Reader's Digest UK Sep 2014

‘who

stuck

wants

to be

in the corner?’

l augh! .................................................................. word power ....................................................... travel ................................................................. if i ruled the world ......................................... beat the cartoonist ......................................

su pollard explains why she never holds back PAGE 22 bringing back extinct animals PAGE 52 the tree that survived 9/11 PAGE 68 vitamins: what doctors think PAGE 34 best of british: rooftop restaurants PAGE 60 books that changed my life: david mitchell

features

14 Re asons To be Chee R ful

James Brown is boosted by a coincidental meeting

e ntertainment

22 s u polla R d: “i R emembe R”

The actress reminisces about Hi-de-Hi, hitting the charts and coming second to a dog

Health

28

The Gi R l who wouldn’ T b R eak

Young Jessica Bernstein was determined that her rare condition wouldn’t stop her pursuing her dreams

34 whaT d o C T o R s

T ell T hei R f R iends abou T vi Tamins

Find out what professionals really think about our most popular supplements

Inspire

52 The lon G fl i G h T

T o R evival

How scientists are working to resurrect the extinct passenger pigeon—among other animals

60 b es T of bR i T ish: Roof T op

R es Tau R an T s

From urban car parks to country forts, we explore the finest al-fresco dining

68 T he TR ee T haT

s u Rvi ved 9/11

Pulled from the wreckage of the attacks, a solitary tree now stands as a beacon of hope

tr avel & a dv enture

76 T he sha R k w R es T le R

When his guide was attacked by a great white, Trevor Burns didn’t think twice…

86 d R ink i T in

Meet the winemakers putting the tastes of Beaujolais back on the map

in my expe R ien C e, pigeons tend to divide opinion. Indeed, many would be horrified to learn that a particular species of this bird was once the most abundant in the world. But within a remarkably short period of time, the passenger pigeon was driven to extinction, with the final one dying in captivity 100 years ago this month. Their fascinating story—and rumours of a possible resurrection— can be found on p52.

Fans of supplements, meanwhile, may be surprised by “What Doctors Tell Their Friends About Vitamins” on p34 (hint: they don’t always justify the hype). And if you fancy some al-fresco dining while the weather is still fine, I’d draw your attention to the return of our “Best of British” feature on p60, which highlights our most appealing rooftop restaurants.

Speaking of new additions, a warm welcome to Catherine Cole, who takes over from Kate Pettifer as our Travel columnist. Check out her suggestions for this month on p82.

tom Browne

theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk

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...DIFFERENTLY

you need a good excuse to travel to Naples? so what about visiting its subway? the tube station toledo, at 165 feet deep, offers visitors an outstanding view. Curved walls, elaborate mosaics and ingenious illumination make travellers believe they’ve descended to a fantastic underwater world. that’s why no one’s bothered at all if the train is a few minutes late.

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VINTAGE VIBES ONLINE WITH READER’S DIGEST

Last month, we got carried away with our magazine archive and featured excerpts and photos from the July 1960 edition on our website and social channels. You loved it so much that we’re doing it again! This time, we’re taking a look back to 1957.

Also online this month, find out which animals we’d revive from extinction, check out our top ten sizzling summer reads, and watch the trailers for this month’s recommended films.

Flights £ from 53rtn

For fans of military history, it’s the greatest escape

Jersey is packed full of places to get you closer to the Second World War than anywhere else in the British Isles. Thought-provoking places like the ever-present remains of the five-year German Occupation, including the staggering coastal fortifications built by Hitler as part of his ‘Atlantic Wall’. Award-winning places, like the Jersey War Tunnels, where you’ll be led through evacuation, deportation, captivity, siege and liberation. And stirring places like Liberation Square in St Helier, with its striking statue of islanders holding alo the Union Jack, celebrating their liberation from German Occupation. Add a mild climate, easy travel by air or sea from the UK and great-value o ers, and you’ve discovered Jersey. jersey.com

Over to You

✯ letter of the month...

James Brown tells us to look up to the skies. As a teenager in 1940, I often looked up into the summer sky, gripped by the vapour trails of aircraft during the Battle of Britain.

The rattle of machine-gun fire could be heard faintly, and occasionally a plane would be on its way down, smoking and on fire. Sometimes a parachute would appear as someone bailed out to fight again or be taken prisoner. My school lessons were hard to bear as I looked though the window near my desk—the cane was the punishment for not paying attention!

I still get pleasure when I see a Spitfire, Hurricane or Lancaster. The familiar sound of the Rolls Royce Merlin engines fills me with pride and the pleasure of a memory that will never diminish.

AlAn Andrews, Devon

a new era

James Brown asks why someone doesn’t start building old “warbirds” again. Well, the Spitfire is actually enjoying a resurrection, with the introduction of the 90 per cent scale reproduction known as the Spitfire Mk26B, which you can buy in kit form from Supermarine Aircraft in

Australia. All that’s needed is the time and hangar space to build it— and also a modest £210,000!

The engine is a modern V8 rather than the old Merlin, but the end result looks excellent. I believe there are quite a few around the globe, including several in Britain.

Arthur bush, Dartford, Kent

not so sweet

“Tame Your Blood Sugar Forever” served as a real wake-up call to me. I’ve always thought of myself as healthy, and I’m proud of the fact that I don’t smoke or drink. If I have a vice, it’s chocolate—I can devour family-sized bars in a single sitting! My weight has remained within the normal range, however, so I’ve seen no harm in this indulgence.

I now realise that what I took to be harmless has been endangering my health, so I’ve decided to cut right back. We all need to start taking responsibility for our own health, and eating less sugar seems like a good starting point.

shAun GArdner, Bristol

techno-isolation

I loved Esther Rantzen’s “If I Ruled the World”, but her plea that families sit and eat together is a common one among the pre-laptop and smartphone generation, who often sat and chatted with their loved ones.

Despite families sitting in the same room, we’re now further apart from one another than ever before. And it’s by choice—after all, it’s humans who’ve created and choose to use these technologies.

rObbIe burtOn sAnIGAr, Faversham, Kent

Photo GraPhY fan

My favourite section of July’s issue was the “Family Photo Competition: The Winners!” Each photo oozed warmth and family bonds, and I couldn’t help but smile at each one. The photography itself was simply stunning and made me want to reach for my camera.

So will I be entering next year? No, I won’t. Sadly, my 18-year-old arthritic cat can take better photos than me!

esther newtOn, Berkshire

a shared insPiration

Like Tony Parsons in “Books That Changed My Life”, My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell had a profound influence on me.

I grew up in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and we studied this book as part of our syllabus. It introduced me to flights of imagination and adventure, but most importantly laughter! I was the only one in a class of 11 students who used to giggle all the way through reading it, and my teacher loved me for that. I pursued biology, then pharmacy, and I also sketch African wildlife, donating any sales to the Amboseli Elephant Project. Thank you for the trip down memory lane!

subhAsh suthAr, Sittingbourne, Kent

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In the depths of tragedy, a positive encounter gives James Brown a much-needed boost

Why Small Things Have A Big Impact

James, founder of Loaded magazine, now edits Sabotage Times—an online magazine with the motto: “We can’t concentrate, why should you?”

A COinCidenCe, nO mAtter hOw smAll, CAn giVe An uneXPeCted liFt tO the sPirits. I’ve started most of these columns from a level emotional playing field. But sometimes life’s not like that, and you’re dealt one of those blows that knocks you right down—and then a minor irritation makes it even worse. After that, a small but positive link can be strangely uplifting.

Last week, my much-loved father-in-law Alan died, less than 12 weeks after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was everything to his wife and two daughters, hugely popular with his lifelong friends, and remains a very good role model. He never had a bad word to say about anyone, but had an endless fund of interesting stories. And he was delighted to have spent his last nine months with his new grandson. Married for over 40 years, his daughters spoke to him every day of their lives.

His illness and death has obviously proved devastating, and the intensity isn’t lessened by knowing that similar things happen to so many tight-knit families. I know there are people who will identify with our situation, and they’ll be feeling sad while reading this.

during this terrible time, however, we had to deal with a minor but particularly irritating situation. My girlfriend helped nurse her dad through his illness, and as a result some curtains for a bedroom in a

holiday cottage she rents out didn’t get made. When it became apparent that her dad’s condition was terminal, she wanted to cancel the summer bookings at the house, but instead I encouraged her to carry on as normal

Illustrat I on

by James s m I

and let people have their holidays there. We would try to do our best in the circumstances.

After the first guests of the summer mentioned the excessive light in the bedroom, we immediately set about trying to find a local lady we’d been told about who makes curtains. Then Alan passed away and the week just exploded emotionally. Curtains simply didn’t matter to us any more—but they mattered to the second guests.

When I managed, a day into their stay, to make it out of London, get to the coast, visit a knitting shop, get the seamstress’s phone number and arrange to meet her at the property, giving the guests a day’s notice, they didn’t want to let us in because they were annoyed they’d had one night of light. “We’ll be slopping round in our pyjamas at 9.30 on a Saturday morning, and anyway we’ve got our things here,” they complained.

Little acts of kindness can be magnified under such stressful circumstances, just as petty ones can the

sooner we measured up, the sooner we could make the curtains— and we could also help immediately by putting some black-out material in the window frame.

As I drove away dumbstruck, my 13-year-old son said, “When you told her Alan had just died of cancer, she said, ‘I don’t care.’ ” We were shocked.

After I sent them an email reiterating the circumstances and apologising for the light, I took the guests up on a compromise —Mel the seamstress agreed to come out on a Saturday lunchtime and measure up then.

When I tried to explain the terrible circumstances, and that our fiveminute visit would make it better for them, the woman interrupted and told me it didn’t matter that someone had died because, “You shouldn’t rent out a house where the room has no curtains.” She didn’t realise that

when i met mel, I was exceptionally thankful that she’d given up her day off to help. Little acts of kindness can be magnified under such stressful circumstances—just as petty ones can. She told me she’d spent most of the last 20 years working in London until landlords turfed her out of her workspace and turned it into luxury flats. I smiled in disbelief.

It turned out she’d been based in the same building to which I’d taken my eldest son to nursery for five years. She knew the friendly photographer with the big black dog we chatted to each morning, and the French lady that ran the nursery. In a weird way,

the connection was really uplifting. Her general outlook to life—despite not having a car, she’d worked at the three local village fêtes in one day—and the shared minor history managed to erase the frustration I’d felt about the guests.

Knowing we must have passed in the street many times wasn’t that big a deal, but it was a positive where previously there had been a surfacelevel negative. After the five minutes

it took her to measure up, I drove her through the local nature reserve to her first tombola and cake stall of the day, while her friend Richard made us all laugh talking about a gig he’d been to during which a fireeater in the audience had singed the guitarist’s hair.

When I said I might write about this in Reader’s Digest, she said, “Oh good, my mum’s just passed away this year and we’ve kept her subscription.”

budding authoRs, take a bow!

This chilling tale was one of thousands submitted to our 100-Word-Story Competition. We’ll be publishing a commended story every month.

until they fall

half an hour after dawn, the two prisoners stood against the wall, motionless in the cold. they held their bodies erect, staring glassily ahead. boots crashing, the firing squad marched into the courtyard, swung right and snapped to attention. the blindfolds were applied. on command, the squad drew back their rifle bolts, raised their weapons and fired. the bullets smashed into the wall. for a second the prisoners remained rigid and then, gasping audibly, they dropped their shoulders, their daily ordeal over. this was the colonel’s cruellest trick of all—to blindfold the firing squad. one morning someone would hit.

Graeme Robertson, Newcastle upon Tyne

Graeme says: “I’m a retired civil servant, born in Glasgow, and I’ve been writing for my own amusement on and off for many years.

I got the idea for the story after watching the Russian roulette scene in the Deer hunter. I began to think about other cruel ways in which an execution could be delayed.”

Graeme will receive a cheque for £50

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Shown in Titanium Silver. Also available in Graphite Grey and Platinum White.

Su Pollard “I Remember”

…always having a flamboyant dress sense. When I was five, my mum Hilda took me to C&A in Nottingham. I said, “I want that blue dress with the yellow polka dots and I want one blue tight and one yellow one.” My mum’s dress sense was more twin set and pearls.

…my handsome dad. I remember him at a family party, all suited and booted, singing “My Way” like Frank Sinatra and everyone cheering him on and shouting, “More, Don, more!” I was so proud of him. He always said to me, “You’ve got to follow your dreams.”

…m aking an audience laugh for the first time. I didn’t mean to. I was the angel Gabriel’s assistant in

the school nativity, aged six, and was standing on a cardboard box to deliver my line to Mary, “Fear Not! Angel Gabriel will…” at which point I fell right through the box—the teacher hadn’t made it strong enough. It wasn’t an auspicious start to my acting career, but I loved how the audience laughed at the situation, so I clambered out of the box and finished my line “…be coming to give you a sign.” Everyone loved it.

… g etting into trouble. One day in our cookery class, Miss Poole said to us, “Clean out your drawers, girls,” and I laughed because it made me think of old-fashioned underwear. She sent me to the headmistress to say, “Miss Poole says I’m daft.” Another time, the headmistress called me into

A ten-year-old Su on holiday at the local caravan park in Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire; (below) with parents Don and Hilda at a Buckingham Palace garden party

her office and said, “Susan, you’re wearing the school cloak like a Dracula cape. That’s not allowed. I think your theatrical tendencies need an outlet. You should join the local amateur-dramatic society.” To this day I thank her for those words of wisdom. I couldn’t have got a better grounding if I’d gone to drama school, and I was an enthusiastic participant at the Co-Operative Arts Theatre until I left Nottingham.

…getting my first pair of glasses when i was 14. They were round, John Lennon ones. My dad bought them because they were on offer, but I thought they were hateful and cried my eyes out at having to wear them. I said to my dad, “Boys won’t want to make passes at me.”

…my mum was painfully shy. She and my dad both worked at the Player’s Factory—they were one of the biggest employers in Nottingham. One day I went to surprise her with a visit wearing a big Afghan coat and a bowler hat with a feather. She was horrified and said, “Quick, walk behind me!” She was a great tap dancer and had a lovely soprano voice. I remember dancing in the kitchen with her and ruining the lino on the floor. She’s very happy that I’ve been able to do a job I love.

…i was a good typist. I left school at 16 and got a job with The Tennant Rubber Company. I could do 200 words a minute shorthand and

80 words on a typewriter. But one time I sent out a letter to loads of people that said, “The couple who suffered flooding in their home have kindly been put up in a hovel.” My boss wasn’t pleased with my muddling up the v and t in their accommodation details.

… s

inging “ave m aria” in hot pants. I started singing in pubs and working men’s clubs when I was 15. The clubs were a rather better place to learn your trade because they had proper secretaries that booked your

act. I got paid £10 a gig, which was marvellous. One time my friend John and I did an evening together. He was a drag act and I helped get his wigs on and then sang “Ave Maria”.

…seeing london for the first time. I’d answered an ad in The Stage magazine for a part in the musical The Desert Song . I’ll never forget arriving at St Pancras station aged 19 for the audition; it looked like a Disneyland castle and I was so excited. Four days later I got a call saying I’d got the job and that they wanted me straight away. But I hadn’t done my fortnight’s notice! My boss was lovely and said, “Just go.” I never looked back.

…coming second to a singing dog in Opp O rtunity Kn O c K s in 1974. It was a Jack Russell owned by a headmaster who got all his pupils to vote for him. I sang “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No”, but I didn’t have my glasses on and couldn’t see the camera, so I sang at the speaker by mistake. That Jack Russell’s got a relation somewhere—let’s hope I never get to meet it.

…t rying not to laugh when we were filming episodes of Hi-de-Hi . One time we were supposed to be looking for treasure under the floorboards, but all we could see was the water main. The disparity in what we were supposed to be looking for and the reality of what we were

An early publicity shot aged 16, when Su was playing working men’s clubs

documentary at that time. We had to film a video on a snowy Hampstead Heath, with me in a pink floppy hat getting snowballs chucked at me.

…meeting the Queen. I did three Royal Variety Performances, and when I met her I said, “Can we swap skins, Ma’am?” because she had the most fantastic skin. She beamed at me.

…tap dancing with t he p rincess of wales. We were at a charity event at 10 Downing Street. I was in Me and My Girl at the time and told her I was finding the tap dancing hard. She said she’d done it at school, and before I knew it we were tapping together. I couldn’t wait to tell my mum!

…

d oing tv and theatre at the same time. I was filming You Rang, M’Lord? during the day and starring in a farce Don’t Dress for Dinner in the West End every evening. I used to find myself shouting for the filming and then too quiet on the stage. It was a marvellous thrill to be doing what I loved with such tremendous people.

…paul shane. I’d worked with him on Hi-de-Hi! and You Rang, M’Lord?, so it was no wonder when we were together again shooting a scene for Oh, Doctor Beeching! that I got confused and shouted “Ted! Ted!” at him. Only his name wasn’t Ted in that show. We filmed Oh, Doctor Beeching! on a real station and every time it rained 16

Reunited with Paul Shane (centre) and Jeffrey Holland for oh, doctor beeching!

bedraggled actors would shout “Hit the huts!” and we’d take shelter in the little huts used for storing the props.

… d ancing with a nton d u beke on strictly cO me d ancing. He’s ever so good. When we first met, he looked at me like I was from Planet Zod. We got on very well, even though he knew I was never going to be a spectacular partner.

…my best style moment. It was for An Audience With Ken Dodd. I wore a red silk dress and huge feather boa, a silver 1960s cap and necklace…and black-and-red trainers. Most high heels you can’t walk in, and who wants to be stuck in the corner of a room when you could be out there having fun? As told to Caroline Hutton

su Pollard will be starring with Cannon and Ball in the comedy farce Ha Ha Hood! And the Prince of Leaves, which is in theatres around the UK from this month. Visit hahahood.com for details.

In panto as Mimi the Magic Mermaid from peter pan

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as seen on the inteRnet

The Who Wouldn’t Girl Break

Jessica’s bones might be fragile but her spirit was fighting fit— and her body responded

By anita B artholomew

photos by erin patrice o’brien

essica Bernstein’s parents lifted her from her wheelchair and hustled her into her mum’s car for the trip to the hospital. Distraught, the elfin 15-year-old begged them: “Don’t take me. Please, I don’t want to go!”

She’d had more surgeries than birthdays; spent more time wracked with pain, recovering from fractures and operations, than she’d spent just being a child. She couldn’t do it any more. Yet, even as she pleaded to be left alone, she knew she had no choice.

A few months earlier, in the winter of 2009, her surgeon Dr Jenny Frances had given her a reprieve. One of the supporting metal rods inside Jessica’s leg bones had shifted position. But when she begged to put off getting it corrected, Dr Frances agreed to wait until the girl felt ready.

Now sharp pains in her right leg told her something was very wrong. Treatment could wait no longer.

Jessica had been born with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a rare genetic disorder also known as brittle bone disease. So fragile was her skeleton that her legs had broken and healed again before she was even born. Many more fractures followed, almost always to her legs. As a tot, Jessica wanted to do everything her older sister Marisa did. When other kids were toddling, she pulled herself along on her bottom. Fearing the pressure would fracture her arms, her grandfather built a scooter to place under her tummy so she could zip around the house.

In her second year of primary school, Jessica was fitted with leg braces that extended from her hips to her ankles. Thrilled to be walking on her own for the first time in her young life, she wore them 24 hours a day. But the following year, as she walked through a doorway at school, Jessica’s foot caught on the threshold. That slight misstep—she didn’t fall—was enough to break both her legs.

Three surgeries and 18 months later, something had changed in the sparky little girl. Until then, Jessica had always been determined to push herself beyond expectations. But now she sat in her wheelchair, reluctant to do the gruelling post-surgery physical therapy that could help her get onto her crutches and back to school. She loved that her friends often came over to hang out with her, but she envied them too. They were free to play outside and do all the things that everyone else could do. She wanted to be just a normal child, but even more than that,

she wanted to be safe from more pain.

By the time she returned to school in the fourth year, she cautiously got back to using two crutches, but decided not to even try to get around on just one, as she’d done in the past. She didn’t want to fall. As a little girl, she’d braved the frequent blood tests her condition required. Now she cried and begged the nurses to leave her be. No more surgeries, no more blood tests. She’d had enough of it all for a lifetime.

When Jessica was 14, she’d reached what doctors expected to be close to

simpler than earlier ones, Dr Frances at the Children’s Centre at Manhattan’s Hospital for Joint Diseases, explained, as they reviewed her X-rays. Because the bone had broken at the top only, they could use a smaller incision to pull out the old rod and insert a new one, instead of making the usual long incision from the top to the bottom of the leg.

A few days after the surgery, Jessica was surprised to find herself able to sit up in a wheelchair. By the end of her nine-day hospital stay, she tentatively

thrilled at how much better she felt after surgery, she started to get back some of her old determination

her full height: just four-foot-two. But without much physical activity, her weight had ballooned. So she challenged herself to lose weight and started to exercise more. The excess weight dropped away and she felt better about herself than she had in years. Then came the pain in her right leg. Something was seriously wrong.

Back in hospital, the 15-year old imagined her efforts had been for nothing. From experience, she knew post-surgical recovery would be long— six months or more—and painful.

But she had a pleasant surprise. This current operation would be somewhat

hefted herself onto her crutches— an even bigger undertaking—being careful to keep the wounded leg from touching the floor. Thrilled at how much better she felt than she’d anticipated, she started getting back some of her old determination.

Early stage physical therapy usually involved very little movement. “But I realised I could do a lot more,” says Jessica. Experimenting with new exercises, relying on her own sense of how far her body could go, “I kind of just made it up on my own.”

Using her walker for support, she practiced lifting her body up with her arms and swinging her legs back and

When Jessica first walked on the sand, it was an amazing feeling of freedom

forth. Within six weeks, she could bend her knee. That, too, was the soonest ever. To ensure she didn’t lose muscle in the leg, with Dr Frances’s blessing she wrapped a small weight around her ankle and did leg lifts. She taught herself yoga poses. “It helped—I wouldn’t get so stiff.” She cycled on an indoor exercise bike, each day getting stronger and more confident. Dr Frances was stunned, but pleased, that a teenager with OI could become an “exercise fanatic”.

Her 15-year-old body co-operated, up to a point. But soon it was clear that her calf wasn’t healing properly. Doctors would have to go back in to do another repair. And Jessica would start from the beginning again.

But now, she knew something she

hadn’t before. Her bones might be fragile, but her body was capable of more. And her spirit was fighting fit as well. It was getting easier every time to get back to where she was before the operation. She’d healed well enough to join her friends as they began their first year of secondary school together.

But Jessica had a dream.

Her family lived just four houses from an idyllic beach on Long Island, New York. Jessica longed to stroll the boardwalk like her neighbours, but had never been nimble enough on her crutches, or “sticks” as she called them, to navigate the wooden slats. She decided it was time to try. Trekking to the end of the street, she took the ramp up to the wooden walkway, delighting in the scent of the sea and the call of the gulls. The clack of her sticks was the sound of independence.

Life suddenly felt richer and more complete. The boardwalk stroll became part of her daily routine.

Then in late October 2012, the massive waves caused by Hurricane Sandy ripped the boardwalk from its moorings. With the boardwalk gone, Jessica couldn’t stroll along the beach. Her crutches would be useless on the soft sand. The thought saddened her until she realised this setback didn’t have to stop her. She had an idea: What if I could walk without sticks?

With renewed resolve, hanging onto furniture for balance, Jessica practised getting around the house with a single crutch. It was less difficult than she’d

imagined. “So then I started to do it quicker.” Soon, single stick under her arm, she was walking around the yard. After a few weeks, she was able to walk around the house with no crutch at all, holding onto anything that could stabilise her.

One February afternoon, when the sun was low in the sky and the winds calm, Jessica dressed in her exercise gear and left the house, single crutch under her arm. Neighbours ambled along the beach, some walking their dogs. She headed in their direction, stepping for the first time beyond where the pavement ended. Her stick, more impediment than help, sank in the sand. Stopping a moment, she

lifted the crutch until it rested across her arms. She took another step. The sand didn’t feel the way she’d imagined, but it was wonderful: soft and yielding, yet demanding. She adjusted her stance to find her balance, then coaxed herself along, watching all the other people who took this simple act for granted. To walk freely—they had no idea how amazing it all was.

“I felt so proud,” she says. “It was like I’d given birth to the sand.”

Jessica loves to bake, and although it means long hours of standing—something she might not have dreamed she could do a few years before—she’s decided to follow her heart and study the culinary arts.

What Doctors Tell Their Friends About Vitamins

When health professionals have heart-toheart chats with their pals, their advice often differs from the medical standard

What doctors tell their friends about vitamins

Dr ClifforD rosen knows vitamin D: he was part of an institute of medicine committee that recently set recommendations for the “sunshine vitamin”. so he’s astounded when he learns that friends are taking as much as 5,000 iu of the vitamin each day—far higher than the 4,000 iu established as the safe upper limit. “probably 80 per cent of the people i know take vitamin d,” says dr rosen, from the maine medical centre research institute in the us. “When i ask them why, they say, ‘it’s not harmful.’ but that’s not necessarily true.”

In fact, the latest research suggests that many previously lauded supplements may be riskier than once thought. And dangers may be greater for those who are savviest about nutrition. “People who take supplements tend to eat better and have higher nutrient intakes than people who don’t,” says Paul R Thomas, scientific consultant at the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements. “Adding supplements on top increases the risk of getting more than you need.”

Yet it’s tough to judge the value of supplements when headlines seesaw between recommendations and warnings. So we asked some experts a question: what advice do you give your friends and family about vitamins? Their answers may make you rethink what’s in your medicine cabinet.

◗ Vitamin C? It just gives you expensive urine

Dr Mark Levine laughs when asked if he takes a vitamin C supplement. A researcher at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney

Diseases, Dr Levine has studied how the body uses vitamin C. Although some research indicates that it may protect against cancer, cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration and— famously—the common cold, studies that isolate vitamin C from the diet generally don’t find that taking it alone protects against disease.

“The best evidence for vitamin C comes from studies where people get it from fruits and vegetables,” Dr Levine says. The benefits likely come from the interaction of a range of nutrients in Crich foods such as citrus fruits, red and green peppers, broccoli, strawberries and Brussels sprouts.

While some evidence suggests that taking 200mg or more of vitamin C a day might shorten a cold by a few hours—“12 hours at the most,” says Dr Levine—taking a supplement after symptoms start does no good.

What’s more, Dr Levine’s research shows that the body tightly regulates vitamin C levels, so it’s futile to load up on the mega doses found in popular supplements. “The body works very

hard to absorb low amounts of vitamin C,” Dr Levine says. “But as the dose goes up, you absorb much less and you excrete the extra vitamin C through your urine in a matter of hours.”

Should you take a supplement?

Probably not. Even amounts higher than the RDA of 90mg for men and 75mg for women are easy to get from your diet. In fact, only six per cent of the population is deficient in vitamin C, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

◗ If you eat fish twice a week, you don’t need omega-3 supplements

“People often ask me about omega-3s,” says Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who studies these unsaturated fatty acids found in many types of fish. “I tell them that decades of studies show that eating two servings of fish a week lowers the risk of death from heart disease, but getting more than that doesn’t make a big difference.”

Omega-3s reduce inflammation and make plaques in arteries more stable, so they’re less prone to trigger a heart attack or stroke. They may also alleviate depression and protect skin from ultraviolet radiation.

Should you take a supplement?

“If you don’t eat much fish, it’s reasonable to take a 1g fish-oil capsule a day, especially if you’re over 40 or have

heart disease,” Dr Mozaffarian says. But avoid taking more; some studies suggest that doses upwards of 2g to 3g may raise levels of LDL cholesterol.

◗Skip calcium pills, unless you have osteoporosis

Women have been told for years to take calcium for strong bones, so Dr Rosen isn’t surprised when people pop calcium pills three or four times a day. But many are shocked by the advice he shares now: “If your bones are healthy, I don’t think there’s any need for supplements, because they might not help and may be harmful.”

Calcium keeps bones strong and helps muscles, nerves, blood and hormones do their jobs. You especially need it when you’re young and building bone or when you’re older (over 50 for women and over 70 for men) and your body absorbs less of the mineral. But it’s easy to get enough from foods such as milk, yogurt, broccoli and fortified orange juice and cereal. “You need only about 1,000mg of calcium a day, and the typical dietary intake is about 850mg,” Dr Rosen says.

He’d rather see friends make up this deficit by ditching processed foods for healthier, calcium-rich ones than take supplements, which can push people dangerously close to the upper limit of 2,000 to 2,500mg—beyond which calcium may start to harm health. Too much calcium can cause constipation and increase the risk of kidney stones.

Newer, though still controversial,

research shows that people who take calcium supplements suffer heart attacks at a greater frequency than those who don’t. Dr Rosen also says that many people assume that calcium supplements prevent osteoporosis, but the latest independent review of research found there’s not enough proof to show that pills help people who don’t have the bone-weakening condition. It’s a bit “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”: for post-menopausal women, doses below 1,000mg don’t help, but doses above that may increase risks.

Should you take a supplement?

“There’s no reason unless you have osteoporosis, and even then take only one 500mg pill a day,” Dr Rosen says.

◗Got achy, arthritic knees?

Glucosamine/chondroitin is worth a try

Although his research concluded that glucosamine/chondroitin—renowned for its purported ability to relieve osteoarthritis symptoms—had no effect on joint pain or function, Dr Allen D Sawitzke recommends it to friends with moderate pain anyway. The reason: “Some people do really well on it, even though others don’t,” says Dr Sawitzke, an investigator for the national Glucosamine/Chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT).

Experts think these chemicals, which occur naturally in joints, help build cartilage and supporting tissue and work best as a duo. The trial—which

compared the supplement with an anti-inflammatory pain reliever and a placebo—showed that, on average, people experienced no benefit from either treatment after two years. But Dr Sawitzke points out the small print: glucosamine/chondroitin didn’t help all, but some people who took it lost ten times less cartilage. And the compounds significantly eased pain for 79 per cent of participants during the first two months.

Should you take a supplement?

If you have moderate arthritis pain, try glucosamine/chondroitin for two to three months. If you don’t see a benefit by then, you’re probably not going to, Dr Sawitzke says.

◗The benefits of vitamin D have been oversold

You’ve probably heard about studies linking low levels of vitamin D with higher risks of such wide-ranging problems as cancer, heart attacks, infections, Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune conditions, depression and obesity. When his friends cite these, Dr Rosen points out that the studies don’t show cause and effect.

“These associations can be really misleading,” he says. “Without more trials, we don’t have a good sense of how vitamin D supplements help.”

The one exception: vitamin D has conclusively been shown to promote strong bones. You need vitamin D to absorb calcium—that’s why the two

are often packaged together. But too much vitamin D (above the safe upper limit of 4,000 IU for adults) can lead to nausea, vomiting, constipation and weakness. And because vitamin D boosts calcium absorption, amounts above the upper limit can increase risks from both nutrients.

While blood levels of vitamin D are widely reported to be abysmally low, the latest research shows that most people have enough for healthy bones (above 20ng/ml). Since intake from foods such as fortified milk, fatty fish, eggs and mushrooms is sub-par, most of us get surprisingly meaningful amounts from the sun, which triggers D production in the skin.

“Even ten minutes of casual exposure on the hands and feet seems to make a difference,” Dr Rosen says.

Should you take a supplement?

Most adults probably don’t need one. But after the age of 70, when your bones need more vitamin D, your body begins to make less of it from the sun, so Dr Rosen recommends taking an extra 400 IU a day. Supplements may also be worthwhile for teens (who are in their prime bone-building years), people with disorders such as Crohn’s or celiac disease (which can affect D absorption) and obese people (whose excess body fat may stockpile the nutrient, so less circulates in blood).

Two ViTAmins To THink TwicE ABouT

Vitamin a: some research suggests that taking vitamin a supplements in amounts slightly higher than the rda of 900mcg for men and 700mcg for women may reduce bone-mineral density and increase the risk of fractures. in addition, two clinical trials have found increased risks of lung cancer and cardiovascular disease in smokers who took high doses of beta-carotene (which converts to vitamin a in the body).

Vitamin E: researchers studying whether vitamin e helps prevent prostate cancer found that taking 400 iu a day—more than the recommended 22.4 iu but the amount typically found in pills—increased the risks by 17 per cent. an earlier review of 19 clinical trials found that 400 iu a day may boost death rates. other research suggests that vitamin e supplements may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. despite these findings, a 2012 study reports that 20 per cent of men who visit urologists take vitamin e to prevent prostate cancer.

◗ Fibre supplements may help, but they’re not a licence to skip vegetables

In an ideal world, everyone would get their share of fibre from huge, crunchy salads and snacks of fresh fruit. But Joanne Slavin, who’s studied fibre, knows that’s not going to happen.

Most people get only about half the recommended intake of at least 25g of fibre a day, a bigger shortfall than with most nutrients, says Slavin, from the University of Minnesota’s Department of Food Science and Nutrition. That’s why she favours supplements to make up the difference. “You still need to eat fibre-rich foods such as fruits, vegetables, wholegrains and legumes,” Slavin says. “But if you can’t swap these for what you normally eat, a supplement can help you get what you need.”

Fibre—plant substances that the body doesn’t easily digest—lingers in the GI tract, where it nourishes good bacteria and slows digestion. It may lower the risk of heart disease and stroke, hypertension, obesity and some

cancers. Although much of what’s known about fibre’s health impact comes from studies of overall dietary patterns, clinical studies based on isolated fibre like that found in supplements also reported important benefits, like lowering cholesterol.

“Not all dietary fibres are alike,” Slavin says. For example, studies suggest that psyllium (used in liquid supplements like Metamucil) and wheat bran are good at promoting regularity; inulin can increase healthy bacteria in the gut; and oat bran and barley bran have been shown to lower cholesterol.

Should you take a supplement?

First try to boost fibre intake by tweaking your diet. If you still fall short, take 3g of fibre once a day to start (to avoid gas and bloating). If you tolerate the change after three days, increase to 3g three times a day. Check with your doctor if you have diabetes or take certain drugs, since fibre can lower blood sugar and reduce absorption of some medication.

“i accidentally pressed the panic button and summoned an armed response police team while in my first week of training in a new job.”

“first day of working as a cashier, i put the wrong code in for a voucher, giving the customer £3,000,000,000 credit.”

“first job, first week, i refused to let a ‘strange man’ into the shop before opening time. he was the regional manager.”

Getting Fit The Easy Way

By sus A nn AH H ick L ing

Susannah is twice winner of the Guild of Health Writers

Best Consumer Magazine

Health Feature

Are you feeling a bit physically inactive after the summer? Follow our easy tips to get moving—you won’t even need a pair of trainers.

■ Take the stairs. Making several trips up and down a few flights every day makes your heart beat faster, improving cardiovascular fitness. Plus, you’ll strengthen the gluteal muscles in your bottom.

■ Stay upright. Don’t automatically head for a seat on the bus or train, or sit down at a party. Studies are showing that being too sedentary is bad for long-term health—it may up your risk of some cancers and diabetes. Stand when you can.

■ Play with the kids. Hide and seek, football and Wii Fit games will benefit both older and younger generations.

QDo the special filters you can buy for vacuum cleaners actually relieve allergies?

A Unfortunately not. Vacuum cleaners, however high-quality, will usually stir up dander, pollen and dust. In a test of various vacuum cleaners, researchers put particletrapping devices on their noses; they

Quack Q uestion found all the machines sent cat dander and dust mites flying into the air. To keep allergy-causing particles down in your home, vacuum daily in high-traffic areas, and once or twice a week everywhere else. If that sounds too much like hard work, remember it will keep you fit as well as easing the sneezing!

foodiE fAcTs

The truth about olive oil rumour has it that using olive oil to cook is bad for your health. The internet is rife with claims such as, “The smoke is full of toxins,” and, “it gives off harmful free radicals.” sounds scary, right?

Well, when we dug deeper, we discovered that you can cook with olive oil—just avoid using high temperatures. That’s quite simply because olive oil has a lower smoke point (the temperature at which oil breaks down and can catch fire) than many other oils.

Active computer games have even been shown to lower blood glucose in people with diabetes.

■ Be mobile on the phone. Use a phone call as an excuse to get up and chat while you’re on the go.

■ Go shopping. Walking around the shops can burn about 200 calories an hour, much more than you’ll shed surfing for bargains on the net.

■ Have an activity break every hour. If you spend hours at a time sitting down, get up regularly and walk around for one to three minutes.

■ Buy a pedometer. It’s easy to overestimate how much activity you engage in, but this will show you how close you are to 10,000 steps a day—the number recommended for good health.

but far from being bad for you, a diet that includes olive oil may lower the risk of breast cancer and heart disease.

nutrition attrition

some foods lose some of their goodness when they’re cooked, but to varying degrees. in general, foods retain the most nutrients when they are steamed, stir-fried or microwaved.

Water-soluble vitamins, which include c (found in fresh fruit and veg) and the eight b vitamins, leach into water and are damaged by exposure to air, light and heat. This means they’re more easily destroyed during cooking than the fat-soluble vitamins a, D, e and K. Fibre content, on the other hand, changes little during cooking.

Men’s Health How To Let Off Steam

Men tend to show their rage more than women, but anger can increase cholesterol levels and suppress your immune system—it may even give you a heart attack. So what can you do to defuse it?

■ Take three deep breaths. Breathing deeply helps you release tension and lower your feelings of internal anger.

■ Don’t punch a pillow. Studies have found that, far from helping,

hitting something only serves to increase your hostility.

■ Remember, whoever loses it, loses. Losing your temper makes you look like the bad guy, no matter who’s at fault. Visualise a scene in which you got angry and replay the “tape” several times, each time imagining yourself responding in a different way. That will give you new options for dealing with tricky situations.

■ Picture a red stop sign in your mind. Alternatively, wear a rubber band on your wrist and snap it when you find your anger beginning to boil. Then take a few minutes to put the issue into perspective.

■ Don’t get mad, get active. Jump on your bike and go for a ride or attack the weeds in your garden. Vigorous activity helps dissipate anger.

■ Invest in an iPod. Then, when you feel yourself getting riled, switch on your portable music player, pop your headphones on and tune out the aggro.

did you know?

optimists are better at handling stress than pessimists, according to research published in the journal Health Psychology. it seems that gloomy types had trouble regulating the stress hormone cortisol and tended to have a higher baseline stress level than those people who looked on the bright side.

I Had Botox For My Migraines

“I started getting migraines about ten years ago, at the age of 23—just once or twice a month to begin with. By 2011 they were coming more frequently. In my worst month I had 22. I was working in Canada at the time—I’m a scientist studying pain, ironically—but I had to move home and in with my parents.

The migraines caused me to sleep during the day, and then I couldn’t sleep at night. I had no energy. My head was often so heavy I couldn’t lift it. None of the drugs worked except an anti-epileptic medication, but that had such severe side effects that I came off it.

At the National Migraine Centre in London, my neurologist suggested botox. It helps about 70 per cent of people with chronic migraine, so I was hopeful. I was approved on the NHS—you have to have headaches for more than 15 days a month and three failed medications—but I ended up paying to get it done quicker.

Having 31 injections in my temples, forehead, shoulders and the back of my neck was painful, but it only took five minutes. Afterwards, I managed

to go ten days without a migraine, the longest in years. After two sessions—it takes at least three— my migraines are down by more than half and less severe.

Now I say yes to more invitations and don’t worry so much about having migraines. I feel freer.”

fionA russELL

oTHEr surprising usEs for BoTox

Famed for smoothing out wrinkles, botulinum toxin (aKa botox) can also be used to treat:

■ Hyperhydrosis (excessive sweating)

■ overactive bladder

■ spasticity as a result of ms or stroke

■ Tennis elbow

■ squint

■ neck spasms.

The Path To Success Is Paved With Wrappers

By max pem B erton

Max is a hospital doctor and author. He’s also the resident doctor on ITV’s this morning

Succe S S aS a ho S pital doctor is based not on what you know, but who you know. There’s a group of people that make or break you, and it’s all based on bribery and corruption. They’re not the heads of the hospitals, the trust managers or consultants. They’re a handful of middle-aged women who sit in a ramshackle room crammed with filing cabinets. They’re the radiology secretaries.

These women hold the key to what every young doctor wants, the holy grail we’re all in search of after a ward round, the one thing that can please our consultants: a scan. Be it X-rays, ultrasound or CTs, it’s these ladies who are in charge of the waiting lists.

e ach morning after the ward round, I’m left with a list of scans that need to be booked. My consultant then swans off to theatre, blissfully unaware of the Herculean task he’s left me with. I have to overcome the fact that there’s a waiting list of at least a week, as he insists that the scans are performed that day. This is no easy task, but I’m not alone— every junior doctor faces the same problem, which is why I run. When you see a doctor running down the corridor in a

hospital, they’re not running to the scene of some medical emergency; they’re running to radiology to be first in the queue.

I’ve only got one patient, Mrs Arberry, who needs a scan this morning. She’s in her 80s and it’s of her abdomen, to find out why she has stomach pains. But our ward round over-ran, which means there’s no way I’ll be first in the queue to get it done today. Panic.

If I’m honest, most of the scans I’m asked to book aren’t at all necessary. But I never admit this to the radiology secretaries. Instead, every scan I need booked must become a matter of life or death. Success, though, is purely down to whether or not the secretaries like you. And how many Quality Street you bring them from the ward.

Mrs Arberry needs her scan, but the radiologist’s list is full. There’s no hope.

“Don’t worry love,” says Nora, one of the secretaries. “I’ll tell him she’s a

private patient, then he’ll do her. He’ll never know she’s not.”

She winks at me as I hand over some coffee creams. This is how the secretaries manage to achieve the seemingly impossible task of fitting people on to already overfull lists without anyone batting an eyelid. back on the ward, my pager goes off. It’s the consultant.

“I think we should also get a scan done on Mr Ashleigh. Can you get that for this afternoon?” he barks.

“I can’t guarantee it’ll be done today,” I reply, “but I know some women who can.”

I run off to radiology, my pockets bulging with Quality Street.

medicaL mytHS—BuSted!

You Can Eat Food Five Seconds After It Falls On The Floor

WHat’S tHe trutH?

Studies have shown that bacteria can contaminate food more or less instantaneously when it’s dropped. There was no difference in rates of contamination between food left for one or six seconds. However, after one minute, contamination rates are about ten times higher. Most bacteria cause no harm, but bugs that cause food poisoning, such as E. coli, can live for over a month on the floor. If

the food lands by a colony of E. coli, it will be instantly contaminated.

WHere did tHe mytH come from?

You often hear people shout “Five-second rule!” as they scoop some food off the floor they’ve just dropped, before popping it in their mouths. It’s not entirely clear where the “rule” comes from, but it’s firmly entrenched in folklore to the extent that many believe it’s a fact.

So, tHere’S notHing to Worry aBout?

The moisture levels and surface shape of the food have been found to affect how much bacteria attaches to it, as well as where it’s dropped—areas of high traffic have more bacteria than others. In general though, it’s a judgment call whether you want to eat something after it’s been on the floor—just don’t assume that if you rush to pick it up in under five seconds, it’ll be safe.

Focus on Vision

A close look at e ective ways to help safeguard your eyes

It’s easy to take your eyes for granted; but, like every vital organ, they need looking after to ensure they stay healthy.

As you get older, natural changes occur; for example, from your 40s, as the lenses lose some flexibility, you’ll probably find it harder to focus. Even more important, then, to be alert to such changes, and take steps to keep your eyes in maximum health.

TOP TIPS FOR HEALTHY EYES:

■ Have regular eye checks. The health of your eyes can tell your optician a lot about the health of the rest of your body too.

■ Rest your eyes. If you’re doing prolonged close work such as sitting at a computer, reading, needlework or modelmaking, be sure to glance up regularly and look into the far distance; blink a lot to keep the eyes moist.

■ Choose an eye-friendly diet. Go for dark-green leafy vegetables such as kale, which has high concentrations of lutein; oily fish, rich in omega-3 fatty acids and citrus fruits filled with vitamin C. Eggs, nuts and beans are also great for eyes.

■ Add a supplement. Vitabiotics Visionace is a unique research-based formula used by leading UK optometrists and eye specialists. It contains a complete spectrum of nutrients such as vitamin A, B2 and zinc which contribute tothe maintenance of normal vision.

Plus natural mixed caretonoids and Bilberry extract. There’s no need for an additional multivitamin supplement.

TheFlightLong toRevival

It went from the most abundant bird in the world to extinction within decades. But could modern technology resurrect the passenger pigeon?

By C RISPIN A N d RE w S

t h ere were so many birds that they blotted out the midday sun. A mile wide and 300 miles long, the flock took 14 hours to pass overhead. Some roosting sites went on for 40 miles. There were sometimes 100 nests per tree. Writers of the time called them “a living torrent”, “a feathered tempest”, and “a biological storm”. Only the Rocky Mountain locust gathered in greater numbers.

When the first Europeans arrived, North America had five billion passenger pigeons. In 1866, the Ontario flock alone was said to contain three and a half billion birds. Yet on September 1, 1914, the last passenger pigeon, called Martha in honour of President George Washington’s wife, died in Cincinnati Zoo—thousands of years of evolution destroyed in a few decades. fast forward 100 years, however, and we find that scientists are making serious attempts to bring back the doomed bird.

On March 15 last year, a group of leading scientists, conservationists and researchers came to a conference in Washington—christened Revive and Restore after the organising nonprofit group who set it up—to discuss whether humans, responsible for wiping out so many animals, should take advantage of modern technology and make efforts to revive

them. This would include not only passenger pigeons but also thylacines, dodos, Steller’s sea cows, moas and woolly mammoths.

At the conference, several scientists, revealed that they’d been trying independently to revive extinct species for a while—such as the Australian gastric-brooding frog, which gave birth through its mouth, and the auroch, an extinct cow that used to roam the plains of Europe and Central Asia. It was also announced that scientists had been sequencing passenger-pigeon DNA since 2001.

Ben Novak, a geneticist working for Revive and Restore on the passengerpigeon project, explains that DNA from a stuffed specimen is required to bring back an extinct animal. This isn’t a problem with the passenger pigeon; there are 1,532 stuffed specimens in museums and private collections around the world. Joel Greenburg, author of A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon’s Flight to Extinction, has a bird called Heinrich— named after German-American composer Anthony Phillip Heinrich, who wrote a whole symphony in 1858 about passenger-pigeon migration—while

Martha herself was frozen in a 300-pound ice cube when she died.

Unfortunately, DNA from an animal that died over a 100 years ago isn’t well-preserved enough to get the intact genome—just tiny fragments. It’s not like cloning

Hunters open fire on a flock of passenger pigeons. A single shot could bring down a hundred birds

“You have to put together enough fragments from a specimen’s damaged cells to get as much of the genome as you can. It’s like tearing up ten copies of a book and then trying to make one book from all the fragments.”

Dolly the sheep from a live animal; DNA starts decaying as soon as an organism dies.

“Even if you had a two-year-old taxidermy piece, you wouldn’t get whole strands of DNA,” says Novak.

Scientists also need a living animal’s genome to map their copy against— something similar with a high proportion of identical DNA, so they have a picture in front of them of the sort of thing they’re trying to build. Novak is

using the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative, the band-tailed pigeon. “It’s virtually the same bird, except passengers had a longer tail, a peachcoloured breast and a stronger flocking mentality,” he says.

Novak thinks it will be at least ten to 15 years before the first passenger pigeon hatches—maybe less, depending on how much funding Revive and Restore can attract. To get there will require further breakthroughs in genome sequencing, and someone also needs to come up with a way of culturing a band-tailed pigeon’s germ cells. Then Novak can start thinking about altering the pigeon’s genetic code and eventually introducing living cells into a band-tailed pigeon embryo.

After that, it’ll be another ten to 15 years to build up a captive flock ready for release, and another 75 years before we see large flocks of pigeons in the skies again.

If anyone manages to recreate a passenger pigeon, you’ll see what looks like a slightly larger, more colourful American turtle dove—greyish blue above and reddish tan feathers below. Alone, the passenger pigeon was unremarkable; in flocks, it was like no bird we know today. Gigantic hordes of these birds travelled across North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, roosting and nesting in the vast deciduous forests.

Ben Novak examines some pigeon specimens at the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco

For tens of thousands of years, the sheer size of these flocks protected the species from predators. Everything from mink, martens and weasels to hawks, eagles, wolves and bobcats would turn up at passenger-pigeon nesting grounds. Native Americans killed adult birds for food and baby birds for their oil, which they used like butter. But despite all the unwanted attention, nesting colonies were so big they still had a 90 per cent success rate and the species continued to thrive. Unfortunately,

against European settlers with their guns and nets, a large flock simply meant a bigger target.

Early settlers caught passenger pigeons for food and feathers, and shot them as vermin. Their descendants shot the birds for sport and cleared forests, the pigeon’s habitat, for farming and wood. But it wasn’t until the mid-19th century, when railroads connected the eastcoast cities with the inland settlements, that passenger pigeons became really big business.

The thylacine, a wolflike marsupial from Tasmania, was killed off by settlers around the same time as the passenger pigeon

like leaves. Sometimes the trees were set on fire, or sulphur was burned underneath. Other hunters placed bait on the ground and threw huge nets, some large enough to trap 3,500 birds at a time, over those that landed.

“The cheapest protein around, locals called it,” says Greenburg. Hunters shot them out of the sky daily in their thousands—the birds flew so closely together that a single shot could kill a hundred. They were also shot from their nests or shaken out of the trees

Railroads transported the meat, preserved in ice, to big city markets. Some people even used new telecommunications technology to locate and track the pigeons. Every day, hundreds of hunters harvested thousands of birds. It’s no surprise that, before long, there were no birds left to harvest.

Greenburg says that the Americans started their environmental movement in the 1890s as a direct result of this catastrophe, and the same sense of collective guilt is behind the drive to bring the pigeon back.

i llustration: © markku murto/art/ a lamy

population to maintain a wild population? Would the cloned animals survive? A Pyrenean ibex, cloned in 2009 from an animal that had died nine years earlier, lived only a few moments. And if a genetically engineered animal does survive, will it be able to function, never mind function like the extinct animal? Will we have a passenger pigeon, or just a band-tailed pigeon that looks a bit like a passenger pigeon?

despIte all thIs, many of today’s conservationists have concerns about the resources devoted to resurrecting extinct animals. Why should we bother, they argue, when there are so many living animals that desperately need our help to prevent them going the same way? And wouldn’t reintroduced animals face the same problems—such as habitat destruction, poaching and climate change—that wiped them out in the first place?

Even if scientists manage to produce some pigeons—or thylacines or mammoths, for that matter—would there be enough genetic diversity in the captive

Ben Novak insists that it’ll be as if the last remaining passenger pigeon hybridised with band-tailed pigeons and the resulting offspring never again bred with band-tailed pigeons. “By our intent, they’ll look like passenger pigeons, flock like passenger pigeons, live as passenger pigeons, and their DNA will have passengerpigeon genes,” he says.

Novak adds that it’s not mankind’s collective guilt that drives him to do this. It’s simply that there’s an ecological niche for an arboreal pigeon in the Eastern US, and reinstalling the passenger pigeon would benefit the ecosystem. “Neither band-tailed pigeons nor rock pigeons have filled

Ben Novak (left) and Stewart Brand, cofounder of Revive and Restore, show off pigeons from the Smithsonian collection

the ecological niche left by the passenger’s demise,” he says.

Joel Greenburg sees another longterm problem. “People in the US and Canada today won’t tolerate gigantic flocks of birds,” he says. But Novak is unyielding. “If we can’t have million-strong flocks, let’s have tens of thousands.”

of course, there are deeper lessons to be learned from the passenger pigeon’s demise, such as what it tells us about human capacity for greed and denial.

pigeon numbers started getting lower, people just made up stories to convince themselves that everything was fine, rather than accept the truth.”

“If we’re not good stewards, then even the most abundant resource will eventually run out”

“There were so many pigeons— people back then thought it was an endless resource,” says Greenburg. “When, at the height of the slaughter,

Some claimed, for instance, that pigeons nested 11 times a year, when in fact it was only once. Others speculated the birds had flown off to the Arizona Desert, the South American rainforest, even through the Bermuda triangle.

Greenburg adds that the passenger pigeon is a cautionary tale for those who focus only on what they want today.

“If we’re not good stewards, then even the most abundant resource— fish stocks, oil, water—will eventually run out,” he warns.

UNdELIVEREd LEttERS FROM HIStORy

dear leonardo da vinci, Scrub the sitting—I’ve got to go to the dentist. Yours, Mona lisa

dear michelangelo, his holiness wants the ceiling plain magnolia emulsion.

dear king harold, good news! Your new spectacles have arrived and are ready for collection.

Sincerely, Specsavers, the high Street, hastings

FROM I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue

Rooftop

There are no shortage of beautiful views in this country, so why not combine them with good-quality dining? We’ve selected a few establishments that offer the best of both

By Lau R a D E a N -O S g OOD

The Roof Terrace

CamBRIDgE

This restaurant at The Varsity hotel, Cambridge, takes in one of Britain’s most impressive and historic skylines. The city’s combination of Gothic spires and contemporary architecture makes for a spectacular view over a landscape that’s nurtured many of this country’s greatest minds, including Samuel Pepys, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking.

You can look down to the punts gliding on the River Cam, out to the horizon—or, on a clear night, up to the stars. The Roof Terrace recently joined forces with the Cambridge Astronomical Association to hold astronomy masterclasses for space enthusiasts looking to combine stargazing with dinner. Guests last year were treated to a fine celestial performance as they watched a Perseid meteor shower in the company of esteemed astronomer Paul Fellows, who guides diners through deep space with the aid of lasers and telescopes. More astronomy masterclasses are expected this month, with mulled wine and hot-water bottles on hand for chilly nights.

The Roof Terrace has also run a series of other events, including an open-air cinema showing classic films. This year saw a run of plays curated by the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival —and, of course, performed in full Elizabethian regalia.

■ Visit thevarsityhotel.co.uk for details

Frank’s

PECkham, SOuth LONDON

The summit of a multi-storey car park might not be top of your wish list for an afternoon bite, but think again. Frank’s pop-up cafe and Campari bar, which boasts stunning views over the capital, has been a huge hit with locals and has helped raise Peckham’s profile further afield.

Open June to September, Frank’s was originally constructed in 2009 to accompany artist Hannah Barry’s summer exhibition Bold Tendencies. Both have returned every summer since, with bigger, bolder installations and performance art. “The craziest

show I’ve seen here involved two men throwing electricity at each other in the dark,” says local resident Becky Williams. “It had everyone captivated.” This was Lords of Lightning, in which metal-clad performers conduct forks of electricity between one another, an act that’s since become a success on the festival circuit.

Perch on a scaffold plank-stool and take time to spot London’s architectural icons, from Wembley’s arch in the west to the Olympic stadium in the east—or wander, drink in hand, across the exhibition space to admire the work of talented local artists.

■ Visit frankscafe.org.uk for details

The Bridge Café aVON, BRIStOL

This aptly named cafe overlooks the beautiful Avon Gorge, home to plentiful wildlife, fauna and one of Britain’s most recognisable structures—the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Though Brunel’s magnificent structure can be seen from far and wide, you may still find yourself swapping seats with your dining partner throughout your meal to ensure a fair share of the views.

The cafe’s terrace and backdrop tend to attract some well-known guests. Last year, it welcomed one of Bristol’s most famous exports when a giant sculpture of Gromit (of Wallace and Gromit fame) was installed for the summer as part of a fundraising event led by Bristolbased Aardman Animations.

The bridge marks its 150th birthday this year, with a selection of events taking place until December. Take a free guided tour, embark on a poetry walk or visit on Open Doors Day.

■ Visit cliftonbridge.org.uk/events and theavongorge.com for details

The Treehouse BELfaSt

This quirky bar and restaurant in the centre of Belfast captures the opulence of the Roaring Twenties and hosts a variety of shows—think top hats and long tails. Watch burlesque dancers twirl, catch a run of Bugsy Malone from the Treehouse terrace, or dine on Irish/ French cuisine in the speakeasy-style restaurant to get up close.

Owner Eamon McCusker bought the ground-floor restaurant 12 years ago, adding the first-floor Supper Club and finally the top-floor Treehouse terrace just three years ago. There are daily performances, with new shows added regularly.

“We like anything that’s leftfield, anything that makes for a surprising night out,” says Eamon. But though the staff do get involved in the show, you won’t catch the owner in song. “I’m not a performer myself—more the glue that keeps it all together,” he points out.

■ Visit cabaretbelfast.com for details

Roof Garden Playground

maNChEStER

This former Victorian schoolhouse is now home to an urban playground for adults—and the hammocks and hot tub are a far cry from the hoops and sticks of its school-day incarnation.

The red-brick building started life as an educational establishment for children of the travellingbarge community, and the terrace was the site of the playground. Nowadays, the south-facing restaurant, with views over Deansgate, is popular with locals who come to enjoy relaxed al-fresco drinks and barbecues.

■ Visit eclectichotels.co.uk for details

Sky Bar

EDINBuRgh

Enjoy drinks and snacks while looking out over Edinburgh Castle, and ponder the noble knights and horrible histories that helped shaped the site—parts of which date back to the 12th century.

The Sky Bar sits at the top of the former 1930s Old St Cuthbert’s Co-op building, which was transformed into the Point Hotel (now Double Tree) by renowned architect Andrew Doolan. The bar opens its doors on the first Thursday of each month, to allow visitors to gaze out from the floor-toceiling windows.

“The first time you see the view, you feel somewhat overwhelmed,” says bars manager Jaume Beato. “Some people have even cried! Personally, I love the rising lights in the city and castle at dusk.”

■ Visit doubletree3.hilton.com for details

Knock Castle PERthShIRE

The grand sweep of the Scottish hills as seen from the restaurant at Knock Castle proves the point that Britain really does specialise in breathtaking countryside. Fresh air abounds for diners at the imposing 19th-century hotel nestled in the Strathearn Valleys in Crieff, an hour north of Glasgow.

The family-run business is helmed by Jason Henderson, head chef and manager, who bought the castle with his father seven years ago.

“We like to offer luxury without any pretence,” says Jason. “If you want me

to arrange something lavish—like book a helicopter—I happily will, but overall it’s about creating a home from home.”

Activities in the local area include golf, skydiving and white-water rafting, which count as relaxing pursuits for some. For others, just taking in the views should do the trick. “When I’m having a bad day, I sit on the terrace, have a coffee and think, Life’s not so bad,” says Jason.

If the surroundings aren’t enough to soothe you, enjoy a treatment in the spa and a drink on the terrace in your fluffy white dressing gown.

■ Visit knockcastle.com for details

RSC Rooftop Restaurant & Bar

StRatfORD uPON aVON

The views from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s restaurant may give diners an idea of what inspired The Bard to craft his many works. RSC Stratford houses three theatres, including one open-air, which receive over a million visitors combined each year. And the RSC’s reputation for innovation carries over to the Rooftop’s kitchen—locally sourced ingredients help make up the contemporary British menu.

“We’ve got to match what’s going on at the company,” says head chef Nick Funnell. “The food has to be as good as what’s happening on stage.”

■ Visit rsc-rooftop-restaurant.co.uk for details

If you know a great rooftop restaurant that we haven’t mentioned here, tell us about it by emailing readersletters@ readersdigest.co.uk

The That Survived

Tree 9/11

By Jane Goodall

The famous anthropologist recalls that appalling day— and what gave her hope

Iwas in n ew York on that terrible day in 2001 when the World Trade Centre was attacked, travelling with a friend and colleague. We were staying at a hotel in mid-Manhattan. First came the confused reporting from the TV screen. Then another

photo: © Fred r Conrad/ t he n ew York t imes/ r edux

The callery pear tree in bloom at the 9/11 Memorial

colleague arrived, white and shaken. She actually saw, from a taxi, the plane crashing into the second tower.

It was eight days before there was a plane on which we could leave. We flew to Portland, Oregon, where I had to give a talk to a boys’ secondary school, entitled “Reason for Hope”. It was the hardest lecture I’ve ever had to give. Only when I was actually talking, looking out over all the young, bewildered faces, did I find the things to say, drawing on the terrible events of history, how they had passed, how we humans always find reserves of strength and courage to overcome that which fate throws our way.

The tree was sent off to the Parks Department’s nursery in the Bronx. Richie Cabo, the nursery manager, told me that when he first saw the decapitated tree he didn’t think anything could save her. But once the dead tissues had been cut away and her trimmed roots deeply planted in rich soil, Survivor proved him wrong.

“In time,” said Richie, “she took care of herself.”

In the spring of 2010 disaster struck Survivor again. Richie got news that the tree had been blown over by a

In October, a clean-up worker found the tree, smashed and pinned between blocks of concrete

Just over ten years later, on a cool, sunny April morning in 2012, I went to Ground Zero to meet a callery pear tree named Survivor. In the 1970s, this tree had been placed near Building 5 of the World Trade Centre, and each year her white blossoms had brought a touch of spring into a world of concrete. After the 9/11 attack, the tree disappeared beneath the fallen towers.

But in October, a clean-up worker found her, smashed and pinned between blocks of concrete. She was decapitated and the seven remaining feet of trunk were mangled, with only two or three limbs and covered in ash.

storm that was raging outside, with 100mph winds. At once he rushed there with his three young children. They found the roots partly exposed, and he and the children and the other nursery staff worked together to try to rescue her.

At first they only partially lifted the tree, packing in compost and mulch so as not to break the roots. For a long while they sprayed the tree with water to minimise the shock, hoping she’d make it. A few weeks later they set to work to get Survivor upright.

“It wasn’t a simple operation,” Richie told me. “She was 30 feet tall, and it took a heavy-duty truck to do the job.”

Again, Survivor survived.

When Ron Vega, director of design

for the 9/11 Memorial site, heard that Survivor was still alive in 2007, he decided to incorporate her into the memorial design. She was planted on December 22, 2010, near the footprint of the South Tower.

While overseeing the design, Ron made sure that the tree was planted so that the traumatised side faces the public. Some people, Ron told us, weren’t pleased to have the tree back, saying that she “spoiled” the symmetry of the landscaping, as she’s a different species from nearby trees. Indeed, she is different. On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, when the memorial site was opened to survivors and family

When found, the mangled tree was decapitated and had few limbs left

members, many of them tied blue ribbons onto Survivor’s branches.

as i walked towards this special tree with Richie in April 2012, I felt in awe. We stood together outside the railing. We reached out to gently touch the ends of her branches. Many of us— perhaps all—had tears in our eyes.

Survivor should have been in full bloom in April when I met her. But, like so many trees in this time of climate change, she’d flowered about two weeks early. However, before we left, I suddenly saw a cluster of white flowers. Just three of them, but somehow it was like a sign. It reminded me of a story I read in a newspaper. In the aftermath of the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, a TV crew went to document the situation. They interviewed a man who had lost everything, not only his house and all his belongings, but his family also. The reporter asked him if he had any hope.

He turned and pointed to a cherry tree beginning to bloom. “Look there,” he said, pointing at the new blossoms. “That’s what gives me hope.”

an om I nou S PR e S c RIP t I on Medicine bottles aren’t the best places to make a typo: “Take one capsule by mouth nightly before ded.” aS Seen on the InteRnet

Portraiture expert Philip Mould is a regular on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow and author of Sleepers: In Search of Lost Old Masters

If I Ruled the World Philip Mould

I’d make sure we strive to find enrichment from creative artefacts, raising art high on the agenda. It’s too often taken for granted or too briefly considered, but a great piece of art can express and reflect feelings we might not normally experience. At their best, intuitive artists have a way of understanding and reconfiguring thoughts and emotions that can be hugely stimulating and unpredictable.

I’d encourage people to have their portrait done. It reminds you of the difference between your projection of yourself and reality. We like to define our own destinies and order our human records, destroying things we don’t want others to see. Portraits show us a side of our character that’s not dominated by our own self-perception.

I’d create a rearguard action against the virtual. We’ve got into the perilous habit, particularly the young, of settling for the virtual rather than the real. It’s easy to Google a picture of the Mona Lisa, but

illustrated by sam falconer

Why you should protect your loved ones from rising funeral costs

Paying for your funeral in advance could save your loved ones money and worry.

In 2006, the average cost of a funeral was £2,225 and by 2013, this had risen to £3,594. That’s an increase of 7.09% each year. If costs continue to increase at this rate, funeral costs are expected to be over £5,800 by just 2020†.

If you already have financial arrangements in place, such as an ISA or other savings account, which you intend to take care of funeral costs in the future, you may find the value of your savings unable to keep pace with funeral costs if they continue to rise. And with the current low level of rates on savings accounts, pre-paying your funeral could be a wise financial decision.

Avoid future price increases

The Guaranteed Funeral Plan from Dignity, the UK’s leading funeral plan provider, lets you pay for the funeral in advance, fixing the cost of the guaranteed services at today’s prices. The plan will protect you and your loved ones from any further increase in these funeral costs, which is something you can’t guarantee your savings will do.

Rising Funeral Costs 2006 – 2020†

Ensure your personal wishes are met

With the Guaranteed Funeral Plan from Dignity, you can take care of the arrangements too. Although very often people detail what they want in their Will, this may not be read until after the funeral has taken place.

You can add any special requests into your Dignity plan at any time. In doing so, you’re making sure your loved ones won’t be left guessing what you would have wanted, and they won’t have the added pressure of making arrangements at an already difficult time.

More than 600,000 people have made provision for their funeral in advance with Dignity

Your funeral couldn’t be in safer hands

You really are in safe hands when choosing the Guaranteed Funeral Plan from Dignity. Having launched the UK‘s first ever funeral plan back in 1985, they remain the UK’s leading funeral plan provider and have helped more than 600,000 people make provision for their funeral in advance.

When you pay for the plan, every penny of your money is placed into the totally independent National Funeral Trust, where it is managed and protected by some of the most respected names in the financial industry. This means you can rest assured your money will be there when the time comes. All it takes is one simple phone call to Dignity to put the plan into motion.

Choose a payment period to suit you

Dignity offer a number of payment options. You can pay with a single payment, or you could spread the cost over 12 months at no extra charge. Other monthly options are also available if you prefer.

You won’t need to worry about topping up your savings to pay towards funeral costs once you have the Guaranteed Funeral Plan from Dignity.

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For your FREE no-obligation information guide, elegant pen and a £50 discount, call Dignity today on 0800 085 0211 and quote RDSEP14ND

Shark

Wre Stler

The predator had the woman in its jaws. Without thinking, Trevor Burns lunged at it

By Helen Signy

ElysE Frankcom was still rattlEd by the argument she’d had with her best friend the night before. The 19-year-old hated that they’d parted on bad terms, and now all she wanted to do was dive into the crystal sea and forget the quarrel. She knew that by donning her weight belt, mask and snorkel, she could escape to a tranquil and magical world. Frankcom’s diving job involved taking tourists to swim with dolphins.

photo: Danita Delimont/getty images

The 33 paying passengers on the six-hour snorkel tour in Rockingham, Western Australia, this chilly spring morning in October 2010 were a mixed bunch: three children, a handful of middle-aged women, family groups and visitors from overseas. Among them was Trevor Burns, a 48-year-old bear of a man. Weighing 20 stone with a full grey beard cascading down his chest, he was hard to miss.

Burns and his wife Julie had shared many adventures before settling in Perth. This trip was a treat for their 24-year-old daughter Megan, visiting from Brisbane. Julie rarely ventured into the water. Today she was content to sit on the deck. She could relax, chat and photograph Trevor and Megan with the pod of dolphins. For his part, Burns was afraid of little, except this morning as he stepped onto the jetty, he flinched at the chill in the air.

Frankcom readied her snorkelling gear and strapped the precautionary shark-repellent shield to her ankle. Meanwhile, her co-workers couldn’t find the large-size wetsuit Julie Burns had requested when she’d booked her husband’s ticket. With the cruise set to head off at 8am sharp, a staff member dashed to the warehouse a few streets away to fetch a bigger suit.

As they waited, Frankcom and her colleagues shared exciting news with their passengers: a dolphin in a familial pod had given birth the previous week and they had hopes of seeing the week-old calf.

Throughout the morning, the 50foot custom-built diving boat cruised Rockingham’s sheltered bay and islands. With everyone looking for fins breaking the surface, it wasn’t long before the crew homed in on the dolphins. The tourists were divided into four groups to take turns entering the water. One guide in each group controlled a motorised sea scooter trailing the swimmers behind, each swimmer gripping onto the belt of the person in front.

Today Frankcom’s job was to attract and entertain the dolphins, keeping them on the surface. While this human chain tagged through the water, she swam above and below, keeping the dolphins engaged. As the dolphins frolicked around the delighted swimmers, those on the viewing deck marvelled at the whistles and splashes, and relaxed with laughter.

Burns and Megan called out in excitement to Julie, once back on board after their first close encounter with the dolphins. Burns then stepped aside to let a staff member pass him on the narrow walkway. As he did, he slipped and careered into the arm of a nearby seat. “I’m fine,” he assured everyone, feeling a bit embarrassed. “It’s just a little sore.” But his ribs really ached.

Just before lunchtime, the boat was about 300 yards off Garden Island in 20 feet of water. A crew member spotted another small pod: it was two females and a newborn calf

that couldn’t have been more than a couple of hours old. Unlike the previous groups, these dolphins seemed erratic, darting off unexpectedly before returning to the diving boat.

Julie, Megan and the other tourists on the deck found it a challenge to take photos. So Frankcom agreed to go in. “Just be careful. Take it slow,” a member of the crew reminded her. “No sudden movements— we don’t want to scare them off.”

Frankcom’s job was to dive to the seabed and encourage the trio to swim up to the surface. Just one group would go in this time. Forgetting his sore ribs, Burns took the one spare spot and Frankcom slipped carefully back into the water. She totally forgot to switch on the ankle device that emitted an electric pulse to deter sharks.

Bdown. It must be because of the baby, she thought as she rose to the surface for a quick breath of air just ahead of her group.

Then it hit her. An almighty force from behind knocked her clear out of the water. As she flailed and gasped for air, she caught a glimpse of the boat then looked down into the water below. All she could see was a grey wall of flesh. It was a great white shark.

An almighty force from behind knocked Frankcom clear out of the water

Just a yard behind Frankcom, between her and the boat, Burns was stunned to see a grey mass torpedo shoot past him, sending a fast gush of water in its wake. For a split second he thought it must be one of the friendly dolphins, before he watched in horror as the creature more than twice the length of a human adult latched onto both of Frankcom’s legs.

urns and the others snorkelled on the surface as Frankcom dived down to attract the pod. Within minutes, she’d herded the three dolphins back up to the snorkellers, but the trio were quixotic—they kept disappearing, then would reappear, until in a flash of silver they were gone again. Once more, Frankcom tried to rally the trio towards the surface. They started to rise from the bottom of the ocean but then would swim back

Its massive jaws clamped across her wetsuit, from under her knees to the top of her thighs. It momentarily let go and then took a powerful second bite to ensure a better grip. At this point, Frankcom blacked out.

Get off her! was Burns’s only thought as he lunged at the shark in an attempt to get it to let go. Throwing his arms wide, he grabbed the predator behind its head in a bear hug, then held on for dear life as it thrashed around violently in the water. All around him was a haze

of red water. Unable to meet his hands around its massive, powerful body, Burns used all his strength to grip its rough skin. Blinded by the churning red water, the shark suddenly flung him up into the air as if he was a rag doll, sending his legs up over his head, before plunging back below the surface again. But he didn’t let go.

Amid the chaos of the thrashing shark, the blood-stained waves and his own fear, Burns focused on one thought only—he had to get the shark off Frankcom.

Back on the boat there was chaos. The siren was calling the swimmers out of the water. From their perch up top, Julie and Megan saw the churning water turn white, then pink, then red. No one realised Frankcom was still in the water: all they could see was Burns’s solid form being thrown around, his legs flying through the air as the shark tried to shake him off.

Burns couldn’t see anything clearly, but he was thinking rationally. Adrenalin was keeping him sharply focused and masking the pain of his damaged ribs. He had to hold on. He didn’t know what would come next.

Frankcom, with the shark clamped around her legs, was bleeding profusely from severed arteries. Reviving, and with what strength she had left, she tried to punch the shark on the nose. Her efforts were pointless, her fist simply bouncing off the great white like a shoe kicking a tyre. Fumbling in the

blood-red water, Frankcom remembered the anklet. Reaching down, she managed to flick the “on” button of the shark shield. And just as she did, she lapsed into unconsciousness. The shark-shield anklet works by sending an electrical impulse to the shark’s nose, which causes unpleasant muscle spasms. Burns was still in a do-or-die embrace when the creature felt the discomfort of the high-frequency signal. It stopped bucking immediately. And just as quickly as it appeared, it ricocheted away back out to sea. As the beast powered to get away from the silent torture of the repeller, Burns’ hold was simply torn away.

As the water cleared, Burns could see Frankcom was sinking. Her face mask was missing, and her eyes were open as she sank lower and lower. He duck-dived down and grabbed her from the ocean floor.

Tourists were still scrambling to get out of the water and onto the sea-level platform at the back of the boat when they realised Burns had Frankcom, and they crowded round to help pull her to safety.

The shark had torn apart her legs but her wetsuit was still in good shape and was holding the remnants of her legs together. Burns cradled her head and comforted her while a paramedic and a nurse among the passengers set to work to stabilise her, strapping and raising her legs to impede blood loss.

An ambulance rushed Frankcom to a helicopter, which took her the

30 miles to a hospital in Perth. During emergency surgery, doctors removed three-quarters of a shark’s tooth that was lodged in the bone of her left thigh and sewed up her wounds with over 200 stitches to her thighs and legs. Meanwhile Burns checked his rib injuries with nurses, who said he’d

Star of Courage recipient Trevor Burns with Elyse Frankcom not- S o- S moot H criminal

either cracked or badly bruised his ribs in the fall on the boat.

Shark experts guessed the attacker had been tracking the baby dolphin, and its presence explained why the pod was behaving oddly.

Frankcom made up with her best friend straight away. If nothing else, the horrific experience taught her to treat each moment with her loved ones as something precious. She took several months to walk without crutches, and still has occasional leg pain.

Burns received a Star of Courage, one of Australia’s top awards for civilian bravery. He recently bought himself a snorkel, wetsuit and weight belt to take up snorkelling. Still thrilled at the beauty of the Western Australian seas, his concern now is that people learn to respect the habits of sharks. “They’re not like a dog you can train. They’re only doing what comes naturally,” he says.

Meanwhile, Julie is more determined than ever that the top deck is the safest place to be.

A robber who attempted to hide his identity while raiding a petrol station has become a laughing stock after his face, as clear as day, was picked up on CCTV. his disguise? A see-through plastic bag.

Debbie Mason (below) braved the altitude to explore Peru’s Machu Picchu

By Catherine Cole

My Great Escape: Walking The Inca Trail

Reader Debbie Mason from Somerset explored the magical Machu Picchu settlement in Peru

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

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

The TickeTs were booked—my husband and I were off on a holiday of a lifetime to Peru. I tried to imagine what climbing Machu Picchu would be like, but I couldn’t.

Outside the city of Cusco, Machu Picchu was built in the 15th century by the indigenous Inca population. It sits at an altitude of nearly 7,900 feet and is believed to have been an estate for a former Inca emperor.

We arrived early, and the mountain’s misty morning rain stung our nostrils as we climbed the steep, uneven steps into the cloud line. As we reached the top, the clouds cleared and we could see the entire site in all its glory.

Our first stop was at the Caretaker’s Hut, a ruin where the cemetery caretaker lived, which gave us the first full view of Machu Picchu. The vast site is pretty much intact, though some archaeologists believe it wasn’t even completed when the Incas abandoned it during the Spanish Conquest.

We spent an entire day wandering around this ancient site, sharing the rugged paths with the inquisitive roaming alpaca and our Inca guide Rosa, who had lived in the area all her life. The views over the valley and the raging Willkanuta

© John Bentley/Al AM y

river below were stunning, but what was even more amazing was the knowledge that the Incas had of the sun and stars. The Temple of the Sun—one of three structures making up Machu Picchu—contained a large rock, possibly used as an altar because there’s evidence of both animal (and even human) sacrifice. During the summer solstice, the sun shines through one of the temple windows and precisely strikes the rock. There are other places throughout the site where similar things occur.

Our visit left me emotional and quite sad that the Inca people had felt threatened enough to abandon such a beautiful and deeply meaningful site. I also felt elated that I’d managed to climb so many steps at such a high altitude, and had braved the precipitous drops to finally experience Machu Picchu.

■ Journey latin ameriCa (020 3603 8023; journeylatinamerica. co.uk) offers a 15-day tour of Peru from £2,236pp.

postcard from… Nepal

Autumn marks the start of landlocked Nepal’s dry season, and makes an excellent time to visit. The isolated Asian nation boasts some of the most stunning scenery on earth—including Lake Rara, the country’s biggest lake, hidden within the eponymous national park. The country’s scenery doesn’t start and stop with Everest—although, arguably, it’s what draws most tourists in. The surrounding mountains offer some real adventure for visitors, including heli-skiing and hiking. And at the end of the day, there’s usually a beautiful Nepalese palace or tea house to retire to.

■ asian explorations

(01367 850 566; asianexplorations. com) has a seven-night tailormade trip from £6,522pp based on two sharing, including transfers, full-board accommodation, permits and equipment. Flights are extra.

Things to Do This Month

r ome i N t wo mi N u tes

■ w h AT T o d o: Still warm well into the autumn, Rome makes a great city break destination. Its vibrant arts scene kicks off next month, seeing a packed schedule of opera and theatre as well as the Rome Jazz Festival (romajazz.it).

■ w here T o sTAy: Luxury Regina Hotel Baglioni is one of the most decadent places to stay in the city, renowned as the meeting place of artists, writers and actors during the famed Dolce Vita period (+39 6642 1111; baglionihotels.com).

■ w h AT T o e AT : Fortunato al Pantheon does a neat line in superbly cooked classic dishes—all within eyeline of the Pantheon (+39 0667 92788; ristorantefortunato.it).

■ how To geT There: Flights start from £26.99 one-way with easyJet (0330 365 5000; easyjet.com).

s hort vs lo N g haul trips

s horT : Enjoy relaxed cycling routes through Burgundy wine towns and the region’s picturesque canals and waterways. From £1,199pp for eight nights, including six evening meals and breakfast (01606 828 156; headwater.co.uk).

Long: Tour Cape Town’s verdant wine country and beautiful wine estates, as well as cycling along some of South Africa’s dramatic coast. From £2,399pp for a 14-day trip, including flights and accommodation (0845 287 3647; exodus.co.uk).

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Vintner Mathieu Lapierre makes wines untouched by synthetic chemicals; (right) vineyards around Fleurie

Drink It In

With a welcoming spirit and a renewed love of winemaking, Beaujolais is throwing open its arms to the world

By Bruce Schoenfeld from Natio N al Geo G raphic t raveller

“O

n a clear day,” winemaker Julien sunier tells me in the kitchen of his farmhouse cottage, “you can see Mont Blanc from our porch.” I’m finding this hard to imagine. We’re in Beaujolais, a region of gentle hills and tidy villages in eastern central France, more than 100 miles from the alps. also, the precipitation in the air is palpable—I can barely see my rental car, parked in the mist shrouding sunier’s driveway.

But let it snow. The house, which doubles as Sunier’s winery, is snug and Sunier’s wife Sylvie has constructed a midday meal of roast pork and brussels sprouts with mustard and salsify.

At 37, Julien Sunier is at the forefront of a new generation of Beaujolais producers that’s turned the area’s reputation for modest, unmemorable wines on its head. His bottlings are as refreshing as crisp apples, softly fruity and with alcohol contents low enough that you can enjoy some at lunch and not be addled in the afternoon.

No one here, not even the winemakers, sits around solemnly intoning about the aromas in the glass. In fact, the wine may not be mentioned until halfway through a meal. Then, somewhere between the talk and the laughter, someone will take a sip and say, “Hey, this is pretty good.”

The same easy accessibility is a hallmark of Beaujolais. Though parts of this nation offer an inscrutable, even pompous, face to the outside world, Beaujolais throws open its arms. Its scenery is soft, like a watercolour. On my way to Sunier’s I passed small goat

farms and roadside restaurants with menus scrawled in chalk.

Later, Sunier and I drive down the hill to his town of Avenas. Along the road, once part of the Roman Via Agrippa between Lyon and Boulognesur-Mer, sits the stone Church of Notre Dame. It dates to the 12th century and is known for one of the finest sculpted altars in medieval France—though you’d never know that from the small size of the sign directing visitors. Even tourism here is understated.

I stand before the altar and contemplate the figures of Christ and the 12 apostles. Then Sunier leads me outside to a bar where a man gives Sunier a hearty embrace. “He’s the mayor,” Sunier tells me as we sit down.

The social life of the region plays out in restaurants, outdoor markets, town squares and small shops. If a visitor shows up at a bar, it’s not uncommon for locals to walk over and introduce themselves.

“When someone notices you have an empty glass, you’ll immediately have a full glass,” Sunier says. “Within half an hour, you’ll know everyone.”

Before the Second World War, Beaujolais wines were considered some of France’s finest. But by 1945, the local economy had ground to a halt. Adopting high-volume production methods and chemical fertilisers to grow far more fruit—and make far more profit—proved difficult to resist. The delicate Gamay grape, the region’s mainstay, seemed to suffer from such treatment.

By the 1990s, Beaujolais had devolved into all-buttasteless plonk.

At the same time, Marcel Lapierre was pioneering a

movement in Beaujolais towards wines made by the bottle, using grapes untouched by synthetic chemicals. When Lapierre died in 2010, the baton passed to his son Mathieu, to Sunier and others. They slowly gained a following. A steady stream of visitors now comes through for the wine and ends up entranced by the place itself.

Beaujolais has very few guided tours or formal tasting rooms. The main concession to tourism is the Beaujolais wine route, through the rolling countryside between Lyon to Julien Sunier has helped turn Beaujolais’ reputation on its head; (right) Regional food at a local auberge

Marked with an official logo, the route follows a network of roads, including shortcuts down glorified goat paths with street signs.

Even with a GPS, this labyrinth is baffling. After a couple of days of three-point turns and backtracking, I give up on the signs and head into the hills.

violet-scented wine and a cavernous church that probably could hold all 850 villagers.

The air seems to shimmer with the freshness of the morning as I sweep through a landscape of tall pines and granite outcroppings that makes the Alps feel not so distant after all. I dip down to Juliénas, a village known for In Chiroubles, some locals share glasses of wine during the ribbon festival

I’d been told that Beaujolais natives start drinking tiny glasses of Beaujolais in the morning. When I arrive in a bar across from the post office, three men are sitting at the counter doing just that. It’s 10.30am, but they greet me with such earnest good cheer that I join them. Yes, I tell them in my limited French, it’s my first time in Beaujolais. Sure, it would be better to be here in the summer, but perhaps not, as I’m getting a sense of the authentic Beaujolais. They nod in agreement. “Sans the south and Mâcon to the north.

maquillage,” one of them says. Beaujolais without make-up.

My wine, a simple white, is from Pruzilly, two miles away. It’s grown, made, sold and consumed within a ten-minute drive. It doesn’t just taste good going down. It feels virtuous.

Soon after, I find myself entering the village of Chiroubles, where the wines are the region’s softest and most fragrant. I slow to navigate an unexpected swell of pedestrians. I’ve stumbled upon a Fête des Conscrits, a tradition unique to Beaujolais in which villagers born in a year that ends with the number of the current year—four for 2014, in this case—throw a weekend-long party for the village.

I park and follow the crowd. Every second or third person I see has a coloured ribbon pinned to a jacket or tied around a lock of hair—green for those born in 1994, yellow for 1984 and so on.

Up front, 15 blue-ribboned sexagenarians (1954) pose for a photograph. “They’ve done it every ten years since they were boys,” someone says with pride. What better way to mark the march of the years than with a photo each decade at the town hall?

A drum sounds, then another. A woman throws her arm around her mother, who wears the red ribbon of her 50th year. A knot of greenribboned 20-year-olds attempts to sing a song together, but dissolves into laughter.

As festivals go, this one is decidedly

informal. There are no rides or food booths, no speeches, no entertainment. Maybe that is why everyone, from toddlers to the elderly, is able to mingle comfortably together. There’s nothing but time: time to chat, time to contemplate, time to chase a balloon, which is what one little girl in a blue dress does until a lone snowflake flutters onto her nose. She stops and stares intently upward, as if the answers to the mysteries of the universe are floating down from the sky.

All week I’ve been hoping to catch up with Mathieu

Lapierre and taste his wines, especially the 2009 Morgon, which is the last one Marcel made before he died. Mathieu and I agree to meet at his winery in Villié-Morgon on my last morning in the area.

I arrive at Domaine M Lapierre to find it shuttered. Moments later, a well-travelled pale grey car putters through the gate. A young woman, curls peeking from under a red wool beret, jumps out and introduces herself as Camille, Mathieu’s sister. “Mathieu wanted me to take you somewhere,” she says.

Camille has run a shop in Brazil, waited tables in Quebec and worked as a sommelier in Biarritz. She expects to return to Beaujolais eventually and run the family winery along with her brother.

“This is where I belong,” she says.

After weaving through a series of hairpin turns, we pull up at a one-story building along a side street. Inside, a young man is selling four kinds of organic bread. After finishing at secondary school, Aurélien Grillet yearned to create something of value for his town. One of his brothers made wine, another grew vegetables. “I decided on bread,” he reasoned, and opened Le Pain d’Auré.

Daily specials at Le Pré du Plat; (right) mouthwateringly good bread from Le Pain d’Auré

“I wish all bread tasted like this,” Camille says. I take a bite. Now I know why Mathieu wanted me to visit a bakery. By the time we’re back at the

car, I’ve eaten half the loaf. Camille and I meet Mathieu and Mme Lapierre —Marcel’s widow and their mother—for lunch at Le Pré du Plat, in Cercié. I’ve realised that the best meals in the region, even those at the few Michelin-starred restaurants, are simple and shirtsleeve informal: roasted chicken, morels nestled close, good bread on the table. The meal today ranks among the best I’ve ever had. Between bites, Mathieu reveals that he plans to open a similar restaurant of his own in the coming months.

Then he brings me back to the

winery. The sun has come out now, and we stand in a courtyard tasting his wines. He opens a bottle of the 2009 Morgon and explains that he loves how different it is from the vintages that preceded and followed it. Consistency, the basis for most successful business models, is the opposite of what he wants to accomplish.

“The loaf that a baker bakes on Monday is different from the one he bakes on Tuesday,” he says. “If he’s a real baker.”

The 2009 Morgon is exceptional, the best Beaujolais I’ve had. I start to tell Mathieu what I think, but he holds up a hand. He doesn’t want me to analyse it—he just wants me to drink it.

travel tipS

GettinG there: the best way to see Beaujolais is by car, driving southeast from Paris, north from lyon or west from Geneva.

LodGinG: on the northern edge of Beaujolais, in tiny but fashionable saint-amour-Bellevue, auberge du paradis offers nine rooms, individually styled. doubles from 140 euros. château de la Barge, in crêches-sursaône, is an ivy-covered 17th-century manor house with a swimming pool and high-ceilinged rooms. doubles from 145 euros.

Wine tastinG: advance appointments are necessary, since nobody is waiting round to receive visitors. You’ll rarely be charged a fee, but the wines are inexpensive enough that you can show your appreciation by buying a bottle. voûte des crozes, cercié (chanrion.nicole@wanadoo.fr), features high-quality, traditional Beaujolais from one of the area’s few female producers. M lapierre, Villié-Morgon (informations@marcel-lapierre. com), is the most highly regarded winery in the region.

dininG: la poularde in la chapelle-de-Guinchay specialises in traditional dishes with a contemporary twist made with seasonal produce. dinner for two (without wine) starts at 75 euros. le pré du plat, cercié, looks modern, but the food is traditional. Features a strong selection of local wines. lunch for two: less than 40 euros.

More inforMation: discoverbeaujolais.com

Where To Buy Property For Maximum Profit

Making a property purchase could see big returns, but what, where and why should you buy?

B Y jas M i NE B irtl E s

Jasmine is a personal finance writer and the founder of moneymagpie. com

InvestIng In property means spendIng a bIg chunk of your money that will be tied up for some time, and there’s no guarantee you’re going to make a return. Yet some experts, such as Ian Samuels, author of Property Tycoon: A Simple Seven Step Guide to Becoming a Property Millionaire, are saying that now is a great time to buy property, as prices won’t be this low again and you’ll be able to reap the benefits of a property boom that he expects will come between 2018 and 2020.

cartoon by steve way

should I Invest In property?

In the UK it’s almost considered a law now that if you invest in property you will make money. This isn’t necessarily so and, even if prices do go up (as they are likely to in the long-term), it’s still not necessarily the right move for you. Property is an “illiquid” investment, meaning that your money is tied up for some time and, unlike some forms of investing such as stocks and shares, it can take a while to sell your asset and access your money.

Equally, if you rent it out for a while, it’ll take time and effort to manage it, as well as potentially landing you with costly payouts, including repairs and inspections. You may even have to fork out to extend the lease. If you’re buying to let, you’ll need to make sure you’re able to cover the cost of your mortgage payments if you don’t find tenants for a few months.

flIp a house or buy to let?

Ian Samuels recommends that if you want to make the most money from your property, you should be buying to let. House flipping (buying a rundown house, doing it up and selling it on at a higher price) is harder and more expensive than you might think.

Even if you make a quick burst of money, buying to let is likely to be the most profitable in the long term. This is particularly true when you consider the cost of capital-gains tax for each time you sold a property. Plus, when

the time comes to sell the property you’ve been renting out, you may be entitled to letting relief on your capital-gains tax.

Where should I buy?

Ian Samuels recommends investing in properties in the North and the Midlands. Properties in these areas have potential to be bought at a good price—one that will steadily increase in value in line with most of the properties in the country. Many of the foreign investors who have owned properties in London are now viewing the capital as too expensive, and are looking to the Midlands and the north of the country for their future investments.

Of course, you’ll need to consider the potential problems if you live a great distance from where you buy your property—not least the difficulty in managing a property that’s difficult for you to get to. Try to buy somewhere that’s easily accessible from where you live but still has growth potential.

What kInd of property?

Consider investing in a two-bedroom flat if you’re planning to rent it out. Generally it’s better not to have a garden attached to a rental property as it just means extra work for you. Renters don’t usually want to look after a garden and it can start to look messy very quickly.

If you’re simply looking to sell on, then a three-bedroom semi-detached house is a wise buy.

Could Your Home Be A Film Star?

No matter where you live, be it a stately house or a tiny bedsit, you could make money from your home by renting it by the day as a film set—or for photo shoots, which are less invasive.

Where to start

Once you have some photos that really capture the feel of your home, sign up for free to a locations agency such as lavishlocations.com, locationcollective.co.uk or amazingspace. co.uk. You could also get in touch with locationscotland.com, the BBC locations department or your local film commission directly. At request, national location libraries will send

you a form to fill in about your home this can then be kept on file.

beWare!

■ You could have a large film crew lugging around their equipment and it can be very intrusive.

■ Things can be broken (though they should replace anything that is).

■ Long shoots could require that you move out for a while.

■ You’ll need to consider if you have enough parking nearby.

■ You’ll also have to consider your neighbours—make sure they’ll be happy with the arrangement.

hoW much can you make?

Filming for a Hollywood blockbuster will obviously pay more than a lowbudget film. Documentary makers can pay around £300–£500 per day, while for a film, a stately home could bring in up to £2,500 a day, and an average home around £1,000 a day.

Freepost BD616, Bowling Green Mills, Lime Street, Bingley BD16 3SD

You agree when ordering goods on approval that Damart will conduct a credit reference search which will be recorded on your credit history. The right to refuse or restrict orders is reserved and is subject to stock availability. You will receive a statement within the next 14 days , you can either pay in full or take advantage of credit terms subject to status via our Personal Account where you can spread the cost over a maximum of 20 instalments (Interest charges may apply if you choose the Personal Account. Representative 34.2% APR variable). Full Terms and Conditions for our Personal Account can be found by visiting damart.co.uk. Further offers which may be of interest to you may be sent by other carefully selected companies. If you do not wish your information to be used this way please tick the box or tell us on the phone. Offer applies to UK residents over 18 only. Calls may be monitored or recorded for training and quality purposes. We do not offer free returns. Prop; Damartex

Check Your Tax Code And Cash In

Hundreds of thousands of people are losing money every year because of mistakes made by the tax office. If you do the checks now, you could find that you’ve been paying too much tax for a few years. You can claim back up to six years of overpaid tax.

fIn d out If you’re oWe d money

Find your tax code, often on the top right-hand corner of your payslip.

The letter within your code signifies what type of taxpayer you are, so visit hmrc.gov.uk to check what your letter means. If the code doesn’t relate to your situation, phone HMRC and tell them you think there’s a problem.

Also contact them if you’ve earned less than your allowance in a tax year and you’ve still been taxed—you could claim a rebate.

don’t just leave It

Unfortunately, if mistakes have been made by others, including the tax office, it’s still up to you to put it right. So triple check that all the details about you and your tax situation are right. Also keep a note of all correspondence, which will help if things get complicated.

ONE thiNg YOu Must dO this MONth

...is make money from complaining. Go to moneymagpieresolver.com if you have a complaint against a company, and the site will put you in contact with the person or department that can deal with your complaint—for free. they record emails and phone calls so you have proof of everything you’ve said.

this MONth’s BargaiN

Get 15% off beautiful, quirky gifts from the dotcomgiftshop.com simply enter reaDersDiGest15 at the checkout (not to be used with any other promotion or for sale or reduced items).

FasciNatiNg Fact

currently it costs £10,854 to buy one square metre of property in the affluent london borough of kensington and chelsea, according to figures from the Halifax.

jargONBustEr

gearing: common among property investors, it’s where you take more of a mortgage to maximise the return on the money you have. so if you have £40,000 you could either borrow £60,000 to buy one property at £100,000 or you could split it into two and buy two properties at £100,000 each by borrowing two lots of £80,000.

Easy recipes you can cook in 30 minutes

Spanish-Style Chicken

Salty black olive S, sweet red-and-yellow peppers, spicy chorizo sausage and white wine bring the flavours of the Mediterranean to joints of rich, dark chicken for an easy family casserole.

SERVES 4

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

• 1 medium red onion

• 1 clove garlic

• 1 large red pepper

• 1 large yellow pepper

• 400g canned chopped tomatoes

• 150ml dry white wine

• 1 tablespoon paprika

• 75g chorizo sausage

• 25g pitted black olives

• Salt and black pepper

• Bunch of parsley

• Crusty white bread

1. Heat the oil in a large flameproof casserole dish, then cut the chicken thighs in half and fry them over a high heat until golden.

2. Peel and thinly slice the onion and peel and crush the garlic. Add them to the chicken. Rinse and slice the peppers and add them too. Fry until they are lightly browned and slightly softened.

3. Stir in the tomatoes, wine and paprika and bring to the boil. Skin the chorizo, slice it thickly and add it, then simmer for 15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked.

4. Halve the olives, add them to the casserole, then season to taste. Rinse, dry and chop the parsley and serve with some crusty bread.

Tip: Cut peppers in half lengthways then cut away the stem, seeds and white membrane. Turn the halves cut-side down and tap sharply on the chopping board—any remaining seeds will fall out.

photographed by fabfoodpix

Complement the Casserole

By R AC hel wA lke R

Rachel is a food writer and blogs at thefoodieat.org

Ideal wines for the dish

Campo

Viejo

Tempranillo

2012 £6 (or two for £10), Asda Belezos

Bodegas

Zugober

Rioja Crianza

2010 £11.25, Corney and Barrow

Extra Special Marques del Norte Rioja

Reserva 2009

£6, Asda

Bringing out the best flavours

Boned chicken thighs cook far faster than thighs with the bone in, making them a good choice for a quick mid-week meal. But using chicken thigh on the bone has advantages. When making a stew, the bones add flavour and keep the meat juicier—a simple stock, after all, is made by boiling bones in water, so cooking the chicken and bones for longer will introduce some lovely flavours to the dish.

If you’re using chicken thigh on the bone, then instead of simmering for 15 minutes at step 3, cook on a low simmer for 40 minutes until the thighs are cooked.

when piCking A wine to seRve with ChiCken, the temptation is to automatically reach for a white. But with a dish like this Spanish chicken stew, a red rioja is a great option. It’s a wine that’s easily paired with food, but it comes into its own when served alongside traditional Spanish flavours like red peppers and paprika.

Red rioja is good paired with curry

There was a time when rioja was mocked and referred to as “poor man’s Bordeaux”. French wine was for connoisseurs, but Spanish rioja was stored in pig skins and treated with distain. In truth, it’s been on the up since the late 19th century, but Spanish wine has become particularly popular over the last two decades, and last year more rioja was drunk than ever before—369 million bottles worldwide, to be precise.

While some wines can be a little precious and temperamental when partnered with food, red rioja is a relaxed bottle, which will go with anything from curry to Lancashire hot pot. It’s hard to go wrong, but Campo Viejo is a good, reliable place to start. It’s a personal favourite of mine, particularly when Asda are selling two bottles for just £10.

sip on A sheRRy

For years now, experts have been predicting a sherry revival. the market has forced the price of the drink to stay low, and there are some exceptionally good-value bottles available. so if you were put off by sherry with a sickly glass at christmas two decades ago, chill a bottle, open your mind and give sherry a second chance.

sheRRy dRinking tips

■ don’t restrict sherry to an apéritif. it’s an exciting drink to pair with food and goes particularly well with shellfish.

■ ditch the copita glasses. pour about 125ml into a wine glass instead—it enhances the bouquet.

■ Chill a Fino or Manzanilla as you would a white wine.

■ drink it quickly. once opened, sherry oxidises just like wine.

tRy these: Gonzalez

Byass Tio Pepe Fino, £9.99, Morrisons La Guita

Manzanilla, £11.99, simply wine

Climbing The Walls

QI’d like to grow a clematis up our house wall, but I’m not sure where to start. Can you help?

A Take the plant out of its pot and tease the roots loose if they’re spiralling the rootball. Position the clematis in the hole, spreading any loose roots, so that the top of the rootball is four inches below ground level. Then back-fill round the rootball, firm and water. Using several short bamboo canes that have been stuck into the soil at an angle to the wall, spread out the plant’s stems and tie them to the canes. You should do this for all climbers, whether they’re self-clinging or not.

QI’ve been struggling to propagate hyacinths. What’s the best method?

A Although hyacinths will naturally produce tiny bulblets, they’re often extremely slow to multiply. You can speed up the propagation process by scoring the baseplate on any sound hyacinth.

is one of the most versatile plants

In spring, small leaves will appear around the main bulb. Allow growth to die down in summer and remove the bulb from the pot. Up to a dozen bulblets will have formed—these can be removed for growing on to flowering size.

Scooping is even more effective than scoring. Use a sharp knife to gouge or scoop out a cone of tissue from the baseplate, cutting about a quarter of the way into the bulb. Discard the cone of tissue, then dust the cut surface with the fungicide, pot up and grow on as for scoring.

Clematis

Q Is there a specific time of the year to stop mowing the lawn?

A Grass continues to grow while the soil is still relatively warm and moist; it’s only when the soil temperature drops below 5–7 degrees that the grass stops growing for the winter. Before that time, it helps to leave the grass longer to protect the base of the plants from early frosts. So once it shows no sign of growth, cease mowing until the spring.

Q I’m planning on planting two new trees. How should I support them in the ground?

AYoung trees need staking until their roots have anchored them securely. For trees with tall, slender trunks or large heads of evergreen foliage, drive in a long stake so the top reaches the lowest branch and secure with one or two tree ties. Use ties that place cushioning between the tree and stake, or pad the contact point with a wad of sacking. A short stake is adequate for sturdy and shortstemmed trees. For bare-root trees, drive the stake in vertically to come a third of the way up the trunk. For container-grown trees, drive in a short stake at an angle after planting, so that it misses the rootball. Or drive in two short stakes two feet apart on opposite sides of the trunk and join with a horizontal batten.

submit your gardening questions at readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us

Look out for self-sown seedlings as you weed. Pot these up or transplant to a nursery bed for planting out next year.

Continue deadheading roses in a mild autumn, but remove only the flower, not a long-stemmed section as in summer.

Weed and mulch around any established plants to retain warmth and moisture.

Plant hardy climbers and wall shrubs in well-prepared ground. sePtember CheCkList

reAder’s tiP

Use last year’s dried mint stems as plant supports for your young seedlings that are too small for plant canes. many thanks to Sonja mcLachlan of inverness-shire for sending this in.

send us your gardening tips—with photos, if possible. Go to readers digest.co.uk/contact-us. We’ll pay £50 if we use them on this page.

Ironing Out The Boredom

By olly mann

Olly is a technology expert,

BBC5

Live presenter and Answer Me This! podcaster

tefal freemove iron, £89.99

Remember when PCs were all big grey boxes? When refrigerators were single, towering, cream-coloured columns? There’s been a design revolution in home tech over recent years—yet irons mostly remain functional and boring. Huzzah, then, for this latest range from Tefal, which, being both cordless and colourful, does its bit to bring ironing into the 21st century. Sure, actually doing the ironing remains a horrendously tedious task, but the Freemove makes it ever so slightly more fun.

apple app of the month*: first aid By British red Cross, free

In an emergency, you haven’t the time to be Googling, “Argh, I’ve just burned my arm! What do I do now?”, only to be promoted a range of books that’ll take a week to arrive in the post. Here, crisis situations

are listed alphabetically with clear instructions, illustrations and videos for each scenario, as well as related Q&As and a hospital locator. This app really could be a lifesaver.

* Also available for BlackBerry and Android

onaji pawa Card, £19.99

Thanks to smartphones we can now stream music, read books and tweet selfies, all while standing in line at the Post Office. But such multitasking drains battery life something chronic. Thousands of pocket chargers are available offering a top-up solution, but Onaji’s is the sleekest I’ve seen—a 30-pin Apple charger, Lightning charger, micro USB and a torch, all packed into a neat, rubberised device no bigger than a credit card that charges via USB. Although the extra 30% charge it provides is a relatively small boost, it truly fits in your pocket, unlike much of the competition.

tomtom Go 60, £179.99

It’s a decade since TomTom GO first went on sale in the UK and became the fastest-selling tech device ever. Whether, in the age of Google Maps, it’ll still be with us ten years hence is debatable, but in the meantime this latest model has everything you’d want from a standalone device, including a six-inch screen, everupdating maps of 45 European countries and freebie traffic alerts.

android app of the month

yahoo! aviate, free

This clever new “skin” from Yahoo! instantly prettifies your homescreen with intelligent design that groups your apps together in customisable sub-categories, and alters the order according to your habits—prioritising publictransport apps when you set off for work, or music apps when you plug in your headphones.

By G EORG i NA yAt ES

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

There’s Gold In Morocco

The Moroccan a rgan oil phenoMenon has Hollywood enthralled. Now often referred to as “liquid gold”, it’s one of the most talked about products in recent beauty history. But the people of Morocco have been privy to this beauty must-have for centuries. The naturally sourced product is extracted from the argan tree’s kernels, a species unique to Morocco. It’s rich in vitamin E, antioxidants and essential fatty acids, making it a brilliant moisturiser for all skin types and fantastic for nourishing dry, lacklustre hair.

Actress Eva Mendes helped to fuel the oil furore when she revealed, “Argan oil

Miracle Buy: Primer

“Make-up always looks better with primer,” says celebrity make-up artist Lori Taylor Davis, but it’s an oft-missed step. I find that using a great primer can blur wrinkles, reduce the appearance of pores and help to even out my

skin tone. After trying out

The Smashbox photo

Finish pore Minimising primer (£28; smashbox. com), I’m hooked. Not only does it perform all these tasks, but it provides a great defence against humidity, leaving my skin shine-free throughout the day.

from Morocco is my total skin secret.”

Although it seems counter-intuitive to smother yourself in oil, I can assure you that this product doesn’t act in the same way as your average cooking oil. Liz Earle’s Superskin concentrate (£40.50, lizearle.com) blends it with a number of soothing plant extracts, creating a multi-purpose treatment that’s great for balancing out oily/ dry combinations. I recently used the concentrate before a long-haul flight and it kept my skin well-hydrated throughout the journey.

Argan oil works wonders on dry or unruly hair too. My hair is very fine, so I use Morrocanoil’s Treatment light (£31.85; lookfantastic.com).

After just one application, I can feel the difference: my locks are smoother, more manageable and shinier. And, what’s more, it’s a very easy product to use.

After washing, pump a small amount (about the size of a 10p piece) into your hand, work the product through your wet hair from the tips to the roots and style as normal.

Argan oil is such an effective product that I wonder how we ever managed without it!

Miracle Buy: Serum

From Israeli red algae to whey protein and liquorice extract, Clinique’s new Smart custom-repair Serum (£48; clinique.co.uk) is a real cocktail of ingredients. The product is designed to address numerous skin complaints. It’s fragrance-free and very light on the skin, so I like to apply it before bed and let it work its magic overnight.

On Scent

Jo Malone is a master in the art of inventing exciting new fragrances, while always remaining sophisticated. The most recent summer and autumn colognes are both as brilliant as each other. Summer’s english pear and rose scent (£40; jomalone.co.uk) is at once fresh and seductive— a perfect way to accessorise for a dinner date, while the Wood Sage & Sea Salt fragrance (£40) is as vibrant and wild as the English coastlines that inspired it.

By Geor G ina yates

Fit For A Princess

whatever Kate Middleton touches, it seems, becomes an overnight sensation. When she accessorised a golden Alexander McQueen gown with Catherine Zoraida’s gold Double Leaf earrings and bracelet on the 2012 Royal Tour, she hit the headlines.

Zoraida remembers the moment well: “The next day the picture was on the front page of every paper around the world. It was a hugely exciting, and a busy few weeks afterwards!”

Zoraida’s first collection, Finders Keepers, launched in 2012, immediately inspired a celebrity following that includes Beyoncé and Alexa Chung.

Red Alert

Red is often tricky to integrate into your daily style. Here are a few simple ways to tame the trend.

■ Wearing red accessories, like these mariner flats from car vela (£120; kurtgieger.com), will add a touch of drama to your look.

■ Team your red item with neutral colours.

■ Perk up your outerwear with a bright red coat. I love this jacket from toast (£129; toast.co.uk).

and leaves into being. It’s clear that her style is heavily influenced by the natural world.

“I only have to walk into the garden to find the most wonderfully inspiring designs, patterns or structures,” she affirms.

This year marks the release of her second dazzling collection, Eden. Named after her late mother, it further explores the theme of nature. Characterised by elegance and playfulness, Zoraida’s jewellery is well worthy of its reputation— and any piece from either collection would make a delightful keepsake for someone special.

For more details see catherinezoraida.com

under cover

Kaftans have been worn throughout the ages, from sultans of the Ottoman Empire to Elizabeth Taylor on her wedding day. The West’s fashion circle embraced this simplistic design during the 1960s, when Yves Saint Laurent introduced his sophisticated take on the garment.

Kaftans also became a staple of the hippy era, along with flares and patchouli oil. Though trends from the 1960s have fallen by the wayside, the kaftan has remained steadfast. Nowadays, the kaftan is a great way to cover up while remaining cool and glamorous on holiday. There’s a vast selection of beach cover-ups available on the UK high street, from stores such as Accessorise, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis. If you fancy treating yourself to something a little more high-end and unique, I love Tallulah & Hope’s collection of 100% silk pieces (above), available online at tallulahandhope.com

Hearing Problems: The First Step

you should always see your GP if you’re having problems with your hearing. They will look in your ears to check for any temporary causes of hearing loss, such as a build-up of wax or an ear infection, which can be treated. They will also carry out some simple hearing tests and ask you about your symptoms.

If there’s no obvious cause of your hearing loss, your GP should refer you to a hearing specialist for further tests. But you may find that you need to insist on being referred. Make sure you make it clear how much your hearing loss is affecting you— remember that you have the right to have your hearing tested, especially if it’s interfering with everyday life.

Where will I have the test?

Your GP will either refer you to:

• a hospital ear, nose and throat (ENT) clinic—you’ll see an ENT doctor and you may need to see an audiologist (a specialist in hearing and balance disorders) for further tests;

• a hospital audiology department— this is called “direct referral”. You

won’t have to join a waiting list to see the ENT doctor first, but you’ll still have to wait up to six weeks for an appointment;

• an audiology clinic—some GPs arrange for audiologists to visit their surgery or health centre;

• an audiology service delivered through the Any Qualified Provider (AQP) scheme (in England only). You can choose which hospital you attend out of a list of suitable options.

Action on Hearing Loss’s online “Locate and rate” tool lets you search for audiology services in your area, both NHs and private, by name, address and postcode. once you’ve found a service, you can see how other people have rated it, and review and rate services yourself. Visit actiononhearingloss.org.uk/locateandrate

courtesy of action on hearing loss

Different Types Of Hearing Aid

■ In-the-ear (ITE) and in-the-canal (ITC) have their working parts in the earmould (picture 1), so the whole aid fits into your ear. Some ITE aids can be seen from the side, while the smallest ITC aids fit inside your ear canal. If you have severe hearing loss, very small ear canals or frequent infections, these aids probably won’t be suitable (or if you have trouble using small buttons, unless they come with a remote control).

■ Body-worn aids (picture 2) have a small box that you can clip to your clothes or put in your pocket. This is connected by a lead to an earphone and earmould. Although not common these days, they may suit you if you have sight problems or difficulty using very small buttons.

■ CRos/BiCRos aids (picture 3) are for people with hearing in one ear only. CROS aids pick up sound from the side with no hearing and feed it into the hearing ear. BiCROS aids amplify sound from both sides and feed it into the ear that has hearing. There are now also wireless versions available on the NHS.

■ Bone-conduction aids are for people who cannot wear conventional aids or those with a “conductive” hearing loss, usually the result of sounds not being able to pass freely to the cochlea in the inner ear. This type of aid delivers sound directly through the skull, using vibrations.

The 2014 Essential Guide to Hearing Aids

Discover which hearing aid best fits your hearing needs, by comparing 237 of the latest hearing aids. Wr itten in plain straightforward English, this 24 page guide explains all you need to know about digital hearing aids.

If you are concerned about your hearing, or that of a family member or friend, then you really should read the Essential Guide to Hearing Aids.

The Essential Guide is written in plain straightforward English and explains completely all you need to know about hearing aids.

Written by experts for consumers, it’s packed with advice so you learn about all types of hearing aids, including the latest digital models.

See why some are better than others even though they may look alike.

With the Essential Guide you can consider 237 hearing aids and discuss them with your family and friends. Decide which manufacturer and model you like best.

If you already wear a hearing aid, or are thinking about it, the Essential Guide is vital reading. It could save you from a costly mistake.

Is Your Sight In Danger?

someone be G ins to lose their si G h t every 15 minutes in the UK. It can happen to anyone at any time, and it’s estimated that by 2050 the number of people affected will double to around four million.

The most usual sight-loss condition is age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and even though 500,000 people in Britain have it, almost half of all adults have never even heard of it. There are two types of AMD, commonly known as “wet” and “dry”. Wet AMD acts quickly and can claim your vision in just a few months. Around 40,000 people develop wet AMD every year, and the over-50s are most at risk. So it’s important that you spot the signs quickly:

■ Blurred Your peripheral vision isn’t affected and you won’t feel any pain, but the centre of your vision is increasingly blurry.

■ Distorted Straight lines appear to be wavy, curved or distorted. The centre of your vision is most affected.

■ Unclear Small print becomes difficult to read even when wearing reading glasses.

If you notice any of these symptoms, book an appointment with your

Blurred vision

Distorted vision

Unclear vision

optometrist straight away. The good news is that, with early diagnosis, wet AMD can be treated successfully. Dry AMD cannot currently be treated, but it’s still vital that you visit an eye-care professional as soon as possible so a correct diagnosis can be made.

If you’d like to find out more about sight conditions and how you can look after your eyes, visit rnib.org.uk or call RNIB’s Helpline on 0303 123 9999.

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Focus On: Trachoma

trachoma is the world’s leadin G c ause of preventable blindness, although it hasn’t been given the same funding and attention as other global diseases. According to the International Coalition for Trachoma Control, an estimated 4.6 million have advanced trachoma (called trichiasis) and are at immediate risk of going blind.

Although common in Britain around the 19th century, trachoma is now mostly found in hot, dry and dusty countries, affecting those who don’t have good access to clean water with which to wash their faces. It’s caused by a repeated eye infection —each time the infection strikes, the underside of the eyelids become inflamed, and with repeated infection over a number of years they start to invert, turning them into the eyes. The eyelashes scratch the eye with every blink, which feels as if there’s always some grit in the eye. These scratches damage the cornea and—if left untreated—the eye will be so badly scratched the sufferer will

eventually go blind due to the opaque scars that form on the cornea. The disease is highly infectious, passed on from person to person via hands, clothes and even flies.

The charity Sightsavers is aiming to eliminate blindness arising from trachoma from the countries it works in by 2020, using the World Health Organisation’s SAFE strategy (which stands for Surgery, Antibiotics, Facial cleanliness and Environmental hygiene). To find out more about this and to make a donation, visit sightsavers.org

to add your name to the sightsavers’ Put Us in the Picture campaign, which calls on the uk government to ensure that people with disabilities are included in conversations around international development, go to sightsavers.org/our_campaign

Photo courtesy of sightsavers

An irresistible melodrama with a well-told history, and an odd collision between religion and family law

September Fiction

By J AME s WA lT ON

James writes and presents the BBC Radio

4 literary quiz The Write Stuff

The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop (Headline, £19.99; ebook, £19.99)

In the early 1970s, Famagusta in Cyprus was one of Europe’s most glamorous resorts, which these days lies entirely deserted. How this happened forms the background—and sometimes the foreground—to this new novel by Victoria Hislop, who ever since her best-selling debut The Island has had the sharp idea of combining the conventions of the blockbuster with fascinating slices of 20th-century history.

Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974 causes the guests to flee The Sunrise hotel, followed by the town’s population—except for one Turkish and one Greek family, who refuse either to leave or to become enemies. With their food running out and murderous soldiers all around, how long can they survive?

Hislop’s respect for those blockbuster conventions means the central story is essentially a melodrama. Admittedly a pretty irresistible one—but even so, it’s the history stuff that steals the show, with the transformation of Famagusta into a ghost town both clearly explained and powerfully evoked.

NAME THE AUTHOR

(Answer on p126)

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

1. His most famous books later

proved very unpopular with his son.

2. His first names were Alan Alexander.

3. His son’s first names were Christopher Robin.

The Children Act

by Ian McEwan (Cape, £16.99; ebook, £9.98)

In Ian McEwan’s latest novel, the main character is once again a highly cultured London professional—in this case Fiona Maye, a high-court judge specialising in family law. Its principal theme is also familiar: the superiority of scientific thinking to the childish superstition of religion.

This comes to a head in a court hearing about Adam, a miraculously intelligent 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, who’s refusing the blood transfusions that could save his life. Now Fiona has to decide whether his wishes should be respected.

The Children Act has plenty of strengths. McEwan has obviously done his homework on family law. He’s good too on the sudden breakdown of Fiona’s own marriage. What undermines the book, though, is mostly McEwan’s failure to obey the chief rule of a work like this, which is to give your opponents some decent arguments of their own. In a 2005 interview, he admitted to having “no patience whatsoever” with religion, and here it certainly shows.

The result is a slightly shrill novel of campaigning atheism—and, as such, no more satisfying than a slightly shrill novel of campaigning Christianity would be.

PAPERBAcks

The Second World War by Antony Beevor (Phoenix, £12,99) Terrific one-volume history. Particularly good on the less well-known aspects that prove just what a global conflict this was.

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (Borough Press, £7.99) Jane Austen updated to the Edinburgh festival by the best-selling crime writer, here on unusually jolly form.

Don’t Tell Mum by simon Hoggart and Emily Monk (Atlantic, £7.99) A collection of emails home from intrepid young gap-year travellers. Great fun—if likely to alarm parents.

Bring Me Home by Alan Titchmarsh (Hodder, £7.99)

The latest by the gardener turned successful novelist is set in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, with family secrets galore.

Spike Milligan: Man of Letters by spike Milligan (Penguin, £9.99)

A selection— by turns, funny and furious— of Spike’s many letters.

the fascinating story of how national service shaped a generation, as told by the men who were called up RD’s REcOMMENDED READ

Conscripted Tales

Men born between 1928 and au gust 1939 are unique in British history: they’re the only people ever to have been made to join the country’s armed forces during peacetime. There were more than two million conscripts in all, yet, despite its huge scale, national service has largely been overshadowed by the war that preceded it and the cultural revolution of the 1960s that, perhaps not coincidentally, followed. (Paul McCartney has said that the abolition of national service, which came in time for all four Beatles, was the key event behind the decade’s youth explosion.)

Now, in this absorbing and eyeopening book, Richard Vinen gives national service the full treatment it

National Service: Conscription in Britain 1945-1963 by Richard Vinen is published by Allen Lane at £25, (ebook, £9.51)

deserves, explaining the political background and vividly describing the experience of the recruits— including the significant minority who ended up fighting for real, above all in the Korean War, after which the length of service was extended from 18 months to two years.

He also uses national service to explore the Britain of the time, a country almost unrecognisably different from that of today. For a start, most 18-year-olds were by

Basic training during national service

no means school-leavers: one of the book’s many striking statistics is that, of the 266,900 boys who turned 15 in 1952, 222,900 left school and started work. Then there was overwhelming importance of social class—which continued into national service, where officers even had different pokers for their fires.

The only time all classes were thrown together was in basic training: an initial period of around eight weeks in which the conscripts were drilled—and made to stab bundles of straw with bayonets—before taking up their postings…

National service, at least in the army, usually began on a Thursday—so training units had time to get men settled in before the weekend—and it usually started with a train journey. Every conscript was sent a railway warrant and instructions about the base to which he was to report. The journey itself could be exciting. To many 18-yearolds, trains were still glamorous and exotic. Most youths had not travelled much and some had never been more than a few miles from home. A few had never been on a train and had no idea how to buy a ticket. John Waller had never left West Auckland before he was called up. He asked the station master how he’d know when his train arrived at the regimental depot of the Durham Light Infantry and was told, correctly as it turned out, ‘There

RD EXclUsiVE: RicHARD ViNEN’s cHOicE OF BOOks AND PlAys ABOUT NATiONAl sERVicE

Ginger You’re Barmy by David lodge (1962) The best-known novel of national service—funny but also heartbreakingly sad.

Two Years to Do by David Baxter (1959) Baxter was, like Lodge, a grammar-school boy who looked out on the army from a clerk’s desk. His novelistic autobiography is sad and funny and, in lots of ways, more realistic than Lodge’s book—partly because Baxter’s publisher let him use the army’s favourite four-letter word.

Chips with Everything by Arnold Wesker (1962) The most famous national service play—though it feels, as Wesker himself recognises, a bit of a period piece.

Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols (1977)

Nichols’s play is partly based on his experiences in a forces entertainment unit that was dominated by the heroically camp Kenneth Williams, who later appeared in a more innocent depiction of national service, Carry on Sergeant .

will be a big bastard there shouting.’

Men were collected at stations and taken to their depots. The process didn’t always run smoothly. Among the young men disgorged from a three-ton truck at the depot of the Buffs in 1958, one was even more disgruntled than the others. It turned out he was a civilian who’d been standing on Canterbury station when the NCOs had swept him up with the recruits.

so your link with the human race outside disappeared in a brown paper parcel.’

There were some conscripts who’d never slept a single night outside their own bedroom

Once at their barracks, men queued for their kit, packed their civilian clothes to be sent home and collected a variety of objects with perplexing names: ‘eating irons’ meant a knife, fork and spoon; ‘housewives’ meant sewing kits to maintain the uniform. Recruits often remembered the moment they realised their civilian life was over. For some, it came when the lorry drove into the barracks: ‘The wooden gates slammed and we had entered, for eight weeks, a prison.’ For John Barkshire, it was when he sent his civilian clothes home: ‘And

AND THE NAME OF THE AUTHOR is… A A Milne (Christopher Milne came to resent his father’s “exploitation” of him as a boy).

The real terror for many recruits came with the first night of national service. The requirement that lights should be turned out at a certain hour rubbed in the loss of adult dignity and freedom. Undressing in front of other men was often a painful experience. Lights-out removed whatever fragile protection against bullies might have been provided by the noncommissioned officers.

Some men were used to sleeping away from home. Many from the upper-middle class had been at boarding school. The urban working classes had often been evacuated during the war. Some came from families that were so poor the very notion of privacy would have been meaningless—one recruit said that the first night of basic training was the first time, apart from a stay in hospital, he’d had a bed to himself. There were, however, some conscripts who’d never slept a single night outside their own bedroom. Many recalled that their dominant memory of the first night was that of listening to one of their comrades crying himself to sleep.

Books

THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

David Mitchell is the best-selling author of Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, and has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His latest novel The Bone Clocks is published this month.

The Earthsea Trilogy

BY URSULA K LE GUIN

I stammered as a child and was shy, so I spent a lot of time reading in my room. But in my head I was articulate and had a rich fantasy life. These books are a feat of world-building. The characters share the same complexities and subtleties as the rest of us, and so have absolute psychological realism. After reading these books, I thought, I want to do for other people what Ursula Le Guin has done for me. I was eight years old.

The Master and Margarita

BY MIKHAIL BULGAKOV

You’d be hard-pushed to find a literate

made me decide it was time I started writing. It’s all very well knowing you want to be a novelist, but you also need to get disciplined about it. So I wrote bits of stories on index cards (that would have been the detritus of a classic first novel), which I used many years later as the basis of my fourth book Black Swan Green .

Independent People

BY HALLDÓR LAXNESS

Russian who doesn’t know, love and inhabit this book with its massive beating heart. It’s a lesson in literary possibility and, aged 23, it

This book won Laxness the Nobel Prize in 1955 and is extraordinary. I read it about three years ago when I’d rather lost my mojo. I was floundering around wondering if I had some sort of psychosis, making up page after page of stuff for a living. But this book reminded me that when writing is good, it enchants like nothing else and that there’s nobility in a novelist’s calling. These three books have been my teachers. As told to Caroline Hutton

You Couldn’t Make It Up

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

I was tryInG to teach my mother how to use the internet, but at 86, she felt she could carry on perfectly well without it. Determined to prove how good it was, I told her she could Google any question she liked and it would find an answer.

She was uncertain but, egged on by me, she typed in, “How is Ingrid doing this morning?” beth webb, Clwyd

I was assIstInG a teacher who was tutoring a class of 14year-olds who’d recently been on a trip to Italy. When the teacher asked for any questions relating to their trip, one pupil raised his hand and asked, “Sir, why are the underground stations called Fumare Vieto?”

After a silence, the teacher replied, “The translation is ‘No Smoking’. ”

rochelle cohen, Leeds

we’d jUst landed In new Zealand after a 25-hour flight from Heathrow, and the first thing we had

to do was walk to the domestic airport for our connecting flight. By the time we got there I felt confused and disoriented, I asked the smiling woman in the Air New Zealand uniform where we had to go to get the Wellington flight.

“Over there at the chicken,” she said, pointing at an area where no chicken was visible.

“The chicken?” I asked.

“Yes, the chicken,” she confirmed.

“Do you mean that ostrich thing?”

I asked, pointing to a large poster featuring a bird that I later learned was a moa.

“No, sir, the chicken,” she insisted.

My wife tapped me on the arm and pointed at the big sign that said “Check in”, and the penny finally dropped. It took us a while to get used to the accent.

dave roberts, Leeds

I was oUt In belFast postInG pamphlets for the local elections when I was approached by two small girls aged about seven.

“Can we help you, Mrs?” said the older child.

Considering the subject matter, I thought it better not to recruit these underage helpers.

“Thank you anyway,” I said, “but I don’t think your mammy would like it. They’re to do with politics.”

“That’s all right, Mrs,” the little girl replied. “My mammy likes Catholics and politics.”

domInIca mcGowan, Belfast at a conFerence I attended recently, a doctor was addressing a large audience.

“The material we put into our stomachs should have killed most of us sitting here years ago,” he said. “Red meat is full of steroids and dye. Soft drinks corrode your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with MSG. High trans-fat diets can be disastrous, and none

of us realise the long-term harm caused by germs in our drinking water. But there’s one thing that’s the most dangerous of all, and most of us have, or will, eat it. Can anyone here tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?”

After several seconds of quiet, a 70-year-old man in the front row raised his hand and softly said, “Wedding cake?”

robert thompson, Lancashire

I recently vIsIted a local restaUrant for a spot of lunch. I ordered a ham salad, and the waiter soon arrived with my meal.

“Do you know what kind of cheese this is?” I asked him, pointing at my plate. Off he went into the kitchen to find out from the chef, and a few moments later he returned.

“It’s grated cheese sir,” he replied.

Kenneth roberts, Lancashire

my seven-year-old son pointed to his testicles one bath time and asked, “What are these for, mummy?”

I took a deep breath and, deciding to deal with his question in a matterof-fact way, replied, “It’s where the seeds are kept that will help to create a baby when you’re a grown-up.”

There was a slight pause, during which I congratulated myself on a job well done, until my son asked, “So, how do I get them out?”

lynne Fox, Hertfordshire

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it pays to increase your

Word Power

Planning a visit to the National Gallery, the Louvre or another grand museum? First take our quiz to make sure you have an artful vocabulary. Turn the page for answers.

By Emily Cox & H E nry r at H von

1. graphic ('gra-fik) adj—

A: clearly pictured. B: sculpted of marble. C: roughly composed.

2. canon ('ka-nun) n—

A: string of images. B: standard for evaluation. C: negative review.

3. symmetry ('si-meh-tree) n—

A: framing and matting. B: having balanced proportions. C: imitation.

4. cartography (kahr-'toh-gre-fee)

n—A: map-making. B: painted wagons. C: travelling exhibits.

5. panoramic (pan-oh-'ram-ik) adj—A: of film artistry. B: shown in miniature. C: sweeping.

6. opaque (oh-'payk) adj—

A: deceptive. B: not transparent. C: moulded in plaster.

7. juxtapose ('juks-tuh-pohz) v—

A: sit for a portrait. B: render precisely. C: place side by side.

8. kinetic (kih-'neh-tik) adj—

A: copied identically. B: showing movement. C: picturing countryside.

9. kitschy ('ki-chee) adj—

A: in a collage. B: tacky.

C: carefully woven.

10. baroque (bah-'rohk) adj—

A: highly ornamented. B: plain in style. C: traditional.

11. manifesto (ma-neh-'fes-toh) n—

A: statement of principles.

B: gallery opening.

C: watercolour technique.

12. avant-garde (ah-vahnt-'gard)

adj—A: retro. B: scandalous.

C: cutting-edge.

13. aesthetics (es-'theh-tiks) n—

A: acid engravings. B: pleasing appearance. C: works in the outdoor air.

14. anthropomorphic (an-throh-puh-'mohr-fik) adj—

A: of cave art. B: made from clay.

C: human-like.

15. analogous (ah-'na-leh-gus)

adj—A: shapeless. B: made of wood.

C: having a likeness.

answers

1. graphic [A] clearly pictured. “The depiction of the embrace was a little too graphic for me.”

2. canon [B] standard for evaluation. “Monet’s works are the canon by which to measure other Impressionist paintings.”

3. symmetry [B] having balanced proportions. “Ever the joker, Dean asked, ‘When Picasso looked in the mirror, was he out of symmetry too?’ ”

4. cartography—[A] mapmaking. “No need to test my cartography skills when I’ve got a GPS in the car.”

5. panoramic [C] sweeping. “Eric and Christine were overwhelmed by the photo’s panoramic proportions.”

6. opaque—[B] not transparent. “Notice the opaque colours he chose for the backdrop.”

7. juxtapose—[C] place side by side. “Now you’ve juxtaposed the photos, I see they’re not at all alike.”

8. kinetic [B] showing movement. “I thought someone was behind me, but it was a particularly kinetic statue.”

9. kitschy [B] tacky. “Leo thinks anything that isn’t Rembrandt is just kitschy.”

10. baroque [A] highly ornamented. “Alex’s baroque-inspired sketches were criticised for being too busy.”

11. manifesto [A] statement of principles. “Art manifestos often come across as pretentious.”

12. avant-garde [C] cutting-edge. “Holly dropped out of school to join an avant-garde painting troupe.”

13. aesthetics [B] pleasing appearance. “Ironically, Joziah’s darker portraits most accurately captured the aesthetics of the city.”

sHort and swEEt

When people save tickets, clippings or menus—items intended to last briefly but often placed in scrapbooks— they’re collecting ephemera (from the Greek ephemeros, “lasting a day”). such items may not have been made by artists, but over time they acquire value for their place in history. a cultural trend that passes away quickly is considered to be ephemeral.

14. anthropomorphic [C] humanlike. “The artist combined everyday street items into an anthropomorphic figure. ”

15. analogous [C] having a likeness. “Right now, my brain is analogous to that flat, empty canvas up there.”

voCaBulary ratings

9 & below:

Light sketcher

10–12: skilled artisan

13–15: old master

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BrainTeasers

Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles and mind stretchers, then check your answers on page 137.

window shopping

There are eight subtle differences between these two pictures. Can you spot them?

squared

Which three of the four pieces below can be fitted together to form a perfect square?

what time is it?

The hour hand on the fourth clock is missing. To which number should it be pointing?

building blocks

Which are the only two of the pieces below that can be slotted together to form a perfect copy of the brick wall below?

pyramid power

Each block in this pyramid is the total of the two blocks below it. Which number should replace the question mark in the bottom row?

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

BrainTeasers: Answers

window shopping

squared

A, C and D

what time is it?

4. The numbers

building blocks

B and F

pyramid power

You can solve this by trial and error, but the mathematical way is like this: let the missing number be “x”. Filling in the rest of the pyramid (see illustration) means that the top number must equal 2x + 21. We know this is equal to 67, hence 2x = 67 - 21 = 46, so x=23

the hands point to on each face can be multiplied together to make 12 (12 x 1, 6 x 2, 4 x 3, 3 x 4) x+8

£50 prize question

answer published in the October issue

14

73

69

47

41

71

answer to august’s prize question

63 is the odd one one. all the others are cubed numbers:

8 = 23, 27 = 33, 125 = 53, 216 = 63, 343 = 73

63, on the other hand, is 43 – 1

and the £50 goes to… Colin Havercroft from Hull

synopsis and sample chapters welcome, please send to:

CGC - 33 - 01, 25 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5LQ 0207 0388212

editors@austinmacauley.com

www.austinmacauley.com All

e:

Laugh!

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

“Does anyone even remember what we were fighting about for all those years?”

A policemAn on trAffic duty flags down a car. “Sir, you appear to have 12 penguins in the back of your vehicle,” he says to the driver

“That’s right, officer, I do.”

“Well that’s ridiculous—take them to the zoo straight away.”

“OK, officer,” says the man as he drives off.

The next day, while standing in the same spot, the policeman sees the same car drive past—with the penguins in the back. He flags him down again.

“I thought I told you to take them to the zoo,” says the policeman.

“Yes, officer, and it was great! Today I’m taking them to the cinema.”

As seen on the internet

the church of englAnd wants to move forward on female bishops. But bishops only move diagonally.

comediAn Jimmy cArr

how mAny drummers does it tAke to change a light bulb? Ah-one. Ah-two. Ah-one, two, three, four... hArri lewis, Liverpool

According to most studies, people’s number-one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. This means, to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.

comediAn Jerry seinfeld

when i wAs A kid, my English teacher looked my way and said, “Name two pronouns.”

I said, “Who, me?”

As seen on the internet

A lion wondering in A Jungle spots a lost dog and thinks he’ll be easy prey.

When the dog sees the lion he starts to run, but suddenly he has an idea. He stops near some bones and says loudly, “Mmm, that was a tasty lion.”

Stopping in his tracks, the lion realises that this dog is a hell of a

not the news

A satirical slant on current affairs from @newsthump’s breaking news feed on Twitter.

On controversial energy sources: NEWS! Fracking “perfectly safe,” insists 90-metre lizard demon unleashed from Hell.

On Brazil’s 7-1 World Cup defeat: NEWS! “Worst day of my life,” says Brazilian millionaire who plays games for living.

On the teacher’s strike: NEWS! Teachers being on strike is brilliant, insists eight-year-old sat in front of Xbox.

On a right royal mix up: NEWS! Royal Mail urges people to change house numbers after data breach.

On the recession: NEWS! Investment banker fitted with world’s first artificial conscience.

On the flooding earlier this year: NEWS! Flooding now important as river into London seriously affected.

On parliament: NEWS! London Zoo urged to consider feeding unwanted MPs to the Lions.

lot tougher than he thought and runs off.

Up in a tree, a monkey had seen the whole thing and decides to tell the lion what happened. The monkey hops on the lion’s back and leads him back to the dog.

As he sees the two heading towards him, he has another idea, “You’re late, monkey!” he shouts, “I told you to bring me another lion hours ago!”

As seen on the internet

i wAs mugged by A mAn on crutches wearing camouflage. Ha, ha, I thought. You can hide but you can’t run.

comediAn milton Jones

“I think you’ll like this suit— it’s 100 per cent yarn”

A burglAr broke into A house one night. He shined his torch around, looking for valuables, when a voice in the dark said, “Jesus knows you’re here.”

The burglar nearly jumped out of his skin. He clicked his torch off and froze. When he heard nothing more, he shook his head and continued. But once again he heard a voice saying, “Jesus is watching you.”

The burglar shined his light round frantically, until finally, in the corner of the room, his torch beam came to rest on a parrot.

“Did you say that?” he hissed at the parrot.

“Yes,” the parrot squawked, “I’m just warning you that he’s watching you.”

The burglar relaxed. “Warning me? Who are you to do that?”

“Moses,” replied the bird.”

“Moses?” the burglar laughed. “What kind of person would name a bird Moses?”

“The kind of person who would name a Rottweiler Jesus,” says the bird. stuArt collinson, Edinburgh

“i’m sorry” And “i Apologise” mean the same thing. Except when you’re at a funeral.

comediAn demetri mArtin

q: how do you kill A circus clown? A: Go for the juggler.

As seen on the internet

AwkwArd models

These handsome people seem more than a little embarrassed by the poses they’ve been forced into (as seen at sadanduseless.com)

Beat the Cartoonist!

win £100 and a cartoon print

think of a witty caption for this picture and you could beat the experts at their own game. the three best suggestions will be posted on our website in midSeptember alongside an anonymous caption from our cartoonist. Visitors can choose their favourite—if your entry gets the most votes, you’ll win £100 and a framed copy of the cartoon, with your caption added. Submit to captions@readersdigest.co.uk or readersdigest.co.uk/caption by September 5. Vote online at readersdigest. co.uk/caption. we’ll announce the winner in our november issue.

July’s Winner

the professionals have at last made their mark on the scoreboard this month, but it wasn’t a clear win. For the first time, the vote for the top spot was a tie, with honours split evenly between cartoonist Steve way’s caption, “become a clown— works for me,” and reader Jenny March’s effort, “You need transferable skills, like this!” Kudos to both of them!

Scoreboard readers 24 cartoonists 8

in the october issue

Soothing Behind the Scenes

How a band of health professionals are caring for some of Britain’s top performers

Plus

• Gap Years for Grown-ups

• if i ruled the World: caroline casey

• 100-Word-story competiton