From 06.00 on 1 July, smoking will be prohibited on all station concourses, ticket halls, on covered and uncovered platforms together with footbridges and subways at station premises, retail and food outlets.
This will affect all 1,900 railway stations in England and also applies to railway offices, canteens and workplace areas. However, smoking will still be permitted on most station forecourts and in (uncovered) station car parks.
While the legislation affects covered or partially-covered premises, the railways are using existing railway bye-laws to extend the smoke-free environment to all uncovered platforms and footbridges for reasons of practicality and simplicity.
30.6.07
No smoking from 1 July
The way the British smoke
On Sunday morning, England joins the rest of the UK in banning smoking inside most public spaces - from bars to clubs, restaurants, shops, offices and factories. 
Smokers will have to head outdoors for a cigarette - or stay at home
Anyone wanting to light up will have to stay at home, brave the elements, or travel to the last remaining bastions of smoking in the British Isles - Alderney, Sark or the Isle of Man.
It's a move that affects most Britons, from the non-smokers happy to leave the pub without smelling of cigarettes, to the millions of puffers whose habits will have to change.
HOW MANY PEOPLE SMOKE?
About 10 million people Britons smoke cigarettes, according to anti-smoking charity Ash. It says a further two million - the vast majority of them men - smoke cigars, pipes or both.
In 1948, when surveys were first conducted, eight out of 10 British men smoked - the highest level recorded. Among women the peak was almost five out of 10, in 1966.
The proportion of smokers fell rapidly during the 70s and 80s and continues to decline steadily.
About one in four Britons over the age of 16 now smokes, with the rate slightly higher among men than women.
Sweden, where fewer than one in five people partakes, has the EU's lowest smoking rate. Greece, where almost half the adult population smokes, has the highest.
WHO SMOKES?
A person's age, whether they visit pubs and even their marital status is closely connected to the likelihood that they smoke.
By age group, it is 20- to 24-year-olds who are most likely to light up, with about a third considered smokers. As people get older they become less likely to smoke, with the rate falling to 14% for the over 60s.
About four out of 10 people who visit pubs smoke, and there is a strong link between smoking and social group, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Manual workers and their families are almost twice as likely to smoke as those with a managerial or professional background (31% compared with 17%). And people living together are twice as likely to smoke as those who are married (35% compared with 18%).
Across the country, the greatest proportion of smokers is found in the North East (30%).
SMOKERS' HABITS
Many smokers start early in the morning. About one third of people who get through more than 20 cigarettes a day light up within five minutes of waking.
Among this group, eight out of 10 people say they would struggle to go 24 hours without a cigarette. Among all smokers, more than half would find the task a challenge.
Nevertheless, seven out of 10 smokers say they would like to quit. The proportion wanting to stop is highest among those who smoke 10 to 19 cigarettes a day. It is suggested many heavy smokers believe stopping would be too difficult.
The average male smoker is thought to get through 14 cigarettes a day, while women smoke 13.
SMOKING AND HEALTH
Hundreds of thousands of deaths could be prevented by England's smoking ban, medical expert Sir Richard Peto said shortly before its introduction.
Anti-smoking campaigns repeatedly highlight the health risks
"Half of all smokers are going to be killed by tobacco. If a million people stop smoking who wouldn't otherwise have done so then maybe you'll prevent half a million deaths."
According to the charity Cancer Research, 50,000 cancer deaths and a further 70,000 deaths from heart disease and strokes are caused by smoking each year. It estimates that six million people have been killed in the past 50 years.
Supporters of a ban argue that it will protect many non-smokers from the effects of passive smoking.
But it has also been suggested that many children will be more likely to be exposed to smoke, as their parents will light up at home instead.
UP IN SMOKE
Smoking is good news for the Treasury, with about £4.10 of the £5.50 cost of a packet of cigarettes taken in taxes.
UK'S BEST-SELLING CIGARETTES 1) Lambert & Butler King Size - 13.5% (Imperial)
2) Benson & Hedges Gold - 7.3% (Gallaher)
3) Mayfair King Size - 7.1% (Gallaher)
4) Richmond Superkings - 6.6% (Imperial)
5) Richmond King Size - 4.9% (Imperial)
6) Marlboro Gold King Size - 4.4% (Philip Morris)
7) Regal King Size - 3.5% (Imperial)
8) Royals King Size Red - 3.4% (BAT)
9) Superkings - 3.3% (Imperial)
10) Silk Cut Purple - 3.2% (Gallaher)
Figures for 2004. Source: Ash
Excluding VAT, this earned the Treasury more than £8bn in 2004-5, Ash says.
Treating diseases caused by smoking is costly, however. The campaign group says the NHS spends £1.5bn a year, including hospital admissions, GP consultations and prescriptions. There are further costs in the form of benefits.
It is thought that about 3,000 people are employed by the tobacco industry in the UK, which is home to three of the five biggest tobacco companies in the world.
While it has been suggested that the smoking ban will hit manufacturers hard, others point out that cigarette prices have already been put up to offset any fall in sales.
"Smokers will continue to choose to smoke," said Imperial Tobacco ahead of the ban.
10 Things
Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
1. The prime ministerial Jaguar is called Pegasus.
More details
2. MPs cannot resign. To step down, Tony Blair had to accept the post of steward and bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.
3. Gordon Brown is the first post-war university-educated prime minister not to have gone to Oxford.
4. There is no kneeling or kissing of hands when the Queen offers the position of prime minister.
5. A flotilla of rubber ducks that spilt into the sea from a container ship in 1992 may soon be sighted in British waters. They may continue circling the world for 100 years.
6. Peanuts can be made into diamonds.
More details
7. Sporrans used to be made out of otter fur.
More details
8. Beetles commit rape.
9. Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut is believed to have worn men's clothes and a false beard.
More details
10. Domestic cats can trace their descent to the Middle East.
More details
2 - Daily Telegraph (29 June); 3 - Times (27 June); 4 - BBC TV (27 June); 5 - Times (28 June); 8 - Times (25 June)
June 30th
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| 1985: Beirut ordeal ends for US hostages All 39 Americans being held captive by the Shia Muslim Amal militia in Lebanon are released, after almost three weeks in captivity. | |||
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| 1971: Space mission ends in tragedy Three Russian cosmonauts are found dead in their Soyuz 11 space capsule after it made what looked like a perfect landing in Kazakhstan. | |||
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| 1969: Nigeria bans Red Cross aid to Biafra Four million people face starvation when the Nigerian government bans night flights of food by the Red Cross. | |||
29.6.07
'Space hotel' test craft launched
An experimental spacecraft designed to test the viability of a hotel in space has been successfully sent into orbit. 
Inflatable technology was first used by Nasa in the 1960s
Genesis II is an inflatable module designed and launched by Bigelow Aerospace, a private company founded by an American hotel tycoon.
The inflatable and flexible core of the spacecraft expands to form a bigger structure after launch.
Billionaire Robert Bigelow hopes to use inflatable technology to construct a manned space station by 2015.
Inflatable spacecraft are attractive because they take up less space on their launch vehicle than solid components and therefore cost less to place into orbit.
Genesis II was launched on board a Russian rocket, and successfully separated from its launch vehicle 14 minutes after lift-off, engineers said.
Communications were established with the craft after a short delay, before the module beamed back a series of images of its expanding solar panels.
Officials said the craft was functioning well, with communications and air pressure as expected.
Commercial pressure
Bigelow Aerospace - slogan: Getting you excited again about space - hopes to build a full-scale space hotel, dubbed Nautilus, which will link a series of inflatable modules together like a string of sausages.
Genesis II is a 15 ft (4.5m) module designed to expand to a diameter of 8ft (2.4m).
On board the company has sent a collection of pictures and other memorabilia from fee-paying customers keen to see their personal possessions photographed in space.
The company also hopes to activate a space-based bingo game to be played by people back on Earth.
Later this year it plans to launch another module, Galaxy, described as a halfway house to a human-habitable space module.
Founder Robert Bigelow has invested some $500m (£250m) in his project, which is vying with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic enterprise to take fee-paying customers into space.
But experts say the costs of commercial space travel need to come down before it can be a success.
As a result, Mr Bigelow is offering a $50m prize to anyone who can design a craft capable of carrying five people to a height of 400km (250 miles) before 2010.
The return of the Viking warship
On Sunday, 65 men and women will embark on one of the most ambitious, dangerous and important experimental archaeology projects ever undertaken. 
The Viking warship was a high point of boat-building technique
They will attempt to sail a reconstructed Viking warship from Roskilde, Denmark, to Dublin, across some of the roughest seas in the world.
The ship, The Sea Stallion from Glendalough, is the most authentic Viking warship built in nine centuries. It's based on the largest of five ships that were excavated from the bottom of Roskilde fjord in 1962, opposite the small village of Skuldelev.
One of these ships was the holy grail of Viking archaeology: the remains of a 30m longship. This was the largest Viking ship yet found and would have carried a crew of more than 60 men.
It represented the very pinnacle of Viking technology and ship-building technique, designed to be very fast and manoeuvrable and capable of transporting a large contingent of warriors. 
The team will travel from Denmark to Dublin and back 
Enlarge MapThe ship would have provoked terror when sighted by the Vikings intended targets.
All five of the Skuldelev wrecks are now housed in a purpose built museum in Roskilde. The museum also embarked on the ambitious project of building accurate reconstructions of the ship.
The rebuilding of the Longship was a lengthy process; in 1998 the Viking Ship Museum constructed a 1:10 scale model of the ship. The model demonstrated that the construction of a full scale ship was feasible and work began in 2000.
FULL COVERAGE Follow this link for more about the voyage and how to track the ship's progress live: 
The construction was undertaken relying solely on traditional Viking tools and building methods - the Vikings did not use saws and so every single piece of the ship had to be hand cut and then shaped and hewn using axes, an extremely skilled and lengthy process.
Sea test
More than 7,000 iron rivets, 2,000m of rope and 300 ancient Danish oaks were used in the reconstruction. After four years of painstaking work the Sea Stallion from Glendalough was launched on 4 September 2004.
Now they want to know whether their reconstruction is capable of making the kind of journeys the Vikings once undertook. To find out, they're sailing this ship over 1,000 miles across the North Sea to the Orkneys and on to Dublin.
This voyage is not simply a frivolous adventure; it has a serious point - to understand how the ships managed to carry the Vikings so far and wide. 
Privacy will be virtually non-existent on the journey
The crew all understand the importance of the project and what the museum hopes to achieve. Triona, one of the Irish crew member, is well aware of reasons for undertaking the voyage.
"The museum staff on the ship will be involved in recording everything that happens. And all this will be analysed when the ship gets back.
"This is crucial to understanding the Viking Age as these ships were really the backbone of it - we can't really understand how they got where they did, and why they did it, without knowing how they did it."
Learning curve
The 65 members of crew on board face many challenges. Each has a specific and vital role in the smooth running of the ship. From captain to cook - everyone has their own responsibilities and worries.
Carsten, the skipper of the Sea Stallion, is in charge of getting the ship to Dublin in one piece: "It's a big responsibility, I am always thinking about it, day and night, and now the time to leave is coming I wake up in the night thinking how will it go?"
While Carsten faces the unenviable challenge of getting his crew safely through some of the most unpredictable and hostile waters on Earth, the two cooks on board must sustain the crew with limited rations, often in terrible weather conditions and with very limited space.
These challenges would have been the same for the original members of the Viking crew.
Every member of the crew has less than one sq m to live, sleep and eat in.
"It's hard to get proper rest, sleeping conditions are hard - you don't get the rest that you need," says Erik, one of the older members of the crew.
"Often you don't get as much food as you need and this is cumulative, so as days go on, it gets worse and worse."
Pushing the limits
Privacy is also impossible in such close quarters. The ship has no shelter from the weather, no cleaning facilities and no lavatories.
They will be living virtually on top of each other for six weeks and this will test their friendships to the limit.
All of the crew are volunteers and despite the difficulties involved most are relishing the prospect. 
The crew faces real challenges and risks on the voyage
"It's the adventure of crossing the North Sea, in an open boat like this, and also the social project; with 65 people crabbed down on 65 sq m, to see how you will perform. It pushes boundaries, in all sorts of ways," explains Hans, a young Danish crew member, summing up the feelings of many on the expedition.
The voyage will also be a challenging test for the boat itself. No one knows if it will be able to withstand the rigours of the unforgiving North Sea. Even some of the experienced sailors on board think the ship may run into trouble; Dylan, a New Zealander, has some concerns.
"I was sailing with it to Norway last year and I noticed that when we were surfing with the waves, when the bow of the boat got pushed into another wave that there was only about two centimetres of free board.
"And this was in waves of about three-and-a-half or four metres high. So I am excited to see how it goes in waves of six metres high," he says.
Real risks
If the team has made a mistake in their reconstruction, the ship could be destroyed by the huge forces of the waves and wind.
The crew know that they are putting themselves on the line. Louise, a Viking historian and member of the crew, is well aware of the risks that she and the others face.
"It's mainly the weather conditions and the fact that we are sailing in quite risky areas, that is the biggest worry," she explains.
"The prospect of being shipwrecked is all too real and every member of crew has received training in cold water survival.
It is the first time in nearly a thousand years that a fully laden Viking warship will sail across the North Sea.
The Sea Stallion represents the highpoint of Viking maritime achievement and it will give historians a once in a lifetime glimpse at how these mysterious raiders from the North spread so far and wide.
The ship's crew will be writing a weekly diary. More regular updates and a satellite map of the ship's latest position can be found at BBC History's Viking Voyage website.
The ship's voyage is also being filmed for a BBC Two Timewatch programme in the autumn.
Sources: Viking Ship Museum, Denmark; National Maritime Museum, UK. Photos: Werner Karrasch and Erwan Crouan
THE SEA STALLION FROM GLENDALOUGH 
1. The crew of 65 men and women will sleep on the open deck, as the Vikings did, and take turn keeping watch 2. Satellite navigation equipment will make sure the ship stays on course. Vikings had to rely on position of the sun and stars, the colour and movement of the sea and wind direction 3. Oak planks were cut radially for maximum strength, overlapped and nailed together. Axes and other tools used to make the planks were replicas of those used by the Vikings 4. The sail, mast, rigging and rudder on the original were missing so these have been copied from other finds 5. Shields, vital in battle, were tied over the oarports when the ship was in port
What's in a motto?
Prime Minister Gordon Brown resorted to his school's Latin motto when pledging commitment to his new job, but what's the significance of these ancient mission statements?
At the next election it is likely to be "usque conabor" against "floreat etona".
For the non-classicists that's "I will try my utmost", motto of Kirkcaldy High School, versus "may Eton flourish", rather unsurprisingly that of Conservative leader David Cameron's alma mater.
Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell isn't in the Latin club, having been schooled at Glasgow's Hillhead High School, with a French motto. "Nous maintiendrons" or "we will maintain" is fairly low-key.
LATIN SCHOOL MOTTOS Gordon Brown: Usque conabor David Cameron: Floreat etona Edward Heath: Floreat Domus Chathamensis Margaret Thatcher: Veras hinc ducere voces
There are a select group of institutions - including schools and football clubs - where a Latin motto is almost a sine qua non. Go on the web and you can even find Latin consultants for businesses wanting a heavyweight motto.
The idea is simple, a bit of Latin spells a dose of gravitas, and a hefty slice of tradition and history.
Mottos for schools tend to be laden with concepts like effort, honesty, humility, teamwork - in short all the attributes the teachers wished the pupils really possessed. "Non sibi sed omnibus" or "not for oneself but for all" as well as "lumen accipe et imperti" or "take the light and pass it on" being just a couple of examples.
Rarely used but worth considering for schools struggling with discipline might be "vir sapit qui pauca loquitur" or "wise is the person who talks little" and "potius sero quam numquam" or "better late than never".
How dare Spurs
In football, the benchmarks are "nil satis nisi optimum" or "nothing but the best is enough" for Everton [last major trophy 1995] and Blackburn Rovers' "arte et labore" or "by skill and hard work" [usual modus operandi - 1-0 win featuring resolute defending at corners].
Tottenham Hotspur got an earful from Latin lovers at the beginning of 2006 when they announced a plan to drop the motto "audere est facere" or "to dare is to do" from the badge on their strips.
David Beckham is a Latinist, reportedly having "ut amem et foveam" or "so that I love and cherish" and "perfectio in spiritu" or "perfection in spirit" as tattoos.
Man City's motto means "pride in battle"
But the best sporting slogan is that of football club Queen's Park with "ludere causa ludendi" or "to play for the sake of the game [recently promoted to Scotland's Division 2].
Oliver Taplin, a classics professor at Oxford University, says Latin mottos hark back to a time when Latin was Europe's lingua franca.
"It is interesting that school mottos are still mostly in Latin. They come from a tradition when if you were going to be a participant in European culture, you needed to know Latin. But I've also seen mottos in French and Greek.
"Latin is so associated with the history of education. Grammar schools were started so people could learn Latin grammar."
Mr Taplin says he has been called on to conjure up Latin mottos, including on one occasion an obscene one for a retiring air force officer.
But now ordinary voters will be thinking of what motto they would give the new prime minister.
Perhaps "mutandum est" or "it must be changed" for a seemingly reform-obsessed leader.
Critics might suggest "imperabo" - "I shall control".
June 29th
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| 1995: US shuttle docks with Russian space station American and Russian spacecrafts successfully dock in orbit for the first time in 20 years. | |||
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| 1960: BBC unveils TV 'factory' The BBC's new Television Centre will be the "Hollywood" of the small screen, the corporation's director of TV announces. | |||
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| 1974: First female president for Argentina Isabel Peron is sworn in as interim leader of the Argentine Republic after her husband falls ill. | |||
28.6.07
Pub News - from The Publican
Top stories:
Herefordshire licensee to defy ban
Licensee pledges to fight 'draconian' law for the good of the trade
London bar gets extra hours in landmark case
Fudge bar overcomes West End stress area
Flooding hits Northern pubs
Cellars flood and people take shelter as rain batters the streets
Pubs face fightback in smoking ban price war
FMCG foreacsts Indian and Chinese restaurants may start cutting fightbacks
TV entrepreneur pulls drink name after Portman Group decision
Reality TV competitor says she did not understand how the code of practice worked
Other news this week:
London litter clause scrapped- Free responsible retailing courses offered to licensees
- Love in the air after July 1, says survey
- Personal licence suspended for illegal Sky
- Baby charity Tommy's welcomes smoking ban
- George Bateman dies
- Licensed Trade Charity offers help to flood victims
- Spirit staff help prepare for smoke ban
- Don't recycle glass ashtrays, warns British Glass
- Children drinking less alcohol, says survey
- Three-quarters of people aware of alcohol consumption guidelines
- Quitters push up sales of smoking cessation aids
- Callard gets behind recycling campaign
- Pubs get innovative over smoke ban
- Consumers tell us their views on the ban
- Industry figures predict future of the trade post-ban
- Chris Maclean's brain-teasing farewell to smoking in pubs
- Doorman loses licence
- Spirit pub fined over hygiene breaches
- Rock band's song urgers smokers to defy the smoking ban
- FSB can help you adhere to the ban
Features:
Learn from experience
Brewer and pubco Brains has already been through the smoking ban in Wales. Here the company offers advice on how English pub owners can adapt
Chris Maclean: smoke ban quiz!
A brain-teasing farewell to smoking in pubs
Get all the latest news and advice from the UK's leading pub trade information resource – www.thepublican.com
Beijing's penis emporium
There are many thousands of Chinese restaurants around in the UK and everyone has their favourite dish, but only in China itself do chefs specialise in a range of slightly more unusual delicacies.
Many of the restaurant's guests are wealthy businessmen
The dish in front of me is grey and shiny.
"Russian dog," says my waitress Nancy.
"Big dog," I reply.
"Yes," she says. "Big dog's penis..."
We are in a cosy restaurant in a dark street in Beijing but my appetite seems to have gone for a stroll outside.
Nancy has brought out a whole selection of delicacies.
They are draped awkwardly across a huge platter, with a crocodile carved out of a carrot as the centrepiece.
Nestling beside the dog's penis are its clammy testicles, and beside that a giant salami-shaped object.
"Donkey," says Nancy. "Good for the skin..."
She guides me round the penis platter.
"Snake. Very potent. They have two penises each."
I did not know that.
Deer-blood cocktail
"Sheep... horse... ox... seal - excellent for the circulation."
She points to three dark, shrivelled lumps which look like liquorice allsorts - a special treat apparently - reindeer, from Manchuria.
Government officials... two of them... they're having the penis hotpot 
Nancy
The Guolizhuang restaurant claims to be China's only speciality penis emporium, and no, it is not a joke.
The atmosphere is more exotic spa than boozy night-out.
Nancy describes herself as a nutritionist.
"We don't call them waiters here. And we don't serve much alcohol," she says. "Only common people come here to get drunk and laugh."
But she does offer me a deer-blood and vodka cocktail, which I decide to skip.
Medicinal purposes
The restaurant's gristly menu was dreamt up by a man called Mr Guo.
The Chinese believe that eating penis can enhance your virility
He is 81 now and retired.
After fleeing China's civil war back in 1949, he moved to Taiwan, and then to Atlanta, Georgia, where he began to look deeper into traditional Chinese medicine, and experiment on the appendages of man's best friend.
Apparently, they are low in cholesterol and good, not just for boosting the male sex drive, but for treating all sorts of ailments.
Laughter trickles through the walls of our dining room.
"Government officials," says Nancy. "Two of them upstairs. They're having the penis hotpot."
Most of the restaurant's guests are either wealthy businessmen or government bureaucrats who, as Nancy puts it, have been brought here by people who want their help.
What better way to secure a contract than over a steaming penis fondue.
Discretion is assured as all the tables are in private rooms.
The glitziest one has gold dishes.
"Some like their food served raw," says Nancy, "like sushi. But we can cook it anyway you like."
Rare order
"Not long ago, a particularly rich real estate mogul came in with four friends. All men. Women don't come here so often, and they shouldn't eat testicles," says Nancy solemnly.
The men spent $5,700 (£3,000) on a particularly rare dish, something that needed to be ordered months in advance.
"Tiger penis," says Nancy.
Bull's perineum is also a delicacy
The illegal trade in tiger parts is a big problem in China.
Campaigners say the species is being driven towards extinction because of its popularity as a source of traditional medicine.
I mention this, delicately, to Nancy, but she insists that all her tiger supplies come from animals that have died of old age.
"Anyway, we only have one or two orders a year," she says.
"So what does it taste like?" I ask.
"Oh, the same as all the others," she says blithely.
And does it have any particular potency? "No. People just like to order tiger to show off how much money they have."
Welcome to the People's Republic of China - tigers beware.
Sliced and pickled
"Oh yes," she adds, "the same group also ate an aborted reindeer foetus.
"That is very good for your skin. And here it is..."
Another "nutritionist" walks in bearing something small and red wrapped in cling film.
My appetite is heading for the airport.
Still, I think, it would be rude not to try something.
I am normally OK about this sort of thing. I have had fried cockroaches and sheep's eyes, so...
There is a small bowl of sliced and pickled ox penis on the table.
I pick up a piece with my chopsticks and start to chew. It is cold and bland and rubbery.
Nancy gives me a matronly smile.
"This one," she says, "should be eaten every day."
Mapping nature's ancient monuments
The public is being asked to help the Woodland Trust charity create a map of the UK's ancient woodlands.
Conservationists say Britain has more ancient trees than any other nation in northern Europe. The yew at Fortingall in Perthshire is thought to be the oldest.
The Fortingall Yew is as old as Stonehenge
What is conceivably Europe's oldest living thing is looking a bit green around the edges.
But that is a good thing, and much to the relief of those charged with its care.
Because when the Fortingall Yew in Scotland produces young, fresh leaves, it means it's adding another year to the thousands it has already been on this earth.
About 5,000, to be precise. A sapling when Stonehenge was created, 3,000 years old when the Romans came to Britain, a survivor from Pyramids to iPod.
"We are aware that it's a great responsibility" says Dr Gordon Stark, the session clerk at Fortingall Kirk.
"There's a very large bit of the circumference missing. It once stood 56ft in diameter, but souvenir hunters and young men who used to hold bonfires inside the hollow tree have all taken their toll.
"It's now got only a few bits left, but they are still alive and sprouting"
Great spirituality
The tree lies inside the village kirkyard, framed by a peaceful valley, lulled by the sound of lowing cattle and bleating sheep.
The yew tree has been known for its longevity, and was also regarded in some pre-Christian traditions as a tree of great spirituality.
"Before Christianity came to Scotland in the 7th Century the people who were here had known this tree for a few thousand years and held it in great reverence," says Dr Stark.
"It's probably quite natural that when the Christian missionaries came here from Iona, they settled and built their church quite near here, close to the tree that local people no doubt respected and treated as special."
Nature reserves
Conservationists at the Woodland Trust say they realise such an arboreal Methuselah is not the sort of thing you find in every bit of woodland - but nevertheless, there are treasures to be found.
If it's old, fat and gnarled then you should record it
Dr Gordon Stark
As we take a walk in nearby woodland in Glen Lyon, Andrew Fairburn of the Woodland Trust explains what the purpose of the Ancient Tree Hunt is.
"It's to create an online record of ancient trees right across the UK. There is no register officially for these trees at present, but we think they're nature's equivalent of historical monuments, and we should treat them as such," he says.
"Some other countries in Europe protect individual trees as nature reserves, because an ancient tree can support hundreds of different species, mosses, lichens, birds and small mammals."
'Tree hugging'
So what should we be looking for?
"If it's old, fat and gnarled then you should record it," Mr Fairburn says.
"An example is, if you're looking at an oak tree, if you and two friends can hug the tree standing finger to finger, then that's the sort of width we're looking for.
Politicians and environmental groups are often disparagingly referred to as "tree-huggers" but the Woodland Trust wants you to do just that - and help protect our living historic monuments at the same time.Nasa readies for asteroid mission
A Nasa spacecraft set for launch early next month will explore the two biggest asteroids in the Solar System. 
The Dawn spacecraft is scheduled for launch in July
Asteroids are believed to be the building blocks of planets - primordial relics left over from the formation of the Solar System 4.6 billion years ago.
The Dawn mission will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on 7 July, on a mission to study the asteroids Ceres and Vesta.
Dawn will reach Vesta in 2011 before going on to visit Ceres in 2015.
"Ceres and Vesta have been altered much less than other bodies," said Christopher Russell, the Dawn mission's chief scientist. We're going back in time to the early Solar System
Christopher Russell, UCLA
"The Earth is changing all the time; the Earth hides its history, but we believe that Ceres and Vesta, formed more than 4.6 billion years ago, have preserved their early record."
Ceres is almost spherical and is thought to harbour a layer of water ice some 60 to 120km (40 to 80 miles) thick beneath its rocky surface. CERES 
Biggest object in the asteroid belt 930km (580 miles) across Discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi Icy layer beneath dusty surface
At a meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) last year, Ceres was elevated in status from merely the biggest body in the asteroid belt, to a "dwarf planet" - the same designation now held by Pluto.
While Ceres is a "wet" object, Vesta is devoid of water and appears to have been resurfaced by ancient lava flows.
Dawn will travel to the asteroid belt to carry out a detailed study of their structure and composition, shedding light on their evolution and the conditions in which these objects formed.
The mission's objectives include:
- study internal structure and density
- determine size, composition, shape and mass
- examine surface features and craters
- understand the role of water in controlling asteroid evolution
Dawn's instruments include a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer that can detect the hydrogen from water.
Evidence of whether water still exists on Ceres could come from frost or vapour on the surface. There may even be liquid water under the surface.
The water is thought to have kept Ceres cool throughout its evolution. By contrast, Vesta was hot, melted internally and became volcanic early in its development.
Frozen in time
While Ceres remains closer to the ancient state, Vesta evolved further over its first few millions of years of existence.
Dawn is expected to send back high-resolution images of these worlds, including, perhaps, mountains, canyons, craters and ancient lava flows.
The instruments will help identify minerals on the surface and the elements they contain. VESTA 
525km (326 miles) across Surface has distinctive light and dark areas Discovered in 1807 by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers Pieces of Vesta have fallen to Earth as meteorites
"[Ceres and Vesta] are revealing information that was frozen into their ancient surfaces," said Professor Russell, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
"By looking at the surface and how it was modified by the bombardment of meteoroids, we will get an idea of what the early conditions of Ceres and Vesta were and how they changed.
"So Dawn is a history trip too. We're going back in time to the early Solar System."
Dawn is scheduled to fly past Mars by April 2009, and after more than four years of travel, the spacecraft will rendezvous with Vesta in 2011.
The spacecraft will orbit Vesta for about nine months, before setting off in 2012 for a three-year cruise to Ceres.
Dawn will rendezvous with its second target in 2015, to conduct studies for at least five months.
June 28th
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| 1960: Welsh pit blast kills 37 miners At least 37 men are killed in a gas explosion at a coal mine in Monmouthshire, Wales. | |||
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| 2004: US transfers power back to Iraq The US hands sovereignty back to Iraq in a low-key ceremony in Baghdad. | |||
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| 1976: Death sentence for mercenaries Three Britons and an American are sentenced to death by firing squad for their roles during the Angolan civil war. | |||
Spice Girls announcement imminent
The Spice Girls are widely expected to announce they are reforming at a press conference in London on Thursday. 
The band scored hits with Say You'll Be There and Spice Up Your Life
It will be the first official public appearance by all five members since Geri Halliwell quit in May 1998.
By that point, the band had notched up six UK number one singles, and were in the midst of a 102-date world tour.
Earlier this month Mel C, better known as Sporty Spice, told the BBC that any reunion would be for "a very short space of time... a final goodbye".
The singer added that she had resisted reforming the band in the past because "it was amazing, it was magical. We could never recreate it".
Future plans
The girl group are due to address the press at the O2 arena in south-east London at 1200BST (1100GMT). 
The band won four Brits, including a lifetime achievement award
A notice announcing the event said the band would "make an official announcement to the world regarding future plans".
It is rumoured the group are planning six live shows around the world with gigs in London, Tokyo and Las Vegas, to support a greatest hits album which comes out later this year.
The band's management company, 19 Entertainment, has already registered the internet domains spicegirlsofficial.com and spicegirlsofficial.net.
19 is run by Simon Fuller, who masterminded the group's global success more than a decade ago.
Under his guidance, the five-piece notched up a string of hits - including Wannabe and Two Become One - while also capitalising on their fame with a stream of sponsorship deals.
Nicknames
Emma Bunton, Mel Brown, Mel Chisholm, Victoria Adams and Geri Halliwell quickly became household names - although they were better known as Baby, Scary, Sporty, Posh and Ginger.
They sold more than 55 million records around the world, and even starred in a film, Spice World. 
The band famously spent time with Prince Charles and Nelson Mandela
Halliwell quit in 1998 citing "differences" with her bandmates, leaving them to complete a sold-out world tour as a foursome.
The group achieved their third consecutive Christmas number one later that year, and released a third album, Forever, in 2000.
Each member has since pursued solo careers with varying degrees of success, while Posh Spice has become better known as fashion icon Victoria Beckham.
27.6.07
CIA documents reflect troubled times
The newly released documents known within the Central Intelligence Agency as the "Family Jewels" give a history of the agency's misdeeds covering several decades. 
The papers reveal the CIA tried to hire mobsters to kill Fidel Castro
There is nothing revelatory within the tome, but the American media have already picked up on something that has been an obsession here since 1959.
While it has never been a secret that the American government wanted Fidel Castro dead, now we know that at one point agents from the CIA attempted to hire mobsters to assassinate the Cuban leader.
At times the report reads like a cheap American detective novel: meetings with crime syndicates in Las Vegas, a bounty of $150,000 and a memo outlining how the US government should remain ignorant of the attempt to kill President Castro.
As for the other misdeeds, there is the confinement of a Russian defector, surveillance of journalists who were thought to be leaking sensitive information, break-ins, wiretapping, and experiments on unwitting members of the public to change their behaviour.
The list seems endless and for the most part of highly dubious legality.
'Unflattering history'
The documents were compiled in 1974 and much of the information has since been leaked and written about in great detail.
Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader
A headline in the New York Times that year read: "Huge CIA Operation reported in the US against anti-war forces, other dissidents in Nixon years."
The CIA's current chief, Michael Hayden, has referred to the "Family Jewels" documents as an "unflattering part of CIA history" and a reflection of how much the agency has now changed.
For the most part, these events took place in the 1960s and early 70s, decades that witnessed a deeply unpopular war in Vietnam, a scandal that brought down a president and a Cold War that increasingly took up much of the intelligence community's time and resources.
The documents reveal a period of aggressive and often illegal CIA activities, perhaps reflecting the then administration's worries about an unpopular war and the activities of journalists determined to uncover the truth.
For some people in the US, all this sounds very familiar - and comparisons are being drawn with today, despite the agency's insistence that it has reformed and no longer operates above the law.
'Myth and speculation'
Under President George W Bush's administration, American citizens have been held without charge or legal representation.
Michael Hayden wants to change the CIA's tradition of secrecy
The Patriot Act, passed just days after the attacks of 11 September, 2001, gave law enforcement agencies sweeping powers, including searching telephone, e-mail and banking records without the need for court orders.
A great deal of attention has also been paid to secret CIA flights over Europe, with reports that more than 1,000 covert CIA flights crossed European airspace carrying terrorism suspects to prisons in other countries for questioning in the four years after 9/11.
But Michael Hayden, himself a history buff, claims that myth and speculation fill the vacuum of information from the CIA, something he wants to change.
He says the agency has detained fewer than 100 people in its secret overseas detention programme since 2001.
In the course of this programme, Mr Hayden says, the CIA has acted lawfully and prisoners have been treated in keeping with Western values.
Very little of the information in these latest documents will come as a surprise to most Americans, since much of the information is already well documented.
But as the US and its intelligence community face ever more pressing problems, its citizens may speculate that it will be many years before they know exactly what the CIA - or any other agency - is doing in the name of the American people today.
The new sci-fi
It's not every day that you hear a justification for suicide bombing on an American TV drama - and certainly not one as vigorous and heartfelt as this: "I've sent men on suicide missions in two wars now, and let me tell you something - it don't make a goddamn difference whether they're riding in a Viper or walking out on to a parade ground. In the end, they're just as dead. So take your piety and your moralising and your high-minded principles and stick them some place safe ... I've got a war to fight."
The fact that the character talking is not some swivel-eyed terrorist but, in fact, a hero - or, at least, what passes for a hero in this TV show's murky, shades-of-grey universe - makes his speech more surprising still. In a further do-not-adjust-your-set moment, the show in question is Battlestar Galactica. Yes, that Battlestar Galactica.
Well, nearly. The reimagined BSG, as it is now known, is light-years away from its cheesy late-1970s incarnation starring Dirk Benedict, later of The A-Team, and Bonanza's Lorne Greene. The premise is the same - the last vestiges of humanity are being pursued by the sentient monotheistic robots that they created as labour-saving devices - but instead of cheese, there's grime, the harsh realities of living hand-to-mouth in space, and some of the sharpest, smartest writing on television. Gone is the comforting binary of "humanity good, robots bad", and in its place is a universe in which the good guys practise torture and recruit suicide bombers, while the bad guys are devoutly religious, embarking upon a genocidal war in the belief that they are cleansing the universe of corruption.
This is science fiction for the 21st century. What's more, it's sci-fi about the 21st century. Fans of the genre have long known that quality sci-fi and its sister genre fantasy hold up a mirror to the times in which they were created, but never before have the TV shows involved seemed so resonant or indeed so influential. Science fiction has never been more now, fantasy never more real.
Now, even those shows that aren't strictly sci-fi or fantasy are heavily indebted to it. Other than Doctor Who, which is about a time-traveller in a police box, the most talked-about British drama of recent years has been Life on Mars, about a time-travelling policeman. ITV1 - already home of Primeval, which is about a team of scientists tracking prehistoric creatures through rifts in time - is, apparently, planning a drama called Lost in Austen, in which a woman finds a gateway to the Regency era in her bathroom. Meanwhile, Life on Mars producer Kudos is developing Outcasts, for the BBC. It follows a band of ne'er-do-wells in the future searching for an alternative home to Earth as the planet's prospects look increasingly precarious. It has been described as being about "life's big imperatives - cheating death, seeking suitable mates and surviving as a species". Such is the commissioners' keenness these days on "high-concept" dramas - which is to say, dramas that borrow devices or themes from sci-fi and fantasy - that writers now complain that it is difficult to get them interested in anything else.
Among new dramas debuting later this year in America are a remake of The Bionic Woman; Journeyman, which has a man travelling in time to right wrongs; Pushing Daisies, about a detective who can bring people back to life; Babylon Fields, which is about zombies rising in contemporary America; Moonlight, about a detective who is also a vampire; True Blood, another vampire drama from Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball; and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, based on the Terminator movies. Of 45 pilots picked up for series by US networks for next season, around a quarter are straightforward science fiction or fantasy, or influenced by them. The fantastic future is here.
(Before we go any further, as the weary time-traveller might say, sci-fi probably requires definition. It is, basically, fiction that makes imaginative use of scientific knowledge or conjecture. It extrapolates about possible futures, based on the present. It's speculative fiction. Fantasy, as its name suggests, pertains more to the fantastic, the supernatural, the unexplained. So The Matrix is sci-fi while Buffy the Vampire Slayer is fantasy. Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, put it thus: "Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible.")
This is all something of a reversal of fortune for sci-fi. For a long time, science fiction and fantasy have been seen as something for teenage boys, genres you grow out of. Since the 1960s, Star Trek defined sci-fi on television, and the cult of Trek was ridiculed, most exquisitely in the film Galaxy Quest.
Of course, sci-fi and fantasy can't be that specialist: of the most successful films of all time, most have their origins in one or the other. As well as the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies, consider also the Alien quartet, the Jurassic Park films, the convoy of Harry Potter movies and ET.
Somehow, though, the suspension of disbelief that sci-fi and fantasy often require was too much for television audiences to swallow, and there the stigma remained. But Battle-star Galactica, along with the likes of Lost and Heroes, has changed that. All three shows are prime-time in America - Lost and Heroes on ABC and NBC respectively. Those are networks and not cable channels. This is a big deal.
Lost, with its employment of an unexplained plane crash on a mysterious island, unseen jungle monsters and strange initiatives, hatches and buttons, mixes elements of both sci-fi and fantasy. Perhaps disingenuously, given that the pilot cost a whopping $5m, Damon Lindelof, the show's executive producer, says it was never supposed to be a hit show. "It was meant to be a cult show like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Alias. Somehow this show became broader. The fact that my mother was ever watching Lost in the first place is a shock to me. It's weird and there's a monster and there's the Dharma Initiative. And she said, 'I love the characters.'"
So what went so right for TV sci-fi and fantasy? For starters, the advances in CGI and the relative inexpense of creating it for the small screen has meant that sci-fi and fantasy have become more believable and spectacular. As Tim Kring, creator of Heroes - a show about a disparate group of somewhat dysfunctional, ordinary people who each discover that they have a superpower - says: "In the last five years, there would be a major leap forwards every couple of months in what you could do within the budget of a television show. Extraordinary things that took giant mainframe computers and 12 programmers to do 10 years ago, a guy on a Macintosh can do now."
Meanwhile, in the wider world, the event that has made sci-fi and fantasy palatable, and indeed positively appealing, to a mainstream audience is 9/11. 9/11 shook value systems and certainties, making the heretofore incredible seem not so outlandish. In a world in peril, we look to the fantastic for succour. The fin de siècle feeling that pervaded culture at the end of the 19th century, when the end was thought to be nigh, produced a burst of enduring science fiction and fantasy literature.
Calton Cuse, executive producer of Lost, says they weren't trying to consciously make a post-9/11 show, but, "We live in a tenuous world in which all sorts of threats can come out of nowhere and that affects us as people and what affects us as people affects us as writers."
Tim Kring, creator of Heroes, concurs with Cuse - he didn't set out to make a post-9/11 show - but "the wish-fulfilment aspect of the show feeds off a feeling that the world is a scary place. Issues like global warming and diminishing natural resources and terrorism are issues that seem really out of control and huge. That these ordinary people may be coming along with special powers and can ultimately do something about these larger issues taps into a sense of helplessness we may feel."
It can't be a coincidence that Lost, Heroes and Battlestar Galactica are laced with paranoia and suspicion - of government, of others, and, in Lost, of the Others. Just as Invasion of the Bodysnatchers in 1956 played on fears of reds under the bed, these are the times in which we live. Kring points out that heroes emerge in popular culture at times of crisis in the real world: Superman, for example, was born from the depths of the Depression. As Doctor Who supremo Russell T Davies notes, albeit while emphasising the optimism of his own show: "We live in a time of terror."
The suicide bomber's speech, as mentioned at the top of this article, is made by Battlestar Galactica's Colonel Tigh, an irascible, unpleasant, bigoted alcoholic, who leads the human insurgency when the planet he inhabits is occupied by the robotic Cylons. The Cylons, incidentally, aren't the giant metal machines you may remember from the original series. Now, they can look much like any other human, hidden in plain sight. One in particular, Number Six, whose feminine wiles lead a brilliant but vain government scientist to betray his species, looks an awful lot like a Victoria's Secret lingerie model - which is actually actor Tricia Helfer's previous occupation.
If talk of religious zealots, insurgency and occupation sounds familiar in the show, it's meant to. Executive producers David Eick and Ronald D Moore, who worked on the Star Trek franchise shows for 10 years, both studied politics at university and were drawn to the possibilities of exploring the world now through an imagined future. "I had wanted to get away from sci-fi and do something more overtly political, like The West Wing, but I watched the original Battlestar and realised how resonant its premise had become," Moore says. "It's about people who have survived a terrible attack on their civilisation and how they struggle with an ongoing war. The show is a prism through which we explore themes and situations that are relevant now."
Certainly, it feels more real today than the United Nations-in-space, technology-as-panacea world of Star Trek. Moreover, it's one of the few American dramas that deals with terrorism and the war on terror head on. The only other major US drama to do so is 24, and its all-guns-blazing approach is to the detriment of any thoughtfulness.
Where once the future, as imagined in sci-fi, was a place of possibility and a time of shininess, in BSG, it's a dark, dreadful circumstance. Humanity hasn't ventured starward to seek out new life and new civilisation - they've scarpered to escape annihilation. They go not boldly, but desperately. In Lost, its multi-ethnic, metaphor-for-America cast of characters has been downed by a plane crash and thrown into an uncertain, unfamiliar world. In Heroes, power is both a blessing and a curse, mostly attracting the wrong kind of attention.
Science fiction and fantasy have changed and, in turn, are shaping other genres. Battlestar Galactica's Moore says they deliberately eschewed aliens with knobbly foreheads, brothel planets and other sci-fi cliches. "We wanted to avoid the aesthetic trappings that sci-fi can get bogged down in and opted for a naturalistic look to the show."
BSG is the vanguard of a slew of sci-fi and fantasy shows that work within their genres, within our times, and - most importantly - as good old-fashioned emotional, engaging dramas. The producers of these dramas have created credible, cool shows - ones that are earthier and more grounded than many apparently firmly placed on this planet in the here-and-now. The drearily domestic but strangely alien Brothers and Sisters, I mean you. Why gaze at navels when you can gaze at the stars?
The far side: five of the best sci-fi/fantasy shows
Battlestar Galactica (2003-present)
Rebooted for a new century. Characters have changed gender, the clunky robots now look human, and the moral, political, sexual and ethical knots in which the characters find themselves are Gordian indeed. Also, the cast is very sexy.
Firefly (2002)
Set in the year 2517, when America and China have joined forces to become the somewhat sinister Alliance, a band of rogues, smugglers, criminals and reprobates - diamonds, the lot of them - struggle with existential problems more than they do with warp engines. Created by Joss Whedon, and often described as a western in space, it's more Deadwood than Bonanza. Cruelly cancelled after 14 episodes, it spawned the feature film, Serenity.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)
High school is hell. In Joss Whedon's genius show, the metaphor grew fangs and claws as a blonde schoolgirl - so long the archetype victim in the horror genre - became the heroine and kicked demon butt, averting apocalypse time and again. Smart, funny, sad and brilliant.
The X-Files (1993-2002)
From the shapeshifting, liver-eating Eugene Tooms to killer midgets on skateboards, from alien abduction to bees bred for nefarious purposes, Chris Carter managed to scare with monsters-of-the-week while building a compelling mythology that would eventually throttle the show. Still, there was the Unresolved Sexual Tension between sceptical Dana Scully and Fox "Spooky" Mulder.
Doctor Who (1963-present)
When Christopher Eccleston bowed out after one series, the wheels might have come off Russell T Davies' reinvigoration of the British classic. Instead, David Tennant took the Doctor from strength to strength. Stories as clever as that involving Charles Dickens, as emotional as that in which Rose bade goodbye, and as terrifying as Steven Moffat's Blink, with its Weeping Angels, mean that Doctor Who succeeds in being both chilling and life-affirming.
· Battlestar Galactica, 11pm Saturday, Sky Two; Lost, 8pm from August 4, Sky One; Heroes, 10pm Monday, Sci-Fi, and coming to BBC2, 9pm, from July 25; Doctor Who, Saturday, 7.05pm, BBC1.
New frontiers in journalism
News is entering a new phase. TV, radio and the web no longer stand alone as separate channels, but are converging in a complex interplay of social media. Over the coming days, the BBC is offering a glimpse of how it could be delivered in the future. 
Where it all comes together...
You have to admit, much of what we do looks like magic.
From broadcasting live from an Afghan hillside, and delivering news almost as it breaks, to getting reporters and crew to the most remote, most dangerous, most important areas on the planet, all in time to send news home in time for tea.
It's not just magical. It's plentiful as well: there's never been so much reporting available. There has never been a time where so much information is available to those who want it.
Whether online, on television, or on the radio, news comes to you faster, deeper, and in more flavours than ever before.
YouTube is carrying Ben's reports for the BBC and background material
But while there's more news available to you, you're much less likely to know how it was made. The days of newspapermen meeting someone in the pub, scribbling some notes on the back of a beer mat, then rolling into the office to type it up are long gone.
The modern journalist is a multi-media creature, feeding the beasts of television, radio and the web.
The demands on our time are much greater, the prospect of going down the pub in the middle of the day much less and the number of educated eyes looking at our work far beyond anything any media professional has ever had to deal with.
And as any conjuror will tell you, producing magic under so many eyes is incredibly hard if you want to keep your methods secret.
Behind the scenes
Many do want to preserve the mystique, but frankly, I think it's easier, and more productive in the end, to do what my maths teacher was always forlornly begging me to do, and show my working.
It will be interesting and will break open the conventional mould of foreign correspondent
Richard Sambrook
BBC's Head of Global News
All of this is why I'm embarking on a reporting tour of Turkey, in advance of July's general elections, during which I'll be reporting not only on the usual BBC outlets - television, radio, and the ordinary news stories found here online - but also on YouTube, Flickr, Del.icio.us and Twitter.
I will be reporting the story, yes, as it's a complicated, richly nuanced and important one, but I'll also be reporting how we work: filing videos, pictures, and words, every night that look behind the scenes of the journey.
As Richard Sambrook, the BBC's Head of Global News, says: "We hope it will open a window on how international reporting is carried out. It won't be perfect, but it will be interesting and will break open the conventional mould of foreign correspondent."
So take a look. 
Team makes Tunguska crater claim
Scientists have identified a possible crater left by the biggest space impact in modern times - the Tunguska event. 
A 3D reconstruction reveals Lake Cheko's true shape
The blast levelled more than 2,000 sq km of forest near the Tunguska River in Siberia on 30 June 1908.
A comet or asteroid is thought to have exploded in the Earth's atmosphere with a force equal to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs.
Now, a University of Bologna team says a lake near the epicentre of the blast may be occupying a crater hollowed out by a chunk of rock that hit the ground.
Lake Cheko - though shallow - fits the proportions of a small, bowl-shaped impact crater, say the Italy-based scientists.
Their investigation of the lake bottom's geology reveals a funnel-like shape not seen in neighbouring lakes.
In addition, a geophysics survey of the lake bed has turned up an unusual feature about 10m down which could either be compacted lake sediments or a buried fragment of space rock.
Other features suggest a recent origin for the lake.
Shocking rocks
Luca Gasparini, Giuseppe Longo and colleagues from Bologna argue that the lake feature, about 8km north-north-west of the airburst epicentre, may have been gouged out by remnant material that made it to the ground.
"We have no positive proof this is an impact crater, but we were able to exclude some other hypotheses, and this led us to our conclusion," Professor Longo, the research team leader, told BBC News. 
The object that hurtled through the atmosphere on the morning of 30 June, 1908, is thought to have detonated some 5-10km above the ground with an energy equivalent to about 20 million tonnes of TNT. The explosion was so bright it even lit up the sky in London, UK.
Small fragments of the body should have survived the airburst and made it Earth. But, mysteriously, no crater - or even the slightest trace of the impactor - has ever been positively identified.
"In my opinion, they certainly haven't provided any conclusive evidence it's an impact structure," commented Dr Gareth Collins, a Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) research fellow at Imperial College London, UK. The impact cratering community does not accept structures as craters unless there is evidence of high temperatures and high pressures.
Gareth Collins, Imperial College London
He added: "The impact cratering community does not accept structures as craters unless there is evidence of high temperatures and high pressures. That requires evidence of rocks that have been melted or rocks that have been ground up by the impact."
Tree observation
Dr Collins pointed out that the Cheko feature was "anomalously" shallow and lacked the round shape of most craters - being more elliptical in its form. Elliptical craters only occur if the impactor's angle of entry is less than about 10 degrees.
"We know from modelling of the Tunguska event that the angle of entry must have been steeper than that," Dr Collins told BBC News.
A key feature of other impact craters is conspicuously missing from Lake Cheko - a "flap" around the crater rim of upside-down material tossed a short distance from the crater by the impact. 
The blast felled an estimated 80 million trees
Dr Collins added that if pieces of the space rock had survived the airburst, they would have been too small and travelling too slowly to have generated a crater the size of Lake Cheko.
An impact would also have felled trees all around the crater, said the London geologist, yet there appeared to be trees older than 100 years still standing around Lake Cheko today.
Dr Benny Peiser, from Liverpool John Moores University, was also cautious about the findings, adding: "There has been an inflationary increase in the number of claims that allege discovery of impact events or impact craters."
Drill project
The Italian researchers argue that some of the lake's anomalous features could be explained if a space rock was travelling at a low speed and had a "soft" impact into the swampy Siberian taiga.
The crater could have become subsequently enlarged by the expulsion of water and gas from the ground.
The Bologna team says this could also account for the limited damage to the surrounding area and the absence of a rim of upturned ejecta. 
Lake Cheko fits the proportions of a bowl-shaped crater, say the authors
"If formed during the impact, [the rim] would have been rapidly obliterated by collapse and gravity-failures during the subsequent degassing phase," the authors write in the journal Terra Nova.
Intriguingly, Lake Cheko does not appear on any maps before 1929, though the researchers admit the region was poorly charted before this time.
The University of Bologna team plans to mount another expedition to the Tunguska region in summer 2008.
The researchers aim to drill up to 10m below the lake bed to the anomaly picked up in the geophysics survey and determine whether it really is a piece of extraterrestrial rock.
Computer models carried out by other teams suggest that centimetre-sized fragments of the body could be found hundreds of kilometres away from Tunguska.
As the impactor plunged through the atmosphere, it pushed air out of its way, leaving a near-vacuum in its wake.
As it broke up, fragments would have expanded back up the vacuum and rained out over a much larger area.
June 27th
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| 1991: Yugoslav troops move against Slovenia Yugoslav tanks, troops and aircraft sweep into the small republic of Slovenia, 48 hours after it declared independence. | |||
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| 1963: Warm welcome for JFK in Ireland The US President John F Kennedy visits his ancestral homeland in County Wexford. | |||
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| 1957: Smoking 'causes lung cancer' The link between smoking and lung cancer is one of 'direct cause and effect', a report by the Medical Research Council finds. | |||
Supercomputer steps up the pace
The world's fastest commercial supercomputer has been launched by computer giant IBM. 
BlueGene/L will be succeeded by the new supercomputers
Blue Gene/P is three times more potent than the current fastest machine, BlueGene/L, also built by IBM.
The latest number cruncher is capable of operating at so called "petaflop" speeds - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.
Approximately 100,000 times more powerful than a PC, the first machine has been bought by the US government.
It will be installed at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois later this year.
Two further machines are planned for US laboratories and a fourth has been bought by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council for its Daresbury Laboratory Cheshire.
The ultra powerful machines will be used for complex simulations to study everything from particle physics to nanotechnology.
Expansion pack
Currently the most powerful machine is Blue Gene/L, housed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
TOP FIVE SUPERCOMPUTERS Blue Gene/L, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California. (280.6 teraflops; 131,072 processors) Jaguar, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee (101.7 teraflops; 11,706 processors) Red Storm, Sandia National Laboratories, USA (101.4 teraflops; 26,544 processors) BGW Blue Gene, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, New York (91.29 teraflops; 40,960 processors) New York Blue, Stony Brook/BNL, New York Center for Computational Sciences, New York (82.161 teraflops; 36,864 processors) Source: Top 500 Supercomputers
Used to ensure that the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable, it has achieved 280.6 teraflops or trillions of calculations per second.
The machine packs 131,072 processors and is theoretically capable of reaching 367 teraflops.
By comparison the standard one petaflop Blue Gene/P comes with 294,912-processors connected by a high-speed, optical network.
However, it can be expanded to pack 884,736 processors, a configuration that would allow the machine to compute 3,000 trillion calculations per second (three petaflops).
"Blue Gene/P marks the evolution of the most powerful supercomputing platform the world has ever known," said Dave Turek, vice president of deep computing, IBM.
Cell division
The new Blue Gene computers form just a part of IBM's supercomputing portfolio.
The cell processor was originally designed for Sony's PlayStation 3
The world's biggest computer-services company has built almost half of the 500 fastest supercomputers.
It is also currently building a bespoke supercomputer for the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
Codenamed Roadrunner, it will be able to crunch through 1.6 thousand trillion calculations per second.
The computer will contain 16,000 standard processors working alongside 16,000 "cell" processors, designed for the PlayStation 3 (PS3).
Each cell chip consists of eight processors controlled by a master unit that can assign tasks to each member of the processing team. Each cell is capable of 256 billion calculations per second.
The power of the cell chip means Roadrunner needs far fewer processors than its predecessors.
Another contender for top supercomputer has been unveiled by Sun. Its Constellation machine will be able to run at a maximum speed of 1.7 petaflops.
The first Constellation machine, called Ranger, is being put together for the University of Texas at Austin and will run at a modest 500 teraflops.
26.6.07
The paper clip thieves
The law-abiding majority is a myth, according to a survey, which finds most of us have indulged in some sort of petty crime. Steve Tomkins brings some middle-class criminals to book. After that - test your ethics with four everyday dilemmas for some low-level profiteering. 
If crime doesn't pay, then Britain must be a poor country. Because the majority of us are criminals.
Six in 10 is the headline figure from a new report - but the deviant acts in question are not the type to typically make headlines.
Surveying 1,807 adults in England and Wales, researchers found that 61% admitted to having committed a crime at some point. Subjects were given a list of 10 petty crimes to choose from, including paying in cash to avoid tax, taking something from work, and exaggerating an insurance claim.
Presumably, that 61% would be higher still if the list had included a wider range of crimes, such as downloading music and copying software illegally.
While only 3% of those surveyed have gone for falsely claiming benefits, one in three of us have kept the money when given too much change. The same proportion have paid "cash in hand" to avoid taxation.
The report authors Susanne Karstedt and Stephen Farrall concluded crime does not belong to the margins of society and there is no "law-abiding majority". The respectable middle classes, they say, are a "seething mass of morally dubious, and outright criminal, behaviour". 
Cash in hand? Some builders, and clients, are totally above board
What do these figures tell us about British people and their morals? Are we a nation with hitherto unimagined depths of crookedness? Or is the real surprise that nearly 40% claim never to have broken the law?
For Michael Northcott, professor of ethics at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity, the report is evidence of moral corruption in British society.
"It's no surprise to see that these crimes are widespread in the middle class - we ought to know that having more money doesn't make you more moral," says Mr Northcott.
"In fact, the crimes are largely about hanging on to money, and the middle classes are better at that. That's what makes them middle class."
What then lies behind all this petty bourgeois crime? In the case of evading tax, licences, etc, Mr Northcott diagnoses a loss of belief in the state's ability to do good with our money.
Slide in standards
"Margaret Thatcher said that the state only does things badly, and Tony Blair has continued the same message. If people don't trust the state to use their money wisely, they will be less willing to hand it over."
But Mr Northcott ardently agrees with the report's authors that the figures reflect a general decline in moral standards too. One out of 10 shows great moral fibre - and how scared I am of getting caught
Petty 'thief' Alison
"People talk about not having to lock the door in childhood, and I remember that myself. There is unquestionably more opportunistic crime. I would have to say that behind that lies a decline in belief in God, and a culture of hedonism, self-fullfilment getting on, and materialism."
And what do the slightly lawless majority have to say for themselves? Alison, a teaching assistant in York, and Chris, a musician in Hertfordshire, both scored one out of 10 on the questionnaire.
"I feel very righteous, actually," says Alison about her too-much-change-keeping past. "I think just one out of 10 shows great moral fibre - and how scared I am of getting caught."
Chris, meanwhile, with several counts of "borrowing" from work's stationery cupboard to take into consideration, pleads extenuating circumstances. "The way I see it, I give far, far more to my job than I take. No one could complain, on balance," he says of the paper, pens and blank CDs that have found their way back to his house. Not to mention his reliance on the office photocopier for personal projects.
Selective memory
Both agree that petty crimes matter, although somewhat more petty than their two examples. But they disagree about obeying the law in general. Alison sees all law breaking as morally wrong.
"If I thought something was OK, then found out it was against the law, I wouldn't do it. I would think it was wrong." 
"Says here, he pinched a Rolodex from the stationery cupboard, guv"
Chris is more selective though. "Something isn't necessarily bad, just because it's against the law. Smoking cannabis, for example. Or playing live music without a licence, I'd happily do that."
Richard, a magazine subeditor in London, is hazier about the trail of unsolved crimes to his name.
"I can't honestly think of one occasion when I've done any of those things. But if my memory was better I wouldn't be surprised if I could list half a dozen. I don't think I'm unusual. I bet those figures would be a lot higher, but people only remember stuff they're proud of."
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Richard does not think that any crime he might or might not have committed makes him a bad person. "I don't think you can get through life without cutting the odd corner here and there. You have reasons for it, at the time, even if looking back they aren't always very good reasons.
"There are things I've done that I'm ashamed of," he says, "really ashamed. But none of them were against the law. They're just things that hurt people. Making an extra few quid off some corporation, that's not even in the same league."
Feeling pious? What would you do when confronted by the following opportunities to indulge in a spot of low-level profiteering?
1. THE VAT DILEMMA
VOTE What would you do with this offer? Pay in cash Pay by cheque but don't report him Tell the Vatman Results are indicative and may not reflect public opinion Jerry the Builder finishes off at your house. He's done a beautiful job of finishing off a loft conversion and the agreed price is £500. But he says he'll take cash to the tune of £470 as he can avoid paying the VAT. Every penny counts as he is looking after his ill sister. What should you do?
2. THE EXTRA BOXSETS
VOTE What would you do with your spare boxsets? Keep 'em Send 'em back Give 'em to charity Results are indicative and may not reflect public opinion You place an order with a well-known internet mail-order firm for an expensive DVD boxset. The firm has obviously made a mistake and despatches you three copies of the same boxset. You are billed only for one and after a few weeks it's obvious the firm don't know they've made a mistake. Should you alert the big multinational to their error?
3. THE QUID PRO QUO
VOTE What would you do with the equipment? Keep it, it's morally yours Borrow it, you'll bring it back Steer clear, it's stealing Results are indicative and may not reflect public opinion You are a very stressed employee. Due to your failing to fill in some paperwork, you have not been paid for some shifts you've done, but there's no way the mistake can now be rectified. You're annoyed about this. One day you see a piece of equipment, covered in dust, that you know is never used. It would be so easy to take it home, where it would come in very handy. It's about the same value as the unpaid shifts. Should you take it?
4. THE TRAVELCARD VENDOR
VOTE What would you do about the ticket touts? Trade with them Ignore them Report them Results are indicative and may not reflect public opinion The homeless chaps who hang around your local train station are always buying and selling travelcards for re-use. You suspect this is probably illegal, but perhaps it's a question of supporting entrepreneurialism and stopping more serious crimes occurring? Should you give tickets to these touts or buy them?
Wrestler Benoit, wife and son found dead
AP Photo: In this undated photo released by World Wrestling Entertainment, pro wrestler Chris Benoit is seen....
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Pro wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and 7-year-old son were found slain Monday at their Georgia home. World Wrestling Entertainment has expressed its condolences to the extended family of the Benoits. (June 25)
Play video | » More AP video
WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife and son were found dead Monday, and police said they were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.
Detective Bo Turner told WAGA-TV the case was being treated as a murder-suicide, but said that couldn't be confirmed until evidence was examined by a crime lab.
The station said investigators believe the 40-year-old Benoit killed his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, over the weekend, then himself on Monday. The bodies were found in three rooms.
World Wrestling Entertainment said on its Web site that it asked authorities to check on Benoit and his family after being alerted by friends who received "several curious text messages sent by Benoit early Sunday morning."
Lead investigator Lt. Tommy Pope of the Fayette County Sheriff's Department told The Associated Press the deaths were being investigated as homicides, and that autopsies were to be performed Tuesday. Pope said the bodies were discovered about 2:30 p.m., but refused to release details.
The house is in a secluded neighborhood set back about 60 yards off a gravel road, surrounded by stacked stone wall and a double-iron gate. On Monday night, the house was dark except for a few outside lights. There was a police car in front, along with two uniformed officers.
Benoit was a former world heavyweight and Intercontinental champion. He also held several tag-team titles during his career.
"WWE extends its sincerest thoughts and prayers to the Benoit family's relatives and loved ones in this time of tragedy," the organization said in a statement on its Web site.
Benoit was scheduled to perform at the "Vengeance" pay-per-view event Sunday night in Houston, but was replaced at the last minute because of what announcer Jim Ross called "personal reasons."
The native of Canada maintained a home in metro Atlanta from the time he wrestled for the defunct World Championship Wrestling.
The WWE canceled its live "Monday Night RAW" card in Corpus Christi, Texas, and USA Network aired a three-hour tribute to Benoit in place of the scheduled wrestling telecast.
June 26th
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| 1963: Kennedy: 'Ich bin ein Berliner' President Kennedy inspires the people of West Germany with a morale-boosting speech of defiance to the Soviet Union. | |||
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| 1970: Violence flares as Devlin is arrested Riots break out in Londonderry after it is revealed Bernadette Devlin has been arrested. | |||
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| 2000: IRA weapons dump inspected International inspectors say they have seen a large number of IRA weapons "safely and adequately stored" in bunkers. | |||
Tropical giant penguin discovered
A giant penguin that preferred the tropics to the southern oceans has been discovered by a team of scientists. 
The ancient animal stood taller than any modern-day penguin
The fossilised remains of the animal, which lived some 36 million years ago, were found in what is today Peru.
At 1.5m (5ft) tall, the penguin looked quite different from its modern-day cousins, a report in PNAS journal says.
It had a long protracted skull and what its discoverers are describing as a grossly elongated beak that was spear-like in appearance.
The Icadyptes salasi penguin would dwarf all the penguins who walk the planet today.
It would have stood head and shoulders over the emperor and the king penguins of the southern seas.
Its well-preserved skeleton was discovered in the Department of Ica on the southern coast of Peru along with the remains of as many as four other previously undiscovered penguin species, all of which appear to have preferred the tropics for colder climes.
Indeed, the Icadyptes appears to have lived happily at such warmer latitudes at a time when world temperatures were much hotter than they are today - and long before anyone thought penguins had reached such low latitudes.
Of course, not all modern-day penguins are adapted for life in cold temperatures.
The African or Galapagos penguins, for example, as their names suggest, also prefer warmer waters to the better-known penguins of the southern seas and Antarctica; but they are comparative newcomers, say the researchers, compared with the giant whose discovery they are now announcing.
"That was sort of a dominant hypothesis - that in fact penguins had only reached low latitude regions comparatively recently and after two major periods of cooling in Earth's history," said Dr Julia Clarke, of North Carolina State University, US, and a member of the research team.
"One was around the Eocene-Oligocene about 34 million years ago; and more recently, post 15 million years ago - but in fact we find penguins there now in much warmer periods and much, much earlier."
Full details are reported in a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States of America.
BEAKS AHEAD 
Icadyptes salasi had a spear-like beak (top). Scale bar = 1cm It was much longer and more pointed than the skull of the modern-day Peruvian (Humboldt) penguin Spheniscus humboldti (below)
25.6.07
What class are you?
Christopher Howse's tongue-in-cheek quiz
The sore questions of class are in the air again. Was Kate Middleton just too middle class for Prince William? Must the future Queen of England only be upper class? And just how easy is it to tell a person's class?
 | |
According to Daily Telegraph letter writer Andrew Baxter, you can tell instantly the class of people by using the car test: "A couple taking another couple out for a drive would sit themselves thus: working class, men in the front. Middle class, man with his own partner in the front. Upper class, man with the other partner in the front."
So which class are you? Settle the matter once and for all with a tongue-in-cheek quiz...
1 Has your house got:
a A name and number?
b A name of your choosing?
c A name from time immemorial?
2 Sitting over drinks, do you:
a Say "Cheers"?
b Say "Cheers" and clink glasses?
c Say nothing?
3 Are you more likely to take a seaside holiday in:
a Cancun?
b Scotland?
c The Maldives?
4 Would you follow the hunt:
a At a distance by car?
b With an anti-hunt placard?
c On your own horse?
5 At breakfast do you like:
a Bio yogurt?
b Pop-Tarts?
c Porridge?
6 Have you got:
a A patio?
b Decking?
c A terrace?
7 At your children's weddings, will male guests wear:
a Morning dress?
b Dinner jackets?
c Lounge suits?
8 Do you ask for the:
a Lavatory?
b Bathroom?
c Toilet?
9 Do you send your children to:
a An old public school?
b A church school near which you have moved?
c The local school?
10 After dinner, do you:
a Leave your napkin loosely on the table?
b Fold your napkin neatly?
c Roll your napkin and put it in a ring?
11 Do your children have:
a PlayStation 3?
b A dressing-up box?
c Trivial Pursuit?
12 If you can't hear a remark, do you say:
a What?
b Say again?
c Pardon?
13 If you want butter with your roll at dinner, do you:
a Cut it in half and butter it?
b Break it in half and butter it?
c Break it up and butter bits as you eat them?
14 Would you prefer to read:
a Heat?
b The Field?
c The World of Interiors?
15 Do you associate Jordan with:
a Breakfast cereal?
b Petra?
c Peter André?
1 a 10, b 20, c 30; 2 a 20, b 10, c 30; 3 a 10, b 30, c 20; 4 a 10, b 20, c 30; 5 a 20, b 10, c 30; 6 a 20, b 10, c 30; 7 a 30, b 10, c 20; 8 a 30, b 20, c 10; 9 a 30, b 20, c 10; 10 a 30, b 10, c 20; 11 a 10, b 30, c 20; 12 a 30, b 10, c 20; 13 a 10, b 20, c 30; 14 a 10, b 30, c 20; 15 a 20, b 30, c 10.
If you scored:
Below 200 You are cheerfully lower-class.
200 to 300 You are uneasily middle-class.
300 to 440 You probably have a coat of arms.
450 You are the Duke of Devonshire.
Pub News
Top stories:
Ultimate Leisure buys Living Room for £28m
Deal further operator's move into food-focused businesses
Scottish smoking ban hits Inspired Gaming Group sales
Underlying earnings up as server-based gaming revenues rise
Torex sells businesses for £204m
Troubled group offloads operations to US investment firm
What the Sunday papers said
Beer sales in Scotland slump in wake of smoking ban...trade bodies slam signage rules...pubco shares tumble as English smoking ban looms...Guinness's Dublin brewery under threat...beer prices rise as farmers turn to growing crops for biofuels...
Other news this week:
- Brulines sees profits leap
- Whitbread pubs see productivity rise
- Jim Clarke set to exit Wetherspoon
- London Town seeks tenants for pubs
Get all the latest news and advice from the UK's leading pub trade information resource – www.thepublican.com
June 25th
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| 1950: UN condemns North Korean invasion North Korea has invaded South Korea at several points along the two countries' joint border. | |||
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| 2005: Iran hardliner sweeps to victory Ultra-conservative Mahmoud Admadinejad wins surprise victory in presidential poll. | |||
Echinacea 'can prevent a cold'
Taking the herbal remedy echinacea can more than halve the risk of catching a common cold, US researchers say. 
The flower, stem and root of echinacea is used in products
They found it decreased the odds of developing a cold by 58% and the duration of colds by a day-and-a-half.
The results in The Lancet Infectious Diseases conflict with other studies that show no beneficial effect.
Experts believe echinacea, a collection of nine related plant species indigenous to North America, may work by boosting the body's immune system.
'Marked effects'
Researchers, led by Dr Craig Coleman from the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, combined the results of 14 different studies on Echinacea's anti-cold properties.
In one of the 14 studies the researchers reviewed, echinacea was taken alongside vitamin C. This combination reduced cold incidence by 86%.
When echinacea was used alone it reduced cold incidence by 65%.
Echinacea may reduce the duration of illness and decreases the severity of cough, headache, and nasal congestion
Professor Ron Cutler of the University of East London
Even when patients were directly inoculated with a rhinovirus - the most common cold-causing virus - echinacea reduced cold incidence by 35%.
The researchers' report said: "With over 200 viruses capable of causing the common cold, echinacea could have modest effect against rhinovirus but marked effects against other viruses."
Popular product
They found that more than 800 products containing echinacea were available, and that differing parts of the plant - flower, stem and root - were used in different products.
They said more work was needed to check the safety of these different formulations.
Professor Ron Cutler, of the University of East London, said: "The true benefits, and more importantly, how the agents work remains unclear and further better-controlled actual clinical trials still have to be carried out.
THE COMMON COLD Rhinoviruses are responsible for about half of all common colds in children and adults School children usually catch between seven and 10 colds a year, and adults two to five Common colds and flu can be transmitted by hands and contact with commonly-touched surfaces
"Echinacea may reduce the duration of illness and decreases the severity of cough, headache, and nasal congestion. "
He said people with impaired immune function might benefit from taking echinacea during the winter months to prevent colds and flu, but that healthy people did not require long-term preventative use.
"There has also been the suggestion in the past that continuous treatment with echinacea is not recommended - the benefits may only be effective for one or two weeks and after taking the agent for this time people should stop and give the immune system a week without the agent."
Professor Ronald Eccles, director of the Common Cold Centre at the University of Cardiff, said the work was "a significant step in our battle against the common cold".
"Harnessing the power of our own immune system to fight common infections with herbal medicines such as echinacea is now given more validity with this interesting scientific evaluation of past clinical trials," he added.
Calendar question over star disc
Archaeologists have revived the debate over whether a spectacular Bronze Age disc from Germany is one of the earliest known calendars. 
Some observers have likened the disc to a winking face
The Nebra disc is emblazoned with symbols of the Sun, Moon and stars and said by some to be 3,600 years old.
Writing in the journal Antiquity, a team casts doubt on the idea the disc was used by ancient astronomers as a precision tool for observing the sky.
They instead argue that the disc was used for shamanistic rituals.
But other archaeologists who have studied the Himmelsscheibe von Nebra (Nebra sky disc) point to features which, they say, helped Bronze Age people to track four key dates during the year.
The Nebra disc is considered one of the most sensational - and controversial - discoveries in archaeology in the past 10 years.
The artefact was allegedly found by two treasure hunters near the town of Nebra, Germany, in 1999.
The plain explanation is that you have four dates on the disc
Ernst Pernicka, University of Tuebingen
Police in the Swiss city of Basel arrested the treasure hunters in a sting, and they were eventually convicted.
The pair said they found the disc on a 252m-high hilltop called Mittelberg in the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt.
While many scholars support its status as an object from the Bronze Age, it is claimed to be a fake by others, notably the German researcher Peter Schauer from the University of Regensburg.
"German archaeologists don't say clearly that this is a fake. They hide, thinking that the thunderstorm will blow over," Dr Schauer told BBC News.
In the latest study of the artefact, Emilia Pasztor of the Matrica Museum in Hungary and Curt Roslund of Gothenburg University in Sweden, worked from the basis that the artefact dates to about 1,800 BC - the Bronze Age.
They examined the possibility that the 32cm-wide disc could have been used as a precise calendrical device.
Two golden arcs on the outside of the disc may show how far the sunrise and sunset move along the horizon between winter and summer solstices.
The arcs are 82.5 degrees long, which is the angle the Sun is seen to travel between the high mid-summer sunset and the low mid-winter sunset.
The precise angle varies from place to place. But Professor Wolfhard Schlosser, from the University of Bochum, in Germany, has pointed out that 82 degrees corresponds to the journey of the sun at the specific latitude in Nebra.
As such, it could have been used as a calendrical tool by Bronze Age Europeans.
Differing interpretations
"It's a difficult question to answer, but I do not think it was used as an instrument used for observing objects in the sky," Curt Roslund, an astronomer at Gothenburg told BBC News.
"I can't find any evidence for this," he added.
Roslund and Pasztor argue that few features on the disc tend towards exact representation and that it is more likely to have been of symbolic value - perhaps used in shamanic rituals.
But Ernst Pernicke, from the University of Tuebingen, Germany, maintained that the disc was likely to have been used as a calendrical tool.
"The plain explanation is that you have four dates on the disc," he told BBC News. If you urinate on a piece of bronze and then hide it in the ground for a few weeks you can produce the same patina as on the disc
Peter Schauer, University of Regensburg
"You have the summer and winter solstice from the bends on the side, a date in March and in September from the Pleiades star constellation.
Supporters of this interpretation have proposed that the cluster of seven gold spots on the disc represent the constellation known as the Pleiades.
In Antiquity, Pasztor and Roslund suggest that if the goldsmith intended to produce an accurate chart of the sky, he would have not have ignored the conspicuous nearby constellation of Orion, and the square of Pegasus to the right.
But the disc could also have been used to harmonise the lunar and solar calendars.
Ralph Hansen from the University of Hamburg, found that a calculation rule in ancient Babylonian texts which said that a thirteenth month should be added to the lunar calendar when one sees the moon in exactly the arrangement that appears on the Nebra disc.
In addition, the number of stars on the disc is 32, along with the Moon, that makes 33 objects in total. Intriguingly, 33 Moon years are equivalent to 32 Sun years.
Seasonal indicator
This information could have told farmers when to plant and harvest their crops.
"The Moon is better for short-term time measurements - but this means that festivals change dates each year. For a society whose survival is dependent on agriculture, these cannot be changed because they are dependent on sunshine," said Ernst Pernicka.
"For everyday calendrical purposes, you would use Moon years. But for designing when to plough fields and when to harvest, you use Sun years."
Because bronze cannot be dated directly, claims of an ancient date for the disc rest on several pieces of evidence. They include:
- The copper in the disc suggests it came from the eastern Alps, the main mine for copper during the Bronze Age.
- The gold was mined in the Carpathian basin, a common source for gold during the same period.
- The style of swords said to have been found with the disc, along with radiocarbon dates for a wooden grip on one of the swords, also suggest a Bronze Age origin.
- Corrosion has formed a crystalline "malachite" patina on the disc, suggesting it is old, and is unlike artificially corroded copper.
"We have searched about a dozen different types of evidence for indications of a fake. In the absence of any positive results, the probability that the disc is authentic is multiplied each time," said Dr Pernicka.
But for Peter Schauer, the disc's authenticity remains in question.
"The patina on all the pieces is different," he said, "If you urinate on a piece of bronze and then hide it in the ground for a few weeks you can produce the same patina as on the disc."
'Most dangerous' roads revealed
Britain's most dangerous road is a section of highway linking Lancashire and the Yorkshire Dales, a survey says. ![Cars on a road [Pic: Highways Agency]](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42418000/jpg/_42418618_road_highways203.jpg)
Researchers say better road layout can help prevent accidents
The 15-mile stretch of the A682 has had almost 100 deaths or serious injuries in the last decade.
The report was compiled by the Road Safety Foundation for the European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP).
Head researcher Dr Joanne Hill said a further 16 road sections were adjudged to present a persistent "medium to high risk" to road users.
The section of the A682, between junction 13 of the M65 and Long Preston, was the only road in the highest risk category.
The survey found that the second worst road was the A54 Congleton to Buxton in Derbyshire, with the third worst being the A683 from junction 34 of the M6 to Kirkby Lonsdale in Cumbria.
UK'S MOST DANGEROUS ROADS A682 from junction M65 in Lancashire to A65 at Long Preston, North Yorkshire A54 Congleton to Buxton, Derbyshire A683 from junction 34 on the M6 to Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria A62 from Diggle to Huddersfield, Yorkshire A671 from Burnley to A59 at Whalley, Lancashire A653 Dewsbury to junction 28 of the M62 south of Leeds A1079 from Market Weighton to Kingston upon Hull A53 Leek to Buxton A726 from junction 3 of the M77 to Paisley in Renfrewshire, Scotland A46 from Market Rasen to Grimsby
Dr Hill said: "The good news from the survey is that many of Britain's authorities have brought in countermeasures to tackle the higher risk routes in their areas.
"Most are quick, simple and cheap, involving little more than adopting modern signing, hazard markings and junction layouts."
Dr Hill said that the A682 "fails on every collision type".
Rail crash equivalent
These included junction and access road crashes, collisions with rigid roadside objects, overtaking crashes, pedestrian and cyclist collisions and motorcycle crashes.
"The death-toll on this stretch of road is the equivalent of five major rail crashes within 10 years," she said.
"The foundation's consultation with local authorities over the past four years has consistently shown that lack of funding is the principal reason why they do not tackle accident numbers on their roads on the scale that could make a major difference.
"Other local authorities have undoubtedly saved lives - often by the simple application of white paint."
EuroRAP chairman John Dawson said: "The UK is now falling behind those countries it used to lead only a few years ago because its pace in applying the results of research into safe road design lags behind the best.
"Cutting road deaths requires combined action to improve driver behaviour, to improve vehicle crash performance, and to provide safety features on the roads themselves.
"We need five-star drivers in five-star cars on five-star roads."
The man who invented the cash machine
"They're clever scoundrels," fumes John Shepherd-Barron at his remote farmhouse in northern Scotland. He is referring to the seals which are raiding his salmon farm and stealing fish.
John Shepherd-Barron's cash machine first appeared in 1967
Inventor's memories "I invented a device to scare them off by playing the sound of killer whales, but it's ended up only attracting them more."
But failure with this device is in contrast to the success of his first and greatest invention: the cash machine.
The world's first ATM was installed in a branch of Barclays in Enfield, north London, 40 years ago this week.
Reg Varney, from the television series On the Buses, was the first to withdraw cash.
Inspiration had struck Mr Shepherd-Barron, now 82, while he was in the bath.
"It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash."
Barclays was convinced immediately. Over a pink gin, the then chief executive signed a hurried contract with Mr Shepherd-Barron, who at the time worked for the printing firm De La Rue.
Teething troubles
Plastic cards had not been invented, so Mr Shepherd-Barron's machine used cheques that were impregnated with carbon 14, a mildly radioactive substance.
The machine detected it, then matched the cheque against a Pin number.
Reg Varney was the first to use an ATM
However, Mr Shepherd-Barron denies there were any health concerns: "I later worked out you would have to eat 136,000 such cheques for it to have any effect on you."
The machine paid out a maximum of £10 a time.
"But that was regarded then as quite enough for a wild weekend," he says.
To start with, not everything went smoothly. The first machines were vandalised, and one that was installed in Zurich in Switzerland began to malfunction mysteriously.
It was later discovered that the wires from two intersecting tramlines nearby were sparking and interfering with the mechanism.
One by-product of inventing the first cash machine was the concept of the Pin number.
Mr Shepherd-Barron came up with the idea when he realised that he could remember his six-figure army number. But he decided to check that with his wife, Caroline.
"Over the kitchen table, she said she could only remember four figures, so because of her, four figures became the world standard," he laughs.
End of cash?
Customers using the cash machine at Barclays in Enfield High Street are mostly unaware of its historical significance.
A small plaque was placed there on the 25th anniversary, but few people notice it. Given that there are now more than 1.6 million cash machines worldwide, it is a classic case of British understatement.
The plaque at the site of the first ATM goes unnoticed by many
Mr Shepherd-Barron says he and his wife realised the importance of his invention only when they visited Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.
They watched a farmer arriving on a bullock cart, who removed his wide-brimmed hat to use the cash machine.
"It was the first evidence to me that we'd changed the world," he says.
But even though he invented the machine, Mr Shepherd-Barron believes its use in future will be very different. He predicts that our society will no longer be using cash within a few years.
"Money costs money to transport. I am therefore predicting the demise of cash within three to five years."
He believes fervently that we will soon be swiping our mobile phones at till points, even for small transactions.
At 82, Mr Shepherd-Barron is very much alive to new ideas and inventions. Even though his device that plays killer whale noises still needs a little bit of tinkering.
Chicken fillets ‘secretly pumped up
Chicken served in restaurants, hospitals and schools is still being pumped up secretly with water and proteins to increase its size and weight, The Times has learnt.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has begun an inquiry into the preparation of 63,000 tons of poultry that were imported from the Netherlands in response to the discovery by trading standards officers. This will put new pressure on caterers to reveal whether the chicken on their menus is bloated with liquid and proteins.
It is not illegal to add water to chicken but under European Union rules consumers must be told if water has been added.
The Trading Standards Institute said that it was not prepared to let caterers mislead customers.
“Catering establishments have a legal obligation to give a description on a menu that should not be false or misleading,” David Pickering, a spokesman for the institute, said. “If someone is selling chicken with added water as chicken, that is a fraud because people are paying chicken prices for water and a product that does not taste any good. If the Dutch authorities and the EU decide not to take this seriously, we will have to look to do more enforcement in this country.”
A examination of frozen chicken fillets sold in the North of England found that some products imported from the Netherlands contained as much as 35 per cent water even though the meat content was described as 80 per cent. The suspected chicken was destined for the catering industry, and is believed to have been used in takeaway restaurants, care homes and canteens.
The practice of bulking up meat with liquid was exposed four years ago by the FSA. Consumers believed that they were buying pure chicken but most of the meat contained water. Some of the processing companies also used beef and pork proteins to hold in the water.
The EU agreed only that products should be labelled “chicken with water” and that packs should declare whether beef or pork protein had been added. Consumers of catering trade produce, however, never get to see these labels and menus rarely declare if chicken has added water.
Manufacturers have also been criticised for adding hydrolysed chicken protein, which is extracted from parts of the bird not used for food, such as skin, bone, and feathers.
The FSA is discussing whether to step up inspection of chicken products at ports and to order a wider survey of chicken on sale to the catering trade. The meat does not endanger human health but the issue raises serious concern about food quality. The agency will raise the issue with the Dutch authorities and is also expected to report its concerns to the European Commission.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesman on food, is to raise questions in Parliament about the sale of “plastic chicken”.
Sue Davies, of Which?, the consumer organisation, was shocked to learn that “plastic chicken” was still in circulation. “This is deliberately misleading consumers and needs to be sorted out and stopped. People will be rightly disgusted to think what they are being served up when they think it is chicken.”
The EC said that it had not received any information from the FSA yet. “If there is abuse going on it is a consumer protection issue, and it would be for the UK’s national legislation to take action. EU legislation is not well developed in this area.”
How fresh meat becomes plastic
— 63,000 tonnes of frozen chicken pieces are imported from the Netherlands each year
— One tonne costs £2,500
— The market is worth £157.5 million to the Dutch
— If chicken is padded with just 25 per cent water, consumers are paying almost £40 million a year for water
— The process of adding animal protein to chicken is known as “tumbling”
— The process of adding water adds weight to the chicken, as shown above
— It is not illegal to inject proteins into chicken – it is only illegal not to declare it on the label
— In 2003 enforcement agencies found 10 per cent of all chicken bought from catering outlets was “plastic”
Source: Defra; Times archives
24.6.07
June 24th
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| 1974: Labour rift over nuclear test The Labour Government admits Britain exploded a nuclear device in the United States a few weeks ago. | |||
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| 1983: US astronaut Sally Ride returns America's first woman in space, Sally Ride, returns safely in the Challenger space shuttle after a six-day flight. | |||
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| 1968: Rail go-slow begins The country's rail network is thrown into disarray as the National Union of Railwaymen begins its work-to-rule and ban on overtime. | |||
23.6.07
10 things we didn't know last week
Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
1. The Amazon is the longest river in the world, not the Nile.
More details
2. The QE2 had the unglamorous name "Job number 736" while being built in a shipyard on the Clyde.
More details
3. Europe has a vodka belt comprising Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Denmark and Sweden, although the drink is also made in countries such as Britain, France, Italy and Spain.
More details
4. The average cash withdrawal from an ATM is £100.
More details
5. Bernard Manning worked as an armed guard watching over senior Nazis locked up in Berlin’s Spandau prison, when aged 16 after the war.
More details
6. Sugar from fruit could be converted into a low-carbon fuel for cars, with far more energy than ethanol.
More details
7. EastEnders actress Susan Tully, who played Michelle Fowler, was in the Islington restaurant Granita when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown famously discussed the future Labour leadership contest, on 31 May 1994.
8. There are 1,200 people employed at Glastonbury just to pick up and sort the rubbish.
More details
9. There were 6.3 million 999 calls made in the last year, which is almost double the number of calls received 10 years ago.
More details
10. A white tie given to Gordon Brown as a gift from the Daily Telegraph to wear for his Mansion House speech ended up in a charity shop in Notting Hill.
More details
Sources: 7: Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain, BBC Two, 19 June; 10: Times, 20 June.
June 23rd
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| 1985: Air India jet crashes killing 329 A passenger jet disintegrates in mid-air off the coast of Ireland, killing all 329 people on board. | |||
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| 1992: 'Teflon Don' jailed for life New York crime boss John Gotti is sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole. | |||
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| 1983: Pope meets banned union leader Walesa Pope John Paul II holds a private meeting with the founder of Solidarity, Lech Walesa, on a visit to Poland. | |||
CIA to reveal decades of misdeeds
The US Central Intelligence Agency is to declassify hundreds of documents detailing some of the agency's worst illegal abuses from the 1950s to 1970s. Gen Hayden: Documents give a glimpse of a very different time
The papers, to be released next week, will detail assassination plots, domestic spying and wiretapping, kidnapping and human experiments.
Many of the incidents are already known, but the documents are expected to give more comprehensive accounts.
It is "unflattering" but part of agency history, CIA chief Michael Hayden said.
"This is about telling the American people what we have done in their name," Gen Hayden told a conference of foreign policy historians.
The documents, dubbed the "Family Jewels", offer a "glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency".
The full 693-page file detailing CIA illegal activities was compiled on the orders of the then CIA director James Schlesinger in 1973.
He had been alarmed by accounts of CIA involvement in the Watergate scandal under his predecessor and asked CIA officials to inform him of all activities that fell outside the agency's legal charter.
'Skeletons'
Ahead of the documents' release by the CIA, the National Security Archive, an independent research body, on Thursday published related papers it had obtained.
These detail government discussions in 1975 of the CIA abuses and briefings by Mr Schlesinger's successor at the CIA, William Colby, who said the CIA had "done some things it shouldn't have".
Among the incidents that were said to "present legal questions" were:
- the confinement of a Soviet defector in the mid-1960s
- assassination plots of foreign leaders, including Cuba's Fidel Castro
- wiretapping and surveillance of journalists
- behaviour modification experiments on "unwitting" US citizens
- surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971
- opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union; from 1969 to 1972 of mail to and from China
The papers also convey mounting concern in President Gerald Ford's administration that what were dubbed the CIA's "skeletons" were surfacing in the media.
Henry Kissinger, then both secretary of state and national security adviser, was against Mr Colby's moves to investigate the CIA's past abuses and the fact that agency secrets were being divulged.
Accusations appearing in the media about the CIA were "worse than in the days of McCarthy", Mr Kissinger said.
CD Archiver 4.0.2720
CD Archiver 4.0.2720
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- Updated:June 21, 2007
CD Archiver allows you to organize and catalog your disc collection. Features Flashearth links are added to images that contain GPS information. Supports, among others, AVI, BMP, CAB, EMF, GIF, ICO, JPG, TIF, PNG, WMF, PDF, RAR, ZIP, and TAR file formats. Supports EXIF, RIFF, Windows Media, IPTC, ID3v1, and ID3v2 metadata formats. Ability to export reports in HTML, RTF, Text, and XML. Item information is extracted from the Internet (using Amazon, IMDB and FreeDB). Thumbnails are generated automatically for the supported file types. Report printing.
Version 4.0.2720 adds support to PNM image format, and ability to resize disc treeview.
22.6.07
India rattled by vibrating condom
A vibrating condom has sparked a fierce debate in India, over whether it is a sex toy - which are banned - or a means of birth control. 
The company says its product has been "well received"
The controversial condom has caused outrage in the state of Madhya Pradesh, because a government-owned company is involved in marketing it.
The pack of three condoms, branded as Crezendo, contains a battery-operated ring-like device.
Critics say it is in fact a vibrator, and should therefore be banned.
Sex toys and pornography are illegal in India.
'Ultimate pleasure'
The condom was given a low-key launch across the country three months ago. At that time many critics failed to notice that it had government backing.
A promotional message from the company, Hindustan Latex Limited, describes Crezendo as a product that "provides ultimate pleasure by producing strong vibrations" .
Condoms and sex are still taboo in India
That has caused an outcry among many in conservative India, including the Madhya Pradesh minister for road and energy, Kailash Vijayvargiya, who argues that it is nothing more than a sex toy.
"Sex toys are banned in India and the vibrating device is nothing but a sex toy being sold as condoms.
"The government's job is to promote family planning and population control measures rather than market products for sexual pleasure," he told BBC News.
The Hindustan Latex company says that the new condom was launched to promote the use of condoms in order to prevent the spread of Aids.
'Personal choice'
"The product was launched with the primary objective of addressing a fall in condom usage... A major reason cited by users was the lack of pleasure when using condoms.
"So we added the vibrating ring as a pleasure enhancer. It helps to hold the condom in position besides producing a vibrating effect," company spokesman S Jayaraj told BBC News.
Condoms are becoming more available in India
The company says the condom pack, priced at 125 rupees ($3, £1.50) has been "well received".
It has strongly rejected allegations that its product is a sex toy, but has offered to withdraw the product from Madhya Pradesh if the state government asks for it.
Hindu hardliners have held protests asking the government to ban its sale, though most people on the streets of the state refused to be drawn on the matter.
But those who were willing to discuss such a sensitive issue seemed broadly supportive.
"It is wrong to protest against the move. It is a matter of personal choice," Kunal Singh, a resident in the Madhya Pradesh capital, Bhopal, said.
Medical store owner Ravi Bhannani said: "Customers want something new and this pack offers something new."
SEE ALSO
Ofcom secures radio mic future
 Many West End shows rely on radio mics |
The regulator has said it will look again at proposals to auction off the spectrum which radio microphones that power such events rely on.
Wireless microphone users had expressed concerns that they would be priced out of the auction process.
Ofcom has launched a new consultation to find a way of ensuring spectrum remains available for radio mic users.
Cultural contribution
For many years, users of radio microphones have accessed part of the spectrum that existed within the frequencies for terrestrial television broadcasting.
With the analogue switch-off looming, Ofcom is proposing to auction off the spectrum that will be freed up to the highest bidder.
| Any bidder would have to have knowledge and expertise in the sector and it is extremely unlikely that it would fall into the hands of mobile firms. Ofcom spokesperson |
But the regulator has now acknowledged that within this process it is essential to maintain the long-term supply of radio spectrum for users of wireless microphones.
Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said: "Ofcom recognises the important social, cultural and economic contributions that professional programme-makers and wireless microphone users make to the UK.
"Our proposals are designed to ensure that this sector continues to have access to the spectrum it needs to allow it to thrive while ensuring that this valuable and finite resource is used as efficiently as possible."
Must be qualified
One of the proposals is to create a "band manager" - a body appointed by Ofcom to manage the use of the spectrum.
This is a similar option to the existing way that spectrum is allocated to radio mic users, with the exception that the body would no longer have contractual ties to Ofcom.
"The body chosen would be out there in the market. We still hold to the principle that the market-based approach is the best option to secure the most efficient use of the spectrum," said an Ofcom spokesperson.
To reflect this new market-based approach, the fees charged by the spectrum management body would change depending on the amount of spectrum required as a way of motivating those wishing to get a license to use it more efficiently.
Another option being proposed by Ofcom would be to carry on with the auction but hold a pre-qualification process to ensure that any bidders were able and willing to manage the spectrum for radio mic users.
This could quell worries from radio mic users that they would be priced out of the market by those with deep pockets, such as mobile phone companies.
"Any bidder would have to have knowledge and expertise in the sector and it is extremely unlikely that it would fall into the hands of mobile firms," said an Ofcom spokesperson.
Ofcom has not yet specified how much spectrum will be freed up for the specific use of wireless mic users but it has extended its guarantee of spectrum availability from 2012 to 2018.
It has also confirmed that it will continue to make spectrum available to organisations such as charities, religious bodies and community organisations which use so-called "shared" frequencies.
Interested parties have until the end of August to submit their views on the proposals.
Jules Silvester, resource manager in BBC Studios, said the decision was a step in the right direction.
"However, use of the spectrum will undoubtedly cost end users more, particularly if the licences are auctioned.
"The long term future is still by no means secured either, even with Ofcom's extension of the protected usage beyond the end of 2012 to an indeterminate 'longer transition period'."
June 22nd
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| 1941: Hitler invades the Soviet Union The German Army takes the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin by surprise as it begins a massive advance on Moscow. | |||
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| 1981: Chapman pleads guilty to Lennon murder Mark Chapman changes his plea to guilty and admits he murdered John Lennon in December 1980. | |||
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| 2004: Child killer Dutroux jailed for life A Belgian court sentences Marc Dutroux to life in prison for the kidnap, rape and murder of young girls. | |||
21.6.07
Quiztime Challenge 019
1 Which Roman Emperors name means little boats?
Caligula
2 In England what can you not hang out of your window?
A Bed
3 The constellation Norma has what English name?
Level
4 Chu is the Chinese year of what animal?
Boar
5 Vor was the Norse Goddess of what?
Truth
6 OB is the international aircraft reg letters what country?
Peru
7 Who composed the classical piece Peter and the Wolf?
Sergei Prokofiev
8 In what sport do women compete for the Uber cup?
Badminton
9 What was the last sequel to win best picture award?
Silence of the Lambs to Manhunter
10 How did Stonewall Jackson die?
Shot by own troops by mistake
11 What are The Chiuhauhan Nubian and Alaskan?
Deserts
12 International dialling codes what country is 86?
China
13 Thieves Liars Magicians and who were in Dantes 8th circle Hell?
Politicians
14 Alphabetically what is the first element in the periodic table?
Actinium
15 What order of insects contains the most species?
Beetles
16 What famous battle was fought at Pancenoit?
Waterloo - (four miles away)
17 What colour is natural cheddar cheese?
White it's dyed red
18 Where was the first Pony Express set up?
Outer Mongolia
19 What animal originated Groundhog Day?
Badgers - in Germany
20 Abraham Zapruder made the most scrutinised film all time what?
Kennedy Assassination
21 Aesculus is the Latin name of what type of tree?
Horse Chestnut
22 Where were bagpipes invented?
Iran then called Persia
23 What is Rice Paper made from?
A Tree - The Rice Paper Tree pith
24 Jorn Utzon of Denmark designed what landmark?
Sydney Opera House
25 What is the most popular pizza topping in South Korea?
Tuna
26 Which people used to settle legal disputes by head butting?
Inuit - Eskimo
27 Hitihita is a character in what book and film?
Mutiny on the Bounty - Tahiti chief
28 How does a male koala attract a mate?
Belching
29 Bohemian Rhapsody was on what Queen album?
A Night at the Opera
30 What is a Boodie?
A Marsupial related kangaroo rat
31 What character on TV and film must have sex every 7 years?
Mr Spock
32 What was the name of Hamlets father?
Hamlet
33 Bugs Bunny was a caricature of what actor?
Clark Gable
34 Sherlock Holmes lived in Baker St - What other Detective did?
Sexton Blake 1893
35 Spumador was whose horse?
King Arthur
36 In what American state do most fail to graduate?
Georgia
37 Names from Jobs - what in the middle ages did a walker do?
Clean Cloth
38 Alfred Butta invented what in 1941 - marketed 1948?
Scrabble
39 Phobos and Deimos are moons of Mars - what do names mean?
Fear and Terror
40 What colour is a giraffes tongue?
Black
41 Erica is the Latin name for what shrub?
Heather
42 What is the capitol of Fiji?
Suva
43 Disney's Sleeping Beauty what is the name of the Queen witch?
Maleficent
44 What is the name of Shakespeare's first play?
Titus Andronicus
45 Regnat Populus - The people rule - motto of what US state?
Arkansas
46 A Cow Moos - A Cock Crows - What does an Ape do?
Jibber
47 The IHF govern what sport?
International Handball Federation
48 Levi Stubbs Renaldo Benson Abdul Fakir Laurence Payton Who?
The Four Tops
49 The constellation Lacerta has what English name?
Lizard
50 Collective nouns - An Army of what?
Frogs
51 What US state has no motto?
Alaska
52 Babs Gorden is better know as what heroine?
Batgirl
53 Jim Thorpe won Olympic pentathlon 1912 who was fifth?
General George S Patton
54 First Impressions was the original title of what classic novel?
Pride and Prejudice
55 What country spends the most per capita in casinos?
Australia
56 In India in 1994 who were finally allowed to vote?
Eunuchs
57 In what language was the first complete bible in US printed?
Algonquin Indian
58 John Wayne called what film "The most un-American thing ever"?
High Noon
59 What country produces the most tobacco in the world?
China
60 Collective nouns - A Business of what?
Flies and Ferrets
61 If you were eating Olea Europea what would it be?
Olive
62 What is Jane Fonda's middle name?
Seymour
63 Who is the Roman Goddess of flocks and herds?
Pales
64 Where were the first winter Olympics held in 1924?
Charmonix France
65 Which album is on the Billboard top 200 the longest since 1973?
Pink Floyd Dark side of the Moon
66 David John Moore Cornwell became famous as who?
John Le Carre
67 In The Hobbit what colour is Bilbo's door?
Green
68 In what game might you use a flat stick called a kip?
Two Up
69 Where was Holmes pal Dr Watson wounded during the war?
Shoulder
70 Collective nouns - A Husk of what?
Jackrabbits
71 Black and Blue play Red and Yellow at what game?
Croquet
72 What rank was George Armstrong Custer when he was killed?
Lieutenant Colonel
73 Old superstitions - it is bad luck to do what in the morning?
Sing
74 Who said "Bigamy is one husband too many like Monogamy"?
Erica Jong - Fear of Flying 1973
75 What colour were ETs eyes?
Blue
76 What is the smallest species of penguin?
The Fairy Penguin
77 What do Fromologists collect?
Cheese labels
78 In the original Wizard of Oz what colour were the slippers?
Silver
79 The Beverley Hillbillies came from what Ozarks town?
Hooterville
80 Collective nouns - A leap of what?
Leopards
81 International dialling codes what county is 20?
Egypt
82 What US states name means long river in Indian?
Connecticut
83 What country has the most elephants?
Tanzania
84 In WW2 the Graf Spee was forced into what harbour?
Montevideo
85 Who were the first Australian group to sell a million records?
The Seekers Ill never find another you
86 What was James Deans middle name?
Byron
87 Collective nouns - A Float of what?
Crocodiles
88 In Romeo and Juliet what day is Juliet's Birthday?
31st June
89 George C Scott - what does the C stand for?
Campbell
90 In Italy a man can be arrested if found wearing what?
A Skirt
91 The Arcocarpus altilis was involved in a mutiny - what is it?
Breadfruit
92 In what European country have most land battles been fought?
Belgium
93 Gwizador in Poland is who in English?
Santa Claus
94 In what sport is The Lugano Trophy awarded every 2 years?
Men's National Team Walking
95 Who composed the ballets - The Firebird and The Rite of Spring?
Igor Stravinsky
96 OD international aircraft registration letters of what country?
Lebanon
97 Bragi was the Norse God of what?
Poetry
98 Myrastica fragrens is what common spice?
Nutmeg
99 The constellation Mensa has what English name?
Table
100 Collective nouns - A family of what?
Sardines
Pub News
Top stories:
Row over satellite suppliers' Westminster invite
Premier League claims John Grogan MP is "furthering the false debate" about foreign satellite equipment in pubs
Liberal Democrat leader gets behind Proud of Pubs
More than 80 MPs - including Sir Menzies Campbell - will meet licensees during Proud of Pubs Week
Beer deals compared to washing-up liquid
But Marston's MD criticises Portman Group chief's argument
Campaigners urge end to live music red tape
Petition collects 80,000 signatures
Local authorities fight claims of red tape over smoking
Planners say the number of applications for shelters is fewer than expected
Punch tenant claims legal victory
Ex licensee wins battle over rent deposit delay
Other news this week:
- Rapid drinking prevented under Portman Group rules
- Consultation launched on Scottish licence fees
- Warning issued over smoking signage
- Off-licences rapped over underage sales
- Pubs get advice on fighting terrorism
- Pub runs smoke ban cricket tournament
- Camden venues praised for drop in crime
- Rolf Harris gives didgeridoo lesson at pub
- Doorstaff urged to plan against conflict
- 'Families to hit the pub after July 1'
- Pubs could lose 200m pints after ban
- Irish smokers light-up less at home
- Greene King marks ban in style
- Everards' pubs get gold
- Amstel focuses on laid-back drinking
- GBBF hits 30
- Still time to enter BII Nitas
Features:
A Brew to be Proud of
The Publican team brews its own Proud of Pubs Ale
Pubs could lose 200m pints after ban
Market research company Nielsen says England and Wales is likely to follow the pattern of sales in Scotland
Pubs in England and Wales are likely to see a decline in alcohol volume of 200 million pints over the next year with the smoking ban, says new research from market research company Nielsen.
The analysis comes following its investigations into sales data from Scotland following the ban there last March. It identified that volume in licensed premises had fallen some five per cent.
Graham Page, consultant at the Nielsen Company said: "The on-trade is already under intense pressure with the number of pubs visits falling and aggressive off-trade pricing continuing to take trade. The introduction of the smoking ban will put even more strain on this sector.
"Some optimism can be found from Scottish consumer opinion, with a sharp jump in the number who (six months after the ban started) claimed they were more likely to visit a pub if it was non smoking than in the previous year (57 per cent up from 45 per cent).
"However alcohol volumes do not seem to be supporting this with a notable decline in the Scottish on-trade 12 months into the ban."
Fruit could make 'powerful fuel'
The sugar found in fruit such as apples and oranges can be converted into a new type of low carbon fuel for cars, US scientists have said. 
Could this be the fuel of the future?
The fuel, made from fructose, contains far more energy than ethanol, the scientists write in the journal Nature.
Separately, a British report on biofuels says all types of waste products, including plastic bags, can be used to make biodiesel fuel.
Critics of biofuels made from plant crops say they drive up food prices.
In both the European Union and the United States politicians have heartily embraced biofuels as a way of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and dependency on imported oil.
'Waste' fuel
Critics say that the current biofuels, both diesel made from palm oil and ethanol made from corn, encourage farmers to switch land to fuel production, driving up the price of food in the process.
Now scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say that a simple sugar called fructose can be converted into a fuel that has many advantages over ethanol.
It is called dimethylfuran - it can store 40% more energy than ethanol, does not evaporate as easily and is less volatile. The impact on society we're hoping will be far wider than simply 'we can give you a fuel now with a tenfold reduction in its carbon footprint'
Jeremy Tomkinson
The scientists say that fructose can be obtained directly from fruits and plants or made from glucose.
But more work needs to be done to assess the environmental impact of this new fuel.
In Britain, researchers say that the technology now exists to create biodiesel not just from palm oil but from a range of materials including wood, weeds and plastic bags.
This process is called biomass to liquid and experts say that within six years up to 30% of Britain's diesel requirements could be met from this source.
Jeremy Tomkinson of the UK's National Non-Food Crops Centre said this next generation of biofuels could meet many needs beyond powering cars.
"The impact on society we're hoping will be far wider than simply 'we can give you a fuel now with a tenfold reduction in its carbon footprint'.
"Imagine now if chemicals that we use in the chemical industry also came from the same feed stock, the aircraft that we fly to New York in also runs on this? There's the big potential," he said.
The biggest drawback to this process is cost.
Setting up new production facilities is estimated to be 10 times higher than for current biofuel refineries.
Bank acts on £5 note distribution
The Bank of England is to look at how it can encourage banks to issue more £5 notes, the number of which has fallen compared with other denominations. 
Mervyn King says many £5 notes have become "scruffy"
Bank governor Mervyn King said it had £1bn worth of £5 notes in its vault but high street banks did not want them.
They found it cheaper to issue £10 and £20 notes and the shortage of "fivers" in circulation led to their "noticeably soiled and scruffy" condition, he said.
The British Bankers Association said it was happy to discuss the issue.
'Remarkable decade'
Its chief executive Angela Knight was speaking to BBC Five Live after Mr King's speech to financiers at London's Mansion House.
Be cautious about how much you borrow
Mervyn King, Bank of England Governor
But she added that with £100 being the average amount taken out of ATMs at one visit, it seemed "safer" to stock higher denominations, so cutting the number of trips to fill up the machines.
During his speech, Mr King also praised Chancellor Gordon Brown for his contribution to a "remarkable decade for the British economy".
He called Mr Brown's decision to grant independence to the Bank of England 10 years ago as a "fundamental improvement" to the conduct of economic policy in the UK.
But Mr King suggested the chancellor had failed to adequately address the imbalance between responsibilities and powers in the oversight of payment and settlement systems - crucial to maintaining financial stability.
The promise of more specific regulation comes as the development of complex financial instruments and the spate of loan arrangements from institutional lenders without traditional covenants has hugely increased credit risk.
"Be cautious about how much you borrow," Mr King warned, particularly in cases where one lender knows little of the activities of the borrower.
"It may say champagne - AAA - on the label of an increasing number of structured credit instruments.
"But by the time investors get to what's left in the bottle, it could taste rather flat."
'Ample supply'
On the issue of £5 notes, Mr King noted that their circulation had not increased in 15 years and that over that period the average time they remained in the banking system had doubled.
"The problem is not at the production end - we have an ample supply of new £5 notes waiting to be used," he said.
"There is a need for an adequate supply of low denomination notes that can be used for small transactions."
However, he accepted that the public convenience might not "correspond to the private interests of commercial banks".
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20.6.07
'Ridiculous' visa rulings set out
UK tourist visas are often denied to would-be visitors because they "plan a holiday for no particular purpose other than sightseeing", a report says. 
Ignorance of UK sites was a disadvantage
Others were turned down because they had never previously taken any foreign travel or could not speak English.
The "ridiculous reasons" for rejecting visas were set out in a report by the independent monitor of UK visas.
Linda Costelloe Baker's report said that despite such flaws there had been "significant improvement in quality."
But she said entry clearance officers could use "some ridiculous reasons when refusing visa for tourist visits".
She said a common reason for refusal was "you wish to go to the UK for a holiday. You have never previously undertaken any foreign travel before and I can see little reason for this trip".
EXAMPLES OF NON-PLAIN ENGLISH USED BY STAFF The provenance of the funds depicted is not evidenced allied to other financial commitments You have failed to complete pivotal areas of Section 6 I can only assess your mutual knowledge in a subjective context Source: Independent Monitor
In her report she says "this is a common reason for refusal but there was a first time for everyone who has gone abroad on a holiday and not having done it before is an acceptable reason for travel".
Another reason to reject a tourist visa was "you plan a holiday for no particular purpose other than sightseeing".
On the use of that reason, she says: "But that's what the UK is famous for, sights worth seeing."
'Live like a housewife'
She said the numbers of British people "going on their hols" would be cut if other countries emulated the UKvisas officials who rejected a tourist visa request because the applicant did not have a "sufficient command of the language for the purposes of tourism".
She also highlights the case of a person whose request was rejected by an officer because they had "little or no idea what you plan to see or do".
This was, she discloses, because the person had answered the question on a form asking why they were going to the UK, with the words "annual leave vacation".
That was a "perfectly sensible response", Mrs Costelloe Baker said.
Another woman was criticised for not researching the UK's background when she said she wanted to spend her four-month visit to her fiance to "just live as a housewife".
"I suspect being a housewife for four months was all she wanted to do and the Immigration Rules allow that," Mrs Costelloe Baker said.
She said it was "a little naive to worry about a list of tourist sights" being outlined if applicants wanted to visit close friends.
An applicant in St Petersburg wrote: "I just want a holiday, my friends live near the seaside" to which the officer wrote "you have not named any places you will see".
Mrs Costelloe Baker said this was not the case - the applicant had named the "seaside".
'Plain English please!'
In one case, a man was refused a visa because the officer thought it not credible that he was going to stay in a hotel in Cirencester "far from [his] friends in Surrey and Kent".
The hotel was in fact in London and the man had told the officer that he had not wanted to put a burden on his friends for his entire 28-day visit.
Mrs Costelloe Baker said the man had been offered another application free of charge and she hoped he would get an apology as well.
She also said there had been improvement in the language used to explain refusals to applicants since the "very strange wordings" seen during her previous assessment.
But she still called for "plain English please!"
The report covers the first nine months of 2006, which had been a very busy period for UKvisas.
Mrs Costelloe Baker concluded that overall "there has been a significant improvement in the quality of UKvisas work compared with 2005 and I have found that refusal notices are more consistent and less idiosyncratic".
Quiztime QuizPod 006
Hi Again Quiz Folks, 5 rounds of 5 Questions.
Media / Food & Drink / War Zones / Musical Movies / Gardeners World.
All the Questions & Answers.
I am trying to post every two weeks….
email quiztimeuk@gmail.com or visit Chris’s Quiztime website at -
http://quiztimeuk.multiply.com
June 20th
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| 1976: Westerners evacuated from Beirut Hundreds of Americans and Britons are moved from Beirut and taken to safety in Syria by the US military, following the murder of the US ambassador. | |||
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| 1995: Shell makes dramatic U-turn Oil giant Shell caves in to international pressure and abandons plans to dump the Brent Spar oil rig at sea. | |||
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| 1990: Major proposes new Euro currency British Chancellor John Major proposes a new European currency which would circulate alongside existing national currencies. | |||
Hyper-personal search 'possible'
Google would consider keeping a user's search data for longer than 18 months if they had explicitly consented, one of the firm's key executives has said. 
Google boss Eric Schmidt said the search engine could one day answer hypothetical questions
The web giant currently anonymises a user's search history after 18 months.
There are concerns among some privacy advocates that Google could know too much about a user's web history.
But Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search, said the firm would look at letting users opt in to having their search data held for longer.
Google currently offers an opt-in personalised search facility, which learns how and what users search for in order to improve the accuracy of results. Personalised search
Speaking at a press event in Paris, Ms Mayer said: "Personalised search tracks and shows you in your search history the clicks and trends of your searches.
"Based on what we see as your searching pattern it ultimately can enhance your result.
"There's a simple way to turn it on and off. We will only use the data that a user gives us to target personalised search."
Google anonymises that information after 18 months and so the search engine has to re-learn the patterns of user behaviour.
Our goal is to have a Google search as fast as a light beam to and from our data centres from your location
Marissa Mayer, Google
She said: "We have declared that we keep our records of searches for 18 months. We think that this was a good compromise and also something which benefited our users.
"Eighteen months is sufficient to do a good job of personalising so we think that personalised search will continue and will be successful.
"At the same time it protects our users' privacy as we anonymise the logs after 18 months."
But she said Google would consider offering an enhanced form of the service.
"For users who opt in for us to have data longer, as long as they explicitly consent, there is the possibility we can do that," she said.
Predict intent
The more a search engine can learn about a user's surfing habits, the better it can predict their intent.
With more web history data, Google could offer users a "hyper-personal" experience, with results based on potentially years' worth of pattern analysis of a user's search history.
Speaking about the long-term aspirations for Google, Eric Schmidt, the firm's chief executive, said one day the search engine could potentially answer questions such as "What shall I do tomorrow?" and "Which college should I go to?".
"Google is not at all done with your information problems. There are many, many examples of where it would be nice if Google had more of an ability to understand time and choices.
"It will be some years before we can at least partially answer those questions. But the eventual outcome is... that Google can answer a more hypothetical question."
He added: "The important principle, and I want to say this over and over again, is that this is opt-in, user choice."
Biggest hurdles
One of the biggest hurdles facing any search engine is trying to understand what a user is specifically searching for when using terms which could be interpreted in different ways and the context of the search itself.
Google says it searches tens of billions of pages, three times more than its nearest rival.
The number of pages it searches has grown by more than a factor of a 1,000 in the last eight years, said Ms Mayer.
She said: "In the early days of the internet you could actually offer search results as a list, and organise them by hand.
"But as you include more and more information, relevance and ranking gets harder."
Ms Mayer said that speed of search results was becoming an increasingly important factor.
"We have continually tried to improve our speed and that speed has yielded more and more searches.
"Our goal is to have a Google search as fast as a light beam to and from our data centres from your location."
Volunteers sought for Mars test
The European Space Agency (Esa) is after volunteers for a simulated human trip to Mars, in which six crewmembers spend 17 months in an isolation tank. 
The Aurora programme envisages Europeans on Mars
They will live and work in a series of interlocked modules at a research institute in Moscow.
Once the hatches are closed, the crew's only contact with the outside world is a radio link to "Earth" with a realistic delay of 40 minutes.
It sounds like Big Brother, but there are no plans to televise the test.
The modular "spacecraft" measures some 550 cubic metres (19,250 cubic feet), the equivalent of nine truck containers. It is based at the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems in the Russian capital.
The goal is to gain insight into human behaviour and group dynamics under the kinds of conditions astronauts would experience on a journey to Mars.
Big commitment
With the exception of weightlessness and radiation, the crew will experience most other aspects of long-haul space travel, such as cramped conditions, a high workload, lack of privacy, and limited supplies.
The volunteers will be put through a number of scenarios, such as a simulated launch, outward journey of up to 250 days, an excursion on the Martian surface, followed by the return home.
The 500-day duration is close to the minimum estimated timescale needed for a human trip to the Red Planet.
The Earthbound astronauts will have to deal with simulated emergencies and perhaps even real ones.
But, while Esa says it will do nothing that puts the lives of the simulation crew at unnecessary risk, officials running the experiment have made it clear they would need a convincing reason to let someone out of the modules once the experiment had begun.
"The idea behind this experiment is simply to put six people in a very close environment and see how they behave," Bruno Gardini, project manager for Esa's Aurora space exploration programme, told BBC News.
Team ethic
In all, 12 European volunteers will be needed. They must be aged 25-50, be in good health, have "high motivation" and stand up to 185cm tall. Smokers, or those with other addictions, to alcohol or illicit drugs, for example, will be rejected.
Esa is also looking for a working knowledge of both English and Russian.
"We will do pre-selection, medical tests, psychological tests, etc. But at the end, you really have to see how they react in as close to a real situation as possible on Earth," explained Mr Gardini.
He added that the results would help define the selection criteria for a future Mars mission.
"This is the beginning; it will be a long time before we go to Mars," the Esa official said.
"But this is a field which is difficult to quantify. It's human behaviour, so there's no method. The Russians have done lots of study in the past and we will be sharing some data.
"We have to look at the mix of people; at the end of the day, we want a team."
Robots first
Marc Heppener, of Esa's Science and Application Division, said the crewmembers would get paid 120 euros (158 dollars) a day.
Viktor Baranov, of Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems, said his organisation had received about 150 applications, only 19 of which had come from women.
A precursor 105-day study is scheduled to start by mid-2008, possibly followed by another 105-day study, before the full 520-day project begins in late 2008 or early 2009.
European scientists have been asked to submit proposals for experiments in the areas of psychology, medicine, physiology and mission operations.
Mounting a mission to Mars would face many other hurdles, not least of which would be shielding the crew against the potentially deadly dose of radiation they would receive on the journey.
Esa's Aurora programme has already begun preparations to land a rover - called ExoMars - on the Red Planet. It has the stated aim, however, of trying to get European astronauts to Mars at some time in the future.
Neverland director takes on Bond
Finding Neverland's Marc Forster will direct the latest James Bond adventure. 
Forster recently finished work on a film adaptation of The Kite Runner
German-born Forster, whose 2001 film Monster's Ball won an Academy Award for actress Halle Berry, will direct Daniel Craig in the film, due out in 2008.
It will be based on a script developed by Forster and Crash director Paul Haggis - one of the writers behind last year's hit Bond outing Casino Royale.
"I have also always been a Bond fan, so it is very exciting to take on this challenge," said Forster.
"I have always been drawn to different kinds of stories," said the 37-year-old film-maker, who recently completed work on the The Kite Runner, an adaptation of the best-selling novel.
'New possibilities'
The Kite Runner will be released in the US at the end of the year, and is expected to receive Oscar attention.
"We are delighted that Marc Forster, with his exceptional talent and unique vision, has agreed to direct our next James Bond film," said producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.
Daniel Craig and Eva Green starred in 2006 Bond film Casino Royale
It had been suggested that Martin Campbell would return to direct the 2008 adventure, following the success of Casino Royale, which became the most successful Bond film to date.
Campbell worked on both Casino Royale and 1995's GoldenEye, overseeing the debut of both Pierce Brosnan and Craig in the role of 007.
"The new direction that the Bond character has taken offers a director a host of new possibilities and I look forward to working with Daniel Craig," said Forster.
Bond 22 will begin filming at Pinewood Studios in London in December, based on a screenplay drafted by Neil Purvis and Robert Wade.
Parliament's oldest MP dies at 82
The House of Commons' oldest MP, Piara Khabra, has died aged 82. He had been the Labour MP for Ealing Southall since the 1992 general election. 
Piara Khabra ran a mile for Sport Relief in 2006
He was a member of the constitutional affairs select committee and had a special interest in India.
His researcher Julian Bell said he was "remarkable servant of the people".
He said: "At an age when most people had long since retired he was still energetically tackling individual and constituency problems."
"His service and political wisdom will be sadly missed."
Mr Khabra had already announced his decision to retire at the next general election, and a candidate is to be selected from an all-women short list.
He came to Britain in the 1950s from India. He was a teacher and Labour councillor before his election to Westminster, and was also involved with the Indian Workers Association in Southall.
Vatican's 'driving commandments'
The Vatican has issued a set of "10 commandments" for motorists to promote safer driving. 
The Vatican City has a 30km/h (19 mph) speed limit
The "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road" call on drivers to respect speed limits, refrain from drinking before driving and avoid cursing.
Roman Catholics are also urged to make the sign of the cross before setting off on a journey.
This is said to be the first time the Vatican has specifically dealt with the growing worldwide problem of road rage.
'Occasion of sin'
The 36-page document was put together by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerant People.
We know that as a consequence of transgressions and negligence, 1.2 million people die each year on the roads
Cardinal Renato Martino
"Thou shalt not drive and drink", "thou shalt not make rude gestures behind the steering wheel" and "help accident victims" are among the 10 recommendations for motorists.
The document also warns that driving can bring out "primitive" behaviour in motorists, including "cursing, blasphemy, loss of sense of responsibility".
It says that automobiles can be "an occasion of sin" - particularly when they are used for dangerous overtaking or for prostitution.
Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican's council, said it was important to address the issue because driving had become a big part of contemporary life.
"We know that as a consequence of transgressions and negligence, 1.2 million people die each year on the roads," he said.
"That's a sad reality, and at the same time a great challenge for society and the Church."
There is not much speeding going on in the Vatican City itself, the BBC's David Willey in Rome says.
A 30km/h (19 mph) speed limit has been enforced for years in the tiny state.
The last recorded accident there was a year-and-a-half ago, our correspondent says
Robot sub explores giant canyon
Scientists have begun the first detailed exploration of a vast underwater valley the size of the Grand Canyon - just off the coast of Portugal - and it has yielded a series of surprises. 
The ISIS vehicle brings specimens back to the ship's deck
Using Britain's ISIS robot submarine - a van-sized bundle of high-technology - researchers are for the first time able to view previously hidden features up to 5km (three miles) deep in the Nazare Canyon.
The canyon extends out into the eastern Atlantic from the seaside town of Nazare, north of Lisbon - long plotted on maps but until now never properly studied.
The submarine is operated from the UK's new research vessel, the James Cook, and during a visit on board I watched as it was winched over the side and lowered into the waves.
In a control room like something out of Star Wars, a team "flies" the robot down into the dark and the high-definition cameras have captured sights no one expected. 
The Nazare Canyon teems with life - even at great depth
To the amazement of scientists, the shape of a shark appeared at a depth of 3,600m (12,000ft) - far deeper than sharks are usually found.
On the sides of the canyon, beneath the overhanging edges of the giant cliffs, cold-water corals are seen clinging to the rock, part of a highly active ecosystem well below the limits of sunlight.
According to the lead scientist, Professor Doug Masson of the National Oceanography Centre, the scientific community had been divided on whether "a canyon this deep would be a biological hotspot or an underwater desert".
In fact, he says: "It's a mixture of both - some areas like the walls are as active as a coral reef, while others are dominated by sand dunes with no signs of life." There is nowhere on the planet that is immune from climate change
Professor Paul Tyler, marine biologist
And this undersea landscape is far more active than thought - giant boulders litter part of the sea-floor after being transported dozens of kilometres from the coast.
For Professor Paul Tyler, a marine biologist, the expedition is a chance to establish a baseline of data about this undersea world - so the effects of climate change can be assessed.
"We've seen signs of change at the surface and in other parts of the deep ocean at 5,000m; so we need to see what's changing here. 
Climate change will impact even remote ecosystems
"There is nowhere on the planet that is immune from climate change."
The team's next mission? The Whittard Canyon, another deep submarine valley, this time off the coast of Ireland.
As Professor Masson puts it, less than 5% of the world's sea-bed has been surveyed with modern technology - so this project is just a start.
Pub Food News
Top stories:
Pubs left out of streamlined EU rules on organic food
New labelliing aims to help consumers
Organic pub pioneer working with primary school
Duke of Cambridge offers culinary expertise
Greene King teams up with Coffee Republic
Branded offer for 28 London sites
More news this month:
- Free beermats to highlight farming links
- Pubs vie for steak pie crown
- Pubs taking share of tougher food market
- Cashew! Bless you, Nobby...
- Brakes heats up the frozen food awards
Pub Food features:
Product trial: A glass of cider with that?
Cider has a long history as an accompaniment to food. With more pubs looking at beer and food matching, one cidermaker has decided it'is high time to get cider back on the menu
Consumer insight: Times are changing
New research confirms that with the smoking ban looming, a focus on the food offer would be timely
Careers: Secret is in the sauce
Geronimo Inns is equipping its kitchen workforce with the skills and confidence to give customers the standard of food they expect. John Porter reports
Beer and food matching: Wheat beer
This month the panel gets to grips with matching pub food to a European favourite
Fresh or frozen? Fresh from the farm
John Porter ventures into the countryside to trace the origins of his pub lunch
Fresh or frozen? Keeping ahead
Frozen food has a role to play in providing pubs with easily prepared food and Brakes is keeping ahead of the trends
The great outdoors
Licensees attending a Marston's Pub Company al fresco roadshow learnt how to make the most of their outdoor space and cooking style this summer
Peggy's Pick of the Products:
Peggy's Pick - 3G Food Service pie wedges
Time to end the jibes about Peggy's steak and kidney
Peggy's Pick: Cruga Biltong
Don't let this meaty snack get you flustered
‘Go to work on an egg’ ad banned
Fifty years after Britons were implored to “Go to work on an egg”, an advertising watchdog has banned a revival of the campaign, saying that it breaches health guidelines.
Plans to mark the anniversary by broadcasting the original television advertisements featuring Tony Hancock have had to be called off.
The ban by the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre, which vets television advertisements, was condemned as ridiculous yesterday by the novelist Fay Weldon, who used to work in advertising and helped to create the campaign.
“I think the ruling is absurd,” she said. “We seem to have been tainted by all the health and safety laws. If they are going to ban egg adverts then I think they should ban all car adverts, because cars really are dangerous, and bad for the environment.
“It’s like banning any films that had actresses smoking cigarettes. Somehow I don’t think eggs are quite in the same category as cigarettes and other dangerous substances.”
The advertising clearance centre, a government-backed watchdog, says that it blocked the campaign because eating an egg for breakfast every day was not a “varied diet”.
The slogan was introduced in 1957 by the British Egg Marketing Board. It was turned into a series of television adverts in 1965 and ran until 1971. The campaign featured Hancock in a series of sketches that included other slogans such as “eggs are cheap”and “eggs are full of protein”.
The campaign cost more than £12 million and its “Go to work on an egg” slogan is still remembered by millions. The British Egg Information Service, the successor to the marketing board, wanted to broadcast the ads to mark the 50th anniversary of the slogan and the red British lion mark.
However, all national television adverts must be approved by the advertising clearance centre, set up by Ofcom, the Government’s broadcasting standards watchdog, to enforce statutory codes of advertising standards. After lengthy debate it decided that the campaign failed to comply with its code.
The organisation said: “Eating eggs every day goes against what is now the generally accepted advice of a varied diet. We therefore could not approve the ads for broadcast.”
The egg information service offered to add a line to the adverts saying that eggs should be eaten as part of a varied diet. The compromise was rejected.
The egg information servicesaid it was shocked by the ruling. It said eggs were a healthy food recommended by nutritionists and many other advertisers promote their products to be eaten every day, “so we are very surprised eggs have been singled out. There are no restrictions on the number of eggs people can eat, which was recently confirmed by the Food Standards Agency, and between five and seven eggs a week would be totally acceptable for most people.”
Cath Macdonald, a nutritionist with the egg information service, said: “Eggs are a great choice for all the family, providing plenty of vitamins and minerals including calcium for teeth and bones and vitamin A for growth and development.
“They are also relatively low in saturated fat and, with only 80Kcals per medium egg, there’s no need for dieters to avoid them either.”
The advertising clearance centre stood by its ban, saying: “Dietary considerations have been at the centre of the new rules for advertising and we felt these ads did not suggest a varied diet.”
The British Egg Information Service is showing the ads on its golden anniversary website: www.gotoworkonanegg.co.uk.
Food for thought
1957
Year slogan was launched
£12m
Cost of the campaign
78
Energy value in kilocalories of a medium egg
3%
Percentage of adult man’s energy requirement gained by eating one egg a day
Source: Times database
19.6.07
June 19th
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| 1975: Missing earl guilty of murder An inquest jury decides Lord Lucan murdered the 29-year-old nanny of his three young children. | |||
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| 1980: Gunbattle at British embassy in Iraq Three gunmen who attacked the British embassy in Baghdad are shot dead by Iraqi security forces. | |||
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| 1970: Shock election win for Heath Edward Heath becomes the new British prime minister after a surprise victory for the Conservatives in the general election. | |||
Soap Caesarean scene criticised
If anyone thought Bernard Manning was offensive - read on....
Eighty people have complained to the BBC about Monday night's episode of EastEnders. 
Character Dawn Swann is pregnant by May's husband
The episode saw pregnant Dawn Swann, played by Kara Tointon, chained to a bed and told she would be forced to have a Caesarean section.
The storyline centres on rivalry between Dawn and her lover's wife Dr May Wright, played by Amanda Drew.
A BBC spokesman apologised, saying: "We are sorry if some people were offended by this drama unfolding."
He added that the climactic episode would have been anticipated by most viewers but said the corporation "will be addressing complaints fully in due course".
Plot changed
Dawn managed to escape after grabbing the scalpel May was going to use to carry out the procedure.
The original storyline about the women's rivalry was re-written last month because of similarities with the real-life case of missing child Madeleine McCann, who disappeared on holiday in Portugal.
There was no specific warning about the content of the episode but a continuity announcer said before it began: "Dramatic EastEnders now on BBC One - it's misery for poor Dawn as mad May puts her plan into action."
Manning penned his own obituary
Controversial comic Bernard Manning wrote his own obituary four months before his death. 
Manning said he would have "the last laugh"
Manning, who died in hospital on Monday aged 76, defends himself against accusations of racism in the eulogy, published in the Daily Mail.
He said the term racist was "just an easy, catch-all term of abuse bandied around by the media elite" against those who did not follow its "agenda".
Manning added that he was a descendant of Jewish immigrants.
He railed against critics such as the Commission for Racial Equality, who "forgot that the only point of jokes is to make people laugh".
"Well, at least I won't be seeing any of the po-faced, politically-correct brigade where I'm going. I had quite enough of them in my lifetime," he wrote.
Tributes have continued to come from those who admired Manning's comedy and his charity work. HAVE YOUR SAY Like him or loathe him there was no way of ignoring him
Slog Onwards, UK
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said the comic's death was a "sad day" for the city.
"In my 20 years in Manchester, there have been fewer people who contributed as much to Manchester life as Bernard," he said.
"His generosity, time and personality touched everyone. I can say no more than he was a good friend to me and many, many more," he added.
Chef Marco Pierre White described Manning as "the funniest man in England".
Manning said he would have "the last laugh"
And Sir Cyril Smith, former Rochdale MP and friend of Manning, said: "Bernard was a heavyweight in more ways than one. A heavyweight to the literally hundreds of charitable causes that he supported all his life and raised thousands of pounds for.
"Bernard was kind, generous, honest and straight and will be missed. He was often maligned and wrongly so."
Manning wrote in the obituary that he had decided what he would like written on his gravestone - engraved in very small letters so visitors would have to look closely to read it - "Get off! You're standing on my privates."
He spoke of his tough upbringing in Manchester - sharing a bed with his five siblings - and of his call-up to the army just as World War II ended.
'Undermined true comedy'
"I was one of the armed guards watching over the Nazi hierarchy locked up in Spandau prison. For a 16-year-old, it was a bizarre experience, standing over the likes of Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer with a Bren gun," he wrote.
Although evidently frustrated by being "barred from the airwaves" and his TV appearances being reduced in the 1980s, Manning said: "I wouldn't have changed any of it for a moment."
"And as I look down now on all the over-paid executives who have made such a mess of television and undermined true comedy, and as I sense the affection from the mass of the British public, I know that I am the one having the last laugh."
Bernard Manning Jokebook
What's hit more balls than Ian Botham's bat?
Elton John's chin!
Yorkshire couple go to Majorca for their first holiday abroad. Being typical Brits abroad, they don't trust the local food, and as it's a Sunday they start cooking a roast dinner. Unfortunately they've forgotten the gravy granules, so Maureen says to Geoffrey:
"I'm sure the couple next door are English, go and ask them if they've got some"
So off he goes, knocks on the door, and sure enough a bloke in Union Jack shorts opens the door:
Geoffrey asks politely: "Hast thou any Bisto??"
The bloke says: "Fuck off you Spanish twat"
What's black and white and eats like a horse?
a zebra
Bloke is at the supermarket checkout. On the conveyer belt he's got one sausage, one rasher of bacon, one bread roll, one egg, one tomato etc.
Bird on the checkout looks at him and says cheekily,"Ooh you must be a single man."
Bloke thinks he's in here and says, "Why how can you tell?"
"Because you're a fucking ugly cunt."
Little pakistani bloke goes to heaven & knocks on the pearly
St Peter answers & calls out "Name?
"Mohammed"
St Peter shouts out "Anyone up here call a taxi?"
"ive got a new nickname for my dick...im gonna call it "scouser" cause it hasnt worked for fucking ages"
Went down to City the other day & a bloke asked me how to get into the ground.
"You go round the corner & theres two queues- a big one & a little one.
Dont get in the big one-thats for the chippy"
Quasimodo running away from some kids......."I aven't got your fuckin ball!"
A black man walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. He walks up to the bar and says a pint of larger please. The bar man looks at him and says ''wow where did you get that from?''
The parrot says ''Africa there's fuckin loads of em.''
boy says to his mum Ive got the biggest cock at nursery is that because im scouse...?
She replys no its beacuse your 28 and a retard, now watch you dont get spaghetti down your Liverpool top.....
An ugly cunt of a man walks into his local pub with a big grin on his face.
"What are you so happy about?" Asks the barman.
"Well, I'll tell you," replies the ugly man. "You know, I live by the
railway. Well, on my way home last night, I noticed a young woman tied to
the tracks, like in the movies. I, of course, went and cut her free and took
her back to my place. Anyway, to make a long story short, I scored big time!
We made love all night, all over the house. We did everything, me on top,
sometimes her on top, every position imaginable!"
"Fantastic!" exclaimed the barman. "You lucky guy. Was she pretty?"
Fuck knows......Never found the head.
They have found a cure for AIDS, they inject you with Parkinsons disease and you soon shake it off...
A bloke sitting in a dentists chair getting a check up, the dentist has a quick look and says.
" Tell me sir, have you had oral sex this morning?"
The guy looks a bit sheepish and says.
"Yeah, why have I got a pube stuck between my teeth?"
"No" says the dentist "you've got shit on your nose"
Jewish kamikazi pilot crashed his plane into his brothers scrapyard
an Irishman reveresed his car into a Car Boot Sale.
Ended up selling his engine for £50
50 years ago a group of white blokes chasing a black bloke was called the Klu Klux Klan..................
Now they call it the PGA tour (It also works for Formula 1 now!)
Pakistani goes into an off licence.
Can you recomend a good port? he asks
Yep.......Dover., Now fuck off and use it.
Bloke stood on top of the North Stand at OT.
Sir Alex shouts up "What yer doing up there"
Bloke - "Gonna jump off and kill myself"
Sir Alex "Why"
Bloke "Cos I'm a city supporter and the club is a bloody joke"
Sir Alex "Why not jump off the city stand?"
Bloke "have you seen the fucking queue"
"What are you so happy about?" Asks the barman.
"Well, I'll tell you," replies the ugly man. "You know, I live by the
railway. Well, on my way home last night, I noticed a young woman tied to
the tracks, like in the movies. I, of course, went and cut her free and took
her back to my place. Anyway, to make a long story short, I scored big time!
We made love all night, all over the house. We did everything, me on top,
sometimes her on top, every position imaginable!"
"Fantastic!" exclaimed the barman. "You lucky guy. Was she pretty?"
Fuck knows......Never found the head.
They have found a cure for AIDS, they inject you with Parkinsons disease and you soon shake it off...
A bloke sitting in a dentists chair getting a check up, the dentist has a quick look and says.
" Tell me sir, have you had oral sex this morning?"
The guy looks a bit sheepish and says.
"Yeah, why have I got a pube stuck between my teeth?"
"No" says the dentist "you've got shit on your nose"
Jewish kamikazi pilot crashed his plane into his brothers scrapyard
an Irishman reveresed his car into a Car Boot Sale.
Ended up selling his engine for £50
50 years ago a group of white blokes chasing a black bloke was called the Klu Klux Klan..................
Now they call it the PGA tour (It also works for Formula 1 now!)
Pakistani goes into an off licence.
Can you recomend a good port? he asks
Yep.......Dover., Now fuck off and use it.
Bloke stood on top of the North Stand at OT.
Sir Alex shouts up "What yer doing up there"
Bloke - "Gonna jump off and kill myself"
Sir Alex "Why"
Bloke "Cos I'm a city supporter and the club is a bloody joke"
Sir Alex "Why not jump off the city stand?"
Bloke "have you seen the fucking queue"
a bloke goes to the opticians -
the optician says "I'm afraid your going to have to stop wanking" -
Bloke:"why, will I go blind?"
Optician "no, but you're upsetting everyone in the waiting room"
Anyway, perhaps the best way to sum up Manning's career was that it was complicated. Yes he performed material that was offensive and seemed to be rooted in racial discrimination, but technically he was an excellent comic, both in terms of timing and delivery.
He also gave hundreds of thousands for charity over the years; there are many successful comics who are very PC and right on, who don't do that at all.
Either way, his place in the comedy hall of fame is secure.
Bernard Manning, banned but never silenced
Bernard Manning, banned but never silenced, dies at 76
Bernard Manning, the old-school club comic who refused to acknowledge that his material was racist, died yesterday aged 76.
Manning, who played to packed houses at his own club after being banished from television, died in a Manchester hospital after suffering kidney failure.
Banned from performing by some local councils, the stand-up comedian became notorious for gags at the expense of black and Asian people. But Manning always maintained: “You never take a joke seriously. We have to tell jokes about everything and everyone.”
Born in 1930 in Ancoats, one of the poorest suburbs of Manchester, Manning’s career peaked with the 1970s ITV programme The Comedians.
Although his comic timing was unquestionable, changing tastes and the arrival of alternative comedy put paid to his television career. An unrepentant Manning retreated to the Embassy Club in his home town, where he continued to enjoy a loyal – and ethnically diverse – audience. Although he lived modestly, his wealth has been estimated at more than £10 million.
Frank Carson, a fellow comic and friend, told the BBC News website: “He was a wonderful man. If I had to write his gravestone I’d put, ‘Here lies Bernard Manning, comedian, who died 76 years old.’ Underneath that I’d put, ‘What a pity, he had a booking next week’.”
Jonathan Margolis, Manning’s biographer, said: “Bernard was the last of the old-style, joke-telling comedians. Jokes slightly went out of fashion maybe 25 years ago. He was a man of his age – and as people of his age went, he was relatively unracist. Until his dying day, he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about.”
Last month Manning attended his own “wake”, a gathering of 600 friends and fans in Manchester to celebrate his life for a Channel 4 show called This Was Your Life. He heard tributes from colleagues on The Comedians but told the audience: “I’m going to be with you for a long time yet.” Stan Boardman, who was one of those present, said: “He went to his own wake and he cracked gags all the way through. Bernard did a hell of a lot for charity. [He] never ever cared how he would be remembered.”
In 2002 Manning was banned from performing in the Dorset seaside town of Weymouth, where councillors were worried that his act would be in breach of race laws.
The film director Michael Winner, who paid for Manning to perform at a party, was a fan. He said: “He was the last of the comedians who put the PC brigade behind him. He took no notice of them and just got on with the job of being funny.”
Sir Cyril Smith, the former Rochdale MP and a friend of Manning, said: “Bernard was a heavyweight in more ways than one. A heavyweight to the literally hundreds of charitable causes that he supported all his life and raised thousands of pounds for. Bernard was kind, generous, honest and straight and will be missed.”
His son, Bernard Jr, said that illness had forced Manning, who was diabetic, to cancel a show for the first time in his six decades as an entertainer.
One of my earliest memories was arriving at Paddington station not long after the war ended and hearing of the death of Tommy Handley. Very few great comics, from the golden era of the 40s,50's and 60s are stil with us, and Bernard Manning, one of the most naturally funny and gifted comics of that time, will be sorely missed.
If I had my time over again, I can think of no greater aspiration than being able to make a thousand people roar laughter, and send them home happier that when they arrived. That Bernard Manning did just that for 60 years makes him one of the greatest.
As for the PC brigade my answer is this - Bernard Manning made Britain a happier and more joyful place for most of us - but you the PC Brigade, with your narrow-minded, short sighted, ultimately self-defeating, counter-productive and thoroughly nasty policies have made us miserable and less free.
A very funny man. The last of the old brigade. If the very people he insulted can laugh at his jokes, what right does the rest of the society have to tell us he was a racist.
A sad day for anybody who likes standup comedy.
Manning was considered by some as one of the greatest comedians of all time
Funny Quotes About Men
| 1. | "What are the three words guaranteed to humiliate men everywhere? 'Hold my purse.'" Francois Morency |
| 2. | "The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness and kindness, can be trained to do most things." Jilly Cooper |
| 3. | "Men do not like to admit to even momentary imperfection. My husband forgot the code to turn off the alarm. When the police came, he wouldn't admit he'd forgotten the code...he turned himself in." Rita Rudner |
| 4. | "Men should be like Kleenex, soft, strong and disposable." Cher. |
| 5. | "I married beneath me. All women do." Nancy Astor |
| 6. | "A genius is a man who can rewrap a new shirt and not have any pins left over." Dino Levi. |
| 7. | "I'm glad I'm not bisexual; I couldn't stand being rejected by men as well as women." Bernard Manning. |
| 8. | "You know when you put a stick in water and it looks bent? That's why I never take baths." Steven Wright. |
| 9. | "There are three stages of man: He believes in Santa Claus; he doesn't believe in Santa Claus; he is Santa Claus." Bob Philips |
| 10. | "An extravagance is anything you buy that is of no earthly use to your wife." Franklin Adams |
| 11. | "The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest." Roseanne Barr. |
| 12. | "When I eventually met Mr Right I had no idea that his first name was Always." Rita Rudner. |
| 13. | "Men are simple things. They can survive a whole weekend with only three things: beer, boxer shorts and batteries for the remote control.." Diana Jordan. |
| 14. | "Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you." Mae West. |
| 15. | "I only like two kinds of men, domestic and foreign." Mae West |
| 16. | "A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." Gloria Steinem |
| 17. | "If you never want to see a man again say, 'I love you, I want to marry you, I want to have children'. They leave skid marks." Rita Rudner |
| 18. | "No man is an island, but some of us are pretty long peninsulas." Ashleigh Brilliant. |
| 19. | "Men who don't understand women fall into two groups: Bachelors and Husbands." Jacques Languirand |
| 20. | "Women love men for their defects; if men have enough of them women will forgive them everything, even their gigantic intellects." Oscar Wilde |
18.6.07
World's Funniest Joke Or No Laughing Matter?
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"
Still brewing for Britain
Shepherd Neame, which claims to be the UK’s oldest brewer, has always traded on its heritage. But now, says chief executive Jonathan Neame, it is leading the industry into a new era of speciality beers and social responsibility
The year 1698 was peppered with some pretty colourful events. In France, a vintner by the name of Dom Pierre Pérignon was perfecting a special cork stopper to give his bottles of white wine some added fizz, while in Russia Peter the Great was busy imposing a tax on beards in an effort to dissuade the local male population from “copying Asiatic customs”.
Meanwhile, somewhat nearer to home, what we know today as Shepherd Neame was being established in the small Kent town of Faversham.
Moving with the times
Proudly claiming to be the UK’s oldest brewer, the modern-day version of the business is keen to play up its heritage, as evidenced by one of its bottled beers called, unsurprisingly, ‘1698’. Then there’s the nod towards more recent history via its famous Spitfire cask ale, originally produced in 1990 as a one-off to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, but now a core element of the brewer’s output.
But while heritage and tradition are vital to a company such as Shepherd Neame, chief executive Jonathan Neame recognises these attributes must be balanced with the demands of today’s fast-moving pub market.
He points to the group’s recent licensing deal to brew the iconic Japanese beer Asahi, as well as
sponsorship deals, such as its tie-up with the Udderbelly venue at the Brighton Festival Fringe. Then there are the brewer’s irreverent campaigns for some of its beers. As well as the German-baiting adverts for Spitfire, there were the ‘Near the knuckle’ posters for Bishops Finger, which
left little to the imagination and earned a rebuke from the Advertising Standards Authority – doing Shepherd Neame’s profile no harm at all in the process.
Back in fashion
The brewer wasn’t always deemed to be at the cutting edge, however. “Some 15 years ago the accent was on style bars. Our pubs were seen as traditional, and traditional meant boring, old-fashioned and under-invested,” Neame says.
Nowadays this view is changing. Neame firmly believes the consumer is moving back towards more traditional pubs, many of which have improved their offer considerably – Shepherd Neame’s included.
The group has spent a lot of
money upgrading its 376-strong estate, and sold the pubs it believes added little to the operation. It has also invested a reported £6.7m since 2003 in improving the brewery’s capacity and distribution.
In addition, it has invested in its environmentally friendly and energy-efficient production facilities – the annual output of which is around 207,000 barrels of beer, split 50:50 between its own and licensed products. A further £1.6m has been spent on or earmarked for its cask packaging and new bottling facilities. Environmental plaudits have subsequently been bestowed, with Neame keen to point to his company’s ISO14001 environmental management certification – Shepherd Neame is
the only UK brewer to have one, apparently.
“As far as brewery technology is concerned, there’s no doubt that investing in these areas has a quick payback,” he says. “Our new keg plant has reduced energy consumption, our new cask plant will do the same and overall energy usage and noise will drop significantly.”
Putting Kent back on the map
As well as modernising its processes, Shepherd Neame is aware of its role in the county known as the Garden of England. “Ten years ago the perception of Kent, notably by those who lived here, was limited,” says Neame. “But now we’re seeing a definite sense of change. With various investment programmes across the county, as European businesses invest here on the back of the high-speed rail link and so on, people are proud to be associated with the place again.
“Plus we did some research within that and found we were seen as an integral part of the local identity. That includes the brewer’s relationship with the raw materials it uses, many of which it sources from the surrounding area.”
Intriguingly, in a recent research project Shepherd Neame found that while consumers liked organic products – its bottled Whitstable Bay is brewed using organic ingredients – they scored fairtrade goods much higher. “Organic is seen as a luxury for those who can afford it, while fairtrade is good ethics that everyone can buy into,” notes Neame. “But more important than either is buying locally and putting money back into the local economy. The sustainability of local beer has kudos.”
But how aware – bothered, even – is the consumer when it comes specifically to Shepherd Neame’s green credentials and its commitment to the local economy? “What we’re trying to do is genuine and we hope this effort comes across to the consumer,” says Neame. “The research suggests that we are making a difference, but I couldn’t honestly say to you how big that is at the moment. The corporate world is trying to catch up with the green agenda, but it’s important that it’s economically sensible and it’s not just PR.
“With energy costs as they are, getting on with it makes sense. But you should only shout about it if you can back it up with results.”
The brewer’s commitment to green business values and corporate social responsibility, which includes its responsiveness to local issues – isn’t a collection of tree-hugging concepts. “We’re doing this because it’s good business practice,” says Neame. “If it makes a subliminal difference to the consumer in the way they make their choices then we’ll sign up to that.”
Banging the drum
When he’s not steering his own business Neame bangs the drum for responsible drinking strategies and, as chairman of the British Beer & Pub Association’s Duty Rate Advisory Panel, joined-up thinking on the subject of liquor taxation.
Pubs have had a hard time, while the problem of binge-drinking is one he considers to be as much a matter of perception as of reality. “We have a problem with alcohol consumption in the UK, but part of the issue relates to the fact that we have one of the lowest definitions of what constitutes binge-drinking. You also have to ask what is safe drinking, since the level of what is regarded as ‘safe’ varies across the region.”
A bit of ‘across the region’ planning wouldn’t go amiss, Neame suggests. “There’s currently a debate about common labelling,” he says, “and if you want common labelling standards you have to define what a unit of alcohol is. It’s got to be the same across the EU. Which it isn’t currently.”
Unsurprisingly, given his BBPA role, Neame points the finger at the duty authorities. “If we can get some sense into the debate about a common alcohol strategy, then logic would suggest a fairer regime for beer versus wine, where strength is growing but duty isn’t, and a fairer regime for the on-trade – with appropriate responsibilities and penalties if you screw up.” Get these areas sorted and one “could well see a very vibrant pub industry in 10 years from now”, Neame believes.
The evolution of premium
Meanwhile, the growth in the popularity of speciality beers can only be grist to Shepherd Neame’s mill, says Neame, especially as the national brewers grapple with capacity issues. Having a premium brand will be key, he argues, but the parameters of ‘premium’ have changed. “The consumer wants more choice, but what was considered to be the premium five years ago has become the everyday brand. What they now consider to be premium is not defined by ABV but by brand image,” he says.
“We’re very optimistic about Asahi. For a company of our size and scale it is very encouraging. We’re not purely an ale brewer, plus the consumer is looking for more choice, and choice at the top end of the range.”
Here lies the key to the industry’s future prosperity, Neame believes, one driven less by consolidation and more by what the consumer wants.
“We’re seeing a trend towards sustainability, local sourcing and a swing back to more traditional pubs. As an industry we’ve been at a low ebb for some time. But I think that consumers are moving more in our direction.”