Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Characterised by depression, extra but unsatisfying sleep and weight gain. With shorter daylight hours, the pineal gland makes more of the sleep/wake cycle hormone melatonin, which may have an effect on brain serotonin.

To compensate for irritability, discomfort, moodiness and depression, sufferers eat more carbohydrate to lift serotonon levels. But because as little as 1.5oz (50 grms) of carbohydrate can start the reaction that produces serotonin, eating more than that will make you fatter but no calmer. The effect is also delayed and it may be an hour before after dinner biscuits are digested and begin to soothe the mind and ease appetite.

Source not recorded, date not known

Effective Home Working and Homework

Whether you need a home office space, a hobby space or your child needs somewhere to do their homework, try to find a set space in which to work. People are creatures of habit, good and bad, and habits have strong connections to places, so try and find a special, permanent space. It does not have to be a whole room; it can be a corner in a bedroom or somewhere else in the house.

A noticeboard above the space can hold reminders of long and short term goals. Your or your child should find out how you/they spend time on different activities. Note how much homework is set and when it needs to be handed in, or when work has to be delivered. Then you/they can set up a homework/leisure home timetable. Do work/homework first, then 'reward' yourself with something you enjoy doing.

People also like rituals, including clothing for specific activities. This puts us into the right frame of mind for the activity, so have a work outfit - don't work in pyjamas. For homework this could be a favourite 'studying' t-shirt or a hat (the thinking hat) or a scarf.

Baroque music played regularly as backgound to work/homework can become a positive mental trigger - the brain recognises this as time to study. Listening to the music on headphones can also block out other noises and distractions. Turn off technological distractions (phones, etc.).

Make sure you have the right equipment - pens, pencils, paper etc - for the task in hand. Have a special notebook in which to jot down ideas. For children, get a good store of stickers; get them to be independent learners by setting their own goals and deciding when to reward themselves. Works for adults too as a visual acknowledgement of where you have got to in a task!

Technology. What children and adults hear, see and touch they remember better and for longer. if using the Internet for research, specify beforehand what you want to find out, then search out those facts. Limit your search time and keep on track.

Don't forget to get enough rest - the brain needs sleep.

Main source: Make Your Child Brilliant by Bernadette Tynon. Quadrille, 2008 (ISBN 978-184400-579-6)

Funeral Readings

It can be difficult to find suitable readings for funerals. Here are some that I have found and like.

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I and you are you: whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you you always used. Put no difference into your tone; wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without a ghost of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it was; there is absolute unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligable accident? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near just around the corner. All is well. Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) Canon of St Paul's Cathedral.

Turn Again to Life
If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others, sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep.
For my sake, turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete those dear,, unfinished tasks of mine
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.
Mary Lee Hall

For Katrina's Sun Dial
Time is too slow for those who wait
Too swift for those who fear
Too long for those who grieve
To short for those who rejoice
But for those who love, time is eternity.
Henry Van Dyke

For more ideas http://www.muchloved.com/gateway/bereavement-poems-and-funeral-readings.htm

Learning Another Language

Dreaming in Hindi: life in translation by Katherine Russell Rich
Portobello Books, 2010.     ISBN: 978 184627 261 5

L1 = First language           L2 = Second language                     L2WS = Second language writing system

The book chronicles her year of learning Hindi through total immersion study in India and some facts and theories about language learning.

There is a critical period for language acquisition which ends around puberty when brain lateralization is complete. For most right-handed people language systems end up in the left hemisphere. Some experts contend that there is a sequence of cut-off points for different aspects of language. Prosody (intonation) is thought to be the first to ‘close’. Others are phonology (sound patterns), morphology (combination of small sound splices – ‘can’ plus ‘dy’ – into words) and syntax (the ordering of words into sentences. Only one, lexicon (vocabulary) continues after maturation.

Procedural (automatic) knowledge is acquired incidentally and at a young age, e.g. tying shoelaces, walking upstairs, speaking a first language.

Declarative knowledge is what you learn later in life – maths, telephone numbers and PIN numbers, other languages – and is stored diffusely in the brain.

When using another language you use different combinations of brain circuits and draw more on context and gestures processed in the right hemisphere of the brain and less on the limbic system, which deals with emotions, at the base of the brain. For first languages, emotions help language set – e.g. a mother’s approval of infant speech.

An English child of 6 or 7, taken to live in France, will go through a silent period. They won’t use the target language initially but after several months will speak fluently. Adults and teenagers tend to feel they must talk straightaway but listening without speaking is important. In total immersion your first language seems to fall apart while you concentrate on the new language.

Studies have shown that various other skills do not help second language acquisition: poor visuo-spatial skills, a gift for music or intelligence. What does help is motivation, good phonological memory (the capacity to reproduce and retain sounds), a knowledge of other languages and a willingness to play and pretend to be someone else.

Each language is related to its own culture and will not always directly match the first language – some words will be ‘missing’ and others not directly translatable into the first language. In cultures where timekeeping is fluid, words for appointment, minutes and seconds may well be missing.

‘Transfer’ is the way a first language interferes with a second language. One theory argues that a German-English bilingual speaks a German different from a monolingual German speaker and an English different from a monolingual English speaker.

At birth our brains are already tuned to the prosody of L1 and by 6 months our ability to detect another culture’s vowels is waning, though consonants remain clear for a while longer.

There are two kinds of language learners: the ‘i-dotters’ or analyticals who want to know the reasons for each usage and the ‘globals’ who can listen and learn and are intuitive, visually oriented and approach problems spatially.

Most languages have one central vowel, which shapes the face at rest. In English this is the ‘schwa’ sound, while in French it is the ‘Uu’.

The ability to detect and predict patterns is crucial to conversation.

People are slower at reading foreign scripts not only because they are reading in a foreign language but also because of the alphabet or syllabary or ideograms used. The brain has to gauge contextual meaning, calculate the phonemes (sounds) encoded in the script and analyse the lines of print as letters and not random squiggles. Chinese ideograms fit the tonal language of Chinese (tonal variations on a single sound give a number of different meanings) better than Roman script.

Spoken language is a biological specialisation but there is no natural reading zone in the brain, so it is a challenge for brain plasticity and there is no biological cut-off point for reading – people can learn to read at any age – but this does not mean is easy when older.

Languages are not codes but maps of reality. Speakers of each language comprehend the world differently. Within a particular language you can only say things in a certain way. In Spanish you are ‘in’ the bus, while in English you are ’on’ the bus. One study investigated the effect of gender on nouns and found that Spanish speakers described a key (feminine in Spanish) using more feminine adjectives (intricate, shiny) while German speakers, for whom the word key is masculine, used terms like heavy and jagged.

END

Remove Food Odours

Some foods - raw garlic and onion, smoked salmon and other fish - will stick to your hands.

To get rid of the smell. wet your hnads with cold water and rub over your stainless steel tap for 30 seconds before washing.

Sounds daft but it works.

In Good Housekeeping, October 2015

How To Get The Best Deal

For all sorts of things it is possible to negotiate a lower price.

• Keep your maximum price secret.
• Pick a good time to negotiate. Mid-mornings are best in shops when they are quieter. November and December are good times to renew insurance policies as insurers are less busy. Deal with double glazing firms at the start of the year.
• Check what competitors are offering and don't be afraid to quote these.
• Be confident but not aggressive or angry. Keep your tone friendly and polite - a little humour and good grace go a long way.
• Never accept the first offer - this usually prompts a better offer.
• Ask to speak to a supervisor - junior sales staff don't have the authority to offer a dscount.
• If you can't get money off, you may be able to get extra accessories or extra warranty thrown in.

Feature in Good Housekeeping September 2016

Voting Patterns in UK-EU Referendum 2016

Youth Turnout
Since the vote, detailed polling by Opinium has been analysed by Professor Michael Bruton and Dr Sarah Harrison of the London School of Economics. The new study found that of those registered to vote, the turnout was: 64% (18-24); 65% (25-39); 66% (40-54); 74% (55-64); 90% (65 and over). It is thought that more than 70% of young voters chose Remain. Prof. Bruter noted that if 16- and 17-year-olds had been allowed to vote, the result would almost certainly have been closer, reducing the ability of the Leave camp to claim a clear victory. The incorrect 36% widely reported since the poll was based on data compiled at the last election, and has allowed Brexit campaigners to say young people cannot claim that they were betrayed by older pro-Brexit voters, as almost two-thirds did not bother to vote.

Source: EU Referendum: youth turnout almost twice as high as first thought. Guardian Online, 10th July 2016

How the age profile of the UK affected the voting
The population of the United Kingdom at 30 June 2015 is estimated to be 65,110,000. The older section of the population continues to grow, with over 11.6 million (17.8% of the population) aged 65 and over and 1.5 million (2.3% of the population) aged 85 and over in mid-2015. [This means that this age group, which is the most likely to vote, has a big influence on voting.]

Source: Population estimates for UK, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, mid-2015.

EU funding influence on funding
Ebbw Vale had the largest majority in Wales for Leaving, but has been in receipt of more grants from the EU than probably any other town in the UK. A conservative estimate is that the Welsh enjoy a net gain of £245m from the EU.

In Northern Ireland, the Catholic nationalist population and business and academic communities  voted overwhelmingly Remain, in support of European institutions that have helped underpin the Peace Process. Protestant unionist and loyalist communities voted Leave as a means of solidifying British sovereignty.

Influence of big funders of political parties on the vote
The campaigns for Leave and Remain both benefitted from donations from individuals. Of all money lent or donated, the Remain campaign received 46% (and 48% of the vote) and the Leave campaign received 54% (and 52% of the vote). The top donor, stockbroker Peter Hargreaves, supported Leave.

Link to 'Traditional values'
After the vote, there was speculation that class played a part: professionals living and working in big cities, especially London (who voted Remain), versus working class people in smaller towns, especially in the north of England (who voted Leave). But it seems that using a person's class status and their income to guess whether or not they voted Remain, gives around 55% accuracy, while a simple guess would give 50% accuracy". Think tank Nesta believes there were other, better predictors.

The British Election Study's internet panel survey of 2015-16 asked a sample of over 24,000 individuals about their views on [the death penalty] and whether they would vote to leave the EU. The results (restricted to White British respondents) show almost no statistically significant difference in EU vote intention between rich and poor. By contrast, the probability of voting Brexit rises from around 20% for those most opposed to the death penalty to 70% for those most in favour. Wealthy people who back capital punishment back Brexit. Poor folk who oppose the death penalty support Remain.

Ben Shimshon of Britain Thinks, a company which advises businesses and political parties on how to communicate with the public, broadly agrees. What united Leave voters in focus groups in the run-up to the referendum, he says, was support for a whole set of "traditional" values. "They tended to value things like order, stability and safety against things like openness, modernity and other social-liberal values that were more popular among Remain voters. Often it's about harking back to the past - sometimes a feeling that they don't belong to the present."

Source: Alex Burton, BBC News item, 17 July 2016.

Local voting figures shed new light on EU referendum
A more indepth analysis of voting patterns in the EU referendum confirm that education, voter age, ethnicity and areas of deprivation had an effect on voter choices. (There is a link to a spreadsheet that gives results by council wards but is not complete as some councils refused to supply the data and others simply made a total count for a county. Sadly Wiltshire is one of those, so I cannot check how Bradford-on-Avon South and Bradford-on-Avon North voted.)

Source: Martin Rosenbaum, BBC News item, 6 February 2017

Voting for next Conservative Leader / Prime Minister 
When Mr Cameron became leader in 2005, a total of 253,000 Conservative Party members were eligible to vote in the election.  Today, the entire party membership is little more then the 134,446 who voted for Mr Cameron in 2005. The decision about who leads our country  now rests with a remarkably small number of people, a fact that will only help to expose  the next prime minister to arguments that she lacks legitimacy and should engineer an early election. [In the event, Andrea Leadsom pulled out of the contest, so Theresa May became leader of the party and Prime Minister without a vote.]
Telegraph Monday 11th July 2016.

More Facts on UK and EU

UK economy
The claims on both sides are simply that. We will have to wait and see what happens when the terms of the exit deal are known. Until then nothing is certain. Some of the early fall in shares was due to speculative trading and the stock market is likely to go up and down over the period the exit deal is being put together. There are concerns from the health research sector, education and the business sector about the potential lack of future European funding once we are outside the EU. The claims that business can be reborn are just claims: we will still be subject to the unpredictable effects of globalisation, and people will have to realise that getting the cheapest product has knock on consequences. Bringing back manufacturing to industrial areas won't happen simply because we leave the EU. We do need to change minds on what constitutes a 'real' job and encourage people to follow the example of migrants who are willing to take on the lower paid/lower status jobs that many now see as 'beneath us' or not a 'proper job (for a man)'. An example is the health care sector which has to supprt an ageing population (who predominantly voted Leave) increasingly in need of nursing and home support care.

Various sources

Europe
Other countries have pressure groups demanding a referendum.

• In France, some 60% of the voting population are said to be in favour of leaving.
• In Germany and Italy there is also talk of a referendum.

It was the UK that pressured the EU (opposed by other EU countries) into adopting the complex and expensive Solvency II regimes for regulating insurance companies.

The English language is an important factor in migrants wanting to come to the UK. English is the default language for international communication in most parts of Europe. 'In official meetings in Brussels and Strasbourg, simultaneous translation is used. But when an Estonian MEP has a quiet chat with one of their Slovenian counterparts, or a Latvian official wants to buttonhole an Italian, it's almost certain they will speak English to each other. Even in official documents, English is dominant.'

Source: Peter Trudgill in pop-up newspaper The New European, Issue 15-21 July, 2016.

Theresa May's European Mission Impossible: Toby Helm outlines the current attitudes of Germany, Spain, Poland, The Netherlands, France and Italy. The Guardian/Observer online, 24 July 2016

The UK Tech sector
A survey of 1,205 people in the sector (60% of whom were CEOs or company founders) found 85% want to see the UK remaining part of the European single market. Half say the biggest issue is hiring and retaining non-UK staff, and think it will be more difficult to attract and retain the best talent. Half also say they plan to raise capital outside the UK in the next year.

Global issues
Commonwealth countries have relied on the UK as a voice of support for their interests.

US exports to the UK amount to $56bn (£42m); just over 0.3% of the US GDP.

Various sources

Superfreakonomics

Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Superfreakonomics. Allen Lane, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-713-99990-7

A fascinating read that challenges the way we think.

Indian culture has a strong son preference. # There are roughly 3.5 million fewer females than males in the population, but women earn less, receive worse education and health care. # Levels of domestic violence are high. ## The spread of cable TV to Indian villages has been staggered; measuring changes social attitudes in villages after TV becomes available is showing changes in all these factors when direct government campaigns have failed.

Shark attacks between 1995 and 2005 were on average 60.3 world-wide. The worst year had 79 attacks and the lowest recorded 46 attacks. There were an average of 5.9 fatalities per year, with a high of 11 and a low of 3. Newspaper coverage distorts our view of the situation.

Areas with a substantial Muslim population will have one month in which the percentage of babies born who will have visual, hearing or learning disabilities as an adult, will be roughly 20% more. The Muslim feast of Ramadan prescribes abstinence from food and drink in the daylight hours. Although they do not have to, most Muslim women participate even when pregnant since they can eat at nightfall. However, this variation in nutrition ‘in utero’ can have significant developmental effects. The effects are strongest when fasting occurs in the first month of pregnancy but can also occur at any time up to the eight month. The risk is magnified when Ramadan falls in the summer months because the hours of daylight are longer.

A similar effect was seen following the ‘Spanish flu’ epidemic of 1918 in the USA. In addition to the death toll, 25 million Americans caught flu and survived. This included one in three women of child-bearing age. Infected women who were pregnant had babies who were more likely to have significant ill-health over their whole lives.

Practice does make perfect. Exceptionally talented people typically put in [around 10,000 hours] of practice. However, this deliberate practice has 3 key components: (a) setting specific goals, (b) obtaining immediate feedback and (c) concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

The bulk of US cancer therapy spending goes on chemotherapy. This is effective in some cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and testicular cancer, especially when these cancers are detected early. However, in most other cases, chemotherapy is remarkably ineffective and there is a long list of cancers for which chemotherapy has zero discernable effect, such as multiple myeloma, soft-tissue sarcoma, melanoma of the skin and cancers of the pancreas, uterus, prostate, bladder and kidney. In the US a typical lung cancer regime costs more than $40,000 but extends life by an average of just two months.

The age-adjusted US mortality rate for cancer is essentially unchanged over the past half-century at around 200 deaths per 100,000 people. But this flat mortality rate hides some good news as over the same period the age-adjusted mortality rate for cardiovascular disease has plummeted from nearly 600 people per 100,000 to well below 300. Many people, who in previous generations would have died from heart disease, now live long enough to die from cancer instead. Further analysis shows that for people aged 20 or younger, mortality fell by more than 50% while for people aged 20 to 40 the mortality fall was 20%.

Apathy. A much reported murder in March 1964 apparently showed that 38 people ignored the incident. A woman was stabbed in the back, her attacker fled the scene when she screamed; the victim staggered to the rear of her apartment block but the attacker returned, sexually assaulted her and stabbed her again, leaving her to die. Much was made of the non-intervention of neighbours but (a) the first attack happened at 3:20am when most people were asleep, (b) the woman’s screams awoke some people but the pavement was so poorly lit that little could be seen and (c) at least one man shouted ‘leave her alone’ at which the attacker left. When the attacker returned, the victim was in the hall of a building so out of sight of anyone. This was a case of poor journalism; the above points were ignored and the figure of 38 people was the number of people living in the block in which she died.

There is a correlation between US crime rates and exposure to TV. For every extra year a young person was exposed to TV in their first 15 years, there was a 4% increase in the number of property crime arrests in later life and a 2% increase in violent crime arrests. The effect is largest for children who had extra TV exposure from birth to 4 years. The reason for the correlation is not clear. The analysis was possible as (c.f. India and cable TV in villages) TV reception was rolled out in a staggered fashion.

Altruism – experiments seem to show that altruism is innate in humans. However, this does not hold up in real-life situations for the following reasons. (1) People who participate in psychology experiments tend to be students who are very co-operative. (2) The fact that people knew they are being observed probably influenced their behaviour.

Unintended consequences often arise from specific decisions. (1) Volume charging for rubbish collections was intended to encourage people to produce less rubbish and/or recycle. The actual effect was to increase fly-tipping and rubbish burning (also increasing burns accidents). (2) A Jewish statute recorded in the Bible required creditors to forgive all debts every seventh year. The actual effect was for creditors to make loans in year 1 and demand repayment in years 5 and 6.

Anti-theft devices for cars. Those that are visible (e.g. steering wheel locks) lessen the risk of your car being stolen but raise the risk that your neighbour’s car will be instead. An alternative device is a small radio transmitter hidden somewhere in or beneath the car where it cannot be seen. If the car is stolen, police can remotely activate the transmitter and follow the signal. The effect is that for every additional percentage point of cars fitted with this device, overall car thefts fall by as much as 20%, since the thief cannot predict which cars have the device. At present the device is relatively expensive.

Hand hygiene in hospitals is a critical factor in preventing the spread of infections. Compliance by staff at a US hospital was nearly 100% after photographs of hand prints showing bacteria were used as screen savers on staff computer screens.

Honesty box money (e.g. for coffee) left went up to nearly three times as much when a photo of a pair of human eyes was added to the price list. On alternate weeks, photos of flowers on an allotment were used instead, showing no honesty effect.

END

Cure Me With Quietness

Cure me with quietness,

Bless me with peace;

Comfort my heaviness,

Stay me with ease.

Stillness in solitude

Send down like dew;

Mine armour of fortitude

Piece and make new:

That when I rise again 

I may shine bright

As the sky after rain,

Day after night.

Ruth Pitter

Immune System and Athletes

Top athletes undergoing intensive training have depressed immune systems and are more liable to infection. After competition, triathletes immune system is 70% down. Training and competing produces higher levels of adrenaline and cortisone which depress the immune system.

Cyclist Chris Boardman used to train for 3 hours a day, then changed to a specific goal oriented 45 minute session per day instead. Doing this he had no infections, and beat the record for distance cycled within a certain time.

Important not to train through infections as this leads to more problems, especially if infection affects heart and can have fatal consequences or lead to permanent ill-health or disability.

Source not recorded, date not known

Egg Tips

To test an egg for freshness, gently immerse it in a bowl of water.

• Fresh eggs will sink and lie horizontally on the bottom.
• Slightly older eggs (great for meringues and hard boiling) tip upwards on end.
• Eggs that float are off and should be binned.

Poaching eggs?

• Use fresh eggs as their whites cling more tightly to the yolk and have more substance.
• Chill eggs before poaching and add 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar to the simmering water to help coagulate the whites.

In Good Housekeeping, October 2015

Rechargeable Batteries

Want to use rechargeable batteries to be more environmentally friendly and save money? Here are the 'do's' and 'don'ts'.

You can use rechargeable batteries instead of cylindrical alkaline batteries (such as AA or C) in most gadgets.

If in doubt, check the instruction manual or contact the manufacturer.

Never use them in smoke alarms or detectors, as when rechargeables are not in use (or just a small amount of power is being used) they discharge stored power.

For the same reason, it is better to use alkaline batteries in devices that are not very power-hungry, such as remote controls.

Alternatively you can buy low-discharge rechargeable batteries which hold their charge for longer.

Unknown source

EU Myths

Over the years, opponents of UK membership of the EU and right-wing newspapers have come up with a variety of scare stories which were untrue. Here are the true facts.

• A ban on bendy bananas has never existed. [A 1993 EU regulation did categorise excessively bendy bananas as 'sub-standard' but this did not prevent their sale.]
• Britain will still be in the Eurovision Song Contest; it is not dependent on being a member of the EU.
• The EU did not try to make Kent a part of France. [It did once put it into a zone with France when examining environmental changes.]
• You still won't be able to smoke in the pub. [This is a UK law, and nothing to do with the EU; several EU countries do not have smoking bans.]
• Brussels is not banning English from its debates. [EU members Ireland and Malta have English as their official language.]
• The original EU was not solely a free trade zone. [We were already in EFTA, a free trade zone, before joining the EU.]
• The EU did not try to ban barmaids from wearing low-cut tops. [It did pass a rule requiring bosses of employees who work in the sun all day to assess their risk of skin cancer.]
• Bombay Mix has never been under threat. [A 2006 story that the EU wanted to rename the snack to rid it of colonial undertones was a hoax.]
• The EU did not try to rename Waterloo Station or Trafalgar Square. [The suggestion came from a British official at the European Monetary Fund.]
• The EU parliament is not full of people who have not had a 'proper job'. [Of the 13 people who spoke in Brussels on the day Nigel Farage came to gloat, 12 had held jobs outside the EU.]
• Hull will still be 2017 European City of Culture. [We won't have officially left the EU by then.]
• There never was a ban on under-eights blowing up balloons. [This myth stems from the EU insisting that packaging warn that under-eights 'can choke or suffocate on underinflated or broken balloons' - which is actually sensible.]
• Mobile phone roaming charges abroad won't rise again. [These will disappear next June (2017) and it would be commercial suicide for phone companies to bring them back.]
• You won't need new car number plates. [While the EU flag appears on new number plates it is not compulsary and removing it won't be compulsary either.]
• Pounds and ounces won't be coming back. [Britain decided to go metric in 1965, eight years before joining the EEC. Of our major trade partners, only the US still shuns metrication.]
• Health tourism does not bleed us dry. [Treating Brits abroad costs other EU countries five times as much as the cost to the NHS of treating people from the EU.]
• The EU did not call for lifeguards at deep paddling pools. [It does not have the jurisdiction to do so.]
• The Queen's view on Brexit is not known. [The Sun's headline was based on a 2011 story.]
• Educating migrant children does not cost us £3.2 billion a year. [That Daily Express figure refers to schooling 700,000 children with at least one parent who is a European national. Under this definition, Nigel and Kirsten Farage's children Victoria and Isabelle would be 'migrant children'.]
• We won't automatically be outside the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. [It is not an EU body, but was set up by the Council of Europe, whose members include Russia.]
• You won't need a new driving licence. [While your current one probably has the EU flag on it, the DVLA will just let licences expire rather than issuing a new one.]
• There is no EU Army. [What the Times descibed as an 'army to protect EU borders' was actually about a coastguard for the Schengen area, which the UK is not in.]
• The European flag won't have one less star. [It has 12 stars (not 28) to symbolise the peoples of Europe, not specific countries.]
• You won't need a visa to enter an EU country. 
• There does not have to be an automatic second referendum. [The 'referendum lock' in the European Union Act 2011, was intended to prevent British powers going to Europe without a vote and is unlikely to be upheld to stop the opposite.] 
• Football. We will still play in the Euro competitions, if we qualify. Our clubs will still be in the Champions League.
• Golf. Our golfers will still play in the Ryder Cup. [The criteria for being European is geographical, not political or economic.]
• The Eu did not subsidise bull-fighting. [It did subsidise Spanish farmers - some of whom may have bred fighting bulls.]
• Duty-free won't make drink and cigarettes much cheaper. We will probably regain the allowance of 200 cigarettes, 16 litres of beer and 4 litres of wine, but lose the right to go booze cruising to France (800 cigarettes, 110 litres of beer and 90 litres of wine.
• The EU did not make tightrope walkers wear hard hats. [It has laws to protect people working a heights, but there is no mention of circuses or helmets.]
• The EU has never asked for 'High Up' signs on mountain tops. [This was a deliberate mis-reading of laws to protect people working at heights.]
• The EU did not force farmers to buy toys for their pigs. [It did stipulate that they should have straw, hay and compost.]
• The EU's accounts have been signed off. For eight years in a row.
• The EU did not try to ban brandy butter or call it brandy spreadable fat. [It was specifically excluded from restrictions on things that were not butter calling themselves butter.]
• You won't have to get a new passport. Look carefully at yours - it is a British document. [There is no such thing as an EU passport.]
• Brexit will not expire if it is not agreed within 2 years of Article 20 being invoked. That is just a deadline which can be extended.
• The EU did not impose smaller condom sizes on British men. [The independent European Standardisation Committee (not the EU) made that rule.]
• The Eurostar will keep running. [The Channel tunnel and its trains have nothing to do with the EU.]
• The EU never wanted to stop light ale being called 'light'. [It was keen to stop unhealthy food and drink being branded 'light' or 'lite' but light ale was not one of them.]
• Yoghurt was never going to be rebranded as 'fermented milk pudding'. [This myth stemmed from a 2003 technical description of yoghurt by the EU.]
• Snickers won't be called Marathon again. [The name change had nothing to do with EU conformity.]

Source: The New European (a pop-up publication by Archant Community Media). Issue July 15-21, 2016

Cutting Soft Cheeses and Sponge Cakes

Dental floss has its uses in the kitchen.

• Held taut, a length of unscented dental floss will cut through soft cheeses.
• Wrap a length of floss around a sponge cake, and then pull to cut the cake into neat layers.

In Good Housekeeping, October 2015

We Are All Individuals

Everyone has their own individual gifts which need to be identified, supported and mentored by family, teachers and others. Other strengths can support a gift (e.g. a good footballer and game analyst will understand team mate's strengths, etc.). Someone may have gifts in different areas (e.g. maths & art (the best computer games designers are good at this combination) or science & sport (e.g physiotherapists).

National tests focus on core subjects and not all gifts are measurable by pen & paper tests. Ask child to score themselves out of 10 for each subject, and explore which subjects they would like to do better at, and which they enjoy and why. When all is going well, feedback from child and school is similar. Quick thinking children can have low boredom thresholds and need extra challenges, and may prefer conversations with adults rather than peers. Equally they may be model students but underperform in tests or be the class clown.

Frustration with a topic or subject - gentle conversation to find out why. Good spelling is useful but is not interdependent on intellect. Always celebrate positives.

• Bossy boots are good at leading and facilitating and see problems from different angles.
• Code crackers love riddles, crosswords, jigsaws, maths and science problems.
• Enquirers are natural magpies of objects and subject information.
• Visionaries are highly imaginative and creative and may work obsessively on an idea.
• Constructors love building and creating, have good spatial ability and may take things to pieces to see how they work.
• Fairy tale tellers have wild imagination and creative thinking, can be either loud and chatty or quiet, use any or all mediums and may appear dreamy.
• Abstract thinkers can be good at non-verbal puzzles or tests that do not rely on numbers or letters, enjoy open-ended questions where they can research interesting facts.
• Great entertainers have skills in writing songs, acting, singing and dancing; as well as working in film and music industries, they may also be very good scientists who are also good teachers.
• Turbo-chatterboxes never stop talking and are naturally gifted communicators.
• Little old men/women seem to have innate wisdom and strong commonsense, and are good in management and counselling roles.
• Young tycoons are natural entrepreneurs who hold garage sales and money making projects.

But beware - labelling a person as one thing may mask other gifts.

People on the autistic spectrum have the same range of intellectual abilities as other people. # Those with Aspergers (the higher functioning aspect of the autistic spectrum) often have high abilities in specific areas. # Dyslexia can take many forms, but more likely to be visual thinkers and can make good artists and architects. 

Main source: Make Your Child Brilliant by Bernadette Tynon. Quadrille, 2008 (ISBN 978-184400-579-6)

Violence Against Women

Feminism has been defined by Andrea Dworkin as 'the political practice of fighting male supremacy on behalf of women as a class'. The problem is male supremacy and the solution is political action. Lierre Keith notes 'We need feminism because, without it, the realities of women's lives are unspeakable.'

Women are objectified - but being an object is the opposite of being human. When harm is both vicious and everyday, life becomes grim. Noticing the harm that is being done - insisting that it is harm - is the first step towards change.

There are some horrifying numbers of incidents of violence towards women. Globally one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime, and half of all sexual assaults are committed on girls under 16. In the UK a man rapes a woman every nine minutes. [2013 figures]

But numbers do not speak - they need human voices. The crimes that men commit against women are done because women are regarded as a subordinate class and to keep them in that subordinate class. Where women are subservient, there is silence. Sexual violence against children can take a lifetime to unwind, if ever.

Rape is the most traumatic form of torture. Women who have survived prostitution have higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder than soldiers who have survived combat.

The anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday studied 95 societies  and found that almost half were rape-free, and identifying the common factors.

Rape-free societies are:

• cultures that value cooperation
• political and economic power are shared by the sexes
• the sacred has both female and male aspects
• anyone can assume positions of ceremonial importance

 Rape-prone societies are:

• cultures that reward competition
• women are dispossessed
• God is only ever male
• men exclude women from roles of spiritual intercession

We have a choice as individuals, women and men, and as a society. Right now [2013] society is choosing to make cruelty and sadism normal. We have to choose.

Article Should this cruelty be normal? by Lierre Keith in the Church Times, 28 June 2013
Lierre Keith is the author of six books and a founding member of Stop Porn Culture.

Body Clocks and Health

Biorhythms (body clocks) affect our health.

Circadian (24 hour) biorhythms:

• Blood pressure can rise and fall 20% in 24 hours; lowest first thing in the morning and rises during the day.
• White cell count may rise and fall 50% in 24 hours.
• Pulse rate speeds up in the day and slows at night, by around 10 beats per minute. (The normal resting adult heart beat rate ranges from 60–100 bpm; during sleep a rate of 40-50 bpm is common.)

Circaseptan (about 7 day) rhythms:

• Fluctuations in some body chemicals, blood pressure and heartbeat, acid content of blood, oral temperature, calcium in urine, number of red blood cells, levels of hormone cortisol.
• With kidney transplants, the peaks of rejection are: major peak 7 days after operation; when serum is given to suppress rejection, the peaks are at 7, 14 21 and 28 days, with 28 days the highest risk.
• Response to malaria infection and certain bacteria have 7 day rhythms.
• Pneumonia crisis (before penicillin was available) was usually on the 7th or 9th day.

Timing medication and surgery for best effect:

• Cancer cells have lost their biological clock, so can be hit at any time. 
• Cancer drugs have to minimise harming normal cells, so killing tumour cells should coincide with low point of healthy cell synthesis cycle.
• Anti-cancer drug adriamycin gives fewer side effects when given at 6am as it does in the evening.
• Anti-cancer drug cisplatin should be given late afternoon when potassium secretion is at its highest to avoid toxic effects on the kidneys.
• When sick cells do have rhythms, they are often desynchronised from healthy cells.
• Asthma attacks: the most sensitive time is when lung tubes are at their narrowest in natural rhythms (i.e. just before waking up). Tubes are at their widest at 4pm to 6pm.
• At present medication timing is usually by hospital clock and averages; perhaps in future this may be tailored to the individual's body clock, with the marker rhythm varying with the disease.
• Studies show breast cancer operations give signficantly better results if carried out in the 13 to 28 day part of the menstural cycle.

Shift work

• Heart disease, heart attacks and stomach ulcers are all 2 to 3 times as common in long-term shift workers.
• Conditions such as diabetes are more difficult to control.
• Some shift rotations are worse than others; e.g. 12 hour shifts and highly variable shift patterns.
• There is no perfect shift pattern; larks and owls have different requirements.
• When day and night shifts are permanent, staff turnover drops and accident levels fall.
• Implications for childcare facilities for shift workers.
• Junior doctors in hospitals can be on duty for 36 hours (48 at weekends). [1994]
• Modern treatment means earlier treatment in emergency and accident units, and less opportunity for rest periods when on call.
• One hospital is trying 24 hours on, 24 hours off for both consultants and junior doctors in E&A unit. [1994. Conclusions? Not traced any report on effectiveness.]
• The most extreme shift patterns are in aviation; e.g. 12 day transatlantic schedule. Sleeping in the cockpit not allowed in USA but UK and European regulations allow planned naps. NASA experimented with 40 min rest period in rotation for aircrew and found crew were more alert and less prone to 'microsleeps'.

Jeremy Campbell: Winston Churchill's Afternoon Nap.
BBC2 TV Horizon programme Against the clock, broadcast 2 April 1994

Brown Rice

Brown rice is better for you than white and tastes great.

Get around the longer cooking time by soaking it in cold water overnight. This shortens the cooking time by at least 15 minutes.

In Good Housekeeping, October 2015

Languages

The Proto-Indo-European language was followed by the Indo-European language, which later split into a number of languages.

Family tree of languages by Minna Sundberg
Family tree of languages by Dan Short
Family tree of languages on Wikipedia.

Language is related to culture and genetics, and genetic groupings correspond to linguistic families. The Basque langauge (Euskara) is known as an orphan language as it fits neither French or Spanish, is a very old language, has had very little change and the population is also genetically distinct.

The stable elements in any language are (1) first and second person pronouns, (2) parts of the body such as arms, legs, fingers, blood, bones, milk, etc. and (3) nouns such as house, earth and water.

A study by Brent Berlin & Paul Kay in the 1960s collected data from speakers of twenty different languages for a number of different language families. They identified eleven basic colour categories: white, black, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and grey. They also found that, in languages with fewer than the eleven categories, the colours included followed a specific evolutionary pattern.

• All languages contain terms for black and white.
• If a language has three terms, it has a term for red.
• If a language has four terms, it has a term for either yellow or green (but not both).
• If a language has five terms, it has a term for both yellow and green.
• If a language has six terms, it has a term for blue.
• If a language has seven terms, it has a term for brown.
• If a language has eight or more terms, it has terms for purple, pink, orange and/or grey.

In each of the languages studied, the term for each colour corresponded to roughly the same shade in the Munsell colour system.

Languages change by (1) sound changes such as d to t and q to k, (2) vowel changes and (3) cultural changes (e.g. upwardly mobile people). There can be loss of sounds at the beginning, middle or end of a word, an additional sound, one sound becoming two or two becoming one, sounds reversed in order or a sound disappears from a language. There can be grammatical changes, semantic changes and the addition of new words and the loss of old ones. Words change meaning by extension (widening), narrowing, shift (of applications), figurative use, amelioration (losing original sense of disapproval) and perjoration (develops sense of disapproval)

Each language has a usual word order of Subjects, Objects and Verbs within sentences, for example:

• SVO - English, French, Hausa, Vietnamese (75% of languages)
• SOV - Japanese, Amharic, Tibetan, Korean
• VSO - Welsh, Tongan, Sqamash (10% to 15% of languages)
• VOS - Malagasy, Tzotzil, Houailou
• OVS - Just few, mainly Carib languages of the Amazon basin
• OSV - possibly Jamamadi, Apurina

In English the most usual word order is SVO but other word orders are possible (e.g. in poetry or for emphasis). Latin has free order but SOV is a common pattern. German prefers SVO in main clauses and SOV in subordinate clauses. OSV was used in the Star Wars films to indicate a natural language pattern for the alien Yoda (Sick I've become. When nine hundred years you reach, look as good you will not.).

Both men and women use head nods and 'mhm' noises when another person is speaking but there seems to be a gender difference. A woman uses it to indicate she is listening and encouraging the speaker to continue, but a man interprets this to mean she is agreeing with everything he is saying. By contrast when a man does it, he is signalling that he does not necessarily agree, whereas a woman interprets it to mean he is not always listening.

The history of the English language is complex.

• Celtic plus Anglii plus Saxon = Old English (a)
• Old English (a) plus Greek plus Latin = Old English (b)
• Old English (b) plus Norse = Old English (c)
• Old English (c) plus Norman French = Middle English
• Middle English plus Renaissance, Exploration and Colonialisation = Modern English

There is a lack of a sex-neutral third person pronoun in English (especially after indefinite pronouns such as 'anyone'). Various proposals to introduce a such a pronoun (tey, ne, hesh, na, per) have been unsuccessful. This has lead to the use of 'he/she', 'him/her' and 'his'hers' as well as the plural form 'theirs'. The use of 'man' to include all people now sounds exclusive to males, whereas it was once used humans of both genders, with 'wifman' for females and 'wermen' (hence the term 'werewolf') for males.

There is a relationship between the length of a word and its frequency of use; this even occurs to some extent in languages such as German which have marked polysyllabic vocabulary. In English the majority of commonly used words are monosyllables. This may account for the tendency to abbreviate words when their frequency of use increases (e.g. mic for microphone, kids for children, phone for telephone, bus for omnibus).

Sources
The story of English by R. McCrum, W. Cran and R. MacNeil
Cambridge encyclopaedia of language by D. Crystal
BBC TV programme in 1991
Berlin & Kay study of colour names in language Wikipedia article

Reading Skills

'Only 100 words' needed to read

Research (2005) in primary classrooms by Jonathan Solity and Janet Vousden of the University of Warwick suggests reading schemes might not be necessary and that England's strategy for teaching children to read could be overloading them with superfluous words. The strategy recommends teaching them to recognise 150 words initially but an ongoing study says 100 words will do to read most written English, including books intended for adults. Far fewer phonic skills than in the official strategy were needed to understand various letter combinations.

Minimal returns

A range of books including adult fiction and non-fiction, and two popular reading schemes were analysed. By learning 100 key words, children found they could understand books designed for both youngsters and adults. Being able to recognise the extra 50 most-used words meant children gained an understanding of only about 2% more of the texts.

The Early Reading Research project reduced the incidence of children having problems with reading from about 20-25% to less than 2%. It involved both phonics - the sound of letters and letter combinations, and "sight vocabulary" - recognising whole words from the letters in them.

Sounds

Written English appears to have lots of irregular words but when analysed a significant proportion is highly regular and can be taught through a very small number of skills.

There are about 44 phonemes - sounds. But these are represented by a rather larger number of letter groupings. For example, an "ee" sound might be "ee" or "ea" or "ie".

The national literacy strategy requireds 108 of these, while the maximum possible number of associations between sounds and the written representations of them had been calculated at 461. The Warwick approach meant children had to learn only 61, enabling them to read around 70% of all the phonically regular words in adult literature.

The core 100 words accounted for 53% of all the words in a database of 850,000 words analysed in the adult texts. And just 16 words accounted for a quarter of all the words. Teaching more confuses young children.

Self-correction

For example, the letter combination "dge", as in "fridge", cropped up only 11 times in the 850,000 words. The letters "ie" (which occurred 267 times in the 850,000 words) could represent no fewer than nine different sounds, so a child was left working out which was correct through trial and error.

A key feature of the Warwick scheme is "phonic self-correcting". For example, if a child is taught that the letters "ea" have an "ee" sound, they will initially trip over the sentence "I went to the shop to buy a loaf of bread" - pronouncing it "breed". But they know that doesn't make sense, so quickly correct it.

The findings were important also for adults who struggle to read - not least because they were put off by using children's reading schemes. Tutors can now say "show us what you want to read and we'll give you the skills you need".

The 16 most frequently occurring words:

a, and, he, I, in, is, it, my, of, that, the, then, to, was, went, with

The 100 high frequency words:

a, about, after, all, am, an, and, are, as, at, away, back, be, because, big, but, by, call, came, can, come, could, did, do, down, for, from, get, go, got, had, has, have, he, her, here, him, his, I, in, into, is, it, last, like, little, live, look made, make, me, my, new, next, not, now, of, off, old, on, once, one, other, our, out, over, put, saw, said, see, she, so, some, take, that, the, their, them, then, there, they, this, three, time, to, today, too, two,  up, us, very, was, we, were, went, what, when, will, with, you.

Source: BBC News web site: 9 December 2005