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R E A D E R ’ S
D I G E S T

JANUARY 2018
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A N D

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Bill Bailey:
P E R F E C T LY

“Music Was
My Salvation”
I N F O R M E D

PAGE 30

8 Ways To Increase
Your Popularity
|

PAGE 80
J A N U A R Y

Britain’s Beautiful
Indoor Gardens
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 Contents JANUARY 2018

features

14 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

Olly Mann is bewildered
by “psychological theft”

entertainment
22 SIR DAVID JASON
INTERVIEW
The actor opens up about
his favourite roles
p 68
30 “I REMEMBER”:
BILL BAILEY
The comedian reminisces
about his childhood in the 76 100-WORD-STORY
West Country cOMpETITION
Time is running out! Enter
Health now to be in with a chance
38 NO MORE REGRETS of winning £1,000
How changing your thought
process can free you from 80 SNAp, cHATTER & pOp
feelings of shame and guilt Why cultivating the right kind
of popularity might be the
Inspire key to a longer life
58 LIVING WITH REFUGEES
Meet the families opening their travel & adventure
homes—and their hearts—to 89 HONG kONG:
asylum seekers 20 YEARS LATER
© Clint Budd/fliCkr

What’s changed since the

68 BEST OF BRITISH: territory’s return to China?
INDOOR GARDENS
Forget the winter blues 102 BIG DOGS & kIDS
with these colourful Beautiful pictures capture
indoor sanctuaries a special relationship

Cover photograph By pal hansen/getty images 01•2018 | 1|

IN eVerY Issue eDItor’s letter

7 over to you HAVE YOU EVER broken

10 see the World differently
a New Year’s resolution?
entertainment If you haven’t, I’m in
19 January’s cultural highlights
awe of you. If you have,
Health fear not, you’re in good
48 advice: susannah hickling
company: 80 per cent
52 the nutrition Connection
54 Column: dr max pemberton
of us give up on being virtuous by
February. There’s no denying that
Inspire
66 if i ruled the World: change is hard, but it’s not impossible.
twiggy In fact, our health feature explains
travel & adventure
how you can even change your
98 Column: Cathy adams thought processes, freeing yourself
Money from regrets—whether they pertain to
110 Column: andy Webb failed resolutions, failed ambitions or
food & Drink even a failed marriage. Turn to p38 to
114 tasty recipes and ideas find out more.
from rachel Walker Another oft-cited resolution is to
Home & Garden give up smoking. While laudable (and
118 Column: Cassie pryce essential for good health), did you
technology know that cultivating strong
120 olly mann’s gadgets relationships might be just as
fashion & Beauty important for your well-being?
122 georgina yates on how Flip to p80 for the full report.
to look your best Finally, imagine if your resolution
Books were to welcome a refugee into your
124 January fiction: James home. We meet the families who have
Walton’s recommended reads
done just that on p58. Their stories
129 Books that Changed my life:
dame vera lynn
exemplify humans’ capacity for
good—and reading them is a lovely
fun & Games
130 you Couldn’t make it up way to begin the year.
133 Word power
136 Brain teasers
140 laugh!
143 60-second stand-up:
tom stade fiona hicks
144 Beat the Cartoonist theeditor@readersdigest.co.uk
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2 | 01•2018 Reader’s Digest is published in 27 editions in 11 languages

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 readersdigest.co.uk CAN YOU NAME THESE
FIREWORK-LIT CITIES?

Financial resolutions you’ll stick to

When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, financial
goals can prove some of the hardest to stick to.
To help you hit the ground running in 2018, we’ve
compiled some top tips for achieving your goals,
whether you plan to save, invest, clear some debts
or simply curtail your spending. Head over to
readersdigest.co.uk/financial-resolutions

Don’t forget the pets!

Why not take a break
from your own
resolutions to spend
some time with your
four-legged friend?
We’ve got some great
suggestions for your furry
© SHUTTERSTOCK

friend’s New Year manifesto, from herbal remedies

to calm them down to futuristic gizmos to keep Head to readersdigest.
them safe. Visit readersdigest.co.uk/NY-pets co.uk/NY-fireworks to
check your answers and
twitter.com/readersdigestuk facebook.com/readersdigestuk see the full gallery

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK 01•2018 | 5|

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 Over to You
LETTERS ON THE NOVEMBER ISSUE
We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others

✯ LETTER OF INSPIRE

THE MONTH...
Your article “Return
to Flanders Fields”
Return to
brought back emotional
memories of my visit to
F L ANDERS
Ypres to commemorate Fields
BY CRAIG STENNETT

the centenary of the Battle Almost a century after

of Paschendaele in June
the end of the First World
War, families can finally
The Last Post Ceremony at
lay their long-lost

© C RA I G ST E N N E T T
The Menin Gate Memorial,

last year. My father fought

relatives to rest Ypres, Belgium; (opposite
page) poppies in Flanders
Fields, near Passchendaele

1234567890 1234567890

in the battle and survived

58

BR171105-Return to Flanders Fields-FL.EM.indd 58-59 09/11/2017 14:00

the war in an artillery regiment. His room at home was full of

mementoes: his helmet; a small German machine gun he brought
home; trench maps and a photograph of his battery at the conclusion
of the war.
He never spoke of his experiences. My visit last year with my son
brought home the full horrors of what he had endured and also made
me realise how much he had overcome to return home and carry on
life in a normal situation. I’m only sorry it took me so long to make
this visit. ROSEMARY PENN, Is l e o f Man

REMEMBER, REMEMBER... would go to Alexandra Palace for a

I enjoyed “Best of British: Bonfire spectacular firework display. Set
Night”, in which I discovered some against unrivalled panoramic views
wonderful ways to have fun on of London, the evening sky was
November fifth...they all sound illuminated for an unforgettable
absolutely amazing. experience. Bigger and brighter each
My own fondest memories of this year—it was the capital’s hottest
date are from when I lived in North bonfire night. I miss those days.
London. Each year my family and I ALEXA POOLE, F l i n t s h i r e

01•2018 | 7|
READER’S DIGEST
MUM KNOWS BEST
I was grateful for your financial
advice in “My Mum’s Money”.
I’m now much more aware that
supermarkets can mislead
consumers with “special offers”,
which aren’t deals at all.
In the past I admit to having been
bamboozled by large packs stating
“Family Size” or “Bigger Pack, Better
Value”, but these so-called refill packs
can also end up being more
expensive than those in more
traditional packaging.
I have noted all your good advice.
I now spend a little longer in the
supermarket looking around to see
if I can get better value.
AMELIE BARNES, S i r D d i n b y c h
THE DESCENT OF MANNERS
Thank you so much “I’m Today”, the
excellent interview with Lord Jeffrey
Archer. I especially appreciated his
comments about the descent of
manners. I too was brought up by my
mother. We often travelled by bus or
train, and I was taught that at busy
times I should stand and offer my
seat to a lady. Whether she were
young or old, appeared to be
expectant or infirm, these matters
were irrelevant. The offer of my seat
was always taken happily—without
Send letters to readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk
Please include your full name, address, email and daytime phone number.
We may edit letters and use them in all print and electronic media.
8 | 01•2018
any embarrassment or the slightest
suggestion of a chauvinist motive on
my part. It was just accepted as good
manners. ADRIAN JOHNSON, S u r r e y
RETRO STYLE
It was troubling to read in “The Great
Armchair Debate” that Olly Mann
may lose some of his treasured
possessions because his wife wants
their new décor to have a “consistent
theme”. If he’s to salvage anything at
all, Olly will need to use similar
terminology. His tat stands a much
better chance of survival if he
describes it as “shabby chic”. Old tat
from the Eighties should be referred
to as “retro”, and his entire collection
of tat is “an eclectic mix”. Any large
piece of tat is “a statement piece with
the wow factor”.
Good luck with the redecoration,
Olly—you’re going to need it!
DAVID BENNETT, S t a f f o rd s h i r e
LEST WE FORGET
I found your article “Return to
Flanders Fields” an emotional read.
As a former soldier who saw action
in Iraq—and as the son of a soldier
who was at Dunkirk—I feel it’s very
important that we never forget the
horrors of war.
KEVIN HOLLIFIELD, C a e r p h i l l y
WE WANT
TO HEAR
FROM
YOU!
Repeat
Prescriptions
Delivered FREE
to Your Door
10 © JIM DENEVAN/BARCROFT USA/GETTY IMAGES
SEE THE WORLD
Turn the page
12
...DIFFERENTLY
Even if this looks like the work of
extraterrestrials, these circular
shapes are purely human in
origin. After more than two
years of planning and 15 days of
hands-on work, the American
artist Jim Denevan and three of his
colleagues created this spectacular
piece of art in the desert sands of
Black Rock in Nevada, US.
A circumference of nine miles
not only guarantees that this work
is visible at an altitude of 39,000
feet (from which this photograph
was taken), but also makes it the
largest sand drawing in the world!
IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

Olly Mann discovers that people find it

surprisingly hard to say, “Get well soon”

A Strange
Sympathy
MY MUM’S ABOUT TO HAVE SPINAL SURGERY. There’s
an illusion of choice about it: one consultant suggested she
should have it immediately, while another said she had
“acres of time” to make up her mind. (When pushed, he said
she shouldn’t leave it untreated for more than six months.)
The operation—a lumbar decompression—is relatively
straightforward, in spinal surgery terms, but does carry a risk
Olly Mann of paralysis, as does any intervention around those nerves. If
presents she opted not to have the procedure, though, there would be
Four Thought a chance of eventually becoming confined to a wheelchair
for BBC Radio anyway. So, surgery it is.
4, and the
award-winning
Friends and family have reacted to this news predictably,
podcasts The offering up chicken soup and platitudes, but also
Modern Mann surprisingly, by talking in such negative terms that Mum
and Answer has come to label the encounters “psychological theft”. This
Me This! conversational crime is motivated by compassion, but can
have devastating consequences, and is usually committed by
accident. It occurs when—by thoughtlessly reflecting their
own negative experiences—other people hijack your anxiety
and put themselves in it, rather than provide relief from it.

I’LL GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE. Last week Mum went to the

post office and bumped into Geoff (not his real name), who
works for the local travel agent. “How are you?” he asked.
“Not great,” she replied. “I’ve been having some trouble

14 | 01•2018

ILLUSTRATION BY M ATTHEW BRAZI ER
with my back and I’m going to
need surgery.”
“Oh, GOD!” he responded. “The
back is the most dangerous place to
operate. My mum had that and she
was in terrible pain. Make sure you
READER’S DIGEST
get all your affairs in order before
you go under the knife—it takes
months to get over it!”
Now, Geoff’s intention had been
benign. He’d relayed his own
mother’s story to show sympathy,
01•2018 | 15|
IT’S A MANN’S WORLD

ie, demonstrating his knowledge that ONCE YOU START LISTENING OUT
chronic back pain is nasty. He’d also FOR IT, it’s staggering how regularly
wanted to show empathy—to people respond to another person’s
articulate that Mum is hardly the ill health by talking extensively about
only person to have suffered with themselves, or someone else they
this condition, and she needn’t feel once knew; someone with a
alone. As he walked away, Geoff was completely different medical history,
probably thinking: I’ve just related on who more often than not
a personal level to this panic-stricken experienced a negative outcome.
woman. I’ve told her a story about In the past few weeks, Mum’s
someone I know who mates and colleagues
experienced similar have regaled her with
obstacles and came stories about their
through alive. Well Another Auntie Trisha, who
done, Geoff, you’re
quite the man! You’re
acquaintance required rapid
follow-up surgery;
getting a bubble bath reacted to their neighbour, who
tonight! Needless to
say, this was not Mum’s
Mum’s had only a minor
intervention, but then
takeaway from Geoff. predicament caught a superbug and
She heard: pain,
danger, knife, months.
by reeling off never walked again;
their grandmother,
Astonishingly, statistics for who had something
another acquaintance unsuccessful similar—well not that
reacted to Mum’s similar at all really, a
predicament by actually back surgery heart attack, but still,
reeling off statistics for it’s all surgery, isn’t it?
unsuccessful back And yes, OK, she was
surgery. I can’t begin to fathom how 96, and yes, she’d chain-smoked for
this could be considered a helpful 50 years, but still, here’s the point,
contribution, frankly—but, if I’m her recovery period was so
being charitable, perhaps it was his strenuous…and on it goes.
way of saying, “You’re right to be Psychological theft.
concerned, yes; it’s a serious It’s really not that difficult to think
operation.” Inevitably, all Mum of alternative things they could have
focused on was a frightening said that would be equally true, but
prognosis which, as it turns out, more beneficial to hear. “The
wasn’t even accurate for her specific specialists in our hospitals are
condition (yes, I Googled it later). among the best in the world.

16 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

It’s amazing what they can do these
days!”—that’s a good one. “You’re
going to feel much better afterwards.
It’ll be a new lease of life for you!”—
that’s another. “Is there anything I
can do to help?”—that’s always a
welcome offer. Positive suggestions,
rather than compounding the
negative thoughts inevitably circling
around inside the head of someone
who’s already anxious about surgery,
are all that’s required.
I’M NOT SUGGESTING PATIENTS
should be sheltered from the reality
of the risks they’re taking. But if the
decision to have surgery has already
been taken, or can’t really be avoided,
what’s the purpose of highlighting the
drawbacks? To put it another way—
when our pipes burst, we want our
friends to recommend a good
plumber, rather than tell us about the
torrential flood they saw on the News
at Ten. When we’re at the GP, we
prefer nurses who say, “You may feel
a pricking sensation”, to those who
say, “This is going to hurt”.
And when we’re facing a scary
and precarious medical treatment,
the results of which are entirely out
of our own control, surely it’s just
common sense to say: “Get well
soon, and how can I help?”

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 entertainment

Films by e va m ac kevic
Movie
of the
■■comedy: brad’s status As human beings, we spend a lot of our Month
time preoccupied with ourselves—and Brad Sloan (Ben Stiller) is no
exception. Sure, he loves his wife Melanie, wants only the best for his
gifted son Troy and his non-profit business is flourishing. Yet…something keeps
Brad up at night. Should he have sold out to become rich? Are his more successful
friends phasing him out? Is he a failure? As he’s touring prospective colleges with
Troy, he seeks the answers to these questions. Brad’s Status is a self-contained
slice of life, brimming with kindness and humour that work like a soothing balm
for the restless mind. It’s also Stiller’s best performance to date, complemented
by an equally strong supporting cast. They don’t make ‘em like this anymore.

■■history: darkest hour On the

■■crime: three billboards
outside ebbing, missouri Oscar
winner Francis McDormand stars
as a grieving mother who, following
her daughter’s unsolved murder,
decides to demand justice from the
local authorities in a rather
unconventional way—and all hell
breaks loose. Written and directed by
Martin McDonagh, the man behind
In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, it’s
a deliciously obnoxious nail-biter.
heels of the recent Churchill biopic
starring Brian Cox, comes Darkest
Hour—a drama detailing the Prime
Minister’s first tumultuous month in
office as he decides the fate of Western
Europe in the early days of the Second
World War. Gary Oldman—who’s
unrecognisable as Churchill—
delivers an Oscar-worthy
performance, supported by
Kristin Scott
Thomas as his
loyal, dignified
wife Clementine.

© vertigo releasing / 20th century fox / focus features 19


xx
■■docUmentary: eriC Clapton: a
life in 12 bars A treasure trove of
fascinating archive footage and
ridiculously good music, this extensive
doc covers just about every aspect of
Clapton’s five-decade career. More than
anything, it’s “Slowhand’s” love letter to
blues music, that occasionally dips into
personal aspects of his life, such as his
substance abuse issues and his
turbulent love story with Pattie Boyd (the
inspiration for “Layla” and “Wonderful
Tonight”). Though a tad too long, it’s an
exhilarating treat for any music fan.
■■drama: last flag flying Three
former Marines who served in Vietnam
are reunited by a tragic event 30 years
later. With incredible performances
from Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston
and Laurence Fishburne at the
forefront, the film covers myriad
complex issues—from politics to
friendship—and provokes a similar
number of emotional responses. It’s
morally ambiguous, but full of heart;
poignant, but absurdly hilarious.
Director Richard Linklater aims high
and hits the mark with near perfection.

On Your Radar: Stuart Collinson, retired

WatchinG: readinG: the online: bbc listeninG:
strictly turncoat by Website I like t. rex
Come dancing alan murray A viewing the discography
© altitude / c urzon artific ial eye

(bbc one) WWII story BBC’s website I like T. Rex’s

I enjoy the based around to read the latest funky glam style
dancing, along Glasgow and why news items. of music. It was
with the varying the Germans I also enjoy my era too! I’ve
judging and the had pinpoint the viewers even been to
sheer glitz accuracy on photographic see a T. Rex
and glamour. the shipyards. section. tribute band.
Fancy appearing in this section? Send your current cultural favourites,
Fancy appearing in this section? send your current cultural favourites, along with
alongdescriptions,
short with short to
descriptions, to readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk
readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk

20 | 01•2018 READ MORE At readersdiGest.co.Uk/entertainment

 ReadeR’s digest

Music by e va m ac kevic

rachmaninov: the two-piano Album

suites, six morceaux by charles
of the
Month
owen, katya
apekisheva
Cleanse your musical
palate in the new year On Our Radar
with some of the most
PUsh Festival,
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manchester,
Romantic repertoire, by
January 12–27.
delving into the works
Enjoy some of the
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most exciting film,
One of the most highly
theatre and visual
acclaimed piano duos
arts from the North
working today, Charles Owen and Katya
East. Visit
Apekisheva, perform his expressive works for two
visitmanchester.com
pianos and four hands—two set-ups that reveal the
for details.
composer’s infinite creative flair and draw out some
of the most intense, rich flavours that piano music bristol slapstick
has to offer. Begin with the densely textured, poetry- Festival, January
based Suite No. 1, followed by the more traditional, 26–28. Brighten up
emotionally ripe Suite No. 2, culminating in the your January with
atmospheric Six Moreaux, or “Six Musical a celebration of the
Moments”—a series of stand-alone pieces, each best in vintage
representing an individual mood, be it a sombre comedy film and TV.
funeral march or a mystifying Barcarolle. The works Visit visitbristol.co.
are a testament to Rachmaninov’s mastery of piano uk for details.
technique and are the perfect accompaniment to
hogwarts in the
drab winter evenings at home.
snow, london,
until January 28.
like this? yoU may also like...
Treat yourself (or
tchaikovsky: the seasons by
the Potter fan in
vladimir ashkenazy For more
your life) to a festive
quintessentially Russian lyricism and
tour of the Harry
flowing melodies, turn to one of
Potter studios. Visit
Rachmaninov’s closest supporters,
wbstudiotour.co.uk
Tchaikovsky. The Seasons is a set of fervent character
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pieces, played here faultlessly by Ashkenazy.

READ MORE At readersdiGest.co.Uk/entertainment/mUsic 01•2018 | 21|

“I Suppose I’m
22
 ENTERTAINMENT
Sir David Jason
looks back at his
success—and
explains why, SIR DAVID JASON HAS
when it comes to BEEN DOING A LOT OF
his career, he’s RETROSPECTIVE PONDERING
LATELY, and he admits the
still open all hours
process has sometimes been
painful. In addition to his new
BY JAC K WATKINS
book, Only Fools and Stories, he’s
done two documentary series for
UKTV Gold, one on the making of
Only Fools and Horses, and another
looking at his entire career to date
on stage and screen.
“It’s been a bittersweet
experience,” he says, “because
you’re being asked to go back and
review some of the greatest and
most enjoyable moments in your
lifetime. You see pictures and bits
of you that show you happy in that
period, but it’s all so long in the
past and you can’t get it back.
In one way it’s rewarding, and in
© COLIN BELL

another you say: ‘Gosh, I wish I

was still doing that, I wish I was
still there.’ ”

A Workaholic”
“I SUPPOSE I’M A WORKAHOLIC”

E
ven so, ultimate perfectionist
that Sir David is, his
recollections are compelling.
The book follows on from his
autobiography My Life, published in
2013, in which he gave us a warm
and funny account of growing up in
a small terrace house in Finchley,
North London, and his tentative
early steps as an actor, leading
on to becoming the multi-award-
winning household name that he is
today. “The success of that book
delighted everybody, me included,”
he agrees. “So the publishers came
back and asked if I’d write another
one. I said, ‘Well, no, I’ve just done it,
I’ve told it all, I’ve nothing left to say,’
but they pointed out I’d played an
awful lot of characters in my time,
and that maybe I could tell some
Only Fools and Horses
stories related to that?
ran for 22 years;
“It set fire to my imagination, (right) David at 14
because one thing people haven’t
wanted me to explain in any detail
up to now is how I go about creating always thought of myself as an actor
my characters.” first, with the comedy second,”
Much loved as he is, it’s possible explains Sir David, who cut his
we don’t quite realise what a unique
talent Sir David is. Comedy greats
such as Eric Morecambe, Frankie
Howerd and Tommy Cooper I HAD A CHANCE TO
maintained their famously funny
DISPLAY A SERIOUS SIDE
personas in everything they did.
By contrast, the comedy-character
—THERE WAS MORE TO
acting star, as embodied by Sir David, ME THAN JUST FALLING
who changes his style and THROUGH THE HATCH
appearance to fit whichever part he’s OF A SALOON BAR
playing, is a relatively rare type. “I’ve

24 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

dramatic teeth theatre,

in repertory producers
theatre always wanted
in the late 1960s, me to do comedy
continuing to as there weren’t so
maintain a busy many people able
stage schedule to do that compared
throughout the years of to dramatic parts. It was
his greatest TV success with Porterhouse Blue and A Touch
Open All Hours and Only Fools Of Frost that gave me the chance on
and Horses. TV to show there was more to me than
“It wasn’t until I did A Touch of Frost just falling through the hatch of a
that I had a chance to display that saloon bar.”
serious side because, especially in the It’s no surprise his great heroes

01•2018 | 25|
 The infamous Del
boy; (below)
David aged 18,
outside the
builders’ yard
RONNIE BARKER,
BIG AS HE WAS
IN THE PUBLIC’S
MIND, WAS AN
AMAZINGLY POLITE
AND GENEROUS
PERSON

big as he was in the British

were Peter Sellers
and Ronne Barker,
two of the finest
character-comedy
actors Britain has
produced. Having worshipped the
latter’s work from afar for years, once
they started working together on TV,
notably in Porridge and Open All
Hours, Barker became both mentor
and friend to Sir David, who
remembers him fondly. “He was an
original talent not just because he was
a comedy actor, but because of his
ability to write and create humour out
of virtually nothing. And the thing
that always impressed me was that,
public’s mind, he was such an
amazingly polite and
generous person.”
Barker’s meticulous
approach to fleshing
out a role rubbed off
on him too, but it’s
fascinating to read
in Only Fools and
Stories about how
the Del Boy character
came to be. When I
remind Sir David of the
way he drew inspiration for
his patter from the lingo of the
illegal street traders he used to watch
selling black market goods in
London’s Oxford Street, he laughs.
“Cor blimey, yes! They were better
than me, that lot. It was fascinating
to watch. Of course, I know they were
con artists and you learned to keep
your hands in your pockets, but I
picked up so much. Nothing’s ever
wasted, you see.”
Accompanied by his wife Gill and
daughter Sophie, he was delighted to

26 | 01•2018
 meet up again with his old sparring
partner Nicholas Lyndhurst at the
National Film Awards earlier this
year, when the pair received a
Lifetime Achievement Award in
recognition of their work together
on Only Fools. “We don’t get in touch
very often because we’re both always
busy, and he’s on the south coast,
while we’re up here in the wilds
of Buckinghamshire.”

BUSY ISN’T REALLY THE WORD.

In addition to another documentary
he’s just made for Channel 4 on the
history of spying, Sir David has spent
the summer filming the fourth series
of Still Open All Hours. He says that,
when they decided to revive the old
sitcom classic in 2013, they were
delighted to find the original shop
and street in Doncaster was still
there, unchanged from the 1980s. A Touch of Frost gave the actor a
chance to show his serious side
Despite the long filming hours, he
still gets a buzz. “I suppose I’m a
workaholic, but I love the Famously driven, he’s certainly not
camaraderie. And Roy Clarke, the winding down. “It’s the work ethic.
writer, is a genius. Lord knows what One thinks maybe another Only
goes on in that man’s brain at night. Fools is still hiding out there.
© AF A RC HI VE/ALAM Y STOCK PH OTO

He must be on jet fuel.” That and Hollywood, although,

Despite his vast experience, he
admits nerves never go away,
especially when they shoot the
studio scenes before a live audience
at Pinewood. “It’s like a first night
every week,” he sighs. “It’s not fear,
it’s…oh…your whole being is
heightened with the thoughts: Is this
going to work? Is it going to fail?
mysteriously, they don’t seem to
answer my calls. Never mind. I’m
quite happy doing what I’m doing.”
Only Fools and Stories: From
Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin
to Frost, by David Jason, is
published by Century in
hardback, ebook and audio.

01•2018 | 27|
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on 0800 433 7979.
entertainment

Bill Bailey, 53, is the much-loved British comedian, actor,

musician and tV presenter. he’s best known for his
quirky role in Black Books as well as appearances on
Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Have I Got News for You

Bill Bailey
“I Remember”
…we had quite a big kitchen
garden and my parents grew lots
of herbs and vegetables. I remember
the strong sensation of soil, putting
my hand in it, digging around and
pulling things out of the ground.
It’s quite a primal sensation that
long bicycle rides down country
lanes. My father had a huge
collection of Ordnance Survey maps,
which I still love. I treasure these
things—they’re like treasure maps.
They’ve got little signs on them:
churches with a spire, churches with
m icha el melia /alamy Stock P hoto

really stuck with me for years. I a steeple; there’s a bit of marshland…

miss gardening a lot—it’s something
that’s stayed with me, that love of
the outdoors.
…until i left school and
moved up to london I spent all
of my time, my formative years, in
the West Country. It’s a beautiful
place to grow up in. I would go on
They’re so detailed and one of the
things that I remember about them
is the little symbol to depict the
steepness of the road. You’d have two
arrows, like two chevrons, and that
would be really steep. That’s the
place I would aim for on my bike.
I’d think, Oh, that would be great to
cycle down there.

30
 Photo/illuStration credit

03•2017
|
31|

Getting his hair cut by Grandad, which
put him off haircuts for life; (right) at the
Christmas table with the family
...a wasp flew into my mouth.
I was ten or 11 and I remember the
wasp buzzing around my mouth. I
was singing, or I just had my mouth
open and I remember thinking, Ugh,
ugh, there’s a wasp, and trying to spit
it out. Of course, the wasp wasn’t
happy about this either; it didn’t want
to have flown in there. I blame the
wasp as...well...it should have looked
where it was going.
As I spat it out I thought, Oh thank
goodness I didn’t get stung, but as a
sort of parting gift it stung me on my
bottom lip. I remember feeling this
enormous jolt of pain and I almost
fell off my bike. I pushed the bike to
a phone box and I phoned my dad
because he was a GP. I didn’t realise
that my lip had swollen so much that
32 | 01•2018
I could hardly speak and was saying
“Uhhh”, so he just hung up. He
eventually realised I wasn’t some kind
of crank or crazy person and came
and picked me up.
…my first home was a very
old house. It was part of an
E-shaped building and we were
the end bit of the E. The house was
Elizabethan and it had gone through
various incarnations. One bit of the
house had once been an old shop
and you could still see the etching
in the window, “Fry’s Chocolate”.
We had a garden with apple,
plum and pear trees; there were
vegetables like potatoes, rhubarb,
raspberry canes, gooseberries. There
was even an old bird table in one
corner of the garden where mum
would put out all sorts of peelings
and carrot tops for the birds.
It had a groove around the edge.
 reader’s digest

I loved to pour water and watch it

flow around the channel and pour
over the front—it was only when
I was much older that I realised that
it was actually an old cider press.
It would originally have had a big
stone on top of it and you would
have put apples on it, crushed them
up, and the apple juice would have
flowed around it into a container.
It was an idyllic childhood really.
…spending a lot of time with
my grandparents when I came
home from school because my dad
was working and my mum was
always busy in the kitchen cooking.
She would have loved The Great
British Bake Off so it’s a pity she’s
not around to see it.
I would come home and her and
my father’s mother and her mother
would all be stood in the kitchen.
There would be a whirlwind of
activity and it would all just appear— …dreaming of being an
jam tarts, roly-
polys, turnovers,
angel cake, Bill’s mother, Madryn
fairy cake,
Welsh cake,
scones. My
grandparents
would be there
and ask me about
the day, you know,
“How did you get
on?” I remember
it being like
an inquisition.
My grandmother was a
lovely, sweet woman and
when my grandad died,
she used to write to me—
reams and reams of letters
…my grandad had really
strong opinions—he was a real
socialist. He was a fascinating
character to talk to. I learned a lot
from him and he gave me a different
outlook on the world. My grandfather
was a stonemason and my
grandmother was a florist. She was
a lovely, sweet woman and when my
grandad died—and he died many
years before her—she used to write
me reams and reams of letters, many
of which I’ve kept.
actual
astronaut. I
wanted to change
my name as
well—I had this
other persona,
Mick Kennedy. I’ve
no idea where it
came from...well
Kennedy, I guess,
from the American
president, or
maybe the
Kennedy space

01•2018 | 33|
i rememBer
Playing clarinet with his cousins. “We
were the von Trapps of the West Country”
station—it was in the news when I
was a kid. Maybe I was channelling
Jagger or maybe it was somebody my
dad knew who was called Mick. I have
this vivid memory of imagining
myself as an astronaut called Mick
Kennedy. So I was channelling a pop
star and, perhaps, the president.
It could have been very different—
could have been Ringo Gandhi. I’ve
no idea what happened to my dream,
the whole notion of becoming an
astronaut somehow faded. It ceased
to become exciting and became very
dull. You just go to the moon and
then you come back again. Is that it?
34 | 01•2018
…senior school was a
transitional period. I was a
real swot to begin with—I’d always
do well in class and in the end of
term exams and at the prize giving,
I’d always get a prize. And then, I
suppose, what the school said was
that I’d completely gone off the rails:
“He’s stopped, he’s lost his focus.”
But I just saw it as being normal,
you know?
I was just mucking about a bit,
I was in the school band, I had a
bunch of friends and I was simply
discovering growing up. Schoolwork
suddenly wasn’t quite as important
to me as it had been before.
…behind closed doors there
was the school band that I was
a part of, and I remember at one of
the concerts, we decided to bring the
smoke machine along with us. Of
course, there was too much smoke
on stage. Nobody could see anything.
They thought the building was on
fire—it was a total disaster.
When I became a dad, it
was wonderful because we
didn’t think we’d have
kids, but he came along
and it was a great big bolt
out of the blue
 reader’s digest

…music was actually a real

salvation. I had a fantastic teacher, Bill playing guitar.
Lynda Phipps, and she was a real “A career in
guiding light for me in school. She entertainment was
clearly on
taught me piano and her husband
the cards”
was the head of music so I learned
music theory with him. She
encouraged me to do more, all the
way through up to diploma level.
Under her support and guidance I
performed a Mozart concerto at 16 or
17—I’d never have done that without
her encouragement. She would take
you beyond what you thought you
were capable of.
When I step out on stage now, I
always think of Lynda Phipps. I
remember, years ago, when I was
doing my first arena shows—at
Wembley for goodness’ sake—I mean,
how did this happen? Standing on
stage in front of 12,500 people and I …Black Books was great
can hear Lynda’s voice in my ear fun—great cast, great writing. It was
saying, “Yeah, of course you can do it.” also great to be part of a team; there
was a collaborative sense of
…doing a gig many years ago contributing to an ensemble piece
with an old friend from school. We rather than being a solo stand-up,
were a double act, and we were which is a solitary profession.
performing in Edinburgh. A girl It’s good to mix it up now and
came along to one of the shows and again, to be part of a play or
I just happened to talk to her collaborate or write with others.
afterwards when I was on the stairs. I think you can sometimes do your
She said, “Oh, I really enjoyed the best work that way.
set,” and we got chatting. We kept in
touch and wrote to one another for …realising i’ve carried some
about a year. I still have the letters element from all those
now. Kristin and I were together for childhood trips to wildlife parks
about ten years before we got with me into adulthood. My mum was
married in Indonesia in 1998. quite passionate about animal

01•2018 | 35|
i rememBer

welfare. She wasn’t an activist, but
she loved being outdoors and she
loved animals. I remember this
mantra she had, “I want you to love
nature.” She always sat me down as a
kid and drummed it into me. It’s
obviously worked, as we’ve got a
menagerie of rescue animals at home.
…when i became a dad it was
wonderful because we didn’t
think we’d have kids, but my son Dax
came along and it was a great big
bolt out of the blue really. It made
life a bit more straightforward for
me. Your priorities change and you
realise it’s not about you and that
there’s someone else you’re
responsible for. I think that’s a
good thing.
You can think too much about
meaning sometimes, and tie yourself
up in knots about what life is all
about, and then something like that
happens and that’s it—you don’t
have to worry anymore.
…being grateful for the way
my early life panned out. My
mum and dad are quite influential in
that regard. They didn’t constrain me
in any way or say, “You have to do
this.” I was so lucky that they didn’t
insist on a certain career and it’s
allowed me to always do what I
wanted to do. In hindsight I realise
that it was a very generous sort of
thing for them to do, and far-sighted
in many ways.
As told to Joy Persaud
Bill Bailey kicks off his nationwide
Larks in Transit tour this month. to
book tickets, visit atgtickets.com

qUestiOnaBle dediCatiOns

When writers get a bit creative with their book dedications...

“this book is dedicated to everyone you hate. Sorry. life’s like that sometimes.”

“Dedicated to everyone who wonders if I’m writing about them. I am.”

“For mum and dad. your support—and the mental issues you gave me—
made all of this possible.”

“For Colin Firth—you’re a really great guy but I’m married so

I think we should just be friends.”
sOUrCe: sadandUseless.COm

36 | 01•2018 FOR MORE, GO TO readersdigest.CO.UK/entertainment

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Changing your thought process can free you
from feelings of guilt, shame and sorrow

No More
Regrets BY LISA FIE LDS

38
PHOTO: © SHUTTERSTOCK

HEALTH
G
NO MORE REGRETS

rowing up in southern Germany, Karin Schätzle longed to

play the cello, but no one in her small village could teach
her. Instead, she learned the recorder and clarinet, and
she continued to daydream into adulthood about
becoming a cellist. She never sought lessons, though, convinced that
she would have needed to learn during childhood to be any good.
Nothing can pervade your thoughts or help you learn from mistakes. “Those
inspire sleepless nights like the feeling who express regret over a decision
of regret. Maybe you blame yourself for they’ve made tend to make a better
ending an old romantic relationship, decision next time,” says Aidan
making a bad career choice or being Feeney, a senior psychology lecturer
too afraid to step outside your comfort at Queen’s University Belfast.
zone, like Schätzle. By analysing your situation, you
“What shows up time and time can learn lessons about yourself,
again in a pattern of people’s regrets is make changes going forward and
that later in life, people tend to think hopefully create better outcomes for
about the things they didn’t do rather yourself next time.
than the things that they did,” says This technique worked for Schätzle
Tom Gilovich, a psychology professor when she had a fresh realisation about
at Cornell University in New York. the cello in her forties: she might
“There are so many things we didn’t have needed to play in her youth if
do because we were socially afraid.” she hoped to play professionally, but
that wasn’t her goal. Immediately, she
That Surprisingly Good-for- began cello lessons.
You Bad Feeling “I wish I hadn’t waited so long,
PHOTO ILLUSTRATI ONS BY MAGGI E LAROUX
Regrets have a tendency to make because I love it,” says Schätzle, now
you feel terrible, but those negative 52. “For a while, I was almost angry
feelings aren’t always harmful. with myself, thinking if only I had
Research shows that initially, regrets started earlier, I would now be able

OLDER ADULTS WHO LET REGRETS

OVERPOWER THEM CAN DEVELOP MENTAL
AND PHYSICAL AILMENTS

40 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

to play more difficult pieces—until likely be observed. Not immediately,

I realised that, for me, that’s not but after five, ten, 20 years.”
what the cello is about. It’s about the
enjoyment I get out of practising.” Rising Above Regrets
Several strategies can help people
The Harm of Overthinking disentangle themselves from the
What if regrets dominate your powerful grips of their regrets.
thoughts and you don’t (or can’t) “One of the primary functions of
take action to resolve them within a regret is to correct one’s mistakes,” says
reasonable time frame? Unfortunately, Marcel Zeelenberg, social psychology
these repetitive thoughts may professor at Tilburg University in the
negatively impact your life. Netherlands. “Another function is
“Regret can be a very destructive to make sure that we remember our
emotion,” Feeney says. “If you mistakes and learn from them. For
ruminate on countless possibilities both of these functions, it’s important
that are no longer possible, that can that regret is painful. Otherwise, it
be very damaging.” would not motivate.” Try these tactics.
Picture, for example, a retired
woman who wishes that she’d had n Stop judging the past. At 13,
children instead of just focusing on Paola Tosca was a typical teenager,
her career. Such an outcome can’t be more interested in socialising with
changed and the regrets
may become unbearable.
Older adults who let
regrets overpower them
can develop mental and
physical ailments.
“We have shown that
regrets are a stronger
predictive for depression
in older than younger
ALL PHOTOS © SHUTTERSTOCK

people,” says Carsten

Wrosch, psychology
professor at Concordia
University in Montréal,
who studies the impact
of regrets across the adult
lifespan. “Diseases such
as heart disease may more

01•2018 | 41|
NO MORE REGRETS
her peers than her parents. When
her father died suddenly of a heart
attack, Tosca immediately regretted
how she’d chosen to spend her time.
“Not having enough time to know
my father Stefano is my deepest and
greatest regret,” says Tosca, now 62,
from Grasse, France. “I realised I
hadn’t devoted enough time to him.”
When people think about old
decisions, they may mistakenly believe
that they made the wrong choice,
which can worsen feelings of regret.
“We often don’t give ourselves
credit for making the best decision,”
says Wändi Bruine de Bruin,
professor of behavioural decision-
making at Leeds University Business
School. “You may have different
information now than you had back
then. If people want to use the regret
productively, say, ‘Given what I
42 | 01•2018
knew at the time, would I have done
anything different?’ ”
To deal with her father’s loss over
the decades, Tosca, the CEO of a
computer company in Grasse and an
author, has pushed herself to work
hard and live her life to the fullest,
so that he would have been proud.
“I built my life on his absence,”
she says.
n Embrace inaction. In her
youth, Olivia Steele of London said
something to her grandmother that
she wishes she could take back.
“One year, she made several coffee
cakes, and I took it upon myself to
tell her that my family and I were a
little bored of coffee cake, and could
she perhaps make another flavour,”
says Steele, 28. “She visibly deflated
at my words. She never made a
coffee cake again.”
As you age, you’re likely
to have less power to change
circumstances that you regret.
Accepting this powerlessness
may help you cope.
“People have to settle with
what they did or didn’t do,
because there may not be so
many opportunities to turn
it around anymore,” Wrosch
says. “We have shown—with
respect to regret—if they can
disengage from undoing the
regret, they don’t experience
the consequences. Engage in
other meaningful activities
 READER’S DIGEST

in life. That can work as an

override mechanism.”

n Seek inner wisdom. By

age 60, you’ll have tallied
significantly more regrets than
you had at 20, but they don’t all
have the same impact.
“The regrets that really get to
people are unresolved regrets,
things they could never fix,”
Bruine de Bruin says. “If you
feel like you should have gone
to university, you can fix that
when you’re relatively young.
That can be harder to do when
you’re older.”
Fortunately, many older adults try to accept what is happening,”
are better equipped to handle their Bjälkebring says. “Over a week,
emotions. “They have the wisdom older adults have less regret and use
that comes with life experience,” says strategies to handle them. They’re
Pär Bjälkebring, senior psychology more functional.”
lecturer at Gothenburg University Other research shows that older
in Sweden. “When they encounter people are less overwhelmed by
a situation a younger person would regrets. “When you’re younger, you
regret, they can handle it.” can get caught up, and the concrete
For his research, Bjälkebring asked details are shameful,” Gilovich says.
younger and older adults to record “When you get older, you think of it
their regrets for a week. from a broader perspective: ‘Overall,
“The older participants look I’ve lived a good life, even though
at regrets in a different way, and I’ve made some mistakes.’ ”

IF THEY CAN DISENGAGE FROM

UNDOING THE REGRET, THEY DON’T
EXPERIENCE THE CONSEQUENCES

01•2018 | 43|
NO MORE REGRETS
n Appreciate your situation.
Research shows that the most
common reason for regret is missed
opportunity. People fantasise about
benefits they believe they’ve missed
while ignoring the disadvantages that
would have naturally arisen.
“Missed opportunities are
unrealised better worlds,” Zeelenberg
says. “Had one chosen differently,
or acted differently, the outcomes
would have been better.”
Never got that promotion? You
likely think about the missed income
PEOPLE TEND TO REGRET INACTION—YOU
MAY HAVE FEWER REGRETS IF YOU ACT
MORE AND AVOID THINGS LESS
44 | 01•2018
without considering the extra
stress that the position would
have brought.
For more than 30 years,
Maiju Kauppila of Helsinki,
has worked as a state
employee, although her
real passion has been social
media and marketing. She’s
parlayed her enthusiasm
for handicrafts and lifestyle
blogging into a successful
online presence for the past
12 years.
“The blog and all of my
social media channels have
become almost like a second
job for me,” says Kauppila, 54, “yet I
haven’t dared to abandon my career,
even though I certainly could have.”
Instead of imagining an alternate
reality, focus on the good in your life.
“Avoid making comparisons,”
Bruine de Bruin says. “Don’t keep
asking yourself if you’d be happier
with another wife, another house,
another job. It undermines the
happiness you have. If you do make
comparisons, look at what makes
you lucky, rather than unlucky. Try
to rejoice instead of regret.”
 READER’S DIGEST

n Employ optimistic thinking. n Lead an active life. People tend

Gilovich’s research has found that
you can diminish the power of your
regrets if you can find something
positive in your life that materialised
because of the regretted situation.
“Rationalise it; identify the silver
linings,” Gilovich says. “I shouldn’t
have married this person. That was
a mistake. But at least I have these
great kids, which I wouldn’t have
had otherwise.”
Joann Perahia, 62, of New York,
regrets that she didn’t save more
money when she was younger, but
her silver lining makes her situation
more tolerable.
“Now that I’m older, there’s no
time to get the unearned money
back,” she says.
“However, I did raise my children
without working, and they are
wonderful. If I’d gone to work to
make that money instead of staying
home, I don’t think they’d be as
wonderful as they are.”
to regret inaction more than their
actions, so researchers suggest that
you may have fewer regrets if you act
more and avoid things less.
“If you’re trying to decide if you
should do it or not and all the reasons
are: ‘What would other people think?’,
you should do it,” Gilovich says.
Rudolf Thode, 62, of Offenbüttel,
Germany, had always dreamed of
flying. But instead of training to be
a pilot, he became a busy farmer
with a wife who wasn’t supportive of
his fantasy. Nevertheless, he found
himself drawn to the nearby airfield
in Rendsburg whenever he had free
time. About 13 years ago, the farmer
finally decided to take flying lessons.
“What a great feeling to view my
farmland from high above,” Thode
says. “It would have been a lot better
if I’d followed through with my
dream when I was in my twenties.
What really counts, however, is the
fact that it came true at all.”

UMM...WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO ON A DATE?

Some brazen (or brilliant?) folk share their go-to pick-up line:

“Are you a library book? Because I’d like to check you out.”

“Are you from Tennessee? Because you’re the only ten I see.”

“Do you have 11 protons? Because you’re SO-dium fine.”

“How much does a polar bear weigh? Enough to break the ice.”

“Do you know what my shirt’s made out of? Boyfriend material.”
SOURCE: THEAWESOMER.COM

01•2018 | 45|
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Built for power.
Built for precision.
Designed cordless.

“I’ve used it three times now and can quite

honestly say it’s so light and does a marvellous
job, with no wires and no having to fill with
petrol. This is the best mower I’ve ever owned
and when I’ve finished I just pop it on charge for
next time. Thank you Gtech.” T. O’Neill

Preparing your garden for spring can be a chore. Once you’ve tried
the Gtech Cordless Lawnmower you will wonder why you ever put
up with power cords or petrol motors.
Power and Precision
The powerful 36V Lithium-ion battery gives the Gtech
Cordless Lawnmower up to 40 minutes runtime – enough
to mow 384 square metres (4,133 sq. ft.) or the average
garden twice on a single charge.* The precision carbon
steel blades and powerful motor deliver an impressive wide
cut and neater edges too.
Innovation and Simplicity
There are no cables to untangle or constantly whip out of the
way and no messy petrol motor to top up. The large wheels
make it feel lightweight and manoeuvring around lawns
seems almost effortless. The Lawnmower comes with a
generous 40 litre collection bin with an ingenious flap that tells
you when the bin needs emptying. The cutting height is easily
adjustable, moving between 3cm to 8cm in 1cm increments.
So whether it’s the first cut of the season or a mid-summer
pristine finish there is a setting to meet your needs.
Easy Setup
The Gtech Cordless Lawnmower couldn’t be simpler
to use: just attach the bin; extend the handle; insert the
battery; press the lever and go. At the end of the job, it
36V Li-Ion Battery
won’t take over your shed either. Once you’ve put your
battery on charge, (5 hour charge time) simply fold the
handle down for compact, clutter-free storage.
Wide cut - fewer passes
The Gtech Cordless Lawnmower has a large 430mm (17”)
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HEALTH

7 Ways To Make
More Time
BY S USA N N A H H I C K L I NG

1 ONLY HAVE THREE MAJOR THINGS ON YOUR DAILY

TO-DO LIST. To reduce stress and help you become
more effective, have a daily plan for the tasks you need to
accomplish, but include a maximum of three challenging
or time-consuming jobs. Getting these done will give you
a sense of achievement.
Susannah is
twice winner
of the Guild of
Health Writers
2 CALL TIME ON SOCIAL MEDIA. We’re not suggesting
you stop for good, but social media is a terrible time-
waster. So set an alarm to signal that it’s time to stop
Best Consumer checking Facebook, Instagram and other sites and apps.
Magazine Then do the things you always say you’re too busy for—
Health Feature
going for a run or writing that novel.

3 BUILD IN BUFFER TIME. Given that almost everything

takes longer than you expect, leave a cushion of ten to 15
minutes in between tasks to allow yourself to recharge and
eliminate stress.

4 LEAVE TEN MINUTES EARLIER

THAN YOU NEED TO. Similarly,
to avoid any angst about arriving late,
build in an extra ten minutes to your
outward and return journeys.

48 | 01•2018

5 PREPARE FOR A JOURNEY
THE NIGHT BEFORE. We’ve all
endured that manic morning rush.
To avoid it, check the weather,
transport and traffic reports online
and pack everything you need the
evening before.
6 LEARN WHILE YOU DRIVE. If
you’ve always been meaning to
learn Spanish or read the classics,
your car journey can help you realise
that ambition. Even being stuck in a
traffic jam is bearable if you’re
absorbed in an exciting audiobook.
7 DRAW UP A TIMELINE FOR
IMPORTANT PROJECTS. Even if
your project is a long-term one, start
© SHUTTERSTOCK
the planning process as soon as
possible. Write out a timeline, with
short-term goals leading up to the
achievement of your long-term
ambition. But be realistic.
READER’S DIGEST
SPORTS MEDICINE
If you’re thinking about getting active
but not sure what kind of exercise is
best for you, consult your fitness
prescription first.
DIABETES
EXERCISE RX Resistance training.
(for example, using dumbbells) and
cardio (any exercise that raises heart
rate, including running and cycling).
DOSE Resistance training three times
a week, plus 150 minutes of cardio.
Exercise can help stabilise your blood
glucose levels.
HEART DISEASE
EXERCISE RX Walking and
resistance training.
DOSE At least ten minutes’ exercise
every day for a total of 150 minutes a
week, plus resistance training on two
to three days a week. Aim for a brisk
walk every day, making sure you get a
bit breathless. Improving muscle mass
can help battle heart disease.
ARTHRITIS
EXERCISE RX Water workouts.
DOSE 30 minutes in the pool, two or
three times a week. Working out in
water provides 12 times the
resistance of air, allowing you to build
muscle while giving your joints an
easier time.
DEPRESSION, ANXIETY & STRESS
EXERCISE RX Yoga and cardio.
DOSE Daily yoga plus 150 minutes
of cardio exercise a week. Exercise
boosts feel-good endorphins, and
yoga can help you focus on the
connection between mind and body.
01•2018 | 49|
H E A LT H

Cold
Comfort
HAVING THE SNIFFLES IS
MISERABLE, but what brings relief
and what fails to touch it?

YES TO:
n Drinking water. Keeping yourself
well hydrated will act as a
decongestant and replace fluids you
lose through having a runny nose.
n A saltwater gargle. A teaspoon of
salt dissolved in warm water can be
soothing. Gargle four times a day.
n Blowing your nose properly. Don’t
sniff but instead blow gently into a
tissue while blocking one nostril.
n A steamy shower. The warm, moist
atmosphere in a shower will help
moisturise your nasal passages.
n An extra pillow. Propping up your
head just a little bit higher will help
drain your nasal passages.
n Zinc lozenges. Some studies say
zinc works; others that it’s a waste
of time. However, an analysis of
several studies showed that zinc in
lozenge or syrup form reduced the
length of a cold by a day, especially
when taken at the beginning.
Definitely worth a try…
NO TO:
n Ibuprofen. One British study found
that when people took this
common anti-inflammatory to treat
their respiratory tract infection, it
sometimes came back.
n Antibiotics. Colds are caused by
viruses, not bacteria. Antibiotics
only work on bacterial infections,
and, therefore, won’t shift a cold.

FIRST AID FIRST

© SHUTTERSTOC K

Ever wondered if you’d be able to step up and save a life in the event of a
medical emergency? Knowing how to administer first aid will mean you’re
always prepared. Both St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross have
courses in first aid—to find one near you, visit sja.org.uk or redcross.org.uk

50 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

HIGH-HEEL MEN’S HEALTH

HEALING

From wedges to
8 Ways Booze
Affects The Boys
stilettos, lots of us
spend far too much
time in footwear that
treats our tootsies 1. Lacklustre libido. Too much alcohol can
badly. If this applies cause a drop in testosterone levels.
to you, try these 2. Withered testicles. Sperm quantity and
simple soothers: quality drop too.
Calf massage. 3. Brewer’s droop. Booze depresses the central
Wearing heels for nervous system, affecting some men’s ability
long periods can to get or keep an erection.
eventually shorten 4. Beer gut. Too much of the hard stuff makes it
your calf muscles, so,
harder for the body to burn off fat for energy.
to release them, sit on
the ground with your
5. Moobs. Enlarged breasts or “man boobs” are
knees bent and feet another side effect of heavy drinking over time.
on the floor. Grasp 6. Balding body. Worried about losing the hair
one ankle, placing on your head? If you down too much
your thumb just above alcohol, you may shed body hair too.
your Achilles tendon. 7. Gout. Too much of anything intoxicating
Press your thumb into can lead to gout, which causes painful,
the bottom of your
inflamed joints.
calf muscle, hold for
five seconds, then
8. Spots. Excessive boozing can give you zits.
release. Move an inch It can also make rosacea worse, so you may
up your calf and end up with a permanently red face.
repeat the pressure.
Continue pressing and
releasing until you
reach your knee, then
switch legs.
Shoebox soother. Fill
a shoebox with golf
balls. Then, whenever
© SHUTTERSTOC K

you need to soothe

your feet, take off a
shoe and rub your
foot over the balls.

01•2018 | 51|
HEALTH

THE NUTRITION CONNECTION

Eat Yourself
Happy
BY F IO N A H I C KS

FORGET RESTRICTION AND FADDY WEIGHT-LOSS

DIETS—grey and wet January is the time to boost your mood
through food! And that doesn’t mean turning to the
remaining Christmas chocolates. Here’s how to enhance
your happiness healthily:

Fiona studies EAT THOSE TURKEY LEFTOVERS. Poultry is a rich source of

Naturopathic tryptophan, a type of protein that helps you to make the
Nutrition at mood-boosting brain messenger, serotonin. It may sound a
the College of bit complicated, but really all it means is that eating turkey
Naturopathic could help you create and sustain a sense of well-being
Medicine, and (cranberry sauce optional!).
is a member of
the Nutrition
Society BEST IN SEASON: CELERY
Why eat it? This fibrous vegetable houses numerous
phytonutrients, which help to fight inflammation in
your body. It also contains a special compound that
can help protect your stomach lining.
How to cook it? Celery is at its best when eaten raw.
Try using as a crudité for dips, or spread peanut butter
on it for a satiating and refreshing snack. Save the
celery leaves too—these are lovely in salads.

52 | 01•2018

ENJOY A SPINACH SIDE SALAD.
This humble green leaf is full of
magnesium. Known as “nature’s
tranquiliser”, studies show that
consumption of this mineral can help
you relax. Try tossing the spinach
with some extra virgin olive oil and
apple cider vinegar.
SIP ON GREEN TEA. This drink isn’t
only warming, but it’s also full of good-
for-you natural compounds. One of
these is the amino acid l-theanine,
which alleviates tension and anxiety.
Why not make post-meal cup of green
© SHUTTERSTOC K
tea your New Year’s resolution?
SAY NO TO SUGAR. The trouble with
the sweet stuff is that it can cause
spikes and troughs in your blood
READER’S DIGEST
sugar, leading to difficulty in
concentrating, distraction and the
general feeling that you’re not on top
form. Try a 30-day experiment where
you cut out all sweet treats to see you if
notice a difference—you’ll be amazed
at how quickly you don’t miss it.
WHIP UP A STIR-FRY. Be sure to
include cabbage, peppers and garlic.
All of these are brimming with
vitamin B6, which plays a key role in
regulating mood. In fact, volunteers
who consumed a vitamin B6-free diet
for 55 days developed depression and
confusion, which resolved when they
took vitamin B6 supplements.
Nutrients are most effective when
they’re in whole-food form, though,
so start sautéing those vegetables!
01•2018 | 53|
HEALTH

A Terrible
Economy
BY MAX SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY, THINGS HAVE GONE
PE MBE R TO N HORRIBLY WRONG. I don’t understand why, though—I did
what my mum told me: I worked hard at school, I tried hard
in my exams. Now I’m supposed to be reaping the benefits.
A life of fun was supposed to be my reward.
I’ve spent the best years of my life studying so I can make
sick people better again, only to find life as a doctor hectic
and tiring. While all my friends—who spent the majority of
their three years at university studying the bottom of beer
glasses—are busy sunning themselves on holiday, travelling
Max is a hospital the corners of the earth or sponging off their parents, here I
doctor, author am stuck in the windowless Medical Assessment Unit not
and newspaper
even sure if it’s night or day.
columnist
A&E is so full of drunks, though, I could almost imagine
I were in Ibiza. Still, I shouldn’t complain. The reality of
working in acute medicine is that you come into contact
with the less than glamorous aspects of human nature:
drugs; crime; abuse; violence.

MISS TALBOT HAS BEEN BEATEN UP. “My name’s Rosie,” she
corrects me. She’s just had her 18th birthday; she’s the same
age as I was when I went to medical school. She’s painfully
thin. She was found unconscious in the doorway of a shop.
She’s been admitted because she has a head injury, and
needs to be kept in for observation. While she was in A&E,
though, she asked to be tested for HIV and hepatitis. It’s not

54 | 01•2018
 normal practice, but sometimes
protocol has to go out the window.
There’s also the problem of her
pimp. She’s lost her night’s earnings
and the A&E staff were worried about
discharging her because she was so
scared of what he might do to her
when he finds out. We sit and talk. She
tells me about sexual abuse, about
running away from home, about
taking drugs, about becoming a
prostitute. Her story is nothing new,
JOZ EF KLOPACKA/ALAMY STOCK P HOTO
but it’s the first time I’ve sat and talked
to someone whose life it actually is.
The morning comes and with it the
results of Rosie’s blood tests. They’re
negative. I go and give her the good
news. “Can I have a certificate or
something? Have it written down that
I haven’t got anything?” she asks.
“Erm, why do you want that?” I ask.
She looks at me, and suddenly I
feel very naïve and stupid.
“You can charge more if you can
prove you haven’t got anything.”
I feel sick. In my ignorance I
thought that this would be some
cathartic event for her, a reprieve.
But for her, it’s economic. It’s not her
fault. Nothing’s changed. She still
inhabits a world in which her body is
for sale. She still has to get money,
and now she’ll be able to get a bit
more for it.
I WANT TO BUNDLE HER UP and take
her somewhere safe, where people
have respect for each other, where
she’s not just a piece of meat to be
bought and sold. But I can’t and
instead I discharge her.
As she leaves, I think about how
someone’s life can end up like this.
About the choices that others made
for her. And how somewhere along
the way, things went horribly wrong.
01•2018 | 55|
HEALTH

MEDICAL CONDITIONS—EXPLAINED

Hyperlipidaemia
WHAT IS IT?
This is the medical term for high
cholesterol. Cholesterol is a fatty
substance that’s made in the liver. It
is essential for life, as it’s involved in
a number of different functions in
the body. It’s moved around the
blood by joining with proteins to
make a lipoprotein. There are two
types: High Density Lipoprotein (or
“good” cholesterol) and Low Density
Lipoprotein, which can clog up the
walls of the arteries and cause works on an enzyme in the liver to
serious damage. The latter is therefore stop bad cholesterol from being
known as “bad” cholesterol. made. Most people will take a statin
for the rest of their lives.
WHAT CAUSES IT?
An unhealthy diet plays a part— WHAT CAN THE PATIENT DO?
eating certain foods high in saturated The first step to reduce your
fat increases cholesterol levels. cholesterol yourself is to ensure
ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID HUMP HRIES

Smoking also contains a chemical you’re eating a healthy diet, including

that interferes with good cholesterol,
meaning the body makes more bad
cholesterol than it should. There’s
also a genetic component, as high
cholesterol can run in families.
HOW’S IT TREATED?
The main medical treatment is a
statin. This is a daily medication that
lots of vegetables and wholegrain
cereals. People are advised to cut out
or drastically reduce fatty cuts of
meat, butter, ghee, lard, cream,
cheese, biscuits, cakes, chocolate and
types of cooking oil such as coconut
or palm oil. Taking regular exercise
and stopping smoking will also have
a big impact.

56 | 01•2018
 YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM'S
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vitamins D, C, zinc and selenium

Immunace® has been developed

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INSPIRE

More than 65 million people are forcibly

displaced worldwide—of those, 22.5 million
have become refugees. Seventeen per cent of
those people come to Europe, and Glasgow-based
charity Positive Action in Housing is helping them to find
shelter. Anna Walker met the volunteers opening their
homes and their hearts to refugees
 @ ANNA WALKER / COOKIE SAM I / ABRAMS

With
Living

59
REFUGEES
LIVING WITH REFUGEES
LEN AND KAREN ABRAMS,
HOSTING GRACE, 36,
FROM MALAWI IN
CATERHAM, SURREY
F
OR LEN, an ordained priest and
civil engineer and his librarian
wife Karen, the time to act came
when the photo of Alan Kurdi—the
three-year-old Syrian refugee washed
up on Turkish shores—hit the papers.
“It seemed such a terrible
situation,” Karen recalls. “One feels so
powerless. I thought hosting could be
a small way of helping because the
crisis is so overwhelming you just
wonder, What can I do?”
The couple was initially matched
up with a young man from Afghanistan.
He arrived in Surrey with nothing
more than a plastic packet, which
contained all his worldly possessions.
“He was a Muslim, so on the
afternoon of his arrival you’d have
found me in my dog collar hunting all
over for Halal food,” laughs Len, who
also downloaded a Qibla app to show
their guest the direction to Mecca.
HOSTING IS THE BEST
THING ANYONE HAS
DONE FOR ME. WHEN I
WAS ALONE I FELT LIKE I
WAS ALWAYS RUNNING,
BUT NOW I AM FREE
60 | 01•2018
“Growing up in Afghanistan there
was a lot of talk of the evil West, but
he told us that those two gestures
ended 18 years of propaganda.
“When folk come into your home
from that sort of environment, you
suddenly see all your stuff through
other people’s eyes,” Len explains. “It
makes you revalue it all. We’ve been
at least as blessed by having folk here
as they are being here.”
Having found their first experience
so rewarding, the couple are now
hosting their second guest. Grace is
an upbeat 36-year-old from Malawi,
with an irrepressibly contagious
laugh and obvious affection for her
hosts and the home they share.
“Hosting is the best thing anyone
has done for me,” she explains. “When
I was living on my own, I felt like I was
always running, but now I have a
place to stay, I am free.”
“Our two adult children have left
now,” says Len, “So there’s only two of
us in this great big house and it’s nice
for Karen to have company, because
I often travel for work.”
Indeed, in Len’s absence Karen
and Grace have taken excursions to
Penshurst Place, enjoyed walks in
the forest and even taken a day trip
to London’s Globe Theatre.
“We bought tickets to see Much
Ado About Nothing—I can never
persuade Len to go—and it was a
beautiful day,” Karen shares.
Before Grace signed up to the
refugee-hosting programme, she was

Len and Karen
describe Grace as
“part of the family”
homeless for three months, sleeping
in parks, shopping centres and even
on buses.
“I had friends. A lot of friends. But
when I became homeless I saw their
true colours. My heart was broken.
The moment you become homeless
your friends turn their phones off,
they say they’re always busy. It’s just
another way for them to say, ‘Don’t
call me back.’
“Sometimes, when they see you
arriving, they will hide their things.
Just because you no longer have a job
[Grace lost her right to work because
of her asylum-seeker status] they
think, This one doesn’t have money,
she’s going to steal from me.”
Grace discovered Positive Action
through a friend, who dragged her
across London in an effort to sign her
up. Although she was desperate to
find shelter so that she could continue
volunteering (Grace’s volunteering
READER’S DIGEST
has seen her receive an award from
the Mayor of London and meet Prince
Harry), she was initially nervous to
meet the Abrams family.
“When I met Len and Karen for the
first time and realised that they were
such lovely people, the fear went
right away.
“You have to trust in your hosts
and ask, ‘God, please be with me,
help me trust this family.’ It’s hard
for someone to offer you a place free
of charge. Out of 100, there are very
few people who would open their
houses to those who don’t have
anywhere to stay.”
Karen is keen to explain how
much the couple’s faith has
deepened through their relationship
with their guest.
“Grace has such a positive spirit
and her faith is so strong despite
difficult circumstances. She’s been
such a good influence on other
people, using her talents to help in
so many ways.”
Says Len, “My brother-in-law
recently said, ‘You’re doing
something that I respect, but I could
never do it myself’. I think most
people probably think hosting is a
relationship of condescendence and
charity, but that just wouldn’t work.
You have to have respect. It has to be
a mutual relationship.
“Rather than seeing it as an act of
duty or conscience, know that [in not
hosting] you’re actually just missing
out on an enormous blessing.”
01•2018 | 61|
 LIVING WITH REFUGEES
CLAIRE AND ROBERT
MILNE, HOSTING MERON,
21, FROM ERITREA IN
CENTRAL LONDON
“M
Y FAMILY ON BOTH SIDES
WERE originally Jews in
Eastern Europe, which
wasn’t a very good place for Jews to
be,” explains telecoms consultant
Claire Milne. “Because of my
background I’ve always been very
aware of the needs of people who
can’t stay in their own countries. I
wouldn’t exist if my parents and
grandparents hadn’t moved around
the world, so I know how important it
is and always felt it would be nice to
help people in that situation.”
The opportunity to help arose for
Claire, 66, and her husband Robert,
Claire and Robert felt
able to host refugees
when their youngest son
left home
69, who first met while studying at
Cambridge 42 years ago, when their
youngest child flew the nest.
“He completed his PhD studies and
decided the time had come for some
independence. That meant we had
extra space, and it was the perfect
time to offer it to someone in need.”
Twenty-one-year-old Meron, who
had to flee her home country Eritrea
due to religious persecution, is the
third guest the Milnes have hosted
and moved in in July last year. Meron
is shy and chooses her few words
carefully, but she clearly feels safe
around Claire. She explains that on
her first day with the Milnes, “I felt
better. I like it here. I like the freedom.”
“Meron is incredibly self reliant.
She’s without family here, and had to
leave her husband behind back in

Africa. She doesn’t know where he is,
which must be such a terrible
wrench,” explains Claire.
Meron has joined a church in
London, where she can practise her
Pentecostal Christian faith free of the
persecution so many suffer in her
homeland, and has made friends with
some fellow Eritreans there. She
explains that it’s important for her to
have friends who understand where
she has come from.
“Our first guest was a young
Muslim gent from Sudan,” says Claire.
“He was here during Ramadan, and
although I’ve visited Muslim
countries during Ramadan, I’ve never
lived with somebody actually keeping
it. It was like having somebody in
hibernation for the whole period, I
was quite worried about him!”
This concern is typical of Claire,
who clearly takes a maternal
approach to her care for the refugees
who stay in her home.
“I’ve noticed that Meron often calls
me ‘Mummy’ and I guess that I am a
sort of mother figure to her. It’s not so
different to how it was when my son
was living here. He was independent
and out a lot but he knew he could
always come and see me if he wanted
to. I hope it’s the same for Meron.”
Coming from Eritrea, where the
average temperature in January is a
pleasant 22C, Meron explains that the
English winters are something she’s
struggled to adapt to in the two years
she’s been in London.
READER’S DIGEST
The hallway to the Milnes’ home is
lined with packages that Claire reveals
are full of pieces of transparent
plastic. She intends to line the
windows of Meron’s room—a cosy
space with her own kitchenette—
while she’s at church on Sunday, to
help keep the warmth in when the
colder months roll around.
“Hosting is a big responsibility,”
Claire admits, “but it feels so
worthwhile for anyone who’s like us
and has some space to spare that they
don’t need to make money out of.
I WOULDN’T EXIST IF
MY PARENTS AND
GRANDPARENTS
HADN’T BEEN ABLE
TO MOVE AROUND
THE WORLD
“I think it’s wrong that there are
homes for these people only thanks to
volunteers. Hosting isn’t like taking
anybody from a homeless shelter in,
because homeless people in this
country often have some sort of
problem like drug abuse, or difficult
family backgrounds, which I wouldn’t
feel capable of helping with.
“Refugees, however, are just like
anybody else. They don’t need
anything more than the support that
an ordinary family can give.”
01•2018 | 63|
LIVING WITH REFUGEES
JO HAYTHORNTHWAITE,
HOSTING NABEELA, 51,
FROM PAKISTAN IN
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND
A
T 79, RETIRED ACADEMIC JO
HAYTHORNTHWAITE has
been sharing her home with
destitute refugee women for over ten
years. Fifty-one-year-old Nabeela is
her eleventh guest.
“One day I was walking past a
newspaper stand and I saw a copy of
The Daily Mail with a very nasty,
pejorative, anti-refugee headline and
it made me so angry.
“I wanted to do something. Offering
a room is my small contribution to try
and make things a bit better.”
Nabeela first arrived in Scotland in
2010. “I had a problem and couldn’t
go back to Pakistan. I went back once,
in 2014, but the problems were worse
and my husband said I shouldn’t stay.
I said ‘OK.’ So I was alone here, with
no home.”
Eventually she was brought to Jo.
Finding reliable shelter—they’ve now
been living together for two years—
BEFORE I HOSTED
I THOUGHT
LONG AND HARD.
I WANTED TO RETAIN
MY PRIVACY
64 | 01•2018
was an immense relief. “I thanked
God. I’m so comfortable here. There’s
no problem sleeping, working, going
out and coming home. I am happy.”
“Nabeela is a sensitive guest,” Jo
explains. “She’s very thoughtful and
helpful so that makes it easy.
“Before I hosted I thought about it
long and hard. I wanted to retain my
privacy. I didn’t want to share my life
with somebody. Nabeela and I have
separate lives and that suits us both.”
Nabeela’s days are largely taken up
with English classes—a study she
takes seriously because she didn’t
speak a word before she arrived in the
country. “I was blind the first time I
came here. It was difficult—I thought,
Oh my gosh, this is too much. My life is
full of problems, but manage for
yourself, Nabeela, please.
“I would spend every day going to
classes. In one place a class would
finish and I’d go off to another place
and then another one, because I
needed further lessons. It’s getting
better now. If I don’t go to classes, I
spend too much time thinking and
that doesn’t feel good. Wondering
why I’m here, feeling alone…”
Despite this busy schedule, she also
finds time for singing in a choir and
her passion—charity shopping.
“Whenever she has a tiny bit of
money, Nabeela is very good at
finding bargains,” Jo divulges. “She’ll
come in and say, ‘Look what I’ve got!’ ”
She waves her arms to demonstrate,
“ ‘I only paid £1.95 for this!’ ”

Nabeela’s eye for shopping has
fuelled another passion—helping others.
“Yesterday I helped a Syrian
woman. She doesn’t understand
English, she’s pregnant and she’s
alone here. She needed clothes, so I
said, ‘OK,’ and when I came home I
put a jacket, scarf, socks and
everything in a bag and gave them to
her. I help as many people as I can.”
In the years she’s hosted women in
need, Jo’s neighbours have supported
her by donating clothes and furniture.
In fact, the neighbours saved the
day when Nabeela was detained at
Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal
Centre for three months, and Jo
needed to travel to stand her bail.
“I told them, ‘The travel is going to
be a bit expensive and I wondered if
READER’S DIGEST
Nabeela was relieved to be matched with Jo
because she felt “my life was safe”
you’d help me with ten pounds
each?’ And they all did! Except for
one man, who’s a bit of a wind-up
merchant. He said, ‘Jo, I’m not going
to give you ten pounds. I’m going to
pay your airfare.’ ” They both giggle.
Eight years on from her first
arrival in the UK, Nabeela’s
favourite thing about Scotland is
somewhat surprising.
“Snow!” she exclaims, her eyes
lighting up at the thought. “I love the
snow, I love the winter here.”
“And I hate it,” chirps Jo, laughing.
“She’s out there dancing in the snow
and I’m inside turning up the heat!”
For more information on Positive Action
in Housing, to donate or to volunteer
your own spare room, visit paih.org
01•2018 | 65|
INSPIRE

Twiggy, 68, is a model, singer, writer, presenter, designer

and award-winning actress, whose extraordinary career
has spanned more than five decades

If I Ruled the World

Twiggy
I’d wave a magic wand and make sure no
child anywhere ever went hungry. This is the
most fundamentally important thing in the world.

Glass bottles would replace plastic ones.

Glass is easily recyclable and it breaks
down. But the statistics around plastic
waste are horrific: each year over
8 million tons of plastic end up in
ILLUSTRATED BY JAMES SM ITH / @ BRIA N A RIS
our oceans. At this rate, by 2050 the
amount of plastic will outweigh the
amount of fish. How did we get to this?
Plastic use has increased 20-fold in the last
50 years and our sea life mistake it for food.
I’d ask people to think hard before buying plastic
bottles or anything in excessive packaging.

At least one pet in each household would be a

rescue animal. I’d outlaw puppy farms, give much
harder sentences to people who inflict cruelty to
animals and encourage people to give a home to an

66 | 01•2018
abandoned or unwanted pet. I do a
lot for animal charities—they do
such important work.
Home economics would go back on
the school curriculum. I was taught
to sew by my mum—she made our
clothes—and now I’m a good
seamstress. Every child should at
least be able to sew on a button or
turn up a hem. Just like knowing how
to change a fuse or cook, these are
vital life lessons that make you a
better equipped person and more
helpful partner in later life.
We’d wear clothes that make us feel
good. I love designing for M&S
because they make clothes that are
fun, stylish and affordable. We’re
really lucky in the UK to have such
great high-street shops, which allow
us to dress well without spending a
fortune. You can always spot people
who are wearing something they love
—they have a different attitude and
confidence about them, which will
make their day that little bit easier.
Elderly people living alone would
have a visitor every day. Loneliness
is a chronic problem in our society.
I’m as guilty as anyone else in feeling
I’m too busy to make a difference,
but we should all be aware that the
elderly need the hand of friendship
extended to them. I watched a
wonderful documentary recently
about a nursery school moving into
an old people’s home. It was
marvellous to see the older people
rolling around on the floor with the
children and having a laugh together.
We’d be brave and follow our
dreams. If you don’t try when you’re
young you might live to regret it. I’ve
known people in my life who were
really passionate about something—
such as playing the guitar, singing or
painting—but ended up in business
to make money. There comes a point
in their lives when they wonder,
What might have happened if I’d had
the courage to follow my dreams?
I’d ban big lorries on roads during
the day. They terrify me on the
motorways and in the cities they clog
up the traffic and are dangerous to
other drivers, pedestrians and
cyclists. I’d make better use of our
amazing and underused canal
system for goods that don’t need to
be delivered immediately.
I’d make my granddaughter happy
by holding a National Tutu Day.
Joni is two and a half and she’s my
joy. She likes to wear a tutu every
day, so imagine her delight if one day
every person she met was wearing a
tutu as well—a pink one, of course.
As told to Caroline Hutton
Twiggy For M&S Collection is available in
selected stores and at marksandspencer.
co.uk
01•2018 | 67|
INSPIRE

Indoor
GARDENS
Forget the winter blues with these
colourful indoor gardens…the perfect
escape from the chill

BY ANNA WALKER
PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION CREDI T

B E ST O F

British

68 | 02•2017 PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION CREDIT

 The Great Glasshouse,
National Botanic
Garden of Wales
PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION CREDI T

02•2017 | 69|
BEST OF BRITISH

The Great Glasshouse

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDEN
OF WALES
Designed by the prestigious architect
Norman Foster, the Great Glasshouse
was originally designed to resemble a
giant raindrop.
With 785 panels weighing in at a
quarter of a ton each, it’s the world’s
largest single-span glasshouse and
hosts plants from California,
Australia, the Canary Islands, South
Africa, Chile and the Mediterranean.
Despite covering less than two per
cent of the Earth’s surface, these areas
contain over 20 per cent of all known
flowering plants. It’s a fact head of
marketing David Hardy finds easy to
remember because, “That’s where all
the good red wine comes from!”
David’s favourite plants in the
garden couldn’t be more different.
“Puya berteroniana is a vicious razor-
sharp, spiked llama-killer from the
Andes. Phylica pubescens, on the
other hand, looks like the fluffiest Down House
thing you’ve ever seen—until you DOWNE, KENT
touch it, that is. Then you know it is.” Tucked away in the green grounds of
■ Visit botanicgarden.wales for Down House, the former home of
more information Charles Darwin and his family, is a
small but significant blue glasshouse
that proved vital to some of the
naturalist’s discoveries.
Charles Darwin first tried to rear
tropical plants in his drawing room
but the space was too small and too
cold, so the specimens failed to
bloom. To solve the problem, he built
this quirky glasshouse in the early

70 | 01•2018

1860s and took to the serious business
of rearing and experimenting with the
specimens he brought home from his
many trips abroad.
Says head gardener Antony
O’Rourke, “Visitors can step back
in time and walk in the footsteps of
READER’S DIGEST
Thanks to Darwin’s meticulous
note-taking, staff at Down House
have been able to grow the very
same plants he once cultivated
the great man himself through a
series of themed plant collections
including orchids, carnivorous and
climbing plants.”
Keep an eye out for the impressive
collection of insectivorous plants,
which Darwin was particularly
fascinated by. He used to feed them
with raw meat and egg whites—and
even his own nail clippings.
■ Visit english-heritage.org.uk for
more information
01•2018 | 71|
BEST OF BRITISH
David Welch Winter Garden
DUTHIE PARK, ABERDEEN
This unique indoor garden is home
to such intriguing highlights as the
corridor of perfumes and the world’s
only “talking cactus”.
Boasting Britain’s largest cacti and
succulent collection, the gardens
were the passion project of the late
horticulturist and head of the Royal
Parks, David Welch. He was the man
responsible for casting out the
officious “Keep off the Grass” signs in
all of the Royal Parks and his Winter
Garden is a testament to his belief
that gardens are to be experienced,
not just admired from a distance.
No matter where your eye wanders
in this garden, it’s met with a shock
of colour, as lush greens combine
with the explosive fuchsia of the
extensive Bromeliad plantings.
Even the ponds are filled with
colourful fish and terrapins.
Round off your visit with a trip to
the nearby Japanese Garden. It was
opened in 1987 to pay homage to the
victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
■ Visit visitabdn.com for more
information
72 | 01•2018
Kibble Palace
GLASGOW BOTANIC GARDENS
First erected by Victorian
eccentric and inventor John
Kibble, this magnificent glass and
steel greenhouse first opened in
1873. Back then its interior was lit
by over 600 coloured gas lamps,
and the venue played host to a
smorgasbord of public speakers
including former Prime Ministers
Gladstone and Disraeli.
NICK KI RK/ALA MY STOCK P HOTO / SHUTTERSTOC K
Today it’s home to a forest of
Kiwi and Australian tree ferns,
some of which have grown in the
palace for an impressive 120 years.
A peaceful haven in the heart
of Glasgow, these engrossing
gardens are the perfect place to
unwind, whether you’re gazing
at the colourful collection of koi
fish or sheltering from the cold
spells outside.
■ Visit glasgowbotanicgardens.
com for more information
Sheffield Winter Garden
SHEFFIELD
Europe’s largest urban glasshouse is
so big that you could house 5,000
domestic greenhouses within its
walls. Home to more than 2,500 plant
varieties from around the world, it’s
an oasis of calm in the middle of the
busy city centre.
Visitors can relax under the large
green leaves of the plants, enjoy
some light refreshments from the
on-site cafes or browse the
Millennium Gallery housed inside.
It’s an especially welcome escape
when the weather turns inclement—
with so many exotic plants around,
it’s easy to forget the rain beating
down outside.
Says service manager Dave Gill,
“Winter Garden is an iconic Sheffield
landmark. The garden tells the story
of how plants have shaped our
history and the uses humans have
found for them. Quite literally,
without plants you wouldn’t have
a shirt on your back.”
Look out for the Norfolk Island
pines, which can grow to over 150ft!
■ Visit sheffield.gov.uk for
more information

01•2018 | 73|
BEST OF BRITISH
The Bicentenary
Glasshouse
SURREY
With three zones to explore—
tropical, moist temperate and dry
temperate—stepping into this huge
indoor garden feels as though
you’ve stumbled upon an
undiscovered jungle.
Stretching over an area the
size of ten tennis courts, many
of the species growing in this
cathedral-esque structure are
rare or endangered—special plants
that are made all the more
spectacular by the backdrop of
several dramatic waterfalls.
Says garden manager Emma
Allen, “Rising to 12 metres high,
the glasshouse is computer-
controlled to maintain desired
levels of light, heat and ventilation.
This allows us to grow both tropical
and temperate plants including
large palm trees, bananas and tree
ferns, as well as creative temporary
displays. There’s always something
new and exciting to see.”
Our favourite area is the tropical
zone, where the viewing platform
affords visitors a bird’s eye view of
the tropical canopy, right down to
the aquatic plants of the warm
jungle pool below.
■ Visit rhs.org.uk for
more information
TIM GAINEY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO / C LIN T BUDD/FLICKR
The Bicentenary Glasshouse at
Wisley Garden was opened in 2007
to celebrate the 200th year of the
Royal Horticultural Society
 READER’S DIGEST

The Barbican Conservatory

LONDON
Central London may not be the first
location that springs to mind when
thinking of all things green, but
nestled away among the Brutalist
concrete exterior of the Barbican
Centre is a lush indoor conservatory.
Free to visit, this is the second
largest conservatory in London and
home to over 2,000 species of
tropical plants and trees, as well as a
variety of exotic fish.
Says Marta Lowcewicz, a gardener
at the Conservatory, “People are
always amazed by the unexpected
sight of the leafy, verdant
environment when entering the
Conservatory. One of the many
discoveries that can be made while
exploring the space are coffee and
tea plants, allowing visitors to see the
origin of their favourite morning
brew while immersing themselves in
the tranquil ambience.”
■ Visit barbican.org.uk for
more information
NATHANIEL N OIR/ALA MY STOCK P HOTO

Which gardens do you visit when

the weather turns? Email us at
readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk

01•2018 | 75|
INSPIRE

100-Word-Story
Competition
The stories are pouring in,
and there’s still time to
enter yours! Here’s
another tale that
might ignite an idea...

WIN
£1,000!
All shortlisted stories will be
published in a special anthology
by Lulu.com

PLUS: Winners will have the

chance to include a longer
version of theirs!
See opposite for how to enter
 READER’S DIGEST

Hounded
by Laura Purcell
I WORRIED ABOUT HER, AFTER IT
HAPPENED. The hunted look of one who could
not forget. Their vows to make her pay, one way
or another. She needed company, in that house.
But the tang of his unwashed fur turned my
stomach. An ugly beast; black, always at her
heel. An odd choice, with those fangs and
fierce eyes. Perhaps he made her feel safe.
“It wasn’t your fault that they died,” I
said, giving her a hug. The dog growled.
Foam flecked his lips. “Ghosts aren’t
real, your dog will protect you.”
“I don’t have a dog,” she said.

The Silent Companions

by Laura Purcell is out
now, published by Raven
Books at £12.99

Rules: Please ensure that submissions are
original, not previously published and exactly 100
words long (not including the title). Don’t forget
to include your full name, address, email and
daytime phone number when filling in the form.
We may use entries in all print and electronic
media. Contributions become world copyright
of Reader’s Digest.
a selection of STAEDTLER products worth £50,
plus two STAEDTLER classpacks of pencils for
their school. The two runners-up in both
categories will each receive a Kindle E-Reader.
Please submit your stories online at
readersdigest.co.uk/100-word-story-competition
by 5pm on February 19.

Entry is open only to residents of the UK,
Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Republic of
Ireland. It is not open to employees of Vivat
Direct Ltd (t/a Reader’s Digest), its subsidiary
companies and all others associated with this
competition, their immediate families and
relatives living in an employee’s household.
The judges’ decision is final.
The editorial team will pick a shortlist of entries,
which this year will be combined into a short-
story anthology and published by our partner
lulu.com. The book will be entered into Lulu’s
retail channels and promoted for one year.
Winners of the categories will have an
opportunity to write a longer version of their
stories for inclusion in the book.

Terms and conditions: There are three
categories—one for adults and two categories
for schools: one for children aged 12–18 and one
for children under 12.
In the adults category, the winner will receive
£1,000 and two runners-up will each receive £250.
In the 12–18s and under-12s categories, the
winners will each receive a Fire HD 8 Tablet and
The three best stories in each category will be
posted online at readersdigest.co.uk on February
27. You can vote for your favourite, and the one
with the most votes wins the top prize. Voting
will close at 5pm on March 19 and the winning
entries will be published in our June issue. The
entry forms and more details are on our website.
|
01•2018 77|
PARTNERSHIP
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INSPIRE

Snap,
Chatter
&Pop
Many social scientists now believe
that cultivating the right kind of
popularity is the key to greater
happiness—and even a longer life
BY AM ANDA RILE Y- JON ES

80
S N A P, C H A T T E R & P O P
D
oes the subject of popularity
make you think of social
hierarchies at school and younger
family members collecting “Friends” on
social networking sites? Then you may
be surprised to find out that popularity
actually remains a powerful force
throughout our lives.
In the 1980s, developmental
psychologists asked children to rate
how much they liked or disliked their
classmates. The responses were used to
classify them into categories, which are still
used today: Popular; Rejected; Average,
Controversial (both liked and disliked) and
Neglected (largely unnoticed).
“Often, the group we land in as
adults is the same one we were in as
youths. The characteristics that cause
us to be accepted (or not) by peers
have the potential to make us liked or
disliked again and again, even as we
change settings, for the rest of our
lives,” explains Mitch Prinstein,
psychology professor and author of
Popular: Why Being Liked Is the Secret
to Greater Success and Happiness.
“Results from thousands of research
studies have revealed that—more than
childhood intellect, family
background, prior psychological
symptoms and maternal
relationships—it’s popularity that
predicts how happy we grow up to be.”
However, popularity is something
82 | 01•2018
of a paradox. Because it
turns out that there’s more
than one kind—
and if we spend our
lives chasing the wrong
type, we could be heading
for trouble.
Perpetual
adolescence
The first type of popularity
is to do with status—which
we start to crave when we
hit adolescence. Our
brains grow faster and
a surge in pubertal
hormones prepares us to
separate from our parents
and focus more on peers.
Oxytocin increases our
desire to bond and dopamine makes
us want to be noticed and admired.
“Adolescents are virtually addicted
to this type of popularity,” Prinstein
adds. But, he warns, when people
continue to pursue this status-based
popularity excessively, they’re more
likely to suffer from relationship
difficulties, anxiety, depression and
addictions later in life. Prinstein says,
“Because their happiness remains
dependent on other peoples’
approval, they tend to repeat the
same patterns and may face a
lifetime of discontent.
“In today’s society, our highest-
status peers are celebrities and our
fascination with them leaves us in a
state of perpetual adolescence.

We care about their lives, changes in
physical appearance, courtships
and break-ups just as intently as we
paid attention to the popular teens
in school.”
Prinstein’s worried by modern
society’s fixation on status, fame,
power and wealth, saying, “We pay
too much heed to people who
capture our attention rather than
those who deserve it—even though
research suggests this is exactly what
we should be avoiding if we want to
foster a culture of contentment.”
Likeability predicts our fate
The second kind of popularity is
likeability, which embraces qualities
such as positivity, kindness,
generosity and making other people
feel valued. Increasingly experts are
READER’S DIGEST
discovering that it’s our ability to get
on with others that predicts our fate
in many areas of life.
Study after study confirms that
people who look for “intrinsic”
rewards (to do with close relationships,
A CHIMP’S LIFE
Ethologist and conservationist
Jane Goodall discovered that
behaviour once thought
uniquely human is common in
other species. Chimpanzees use
status and aggressive behaviour
to establish dominance and
popularity—which gives them
first pick at food and mates.
01•2018 | 83|
S N A P, C H A T T E R & P O P
helping others and personal growth)
report greater happiness than those
looking for external rewards (such as
fame, power and wealth).
“My own research, involving 9,000
people from 131 countries, revealed
that adults who have memories of
being popular in childhood are the
most likely to report that their
IT ALTERS OUR DNA
Believe it or not, feeling unpopular
can alter our very DNA. Within 40
minutes of being left by a romantic
partner or excluded from a social
event, parts of our DNA are turned
on or off, according to experts in
the field of social genomics.
These cellular-level changes
activate a response linked to our
immune system, which is needed
for healing wounds and infections.
George Slavich and Steven Cole,
psychological researchers at the
University of California, have
suggested that this response to
rejection may be nature’s way of
protecting isolated individuals
without peers to defend them.
84 | 01•2018
marriages are happier, their work
relationships stronger and that
they’re flourishing as members of
society,” says Prinstein.
And picking out likeable peers is
child’s play. Research shows that
from the age of four, children can
report exactly who their most
popular peers are. They’re not
necessarily powerful, dominant or
highly visible; they’re simply the kids
that everyone likes the most.
So lonely I could die
When it comes to our health, being
unpopular or lonely can have a
devastating impact—to the point of
shortening our lives. Last year,
Dr Helen Stokes-Lampard, head of
the Royal College of General
Practitioners, announced that
loneliness can be as bad for our
health as a long-term illness, such as
diabetes or high blood pressure.
“Loneliness is worse for us than
obesity and physical inactivity, and
as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a
day. Chronic loneliness increases the
likelihood of early mortality by 26
per cent,” adds Laura Alcock-
Ferguson, executive director of the
UK’s Campaign to End Loneliness.
Friends are good
for our hearts
Friends protect our health as much
as quitting smoking and even more
than exercising, according to US
scientific journal PLOS One.

“Strong social relationships
support mental health—and that
ties into better immune function,
reduced stress and less
cardiovascular disease,” reports Dr
Debra Umberson, a professor of
sociology at the University of Texas,
who has studied the link between
social ties and health.
Apart from being more likely to
exercise or diet if we do it with a
friend, loved ones may also remind
us to look after our health or even
intervene if we go off the rails, by
drinking too much for instance.
She adds, “Research has also
found that physical touch can trigger
lower blood pressure and reduced
heart rate. Over time, these will have
a cumulative benefit on overall
health and lifespan.”
READER’S DIGEST
HAPPY HOURS
Entrepreneur Daniel Clemens,
a former senior manager at
Google, adds, “More than raises,
promotions or perks, there were
two things that predicted who
was happy and who was not.
One had to do with the
frequency of constructive
feedback employees got from
their managers. But the second
was simply how much people
felt they had someone—anyone
—who liked them.”
It’s never too late
Prinstein concludes, “I hope people
will reconsider their childhood
experiences and see that the type of
popularity that they felt they lacked
may not have been all that it seemed.
Try to recognise how popularity (or
unpopularity) has contributed to
biases in how you perceive social
interactions today—and remember
that people are reacting to who
they see today, not who you were
in the past.”
Another positive is that likeability
isn’t fixed. It’s not just something we
are born with. Experts say that the
behaviours that make us likeable can
be learned at any age. It’s never too
late to hone our people skills, expand
our social network and start relating
better to others.
01•2018 | 85|
S N A P, C H A T T E R & P O P

8 Ways To Pep Up
Here’s a round-up of advice
from the scientists:

1
SPEND TIME WITH PEOPLE
YOU WANT TO BEFRIEND
Psychologists say that people
tend to like people who are familiar to
them—according to the “mere
exposure effect”. Canadian
psychologist Dr Patrick Keelan
explains, “It’s a response built into us
as a result of our evolutionary past,
when people were more likely to advises Professor Richard Wiseman
survive if they approached people in his book 59 Seconds: Think a
and other creatures only once they Little, Change a Lot.

had determined they were non-
threatening.” So schedule regular
activities with others and the more
time you spend together, the more
you will grow to like each other.
3
ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS
Harvard neuroscientists Diana
Tamir and Jason Mitchell
discovered that talking about

2
TALK POSITIVELY ABOUT
OTHER PEOPLE
Try a little “spontaneous trait
transference”. When you talk about
another person, listeners
unconsciously associate
you with the
characteristics you’re
ourselves triggers the same pleasure
chemicals in the brain as food or
money. In fact, participants were
willing to forgo money in order to talk
about themselves! And try specific
questions such as, “Have you been
involved in any exciting
projects recently?” rather than
a bland, “How are you?”.

4
describing. “So, say
positive and pleasant STAY UPBEAT
things about friends and Moods are contagious—
colleagues, and you are and the transmission
seen as a nice person,” from one person to another is

86 | 01•2018

Your Popularity
so instant and subtle that we’re not
aware of it, according to Elaine
Hatfield, professor of psychology at
the University of Hawaii. If you can
stay upbeat and positive, people
around you will become more upbeat
too. And being in sync helps to build
emotional rapport.
5
FIND THINGS IN COMMON
Who doesn’t like to talk to
someone and think, Snap, me
too! Scientists call this the similarity-
attraction effect. In a classic study,
social psychologist Theodore
Newcomb measured participants’
attitudes on controversial subjects
before they moved into shared
accommodation together.
Unsurprisingly, the
experiment showed that
the housemates with
similar attitudes liked
each other more.
6
SHARE A
SECRET
Self-disclosure can
help build a friendship. US
researchers put students into
pairs with pre-set questions to
ask each other. The pairs who
were given deeper, more
personal questions reported
READER’S DIGEST
they felt much closer to each other at
the end. When you’re getting to know
someone, try building up from asking
easy questions (like the last book they
read) to something more meaningful
—such as the people who mean the
most to them in life.
7
USE THE POWER OF TOUCH
An appropriate friendly touch
(whether it’s a warm handshake,
light touch on the arm or full-on hug)
increases the release of the hormone
oxytocin, which promotes a sense of
trust and a slew of other good feelings
that make us feel close to one another.
8
BEHAVE LIKE
YOU LIKE THEM
According to the
“reciprocity of liking”
phenomenon, when
we act like we like
someone, they will
probably like us back.
Researchers at the
University of Waterloo
and the University of
Manitoba discovered that
we behave more warmly
when we expect people to
accept us—which ups
the chances that they
really will like us!
01•2018 | 87|
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 TRAVEL & ADVENTURE

HONG KONG
20 YEARS
LATER
It’s been more than two decades since
Britain handed over Hong Kong to China.
Our writer, a former resident, returned to
find the city as vibrant—and quirky—as ever
BY B ON N I E MU N DAY
PHOTO: © A LESSAN DRO DELLA BELLA /KEYSTONE/REDUX

Hong Kong Island, as seen from

Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade

89
V
H O N G K O N G : 2 0 Y E A R S L AT E R

ICTORIA HARBOUR is multi-billion-dollar bridge linking

breathtaking, especially Hong Kong to Zhuhai in China, and
during the nightly the gambling haven of Macau.
laser show, when the It feels good to be back. Jules and I
pleasure junks, ferries lived here in the 1990s, before Britain
and container ships seem to dance relinquished Hong Kong to China in
in the lights. My husband, Jules, and 1997. Now, more than 20 years later,
I are standing at the rail of a rooftop we’ve returned for ten days to see
restaurant on Hong Kong Island, how the city has fared. It’s also our
in awe of the spectacular skyline. 20th wedding anniversary. Where
Brightly lit skyscrapers—some 1,300 better to celebrate it than in the city
of which are over 100 metres tall, by where we met?
far the most of any city in the world—
spike the night sky around us and NEXT MORNING, we leave our
across the teeming harbour on the Causeway Bay hotel and walk toward
Kowloon peninsula. Wan Chai, a district just over a mile
As the breeze shifts our hair, we feel away. Walking is the best way to
Hong Kong’s energy. In the distance experience Hong Kong’s colourful
twinkle the lights of the Tsing Ma sights, sounds and smells. First we
suspension bridge, the world’s longest must negotiate throngs of Saturday
for cars and trains, whisking people shoppers in this retail mecca.
toward the modern 20-year-old We join the sea of people in a
airport on Lantau Island. wide pedestrian crossing on Yee
Beyond it is a nearly completed Wo Street that leads us past one of
the city’s largest department stores,
Sogo, swathed in posters advertising
KOW LO O N designer labels. Young women
TSIM sporting sleek heels and luxury
SHA
handbags—a couple of them with
TSUI
beribboned apricot poodles tucked
UR
BO under an arm—are a common sight
HAR
VICTORIA C AUSEW
AY this morning.
B AY By the time we reach Wan Chai,
we’ve left the brand shoppers behind.
L
CENTRA AI This district is grittier than Causeway
WA N C H
Bay, although its former reputation
H O N G KO N G 1 km for girly bars has somewhat given way
ISLAND to shiny office towers. At Bowrington
Road market, which spans a couple

90 | 01•2018
 Street markets in the Mong Kok neighbourhood of Kowloon sell food and much more
of blocks, housewives are haggling
loudly over meat, fish and vegetables.
Street markets are a must-see in
Hong Kong, but be prepared for the
smells—meat, seafood, infamously
stinky durian fruit—and a little gore:
I watch a vendor prove to a customer
how fresh his fish is by slicing along
one side, folding the fillet back and
exposing the still-intact beating heart.
Nearby, beneath an overpass, we
PHOTO: © RI CHLEGG/GETTY I MAGES
encounter a curious sight: an elderly
woman chanting while she beats a
paper with a shoe. A customer has
written on the paper the name of a
person who has upset him, we learn.
Afterward, the paper is rubbed with
pork fat and burned. This ritual beats
the “villain” out of the customer’s life.
“Only in Hong Kong,” Jules says.
Later we stop to check out the
wares of a grey-haired woman
hanging men’s shirts on the metal
grill of an office building. As Jules
peruses the shirts, I ask her, “Do you
feel Hong Kong has changed under
Chinese rule?”
She’s dismissive. “I’m just part of
the little people,” she says. “I only
want to make enough money. I don’t
care if Britain or China is here.”
Other entrepreneurs we encounter
seem to agree it’s business as usual.
Before the handover, many people
here feared Communist China would
curtail the capitalism and human
rights protections Hong Kong enjoyed
under British rule, even though China
promised self-rule—“one country,
two systems”—for 50 years. But, as
01•2018 | 91|
H O N G K O N G : 2 0 Y E A R S L AT E R
Christine Loh, a legislator here before
and after the handover, expressed
in an email to me, “The degree of
freedom in Hong Kong on a day-to-
day basis remains very high.”
WE’LL HEAR a similar opinion
over a lunch of dim sum—a local
Cantonese specialty—in Kowloon,
where we’re heading now on the
Star Ferry. It’s been chugging across
Victoria Harbour since 1888. The trip
costs HK$2.70 (24p), a bargain in a
pricey city. It’s a short walk to the
vast Serenade Chinese Restaurant.
There we meet my longtime
friend Junko Watanabe. With her
are Ronnie and Jennifer Ho, retired
teachers in their late fifties who
have just moved back from Boston
to their home city after 23 years.
Over bamboo baskets of har gau
(steamed shrimp) and siu mai (pork
dumplings) and an order of yi mein
(egg noodles, fried), Ronnie and
Jennifer tell us they’re delighted to
be home. “We haven’t noticed many
changes in daily life,” Ronnie says.
AT A 2014 PROTEST
IN HONG KONG,
MAINLANDERS WERE
DENOUNCED AS
‘LOCUSTS’ EATING THE
CITY’S RESOURCES
92 | 01•2018
Their parents had fled poverty
in China for colonial Hong Kong
at a young age. Ronnie’s father
encouraged the couple to emigrate
before 1997. “Our parents knew
China was to be feared,” says
Jennifer. The 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre influenced their
decision to leave.
They returned to Hong Kong to
be back among their family. Says
Ronnie, “We’re too old to worry
about politics now.”
CLEARLY, HONG KONG is thriving.
In a recent survey of the world’s
cities by human resources consulting
firm Mercer, it ranked sixth for
infrastructure, which includes such
criteria as drinking water and public
transit. It ranked 71st among 231
cities for quality of life—higher than
the 11 other Chinese cities included.
The outlook for press freedom is
less encouraging: a Reporters Without
Borders (RWB) survey shows Hong
Kong has slipped from 18th in 2002
to 73rd today (China ranked 176th).
RWB cites growing difficulty in
covering sensitive stories about Hong
Kong’s government and mainland
China, and finds the purchase
of Hong Kong media by Chinese
companies “extremely disturbing”.
Another point of contention is
tourism from mainland China.
Before 1997 most visitors came from
Japan and Taiwan, but when Beijing
relaxed its rules in the early 2000s, the
 Yung Shue Wan village is just a half-hour by ferry from Central—but a world away
number of mainland visitors jumped
from about 7 million per year in 2002
to 43 million by 2016.
For some locals, that’s too many;
they say the visitors are rude and
loud. And they blame mainlanders
for the scarcity of such necessities as
baby formula and medicines.
Indeed, when Jules went to buy
shaving cream, he was mystified to
see shop staff unloading countless
boxes of baby formula onto shelves.
Mainlanders snap it up due to
tainted baby formula scares in China.
At a 2014 protest in Hong Kong,
mainlanders were denounced as
PHOTO: ©S HUTTERSTOCK
“locusts” eating the city’s resources.
Signs read, “Go Back to China” and
“Reclaim Hong Kong”.
Late one afternoon I meet up with
Mark Sharp, a South China Morning
Post editor and writer since before
the handover, in the seaside town of
Sai Kung, in the New Territories—the
mostly rural region between Kowloon
and mainland China. Over a beer
ironically named Gweilo, a rude
Cantonese term for “white person”, he
confirms locals are more outspoken
nowadays. “People worry that as
more mainland Chinese come, Hong
Kong will lose its identity.”
Young people, Sharp says, are
especially vocal. They’re Hong
Kongers first: a recent Hong Kong
University survey showed that only
three per cent of people aged 18–29
identify as Chinese, an all-time low
since the surveys started in 1997; back
then, that number was 17 per cent.
ON A SUNNY MORNING, we hop onto
a ferry bound for Lamma Island. It’s
a 30-minute trip to Yung Shue Wan
village—and a world away. Although
Hong Kong isn’t often associated with
01•2018 | 93|

Dozens of burning incense coils scent
the air inside Man Mo Temple
green spaces, there are many, and
Lamma, where we lived, has some
of our favorite hikes. We drop our
bags at our guesthouse and walk for
two hours on paths that wind down
toward sandy beaches and steeply
upward again.
At a hilltop pavilion, we buy
refreshing pineapple slices from an
old woman in a straw hat. From a
nearby path we can see the fishing
boats and stilted seafood restaurants
of Sok Kwu Wan village below.
Walking back, we spot graves set into
green slopes that face the sea for
favourable feng shui. They’re tidy.
94 | 01•2018
During the Ching Ming Festival two
weeks earlier, families had swept
loved ones’ gravesites and burned
incense for departed spirits.
In Yung Shue Wan, we head to
Andy’s Seafood Restaurant on Main
Street and find a table with a view
of the sun setting over the sea. It’s a
slice of Hong Kong heaven to dine on
grouper with soy sauce and ginger,
and razor clams in black bean sauce.
BACK ON HONG KONG island, we
walk from the pier into Central
and Sheung Wan. The walk is a
few minutes longer than in the
1990s; the shoreline has shifted to
accommodate new skyscrapers. One
thing hasn’t changed: most high-
rises under construction are clad in
traditional scaffolding of bamboo
tied with nylon strips.
We browse antique shops along
Hollywood Road and Cat Street,
looking for an anniversary gift to
each other. The symbol for the 20th
year is, fittingly, china, and we find
PHOTO: ©Y EUNG M AN CHUN /SHUTTERSTOCK
the perfect thing: a gold-painted
teapot with wicker handles, featuring
the Chinese character for double-
happiness, a wedding symbol. “It’s
HK$150,” the shopkeeper says, about
£15. I offer her HK$120 in cash; it’s
a deal.
The wrapped treasure tucked
under Jules’ arm, we pass galleries
and, surprisingly, coffee shops with a
hipster vibe: Winston’s, The Cupping
Room, Cafe Deadend. When I lived

here, tea shops were ubiquitous.
Stores selling olive oils, vinegars,
cheeses and wines also exemplify
changing tastes; before 1997, we had
to search those things out.
This evolution contrasts with Man
Mo Temple, a Taoist and Buddhist
temple dedicated to the gods of
literature (Man) and war (Mo). Built
in 1847, its sloping roof is decorated
with carvings of dragons and human
figures. The quiet, candlelit interior
is scented with burning incense coils
hanging from the ceiling. We watch
worshippers set oranges and candles
on a table, offerings to statues of the
gods placed there.
IT’S HUMID on our final day, and
threatening rain. We have time for a
last lunch. In Sheung Wan, past the
pungently scented dried-seafood
stalls this district is famous for, we
find a noodle house on Des Voeux
Road. It’s full of chattering office
workers. At the front window, the chef
is dropping fresh noodles into a huge
pot of steaming broth.
“Sorry, no English,” says the
waitress as she drops Chinese-
language menus on the table. No
problem; we point to bowls of
noodles the chef has topped with
barbecued pork and Chinese broccoli,
then sip on tall glasses of sweet iced
lemon tea while we wait. We copy the
locals: stab at the lemon slices with a
long spoon to squeeze out the juice,
stir, sip, repeat.
READER’S DIGEST
On the street, it’s raining. We sprint
to our hotel, grab our luggage and
hail a taxi. “Central Station, please,
Airport Express,” I tell the driver,
a man in his sixties. “Oh, you go
home?” he asks. He says he loves
showing visitors around.
As we weave through buses, trams
and luxury cars, I point out to Jules
an elderly man wearing a pointed
straw hat riding a rusting bicycle.
Tall propane tanks are strapped to
either side, and he’s negotiating traffic
through the rain. Only in Hong Kong.
At the station, the driver points to
where we can check our bags to the
airport. “Make sure, come back soon!”
he says, waving. “This is world’s best
city!” I couldn’t agree more.
TRAVEL TIPS
LODGING IBIS Hotel, Sheung Wan,
from £75, ibis.com; The Langham,
Tsim Sha Tsui, from £170,
langhamhotels.com
DINING Dim sum at Serenade
Chinese Restaurant, Tsim Sha Tsui,
and Maxim’s Palace at City Hall,
Central, from £2.20/basket; Seventh
Son, Wan Chai, Cantonese dishes
crispy chicken, baked stuffed crab
shell, £19 each; Tin Lung Heen,
Ritz Carlton, Yau Ma Tei, Iberian
barbecued pork with honey, £30
INFORMATION:
discoverhongkong.com
01•2018 | 95|
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 Huddersfield Narrow
Canal cuts through
TRAVEL & ADVENTURE
the Pennines

My Great Escape:
BY C ATHY
ADA MS

Moorland Walk
Anjana Pradhan from Manchester
hikes the Huddersfield Narrow Canal
Cathy has
danced in IF YOU WANT TO BE CLOSE TO
Rio, been NATURE, try a walk along the Huddersfield
microlighting Narrow Canal, where you’ll find moors, moss-
in South Africa
and hiked
laden stone walls and an abundance of clean air
the mountains to fill your lungs and energise your mind.
of Oman Located between the towns of Diggle and Marsden, the
canal cuts through the Pennines, making it one of the most
interesting moorland walks in Britain.
My husband and I found out about it from a local
magazine and, after doing some research, we discovered
WE WANT
TO HEAR the Stockport Walkers’ Group, who were scheduled to go
FROM rambling along the canal.
YOU! Starting in Diggle, we walked from the high Pennine
moorland to the canal bank, admiring the rich history of the
National Trust-owned Marsden Moor Estate.
Tell us about Two centuries ago, Diggle and other Pennine hillside
your favourite villages were important centres of the woollen textile trade.
holiday (send a Look for small double-panelled windows in the buildings by
photo too) and the canal: they’re testament to the trade.
if we include it
We came across Brun Clough Reservoir, and
on this page
we’ll pay you Milestone Edge, overlooking Diggle, which had air
£50. Go to as clean as a whistle. Then we headed
readersdigest. towards the Redbrook Reservoir that
co.uk/ was built to supply water to the
contact-us Huddersfield Narrow Canal.

98 | 01•2018

The surrounding moorland serves
as a grazing land for sheep, and is also
home to ground-nesting birds, such
as golden plover, grouse and the twite.
We then moved down into
STEVE BENTLEY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO / SHUTTERSTOCK
Marsden, which is famous for
producing woollen cloth in the
19th century. Today the town is
surrounded on three sides by three
high moors—Marsden, Meltham and
Saddleworth Moors.
As we sat on one of the hill slopes
and unpacked our lunch, Ron, an
artist in our group, sketched the
memories of the day.
■ HUNGRY FOR A HIKE?
For more information about the
Stockport Walkers’ Group, visit
stockportwalkers.org.uk
Postcard From....
Estonia
NEXT MONTH MARKS THE
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calendar of theatre performances
and art exhibitions. Away from
the celebrations, this Baltic
nation makes a perfect wintry
break, with a range of snowy
adventures, including winter
swimming, sledding, skiing and
the most relaxing of all: blissing
out in a hot sauna.
Flights start from £32 each way
with British Airways (ba.com).
01•2018 | 99|
T R AV E L & A D V E N T U R E

Things To Do This Month

SYDNEY IN TWO MINUTES

■ STAY: SOFITEL SYDNEY DARLING HARBOUR This
35-storey luxury hotel has just opened in Sydney, offering
eye-popping views of the city skyline. If you can’t stay, TRAVEL
come for a dip in the infinity pool. Rooms from around APP OF
£180 (sofitelsydneydarlingharbour.com.au). THE
MONTH
Circa, Free,
■ SEE: BADU GILI Just installed on the Bennelong sail of
Android, iOS.
the iconic Sydney Opera House is a new visual projection, Changing time
Badu Gili, meaning “water light”. Depicting ancient zones means
stories of the Gadigal people, it’s best seen from the top of jet lag and
the Opera House steps (sydneyoperahouse.com). confusion. If
you’re travelling
■ HIKE: NEW SOUTH WALES New South Wales enjoyed across several,
a big uptick in the number of people visiting to hike its Circa will help
you keep track
landscapes last year. They came to conquer The Seven
of the time as
Peaks Walk, one of the Great Walks of Australia, or the you go.
coastal Light to Light Walk (destinationnsw.com.au).

SHORT/LONG HAUL: CYCLING TRIPS

SHORT: Portugal Pedal through LONG: Myanmar Myanmar’s varied
the winter sun on Portugal’s sites—temple-studded Bagan,
Algarve coast, with self-guided ancient capital Mandalay and
© SHUTTERSTOCK

cycling routes through glassy Inle Lake—are best

charming fishing villages, explored on two wheels.
unspoilt countryside and This Explore trip covers
deluxe marinas (the-carter- 240 miles over nine days
company.com). (explore.co.uk).
FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/
100 | 01•2018 TRAVEL-ADVENTURE
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Photographer Andy Seliverstoff captures
the joy and mutual confidence between...

Little Kids
& Their
Big Dogs
TE XT A N D P H OTOS BY ANDY S ELIVERSTO FF
 Matthew talks to
his big friend Misha,
a Saint Bernard

103
LITTLE KIDS & THEIR BIG DOGS

I
N HIS WORK photographing dog
shows in Russia and across Europe,
Andy Seliverstoff has access to
many gorgeous dogs, including rare
breeds. He says he’s learned that these
dogs “aren’t just beautiful on the outside;
they have amazing temperaments, and
in particular the large and giant breeds
have an innate gentleness that truly
belies their stature.”
His interest was sparked when friends
asked him to photograph their two-
year-old daughter. “They showed up
at the park with their Great Dane in
tow,” he says. The St. Petersburg-based
photographer was “blown away by the
relationship between tiny Alice and
gigantic Sean,” he says. He decided to
incorporate the dog into the shoot.
Next came a photo session with a
little boy named Theodore and Ringo
the Newfoundland. “As with Alice and
Sean, these photos touched me deeply,”
he says. The images captured the special
bond between children and dogs. “It’s
a connection that doesn’t need words.
Love, compassion, joy, trust, honesty
and acceptance, to name a few, infuse
the relationship. You can see it in their
gestures, in their faces.” Posting the photos
on Facebook, he found many agreed.
In his 2017 book, Little Kids and Their
Big Dogs, from which the photos shown
here are taken, Seliverstoff aimed to
capture and transmit the state of endless
joy and mutual confidence between the
children and the animals. The one big
message, he says, is this: “Love for dogs
and children makes people kinder.”

104 | 01•2018
 Alexandra finds
a willing model
in her Great Dane,
Zarmina
 This page: Jay the Ridgeback
dances at Dasha’s command.
Opposite, clockwise from top left:
Alice with Sean, her Great Dane;
Arthur and his friend Zeus, a
Komondor; Theodore with Ringo,
a Newfoundland.

Little Kids and Their Big Dogs

is available from amazon.co.uk
FROM LITTLE KIDS AND THEIR BIG DOGS, COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY ANDY SELIVERSTOFF, PUBLISHED BY
REVODANA PUBLISHING, SEA CLIFF, N.Y. REVODANAPUBLISHING.COM 107
 PARTNERSHIP
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Unlike sunsets, smiles, and the whiskers on
kittens, financial advice is not one of the
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major banks and financial institutions are
keen to dispense free financial advice, and
sometimes customers who receive it will
reap tangible benefits.
But, often such advice can take a “one-
size-fits-all” approach that is not tailored
to the specific needs of the individual.
Inevitably, such advice will sometimes
steer the customer towards a financial
product—conveniently offered by the
financial institution in question—that is not
necessarily suitable for their requirements.
So, the key thing to consider is: what is
the potential cost of receiving the wrong
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Make sure the advice you’re getting is
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Engaging with a professional financial
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MONEY

12 Money Resolutions

BY A N DY
For 2018
A BIG PROBLEM WITH NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS is
W E BB
commitment. You start with the best intentions, but within a
few weeks or months life has moved on and the motivation is
gone. Sound familiar?
Money always features in these plans—but rather than
trying to make one big change to your finances for the whole
year, I think it’s easier to pick 12 different tasks and spread
them out over the whole of 2018.
But where to start? Well, I’ve got a few suggestions to get
Andy Webb is a your money in shape during the coming year. You might not
personal finance fancy all of these, or you might have a few alternative ideas
journalist and you’d like to implement instead. And, of course, you might
runs the award- want to tackle them in a different order. That’s fine. The
winning money
blog Be Clever
important thing to remember is that the better you manage
With Your Cash your money this year, the more freedom you’ll have.

J anuary The best thing you can do all year is overhaul—

or even start—your household budget, so do this before
anything else.
Even if you think you run a tight ship, talking half an hour
to look through your bank statements can be a revelation.
Spend half an hour entering the figures into a spreadsheet or
an online budgeting tool and you’ll be able to see just how
much you spend over the weeks, months and year on every
part of life, from supermarket shopping to one-off annual

110 | 01•2018
expenses. It’s bound to be more than
you think.
F ebruary If you’re not yet retired
or claiming your pensions, now
is the time to get a pension statement
and track down any different
workplace funds.
A forecast to show what you’ll get
when you do stop working could
offer some peace of mind, or be the
kick you need to take some action
and save more. It’s also worth
considering if you want to lower the
risk level of your investments to lock
in what you have.
M arch It’s worth checking the
interest rate you’re getting on
any money you’ve stored in savings.
If you had a fixed rate and its time
is up, the rate will likely have
dropped, whereas if it’s variable,
there’s a high chance you’ll be
earning peanuts.
If it’s held in an ISA, you can look to
transfer the money to a different ISA.
If you haven’t used up your £20,000
allowance for the 2017/18 financial
year, you still have time to take
advantage of better rates elsewhere.
A pril If you or your partner aren’t
working or have a very low
income, and you’re a basic-rate
taxpayer, then you can claim the
marriage allowance. Do it now and
you can backdate your claim to April
2015, which is worth up to £632.
Then you’ll be able to claim for the
2018/19 year too.
M ay I’m pretty confident most
of you reading this will still be
with your first bank. And that means
you’ve been loyal for decades, yet are
unlikely to have got much in return.
If you’re willing to switch to a new
bank or building society, you can
benefit from money back on
household bills or up to five per cent
interest. You can even claim free
money with some banks offering up
to £150 as an incentive to move your
business to them.
MONEY

Just look for the Current Account

Switch Guarantee and all your
money will be moved within seven
days and, crucially, future payments
to your old account will be moved
across too.

J une Auditing your insurance

might not sound like the best
thing to do on a long summer’s day,
but it could save you hundreds of
pounds. Grab a cold drink as well as
your home, car, travel and any other
insurance documents and head out
into the garden.
You’re looking for one thing in
particular on all these
policies: when do they
end? Make a note of
each date in your
diary, as well as
a month before
so you don’t
forget. Then,
when each one
comes up for
renewal, start to
shop around for a
better deal. If you let
A ugust There’s
never really any
good time to talk about
them auto-renew you’re getting old and death, so
likely to pay a premium. don’t put it off any further. Whether
Again, loyalty isn’t rewarded here. it’s discussing your funeral plans
with your children, or finding out

J uly If you’re over 60, take

advantage of the discounts,
freebies and other boosts you’re
entitled to. From cheaper cinema
tickets to free prescriptions, make
sure you’re not missing out.
about what your parents wish in
terms of long-term care, doing it now
means there will be less stress—and
no surprise costs—at emotionally
difficult times.
It’s also worth setting up a lasting

112 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

your life such as the arrival of

grandchildren or new relationships.

O ctober Winter is coming, so

don’t leave it until you put the
heating on to realise you’re paying
more than you need for your energy
bills. Once again, loyalty rarely pays
for your gas and electricity, so go
online and compare your options.
This takes ten minutes to do and,
with a few clicks, your billing can be
moved to a cheaper alternative,
saving an average of £300 a year.
If you have time, do the same with
your phone and TV bills.

N ovember With Christmas on

the horizon and the big Black
Friday sales dominating the month,
it’s a good time to make sure
you’re getting the best deals on
your shopping. My top tip is to
sign up for cashback sites,
where you get paid a reward
every time you shop.
power of attorney in case
illness stops you dealing
with your own affairs. D ecember If you do have
money worries, don’t
ignore them. Get help with

S eptember While
we’re on the topic of
death, take the time to write
money problems, such as
seeking debt advice, or
consolidating any credit card
or rewrite your will. It’s your borrowing on a zero per cent
chance to ensure your balance transfer card.
money goes where you If you’ve been savvy this
want it to. And if you year, you should be in a strong
already have one, make place financially, allowing you
sure it reflects changes to to enjoy the festivities.

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/MONEY 01•2018 | 113|

FOOD & DRINK

Easy-to-prepare meals and accompanying drinks

Braised Lentils
With Sausages
BY RAC H E L
THIS IS PROPER HOME COOKING. It’s cheap, it’s
WAL K E R
hearty and it feeds a crowd. It’s possible to braise the
sausages by putting them in with the lardons to make a
one-pot dish—but cooking them separately encourages
good colour and a lovely crispiness.

Serves 6
• 12 sausages
Rachel Walker • 100g lardons or
is a food writer for diced pancetta
numerous national
• 1tbsp olive oil
publications. Visit
rachel-walker.co.uk
• 2 onions, diced
for more details • 4 carrots, diced
• 2 celery sticks,
sliced finely
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 300g puy lentils or
lentils vertes
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 800ml vegetable stock
• 1tbsp Dijon mustard
• ½ lemon, squeezed
• 100g kale
To garnish: flat-leaf parsley
(optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C, for cooking the sausages later.

2. Tip the lardons into a saucepan or casserole dish, and
start to cook on a medium-high heat. When the fat begins
to melt, add the additional tablespoon of olive oil,
followed by the onions, carrots and celery. Cook for 5–7
minutes, until the vegetables start to soften. Add the garlic
to the pan, and cook for 1–2 minutes, until fragrant but
not browned.

114 | 01•2018
 3. Stir the puy lentils through the
vegetables, and add the sprig of
rosemary to the pan. Cover with
stock, bring to a rolling simmer,
then drop the heat—so the water
is just bubbling—and cook
uncovered for
TIP…
PHOTOGRAP HY BY TIM & ZOË H ILL
add a splash of water. Don’t stir
them too much during cooking—
they shouldn’t be mushy, but
tender with a bit of bite to them.
Taste, and season with salt,
pepper, a tablespoon of
Dijon mustard and some

30 minutes. lemon juice. Just before

4. Meanwhile, put
the sausages on a lined
baking tray, and
cook according to
pack instructions
(usually 15 minutes).
5. If the lentils start to
dry out during cooking,
If there are serving, add the kale to
vegetarians the lentils and stir gently.
amongst the 6. Divide the lentils
group you’re
feeding, leave the between six shallow,
lardons out of the heated bowls. Place the
recipe and switch sausages on top, garnish
the sausage to a with parsley and serve
poached egg. with lashings of mustard.

01•2018 | 115|
FOOD AND DRINK

Robust
Tipples
IT’S NOT THE TIME OF
YEAR FOR SUBTLETY.
Delicate dishes don’t
work with winter
colds; the same
applies to drinks
pairings. Something
elegant and chilled
might feel right on long summer
evenings, but this time of year calls
for big, Bavarian beers or spiced
Syrah from the southwest of France.
These robust European bottles rarely
classify as “easy drinking”, but pair
them with food, and you’ll reap the
benefits of going slightly off-grid.
Ocado has recently started stocking
Meantime’s Wheat Beer, which is
brewed with Bavarian yeast, giving it
a chewy, Germanic quality with a hint
of spiciness. Portobello London
Pilsner is another home-grown
example of a great, Bohemian beer.
It’s hoppy, bitter and best chilled.
Sainsbury’s Languedoc Red
represents great value. It’s a jammy
and dark fruity blend, which stands
up well to big flavours, such as
braised lentils and sausages.
Across the border, German Pinot
Noir—known as Spätburgunder—is
having a moment. Try the Weingut
Braunewellat Lea & Sandeman for a
really lively bottle with a lot of clout,
which goes some way to
explain why it’s becoming
more and more popular.

FULL-FLAVOURED AND WINTRY

■ Meantime Wheat Beer, £1.90/330ml (5%), Ocado

■ Portobello London Pilsner, £1.77/330ml (4.6%), Morrisons
© SHUTTERSTOCK

■ Sainsbury’s Languedoc Red, Taste the Difference,

£7/75cl (13.5%), Sainsbury’s
■ Spätburgunder 2015, Weingut Braunewell,
£14.95/75cl (12%), Lea & Sandeman

116 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

BOOK

Stirring Slowly, £20,

Square Peg. One of the
most-thumbed books
on my bookshelf, this is

Dried Apricot And

full of homely recipes.

Pudding
Date Flapjacks of the
Month
BARGAIN

Serves 6
• 200g dried and • 50g self-raising
stoned dates flour, sifted
• 100g dried apricots • 50g white flour, sifted
• 6tbsp boiling water • 100g porridge oats
• 3tbsp lemon juice • 50g soft brown sugar St. Dalfour Chestnut
• 100g butter, cubed Spread, £1.99/284g,
Ocado. Tastes like
1. Preheat the oven to 180C. caramel, but healthier!
2. Finely chop the dates and apricot. Cover them
with kettle water and lemon juice. Set them to one BLOW OUT
side for 20 minutes, so they plump up.
3. In the meantime, line a baking tin with
greaseproof paper, leaving overhanging edges.
4. Use your fingertips to rub together the flour,
butter, oats and sugar until it looks like a crumble
topping. Press half into the baking tin, and then
© SHUTTERSTOCK

spread the apricot and date mixture on top. Gently

press the remaining crumble on top and bake for Selection of raw honey,
25 minutes. £32, thelondonhoney
5. Use the overhanging greaseproof paper to lift the company.co.uk. Pure, raw
flapjack out of the tin, and cut it into rectangles. and perfect on porridge.

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/FOOD-DRINK 01•2018 | 117|

HOME & GARDEN

Silver
BY C ASSI E
PRYC E Luxury
START YOUR
YEAR as you mean to
go on! Celebrate in
style by adding a little
glitz and glamour to
your dining-room
scheme with these
Homes and sparkling but elegant
gardens writer silver touches.
and stylist Cassie
specialises in
interior trends

1
and new season
shopping This tasteful five-
arm candle holder
will complete your
tabletop styling, £20

2
(jdwilliams.co.uk)
Dine in
comfort and
style with the
Venus champagne

3
crushed velvet
Set a cosy scene by lighting chair, £129
a candle in this single pillar (housingunits.
lantern, £42 (next.co.uk) co.uk)

4 Add a bit of drama to

any room with the
Khloe easy-fit light,
£60 (Debenhams.com)

118 | 01•2018
 A Fresh Start
Get ahead of the game and use these winter months
to plan for the coming year in your garden
Start by arranging your seeds in this
seed packets organiser tin (£19.95,
annabeljames.co.uk). Some spring-
flowering blooms need a long
period of growth, so start to sow
begonias and geraniums early in
the year in a propagator or indoors.
The Verdi wooden potting table (£99,
cuckooland.com) can be kept in a
greenhouse to use as a workbench.
Herbs such as coriander and basil can
be planted indoors and kept on the
windowsill. Try the Sophie Conran for
Burgon & Ball herb garden seed
collection (£10.99, dobbies.com).

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/HOME-GARDEN 01•2018 | 119|

TECHNOLOGY

From reusing tablets to voice-activated security,

this month’s tech offering is all about expediency

Hey Presto
BY OLLY MANN HUAWEI MATE 10 PRO, £699
Now that Samsung, Sony and
Apple’s top handsets are
pushing £1,000 a pop, those
seeking the latest spec should
explore more affordable Chinese
offerings. The Mate Pro looks
uninspiring in standby mode,
Olly is a but when the Mobile HDR-
technology ready, OLED screen leaps into
expert, radio
life, it truly dazzles. The Leica
presenter
and podcaster dual lens, though grainy in low
light, takes gobsmackingly good
pictures in daylight—the best
unfiltered mobile shots I’ve seen. Just as speedy and secure as
its pricier rivals, it’s a great phone choice—so long as you don’t
require a 3.5mm headphone jack.

APPLE APP OF THE engineers, is as straightforward to set

MONTH: DUET FOR IPAD, up as official software—simply plug
£14.99 Here’s a clever way in any old iPad (running iOS 8 or
to utilise your old tablet—rig it up to later) using your original charging
your Mac or Windows cable and hey presto,
PC as an additional you’ve doubled the real
monitor. This app, estate on your laptop screen.
created by ex-Apple You’re welcome.

120 | 01•2018
AMAZON ECHO SHOW, £199
The judges at the T3 Awards recently decreed
Amazon Echo their “Gadget of the Year”, and
it’s hard to disagree. You may not actually
want a home speaker eavesdropping on
everything you’re saying just to provide you
with voice-activated convenience, but I
can’t recall a gadget since the iPad that’s
so rapidly introduced millions of people
to a whole new product category.
Echo Show chucks a touchscreen and
webcam into the mix—so, for example,
you can ask it to video-call your mum,
display your calendar, or show your
security cameras.

MISFIT PHASE, £135

I’ve resisted buying a smartwatch. ANDROID APP
I admire the old-fashioned craft of an OF THE MONTH:
tick-tocking analogue face and a LOOPIMAL, £2.49 This
masculine leather strap. I see the benefit charming app is intended to teach
of reading text messages on my wrist, kids about musical arrangements,
but frankly I never warmed to digital but I’ve found it a pretty pleasurable
watches in the 1980s, so I’m hardly way to relax as well! A sequence of
going to go gaga over brightly backlit crudely animated animals (they
web-connected watches now. The could be Peppa Pig’s
closest I’ve come to biting the bullet, extended family)
however, is the Misfit Phase: it jig about to looped
hides its connectivity sounds that you
under a traditional dump down in an
face, vibrates interactive sequence
when you of shapes, each of
receive an SMS, which represents a
and doesn’t different rhythm or
require charging accompaniment.
(you just replace Melodic and strangely
the battery every six satisfying.
months). Subtle.

01•2018 | 121|
FASHION & BEAUTY

BY G E OR G I N A
YATE S
New Year, New You
FOLLOWING WEEKS OF FESTIVE CELEBRATIONS
and cold weather, your skin is bound to feel and look a
little tired. Smart beauty gadget Foreo Luna 2 (£169,
feelunique.com) is designed to shift dirt and dead skin
cells, stimulate elastin (which helps to plump out
wrinkles) and activate circulation.
The textured, medical-grade silicone brush emits high
Georgina is a and low frequency pulsations, gently buffing the skin.
fashion and
beauty editor
Along with its 12 adjustable intensities, the cleansing
for numerous device has also special silicone brush heads for
travel titles and sensitive, normal, combination and oily complexions.
a blogger at Best of all? It only takes a couple of minutes to use.
withgeorgia.com Simply apply your favourite
cleanser, wet the brush
head, then glide it over
your face in circular
motion—and watch as
all your festive sins are
buffed away (from your
skin, at least)!

PLUMP UP THE VOLUME ROSY CHEEKED

■ Give your lips an extra lift ■ With the elements wreaking havoc
with Soap and Glory’s Sexy on your skin, treat it to the indulgent
Mother Pucker (£10, boots. Damask Rose Facial Oil (£29,
com) lip shine. Designed for greenpeople.co.uk)
use on bare lips or over from Green People.
lipstick, its subtle tingling It restores skin’s
sensation activates lips, suppleness—and
making them feel and its aroma is good
look plumper. for your soul.

122 | 01•2018
 VELVET TOUCH

■ A velvet tunic
For can be paired with
Her leggings or tights for
a smart-casual look
(£199, east.com).

■ Nothing defines
■ Simple and chic, winter glamour like
this moss-green velvet a black and silver
dress oozes elegance velvet jumpsuit (£68,
(£245, toast.co.uk). next.com).

For ■ You could say he

Him wore blue velvet...(£99,
marksandspencer.com).

■ Splash out on a
statement crimson
■ Dine in style with velvet jacket from
this black velvet smart British label
dinner jacket (£220, Simon Carter (£395,
houseoffraser.co.uk). simoncarter.net).

01•2018 | 123|
BOOKS

Chilling psychological thrillers in the vein of

The Girl on the Train, destined for great success

January Fiction
BY JAMES IT’S NOW AN OFFICIAL READER’S DIGEST TRADITION
WALTON
that the January fiction column acknowledges January’s
status as Psychological Thriller Month. Ever since The Girl on
the Train hit the jackpot in January 2015, every new books
year has begun with Britain’s biggest publishers excitedly
bringing us the debut thrillers that they think have the best
chance of doing the same. All three here duly come
accompanied by news about all the countries they’ve been
James writes sold in, the major motion pictures they’re set to become and
and presents the big-name authors who think they’re amazing. But do they
the BBC Radio
live up the hype?
4 literary quiz
The Write Stuff
For A J Finn’s The Woman in the Window
(HarperCollins, £12.99), the answer is a
triumphant yes. The book is billed as
“Hitchcock’s Rear Window meets The Girl on
the Train”—and, while a novel this rich really
shouldn’t be reduced to a sound bite, you can
see why. The narrator Anna spends much of
her time drunk in her New York house, where
she’s suffering from acute agoraphobia. She
also spies on her neighbours with a zoom
lens—and one night witnesses a murder.
Unfortunately, given her boozing, mental illness and the
fact that the victim appears to still be alive, nobody believes
her. But then…well, there’s a series of terrific twists that
manage the rare double of being both completely startling
and the only logical explanation of what we’ve been reading.

124 | 01•2018

Add to that Anna’s beguiling
narrative voice—by turns
wisecracking and heartbreaking,
defeated and defiant—and the result
is not just one of the best thrillers
I’ve read for ages; it’s one of the best
books of any kind.
Annoyingly for hype-
haters, Need to Know
(Bantam, £12.99) is
pretty great too.
Karen Cleveland—a
former CIA analyst—
has had the neat idea
of combining the old-
school paranoia of
the spy story with
the more modern
paranoia of the domestic thriller. The
main character is Viv Miller, who also
works for the CIA, where her job is to
hack into the computers of Russian
spymasters looking for photographs
of “deep-cover operatives” in
America. Her exhilaration at finding
them, however, is somewhat
tempered when one photo turns out
to be of her beloved husband Matt.
When she confronts him, Matt
admits that he is indeed a Russian
spy who was sent to America to
marry a CIA agent. But now, he
swears, his love for her and their four
children is genuine. So can the
couple find a way of covering up her
findings without going to prison?
Above all, can she trust him? For
most readers, I suspect, the answers
PS
TH YCHO
R L
M IL OG
NT LE CA
to these questions will O I
vary every few pages of H R L
this gripping novel—
although, in my experience,
whatever you’re thinking at any
point is likely to be wrong.
Finally, C J Tudor’s
The Chalk Man
(Michael Joseph,
£12.99) returns us
to more familiar
psychological-
thriller territory,
with a short, grisly
prologue followed
by alternating
chapters from
different eras, gradually revealing
how the grisliness happened.
The narrator is Eddie: in 1986,
a slightly odd schoolboy in a small
English town; in 2016, a slightly
odder teacher in the same place.
Tudor does a fine job of showing
how haunted Eddie is. She also
creates a winningly dark
atmosphere and serves up a
beautifully timed stream of
intriguing new plot elements.
The trouble comes when she has
to tie them all together. Anybody
who starts The Chalk Man will
surely power to the end with
mounting excitement. Having
reached it, though, they may
find its mixture of loose ends,
implausibility and melodrama
a bit of a let-down.
01•2018 | 125|
BOOKS

RD’S RECOMMENDED READ

With great gusto and even better anecdotes, Roger Hutchinson

reveals the fascinating history behind the national census

Counting The Population

STRANGE BUT TRUE: one of
the most important opinion
pieces in the history of the
British press was published
in the June 1800 issue of The
Commercial, Agricultural and
Manufacturers Magazine.
At the time, there was much
anguished debate about the
size of Britain’s population.
Many experts were convinced
it was in disastrous decline,
others that it was increasing
far too quickly. The biggest
question of all, though, was
what the population actually was, for a ten-yearly census that began in
with estimates/wild guesses ranging 1801 and has continued ever since.
from 4 to 6 million. But then John For the record, the population of the
Rickman, the magazine’s editor, UK was initially found to be a healthy
came up with a radical suggestion: 15 million, and after that to be
why not count it? growing nicely.
Rickman’s idea became the basis In this enthralling book, Roger
Hutchinson (above) explains how
The Butcher The Baker the counting was done. But he’s had
The Candlestick the inspired notion, too, of using
© ROBIN GI LLA NDERS

Maker; The Story of these ten-yearly snapshots to tell the

Britain Through Its story of Britain—identifying the
Census, Since 1801 by precise timing of the most profound
Roger Hutchinson is social changes (between 1821 and
published in paperback 1831, the expansion of Britain’s cities
by Abacus at £12.99. was “breathtaking”) and lots of the

126 | 01•2018

more minor ones (between 1851 and
1861, for example, the number of
professional photographers
increased nearly sixtyfold).
On the whole, Hutchinson shares
the optimism of the early census-
takers. But some of his material,
naturally, makes cheerfulness
impossible. In the first census after
the First World War, the decline in the
number of young men since 1911 was
as unmistakable as the rise in the
number of widows.
Here are a couple of typical
passages: one about the census of
1911; the other an example of
Hutchinson’s willingness to throw in
interesting things more or less for
their own sake…
‘‘
Slavery, which had been so
commonly recorded seven
centuries earlier in the Domesday
Book, was effectively outlawed in
Great Britain by the end of the 18th
century. Early in the 20th century,
however, the rank of slave made a
comeback. In 1911 Mrs Alice Maude
Mary Ayers of London registered
herself as a ‘White Slave’. Born in
Battersea 46 years earlier, she was the
wife of a photographer’s assistant and
auxiliary postman named Ben Ayers.
Alice and Ben had three adult children
and lived in a five-bedroomed house
in Chelsea.
Alice Ayers was not alone. In the
same census, 48-year-old Mrs
Elizabeth Bond of Cambridge listed
READER’S DIGEST
CENSUS WORKING
OVERTIME: MORE FINDINGS
FROM THE BOOK
■ The 1851 census discovered
that one person in 979 was
blind—a fact that was attributed
to the proliferation of smallpox.
(Vaccination was made
compulsory two years later.)
■ In that same census, Charlotte
Brontë—who had published
Jane Eyre four years
previously—described her
profession as “none”.
■ In 1861, the population of the
City of London—by then the
undisputed financial centre
of the world—included 44
farmers and one shepherd.
■ Mary Thomas, from
Denbighshire, Wales had the
most children ever recorded for
a British woman, with 33. She
died in 1899, aged 85.
■ The 1931 census was the first to
include “out of work” as an
occupational category.
■ In 2001, 390,127 people
described their religion as
“Jedi”—making it the fourth
largest faith in the country.
01•2018 | 127|
BOOKS
her ‘Profession or Occupation’ as
‘Domestic Slave’, while 52-year-old
widow Lucy Gilbert of Bermondsey,
who had her adult son, three grown-
up daughters and three boarders
Centenarians attracted enduring attention, and
occasionally offered a form of time travel
under her roof, described herself
simply as a ‘Slave’.
A couple of hundred variations
on the same theme could be found
throughout Great Britain. Those
women, and in some cases their
sympathetic husbands, were
suffragettes, engaging in the first
concerted attempt to use the census
as a means of protest. Having begun in
earnest in the second half of the 19th
century, by 1911 the women’s suffrage
movement was approaching the
height of its formidable activities.
It engaged in a wide variety of both
violent and non-violent campaigns, of
which subverting the national census
was among the most imaginative…”
“The longest-living person to be
enumerated in the national census
was 37 when the First World War
broke out in 1914. Charlotte Hughes,
who attributed her longevity to ‘a good
honest life and adherence to the Ten
Commandments’, celebrated her 108th
birthday in 1985 at 10 Downing Street,
where she told prime minister
128 | 01•2018
Margaret Thatcher, ‘Don’t cuddle me,
I’m Labour.’ She marked her 110th
birthday by flying to New York on
Concorde. She died in 1993 at the age
of 115 years and 228 days; she was
then the second oldest person in the
world, and the oldest Briton of either
gender ever to be recorded.
Centenarians, and to a lesser extent
nonagenarians, attracted enduring
attention, and occasionally offered a
form of time travel. Maurice Bowra,
the warden of Oxford University’s
Wadham College between 1938 and
1970, wrote in his 1966 memoirs of
older members of Wadham whom he
had met in the early 1920s. ‘The most
astonishing was Frederick Harrison,’
recalled Bowra. ‘He was 92, and had
vivid memories of Paris after the fall of
Louis Philippe in 1848. He remembered
the accession of Queen Victoria when
he was seven years old…Incidentally
he provided a link with a still remoter
past by a neat chain of circumstances.
He had as an undergraduate met
[Martin] Routh, President of Magdalen
[College], who died in his hundredth
year soon afterwards. Routh had in
his boyhood met an old lady, who
’’
had in her girlhood seen Charles II
exercising his spaniels in
Magdalen Grove.’
 Books
THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
Dame Vera Lynn became known as “the
Forces’ Sweetheart” for her morale-boosting
visits to sing to the allied troops. Her new
book, Keep Smiling Through, is out now.
Murder on the
Orient Express
BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
It’s rather astonishing
to think that I read this
marvellous novel when
it was first published in
1934. Christie was a master of her
craft and she introduced me to the
detective genre, which I’ve enjoyed
ever since. I was swept away by the
glamour of travel on the Orient
Express and couldn’t help but think
how wonderful it would be to visit far-
flung places. During the war, I went to
sing to our troops in Egypt and India
and spent four months in Burma.
There weren’t any luxuries there—
you just had make the best of what
J IM HOLDEN /A LAM Y STOCK PH OTO
you were given.
The Wind in
the Willows
BY KENNETH GRAHAME
I used to read this to my
daughter Ginny when
she was about five years
old. The war was over by then, the
FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/BOOKS
country was rebuilding itself and my
husband Harry and I were enjoying
living the quiet life. I’d sit with Ginny
in our little regency sitting room at
the front of our house in Finchley and
we’d lose ourselves in the peace and
tranquillity of Grahame’s Thames
Valley countryside.
The Silent World
of Nicholas Quinn
BY COLIN DEXTER
Colin Dexter left a
great legacy of books,
which I’m very grateful
for. Inspector Morse’s
irreverence makes me
chuckle, but it’s the plots that really
intrigue me. Detective novels force
you to think hard; puzzling things out
is something I really enjoy. It’s a bit
like doing my knitting—if I go wrong I
have to work backwards to figure out
what happened! Luckily my eyesight
is extremely good and, even though
I’m soon to be 101 years old, I still
read prolifically.
As told to Caroline Hutton
01•2018 | 129|
 FUN & GAMES

You Couldn’t Make It Up

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

I WAS AT THE OPTICIANS when

an anxious elderly man stated his
frustration that his third pair of
glasses needed repairing.
When I asked why the necessity
for three pairs, he replied, “One
for short sight, another for long
sight, and the third pair of glasses
is to search for the other two!”
JILL COHEN, Yo r k s h i r e

MY MUM WAS WEARING a new

outfit for a dinner date she was
about to go on. She looked lovely,
and just before she left she
handed me her phone and asked,
“Will you take a selfie of me?”
LAUREX HEX, D e n b i g h s h i r e RECENTLY MY HUSBAND and I went
to my five-year-old son’s teacher-
OUR SON LEFT a pair of his dirty parents’ meeting and were pleased
trainers on the kitchen table and his with his progress. His teacher handed
dad complained, “Surely he’s got us his journal and we read about his
CARTOON: JA MES GRI FF ITHS

more sense? We eat off that table. personal experiences.

It’s absolutely disgusting.”
Later that evening, I came home
with my shopping and there was my
husband, renovating his gear box on
the middle of the kitchen table!
STEPHANIE BRYN, Me r s e y s i d e
My husband’s face changed when
he read what my son had written.
“I heard the door ring and I went to
answer it. It was Dad. He went in and
ate all my McDonald’s. He ate the
nuggets, fries and burgers, then the

130 | 01•2018

apple pie and drank all the Coca-
Cola. He just ate it all. There was
nothing left!”
CHRISTINE MANEJERO, S t o c kt o n - o n -Te e s
MY VEGETARIAN TEENAGE niece
came to stay with us from Belgium.
One day she was surprised when
something she ordered came with
bacon. The waitress reminded her
she’d ordered a BLT.
It turned out that she thought the
“B” stood for bread!
KAYLA MADDOCKS, He r t f o rd s h i r e
WHILE VISITING a chocolate factory
in Wales, I spotted a sign on the wall
that read, “Seven days without
chocolate makes one weak.”
JENNIE GARDNER, B a t h
ALTHOUGH MY DAUGHTER loved
her first Advent calendar, she lost
interest in it after a few days.
All became clear when I realised
she’d already opened all the doors
to eat the chocolate inside and
closed them up again.
MICHA BRYN, L i v e r p o o l
A FRIEND OF MINE, not renowned
as a good cook, bought a prepared
pack of beef and chopped veg and
had proceeded to fry it in her wok
when bubbles appeared.
She was baffled until she realised
that her oil bottle happened to be
standing next to the washing up
liquid. JAN CUNNINGHAM, b y e m a i l
READER’S DIGEST
MY DAD HARDLY EVER treats
himself, so when Christmas arrived I
gave him £100 and told him to go out
and buy something that would make
his life easier. He came home with a
present for my mum!
MAXINE COOPER, C l a p t o n
I OVERHEARD A PARENT
reprimanding their child by saying,
“Stop pulling that cat’s tail.”
“I’m only holding it,” came the
reply. “The cat is pulling.”
GWILI LEWIS, C h e s h i r e
I HAD TO SMILE when my
neighbour Rose told me that she was
constantly getting invited round to
her daughter’s house, but wasn’t
always keen to go.
“Sometimes I tell them that I’ve got
a splitting headache,” she told me.
“But that’s not really helpful because
her husband is a doctor and he
always comes round to make sure
I’m OK!”
KIMBERLEY YESSEN, C a m b r i d g e s h i r e
OUR LITTLE GIRL, EVE, could often
be uncooperative. My husband used
to tease her with an imaginary good
girl called Mary.
If she was naughty, he’d say, “Mary
would never do that.” One day, he
asked Eve to come to the shops. She
refused as usual.
“But I’ll be lonely,” he pointed out.
“Take Mary, then,” came the reply.
JUNE STRINGER, D e r b y s h i r e
01•2018 | 131|
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 IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR

Word Power
We bring you some zippy words starting with the last
letter of the alphabet. Proceed with zeal and zest,
and when you need to check your answers,
zoom over to the next page.

BY EM ILY COX & H E NRY RATH VON

1. zabaglione n—A: canvas sack. 9. zircon n—A: gas-powered

B: stage villain. C: whipped dessert blimp. B: gemstone. C: oversized
served in a glass. traffic cone.

2. zaftig adj—A: charmingly witty. 10. zloty n—A: airhead. B: Polish

B: pleasingly plump. C: famished. currency. C: earphone jack.

3. zax n—A: roofing tool. B: music 11. zoetrope n—A: optical

synthesiser. C: caffeine pill.
4. zephyr n—A: ancient lute.
B: gentle breeze. C: crown prince.
5. zeta n—A: prototype. B: sixth
letter of the Greek alphabet.
C: exceptional beauty.
6. zetetic adj—A: arid.
B: investigative. C: made of hemp.
7. ziggurat n—A: lightning bolt.
B: pyramidal tower. C: flying squirrel.
8. zinfandel n—A: narrow valley.
B: heretic. C: red wine.
spinning toy. B: sun-loving flower.
C: exaggeration.
12. zori n—A: antelope. B: flat
sandal. C: seaweed wrap.
13. zydeco n—A: music of southern
Louisiana. B: magnifying glass.
C: secret password.
14. zygomatic adj—A: related to
the cheekbone. B: mysterious.
C: of pond life.
15. zyzzyva n—A: type of weevil.
B: uncomfortable or tricky
situation. C: fertilised cell.

01•2018 | 133|
WORD POWER

Answers
1. zabaglione—[C] whipped dessert 9. zircon—[B] gemstone. “She
served in a glass. “I hate to waste a thought he gave her a diamond
good zabaglione, but I’m on a diet.” engagement ring, but those gems
2. zaftig—[B] pleasingly plump. “The
were just zircons.”
character in that film was a bit zaftig, 10. zloty—[B] Polish currency. “How’s
thanks to her chocolate habit.” the zloty holding up against the euro?”
3. zax—[A] roofing tool. “Kamal built 11. zoetrope—[A] optical spinning
this entire cabin himself, from laying toy. “Before there were movies, people
every floorboard to trimming every could get the illusion of motion from a
roof tile with a zax.” zoetrope’s whirling images.”
4. zephyr—[B] gentle breeze. “On 12. zori—[B] flat sandal. “After the
stressful days, I like to fantasise I’m strap on her zori snapped, Joelle had
on a tropical beach with a cool zephyr to go barefoot for the rest of the day.”
blowing through my hair.”
13. zydeco—[A] music of southern
5. zeta—[B] sixth letter of the Greek Louisiana. “Ian became a big fan of
alphabet. “The up-and-coming tech zydeco on his last trip to New Orleans.”
firm uses a zeta as its logo.”
14. zygomatic—[A] related to the
6. zetetic—[B] investigative. cheekbone. “Many US football players
“ ‘My zetetic methods,’ said Sherlock use a zygomatic stripe of greasepaint
Holmes, ‘are quite elementary, my to reduce glare.”
dear Watson.’ ”
15. zyzzyva—
7. ziggurat—[B] WORD OF THE DAY* [A] type of weevil.
pyramidal tower. “ ‘I can’t believe
DISTRAIT
“The king ordered this—there are
his subjects to build Inattentive or preoccupied, zyzzyvas in the
a great ziggurat in especially because of anxiety. organic quinoa
his honour.” Alternative suggestions: I just bought!’
8. zinfandel—[C]
Matthew
“The waterway to hell.”
red wine. “ ‘Do you exclaimed.”
think zinfandel “Question that should have
been asked when building VOCABULARY
pairs well with
the tower at Pisa.” RATINGS
nachos?’ Alyssa 9 & below: zonked
asked with a smirk.” “Opposite of dicurvy.” 10–12: in the zone
13–15: at the zenith

134 | 01•2018 *POST YOUR DEFINITIONS EVERY DAY AT FACEBOOK.COM/READERSDIGESTUK

 FUN & GAMES

Brainteasers
Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles and mind stretchers,
then check your answers on p139.

BUBBLE MATH
Assign a whole number
between one and seven
to each of the seven
bubbles. Each number
occurs once. The sums
11
of some of the numbers
7 are revealed in the areas
where their bubbles
14 6
overlap. Can you figure
10

(BUBBLE MATH) RODERI CK KI M BALL; (POTATO BIN S) FRAS ER SI MPS ON

out which number goes
in each bubble?

POTATO BINS
There are 100 potatoes spread
over three bins in a greengrocer’s.
A total of 35 potatoes
are in bins A and B.
A total of 75 potatoes
are in bins B and C.
A C
How many potatoes B
are in each bin?

136 | 01•2018
 1…100
COUNTING DIGITS
How many times does
the digit 5 appear in the
numbers from 1 to 100?

MATCH PLAY
The grid contains
matches of different 4 5 5 3 2 3 4
sizes, any of which
may be completely 3
unburned, partially
burned or completely
burned. Matches 4
burn from the head
(the red end) to the 4
(COUNTING DIGITS; LOST TIME) MARCEL DANESI; (MATCH PLAY) FRASER SIMPSON

tail without skipping

segments. The
numbers outside the 5
grid indicate the
number of burned 2
segments in the
corresponding row
or column. Can you 3
shade in the burned
segments to “match” 5
the numbers?

LOST TIME
Sue and Pam made arrangements to meet
at a café at 2pm. Sue thinks her watch is
25 minutes fast, although it’s actually ten
minutes slow. Pam thinks her watch is ten
minutes slow, while it is actually five minutes
fast. What will happen if they both aim to
arrive exactly on time?

01•2018 | 137|
BRAINTEASERS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 CROSSWISE
Test your
9
general
10 11 knowledge

12 13

14 15

16 17

18 19 20 21 22

23 24

25 26

27 28

29 30

ACROSS
01 Bivalve mollusc (6)
04 Queen of Castile who married Ferdinand
of Aragon (8)
10 2007 thriller starring Reese Witherspoon,
Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal (9)
11 A Fish Called _____, John Cleese film (5)
12 1960s Lotus sports car model (4)
13 Unaccompanied singing (1,8)
16 Someone studying living things (9)
17 Beethoven’s last symphony (5)
18 Pennsylvanian religious sect (5)
20 Detective Inspector played by
David Jason (4,5)
23 Singers of “Needles and Pins” (9)
24 Singing brother of Don Everly (4)
27 Unleavened bread round eaten
at Passover (9)
28 Internal combustion engine
firing device (5,4)
29 Town north of Peterborough (8)
30 Rock forming the Giant’s Causeway (4)
DOWN
01 Dorset village famed for its hillside
“giant” (5,5)
02 One hundredth of an escudo (7)
03 First name of Superman’s girlfriend (4)
05 Dark solar surface patch (7)
06 Dagger with a blade double-edged at
the point (5,5)
07 Fatty substance from wool (7)
08 Irish islands (4)
09 Korean spicy cabbage dish (6)
14 Timber from which Noah’s Ark
was made (6,4)
15 Apparently colourless illumination (5,5)
19 Chilled drink produced by Lipton’s (4,3)
20 Surname of two US presidents, one in the
1860s and one in the 1960s (7)
21 North American enclosure for horses
and cattle (6)
22 Daughter of Polonius in Hamlet (7)
25 Old Testament book after Joel (4)
26 Large predatory gull-like bird (4)

138 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST
Brainteasers: Answers
BUBBLE MATH
£50 PRIZE QUESTION
4 6
Answer published in
11
the February issue
5 7 2 3
14 6
10

7 1 is to as

is to
POTATO BINS
25 potatoes in A, 10 potatoes in B
and 65 potatoes in C.
COUNTING DIGITS
A B C D E
20 times. The digit 5 appears ten
times as a last digit (5, 15, 25...95) The first correct answer
and ten times as a first digit (50, we pick on January 3 wins
51, 52...59). £50!* Email excerpts@
readersdigest.co.uk
MATCH PLAY
ANSWER TO NOVEMBER’S
PRIZE QUESTION

A. Each line contains

two elephants facing left
and one facing right.
Each line contains two red balls
and a green ball. Each line
contains one elephant with a
missing tail. The missing image
should be of a left-facing elephant
LOST TIME with a red ball and no tail.
Pam will arrive at 1.45pm,
15 minutes ahead of time. AND THE £50 GOES TO…
Sue will be 35 minutes late. Bob Kelley, Surrey
14 Gopher Wood 15 White Light 19 Iced Tea 20 Johnson 21 Corral 22 Ophelia 25 Amos 26 Skua
Down: 1 Cerne Abbas 2 Centavo 3 Lois 5 Sun Spot 6 Bowie Knife 7 Lanolin 8 Aran 9 Kimchi
29 Spalding 30 Basalt
17 Ninth 18 Amish 20 Jack Frost 23 Searchers 24 Phil 27 Matzo 28 Spark Plug
Across: 1 Cockle 4 Isabella 10 Rendition 11 Wanda 12 Elan 13 A cappella 16 Biologist
ANSWERS

01•2018 | 139|
 FUN & GAMES

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

YOUTH IS WHEN you’re allowed to A VULTURE BOARDS a plane

stay up for New Year’s Eve.
Middle age is when you’re forced
to. AUTHOR BILL VAUGHAN
THERE WAS A STORY in the papers
recently about a family who left their
three-year-old in a corn maze
overnight by accident.
Like all parents, whenever I hear
these kinds of things it always gives
me…ideas. SEEN ONLINE
carrying two dead raccoons.
The air hostess says, “I’m sorry,
Sir, but we only allow one carrion.”
SEEN ON TWITTER
A FARMER’S YOUNG SON was really
interested in tractors so, for his third
birthday, his father took him to a
tractor show. The boy loved it so, for
his tenth birthday, his father let him
ride with him on his tractor. Again,

$118
A WHEELY HEFTY FINE

...is the amount a driver from Montreal

was charged by police after complaints over
his continual “screaming”. It soon became
clear he was actually singing along—albeit
loudly—to “Everybody Dance Now”.
Source: newser.com

140 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

he loved it. For his 17th birthday, ONE HAPPY CAMPER

the father bought his son his very
Azuki is a tiny hedgehog with a big
own tractor.
dream: to enjoy the great outdoors
The son was having a great time
(as seen at boredpanda.com).
and spent all day riding up and down
the fields, until he hit a mound and
was stuck for hours in the rain before
his dad could rescue him. After that
the son absolutely hated tractors.
A few months later, he was walking
down the street when he spotted a
house on fire and a woman
screaming, “My baby! Save my baby!”
The son ran up to the door,
breathed in and inhaled all the
smoke so the fire went out, ran up,
saved the baby and brought it back
down to its mother.
The woman thanked him over and
over again and asked how he did it.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” the son said. “I’m
an ex tractor fan.” SEEN ONLINE

I WENT TO THE ZOO last week and

saw a baguette in a cage.
The zookeeper told me it was
bread in captivity.
TRACEY DAVIDSON, Wa r w i c k s h i r e
ZOONAR GMBH/ALAM Y STOC K PH OTO

A DRUNK MAN stumbles into a bar

and announces to the room, “Happy
New Year, everybody.”
Surprised, the waiter replies,
“It’s not New Year, it’s June. You
must be drunk.”
“Oh my god,” the drunk replied.
“My wife is going to kill me. I’ve
never been so late in my life!”
SEEN ON FACEBOOK

01•2018 | 141|
LAUGH

A MAN WALKED into a bar and took
a seat. Before he could order a beer,
the bowl of peanuts in front of him
said, “Hey, you’re a handsome
fellow.” The man tried to ignore the
bowl of peanuts, and ordered his
drink. The bowl of peanuts then said,
“Ooh, great choice. You’re clearly a
smart man.”
Starting to panic, the man said to
the bartender, “Hey, what the hell?
This bowl of peanuts keeps saying
nice things to me!”
The bartender replied, “Please
don’t worry, Sir, those peanuts are
complimentary.” SEEN ONLINE
IT TOOK ME YEARS, but I’ve finally
become comfortable in my body.
Let me tell you, the weight was
worth it. SEEN ON TWITTER
BREAKING NEWS from Egypt:
they’ve found a tomb covered in nuts
and chocolate.
Experts say it was a Pharaoh Rocher.
SEEN ONLINE
“JUST POP THAT in the stationery
cupboard,” said the office manager,
handing his trainee a new roll of
bubble wrap.
It took her all morning, but
somehow she did it.
MAGGIE COBBETT, R i p o n
TWO ELEPHANTS and a snake fall
off a cliff.
Boom, boom, tiss. SEEN ONLINE
A TERMITE WALKED into a pub and
asked, “Is the bar tender here?”
SEEN ON FACEBOOK

WHY I QUIT

The people of Twitter share the strangest reason they had to leave a job:

@SoupyMcSoupFace: “My boss refused to correct my name badge, which

said ‘Brain’ instead of ‘Brian’. He said, ‘You’re Brain now, so deal with it.’ ”

@Toshoonly: “My boss made me give him piggy-back rides after we

mopped the floors every night so there would be fewer footprints.”

@Bren_Nancarrow: “I babysat this kid who kept pointing at me and saying,

‘You’re next.’ After the fourth time I gave my two weeks’ notice.”

@KSchmooze: “My old office had a phone in the toilets. My boss would call
if he thought I’d been in there too long.”

142 | 01•2018
 READER’S DIGEST

60-Second Stand-Up
We chatted to rock ‘n’ roll Canadian comic, Tom Stade

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE

OF YOUR OWN JOKES?
So I went to China. They have a Great
Wall there, or they think it’s great.
There’s a wall by my place where I can
smoke joints and the cops can’t see it
from the road. Now that’s a great wall.

WHAT’S THE BEST PART OF

YOUR CURRENT TOUR?
The audience interaction that I’ve
created. I feel like the audience has a
say in where the show goes. I’m a
good writer but I was asking myself,
Am I a real comedian? Can I make
stuff up on the spot? That was the goal
for this show, to see if I could do it. WHO INSPIRES YOUR COMEDY?
My family. On stage I’m all of my
WHAT’S YOUR MOST MEMORABLE family put into one. All they used to
HECKLE EXPERIENCE? do was laugh.
I asked a guy’s name at a show in
Aberdeen and he got so upset. He IF YOU COULD BE A FLY ON THE
said, “I’ve been coming to this show WALL, WHOSE WALL WOULD
for six years and you don’t even know YOU BE ON?
my name.” Kim Jung Un. I love a good dictator.
He got up to order a beer and from
the stage I said, “You might as well get IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY SUPER
me one too, No Name.” Everybody was POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
laughing their heads off. Probably immortality…

WHAT’S YOUR BEST ONE-LINER?

I like Jesus, but he loves me, so it’s For upcoming appearances and tour dates,
kind of awkward. visit tomstade.co.uk

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/LAUGH 01•2018 | 143|

 Beat the Cartoonist! IN THE
FEBRUARY
ISSUE

“I Remember”:
Gloria
Hunniford
Think of a witty caption for this cartoon—the The TV presenter on
three best suggestions, along with the cartoonist’s finding her calling.
original, will be posted on our website in mid-
January. If your entry gets the most votes, you’ll
win £100.
Submit to captions@readersdigest.co.uk or online
at readersdigest.co.uk/caption by January 12. We’ll
announce the winner in our March issue.
CARTOONS : P ETER A. KI NG (TOP ) / BRUC E ROBIN SON

November’s Winner
Where is
The cartoonist had all Everyone?
the RD staff laughing The universe is
this month with his vast—can we really
darkly humorous be the only ones?
caption: “I like the
way they come on
their own serving Plus
trays.” However, it • The Couples Who
didn’t impress all of Mix Love and Work
our readers, winning just 23 per cent of the votes. • Travelling Solo
Top prize went to Tim Wilbur, who won over 44 per in India
cent of readers with a similarly themed caption: • The Essential
“Mmm surf and turf, my favourite.” Well done, Health Screening
Tim—a victory well deserved!

144 | 01•2018
Rise & Recliner Chairs
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For Peace of Mind DISCOUNT VOUCHER
* Sale ends 31st January 2018

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0808 271 4557 www.GrosvenorMobility.com

 HALF PRICE SALE
*

Buy any chair, settee or bed and get any second item half price*

Oak collection
Rise in Comfort
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For improved circulation
At Oak Tree, we think everyone should be
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118/XY/21
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