Reader's Digest UK Nov 2010

THE VITAMINS

LEAGUE

TABLE

Discover the new stars of the supplements 'world

fame

Q:What's it like when your child suddenly becomes a star?

A: Find out from Outnumbered's Daniel Roche and his mum* 1' 4 r1.

*(plus George Sampson, Faryl Smith, and Tom Daley)

Pro dressing? Pronamet.

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Novemberents Features

What's taking their breath away? Turn to page 62 to find out

38 How Would You Feel If Your Child Became Famous? Four celebrity kids —and their parents—reveal what it's like to be thrust into the spotlight

46 You Wouldn't Eat That At Home After reading this,you'll never look at a restaurant menu in the same way again

54 100-Word Story Challenge Write a story in just 100 words and you could win £5,000!

56 I Remember Dara 0 Briain on religion, chocolate and embracing his innergeek

62 Star Wars! We go behind the scenes at the British Firework Championships

72 Vitamin League Table Jerome Burne tracks down the new stars of the supplements world

78 Why Do Fathers Get A Raw Deal? Some people say mum always knows best—but Sam Leith begs to differ

82 Many Happy Returns? The winners who didn't let money ruin their lives

90 My Friend Aung San Suu Kyi Burma's most celebrated politician—by her old Oxford friend

96 Dad Overboard! How a disastrous sailing trip forced a lazy teenager to grow up quickly

104At Your Convenience... Being caught short is a pleasure in these lovely lavatories!

111Meet the New Leading Ladies David Gritten on the ones to watch out for on the silver screen

AT THE FRONT

Imagine that one week your teenage son is doing normal teenage son things— hanging out with friends, playing computer games—the next, he can't step outside without being mobbed by crowds of young girls begging for his autograph, and paparazzi following his every move.

Overnight fame might be the dream of a generation weaned on XFactor, but living with the reality of that fame is immensely challenging not just for the individual but for the entire family—as you'll discover in our feature on p38.

Our 100-word story competition, launched last month, is already getting such a good response that we're now creating a special category for schools, too. Find out more on p54.

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

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Gill HudsonManaging Editor Catherine Haughney

Design Director Martin ColyerFeatures Editor Simon Hemelryk Deputy

Production EditorTom Browne Features Researcher Rachael AdamsEditorial

Assistant Ellie Rose Art Editor Hugh KylePicture ResearcherRoberta Mitchell

Contributing Editors Caroline Hutton, Harry Mount, James Walton Online Editor Marc Webber Online Editorial Assistant Shade Lapite

ADVERTISING Sales ControllerDominic Eddon (dominic_eddon@readersdigest. co.uk)Marketing Solutions Manager Paul Eyers Trade Marketing Manager (Magazines and Books) Simon NicollProduction Controller Chris Tribe

Magazine Marketing Manager Justine Burrows PublisherJames Mallinson

Administrative Assistant Marina Joannou

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERDavid Titmuss

President and Chief Executive Officer Mary G. Berner President, RD Europe Dawn ZierVP, Global Editor-in-Chief Reader's DigestPeggy Northrop

M 2010 Vivat Direct Ltd OM Reader's Digest). British Reader's Digest is published by Vivat Direct Ltd, 157 Edgware Road, London W2 2H R. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner, in whole or part, in English or other languages, is prohibited. Reader's Digest is a trademark owned and under license from The Reader's Digest Association, Inc and is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. All rights reserved. Reproduction by FMG. Printed by Polestar Chantry, Polestar UK Print Ltd. Newstrade distribution by Advantage.

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Writers

► "The age of the forbidding Victorian father, shut away behind his study door, is long gone," lamentsSam Leith, whose novelThe Coincidence Engine is published next April. "We wipe, bathe, burp and change nappies —and go into meetings at work with milk staining our suit lapels." Page 78

► Laura Stevensstudied photography at Brighton University before moving to Paris. She specialises in portraiture and has completed a large body of work on couples and cohabitation, from the female point of view. Her shoot for Sam Leith's new dads was an "interesting diversion".Page 78

► "Britons are eating out more than ever before and they're being taken for a ride," says Alex Renton,a twotime winner of Food Journalist of the Year. "To be honest, I'm amazed at what restaurateurs can get away with. My advice is: don't trust the menu!" Page 46

RD on the iPad

Don't forget to check out our fabulous iPad app! Go to the iTunes music store to download yours.

YOU CAN WRITE FOR US, TOO!

Your stories, jokes and letters are important to us—and could earn you money!

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Have your say

LETTER OF THE MONTH

Food for the soul

My conversion to classical music ("Not Hooked on Classics") happened at school. I suffer from mild dyslexia—or "stupidity" as it was then known—and this label almost ruled me out of a trip to the Free Trade Hall in Manchester. It was felt I wouldn't benefit, but I desperately wanted to go. It was a day off school, at least.

The concert we attended was the "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky, and from the first note I was transfixed. It was the start of a lifelong devotion. I firmly believe classical music helped me overcome the "stupid" label over theyears—leven learned to type while listeningto the "William Tell Overture" (about 21 words per minute). Like Alex James, I've encountered all the snobs and bores, but fortunately Iwas too stupid to take any notice of them!

Kevin Hartley, Lancashire

I wonder if all the "phone music" played incessantly while on hold is the real reason people don't appreciate classical music. I once said that Mozart would turn in his grave at this horrid abuse of his art, but maybe not. Beingthe rock star of his day, I can imagine him churning out "Music to be put on hold to" as long as it paid well.

Melanie Burgess, Aberystwyth

NOT HOOKED ON CLASSICS

BY DANNY SCOTT .PAM. MY.

Would Mozart turn in his grave at the abuse of his art as "phone music"?

I have two trendy granddaughters, Megan and Jessica, who teach me how to use the latest technology. Recently, Jessica handed me her iPod so she could share her music. To my surprise,I was greeted with Bach rather than the blare of heavy rock. It goes to show that classical music will never die.

Susan Teal, Newport

Venturing forth

Your advice about dating in "1,001 Things Everyone Should Know" was spot on. I'm in my mid-forties now and my experience of

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

Why's Alex Jamas so concerned alma Me Adam of classical. musk, la 1somefMngtodo o T,, ln Britain [tn.' ?

conventional dating agencies and internet sites is pretty bad. However, for some years I've been a member of my local inter-varsity club, which organises walks, days out and meals. I've yet to meet the love of my life, but I've made lots of friends and it's a much more friendly and supportive atmosphere. Mary Gibson, Leicester

The Thomas effect

Reading "Thomas the Tank Engine's Other Friends" reminded me of the time we took our three-year-old grandson to "A Day Out with Thomas". Sir Topham Hatt (aka The Fat Controller) talked to him and held his hand for five minutes while they watched the engines. This was a boy who wouldn't sit

Prolonging life for its own sake takes no account of society as a whole

still for five seconds and never held hands with anyone. It was a magical moment.

Chris Tait, Fareham, Hampshire

Ludicrous longevity

Personally, I find the idea of living to 180 rather alarming ("Searching for the Secret of Eternal Life"). Halting or slowing down age-related illnesses such as Alzheimer's

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

You've read about these adventurers

» Roz Savage (right), who we featured in June, gave up a comfortable life to pursue her goal of rowing solo across the Pacific Ocean. On June 4 she became the first woman to achieve this feat when she guided her boat to Papua New Guinea. A huge crowd welcomed Roz, 42, who covered a total of 8,000 miles.

» In February lastyear, environmentalist David de Rothschild, 32, told RD that he wanted to highlight the problems of plastic waste by sailing from San Francisco to Sydney inPlastiki,a boat made from plastic bottles. On July 26, David finally completed this momentous, if eccentric, journey.

»When we spoke to explorer Felicity Aston for our January issue, she was putting

Sa\117 lc NA ad, one., stroke . at a timc

in RD—but May when he dived into Lake Pumori on Mount Everest. The 2°C swim was to raise awareness of melting glaciers in the Himalayas.

where are they now?

together an eight-woman team from four continents to tackle her life's ambition— skiing across Antarctica to the South Pole. In the end,they knocked off the 560-mile journey in 38 days, arriving on December 29, in time to mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth.

» Endurance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh (below), 40, an RD cover star in July last year for his groundbreaking plunges into freezing water, clocked up another milestone this

Why compromise on shine?

VS. 1 Nal AIWAk Natal&

Imitation brands can leave a residue, making surfaces look dull and streaky. Flash One For All leaves nothing behind except a brilliant shine.

or cataracts is justifiable, but prolonging life for its own sake is not. It takes no account of society as a whole—there aren't enough jobs and houses to go round--or the impact on food and medicine. There comes a time when those who've enjoyed very long lives should make way for those with lives ahead of them. I'm fully on the side of doctors who don't interfere. Richard Clarke, by email

> What do you think? Email readers letters@readersdigest.co.uk.

The quest for immortality funded by Russian billionaires is intriguing, but it raises many questions. Would the treatments become the preserve of the wealthy, leaving us with a form of apartheid when it comes to lifespans? On the other hand, universal access would result in a population explosion, reducing quality of life for everyone. In the end, death is a great leveller—it comes to us all.

Luke Russell, Leeds

> Last issue, we asked you towrite funny lyrics to one ofthree much-loved carols. To make sure you have plenty of time to work your magic, we'veextended the deadline to

ATTENTION PLEASE!

Prize Draw winners!

Harold Beavan, a retired caretaker from Gwent, Wales, didn't learn about his recent £20,000 win for four months! Harold and his wife Nerys have just got back from a trip to Australia to see their first grandchild (pictured below).

"When I first heard, I thought it was a wind up," says Harold. "I've been entering the Prize Draw since 2003, so receiving £20,000 was a real surprise." Hopefully it'll fund afew more trips down under!

>> Visit readers digest.co.uk/ prize-draw

October 25. The competition is open to all ages and £200 is on offer to the winner. Even better, your carolwill be performed by the editorial team! For more details, go toreadersdigest.co.uk/carols.

And don't forget to keep sending photos of house bling to excerpts@readers digest.co.uk—the "blingiest"pictures could feature in a future issue, and you may win a prize, too!

WE WANT YOUR SUBMISSIONS!

Do you have a tasty recipe?Maybe a quirky gardening or beauty tip? Or perhaps some health advice? If so, we want to hear from you. We welcome reader contributions to all our regular columns. It's a great chance to seeyour name in print—and earn some money in the process. We pay £50 for all published submissions to Health, Beauty, Food, Drink, Gardening and Wildlife Watch (see p4 for details of other regular submissions). Send your contribution to excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk.

\o t y s tle ber e to see\

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Daniel Radcliffe and co return in the first of the two-part finale to the record-breaking film series. This time around, they've got to destroy the Horcruxes, magical objects that make the evil Voldemort immortal. The usual list of national treasures, such as Maggie Smith and Timothy Spall, shore up their pensions in a variety of supporting roles.

If ever a band was destined to last into middle age,itwasn't Motorhead. But the extremely hard-living heavy rockers mark 35 years together this month with a national tour. "Who'd have thought it?" says singer Lemmy (pictured). "Like f****** matrimony, and no divorce in sight."

the needy—with no effort

This month's "Movember" initiative sets men the fairly easy task of growing a moustache to raise money for charity. But what other slightly lazy ways are there to assist good causes? Stage a "Wear your Pyjamas to Work Day". Embarrassing, but you don't have to get changed in the morning (or at night).

Organise a "Don't Come" event.Started in the US,you sell tickets to an amazing-sounding party ("Meet Take That!") that everyone knows will never actually happen. Skip a meal.US students were sponsored to do this to help Asian-tsunami vic„ tims. Sounds tough, butyou can just have a big breakfast. Z Forehead advertising. Get a charity's slogan painted on your bonce.

VLISTEN

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

Signing Off by UB40 Think the smoothness of Marley with the militancy of The Clash. After the recent acrimonious departure of Ali Campbell, and their last album failing to enter the top 20, the Brummie reggae collective remember happier times with this reissue of their 1980 debut. That is, if by "happier times" you mean fractious songs about Thatcher, miscarriages of justice ("Tyler") and imperialism ("Burden Of Shame").

m t) Olympia by Bryan Ferry Think the Duke of Windsor sings Marvin Gaye. There will be those who wonder whether the world needs another Bryan RY Ferry album. But,though there are no radical surprises here, these elegant, designer torch songs for adults will satisfy his many fans.

Tiger Suit by KT Tunstall Think the left-field Lulu gets a makeover. Lovely KT has described the single "Weirdo” as "hand-stitched techno", or words to that effect. I know just what she means. It's both ultra-modern and somehow handwoven, thoroughly quirky and charming—a fine record. But elsewhere on Tiger Suit,she sounds like she really is playing with the big boys and girls, revitalised after a crisis of musical confidence last year. Her most polished outing to date.

Ka e

AT THE UK'SMOST IMPRESSIVE OUTDOOR ICE

RINKS

wor

Hampton Court, Surrey (pictured) Glide in the grounds of Henry VII l's palace.

The Eden Project, Ekgielva, CornwallSet amid the bio-domes and sculptures. Canary Wharf, east

London. Getyour skates on by the huge skyscrapers.

Edinburgh city centre

The famous castle makes an enchanting backdrop. More info: readersdigest. co.uk/links.

\ FIND OUT WHAT A BOSS IS LIKE \ BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE

It's a couple of months sinceyour summer holidays, and boredom may have set in at work. But ifyou're lookingfor a new job, getting on with your employers is a crucial first step. Business psychologist Alan Redman, of the Criterion Partnership in Hove, advises you what to look out for atyour first interview. If the boss taps their feetor fingers while you talk, doesn't wait for you to finish your answer before asking the next question, or the interview lacks focus, they may be a stressed, highly competitive workaholic—who'll expect you to be the same.

If they pick up on the emotionalelements of your answers, particularly when discussingyour achievements, they're likely to be empathic and will manage staff relationships well. If they listen to what you say and ask questions based on your answers, they will probablyvalue you as a member of staff. Do they have a clear vision for your role? Without that, it'll be difficult foryou both to meet each other's expectations.

SWEAT[ mad

eating the country's hottest curries

It's National Curry Week on November 21-27, so why not try a culinary fire-walk with these dishes? "Curry Hell", Rupali, Newcastle Upon Tyne. So hot,you get a certificate if you finish it.

"Oxtail Madras", The Chilli Pickle, Brighton. Won the CanYou Handle theHeat? challenge during 2008's Curry Week. "Bollywood Burner", The Cinnamon Club, London.Features five of the world's hottest chillies. Brilliant, Southall, west London.The chef will make almost any dish as hot as you like.

The Girl in the Song, Michael Heattey and Frank Hopkinson (Portico, £9.99) Who was Lucy of "...in the Sky with Diamonds" fame?

What about Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue"? Both feature in this biographic rundown of 50 women who provided the inspiration for well-known pop songs. Choice titbits include the fact that "The Girl from Ipanema" (aka Brazilian beauty Heloisa Pinheiro) once appeared in Playboy,and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" was written about Elle Macpherson, though his wife Christie Brinkley appeared in the video.

Zioioa TOMMY'S ARK

Tommy's Ark, Richard Van Emden (Bloomsbury, £16.99) Stuck in filthy trenches miles from their families, soldiers in the First World War needed somethingto showthem a little affection. With the help of moving journals and letters, Van Emden (author of bestsellerThe Last Fighting Tommy) details how troops forged close bonds with the animals around them, from supply-carrying horses to the rabbits that lived in the nearby fields. Some animals even got involved with the fighting—including a lemur that was taken on aerial combat missions.

The Dangerous Book for Idiots (Prion, £7.99)Details various daring (but probably rather final) events for the bored, thrill-seeking urbanite. It speaks volumes about how cosseted we've become when the likes of office-chair downhill staircase racing, using a vacuum cleaner to scale buildings like Spiderman, and making a bubble-wrap sea suit sound rather appealing.

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WHAT I'M DOING

RD reader

Stephanie Potter, 40, nurse

Watching Lie to Me, Sky One. Tim Roth is a psychologist who judges whether people are lying bytheir facial movements. It shows clips of people like George Bush speaking to illustrate the point!

Listening The Avatar soundtrack. The film was pure escapism and so's this, which is nice when you have three kids.

Online Facebook quizzes—daft things like "Which Rock Star Are You?". I'd be Debbie Harry, given the chance.

ReadingThe Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The way the separate tales of Lisbeth and Mikael gradually meet in the middle is just fascinating.

TIME TO...

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Savl erergy

Floods, drought, disappearing wildlife—the repercussions of global warming are very real. Unless we cut our CO2 emissions, our planet will soon be in real trouble. People around the world will suffer, too; climate change has already created around 25 million environmental refugees.

As a nation, Britain has committed to a major reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, but we have to act as individuals now. According to the Energy Saving Trust, over a quarter of emissions come from household energy usage.

So how do you turn down the power?

Start by... Adopting new habits. Shower rather than bath, turn off dormant appliances and warm up with a jumper instead of the central heating. Line-dry clothes when you can, use your dishwasher only when it's full and cut food into smaller pieces to minimise cooking time. Then you can... Do a room-by-room energy audit. Seal up draughty gaps, lag the hot-water tank and fit heat-reflecting panels behind radiators (kitchen foil does the same job). Check every appliance for ecofriendly options: turning down the TV's brightness and fixing broken seals on the oven door are simple steps. The Energy Saving Trust has a checklist that could save you around £300 a year. Taking it further... Commit to cuttingyour emissions by ten per cent in a year with the 10:10 global campaign. More than 90,000 people and thousands of schools and businesses have already signed up. To join them, and for more energy-savingtips, visit readersdigest.co.uk/links.

Helen Gent

Ariel Excel Gel wins Which? Best Buy award...again.

Now you really don't have to take our word for how brrrilliantly Ariel Excel Gel cleans. Which?, the UK's leading independent consumer group tested 15 leading liquids and gels in June 2010 and decided to give us a Best Buy award (to sit amongst all the other Which? Best Buy awards we've won in the past).

POWER OF ONE

How people like you are making the world a better place

As fire threatened to engulf his vehicle, a lorry driver put his foot down to save the lives of others

Truck driver Cedric Dare from Honiton, Devon, has never been to the annual Guy Fawkes festival in nearby Ottery St Mary, where flaming tar barrels are carried through the streets. But the father of four thinks he might do thisyear.

"I want to see if they put on as big a show as me," laughs the 46-year-old.

On August 3, Cedric's lorry caught fire as he was transporting 20 tons of straw for animal beddingthrough the town centre. Only his bravery and quick thinking averted a disaster.

After atwo-hour drive from Andover in Hampshire, Cedric just needed to negotiate Ottery's narrow streets—which were busy with workers on their lunch breaks and children on their summer holidays.

As he reached the town centre, he manoeuvred his 60-foot-long vehicle past some low-hanging electrical cables. Afew seconds later, a man ran up to his cab shouting,"There's smoke coming out of the back of your lorry!" Sparks from the wires had ignited the dry straw.

Shoppers started pointing at the trailer. "You've got to get out!" someone shouted.

No, thought Cedric, / need

to stay calm. He had a few minutes before the fire got out of control, he reasoned— but if the truck stayed where it was, the smouldering straw would soon become a raging inferno, with strands igniting buildings or cars. Lives could be lost, he realised.

And so, his hand pressing down hard on the horn, Cedric headed out of town.

"I had a quarter of a mile to go," he recalls. "I couldn't afford to meet anything."

Acceleratingfrom eight to 30mph, he heard pinging sounds as the straps holding the bales melted. He came upon a dustcart parked in front of him, the open driver's door in his way. He desperately sounded the horn and one of the refuse workers ran round to close it. Cedric roared by.

As he reached open countryside, he glanced in his mirror. Flames were leaping from the straw and igniting the tinderdry hedgerows. He was leaving a trail of burningvegetation more than 400 yards long behind him.

Do you kno w of inspiring st ories in your comm unity?

If so, pleas e email the details to t heeditor@ readersdig est.co.uk.

Finally, he spotted some double gates at the entrance to afield, so he jumped out and tried to open them. They wouldn't budge. There was only one thingfor it—Cedric got back into the lorry and ►

Dare in front of the lorry cab that survived 'and (inset) the trailer that didn't

Cedric

rammed them. He leaped out, uncoupled his cab and drove it clear—just ten seconds before the trailer was engulfed in fire.

Seven fire engines arrived minutes later, but the trailer couldn't be saved. It was only then that Cedric realised the danger he'd

been in: "I'd been running on adrenaline."

"He did exceptionally well," says his boss, John Rosewell ofJR Transport and Sons. "It could have burned down several houses. It could have been terrible."

Susannah Hickling

A Peckham midwife is reaching out to some of Africa's most isolated women

The night Zoe Vowles cradled a dying woman in her arms is not one she will forget. The Somerset-born midwife, who'd previously worked in Peckham, south London, could do little as her patient in Kamakwie hospital, northern Sierra Leone, slipped away.

"I'd found her collapsed on the steps outside," says Zoe, 32. "Her family had

brought her from a village further north in the Bombali region. She was pregnant, but if her local clinic's staff had had more training, they could have spotted that her ill health wasn't a sideeffect: she had pneumonia."

Zoe has taken on the plight of Sierra Leone's mothers and babies

But the woman's death spurred Zoe on to help others. She had come to Sierra Leone two months earlier, in January this year, to volunteer for charity Health Poverty Action, which trains women to be midwives in the country. But Zoe could see that remote northern Bombali, which had no decent women's health facilities, needed a personal champion. She has since

travelled hundreds of miles through thick jungle to improve clinics and to train health workers and communities to deal with often-overlooked problems.

"Because of the lack of medical training, women can spend up to six days in labour," says Zoe. "Many develop fistulas—holes between the rectum and vagina—leavingthem in pain and abandoned by their husbands. We can prevent these and have taken women to hospital to have them corrected."

Zoe is also lobbying mobile phone firms to improve reception in the area, so health workers can get help more easily.

She was due to return to the UK in January—but now hopes to stay on. "It's almost like a different world here, but a little education makes such a difference. I can and must make the effort."

For more information go to readersdigest.co.uk/links Nick Ryan

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TrustPersilsmall mighilii.okeep itssparklingpromise

For 10 years in a row, Reader's Digest readers have chosen Persil as a Most Trusted Brand. That's a great vote of confidence. Now Persil gets even better with the launch of bigger small & mighty packs.

Persil small & mighty - the next generation of liquid detergent - is twice as concentrated and wins out on all fronts:

Bigger clean. New Persil small & mighty with the extra power of pre-treating agents gives brilliant results in just one product.

Effective, Economical, Environmental - the three Es of Persil small & mighty ee,

Cuts costs. New, bigger packs mean better value for money*. Plus wash at 150 and save over £1 of energy with every pack**.

Aei Goes greener. These bigger packs use up to nearly 50% less packaging***. UP' Small & mighty bottles are 100% recyclable too.

There's a Persil small & mighty to care for everyone's clothes, no matter what messy tasks they've been up to - and a bottle size to suit all demands - 18 ('try-me' pack). 28. 54, right up to 85 washes. Persil small & mighty Bio, with the extra cleaning power of pre-treating agents, removes tough stains such as grease, oil and grass first time round. No more pre-treating or

rewashing. This helps cut water and energy bills too. Persil small & mighty Non Bio looks after the little ones, even newborns, and anyone with sensitive skin, dissolving dirt and stains from their clothes gently, yet so effectively. Persil small & mighty Colour Care removes stains and helps keep colours vibrant. ir,,a1G Bc 7,-,,/zde chuf ,coca / i"oca /Zoe co.14/e.der / was cesied tir 630- Pa r / was hunfAzae lo- add e 141-14.- idea. 14w itae- torah-a c."5 ev4" fades 6sei&iteni , Sia Armitt, Berkshire

NO, REALLY!

I was annoyed when a creepy manstarted chatting me up on the train home. I brushed him off, but noticed he was about to get off at my stop. I didn't want him to know where I lived, so I stayed on until the next stop and doubled back on myself.

Imagine my horror when I got home to my student digs and found him sitting in the living room! It turns out he was myflatmate's new boyfriend.

At least he had the good grace to look sheepish.

Roberta Andall, Brentwood, Essex

c My cousin's husband is the weekly quizmaster at his local pub. Last week, his first question to the eager participants was, "What's the profession of Paul McCartney's daughter?"

"Which daughter?" someone asked, "He has more than one."

"Oh," replied the quizmaster, "the one who's a photographer."

David Jones, Bradford, West Yorkshire

WI The Queen was due to visit our area, soI took my six-year-old alongto join the crowds welcoming her.

Before the main convoy

foryour true y stories' fWri te to the address on Page 4 of cars came into view, a police outrider on a motorbike came down the road. My son's gaze was fixed on him as he drew near then whizzed past.

After a puzzled pause, he asked, "Was that her?"

Joy Taylor, Medway, Kent

My friend is always looking to lose weight, but never quite has the discipline. So she was delighted when we walked into our local pub and saw a sign for a "special low-calorie lunch".

"What's in it?" she asked the barman. He told her. "I'll have two," she said.

John Wade, Welwyn, Hertfordshire

IN A journalist I know recently phoned a contact to get a story, but the man's five-year-old daughter answered instead.

"Of course I can't be angry with you, darling. At least, not since the Botox..."

"Isyour dad in?" my friend asked.

"No," she replied.

"Is your mum in?" "No."

"Is there anyone there with you?"

"Just my brother," the small child replied.

"Can I speak to him?"

"Just a minute, I'll see."

My friend waited and waited. Eventually, the little girl returned.

"Hello," she said.

"Well, can I speak to your brother?"

"Afraid not. I can't lift him out of his cot."

John McEntee, London

We met a lovely hotel waitress while on holiday. She was a Latvian law student earning some cash during her gapyear. Her English was good and she was attentive and polite.

The only time she looked perplexed was when I asked for a finger bowl. After seeking advice, she returned with a small bowl of warm water and lemon. Placing this on the table, she laid a dessertspoon next to it and departed.

Fred Peach, Staple Cross, East Sussex

TO WORK PAY

Queueing

for a bus recently, I heard the lady in front of me ask the driver if he was going to Fleetwood.

"It says Blackpool on the front," he snapped rudely.

"Yes, and it says Stagecoach on the side," she retorted, "But you're not driving a horse.

Doreen

Conner, Old Glossop, Derbyshire

Preparing for our 50th wedding anniversaryat a posh restaurant, I decided to wear my new elasticated "magic knickers" for their slimming effect.

After a delicious first

course, I went to the toilet, where the "magic" quickly wore off. Struggling gamely with my supportive smalls, I managed to dislocate my thumb.

Still, the nurse in A&E was very polite in wishing us a happy anniversary!

Marie Ingham, Forest Hill, London

I was out shopping with my daughter Molly when I noticed that I'd somehow mislaid a £20 note. I dragged her back to every shop we'd been in, but to no avail.

Giving up, we headed to a cashpoint and I withdrew another £20. Delighted, Molly piped up, "All that searching and it was there all along!"

Jenny allies, Cove, Argyll and Bute

44PecIal".

WHAT MAKES A GOOD DAY?

For Lyn Holmes it's calling the Macmillan Support Line and speaking to someone who can ease her worries about money

"Even though I received sick pay after being diagnosed with breast cancer," says Lyn, "money soon became a bigger worry than the cancer or treatment. I would stay up all night thinking, 'How am I going to pay my bills?' It was then that my district nurse told me to ring Macmillan - advice I'm still grateful for today."

Someone who understands

Lyn says that when she called the Macmillan Support Line she was soon speaking to someone who knew the support she needed. "The lady was so helpful. She broke everything down so it was easy to understand and told me about the benefits I could apply for. She also told me to get in touch with my gas supplier as I could be put on an essential tariff. It was something I knew nothing about, but after just one phone call my payments started to drop."

During her first call to Macmillan, Lyn says she was also told that she could apply for one of their grants to help with any practical needs she had. "The thing I was desperate for was a vacuum cleaner. Because of an operation under my arm, I was really struggling to push my old one around. I said this in my application and in no time I was sent the money fora new cleaner. For a house-proud person like me, that was a real blessing."

Constant money worries

It's now 18 months since Lyn was diagnosed with breast cancer. She says things are still really tough financially but she does know

there's always someone she can turn to.

"Yesterday was a bad day. I didn't feel very well and the money thing got on top of me. I rang the Macmillan Support Line and as soon as I told them my name and date of birth they knew my situation, who'd supported me before and how they'd helped me. We then began to talk about my current worries and fears, which they really helped to calm.

"It meant I went to bed last night less worried and not thinking any more, 'How the hell am I going to make ends meet?' It meant my bad day was turned into a better day, a good day. And that was all because of Macmillan."

CANCER SUPPORT, AT HOME, OVER THE PHONE

arES o U of

1 roti(raw-tee)n A blunt skewer

B unleavened bread C wooden wheel

2 jaconet(jack-er-nit)n A cotton cloth with a stiff finish B barbed comment

C table leg

) dacoit(dack-oyt)n A ancient form of skittles B armed robber C ornate library

4 chit n A angry rebuke B bird's flight

C slip of paper used instead of payment

5 dharma (dar-ma)n A mild spice

B energetic dance C good moral behaviour

6 nirvana n A state of spiritual bliss

B screeching noise C sleeping potion

7 avatar n A deity's appearance on earth

B jungle creature C imaginary friend

8 ghee (pronounced with a hard "g")n

A two-pronged fork B clarified butter

C damp cave

9 cummerbund n A shopping street

B sash worn round the waist C fishing bag

10 doolallyadj A focused B fun-loving

C mentally unbalanced

11gymkhana n A fitness instructor

B stone barn C horse-riding competition

12 Brahmin(bra-minn)n

A priestly caste B intricate waistcoat

C holy mountain

Harry Mount, language guru, tests your knowledge

The British Empire spread the English language across the globe. But it wasn't all one-way traffic—lots of Indian words, in particular, were absorbed into English. To celebrate Diwali on November 5, see how many Indian words you know by picking A, B or C below

rajpramukh(rarj-prer-muhk)n

A island palace B state governor

C royal executioner

14 dhoti(doe-tee) n A motorised bicycle B jewelled casket C cloth wound round the body

15 suttee n A a prince's mute servant B widow burned on husband's funeral pyre C brick ice-house

A WORD IS BORN

Cover star Daniel's %, • top word? Moob."I'm *. not sure if it's a real word or just slang for 'man boobs', but it always makes me *.„ crack up at the wrong time"

Hot-dogging

The Oxford English Dictionary allowed "hot-dogging" into its pages thisyear, with two meanings. One is simple—"the buying, selling or eating of hot dogs". But the other is a slang US term, defined as "boasting, especially by a surfer". The first surfers liked moving in a straight line towards the beach. Then pioneers started to turn into the wave and pull off all sorts of fancytricks. This was called hot-dogging, from an RD RATING expression of excitement Useful? 3/10 or approval—"Hot dog!" Likeable? 7/10

WORD POWER

roti—B unleavened bread. "The roti in the restaurant had seen better days."

2 jaconet—A cotton cloth with a slightly stiff finish. From the town ofJagannath Puri in eastern India where the cloth was made.

How

earth. "He wasn't pleased that his avatar was rude." Sanskrit avatara (descent).

8 ghee—B clarified butter. "The best ghee came from her cow."

9 cummerbund—B sash worn round the waist. "Cary Grant's cummerbund shone at the Oscars." Urdu kamar-band (loin band).

Did You Do?

9-11 a good attempt 12-13 you're starting to impress us here 14-15 you're a word-power wizard!

3 dacoit—B armed robber. "Dacoits attacked in gangs." Hindi dakait.

4 chit—C slip of paper. "He ordered another drink and signed yet another chit." Hindi chitthi (letter or note).

dharma—C good moral behaviour. "He sought dharma in all he did." Sanskrit dharma (decree or custom).

6 nirvana—A spiritual bliss. Sanskrit nis (out) andva (to blow). In Buddhist terms, blowing out negative feelings

7 avatar—A deity's appearance on

10 doolally—C unbalanced. "He went doolally with the builders."

From the town of Deolali and its notorious transit camp for British troops.

11 gymkhana—C horse-riding competition. "She was a gymkhana girl, always in jodhpurs."

12 Brahmin—A priestly caste. "He had the grand Brahmin air about him." Sanskrit brahman (praise, worship).

13 rajpramukh—B state governor. "The rajpramukhs governed the old princely states after 1947." Hindirajya (state) and pramukh (chief).

14 dhoti—C cloth wound round the

More Word Power on the Web! For more vocabulary-building fun online, go to readersdigest.co.uk/wordpower.

WORD JOURNEY

Punditthese days usually refers to sports pundits— Alan Hansen, Gary Lineker, Geoffrey Boycott. In fact, it has ancient, non-sporting origins. Pundit comes from the Hindi pandit, meaning "learned" or "skilled", and was used in a strictly Indian context to mean a highly educated Hindu.

In the early days of British rule, it referred to an Indian law officer or land surveyor. As the 19th century wore on, pundit started to be used in a more general way to mean "expert"—notably on etiquette, politics and sport. body. "He tucked his dhoti into his waistband."

15 suttee—B widow burned on husband's funeral pyre. "She was forced to go through the suttee ritual." Hindisati (faithful wife).

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

WHEREWOULD YOURTEETHBE WITHOUT YOURGUMS?

If you're not looking after your gums, you're not looking after your teeth. So Corsodyl, with thirty years of experience in gum care, has formulated brand new Corsodyl Daily Gum & Tooth Paste. It has the benefits of a regular toothpaste, and with regular brushing can help maintain tight and healthy gums. While the taste might surprise you, there's a good chance you'll never go back to ordinary toothpaste again. DISCOVER

NOT IF, BUT WHEN...

Nice to see you

Byaround 2015,a new transplant could bring hope to sufferers of age-related blindness. Macular degeneration causes vision in the centre of the retina to blur or darken—it's a devastating and debilitating condition, afflicting millions of older people worldwide.

Now the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a device its Californian makers call the Implantable Miniature Telescope, which can offer a solution for some. Smaller than a pea, it's implanted under the cornea, where it enlarges the central area of vision, projecting it across outer parts of the retina and reducing the impact of the blurred centre.

It won't work for everyone, but at best

Gary Rimmer 1 takes a look at what the future has in store

it restores the ability to discern the faces of loved ones, immensely improving quality of life.

Drip-dry beach

Water-repellent sand could cut water demand bythreequartersby 2020.Most of the water used in the Middle East is for irrigation. The problem with the sandy soil is that water quickly seeps away, while simultaneously pushing toxic salt up to the surface. But a pioneering type of hydrophobic sand being manufactured in the United Arab Emirates, using a special coating, could have dramatic benefits. Though water-resistant sand isn't new, the idea of a layer a few inches thick underneath topsoil is. It will allow farmers to water plants

just once a day, reducing water consumption by up to 75 per cent.

Auto abduction

Could you be kidnapped byyour car? Researchers have already demonstrated a driverless car—with us by around2025—ableto navigate roads and driving conditions automatically. No more drink-driving issues: the car will take you home!

But with increased WiFi features and up to 100 computers, modern cars are increasingly vulnerable to external hackers.

Imagine being kidnapped in your own car, locked in and immobile for days unless you pay a ransom! Or running on somebody else's autopilot, straight for the edge of that cliff...

If your car is more than three years old the chances are it is no longer covered by the manufacturer's original warranty With Car Protect Mechanical Breakdown Insurance, we can help to get you covered, so once more protecting your car against costly unforeseen repair bills*

As an exclusive offer to Reader's Digest , Car Protect will include ce with every Warranty purchased. free Roadside Assistance - just call 0844 249 8252 and quote RD11-10

INSTANT EXPERT

The US midterm elections

It looks like President Obama is in for a tricky time in the midterm elections, held across the US on November 2. The midterms involve all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 37 of the 100 seats in the Senate, the two bodies that shape legislation in the US. The Republicans are ahead of the Democrats in the polls by the biggest margin for 68 years.

■ If the polls are correct, the Democrats will lose the House of Representatives, which they currently hold by 39 seats, by around 12 seats. But they still have a good chance of retaining

the Senate, the more prestigious house with greater voting privileges. At the moment they control it with a 59-41 majority.

The midterms are usually bad for the party of the incumbent president.

In the past 17 midterms, the incumbent's party has lost, on average, four seats in the Senate and 28 in the House of Representatives.

■ President Obama can also console himself that a bad showing doesn't necessarily mean curtains.

In 1994, when the Democrat Bill Clinton was, like Obama, halfway through his first term, the Republicans took control of the House, gaining a massive

Harry Mount gives you the facts behind the news

54 seats. Despite this, Clinton went on to win a second term.

Like much of the US system, the midterms are run on a much more rigid basis than our own elections. They always take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, two years after the presidential elections, which also take place every four years.

■ In recent polls, only 35 per cent believed the US was heading in the right direction—similar to the closingyears of George W Bush's presidency. All the same, there's still another two years until the next presidential election. But that doesn't mean there won't be a few chewed fingernails in the White House on November 2.

For more on the midterms, go to readersdigest. co.uk/links.

Guide Dogs has been transforming lives for almost 80 years.

Will you be part of the next 80?

Since 1931, we have helped to create tens of thousands of life-changing partnerships between guide dogs and blind or partially sighted people. These partnerships have helped to restore people's independence, confidence and mobility. But without the generosity of people making gifts to Guide Dogs in their Wills, two thirds of these special partnerships would never have been possible. You could help us create even more guide dog partnerships in years to come. To find out how, please call Joette Emerton on 0845 603 1477, send back the form or email giftsinwills@guidedogs.org.uk www.guidedogs.org.uk/giftsinwills

W McGarry and guide dog Skippy, 1930s ;

Please send me more information - including a free DVD - about leaving a gift to Guide Dogs in my Will

Title Name _________

Address

Postcode _____

Telephone No. _

Send your completed form in an envelope to: Joette Emerton, Freepost RSBC-ARYS-YATB, Guide Dogs Gifts in Wills Team, Chippenham SN14 6NG

Guide Dogs

IF I RULED THE WORLD

I'dmake sporting events more accessible.I feel angry that there isn't free access to cricket on TV. Sky covers sport very well, but it's expensive. I fell in love with cricket through watching it on matron's telly at prep school—I was always having mystery ailments....

This month, cricketing commentator Jonathan Agnew lays down the law to Caroline Hutton

...I'd ban sponsorship of bookmaking on the pitch. Since tobacco sponsorship was outlawed, a lot of sports have turned to bookmaking for advertising revenue. But encouraging betting on the pitch encourages players to become involved, too.

...I'd form my own governing body for cricket. It would be made up of respected characters in the game, people beyond reproach. The sport is in crisis; its integrity has been damaged by match-fixing scandals and it

JONATHAN AGNEWenjoyed a first-class career as a bowler for Leicestershire and won three Test caps before becoming one of the best-loved voices in radio. This year he celebrates 20years of presentingTest Match Special for the BBC and will be commentating on the Ashes series in Australia, starting this month. His latest book,Thanks, Johnners, has just been published.

needs strong leadership. It's very sad that after a lifetime devoted to the game I find myself being suspicious that all may not be what it seems. Anyone involved in the corruption of sport would be banned for life.

.,.I'd reduce ticket prices. The reason they've become so expensive is because the stadiums have to bid to host the matches—and they need to get the money back through seat revenue. But if the ECB [English Cricket Board] were to keep just six international-class stadiums then the matches would be staged on behalf of the game, not the clubs who ran them.

...I'd ban economy class on airplanes.I simply can't fit into the seats.

...I'd focus on rural communities.City-based politicians shouldn't be making decisions on country life. The waythe fox-hunting ban was handled was a disgrace. Rural communities need their identity restored; they've had atough time these last ten years. Our village in

Leicestershire used to have three pubs, now there's only one. And our nearest shop is Tesco, four miles away. It's tragic.

...I'd raise the driving licence age to 21.5o many young people drive irresponsibly. I drive a lot at night, and I'm often terrified of who I might meet round the next corner. I'd also have a zero-alcohol drink-driving policy—and I like a drink as much as the next person.

...I'd make it impossible to fill your car with the wrong fuel.Four hundred people a day in the UK make this mistake and it can cost up to £6,000 to put right. I'd make it the law to have the correct nozzles and tanks compatible only with each other. It seems like such a simple thingto do.

...I'd stop radio phone-ins.They give national airtime to people who often knowvery little about the subject they're giving an opinion on, and they achieve nothing. I wouldn't dare go on a phone-in to talk about anything other than cricket.

...I'd divide the school year into four terms.Exams now take up the whole summer term—it prevents children from playing sports. And who wants to have such long holidays anyway? I think kids get bored.

WORLD TRAVELLER

Who's doing what around the globe

► There's a new supersubstance in town: algae. It doesn't sound inspiring, but inCZECHOSLOVAKIAthe City Respiration Skyscraper is using algae to clean polluted air. The skyscraper has sponges at its base that suck in the dirty air, then a concrete "ribbon" covered in algae soaks up the CO2 and pumps clean air back out, a bit like an eco-friendly chimney.

► Lost a loved one? Fancy a holiday? GERMANtravel company TUI has combined the two, by teaming up with grief counsellors to offer holidays to the bereaved. Best go to the funeral first, though.

► What's your biggest fear? Respondents in seven of the 16 countries we polled said it was going broke—the other nine chose loneliness. Only seven per cent of those polled said it was losing their looks.

► A bionic generation is on its way; inJAPAN,Panasonic's hair-washing robot uses mechatronic fingers to wash the user's hair, while Mitsubishi's Wakamuru robots—which can recognise faces, sing songs and possess a vocabulary of 10,000 words—are replacing secretaries in some companies.

One minute in school; next minute a superstar. Four famous kids—and their parents—tell us how they coped with being thrust into the spotlight

HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF YOUR CHILD BECAME FAM

Head boy: Daniel Roche, star of BBC sitcom Outnumbered, with his mum

A,Daniel. Roche

11, from Hertfordshire. Plays Ben in BBC1 hit

comedy Outnumbered and has the starring rote in the new BBC version of Just William I think acting is pretty easy. Well, I find it easy. It's just like playing a game, really. Pretending. I look forward to being on the set ofOutnumbered.My friends are there and we have the best cook in the world. The desserts are my favourite. One day we had a whole banoffi pie! ForJust William I was a bit on edge because I was so excited about being William. For a boy of my age, it has to be one of the best parts you could ever get.

People say that I'm famous, but I don't think 1 am. I've been mobbed a couple of times and my friends thought that was really funny. It happened once when I was at a local funfair and then when I was just walking down the street. All these

girls and boys were, like, "Oh my God, it's Ben!" It made me a bit embarrassed.

I don't really talk about being on TV when I'm at school. I got into trouble for not sitting down in class and one of the girls said, "You can't tell him off—he's on telly." And if we're playing sports, the other boys say, "Oh no, Daniel...we'll never win. We're outnumbered!" But they're not jealous. We all laugh about what I do.

The first time I saw myself on TV was a bit weird, but now it's no different from watching other programmes. I don't sit there and cringe, saying, "Oh no, I look awful!" That's what attention-seekers do. I just sit on the sofa and smile.

If another boy was thinking of being an actor, I would definitely say it's a good idea. I love being onOutnumbered. But I have no idea what I'll be when I grow up. Writing

is in my family, so maybe I'd be a good author or journalist. Hmm...what about archaeology? That'd be great!

Judy Roche

Daniel's mum. A teacher

It was Daniel who decided he wanted to go to drama classes. When he was a littl boy, his friend was going and she wante him to come along so she wouldn't be o her own. About three weeks later, an ag got in touch and he landed his first job an advert for Huggies nappies. He got a few more ads, a part onCasualty and th he was asked to do Outnumbered.

I refuse to get carried away. Yes, he' doing well at the moment, but it might all end tomorrow. And if it does, so wha He's got his whole life ahead of him an it doesn't revolve around acting.

There have been a couple of tim when I've been worried. You do rea articles about famous children who go the rails. At one of the awards ceremon Daniel was excited aboutOutnumbere being nominated and when it didn't win he was really upset. There was a niggle at the back of my mind that it might all be too much for him. Then I thought,If he was in the school football team and they got to the final and lost, he'd be just, as devastated.

The key is balance. He's got his actin but he has his real life, too. I don't want to interrupt his schooling; being with hi friends; playing rugby. He was rehearsi for a play recently, but he kept saying, "I don't want to miss Boys' Brigade camp."

I don't have to worry about keeping h. feet on theground—he does that hims ust w minis e6mirig soonOn-66ci.

Faryl Smith

15, from Northamptonshire. Mezzo-soprano who came fifth in ITV's Britain's Got Talent in 2008. She made the top five with her debut album Faryl

Even when I was singing in the local church aged ten, people used to come up to me and tell me how good I was. But it didn't really mean anything. All I cared about was singing. It was only when I walked into the Britain's Got Talent studio that things began moving to another level.

Strange stuff started happening. People began pointing at me in the street. Friends asked for my autograph, joking that they wanted to get it before I became too famous. When we went on the Britain's Got Talent tour, there were hundreds of girls screaming and chasing after our bus.

It was mental, but it also becomes part of everyday life. I sang at the FA Cup Final in front of 90,000 people thisyear. I remember asking my dad, "What am I doing next week?" and he said, "You're singing at Wembley." Something like that is so bigyou can't getyour head around it. But I was actually more nervous when I sang at my church in Kettering!

Am I rich? Well, I suppose I've got more money than some people my age. When we needed a new car to travel to concerts, I was the one who bought it. That was strange. As a kid, you get so used to wanting things and not being able to afford them. If my dad ever says

to me, "No, you can't have one of those," I pull his leg and say, "Hang on, Dad, it's my money."

People have always said I'm very level-headed —maybe that's helped me to cope with it all. You look at what happened to somebody like Michael Jackson and you begin to understand how things can get out of control. When you're famous, it's like you're in a car travelling down the road so fast that you can't get out. If you can't get back to reality, that's when the problems start.

Tony Smith

Faryl's dad and manager

Faryl Smith's amazing voice rocketed her to fame on Britain's Got Talent

Life as we knew it ended the day Simon Cowell heard Faryl sing. When someone like him says that she's the best thing he's seen in years, the world takes notice. Your phone starts ringing like mad and you get journalists turning up on your doorstep. Record companies were offering Faryl tens of thousands of pounds—more money than I've ever made in a whole year! That's when you need the

Faryl with mum Linda and dad

Tony

strong family unit. There's no doubt the last couple of years have put a tremendous strain on us. We've been to hell and back! Terrible, terrible arguments...worrying about who we can trust.

I remember one man I met described Faryl as a cow. I wasn't quite sure what he meant, but then he said, "Everyone will try to milk her." Now I understand.

Despite those problems, our family has managed to pull together. We can look back and think what a fantastic journey it's been. I mean, Faryl's sung at Wembley, the Albert Hall and the Royal Variety Performance. Lady Gaga was watching her from the side of the stage! Whoopi Goldberg was on the bill and just walked up to Faryl, gave her a big hug and said, "Girl, where the hell did you get that voice?"

We've all learned a lot sinceBritain's GotTalent. Number one: don't make money and fame your motivator. That's not the reason we're here. We're here because Faryl loves singing. She makes all the decisions about what she does. If she's not happy, we don't do it.

■ Visit readersdigest.co.uk/links for all the latest on Faryl.

George Sampson

17, from Warrington. Dancer who won Britain's Got Talent in 2008 and starred in this year's hit film StreetDance 3D

WinningBritain's GotTalent and suddenly being thatfamous was scary. You don't know what's going to happen.

I remember sayingto myself, "Don't change." It's difficult because the whole world starts allowingyou to act like a celebrity. There's a thin line between being yourself and behaving like an idiot. Luckily,

I had my mum to stop me doing that. There are some people who don't like it when you become well known. There are people who hate me. Yeah, hate. If I go out in my home town, I know that some lads are going to have ago at me. I've been beaten up. Maybe they don't like the idea of someone like them doingwell. Luckily, I'm pretty laid back about stuff like that. If you want to be a dancer or enter a talent show,you should go for it!

Yes, there will be ups and downs. Deal with them. Yes, you'll make mistakes. Learn from them. Everyone deserves the chance to make it. •

Forget Gene Kelly—George Sampson showed us how we shous1 really go dancing in-the rain; (inset) George with his three sisters

Lesley Sampson

George's mum and manager

Fame is a conveyor belt. You get picked up at one end and dropped off at the other when people have got tired of you. I'm sorry if that sounds hard, but that's how I've had to live my life these last couple of years.

If you're 14—like George was when he first went on the show—you need people there with you. A child needs to know that he can trust his mother. I'll admit that I'm not perfect. I certainly regret taking George out of school and not making him take his exams.

Most people that he meets are really nice. We get people turning up at the house, but they usually just want to wish him well. There are occasional issues, though. One person stuck a camera through the letter box and put pictures of the house on the internet. Why would you want to do that?

The papers haven't always been kind to the family, either. Some of the things have been heartbreaking. They called George's sister Chelsea a prostitute. They called me a gold-digger. Rubbish! Chelsea did pole dancing, but she wasn't a prostitute. She's had to move abroad to get away from those stories.

Would I change things if I could go back in time? Well, even with all the problems, I'd still let him go on the show. BeforeBritain's GotTalent,I was worried about losing the house and we didn't even have enough money for George's dance lessons. His success has been a blessing.

■ Follow George's progress at readers digest.co.uk/links.

Tom Daley

16, from Plymouth. FINA Diving World Champion—competed in the Beijing Olympics, aged just 14, and at last month's Commonwealth Games

Being well-known foryour sport is different to being in a band or being a film star. Footballers may make it to the front page, but you just don't get celebrity divers. When people suddenly wanted to interview me before the Olympics, it was surreal.

If you do become famous—and that's not a word I'd use to describe myself—I'm sure it can distract you, but I'm always so focused on my training. I actually quite enjoy doing press. And I get asked to do things like introducing one of the acts at the Royal Variety Performance.

Some kids made fun of me. But all the stuff that was written about the bullying was blown out of proportion. I enjoy diving so much that it sort of cancels out all the bad stuff.

Unfortunately, some young people don't seem to be as keen on fitness as they were 20 or 30 years ago, but I still do get a lot of kids and parents asking me about getting into sport. The main thing I always tell them about is the hard work. Your life revolves around training and competitions. If you think it's all about being famous and going to celebrity parties, you're in fora very big shock.

Deb Daley

Tom's mum. Financial administrator at a nursery Tom's been swimming since he was three and diving since he was seven. He'd won a few competitions but we didn't know how good he was until he won the under-18s national championship —aged ten!

That was a lot for him to take in, but he wasn't big-headed. He never went into a competition saying,"I'm better than everyone else." In fact, it didn't really matter to him if he didn't win. All he wanted was to do his best.

Tom's been called the David Beckham of diving. When your child takes up diving,you hope they'll win something. But famous?

The twister doing the twist; (inset) with mum Deb

Don't be silly. But kids are now getting into the sport because of him. You hear people saying, "Oh, he's going to be the next Tom Daley."

Tom was bullied at one point, but he rose above it and he's had a lot of positive attention, too. I'm not saying this because I'm his mum, but he's a good-looking lad and girls really do love him when he's walking about town. I have to say, I've never heard him complain about that!

■ Tom Daley will be taking part in the National Cup, Southend, in January. Tom is a member of Team Nestle, supporting the Get Set Go Free campaign.

AU stories as told to Danny Scott

Cod that isn't cod, "organic" vegetables covered in pesticides, dubious food dyes—how much do you know about what's really on your plate in a restaurant?

You wouldn't eat that at home

By Alex Renton

Every year, millions of us pay extra for free-range eggs, sustainable fish and organic vegetables to avoid consuming harmful chemicals. We steer clear of certain "E numbers" linked to medical conditions and we opt for locally produced food.

So when we go out for a meal, perhaps spending our entire weekly shopping budget, we expect the food sourcing to be just as considered. We'd be wrong.

Not only do the ethical and health standards of food served in restaurants—from Indian takeaways to topclass eateries—often fall some way short of what you'd

Dolphin-unfriendly tuna steak with additive-laden sauce

£10.25

"Sustainably caught" scallops, caught by dragging heavy machinery across the seabed

£15.50

Heart-attack salt-and-cream soup

£12.95 ■ .)Yri t r r

Fake cod, served on a bed of pesticide-coated spinach

£29.$.0

Locally sourced sole, farmed in Vietnam

£34.75 "Organic" pork bellyfrom pigs reared in cages

0"/..

"Locally sourced" strawberries and cream from the mini-mart Erz.so Battery-egg souffle f9.50 * * *

All courses served with cheap a imported plonk, labelled "local" and "organic"

£34.75

eat at home, but some establishments are actually conning customers. Menus are peppered with labels such as "sustainable", "local" and "organic", which allow restaurants to charge a premium, but the truth can be very different.

Part of the problem is that policing of restaurants is pretty much nonexistent. In 2006, Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council prosecuted Julie's Restaurant, patronised by Kate Moss and Kylie Minogue, for describing meat as organic when it wasn't. It was fined £7,500. But this wasn't a random check: the council had been tipped off by a disgruntled supplier.

A Kensington and Chelsea spokesman couldn't give me any statistics for recent investigations: he told me that staff did not do "focused work" on restaurant labelling. "It's at the lower-risk end unless there's a food-safety issue," he said. This is a pattern repeated across the country, with councils really only acting if there's a complaint.

"Everyone knows that Trading Standards are busy with dodgy motors or trouble in Portobello Market," one Notting Hill restaurateur told me.

Thought for food

Look out for these labels on restaurant windows and on menus—they mean that the food you're being served meets ethical standards

"Environmental Health have got their hands full, too. A bit of creative menu writing isn't top of their agendas."

It doesn't help that terms like "local" and "sustainable" have no legal definition, so restaurants misuse them. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) did have plans to change the legal status of several terms, but in July the Government announced that it was going to scale down the FSA and its work.

So the burden lies on you, the customer. If you believe that "good" food isn't just about taste, you'll need to become your own policeman.

When local isn't local

"Local" is the biggest new buzzword, frequently used on menus. "Consumers like it because it suggests the produce is seasonal, hasn't racked up food miles and supports local businesses," says Giles Gibbons of the Sustainable Restaurant Association.

But because it has no legal definition, many businesses interpret it as it suits them. It can mean bought, not produced, in the vicinity. A survey by the Green

Indicates the restaurant is actively committed to issues of sustainability

Means the vessel supplying the fish conforms to good practice guidelines

50% of hotels and guest houses use "locally sourced" to describe food purchased at a nearby supermarket

Tourism Business Scheme found that 50 per cent of hotels and guest houses use "locally sourced" to describe food purchased at a nearby supermarket. Large prawns are often described as "local" when all except the Dublin Bay variety come from the tropics.

This spring, McDonald's green campaign boasted that all its beef was sourced from Britain and Ireland. But that's not particularly local either. The burger may have covered hundreds of miles from farm to processing factory and then to the restaurant.

It doesn't stop with cheaper establishments. A smart Edinburgh restaurant's menu recently featured "local scallops". I know there's no commercial scallop diving near Edinburgh, so I asked the waitress what the menu meant. She hesitated a moment, then went to get

her boss. He told me the scallops were from the west coast of Scotland.

"That's local?" I asked.

"It's only 150 miles from here to Skye," he said.

I asked him to show me the label from the box, but he refused.

Even well-intentioned establishments offer few guarantees. Christoph Brooke, a hotelier and restaurateur with upmarket sites around the Home Counties, told me, "We source products within 50 miles of a hotel. I like to spend my money where it will do good locally. But that doesn't mean I ask the butcher where his meat is from."

WHAT TO DOBe aware of what's in season. Asparagus is unlikely to be "local" in Britain before May, for example, and could come from as far away as Peru. With meat or dairy, ask the restaurateur

Means that the seafood comesfrom an approved fishery

Ensures that products have organic origins and production processes

Guarantees that all eggs are free range—ifyou're unsure, simply ask

where his supplier is based (or get him to show you the packaging).

Look out for terms like "wherever possible" or "as much as we can". If the commitment isn't definite, it may hardly be observed at all. Check with the Sustainable Restaurant Association for eateries committed to local sourcing (see readersdigest.co.uk/links).

Unsustainable claims

"Sustainable" is another widely misused menu term. "I know restaurants that say they're sustainable because they've changed to low-energy light bulbs," says one London chef. "If they're not saying exactly what they're doing, they're probably not doing much."

Those "local" Edinburgh scallops were also described as "sustainably caught", but the only way to do this is to dive for them (look for "hand caught" or "dived"). These cost at least 20 per cent more than my scallops, which were probably harvested by dredging— heavy iron machinery pulled across the seabed. You couldn't design anything less sustainable.

Also, our understanding of "sustainability" changes. Some restaurants used to boast that they didn't use produce from Africa, but intensive farming of vegetables in Europe probably uses more energy. Labels like "dolphinfriendly", which signify the use of escape panels in fishing nets, are now scorned by ecologists, who say that any net will kill unwanted creatures.

WHAT TO DO Again, check with the Sustainable Restaurant Association

for local establishments that try to be sustainable. Look out for the logos of the Marine Stewardship Council or the Responsible Fishing Scheme, which is run by industry body Seafish.

In cod we trust?

Trading Standards officers have estimated that some 30 per cent of cod sold in fish-and-chip shops isn't cod at all. Investigations in Warwickshire over the last two years have resulted in several prosecutions for passing off pangasius (a type of catfish produced by intensive farming in tropical countries) as cod, which is as much as three times more expensive. Fish farmed in Vietnam has also been passed off as sole.

Conditions in these overseas farms can be atrocious. I won't eat tropical prawns because I've visited Vietnamese breeding ponds next to sheds stacked full of chemicals, some illegal. Pesticides, antibiotics and growth enhancers are commonly used, and policing is inadequate in the producer countries and in Europe.

WHAT TO

DO The

Marine Stewardship Council or Responsible Fishing logos should ensure the food is what it says it is. Ask to see the suppliers' box labels, which must, by law, describe how the fish was produced. The government doesn't make restaurants obey the same rules on its menus. Fish that sound "wild", such as sea bass, cod, halibut and carp, are frequently farmed, and mussels are the only seafood farmed without chemicals or artificial feed.

The RSPCA reported that while only 58% of eggs sold in shops come from battery hens, in restaurants it's 80%

Inorganic matters

Organic food can be 15-100 per cent more expensive, so if the restaurant doesn't boast of its organic ingredients, you can be sure it's not using them. Be aware also that strongly sauced dishes gen erally use cheaper ingredients. The cheaper they are, the more pesticides and disinfectants are likely to have been used, due to the higher risk of disease and pests in intensive farming.

With restaurants able to charge considerably more for organic food, fraud is a major problem. One west London restaurateur told me, "I can sell a breast of organic chicken sauced and plated for £15. In the trade, we aim for a 70 per cent mark-up on a dish, so if I can halve the cost of that chicken by choosing something that sells at £4 per kilo rather than £8, I'm very happy."

At London's New Covent Garden, a clearing house for vegetables from all over the world, a major supplier told me he labels his produce by origin and method of production. "But I see my stuff on some menus and I'm amazed at what gets said about it," he said.

There's no easy way for customers to know if claims are genuine, so they seldom complain—and restaurants are rarely investigated.

WHAT TO DO Ask restaurateurs if you can see the Soil Association label on the packaging. Report any suspicions to Trading Standards or the FSA.

Heart-stopping stuff

Perhaps the biggest scandal in the catering industry is the use of trans-fats, also known as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (HVOs). It's thought that most of Britain's 10,000 fried-food takeaways use them. They're cheap and so easy to strain that the fat in a deep fryer is often changed less than once a month.

Once used in everything from margarine to chocolate bars, these fats are now being phased out because they've been found to be far more harmful than saturated fats in causing strokes, heart attacks and obesity. A report in the British Medical Journal by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health said cutting our intake by just one per cent would prevent 7,000 deaths annually in England alone. Even McDonald's and KFC have got rid of them.

WHAT TO DO I've asked chip shops if they use trans-fats or HVOs and got blank looks. If they let me see the container the oil came in, it always turns out to be an HVO. Perhaps it's simpler

to avoid deep-fried stuff if you want to look after your heart.

Free range or battery

Eggs are the main concern here. The RSPCA recently reported that while only 58 per cent of eggs sold in shops now come from battery hens, in restaurants it's 80 per cent.

WHAT TO DO If a restaurant displays the RSPCRs black-and-white "Simply Ask" cockerel logo, it's committed to eggs from cage-free poultry farms.

Colour me bad

The public has grown wary of buying products with synthetic colourings linked to allergies and hyperactivity

Snap S chott

in kids. They're known as the "dirty six" azo dyes, made from coal tar. Most food manufacturers are phasing them out. They are still commonly used in restaurant sauces, however, especially in establishments that like vivid effects. It's not unlikely that if you're eating a deep-pink chicken masala, you'll be eating one or more of the azo dyes.

WHAT TO DO Ask restaurants if they use any of these: sunset yellow (Ell0); carmoisine (E122); tartrazine (E102); ponceau 4R (E124); quinoline yellow (E104); allura red (E129).

>> Alex Renton is the Guild of Food Writers Food Journalist of the Year 2010.

>> Are you surprised or angered by some of the claims restaurants make? Email readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk.

Waste Not Want Not by Ben Schott

Below is the breakdown of food and drink wasted in 2008 by UK households:

Type of food and drink

Bread

Vegetables

Potatoes

Fruit

Cereal products

Meat and fish

Desserts, cakes, sweets

Eggs

Dairy products

Soft drinks

Alcoholic drinks

Other

"When dad died we discovered he'd saved us from added distress by arranging and paying for his funeral in advance."

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

The Plan guarantees to cover the cost of a cremation funeral

Unlike other forms of saving, when you take out an Age UK Guaranteed Funeral Plan, you can avoid rising funeral costs by paying at today's prices. Then, no matter how much costs rise in the future, the Plan guarantees to cover them in full.

Acceptance is guaranteed, with no restrictions Buy

If you are aged 50 or over, you're guaranteed to be accepted. 30 November to No medical is required and no health questions will be asked.

Lines open Monday to Friday - 9.00am to 5.00pm Visit www.ageuk.org.uk/funeralplan

Complete and return the coupon below, or pop into your local Age UK to talk things through face to face*

offer all Age UK Products. VonDiLitcy:rioAurrscienxrprgentikiirmaidteeds(uattsounttgrdf)43nIty plc). Registered Office: Advance Planning Limited, 720 PH.Registered in England, No.

1

Could you write a gripping tale using just 100 words? Our fantastic super-short story competition is now open to schools, too, so everyonehasa chancetowin!

ATTENTION ALL SCHOOLS!

We've already had afantastic response to our 100-word story competition, launched last month. So fantastic, in

fact, that we're now extending the competition to schools, with two new categories: for children up to 11 years old; and for those aged 12-18. So now everyone has an incentive to get writing!

Entries for all categories should be sent to theeditor@ readersdigest. co.ukor submitted atreadersdigest. co.uk/100word story*by January 31. The story in the adult category voted

MARK BILLINGHAM

There's barely any moon, but her headlights illuminate it as she swings round the corner. The car seat at the side of the road, the baby and—my God—was that blood on the blanket?

She pulls over and runs back.

Who would leave a baby like that?

Where were the parents?

A man appears from the shadows and walks towards her. Thank heavens! She shouts, "Are you the baby's father?"

It's strange, she thinks, that he looks so unconcerned.

She sees the ketchup spattered on the blanket, gasps and stares down at the pale, waxy face of the doll.

• Mark Billingham is the best-selling author of the Tom Thorne crime novels, the latest of which,From the Dead, is published by Little, Brown. The TV seriesthorne is on Sky One now.

best by our panel of judges will receive £5,000. Two runners-up will receive £100 in book tokens—and all three tales will be published inReader's Digest.

In the schools categories,the prize is £1,000-worth of highstreet vouchers of their choice for the winner in each category, and £1,000 for their school. Mark each entry "Schools: Slci) 11-year-old category" or "Schools: 12- to-18-year-old djiir category", as appropriate.

To help inspire you to get started, see how Mark Billingham, an one of Britain's top writers, rose to the challenge (above)...

Mock the Week host Dara 0 Briain, 38, on the joys of

video games, religion—and Caramac bars

I Remember...

...living in a seaside town. I grew up in Bray, just outside Dublin. It's what I call a retired seaside town—the glamour's gone and the bright lights have faded. But I didn't have an unhappy childhood or anything like that. Bray is full of wonderful people, and it's always a joy to go back, but after I'd finished my exams, I was desperate to leave. The excitement and the energy of Dublin was just over the horizon; I could almost hear it calling me.

...playing my first video game at eight years old. I loved video games then and I love them now In fact, now that I'm older, I appreciate them in ways I could never have dreamed of when I was eight. I'm not actually that good at them, but I do love playing them. The gaming industry is packed with incredible creative talent and you've

got a level of success that outshines music, TV and film. Obviously, some people go on about them influencing teenage behaviour, but I totally disagree. Video games stop teenagers hanging around on street corners causing trouble. They're all in their bedrooms, stuck in front of the TV!

...the first time I came to Britain. We used to come on family holidays to England when I was a kid. What always

struck me was the huge range of chocolate bars. I walked into a sweet shop and it was like walking into heaven. The best one was the Caramac. This orangey-coloured, inhumanly delicious concoction... you could almost hear your teeth screaming in agony. As soon as we got off the boat, my only thought was, How do I get hold of a Caramac?

...realising I was a nerd. Like most 13-year-old boys, I went through that whole thing of thinking I was the dullest, most unattractive kid in the whole school. I was shy, I was

awkward and, just to make things even worse, I was frighteningly good at maths. Yes, I was the one who used to sit at the back of the class answering all the questions.

Eventually, as I hit 16 or 17, I learned to embrace that geekiness. I realised that it didn't matter if people made fun of you because you were good at maths. So what? It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

...the first joke I ever told in public. I was in my second year at University College Dublin and had managed to

claw my way into the Maiden Speaker's Competition. The joke itself doesn't matter —indeed, if you weren't in the room at that particular moment, you won't even get it. But what really struck me was the reaction of the audience. People laughed, people clapped and people even cheered!

I was never seen as the class clown, so I can honestly say I'd never experienced anything like this. It was a heady rush of excitement. MyGod, they're laughing!

...getting a job as a kids' TV presenter.Within three weeks of leaving college, I'd managed to talk myself into a job on [Irish TV channel] RTE. Back then I was a very mediocre talent. Actually, I wasn't even good enough to be mediocre.

The truth was that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, so I was just trying anything that came along— Dublin has always been a great place to have a go at stuff. Thankfully, I managed to get out before anyone realised how rubbish I was.

...describing myself as "technically Catholic". If you're from Ireland, you're going to get asked about

Handing out words of wisdom while debating at University College Dublin

religion. It's a tricky one. What do I call myself? Yes, I was born a Catholic, but I don't believe in God and there's no religious aspect to my life. To me, religion is a bit like crown-green bowls: I know it's out there and I know it's popular, but I have absolutely no interest in it.

...seeing Eddie Izzard and thinking, I'm never going to be a stand-up comedian. He was selling out huge theatres and making people laugh for two hours. Could I do that? Not a chance. Making a living from comedy was like me emigrating to Russia to train as a cosmonaut. Even today, I don't know how I managed it.

...being called a "celebrity". Me? A celebrity? You're kidding, aren't you? OK, I'll accept that I'm well known and possibly respected for what I do, but modern celebrity is a million miles away from any of that. Are Grazia and Closer interested in where I go on my holidays? Of course not. Look at me...people don't want to see pictures of me in my swimming trunks. Actually, even if those magazines were interested in me, I wouldn't want to do it.

...going to my first antenatal class. This was a couple of years ago now and it was such a remarkable experience that it's become part of my live show. The sheer amount of airy-fairy, crystal-twirling nonsense that people buy into—the bad science. I was there with my wife, who's a surgeon, and she was saying, "This is rubbish!"

The second day clashed with an Arsenal FA Cup game and in the morning I said to my wife, "Look, I think I've got the gist of this. Is it OK if I go to the match?" In the end, I went to the class. Mind you, I took the ticket with me, just in case I managed to slip away at lunchtime!

talker: co-presenting kids' show Echo Island on Irish TV in 1997 10.

Smooth

...realising there's a stereotype of the "friendly Irishman" we can play up to. You can be quite harsh, but if you stick

a joke at the end of it, everyone

thinks you're a great bloke

...being told that I'd sold out nine nights at London's Hammersmith Apollo.I added up the figures and realised that 25,000 people were coming to see me, more people than there were in Bray. You start to get a bit scared that this is as good as it gets. Every comedy career ends with the same three

words: "Whatever happened to...". If it all ended tomorrow, I'd find something else, maybe even go back to maths.

"Dara sells out" shock!

...Christmas in Dublin.Actually, let me rephrase that—I don't remember Christmas in Dublin! When I was at college, Christmas was several weeks' worth of poisonous nights out. To an extent, that's still the same today. If you're in Dublin, you'll be forced to have a good time. Luckily, family and presents have taken over.

Now I really enjoy relaxing, Christmas dinner, hanging out with friends, giving gifts. And raising the odd toast— only in moderation, of course!

As told to Danny Scott

This month, the bigeye scad

Although it may be a humble-Looking fish, a whole school of bigeye scad (Selar crumenophthalmus) is a sight to behold. Often numbering hundreds of thousands, they're common in tropical waters across the world. And if you don't see them, you may hear them—individual fish produce a rasping sound by grinding their pharyngeal teeth (located in the throat), so a school this size makes a fair din, even underwater.

Blinded by the lights: each display takes 250 hours to set up—and.just ten minutes to fire off

Behind the breathtaking displays of the British Firework Championships, a fierce rivalry burns. Who has the best, and biggest, bangers of all?

Simon Hemelryk reports

WARS.

Photographed by Sam Frost

A weed-covered field near Guildford containing nothing more than three shipping containers and a static caravan is not the sort of location where you expect works of great beauty and technical wizardry to be created. But to one slightly paunchy man in a scruffy T-shirt, it's headquarters for an assault on pyrotechnic glory.

Jason Mayes, boss of Flashpoint Fireworks, is buzzing round his firm's rural base, organising a team of four volunteers as they prepare hundreds of fireworks and electrical connections for the British Firework Championships in Plymouth in a few days' time. The August championships are the FA Cup of the fireworks world, bringing industry acclaim and, potentially, more lucrative displays.

Jason, who set up Flashpoint seven years ago as a result of a lifelong affection for fireworks, has spent the last three months planning the display in his free time.

"To most people, a fireworks show means sticking a rocket in the ground and that's it," says the 41-year-old. "We do something a little more complicated. We'll have eight Roman candles tilted at 45 degrees firing across each other so they fill the front of the display; multipleshot small fireworks going off behind them; and huge shells exploding 700 feet above them. We're painting a picture in the sky and

the explosions will be so precise and rhythmic it'll sound like music."

Despite being relatively new, Flashpoint won last year's British Musical Fireworks Championship in Southport with a display choreographed to fit the tune of Michael Jackson's `Thriller" and the "William Tell Overture". There's no music at the Plymouth championships, but Jason has a trump card—and he's keen to show me what it is.

We jump into his Peugeot estate and drive, Dukes of Hazzard-style, through the field and over a hill to Jason's fireworks store. It's kept in a battered shipping container behind a hedge, but like the rest of the site it's nondescript for a reason. "There are thousands of fireworks in here and they mustn't fall into the wrong hands. There's not even a Flashpoint Fireworks sign at the site entrance. No one must know what we're doing."

"To most people, a fireworks display is just sticking a rocket in the ground"

Inside the container are piles of cardboard boxes containing fireworks with names such as Fiery Eye, Pixie Dust Willow and Glittering Chrysanthemum Silver. Jason starts clambering over them. "I know what I'm standing on," he reassures me.

He emerges with what looks like a head wrapped in brown paper.

"This is the big one—a ten-inch Nishild Kamuro with spangle centre. It's

Inside this innocuous-looking shipping container lie some explosive gems—including the spectacular Nishiki Kamuro (cradled lovingly by Flashpoint boss Jason Mayes)

a big, golden... you'll see what it's like at the end. It's our big finale and should set us apart. Most shells cost about £4. This is from one of China's best manufacturers and cost £160."

As well as all the time and effort, Jason has invested a lot of money in the championships. He won't say exactly how much, but the winner gets £7,500 and that'll only just cover it.

"I don't do this for money," he says. "A council event on November 5 might pay £10,000 but, though we've done corporate displays, we're more likely to do weddings paying £600. Around £100 of that goes on insurance, I pay two guys £170 in total and then the fireworks cost around £200. Some of the bigger teams are full-time, but I work as a graphic designer. The guys that help me are everyone from policemen to health-and-safety officers. We just love the creativity—and the danger."

Professional display teams need insurance and a storage licence before they can buy or handle many types of

pyrotechnics, and many members have training from the British Pyrotechnic Association. Yet the risk of a serious accident remains. "Display shells were made illegal for the public to use in1997 after a scout master had his head blown off," says Jason. "Fireworks have exploded in their tubes and set other ones off. Those glowing stars have burned through people like bullets."

But the chance of proving himself makes all the financial and personal risk of the championships worth it for Jason. "I tender for the big displays at places such as Alton Towers, but they tend to go to the bigger companies. But I know we're as good as them. I want to take this firm to the next level."

There's a lot riding on that final shell. How will Jason feel if it fails to go off?

"Gutted," he says.

Come the day of the championship, Jason, Flashpoint co-owner Paul and eight staff, all working unpaid, arrive on Plymouth Breakwater at 7am to start

HOW DOES A DISPLAY SHELL WORK?

These round, cardboard-covered fireworks range from two to 12 inches wide and have three fuses. One is connected to a bag of "black powder", an explosive charge that launches the firework into the air. The others burn slowly towards the pyrotechnic material in the shell's centre. When the shell reaches its optimum height, the fuse ignites the material and the firework explodes—in the case of this shell, producing red glowing stars.

setting up.Beside them on the 65-footdeep sea defence, jutting some 400 yards into the harbour, are their rivals—SMArt from Salisbury and Star from Berkshire. The other three competitors performed their displays the night before.

"I wasn't that impressed," says Jason. "Their material seemed cheaper than ours: just a bang, when what we've got is a bang, then a crackle, then stars going off in different directions."

Flashman: co-owner Paul Cook, 29, wiring up the hundreds of firing tubes

It's Star, established in 1971 and with several full-time staff, that worries Jason. "They've done the Big Brother final and Rolling Stones concerts. They're the guys to beat."

The Flashpoint team has an arduous, pressurised day ahead, before a display that will attract 200,000 spectators to Plymouth's seafront. Fourteen hundred shells, Roman candles and cakes (which contain layers of different-coloured

fireworks that go off one after another) need to be placed into fibreglass tubes and connected to an electronic lighter. They are then wired up to one of 14 sequencers that ensure the pyrotechnics go off in the right order and communicate with monitoring software that checks to see if everything is working and starts the display remotely.

"We want to set everything up by 6pm, so we've got time to sort out any

problems," says Jason. "The display is at 9.30pm and we've got to get our three support vans off the site by 8pm."

The teams are resolutely male. Only one Flashpoint member, 26-year-old IT technician Rob Eastwood, has managed to get his girlfriend Jo to come and watch, and she's looking bored. "It's not that we talk about fireworks too much..." says Steve Jacobs, 45, a National Trust facilities manager by day. "We could

bring our wives along, but it's expensive. They just go shopping."

Steve Martin, the boss of SMArt, is an affable man, telling me with enthusiasm about the 20-foot Catherine wheel his team is bolting together, "It'll be the biggest the UK has ever seen!"

But Star team leader Andy Hubble, a former police officer, is more straightlaced and competitive. 'We came second to a firm called Pendragon in 2008. We'll do better this year. We've got 2,000 fireworks. One of last night's teams had a nice ring effect on their fireworks. We've got that, but four times bigger."

The atmosphere among the teams is mostly friendly, but with a hint of tension creeping in. "There's supposed to be a weight limit of 500kg on the amount of fireworks we use," says Jason. "But if we've got 1,400 fireworks weighing just under the limit and other people have got 2,000 fireworks...well, I can't comment."

But Jason's not worried by the Catherine wheel. "When we won at Southport another team had one dangling in the sky. That's too much effort on one bit. It's the big bang most audiences like."

On the face of it, the judging seems scrupulous. Invigilator Avril diPalma, a dark-haired, authoritative woman, calls a meeting late in the morning to remind the teams that points will be deducted if their displays are more

than ten minutes long and she'll be inspecting their fireworks later to make sure they match the inventories the teams have given her.

The judges, who'll be watching the display from The Citadel, an army fort across the harbour, are a mix of experts and laymen, including Plymouth's mayor. Avril is a bit secretive about the scoring system, but the variety of colours used, the rhythm of the display and originality are all important.

"It's difficult to know exactly what they want," says Jason. "But we're doing more than just chucking up a load of fireworks and I hope they notice."

For the first few hours, Flashpoint's set-up, a repetitive process of wiring and testing, goes well. But by 5pm Jason seems concerned. "We're a bit behind schedule," he grins through gritted teeth. "But it'll probably be fine."

"My guys have put 250 hours into this and it's not going to be perfect"

Avril's itinerary check passes without incident, though she only inspects a random sample of each team's fireworks.

By 5.30, it's clear that Flashpoint's Gpm finish was rather optimistic, as many tubes still aren't primed. But SMArt are having problems, too. Team member Graham Yates is covered in sweat. "We've got a way to go but we'll finish by 7pm," he says. "What time is it now?"

"Six," I tell him.

Tensions mount as the laptop suggests that several fireworks have problems

"Oh, right. We'll finish by eight. All this for ten minutes!"

The rising unease isn't helped by a massive oil tanker passing a few yards from the breakwater with "No Smoking" signs painted all over it.

By 6.30, Jo has been press-ganged into helping Flashpoint and looks quite enthusiastic, even after dropping the last roll of masking tape—used to cover the firing tubes with foil to avoid sparks igniting the fireworks—into the sea. By 7.15, Star have finished and a couple of team members smugly ask SMArt and Flashpoint if they'd like any help.

At 8.02, both teams seem to have everything connected. But at least ten fireworks aren't showing up on Flashpoint's computer, perhaps because they haven't been fitted with an electronic lighter or there's something wrong with the wiring. The team have to examine each in detail, until, as the crowds start

to mass on the seafront looking over to the breakwater, Jason has no choice but to clear his team, leaving Paul alone to find the problem.

As we take our places in the crowd on a grassy bank, Paul calls Jason. A sequencing box has gone wrong and at least eight fireworks won't detonate.

"It's not disastrous, but my guys have put 250 hours into this and it's not going to be perfect," frets Jason. He walks off to sit by himself a few yards away.

The Flashpoint display starts well, with an array of popping red-and-blue stars and Roman candles. But gaps start to appear, perhaps the result of the faulty sequencer. Still, the oohs of the crowd suggest they haven't noticed—and the big finale will really wow them.

Then, after about eight minutes, nothing. No building crescendo and no Nishiki Kamuro.

I shuffle over to Jason to ask what's

A "crushed" Jason watches his team's display fizzle out

wrong. "Look," he says. "There's a fire on the site." Across the water, a small flame is flickering among the tubes.

Jason looks crushed. I leave him to his thoughts and when I turn round he's disappeared into the night.

To make matters worse, SMArt's display is a riot of lovely pinks and silvers— although the Catherine wheel looks tiny from the seafront. Star, meanwhile, fill the sky with blues and golds, shell blasts and the promised ring explosions. All around me, children tell their friends, "That was my favourite." We don't stay for the presentation

OW TO STAY SPOTLESS

ceremony at The Citadel, but Star duly claim first prize.

A few days later, Jason explains over the phone that the display was ruined by a sequencer that caught fire, taking out the last 180 shells.

"We had to de-rig all the fireworks —it took until 3.30am. The Nishiki Kamuro is back in the container and I've no idea when we can use it. Still, I can't be too upset. No one died."

Will Flashpoint challenge for the title next year? "Maybe not," says Jason, the possible shortcomings of the judging still rankling. "But I'll never give up on competitions or fireworks—I love them."

Flashpoint will be firing displays all over southern England around November 5. Phone 01483 426 01 7 or visit readersdigest. co.uk/links for more details.

Say you're a manufacturer of washing powder—how do you know if your product is good at removing stains? Try Warwick Equest, a leading supplier of "stained test fabrics". The list of stains they provide, along with recommended treatments, shows they've got every base covered...and some they probably didn't need to:

Chili con came: bleach and detergent

Curry ketchup: bleach

Sheep blood with anticoagulant: enzyme

Paprika: bleach

Bacon grease:detergent and enzyme

Coco Pops:detergent and enzyme

Organic carrot and potato baby food: bleach

Peat: particulate

Oats (Oatso Simple): enzyme

Blueberry marmalade: bleach

Sea clay face mask: particulate

Big Ben: £12.99 Contains 47 pieces.

Finished model is 52cm high and 12cm wide.

Suggested average build time: 90 minutes.

and 23cm wide. Suggested average build time: 90 minutes.

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Contains 120 pieces. Finished model is 76cm long and 23cm high. Suggested average build time: 2 hours.

Choose from three world landmark kits, each of which will enable you to build your very own giant scale model of these iconic structures. There is no mess, no special tools are required and no glue is needed. The whole puzzle is ready to go straight from the box.

Building the models will take a little time and patience, but the results are genuinely astonishing, with incredible detail in each model. Each kit includes illustrated instructions and a full colour information brochure about the landmark. The puzzles are made from high quality EPS foam board and can be taken apart, stored and rebuilt. Box sizes approx. 22.5cm x 29.5cm.

For ages8 to adult (5 to 7 year olds nappy will be able to build the models with puzzle some adult assistance)

VITAMIN LEAGUE TABLE

New research suggests that some vitamins might be more—or less— effective than we thought.

Jerome Burne produces his end-of-term report

While everyone agrees that vitamins are vital for good health, they are also a topic of fierce disagreement. Most doctors and dietitians claim that we can get as many as we need from a "healthy balanced diet", but many clinical nutritionists—along with a large percentage of the population—believe that taking a supplement can be a good idea (although how often and how much is also highly controversial).

Newspaper headlines stir up the debate. Claims that vitamin supplements don't work jostle with reports of their benefits, such as staving off heart disease or cutting

VITAMIN A

Rating

WHERE FROM AND WHAT

FOR:

Found in the livers of domestic animals and fish, as well as in vegetables such as carrots, broccoli and spinach. It's needed for healthy eyes, bones and skin.

HIGH POINT: None. It's very much a group player, added to multivitamin tablets. It's rarely taken as a single supplement because of fears of overdose—the official danger level is only three to four times greater than the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA).

LOW POINT: The cancer link. The body can turn beta-carotene (found

the risk of osteoporosis. And a positive new finding can push one vitamin up the credibility stakes, while a damning bit of research can drive another down.

And then, of course, you can't really talk about vitamins in isolation; they are team players. For instance, for vitamin C to be more effective, it needs to come with vitamin B2; while if you're taking vitamin D for bone health, you should combine it with the mineral magnesium. All of which is very confusing for the consumer.

Hence our report from the front line, based on the latest research into which vitamins are the rising stars of the supplements world—and why.

in yellow/orange-coloured fruit and vegetables such as carrots) into vitamin A. One study several years ago found that giving synthetic beta-carotene to smokers increased their risk of lung cancer.

What wasn't made clear was that this only happened if you kept on smoking—if you stopped, your risk dropped. But an alarming cancer risk makes a better headline. The body can also make vitamin Afrom retinol, which is found in liver and eggs. But

retinol-based medication, used to treat acne, has been linked to depression as well as liver damage.

LATEST UPDATE: In a cream, vitamin A and retinol can reduce wrinkles—so it's a popular anti-ageing product.

VITAMIN B

WHERE FROM AND WHAT FOR:

It's found in most unprocessed foods, but particularly in protein such as liver, turkey and tuna. Plant sources include potatoes, bananas and lentils. Rather than being just one vitamin, it's actually a family of eight distinct vitamins, such as niacin, riboflavin, B6 and B12, often all found together. They help enzymes to function properly and are vital for healthy skin, muscle tone, the nervous system and cell growth.

HIGH POINT:Adding niacin (B3) toa statin proved to be more effective in reducing heart-disease risk than adding a cholesterollowering drug called ezetimibe (which costs the NHS a whopping £70 million ayear), accordingto a large controlled trial last year. Niacin also raises "good" HDL cholesterol more effectively than statins, and may protect against strokes.

LOW POINT: Homocysteine, an amino acid, is linked with a raised risk of cardiovascular disease. Taking B6 and B12 supplements lowers homocysteine, so many thought they would cut heart disease. But in recent years, several big trials found they didn't. Critics say the subjects were already too ill and on too many heart drugs for vitamins to have an effect. No long-term studies have been done on the effect of lowering homocysteine in otherwise healthy people.

LAIt ui'DATE: Lowering homocysteine with B vitamins can stop brain shrinkage in elderly patients who are starting to lose their memory. This has looked like a possibility foryears, but the evidence was never there. Now a proper randomised trial done in Oxford has shown that those who got very high levels of B6, B12 and folic acid had 52 per cent less brain shrinkage than those on a placebo.

B12 could also be a new treatment for arthritis and osteoporosis. Both become more common asyou pass age 60, which is also the age at which

you're likely to be making less B12. There have been a few favourable 0 co trials showingthe benefits of a supplement for people with these diseases. 0

VITAMIN C

WHERE FROM AND WHAT FOR:

Found in lots of fruits and vegetables, the richest source of vitamin C is the Kakadu plum, with 3,000mg per 100g. Blackcurrants have 200mg per gram and oranges 50mg. It's an antioxidant vital for neutralising damaging free radicals, and it's also needed to help various enzymes work—including making collagen, which is why it prevents scurvy. Scurvy is caused by a lack of collagen needed to make joints and musclesfunction properly.

HIGH POINT: The 1970s, when Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling claimed high doses could prevent colds and cancer.

LOW POINT: Trials of these links were inconclusive at best, and vitamin C has fallen out of favour as a cold cure. The benefits of antioxidants have also been questioned; they're obviously vital for

health, but taking them as a supplement hasn't shown to be clearly beneficial. Some researchers even claim it could be dangerous, because oxidants (free radicals) may have a useful role in triggeringtheimmune system.

LATEST UPDATE: Recently, vitamin C has been making something of a comeback in cancer treatment. Studies in animals have found it can shrink tumours by about half when given intravenously in very high doses. Human trials are now underway.

VITAMIN D

WHERE FROM AND WHAT FOR:

It's made in your skin by the UVB rays in sunlight. However, in the UK we can't make any between November and April because the rays aren't usually strong enough; but you can always get small amounts from oily fish, eggs and beef liver. Until fairly recently, doctors thought it was only needed for making healthy bones and teeth, and that 200 international units (IU) a day was enough, while 1,000IU could be dangerous.

That's all changed—vitamin D is the new supplement superstar. Low levels have been linked to a raised risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

HIGH POINT: Right now. A growing number of studies are reporting that most of us in northern countries such as the UK don't have nearly enough vitamin D by the

end of winter. Other studies have found that people who have levels of above 30 nanograms per millilitre (ng/ml) in their blood are less likely to suffer from cancer, and heart disease in particular.

LOW POINT: Also now, because many of the studies aimed at provingthat supplements reduce the risk of various diseases haven't been finished yet. There was a study in March that found supplementing didn't make any difference to your risk of heart disease. Other studies don't agree.

LATEST UPDATE: By the end of winter most people in the UK don't have much more than 1Ong/m1 of vitamin Din their blood—just about enough to protect their bones, but way below the levels of 3Ong/ ml-plus found in the blood of people at lower risk for cancer and heart disease. Taking 1,000 IU, which many experts now consider perfectly safe, pushes up your blood levels by about 1 Ong/ml.

Vitamin E

WHERE FROM AND WHAT FOR:

It's found in asparagus, avocado, eggs, milk, nuts and seeds and leafy vegetables. Like A and D, it's fatsoluble, and it's an

antioxidant that (among other things) damps down dangerous free radicals that can damage tissue if left to run riot. Like the B vitamins, it's also a family— alpha, beta, gamma, and delta —although most studies have been done using synthetic versions of alpha.

HIGH POINT: In the 1990s, Vitamin E was riding high—a number of big studies showed that people getting more of it had a reduced risk of heart disease.

LOW POINT:This all changed with several big studies just after 2000, which found it slightly raised the risk of heart disease compared with a placebo. Again, critics have a plausible explanation—they

point out that the people in the trial were heart patients, all taking statins. This is important because as well as lowering cholesterol, statins also lower a compound called CoQ10, which is needed for vitamin E to work properly —remember, vitamins are team players.

LATEST UPDATE: Vitamin E hasn't recovered, although recent research has found that patients with disorders such as fatty liver disease and lung cancer have benefited from taking extra amounts of it. The studies probably need to be repeated to gain widespread acceptance.

Vitamin K

WHERE FROM AND WHAT FOF

It's found chiefly in leafy green vegetables such as spinach, swiss chard and brussels sprouts; some fruits such as avocado and kiwi fruit are also high in vitamin K. A form known as K2 is found in animal products and is made by bacteria in the gut. It's needed for the blood to clot; the blood-thinning drug warfarin works by blockingvitamin K. HIGH POINT:May protect heart and bones. Recent studies show it controls how much calcium is deposited in the arteries—too much can cause heart disease. Research also shows it improves

BUT BE CAREFUL...

Vitamins A, D, E and K are fatsoluble, which means that they can be stored in the body—so there's a risk that damaging amounts can build up if you take too much. All the B vitamins (along with vitamin C) are water-soluble, so you can't store them, as they get flushed out daily in your urine.

bone density in post-menopausal women. LOW POINT:None so far.

LATEST UPDATE: K2 remains active in the body for longer than vitamin K, and is therefore more effective. If you have gut problems you might not be making enough. Make sure any supplement you take contains K2; the best, but most expensive source, is fermented soy.

EING PERSISTENTLY FOOLISH IN A PUBLIC PLACE

It's one thing to help a friend in need, but if you're thinking of robbing a bank to lend a hand with their rent, you should probably remind yourself of the limits of friendship.

That's exactly what Mark Smith, 59, from Watsonville, California, didn't do. Generously agreeing to come to a pat's financial aid—but tacking the resources to do so—Smith walked into a local bank, said he had a bomb in his rucksack (he didn't) and demanded $2,000, police reported.

The bank's quick-thinking manager—sensing the difference between a bomber and an idiot—persuaded Smith that it would be better to take out a loan than blow up the bank. Then, while getting the paperwork, she alerted the authorities. Smith was promptly arrested for attempted robbery and making criminal threats.

Undervalued dad?

Sam Leith finds solace in an old friend

ill'DO FATHERS GETA RAW DEAL?

By Sam Leith

PHOTOGRAPHED BY LAURA STEVENS

We work long hours, muck in with childcare and keeping the house clean, but we're still seen as unhelpfulfools

Something wonderful happened to me recently. It was late-ish on a Saturday night. Earlier that afternoon, my girlfriend Alice had set off to go to an old friend's barbecue on the other side of London. We'd decided that she'd go by herself and I'd take charge of our oneyear-old, Marlene.

All had gone smoothly. I'd fed Marlene, bathed her, given her a bottle and got her into bed. Then I'd fed myself; given myself a bottle and got into bed. Alice could let herself in when she came back—I was on early duty, and Marlene is waking up these days any time between 4.30am and 6.00am.

At about 11.30 that night, I got a squiffy phone call from Alice. She'd missed the last Tube. Would I mind if she slept on a pal's sofa?

"Of course not," I said. "You stay out, love. I'll be in charge of the baby."

This was said with utter delight because I knew that, by the time Alice rocked in groggily the following lunchtime—to a spotlessly clean house and a baby eating something organic—I

would have a rare moment on the moral high ground.

For me, this was worth any amount of up-at-dawn baby-wrangling. Because for all its exhilarations and joys, being a new father can leave you feeling a permanent failure; a second-class citizen; an extra in your own life.

At work, you're a diminished figure— outside the social loop; not to be trusted to stay late. At home, you're at best a slight help and at worst an irritation.

kids. After all, you've had a busy day at Tea & Tots talking about his piles."

That's not to say that mothers have it easier. The grind of 24/7 parenthood is not to be underestimated; nor is the isolation and lack of intellectual stimulation. Many women have found going back to work a blessed relief.

The difference, though, is that—after

Society doesn't trust us. There's a residual feeling that mother knows best

How has this come to be?Fatherhood, I think, has been caught in the backwash of the sexual revolution. Nobody now thinks it reasonable that a woman's only proper role is as a housewife. Or that she should be expected to do all the parenting, then let hubby put his feet up when he gets in after a hard day. But this proper valorisation of a mother's role has diminished the father's and left him doing more.

If he's an average commuter he perhaps leaves the house at 7am and works like billy-o before struggling home ten hours later to share childcare, before he and his partner get stuck into cooking, washing-up and all the rest. Perhaps —since he left the office early to get home for bath time—he then has some homework to do. Yet he finds himself feeling as if he's the one bunking off.

A "Top Tip" in a recent Viz comic put a characteristically sarcastic spin on the situation: "Mums. Put your feet up when your husband comes home from work and let him deal with the

the long, dreadful years when full-time mothers were taken for granted—their heroism is now celebrated, whereas the father's role is less certain. It still sometimes feels, for the new-mannish father of my generation, as if you're atoning for the sins of the previous patriarchal generations. If a mother is knackered, she has the sympathy of the world. If a father is knackered, he's rather expected to shut up. He thinks he's got it hard? Pah! He should try being a mum.

But it's not bloody easy being a dad. And we have an added burden of guilt. We feel guilty when we're working because we're not doing childcare and guilty when we're doing childcare because we're not working. And if we have any time when we're doing neither work nor childcare, we feel doubly guilty.

Part of the frustration is that society expects a father to take a more active role in child-rearing, but doesn't entirely trust us. We puree broccoli, wipe, bathe,

burp and joggle, but there's a residual feeling that mother knows best.

On the one hand, wives and girlfriends are desperate for someone to take the baby off their hands; on the other, they are anxious about letting them do so unsupervised.

"I know what I'm doing!" you snap crossly when, as she leaves the house, your beloved insists on checking that you know when your offspring will need a bottle, that you've got enough nappies with you, that you haven't forgotten her socks and so forth. (Then, obviously, you drive off with the baby to John Lewis and find you've forgotten to bring the nappy bag altogether.)

I suffer this less than most: since I work at home, I'm around my daughter more or less constantly. Her mother may question my taste in combining baby clothes ("You can't take her out like that! She'll boil/freeze/set off passing epileptics..."), but she does trust me to look after our daughter competently. Still, she'll occasionally tweak my decisions or issue a directive in a way that I would find hard to imagine doing to her.

When you have a toddler scattering clothes and Tupperware hither and yon, when you're both struggling to pay bills, baby-proof the stairs and permanently sleep-deprived...it's quite easy for a couple to get a bit scratchy with each other. But I don't think I'm alone in feeling as though, as a man, I permanently occupy the moral low ground in these skirmishes. It's not something that's encouraged or exploited by my other half; it's just there.

Consider the media representations. First-person columns about family life follow a formula calculated to reinforce stereotypes. Whether written by women or men, the man of the house must be presented as loveable but a bit useless. If a husband mocked his slatternly wife and her inadequacies, it would leave a sour taste. Why should fathers be figures of fun and mothers sacrosanct?

Being men, we seldom talk to each other about this sort of thing—a sexist stereotype, but one that seems to hold. Parenting stress, like professional stress, is typically handled alone.

But it needs addressing. Calling for society to value fatherhood more is not to call for it to value motherhood less. And it has to start with fathers themselves: with pride rather than self-pity. We can and should be able to look the mothers of our children in the eye.

>> Do you agree with Sam that fathers are undervalued? Email readersletters@readers digest or join the debate on our website atreadersdigest.co.uk/dads.

URELY THAT DEFEATS THE WHOLE OBJECT?

,:icrsWELCOME,BUT NO

MANY HAPPY-:,k:s RETURNS?

"My Lottery Booze and Drugs Hell", "How Winning the Lottery Ruined My Life"...the headlines are depressingly familiar.

So what's the secret to becoming rich and staying happy?

Tell me about it, stud: Meredith Davies (Left) on the farm he purchased with his winnings

Meredith Davies, 38

Llansawel, Wales

Won £2m, October 2004

SET UP A STUD-FARM BUSINESS

For a month prior to my win, I was on a lucky streak. I kept buying Lucky Dips, winning a tenner, putting it back in, winning a tenner, putting it back in—until the big one. During this period, we went to a bash at a local pub and I won first prize in the raffle: a family box of Maltesers. We know how to live in west Wales!

On the night we won the big one, we went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate. Coming back, we ran out of petrol and had to push the car home.

I was an agricultural engineer, which is a fancy way of saying I fixed tractors for local customers. It was hard work, starting at 7am and often finishing at midnight. My customers didn't much like paying for things and would argue over every item on their bills, even stuff for 50p. It was a bit of a slog.

My girlfriend Kate, 38, worked as a carer for the elderly, cooking for them, doing the laundry and so on. Money was tight; we were living in rented accommodation and were always arguing with the landlord. But when he heard we'd won, he said, "You're welcome to stay—but I'll have to put the rent up." Idiot! It worked out OK, as it happens, because it gave us time to find somewhere to buy.

We looked at a couple of places— a 12-acre smallholding for £640,000

and then the farm we're in now It has everything-104 acres, stables and outhouses, all for £500,000. It seems daft, but there's more demand for smallholdings than for farms.

Kate was always mad about horses, so we'd dreamed of having one or two and buying a couple of acres. We never thought we'd have what we do now We're in a village called Llansawel, not far from the Brecon Beacons. I've just bought a bit more land, so now we own 122 acres, nine acres of which is woodland, and also half a mile of river. We live in the farmhouse and there's a huge barn that we've got permission to turn into holiday lets—the next stage will be running horsey holidays.

We have 36 horses at Pensawel Stud, which as stud farms go is huge. The horses are Welsh cobs, which are suitable for riding and hunting—there are lots of photos on our website. I also run a business hiring out quad bikes for fun. And, believe it or not, I'm still fixing tractors. Sometimes people come for a business meeting and I emerge from under the bonnet of a tractor black with oil—you can see the disbelief that I'm a stud-farm owner in their eyes!

Most of the lottery money has gone now, but I also own four mortgage-free properties that I rent out, which will always give us an income. To be honest, we're not making much money from the horses as it's a tough time just now But we love it. One of our horses won Horse of the Year at a show in Malvern last week, and you can't put a price on the feeling you get from that.

Karen Child, 36 Worksop, Nottinghamshire Won £13,4m, February 2007

SPONSORED A FOOTBALL CLUB

won witha Lucky Dip. I bought it at the Tesco in Clowne, near Chesterfield, where I worked on the checkout.rd just been to see the vicar about my wedding with my fiancé Wayne. We popped into Tesco for a few basics and I bought the ticket. Later, we were watching something on TV and when the adverts came on I checked the numbers on Teletext.

Wayne didn't believe me until he checked himself. I didn't sleep at all that night—I thought it would turn out to be a dream.

I spoke at length with the bank and with financial advisers, and made some decisions about investing. I did treat my family and some friends to a holiday in Lanzarote, but that was that. After the holiday, I gave each member of my family the same amount of money and told them, "I'm investing the rest, so don't come running back when it runs out!"

I'd been Living in a three-bed council house, but I moved to a five-bedroom house. Since then I've bought a place with an acre of land, which is great for my dog! I've got five properties in total, three of which I rent out.

I was a huge Manchester United fan when I won and for the next two seasons we took a box at Old Trafford,

which cost £40,000. But then my brother rang me. He's a Chesterfield fan and he persuaded me to go there. It was a million miles from Old Trafford, much more personal, with a friendly, familytype atmosphere.

I got to know some of the people— we always meet for a drink before the game—then one day I got a phone call to say the firm that sponsored the Kop terrace was pulling out. Would I be interested in taking over? I agreed. It was about half the price of a box at Old Trafford! We've moved away from the old ground, Saltergate, to a new stadium—and there's now a Karen Child stand!

It's important to keep your feet on the ground. If my kids want anything, they can save up their pocket money

"Whenever I've stayed in a fivestar hotel, I've felt uncomfortable"

or wait for their birthday or Christmas. That's what I had to do and I want them to know the value of money.

I hate shopping and I'm not into designer boutiques—I just go to Topshop, Dorothy Perkins or Next if I need anything. I won't take the kids out of school for holidays. And whenever I've stayed in a five-star hotel, I've felt uncomfortable; it's not me. We're happiest at a three- or four-star hotel in Spain!

Tony Dodd, 70, and Greta Dodd, 72, the Wirral

Won £2.4m, July 2007

BOUGHTFOUR KNEES!

At the time we won, I'd had to give up driving my taxi because of my knees. They'd got so bad that I couldn't walk more than 150 yards—I was in total agony.

I wasn't scraping by on disability benefits. I was already over 65, so I'd made provision and had an OK pension. But we weren't living the life of Riley either. We'd just sold a flat we'd owned in New Brighton and were living in rented accommodation while we looked around for somewhere to buy for our retirement.

When we won, the first thing I wanted was a pair of knees. One of Greta's had degenerated too, and it turned out that the other one was going as well.

So while other people buy themselves a flash car or a boat, we bought four new knees instead! It cost us £40,000, so it was ten grand per knee—and money well spent.

The next thing I did was buy a new set of golf clubs and start playing again. I'd played for years and got to a reasonable handicap, but all that fell away because of my knees. I'd rejoined Bidston Golf Club on the Wirral after five years of being a golf exile—it was an amazing feeling.

The other big thing was dancing. We used to go to a social club on Saturday nights and have a bit of a dance. V

Tony and Greta's newfound wealth has put a spring back in their steps

Nothing special, just some jiving or whatever. So we've been able to get back into that, and now we love our dancing again.

We moved from our flat to a fourbedroom detached house with a garage and a lovely garden in a beautiful spot on the Wirral. And I splashed out on a Mercedes.

We were able to help our daughter Jane, 44, upgrade from a semi-detached to a detached house. And we've just come back from our dream holiday— we had round-the-world tickets with 30 stopovers. We saw Aruba, Honolulu, Australia, New Zealand...but Southeast Asia was the real eye-opener for me. I was in the navy years ago and went there on trips. My God, it really has changed! Especially Hong Kong; there were none of those skyscrapers

"We haven't gone mad, but we've got everything we always wanted"

back then, just wooden shanties and traditional Chinese fishing boats in the harbour.

We know a lot of people can't afford trips like that, but we don't take anything for granted. We know how lucky we are—thanks to the lottery, we're very blessed. We haven't gone mad, but we've got everything we always wanted. For us, winning has brought nothing but happiness.

Barbara Wragg, 72, and Ray Wragg, 69, Sheffield

Won t.i.tirn, January 2000

GAVE MOST OF IT TO CHARITY

When we won, I'd been working on night duty at the local hospital as a nursing support worker for 22 years. Ray was a contracts supervisor for a roofing company. We were working-class, not flash—we went to Torquay for our summer holiday for 31 years on the trot!

The night we won, we were babysitting our granddaughter Danielle. There was only one winner, so we knew we'd won £7.6 million. That's when we decided to make a difference.

We started planning what was going to go where—we'd spent £4.5 million before going to bed. After paying off the kids' mortgages, we thought about charities. Weston Park Hospital wanted to build a teenage cancer unit; my daughter had had bone cancer, and when she was in hospital she was on a general cancer ward with lots of old and dying people around her.

We'd bought the council house we'd lived in for 32 years. All I'd ever wanted was a bay window, but it wasn't practical. We found a new-build in a nice area and sold our ex-council house cheaply to a young couple that needed a bit of help. And we donated the money we did get to various charities.

Neither of us went back to work again. We're happy with our lot. I'll admit to one extravagance: before the win, I'd

looked at getting disposable contact lenses, but the expense was shocking —£30 for a month! Anyway, that's one thing I treat myself to now

We've tried to spread our money around; we've given to Childline, and sent a sick boy to Disneyland in California. There's also a local charity that's very dear to us, Whirlow Hall Farm. We sponsor a few children from the inner city to go and stay there for a week, where they learn how to look after animals, muck out stables and grow vegetables.

We've been told we need to be more careful as we've given away £6 million, but we still find ways to help. Recently, Camelot sent us £1,000 as a present on the tenth anniversary of our win, so we gave £500 towards a scanner at the hospital and £500 to the army charity Help for Heroes. We still play every week— the hospital needs more scanners—but we haven't been lucky again yet.

We're not particularly generous

A right royal reception: philanthropists Ray and Barbara attend a garden party hosted by the Queen

people—we just always thought it'd be better to share the money. Our win has brought us a lot of happiness, and we hope that it's done the same for all the people we've helped. We always say we're the happiest couple that ever won the lottery.

All stories as told to Eugene Costello

>> To see our latest (happy!) Reader's Digest Prize Draw winners, go to page 10 and to readersdigest.co.uk/prize-draw.

ANCY STAT!

British men rank asking their girlfriends to marry them as the second scariest thing they could do—just behind swimming with sharks. Source: Vue cinemas

My friend Suu

Noriko Ohtsu on the woman behind

the world-famous politician

THE WORLD KNOWS AUNG SAN SUU KYI AS A BEAUTIFUL

HEROINE, the only Nobel Peace Prize winner who is a prisoner, the woman who has kept the flame of democracy burning brightly in Burma for more than 20 years. But for me, Suu—pronounced like the name Sue—will always be the ordinary-yet-extraordinary wife and mother whose intimate friend I became when we were both young academic wives in Oxford 35 years ago.

I actually got to know her husband Michael Aris first: I met him in 1974 when he and I were studying Tibetan at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. I liked him from the word go—no one could call him handsome, exactly, but there was a big-hearted gentleness about him that made people feel comfortable.

Although he was only 27, he had already spent years as the English tutor to the royal family of Bhutan, the tiny Tibetan kingdom in the mountains above India. With

Suu visits her mother in Rangoon in 1974, with husband Michael and son Alexander

his unkempt hair and his great height he looked like a giant who had just emerged from the Himalayas. Introducing himself he said with evident pride, "My wife is Burmese."

By chance we all moved from London to Oxford in 1975: my Japanese husband Sadayoshi, an expert on the economy of the Soviet Union, and I; and Suu and Michael and their new baby Alexander, who was born in 1973. As a result we all got to know each other much better. It helped that both Suu and I were from Asia, in a city where people from our part of the world were few and far between. There was an intimacy to our friendship that I found with none of my other Oxford friends.

MY FIRST SIGHT OF SUU WAS OF A beautiful young girl pushing a pram,

wearing longyi—the Burmese national dress, similar to a sarong—her hair in a ponytail with a fringe hanging down over her forehead. She looked like a teenager: I couldn't believe she was 29, one year older than Michael, who looked old enough to be her father.

Suu and I loved doing things like exchanging recipes and going shopping together in Oxford's covered market. We went window-shopping for Liberty prints, which we could buy when the price came down. Suu ran the fabric up into longyi for herself.

The beautiful bride in London on her wedding day in 1972. The wedding received a Buddhist blessing

Michael was trying to make ends meet with his research about Tibet, but their income was very small, and Suu would say to me, "Noriko, we're down to our last £10! What on earth can I do?" But Suu was brilliant at making delicious dinners out of cheap ingredients. Her pride did not permit any compromise with fish and chips, burgers or other fast food. She even made a Christmas pudding six months before Christmas!

I helped out whenever I could by inviting the family round to eat their favourite Japanese dishes—shabu-shabu and sukiyaki (both a sort of hotpot) and tempura.

In time, Sadayoshi and I returned to Japan, and in 1985—ten years after our first encounter—Suu came to Japan on a research fellowship at Kyoto University with her younger son Kim, who was about eight then. We saw a lot of

them because at the weekend they often came to visit us in the countryside, at our house overlooking Lake Biwa.

They visited on New Year's Eve and we took them to a nearby Buddhist temple where they rang the big temple bell in a Japanese tradition called Joya-noKane.The next day I got a vivid insight into how much Suu missed Burma. I had heard of a Burmese temple not far away and Suu asked if we could visit it. The gate was locked because of the holiday, so I went round the back and asked for advice.

With sons Alexander (in the braces) and Kim in Grantown-onSpey, where Suu's father-inlaw lived

The door opened onto a small hall and there on the altar was a Burmese Buddha with a gentle and delightful smile. Suu was lost for words. Although she had always been very careful with money, she offered the priest 5,000 yen [about £40 nowadays] to say a

prayer service, then prostrated herself on the earthen floor in front of the Buddha; then stood up and prostrated herself again any number of times, her hands together, chanting in Burmese.

IT STRUCK ME THEN THAT SUU AND I had only ever met in Britain and Japan, never in Burma; I'd only known her as a foreigner, with all that that involves. Now, in a rustic village in Japan, coming face to face with a Burmese Buddha, she suddenly revealed her Burmese heart. I had an intuitive feeling that she could only fulfil herself on Burmese soil. Would it be better for Suu to spend her whole life in comfortable Britain? Whatever the dangers and difficulties, would she not be happier immersing herself in her own country again?

One day towards the end of her stay

BURMA'S TROUBLED PAST

Aung San Suu Kyi burst onto the world's stage in the summer of 1988 at the culmination of a long revolt by the Burmese people against the brutal army dictatorship that had ruled them since the 19605, bringing isolation from the outside world and economic disaster.

General Ne Win had seized power in acoup d'etat in 1962, but now, after months of mass protests, he announced his decision to resign. And he floated the idea that Burma might become a multiparty democracy.

The country was in turmoil: how do you create a democracy overnight

when its last vestiges were trampled in the dust long ago? But Suu offered a solution: as the daughter of General Aung San—the man who had helped Allied troops defeat the Japanese occupiers during the Second World War, and who had then led the country towards independence—she possessed the most famous name in the country.

Aung San was assassinated in 1947, before independence was achieved, but he was known and venerated as the father of the nation. The military regime's opponents dared to dream that the magic of his name could help the country to be reborn under a new leader.

Suu, then 43, was in Rangoon because she was

in Japan she came to see me again, bringing some of our favourite manju cakes (a traditional Japanese steamed cake) to eat with green tea. Over the tea I said to her, "Suu, if I were you, I would go back to Burma. Your country needs you. There are lots of things you could do there—your English-speaking ability

nursing her mother, who had suffered a stroke. She had long nurtured the hope that sooner or later she could do something for her poor and troubled country. Suddenly the opportunity was at hand. Within a month of Ne Win's speech she had launched her political career. Within six months she was leader of a new political party, which went on to win a landslide victory in the general election of 1990.

But the military junta—which changed the country's name to Myanmar—refused to accept the election result. Suu has spent nearly 15 of the past zo years under house arrest. This month, Burma votes in new elections, but the rules have been deliberately crafted to prevent Suu and her colleagues from running.

alone would be very valuable. Michael could get a research job at some Indian university so you would not be far apart, you could put the children into boarding school...don't you agree?"

Normally, Suu was lightning quick with her replies, but now she stared down and said nothing. But I knew the

General Aung San

East me a family with the in Scotia ets West: picnic in-laws nd answer. In Japan she'd come into contact with Burmese students who were ardent admirers of her father General Aung San. She'd become aware of the mixture of respect and expectation with which they regarded her.

The manju remained untouched on the plate. Eventually Suu looked up. "Noriko, you're right," she said. A little over two years later, she was in Burma. The rest is history. I have not seen her since—though Sadayoshi and I still visit Oxford every year so we can keep up with her now grown-up sons, who are extremely proud of their mother.

It was on August 26, 1988, that she launched her political career, speaking to a huge crowd at Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma's holiest shrine, watched by Michael and her sons. She told the crowd, "It's true that I've lived abroad. It is also true that I am married

to a foreigner. These facts have never interfered with my love and devotion for my country." She went on to call the uprising of that year "the second struggle for national independence". It was a tremendous event.

When I next saw Michael in Oxford, we talked about Suu and her commitment to her homeland. He said to me, "Noriko, I had a feeling from the start that this day would come some time. Long ago I promised Suu that if the people of Burma needed her, I would not stand in her way."

I shed a quiet tear for my friend with her momentous destiny.

As told to Peter Popham

» Noriko Ohtsu preferred not to be photographed for this feature. >> Michael Aris died of prostate cancer in 1999.

en his father fell from their yacht, an inexperienced teenager faced the toughest of all choices

by

John Dyson

Photographed by Niklas Bernstone

Y

THE

LAST WEEK OF THE SUMMER

HOLIDAYS, Robin Evertsson was bored and grumpy. The 16year-old had nothing to do but sleep or watch TV in the family's small house near Gothenburg, Sweden. Even more of a pain, his dad was also at home on holiday from his IT job. He nagged Robin for staying in bed while there was work to be done.

As well as being bored, Robin felt adrift because his world was changing. In a few days he'd start college. Strongly built with short, spiky hair and already taller than his dad, Robin had been set all his life on just one ambition—to be a policeman.

Leif Evertsson, 43, was quietly furious at the way Robin and his brother Patrik, 18, lazed around. But he didn't want to start a feud. Instead, he came up with an idea. "Let's get out of the house," he said. "Do you want to come sailing for a few days?"

Their little yacht Ariel, with its cosy cabin and four bunks, had been in the family even longer than the boys. They'd started sailing with their parents as babies and spent summer weekends exploring channels between the rocky islands along the coast.

Robin jumped at the idea. "Cool! Can we go to Lase?" he asked eagerly.

The pretty Danish island between Denmark and Sweden, with its long beaches and flat lanes just made for

rollerblading, was Robin's favourite place, and the 35-mile voyage took them out of sight of land.

Paula, the boys' mother and Leif's partner, didn't feel up to a sail, and Patrik had a driving test. "Looks like it's just you and me," Leif told Robin.

"Sounds good," the teenager said. It'll be nice to spend time with Dad, he thought. They'd get some pizza and play cards, and he knew his father would be happy as long as he was sailing.

"We'll go tomorrow," Leif decided.

THE WET MORNING OF AUGUST 12

last year turned into a sunny afternoon. Father and son bought food for the trip, then set sail from nearby Naset Marina. The breeze was strong, but was forecast to swing round to the north and give them a fast trip. With luck they'd berth in Osterby Havn, the fishing harbour on Lxso, by midnight.

As always, the 22-foot cruising yacht attracted surprised looks because the skipper had only one arm. Leif had lost his left arm in a motorcycle accident when he was 20, ending his dream to sail round the world. Even so, he was far from disabled. One-handed, he could tie shoelaces, peel potatoes and climb slippery ladders in ports. On the boat he could do every job—even if it meant holding ropes in his teeth.

But Leif suffered searing pain. Where his missing hand should be, he felt a burning sensation, as if pressing down on a hot stove. The agony never let up —he fought it by constant activity. He didn't even relax when steering the boat out between the rocky islands. ►

Calm before the storm: Robin Evertsson (right) was looking forward to spending time with his dad Leif

As young as 12, Leif had sailed out to islands in a dinghy and camped with a friend. Later, he'd studied for a coastal skipper's certificate and crewed in bigger yachts. Now it struck him that despite his many trips in the boat, Robin had always been a passenger. He was old enough to learn some seamanship. "It's time you were a real crew member," Leif told him.

Robin put away his iPod. "Yes, Dad," he said.

waves slammed along the deck, driving into their faces like buckets of nails.

Robin shivered. "This is so miserable," he muttered.

In the dim glow cast by the red-andgreen navigation lights, Leif spotted the

Leif was already being left behind.

Abruptly tie went over a wave and vanished from view

Leif explained how they could find their position on the map with their hand-held GPS. But as the boat cleared the shelter of the islands and hit the bigger waves, Robin felt queasy and stretched out on a bunk.

Gazing at his son, Leif worried about how he'd make it in life. How would he achieve anything? What sort of policeman would he make?

Sunset at 10.30pm found the boat struggling in heavier weather. The wind did not go round to the north, as forecast. Any hope of being in port by midnight evaporated. Now they'd be lucky to dock before dawn.

Recovered from his seasickness, Robin joined his father. Leif pointed out the flashing green light of a distant navigation buoy off the tip of the island, and Robin found it on the small screen of the GPS.

The little boat battled through the night. Just before 11.30pm the wind was blasting at 30 knots, nearly a gale. They took down the mainsail to reduce strain on the rig. Spray from ten-foot-high

remaining sail swelling strangely—the whole mast was rocking. The thin wire between the masthead and the front of the boat had come adrift. The mast was supported only by the thin rope sewn into the front of the sail.

The mast could topple over the side at any moment, then possibly punch a hole in the boat. Or fall on their heads. Leif panicked. Instead of turning the boat away from the wind to take the pressure off the sail, he made a poor decision. "I have to fix it," he said.

Hanging on with one hand and slithering across, Leif straddled the heaving deck in front of the mast. Cursing himself, he remembered he hadn't brought tools. "Get the pliers!" he shouted over his shoulder.

In the cabin, Robin's hunt through the toolbox was interrupted by a scream. "Robin! Help me! I'm in the water!"

From the lurching cockpit, Robin peered along the deck. His father was

gone. In the water, illuminated by the lights, he spotted Leif, his white face squeezed between the inflated tubes of his red lifejacket. h . "What shall I do?" Robin shouted.

Leif was already being left behind. Abruptly he went over a wave and vanished from view. Robin heard his father's words float on the wind. "Get telephone...!"

Robin saw his father rise on a wave. "Keep going, Dad!" he shouted to him. "You'll make it!"

He grabbed his father's new Xperia phone from the cabin and tapped U2, the emergency number. All he got was an automatic answer in Danish.

Robin found his own Walkman phone and dialled again, but he was too far from Sweden to get a signal.

Outside, Robin frantically scanned the dark sea. His father had disappeared into the night. "Dad, where are you?" he called, over and over.

The sail collapsed with a noise like thunder. Remembering his seamanship lessons just a few hours earlier, Robin pushed the tiller over and the sail filled again, driving the boat ahead. Shouting hoarsely, he sailed in wide circles.

AFTER

20

MINUTES

IT

DAWNED ON HIM

that sailing round in the dark was futile. He had to do something, but his options

were limited. The yacht had no VHF radio to call for help and no distress flares. Suppressing panic, Robin forced himself to think it out. If help won't come to me, I have to go and find it.

The decision was agonising. How could he abandon his dad? But equally, how could he get help unless he sailed away?

Robin gazed at the screen of the GPS. Zooming out, he saw the coast of Sweden come into the picture, and that made up his mind. He swung the boat around, pointing it east towards Sweden. The wind punched the sail into a hard curve and the boat took off, sailing fast. Robin worried about the mast but with the wind and the waves coming from behind, the pressure on it was less.

The boat surfed on the waves racing up from behind. Steering was tough. Robin sensed that if he let the boat turn broadside-on it would roll over.

His legs trembled violently from cold and shock. Every few minutes he took the phone out of his pocket and checked the screen. Still no signal.

He saw lights of ships in the distance. At 1.48am Robin dialled 112 for the sixth time. Startled, he heard a woman answer: "Emergency service."

It took him a moment to find his voice. "Dad's gone overboard!" he stammered. Then he calmed himself and said, "Dad

Leif falls overboard

othenburg

went into the sea about five miles from Lxso."

The call was relayed to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Gothenburg, where Cecilia Wegnelius, on duty all night, caught the fear in the boy's voice.

"When did he go over?"

and bit down hard

"We're sending out a helicopter and rescue boats."

"About two hours ago," Robin said. "I've been sailing towards Sweden."

"OK," Wegnelius said. "Where are you?" Robin pushed the NAV button on the GPS as his dad had instructed, but found no reference to the yacht's latitude and longitude. "What do you see around you?" the coordinator asked.

"The lights of Sweden are in sight. There are ships behind me and a white ferry with a mark on its funnel."

Robin heard a ping. The wire holding up the mast swished past his head. The mast toppled, falling along the deck with its top half spearing into the sea. The boat turned sideways, rocking heavily. Robin crawled into the cabin.

"Stay calm," Wegnelius told him.

The ferry Robin could see was the Crownof Scandinavia,northward bound from Copenhagen to Oslo. At 2.50am it sighted the small sailing yacht.

A Swedish rescue helicopter raced to the scene. Lowered into the water, rescue swimmer Patrik Nilsson, 35, swam to the yacht. "Are you OK?"

Robin nodded. "We have to save Dad," he said.

"Don't worry, lots of people are searching for him," Nilsson said.

Moments later Robin was in the helicopter. It was 3.19am and Leif had been in the water nearly four hours.

TOSSING ABOUT IN THE DARK WATER,

Leif had kicked off his boots and trousers to make himself lighter. The lifejacket kept slipping over the stump of

his missing arm, so he held it in place with his remaining hand. Waves crashed into him.

He faced a desperate challenge, but Leif knew how to fight. Losing my arm has prepared me for this,he thought. He noticed something strange. For the first time since his accident, the pain in his missing hand had disappeared.

Thoughts of Robin swirled through his head. How could I do such a stupid thing and leave him alone? I mustn't die in a way that makes Robin feel guilty.

Leif knew his son wouldn't give up. But he wasn't sure how far Robin's rudimentary seamanship would take him. And what if he were injured by the falling mast?

Cramp stung Leif's legs. To ease the pain, he put the lifejacket whistle in his mouth and bit down hard.

It was a long time before Leif realised the lights he'd been watching in the distance were vessels, and they were coming closet Five boats about 650

feet apart were advancing towards him in a line, their lights sweeping the sea. They were looking for him. Robin must have made it!

For a few anxious moments, Leif thought the nearest boat would run him over. With desperate kicks he reached its pool of light and shouted. A helicopter descended out of the sky. At 4.57am its pilot radioed to shore: "The man is in the helicopter, cold but alive."

Leif asked the burning question: "How's Robin?"

"Robin's fine and on the way home," the crew told him.

Leif let his head fall back and closed his eyes. Thank God! Being driven in a police car, Robin heard the news minutes later: "Your dad's alive and well."

■ Rescue teams praised Robin's selfcontrol and his courageous decision to turn for help. Leif's praise is unstinting. "Robin's a wonderful kid who grew up that night. He'll make a fine policeman."

"It's a book group...they want their time back"

hat do you do when you're 10,000 feet up a mountain and you feel nature calling? Most of us would hunker down, risking rozen extremities and sullying the very landscape we came to see. Not soon Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the Alps, which boasts not one, but three public loos. They ere put up by theOrganisation oilettes du Monde (World Lavatory Organisation) to keep the mountain clean. Whatever next, a hot tub on Everest?

For most of us, a toilet wouldn't be the first shapewe'd choose to model our £1 million house on. But then we aren't all Sim Jae-duck, entrepreneur and founder of the World Toilet Association, who, for his home in Suwon, south Korea, plumped for a luxurious 419-square-metre gaff in the shape of a loo to draw attention to the shortage of sanitary installations worldwide. Well, at least guests can always find it...

am•SIN

IOW MilmliaMimmanam

The gents in Fran Commerzbankmight make men long to spend a penny. It's on the 49th floor of the 850-foot-high building, and with windows that stretch from the ceiling to the floor, the view over the city is so breathtaking you'd be forgiven for forgettingyour ps and qs. And you can lay any fears of voyeurism to rest: no other building in Frankfurt is anywhere near as high.

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1 take a Wellman® and Jointace® tablet every day, to help maintain the vitality and strong immune system that I need. On days when I feel like a 'bit extra', Wellman® Fizz is for rapid energy release.'

Wellman® helps keep 40 year old Mark Foster ahead of the competition. Racing or not, it could do the same for you.

Meet the new Leading Ladies

Take a good look at these six faces: they should be appearing on stage at an awards ceremony—very, very soon...

Who will be the next Maggie Smith, Judi Dench or Helen Mirren?

Sliding down the age scale, there's Kristin Scott Thomas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, then Kate Winslet (who may still be in her midthirties, but has already notched up an impressive CV and is an accomplished global star). Carey Mulligan, Oscar-nominated this year, is only 25, but clearly has a glittering career in front of her. These women are household names with good reason.

But there are also a significant number of unsung actresses, hugely gifted and ready to join this charmed circle. Some of their faces may not be immediately familiar, and you will look for them in vain in the gossip columns, but the quality of their work is already well known to industry insiders.

Watch out for these names in the coming months as Golden Globe, Bafta and Oscar nominations start to roll in: any one of them could be about to make the leap to national treasure status.

From top:

Lesley Manville, Tamzin Outhwaite, Sally Hawkins, Andrea Riseborough, Kierston Wareing, Goldy Notay

TONY BUCKINGHAM, STEWART COOK; RICHARD YOUNG: JAMES MCCAULEY; JULIAN MAKEY/ALL REX FEATURES

Lesley Manville

AGE 54

BORNBrighton

WHAT THEY SAY A versatile, consummate professional

YOU'VE SEEN HERIn too many TV dramas, films or plays to list. Her career spans 35 years and includes such roles as Mrs Rose in Cranford; Mrs Cratchit in the recent 3D version ofA Christmas Carol; and Mrs Coulter in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials at the National Theatre.

PROSPECTSExcellent. She's the actress who has appeared most frequently in Mike Leigh's films (six in all), and he's written the role of a lifetime for her inAnother Year, which opens this month.

She plays Mary, a lonely, depressed woman in her fifties who drinks too much, wears inappropriate clothes and pursues unsuitable relationships with men. Her performance wowed critics who saw the film at Cannes, and she's already a hot tip for an Oscar nomination.

Lesley says: "I feel you get better at acting as you get older. I'm sure I have. You're more confident in what you're doing, and in my case, I have no ego about looking terrible on screen." She's highly respected by her peers, and it's quite likely that 2011 could finally be Lesley's year.

Tamzin Outhwaite

AGE4o this month

BORNIlford, Essex WHAT THEY SAYThere's more to her than meets the eye

YOU'VE SEEN HERMost probably in EastEndersshe played the forthright Melanie Owen for threeand-a-half years in 375 episodes between 1998 and 2002. She broadened her range by starring in two other (very different) TV series—Redcap and HotelBabylon.

PROSPECTS Intriguing. Tamzin's career has taken a

When you're smiling... Sally in Happy-Go-Lucky

sharp turn since she took the lead role of Charity Hope Valentine in the stage musicalSweet Charity. The production began in a small

Sally Hawkins

AGE34

BORNDulwich, London

Tamzin strutting her stuff in Sweet Charity

London theatre and transferred successfully to the West End, where Tamzin won rave reviews for her acting and singing.

WHAT THEY SAY She's the hardestworking actress in the country

YOU'VE SEEN HER On TV, as Anne Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion; as the irrepressibly cheerful Poppy in Mike Leigh'sHappy-Go-Lucky; as a wronged wife inAn Education.

PROSPECTSPlayingthe lead inHappyGo-Luckydidn't quite open the door to stardom for her—but it gave her a lot more work that might do. Apart fromAn Education,she landed a plum lead role in

Now that she's been belting out "Big Spender" and "If They Could See Me Now" night after night on stage for a whole year, the perception of her as a soap star has finally been laid to rest.

BeforeSweet Charity,Tamzin reportedly turned down the chance to play Sally Bowles, the lead inCabaret,for a small part in the West End'sBoeing Boeing. "I'm opening doors in the theatre, which I think I'll start to do more," she has said. Watch this space.

last month'sMade in Dagenham, playingthe leader of women strikers at the Ford car plant in 1968. The film is likelyto be Britain's top contender for Oscars and Baftas in the coming awards season.

Christine Langan,Made in Dagenham's executive producer, praises Sally's "natural intelligence and empathy". In person, Sally can seem vulnerable, but she also has a common touch that will endear her to a wider public. Now she's aimingto conquer America—she's been starring on Broadway in George Bernard Shaw's playMrs Warren's Profession.And in the coming months, she'll be working on a staggering six films. This is her time.

Andrea Riseborough

AGE 29

BORNNewcastle

WHAT THEY SAY So committed and intense, she virtually disappears into her characters.

YOU'VE SEEN HER On TV playing the young Margaret Thatcher inThe Long Walk to Finchley (left), and opposite Dominic West in Channel 4's The Devil's Whore,as a young girl caught up in the English Civil War.

PROSPECTSThe smart money says a breakthrough is imminent. She'll soon appear in a supporting role in a muchtouted British film,Never Let Me Go, with Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley. But the turning point may come with

Kierston playing an indifferent mother in Fish Tank

It wasn't the first date she'd had in mind...

February's release of a new adaptation of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock (above).

Andrea plays Rose, the naive girlfriend of sinister teenage hoodlum Pinkie. And those who have seen a rough cut of the film insist she's captivating. "She's utterly convincing," says one source. "It's a star-making performance if ever I've seen one."

After that, we'll see her as Wallis Simpson in Madonna's film WE,which deals in part with Simpson's romance with King Edward VIII. Up to now, Andrea has contrived to look so different in various roles, it's been hard to pin her down. That looks certain to change.

Kierston Wareing

AGE32

BORNLeigh on Sea, Essex WHAT THEY SAY More than just a glamorous face

YOU'VE SEEN HERAs the hard-living, negligent single mum in Andrea Arnold's gritty award-winning filmFish Tank. Before that, as a recruitment agency worker hiring immigrants for work in

Goldy Notay

AGE "3oish" BORNIndia

WHAT THEY SAYOn screen, she can break your heart.

YOU'VE SEEN HER On TV in Holby, City, The Bill and Doctors,then as the lead in Gurinder Chadha's film It's a Wonderful Afterlife. She played Roopi, a plump, outspoken young BritishIndian woman whose mother is desperately trying to find her a desirable suitor. From that, she went on to land a tiny part inSex and the City 2.

PROSPECTSShe says she "feels Punjabi in my heart", but she's based firmly in Britain. Goldy could be the second of Gurinder Chadha's Anglo-Indian

AFTWEirk

protegees (after Parminder Nagra and Archie Panjabi, both of whom featured in Bend It Like Beckham) to carve out a successful international career.

Chadha recalls goingto see Goldy on stage in a small theatre production: "I just found her really moving." She made a note of Goldy's name for future reference,

Ken Loach's TV filmIt's a Free World... PROSPECTSExcellent on paper. She takes acting very seriously, and studied at the Lee Strasberg studio in New York, the birthplace of method acting. No one doubts her skills ("She brought authenticity and humanity to her character," Loach says), but finding substantial roles has not been easy for her. This could all change nextyear when BBC2 broadcasts six-part seriesThe

eventually casting her inIt's a Wonderful Afterlife.

Striking-looking, with big plaintive eyes, Goldy certainly has a chance of breaking through—but like many actors of Asian descent in Britain, she's hampered by a shortage of roles. However, "colour blind" casting could be her salvation.

Shadow Line,also starring Christopher Eccleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Antony Sher. Promisingly, it's described as a "noir thriller" about the murder of a drug baron.

Kierston has often had to fall back on minor roles in British gangland films(Rise of the Footsoldier, Bonded by Blood), typically playing a gangster's girlfriend. But her performances inFish Tank and It's a Free World... prove that she can flourish whenever she's offered quality drama.•

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

WELCOME TO THE PAGES THAT HEL MAKE LIFE SIMPLER, EASIER AND, WE HOP MORE FUN! STARTIN HERE WITH...

1,001 things everyoneshould know...

STRICTLYIS BACK ON TV AND IN THE GOSSIP COLUMNS, while So YouThink You Can Dance lines up lesser-known hopefuls in the New Year. But will they inspire you to take to the floor? Let's hope so, because twirling round the room offers more than public humiliation. First, it's good for your health. "It's one of the best forms of exercise for mind and body," says Arlene Phillips, choreographer and children's author (her Alana Dancing Star titles are published this month).

Dr Peter Lovatt, reader in dance psychology at the University of Hertfordshire (and no mean twinkle-toes himself), agrees. "Dancingto a beat improves mood, vigour and social togetherness," he says. It can even sharpen your thinking. "Experiments in our lab showthat structured dancing helps people do sums faster. And 20 minutes of improvised dancing improves creative problem-solving."

So why don't we do it?"Men who don't dance feel selfconscious, while women say they don't know what to do," claims Lovatt, who sets out his research online*. Age comes into it, too. "We studied 14,000 people and found that at 40, women's dance confidence was far higher than men's— but by 60, the positions are reversed." He found that older men have much neater moves and have given up the flailing associated with the "dad dancing" of their forties. And, critically, it's easier for men to find a partner.

But women shouldn't let that hold them back. A look in any nightclub shows singles, groups and couples jigging about. Belly dancing, tap, ballet, line dancing and flamenco are partnerless, while a ceilidh embraces all ages. If you want a partner, sign up to a community website* (for over-35s) or go to a class and see what gives. "Most will find a partner for you," says Arlene.

Or just take to the floor. "We get couples to chat while dancing freestyle and mirror each other's movements to get rid of psychological blocks," says Lovatt. "You don't need to learn steps. You just need to relax."

HOW TO ...remember passwords

MORE THAN HALF OF ALL CALLS TO HELP CENTRESare about forgotten passwords—and changing it simply increasesyour chance of getting it wrong next time. It's enough to makeyou weep with frustration, but there's a (free) solution. By signing up to OpenID*,your password for one website—Google or Yahoo, say—automatically connects you ■

NO NEED TO WAIT FOR THE FAN TO KICK IN before you can shave or do your make-up after a shower.Just rub the glass with glycerine (from chemists and supermarkets) and polish with a soft cloth to stop it from fogging over. It should stay clear for a week. For more answers to everyday hassles, consult Reader's Digest 5-Minute Fixes (£26.99), available at shop.readersdigest. co.uk.

to any other site in the scheme. (There's a useful tutorial at Computeractive*.) Oryou can opt for a master password generator such as RoboForm*, which convertsyour password into hard-to-fake hieroglyphs everytimeyou use it.

Though it's a better idea than entrusting

HOW TO...prune

PUT AWAY

THOSE

SECATEURS:the easiest way to tame rampant shrubs is to chop them to knee height, says our very own Bob Flowerdew."Do it in winter and four out of five garden shrubs will respond with massive growth next spring. Within ayear they'll be shoulderhigh," he promises. Granted, you might lose one or two

your details to random websites, no one's suggestingyou trust password keepers with all your data. You can withhold your address and payment details, and just use them to access membership sites. And keep your bank account password to yourself—that's something onlyyou should know.

shears over them any time after flowering," advises Bob. "You'll have a nice flush of blooms next year and your roses won't be flattened by the wind."

Though it's worth doing it properly if you have plants you really value (find out how in theBob's Basics book series, £9.99), speedpruning increases your vigour—as well as the shrubs'. "Cut back hard now and you can forget about it for five years," says Bob.

or miss a season's flowering, but then you're unlikely to be nurturing a rare species.

"The average garden is filled with plants someone saw at a garden centre 15 years ago. You're not trying to produce prize blooms— you're trying to control what you have," he says.

Plants that need a quick tidy can be tackled with a hedge-trimmer. "Run the

To reduceyour workload further, fill the garden with plants you shouldn't prune (such as conifers, tree peony, camellia, Himalayan honeysuckle), plug the gaps with compact varieties and plant shrubs in containers to restrict their growth.

Then do what most gardeners never do—sit back and admire the view!

)) For more gardening tips, turn to page 138.

IF YOUR WEDDING DAY IS THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE, IS IT ALL DOWNHILL FROM THEN ON?That's the question posed by Catherine Blyth in her book The Art ofMarriage (E12.99). The 45 per cent who divorce, having raided their savings to the tune of £21,000 for the bash, would doubtless agree. But the majority who stay wed are healthier, richer and have better sex—so what's their secret?

Forget all the killjoy advice about "working" at marriage, because experts believe it's having fun together that keeps couples close. Blyth describes it as "active belief", a constant process of being interested in each other. "Even prioritisingyour partner

for 15 minutes a day will help," she claims. Once other things take precedence the relationship comes under threat, she says, citing the short, fraught marriage of Mr and Mrs Ritchie. "Guy said of Madonna, 'No one works harder than my missus.' Why did anyone think he meant it as a compliment?"

Here are the golden anniversary rules—cheesy but true

1.Look to good things in the past and imagine a brighter future when things get rough.

2.Observe common courtesies. Lack of respect for a partner is the strongest predictor of divorce.

3.Valueyour time together.

4. Enjoy connecting with each other physically, socially and spiritually.

Pleasure also provides a bank of good memories that help us through hard times, says Janet Reibstein, professor in psychology at Exeter University and author ofThe Best Kept Secret (E8.99). "You can either tell yourself it's unbearable or remember what was good and see how it can be that way again," she says.

HOW TO _lay down wine

P' '114111 . 1 TURN THAT DO BOTTLE OF RED INTO ONE WORTH TWICE

THE PRICE,simply by keeping it for five to ten years. Anyone can start a cellar—just add a few extra bottles toyour Christmas order and wait for the flavour to mature.

You won't go far wrong with classic reds, says RD's wine guru Will Lyons. Choose from Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Pinot Noir and, of course, vintage port. Look for the 2009 vintage—we may remember it as a rain-soaked summer, but the sun shone on the continent.

However, don't lay down rosé, wines under £8 or Aussie and New World reds, which won't improve with keeping, says Will. And be picky with whites. Vintage champagne is worth storing, as is Chardonnay, Riesling and Sauternes. Gus McLean, fine wine adviser for Laithwaite's, tips Margan Estate Hunter Valley Semillon, Australia 2008. "At £9.99 a bottle, it's a bargain that will keep for eight years or more," he says.

Although screw-tops no longer mean poor-quality wine, McLean advises opting for corks. "It's too soon to tell if wines will develop well under screw-tops," he says. Store the rack out of direct light at a temperature between 10°C and 13°C—a dry cellar is ideal.

If you're investing a substantial amount, it's worth paying for professional storage—companies like LCB or Octavian Vaults charge around El 0 per case peryear. When you're ready to drink, stand the bottle upright for a few hours to let the sediment settle, then decant it and leave for 30 minutes. And enjoy!

What your fire service won't tell you

>> I pull more people out of cars and lifts than houses. House fires have been less of a problem since smoke alarms came in, but there are plenty of car smashes and trapped office workers to keep me busy. I fish people out of rivers and rescue animals as well, but I won't get your cat down from a tree— it can do that on its own.

>>I won't break into your house if you forget your key. But I'll stretch a point if you're vulnerable.

>> Obesity is a growing problem.I'm often asked to get "bariatric"—largepeople out of the bath or car when they get stuck; one 41-stone man called firefighters three times in a week. I recommend the firefighter's fitness course. Lifting ladders six feet in the air and carrying five stone for 30 yards soon gets the weight down.

>> You need two different smoke alarms. An ionisation alarm reacts to flame; an optical one detects slow-burningfires such as smouldering wiring. (Here's a tip: put an optical alarm in the hall—it's less likely to go off ifyou burn the toast.) Buy an alarm with a ten-year battery or a rechargeable type that plugs into the mains.

>> Keep the washing up for tomorrow.Dishwashers and washing machines are frequent causes of fire. Five leading brands of dishwasher were recalled in the last year because they were a potential fire risk, so don't switch on before you go to bed.

>> Dogs can sniff out arson.It's the biggest cause of fire. Seventeen schools, 260 homes and 1,400 cars in the UK are set alight each week. It's not just a problem for inner cities—heaths and forests are targets, too. We send in fire-investigation dogs to sniff for accelerants— in uniform, of course. They

wear a special coat and boots to protect them from the heat.

>> Half my house calls are to kitchen fires.The biggest cause is distraction. You leave food on the stove to answer the door, and while you're chatting the kitchen goes up in flames.

>> It says "Smoking Kills" on the cigarette pack. You think it means lung cancer. I know smokers are the most likely to die in fires.

>> The best way out is the usual way out.Please don't jump ifyour house catches fire—leave by the front

door if you can. If not, get everyone into one room and block the entrance to stop smoke seeping in. Before you open a door, touch it with the back of your hand. If it's warm, back off—the fire's on the other side.

>> I can shake you awake. If you're hard of hearing, I'll put a vibrating pad beneath your pillow and a flashing strobe light byyour bed so you're sure to wake up.

>> Tots often hide from fire.They tend to crawl into cupboards or under beds if fire breaks out, so I tell them the right thing to do. Even small children can learn how to ring 999.

>> If there's a computer or TV in your bedroom, fit a smoke alarm there, too. The heat generated when they're on standby can be a fire risk.

>> You can join me parttime.If you commit to 20 hours a week, you could earn almost £14,000—not too bad for a top-up job.

"Retained" firefighters need to live within five minutes' drive of the fire station and be physically fit. But there's no height or maximum age limit and women are as welcome as men.

r on the Ward

Max Pemberton finds out what it's like on the other side of the fence

It all started with a sharp, excruciating pain across my chest. It was early and I'd just woken up to get a glass of water. As I swallowed, I was suddenly bent double with pain that brought tears to my eyes.

The previous day, I had felt fine—but this signalled

These are the things that there are no tick boxes for,

yet

are

so

important

an unexpected and unpleasant transition from doctor to patient. By the end of the day I still hadn't been able to swallow anything, and even swallowing saliva was painful. By the next evening, I was rushed into hospital. What would follow was a fascinating insight into what

it's really like to be on the receiving end of the NHS. My overall feeling was that the care I received was excellent; in A&E I was seen promptly, it was clean, and within a few hours I was up on a ward. An emergency operation was arranged while they did further investigations.

I was pleasantly surprised by the efficiency —and all this was done without anyone knowing I was a doctor. But what I soon learned was that, as a patient, the things that managers and politicians concern themselves with, such as waiting times or how often the floor is cleaned, are only part of the experience.

Long, friendless corridors and impersonal waiting rooms combined with the creeping worry that this was possibly

quite serious meant that the attitude of the staff took on an immense importance.

A grumpy receptionist brought me close to tears. Not knowing what was happening, or being talked about when I was standing there, had far more of an

impact on me than dust on the skirting board.

But, conversely, there was a kindly volunteer who found me looking lost and took me to the door of the doctor I was supposed to be seeing. Or the nurse who took my hand when I was gagging as I was having a scope put down my throat. Or the porter who went to extraordinary lengths to get me a blanket when I was cold. These are the things that there are no tick boxes for,yet are so important.

It transpired that an antibiotic I had taken some time before had got stuck and eroded my gullet, creating scar tissue and causing an obstruction.

While I wouldn't wish the ordeal on anyone, it opened my eyes. The greatest asset the NHS has is its staff, from the consultants to the receptionists. They are the ones who can make all the difference to a scared patient.

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

KNOW YOUR ORGANS

The eyes

Look into my eyes!You won't feel sleepy, though— you'll be amazed. The eye detects light and turns it into electrical impulses that the brain translates into a representation of the world around us. The way it does this is incredibly complex.

Baby blue basics

The eye is the size of a ping-pong ball and sits in the eye socket in the skull, which protects the back of the eye. The white part is the sclera. It's made of tough material and surrounds the eye, helping it keep its shape. At the front is the cornea, a delicate, transparent dome that allows light to enter. Next up is the iris, a coloured ring containing muscle fibres that regulate the amount of light entering the eye. The pupil is really just a hole that allows light to enter.

Light fantastic

When light enters the pupil, it passes through the lens, which sits behind the iris and helps focus. Light then hits the retina at the back of the eye where it gathers information from rods (which detect shape) and cones (which detect colour), and passes this to the brain via the optic nerve.

The eyes have it

The eyes are the windows to the body as well as the soul. By looking into them, doctors can see the blood vessels, and thus see any damage being done to other organs. The effects of conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure can both be seen by looking into the eye. Even tears play a role in our wellbeing. They're produced by the lachrymal glands in the corners of the eyelids, and contain antiseptic properties. They also keep the cells on the eye's surface moist, and flush things from the eye.

Next month:

New research shows that combining certain foods will give you more nutritional bang for your buck. Here are five power-food pairings for you to try

Dynamic Duos

BEANS AND TOMATOES. We absorb less iron from beans and leafy greens than we do from meat, but vitamin C makes iron more easily ingestible. Try eating iron-loaded kidney beans with vitamin C-packed tomatoes and peppers.

GREEN TEA AND LEMON JUICE.Adding a splash of vitamin C-rich lemon, lime or grapefruit juice to green tea reduces the breakdown of catechins (the powerful heart-protecting antioxidants found in 11 0 tea), making them more easily absorbed by the body.

YOGURT AND BANANA. Combining carbs and protein (such as yogurt and banana) after a workout speeds muscle recovery. It increases the production of insulin, which allows muscles to soak up repair nutrients and become stronger.

APPLES AND RASPBERRIES. Raspberries contain ellagic acid, which enhances the ability of quercetin—an antioxidant found in apples—to help prevent cancerous cells forming.

FISH AND WINE. Italian research found that women who drank one glass of red or white wine a day had higher levels of healthy omega-3 fats. Combining a glass of wine with oilyfish such as salmon increases your omega-3 absorption, and reduces your risk of macular degeneration.

It triggers neurogenesis (the birth of new brain cells) in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for learning. It does this by producing proteins known as brain growth factors—so many that experts now believe exercise is better for the brain than puzzles.

lifestyle changes, you can strengthen your mental muscles

The flavonols in chocolate increase blood flow to the brain, according to a study by Northumbria University. Flavonols also make us less likely to feel mentally tired.

Good literacy skills in younger life lead to better brain-power later on, found a study of nuns in Minnesota. If you expressed complex ideas succinctly in your twenties, you're at a lower risk of Alzheimer's seven decades later.

Dehydration causes brain cells to shrink as water leaves them, impairing neurone function.

A glass of

water will help things return to normal, but prolonged dehydration can affect mental performance. US research shows that bilingual people make better use of their brains, as switching between two languages engages more of the neural landscape. Taking up a difficult hobby later in life will also reduce your risk of dementia.

The chemical reactions that the brain goes through during sex help thinking—for example, the increase in the "trust" hormone oxytocin increases our ability to solve problems. The post-coital rise in serotonin also boosts creative thinking and calm decision-making.

We all forget things metimes, but by making mnemonics funny, colourful and positive (our brains try to block out unpleasant images) we're much more ' likely to remember them.

R natural way to a healthier heart? We'll drink to that.

Now there's a simple, natural way to help look after your heart. help: blood pressure and help: cholesterol both contain active ingredients that are scientifically supported when to help you maintain a healthier heart taken as part of a healthy and balanced diet.

• Simply add one sachet to juice or water twice

a day and help keep your heart health in check. To find out more visit workswithwater.co.uk

Please consult a healthcare professional if you are concerned about your heart health. The help: range of proprietary soluble food supplements incorporate ingredients which naturally occur in food and should not be used as a substitute for a healthy and varied diet or prescribed medication.

Scent of the new

Jan Masters warms to the allure of flirting with different fragrances

I love perfume.I even love reading about it. I find books such as Perfumes: The A-Z Guide, by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez (£12.99), as riveting as a novel and as therapeutic as a recipe book.

As a beauty journalist, I hear master perfumers' tales of tracking down the perfect vanilla in Tahiti, or how science captures the odour molecules of a living bloom.

Yet when it comes to wearing the stuff, I easily become set in my scented ways, sticking with fresh citrus concoctions for day and fragrances featuring vetiver (an earthy, woody scent) for night.

But this month I've decided to star in my own variety show. To spin into a department store for samples. To flirt with totally different aromas (I am loving Estee Lauder's Private Collection Tuberose Gardenia

2

O

and Halston Man

Amber—even though it's for

men). And I'm currently typing on a cloud of Sisley Eau de Soir.

My reward has been a recalibration of my sense of smell. If you keep wearing the same scent year in, year out, it can become so habitual that you almost cease to register it. After a break, however, you appreciate its charms afresh. So here are my favourite tips to help break a fragrance rut...

• Wear different fragrances to bed (either samples of new ones, or spritzes of those you possess but have been ignoring). Darkness can help you experience the true character of a perfume. And when you smell it on your pillow the next night, you can also tell what it's like when it's had time to bed down (as it were).

• Swap a couple of scents with a friend for a weekend, so you can both try before you buy.

• To appreciate a new scent's aura, Turin and Sanchez

suggest spraying a test strip, leaving it in a room for a few minutes, then closing the door and walking back in. What you smell is the perfume's "radiance".

• Let fragrance into your life in different ways. Treat yourself to a scented candle or an giber-posh soap. Sometimes, a perfume you wouldn't dream of wearing on your skin smells fantastic in the air or when dropped into the bath.

• If you have an iPhone, download the iPerfumer app, devised by fragrance and flavour creation house Givaudan. All you have to do is enter your scent preferences and wait as iPerfumer shortlists fragrances for you to try.

• Remember, not all perfumes you buy have to beyour signature scent. Obsessively seeking "the one" can destroy any possibility of serendipity. Think in terms of finding a wonderful mood-morpher instead. Who knows, onceyou stop looking,you may stumble upon a longterm relationship!

BEAUTY

The latest lash lovers

There have never been so many ways to dress lashes up—fromfakes and extensions to all manner of mascara formulations. Try these lash-livening products:

From DHC,Japan's top online skincare company, comes Eyelash Tonic (0)". It's a conditioning gel

00•1011100••

formulated to help strengthen weak lashes. It contains aloe, ginseng and extracts of watercress, swertia japonica and comfrey. Apply as a mascara base or at bedtime.

Rimmel London's Lash Accelerator mascara (88.99) is designed to make your lashes appear up to 8o per cent longer. It helps strengthen them overtime, too.

Bourjoishas launched Volumizer Mascara (810.99). One brush. Two steps. Two looks. Untwist the cap where it says Step 1, and the brush loads a light amount of mascara for a base coat (or a natural finish). Untwist it at Step 2, and more mascara is loaded onto the brush to really plump up the volume.

BEAUTY BEAUTY

You've heard of lipstickto go with certain complexions or to makeyour teeth look whiter. Now, enter a lipstick and lipgloss to go with your jeans. Hot from Lipstick Queen, the creation of lippie guru Poppy King, they're designed to giveyou the perfect shade of pucker when you're in your denims. They brighten your face and bring out the blue in your strides (Space.NK, both £15).

You take great care to wash your hair.But what about your brushes? Regularly shampoo and rinse them in warm water—and watch your hair stay cleaner for longer.

BEAUT

HC dash .11

Some things are so simple they just make perfect sense. Like paying your Reader's Digest bills online through a MyRD account — the easy, secure way to manage all your payments. Better still, if you set up your account with us today, we'll send you a voucher to save £50 with Naked Wines.* All you need is your Customer Number, which is printed on all the correspondence we have sent to you.

Enjoy the convenience of MyRD for:

• Secure, instant payments, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

• No delay waiting for cheques to arrive and clear

• Written confirmation by email the moment payment is received

• Immediately update your address details if you move home

• Receive a FREE £50 voucher to spend with Naked Wines.*

How to avoid a shortfall on your mortgage

If your mortgage lender makes a mistake and charges you too little for your monthly repayments, be aware that even though the error isn't your fault, you'll still have to pay the outstanding balance back.

Known in the industry as "mortgage underfunding", this can cause a great deal of distress for affected customers—most of whom won't have budgeted for a sudden increase in their payments.

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) says it has received an increasing number of calls from consumers complaining about mortgage underfunding.

Although a long-standing issue, the FOS says mortgage underfunding has come into the spotlight recently after 18,000 Yorkshire and Clydesdale Bank customers were left with serious shortfalls on their mortgages this year due to a "calculation error" by the bank.

How are disputes dealt with?

According to the FOS, the "capital

shortfall"—the money owed—will only be written off if the lender is "entirely to blame" for the mistake.

What the Ombudsman must decide is whether the customer "should" have known they weren't paying enough. They'll do this by looking at the information provided by the lender, such as annual statements, as well as taking into account the individual's financial knowledge and whether the consumer had previously queried the payment.

Check your annual statements carefully

David Hollingworth, a spokesperson for brokerage London & Country Mortgages, says: "I think the best advice is that borrowers should keep an eye on the info sent through to them regarding changes in payments—and in particular their annual statement.

"Rather than simply filing the statement, read through it properly and make sure it reflects your understanding

in terms of the repayment method, the term and the interest rate that has been applied."

For example, if you have a repayment mortgage and the balance on your statement is not falling, then this should set alarm bells ringing.

"If you see an error, you won't get away with it," Hollingworth adds.

"It's better to deal with these things sooner rather than later—when you could face a bigger shortfall that will have an even bigger impact on your finances," he explains.

Use an online mortgage calculator

This is a simple way to checkyour monthly payments are correct.

Sue Anderson, a spokesperson for the Council of Mortgage Lenders, says: "While it's difficult to give people an easy way to get an absolutely precise check on their payments, one very straightforward way to do a `sense check' is to plugyour details into one of the many online mortgage calculators out there.

"By inputtingyour mortgage value, interest rate, term left to run and whether it's interest-only or repayment, you'll get a very reasonable idea of what the value should be," she explains.

Mark Harris, managing director of real-estate service provider Savills, adds: "If you're on an interest-only mortgage, it's particularly easy—simply multiply the mortgage balance by the interest rate you are paying and divide by 12. For example, a £500,000 mortgage at four per cent should have monthly costs of £1,666.67."

Five ways to cut your home insurance costs

1Increase security. Insurers often offer discounts ifyou have certain security measures in place. Ask them what brand of alarm they recommend, and make sure it's approved bythe National Approval Council for Security Systems. You should also replace any old locks with approved five-lever mortice locks, and two-bolt locks on your windows. Joining a Neighbourhood Watch scheme and installing security lighting could also loweryour premiums.

ZGet the right cover. If you underinsure,your claim may not be covered; ifyou overinsure,you'II pay too much foryour premiums. Knowing exactly what protectionyour policy offers will stop you from doubling up on cover.

42 Don't pay monthly. Your insurer %•1 will chargeyou additional interest for the privilege—so try to pay foryour annual policy in one lump sum. Ifyou can't afford to, consider a credit card that offers 0% on new purchases to help you spread outyour payments without paying interest.

Increase your excess, ifyou can afford to. But don't increase it to a levelyou can't afford—you could find yourself in serious financial difficulties. Shop around. Online comparison la sites are one of the easiest ways to do this. Compare like for like, and check whether it's cheaper to buyyour contents and building insurance together.

Tax chaos

What to do if HMRC made a mistake with your tax code

HMRC is currently sending letters to around six million people in the UK who have paid the wrong amount of tax over the past two years because their tax codes were incorrectly calculated. According to HMRC, 1.4 million people paid too little tax during the tax years 2008/2009 and 2009/2010, while a huge 4.3 million people paid too much tax.

Here's a reminder of what you need to know if you get that letter....

What if I haven't paid enough tax?

For people who owe less than £300, the Government has promised to write off the debt. However, according to HMRC, the average amount people have underpaid is £1,428—so the majority of people will still have to repay the money.

If you owe under £2,000 you can repay the money in monthly instalments via PAYE during the next tax year; if you owe more than £2,000 you have until January 31, 2012, to repay your outstanding balance in one lump sum.

However, HMRC has also said that in cases of genuine hardship it will allow repayments to be spread over three years—and, thanks to a new concession, if you do need longer to repay whatyou owe,you will not be charged interest. Before this concession, you would have been charged interest on your debt after three months. Tony Bernstein, tax partner at chartered accountants HW Fisher & Company, says:

"Don't panic. HMRC has broad powers of discretion, and there's no reason why those affected should not be able to negotiate how they pay on an individual basis.

"Look back through your coding notices and compare them with your payslips to ensure your employer has applied the correct coding. Study the PAYE codes (particularly the most recent one) and check that all the figures reflectyour circumstances. If there has been a mistake somewhere, then get in touch with your tax office and make them aware of this," he explained.

You can contact HMRC on 0845 3000 627 or write to the tax office at the address that appears on the letter.

If it was HMRC's mistake do I have to pay it back?

Ifyou've given HMRC all the correct information and they've failed to act upon it, after 12 months any

outstanding tax you owe may be written off under a little-known statutory concession called the "Extra Statutory Concession (ESC) Al 9".

In exceptional circumstances, HMRC may also waive the underpaid tax within the 12-month period if they have failed more than once to make proper use of the facts they were given, or if they've allowed the arrears to build up over two whole tax years in succession. You can find out more about this loophole on the HMRC website.*

How

will I get my money back if I have overpaid?

You should get a rebate within seven to ten working days of receivingthe letter. You'll also be paid 0.5% interest on what you're owed. According to HMRC, the average rebate people will receive is £418.

RD Money editor Victoria Bischoff is also a personal finance reporter at Citywire Money, an independent website* that helps people make the most of their money.

WATCH OUT FOR TAX SCAMS

HMRC is warning taxpayersto be on their guard against fraudsters trying to take advantage of the recent tax fiasco.

Remember:

>> HMRC are contacting individuals affectedby postonly. You will not be contacted by phone or email.

>> You don't need to give out your bank details or personal information. Tax rebates will be refunded by cheque sent directly to you by post, and HMRC will take money through the PAYE system. You will not be expected to send cash or a cheque.

> Watch out for spelling errors or poor grammar in your letter—these could indicate fraud.

Steak-out 1

Gourmet without the hassle? Marco

Pierre White shows how it can be done

It's time for a confession.In my first cookery book,White Heat (published in 1990), I wrote: "I can't work in a domestic kitchen; there's no freedom and no buzz."

In fact, cookingfor family and friends at home gives me more of a buzz than anything else nowadays—and I never thought I'd say that. I come from a background of classical French cuisine, and it follows that many of the dishes I've made

over the years have been pretty complex.

Too often, cookery books (yes, including some of mine) have made the reader try too hard. I regularly come across people who are scared of cooking— even in professional kitchens!

The recipes in my new book, Marco Made Easy, are all about giving you the confidence to experiment, and bring some fun back into your kitchen.

Peppered steaks are a case in point. You might think they have a complex, gourmet feel, but as you will see here, nothing could be easier.

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

PEPPERED STEAKS (serves 4)

4 fillet steaks, about 180g each

Cracked black pepper

3tbsp extra virgin olive oil

100m1Worcestershire sauce

150m1 double cream

1.Dust one side of each steak with the pepper so it sticks to the surface.

2. In a heavy-based frying pan, heat the olive oil and fry the steaks,

pepper side up, for 3-4 minutes.

3. Turn the steaks and continue to fry for a further 3-4 minutes.

4. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the steaks to rest in the pan in a warm part of the kitchen for 5-10 minutes.

5.Remove the steaks from the pan and keep warm. The juices that are left in the frying pan are delicious,

so don't discard them.

6. Make the sauce by pouringthe Worcestershire sauce into the same frying pan and heating it, but don't bring to the boil.

7. Cook until the sauce has reduced by about twothirds. Now add the cream, keep it on the heat and stir.

8. Return the steaks to the hot sauce in the pan.

9. Serve with thinly cut chips and grilled tomatoes.

Cover star Daniel %. Roche's favourite food? "I have lots, but if I had to choose specifically it would be cherries, %. 1 watermelon and grapes."

Bob Flowerdew answers your gardening questions

&Solutions

Qi remember you saying it made more economic sense to grow flowers for cutting than vegetables. Which are the easy ones to try?

AJust as with vegetables, different soils suit different flowers, so try to find what does well in your area. If you have a rich clayey loam you could concentrate on roses. If it's a light sand then Helichrysum, Statice or Sea lavender—which, being everlasting, are even better value.

Sweet peas are always popular, Sweet William is excellent, and Brompton and Lothian

Stocks are good. Wallflowers are cheap and cheerful early on, and dahlias, phlox and chrysanthemums work well in autumn. Many other bulbs—gladioli in particular —can be more expensive, but results are almost guaranteed and they nearly all stand well once cut. Plant some early and late narcissi and hyacinths for cutting next spring, too.

QI need to grow more fresh green stuff for salads through winter— what do you suggest?

AOutdoors is limiting as many crops grow reluctantly and get damaged by the weather and mud. It's better to grow in tubs, under cloches, cold frames or on sunny windowsills. Then the plants grow quicker, are more succulent and stay cleaner. Sow in cells or small pots in the warm, planting or potting them up later. You can use these as cut-and-come-again—rocket, winter lettuce (any variety), chervil, pak Choi, lamb's lettuce and miner's lettuce. You may also like hot and spicy Chinese greens and mustards.

Planning ahead,you could grow curly and other kales outdoors— their smaller leaves are good raw and the larger can be fried in oil.

QI only started growing vegetables

Last year and don't know how to choose from the enormous number of varieties in the new catalogues

AAs a general rule it's Pdia good policy to grow fewer things—especially in your earlyyears. Concentrate on, say, only your favourite half-dozen vegetables. Ideally, grow what local gardeners recommend as reliable varieties. Otherwise, go for the best-selling standard varieties. These will also be cheaper. Avoid those that are vaunted as brand new, exclusive, heirloom or celebrity-endorsed, as these may be expensive, tricky >- and disappointing. However, each year, for just one of your favourites, choose a selection of varieties and hold a mini-trial to find the best for you. Over a few seasons you'll build up a selection of your regular choices—then you can start to work through the host of other crops as well.

o Bob Flowerdew is an organic gardener and a 2 regular on BBC Radio 4's Lt Gardeners' Question Time.

JOBS FOR November

Don't waste this month's few dry daylight hours.Tidyup any decaying crops and bedding plants, and have another go at the weeds to stop them romping through winter. Put away watering cans and hoses, empty tubs and hanging baskets, and store summer furniture still outdoors. Send the mower in for an overhaul so it's ready next spring. Do all outstanding pruning and any planting NOW.

READER'S TIP

Weeds are a constant irritant for gardeners.If you baulk at the idea of using weedkiller by the gallon, trythis eco-friendly tip " AF" from reader Beth Webb in Clwyd. "Put seven layers

At'of newspaper under two to three inches of soil—it makes an effective and invisible weed barrier that lasts for years. It's much cheaper, too."

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

There are even more gardening tips on our new website, readersdigest.co.uk!

This month:Find out how to get a great container garden whatever the weather * get some hot ideas for November from our gardening blogger Joanna Cruddas • plus much more for free atreadersdigest.co.uk.

SCRATCH AND SNIFF

November is the perfect time for autumnal walks, but how much more fascinating (and potentially overwhelming!) those walks might be if we could develop a dog's sense of smell, even if it was just for one day.

Our canines live in a different world from us—a world of smell we

can barely comprehend. A recent experiment showed just how good their sense of smell is. Scientists got people to walk in a straight line on grass, without their dogs seeing. Twenty minutes later, the dogs were brought in. They found the tracks immediately. Then, after a "deciding phase" that took three to five seconds, they started following the track in the correct direction. They never got this wrong. Somehow they could smell the difference between one footprint and another made less than a second later, allowing them to work out the direction the person had walked in.

FAVOURITE HOBBIES

Earlier thisyear,, I had a thrilling experience. I was contemplating my new vegetable patch when I heard a strange sound. Looking up, I saw the unmistakable outline of a hobby(Falco subbuteo), one of our most dramatic birds of prey. The sounds were alarm calls from a group of swallows and martins that were keeping aneye on their foe.

Hobbies are one of the few predators fast enough to hunt swallows, swifts and martins—they actually migrate with their prey. The full migration of the hobby was a mystery until recently, when a German team fitted a minute tracker to a female

The hobby

HELPING THE HOGS

• If you read our hedgehog feature last month,you'll

C. ' know that this is a crunch time for hogs—have they built up enough reserves

and followed her entire journey to southern Africa and back. (For more details of the hobby's journey, visit readersdigest.co.uk/lin ks.)

British hobbies will probably be in Angola right now, having averaged 110 miles per day every day since they left the UK!

Hatch

Martin Hughes-Games on doggy walks, hibernation and migration

to survive hibernation?

Our gardens are becoming an increasingly vital habitat for hedgehogs—just as they are for birds—and the hedgehogs pay us back by eating slugs and snails. If you have hedgehogs in the garden,you need to be careful when using slug pellets, or building bonfires, for example.

As hedgehog expert Les Stocker says, "If there's a hazard in the garden, a

hedgehog is sure to find it!"

Hedgehogs were thought so useful in the 1880s that they were actually sold in London as "cellar hogs" to keep down cockroaches and other undesirables in the home.

For information on how to help hedgehogs, go to readersdigest.co.uk/links.

Martin Hughes-Games is a host ofBBC2'sSpringwatch andAutumnwatch

My t..0 holiday ever

Gilly Smith from East Sussex remembers taking her husband Jed and two teenage daughters on a Greek odyssey

Since we discovered the upmarket package holiday,"proper" travel has fallen off our radar. But once a backpacker, always a backpacker, so this year we decided (inspired by our daughter Ellie's GCSE Classics set text) to spend ten days on our own odyssey—to show the girls what travelling could really be like.

We set off in our hire car from Athens airport to our first stop in Lefkas, negotiating hairy mountain passes and the hieroglyphics that pass for road signs. The girls even stopped

Find out more about Lefkas and Levendi's at readersdigest. co.uk/links

scrapping in the back to peer at the sun slipping into Homer's wine-dark sea. They got their reward at Wildwind, one of the best sailing centres on Lefkas, and quickly joined the instructor whizzing across the windiest part of the island. Kids sorted, Jed went

fora massage and I joined the yoga.

After four days of snorkelling in clear seas, we sailed to Levendi's on Ithaca, an eco-chic farm estate said by friends to be a must.

Our days around its infinity pool stretched into long evenings at the village tavernas. The early morning poolside Pilates followed by a two-hour holistic massage is probably why 65 per cent of its customers come backfor more.

Our hosts advised us to stop off in the pretty fishingvillage of Galaxidi rather than Athens, the sun set on our last swim as the kids told us that this had been their best holiday ever. It had given them a sense of the freedom that the open road had given Jed and me.

* 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 £75. See address on px.

Edited by Kate Pettifer

GREAT %a ESCAPES

PICK OF THE BEST: CHRISTMAS MARKET TOURS

Use festive shopping as your excuse to book a European mini-break. Newmarket Travel (0844 391 2197*) has a three-night break in Prague, including flights and b&b, from £239.

Railbookers (020 3327 0800*) offers a four-night train tour to Brussels and Cologne from £339, including b&b, while Inntravel (01653 617005*) has three nights' b&b in

• Salzburg, including 0 0 flights, from £430.

E9

ROAM, JAMES...

i2 ...and don't spare the T calories! That just about

▪ sums up the new Classic !±' Car package from Hastings Z Hotels. Tour the dramatic a Antrim Coast Road in 2_ a chauffeur-driven

Salzburg market—a winter wonderland

classic motor, staying at the luxurious Culloden Estate &Spa one night and the lavish Ballygally Castle the next, complete with sumptuous dinners, a picnic,

• afternoon tea and even some champagne thrown in. Three days and two nights of VIP treatment costs from £360 (028 9047 1066*).

PIMP MY CANARY

Craving winter warmth?

Discerning tour operator Prestige has turned its attention to the Canary Islands, and is packaging up the winter sun in style. Seven nights' b&b in Meloneras, a typical island village in Gran Canaria, staying at Lopesan Villa del Conde Resort & Thalasso, starts at £779 per person in December including return flights and transfers (01425 480400*).

Whether you have a room to letor are after a home-stay abroad, this easy-to-navigate website lists lodgings from Surbiton to Sydney. It charges a £3 booking fee, but with rooms from £10,you can make your travel budget go further. Registration is simple, and every listing includes details about the owner, area and room, plus reviews from previous guests. Check out the Hall of Fame on the blogfor the site's most stylish pads.

THE RD CHALLENGE

Ready to stretch your brain? Then take a deep breath and dive into these six pen-chewing puzzlers from Mensa, the highIQ society. Allow yourself 20 minutes and get cracking!

cerebra% COrtel*

•dn peg vonemw wouogaq Lit sJaqwnu awn° pavom an,noXuaym peal() wns 1a o1 an aleinDieD— L L L 'TMVSpue asnMfd `JdONVI `3NO ale spomJellel aw—sndopo vsuopamp

Ja4e1 PJII-Pkiana Jaialeeld pue kmanas`Jalsii.leg 'teeple Z L 7 •Dilsileapl pue pasmell 913MSNV

Answer to October's question Affected, eviction and flexible. This month's winner: Vanessa Ovington from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

z

1. Rearrange the following letters to give two words. Both words must contain all ten letters. What are the words?

ACDEIIILST

2.Two cars set off from the same point, to travel the same journey. Car A has a start of three minutes before carB sets off. If car A travels at 60mph and carB travels at 80mph, how many miles will have been travelled when the cars are level?

3.Three professions are merged together here. What are they?

4. On each row, place a three-letter word that can be attached to the end of the word to the left and to the beginning of the word to the right to give a longer word in each case. When completed, the initial letters of the three-letter words will give another word reading downwards. What is it?

The sum of each two adjacent squares gives the number above. What number should replace the question mark?

PRIZE QUESTION

Send us the answer to this question—the first correct one we pick on November 11 wins £50!* Email excerpts @readersdigest.co.uk

The first 20 customers in a cafe spent an average of £2 each. After a further 20 customers order, the average amount spent rose to £7 each. What was the average amount spent by the second group of 20 customers?

The answer will be published in the December issue

SO HOW DID YOU SCORE?

One point for every correct answer

0-1 Little and Large.A bit naff, sadly.

2-3 Sooty and Sweep. Cute but childish.

4-5 French and Saunders.Very good, but one step short of immortality.

6 Morecambe and Wise. Gold standard!

Have your best Christmas yet with our BIGGEST •er Including Keeley Hawes, Bill Bailey, Ken Barlow, Lynne Truss, Aled Jones, Annie Lennox, James Brown... Christmas food sensations from Marco Pierre White...

PLUS a Christmas tale from master storyteller Alexander McCall Smith written exclusively for Reader's Digest ...AND a MONSTER Christmas quiz special the whole family will love!

READER'S DIGEST: NOT SO SMALL, BUT STILL PERFECTLY INFORMED

NOVEMBER'S STEPHEN BOOKS KING

A N Wilson on vengeance, memory, eyesight—and why he's now tempted to join the Communist Party

FULL DARK, NO STARS

by Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton, £18.99)

Ever sinceThe Count of Monte Cristo there has been bestseller potential in a really satisfying revenge. Stephen King has often explored the theme in his dark, violent books—and fans will not be disappointed by these four tales in which naughty deeds definitely don't go unpunished.

I especially admired the two female avengers here. In "Big Driver",Tess, a writer of gentle mystery novels, is raped. Her revenge on the perpetrator is particularly satisfying. In "A Good Marriage", a wife finds out that her husband is a serial killer and takes the appropriate action. Surely a book for the Christmas stocking—of those with strong stomachs.

SUNSET

PARK by Paul Auster

(Faber, £16.99)

Paul Auster is a hypnotic writer. From page one you're drawn into the shimmering menace and emotional complexity of his stories. His latest begins with an idyllic love affair in Florida between a (slightly) underage Cuban girl and Miles, our seriously mixed-up 28-year-old hero. Threatened with exposure, he returns to New York and confronts childhood demons more disturbing than the Florida

1-ULL DARK, NO STARS

Why not say what; ha pps'ilecl?•• have

police. As his past unpeels before us, we feel ourselves in the presence of a real master, with every scene so beautifully observed—and captured in the sharpest of prose.

THE MIND'S EYE

by Oliver Sacks (Picador, £20)

InThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, neurologist Oliver Sacks gave us a touching, funny insight into the extraordinary tricks that brain disorders can play on us. His latest book is just as good: packed with wisdom, humour, extraordinary human stories and reflections on how we all perceive the world. It starts with the account of a concert pianist who can no longer read music—or anything else. Even though she retains the ability to play an entire Haydn

piece she has heard once, she gradually loses the capacity to tell the difference between tomatoes and apples.

The book is crammed with other case histories of visual-neural disorders, and concludes with a journal kept by Dr Sacks when, at 72, he developed a malignant tumour in one of his eyes. His raw terror is somehow rather shocking. He ends with a brilliant discussion of blindness and the ways in which blind people develop visual concepts. Heartily recommended.

WHY NOT SAY WHAT HAPPENED?

by Ivana Lowell (Bloomsbury, £20)

Ivana Lowell is the daughter of bushbabyeyed Lady Caroline Blackwood, who was married to artist Lucian Freud, pianist Israel Citkowitz and poet Robert Lowell. When Ivana told her awful old granny Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, that she'd discovered Citkowitz was not her father (as she'd been brought up to believe), Maureen was thrilled because it meant her granddaughter wasn't Jewish.

The true identity of Ivana's father

RD BOOK CLUB

Each month, we invite you to read our recommended paperback and let us have your comments and marks out of ten. Our professional critic A N Wilson then reads the same book and we report on how your views compare with his.

NOVEMBER'S CHOICE

Charlotte Bronte'sJane Eyre is the archetypal Victorian story of an orphan making her way in an often unkind world. After surviving life with a cruel aunt, several cruel cousins and a cruel headmaster, Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall—owned by a Mr Rochester... In 1847, the book's forthright heroine and sometimes nasty clergymen were enough to make it both thrilling and scandalous. But would it still stir readers more than i5o years later?

THE VERDICT

The answer to that turned out to be a is a cliffhanger in what's essentially a wholly unanimous "Yes". In fact, the first catalogue of upper-class Bohemian literary classic to feature as an RD Book bad behaviour. One minute we're with Club choice brought in not only the most Maureen at one of her excruciating responses we've ever had, but also ..* Cover star the most effusive.

dinners with the Queen Mother. The next we're in rehab with Ivana or watching her mother drink herself to death. The result will make even conservative readers regret there's no longer a proper Communist Party: after finishing it, I'd certainly have joined on the spot. But I was also, I admit, gripped by every spoiled and self-pitying page.

1 Daniel Roche Admittedly, none of you quite "absolutely adores books". His favourite matched the wild enthusiasm reading is Terry I of our own A N Wilson. ("By Pratchett's Discworld • any standards this is a corking se ....

novel...The childhood parts are

stunning...The slow discovery that there is a mad Mrs Rochester in the attic is absolutely terrifying...But, boy oh boy, how brilliantly it is all done.") Nonetheless,

several of you had a pretty good go.

One reason for the shared enthusiasm was the realisation (even for those who'd read it before) of just how many elements the book contains.

For more book reviews and to add comments of your own, please go to readersdigest.co.uk/ magazine

"It's so much more than a love story," said Tracy Davidson of Stratford-upon-Avon.

"There's also bullying, feminism, poverty, mental illness, grief and gothic horror."

"The combination of romance, mystery and drama keeps your interest throughout," agreed Gwendoline Percival of East Yorkshire.

Another reason, of course, was the fighting spirit of Jane herself. More than one reader explained how refreshing it is to find—and care so much about—a heroine who in many ways is so ordinary. In the end, the odd non-perfect score meant your average mark was 91/2.A N Wilson, not surprisingly,gave the full 10.

Our Critic of the Month is Sarah Harrison from Maidstone in Kent, who wins £100 in book tokens for this heartfelt review.

"This was my first reading ofJane Eyre, and I was surprised by how much of Jane's life was covered in the novel. But her childhood is also crucial to understanding her character, which is so universal and so utterly believable that it has prevented the book from ever becoming outdated. Everything is described through her eyes and she is curious, intelligent and honest (both with herself and others). At 22years old myself—an age roughly similar to Jane's for the bulk of the book—I can appreciate that her strength and independence still

inspire the modern woman. It is somehow satisfying to see something of yourself in the protagonist—to feel her frustration, so acutely described, at the injustices she faces, and to recognise the nervousness and excitement of falling in love."

COMING UP

DecemberThe Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale (Bloomsbury, £7.99).

January Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie (Ebury, £7.99)

February When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (Black Swan, £7.99)

A dark and classy thriller featuring private investigator Jackson Brodie.

■ Did you find

the violence too shocking, or was it necessary?

■ Did you object to Atkinson's use of coincidence?

Please send your comments and marks out of ten by December is. (ThePies and Prejudice deadline is Novemberi5.)

Comments, thoughts and reviews of all kinds and lengths are welcome. Write to RD Book Club, Reader's Digest, 157 Edgware Road, London W2 2HR or email bookclub@ readersdigest.co.uk.

In return, we'll give a Do° book token to the Critic of the Month and publish their verdict—in edited form—here. Happy reading!

BOOKS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

Alastair Stewart OBE

started as a reporter for ITV's Southern Television in 1976 before joining ITN in 1980. He has anchored national news bulletins since 1983 and earlier this year presented Britain's first ever televised debate between prime ministerial candidates.

THE PHENOMENON OF MAN

by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR

by George

Orwell

Teilhard de Chardi

I was educated at a Roman Catholic boarding school by Benedictine monks. Thankfully, they were thoughtful and liberal people, and we were encouraged to read widely. Even so, this book was a particularly brave recommendation—because the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, himself a Jesuit priest, were often condemned by the Church.

In The Phenomenon of Man he explores his belief that all humanity contributes to a collective consciousness in which, regardless of your religion, the power of intellect and thought makes mankind phenomenal. When I was15, it rocked my faith in Catholicism because I was inspired to question the omniscience of God and understand that the humanist side of theology is as important as the spiritual. God may create us, but it's up to us how to live. We are able to take responsibility for our actions, and must do so.

Beautifully written and more relevant today than ever,Nineteen EightyFour fired my interest in politics and economics—my subsequent university degree and the root of my career. Its cautionary tale of the dangers of totalitarianism has stayed with me throughout my life. In my job now I have to be apolitical, but I do believe in a compassionate government that encourages the creation and egalitarian distribution of wealth. The dangers Orwell so prophetically wrote about are a harsh warning of a political system taken to devastatingextremes.

BARBARIANS AT THE GATE: the Fall of RJR Nabisco

by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar

Published in 1990, this exposes the sordid excesses of capitalism in which sensible functioning markets and industrial sectors completely lose their way. The leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco is a little bit of history now, but it highlighted how we got into the financial mess we're in—not just with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, but also the forced public ownership of banks in this country. You can't borrow or lend money that isn't there. It doesn't take an Einstein to see that things will go wrong.

As told to Caroline Hutton

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE!

I tried writing a computer program that would generate jokes but I had to give up. Not enough giggle-bytes.

Derrick Longwright, Lincolnshire Teacher at Sunday school: what must we do to obtain forgiveness?

Bright pupil: sin!

Clarice Wightman,

Newton Abbot

M I'm determined to confuse local bus drivers. I've been pulling out all the stops. Peter Demetriou, Prestwood, Buckinghamshire

A crocodile is faster than a horse over the first hundred metres. I don't know how many horses it took to find that out.

p A cIN ON hAIGE

One thing I will say for camping: it makes you appreciate the years of human adaptation it took to ensure that we never have to go camping seen on Twitter

People ask whom you'd most like to be stuck in a lift with. Probably the lift engineer.

Pau[ Chowdhry, comedian

There's a picture of Jesus that pops up on my computer screen ifIleave it idle for ten minutes. It's my screen saviour. seen on the internet

As a child, I was made to walk the plank.We couldn't afford a dog. Gary Delaney, comedian

Funny old bunch, the British...

Following the decline in some of our traditional customs, such as sitting down to afternoon tea, what sets contemporary Britain apart from the rest of the world? Covering everything from Asbos to tutting,Sorry, I'm British! (Oneworld Publications, £9.99), offers some modern answers.

On dieting...

Generally speaking, the approach seems to involve replacing two meals a day with milkshakes or cereal bars. The more cynically minded might term this

Him & Her

Him:"I know—let's go out and have some fun this evening."

Her:"OK, but if you get home before I do, leave the hall light on."

Him:"Darling, shall we try swapping positions tonight?"

Her:"That's a good idea. You stand by the ironing board while I sit on the sofa and fart."

Him: "Since I first laid eyes on you, I've wanted to make love to you really badly."

Her: "Well,you've succeeded."

Anthony McMillan, Kinlochleven, Highlands

"starvation", and braver individuals might call it "useless".

On waving...

At the point when you get into your car (by which time the embraces and handshakes should at least be less frequent), the waving can begin. Like the light in a fridge,you'll never actually see the waving

stop—your hosts will not stop waving until you've disappeared from their view.

On spitting...

Spitting on the street in the UK is considered unseemly at best and aggressive and offensive at worst. Nosepicking is fine, though, and when you're sitting in a traffic jam on a Sunday, it's verging on mandatory.

On mid-life crises...

Americans might buy a Porsche, get plastic surgery and sleep with someone they shouldn't. Brits might get an allotment, try a dieting milkshake and join a book club.

On Sunday travel... Don't. Just don't.

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE!

I A businessman is on a planewhen he starts to feel thirsty, so he calls for the stewardess and asks for a large Scotch. In the next seat is a parrot, who snaps rudely, "A double Scotch— and make it quick."

"Yes, sir," the stewardess says, before quickly getting the bird

his drink—but ignoring the businessman.

The parrot downs his in one gulp and snaps again, "Gimme another."

The stewardess gets the parrot a second drink. The man, meanwhile, has been asking for his drink very politely. He then decides to use the parrot's tactic and

*...

...* Cover star Daniel %. Roche: "I love telling bad **.. jokes...just to see people '• cringe. My favourite of all time: Knock knock! Who's there?

The interrupting cow. The interrupting cow who... Then, I shout, 'MOO'. It %% always makes peoples.*

•

•

snarlsat the stewardess, "Look, you old bat; get me my Scotch!" Suddenly a burly co-pilot emerges from the cockpit and unceremoniously ejects both the man and the

I tried to teach my dog to dance, but he's terrible. He's got two left feet

seen on the internet

Think you're suffering from last night's overindulgence? That's nothing compared to these guys from the Hungover Owls biog...

"Oh...God... just...let's just wait until after I eat something, OK?"

"I'm just gonna...I'm just gonna... alright, I'm

good right here"

"Dude...Open up, it's me. I'm pretty sure I lost my keys"

parrot from the plane.

As they're falling, the parrot turns to the man and says, "You know, you're pretty brave for someone who can't fly..."

Grahame Jones, London

SALE!

Flood-damaged stock. 50% off moist items

Brian Thompson, Whiston, South Yorkshire

One man's wife's kindnesshad grown to ridiculous proportions. He recently came home to find a woodpecker with its beak in a splint resting on his armchair, a sick swan wrapped in a blanket on the sofa and his wife nursing a frozen wren she'd found out in the snow.

"I can't stand it any more!" he screamed. "What about showing

"It's only somebody doing a survey..."

me a little kindness?"

"Please, darling," his wife interrupted, "not in front of the chilled wren."

Mervyn Saunders, Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan

My brother got caughtshoplifting a rollneck sweater. Now he's up to his neck in it.

Martin Nickolls, Gutersloh, Germany

Black Beauty. He's a dark horse. The thief who is stealing T-shirts in order of size is still at large.

I went to a jazz playground—it had a slide and a seesaw, but it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Tim Vine, come( ew DVD, Punslinger—Live, is out on November 22.

Fun & Games crest

Ou. Crosswoul yaue Ms. ved, tome,Cade on

• Y Carry on laughing... Our new website has many more ways to have fun—and train your brain in the process! You can play our legendary Word Power game and win £ioo, or we have other puzzles and quizzes, including crosswords and sudoku—all free to play. Join in the fun at readersdigest. co.uk/fun-andgames

lieWrgaitiNVIRAh t51

BEAT THE CARTOONIST

WIN £200 AND A SIGNED ILLUSTRATION

Think of a witty caption for this picture and you could beat the comedy experts at their own game.

The three best

suggestions will be posted on our website

in mid-November alongside an anonymous caption from our professional cartoonist. Visitors can choose their favourite and if your entry gets the most votes,you'll receive £200 and the original, signed drawing. Submit your captions to captions@readersdigest.co.uk or the address on page 4 by November 10. You can also enter and vote online at readersdigest.co.uk/caption. We'll announce the winner in our January issue.

SEPTEMBER'S WINNER

There was ample opportunity for gentle mockery of the police this month, and many of you stepped up to the plate. A favourite gag had the officers apologising to their chief inspector for disturbing her on her day off. But the best caption came from cartoonist Peter King:"If it's any consolation, we think he felt everything." For the time being, the professional scribblers are hanging on with one win every three months. -%ct

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