Shakespeare. I thought, They cannot fail to be interested in it...which they weren't at all. When it got better was when I started to get them actually doing it, and that, I think, is a lesson for pretty well all of us—talking about things is no use for a class like that. If you want to really engage people, you have to let them take responsibility for themselves and what they're doing. ■

As told to Ellie Rose

» In Love With Shakespeare, with Simon Callow, is on Sky Arts 1 throughout June. His show Being Shakespeare is at London's Trafalgar Studios from June 15 to July 23.

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How to BE POLITICALLY CORRECT

WHEN DID YOU LAST USE "GAY" in the sense of light-hearted, or refer to a cleaning "lady"? Despite chortling at Jeremy Clarkson's regular assaults on modern shibboleths, we're often more PC than we think—and with good reason.

"It's not about saying that a manhole should be called a personhole. 'Political correctness' is really just a matter of courtesy and respect," says the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But when "acceptable" terms change as fast as diet advice, it's hard to avoid giving offence, especially when you can't even be guided by the way people describe themselves. (Certainly, only black rappers can get away with using the N word.)

We trawled charities and government departments for the latest advice.

Old term New term

Fireman ► Firefighter

Labels that indicate gender are out, so "stewardess" becomes "flight attendant" and an "ambulanceman" is a "paramedic".

People ► Disabled with disabilities people

Though the "people with..." style is usually preferred—as it puts the accent on the individual rather than the condition—this is the exception to the rule. Most organisations prefer to talk about "disabled people" on the grounds that it's society that disables them.

Learning ► Learning difficulty disability

Much more than dyslexia, learning disability is the World Health Organisation term for an IQ less than 70.

Blind/deaf ► Sight/hearing loss

But be aware this could be contentious, as a number of those affected prefer the old terms.

The Elderly ► Older people

Emphasises individuals rather than the group.

Christian name ► First name

Mohammed is the most popular name for boys, after all...

Afro-Caribbean ► Black

"Black and minority ethnic" is the term used by officialdom. But do you really need to specify origin? If you do, it's better to refer to someone's nationality rather than, mistakenly, lumping people from Libya or Iran together as "Arabs".

I'm away from the office and will be back on June 30

How to TELL PEOPLE YOU'RE AWAY

THERE ARE FEW BETTER FEELINGS in the world than switching on the out-of-office message before you go off on holiday, so why not leave one on your home PC, too? It's especially important if you're one of the UK's four million self-employed, and easy if you use a web-based email (such as Hotmail) or one with remote access (BT Internet).

Look for "vacation reply" under Options or Settings, set the dates and write a short, bland message: "I'm unavailable until June 30" is enough. Avoid telling the world you're off to Australia or that you're based at home because spammers have been known to check for absences. And beware giving your mobile number if you're travelling outside the EU—picking up a call can cost almost £1 a minute.

How to KEEP URBAN CHICKENS

JOIN JAMIE OLIVER, actress Sarah Parish and the 500,000 other households who keep chickens in their backyard, and you can enjoy fresh eggs without checking for the lion mark.

Two hens should give you a dozen eggs a week, says hen-house company Omlet, and they're low maintenance. All you need is a coop with 250 square centimetres of space for each bird, plus perches for roosting, a nesting box and a fox-proof run. If you can't knock one up, buy self-assembly (B&Q, from £90 or £279, pictured)

or ready-to-go (the easy-clean Eglu from £230).

Now all you need is hens. It's best to buy "point of lay" hens (between four and five months old) for an immediate return on your investment. Light Sussex, Rhode Island Red and Brown Leghorns are reliable layers, but whichever breed you choose, make sure they're active, with bright eyes, glossy feathers and smooth legs (raised scales are a sign of parasites).

Or give a home to ex-battery hens from

How to DRESS THE PART

THE SEASON is when high society comes out to play—and so do the fashion police.

There's no consistency: what's acceptable at Ascot can get you thrown out of Henley, because dress codes "have developed at the behest of the event", says David Miller, manners expert at Debrett's. But put a foot wrong, however well

the British Hen Welfare Trust, which suggests a donation of £3-£4 each.

Look for eggs every morning to stop hens getting broody, shut them inside at night, worm them regularly and check for pests. Chicken feed is just that, but hens also need grit to help their digestion. They'll need cleaning out weekly, but their droppings can be used as fertiliser, so you can even grow veg to go with your omelette, which makes them the ultimate eco-friendly pet.

shod, and that exclusive invitation will be worthless—anyone who's bagged one needs to observe the rules.

ROYAL ASCOT, June 14-18. In the Royal Enclosure, hats are obligatory for both (4-Z sexes. Men must wear black or grey morning dress plus a topper, and women a hat or "substantial z fascinator" over most of the head. Women must also cover up. Trouser suits are allowed but off-the-shoulder and halter-neck designs, straps narrower than an

How to BEAT BED BUGS

THEY'VE CLOSED lingerie store Victoria's Secret, grounded a BA jet, and triggered three (contested) law suits against a major hotel—not bad for insects that can't fly. Instead, they hitch a ride on clothes and cases. One in ten New Yorkers has felt the bed bugs bite, as have record numbers of Brits—Rentokil recorded a 24% rise in callouts last year.

Bed bugs are no bigger than an apple seed, so you're more likely to spot the carnage they leave behind. Look for a splatter of dark spots from blood and waste— especially on the mattress, where 80% of bed bugs are found—and sniff for an almond-like smell. They hate smooth surfaces, so it's worth booking a room with a tiled floor on your travels. If you're paranoid, don't unpack, and keep your (rigid) suitcase in the bath. Not everyone reacts to bites and, as they often take a week to appear, you may not know there's a problem until you, and the bugs, get back home.

If you find the bites in time, don't bring bugs into the house. Unpack cases and bags in the garage, wash clothes at 60°C if possible or tumble-dry on high for 20 minutes. Put delicates and shoes in plastic bags and store in the freezer for five days. If you still wake up itching, call a pest controller fast.

inch, minis and bare midriffs are banned.

WIMBLEDON, June 20-July 3. Relax— the Members' Enclosure simply demands that men wear a jacket and tie (though if women wear trousers, it must be as part of a suit).

ROYAL GARDEN PARTIES, June 29, July 12 and 19. Morning dress or suits are recommended for men; national dress and uniform also get the royal nod. Women usually wear "afternoon" dress (think tea dance) plus a hat.

And, as with any event on grass, wedges and flats are preferable to heels.

HENLEY ROYAL REGATTA, June 29-July 3.

Men can sport pink caps, but for women the Stewards' Enclosure is a fashion minefield. Thank heavens for the maxi: though spectacular cleavages abound and hats are optional, hemlines must cover the knee, and split skirts, culottes and trousers are out. Men can get away with a blazer plus flannels, shirt and tie, or a suit.

How to RESCUE A LAWN

THESE QUICK FIXES

won't create an Oxbridge sward, but they will provide a respectable patch of green, says Jonathan Edwards of eGarden*.

Skid pans Spike worn patches with a fork before re-seeding. To reduce wear, cover with a sheet of green plastic mesh and let the grass grow through. "It will be invisible in a couple of years," says Edwards. No-grow areas Grass won't thrive in the shade, so stake border plants to prevent them flopping on the lawn and cut back shrubs. If trees are the problem, reseed the area with shade-tolerant grass seed.

Ups and downs Spike dips with a fork and top dress with equal parts of lawn sand and top soil, using 10kg per square metre, then level out. Don't add more than 10mm at a time or you'll suffocate the grass. Instead, repeat the treatment at monthly intervals.

Lawn invaders It's often better to settle for a few weeds than the brown patches weedkiller leaves behind. Dig out the broad-leaved ones with a knife and fill the gaps with plugs of grass (grow them from seed in pots). Aerate and fertilise the lawn, and toss clippings in the bin after mowing—they may contain weed seeds.

WHAT YOUR HOME CARER WON3T TELL YOU

• I'm called a lot of names—carer, personal assistant, home-help and bottom-wiperand often I'm all four. My correct title is personal care assistant, because that's what I do most of. (That's "personal" as in "hygiene".)

• Sometimes I'm the only friendly face you see. It's rewarding because I know I can make a difference to someone's life just by coming through the door. I'll always chat and try to make you smile, even though I have to keep an eye on the clock. Usually, I'm only with you for half an hour.

• I wish I could do your shopping. I used to clean

homes, collect pensions and even take people out, but most councils now only fund care for people with "critical" or "substantial" needs, which means they need help just to get up, wash, dress and go to the loo.

• I earn far less than you think. You can be charged up to £20 an hour for care if you have more than £23,250 in the bank, but I often earn less than the minimum wage. I'm not paid for my uniform, car insurance, bus fares, mobile calls or travelling time (so I can work eight hours and get paid for five). And because my hours aren't guaranteed, I sometimes have no work at all.

t You won't have to sell your house to pay me. Though home care is means-tested, your house isn't taken into account. In England, you'll

be charged on a sliding scale once your income is more than you could claim in Income Support plus 25% (£197 for a single pensioner). In Wales, the weekly charge is capped at £50, while in Scotland it's free.

Please don't give me presents. It's a lovely thought, but it could get me fired. I'm not allowed to accept

gifts from you— even chocolates on my birthday are banned.

• Carers should keep their mouths shut, though not all do. You won't catch me moaning that Colonel Smythe wet the bed or telling everyone where Mrs Gardiner keeps her savings. Carers should also be careful what they write in the clients' notes—"messed everywhere" isn't acceptable.

• I don't work for social services. Most councils have outsourced home care to agencies and choose the cheapest. You'll know if that happens as they often underpay carers, so there's a high turnover of staff. They also cram in too many appointments. If I arrive at 8am, I need to shower and feed you in 30 minutes. But I can't be the other side of town by 8.30 so I'll leave early— without logging it.

• I'm not a nurse, but I'm the next thing to it. I'm trained to give medication and bed baths, and change

catheter and colostomy bags, though I may have no qualifications. If that bothers you, ask if I have NVQ level 2 or 3 in Health and Social Care.

• Why not give me a job? Under the Direct Payments scheme, you can use the cash you're allocated to pay for some or all of your own care. You can even employ friends and family, except those you live with. But you'll need to organise PAYE, insurance and be responsible for health and safety. If you go through an agency, you may pay more than they'd charge the council (find one who belongs to the UK Home Care Standards Association).

• Any complaints? If you get rotten service, complain to the agency, then social services and finally the Local Government Ombudsman. ■

MEDICINE WITH MAX PEMBERTON

IT'S ALL MY FAULT

Sometimes what a patient needs most is for the doctor to apologise

Sorry, it has been said, seems to be the hardest word. Saying sorry involves an admission of error and this is not always easy. But in medicine, it's often surprising how much this simple word can heal. Admitting you've made a mistake may be difficult, but it can make an enormous difference to someone.

Mrs Dunning had been in pain ever since her operation, and had also experienced an odd dragging sensation in her abdomen. Something wasn't right, she insisted. Yet, when she went for her follow-up appointment, the surgeon who'd operated on her dismissed her concerns. "The operation was a success," he assured her. She still wasn't convinced—but, despite her protestations, he would have none of it.

was assumed that she would take legal action against the surgeon.

Hospital managers and the head of surgery descended to the ward to speak to Mrs Dunning, but she refused to talk to them—which only made them panic more. Instead, she insisted on talking to the surgeon responsible.

The next day he came to the ward. The managers had warned against doing so without legal representation, but he did anyway, arguing that he owed it to her to

"Why I want sue?" s asked "It was honest mistak would to he him. an e"

One evening, things got so bad that she came into A&E. The on-call surgeon agreed to do an exploratory operation to see what was wrong. As soon as he opened her up, the problem was there for all to see. A swab had been left inside her, and this had caused considerable irritation to the surrounding tissue.

There are very strict protocols in the operating theatre to ensure this doesn't happen. But surgeons are only human, and even they make mistakes. We live in an increasingly litigious society and it

speak personally about what had happened. As he was usually quite an arrogant man, this display of humility surprised everyone.

At her bedside, he apologised profusely and said he understood if she'd like to make a formal complaint against him. We all knew how badly this could damage his career, but he was racked with guilt about what had happened, and for dismissing her concerns. "Why would I want to do that?" she asked him. "It was an honest mistake."

"What do you want then?" he said, perplexed.

"We all make mistakes. I've got what I wanted. You said sorry. That was it," she replied, smiling.

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

Max's new book The Doctor Will See You Now will be published in August.

KNOW YOUR RGANS

The gall bladder is a hardworking little organ that we generally take for granted. The first time most people think about theirs is when it develops stones, causes pain and gets whipped out.

WHERE IS IT?

It's on the right-hand side of the body, just below the liver. It's a small, hollow sack with a tube at the bottom that allows it to empty its contents. This tube, the cystic duct, connects to other ducts leading from the pancreas and liver to form the common bile duct, which opens into the part of the bowel known as the duodenum.

WHAT DOES IT DO?

The sole function of the gall bladder is to store bile, a substance made in the liver. It can store about 50m1 of bile and releases this when food enters the bowel. Bile contains pigments that are

waste products from the breakdown of blood and give bile its green colour. Most importantly, though, bile acts as the body's washing-up liquid. It helps break down fats in the partly digested food in the bowels. When you eat a meal high in fat, the gall bladder contracts, squeezing the bile into the bowel.

RATHER GALLING

Although the gall bladder does a useful job, the body produces other chemicals that break down fat, so it's not essential. Stones can form in the gall bladder and cause inflammation (cholecystitis). As well as being painful, this can also block the cystic duct entirely—and if that happens, the chemicals normally present in bile build up in the blood and may cause yellowing of the skin, or "jaundice". Once the inflammation has been settled with antibiotics, the gall bladder can be removed: an operation known as a cholecystectomy. Thanks to advances in surgical technique, this is now usually done by keyhole surgery.

NEXT MONTH: the pancreas

HEALTH WITH SUSANNAH HICKLING

STAR TREATMENT

LADY GAGA

Lupus

The singer, 25, recently admitted to testing "borderline positive" for lupus and that it ran in her

When it comes to illness, elebrity status offers little protection... family. She'd have every right to pull a poker face—lupus is an incurable autoimmune disease that damages joints, muscles and organs. It can also cause heart and kidney disease. The most common symptoms are aching joints and muscles, and exhaustion.

"I have to take good care of myself," Lady Gaga said. Lupus can be controlled by medication. A new treatment, rituximab, kills the cells that produce the antibodies causing the symptoms.

GWYNETH PALTROW

Osteopenia

When Oscar-winning Gwynnie revealed that she had low bone density last year aged 37, fingers pointed at her dieting history.

(11

Neither her maple syrup nor her nearvegetarian macrobiotic diet, for example, are

big on the dairy that provides the calcium needed for strong bones.

The Iron Man star's osteopenia puts her at risk of the brittle bone disease osteoporosis. Slim women are particularly at risk, but not usually until after the menopause. "I went on a prescriptionstrength level of vitamin D," said Ms Paltrow. Doctors also advised her to get vitamin D, which helps with calcium absorption, from the sun. Regular exercise can help, too.

DAVID BECKHAM

Asthma

When footie legend David Beckham, 36, was spotted using an inhaler after a match, he played it down as "a slight case of asthma" he'd had since he was young.

There are different triggers for asthma, including animals, pollen and stress. Even laughing can start some people wheezing and—yes, David—exercise can bring on an attack: the airways tighten and narrow, and their lining swells. But although asthma can be controlled with drugs, a new generation, known as monoclonal antibodies, is now being developed to prevent your body reacting to allergens. One, called Xolair, is already available through hospital respiratory clinics.

6 EASY

Eat carrots.

Yes, really! They might not help you see in the dark, but they're packed with vitamin A to pep up your peepers.

Wear shades. Putting on sunglasses—which should carry the CE mark— when you go out will cut your risk of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the

RED WINE & HEALTH rib

TRUTH

SIGHT SAVERS

commonest cause of blindness in the over-50s.

Quit, and quickly.

Smoking is a risk factor for AMD and cataracts.

Tuck into tuna. Recent research showed that eating tinned tuna one or more times a week could cut the risk of AMD by 42%. Go to our website for a particularly yummy tuna-sandwich recipe.

Get moving. Walking briskly four times a week for 40 minutes has been shown to reduce intraocular pressure in people with glaucoma—enough for some of them to stop taking medication.

Take the test.You should have a sight test every two years. One in five people hasn't been to the optician in the past five years—if at all.

What is the health-protective component of red wine?

After years of research, Professor Roger Corder at the William Harvey Research Institute at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, and author of The Red Wine Diet, has found that it's high levels of procyanidins—the main polyphenols in red wine—that can contribute to cardiovascular health.

Do all red wines have similar levels of procyanidins?

No. Levels depend on the wine-making process. It's grape seeds that provide procyanidins in red wine, and these need to be left in the fermenting "must" for at least 10-14 days to produce maximum amounts. Sadly, mass-produced red wines are often made over a shorter time span.

"Winemakers are going for speed, and producing richer, low-tannin, high-alcohol wines," says Corder. "Today, 91% of wines sold in supermarkets contain no useful procyanidins. So, although people believe there are health benefits in all red wines, much of the wine they buy has no health benefits."

Nice work if You Cm get it: Roger Corder, wine researcher* ."

(If you want to be sure of getting red wines filled with procyanidins, go to an informative website such as vinopic*.)

And how about white wine? It's no good. Because the juice is fermented without seeds or skin, white wines don't contain procyanidins. Elizabeth Adlam

THE DIET DOCTOR

Dr David Ashton, of Healthier Weight, on a surprising new piece of research

Like most people, when I go to the supermarket, I pay by card. But a recent study in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that if I wanted to lose weight, it might be better if I used cash.

Researchers studied the behaviour of 1,000 individuals shopping at the same store over a six-month period, where half the trips involved cash payments, and the other half paying by card. When using cards, shoppers spent significantly more on impulse items classified as "vice products"

(eg, biscuits, crisps and chocolate) than when they paid by cash. The proportion of day-to-day essentials such as bread, vegetables and fruit—the so-called "virtue products"—remained the same.

The reason, say scientists, is that paying with plastic somehow doesn't feel "real", which leads to less considered decisions. Paying with cash is more "painful" and so curbs the impulse to chuck another bag of crisps into the trolley. So the next time you head for the supermarket, you may want to stop at a cash-point on the way.

The study also suggests two other shopping tips to aid weight loss. First, if you shop at the weekend eiyou're more likely to stick to a list, and so less likely to buy "vice products", whereas on a busy weekday, chances are you'll rush in and out of the store without thinking too much about healthy options. Second, those who use a smaller trolley or a basket are less likely to purchase junk food, for the simple reason that there's only room for the essentials.

Around two million Britons suffer from psoriasis, a chronic skin condition that can also lead to feelings of isolation and depression. According to Dr Anthony Bewley, consultant dermatologist at London's Whipps Cross Hospital, "Topical treatments can be very effective when used properly. Sadly, though, about 40% of sufferers don't do so —because they find them messy, time-consuming and unpleasant." But now here's a new, proven topical treatment 'able on the 'rich 95% hav Dovobet®, licensed for mild-to-moderate psoriasis, is a once-a-day gel that helps reduce inflammation and normalise skin-cell growth. Visit the new psoriasis website* for more. EA

Mr/Mrs/Ms

Address

Email

accept any amount

Signature

BEAUTY WITH JAN MASTERS SHAPE SHIFTER

Easy ways to crimp, curl

and

contort your coiffure

Let's get one thing straight. Or curly. Us Brits love our hairstyling appliances. Research from Mintel reveals that nearly one in five women uses five or more haircare appliances (I'm one of the 26% in the "use two" category).

Regardless of trends for

texture, straighteners are the hot buy. Mintel has found that a third of women claim to own a pair (as do a fair few men). Check out the Remington Pearl Straightener, £84.99—it has a great glide factor. Celebrity hairdresser Beverly C rates models from the BaByliss range, like the Pro 230 Elegance Straightener, £100. Her top tips: divide hair into sections before straightening to get the best results; don't forget to straighten the underneath sections of your hair as well as the top ones, for a really smooth finish; and always work from the back to the front. And remember: the result doesn't have to be poker straight.

"If you section your hair

properly, you shouldn't have to go over each section more than once," she adds.

BaByliss has lots of other top wands to perform different tricks. Root Boost, £25, has ceramic micro-crimp plates that give the volume of backcombing without the frizz, while cult buy Big Hair, £45, with its large rotating ceramic barrel, creates red-carpet volume. For smooth waves, use self-grip rollers on just-blowdried sections. Give an extra blast with the dryer, leave to "set" and remove. Or try tongs, such as Paul Mitchell Pro Curling Wand, £53.50. Leave just-tonged curls to cool fully before raking through with your fingers—this helps the wave take shape.

And to protect your hair from heat styling, James Brown (TV's Great British Hairdresser) offers Heat Protection Spray, £7.19, in his new range, Photo Fabulous.

Did you know you have around 300,000+ pores on your face? Typically, they double in size from age 25 to 50. "Pores age like the rest of the skin— they grow both larger and longer, forming a more elliptical shape as we get older," says Dr Tom Mammone, Clinique's executive director of skin physiology and pharmacology. "This is due to excessive sebum production, as well as sagging skin." Clinique's answer is Pore Refining Solutions Correcting Serum, £36.50 (in Harrods now; nationwide from August). It contains ingredients to help balance sebum and smooth skin, reducing the appearance of enlarged pores.

GOOD CLEA FUN

Fresh from Lush comes Dirty, a new way to layer scent. "People are used to layering different products with supposedly the same perfume. But with Dirty, we've created a new fragrance concept," says Mark Constantine, co-founder and managing director of Lush.

His perfumer son Simon came up with a crisp scent containing spearmint, thyme and tarragon and the "subtle smell of calm seas". He then broke it down into its individual components, and used each scent in a different product in the range—such as Body Spray, £12.50, and Spring Wash Shower Gel, from £4.25.

The biggest innovation is the teeny box of Toothy Tabs, £2—crush a tablet in your mouth, brush away as normal and save toothpaste tubes heading to landfill.

BOOK MARK

I'm loving The Anti Ageing Beauty Bible by Josephine Fairley & Sarah Stacey. Some of my favourite nuggets include...

• Don't pick a new haircut when you're wearing a salon robe—your style should suit your everyday clothes.

• Forget diamonds: for a mature complexion, pearls are a girl's best friend, making skin appear softer and more radiant.

• As you get older, use a powder shadow on brows for greater definition without overkill—choose a mid-taupe/ grey-ish shade, which tends to flatter the majority of brows. •

CONSUMER WITH DONAL MAcINTYRE

FLAWED GOODS

A refund on secondhand merchandise? If only it applied to husbands

There's been a little consternation in the MacIntyre household recently, based around my failure to remember my wedding anniversary.

This is normally a private affair, but my wife tweeted my indiscretion around the world, seeking advice on punishments. I read about my amnesia on Twitter while sitting in a brothel in the Philippines on a work assignment —which clearly didn't help matters.

In my defence, we were married four times to satisfy various family cultural allegiances— in all honesty, after the first three ceremonies it becomes a bit fuzzy. In any case, the heartless Twitterati suggested to my long-suffering wife that my lifetime guarantee had run out, and I should be returned as faulty goods.

I quickly suggested that she got me secondhand and that consumer legislation didn't apply. I moved fast, and the divorce papers were held at bay, but in truth I lied—you're entitled to return or get a refund on secondhand goods if they fail to measure up.

If you buy secondhand from any commercial 4), entity, the product must be undamaged and usable, with reasonable consideration taken of price and secondhand durability. If it's not, a refund is due.

I love my rights but, for goodness' sake, don't tell my wife!

IF YOU DON'T ASK...

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

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

QThere's been a renewed interest in old-fashioned barber treatments after the popularity of Mad Men and its expertly shaven lead Don Draper. But if I go for a retro "cutthroat" shave, can I get my money back if blood is drawn?

ATricky. There's an expectation that blood might be drawn in the execution of the shave—but clearly, if you end up spliced like a rack of Iamb, you can legitimately walk away without paying (if you still can, that is...) because the service wasn't done with reasonable skill and attention.

If you're injured due to negligence, you can sue for personal injury.

QEvery Saturday morning I'm besieged by my daughters for their girls' magazine fix, and the inevitable free lipstick taped onto the cover. But if the lipstick is missing or has an off-putting smell, can you get a refund (if that was the only reason you bought the magazine)?

AIt's arguable that, because it's a free gift, it doesn't come under protective consumer legislation. But when a child in Romania bought a similar magazine published by a UK distributor and found the quality of the lipstick on the €2 magazine wanting, she complained.

The European Consumer Centre, which deals with cross-EU complaints, investigated and arranged for a replacement mag and new lipstick to be provided by the UK company. Anything to avoid the wrath of little girls, I understand.

SPOILING THE BROTH

A call centre received my favourite complaint of the year, on behalf of Phone Company in the Caribbean. A woman had placed her phone 11 OA/ in her bra while she was cooking a pot of redpea soup. Unbeknown to the busy cook, the phone then fell into the pressure cooker. She rang the phone company in desperation. What was she to do? The company helpfully suggested a repair service and possible replacement because it had been cooking for over 30 minutes with the veg. But the woman interjected to plead that she wasn't worried about the phone—she was preparing a family meal, under time pressure, and wanted to know if the soup was safe to eat. That's one query I'm happy to leave to someone else. •

MONEY WITH VICTORIA BISCHOFF GET PROTECTED

How the green-fingered can avoid falling prey to the light-fingered

Now that summer has finally arrived, the gardeners among us will be hoping to spend more time enjoying their patches. But there's also a downside to this—an increased risk of crime comes with the warmer weather. Research by Aviva shows garden thefts shoot up by as much as 50% in the summer months.

It's not just a few pot plants and cheap tools going missing, either. The average claim for replacing gardening equipment is now in excess of f900, but most people seriously underestimate how much their garden is worth.

ARE YOU INSURED?

It makes sense to make an inventory and tot up what it would cost to replace everything if it was stolen. Different policies have very different limits, so it's important to know how much cover you need.

Next, check your existing homeinsurance policy and find out what cover you already have in place. Fixed items

such as fences and sheds are likely to be covered by your buildings insurance, but moveable items such as barbecues and garden furniture fall under contents.

If your policy doesn't cover garden valuables, you may need to purchase a separate, add-on insurance— or it could be worth shopping around to see if it's cheaper to buy a new comprehensive policy that includes the garden cover you need. Check to see if your policy also covers theft, damage from weather, vandalism and accidental damage—policies can vary widely. Some can state specific rules you need to follow in order to be covered, such as having a decent lock on your shed door or not leaving belongings lying around outside overnight. Others may exclude certain items such as pot plants or ride-on mowers. Anything of high value? You may need to list it separately or take out additional cover.

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU DO?

Lock up. Make sure your garden is secure. Replace any rusty locks on shed doors and gates, and repair any fences with missing or loose panels. Always lock away your tools when you're not using them, and cement down or chain up expensive furniture too big to fit in the shed. Prickly plants. Planting thorny bushes such as holly, gorse or roses in parts of your garden may help to deter thieves. Some gardeners also place a trellis with climbing plants on top of their walls and fences, as it's unlikely to take a thief's weight.

Bright lights and noise. Try to make it as difficult as possible for a thief to go unnoticed. One simple way is to lay gravel paths around your garden, which will make a crunching noise when people approach. And as most garden crime happens at night, it's a good idea to fit security lighting.

Mark your territory. It makes sense to use a UV pen to sign all your valuables with your postcode. If anything is then stolen, the police will at least be able to identify it if it's found.

TEN MOST STOLEN GARDEN ITEMS

ARE INDEXLINKED CCOUNTS

Fears over rising inflation have caused the number of index-linked savings products to soar.

These are designed to protect your money from the eroding effects of inflation and make sure your cash doesn't lose value in real terms. They do this by tracking the retail price index (RPI), one of the measures of inflation. But accounts can vary, so check the terms and conditions of each product to understand what you're getting.

Some are normal deposit accounts, while others are "structured products". Both look like they're offering the same type of deal, but different products will calculate your

return differently. Find out, for example, if the product is simply tracking the RPI, or if there's a guaranteed minimum rate built in (so you still get something if inflation falls).

Ask if the return is paid annually or on maturity. Do you need to make a minimum investment? And in the case of a structured product, how safe is your capital—are you protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme? (If the product is a structured deposit —which most of the index-linked products are—then it should be.)

THE RISK OF INFLATION FALLING While these accounts look r-

MONEY

4 attractive to savers when inflation is high, it's important to remember that inflation can go down as well as up.

As Kevin Mountford, head of banking at MoneySupermarket*, points out: "It's likely that inflation will start to fall towards the end of this year, while the base rate will go up at some point. Anyone looking at inflation-linked savings products needs to balance the risk of variable rates against the certainty of fixedrate products."

What's more, most of the indexlinked accounts require you to lock your money away for a minimum of five years and penalise you with loss of interest if you withdraw your money early. So if you need to access your cash before the five years are up, this is not the account for you.

Also, not all inflation-linked accounts allow you to save in a tax-free ISA. So if you haven't used up your annual cash ISA allowance (f5,340 this year), you may be able to earn a better rate by picking an account that can be held in an ISA.

NS&I

National Savings & Investments withdrew its inflation-linked savings certificates last July, as they were proving too popular. But they're making a comeback this year, after an announcement in the last budget. These too provide protection against inflation, but don't usually require you to lock your money away for as long, and often offer a more competitive rate. Not only are they tax-free without being held in an ISA, but they're also guaranteed by the Government.

OW TO FIND A INANCIAL DVISER TRUST

Not much experience in investing and/ or not much time? No wonder we seek advice from the professionals. The trouble is, the financial-advice sector has received so much negative press in recent years that many people are now wondering if there are any advisers out there they can trust.

Check qualifications. Find out what qualifications the adviser has and pick someone who holds above and beyond the minimum requirement. The higher levels are currently "chartered financial planner" and "certified financial planner". You may pay a little more, but it's worth it. If you have specific needs, look for someone who has specialist qualifications in that area.

Ask about fees. An independent adviser should offer you the choice between paying by fees or by commission, and make it crystal clear how they are going to get paid. Any adviser giving you the hard sell should set alarm bells ringing. And remember that while upfront fees of £100-plus an hour may sound quite daunting, the cost of commission (typically

around 3% of your initial investment) can add up very quickly.

You should also ask about "trail commission". This is an annual payment (usually around 0.5% of the value of your investment) that your product provider pays to your adviser. This money is intended to cover the cost of "ongoing advice", so make sure your adviser is working for it.

The amounts of money involved are usually very modest, so don't have too high an expectation, but you should at least get an annual or six-monthly communication updating you on your investments, how they're doing and whether any changes could be more appropriate.

Investors with substantial savings, who are therefore generating significant amounts of commission under this kind of arrangement, should be getting a monthly update plus annual face-to-face reviews.

No contact with your adviser? Ask the provider for your charges to be reduced. You also need to watch out for advisers who switch your investments about year after year when there's no real need— something known in the industry as "churning". The chances are the adviser is making a hefty sum from the one-off initial charge you have to fork out to switch, which is larger than the annual charge.

Under new rules coming into place on

January 1, 2013, advisers will no longer be allowed to charge commission for their services and must instead charge a set fee. This should help make fees much clearer and eliminate the worry that advisers are only recommending the products they make the most commission from.

impare advisers. Once the adviser has set out all the charges, you need to find out how their prices compare with others. Websites such as Find an Adviser*, Unbiased*, the Institute of Financial Planning* and Citywire Money's Adviser Finder* can help with this. It's also worth asking friends and family members if they've had a good experience with an adviser they can recommend.

Clear advice. A good adviser should be clear and thorough. They should explain, and make sure you are comfortable with, all of the investments they make with your money. If you're struggling to understand them, or they're using confusing financial jargon, then they're not doing their job properly. Don't be afraid to ask questions or say no if you think the advice is not suitable for you. After all, it's your money, not theirs. ■

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

FOOD WITH MARCO PIERRE WHITE CLASS APART...

Why food labelling can be bad for you

The only wallpapering I do nowadays is covering a plate in smoked salmon or gravlax. It ends up looking good and tasting even better.

Frankly, I don't know which I prefer. Smoked salmon, by definition, is smoked; gravlax is cured with salt and sugar. Both hit the spot every time.

But what really annoys me is that gravlax, in particular, is regarded as posh nosh. Maybe that's because it's got a fancy name. I can't stand the way some foods are dismissed for being either working class or middle class. Show me someone from any class who doesn't occasionally crave traditional fish and chips with salt and vinegar and I'll show you a liar.

Good food is good food. And fancy food is not good food just because it's fancy. The beauty of this month's dish is that it can be put together in a matter of minutes. And I would suggest making double rations of the mustard dressing— it will always come in handy over the summer months.

In my new book Marco Made Easy (excuse the plug), gravlax with mustard dressing is listed as a starter. And it can be. But I also see it as the perfect snack: not too many calories, but heavy on pleasure. ■

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

GRAVLAX WITH MUSTARD DRESSING

(serves 2)

600m1 water

400m1 vinegar

200g sugar

1/2 cucumber, peeled, deseeded and finely sliced

360g gravlax

Chopped dill (or other fresh herbs) to garnish

For the mustard dressing:

4 egg yolks

1/2 litre vegetable oil

4 heaped tbsps

Dijon mustard

4tbsps white-wine vinegar

2tbsps caster sugar

Maldon sea salt

1.Boil the water, vinegar and sugar, then remove the pan from the heat. Leave to cool for a minute or two, before pouring over the sliced cucumber.

2. Make the dressing by whisking together all of its ingredients.

3. Wallpaper the plate with the gravlax and trim around the rim.

4. Arrange the cucumber slices on top of each other in the middle of the gravlax and scatter the herbs on and around the cucumber.

5. Dress the gravlax with the mustard dressing.

MARCO'S MAGIC

Serve with toasted nutty bread. The warmth of the bread, and the crunch, adds an extra dimension.

DRINK WITH NIGEL BARDEN

TO DECANT...

...or not? If you're a wine lover, there's only one answer

We all drink with our eyes, so the vision of a decanted wine immediately suggests something a bit posh and therefore better than maybe it really is.

An older wine throws a sediment: a harmless mix of tannic deposits created during a lengthy ageing process. Decanting involves pouring the wine into a decanter, ensuring that the sediment remains in the bottle to avoid the wine becoming cloudy. However, an old wine shouldn't be decanted too long, because after half an hour it's likely to lose its fruit, vim and vigour.

Many younger wines, red and white, will benefit from the aeration that a trip to a decanter provides —it opens the wine up, softens the more aggressive tannins in a red and removes some of the acidic notes of a white.

There are some lovely decanters to be found in secondhand shops. They should be clear, uncut glass to show off the wine fully. Even a glass water jug will do. A broad-based, slendernecked, ship's decanter—designed to slide around a storm-tossed vessel—takes some knocking over, yet looks elegant.

Avoid using detergent to clean a decanter—it leaves too much taint and residue. Use a rolled-up cloth to clean inside, or purposebuilt ball bearings, which roll around and remove staining. Dry with the stopper off, as a wet one can easily get wedged in place.

A decanter looks marvellous on a table, shows a wine off to its best advantage—and prompts your diners to guess what's in it.

LAGER

SAGA

"A stein of lager please, Mr German -Bartender," asks the British tourist, to be met by blank looks. Lager means "to store", so a lagered beer is one that's been stored at a cold temperature, often underground prior to the age of fridges. Early German lagered beers were dark and cloudy—only in Britain does the term (wrongly) refer to a light, fizzy beer. ■ Nigel Barden is the food and drink presenter on Simon Mayo's show on BBC Radio 2, and chairman of the Great Taste Awards.

Damp proofing without the mess of replastering!

DAMP is a creeping menace that affects thousands of homes across the UK.

It rots woodwork and carpets, peels wallpaper and causes fungus and mould growth on walls.

During the warmer summer months these tell-tale signs of damp may become less visible in your home. Treating your property for damp now gives your home a head start on 'drying out' protecting and preserving it forever.

Holland Damp Proofing is a breath of fresh air that can permanently rid your home of the scourge of damp. No chemicals, no mess and no replastering — your property dries out... and stays dry for good. The idea is simple: draw out the moisture and the damp will disappear!

The Holland Damp Proof System® involves a series of small damp-regulating bricks

which neatly fit into specially prepared niches in the external walls of your home, close to the ground.

These cleverly allow air to flow into the brick chambers and out again — circulating airflow through the inside of the wall which evaporates the moisture, drying out the wall and allowing it to breathe.

Holland's no-chemicals system is messfree, and as the work is completed from the outside, there is no need to replaster. It can be used on most types of wall (including stone) at ground level.

And we are so confident that it works — we'll give you a 20 year guarantee, so you can have total peace of mind.

GARDENING WITH BOB FLOWERDEW

HEDGING BETS

Trimming the foliage? Bob knows which method he prefers...

et I have a Ilhar large and well-maintained mixed hedge, but can't afford to have it cut for me anymore. What sort of hedge trimmer is best? Petrol or electric? A long blade or short?

AFirst: be careful!

Wear safety gloves, glasses, boots and a helmet if you're off the ground. Machinery can be very dangerous, so work with a friend in case of accident. For most people I'd suggest a shortish or standard-length blade, and never a longer one—although quicker, it's more awkward to use.

I'd only use petrol trimmers for really tough or distant work as they're so heavy, noisy and tiring. Generally, I prefer electric, which are lighter, quieter and more reliable to start. Of course, you need a safe cable, socket and isolator. But I've now gone back to hand shears for most hedges, simply because I prefer their peace and pace.

BANISHING GLOOM

ON I've got a damp and %at shady "courtyard" garden, walled all round. It's almost dark in midwinter, and even in midsummer it's cool, so what can I grow to make it less dreary?

AThe classic solution AM is ferns. There are many choice ones and—with moss and lily of the valley in between— they look wonderful. Arums will

also thrive and give a contrasting foliage and bright berries later. Tree ferns from Down Under add another layer, though they're not cheap.

Most shrubs that would grow here— and there are many—would get too big, too rapidly (unless confined to containers, and then they'd need watering). As the middle of the garden would get most light, I'd put something like daphnes in, as they stay compact and neat, and are gloriously scented.

EASY TO MANAGE

My new home is surrounded by a not-very-good lawn and little else, probably because it's very poor, sandy soil. What could I grow that won't need watering or looking after once established—that's also edible and has ascent!

ATrees and shrubs of heathland will do best—beech and gorse, heathers and tree lupins especially. Buddleias will thrive anywhere. Sweet chestnuts might give you a crop but they get big. Hazels and the cultivated cobs and filberts would do very well, too. Apple trees can succeed if their site is enriched when planting.

Rosemary, sages, lavenders and berberis are all suitable—native berberis vulgaris fruits make delicious jellies. The grapevine Siegerrebe is unusual as it doesn't like lime-rich soils, although does require posts, wires and annual pruning. It's well worth it, though, as it's one of the tastiest and most reliable outdoor varieties. •

Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener and a regular on BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time. Send your gardening questions to Bob at excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk.

Raise the cut of picking the your mower as flowers and crops high as you dare as they come in. and cut the lawn Then make sure frequently until you don't miss out droughts slow on one of those its growth. Keep glorious moments: up the weeding enjoy each and and dead-heading, every warm increase the June evening in watering and your garden—or feeding, and start someone else's!

READER'S TIP

If you want to close the door of your shed to stop the wind blowing it open and don't want to padlock it, try using an old toothbrush. If the lock is one of those staples with a loop that closes over it, the toothbrush handle fits snugly

into the staple part and doesn't rot like a piece of wood. Submitted by Susan Reeve, Caine, Wiltshire

» Email your gardening tips and ideas— with photos, if possible—to excerpts@ readersdigest.co.uk. We'll pay £70 if we use them on this page.

WIL"- WITH MARTIN HUGHES-GAMES

THE CHANGELING

How nature's super-sub can fool all of the birds all of the time

THE MORE I FIND OUT ABOUT CUCKOOS, the more extraordinary they turn out to be. Different groups of female cuckoos specialise in laying their eggs in the nests of different host species. Some will look for reed warblers, some for dunnocks, some for meadow pipits. To fool them, the cuckoo must lay eggs that look almost exactly the same as the hosts'— otherwise the hosts will throw them out. They must also lay at exactly the right moment. The female cuckoo will carefully watch her chosen nests for days and then, when the host has laid a clutch of her own, but not started incubating, she will dart in, throw out one egg and lay her own—all in around ten seconds. She will do this in

TRICK

OF -THE LIGHT

The old switcheroo: a reed warbler feeds a cuckoo chick

around eight different nests. By the time the eggs hatch, many of the cuckoos will already have migrated back to Africa. Bear in mind that, once it hatches—in, say, a reed warbler's nest—and the chick has been fed and brought up by reed warblers, all it's ever experienced has been reed warblers. So how, I wonder, does the cuckoo ever know it's a cuckoo?

IF YOU'RE OUT THIS MONTH between 10pm and 11pm, watch out for a curious green glow in the undergrowth. It's a little bit of natural magic. Glow-worms are actually beetles, and it's the female that does most of the glowing, waving her bottom like a tiny lantern to attract a mate. To create light, she mixes a chemical, luciferin, with an enzyme, luciferase, in her abdomen. The chemical reaction is incredibly efficient: 98 per cent of the energy is turned into light; only two per cent into heat. (The best man-made light emitters convert only about 20 per cent into light.) And she can even change the light's intensity by controlling the oxygen supply. If she has to, the female glow-worm can turn on her glow for ten consecutive nights but she turns it off as soon as she's mated. No one is sure how well the glow-worm is surviving just now—so if you see one, let the UK Glow-worm survey know*.

HARE-

LAST YEAR THE RSPCA reported that, in spring, four times as many "abandoned" baby animals are brought to their wildlife centres by well-meaning wildlife lovers as in the rest of the year. But very often the babies haven't been abandoned at all. Take hares, for instance: after giving birth, a mother hare leaves her baby (leveret) in a depression in the grass. She may only visit once a day for just three or four minutes. During this fleeting visit, the leveret will feed on mum's fabulously nutritious milk before she disappears once more. It's a similar situation with young deer. This is not careless parenting; it's a very deliberate strategy. By leaving the youngster lying absolutely still in a quiet place, mum hopes they will escape the attentions of hungry predators. And it generally works—until a well-meaning human comes into the frame and finds the "abandoned" baby. More often than not, mum or dad is actually on hand, but keeping out of sight. So if you think you've found an abandoned baby animal the advice is don't pick it up: leave it for 24 hours then go back to see what's happened. More detailed advice can be found at readersdigest.co.uk/links. ■

DIGITAL WITH MARTHA LANE FOX

E-TAIL THERAPY

How the Internet can save you money—and maybe even make you some

Feeling the pinch? The web's a great way to get the pound in your pocket to stretch that little bit further.

Surveys show that 82% of internet users use the web to save money, either by buying goods online, or by shopping around for the best deals on pricecomparison websites such as moneysupermarket*, comparethemarket*, and confused*. (Have a look, too, at moneysavingexpert* for unbiased advice on everything from insurance to creditcard deals.)

Most major British stores are already big on "e-tailing". (The UK is now the secondbiggest e-commerce market in the world.) Even so, probably the best place to see how much technology has changed our shopping habits is eBay, based in the US.

Like an eye-popping carboot sale happening 24/7, eBay lets people and companies both buy and sell everything from junk or

secondhand clothes to brand-new Learjets. Type in anything that interests you in the "search" box and it'll show you what's up for grabs.

Bric-a-brac in your loft gathering dust? Take a pic and upload it onto the site to see what price it fetches. Many people build small businesses out of reselling bargains they pick up online. So, if you're particularly savvy about some niche collectible, it's worth digging around. One of the really nifty things about eBay is the "seller rating". This lets you see how satisfied other customers have been with the service they got from someone you're wondering whether to buy from—nice if you're feeling nervous about buying a campervan from, say, Joe Bloggs of Newcastle. Finally, PayPal* is a safe service that stores your bank, credit or debit card details so you can pay for things on websites like eBay without worrying about fraud.

SHOPPING

Another big and cheering phenomenon that the web has enabled is the free recycling network Freecycle*, which finds homes for unwanted goods that would otherwise end up in landfill. (You could also try Freegle*.)

The network has more than seven million members in 85 countries. It's run via email lists: you type what you want (preceded by the word "wanted"), or what you want to get rid of (preceded by the word "offered") in the email subject line, followed by where you are in brackets. Then you sort out the actual swap in the real world.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the web has some very lah-di-dah websites that will tip you off to bespoke deals on deluxe services. Keynoir*, which is only London-based for now, will ping you details of luxury spa getaways, restaurant deals and insider fashion—all at bargain prices.

Vente-privee* is another brilliant place where you can find upmarket stuff for a snip. It's a private shopping club, selling fashion, accessories, home appliances, sports equipment, toys, watches, technology and wines.

I'd also recommend a peek at theoutnet* for discount designer clobber by everyone from Alexander McQueen and Christian Louboutin to Chloe and Valentino.

AND `'OW PASS IT ON...

While the rest of us are saving an average of £560 a year by shopping or paying bills online, anyone without internet access is at risk of missing out —especially older people and our most vulnerable groups. That's why at Race Online 2012 we're signing up "digital champions" to help everyone get more out of life online. There are lots of ways to give this help: at your local UK Online centre; by running taster sessions at your local Age UK; or even just by going to your gran's to show her the ropes. Find out how at www.helppassiton. co.uk/

Martha Lane Fox is the UK's digital champion and head of Race Online 2012.

MOTORING WITH CONOR MCNICHOLAS RADICAL TYRES

They don't puncture, there's no air, and they're coming your way soon

The ingenious device pictured here is the Tweel, and it's a revolution in tyre technology. You might not give much thought to your tyres (certainly not enough, given police statistics about drivers skidding about on bald treads), but you should. All the weight and speed of your car is holding onto the road with just four patches, each about the size of a postcard.

Tyres are big business, worth around $100 billion globally, but the fundamental technology has remained largely unchanged since 1887. In that year, Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop developed a new set-up for his son's bicycle with a central metal core surrounded by an inflated inner tube and a thicker outer tyre on top. The Tweel turns 124 years of that thinking on its head.

Michelin invented it, and it consists of a central wheel of flexible spokes made out

Nasa has asked Michelin to develop Tweel technology for its new Lunar Rover

of polyurethane plastic (the same stuff you'll find in your carpet underlay or foam sofa seat) with a thin rubber strip around the outside. There's no air in it, so it can never puncture, and when the tread runs out you can just replace the thin strip. The design also allows engineers to intricately tweak how much the tyre squishes in all directions, which is impossible on inflated tyres. Because of this, Tweets have the potential to deliver better handling and response on the road.

The present design gets a bit noisy over 50mph so it's being introduced on low-speed vehicles such as wheelchairs and earthmovers, but something like it will be heading to a driveway near you soon.

ONE TO BUY

Mercedes SLK (U9,980) Merc's foldi metal-roof roadster has always bee more flash cruising than sports oon but this model has a sportier feel— despite more efficient eng Restyled to look more like Merc's SLS AMG supercar, it works a treat. Stand-out tech? The optional panoramic glass roof: the ceiling panel turns black at the touch of a button.

ONE TO SPOT

Morgan 3-wheeler (£25,000) If you see this little monster racing at you over a moorland crest, don't worry—you haven't stepped back in time. It's the brand-new 3-wheeler from British sportscar makers Morgan. It may look vintage, but with 115 horsepower through that tiny frame it's a force to be reckoned with. Inspired by Morgan's original 3-wheeler from the early 1900s, only 250 will be made this year, so it's a rare one.

ONE TO DREAV

ABORT

McLaren MP4-12C (068,500)

It may have the unsexiest name ever to grace a supercar, but this piece of automotive excellence is unarguably one of the finest cars ever engineered. The McLaren (as in the Fl team) is the motor you look to if you feel a Ferrari is just a little too gauche. Designed and built in Britain, it's a car that should make us all feel very proud.

VIRT VEHICLES

While you're waiting for your Rolls-Royce Phantom megacar, why not have a play with their new iPhone app that lets you create virtual cars to your own specification? Try wood veneer, a humidor for your cigars, and the starlight-headlining option for a night-sky effect. Rolls offers 44,000 paint colours for the exterior, but if you take a photo of your favourite shoes or jumper, they'll create matching paint for your virtual car. And the truly crazy thing? Rolls-Royce offers the bespoke paint service for real. ■

Conor

McNicholas is the former editor of BBC Top Gear Magazine.

TRAVEL WITH KATE PETTIFER

MY GREAT ESCAPE

Gareth Williams fulfilled a long-held dream in Mycenae

Our first visit to The Lion Gate Mycenae as a family and Mask of • began with an Agamemnon argument. I was with my wife Angela and our three children: Richard, then 17; Adam,15; and Anna, five. We'd just lost my wife's mother, brother and family friend— who were following us in another hire car—in the bottleneck that is Argos town. She demanded I go back and look for them. I couldn't; I could only go forward. There was a palpable silence until we reached the site.

Some 55 miles from Athens, Mycenae was the home of King Agamemnon, who led the Greeks to Troy. Mycenae is a Unesco-listed acropolis on the Peloponnese peninsula. This former military stronghold is some 3,000 years old, and has an impressive layout of walls, gates, rooms, tombs and temples. Don't miss the Treasury of Atreus—Agamemnon's father—which is to the left of the site as you approach.

Since I was young I'd dreamed of this

place. Walking through the Lion Gate it all came alive. I stared open-mouthed at the grave where the legendary Mask of Agamemnon was unearthed.

Joining the other intrepid visitors, we began the arduous trek up the hill to the palace—definitely not something to attempt in flip-flops, or without a hat. There was no shade and the heat was

GREEK CLASSIC

Travel Editions has a nine-day escorted tour to the Peloponnese, visiting Mycenae in September, from £1,145 (020 7251 0045*).

Reader Gareth Williams from Rhyll in Wales

intense. Finally, I stood before the great throne room, paused, took a deep breath, and walked in.

If ever you could be close to the king then this was the place to be. In my imagination, the great hearth roared into life and the smell of cooked meat filled the air. I could almost hear the thunderous laugh of Agamemnon himself.

The children were bored and hot. The family was lost. But I was ecstatic. None of us has forgotten that visit...

Send us a photo of your favourite holiday, tell us briefly what made it so special, and if we include it on this page we'll pay you f70. See address on p4.

GO NOW STAY NOW

BOOK NOW

Learning-holiday specialist Frui is running its first Street Photography weekend in Berlin on June 2. This is a great way for snap-happy amateurs to visit this vibrant German city and admire its striking architecture. The focus is on photography, but socialising, food, and fun are just as important. See Frui's website* for further tour dates or phone 020 7241 5006; from £499, excluding flights (from £38 one way from Luton with easyJet).

Orient Express has created a brandnew Father's Day package for June 19 that will bring out the little boy in any deserving dad. Step onboard the Northern Belle at Crewe or Chester for a memorable day. You'll be treated like a king in this "Palace on Wheels" and enjoy a five-course meal in opulent 1930s carriages, as the Cheshire countryside chunters along past your window. From £195 (0845 077 2222 *).

Kirker's Spain brochure, new this year, is all the excuse you need for extending summer into September. They've added rail options and swanky paradors as well as more destinations. With temperatures in the mid-20s and generous sunshine hours, Ibiza has all the hallmarks of an Indian-summer getaway. Kirker launches there this year with deluxe agriturismo, Es Cucons; from £629pp for three nights' b&b, flights and transfers (020 7593 2282*).

thelmaandlouise.com Don't worry ladies—this doesn't involve driving a soft-top over a cliff with your best friend. Thelma and Louise is an online community of more than 13,500 women from around the world. Register for free, then plan your trip, find people to travel with, and share holiday experiences. Whether you're after a travel companion or a pre-trip confidence boost, this is a great online forum for solo female travellers. ■

T Reaheders Digest

JUNE FICTION REVIEWED BY AN WILSON EXTRACTS FROM OUR FAVOURITE NEW RELEASES JON RONSON ON MADNESS NED BOULTING ON THE TOUR DE FRANCE BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: MELVYN BRAGG

June fiction

The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress

by Beryl Bainbridge

(Little, Brown, £16.99)

In later years, Beryl Bainbridge's novels— always stylishly wrought— stopped being so funny. Instead, she chose often rather sombre historical themes. But in this, the book she was working on when she died last summer, she returns uproariously to her early comedic genius. Rose, a scatty girl in the long tradition of quietly hilarious Bainbridge heroines, is stuck in a van driving across America

A N Wilson finds comedy, crime and brilliance in a terrific month for new novels

with a truly horrendous man. How she came to be with him—and how they end up at the very spot where Bobby Kennedy is being assassinated—you'll have to find out for yourself when you romp through this joyous book. The smiles have returned to the faces of Bainbridge readers. And any writer of fiction who reads the novel will feel stabs of envy with almost every sentence.

Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga

(Atlantic, £17.99)

Aravind Adiga swept effortlessly onto the stage in 2008 when his terrific first novel White Tiger deservedly won the Man Booker Prize. But this new one is even better. The whole of Mumbai comes

CLASSICS CORNER:TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

In Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird contains perhaps the most popular dad in all literature—which clearly makes it a good choice for Father's Day. But the book itself is so loved that it's easy to forget what a strange place it occupies in literary history. Harper Lee's 1960 tale of racism in the American

under his microscope in the tale of a middle-class apartment block in a slummy area—and what happens when a property tycoon bribes the various inhabitants to leave.

The result is as wellpaced as any crime story, but so much more. Every one of the huge cast of characters is brilliantly drawn. I'm aghast with admiration. There is no one writing fiction as good as this in Britain or America.

South is now one of the biggest bestsellers of all time. Yet, although she's still alive, Lee (pictured) hasn't written fiction since. You might say, in fact, that she's behaved a bit like the novel's reclusive Boo Radley, who suddenly emerges to perform one great act—and then is never seen again.

Wish You Were

Here by Graham Swift (Picador, £16.99)

For me, the sentence that best sums up the latest novel by Graham Swift (another former Booker winner) is, "The caravans loom through the greyness". It's the relentlessly bleak story of Jack Luxton, a farmer ruined by mad cow disease, now presiding over a caravan park on the Isle of Wight. His soldier brother Tom has been killed in Iraq and Jack has to go and retrieve his body. In doing so, he also

retrieves a lot of memories about the break-up of their family and their farm— as, with understated poignancy, Swift explores the condition of England, through the soul-crisis of one ex-farmer.

Not a cheerful novel, then, but vintage Swift.

Blue Monday

by Nicci French (Michael Joseph, £12.99)

After eight spellbinding, and hugely successful, psychological thrillers, the husband and wife team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have now written the first of a series of crime

procedurals. The central investigator is the splendid Frieda Klein who, with a name like that, has to be a psychiatrist. She's also a beautiful woman in her mid-thirties who likes to keep herself to herself, doesn't have a mobile and hardly uses a computer. In other words, we're as far from Patricia Cornwell as it's possible to be—because Frieda's speciality is good old-fashioned investigation. (The book doesn't even feature any DNA.)

The suspects and low-life characters are all beautifully done, and there's a strong supporting cast—coppers, Frieda's London colleagues, her lover and the Hackney neighbours who run a trendy cafe—whom I look forward to meeting again in future books. I was an avid reader of the Nicci French thrillers and this new venture has me hooked already.

QUICK QUIZ

Who said this and about whom—in a memoir out in paperback on June 9?

"When I ran through possible replacements, I bumped up against the same • 40. uncomfortable but-1 thought—incontrovertible reality. He was head and shoulders above the others. Ultimately, though the relentless personal pressure from him was wearing, it actually troubled me far less than perhaps he ever realised. I came to the conclusion that having him inside and constrained was better than outside and let loose... So was he difficult, at times maddening? Yes. But he was also strong, capable and brilliant, and those were qualities for which I never lost respect." Answer on p146

How to spot insanity, from Broadmoor to Wall Street

Can you tell if someone is mad? It's a question that's baffled many psychiatrists—but one former TV producer may have found the answer

JON RONSON

Jon Ronson's best known book is probably The Men Who Stare at Goats, a startling exploration of how the US military has tried to use the paranormal as a weapon—and one of the few pieces of British non-fiction to have become a hit movie starring George Clooney. Now, in The Psychopath Test, he gives his most thorough airing yet to a long-standing theme of his work: the question of how you can tell if somebody's mad.

The test of the title was devised in 1975 by the Canadian psychologist Dr Robert Hare. In the Sixties, there'd been plenty of mavericks around who thought that psychopaths could be reformed—often with the aid of LSD. Hare, though, believed (and still does) that psychopaths are incurable, because their brains simply don't work properly. This means that the important challenge is to identify them—which is why he came up with a checklist of 20 signs, from "lack of empathy" and "superficial charm", that's been used by criminologists ever since.

To check out the checklist, Ronson (pictured below) interviews criminals on both sides of the Atlantic, including a man in Broadmoor who claims that he only pretended to be mad to avoid prison. (Unfortunately, his doctors decided that only a madman would pretend to be mad to avoid prison.) He also explores Hare's idea that many successful businesspeople are psychopaths—hence their willingness to sack huge numbers of people.

As usual in Ronson's work, none of this is done in a dry, theoretical way. Instead, the book is bulging with jaw-dropping individual stories, as he meets almost everybody he talks about. One is David Shayler, once a much-admired whistle-blowing spy who regularly appeared on TV; now a cross-dresser who's allegedly

FOUR GREAT NOVELS ABOUT MADNESS

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Starring, in the famous shape of the first Mrs Rochester, the original mad woman in the attic.

The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger It's often forgotten that Holden Caulfield narrates the whole book from a mental hospital—as we learn only on the final page. to

convinced that he's Christ and that no planes were involved in 9/11. But does any of this necessarily make him mad?

For the media, those who stray from the norm certainly have their uses—as Ronson finds out from former TV producer Charlotte Scott.

dr, Charlotte lives in a lovely cottage in Kent. Her baby snored 11 gently in the corner of the room. She was on maternity leave but even so, she said, her TV-producing days were behind her. She was out now and she'd never go back.

She was at one time, she said, an idealist. She'd wanted to get into crusading journalism but somehow ended up as an assistant producer on a shopping channel. Eventually she made a leap to mainstream TV as a guest-booker for the sort of television programmes where extended families mired in drama and tragedy yell at each other in front of a studio audience. She thought her old friends who poked fun at her career path were snobs. This was journalism for the people. And anyway, important social issues were raised. She began hanging out more with her fellow guest-bookers than her old university friends.

The thing that made Charlotte truly unusual was the brainwave she came up with one day. It had dawned on her early in her career that the show's best guests were the ones that were mad in certain ways. And she realised that there was a brilliantly straightforward way of seeking them out. Her method was far more rudimentary than the Bob Hare Checklist, but just as

Broadmoor (top): would only a madman pretend to be mad in order to avoid Above: are many successful businesspeople just psychopath: in disguise?

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson is published by Picador at £16.99

4 effective for her requirements. It was this: 'I'd ask them what medication they were on. They'd give me a list. Then I'd go to a medical website to see what they were for. And I'd assess if they were too mad to come onto the show or just mad enough.'

'What constituted too mad?' I asked.

'Schizophrenia was a no-no,' said Charlotte. `So were psychotic episodes. If they're on lithium for psychosis we probably wouldn't have had them on—although if their story was awesome, they'd have to be pretty mad to be stopped.'

`So what constituted just mad enough?'

'Prozac,' said Charlotte. 'Prozac's the perfect drug. They're upset. I say, "Why are you so upset?" "I'm upset because my husband's cheating on me so I went to the doctor and he gave me Prozac." Perfect! I know she's not that depressed, but she's depressed enough to go to a doctor and she's probably angry and upset.'

'Did you get disappointed if you found they were on no drug at all?' I asked.

'Exactly,' said Charlotte. `If they were on no drug at all, that probably meant they weren't mad enough to be entertaining.'

And that was Charlotte's secret trick. She didn't stop to consider why some sorts of madness were better than others. 'I just knew on an innate level who would make good television. We all did. Big Brother. The X-Factor. American Idol. Wife Swap... Wife Swap is particularly bad because you're monkeying with people's families, with their children. You've got some loop-theloop stranger yelling at someone's children. The producers spend three weeks with them, pick the bits that are mad enough, 'I ignore the bits that aren't mad enough and then leave.'

...AND THE QUICK QUIZ?

Answer: Tony Blair in A Journey (Arrow, £9.99) talking, not for the first or last time, about Gordon Brown. Elsewhere, Blair famously delivers a rather pithier verdict on his former chum: "Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero."

COVER STAR , CALUM BEST'S favourite book? '".4 The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, the self-help bestseller that promises to teach you "how to have, be or do anything you want".

4 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath • In some ways, the female equivalent of The Catcher in the Rye, this time drawing heavily on Plath's own experiences as a young woman. So heavily, in fact, that, to protect the family, her mother succeeded in preventing the book from being published in America. It didn't appear there until 1971, eight years after Plath's death.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey :Jed' ly influenced by the ideas so fashionable among 1960s psychologists: that the supposedly "mad" were often just victims of an establishment determined to exert control. These same ideas were strongly opposed by Dr Robert Hare, the deviser of the psychopath test in Ronson's book.

When the Tour comes to town

HOW I WON THE MEM JUMPER

Dispatches from the Tour De France

Ned Boulting is ITV's roving reporter at the world's most famous cycle race. These days, he's also a keen, well-informed fan—but at his first Tour in 2003 he was so new to the whole thing that he still sniggered at the idea of the male riders shaving their legs. Worse still, he ended his first-ever live report by explaining that one rider who had "some sort of thing with his bike" had "kissed goodbye to the yellow jumper"—which, as he says, "downgraded the maillot jaune to a mundane item of knitwear".

On a happier note, the same incident gave him the title for this gossipy, affectionate and often very funny book, which serves up a feast of behind-the-scenes tales from both the race itself and the television coverage.

Boulting doesn't ignore the many drugs scandals he's been forced to cover. ("As a journalist, these stories are thrilling to report. As a cycling fan, they are toxic.") He discusses several individual riders in some depth—and, like many cycling fans, clearly has mixed feelings about Lance Armstrong. (Not the French fans, mind you, who just don't like him.) But he also provides plenty of information about aspects of the Tour that might never have crossed your mind: from the toilet arrangements to the difficulties involved in not looking terrible on TV when you're constantly on the move, staying in surprisingly dingy hotels, and not very good at ironing.

Here, we join him in a small French town where he's filming the day before the Tour arrives.

Saint Fargeau was a typically beguiling little place, complete with a trickling stream, an oversize chateau, a chocolatier, and an esoteric museum (in this case, housing France's foremost collection of early gramophones). We headed to a bar to watch the closing kilometres of that day's action.

The TV was on and there was the most perfect example of an Old-Boy-at-the-Bar. He actually wore a beret and a red

Apart from complaining about potholes on Bedford's roads on a local radio phone-in when he was 14, Ned Boulting began his broadcastincareer on Sky's Soccer Saturday. He's now covered eight Tours de France and will be there again when this year's race starts on July 2.

4 neckerchief. We both stared at the screen.

`C'est bon, votre pain?' I enquired smilingly.

There was a pause of quite extraordinary length. I held my smile. It began to hurt. Won,' came the surprisingly honest reply. `Trop sec.'

Undaunted by his overt unwillingness to engage in light-hearted bar banter with a sunburnt English fool, I ploughed on.

`Vous aimez regarder le Tour?' I offered. There was another, even longer pause. It turned out he was formulating his reply. When it came, it was succinct and left little margin for ambiguity.

Won'

I allowed a dignified length of time to elapse before I threw in the towel and left. Then the perversity struck me. Despite his protestations, there he was. Eating his dry sandwich. Watching the Tour. As if he had no choice.

In the end, that's the point I suppose. There's no getting away from a race that is, after all, the Tour de France. Not the Tour de Anywhere Else.... Strange though this may sound, it sometimes slips your mind when you're on the race that you're in France, such is the international bubble you inhabit. It's only when you look in detail at the crowd that you remember what this event means to the host nation. The hours spent waiting at the roadside, enduring baking sun or torrential rain, putting up with the unbearable clamour of the tannoys and the frenetic hell of the Caravane Publicitaire. Grandads, old dears, families with youngsters in as many free sponsored hats as they can get their heads in; some of the lengths gone to just to catch a glimpse of a mediocre French cyclist coasting by at 30mph.

Sometimes it slips your mind when you're on the race thatyou're in France

The closest equivalent to this kind of patient enthusiasm for a sport in which the home nation so massively underachieves is the British Wimbledon obsession. Except that, where the queues outside the All England Lawn Tennis Club might be a mile long, on the Tour de France they stretch over hundreds of miles.

Howl Won the Yellow Jumper by Ned Boulting is published by Yellow Jersey at £12.99

Books that Changed my Life

Author and broadcaster is best known for The South Bank Show and his Radio 4 programmes Start the Week and In Our Time. He's written many novels and works of nonfiction—The Book of Books: The Radical Impact of the King James Bible 1611-2011 is out now. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 1998.

King James Bible

This changed my life more than any other book, not because I read it, but because I listened to it most days from the age of six to 19. At assembly we'd sing a hymn and then two passages of the Bible were read to us. I was also in the choir and went to church regularly, so singing the psalms was part of my unconscious education. The Bible gave me a feeling for language, turns of phrase and a body of knowledge that I'm glad to have carried with me through life. It's full of fantastic stories, too, among them the dramas of David and Goliath, Cain and Abel, Christ and his miracles. When I was young, I believed them all; no tittle of doubt crossed my mind.

Sword of Honour

by Evelyn Waugh

As a young man I was appalled by Waugh's political stance, yet there's no denying his brilliance as a writer. He made his trilogy of war novels both moving and funny, full of such cleverness and wit. I also liked the great, lush, romantic passages

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

I'd just finished my A levels when I read this, at a time in my life when I was looking outward and enjoying a lot of foreign writers. Mann was German, and I thought this book magical. It showed the possibilities that a novel offered; it was so compendious in its thoughts on history, philosophy and the movements of people and civilisation. Yet bound up with all the erudition were real characters. I was intoxicated by this mixture of learning within fiction.

celebrating great houses and Britain's chivalric past, and how good he was at understanding unrequited love. I still read a couple of Waugh novels every year, and the older I get, the better he is. I don't think we'd have got on had we ever met, but he certainly wrote some wonderful books. ■

Synopses and sample chapters welcome, please send to: Austin & Macauley Publishers CGC-33-01, 25 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5LQ 0207 0388212 editors@austinmacauley.com www.austinmacauley.com All

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Beat the Puzzler!

It only takes the Puzzler 20 minutes to answer these five questions. The gauntlet has been thrown down—will you pick it up?

1What number should replace the question mark?

2 For each of the following, place the two words together and rearrange the letters to give one word. What are the words? a) CLUE + SHED = b) PEAR + TEAS = c)STIR + MESS =

3 Add together three of the numbers below to score 26. How many different combinations are there to do this? You can use the numbers more than once.

0 4 6 8 10 12 14 20

4 Use the letters given to complete the star so that two five-letter words, one four-letter word and two words of two letters can be read. What are the words?

5 On this signpost, the distance in metres is shown to certain areas of a leisure centre. How many metres should it be to the sauna? POOL

GYM

20 METRES

CAFETERIA

4 METRES

So how did you score? A point for every correct answer

0-2 Jeremy Bates. Out in the first round, sadly.

3-4 Tim Henman. A plucky performer, but destined to come second when the pressure's on.

5 Andy Murray. Wimbledon glory is in sight... surely!

The first correct answer we pick on June 1 wins £50!*

Email excerpts@ readersdigest.co.uk.

Rearrange the following letters to give two eightletter words. What are they?

(answer will be published in the July issue)

Answer to May's question: Dress—dress up, dress down, dress code, dress shirt and dress circle.

And the winner is... Catharine Elliott from Norfolk

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

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TEST-YOUR-KNOWLEDGE CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Dish of beaten eggs (8)

5 Plant stalks used as roofing material (6)

10 Follow as a result (5)

11 Readiness to betray (9)

12 Athletic contest consisting of ten different events (9)

13 Gentle poke (5)

14 People descended from a common ancestor (6)

15 Visible horizon (7)

18 Circus performer (7)

20 Looks forward to (6)

22 Region of complete shadow (5)

24 Large artificial lake (9)

25 Mechanical failure (9)

26 Entertain (5)

27 Plantation (6)

28 Woodland flower (8)

1 Exaggerate to an excessive degree (6)

2 Comfortable upholstered seat (4,5)

3 Bed-warming device (8,7)

4 Entirely (7)

6 Official term for a taxi (7,8)

7 Popular taste at a given time (5)

8 Allergic reaction to pollen (3,5)

9 Game played with racquets (6)

aglaaSSZ sawnsaid LZ A1Rual3 9Z slabuy 5Z lualothuw0 ZZ ;ods lZ jalarop 61JInOt-13 Ll J0f5 91

6iiirelS El adeN ZI angelopaa 11AIPS 01 tiopunsv 6 aleiedas S 0014E1 :SS0213y

16 Bring some hing new to an environment (9)

17 Having great worth (8)

19 Extreme fear (6)

20 Weapons store (7)

21 Severe or trying experience (6)

23 Noise made by a sheep (5)

1-1D4oN bZ asual iZ ssaidAD oz ssapoj 61wesloH St ssanunojSi Jauado uli P1 auoydelel. apuoDa8 L ssassod 9 61.4u!s S Rueb!io p o6uei als1V Z :NMOCI

LAUGH!

SEND YOUR JOKES TO

1 Two accountants were cycling through the park when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"

The second accountant replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up to me. She threw her bicycle to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, 'Take what you want.' "

The other accountant nodded approvingly. "Good choice—the clothes probably wouldn't have fitted," he said. Seen on the internet

Waitrose has introduced a low-cost range. Ha! What's in that—value gazebos? No-frills tahini?

Comedian Chris Addison

41 How many jugglers does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one—but it takes at least three light bulbs! Jack Webb, Clwyd

1 I perform selfdeprecating comedy, but I'm not very good at it.

Comedian Stewart Francis

"Nevertheless, I still hold that our bonuses are in line with the profits we bring to the economy"

1 A MAN WAS DRIVING AROUND THE CITY CENTRE, LOOKING ANXIOUSLY FOR A PARKING SPACE.

He was late for an important meeting.

"Dear God," he said, "if you can make a parking space appear for me now, I promise I'll change my ways. I'll live a more virtuous, selfless life, give more to charity and attend church every week without fail. Just do this one thing for me as a sign that you're listening!"

At that moment, to his delight, a space appeared directly in front of him.

"Never mind," said the man, "I've found one now anyway." Gary Davies, Anglesey

PARENTS CAN BE SO CRUEL

These kids are not amused by mum and dad's camera antics. Seen at ihatemyparents.com

I'm fine with hypocrisy...if the hypocrite is me

Comedian Michael Ian Black, by Twitter

I Did you hear about the astronaut who stepped on chewing gum? He got stuck in Orbit. Jade Symonds, London

I My [Nigerian] uncle thinks that British names are funny. He said, "You know, British people, they call themselves ridiculous things. You know they name themselves after colours? You know that?

Like Mr Green, Mr Brown, Mr White. Or silly things like Mr Rush, Mr Happy, Mr Tickle!"

I said, "No, wait, wait. They're Mr Men!" Comedian Andi Osho

I I couldn't afford to take my kids to Disney World because of the credit crunch, so I put blindfolds on them, took them to Blackpool

What Iran needs now is a more modern leader— a mullah lite

Comedian Shappi Khorsandi

and paid the ride staff a fiver to talk in American accents.

Comedian Omid Djalili

I I tried to buy shares in eBay today, but right at the last second, someone beat me to it.

Comedian Matt Rudge

I As my dad used to say, "Money— you can't take it with you." Which led to some pretty boring holidays.

Comedian Mark Watson

I "Can you give me a list of employees broken down by sex?" the company director asked his assistant.

"Well, yes," she replied, "but we have more problems with alcohol."

Charlotte Primrose, Essex

SIGNS YOUR LIFE ISN'T GOING SO WELL

Cheer up, it could be worse—you could be in one of this list of nightmare scenarios, dreamed up by misanthropic online contributors.

Your identical twin is a criminal.

Even Clippy, the Microsoft Word paperclip, refuses to help you.

LITTLE EPIPHANIES

# 2:

BY ALUN COCHRANE

The scar on your forehead is burning.

You have a strong desire to reread the Twilight series.

You have signed a peace treaty. Your enemies offer you a giant wooden horse.

You are an electrician. You live in an Amish community.

You're on a hike to the top of a mountain with your

dad. Your dad's name is Abraham.

You think of the perfect insult...long after the argument is over.

You sold your car so you could afford petrol.

The dentist asks to take pictures of your teeth for the "before" pictures in their office.

I've always thought jealousy is like cheap Christmas cake— somewhat fruitless, and not as tasty as something nice. Until yesterday, that is, when I caught myself feeling a pang of envy that a tradesman in the kitchen had made my wife laugh.

I thought, No! I make her laugh, not you—some stronghanded, handsome, proper man who can do all the blokey things that I can't, but have used my ability to amuse her as compensation for. It transpired later (under interrogation) that she'd said something funny to him and made herself belly-laugh. Phew! Turns out she's just bad at deadpan.

But that kind of jealousy is nothing compared to fish-andchip jealousy. The envy felt as someone goes by with fish and chips when you (and this is critical) haven't got fish and chips is almost unbearable. I have to use all my inner fortitude to suppress the temptation to push the person in the chest and grab at the food like a bear dipping his paw in honey. The salt-and-vinegar scent wafting by my nostrils is even harder to bear than the prospect of finding my beloved wife in the arms of an amusing locksmith.

The ultimate jealousy, though, is a guy walking past with fish and chips and seeing your wife's head turn...you and she both know he's got something you haven't.

1 I'm having dinner at McDonald's tonight. Reservations aren't required, but I can't help having them.

Seen on Twitter

1 World's oldest man dies. Why does this keep happening?

Broadcaster John Moore, by Twitter

I Had a gig for the Royal Mail. Couldn't be bothered, so I posted a card saying that if they wanted the jokes they could hear them at my house.

Comedian

Tony Cowards, by Twitter

1 As a self-employed person, I find that I get on with my boss tremendously well.

Comedian

Robert Webb FOR EVERY READER'S JOKE WE PUBLISH, WIN EITHER £70 OR OUR SPECIAL GOODY BAG WORTH UP TO £150. SEE readersdigest. co.uk/magazine FOR DETAILS

60-Second Stand-Up

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jason Byrne

FAVOURITE ONE-LINER?

Myself

and the

wife have two small boys and my wife says she would do anything to have a little girl...except have sex

BEST JOKE YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN?

A man tries to get into a nightclub with no tie on. The bouncer says he has to have a tie, so the man goes back to his car and gets a pair of jump leads and puts them around his neck. He returns to the bouncer and asks if he can come in now. The bouncer says, "Yeah, but don't start anything."

Tickets are now available for Jason's autumn tour. See readersdigest. co.uk/links for details

FUNNIEST THING THAT'S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

A long time ago I got a part in Police Patrol—a sort of Irish Crimewatch. I was playing a masked robber holding up a jewellery shop. I had to grab a load of fake jewels and run out. But as I did so, a real passer-by jumped on me and punched the back of my head. After he calmed down, we all had a laugh about it and ended up casting him as a passer-by in the show.

FAVOURITE

TV SHOW?

Family Guy, for sure—it's the only TV show that makes me howl with laughter. Many may think it's immature humour, but to be that dark and get away with it is very clever indeed.

FINALLY,

WHO'S YOUR COMEDY INSPIRATION?

Many people say other comics, but my life around me is mine. Strange things happen to me all the time—I'm approached by very odd people and I end up in the weirdest situations. When I was in Adelaide in March, the town suffered a plague of crickets—all fingers pointed to me as the bringer of madness. ■

Beat the Cartoonist!

WIN £100 AND A SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

APRIL'S WINNER (')

Think of a witty caption for this picture and you could beat the experts at their own game. The three best suggestions will be posted on our website in mid-June alongside an anonymous caption from our professional cartoonist. Visitors can choose their favourite—and if your entry gets the most votes, you'll receive £100 and the original, signed drawing. Submit to captions@ readersdigest.co.uk or the address on page 4 by June 10. Enter and vote online at readersdigest.co.uk/caption. We'll announce the winner in our August issue.

IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE...

Olympics heaven —or hell? Why

Rebecca Adlington faces a gruelling countdown to the Games

Many of you picked up on the resemblance to a certain TV talent show, but it was Tony McNamara from Hertfordshire who swooped the popular vote, winning car "For a first appearance on The Roman X Factor, you really slayed the other acts" seii

A support as our cartoonist Rob Murray's effort: "Based on that performance, Goliath, you're going to be huge."

SCOREBOARD READERS CARTOONISTS

• Britain's best picnic spots

• How to be an Olympics star (and yes, we mean you)

• What it's like to move your family to China

Deborah Meaden, Fern Britton, Ed Stourton, and Anna Chancellor

To see footage of the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival—including one of the winners of our live "Beat the Cartoonist" competition—go to readersdigest.co.uk/magazine

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