DEAR READERS: Wish you a Prosperous and Exciting New Year

GOD BLESS ALL.

Fashion designer Stella McCartney has been named the Person of the Year by animal-rights campaigners.

Stella McCartney Is PETA's Person Of The Year
Fashion designer Stella McCartney has been named the Person of the Year by animal-rights campaigners.

The daughter of Beatles legend Paul was honoured by members of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for her fur-free and leather-free collections.

PETA's U.S. Senior Vice President, Dan Mathews, says, "Stella McCartney proves you can have a look that kills without killing."

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)


Stella McCartney Was Unaware Of Father's Fame
Paul McCartney tried to keep his international fame from his daughter Stella - but the clever youngster figured out his identity on her own. The fashion designer - who is the daughter of the ex-Beatle and his late wife Linda - was kept unaware of her father's career for years, but the star, now 36, eventually managed to solve the secret of his worldwide celebrity.

He says, "There was this one moment where the children were riding their little ponies in Scotland, and Stella said to me, 'Dad, you're Paul McCartney, aren't you?' and I said, 'Yes, darling, but I'm Daddy really.'"

About Stella McCartney
Stella Nina McCartney (born 13 September 1971) is an English fashion designer. She is the daughter of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and his first wife, rock photographer and animal rights activist Linda McCartney.

Early life
Stella McCartney was born in London, the second child of former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney. She is named after her maternal great-grandmothers: both of Linda McCartney's grandmothers were named Stella. As a young girl, McCartney travelled the globe with her parents and their pop group Wings, along with her siblings: older half-sister Heather (who was legally adopted by Paul McCartney), older sister Mary, and younger brother James. According to her father, the name of Wings was inspired by Stella's difficult birth. As his daughter was being born by emergency caesarean section, Paul sat outside the operating room and prayed that she be born "on the wings of an angel."[1] Wings toured from shortly after her birth in 1971 until 1980.

Despite their fame, the McCartneys wanted their children to lead as normal a life as possible so Stella and her siblings attended the local state school in East Sussex. McCartney has said that while attending state school, she was a victim of bullying.[2]


Career

Beginning
Stella McCartney became interested designing clothes at age 12, when she made her first jacket. Three years later, she interned for Christian Lacroix, working on his first fashion design collection, honing her skills on Savile Row for a number of years.

She studied fashion design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in the early 1990s. Her graduation collection in 1995 was modelled by friends and supermodels Naomi Campbell, Yasmin Le Bon and Kate Moss – for free – at the graduation runway show. The collection was shown to a song penned by her famous father, called "Stella May Day."[3] The show made front-page news, and the entire collection was sold to Tokio, a London boutique. The designs were licensed to Browns, Joseph, Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.

In 1998 she designed her sister Mary's wedding dress for her wedding to television producer Alistair Donald.

As a strict vegetarian, McCartney does not use fur or leather in her designs and supports PETA. [4] Some of McCartney's designs have text that elaborates on her "no animal" policy; for example, one of her jackets for Adidas says, "suitable for sporty vegetarians" on the sleeve. Her father is also known for supporting PETA by protesting against designers who use animal fur, and those who wear it.

The Game of Life

What is the Game of Life?
The Game of Life (or simply Life) is not a game in the conventional sense. There are no players, and no winning or losing. Once the "pieces" are placed in the starting position, the rules determine everything that happens later. Nevertheless, Life is full of surprises! In most cases, it is impossible to look at a starting position (or pattern) and see what will happen in the future. The only way to find out is to follow the rules of the game.

Rules of the Game of Life
Life is played on a grid of square cells--like a chess board but extending infinitely in every direction. A cell can be live or dead. A live cell is shown by putting a marker on its square. A dead cell is shown by leaving the square empty. Each cell in the grid has a neighborhood consisting of the eight cells in every direction including diagonals.

To apply one step of the rules, we count the number of live neighbors for each cell. What happens next depends on this number.

A dead cell with exactly three live neighbors becomes a live cell (birth).

A live cell with two or three live neighbors stays alive (survival).

In all other cases, a cell dies or remains dead (overcrowding or loneliness).

Note: The number of live neighbors is always based on the cells before the rule was applied. In other words, we must first find all of the cells that change before changing any of them. Sounds like a job for a computer!

Background
Life was invented by the mathematician John Conway in 1970. He choose the rules carefully after trying many other possibilities, some of which caused the cells to die too fast and others which caused too many cells to be born. Life balances these tendencies, making it hard to tell whether a pattern will die out completely, form a stable population, or grow forever.

Life is just one example of a cellular automaton, which is any system in which rules are applied to cells and their neighbors in a regular grid.

There has been much recent interest in cellular automata, a field of mathematical research. Life is one of the simplest cellular automata to have been studied, but many others have been invented, often to simulate systems in the real world.

In addition to the original rules, Life can be played on other kinds of grids with more complex patterns. There are rules for playing on hexagons arranged in a honeycomb pattern, and games where cells can have more than two states (imagine live cells with different colors).

Life is probably the most often programmed computer game in existence. There are many different variations and information on the web. (See the Paul Callahan's home page for more information.)

Why is Life So Interesting?
Life is one of the simplest examples of what is sometimes called "emergent complexity" or "self-organizing systems." This subject area has captured the attention of scientists and mathematicians in diverse fields. It is the study of how elaborate patterns and behaviors can emerge from very simple rules. It helps us understand, for example, how the petals on a rose or the stripes on a zebra can arise from a tissue of living cells growing together. It can even help us understand the diversity of life that has evolved on earth.

How Complex Can Life Get?
A computer can be built inside the Life "universe". Space does not permit a detailed description, but you can find much more information in some of the references given at the bottom. Briefly, streams of gliders and spaceships can be used to send information just as electrical signals are used to send information in a physical computer. These streams of gliders can react in a way to perform all of the logical functions on which a modern computer is based. It would be very impractical to build a computer this way, but given a large enough Life pattern and enough time, we could run any program that runs on a computer. Several interesting special-purpose computers have been constructed as Life, including one that outputs the prime numbers.
A universal constructor can even be built. This is a pattern that can take a blueprint for some other Life pattern (or its own) and build that pattern. No one has built this yet, since it would be very large, but it has been shown to be possible. This means that Life patterns could exist that reproduce themselves. They could even modify their blueprints just as living things combine and mutate their genes. Who can say what would develop in a large enough universe of reproducing Life patterns?

What is Life Good For?
Studying the patterns of Life can result in discoveries in other areas of math and science.

The behavior of cells or animals can be better understood using simple rules. Behavior that seems intelligent, such as we see in ant colonies might just be simple rules that we don't understand yet. Take a look at this simulation of termites piling up woodchips. (click here) There are only 2 rules in this system, and yet, a seemingly "intelligent" pattern emerges. What does this say about the nature of intelligence?

Traffic problems might be solved by analyzing them with the mathematical tools learned from these types of simulations. (Unjamming Traffic with Computers)

Computer viruses are also examples of cellular automata. Finding the cure for computer viruses could be hidden in the patterns of this simple game.

Human diseases might be cured if we could better understand why cells live and die.

Exploring the galaxies would be easier if machines could be invented that could build themselves. Imagine sending a probe to Mars that could build a copy of itself. Although this is theoretically possible, it hasn't been invented yet!

Is Life Alive?
Would living creatures evolve in a sufficiently large Life universe if we waited long enough? We can see that Life, simple as it is to describe, exhibits much of the complexity of our own universe. It is intriguing to ask what would happen in an infinitely large Life space seeded with random patterns. It seems that likely that complexity would emerge beyond what we can see when we watch Life on a computer. Even in our own universe, there is a huge difference between what we know about natural history and what we can observe on a human time frame.

On the other hand, Life has only two dimensions, unlike our own universe, and that is a severe limitation. There are other properties of Life -- the tendency to stabilize locally into oscillators -- that may make it an unlikely place for living things to develop. The answer to this question remains unknown, but Life illustrates at a simplified level the kinds of evolutionary forces that we witness in our own universe.

David Beckham: I've always been a fashion fan

David Beckham has revealed wife Victoria Beckham makes most of his fashion decisions for him.

He told BBC Radio 2 recently: “Without a doubt, Victoria has a huge part in the way I look these days.”


“I think most couples agree you have to listen to your partner and you have confidence in your partner to tell you whether you look good or whether you don’t and to help you out with your fashion and dress sense.”

“In America I am just in shorts, tee shirts and flip flops - although if Victoria is listening, she’ll probably turn round and say the truth, that I actually get my outfit ready the night before.”

“I’m very organised and controlled and need to go to bed at night knowing what I’m going to wear the next morning.”

But it wasn’t hooking up with the Spice Girl that got him interested in fashion: “I always liked to look good, even when I was a little kid. I was given the option when I was a page boy once of either wearing a suit or wearing knickerbockers and long socks and ballet shoes - and I chose the ballet shoes and knickerbockers.”

“It was a little bit strange at the time and my dad gave me a bit of stick - but I was happy.”

aboutDavid Beckham

"Beckham" redirects here. For other uses, see Beckham (disambiguation).
David Beckham

Personal information
Full name David Robert Joseph Beckham
Date of birth 2 May 1975 (1975-05-02) (age 32)
Place of birth Leytonstone, London, England
Height 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in)[1]
Playing position Right winger
Club information
Current club Los Angeles Galaxy
Number 23
Youth clubs
1991–1993 Manchester United
Senior clubs1
Years Club App (Gls)*
1993–2003
1995
2003-2007
2007- Manchester United
→ Preston North End (loan)
Real Madrid
Los Angeles Galaxy 265 (62)
005 0(2)
116 (13)
005 0(0)
National team2
1994–1996
1996– England U21
England 009 0(0)
099 (17)
1 Senior club appearances and goals
counted for the domestic league only and
correct as of 22:12, 16 November 2007 (UTC).
2 National team caps and goals correct
as of 12:00, 21 November 2007 (UTC).
* Appearances (Goals)

David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English professional football (soccer) midfielder who plays for and captains Major League Soccer's Los Angeles Galaxy.[2] He is also currently a member of the England national team.

He has twice been runner-up for FIFA World Player of the Year, and as recently as 2004 was the world's highest-paid footballer.[3] He was Google's most searched of all sports topics in both 2003 and 2004.[4] Such global recognition has made him an elite advertising brand and a top fashion icon.[5][6] Beckham was captain of England from 15 November 2000 to 2 July 2006. He made 58 appearances as captain, and ended his tenure in that role after the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals. He continued to make contributions for the England national team in 2007 competitions.[7]

Beckham's career began when he signed a professional contract with Manchester United, making his first-team debut in 1992 aged 17. During his time there, United won the Premiership title six times, the FA Cup twice, and the UEFA Champions League in 1999. He left Manchester United to sign for Real Madrid in 2003, where he remained for four seasons. In his final season, Real clinched the La Liga title (Beckham's only major trophy with the club) in the final game of the season. In January 2007, it was announced that Beckham would leave Real Madrid and sign a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Galaxy.[8] He played his final match with Real on 17 June, after which the team was awarded the 2006–07 La Liga championship.

Beckham's new contract with the Galaxy, effective 1 July 2007, gave him the highest salary of any MLS player in history. He debuted for the team on 21 July in a friendly versus Chelsea FC at the Home Depot Center[9], and on 15 August, he had his first start with the team, scoring his first goal and first assist in the 2007 SuperLiga semi-final. His first league start then came on 18 August, where he recorded two more assists against the New York Red Bulls in front of a record crowd at Giants Stadium.

Childhood and early career
Beckham was born at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, London, England; the son of David Edward Alan "Ted" Beckham (b. Edmonton, London, July-September 1948), a kitchen fitter and Manchester United fan, and wife (m. London Borough of Hackney, 1969) Sandra Georgina West (b. 1949) [11], a hairdresser. He regularly played football in Ridgeway Park, Chingford as a child. He attended Chase Lane Primary School and Chingford Foundation School as a child. His mother's family is Jewish,[12] and Beckham has referred to himself as "half Jewish"[13] and spoken of the influence the religion has had on him, although he is not known to practice Judaism or any other faith. In his book Both Feet on the Ground, he stated that growing up he always attended church with his parents and sisters.

His parents were fanatical Manchester United supporters who would frequently travel to Old Trafford from London to attend Manchester United's home matches. David inherited his parents' love of Manchester United and his main sporting passion was football. He attended one of Bobby Charlton's football schools in Manchester and won the chance to take part in a training session at FC Barcelona, as part of a talent competition. As a child he played for a local youth team called the Ridgeway Rovers -coached by his father, Stuart Underwood and Steve Kirby.

He was a Manchester United mascot for a match against West Ham United in 1986. Young Beckham had trials with his local club Leyton Orient, Norwich City and attended Tottenham Hotspur's, which was the first club he played for, school of excellence. During a two-year period in which he played for Brimsdown Rovers' youth team, he was named Under-15 Player of the Year in 1990.[14] He also attended Bradenton Preparatory Academy, but signed schoolboy forms at Manchester United on his fourteenth birthday, and subsequently signed a Youth Training Scheme contract on 8 July 1991.

The new movie ''Lars and the Real Girl''

At Abyss Creations in San Marcos, Calif., interchangeable faces attached to silicone heads wait for a body. The company charges between ,500 and ,000 for the RealDoll of your dreams

Folks find lots of love in their real dolls

The new movie ''Lars and the Real Girl'' is pulling back the curtain on an unusual world where people find companionship in the arms of eerily lifelike silicone dolls.

At the center of that world is a small company, Abyss Creations, which has been making "RealDolls" since 1996 and has so much business that the wait for a new prosthetic partner is three to five months.

Cost per doll: About $6,500, plus shipping. Dolls with custom faces and bodies can run up to $50,000.

That's a lot of money for a sex toy. And don't be fooled by the chaste nature of Lars' relationship with Bianca - most of the customers use their anatomically correct dolls for erotic fantasies.

But Bronwen Keller, a company spokeswoman, said some owners use them as art objects, photography subjects, and as training devices in cosmetology and crime-scene investigation. RealDolls have appeared in the TV shows "My Name Is Earl" and "nip/tuck."

"These dolls become more than a sex toy to most of us," according to one posting on DollForum.com, an Internet meeting place that has 21,000 registered members. "Some of us don't even use them for sex play. We grow to enjoy them as companions, ornaments, hobbies, household decorations; we use them like giant Barbie dolls."

There are owners who buy clothes and makeup for their dolls. They move them around the house as the day unfolds - to the breakfast table, in front of the TV, out in the yard.

The dolls are so realistic, light years beyond the cartoonish vinyl blow-ups of gag-gift fame, that some owners treat them as spouses - even to the point of calling themselves "doll husbands."

Their world is unsettling to others because of what it says about the state of human relationships, or society's morals, or the objectification of women. On the Internet, in particular, doll owners are ridiculed - "When you think about it, 6,500 bucks is exactly how much you saved this year on rent from living in your Mom's basement" - and get called names like "freak," "loser," "perv."

But the Internet has also enabled doll owners to find each other and, as it has in many other areas of modern life, to form a community. They fondly call each other "idollators." Some have moved more into the open, posting videos on YouTube to talk about their dolls, creating MySpace pages, and appearing in "Love Me, Love My Doll," a recent BBC America television documentary.

"Dolls, and the people who play with them, have been around a long time," said Elena Dorfman, a San Francisco-based photographer whose exhibit and book, "Still Lovers," featured RealDolls. "But technology has brought them to life, and out of the closet."

And onto the big screen. In "Lars," Bianca plays Ryan Gosling's love interest, and the attachment is emotional, never sexual. She becomes a silent anchor in his storm-tossed life.

"I'm worried to say this because it makes me sound crazy, but she did have a real presence," Gosling told a reporter after the movie was released. "I really felt some kind of connection to her and a camaraderie. This whole movie rested on our relationship together. She had a very supportive energy."

That energy got its start in the San Marcos, Calif., at Abyss Creations, located in a nondescript, signless building in an industrial park. A dozen employees work there, half of them in the manufacturing plant.

Abyss was started 11 years ago by Matt McMullen, who was working for a Halloween company, fashioning various products out of silicone, including masks. One day he sculpted a half-size woman, thought it was kind of artsy, and posted pictures on the Internet.

Soon he was getting e-mails from people wanting him to make the figure into a life-size sex toy. He quoted a price - $5,000 - he thought nobody would pay. But someone did, upfront and in cash. Suddenly he was in the "love doll" business.

Customers these days can order from 10 female body types and 15 faces. They choose the hairstyle, skin tone, eye color, makeup and nail polish.

Options like tan lines and interchangeable faces drive up the cost, and custom work, which requires sculpting new molds, is especially pricey. A custom face: $10,000. A full-body likeness, such as the one of the character Kimber from "nick/tuck," can top $50,000.

The dolls range in height from 4-foot-10 to 5-foot-7 and weigh between 75 and 115 pounds. There's also a male doll, "Charlie," who is 5-foot-8 and weighs 125 pounds. Metal frames with joints underneath the silicone enable the dolls to be moved into various positions.

Each doll takes about 80 hours to finish, Keller said. The most popular model is "Jenny," 5-foot-3, 92 pounds, 32B-24-33, with blond hair, blue or brown eyes, and medium or tanned skin tone.

Abyss averages one order per day and ships about six to eight dolls each week. Most of the dolls are sold in the United States, Keller said, but there are owners on every continent. About 4,000 dolls have been sold since the company started.

"There is no one type of person who purchases a RealDoll," Keller said. Most are men, frequently ages 55-65, but "there are also a great many couples who own the dolls, and some women." Some own more than one doll, including a man from Texas who has eight.

"We believe that the success of the company comes from the fact that old notions of sexuality as something dirty, bad or needing to be hidden are falling by the wayside," Keller said. "People are still happy to use their disposable, or carefully saved, income to live out their fantasies."

Sex is what attracted a 34-year-old customer-sales representative in Michigan who goes by the name Davecat. He said in a phone interview that when he first got his doll, in July 2000, "it was all sex and nothing but."

That has changed. "What she gives me now is a sense of comfort and peace," he said. "I know she is always there." He jokes that they've been together seven years "and we still manage not to get into arguments."

He said "most idollators are romantic idealists who can't find a relationship with an organic partner they would be totally or even mostly satisfied with."

Gordon Griggs, 40, a factory worker in Virginia, bought his doll Ginger in 2000 after a string of bad experiences with women, including one who ditched him at the prom and another who phoned for a date and then asked him to baby-sit her daughter while she went out with someone else.

"I do not have any desire at all for a real woman now," he wrote on his Web site. "We are perfect for each other. She does not drink, smoke or do drugs. She cannot get pregnant (I never wanted children). She will never steal from me or lie to me. I am totally happy with her!"

Stacy Leigh, 36, a married photographer in New York, said she was attracted to the dolls for an obvious reason: "They're hot!" She owns two, along with extra faces and wigs. She admires the "artisanship," and said the dolls inspire her artistically.

"It's funny, though," she said. "Sometimes I'll knock into one of them, and I find myself apologizing to the doll."

The other photographer, Dorfman, said all her assumptions about doll owners were shattered when she began work on her "Still Lovers" project in 1999.

"I remember flying out to the Midwest to meet a couple, fretting about how I was going to photograph these freakish people having sex with a doll," she said. As it turned out, the couple owned several dolls and never had sex with them.

"That's when it got interesting for me," she said.

She wound up focusing on eight owners, all of them similar to Lars in that their attachment was mostly emotional. "These were people who really cared about their dolls and treated them as significant others, like dear friends," she said. "They were in love."

Dorfman has seen "Lars and the Real Girl" and said she thought it offered pat answers for why people buy dolls - trouble with real women - when her experience was "there are lots of reasons people have dolls."

But she found it realistic in the way it captured how others are "freaked out" by the dolls. "People are afraid of how real they are. They are creepy at first and that never really goes away. They're pretty, and so realistic, but also so vacant."

To her the dolls raise interesting questions about love and "what it means to value an object - a replacement human being, in effect - as real." But she's not sure the dolls say anything about the state of modern society.

"These are the kind of people who have always played with dolls," she said. "If anything is different now, it's the Internet. There is a community for them."

In that community, there is talk about the next stage of doll design, with moving parts and sounds - ever more realism.

Gosling, aka Lars, has shorter-term concerns. He joked in a recent interview that he wants to manage Bianca's campaign for a best-actress Oscar, if for no other reason than to watch famous designers "fighting over who's going to dress her."

There's a romantic notion of buying wine and carefully tucking it away in your cellar, patiently waiting to open it until it's perfectly ready to drin

Technology Uncorked on Fruit of the Vine

There's a romantic notion of buying wine and carefully tucking it away in your cellar, patiently waiting to open it until it's perfectly ready to drink.
But the reality is that most of the wine we buy these days is uncorked and poured within 24 hours of purchase. If it's a young red - especially a bold wine such as a cabernet sauvignon, merlot or petite sirah - it can be somewhat awkward with tannins, acids and flavors that have not had time to become mellow and harmonious.

Decanting and exposing the wine to some air for 30 minutes or so is an age-old way to round out its flavors and aromas.

"Aeration is something very important, especially with younger reds," said Brian Donegan, wine director at Market Restaurant and Bar in Del Mar, Calif. "It allows the tannins to soften up and the fruit to come forward. The wine will feel softer on your palate."

A number of new gadgets promising to improve the flavor of young wines has hit the market recently. The most space age is the Catania Wine Enhancer, a coppery metal disk that promises to harmonize the atoms in your wine in nine to 14 minutes.

The most low-tech is the Wine Whisk, a tiny stainless-steel whisk that a consumer can use to whip up a glass of wine, much like an omelet.

Ostensibly the most technical is the Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator, created by inventor and engineer Rio Sabadicci. Pour wine into the Vinturi, and the fluid exits with a giant sucking sound. Sabadicci said that's the sound of the air mixing with the wine. He was inspired after tasting for the first time a cabernet sauvignon that had been properly decanted.

"I couldn't believe how much better it tasted," he said. "I set off to speed up the process."

Karen MacNeil, author of "The Wine Bible," said devices that aerate wine by passing a stream through funnels or other devices have been used in Europe for years.

"The mere act of pouring wine through a spoutlike device into a decanter does help aerate the wine more thoroughly, quickly and completely," said MacNeil, who is director of wine studies at The Culinary Institute of America in Napa, Calif. But, she added, the devices "are certainly not essential.

"For the wine lover who has everything, it's a nice little extra added touch."

TASTE TEST

With curiosity tinged with skepticism, we put together a tasting panel and decided to see how four of these newer devices fared when compared with an old-fashioned decanter.

I was joined by Danae Rubenstein, an independent wine consultant and writer; Robin Stark, president of Starkland Cellars and a wine educator; Sharon Sausedo, a former wine broker; and Michele Joyce, a restaurant publicist. We tested the devices on a 2004 Lobsinger Stonebarn Vineyard Zinfandel from California's Sonoma County, a wine created by Rubenstein's boyfriend's family.

The panel started by tasting the wine poured from the bottle. It tasted young, with subtle notes of strawberries, blackberries, warm spice and chocolate, a moderate roughness from tannin and vibrant acidity veering toward sharpness.

Here's how the devices ranked on scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest:

1. The Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator, $39.95.

How it works: : Wine is poured into the bowl of the Vinturi, and, as it exits, the wine is mixed with air.

The effect: The Vinturi definitely smoothed the acidic flavors in the wine and made it taste more round. But some tasters thought the wine lost some of its brightness and subtle berry aromas. The sucking noise the device makes resembled an embarrassing bodily function.

Score: 3

. The BevWizard Wine Smoother, $29.99.

How it works: The magnetic funnel is placed on the neck of the wine bottle, and wine is poured through the device.

The effect: Tasters detected almost no difference between the unaerated wine and the wine poured through the BevWizard, though the aroma seemed a little more round.

Score: 2 1/2.

3. The Wine Whisk, $24.95.

How it works: Despite marketing materials threatening that the Wine Whisk will add phrases like "hyper-venta-lightful" to your vocabulary, it was a simple matter of whisking the wine in the glass until it had a nice froth.

The effect: Shockingly, the wine improved markedly, becoming rounder and more balanced with less acidic bite and bigger berry aromas and chocolate flavors.

Score: 3 1/2.

4. The Catania Mezzo Wine Enhancer, $64.99.

How it works: A bottle of wine is placed upon a metallic disk made, according to the Catania Web site, of a proprietary blend of metals chosen for their vibrational frequencies, which are said to harmonize the atoms in the wine.

The effect: The berry aromas in the wine seemed more pronounced. Tasters found little difference in the taste of the wine, despite letting the bottle sit for 30 minutes.

Score: 2 3/4.

5. Crystal decanter, $30 and up

How it works: Pour wine into the decanter, wait for 30 minutes or so, and swirl it around a few times before pouring.

The effect: The wine tasted much more mature and smooth, with balanced tannins and acidity and richer notes of chocolate and spice, deep cherry and almost jammy berries.

Score: 4.

Nick ( UK's most popular magicians. )

Nick is one of the UK's most popular magicians. He is a London based magician travelling internationally.His friendly manner and style has seen him perform around the world for numerous organisations, individuals and blue chip companies. He has presented his blend of magic and comedy to private and corporate clients that have included Royalty, Heads Of State and major celebrities. He was chosen to perform and provided magical entertainment at Buckingham Palace as part of the Queen's Jubilee Celebrations.

You may have seen a magician performing at an event before or you may be looking to book a magician for the very first time.

Below you will find a brief descriptions on some of the services that Nick offers.For further details take a look at the individual pages.

Close Up Magician - This is the most used type of magic and is ideal for stand up buffets, receptions and seated meals.Take a look at the close up magician page for further details.

Corporate Magician - Providing magic for all corporate events,from small boardrooms to large outdoor summer parties

Wedding Magician - Wedding magicians have become increasingly popular over the last few years as they are used to break the ice for people who are not familiar with each other and also to fill long time gaps for instance when photographs are being taken.Find out more by taking a look at the wedding magician page.

Cabaret Magician - This type of magic can be used as after dinner entertainment and is performed for the whole group. For more details of Nicks cabaret take a look at the cabaret magician page.

Trade show Magician - A trade show magician is ideal for drawing in people to a trade show or exhibition stand. Find out more and take a look at the trade show magician page.

Team building Events - A magician can add fun to team building events at the same time teaching new skills and the secrets of influence, charisma and showmanship.Find out more on the team buildings page.

Product Launches - A magician can add extra interest to a product.Find out how Nick can add magic to your product or service.Find out further details on the Road shows page.

It does not matter how big or small your event or party is, Nick will assist you in making the occasion special. Excellent magic inter twinned with comedy and fun providing magic with a smile.

An Equity and ‘Magic Circle’ member Nick has appeared on television in both a magic and non-magic capacity for the BBC,LWT, Channel 4,Sky, Bravo,and QVC.

Nick’s skills as a presenter/compere have been utilised by various companies for presentations, awards ceremonies and corporate videos.He has also appeared in TV commercials as a featured performer for companies such as Vauxhall, Wimpy and Walkers.

With his gentle brand of humour Nick is able to amaze and amuse, forming a relationship that creates a lasting impression on all who see him.
Please take a look around the site to obtain further information and if you would like to add some magic to your event or party then contact Nick now to find out how to book him as your magician.

Magic (illusion)
Magic is a performing art that entertains an audience by creating illusions of impossible[1] or supernatural[2] feats, using purely natural means. These feats are called magic tricks, effects or illusions.

An artist who performs magic is called a magician. Magicians (or magi) are also referred to by names reflecting the type of magical effects they typically perform, such as prestidigitators, conjurors, illusionists, mentalists, ventriloquists, and escape artists, etc.

History
The term "Magic" is etymologically derived from the Old Persian word Magi. Performances we would now recognize as conjuring have probably been practiced throughout history. The same level of ingenuity that was used to produce famous ancient deceptions such as the Trojan Horse would also have been used for entertainment, or at least for cheating in gambling games, since time immemorial. However, the profession of the illusionist gained strength only in eighteenth century, and has enjoyed several popular vogues. Successful magicians have become some of the most famous celebrities in popular entertainment.
From 1756 to 1781, Jacob Philadelphia performed feats of magic, sometimes under the guise of scientific exhibitions, throughout Europe and in Russia. Modern entertainment magic owes much of its origins to Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in the 1840s. His speciality was the construction of mechanical automata which appeared to move and act as if they were alive. The British performer J N Maskelyne and his partner Cooke established their own theatre, the Egyptian Hall in London's Piccadilly, in 1873. They presented stage magic, exploiting the potential of the stage for hidden mechanisms and assistants, and the control it offers over the audience's point of view. The greatest celebrity magician of all time, Harry Houdini (real name Ehrich Weiss, 1874 - 1926), took his stage name from Robert-Houdin and developed a range of stage magic tricks, many of them based on escapology (though that word was not used until after Houdini's death). The son of a Hungarian rabbi, Houdini was genuinely highly skilled in techniques such as lockpicking and escaping straitjackets, but also made full use of the whole range of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in the audience. Houdini's showbusiness savvy was as great as his performing skill. There is a Houdini Museum dedicated to him in Scranton, PA. In addition to expanding the range of magic hardware, showmanship and deceptive technique, these performers established the modern relationship between the performer and the audience.

In this relationship, there is an unspoken agreement between the performer and the audience about what is going on. Unlike in the past, almost no performers today actually claim to possess supernatural powers (although there are exceptions to this, they are regarded as charlatans). It is understood by everyone that the effects in the performance are accomplished through sleight of hand (also called prestidigitation or léger de main), misdirection, deception, collusion with a member of the audience, apparatus with secret mechanisms, mirrors, and other trickery (hence the illusions are commonly referred to as "tricks"). The performer seeks to present an effect so clever and skillful that the audience cannot believe their eyes, and cannot think of the explanation. The sense of bafflement is part of the entertainment. In turn, the audience play a role in which they agree to be entertained by something they know to be a deception. Houdini also gained the trust of his audiences by using his knowledge of illusions to debunk charlatans, a tradition continued by magicians such as James Randi, P. C. Sorcar, and Penn and Teller.

Magic has come and gone in fashion. For instance, the magic show for much of the 20th Century was marginalized in North America as largely children's entertainment. A revival started with Doug Henning, who reestablished the magic show as a form of mass entertainment with his distinctive look that rejected the old stereotypes and his exuberant sense of showmanship that became popular on both stage and numerous television specials.

Today, the art is enjoying a vogue, driven by a number of highly successful performers such as David Copperfield, Lance Burton, Penn and Teller, Derren Brown, Barry and Stuart, Criss Angel, Dorothy Dietrich and many other stage and TV performers. David Blaine is sometimes included in this category, though his major performances have been more a combination of Houdini-style escape tricks and physical endurance displays than the illusion magic performed by others. The mid-twentieth century saw magic transform in many different aspects: some performers preferred to renovate the craft on stage --- such as The Mentalizer Show in Times Square which dared to mix themes of spirituality and kabbalah with the art of magic --- others successfully made the transition to TV, which opens up new opportunities for deceptions, and brings the performer to huge audiences. A widely accepted code has developed, in which TV magicians can use all the traditional forms of deception, but should not resort to camera tricks, editing the videotape, or other TV special effects --- this makes deception too "easy", in the popular mind. Most TV magicians are shown performing before a live audience, who provide the remote viewer with a (sometimes misleading) reassurance that the effects are not obtained with the help of camera tricks.

Many of the basic principles of magic are comparatively old. There is an expression, "it's all done with smoke and mirrors", used to explain something baffling, but contrary to popular belief, effects are seldom achieved using mirrors today, due to the amount of work needed to install it and difficulties in transport. For example, the famous Pepper's Ghost, a stage illusion first used in 19th century London, required a specially built theatre. Harry Houdini led the field of vanishing large objects, by making an elephant disappear on stage, although not using mirrors, and modern performers have vanished objects as big as the Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty, and the Space Shuttle, using other kinds of optical deceptions.

The chimp who outwits humans; the dolphin who says it with seaweed; the existential dog

Animals do the cleverest things

An elephant that never forgets its extended family, a chimp that can outperform humans in a sophisticated test of visual memory and an amorous male dolphin that likes to say it with flowers – well, a clump of river weeds to be more precise. These are just some of the recent observations from the field of animal behaviour. They appear to show that there is no limit to the intelligence of animals, but what do we really know about the true cognitive powers of the non-human brain?

Experiments on wild elephants living in Kenya found that individuals can remember the whereabouts of at least 17 family members, and possibly even as many as 30. Tests in a laboratory in Japan found that chimps, and young chimps especially, have an incredible photographic memory. Finally, there was the story of the romantic river dolphins of Brazil. Males collected river weeds, sticks or even lumps of clay in their mouths to act as a form of sexual display to prospective mates. Scientists are convinced that it is not merely playful behaviour but a serious attempt at wooing the opposite sex with the cetacean equivalent of a Valentine's gift – surely a sign of emotional intelligence.

The latest studies into the unusual behaviour of a range of species suggest that we should no longer assume that animals are just the dumb creatures that we've been led to believe since the days of St Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century Italian monk whose moral philosophy formed the basis of our modern-day ethical treatment of animals. Indeed, scientists have found that animals are capable of all sorts of clever behaviour that we normally associate with human intelligence. They not only have good memories and a perception of the world around them, they also display feats of apparent far-sightedness and understanding that seem to go beyond the mental abilities of many people.

It used to be thought for instance that man was the only tool-maker. Then it emerged that chimps in the wild have learnt to strip leaves off twigs, which they use to poke termite nests for food. Some years ago, scientists found that chimps, in fact, select a range of tools for different jobs, such as cracking nuts or carrying water. They were even found to pass on their knowledge to successive generations as a form of acquired, cultural inheritance.

Then last year, scientists revealed even more remarkable tool-making behaviour in chimps. They had video footage of chimps in the wild using a "tool kit" to dig for termites. A chimp would use a thick stick like a spade to dig a hole in the ground above a termite nest. It would then use a second, more delicate stick, which had been deliberately frayed at one end, to poke down through the open hole to search for termites, which would cling conveniently to the end of the frayed stick like peas on a dinner fork.

"These chimpanzees use something that doesn't happen anywhere else. They use a tool kit," explains Professor Andrew Whiten of St Andrew's University. "They use their hands and their foot to dig down, so they look like Mr McGregor with his spade digging down with great effort. We don't understand how possibly they could have worked out how to do that."

Even more remarkable tool-making was seen in the case of the New Caledonian crow. Oxford University scientists showed in 2002 that a particularly clever specimen of this species, called Betty, was able to fashion a hook out of a piece of straight wire and use it to "fish" for food concealed in a long tube. It was a bizarre demonstration of a basic understanding of cause and effect known as "folk physics". Even chimps have not shown such skills.

Another trait of intelligent life is being able to distinguish one creature from another but this has been taken to an extreme in the case of the biggest land animals. Elephants were already known to mourn their dead and to communicate with one another over long distances using barely audible, low-frequency growls. More recently, however, scientists have demonstrated that elephants in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya can distinguish between members of the two local tribes, the Maasai and the Kamba. A study found that the elephants became more nervous and wary when shown garments worn by the Maasai, whose young men sometimes spear the animals to prove their virility, but show no such behaviour in the presence of clothes worn by the Kamba.

"We expected that elephants might be able to distinguish among different human groups according to the level of risk that each presents to them, and we were not disappointed," says Professor Richard Byrne of St Andrews University, who led the study. "In fact, we think that this is the first time that it has been experimentally shown that any animal can categorise a single species of potential predator into subclasses based on such subtle cues."

But do these examples of unusually clever animal behaviour constitute intelligence? It depends of course on the definition of "intelligence". Most biologists and psychologists would agree that the human mind has an extraordinary intellectual ability, infinitely more sophisticated than anything seen in the natural world. We converse in a complex language, we think symbolically and creatively, we can plan for and anticipate the future and, perhaps most important of all, we can imagine what it must be like to be someone else.

Scientists call this latter attribute of human intelligence the "theory of mind" and it is one of the defining features of the human condition. It explains, for instance, why we enjoy watching plays and films – we can imagine what the actors must be going through. We can also imaging someone's pain and pleasure, which is necessary for empathy. It is also at the routes of so-called Machiavellian intelligence, or the art of deception and manipulation. If we can imagine what another person is thinking about us, perhaps we can manipulate those thoughts to our advantage. But do animals show this level of intelligence. They can, and do, deceive one another, but is it because they have this theory of mind we know to be so human?

The theory of mind is best illustrated by a classic psychology test given to young children. Imagine two puppets called Sally and Ann who are given an apple to share. Sally puts the apple in a red box, watched by Ann. Sally then leaves the room and, in her absence, Ann switches the apple to a nearby blue box. When Sally comes back in the room, which box will she open to retrieve the apple?

Children over a certain age – usually between four and five – get the right answer. But younger children who have not yet acquired the theory of mind (and interestingly children with autism) say Sally will look in the blue box. They are incapable of seeing the world from Sally's perspective. They only see it from their own. To them, the apple is now in the blue box and that is where Sally will look.

This theory of mind is at the heart of much research into animal intelligence. Many experiments have been performed on chimps and dolphins, for instance, to see if they are capable to seeing the world from another's point of view. The theory of mind is one of the most important attributes of intelligent behaviour and scientists are keen to know whether it exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom.

"There have been a number of studies on animals showing absolute compatibility with the theory of mind but none of them have excluded the possibility of other explanations," says Alex Kacelnik, professor of animal behaviour at Oxford University, who carried out the study on Betty the New Caledonian crow. The difficulty with testing the theory of mind on dumb creatures is that you cannot ask animals what they are thinking.

Perhaps one of the best studies yet into theory of mind was carried out on captive orang-utans by Professor Byrne and his colleagues at St Andrews University. These apes were accustomed to begging for food from their zookeepers so Professor Byrne decided to try to exploit this behaviour to test whether the apes could imagine themselves inside the minds of their human keepers.

The keepers were asked to place two items of food outside the cage of the orang-utans, but just out of their reach. One item was a tasty banana, the other something not quite so tasty, such as a leek. Not surprisingly, the apes made lots of begging gestures towards the banana. The scientists reasoned that if the orang-utan was capable of theory of mind then the ape should respond differently according to whether the keeper gave them the banana or the leek.

If the keeper responded to the begging pleas by giving the orang utan the leek, then the ape might vary its behaviour realising that the keeper does not realise that it is the banana it wants, not the leek. This is exactly what the scientists found. It was also reasoned that if the keeper gave the orang-utan half the banana then the ape would continue with the same style of begging behaviour that had earned it half the reward. Again, this is exactly what happened.

So has the orang-utan been shown to have a theory of mind? Not quite. It is true that one explanation for the findings is that the orang-utan was able to judge whether its gesturing to the keeper was having the desired effect because the ape was capable of a theory of mind. However, there are also other possible explanations, admits Professor Byrne. A more mundane suggestion, for instance, is that the orang-utans were simply exasperated with not getting a banana, and so employed a different set of begging gestures.

Both Kacelnik and Byrne say that it is unhelpful to talk about animal intelligence in the context of comparisons between species, and especially with human intelligence. So often we tend to compare what an animal can do with other animals, or with people, which is unfair and artificial, they say. "It makes no sense to say that a fly is smarter than a pig just because it can fly," says Kacelnik.

The point they both make is that animals are exquisitely adapted in their behaviour to survive in their particular habitats. If that means displaying a form of behaviour that we perceive to be intelligent, then we are guilty of anthropomorphism. The New Caledonian crow, for instance, is a comparative genius when it comes to making tools in a laboratory. But this is because food is scarce in its wild habitat on the Pacific island of New Caledonia, and the most nutritious beetle grubs it needs to survive are difficult to get to without the help of a simple tool made from twigs, grass or leaves.

Betty the crow showed that she was clever at making a hook-shaped tool from straight wire to fish for food. But she shared her cage with an older, and perhaps wiser, male bird called Abel, who took no interest in making tools. He simply waited for Betty to fish out the food from the tube before bullying her into giving him a piece. So who was the most intelligent?


Homing Pigeons
Homing pigeons owe their name to the ability to return home from distant, unfamiliar release points – in some cases, even if they've been transported, anaesthetised and deprived of all information about the journey. They were used to carry messages in both ancient Greece and China, and by the 16th century were being used in formal postal services. In 1860, Paul Reuter employed a fleet of 45 to deliver news and stock prices between Brussels and Aachen. Only in 2002 did India's police force retire its pigeon messenger service, when it was made redundant by e-mail. Homing pigeons have proved especially useful during times of war. One bird, "Cher Ami", was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for his heroic service during the First World War in delivering 12 important messages, despite sustaining a bullet wound. Equally amazing, but for different reasons, is the unfortunate bird that set off from Pembrokeshire in June 1953. It returned, dead, in a box postmarked "Brazil", 11 years later.

Dolphins

Viewers of Flipper do not need to be told that dolphins are cleverer than most inhabitants of the sea. Whether he was upholding the law, or embarking on a daring sea rescue, the iconic TV hero's brainpower never failed to amaze. Even without television trickery, dolphins are smart. The latest evidence of intelligence came this week, when researchers published the results of a study in the Brazilian Amazon which showed male members of pods carrying "gifts" in the form of sticks, or, most endearingly, makeshift bouquets made from seaweed, to attract mates. DNA tests revealed that the males who carried the most gifts proved the most successful fathers. Research in Australia showed bottlenose dolphins use bits of marine sponge to protect their noses while they probe the seabed. Scientists say the behaviour is evidence that they show signs of culture learned from their forebears, rather than passed down in genes.

Bees

While they may not yet have developed the power of speech, as exhibited in the upcoming Jerry Seinfeld film, Bee Movie, and are all too easily snared by beer traps in summer, bees are unexpectedly clever insects. As early as 330BC, Aristotle described the remarkable "waggle dance" bees use to communicate with members of the hive. It was originally thought the dance was designed simply to attract attention, but in 1947, Karl von Frisch, who was later awarded a Nobel Prize for his work, deduced that the apparently random runs and turns of the dance, which bees perform in groups, correlates directly to the position of the sun in relation to the location of food. If a bee runs from the six to 12 o'clock positions, it means food is in the direction of the sun. The number of waggles dictates how far away the food lies.

Dogs

Most dog owners will claim their pooch is the smartest in the park. But retrieving sticks or barking at postmen, while impressive when compared with the skills of, say, a jellyfish, is hardly rocket science. However, new research suggests mutts are capable of much more: in an experiment at the University of Vienna, two border collies, an Australian shepherd and a mongrel were presented with images on a touch screen. The pairs of photos offered the choice of a landscape or a dog. When the dogs used their nose to push against the dog image, they got a treat. If they plumped for the landscape, they were forced to wait a few seconds before the next round. The training stage complete, the dogs were shown landscape and dog photos, and continued to correctly pick out the dogs. In the final phase, the dogs were shown an unfamiliar dog superimposed on a landscape they had seen in training. Even then, the animals were able to pick out the dog. Scientists say the results show that dogs can use abstract concept, a skill which had been attributed only to birds and primates.

Leatherback turtle

The 65 million-year-old leatherback turtle has witnessed the fall of the dinosaurs and the rise of humanity. But the giant sea creature is most extraordinary for its ability to travel huge distances, from the cold waters in which it feeds to the tropical and subtropical beaches where it hatches its eggs. Female turtles originally tagged in French Guiana off the coast of South America have been recaptured on the other side of the ocean in Morocco and Spain. In 2006, the so-called "Dingle turtle" made headlines after being tagged off the west coast of Ireland and embarking on an astonishing 5,000-mile journey to the Cape Verde islands, off West Africa. Leatherbacks are found from Alaska to New Zealand.

Chimps
Everyone knows man's closest living relative is the sharpest tool in the animal box. After all, what other animal can brew up a cup of PG Tips while wearing a bowler hat? This week, however, the publication Current Biology has shed new light on the brain power of chimpanzees, revealing them to have photographic memories far superior to our own. Until now, it was not thought chimps could match humans in mental tests. But researchers in Kyoto discovered that chimps could recall a sequence of numbers displayed to them (for a fraction of a second), outperforming students who took the same test. The research suggests that short-term memory may have been more important to earlier humans, possibly because of our modern reliance on language-based memory skills.

Humpback whales

Whale song, which is associated in particular with the humpback, is something of a mystery to scientists. Male humpbacks sing mainly during the mating season, but it is not known whether the song is used to attract females or to ward off other males. The song itself is complex. At any one moment, all the males in a population sing the same song. Over time the song slowly evolves into something new, with all the whales making exactly the same changes to their pattern of singing. Studies suggest that, once a population of whales has moved on from a particular pattern, it will never again return. Other whales such as the sperm and beluga also make songs but none are as complex as that of the humpback.

Elephants

The old adage that elephants never forget was proved to have a basis in scientific fact in 2001, when research showed that matriarchs, who lead the herd, have an uncanny ability to remember faces. This enables them to know when alert their brood to menacing interlopers. Now, scientists at the University of St Andrews have shown that pachyderms are even smarter than that: a study of 36 family groups in Kenya suggests that elephants can build a mental map of where herd members are by combining their memory with a keen sense of smell. Researchers lay urine samples from wild elephants in the path of a herd. When the leader encountered the scent, it reacted with surprise because its memory told it the animal was walking behind, and could not have been able to lay its scent ahead.

The Arctic tern

Even more prone to wander than the leatherback turtle, the Arctic tern takes the longest regular migration of any known animal, from its Arctic breeding grounds to the Antarctic and back again every year. On this journey of about 22,000 miles, the seabird enjoys two summers and more daylight than any other creature on the planet. One chick demonstrated its flying ability by setting out from Labrador, Canada, in July 1928 to arrive in South Africa four months later. Another unfledged chick tagged on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, in 1982 flew 14,000 miles to Melbourne, Australia, in just three months. Over its life, the Arctic tern will travel about 500,000 miles.

Ants

They might be famous for their brawn – ants can carry up to 20 times their body weight, the equivalent of a woman strapping a hippo to her back – but ants are not renowned for brains. When it comes to delegation, however, they're smart. Males cannot claim much credit for this – they spend their days wandering around accepting food until they mate, when they promptly die – but worker ants, who are generally sterile females, are clever. They perform tasks such as foraging, defending, preparing food, construction and attending to the queen. The most dangerous task is foraging, so older, more expendable ants are given the job, while the younger ones wait on the queen.

New Caledonian Crows

The ability to fashion tools has always been held as uniquely primate, distinguishing us from (apparently) less intelligent creatures. But humans and apes are not alone in having tool-making skills. Crows amazed the science community in October when footage – recorded using tiny "crow-cams" on the tails of New Caledonian crows – showed the birds creating advanced implements. One crow was observed whittling twigs and leaves with its beak to fashion grabbers designed to retrieve grubs from the ground. The New Caledonian crows are the only known non-primate to create and use new tools.


Orang-utan

Chimps might be able to outwit Japanese university students in a test of photographic memory, and are traditionally considered to be second only to humans in the intelligence stakes, but research published earlier this year suggested that orang-utans were the smartest swingers in the ape world. Scientists from Harvard University studied orang-utans in Borneo and found them capable of tasks that chimps could only dream of, such as using leaves to make waterproof hats and roofs. They also gathered evidence that the orange-haired apes have developed a culture in which adults teach the young how to make tools. Viewers of David Attenborough's documentaries will remember the astonishing film of an orang-utan climbing into a canoe and using a paddle.

How old do you look?

Plastic Surgery—Fountain of Youth?

How old do you look? Maybe you lead an active lifestyle, but when you look in the mirror, what do you see? Are you disappointed with how you look?

In 1513, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León traveled from the Old World to the New World searching for the Fountain of Youth. According to legend, drinking from the waters of a certain spring in what is now the State of Florida would restore a person’s youth. Today, you don’t have to travel far to look and feel youthful, although we know that nobody can stop the clock running.

Plastic surgery is not quite a Fountain of Youth, but it can help you in several ways to:

· Look healthier

· Look younger

· Enjoy increased satisfaction with your life

· Have better personal relationships

· Improve sexuality

· Enhance self-image and self-esteem

What can plastic surgery do?

Plastic surgery is an option for men and women wanting to improve their physical appearance and the way their body functions. Cosmetic procedures can reshape our facial features and reduce disfiguring marks like scars and birth defects. It can also help undo some of the skin damage that comes with age.

As we get older, our facial skin losses fullness and firmness. Plastic surgeons can correct for sagging skin or localized deposits of fat using such procedures as:

· Forehead or brow lift

· Cheek lift

· Neck lift

· Eyelid surgery

· Liposuction

· Lipostructure

Have you heard of lipostructure? Also called micro fat grafting, lipostructure removes fat from one part of the body and uses it to improve structure in another part like the face.

Choose your plastic surgeon carefully

Plastic surgery has become more commonplace, but like any surgery, it is not without some risk. The risk is low, however, and you can reduce it further by choosing the right doctor. Find out as much as you can about the procedure you want. Talk to family, relatives, friends, and your doctor about cosmetic procedures. Ask your doctor to recommend several surgeons, and then visit each one before reaching a decision.

Finally, here is a list of sources on the internet to help you educate yourself about the many ways in which cosmetic procedures can help you to look and feel younger:

The Bellevue Center Mall has been sold for $28 million to Foursquare Properties Inc.

$28 million Bellevue Center deal done, paves way for new lifestyle center

The Bellevue Center Mall has been sold for $28 million to Foursquare Properties Inc. of Carlsbad, Calif.

The company can now proceed with its plans to transform the struggling mall into a $100 million open-air lifestyle center.

Nashville's Metro Planning Commission approved Foursquare's plan in October.

The plan is to turn the enclosed mall into a lifestyle center with major retail anchors. Macy's department store will remain and continue to own its property.

Foursquare Properties will redevelop nearly 1.2 million square feet, with plans for six restaurants and retail and office space.

California-based Oaktree Capital Management bought the mall in 1997 for $32 million.

That deal was just for the enclosed mall and didn't include outparcels and the space anchor stores Dillard's and Macy's occupy.

Dillard's closed its store earlier this year and sold its property to Foursquare for $3.91 million. Other sellers included Charles and Esther Frost.

Bellevue Center sold to California developer

Foursquare Properties Inc. has bought the Bellevue Center mall, paying three former owners slightly more than $28 million for the 75-acre site.

The deal moves Carlsbad, Calif.-based Foursquare a step closer to its $180 million plan to turn the struggling shopping mall into an open-air plaza. City officials are still reviewing Foursquare’s proposal, but the firm was obligated to close on its offer for the land by the end of the year, said James Weaver, a local lawyer who represents Foursquare.

The deal includes the mall’s core, three vacant lots, a small neighboring store and a nearly 13-acre parcel owned by the Dillard’s department store. Dillard’s Inc. has said that it intends to close its store rather take part in Foursquare’s redevelopment plan.

The purchase does not include a similar parcel owned by Macy’s Inc. Macy’s plans to hold onto its land, Weaver said.

Most of the land was bought from Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management, which paid $35.8 million for the 60 acres that it controls. Oaktree bought the land in three separate deals between 1997 and 2004.

The other sellers were Dillard’s and Franklin residents Charles D. Frost and Esther L. Frost, according to records from the Davidson County Register of Deeds.

The Central Massachusetts dairy under investigation for its role in four cases of a serious bacterial infection is pledging to cooperate with disease

Dairy farm pledges cooperation with probe into listeria deaths

The Central Massachusetts dairy under investigation for its role in four cases of a serious bacterial infection is pledging to cooperate with state disease trackers. Two of the victims, elderly men, died earlier this year after developing a condition called listeriosis.

"We are a family owned and operated business with a reputation for providing fresh farm milk to our customers," Whittier Farms said in a statement. "We strive to produce the best product and therefore we are extremely concerned about the situation and will be working to obtain the results of the investigation. As soon as we receive more information, we will provide further details."

The mom-and-pop farm, which voluntarily halted production yesterday, does not sell its products through major retailers, company officials and major grocers confirmed today. Karen Peirce, a spokeswoman for Shaw's Supermarkets, said none of its stores carry Whittier products.


The state Department of Public Health last night urged consumers to stop drinking all Whittier products, including milk sold under brand names such as Whittier, Schultz, Balance Rock, Spring Brook, and Maple. The dairy's customers are mainly in Worcester County, buying the milk at Whittier's two stores in West Sutton and Shrewsbury, or having it delivered directly to their doorstep.

The owner of one of the companies that delivers Whittier milk recorded a heart-felt message on his business's phone line. In the recording, Maple Farm Dairy owner Brian Gay says that "due to the media reports ... I am forced to stop delivery of all Whittier Farms products. I am as shocked by these news reports as I'm sure all of you are and have little information at this time. Your deliveries will be affected for approximately one week. I'm going to line up another milk source. Please throw away any milk that you have just in case, and you will be credited."

Two People Die After Drinking Tainted Milk.

Massachusetts health officials warned consumers Friday not to drink milk products from a dairy after the deaths of two elderly men who consumed products contaminated with listeria bacteria.

Whittier Farms has suspended operations and distribution until a source of contamination is identified, said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, the state's director of communicable disease control.

The Department of Public Health identified a total of four cases of listeriosis during the past six months. Two of the victims, a 78-year-old man and a 75-year-old man, died from the infection in Worcester County in June and October.

A pregnant, 34-year-old woman recovered from the illness but her pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, DeMaria said. None of the victims were identified for privacy reasons.

He said DNA fingerprinting showed that the bacteria causing the infections came from a common source. Samples collected showed product contamination.

The bacteria can cause listeriosis, a rare but potentially fatal disease that can kill babies and people with weakened immune systems and cause miscarriages in pregnant women. Symptoms include fever, headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

"We don't exactly know how this happened," DeMaria said. "People are at low risk, but they shouldn't be consuming these products until we have completed our investigations."

Officials at Whittier Farms did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

According to its Web site, the 500-acre farm in Sutton is operated by the fourth and fifth generations of the Whittier family. The dairy has a processing plant in Shrewsbury and also operates two retail stores.

A message left on an answering machine at the Sutton store said the store was presently closed and that information to date was inconclusive. The message said the owners would be addressing the issue as soon as possible.
The bulk of the firm's distribution is home delivery.

Whittier Farms' milk products are sold under several brand names, including Whittier, Schultz, Balance Rock, Spring Brook and Maple, state health officials said.

England's school funding system needs an overhaul

Variations in school cash queried

England's school funding system needs an overhaul and should be investigated by the National Audit Office, the Liberal Democrats have said.
Education spokesman David Laws drew attention to the way schools in Labour-controlled local authorities had received more money than others.

In Labour Middlesbrough spending on schools has grown 54% since 1997, in Tory Bournemouth the rise was 27%.

Mr Laws said the funding system was poorly understood and illogical.

He said he would be writing to the National Audit Office asking them to look at the variation in funding increases across England.

In Middlesbrough's case, the rise had been £1,701 per pupil since 2007, from £3,136 to £4,837.

In Bournemouth the difference was £844 or less than half as much, from £3,147 to £3,991.

Deprivation

Mr Laws said: "It is notable that Labour-controlled areas seem to have the biggest increases in funding, and this raises concerns about the fairness of the way in which cash is allocated.

"The funding of schools is crucial to the prospects for young people, and it must be fair.

"The existing system for funding schools needs a radical overhaul, as it is poorly understood and often illogical."

The obvious explanation for the disparities is that Labour has targeted the greater share of the extra money it has put into education on the most needy parts of the country.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said it wanted all children to have an equal chance to succeed.

"Children from disdvantaged backgrounds are more likely to need extra support from their school to make that a reality.

"That is why funding levels reflect disadvantage in each area."

But Mr Laws said the existing system was too crude: there was a real problem in targeting the many deprived youngsters who did not live in areas which were classified as being disadvantaged.

The Irish singer and entertainer Joe Dolan has died

The well-known singer took ill on Christmas night.


Singer Joe Dolan dies in hospital

The Irish singer and entertainer Joe Dolan has died at the Mater private hospital in Dublin.
The 64-year-old took ill at his home in Foxrock on Christmas night and died just after 3pm on Boxing Day from a suspected brain haemorrhage.

A former showband singer, Mr Dolan enjoyed musical success for over 40 years in Ireland and around the world.

From Mullingar in Westmeath, he was best known for hits such as Good Looking Woman and Make Me an Island.

The Secret of Success and Happiness

The Secret of a successful and Happy Lifestyle
is contained in the Creator's long-term Plan for YOU
and every human being on earth

Learn all about:

The TRUE Purpose of Life .
The Coming World Empire of Peace.



TRUTH CHALLENGES YOU!!
If you regard this statement with disdain or with doubt - then be fair and brave enough to face the undeniable Proof of God's existence today, as contained in the history of the hitherto invincible nation - the Jews - with their invincible City - Jerusalem - and their invincible God Who inspired Prophets of 3000 years ago to write down the History of Israel in advance! You may discard theological claims which are dime a dozen today - but you dare not discard the proof that history holds, neither can you discard the current fulfillment of these ancient predictions which are screaming out from the News Media daily! What you should discard is the contorted presentations and interpretations which are commonly held about this nation, their City and their God. The Revelationary Knowledge which you may share freely on this Web Site, will assist and direct you.
In this connection, you are specifically referred to the On-Site edition of "JERUSALEM - Final Countdown to Armageddon" (Click on Title to read FREE copy of 160 pg book)

TRUTH CHALLENGES YOU!!
If you already are conversant with this Plan and Purpose of the Creator for humanity, you will do well to take note of the true requirements expected of those who wish to share in this Plan - requirements which have been equally contorted and misrepresented by the traditional religions and their promoters!

- IF you truly want to know the Creator's Plan for mankind:
"What does the future hold?"
"What is Life all about?"
"Why are so many successful people desperately unhappy?"
"Is there Life after death?"
"How is true Peace and Happiness obtained?"
"How to overcome fear, sorrow, non-achievement - "
- IF you want to know where the world is heading


"Why are there so many wars, crime, terrorism, public uprisings ...?"
" Why is drug abuse rampant and on the increase?"
" What will the end result of Aids be?"
"Will mankind succeed against pollution, natural disasters?"

- IF you want to understand the present world turmoil

"Why are the nations restless?"
"If the world is destroyed in the War of Armageddon - what then?"
"If World Chaos destroys this System?"
"Can man and nations achieve Peace on earth?"
"Where will 'global warming, depletion of the ozone layer, pollution' stop?'"
- IF you worry about surviving the coming world scourge
- as feared for the change-over into the new millennium;
- as proclaimed by most religious believers throughout the world:
- the rule of the "Antichrist";
- the Great Tribulation to precede the Setting up of the Kingdom of God:
- the "Last Plagues";
- the "Rapture" -
- IF you doubt the existence of a Living, Loving God . . .
- How can a Loving God allow all the unfair things to happen?
- Why does He favour some people above others?
- Why should you do what He requires?
- Why are there so many 'religions' in the world?
- Why is so much harm done to humanity in the name of religion?
Then you have come to the right Web Site!

Then it is time that you share in
the revelationary Knowledge about . . .


The TRUE Purpose of Life
The chances that this world is simply crashing forth through Time. without a Purpose, a distinct Plan or an ultimate Destination, is as impossible as having an explosion in a printing factory and finding in the aftermath, after the dust has settled, a perfect copy of a comprehensive dictionary, having created itself out of the debris!
This is what Science wants you to believe! The far more logic answer, underwritten and derived at by many of the world's greatest achievers, including several Astronauts after their experience in outer space, is that:

THERE IS A SUPER INTELLIGENT CREATOR WHO HAS ESTABLISHED CONTROLLED ORDER, BASED ON A SYSTEM OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

Man's inherent nature rebels against the Creator's Laws of Order - in the process reaping the effects of disorder. Disorder in personal lives, disorder in society and international disorder. The results are: unhappiness, disease, destruction of nature, crime and wars - a total lack of Peace!

'Gray's Anatomy' before McDreamy

This photo released by Ballantine Books shows the cover of 'Anatomist' by Bill Hayes.

The Anatomist" (Ballantine Books, 304 pages, $24.95), by Bill Hayes: Before surgery videos, medical dramas, House and McDreamy laid bare the body's failings, there was a book that showed how each part was supposed to fit together.


First published in 1858, "Gray's Anatomy" has never been out of print and become one of the most famous textbooks in the English language. Its detailed anatomical diagrams and descriptions continue to influence artists and medical students today.

Bill Hayes used the tome to spell-check anatomical terms for his previous two books exploring sleep disorders and the nature of human blood. "The Anatomist" is Hayes' attempt to reveal the man behind the diagrams, Henry Gray.

As Hayes quickly discovers, however, "Gray's Anatomy" is about all that remains of the gifted London medical student who became one of the leading anatomists of his day before his death in 1861 at age 34. None of Gray's manuscripts, letters or journals survive.

Hayes' inquiries could have stopped there, were it not for one significant discovery: Though the book bears his name, Gray didn't actually draw any of its 400 diagrams. Those were handiwork of Gray's collaborator, H.V. Carter, whose name was left off some subsequent editions of the book. Luckily for Hayes, Carter did leave behind family letters and journals written in the pinched script of a stressed-out medical student in 19th-century London.

Since Gray's body of work is so spare, Hayes makes do with another body: the cadaver in an anatomy class at the University of California-San Francisco. Hayes audits a year's worth of anatomy courses, joining medical students on their first squeamish days with the embalmed corpse through their eventually expert dissections.

These had been thinking, dreaming people, Hayes muses over the cadavers. So, too, had been Gray and Carter.

Much as the medical students reanimate still-supple joints in the lab, Hayes finds life pulsing in Carter's journals and letters. Through Carter's bleary eyes, Gray emerges as a young man racing to meet the demand for new medical textbooks. Right behind him is Carter, equally seeking knowledge but less sure of his abilities. He can hardly believe the brilliant Gray has asked him to illustrate this new medical text.

As in his previous books, Hayes mixes medical history with deceptively light personal observations. He finds the stress of deadlines and dissections has not changed since the 19th century. Nor has the ritual of peeling apart the body, nor the curiosity that draws a crowd to see an organ lifted free from muscle and bone. Hayes stands in for every medical student, every patient, anyone who has ever felt someone else's pulse beneath the skin. "The Anatomist" is as much about Gray and Carter as it is about human connections — fibrous, and otherwise.

Learning the origin of the electrical signals that cause the heart to beat, Hayes taps the center of his chest: "Here, right here, is where wonder begins."

- French fashion designer Hedi Slimane,

Models display creations by French designer Hedi Slimane at Paris fashion week, January 26, 2004....

Hedi Slimane back to "rock" Paris

French fashion designer Hedi Slimane, whose razor-thin black suits have changed the way men dress, is back in Paris but not on a catwalk.


Slimane, who abruptly parted ways with Dior Homme in March after a seven-year relationship, is staging a rock exhibit at Galerie Almine Rech in the Marais district through January.

Entitled "Perfect Stranger," it features Slimane's shots of fans and various audio and visual recordings he made during the Benicassim rock festival in Spain last July.

Like his previous photography books devoted to documenting a burgeoning London rock scene, Slimane's sleek minimalist black-and-white photos reflect his obsession with music and notably the fans.

"I spent one week, 24/7 shooting hundreds of fans...Fans and the appropriation mechanism are at the core of Perfect Stranger," Slimane told Reuters.

"Music is without a doubt key to building an identity or a sensibility," he added.

The Paris show is the first leg of a larger project Slimane is working on with Spain's MUSAC (The Castilla y Le�n Museum of Contemporary Art). There will be a show in Spain in May and a book.

ROCK RITUALS

Over the years, the 39-year-old Slimane has used his passion for photography and his connections to the rock world to pursue his quest for the mythology of rock, documenting rock concert rituals, the fans, and the whole infrastructure of a gig.

From Benicassim, Slimane brought back a fragment of Amy Winehouse's stage, an eerie film on the smoke machine The Klaxons used while performing, large-scale shots of fans mounted on crash barriers, and an installation of lamps, loudspeakers and floor glitter powder.

"My focus has always been on the codes, the signs, something like attempting a fragmentation or a semantic definition of the rock world, of a tradition based on a few codes that are being perpetually recycled," he said.

One of his first books of photographs "Stage" captured an emerging new rock scene in London and in America and in 2005 he released "London: The Birth Of A Cult," a book of photos inspired by the London scene and British rocker Pete Doherty.

"Since early 2000, I have been involved in the birth of a new rock scene. I documented, dressed, put on catwalks and sometimes produced many of its protagonists, particularly those from the English scene," he said.

"The start of Franz Ferdinand, the Libertines' troubles, the emergence of Pete Doherty...That was before rock was everywhere, on fashion runways and in advertising," Slimane recalled.

Slimane's passion for rock music is at the root of his creative process.

"Since I was a child, my whole life has revolved around music. It's often while listening to a song that ideas for my fashion collections formed," he said.

FASHION PASSION INTACT

It is often said that Slimane has revolutionized male fashion with his rock-inspired androgynous clothes made for and modeled by skinny young men.

His trademark slim black suits have been copied the world over. Slimane himself even became the subject of a song by Keys To The Streets Of Fear, a Boston punk band.

In turn, the bands that inspired him have often ended up wearing his clothes from new acts such Razorlight to old-timers like David Bowie or Mick Jagger.

In March, luxury goods giant LVMH did not renew Slimane's contract as artistic director for the Christian Dior menswear line, replacing him with Belgian designer Kris Van Assche.

The split was apparently ignited by Slimane's desire to launch his own label and branch into women's fashion, though LVMH chief Bernard Arnault offered to fund Slimane's line.

Slimane made a statement on his Web site at the time to explain his choice, saying he did not want to lose his creative freedom, sell his name and lose control of his own brand.

Since parting ways with Dior, Slimane has led a nomadic existence between Los Angeles, Berlin and Paris. This Summer he curated a group show entitled 'Sweet Bird of Youth' in Berlin with emerging New York artists and held a solo show at the Ellipse foundation in Lisbon.

Slimane said his future and his interest in fashion remain inextricably linked.

"My passion for fashion is absolutely intact...I need to be totally involved to again commit myself to a new fashion or perfume project," he said. "I feel totally free. I have not reclaimed my freedom. I never lost it."

Golden Girl

Hayden stole the spotlight at this year's Emmy awards with a chic palette of gold hues.


Hayden stole the spotlight at this year's Emmy awards with a chic palette of gold hues.
This season, face the party circuit with a gorgeous glow that's both beautifully ethereal and easy to achieve. For inspiration, look no further than Hayden Panettiere's pretty makeup at the Emmy Awards: luminous skin, subtly shimmery eyes, and neutral glossy lips.

"The holidays are absolutely the best time to wear this stunning look," says makeup artist Matin Maulawizada, Neutrogena's cosmetics science expert, who often works with Hayden for red–carpet events. And the best part is, "It doesn't even look like you're wearing a lot of makeup," he says, "so you still look like you!"

Start by applying a sheer tinted moisturizer to even out skin tone. Then, to add warmth to your complexion for a sun–kissed effect, Maulawizada suggests using a tinted moisturizer that's one shade darker than what you'd normally use, instead of a powder bronzer, which can make your face look dry and dirty. "Focus the deeper tint just on the cheeks, along the temples, and on the bridge of the nose for the most natural–looking glow," he says. Highlight the inner corners of the eyelids with a soft shimmer powder (try a pearly pale–pink or a coppery–gold hue), define the eyes with a black liner, and dramatically boost your lashes with a volumizing mascara.

"You also want a hint of color on the cheeks, so that you're not just bronzy all over," points out Maulawizada. To find the perfect shade of blush, try his secret trick: Press your thumb and forefinger together, and match the flush that appears on the fingertips. "That's the color of your cheeks when you naturally blush!" he explains. Smile while looking in the mirror, and sweep the blush onto the highest points of the cheeks. Finish with a swipe of clear gloss across the lips and you're ready to go!

Luckily, you won't need to lug around your makeup bag all night for touch–ups. "All you need to take with you is your lip gloss and blotting papers," swears Maulawizada. "No excuses—they're easy to carry in even the smallest clutch!"

Holiday Makeup Tips

TIP #1: Use a primer as a base layer to give cosmetics maximum staying power.

TIP #2: Combat an oily T–zone by applying translucent powder with a puff.

TIP #3: Avoid using shimmer on problematic skin—it can emphasize breakouts.

TIP #4: If you're wearing a short dress, moisturize legs with baby oil to give them a healthy sheen.

The Life Aquatic

Explore new horizons in layered–on ethnic prints, psychedelic brights, and crafty extras.






Busy Signals

from left: Topaze wears a Nicole Miller dress, about $320. Karen Walker Eyewear sunglasses, about $170. Chloé necklace. Zuzanna wears an H&M top, about $20. Salinas Swimwear bikini bottom, about $177 (with top). Pebble bracelets, about $182 each. Bottega Veneta sandals.

$1,000,000 Raffle Announcement Set for December 31st

Raffle Announcement Set for December 31

Boise – At 10 A.M. Mountain Time on Monday, December 31, 2007, the Idaho Lottery will announce which one of the 250,000 ticket holders in the Idaho $1,000,000 Raffle is going to win the million dollar top prize.

Since selling the last ticket early this past Sunday morning, Idaho Lottery offices have been flooded with calls and e-mails from players asking when the announcement will occur, and when and where they can find out the winning numbers.


“We want to extend a thank you to everyone who is playing the Idaho $1,000,000 Raffle and wish them all good luck. This game has generated a lot of excitement around the state and everyone is eager to find out who is going to be the winner,” announced Jeff Anderson, Idaho Lottery Director. “We are working with the state’s media partners to ensure the public is informed as quickly as possible with the results of the game.”


In addition to the million dollar top prize, there are also four $25,000 prizes, three-hundred $500 prizes, and five-hundred $100 prizes. All the numbers will be selected using the Lottery’s Random Number Generator – the same process used for selecting numbers on Idaho’s daily Lotto Game, Pick 3.


The winning numbers will be announced during a press event at 10 A.M. on December 31, 2007 in downtown Boise. All 805 winning numbers will be posted on the Lottery’s website, www.idaholottery.com and the official website for Idaho Raffle at www.idahoraffle.com.


“The million dollar prize as well as the $25,000 prizes must be claimed at Lottery offices in Boise,” added Anderson. “Players will be able to collect their $500 and $100 prizes at individual Lottery retail locations as soon as the numbers are announced.”

As the excitement for the announcement nears, the Idaho Lottery is encouraging players to sign their raffle tickets immediately to maintain proper ownership and keep their tickets in a safe place until the drawing. All prizes must be claimed within 180 days of the drawing date. Top prize winners should contact the Idaho Lottery for claiming requirements.