iblog

Anna: Residents of Minnesota, one of America's remoter states, can rest on their green laurels after coming up with an unusual new form of recycling. The scenario involves rebranding roadkill as "meat for the dinner table". So, basically, a moose meets its maker on the highway and the local constabulary place a call to members of the local dead meat list. Volunteer picks up carcass, and hey presto, moose curry for tea. Apparently, road kill is delicious - maybe it's that last-minute adrenalin rush as the headlights approach that tenderises the meat?? It seems a good system, anyway, as long as no-one pops out in their jeep to do a spot of "roadkill anticipation" when the freezer is low on venison sausages...

Caroline: When choosing your partner forget good looks, charm and intelligence. Instead check his collar size. If it's 16.5 or above, forget it and move on because your man is likely to be a snorer. Snoring affects more than 3.5 million in the UK and can make your life a misery. It is more prevalent in people with short wide necks because the muscle surrounding the windpipe cannot support the fat when the person is asleep. If this advice is too late and you feel the divorce courts are a little drastic, try sewing a tennis ball into the back of your man's pyjamas (if he doesn't wear pyjamas this is more tricky!) to stop him sleeping on his back and get him exercising to lose weight and improve muscle tone.

Caroline: Forget alcoholism and drug addiction. They are just so "yesterday"! The latest addiction is e-mail addiction with apparently eleven million of us hooked. These Inbox junkies are checking their messages every few minutes and unsurprisingly find that it is affecting their quality of life, family relationships and job prospects. They cannot go anywhere without their Blackberry, certainly would not dream of booking a holiday to a destination where they cannot access the Internet, become edgy if they can't feed their habit and never get a good night's sleep. A golfer actually lost out on a job offer because the client felt they could not put up with his addiction. There is now a 12 step plan to kicking the habit and although there are no plans for E-mail Anonymous meetings you feel it can't be far away.

Stephanie: Is anyone else getting tired of the constant barrage of adverts inciting people to claim for compensation after an accident? Now I'm not saying that Joe Bloggs should simply put-up and shut-up after falling into an un-marked man-hole and remaining there for three days before being hauled out (for instance). However, I do object to those pursuing legal action after tripping on a slightly raised paving stone and stubbing their toe, resulting in the partial loss of a toenail (for instance). With all this finger-pointing we are slowly creating a society in which nobody can move for fear of legal action. Yesterday the bus on which I was travelling stopped in a decidedly stationary traffic jam not five metres from my stop. After a couple of minutes, and with the traffic lights switching from red to green and back again with not a whisper of progress, I asked the driver if I could simply hop off, as we were clearly going nowhere fast. "Can't do that" he replies, in a response so rapid that I get the distinct impression I am the hundredth person to hear it. "If you get hit by a car, you might sue us." I resist the desire to vow solemnly that, in the unlikely event of a car mounting the kerb as I exit the bus and mowing me down, I honestly wouldn't sue the bus company for allowing me to alight. Instead, I wait dumbfounded for a further five minutes, until we can crawl forward a single cars-length to the designated bus stop. I am perfectly capable (I would hope) of exiting a bus without becoming entangled in a passing vehicle. I am also able to appreciate that had I not been admiring the shoes in that shop window, I may not have tripped on the slightly raised paving stone and lost a toenail. Having said that - if the man on TV tells me I might be awarded £4,000 for my misfortune, well, I might just be persuaded otherwise...

Virgil: I've just been to a restaurant and consumed a starter and main course both consisting almost entirely of mushrooms. Now, whilst on a normal day I'd regard them as tasty little morsels, after having quite so many I have to admit that I feel a little ill - a little saturated by fungi. I don't recommend mushroom-saturation to you as it's quite surprisingly potent; so much so that I felt the need to find out a little more about them and share it with you. Mushrooms are one of those highly overlooked and undervalued vegetables that just don't get enough appreciation. People have been eating mushrooms since before 10,000 BC. Not only are they healthy, but they were so highly prized for their taste that the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt declared them a royal food. No commoner was even allowed to touch them, and the entire available supply was given to the royalty. Currently however, I'm finding it difficult to empathise with the enthusiasm. Those little button-shaped squelchy things can prove a bit of a pain too. In the wild, fatally toxic variants grow side-by-side with our edible friends, with very little to tell between them. Some varieties of mushroom are so poisonous that they have even been used as a method of assassination. To top it off, some people even make a hobby out of "mushroom hunting", attempting to acquire particularly delicious wild mushrooms - a past-time which involves great skill due to the aforementioned dangers. For the moment however, such activities sound as ridiculous as they do on face value. I need to sit back and digest.

Stephanie: The tuition fees debate has been raging for years now, but it's only in recent months that I've come to question the price-tag attached to higher education. I'm an MA student, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to ascertain exactly where my fees are going. Let's break it down. Tution fees. A fee for tuition. Now, let's consider that I am tutored for exactly four hours a week - that's two classes of two hours each. However, I am increasingly aware of the emphasis laid on student-led learning: beneficial? Perhaps, but the cynic in me can't help but notice the benefits of this approach for the 'tutors' - less planning, more delegation, less...well...tutoring! On average, the actual tuition time averages out at about two hours per week. Here comes the maths. Based on a 30 week teaching term, at two hours tutoring time per week, I'm paying no less than £50 an hour. Um...Mr Blair? I have a few questions...

Anna: Am I the only person who gets annoyed by the unspoken rule about tipping these days? Am I a skinflint because I refuse to leave a tip for average service in a restaurant? Sorry, but to earn some extra cash, waiting staff have got to be pleasant, attentive and efficient in my book. Too often, we get indifferent service followed by an outraged look when the bill is paid without a 10% gratuity! How long before we get US-style signs commanding us to "please tip your server". Ueurghhhh. Makes me want to stay at home and cook, quite frankly. Imagine how my purse strings leapt for joy, then, when I read that tipping is pretty unheard of in Iceland. In fact, it's downright infra dig and can even be taken as an insult. Now there's a destination that's bound to prove popular with my fellow Yorkshirefolk - anyone for a weekend break in Reykjavik?

Rushda: You may remember a post I did recently in which I wrote about Britney Spears shaving her hair off in what people say was a moment of distress. As stupid as the move was for Britney (especially considering she is now wearing a wig!), the hair she shaved off could actually earn the salon in which she did it a lot of money and apparently the charities which they say they will give it to. Rather predictably, a website has been launched on which her "absolutely authentic" hair is being auctioned for a million dollars. This is apparently an opportunity of a life time and anyone who is a fan of Britney is urged to snap up the hair before it goes. As an added "bonus", the winning bidder will also receive other objects such as the can of Red Bull Britney was drinking at the time she shaved it. Oh wowee, I'd better earn some money pretty quick for that one - I'm sure it is like the nectar of the gods.

Rushda: The recent survival of a baby who weighed just 10 ounces at birth has been seen as a miracle by all those around her. The little girl, named Amillia Taylor, was born in Miami extremely premature after a gestation period of less than than 22 weeks. Being just over nine inches long (no longer than a pen!), the fragile little baby was kept under intensive care and very close watch for over four months, and initially had very little hope for survival. But now she weighs four pounds, and though this is still small for a newborn, she is healthy enough to be taken home soon. Even though little Amillia broke a world record, this is irrelevant to her family who are thrilled that their little angel, who went through such a tough battle with the world, is finally coming home victorious.

Caroline: Imagine going to a play in a foreign language which you do not understand. You can get the gist of the action from what you see and the programme gives a rough synopsis but it would still be a less than satisfactory experience. Well, that is what I have always felt about opera. Yes, the music is beauitful but I still felt that I was missing a lot. On Sat we went to see Madame Butterfly at the Royal Opera House and at last I was able to appreciate it to the full thanks to the line by line translation which appears above the stage. When it was first installed people said it would be distracting and the purists scorned the attempt to "dumb-down". To me anything that can make opera more accessible can only be a good thing. All we need now is for the ticket prices to come down!