Reader's Digest UK Oct 2019

Contents OCTOBER

Features

16 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

Olly Mann ponders his strange sentimentality around children’s theatre

ENTERTAINMENT

20 INTERVIEW: LOUIS THEROUX

Britain’s favourite documentary maker on childhood, ageing and Jimmy Saville

30 “I REMEMBER”: LULU

The Scottish musician on rubbing shoulders with Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles

HEALTH

40 HOSPITAL NIGHTMARES

The horrific true stories of patients with hospitalacquired infections

INSPIRE

56 BEST OF BRITISH: WITCHES’ HAUNTS

Visit some of Britain’s spookiest places touched by magic and witchcraft

66 FUTURE FOOD

Goat meat, kefir and lotus seeds—take a sneak peek at the future of the culinary world

74 UNDER THE CURRENT Ever wondered what being struck by lightning is really like?

TRAVEL & ADVENTURE

90 GREEN HEAVEN

Get lost in the beauty of the southern Indian state of Kerala

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THRILLING Always

Thanks to a gift in your Will

Already, the morning air is alive with life. Insects buzz above the ponds. Birds chatter in the trees.

But out there, above the water, is one of the true wonders of the natural world. A kingfisher is hovering and darting over the shimmering surface. A flash of blue. A thrilling beauty.

You can help protect birds like this, and where they live, long into the future. Because with a gift in your Will, you can preserve and improve such natural habitats. You can help birds and wildlife to flourish.

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Your legacy is nature’s future

In This Issue…

This month I sat down for a conversation with the man who launched a thousand memes, and one of my personal heroes—BBC documentary maker Louis Theroux. Opening up about his family, childhood and tricky relationship with disgraced DJ Jimmy Saville, the Boy from the BBC was every bit the same self-effacing gentleman who graces our screens, and far funnier than I had anticipated. I soon discovered that the documentary don is also a maestro of impressions, transitioning effortlessly between plummymouthed school boy, his earnest childhood self and a cocky Australian journalist. His memoir—cheekily entitled Gotta Get Theroux This—is well worth a read for an insight into the brains of one of the BBC’s best.

Hot toddies in front of roaring fires, chunky jumpers and lazy nights in, under a duvet—what’s not to love about autumn? And this month, we bring you a selection of little pleasures to complement these homey evenings in the form of book and food recommendations. On p106 Rachel Walker reveals a simple yet luxurious one-pot pheasant recipe, while on p118 I review the rich cinematic pickings on offer, including the heartwarming Peanut Butter Falcon; James Walton advises which books to curl up in bed with on p122 and Susannah Hickling shares the perfect breakfast tips to warm up these crisp autumnal mornings and boost your immune system. So pack away those short shorts and pile on the scarves— the season of cosy bliss is here.

Anna Eva

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Over To You

LETTERS ON THE August ISSUE

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LETTER OF THE MONTH

What a challenge it was to read the article on the ageing prison population. It brought a lump to my throat to read about the woman who suffered at the hands of domestic abuse in her fifties, especially when she said she, “felt freer than she had for the past 12 years” through being locked up in prison. What a stark reality that being locked up was the only way to release her into a freedom that years of domestic abuse had robbed her of. That is the real crime. I agree with Paul Grainge that we should look into secure home models for our ageing prison population. A few days on from reading this powerful article, I still can’t get that domestic abuse victim out of my head...

KAREN TAYLOR, Dorset

COMPASSIONATE GROUNDS

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“Britain’s Ageing Prison Population” was incredibly thought-provoking. It seems more people are dying of old age in prison than ever before. It doesn’t have to be this way. In the US, “compassionate release” grants elderly inmates a chance to spend their final days outside of a cell. Elderly prisoners would have to be reevaluated based on how much of a threat they pose today. Does continuing to imprison them serve anyone’s interest? When someone is about to take their last breath, do we really still want to punish them?

SUZANNE ROSWELL, Norfolk

A FAMILIAR STORY

I read Dr Max’s “Highs And Lows” with great interest. My late mother was born in 1910 and in her adult life she exasperated us with her drastic mood changes. We, her daughters, were always on tenterhooks, never knowing which mood she would be in when we returned from school.

It wasn’t all bad, on the good days she would cook lovely meals, sing to us and take us out for long walks; she was a very loving mother.

On bad days she sometimes stayed in bed all day which we preferred compared to coping with the “black moods” that possessed her. I don’t know if she was bipolar but what the doctor describes seems familiar. Although she was not extravagant with money, but then it wasn’t so readily available in those days.

PHILIPPA SAMPSON, Devon

OUT OF OFFICE ON

I really enjoy reading the travel and adventure section, “My Great Escape” and often find myself adding destinations to my wish list of places I’d like to visit. I particularly enjoyed “Unwinding In Wadden Islands.” This is somewhere I knew nothing about and had not previously considered visiting and yet I’m now desperate to go as my favourite things are included—islands, remoteness, nature and quirkiness! Best of all there was also a tip about when to visit—I will be booking early to avoid disappointment and I will be trying to go “off-peak” so I can have more of this fascinating archipelago to myself!

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Photo: © vonwong

Photo: © Martin Lacasse

…differently

A mermaid goes for a swim— in 10,000 plastic bottles! With his photography project “Mermaids Hate Plastic,” artist Benjamin von Wong draws attention to an often ignored problem: the pollution of the world’s oceans. Right now, more than 150 million tons of plastic waste waft through the seas, with up to 13 million tons being added to that number each year. At this rate, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.

A Crying Shame

This month, Olly Mann reveals how a performance of Teletubbies Live unexpectedly moved him to tears

When was the last time you cried?

You may be able to answer that very specifically, if your tears were triggered by a traumatic event. Euthanising a beloved pet, for instance. Or you may be the kind of person who cries all the time: at romcoms, at weddings, at Christmas carols; each and every time the plane lands, or the kids get a new sports kit. In that case, you probably won’t even remember when you last cried, because it’s such a routine occurrence.

I fit into neither of these categories. I’m somewhere in the middle. I cry when something truly

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

awful happens, of course. I shed a few tears the day my father died, and (such are the eccentricities of grief) wept more heartily on perhaps half-a-dozen subsequent occasions, initiated by sudden, small sadnesses, such as wanting to call him for a chat, or seeing how much his grandson admired his vintage car.

I’m not a serial blubberer, though. I’ve never been moved to tears during the final reel of a movie, or a stirring verse of poetry. But there is something that gets my waterworks running, and it’s a little embarrassing. Without fail, the one thing that always increases the flow of oxygen through my body, and provokes an instant moistening of my eyes, is… children’s theatre.

I know, it’s weird. I’m not even referring to emotional historical dramas, like Goodnight Mister Tom or The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Rather, I start to cry when I see anything—seriously, anything—with

my three year-old son, Harvey. A pantomime. A dolphin show. A busker making balloon animals. It’s weird.

The first time it happened, I was caught unawares: Teletubbies Live, at the Alban Arena. The show was sold out, and it was bedlam. Just navigating through the buggies in the foyer took iron will. As we took our seats, and a toddler behind me kicked me repeatedly in the neck, I felt no emotion at all, apart from relief that I’d found something that would keep Harvey quiet for an hour, and incredulity at the steep price of the merchandise.

I don’t know if you’ve ever attended Teletubbies Live, but it’s a bit like a Lady Gaga gig, with the lights left on. There are glow sticks (albeit in the shape of Tinky-Winky). The audience are screaming— some in sheer excitement, some just because, well, babies scream. Most of the crowd have ingested mood-altering substances (Haribo, Buttons, Fruit Shoot). My point is, there is EXCITEMENT in the air. The Teletubbies don’t just step on to the stage—there is build-up. The theme tune plays. A bubbly young lady gets the spectators even more psyched—Dipsy is in the building! Some of the crowd literally soil themselves in anticipation.

So, when the freaky foursome finally take centre-stage to begin their nonsensical narrative, it’s

intense. A coup de théâtre. La-La is real! The TV programme you’ve watched all your little life is unfolding—right in front of your eyes! As far as the kids are concerned, these are not suited-up stage school graduates with student loans to pay, but actual, living, breathing bloody Teletubbies. And this made me cry. Initially, I was dumfounded by my own reaction. After all, Harvey himself wasn’t obviously hysterical; simply smiling and nodding along with the familiar songs and plots. And I’d observed him doing far more significant things in the past—first walk, first words, first unaccompanied wee—without so much as a lump in my throat. On reflection, I realised that it wasn’t the children that were triggering

my emotions, it was the adults: the actors, the theatre-makers, and the parents and grandparents in the audience. We were all conspiring to make something magical happen for the children. In children’s theatre, it is not just the actors who act; it’s the entire audience, who makebelieve, for the sake of their little ‘uns, that the fantastic stories unfolding on stage are true. This moves me.

It accounts for why I remain resolutely stoney-faced through grown-up theatrical tear-jerkers—The Elephant Man, Les Miserables, Shadowlands—and yet my tears start flowing the moment someone off CBeebies steps on stage.

Adventure stunt show at Legoland set me off. Fellow members of the audience may have presumed I’d once been captured by pirates, and was suffering some sort of PTSD.

“IN CHILDREN'S THEATRE IT'S NOT JUST THE ACTORS WHO ACT; IT'S THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE WHO MAKE-BELIEVE"

Recently, I burst into tears during the showstopper of "Aliens Love Underpants"—a song about Y-fronts. But the sense of wonder in the children around me, and the complicity of their accompanying adults, is infectious.

It's very much in the modern mode for a man such as I to declare his vulnerabilities, and feel no shame about crying in public. But when the cause is Gangsta Granny?

Harvey and I have since seen Zog, Stick Man, The Green Ship and The Very Hungry Caterpillar: I cried at them all. Even the Pirates Cove Ski

I suspect it’s best to wail silently to myself. Thankfully, shows for preschoolers are always over in 60 tight minutes. I’m not sure my heart could take much more. n

The Simple Life

The creator of the popular life simulation video game, The Sims, was inspired after losing his home and possessions in the Oakland-Berkeley Firestorm of 1991. The process of trying to "reaquire a life" sparked the genesis of the game, where players create characters, build homes and embark on virtual careers and relationships. His biggest takeaway from the disaster however, was surprise at "how I didn’t miss stuff. The fact we got out and none of our family was hurt seemed so much more important.”

SOURCE: BERKELEYSIDE.COM

photograph by Paul Marc Mitchell

Louis Theroux:

“I’ve Always Enjoyed Hiding”

by Anna Walker

Britain’s favourite documentary-maker reflects on happiness, his family and dealing with his complicated connection to Jimmy Saville

The internet is obsessed with Louis Theroux. Each time I log into Twitter, I’m greeted by a tweet from “@NoContextLouis”, an account solely dedicated to posting screencaps from his documentaries, devoid of any context, which boasts 133,000 followers. Facebook is home to the 312,000-strong “Louis Theroux Reactions” page, which creates Louis-themed-memes.

Homemade e-commerce site Etsy is where the memefication of Louis Theroux reaches its zenith. For less than £20, fans of the boy from the BBC can purchase sequined cushions, phone cases, birthday cards, jewellery, Christmas

jumpers (“dashing Theroux the snow”), candles or wrapping paper, all adorned with Louis’ Weird Weekends-era face—complete with round spectacles, floppy hair and bemused expression.

“I don’t fully understand it, and I think that’s the point. Maybe if I did it would short circuit itself and no longer exist,” Louis muses, baffled. “I’m sort of interested to see whether you have any theories on it…”

And herein lies the problem. Interviewing Britain’s favourite interviewer comes with a unique set of quandaries. Though kind and generous with his answers, the man who answers the phone with that signature “Hello, it’s Louis”, is

far more comfortable asking the questions than he is answering them.

We’re together to discuss his new memoir—aptly named Gotta Get Theroux This in a nod to the prevalence of memes that riff on the French surname he shares with his writer father (Paul) and brother (Marcel), and American acting cousin (Justin)—but it’s clear he’d probably prefer that I just read it, and then spent my time discussing something not quite so intimately related to him. Video games, perhaps, or scary movies—his two self-professed guilty pleasures.

“If I’m honest, I’ve always quite enjoyed hiding,” Louis explains. “When I first started writing the book I did it on a bit of a whim. I thought it might be quite straightforward to dip back into a greatest-hits of my programme making, but then I realised that if I wanted it to hang together as a book, that wasn’t good enough. I needed to give much more of myself than I initially realised. I felt very ambivalent about that, but I was intent on trying to write the best book I could, so I really just had to open up.”

Louis during his Weird Weekends era. (Below); some popular Louis memes

BEN SMITH/SHUTTERSTOCK

“IT’S EASIER TO BE FUNNY ABOUT THINGS GOING WRONG, OR THINGS BEING PROBLEMATIC THAN IT IS TO BE FUNNY ABOUT HAPPINESS”

And open up he does. The memoir is full of anecdotes about his childhood, school days at Westminster with friends comedian Adam Buxton and director Joe Cornish, the confusion of his early twenties and his wife, Nancy Strang, who he fell for when he saw her dancing to “What’s Luv” by Fat Joe and Ashanti on their third or fourth date.

“I hope people connect with it. I found it hard to write about the happiness I’ve found with my family. I was trying to make [the book] funny, and it’s easier to be funny about things going wrong or things being problematic than it is to be funny about happiness.”

The problematic times begin at school, when he casts himself as a somewhat geeky figure—an intensely hard worker (he later came top of his

year at Oxford), who often acted the fool, and expected far less success than his more serious older brother.

Despite attending Westminster School, one of the more elite private schools in the world, “No one wanted to be looked on as the square, posh kid. I think there was quite a healthy culture of almost trying to appear more working class and down to earth that you really were. People would affect estuary accents and strive to appear sort of scruffy and not privileged. The idea of someone saying, [he switches seamlessly into a plummy, high-pitched school boy inflection], ‘Well I’m going to grow up to be a stockbroker and join Coutts Bank’, was the least cool thing you could possibly do.”

Perhaps the most pained section of Theroux’s memoir are the chapters that muse on his connection to Jimmy Saville, the now deceased and disgraced BBC DJ who was exposed as a sexual predator after the testimonies of over 450 victims were investigated by Operation Yewtree in 2012. Louis first met Jimmy in 1999 as part of his When Louis Met… series, a time in his career when he admits that he felt, “a little lost and less interested in TV”.

“I was aware having made the first programme that there were aspects of his personality that I hadn’t got to. I hadn’t figured out what his sexual interests were. And I was aware that he was a dark and troubling figure in a certain respect, but at the same

time I quite liked him. We were on friendly terms, so when it all came out it was a big shock.”

“It’s hard to talk about this because it feels quite shameful, but there was a part of me that resisted, where I thought, This can’t really be true can it? I think the moment when the scale of his misdeeds hit home was when I read the hospital reports and the descriptions from victims. It would be upsetting in any situation but reading about it knowing that I’d known this man, and that I’d kind of liked him… it’s really hard to describe that heavy weight of sadness.”

Grappling with his complex feelings over the side of Jimmy he never uncovered, Louis returned to the subject in 2016, with his selfdenigrating, reflective follow up documentary, Saville. Did revisiting the topic help him?

“Up to a point. I mean it was very

“THE IDEA OF SOMEONE SAYING, ‘I’M GOING TO GROW UP TO BE A STOCKBROKER’ WAS THE LEAST COOL THING YOU COULD POSSIBLY DO”

painful—OK, I want to rephrase that because when talking about Jimmy Saville you have to recognise the victims’ pain first of all—it was stressful making it but at the same time it helped me to figure out to some degree who Jimmy Saville really was.”

“An Australian journalist asked me a couple of weeks ago, [he slips into a thick Aussie accent], ‘I godda, say in Australia, we look at Jimmy Saville and we just say, how could you not know, it’s so obvious’, but the fact is he was well-liked. People thought he was kind of creepy, but in a way the creepiness was OK because you thought that was part of his schtick. I talk in the book about re-watching rushes from the original programme to see if there are any clues, but he just seems like a slightly boring old DJ, wrapped up in himself and his cigar smoke. I think that’s kind of the point. If you get too fixated on the

idea of perfect or obvious evil, then you lose track of how crimes actually take place and how predators really function.”

It’s very apparent as Louis muses these dark topics, that he still doesn’t quite know where he stands with them. He seems ready at once to both condemn and vindicate himself. One moment talking slowly about the shame he feels, the next explaining that When Louis Met Jimmy… still strikes him as a “hard headed and responsible piece of journalism.”

Louis’s latest documentaries show no sign of returning to those lost days of celebrity profiles. Covering open adoption, polygamy, euthanasia and Scientology in the past year, he’s still very much open to the call of, if not the weird, the decidedly off-beat. And it’s not something he sees as at odds with his other identity as a

settled north London family man.

“I think you owe it to your family to be present and to be supportive and loving, but you want to keep yourself interesting and expose your family to adventures too. A lot of the things I do in my work are about the tension between lifestyles that might be awful or awkward or dangerous or upsetting but there’s also this other value where it’s not a simple case of ‘this is good and that’s bad’. The things that create stress or anxiety can also be tremendously rewarding or fulfilling, so I encourage my kids to embrace a certain level of weirdness. There’s an aspect of weirdness that can’t be denied, that is and should be part of life. I’m not making programmes about canals, or people who collect pieces of string. They all in different ways take you to the heart of the human condition in quite a deep way.”

Louis and wife Nancy Strang

As our time together comes to a close, we talk about the ways Louis switches off from the darker aspects of his programme making— watching horror movies with his wife, “I love a good scare”—and reflect on how he’ll spend his time when he finally stops answering that call of the weird.

“I used to play a lot of video games—Silent Hill and Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto , GTA3 . Now my children monopolise the

“THE THINGS THAT CREATE STRESS CAN ALSO BE REWARDING, SO I ENCOURAGE MY KIDS TO EMBRACE A CERTAIN LEVEL OF WEIRDNESS”

PlayStation but occasionally they let me jump on and play FIFA 15 or something like that. I can’t even figure out which control does what at this stage, which is pretty pathetic, but I think I’ll save that stuff for when I’m retired. When I’m in an old people’s home I’ll get high and play video games all day—I’ll go back to being 16 years old again.” n

Gotta Get Theroux this is out now, published by Pan Macmillan Beginner’s Luck

Sometimes, you just have a natural talent for things...

Mario Puzo, the author of the Godfather books who’d also adapted them to film, had no idea what he was doing as he’d never written a screenplay before. After winning two Oscars, he decided to buy a book on screenwriting to teach himself.

To his surprise, the first chapter instructed the reader to “study Godfather I.”

SOURCE: NPR.ORG

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I REMEMBER… Lulu

Pop icon Lulu, 70 , is famous for her teenage chart hit “Shout”, winning Eurovision and singing the Bond theme “The Man With The Golden Gun”. She reflects on growing up fast in a Glasgow tenement as “wee” Marie Lawrie, her “odd couple” collaboration with David Bowie and touring with Take That…

(Top) With Paul McCartney and John Lennon; (above) with then-husband Maurice Gibb; (right) with her mother; (opposite) at school and with Jimi Hendrix

…MY MOTHER USED TO SAY I COULD SING BEFORE I COULD TALK, which was exaggerating a bit. My father would carry me upright in his arms wrapped in a big tartan shawl and jiggle me, as he walked about the house singing. That was my destiny, right there. Even as a tiny girl, my voice was big. I would sing the latest pop songs with the attitude of a grown-up because I mimicked the singers.

…MY FATHER WORKED IN A MEAT MARKET in Glasgow as an offal dresser. He would steal meat and sell it for extra money, and sometimes we’d give our neighbours the meat he brought home so we didn’t have to eat it all.

…WE LIVED IN A TENEMENT BUILDING, with six flats or “hooses” up one staircase. I always felt slightly cold and damp and you could hear everything that went on through the walls. But I had tremendous fun climbing the wall at the back and always had bleeding knees or elbows.

…WINNING SINGING CONTESTS. People would say to my mother: “You should put wee Marie up for that. She’s gonnae be famous one day.” It was over my head. I remember one competition where they gave me a big card with a number on. They kept calling number 13 and I just stood there.

I didn’t know it was me; I was five years old. There was a roar of laughter, then the man had to put me on a chair because I couldn’t reach the microphone.

With her son, Jordan; (below) with Lou Reed, Mick Jagger and David Bowie; (opposite) filming ToSir,WithLove

…BEING VERY DISTRACTED AT SCHOOL because I felt responsible for my family, being the eldest of four. My father had a drinking problem and my mother got depressed. She had been given away as a child so she was very needy of me. Anything that happened to the household, I did it. My father used to call me Mrs McClean. I was quick to pick things up. Because of that, when I became Lulu, my manager couldn’t get over how quickly I adjusted.

…I RECORDED “SHOUT” WHEN I WAS 14. I’d heard a guy called Alex Harvey sing it in a club in Glasgow. He had pale white skin and was dressed in black leather. I was blown away;

I had to put the song in my act. I was singing in clubs once or twice a week and one club put me in for a competition run by the Daily Express. All the record companies were looking for new talent, and I was one of the winners. One minute I was at school and the next I’d got a record in the charts. It was so surreal I don’t know if I was actually in my body. That Sixties revolution will never happen again— the fashion, the politics, the music— and I was right in the centre of it. I have worked with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Tom Jones, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder… The list is phenomenal.

…THE BEATLES HAPPENING. After my early devotion to black American music, I did a U-turn. The Beatles were cute as hell, they played music that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck—and they were influenced by the same people I liked. I can’t remember which was my first meeting with them but there’s a photograph that says it all. It shows me with a chubby, gleeful face sitting on a sofa between Paul McCartney and John Lennon. I look at that now and it makes me laugh and feel warm inside. When the Beatles were on Ready Steady Go, they picked “Shout” as their favourite record that week. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.

…MAKING THE MOVIE TO SIR, WITH LOVE with Sidney Poitier.

I wasn’t planning to be an actress so that came out of the blue after I met the director James Clavell when I was on tour. I felt like the outsider because they were all people from drama school so I quickly developed an English accent to be like them. Then the title song became the biggest record of the year on the Billboard chart.

…DOING EUROVISION IN 1969. When man set foot on the Moon, I got married to Maurice Gibb, I won the Eurovision Song Contest and I had my own television series. I was more interested in getting Aretha Franklin on my series to do a couple of songs. But the British public chose “Boom Bang-A-Bang” and I went to Eurovision. Four acts came joint first

but “Boom Bang-A-Bang” was the only song that was a big hit. It’s unbelievable that Eurovision has since become such a cult.

…I HAVE A SON, JORDAN , born in 1977, and there’s a sadness that I didn’t have more children but it’s because I think there is a sacrifice to make for wanting to continue to make music. Men have come and gone, but music is the passion in my life. That was the difference between myself and some of the other girls in the Sixties. Apart from Dusty Springfield, they didn’t feel like I did.

…WORKING WITH DAVID BOWIE on “The Man Who Sold The World” was one of my many re-inventions. He spotted me, he liked me, he loved my voice. My brother gave me his first album and I was so impressed. I jumped at the opportunity. Bowie is a legend. Just saying that I’d worked with him makes people look at me differently. We were the odd couple to look at but when we got into the studio, it was a marriage.

…ACTING IN A MUSICAL by Andrew Lloyd Webber called Song And Dance was new for me. I love a

challenge. Sadly, after I’d rehearsed, I hurt my voice, which devastated me because I lost a part of my range.

I had an operation on my vocal chords and the front pages said: “Lulu may never sing again”. I thought What do they know that I don’t? But I recovered and from then on went to different vocal coaches. I then did Guys And Dolls at the National Theatre. I also took over from Julie Walters in The Growing Pains Of Adrian Mole on television. When the director asked me, I thought, You’re having a laugh. But, actually, I got some of the best reviews of my career.

…I’VE STUDIED EASTERN

PHILOSOPHY, meditation and yoga since 1984 to understand who I am and what I’m doing. When I read Baba Muktananda’s Where Are You , I had a deep spiritual experience. Since then I have been to India many times to study with a guru there. It’s not just about doing a hot yoga class to get my body fit, it’s also about getting my mind settled and enlivening

…MY BROTHER BILLY PUSHING ME INTO

my own songs. My marriage to [hair stylist] John Frieda was over and I

was very sad. I hadn’t made a record for seven or eight years and I wanted to reboot my career. We wrote Tina Turner’s “I Don’t Wanna Fight”, which was a hit all over the world and got a Grammy nomination. I’d written about what I’d been going through, but Tina said it was the story of her life. I only write if I have a project so I don’t really see myself as a songwriter.

…RECORDING WITH TAKE THAT. When I was back on the scene in the Nineties, their manager asked if I would record “Relight My Fire” with them. I thought it was a ridiculous idea because there was such a difference in age. But it was a number one and introduced me to a younger audience. I’ve recently toured with them. The boys and I didn’t want it to end, we were having

so much fun. I had some pictures of the tour on Instagram and one of my girlfriends said: “Just stop it! Stop it now!”

…BEING EXCITED ABOUT MY NEW TOUR. I actually feel I’m present, not like I was as a young person. I do it because I want to connect with my audience through music. People have so many problems today but you’re healed when you enjoy music. Over the years, I’ve done soul, dance music, rock ’n’ roll and pop and now I’m relating it to film and talking about the amazing people I’ve worked with. I’m fortunate; I get that. n As told to Caroline Rees

The tour Lulu: On Fire continues [from September 17] until November 2. Visit luluofficial.com for more details

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Liza Lindham needed strong antibiotics and a week in hospital to recover from a UTI

A Patient’s Worst Nightmare

Liza Lindham is one of millions of Europeans admitted to hospital each year who wind up sicker because of an infection acquired there

By Eleanor Rose

It was supposed to be the best week of her life.

Liza Lindham, 32, had just given birth to her first child in Stockholm in June 2014. The delivery was tough, because the baby’s head had blocked her bladder. Medics drained the urine with a catheter.

Finally, with a healthy baby girl in her arms, Liza returned home, exhausted but exhilarated.

But she grew more and more tired. A few days later, she felt like she’d caught a cold, so she curled up in front of the TV. Her aches and pains got worse. By dinner time, she couldn’t eat, and was shivering violently. “Something’s wrong,” she told her husband. Liza didn’t know it yet, but she’d picked up a urinary tract infection (UTI), a common complication of catheter use, when

bacteria such as E. coli travel from the gut to the bladder. Unnoticed, the UTI progressed. By the time she reached the A&E, Liza’s temperature was 40.5°C. Sepsis had spread.

It’s anybody’s worst nightmare: going to hospital and winding up sicker. Yet healthcare-associated infections or HAIs—which develop as a direct result of medical or surgical intervention, or after contact with a healthcare facility—are common. A 2018 Europe-wide study by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found that on any given day in 2016 and 2017, one in 15 hospital patients had one or more HAIs. Some 8.9m are contracted every year across Europe.

The most common are UTIs, pneumonia, surgical site infections, and gastrointestinal illness from bugs such as Clostridium difficile. Bloodstream infections—often introduced by invasive objects such as central-line catheters—are also major killers. Says Dr Carl Suetens, deputy programme coordinator for the ECDC, “The estimated burden of healthcare-associated infections is larger than the combined burden of all other infections under surveillance in Europe.”

Liza was given strong antibiotics and monitored as she recovered. She left hospital a week later. Now 37, she’s angry the hospital didn’t inform her of the known risks of catheters, or tell her about UTI symptoms or

testing. She now campaigns for the Swedish Sepsisfonden, which raises awareness of sepsis.

A large proportion of HAIs could be picked up earlier, and many need never happen at all. Dr Diamantis Plachouras, senior expert for the ECDC, says, “We know from a recent literature review that 30 to 50 per cent of certain types of infections can be prevented.” Cracking down on these illnesses is at the core of patient safety.

“Things began to go awry”

Following the discovery of the antibiotic penicillin in 1928, doctors began to understand more about how bacteria spread. In 1941, the first-ever infection control officer was appointed at a hospital in the UK.

Photo by William l eGoullon

Liza, shown with her children. She campaigns in Sweden to raise awareness of sepsis

Yet it still wasn’t a priority.

Dr Jim Gray, a microbiologist at Birmingham Women's and Children’s Hospitals, says easy availability of antibiotics meant health workers felt relaxed as late as the 1980s. “They thought, Let the infection happen and we’ll treat it” he recalls. “And that’s when things began to go awry.”

Doctors began seeing cases of Staphylococcus aureus, a common bug that causes skin and respiratory infections, that no longer responded to the antibiotic methicillin. They called it methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). If it penetrates the skin, it can set off swelling, redness, and blisters. If it burrows deeper, it can cause bloodstream infection.

In the early 1990s, two particularly devastating strains began sweeping hospitals in the UK at frightening speed. Yet policy-makers struggled to take control. “Nobody did very much about it,” Dr Gray says. Rates of MRSA infection in England rose to 7,700 reports from April 2003 to March 2004.

Susan Fallon’s daughter Sammie was 17 when she was admitted to University Hospital of North Staffordshire in April that same year, suffering flu-like symptoms. Doctors eventually took a bone-marrow sample, which showed she had an auto-immune condition. Susan, 53, now knows from hospital notes that there were three patients diagnosed with MRSA on the general ward that Sammie shared.

Within a week, the teen noticed swelling on her hip from the needle, but doctors dismissed it as bruising. Then she developed severe back pain. She was diagnosed with MRSA.

Doctors raced to treat the superbug with different types of antibiotic. But a week later, as Sammie’s condition deteriorated and doctors transferred her to intensive care.

Sammie died in her mother’s arms from multiple organ failure. The family was heartbroken. Susan joined campaign group MRSA Action UK, throwing herself into conferences and press interviews to raise awareness, which she continues today. It was grieving relatives-turned-activists like Susan who led the drive for government action in the UK. In 2000, then Prime Minister Tony Blair declared HAIs a “top priority” and ordered a programme of deep cleaning in hospitals.

Health workers in countries across Europe were fighting similar battles as the world awoke to the dangers of HAIs. The first case of MRSA was confirmed in Latvia in 2002. By 2004, it was endemic. Professor Uga Dumpis, a doctor who specialised in infectious disease, was charged with investigating. In 2007 he asked Agita Melbarde-Kelmere, a nurse at Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital in Riga, to help, and she became one of Latvia’s first infection control nurses. When Melbarde-Kelmere visited ICU and

neonatal wards, she saw medics make basic mistakes such as using gloves to touch patients rather than washing their hands. Gloves can be contaminated, she warned. She set out to teach them. “It wasn’t easy. When I walked into the ICU, staff would leave for 20 minutes,” she says. One hospital official complained that handwash solution was costly.

Melbarde-Kelmere pushed on, holding training sessions about the pitfalls of poor hand hygiene. Little by little, she noticed improvements.

The impact was huge. In just six months, Melbarde-Kelmere and her team lowered infection rates by as much as 50 per cent. The World Health Organisation (WHO) celebrated her work on its website.

Melbarde-Kelmere now trains doctors and nurses around the country.

What keeps microbiologists awake at night

Widespread MRSA outbreaks showed country leaders that they could no longer ignore hospital infections. Special measures in England cut the number of cases to 846 during the period from April 2017 to March 2018. Meanwhile, the ECDC began monitoring all types of healthcareacquired infections in 2011-12 using a special Europewide snapshot called a point prevalence survey.

Data from its second point

prevalence survey in 2016 to 2017 showed that, for some countries, rates remained roughly the same between the studies. Dr Petra Gastmeier, director of the Institute of Hygiene and Environmental Medicine at Charite, Berlin, says that’s partly because gains made from improvements to infection control methods such as hand hygiene and screening have been countered by the growing complexity of the healthcare environment. “The patients we see are becoming older and more severely ill, and they are being treated using more devices, which are entranceways for pathogens,” she says.

Although still a danger, MRSA

Photo by William l eGoullon

Susan Fallon with a photo of her daughter Sammie, who was diagnosed with MRSA

never became quite as drug-resistant as doctors feared. Meanwhile, there are new threats on the horizon, says Dr Gray. “We started to see gramnegative bacteria such as E. coli, Klebsiella and enterobacter, which everybody carries as part of the normal gut flora, becoming more drug resistant," he says.

These new superbugs are called "extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producers." They cause UTIs, among other infections, and produce enzymes that break down penicillin, cyclosporine, and other former mainstays of antibiotic treatment.

HEALTHCARE-ASSOCIATED INFECTIONS 2016-17

This list of selected countries reflects the number of patients with at least one HAI as a percentage of the total hospital discharges in the country.

BEST RATES WORST RATES

UK

France 4.1%

Slovenia 4.4%

Spain 4.9%

Finland 5.1%

Czech Republic 5.4%

Belgium 5.4%

Portugal 5.9%

Italy 6.0%

Netherlands and Bulgaria: Omitted due to poor country data representativeness

Source: ec D c Point Prevalence Survey

Such superbugs were unusual 15 years ago, but today Dr Gray sees as many as 250 new cases a year in his hospital. They can still be treated with a group of powerful last-line antibiotics: colistin and the carbapenems.

“In some parts of the world we are seeing the emergence of gramnegative bacteria resistant to colistin and the carbapenems as well,” says Dr Gray. About 33,000 people die in Europe each year from superbugs, 39 per cent of which are colistin and carbapenems-resistant (CCR). High infection rates in Greece, Italy, and Cyprus—where about half of samples of the pneumonia-causing bug Klebsiella pneumoniae examined in a 2016 study were found to be CCR— have raised concerns that it could spread throughout Europe. “It’s the thing that keeps us awake at night,” says Dr Gray.

Don’t fall victim

If it all sounds frightening, don’t panic. There are things you can do to protect yourself when you are in hospital. The first is to ask your doctor or nurse if they’ve washed their hands. A study of German hospitals found that hand-washing isn’t guaranteed.

Be mindful about how bacteria spreads. “Any surface near a patient will have the patient’s bacteria on it, no matter how well it’s been cleaned,” says Dr Gray. If you touch

that surface then go to a communal area such as the toilet, you can transfer pathogens, so you and your visitors need to wash your hands, too.

What's more, he warns “You should only use the handbasins on wards for handwashing.” If you pour sugary liquids or dirty water down the sink, it provides a nutrient source for bacteria in the drain, which then multiply. “When you turn the tap on, water sprays back, and that can spread bacteria,” Dr Gray says.

Not all HAIs are preventable, says Dr Gastmeier, particularly ones from bacteria in the patient’s own body. It’s hard to stop a catheter to the bladder from transferring bugs from the gut that could cause a UTI. But it’s useful to be cautious of procedures themselves. “Patients should be aware that catheters may be dangerous and should ask their doctors if it’s really necessary, or could be eliminated,” she says.

Retired teacher Christian K*, 77, was sent for heart catherisation—an invasive test to explore the coronary arteries—at a German clinic in Bad Berleburg after feeling tightness in his throat. Afterward, he noticed a swelling on his left arm where a cannula had been. He quickly developed MRSA, then sepsis.

Christian spent two months in hospital and was left with urinary and fecal incontinence as well as impaired mobility. “My confidence

in healthcare has been seriously disturbed,” he says. Meanwhile, the heart check itself came back clear— he’s not convinced he needed it.

Meanwhile, Liza Lindham in Sweden urges patients who undergo invasive tests and treatments to know the symptoms of UTIs—pain passing urine, cloudy urine, aches and pains—as well as signs of sepsis—high fever, rapid breathing, and nausea or diarrhea. If feeling ill, tell staff—and insist they listen. The European Council issued recommendations to help member states fight HAIs back in 2009, and the ECDC regularly issues extra guidance. It is ultimately up to Europe’s governments and hospitals to implement it, say experts.

Dr Suetens of the ECDC concludes,“It is about ensuring every hospital has an infection control nurse and sufficient isolation capacity; that is, enough single rooms to isolate patients with highly drug resistant microorganisms. It’s about ensuring the proper hand hygiene is done, with proper infrastructure such as handwash dispensers next to beds.”

While experts work to solve the problem, don’t avoid medical treatment. Hospitals are, overall, getting better, even if the challenges are tough. Dr Gray says, “Healthcare is safer now than it has been for a very long time." n

*Name withheld for privacy reasons

7 Breakfast Boosters

Make the first meal of the day really count towards your health

1 Whizz up a fruit smoothie

Simply mix up a cup of strawberries and a banana in your blender, add some crushed ice, and you’ve got an instant healthy breakfast full of antioxidants, which guard against cell damage that can cause cancer and heart disease. If you slosh in some plain yogurt, you’ve added a bone-strengthening dose of calcium. If you prefer your smoothie to be dairy-free, whizz up the strawberries with fruit juice. When fresh berries aren’t available, use frozen.

2 Build your own healthy breakfast

You can make the first meal of the day fun as well as wholesome by letting everyone in the family mix

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

and match the different elements of their breakfast. Set out cereals (you can even create your own sugar-andfat-free muesli with porridge oats and dried fruit), sliced fruit, yogurt, low-fat soft cheese, wholemeal toast and get everyone to choose their own toppings.

3 Drink green tea

This is one cuppa that will warm the cockles of your heart, not just because it’s hot and comforting, but because there’s evidence it can boost health in a whole host of ways. Green tea has heart protective benefits, may guard against cancer, slow mental decline and even lower your risk of water infections. Plus it’s lower in caffeine than traditional teas.

4 Have a veggie full-English Vegetarian versions of sausages and bacon are high in protein but lower in saturated fat than the real thing. And if you still want to stick with the meat option, bear in mind

that bacon—especially lean back bacon with the rind and fat cut off— contains fewer calories than your average sausage.

5

Drink orange juice

It delivers a burst of vitamin C and antioxidants, but that’s not the main reason to slug a glass of the stuff in the morning. In fact, juice is rather full of sugar while falling short on fibre, but it could substantially cut your risk of Alzheimer’s, according to several research studies.

6 Eat a bowl of strawberries three

times a week

If you prefer your fruit in solid form, opt for these luscious red berries. They are packed with vitamin C, which brings many health benefits. One of these is that they have a protective effect on the eyes, according to various studies. One US

study of 247 women found that those taking vitamin C in supplement form were 77 per cent less likely to develop cataracts. Getting vitamin C from food is even better. And strawberries are also high in antioxidants and low in calories. What’s not to love?

7 Fit 5g of fibre into breakfast

Get your day off to a great start by making sure you eat fibre in the first meal of your day, otherwise you’ll struggle to get to the 30g daily recommended amount. Plus, fibre is filling without costing you more in calories. So how to pack in that 5g? A few bites of a large apple, a small bowl of high-fibre cereal or 80g of blackberries will do the trick. n

For more weekly health tips and stories, sign up to our newsletter at readersdigest.co.uk

Be A Great Grandparent

Being a grandparent brings benefits for all three generations—that’s definitely something to celebrate!

Living beyond your reproductive years is almost unique in the animal world— humans, whales and dolphins are among the few species that do—and scientists believe it might increase the survival chances of their descendants. But what are the proven advantages of grandparental involvement?

An Oxford University study of 1,500 children found that when grandparents were very present in their lives, the children had fewer emotional and behavioural issues. Being close to your grandchildren has psychological benefits for both generations, a US study found, helping to stave off depression in old and young alike. The more you can support each other, the better the emotional health of both parties.

Hanging out with the grandchildren is a learning experience for both generations, a study from Concordia University in Canada found. As grandparents, you pass on life lessons,

while youngsters share knowledge about technology and social media.

The young also help keep their grandparents’ grey matter active. Analysis of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe showed that spending quality time with grandchildren had a positive effect on grandparents’ verbal fluency. And grandmothers who took care of the young’uns once a week were found to have the highest cognitive scores, according to an Australian study of post-menopausal women, although, minding them five days a week had the opposite effect!

An international research team even found that on average grandparents lived longer if they looked after their children’s children occasionally, than those who didn’t mind them at all. n

Ask The Expert: Back Pain

Dr Serge Nikolic is a consultant in pain medicine and neuromodulation at London Bridge Hospital

How did you become an expert in back pain and pain management? After qualifying as a doctor I specialised in anaesthetics and became fascinated by the fact that because pain can’t be seen, people are often ignored.

What are the most common causes of back pain? Being tall, obese, in manual work, doing a lot of sport or smoking means you are more likely to have “mechanical back pain”, where there is no significant underlying medical problem. But it can affect anyone.

What can people do to treat it? Physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and acupuncture can help. Simple painkillers should be used sparingly. There’s little evidence strong painkillers are helpful long term and they can have significant side effects.

What other options are there? If conservative treatment steps fail, visit your GP. They may consider a

referral to a spinal pain service, orthopaedic surgeon or neurosurgeon. Sometimes, it might be appropriate to consider steroid injections. Another option for chronic, severe back pain is neuromodulation, also known as spinal cord stimulation. Fine wires send electromagnetic energy into the spine to intercept pain signals travelling to the brain.

Surgery is reserved for the small minority of patients who have a structural problem with the spine or compression on the nerves, and other rarer conditions.

How can people best keep their spine pain free in the long term? Regular exercise, particularly Pilates and Yoga, improve the stability and strength of the core muscles, which helps the back muscles and spine. Pay attention to your posture too, whether sitting at a desk, lifting something or gardening. n

For more, visit hcahealthcare.co.uk

Dr Max Pemberton muses on our societal obsession with appearance and why it’s becoming a problem in the medical world

Keeping Up Appearances

And now we come through to the bedroom,” said the tour guide. I was eight years old and at a National Trust property on our family summer holiday in Dorset. I whined at my mum that I was bored and wanted to leave for an ice-cream. She replied with a glare and told me to behave. I huffed and began a low-grade sulk.

“And of course in this very room, in 1840, Jemima gave birth to her first son, Thomas” continued the tour guide looking directly at me, “It was a very difficult birth, and Jemima had lost lots of blood. The doctor feared she was going to die, so once the baby

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

was born, they put him in a chamber pot under the bed, leaving him for dead so that they could concentrate on saving the mother.” It began to occur to me that if I didn’t behave, perhaps this woman would push me under the bed and leave me for dead.

“They didn’t care about the baby?” I asked, horrified.

“Saving the mother was more important in those days” replied the tour guide, pleased to have finally got me captivated. “Several hours later, when the doctor had saved Jemima’s life, they heard a noise from under the bed, and discovered the baby, alive and well” she concluded. It was a very good thing for English literature that the baby did survive, because he grew up to be the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. But in those precarious times, children were relatively expendable, while the death of an adult could ruin a family. How things have changed. Because

of a multitude of complex social and cultural shifts, from better sanitation to the welfare state, we have fewer children, and the children we do have represent more investment for us.

This was all brought back to me recently while reading a study on how much our society spends on plastic surgery. It struck me how far in the other direction we have wandered; once regarded as a dispensable commodity, we now cling to the essence of youth. Procedures to fight back the years are becoming more mainstream. It’s estimated that we now spend more on cosmetic surgery than we do on tea. While I’m not suggesting we go back to an era where we left babies to die under beds, it does seem that as a nation, we have become obsessed with youth. I think this is indicative of a society in crisis; a society that is fearful of getting old. I wonder if there isn’t

a more fundamental, ontological, crisis going on. As institutions, such as the church—once a provider of a structured and ordered world— have lost their potency, we have begun to look towards science and medicine to provide the answers to our metaphysical questions. But these institutions, unlike religion, fail when it comes to death. They cannot reassure us or provide us with satisfactory answers about what happens after we die. As a result, we fear old age, because we fear death. And so the ageing body is reviled because it reminds us of our own mortality. As a society, youth is paraded as the ideal and so we have become obsessed with how we look. Thomas Hardy himself, foreshadowing the current social climate, wrote: “It is not by what is, in this life, but by what appears, that you are judged.” But give me lapsang over liposuction any day. n

The Doctor Is In

Dr Max Pemberton

Q: I don’t remember ever having a nosebleed in my life but in the past month I have had four. They only lasted a couple of minutes but the amount of blood is always shocking. The only change in my routine is that I was put on statins a couple of months ago and am wondering if this could be the cause. I won’t want to bother my overstretched GP with this but I am getting worried.

—Gina, 49

A: Epistaxis—the medical name for a nosebleed—can have many causes, often it’s nothing but it can be a symptom of something quite serious. Please do bother your GP with this. The fact that you have never had them before and then had four in a month implies something has changed so this needs an investigation. Also, a “shocking” amount of blood suggests that this is not a minor thing. I have known people who have had nosebleeds so severe they have become anaemic and even required blood transfusions.

I say that not to alarm you unduly, but to encourage you to seek help. So, what could be causing this? Well, the list is quite long. Nosebleeds are very common in older people. As we age, deposits make our blood vessels harder meaning they cannot constrict very well, which is necessary to stop excessive bleeding. The nose is full of blood vessels and tiny amounts of damage to these can trigger large nosebleeds. Other conditions, such as problems with clotting can cause excess nosebleeds, but most of these are genetic so you would have been aware much sooner. Some cancers can also trigger them, as can high blood pressure. You say you are on statins and nosebleeds can be a side effect of them. If it does turn out to be this, you and your GP can discuss whether the nosebleeds are bad enough for you to change to a different medication. n

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

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Flex Your Memory Muscles

You’ll remember more if you use your body and your brain, says our memory expert, Jonathan Hancock

Muscle memory is a powerful thing. Without our conscious minds having much say, our bodies operate instinctively, following long-established, well-rehearsed routines. Today, for example, I decided to come home a different way from my morning run. I spotted the new road I wanted to take, headed towards it… and before I knew it, I was back at my front door—having gone exactly the same way I always do!

I’ll try again to take the scenic route next time. But muscle memory is actually a useful tool, and it can have a positive impact on your learning. Here are some suggestions for using muscle memory to your advantage.

• If you’re learning your part in a play, or preparing to give a speech from memory, repeat the same actions whenever you run through lines. You can even add extra movement instructions to your script, to make sure that you do the same things each time. These movements will become effective

prompts for the words that go along with them.

• To remember a tough spelling, try writing it out by hand. If you’ve used this word—or one like it—in the past, your muscle memory may well help you. Feel your way to forming the right pattern of letters again.

• When you’ve got a regular “to do” task, connect it to a physical action that’s already ingrained. For example, if you always reach for the coffee jar first thing in the morning, why not use that movement to remind you of something else—like the tablet you need to remember to take at the same time every day?

• You can even jog your recall simply by disrupting a muscle memory. Move your alarm clock to the far side of your bedside table. When you go to switch it off tomorrow morning, you’ll instantly know that something feels different and you can do that again when you’ve really got something to remember. n

Jonathan’s new book, The Study Book, is out now from John Murray Learning

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WitchingHours

With the spooky season upon us, we’re taking a road trip around the parts of Britain once allegedly touched by magic…

by Anna Walker

Pendle, Lancashire

Perhaps no witchcraft trial in British history is as well-known as the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612, where eight women and two men were hung on the accusations of murder, cannibalism, the death of a horse and inducing sickness. The tragic events have been immortalised in several books, including Jeanette Winterson’s 2012 novella, The Daylight Gate. The accused all lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill, giving the summit a lasting reputation for witchcraft and the other worldly. Many visitors climb the hill each Halloween and ghost hunters frequent the area. Today you can pay your respects to the wrongfully convicted by retracing their steps on the Pendle Witches Walking Trail starting at the Pendle Heritage Centre, taking a trip to Lancaster Castle where the accused were imprisoned or by sampling the local beer, known as Pendle Witches Brew. visitpendle.com

The Witch’s Grave, Perthshire

In the unassuming Scottish village of Dunning locals and experts alike are baffled by an apparently occult monument hidden at the end of a country road. It would be easy to miss the pile of stones, with their crosstopped column, but pause to read the lettering regularly refreshed on the stones and you’ll discover that this crude memorial marks the final resting spot of local woman, Maggie Wall.

Nobody knows who tends to her grave, but the words “Maggie Wall burnt here 1657 as a witch” are regularly repainted on the relic in bold white lettering, and various trinkets, wreaths and flowers can usually be seen at the foot of the cenotaph. Only adding to the local mystery is the fact that despite extensive documentation of witch trials held at the time, there is no evidence of any “Maggie Wall” being tried in Scotland.

Wickedness and Witchcraft Tours, Cambridge

The only tour in the UK specifically dedicated to exploring witchcraft and the occult, Wickedness and Witchcraft Tours describe Cambridge as “the home of English witchcraft”.

Intrigued guests are invited to tour both the city and the surrounding countryside, discovering the surprisingly occult history of this famous city. From the most elite members of high society through to the poor and common folk, prepare to discover how the intrigue of the mystic permeated every echelon of

medieval Britain. The insights into Cambridge University are particularly interesting, as it’s revealed how what’s now considered one of the world’s capitals of scientific prestige was once the place to investigate the darker arts, alchemy, occultism and magic.

The tour includes a visit to the spot where the notorious Aleister Crowley —once dubbed “the wickedest man in the world”—first picked up a tome on magic.

cambridgeghosttours.com

Fye Bridge, Norwich

The pretty candy-coloured houses of Norwich’s Quayside hide a surprisingly dark past. Running alongside the River Wensum and punctuated by the ancient Fye Bridge, this was once the spot where the “witches” of Norwich met a cruel end. First built in 1153, Fye Bridge is thought to be where the city’s medieval ducking stool was situated, and today a plaque has been erected to commemorate the innocents who lost their lives here.

Ducking stools were chairs used to “test” those suspected of witchcraft. The accused (usually women) were tied to the chair and dunked into the river below. If they floated and survived the dunking, they were confirmed as witches who had renounced their baptism, and so were unaffected by the Wensum’s depths. If they drowned, they were innocent. And also, dead. The “guilty” parties were hung outside the nearby Norwich castle. Today the Quayside is a picturesque spot for a crisp autumn walk. Follow the route up to the Adam and Eve pub to continue the creepy theme—it’s supposedly one of the most haunted pubs in Britain. visitnorwich.co.uk

Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Cornwall

Nestled away in the Cornish village of Boscastle resides the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic—the world’s oldest and largest collection of items related to magic, witchcraft and the occult. If you want to learn more about Britain’s connection to witchcraft, both past and present, this is the place. With over 3,000 objects displayed over two floors, it would be easy to while away hours in this unique museum.

Says the museum director, Simon Costin, “As a museum of social history,

we aim to explore British magical practice, making comparisons with other systems of belief, from ancient times to the present day.

We aim to represent the diversity and vigour of magical practice respectfully, accurately and impartially through unique, entertaining and educational exhibitions, drawing upon cuttingedge scholarship along with the insights of magical practitioners.” museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk

Carrickfergus Castle, Northern Ireland

The imposing brick and moat of Carrickfergus Castle is hugely significant in the story of Britain’s witch trials. In 1711, eight women stood trial at the castle, accused of bewitching another young girl. Despite heavy suggestion from the judge that they should be acquitted, the assembled women were charged with witchcraft and sentenced to jail time, and several sessions in the pillory. It was to be the last witch trial in Britain.

The town of Carrickfergus is one of the oldest in Northern Ireland, with the castle first built in 1177.

Says castle manager, Nyree Mayne, "A trip to Northern Ireland wouldn’t be complete without a visit to one of the best preserved medieval castles in Ireland. Guided tours bring to life the castle’s 800-year history and its tales of ancient kings, invasions, betrayals and the Siege of Carrickfergus." discovernorthernireland.com

Bonington Gallery, Nottingham

Running until November 16, Nottingham’s Bonington Gallery plays host to a remarkable touring exhibition, "Waking the Witch: Old Ways, New Rites". The exhibition, which is supported by Arts Council England, explores the importance of craft, ritual and land to the “evershifting figure of the witch.”

The show examines the traditional connection between witchcraft and nature, examining their intimate knowledge of herbs, plants, the elements and the human body, through contemporary art works, contextualised with archive material

and periodicals. Material has been loaned from the Glastonbury Goddess Temple, Museum of Witchcraft and Bristol University’s Feminist Archive, giving it grounding in the academia of sorcery.

Be sure to keep an eye out for the accompanying events programme, including musical workshops and public performances of modern-day rituals. boningtongallery.co.uk

Is there a spot near you touched by witchcraft? Email readersletters@ readersdigest.co.uk and let us know

If I Ruled The World Julia Donaldson

Children’s author Julia Donaldson is the writer behind such beloved classics as The Gruffalo , Zog and Room on the Broom . She was awarded a CBE in 2019

Children would learn about nature. When I visit schools, I find that very few children know the names of quite common flowers, plants or birds. We’re told all the time that we need to care for our planet, but how can we do that if we barely know what’s on the planet? It’s much easier to care for something you actually know and love.

I’d also take children out of the classroom more. There are so many permission slips and things now—if the weather was nice when we were young it was “Oh lets go outside to the local park.” I’m a Londoner, but you don’t have to go very far to find birds and plants even in an urban area.

Every primary school would have a librarian. Every single primary school in New South Wales has a teacher with an extra qualification in librarianship. I think if we could have that, then all the children in school would hear stories and we’d end up with a more literate and imaginative population.

I would cull the use of pesticides. My heart really sinks when I hear about the decline in the number of birds, flowers and insects and I gather that some bee species are in decline. That means a smaller range of plants can be pollinated, which in turn affects birds and other animals. Since it’s many agricultural causes such as using extensive pesticides that are

largely to blame, I’d take measures to cull their use.

I would insist that tennis players only get one serve because I don’t think it’s as interesting when somebody double faults and then aces—I’d much rather watch a good rally. They could decide whether they’re going to smash it or play safe, so psychologically it would be quite interesting. I’d also fine them for shrieking and grunting too loudly.

I’d subsidise public transport, particularly trains so that people can afford to use them rather than contributing to pollution by driving cars. I have family in Scotland and often visit, but I’m afraid it’s much cheaper to fly than to get the train, which is ridiculous since planes are so much more polluting than trains.

There would be more live music in schools. I find that when they sing in schools nowadays it’s almost always to a backing track, so there’s no leeway in the rhythm. I don’t think children hear live instruments enough.

I’d have more singing in schools generally. People really underestimate what children are capable of. I have nothing against them singing poppy, catchy songs with the occasional backing track, but those are things they’re already going to see and hear on television or online. I think there’s a wider variety of songs that are

meant for singing in school and are uplifting to sing.

I’d change the way we order in restaurants. It really annoys me that nowadays the waiter comes to your table, and they have to ask, “what would you like to drink?” before they ask you what you’d like to eat. Then they go off and bring back the drinks and then ask you what you want to eat. By the time the food comes, you’ve all finished your drinks and you have to order more.

And then I’d put a stop to the waiter always coming to the table and topping up the glasses. It’s not fair because the people who drink the fastest get their glasses filled up to the brim, but the slow drinkers lose out.

I’d encourage more foreign exchanges. I think it’s such fun to become familiar with a different way of talking and thinking and I’m sad that language learning is in decline. I’d encourage foreign exchanges not where all the British children stay together in a hostel, but by having them stay with families. I did that in France and Germany and it immeasurably improved my French and German. n

As told to Anna Walker

The Smeds and the Smoos by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler is out now (£12.99 Alison Green Books)

Our food columnist Rachel Walker shares her insights into the ways our eating habits are set to change in the coming years…

Of Future Food

A... for Air Miles

Conscientious chefs are considering their carbon footprint more than ever, and striving to source locally. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than the Tate Modern gallery, where Studio Olafur Eliasson Kitchen has collaborated with The Terrace Bar (Level 1). Over the duration of the artist’s exhibition,

The boom of veganism has seen chefs track down everATo Z

“Olafur Eliasson: In Real Life” (running until January 5, 2020), there will be a selection of dishes available which have been specifically chosen for their minimal CO2 emissions. For example, the courgette salad with pink grapefruit, mint and almonds emits just 38g CO2e (in comparison, an average home-cooked meal emits 5.2kg CO2e) and the chefs only use British rapeseed oil (over Italian olive oil)—ideal for satiating your appetite while clearing your conscience.

B... for Banana Blossom

inventive meat substitutes. First it was jackfruit (which was slowcooked and “pulled” like pork) but the new darling of the vegan food scene is banana blossom. It comes from South East Asia and has a fishlike texture—look out for a Thai-style curried banana blossom in crunchy croquettes in Sainsbury’s plantbased Christmas canapé range.

C... for Canned Cocktails

It’s no longer about tinny, cheap G&Ts; canned cocktails have gone premium meaning you don’t have to be a master mixologist to enjoy a quality cocktail. The UK’s ready-to-drink (RTD) market is booming—sales last year were £472m and Mintel predicted a nine per cent growth in RTD cocktail sales (2016-21). This summer saw Marks and Spencer add four new canned cocktails to their range, as well as the launch of Fever Tree’s range of pre-mixed gin and tonics. Meanwhile, innovative start-ups—like Ace + Freak and Bloody Drinks—are creating a shift toward canned craft spirits and smallbatch cocktails.

D... for Dessert Bars

Pudding lovers, rejoice! Now main course can be skipped altogether thanks to the boom in dessert-only dining rooms. Cakes & Bubbles (Hotel Café Royal, London) launched late last year offering a four-course dessert tasting menu (£29.50) including their signature golden egg flan. It was soon followed by Whisk (London N1) which also offers a three-course dessert menu (£15). Look out for more openings as the trend gathers momentum—from The Cake Bar (Glasgow) to Cow Bee (Bristol)—a good year for those with a sweet tooth!

E... for Eco Packaging

David Attenborough’s Blue Planet 2 documentary shone a light on the eight million tons of plastic which enter our oceans each year. It lit the torch for paper and became a trigger for supermarkets nationwide to take dramatic steps in reducing plastic. This year has also seen renewed enthusiasm for zero-waste shops where conscientious customers simply refill existing containers— see The Refillery (Edinburgh), The Clean Kilo (Birmingham), Wastenot (Brighton), Ripple (Cardiff) and Locavore (Glasgow).

F... for Food Halls

Forget a fusty old sandwich— the latest wave of Food Halls host mini outlets of the hottest restaurants in town, offering inexpensive, informal but still highly “Instagrammable” plates. From The Cutlery Works (Sheffield) and Market Hall Victoria (London) which opened late last year, to new players like The Produce Hall (Manchester), Arcade Food Theatre (London) and Market Hall West End (London, opening in October 2019) counter top dining is shaping the future of eating out.

G... for Goat

H... for Hydroponics

Growing greens without soil or sunlight might seem like the distant future—but hydroponic units are cropping up in more restaurant kitchens (Claridge’s and The Ritz both have an Evogro system). The global hydroponics market is expected to grow 6.8 per cent between 2019-2024 and it’s only a matter of time before they become established in home kitchens—making soggy bagged lettuce a thing of the past. Stay ahead of the curve with an Akarina 01 starter pack, which includes an integrated LED light, irrigation tray and fertiliser (£169.99).

With “Goatober” in full swing there’s never been a better time to enjoy goat meat. “Goatober spreads the word that goat meat is delicious, ethical and sustainable,” explains James Whetlor, founder of Cabrito Goat Company. After all, wherever there are goat dairies there are unwanted billy goats—many of which are killed at birth. “The hope is to move goat meat into the mainstream with the goal that all billy goats born into the dairy system will go into the food system, rather than being wasted.” Chefs up and down the country will be listing goat on their menu. For a Michelin-starred take, visit Carousel (London) who will be hosting international chefs throughout the month, and also look to Cornwall (“1000 Mouths”, Nancarrow Farm) and Newcastle (Cook House) for a feast you won’t forget.

I... for Iranian Cuisine

“Iran probably has one of the oldest cuisines in the world, but it lends itself to everything that’s on trend now—vegan, vegetarian, zero waste,” says Marwa Alkhalaf, co-owner of London’s latest Iranian restaurant, Nutshell. The ongoing popularity of chef Yotam Ottolenghi means that Middle Eastern cuisine is hardly a new phenomenon, the trend for localisation has nudged Iran’s cuisine into the spotlight. Expect home-style dishes: smoky aubergine, beef dumplings, jewelled rice and zulbia served with fig cream. To master the flavours in your own kitchen look out for Pardiz: A Persian Food Journey by Manuela Darling-Gansser (Hardie Grant, £30), launching in November.

J... for Japanese

Another cuisine to look out for is Japan’s as diners and chefs alike strive for a new level of authenticity. Pick up a copy of The Japanese Table: Small Plates for Simple Meals by Sofia Hellsten (Hardie Grant, £18), launched in September, to be inspired by the tradition of

ichijuu-sansai which means “one soup, three dishes”—an elegant new style of eating to take you through the winter months.

K... for Kefir

Probiotic-rich drinks have grown in popularity over the past few years, but the latest hit is kefir—a lightly-fermented, drinkable yogurt. It’s thought to originate from the Caucus Mountains, but is now appearing on health food menus and in supermarket aisles. Experimental cooks might even want to make their own thanks to Lakeland’s Kefirko Kefir Cheese Maker (£29.99), which saw a 212 per cent increase in sales from May to July 2019.

L... for Lotus Seeds

Popcorn can move over—it’s all about popped lotus or water

lily seeds. This ancient Eastern snack has become big stateside and is set to take-off here, thanks to small disruptive companies like Karma Bites (£1.50/25g, Planet Organic). “They’re crunchy, plant-based and gluten-free,” explains Dewi Cortier-Agrawal, founder of Oh Lily Snacks. “It’s the perfect snack for the environmentally-and-healthconscious consumer.”

M... for Milk

A quarter of Brits now use plant-based milks, according to research firm, Mintel. UK volume sales of oat milk rose 71 per cent (from nine million litres in 2016 to 24 million litres in 2018). Sales also rocketed for coconut, almond and soya milk in the same period. Conversely, the sale of cow’s milk declined 2.6 per cent.

N... for New Scottish

The “New Nordic” food movement saw chefs promote native ingredients and producers in a modern interpretation of traditional dishes—and the same can be said of Scotland’s cuisine, which is undergoing a renaissance thanks to artisanal cheese, wild game, foraged ingredients and local spirits. The recently-revamped Fife Arms (Braemar) is bringing fine dining to The Highlands. Roberta HallMcCarron, head chef at The Little Chartroom (Edinburgh) was crowned “Young British Foodie” chef of the year and ex-Bake Off contestant Flora Shedden’s debut cookbook launches this month, Aran: Recipes and Stories from a Bakery in the Heart of Scotland (Hardie Grant)—proving that the stereotype of Scottish neeps and tatties is a thing of the past.

O... for “Octsober”

MacMillan’s annual campaign “Go Sober for October” has never been easier thanks to the boom in non-alcoholic options. You can get creative with your own mocktails and shrubs thanks to recent launches like All Day Cocktails: Low (And No) Alcohol Magic by Shaun Byrne & Nick Tesar (Hardie Grant, £16.99) and How to be Sober and Keep Your Friends by Flic Everett (Quadrille, £12.99).

P... for Paris Brest

It’s the War of the Pastries as this classic French choux pastry ring is appearing on more and more menus. It was created in the early 20th-century to commemorate the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race and was, traditionally, filled with a praline—but ever elaborate versions are spiked with ground pistachios, filled with lemon curd and Earl Grey mousse. The most memorable this reporter has come across was sharing a Paris Brest at Wright Bros Soho (London) which was, appropriately, the size of a bike wheel.

Q... for Queso

This niche but cheesy trend comes from South East Asia—and is hitting the hippest Chinatown outposts. Queso Tea is a

cold tea (often green tea or fruit tea) topped with a foamy layer of salted cream cheese—try it at Japanese patisserie KOVA (London). Or, for a gentler introduction to the trend, Filipino ice cream parlour, Mamasons (London), serves a salty-sweet queso ice cream, not dissimilar to a very tangy frozen yogurt.

R...for Reluctant Retirees

Last year restaurant group Corbin & King launched an initiative to employ more over-50s in a bid to diversify their workforce. Only a few months later CODE Hospitality magazine ran their first Over 50 Power List, alluding to the fact that “nothing beats experience” and “each new generation can learn so much from the one before”. The list included Claridge’s head butler, Michael Lynch, whose career there spans more than 40 years and the Goring hotel doorman, Peter Sweeny, who’s been greeting guests since 1965.

S... for Sicilian

Gone are the days of the generic Italian—the trend for hyperlocal has shone a light on Sicilian cuisine, known for bold flavours, Arabic influences and family-style sharing dishes. Recent launches include Circolo (London) and Norma at The Stafford Hotel (London). Alternatively, whip up your own feast thanks to recently-released, Cucina Siciliana by Ursula Ferrigno (£16.99, Ryland Peters & Small).

T... for Tea ... with benefits

The humble cuppa is evolving. Far from being something to accompany a chocolate digestive, herbal teas now claim to detox, encourage sleep, clear skin, boost vitamins. Brands like Dr Stuart’s (£2.35, Holland & Barrett), Heath & Heather (from £2.25, Holland & Barrett) are part of a functional ingredient market which is predicted to grow seven per cent by 2022 as health care becomes increasingly holistic.

U... for Urfa Pepper Nigella sprinkles it over her Turkish Eggs, Yotam Ottolenghi uses it in chilli butter, Oklava chef Selin Kiazim serves lashings with monkfish tail. This raisin dark chilli sets hearts-aflutter with its sweet notes, distinct smokiness and oily sheen. It’s grown in Turkey’s Southern Anlıurfa region but is creeping into British kitchens where cooks-in-the-know use it as a finishing flavour. Track down a tin at Rooted Spices (£3.50/35g, rootedspices.com).

V... for Vermouth

Renewed enthusiasm for home mixology has seen vermouth creep back into drinks cabinets, used for Negronis (mixed with gin and Campari) or Martinis (mixed with gin or vodka). Increasingly, though, the focus is shifting to this aromatic wine flavoured with herbs, roots, barks and spices. Drop the hard spirits and mix vermouth with soda for a long drink, or sip neat with just a slice and ice to enjoy the full flavours of a craft variety like Casa Mariol Vermut Blanc (£16.75/1litre, masterofmalt.com).

W... for Wild Game Game season is underway, and wild birds are proving more popular than ever. “It’s an ethical and sustainable source of meat,” says Tom Adams, managing director of the British Game Alliance (BGA) which was founded in 2018 to promote the value of feathered game. He cites the birds as an alternative to “chicken and turkey, which are often avoided by mindful eaters or ‘flexitarians’ due to the harsh conditions in which they often live.” What’s more, birds such as grouse contain less than a third of the fat and twice the protein of roast chicken— look out for it on menus until December 10 when the grouse shooting season officially closes.

X ... for Xi’an

This central Chinese city (pronounced “shee-an”) is responsible for one of China’s hottest exports (literally): biang biang noodles. The long, flat noodles, often bathed in chilli and garlic, have a cult following—little surprise more specialist Xi’an restaurants are opening, such as Master Wei (London) and Xiang Biang Biang (London), which launched within months of each other earlier this year and are both already doing roaring trade.

Y... for Yakitori

These Japanese skewers are the latest street food trend to have gone gourmet.

Mana (Manchester) is famed for their signature yakitori-style eel,

while Sakagura (London) serves Butabara Yakitori—Berkshire black pork belly with brown seaweed salt on skewers. Since relaunching, Jidori (London) even has a Yakitori menu which offers Hatsu (chicken hearts) Reba (chicken liver) and Tsukune (minced chicken and egg yolk)— purists will be impressed.

Z

... for Zweigelt

Lighter wines with a naturallylow ABV have been steadily growing in popularity, like Vinho Verde and Beaujolais. If it’s a genre which appeals then look out for Zweigelt—a light red which now makes up 14.1 per cent of Austria’s vineyards (an increase of 48.9 per cent over the past decade). Try a bottle from Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range (£9) or the Rabl Titan Zweigelt (£17.99) from Waitrose Cellar. n

London Calling

Four unbelievable facts about the history of our capital city

Until 1916, Harrods sold pure cocaine to the general public.

Victorian churchmen warned against the building of the London Underground as they believed the noise of the trains would “disturb the devil”.

Hitler had made plans to dismantle Nelson’s Column and display it in Berlin.

The name “Covent Garden” originated from a spelling mistake—the area was once the market garden for a convent.

SOURCE: BUZZFEED.COM

When Lightning Strikes

Photo: ©shutterstock (lightning)

By Charlotte Huff

There's a nine in ten chance you’ll survive. But what are the lasting effects of being exposed to hundreds of millions of volts of electricity?

Shirt worn by Jaime Santana when he was struck by lightning

Photo by William l e g oullon

Sometimes they’ll keep the clothing, the strips of shirt or trousers that weren’t cut away by the doctors and nurses. They’ll tell their story, sharing pictures and news reports of survivals like their own or bigger tragedies. Only by piecing together bystander reports can survivors of lightning strikes construct their own picture of the possible trajectory of the electrical current, one that can approach 200 million volts and travel at one-third of the speed of light.

a bit of lightning as they neared Alejandro’s house. But scarcely a drop of rain had fallen.

They had almost reached the house when it happened.

Alejandro doesn’t think he was knocked out for long. When he regained consciousness, he was lying face down on the ground, sore all over. His horse was gone. The two other riders appeared shaken but unharmed.

Alejandro found Jaime on the other side of his fallen horse. The horse’s legs felt hard, “like metal”, he says.

"I couldn't move," says Justin. "I saw white light surrounding my body. Everything was in slow motion"

In this way, Jaime Santana’s family stitched together some of what happened one Saturday afternoon in April 2016, through his injuries, burnt clothing and, most of all, his shredded broad-brimmed straw hat. “It looks like somebody threw a cannonball through it,” says Sydney Vail, a trauma surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, who saw Jaime after he arrived by ambulance.

Jaime had been horse riding with his brother-in-law, Alejandro Torres, and two others in the mountains when dark clouds formed and began heading in their direction. So, the group started back, witnessing quite

Flames were coming off Jaime’s chest. Three times Alejandro beat out the flames with his hands. Three times they reignited.

Jaime had been struck.

Justin Gauger wishes his memory of being struck by lightning while trout fishing in Arizona wasn't so vivid. An avid fisherman, Justin had been elated when the storm kicked up suddenly one August afternoon more than three years ago. Fish are more likely to bite when it’s raining, he told his wife, Rachel. But as the rain turned into hail, Rachel and their two children

headed for the truck. When the pellets grew larger, Justin grabbed a nearby folding chair and raced over.

Then came a crashing boom and a jolting, excruciating pain. “My whole body just stopped—I couldn’t move,” recalls Justin. “I saw a white light surrounding my body—it was like I was in a bubble. Everything was in slow motion.”

A couple huddling under a nearby tree ran to Justin’s assistance. They later told him that when they reached him, he was still clutching the chair. His body was smoking.

When Justin came to, his ears were ringing, and he was paralysed from the waist down. “Once I figured out I couldn’t move my legs, I started freaking out.”

Describing that day, Justin draws one hand across his back, tracing the path of his burns, which at one point covered roughly a third of his body. They began near his right shoulder and extended diagonally across his torso, he says, and then continued along the outside of each leg.

He holds up his boots, tipping them to show several burn marks on the interior. Those deep, dark roundish spots line up with the singed areas on the socks he was wearing— and with the coin-sized burns he had on both feet.

The singed markings also align with several needle-sized holes located just above the thick rubber soles of his size-13 boots. Justin’s best

guess—based on reports from the nearby couple, along with the wound on his right shoulder—is that the lightning hit his upper body and then exited through his feet.

Although survivors frequently talk about entry and exit wounds, it’s difficult to figure out precisely what path the lightning takes, says Mary Ann Cooper, a retired emergency medicine doctor and long-time lightning researcher. The visible evidence of lightning’s wrath is more reflective of the type of clothing a survivor has on, the coins they are carrying in their pockets and the jewellery they are wearing, says Cooper.

Lightning is responsible for more than 4,000 deaths worldwide annually—according to those documented in reports from 26 countries. Cooper is one of

Photo by William l eGoullon

The hat Jaime was wearing when he was struck by lightning

a small global cadre of doctors, meteorologists, electrical engineers and others who study how lightning injures people, and ideally how to avoid it in the first place.

Of every ten people struck, nine will survive. But they could suffer from a variety of short- and longterm effects, including cardiac arrest, confusion, seizures, dizziness, muscle aches, deafness, headaches, memory deficits, distractibility, personality changes and chronic pain, among others.

Survivors typically experience changes in personality and mood, and sometimes severe bouts of depression. Cooper says that lightning rewires the brain in much the same way that an electrical shock can scramble a computer.

trying to say. So, when it comes out, it may not sound right.”

When someone is hit by lightning, it happens so fast that only a tiny amount of electricity ricochets through the body. The vast majority travels around the outside in a "flashover" effect, Cooper explains.

So, what causes the external burns? As lightning flashes over the body, it might come into contact with sweat or raindrops on the skin.

Despite sympathy for survivors, some symptoms still strain Cooper’s credulity. Yet, even after decades of research, Cooper and other lightning experts readily admit that there are many unresolved questions, in a field where there’s little to no research funding to decipher the answers.

Justin could move his legs within five hours of being struck, and finally sought help and testing last year for his cognitive frustrations.

Along with coping with PTSD, he chafes at living with a brain that doesn’t function as fluidly as it once did. “The words in my head are jumbled when I think about what I’m

Liquid water increases in volume when it vapourises, so even a small amount can create a "vapour explosion". “It literally explodes the clothes off,” says Cooper. Sometimes the shoes, too.

However, shoes are more likely to have been torn or damaged on the inside, because that’s where the heat builds-up and vapour explosion occurs.

Steam interacts differently with clothing depending on its material. A leather jacket can trap the steam inside, burning the survivor’s skin and polyester can melt.

Cooper authored one of the first studies looking at lightning injuries, published nearly four decades ago, in which she reviewed 66 doctor reports about seriously injured patients, including eight that she’d treated herself. Loss of consciousness was common. About one-third

experienced at least some temporary paralysis in their arms or legs.

Those rates might be on the high side, as Cooper points out that not all lightning patients are sufficiently injured enough for doctors to write about their cases. But survivors do often describe temporary paralysis, like Justin suffered, or a loss of consciousness, although why it occurs is not clear.

More is understood about lightning’s ability to scramble the electrical impulses of the

second and potentially deadly arrest, Andrews says. “If someone has lived to say, ‘Yes, I was stunned [by lightning],’ it’s probable that their respiration wasn’t completely wiped out and was re-established in time to keep the heart going.”

Andrews’ research demonstrates how lightning’s flashover current can inflict damage within the body. During his studies, Andrews shocked anaesthetised sheep with voltage levels roughly similar to a small lightning strike and

Lightning steps, almost stair-like, in a rapid-fire series ... searching for the most convenient thing to hit

heart, thanks to experiments with Australian sheep. Lightning’s massive electrical current can temporarily stun the heart, says Dr Chris Andrews, an associate professor in medicine and a lightning researcher at the University of Queensland. Thankfully, though, the heart possesses a natural pacemaker. Frequently, it can reset itself.

The problem is that lightning can also knock out the region of the brain that controls breathing. This doesn’t have a built-in reset, meaning a person’s oxygen supply can become dangerously depleted. The risk is that the heart will succumb to a

photographed the electricity’s path. He showed that as lightning flashes over, the electrical current enters critical portals into the body: the eyes, the ears, the mouth. This explains why survivors frequently report damage to both the eyes and ears. They might develop cataracts. Or their hearing can be permanently damaged.

A particularly worrisome notion is that, by penetrating the ears, lightning can rapidly reach the brain—which controls breathing, Andrews says. Upon entering the body, the electricity can hitch a ride elsewhere, through the blood

or the fluid surrounding the brain and the spinal cord. Once it reaches the bloodstream, Andrews says, the passage to the heart is very quick.

Back in Arizona, Jaime Santana survived the immediate lightning strike, not only because his horse absorbed much of the lightning, but also the neighbour who came running immediately started CPR and continued until the paramedics

is one in a million. But Holle believes that statistic is misleading.

Holle doesn’t even like the word "struck", as it implies that lightning strikes hit the body directly. In fact, direct strikes are surprisingly rare. Holle, Cooper and other prominent researchers recently pooled their expertise and calculated that they’re responsible for no more than three to five per cent of injuries.

There's no such thing as an outdoor lightning-proof haven. The advice?

"When thunder roars, go indoors"

arrived. That CPR occurred is “the only reason he’s alive,” says Dr Vail.

Lightning begins high up in the clouds, sometimes three to five miles above the earth’s surface. It steps, almost stair-like, in a rapid-fire series of roughly 165ft increments. Once lightning is 165ft or so from the ground, it searches, like a pendulum, in a nearby radius for “the most convenient thing to hit the fastest,” says Ron Holle, a meteorologist and long-time lightning researcher.

Prime candidates include isolated and pointed objects: trees, utility poles, buildings and occasionally people. The entire cloud-to-ground sequence happens blindingly fast.

The popular perception is that the chance of being struck by lightning

By far the most common cause of injury is ground current, in which the electricity courses along the earth’s surface, ensnaring within its circuitry a herd of cows or a group of people sleeping beneath a tent.

So, what should you do if you find yourself stranded a long way from a building or car when a storm kicks up? Avoid mountain peaks, tall trees or any body of water. Look for a ravine or a depression. Spread out your group, with at least 20ft between each person, to reduce the risk of multiple injuries. Don’t lie down, which boosts your exposure to ground current. There’s even a recommended lightning position: crouched down, keeping the feet close together. There’s no such thing as a lightning-proof guarantee, says

Holle, more than once. Instead, for simplicity’s sake, everyone from school children to their grandparents these days are advised: “When thunder roars, go indoors.”

On a series of large screens lining two walls of a room at the US National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) in Tucson, Arizona, Holle can see where cloud-to-ground lightning is flashing in real time, picked up by strategically positioned sensors across the world. Satellite data has shown that certain regions of the world, generally those near the equator, are lightning-dense. Venezuela, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Pakistan all rank among the top ten lightning hotspots.

Tthird-degree burns covered nearly one-fifth of his body. Doctors put him into a medically induced coma for nearly two weeks to allow his body to recover.

Jaime finally returned home after five months of treatment and rehabilitation, which is continuing. “The hardest part for me is that I can’t walk,” he says from the living room of his parents’ house. The doctors have described some of Jaime’s nerves as still “dormant”, says Sara, something that they hope time and rehabilitation will mend.

he rain that had threatened all afternoon didn’t start to fall until Jaime’s sister Sara and her husband Alejandro were driving to visit Jaime in hospital. Alejandro sat holding on to this terrible knowledge. “All the way, I was thinking, He’s dead. How do I tell her?”

When they arrived, Alejandro was stunned to learn that Jaime was in surgery. There was still hope.

Jaime had arrived at the Phoenix trauma centre with an abnormal heart rhythm, bleeding in the brain, bruising to the lungs and damage to other organs, including his liver, according to Dr Vail. Second-and

“We’re living through something we never thought in a million years would happen,” says Lucia, Jaime’s mother, reflecting on the strike and Jaime’s miraculous survival. They’ve stopped asking why lightning caught him in its crosshairs that April afternoon. “We’re never going to be able to answer why,” Sara says.

When the couple returned home from the hospital the day after the strike, a peacock was perched on the railing of the round pen where they work the horses. His colourful feathers flowing behind.

They'd never seen a peacock in Arizona before. They kept it and later found it a mate. Now a family of peacocks fills one of the corral stalls.

Sara researched what the striking bird symbolises: renewal, resurrection, mortality. n

CRAZY

Swamp football, alternating rounds of chess and boxing, and broomstick riding—this is sport, but not as we know it

BY CORNELIA KUMFERT

FAST, ACROBATIC, AND DIFFERENT: You’ll have as much fun watching sepaktakrawas you will playing it. In this cross between volleyball and football, the opposing teams propel a small ball over a five-foothigh net. But unlike in volleyball, they can only touch the ball with their hands during the service throw. The rest of the time, players mostly use their heads and feet. In this sport, the spectacular overhead kicks come thick and fast!

DOWNHILL SKATEBOARDING isn’t for the faint-hearted! In the world championships, competitors race against each other at speeds of more than 60 miles an hour, which means that even the smallest mistake can result in serious injury.

TEAMS OF WOMEN and men mounted on broomsticks trying to throw a ball through a hoop? It may seem implausible, but people really do play Quidditch. The game was invented by J K Rowling for her Harry Potter novels. But in the fictional version, the young wizard plays Quidditch at dizzying heights on a flying broom.

IMAGINE A BOXING contest that’s a battle of brain as well as brawn. In chess boxing, the competitors don’t just fight with their fists—in six of the 11 rounds, they take each other on at chess. You win either by a knockout or by checkmating your opponent.

PHOTOS: © PYMCA/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES; © THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES; © CHRISTIE GOODWIN/GETTY IMAGES

FROM THE SIDE of a skyscraper to a sheer rock face, in vertical dance you can use almost anything as your stage, as long as you’re hanging above a precipitous drop! Vertical dancers perform their daredevil choreographies with nothing but a rope to keep them safely suspended above the ground.

TWELVE PLAYERS, a ball and a muddy bog. Playing dirty is the name of the game in swamp football—not because the players are cheats, but because the playing surface consists entirely of mud!

A GOOD LIMBO SKATER needs to be supple. The aim is to pass under a series of bars set at very low heights while on roller skates. The world record is held by nine-year-old Tiluck from India, who skated for an astonishing 475 feet under bars just 12 inches off the ground.

PHOTOS: © JAMES ADAMSON/VCG/GETTY IMAGES; © JENS

IMAGES; © BARCROFT

HOLIDAY EXTRAS TRAVEL INSURANCE: WHY CHOOSE US?

Choosing Holiday Extras as the provider for your travel insurance could not be a more fitting choice. As the UK market’s leader in holiday add-ons, you’re in safe hands with our Kent-based insurance experts, who will find you the most suitable policy tailored around you and your specific holiday plans. But why exactly should you choose us?

4 brand-new levels of cover

Since April, we have worked with our new partners at TIF (Travel Insurance Facilities) to improve on our existing policies. Bringing you 4 brand new policy levels, Our new Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum tiers offer you varying levels of baggage cover, cancellation cover, medical cover and much more.

24/7 helpline

Rest assured that when you are away and should you need to pick up the phone with a question in mind, our Kent-based contact centre are just a phone call away, 7 days a week!

Award-winning providers of Travel Insurance

We’ve been recognised by the Globe Travel Awards as best insurance provider for… wait for it… 11 years in a row! We

think that’s pretty good going and shows exactly what is achievable through continually excellent customer service.

Over 25 years in the business

Having been in the travel industry for over a quarter of a century, we know a thing or two about insurance and finding the bestfitting policy for whatever your holiday plans. You can go on holiday with the confidence that that when you jet off, you and your loved ones will have the right level of protection with Holiday Extras.

Add-ons possible to personalise your insurance according to your type of holiday

Whatever the style or type of holiday you have chosen, you can select additional levels of cover to suit your specific plans. With our new Gold and Platinum policies, we now offer Wedding cover as standard or

you can choose gadget cover for expensive items like phones or laptops on your trip.

A Defaqto 5 Star rated provider of insurance

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Age limits? Unlimited for single trip

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We cover the majority of pre-existing medical conditions

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If all of this sounds good to you then why not give our friendly Kent based contact centre a call on 0800 093 1900, quoting AZ587 or go to holidayextras.co.uk/ AZ586 * Please note, this

GREEN HEAVEN

By Stephanie Pearson

This enchanting corner of India offers a mixture of exuberant chaos, hidden backwaters, and rugged mountain treks

Each autumn, residents of the southern Indian state of Kerala celebrate Onam, their ten-day harvest festival. It commemorates the return of the legendary king Mahabali, who is said to have given every Keralan—whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Jew, or other—equal rights and prosperity.

I bumped into Mahabali in the city of Vaikom. As I attempted to cross the street, a parade of hundreds following a bejewelled man with a giant belly came along. Mahabali handed me a piece of candy, while a TV news reporter stuck a mic in my face and asked: “What do you think of Onam?”

“It’s a happy time!” I stammered.

When I made my plans to travel to Kerala, I knew nothing about Onam. All I knew was that I had always wanted to see the vivid beauty of this vast country but was intimidated by the volume of humanity—India is home to 1.21 billion people. In Kerala, I had heard, one could still experience the diversity of India, yet also find quiet beauty, tropical ocean beaches, and cultural festivals that attract visitors from around the world.

After a few days of exuberance, I can attest that Keralans know how to celebrate. At the Coconut Lagoon eco-resort, I feasted on the traditional Onam meal known as sadhya. The 26 vegetarian servings included

Tea plantations and the Muthirappuzhayar River near Munnar in Kerala

ash gourd, masala curry, sambar, papadums, and mango pickles.

On the festival’s last day I attended the Aranmula Boat Race, a 700-year-old contest that starts at the Aranmula Temple on the River Pamba. Hundred-foot-long palliyodams, or snake boats, from 48 villages went head-to-head in front of thousands of spectators. The race had the pomp and circumstance of the Olympics.

During the race, one of the boats capsized, and the revellers gasped as the paddlers swam toward the opposite shore. A motorboat packed with men impersonating foreign tourists with devil masks, fake boobs, and blonde wigs speeded past.

If this raucous festival was an accurate representation of life in the state known as God’s Own Country, then, I decided, God must thrive on chaos and fun.

“It boils down to a plea for victory over death,” Raj said of the prayer. Which makes sense—I don’t have a seatbelt, so I’m trusting Shiva for safe passage through the rolling countryside of rubber tree and banana plantations, Hindu and Christian shrines, goats, cows, people, and tuk-tuks.

Kerala is smaller than the Netherlands but has about twice the number of people— 35 million. Despite the masses, it is intensely beautiful. In the west, 360 miles of sandy coastline hugs the Arabian Sea. To the east, the mountainous Western Ghats rise up to the 9,000 ft summit of Anamudi.

PLANT ANYTHING HERE AND IT WILL GROW, FROM COCONUTS TO MANGOES TO GINGER

Herds of wild elephants and solitary tigers roam the Ghats through the sprawling Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.

“In Kerala, many things make sense and many things don’t,” said my guide, Rajesh “Raj” Padmanabha Iyer Ramakrishnan, a 36-year-old Hindu priest and yoga instructor. On our nearly 620-mile car and train journey across the state, he chanted a melodic devotion to Lord Shiva, one of Hinduism’s primary forms of God.

In between are the “backwaters,” an interconnected waterway of lagoons, canals, and lakes near the Arabian Sea. Plant anything here and it will grow, from coconuts to mangoes to ginger.

“Kerala can not only be a great recuperation place after a big Himalayan trek or expedition, but a destination in itself,” says Mandip Soin, a mountaineer, founding

photo, previous spread: © d mitry r ukhlenko/ s hutterstock

president of the Ecotourism Society of India and the owner of Ibex Expeditions. Together, we mapped out an itinerary between Kerala’s five national parks, 17 wildlife sanctuaries, hundreds of miles of forest, and endless beaches.

As the epicentre of the world’s spice trade, Kerala has endured as a largely independent, multicultural society for centuries.

“Kerala is perhaps the only place in the world able to produce both a practising Catholic and an agitated Communist,” says Jose Dominic, the managing director of CGH Earth Hotels, a group of eco-resorts and properties in southern India.

Yes, Kerala has Communists. In 1957, the state became the first in the world to democratically elect

a Communist government. The Communists enacted a major step in land reform in 1970, making Kerala one of the first Indian states to end the feudal system.

Drawing on a long history of enlightened Hindu rulers and Christian missionaries, the Communists and successive parties made education a priority. Today, about 94 per cent of Kerala’s population is literate. It also has affordable universal healthcare, the lowest infant mortality rate in India, and a life expectancy of 74.9, seven years higher than the national average.

That isn’t to say that Kerala is without struggles, including occasional outbursts of political violence, strikes, and one of the

A houseboat tour through the backwaters of Kerala

highest rates of alcoholism in India. And in a state where there are 2,200 people per square mile, my Western notions of wide-open spaces may need a little adjusting.

Raj and I are kayaking on Meenapally Kayal, a wide, beautiful lake and an important link in the backwater ecosystem. It’s also a popular backdrop for Mollywood blockbusters (Malayalam-language movies), because of its impressive expanse and uncluttered shoreline ringed with coconut palms.

Known as “the rice bowl of Kerala,” the backwaters are one of the few places in the world outside of Holland where land is cultivated below sea level. Small villages line the canals and are surrounded by rice paddies, banana leaves, and gardens of spinach and long beans. Lavender houses, women in brightly colored saris, and men in plaid dhotis pop out of the foliage in brilliant relief.

This is the land of Arundhati Roy, who spent part of her childhood in the village of Aymanam, where she set her haunting novel, The God of Small Things.

Normally Raj leads trips through the backwaters on kettuvallams, rice and spice trade boats that are now motorised party barges for tourists. But to reach the remote channels, a kayak is required, which is why we’re

with Binu Joseph, a 26-year-old local guide.

“They are not experiencing the backwaters,” Binu tells me as we paddle past kettuvallams belching diesel fumes.

We stop at an open-air restaurant for a breakfast of appam, which is like a coconut pancake, accompanied by sambar, a South Indian lentil stew, and some fresh toddy, a fermented coconut alcohol. It’s a little sweet, a little tangy, and it goes down smoothly. Next we paddle past a Hindu temple and the local Communist Party headquarters before heading into peaceful Muslim, Christian, and Hindu neighbourhoods, where orchids grow with abandon, kids race our boats in wooden canoes, and kingfishers, egrets, and cormorants dart.

Most everything needed to sustain life can be found along the waterways, including a floating medical clinic, churches, schools, mosques, temples, and supermarkets. At one point the canal is so narrow and choked with water hyacinths that it feels like we’re on a path of no return. But after a while, the channel widens and spits us back into the lake.

Binu is married and has a bachelor’s degree in business from Kerala University. His family hopes that he’ll go to law school, but, he tells me, “I don’t want to go to the court. I like my life.”

I can see why. I felt the pull of the backwaters a few mornings earlier when I awoke to a driving, predawn monsoon at a familyrun inn called Philipkutty’s Farm. Crickets, frogs, and roosters chirped, croaked, and crowed the world to life. Minutes later their cries were drowned out by the staccato blast of firecrackers, a Hindu offering popular during the Onam festival. By 6am, a melodious hymn wafted over the water. Believers at St. Mary’s Church in Kudavechoor were already celebrating mass.

“Do you see this? It’s Spanish Lady, we use it to treat kidney stones,” says Renjith Hadlee, a wiry 28-year-old in an elephant T-shirt. “And this is camphor basil. We use it to treat cold and flu. This is an African tulip. The

bark is good for treating malaria.”

I’m at 1,500 feet near the hill station of Munnar in the Western Ghats. Hadlee, who runs a trekking and mountain-biking company called Kestrel Adventures, is leading me up and down a mosscovered path through a shola, or tropical mountain forest. It’s hard to believe that this mist-shrouded mountain landscape, filled with wild pharmaceuticals and exotic birds, is in the same state as the backwaters.

Hadlee sees this shola as a medicine chest for Ayurveda, an Indian healing practice that dates back 5,000 years. I have yet to experience a treatment, but it’s evident that these hills are alive with healing powers.

Over the next few days I visit three more hill stations, including one near

An elephant bathes in the Periyar River at Kodanad Training Centre in Kerala

photo: © d mytro Gilitukha/ s hutterstock

Periyar National Park, a tiger and elephant sanctuary, and Nagarhole National Park in neighbouring Karnataka state, which has one of the highest tiger densities in the world. The big cats evade me at both, which isn’t surprising—they are solitary and nocturnal. But at Nagarhole, I see a bull elephant, wild peacocks,

TRAVEL TIPS

After the worst flooding in almost a century in August 2018, Kerala's major tourist destinations are again operational.

How to Get tHere

From Delhi, it’s a two-to-three-hour flight to Calicut, Cochin, or Trivandrum in Kerala.

wHen to Go Tourism season starts in October. January through March is high season and monsoon-free, with temperatures in the high twenties and low thirties.

GettinG Around Travel between cities on Indian Railways or hire a driver.

LodGinG Orange County, Kabini, on the edge of Nagarhole National Park, has cabanas from £386. Philipkutty’s Farm in the backwaters has bungalows and the best fish molee for £219, all-inclusive. Eco-resort Coconut Lagoon on Vembanadu Lake has yoga classes, and a great menu of Keralan food, from £201. Marari Beach Resort has a lawn that extends to the white-sand beach; from £285.

a gaur, and a crested hawk eagle. Between stints at the hill stations, we take a short detour to Marari Beach. Even as temperatures were pushing the high twenties [Celsius], the long stretch of white sand was nearly empty, save for a woman in a black burka chasing a toddler, a few Indian honeymooners, and a dozen fishermen launching a boat into the sea.

Most Keralans seem to have a distant relationship with the ocean. “It is not part of our culture,” a Keralan businessman tells me later. “The ocean means a lot of sun, and we don’t need the tan.”

As much as I want to shed my long skirt and long sleeves, seeing the burka reminds me to stay covered in a conservative culture that doesn’t easily tolerate women in bathing suits.

Ihave an early-morning appointment with Sony Sumi, the first woman in a long family line of male doctors to practise Ayurveda, at her office at Spice Village, an Ayurvedic spa on the edge of Periyar National Park.

“How is your bowel movement?” she asks. “How is your appetite? Your immunity power?” After the rapidfire Q&A, Sumi, who is wearing an elegant gold salwar kameez, takes my pulse. Behind us is an ornate copper lamp. Its flame, Sumi explains, illuminates the presence of God.

“Before and after the treatments, we pray to God. God resides everywhere,” she says.

Hindus believe that Ayurveda was handed down from Brahma, the god of creation. Its premise is that we are a mixture of three doshas, or energies. If our doshas are out of balance, disease, depression, and physical pain set in. Balancing the doshas requires a stringent routine of diet, exercise, massage, meditation, and often less pleasant detoxifiers such as enemas, bloodletting, and vomiting.

“In modern medicines, they treat the particular symptom,” Sumi tells me. “In Ayurveda, we treat the disease from its root.”

Diagnosis and treatment can take up to three weeks, but I have only a day, so Sumi diagnoses my primary dosha as vata. “Basically, the quality of vata is movement,

very fast acting,” she says, which is no surprise, considering that I’m a restless wanderer and chronic insomniac. She gives me a long list of foods to eat (like maple syrup and avocado) and to avoid (chocolate and raw garlic) and recommends a sirodhara Ayurvedic treatment.

After a rigorous scalp and body massage, I lay on my back on a traditional teak Ayurvedic treatment bed while a clay pot that swings a few feet above me drips sandalwoodinfused sacred oil across my forehead, directly over the third eye.

The steady drip relaxes the nervous system and relieves migraines, insomnia, stress, and fatigue. It puts me in such a relaxed trance that I wonder if Shiva himself is reaching down to erase my worry lines. n

From outside maGaZine (FeBruary 2015), copyriGht © stephanie pearson

Fisherman cruising on a boat the way from Kollam to Alleppey

My Great Escape:

Basking In Basque Country

Sharon Haston from Falkirk discovers the culinary delights of San Sebastian

I’d never heard of San Sebastian until my husband, Robert, suggested it: “Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon were in the Basque Country in The Trip to Spain. It looked lovely.” I’m always up for trying something new, so before long, we were wiggling our toes in the golden sands of Playa de la

Concha. San Sebastian is an absolute delight. Its three wonderful beaches are bookended by Monte Urgull, with its statue of Jesus keeping watch over the bay at one end, and Monte Igueldo with its old-fashioned fairground, at the other.

But it’s not just about the beaches here—lovely though they are. They’re also famous for their pintxos. They’re small dishes of every kind of food imaginable. Bars and restaurants are loaded with pintxos and since they don’t always have labels, half the fun is just guessing what they are.

The whole week felt like being at a never-ending wedding buffet which challenged me to eat something I normally wouldn’t. I wolfed down veal and pig cheeks, razor clams and beef in bone marrow. All were delicious.

Calling it a “foodie paradise” doesn’t begin to do this place justice—and that’s even before mentioning the wine, which was fabulous and very cheap. I’m going to miss my daily glass of txakoli which is similar to

prosecco, but better. In order to get the right amount of fizz, it must be poured from a height. I practised with the bottle that I brought home.

I’m glad I’ve now heard of San Sebastian in the Basque Country. Thank you to Steve and Rob for letting us in on the secret. n

Tell us about your favourite holiday (send a photo too) and if we print it we’ll pay £50.

Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk

TOP TIPPLES

FOR CALVADOS LOVERS: NORMANDY

The apple and pear brandy is made exclusively in the Pays d’Auge, and much of it at Coquainvilliers’ quaint, family-owned Boulard distillery. Tours and tastings run daily during October’s harvest season (calvados-experience.com).

FOR BOURBON HOUNDS: KENTUCKY

Scotland and Ireland also have whisky trails, but the southern US is the place for bourbon. Each of Kentucky’s two tours—one focused on mainstays like Jim Beam, the other on craft distilleries—has about 20 stops (kybourbontrail.com).

FOR GIN DISCIPLES: NORTH YORKSHIRE

At the Dales’ “Spirit of Masham” distillery, visitors can choose from 100 botanicals and blend their very own London dry gin. Available Friday-Sunday, the three-hour experience includes a 70cl bottle to take home (corksandcases.com).

FOR RUM FANATICS: ST LUCIA

The luxury Cap Maison resort and spa’s “Chasing Food & Rum” package features a tasting visit to the Caribbean isle’s chief rum distillery, cellar visits, Creole cookery lessons and a wine and rum-paired dinner (capmaison.com).

FOR OENOPHILES: SOUTH AFRICA

Amid the rolling Winelands east of Cape Town, Audley Travel can organise days guided by 35-year industry veteran Pietman Retief. You’ll meet estate owners—Pietman’s chums—and conduct private tastings (audleytravel.com). n

by Richard Mellor

Travel app of the month

WALES COAST PATH APP, FREE, IOS AND ANDROID

This AR (augmented reality) app hopes to seduce families exploring its titular, 870-mile footpath by dint of games, tempting visuals— some with turtles—and fascinating stories.

GET THE RIGHT HOLIDAY COVER FOR YOU

We spoke to Leanne from Holiday Extras to get her top 5 tips for finding a place for insurance in your holiday budget:

1 Get full cover

Don’t be tempted to go for the cheap option. It’s important to have a policy that covers your specific needs. Holiday Extras personalises the quote to ensure this happens.

2 Cruise cover

Going on a cruise? There are special insurance policies just for you. They cover you if you get injured and will airlift you to shore if you have an accident that needs medical attention; and there is cover if you’re late and miss your ship*.

3 Don’t go overboard

On the other hand, there’s no point paying for something you don’t need. Make sure the cover you’re buying is right for you. Holiday Extras offers three types of cover

and you can choose from all kinds of options to make sure you don’t pay more than you have to.

4 Annual policy

Going on a few trips this year? Lucky you! Spread the cost by buying an annual travel insurance policy. That way you have insurance all year round for one set price.

5 Pre-existing medical conditions

Travel insurance is great, but not everyone can get it. If you’re an experienced traveller or have a medical condition, Holiday Extras can offer cover for many pre-existing medical conditions, so if you have a condition like diabetes, high blood pressure or cancer (among many others) it just takes a phone call to find out if you can get insured! n

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Call Holiday Extras insurance on 0800 093 1900, quoting AZ585 or go to www.holidayextras.co.uk/AZ585

Could A Water Meter Save You Money?

Water is the only utility that we can’t choose our supplier for. Andy Webb shares tips on saving money, even when you can’t switch

With most of your bills and utilities you’ve got the choice to switch to a different supplier and find a better deal—but that’s not the case with your water bills. Though there are a number of water companies, they’re all regional. So where you live dictates who supplies your water and sewage, and who you pay.

For households in England and Wales that means you pay a set water rate based on assessments of your property’s rentable value last made in 1990, while in Scotland it’s based

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

on your Council Tax. Essentially, the bigger your home, the bigger your bill.

Pretty much the only way to bring down those costs is by fitting a water meter. But getting one is by no means a guarantee that you’ll actually be paying less. You could even end up paying more!

How a water meter works

A meter measures your exact usage, and you’ll get a bill based on this rather than the standard rate for your property in your area.

Very simply, the less water you use the lower your bills will be. This can make a huge difference to some households, and it also gives you the power to take actions that’ll cut how much water you use. Plus, not only would you save by using less water, you can reduce your heating bills if you also cut down on how much hot water you use.

Water meters aren’t usually accessible like your gas or electric meters, though. Most are actually in the ground outside your home, making it practically impossible for you to read them. Instead you’ll probably get sent your readings— and new bill—on an annual basis.

However, some are also smart meters, so you can monitor usage online from your home, which can help you work out where your water is costing you, and possibly even identify leaks.

Do you have to have a water meter?

In most cases the choice of getting one fitted is yours. And with most water companies you can even try them out for a year. After 12 months you’ll be able to compare your bill with a water meter against what you would have paid without one, and if you want to switch back, you can.

GETTING ONE IS BY NO MEANS A GUARANTEE THAT YOU’LL ACTUALLY PAY LESS

But some suppliers, including Thames Water, are making them compulsory. They’re allowed to do this as the government has labelled much of the south east as a high risk area where demand outstrips supply. If you get a notice that one’s coming, there’s nothing you can do.

And if you’ve moved into a house with a water meter, you’re also stuck with it. There are quite a few homes where people have already switched, while properties built since 1990 all have one anyway.

How to find out if a water meter is good for you

Those most likely to benefit are big houses with not many people living

there, eg, those living on their own, or anyone in a family home where the kids have grown up and moved away. But the flipside is that those who do use a lot of water could see an increase.

A useful rule of thumb is that if there are more bedrooms than people in your house you should pay less with a water meter. Of course, it’s much better to base your decision on some proper figures, and you can use a calculator to get a more accurate picture of your savings.

The Consumer Council for Water website (ccwater.org.uk/ watermetercalculator) can do this for you. You’ll need to answer questions on things like the number of baths you have a week and how often you use your dishwasher. This will then provide you with an estimate of what

your bill would be with a meter.

It helps to have your water bill handy so you can compare the forecast costs with a meter against what you’re currently paying.

If you don’t have access to the internet then you can always call up your water company and they should be able to go through it with you over the phone.

How to get a water meter

If you live in England or Wales you can request a free water meter installation. It’s easy to do, you just contact your water company. It’ll first check they can install one, and if it’s possible you’ll get one put in within three months of your initial request. If, for some reason, they can’t fit one, you can ask to be moved to an assessed bill which will hopefully be

ONCE YOU’VE GOT A METER, THERE ARE ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE TO HELP YOU USE LESS

cheaper, though if it isn’t, you can keep paying the standard water rate.

It’s different in Scotland as water meters aren’t fitted for free, which means the cost of getting it done will probably outweigh any saving you’d make.

How to reduce your water use

Once you’ve got a meter installed, there are actions you can take to help you use less water and subsequently cut your bills. And these are great things to think about even if you’re

not on a meter as there are environmental benefits.

There are some obvious things you can do like reducing the length of time you’re in the shower and turning off running taps when you clean your teeth. You could also look to add gun sprays to garden hoses and making sure your dishwasher is full when you use it.

Another useful online calculator, AqKWa (aqkwa.co.uk/en), makes helpful suggestions on these and other reductions, and it’ll give you an idea of how much money you could save as a result.

It’s also worth getting in touch with your water company to see if it will provide any water-saving gadgets. Often these are free, and include ecoshower heads, bags to fit in toilet cisterns, and even crystals you can put in plant pots which absorb water and release it gradually over time. n

Baby Talk

These facts about newborn babies might just surprise you:

A baby’s stomach can only hold about one teaspoon when they are first born. Their stomach grows to the size of a chicken egg by their tenth day of life.

Newborns have an extremely sensitive sense of taste because they have tastebuds on their tonsils and inside their throats as well as on their tongue.

Although you wouldn’t know it from the amount they cry, babies don’t produce tears until they are between one and three months old.

SOURCE: BUZZFEED.COM

Serves 4

3tbsp olive oil

2 pheasants

40g butter

250g mushrooms, sliced

6 rashers of streaky bacon, roughly sliced 2 onions, finely diced 2-3tbsp plain flour

250ml white wine (enhanced with a dash of sherry or vermouth, if you have any to hand)

500ml chicken stock

3-4 sprigs of thyme

1tbsp English mustard

2tbsp crème fraiche ½ lemon, squeezed

Serve with creamy mashed potato and a bowl of seasonal greens, like chard, kale or savoy cabbage.

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

One-Pot Pheasant

Pheasant can dry out quickly when roasted, but braise it in liquid and you’ll reap the rewards of a beautifullycooked bird and delicious liquid to serve it in. They have a tightly-regulated season from October to February and although not a supermarket staple, if you see a “brace” (pair) in your butchers, give them a go and shake up your standard Sunday roast

1. In the biggest pan or stock pot you have, heat the olive oil and then colour the pheasants—rotating them so that the breast and then the undercarriage is pressed against the hot base of the pan. Set aside the birds to rest.

2. Add the butter to the pan and when it foams add the mushrooms. After five minutes add the bacon and onions and cook until the bacon fat renders down and the onions start to turn soft and translucent.

3. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the plain flour so that it soaks-up the buttery liquid and coats the mushrooms, bacon and onions. Let this cook for 2 minutes (to prevent the flour from tasting raw), and then add the white wine (plus a dash of sherry or vermouth if you have any to hand), chicken stock and sprigs of thyme.

4. Bring the liquid to a gentle simmer, return the birds to the pot and cook, covered, for 30-40 minutes (until the leg meat easily comes away from the bone). Stir in the mustard, crème fraiche and lemon. Taste, and season accordingly with salt and pepper.

TIP: unless mushrooms are really dirty, it’s best to brush them clean rather than wash them in water. They’re a bit like sponges in that they soak-up liquid, which they then give off when cooking, so they poach rather than getting a lovely, golden colour from dry-frying in butter.

Drinks Tip…

Decant a full-bodied and robust red wine, like Waitrose Cotes du Rhone Villages (£7.99) which has black and red fruit notes and a hint of spice making it the ideal bottle to go with this autumnal dish.

Princess Of Puddings

Serves 6-8

20g butter

75g pudding rice

50g sugar

1 litre milk

3 eggs, separated

400g plums

220g sugar

Show us your take on these dishes!

Just upload the picture to Instagram and tag us @readersdigest_uk

The Queen of Puddings is a much-loved British dessert which has a breadcrumb-custard base. This adaptation uses rice pudding base instead, so it’s only right that it should be named after another member of the royal household!

1. Preheat oven to 170°C and generously grease a deep pudding basin with the butter. Tip in the rice, mix with the milk and sugar and place in oven for 2 hours. By this point the rice pudding will have developed a thick skin but will still be loose under the surface. Discard the skin, add the yolks and stir with a wooden spoon to make sure they’re mixed. Return to the oven for another half hour to set.

2. In the meantime, wash and halve the plums. Remove stones and roughly dice. Put them in a pan with a generous splash of water and 20g sugar. Bring to a rolling simmer for 2-3 minutes. Take them off the heat and set aside so they continue to soften. Whisk the 3 egg whites into stiff peaks and then gradually add the remaining 200g sugar.

3. Remove the rice pudding from the oven and tip the plum compote on top of the hard-set rice pudding base. Either pipe or spoon over the egg white meringue and return it to the oven for 20 minutes until the pale meringue turns golden and crisp. Serve either hot or cold. n

Arthritis affects one in six people in the UK

Think of the people in your life: mum, dad, friends, colleagues… How many do you think have arthritis? How many talk about it? It’s the pain in the knees as you walk down the stairs, or in your fingers as you try and hold a spoon to stir your tea. You can ignore it to a point but then it starts to affect your daily life. What do you do then?

Arthritis can affect people of any age. In fact, around 15,000 children and young people in the UK have arthritis . Traditional treatment extends to painkillers that deal with the effects, but they don’t address the causes. Arthritis Action (formerly the Arthritic Association) was founded in 1942 by Charles de Coti-Marsh, who developed a self-help programme based on a combination of diet and therapy. Now, nearly 80 years later, we are continuing our tradition of helping people with arthritis enjoy a more active life with less pain. We are the only UK charity that gives hands-on, practical help – offering healthy eating and nutritional advice, access to clinical appointments with our network of osteopaths, physiotherapists and acupuncturists, exercise tips and pain management techniques.

Although over 10 million people have arthritis in the UK, we know that everyone

is unique in the way they manage their symptoms. This is why we tailor our selfmanagement approach to meet individual needs.

“Owing to my family history of arthritis, I was heading for a lot of pain and little else to relieve it, but since I joined up with Arthritis Action the positive attitude of people does give you expectations around being able to manage, and hopefully hold back the relentless progress of this condition via exercise and dietary control.”

JOHN PENNY, ARTHRITIS PATIENT AND MEMBER OF ARTHRITIS ACTION.

The legacy our supporters choose to give is one of hope, empowerment, knowledge and choice – to try new things that fall out of their comfort zone and make the most of the time they have, despite the pain. It is difficult to see loved ones in pain - the gifts in Wills we receive allow us to give people the tools to lead positive lives. That is our tradition and our hope for the future. n

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Visit arthritisaction.org.uk/support-us/ legacies or email iza@arthritisaction.org.uk

Take your interior back to basics with a calming colour palette, inspired by Scandinavian design

Warm Up With Neutrals

Thanks to Dulux’s colour of the year, Spiced Honey, new season interior trends have seen a wave of neutral shades take centre stage. Taupe, beige and offwhite are reclaiming their title as the new neutrals and their soft, placid properties are well-suited to creating serene spaces within our homes, offering an escape from fast-paced modern life.

When it comes to decorating with this barely-there palette, remember that beige doesn’t have to be bland— the key to embracing this decorating style is to use plenty of texture to lift the colours and add interest. Jute rugs, embossed glassware, wooden

Homes and gardens writer and stylist

Cassie Pryce specialises in interior trends and discovering new season shopping

furniture and knitted textiles will all help build up a sophisticated, layered look without the need to splash around accents of bolder colours. Soft grey is a perfect pairing for neutrals, as it will offer a modern twist with its cool tone and complement, not detract from, the soothing scheme.

Styling your home with neutrals is all about simplicity and allowing your room to breathe. This doesn’t mean it has to look cold or stark, however; mixing in a few dark beige accents or hints of earthy taupe will still create a sense of tranquillity, while adding that all-important warmth. One of the benefits of decorating with a neutral palette is the versatility of this look—its principles can be applied to any room in the house, from kitchens to cosy bedrooms, and its timeless appeal means it won’t date as trends come and go. n

Nude Tones

Pillow medium sofa in Hatton Grey, £649; Ennis curved coffee table, £199; HAY Tulou coffee table in black, £165; Curve FSC oak floor lamp, £395; Eave embroidery cushion, £25, all John Lewis & Partners

Admiring Autumn

While summer has a discernible allure, autumn is the unsung hero of garden beauty. Jessica Summers explores what the concluding months have to offer

It can be hard to keep on top of a garden in motion, but as the leaves fall and the colours transform into a kaleidoscope of sunset hues, you have the opportunity to create a sensationally beautiful garden.

To ensure your outdoor area doesn’t veer into unkempt territory make it a priority to prune your hedges which will prevent damp and decay. Shrubs also need attention

and require cutting down so that sap doesn’t recoil into their roots.

Consider the light when focusing on which plants to feature; the low autumn sun catches plants such as forest pansy and maples wonderfully and can really brighten up your space. Keep in theme with the warm natural tones by encouraging berries to grow around bare branches—Pyracantha produces a vibrant red display and is impervious to harsh conditions.

Lastly —so they can flower in the spring—now is the best time to plant your bulbs. Plant them using a depth of two or three times their height, with their tips facing up. The autumn soil is now softer and perfect for housing some dormant plants through the winter. n

Author, Nigel Gray – ‘ Snapshot ’

Why Nigel became a LifeBook author

“It started with my daughter, who’s now 33. I’ve always told her stories about what I used to do in the past. Sometimes when I hear her telling them back to people, they’re not exactly what I told her. So, she said ‘All right then, why don’t you write a book, Dad?’ I replied, ‘I couldn’t write a book. I’m not very good at that sort of thing.’ (Sometimes, I can’t even write an email!) Then she suggested, ‘Well, can’t you get somebody to write it for you?’ I thought about this, looked on the internet and found LifeBook. After one call, the rest is history.”

Black Magic

'm known for wearing colour and sparkle, but sometimes what makes me feel best is basic black. Wearing black feels like a sartorial security blanket. On the days when I want to retreat behind a dark cloud of ink like an octopus, black lets me do just that.In an urban environment, it always looks perfectly chic and appropriate. The designer Yohji Yamamoto summed up the charms of black nicely: “ Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy—but

Lisa Lennkh reflects upon the unique fashion magic that is an all-black outfit

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

mysterious. But above all black says this: I don't bother you—don't bother me.” In a crowded busy city, that can sometimes be a positive thing! No wonder New Yorkers are known for their love of black.

Last year I bought some loungewear for home—a black loose roll neck jumper and matching tracksuit trousers in a lightweight merino, silk, and cashmere blend. I lived in them. I slept in them, I walked the dog in them, I did the school run in them, and I wore the roll neck jumper with jeans or trousers on repeat. I will admit I wore the jumper three days in a row sometimes. I vowed to find a fancier (non-loungewear) version of that black jumper. I called it my “Steve Jobs Jumper Quest” since he was rarely seen in anything but a black roll neck. I wanted the knit to be neither too thick nor too thin, and the fit neither too loose nor too tight. It had to work with a smart skirt or with casual jeans and trainers. Ideally it would also be a soft goodquality cashmere or merino.

After not too much searching, my Steve Jobs Jumper Quest was over. I found one (at Winser London, my usual knitwear go-to) in soft as a cloud cashmere with deep cuffs and the perfect not-too-tight roll neck. I only had to wait a few weeks for cooler weather to arrive so I could actually wear it. Next, what to wear with it for its first outing (a leopard

skirt? Jeans and ankle boots? A sequin skirt?). I decided to take some inspiration from one of my favourite fashion movies, Audrey Hepburn's Funny Face. I've always liked the pairing of her too-cool-for-school, beatnik-chic, black roll neck with retro cigarette trousers.

AFTER NOT TOO MUCH SEARCHING , MY STEVE JOBS JUMPER QUEST WAS OVER

It doesn't get more simple or classic than that. What I most appreciate is that you only notice Audrey, not her clothes. An all black outfit acts more like a backdrop than clothing.

Fashion has always had a love affair with black because it's so versatile. It can look ultra sophisticated or ultra edgy, and everything in between. I make it a personal rule to buy very little black, but rules are made to be tested and broken from time to time. I know bright colours do a lot more for me than black, but some days, I don't care—I just want to channel my inner Audrey and opt for timeless, elegant, chic. An all black outfit delivers in spades. n

FreshFaced

Jenessa Williams shares her tips for effective beauty storage

We agonise over a neatlysorted wardrobe, or dust our bookshelves daily, but how many of us consider a well-organised beauty collection? As pampering products become more instrumental in our self-care routines, it’s time to release our cosmetics from grubby make-up bags and allow them to shine.

If your collection is large, invest in acrylic or glass products for easy cleaning. Make-up can get messy, and an eyeshadow-smudged wooden tray will quickly look like something that belongs in a teenager's bedroom. Stack nail polishes or palettes neatly in gilt-edged boxes, and allow awkwardly sized products the room they need with a taller, honeycombstyle stacker in a minimal colour scheme. Store somewhere shady and rearrange regularly to avoid dust. A simple solution of water and baby shampoo will work wonders on used brushes or rogue stains.

For serious beauty gurus, it's

common knowledge that some facemasks, creams and serums work best when stored at the perfect temperature. Leading brand “The Make Up Fridge” were a sell-out when they launched their specialist design, but any mini-fridge would do, lengthening the shelf-life of any expensive product. It may seem like an expensive initial outlay, but consumers are already citing open storage as a way of reminding themselves what products they already have instead of purchasing more, leading to less overall waste and unnecessary purchases. n

Hero Products

Glass Trinket Box, H&M, from £6.99 (various sizes)

Baffect Storage Matrix, Amazon.co.uk, £9.99

Subcold Mini Fridge, £59.99

BEAUTY FROM INNER HEALTH

Designed to nourish and protect your skin, hair & nails from within - these supplements have been exclusively formulated to meet the unique needs of the over 50s.

Beautiful skin on the outside requires a healthy foundation within and much of this internal structure is dependent on collagen, which is the most abundant protein found in the body. Collagen provides structure and firmness in combination with another skin protein called elastin which helps maintains skin elasticity.

under daily attack from sunlight and UV damage, promoting harmful oxidation via free radicals which are well known to damage the integrity of our skin.

Many scientific studies continue to show clearly that nutrition plays a fundamental role in the overall health and appearance of skin and a healthy diet full of anti-oxidants such as vitamin C and E, and micro-nutrients including zinc and selenium play a major role in the maintenance of healthy skin, hair & nails.

As we age however, both our collagen and elastin levels within the skin decrease, giving rise to less supple and plump skin which in turn promotes wrinkling. Our skin in particular is also

However, we also know that for many of us over 50 it can be hard to reach the recommended intake of the many nutrients which are responsible for improving our overall health and appearance. With this in mind, the Prime Fifty formula was created to supplement your diet and uses an advanced age-specific multi-nutrient formulation, comprising the most essential vitamins, minerals and natural extracts to help you feel good in the skin you’re in. n

THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON

Shia LaBeouf and Zack Gottsagen make the perfect team in this charming, feel-good buddy movie

Here’s a film that’s 100 per cent pure, unadulterated joy—a modern Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Fin tale that puts the adventure film genre back on the map. We’re thrown in at the deep end from the get go as we find ourselves in a retirement home where a young man with Down’s syndrome, Zak (newcomer Zack Gottsagen who has Down’s syndrome in real life), plots an elaborate escape with the help of one of his elderly pals. As she causes a commotion pretending to choke over lunch, Zak bolts through the door, only to be taken down by one of the

caretakers outside—a stunt that gets him labelled as a “flight risk”.

The reason he wants out is to fulfil his dream of becoming a professional wrestler, inspired by an ancient VHS tape he watched countless times at the care home. One day, his mission to break free finally proves successful and he sets out on a journey to find a wrestling school wearing nothing but his underwear. On his way, he meets a gruff but good-natured crab-fisher, Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) who’s also on the run for his own—much more slippery— reasons. As expected, the two form a deep bond and become inseparable travel companions. It’s a sweet and wholesome story whose big heart will cut through any cynicism.

DRAMA: AMERICANWOMAN

Though she’s been on the film circuit for quite some time now, Sienna Miller has largely shied away from leading roles, often oscillating on the outskirts as a complacent wife or a “manic pixie dream girl.” Until now. In American Woman, she stars as a single mother who’s knocked sideways when her teenage daughter goes missing, leaving her to care for her young grandson. Little does she know, it’s just the beginning of an onslaught of merciless trials that are coming her way. It’s a complex role that

requires careful layering and balance, and Miller wears it like a glove. An empathetic, bittersweet musing on motherhood, family bonds and “making due of what’s left”, this drama will speak to your most human core.

MUSIC: JUDYRenée Zellweger is thirsty for another Oscar as she slips into the shoes of one of the most iconic entertainers who ever lived, Judy Garland. And while she does it with meticulous skill, she goes a bit heavy on the great actress’ trademarks like the characteristic midwestern accent and her masculine poise to the point of caricature. Though a spirited biopic, Judy would have benefitted from a more understated central performance.

ACTION: HOTELMUMBAIBased on the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, this nailbiting thriller takes place at the opulent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel on that fateful day. Amidst bloodshed and chaos, we follow a few of the people caught up in the pandemonium: a kind, young waiter (Dev Patel), a married couple travelling with their infant son (Nazanin Boniadi and Armie Hammer) and a clichéd exSoviet operative (Jason Isaacs), among many others. Though the film never misses a chance to go down a tacky thriller trope, it does tell this horrific story with gripping intensity that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.

by Eva Mackevic

STATHLETSFLATS(C4; ALL4)

What is it? The return of last year’s sleeper-hit sitcom, detailing the misadventures of North London’s most hapless estate agent. Why should I watch it? Few shows succeed in being both tremendously silly and thoroughly good-hearted. Stath (Jamie Demetriou) may be a dorky manchild, but he’s a nice dorky manchild—in a profession that generally values the aggressively pushy. Best episode? Series Two gets off to a bang with Stath and timid colleague Al trying to best their alpha boss Julian.

THISWAYUP(C4;

ALL4)

What is it? Six-part vehicle for standup-turned-panel-show-face Aisling

Bea as a woman struggling to reintegrate into polite London society in the wake of a breakdown. Why should I watch it? Channel 4’s comedy department is on rare form at the moment: this sharp, funny contribution to our ongoing mental health conversation navigates its shifts from the jokey to the dramatic with notable skill and an unusually classy cast.

Best character? Bea’s Aine would make for a compelling character study in her own right, yet her credibly fraught relationship with altogether more stable sister Shona (Sharon Horgan) offers the show an extra dimension.

by Mike McCahill

WHAT TO STREAM THIS MONTH:

MINDHUNTER:SEASON 2 (NETFLIX) Agents Ford and Tench interrogate Charles Manson among other sociopaths as David Fincher’s captivating drama proceeds.

MORTIMER& WHITEHOUSE:GONE

FISHING:SERIES 2 (BBC IPLAYER)

Bob and Paul return to the riverside to reflect anew on where life has carried them.

SACREDGAMES: SEASON 2 (NETFLIX)

Religion, politics and the law collide amid a looming doomsday threat in the latest run of the densely plotted crime epic...

ALBUM OF THE MONTH:

1979by MOTÖRHEAD

The death of one of history’s most ardent head-bangers and die-hard rebels, Ian “Lemmy” Kilmister, hit the world like a sledgehammer in late December 2015. If, like me, you spent that New Year’s Eve rocking out to “Overkill” and “Ace of Spades,” in an act of quietly debauched grief, you will be just as excited by the upcoming release of the deluxe editions of Motörhead’s seminal 1979 albums Overkill and Bomber. With Lemmy’s throat-ripping growls and aggressive bass, “Fast” Eddie Clarke’s amphetamine-fuelled guitar riffs and Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor’s thumping, untethered drumming, the band lay the foundations for thrash and speed metal, influencing such big fish as Metallica and Megadeth. Motörhead were a celebration of being alive and plunging headfirst into all the pleasures life had to offer—a fervent, rock ‘n’ roll manifestation of the human Id that cemented their reputation as one of the most scandalous, dangerous and exciting bands ever. This release captures that spirit through previously unheard concerts, interviews and unseen photos sourced from private archives, family and friends, perfectly summarising Lemmy’s famous quote: “I’ve had a whale of a time out of rock ’n’ roll and rock ’n’ roll has had a whale of a time out of me.”

by Eva Mackevic

WATCHING: KILLINGEVE2BBC

IPLAYER

One of the best shows on TV in recent years. It’s great to see strong (albeit dangerous) female characters in lead roles. Jodie Comer is especially amazing as Villanelle.

READING: THEADRIANMOLEBOOKS

As well as enjoying old faithful Reader’s Digest, I’m currently re-reading all my Adrian Mole books. Sue Townsend was an amazing writer.

ONLINE: JORDANPAGE, YOUTUBE I really enjoy her lively vlogs. She has so many handy tips for managing money. I’m also enjoying Instagram for keeping in touch with relatives abroad.

LISTENING: THEJONASBROTHERS

It may sound strange as I am slightly older, but I’m listening to them a lot! As a long term Madonna fan I’m getting into her new album too.

READER RADAR: MANISA KUINKEL, COMPLAINTS OFFICER

October Fiction

A boisterously merry return to the Twenties and a cathartic collection of melancholy tales are our top literary picks this month

Blotto, Twinks and the Great Road Race by Simon Brett (Constable, £20.99)

Simon Brett’s Blotto and Twinks books have a strong claim to be the frothiest novels of recent times. They’re also hugely enjoyable: part send-up, part celebration of old-fashioned British adventure stories, with a large dollop of PG Wodehouse thrown in.

Certainly, Blotto himself owes much to Bertie Wooster—being cheery, dim and with friends who have names like Trumbo McCorquodash. His beautiful sister Twinks shares his taste for Brett’s parody version of 1920s slang, but is otherwise very different: utterly brilliant at everything, including translating Dostoyevsky into Sanskrit. In their latest ripping yarn, the two take

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

The Write Stuff

part in a London-to-Rome car race, getting into endless scrapes—most of them naturally caused by dastardly foreigners. Meanwhile, French people show just how French they are by saying “how you say” a lot; chapters begin with sentences such as “There was no time to lose”; and the whole mad confection reaches its climax when the baddies reveal a lethal machine called The Giant Mousetrap— mainly because it is one.

Brett, you can’t help thinking, must have had enormous fun writing this book. Almost as much, in fact, as I had reading it.

Grand Union by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton, £20)

If it’s a proper literary wrestle you want, there’s always the first collection of short stories by Zadie Smith. Smith made her name in her early twenties with 2000’s White Teeth, an exhilarating and very funny depiction of multicultural London. Since then, though, her work has grown more

experimental, much less comic and much more anxious—not least about the fact that you become more anxious in middle age.

Her increasing gloom is once more on display here, along with that increasing taste for experimentation. For my money, the stories that work best are the most straightforward: “Big Week”, for instance, is a brilliant and heartbreaking portrait of a man trying to pretend that his life hasn’t fallen apart. Yet, this only makes it all the more frustrating that so many of the others are so self-conscious in their literariness (or, if you prefer, quite hard to understand).

Smith remains one of the most talented writers around. But this collection makes you wish, however unfairly, that she’d retained the joyousness she had when she first burst on the scene. Then again, Grand Union makes it pretty clear that so does she.

Name the author

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

1. Among many other things, he’s been an ambassador for Norwich City FC.

2. His books include The Liar, The Hippopotamus and Moab Is MyWashpot.

3. He was the narrator of the unabridged HarryPotter audiobooks.

Paperbacks

Airhead by Emily Maitlis (Penguin, £9.99).

The Newsnight presenter takes us behind the scenes of some of her most famous interviews—with often eyeopening results.

Metropolis by Philip Kerr (Quercus, £8.99).

Kerr died last year, so sadly this is the final book in his terrific series about a detective in pre-war Berlin. As ever, it’s a perfect mix of thrills and fascinating history.

The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth and Other Curiosities from the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris (Corgi, £8.99).

Cheerfully horrifying collection of case studies, with a witty commentary and plenty of chances to go “Ugh!”

The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley (Pan, £8.99).

Another warm and absorbing family tale from Riley, this one about a woman whose great lost love turns up as she’s approaching 70.

Being John Lennon by Ray Connolly (W&N, £9.99).

Superbly balanced biography of a famously complicated man from the veteran music journalist.

Collecting Memories

A father reflects on what lies ahead as he’s forced to confront leaving his small children behind

A History of Falling: Everything I Observed About Love Whilst Dying

by Joe Hammond is published by 4th Estate at £14.99

Joe Hammond was 48 and married with two small children when he realised that something was going wrong with his body. First, he began to walk unsteadily. Then he started falling over. Initially, his doctor thought it was a brain tumor, but before long he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

One of his most unexpected reactions was that “a terminal diagnosis is the very finest tool a writer can have”—because he could now see both the beginning and the end of his life with real clarity and perspective. As the memories surface, Hammond gives us (and perhaps himself) a vivid account of his unhappy childhood as the son of bohemian parents who split up when he was young and went on, as he witnessed, to live fairly rackety lives.

Nonetheless, the sections of this remarkable, heart-rending book that pack the most powerful punch are those set in the present. Hammond describes his own decline in an almost matter-of-fact way, but without ever sparing us the indignity involved. He squarely confronts the fact that his children—Tom, six, and Jimmy, 18 months—will grow up without him. As his

disabilities intensify, he also notices the awkward responses of people who apparently don’t want to be reminded that what happens in life is essentially beyond our control.

By the end, Hammond is in a wheelchair, and has chosen where he wants to be buried (in a wood where his sons can play around the grave). Yet even then his prose remains unfailingly sharp and thoughtful.

This passage comes just after he’s been diagnosed and, for the first time in his adult life, has discovered a “facility for crying” that lasted five days…

I was eating scrambled eggs, watching the milk pump out from Tom’s mouth as he spooned up his cereal. Gill had her back to us, making packed lunches, and over Tom’s shoulder I could see Jimmy trying to mount a sofa several hands too high for him. I got up and went to the bedroom to lie on my side. I pulled the pillow into my bottom lip and squeezed my face together, wringing it out, so that the pillow became damp around my eye socket. I could hear Gill telling Tom to get his shoes on. Then my diaphragm started chugging. It felt like hiccups but more rapid and rhythmical. More like a pulsing. I rolled on to my back and pulled the pillow into my teeth. There’s an ambient, wheezing noise that accompanies this kind of sobbing—a layer of treble that makes

I FELT GUILT THAT I KNEW HIS PHYSICAL SHAPE AND FORM, BUT HE WOULD NEVER REMEMBER MINE

it sound as though I’m pleading for some kind of mercy. I had a toy once that made this noise when you turned it upside down. It was supposed to sound like a cow, but it was more like a smoker’s wheeze.

I was tucking my knees into my chest and breathing more steadily now. I heard a door open in the next room, and Gill was stating something assertively. I knew that she was gathering up Tom’s schoolbag and I wanted to say goodbye. I could tell the episode was almost over and I sat up on the edge of the bed. This was the functionality of tears that I became used to in those five days. I knew I needed a moment after the exertion, like knowing when I need a cup of tea. I had my hands on my knees and looked around. Nothing had changed. Then I went back into the kitchen.

When the crying came at night, I’d be squeezing the duvet in my fists and thinking very acutely of the physicality of Tom and Jimmy. It

must have been something close to focused meditation because I would imagine their current form, then focus in on the changes that I imagined would take place in their bodies in the years to come. I would imagine the lengthening of Tom’s lean legs and the broadening of his V-shaped jawline. I imagined the fine, fair hair that would appear on his face. I imagined his length and strength and the cheekbones that would one day underline his gaze. With Jimmy, I love and marvel at the width of his feet and hands.

I imagine him continuing to be broad and solid. His shoulders would thicken and his jawline would be rounder than Tom’s. I imagined him shorter than Tom but more burly. In Jimmy’s case I also felt guilt that I knew his physical shape and form, but he would never remember mine. He would often nap on the bed with his chin cupped in his hands and I would talk to his sleeping body and tell him how sorry I was. n

THE DECLINE CONTINUES: more from A Short History of Falling

“I now receive a lot of physical help. When in-between two fixed points—one solid object to another—I wrap both hands around a helpful arm. I’m stabilised by others and move in ways

I’ve witnessed with the very old. The most affecting help I receive is from male friends. We might be sitting and chatting as physical peers, but then we need to move and I become someone vulnerable, who needs their help.

And the name of the author is…

Stephen Fry The Liar and The Hippopotamus are novels; MoabIsMyWashpot, an autobiography. His latest book is Heroes, a retelling of Greek myths. ’’

As I take hold of their wrist, I’m struck by how solid it is. It might sag momentarily with my weight but then steadies and I know, or can feel, that further up this lever, fibres in a bicep have shortened to steady this arm. I know this mechanism. I’m familiar with it. And I can feel, through my frail body, what I’ve lost. I remember it—not as an old man remembers his younger body—but from 18 months ago; from being alongside this person who now supports me. And how I envy their body! I want it for myself.”

Books That Changed My Life

Magical storyteller, Michael Morpurgo, is a Children’s Laureate novelist. His latest book, Boy Giant: Son of Gulliver is published by Harper Collins Children’s Books, (£12.99)

The Elephant’s Child

by Rudyard Kipling

My mother used to read this to to me. She was an actress and read so beautifully—and was very beautiful, as all mothers are. She would come to my brother and I at night and for 20 minutes she would read to us, somehow becoming the animals in the story. It’s one of those wonderful stories, very funny, with a marvellous trail of words, like the “great grey-green greasy Limpopo river”, it’s full of musical language which is very fun. I used to love it, it made me giggle. It was the first story I ever loved and began my life with a love of stories.

Poetry In The Making

by Ted Hughes

I had heard on the radio the wonderful poet, Ted Hughes, reading this book. I listened to it because I was trying to encourage my children to enjoy books. When I found myself longing to be a writer I would read it to myself, not just the children, and it was the most wonderful invitation to writing. He wasn’t trying to instruct you on how to write which is a ridiculous thing to do, but he was trying to put you in touch with your inner self and the world around you, because that is where our stories and our poems come from.

The Man Who Planted Trees

by Jean Giono

This is one I wish I’d written myself. I first read it in my twenties and it’s a very beautiful book, it’s also an exceedingly important one which becomes more important by the day. Written in the 1930s, it’s a glorious story about age. It also shows why we have to plant trees and renew the earth we’ve destroyed before there’s nothing left. It’s very short but extremely beautifully written. And of all the books I’ve ever read, it’s the one I most wish I’d written—so I’m quite cross with Jean Giono that he wrote it before me. n

Kooky Kitchens

Face it, you probably spend as much time in the kitchen as you do in the sitting room. This month, Olly Mann has some top tips to keep your cookhouse cutting edge…

NATTER AS YOU BATTER

If you’ve got sticky fingers, or you’re busy making breakfast, voice activation really comes into its own. Just ask, and the Lenovo Smart Display 8” (£99) will turn up the thermostat, make a video-call, or display a recipe. This it does via Google Assistant, so the integration with YouTube, Nest, and Duo (Google’s lesser-known answer to FaceTime) is exemplary. Spotify sounds great, too—although Amazon Music and Apple Music are not yet supported.

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

THE DAILY GRIND

The desire for “baristaquality” coffee is clearly growing, as each month brings yet another, £1000+ “beans to cup” machine. But, really, is it that big a deal to grind your beans yourself? When you get the scent of the coffee, the pleasure of having made something, and it’s substantially cheaper, then yes. The De’Longhi KG79 Professional Burr Grinder (£49.99) perfectly produces up to 12 cups of beans at the touch of a button. Dualit’s burr coffee grinder (£79) is more precise and quiet, but less stylish.

GOOD CHEER

A dissertation could be written on why wine coolers seem sophisticated, yet beer fridges are considered to be naff. Krups didn’t exactly smash the stereotype when they introduced their Beerwulf The SUB Draught Beer Tap (£99): aimed squarely at the bachelor market, it was branded in Heineken colours. Fast-forward a few years, however, and this counter-top cooler—which dispenses two-litre kegs, bar-style, at a refreshing 2°C—is now available in classy colours like muted grey and retro red. And it’s no longer just for Heineken fans: it can be refilled with over 30 international lagers and pale ales. Bottoms up!

The Showstopper

If you watch Bake Off and lust after the white goods, rather than the cakes, you should know that the attractive oven the would-be bakers are using is the Neff N70 B57CR22N0B (£799). You’ve no doubt eyed up its unique “Slide&Hide” door, which, instead of opening outwards, retracts into a hidden compartment at the base—great for removing heavy trays and um, burnt bread. What you may not realise is this oven can also, in a matter of hours, perform a selfcleaning cycle that reduces any lingering detritus to a wipeable pile of ash. Hot!

You Couldn’t Make It Up

Win £30 for your true, funny stories!

I was talking to friends about the antics of some young people who were “binge drinkers.”

My daughter pulled my sleeve and asked, “What does 'binge' taste like, Mummy?”

ELERI WEBBER, Cheshire

We recently bought a metal garden bench and it was much simpler to assemble than many “easy” flat packs.

But the leaflet gave a solemn warning in the care instructions, with accompanying symbols, each duly crossed out:

“Do not wash. Do not bleach. Do not tumble dry. Do not iron. Do not dry clean.”

I was devastated. I’d been so looking forward to putting the metal bench in the tumble dryer and ironing it afterwards!

IAN FALCONER, Derbyshire

I recently took my small grandson to church with me for the very first time.

At the entrance I said, “Now, you must sit still, keep quiet, don't kick the seat in front and don't stare at the people behind.”

He urgently tugged my arm and

asked, “Am I allowed to breathe?”

SHEILA CHISNALL, Devon

My father wrote to a restaurant chain complaining that he had found bugs in his salad. He expressed his dismay and vowed he would never go back there again.

He received a letter back from the head office who apologised profusely, which he was pleased with until he noticed there was a small piece of paper in the same envelope containing a small, handwritten message.

It read, “Send this idiot the bug letter.”

GERI BURTON, Denbighshire

A church preacher stopped me in town today and asked, “Do you know what came first, Jesus’ Rise or God's Vengeance?”

I replied, “I don't know mate, I didn't catch the horse racing today.”

JASON DAVID , Hertfordshire

We invited some people to dinner recently and although I was struggling in the kitchen, I still managed to serve the dinner.

At the table, my husband turned to our daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”

“I don't know what to say, Daddy” she replied.

“Just say what you hear Mummy say,” my husband answered.

Our daughter bowed her head and came up with, “Dear Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people over to have dinner?”

ALISON YARDLEY, Cambridgeshire

I was shopping in a large department store and my daughter was getting noticeably bored.

Suddenly a little voice could be heard calling loudly, “Mummy come quickly. This lady doesn't have any knickers on.”

She was standing amid a bevy of mannequins. I grabbed her hand and got out of the store as quickly as I could while people stifled their laughter behind me.

JOLENE COOPER, Devon

While waiting in a queue at the bank

I was acting silly and winking at my partner who'd sat down in front of the window. He egged me on for a while until I realised he was sitting in front of the queue for the cash machine outside and a complete stranger was gawking at me in complete disbelief.

ANN JOHNSON, Cheshire

I was saying prayers with my son at bedtime and he asked if he could pray, especially for his Dad. When I asked why, he told me his Dad had said, “We'd better pray that mark comes out of the carpet before your Mum sees it.”

LEONA HECKMAN, Denbighshire

I met a guy at a night club who had given me his mobile number. So, the next day, I texted him. A text came back saying, “Who is this?”

I replied reminding him that only 12 hours ago he had given me his phone number.

A text came back from the same number, “I think he gave you the wrong number..." Ouch!

ABIGAIL GEORGE, Denbighshire

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

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

IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR

Word Power

Below is a sampling of the words tackled by kids during the international, US-hosted Scripps Spelling Bee, with fresh definitions to challenge you. Take your turn to see if you’d qualify for the bee—then check the next page for answers

By Emily Cox & Henry Rathvon

1. dearth n.—A: a warm fireplace. B: value. C: shortage.

2. flooey adj.— A: open and breezy. B: like jam. C: askew.

3. egregious adj.—A: very bad. B: very small. C: fond of company.

4. infinitesimal adj.— A: something uncountable. B: of prime numbers. C: tiny.

5. capitulate v.—A: surrender. B: amass cash. C: to start an entirely new sentence.

6. lassitude n.—A: femininity. B: permanence. C: lethargy.

7. mercurial adj.—A: running errands. B: obscured. C: quick to change.

8. prodigal adj.—A: spending

unwisely. B: offering unwanted advice. C: arrogant.

9. discern v.—A: detect. B: have trouble understanding. C: get rid of.

10. volatile adj.—A: explosive. B: willing. C: spoken aloud.

11. flamboyant adj.— A: showy. B: young and foolish. C: on fire.

12. fandango n.— A: wild dog. B: lively dance. C: bleacherite.

13. eradicate v.— A: plant deeply. B: destroy completely. C: bring to light.

14. fusillade n.— A: candlewick. B: barrage of shots. C: strong glue.

15. campestral adj.—A: of open fields. B: progressing toward evening. C: buggy.

Answers

1. dearth—[C] shortage. There is a dearth of Darth Vader costumes at this convention.

2. flooey—[C] askew. Your tie is crooked, your socks don’t match— your whole outfit is flooey.

3. egregious—[A] very bad. Your deportment, sir, is reprehensible and egregious.

4. infinitesimal—[C] tiny. When we say we’re perfect, we don’t count infinitesimal flaws.

5. capitulate—[A] surrender. Don’t capitulate to his whims—stick to your guns.

6. lassitude—[C] lethargy. An adolescent in the morning is a case study in lassitude.

7. mercurial—[C] quick to change. Her mercurial taste in clothes keeps everyone guessing.

8. prodigal—[A] spending unwisely. Since winning the lottery, he’s been a prodigal fool.

9. discern—[A] detect. Squinting through the spyglass, I was able to discern a pirate ship.

10. volatile—[A] explosive. Tread carefully; Amanda has rather a volatile temper.

11. flamboyant—[A] showy. Oscar Wilde was nothing if not flamboyant.

12. fandango—[B] lively dance. After scoring a goal, it’s not necessary to dance a fandango.

13. eradicate—[B] destroy completely. To eradicate my termites, I’ve purchased an aardvark.

14. fusillade—[B] barrage of shots. A fusillade of hailstones banged down on our windshield.

WORD OF THE DAY*

PALZOGONY:

Foreplay or love-play

Alternative suggestions:

"What the last man standing says after a beer drinking night out"

" When your footy pal hurts his soccer knee"

15. campestral—[A] of open fields. Even the most devoted city lovers can appreciate the beauty of a campestral milieu.

VOCABULARY RATINGS

9 & below: Study harder

10–12: You’re a contender

13–15: Take a bow

HOW EQUITY RELEASE COULD HELP TO BOOST YOUR DISPOSABLE INCOME

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It is important to understand the risks of releasing equity, including the e ect releasing equity may have on your entitlement to means-tested state benefits and on the value of your estate. Call today to speak with our friendly Information Team and find out if equity release could be the right option for you. ■

Brainteasers

Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles, then check your answers on p139

Four-Bidden

Place an X or an O in each empty cell of this grid so that there are no four consecutive Xs or Os appearing horizontally, vertically or diagonally. There’s only one solution. Can you find it?

Complete the Cube

If you fold up this yellow shape, you can almost make a cube, but the small piece off to the side will be missing. There are three possible places where you could attach that triangle to the shape in order to complete the cube. Can you determine at least one of them?

First In

Place the letters A, B, C and D into this grid so that each letter appears exactly once in each row and column, with one cell in each row and column left blank. Each letter outside the grid indicates the letter that must appear first in its respective row or column (reading inward from the edge of the grid closest to the letter and skipping any blank cells).

Time for a Tune

Musical notation divides time into equal intervals known as measures. The legend below shows what fraction of a measure each type of note takes up when you’re playing in 4/4 time. How many measures will have elapsed once you finish playing the sequence of notes above in 4/4 time?

Crowdspeakers

There are loudspeakers hidden in this grid. They project sound only north, south, east and west, not diagonally. Their sound intensity drops with distance: it’s 80 decibels in the squares adjacent to the speakers, 40 at two squares away, 20 at three squares away and 10 at four. After that, the sound dies away completely. If two or more speakers are close enough to affect the same square, their intensities add up for that square. However, no speaker is projecting sound onto a square occupied by another speaker.

Five squares are marked with their total sound intensity. Given this, can you figure out how many speakers there are and where they stand?

Can you make a calculation totalling 821 using the numbers below with any of the four standard mathematical operations (+, –, x and ÷)?

All three possibilities are shown. First In

ANSWER TO SEPTEMBER’S PRIZE QUESTION IDEAS 0

Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk

All the other five-letter words are anagrams of the middle five letters of one of the 11-letter words; app(ealin)gly – alien; tra(nsact)ion – scant; ple(asura)ble – auras.

Laugh!

Win £30 for every reader’s joke we publish!

Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

The other day a cowboy asked me if I could help him to round up 18 cows. I said, “Of course. That’s 20 cows.”

Comedian JAKE LAMBERT

My mate recently came second in a Winston Churchill lookalike competition.

He was close, but no cigar.

Comedian GOOSE

When people moan about our love of technology, I wonder if they ever watched Harry Potter thinking, I wish those kids would put their wands down and go outside and play with a normal stick.

Comedian LAURA LEXX

Everyone should try sexting. It’s good fun and it gets rid of those PPI people.

Comedian STEVE N ALLEN

I’m from a really competitive family. I remember as a kid my brother and I used to do that thing where you’d see who could hold their breath underwater the longest… I really miss him.

Comedian DANIEL AUDRITT

I read about a couple in their eighties, where she died and then he died soon after. The paper said he died of a broken heart. But that’s not a medical condition. I think if she died, and then a fortnight later he died, it’s probably because he didn’t know how to cook.

Comedian SARAH MILLICAN

A sandwich walks into a bar. The barman says, “I’m sorry, but we don’t serve food in here.”

Comedian PETER KAY

As a scarecrow, people say I’m outstanding in my field. BUT HAY—IT’S IN MY JEANS.

SUBMITTED VIA EMAIL

Glasgow is a very negative place. If Kanye West had been born in Glasgow, he’d be called No You Cannae West. Comedian FRANKIE BOYLE

Head & Shoulders should come out with a body wash called Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Comedian ETHAN FELDMAN

Some people think I’m less manly because I have cats. I disagree. If you need someone to kill a big, scary bug, I’m right there, holding Dr Fluffy Paws up to it.

Comedian DAN IPOLD

People never really mention that Willy Wonka just handed Charlie the deed to a factory that’s about to get hit with a handful of wrongful death lawsuits…

Comedian TIM ROSS

It’s crazy when baby boomers call Millenials lazy when there’s an entire sub-genre of entertainment solely

FELINE GRUMPY

As the internet mourns the loss of Grumpy Cat, another grouchy kitty is winning hearts

(via pechhanko_bocco on Instagram)

dedicated to solving cold cases their generation couldn’t figure out.

Comedian MARK CHALIFOUX

A lady arrives at her church every Sunday wearing a very regal hat, paired with a matching scarf and gloves, but every Sunday the vicar turns her away. Soon she gets so bitter that she phones the vicar to complain about his attitude. He says, “The answer is very simple. Just remember to put on the rest of your clothes next Sunday!”

DAVID WEBB, Sompting

OUR HOUSE

Twitter users share strange roommate stories:

@Chrishyer31: I once had a roommate who would eat Wotsits with socks on both hands because he was afraid of dyeing his fingers orange.

@ElizH2O: Our pet snail died, but my roommate didn’t want to break the news, so she moved him to a different spot in the tank every day to make me think he was still alive.

Comedian JEREMY KAPLOWITZ

My friends love to send me photos of my doppelgangers. If you don’t know what a doppelganger is, it’s an ugly person your friend just saw who looks “juuuuust like you, oh my God.”

I can’t stand modern train toilets. What was wrong with the old doors that just locked instead of this multiple choice system? If anything goes wrong, you’ll be sitting there while the whole toilet wall slowly slides away, unveiling you like a prize on a quiz show.

SUBMITTED VIA EMAIL

@BirdAileen: At university I woke up to campus police knocking on my roommate’s door shouting, “We know about the chickens.” He opened the door and four hens scurried out.

A ping pong table makes an office more fun in the same way that a basketball court makes prison more fun.

CROSSWORD ANSWERS

Comedian SCOTT HALL

@AnnaEF135: My roommate is a foreign exchange student and her English is still a little rough. On opening night of my first university play, she ran up to me, hugged me, and shouted, “I want to break your legs!”

Across: 9 Precipice, 10 Llama, 11 Smith, 12 Rootstock, 13 Telegrams, 14 Tsar, 18 Witness, 20 Riotous, 21 Rile, 22 Sunstroke, 26 Semibreve, 28 Cheap, 29 Alpha, 30 Intercept

Down: 1 Spasm, 2 Regimental, 3 Tightened, 4 Mirror, 5 Reformer, 6 Bliss, 7 N A T O, 8 Jack Frost, 15 Shopkeeper, 16 Swordsman, 17 Fourscore, 19 Souvenir, 23 Sweaty, 24 U-boat, 25 Spite, 27 Maps.

60 Second Stand-Up

We chat to the hilarious comedian, Paul Chowdhry

WHAT’S THE BEST PART OF YOUR CURRENT SHOW? The beginning. Peter Dixon introduces the show, he does the voice for X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. It’s done in a way you wouldn’t expect. He’s one of the most eloquent English-speaking voiceover artists. And it’s quite different.

WHAT INSPIRES YOUR COMEDY? Just life really. When I look at people in the everyday world, that’s where my inspiration comes from, then I gradually turn it into comedy.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY TALES ABOUT A TIME YOU BOMBED ON STAGE? Normally it’s corporate shows. But I remember years ago someone started crying in the audience and I looked and it was a three-week-old baby. You can deal with heckles but you can’t really deal with that.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE OF YOUR OWN JOKES? I do a routine about people only being offended by comedy

when it affects them. People love jokes until it’s about something they relate to. You can’t just be offended by bits and pieces, either be offended by all of it or nothing. It’s like saying, “You can joke about religions but just don’t joke about my religion.”

IF YOU COULD HAVE A SUPERPOWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I’d like to be able to hear conversations from far away.

DO YOU FIND ANY PARTS OF THE COUNTRY TO BE FUNNIER THAN OTHERS? People up north think they’re funnier than the comedian so the heckles are always quite good. Whereas down south they’re just surprised that you’ve turned up a lot of the time.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE ONE-LINER?

I used to do one about Twitter on my first DVD which was; if I want to follow someone, I’ll do it in a raincoat. n

Paul Chowdhry’s comedy special Live innit is available on Amazon Prime Video now

Beat the Cartoonist!

Think of a witty caption for this cartoon—the three best suggestions, along with the cartoonist’s original, will be posted on our website in mid-September. If your entry gets the most votes, you’ll win £50.

August’s Winner

Our cartoonist will have to grin and bear his loss this month, as his caption, “I’m a vegetarian now. The next time you kill something can you pick me up some salad?” couldn’t compete with our reader, Andrew McNamee who won voters over with his witty suggestion, “Dad, Mum says us bears don’t have to do that anymore, they’ve built a toilet over there!” Congratulations, Andy!

Ian McKellen

The knighted actor and activist discusses his latest film, his love of Shakespeare and why old age won’t stop him

I Remember: Glenn Tilbrook

CARTOONST: BILL HOUSTON

Memories of the Squeeze frontman, from a South London childhood to playing Madison Square Garden

KING TUT’S FINAL TOUR

A behind-the-scenes look at Egypt’s best-known Pharaoh’s final trip round the Sun