Is Barcelona being spoilt by tourists?

VIDEO: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9533632.stm

Around 10 million tourists are expected to visit Barcelona in the year 2012. The city has experienced a rapid growth in the tourism sector over the past few decades.
But not everyone is happy with the influence that these visitors are having on the city.
Rajan Datar travelled to the Catalan city to find out if mass tourism is spoiling Barcelona's charm and authenticity.

Toronto's competitive vintage scene

VIDEO: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/fast_track/9646907.stm

Toronto is littered with vintage clothing shops, brimming with unique finds, some dating back to the late 1800s.
Fast Track's Theopi Skarlatos dusted off her purse to find out why the Canadian city is attracting shoppers from all across the world.

Fluffy American pancakes

These pancakes are light and fluffy and great for a weekend brunch. Try adding a large handful of fresh blueberries to the batter before cooking.

Ingredients

• 135g/4¾oz plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 130ml/4½fl oz milk
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

To serve

• Maple syrup
• Butter

Preparation method

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.
2. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.
3. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it's melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if your frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time). It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm (½in) thick.
4. Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out the pan.
5. Serve with lashings of real maple syrup and extra butter if you like.

Magazine

Why the diner is the ultimate symbol of America

With its chrome counter and cherry pie, the diner is an icon of American culture. What's the global appeal of this humble eatery, asks the BBC's Stephen Smith.

Five typical diner dishes

• Pancakes with sausage
• Eggs over-easy with home fries and toast
• Cheeseburger deluxe
• Turkey club
• Meatloaf dinner
• "It's comfort food, made from recipes like Mom used to make," says diner owner Otto Meyer

Sitting in a diner, on the inside looking outside.

This is a quintessential American experience. Add a booth, a Formica counter and a cup of joe - as diner patrons call their coffee.
Themed restaurants and burger chains from Mumbai to Manchester aim to replicate this chrome-flashed experience, and diner fare such as home fries and fluffy pancakes are now global fast food staples.
So why are these kerbside kitchens a landmark of US culture?
The first such establishment opened in 1872 in Providence, Rhode Island - a "night lunch wagon" to serve those who worked and played long after the restaurants had shut at 20:00.
Its mix of open-all-hours eating and cheap, homemade food proved a hit, and the formula has been repeated ever since.
Today the diner occupies a place in the American heartland. The closest British approximation is not a retro-chic replica diner where hip patrons eat gourmet burgers, but the local pub.
Just as dignitaries visiting the UK and Ireland are taken for a pint and a photo call, no US election campaign is complete without a stop at a diner to emphasise the candidate's everyman or everywoman credentials.

Common touch: The diner is now a compulsory stop on the campaign trail

"The thing about this democratic counter is that anyone can go in and sit down. It can be a professor, it can be a worker," says Richard Gutman, author of American Diner Then and Now.

Suzanne Vega in the eaterie that inspired Tom's Diner

"A friend of mine in Pennsylvania ate in a diner and he's in the middle of two guys. One is the chief of police and the other is just some character. The policeman looks over and says, 'Didn't I arrest you last year?' and the guy says, 'Yes you did - pass the ketchup.'"
Gutman has reclaimed 80 abandoned luncheonettes, and his memorabilia now occupies 4,000 sq ft (372 sq m) of a catering college near his home in Rhode Island.
"I was first interested in diners because of their architecture and their vernacular nature," he says.

“

If you ever get up this way, that cherry pie is worth a stop”

End Quote FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks

"They were built by Italian tile-setters and marble-workers, by German sheet metal workers, and French-Canadian carpenters. It was a melting pot of these different cultures to produce a building that is uniquely American."

His favourite working cafeteria, the Modern Diner in Rhode Island, is the first such establishment to be preserved for posterity on the National Register of Historic Places.
Its graceful lines had been cribbed from the railroad dining car. In fact, the all-American origins of the diner go back even further than that, to the chuck wagon which fed cowboys on the range.
From films such as Pulp Fiction and When Harry Met Sally, to books by John Updike, Jack Kerouac and Vladimir Nabokov, and the paintings of Norman Rockwell and Edward Hopper, the diner plays an important part.
"In the movies the diner is a special kind of space, a mythic place, a zone of escape," says film critic John Patterson.

Together alone: Edward Hopper's Nighthawks

Barry Levinson's Oscar-nominated film Diner was based on his experiences of growing up in the 1950s. "Say you were on a date and happened to ride by the diner - you'd see whose cars were there and you'd drop off your date and head inside because it would be a much more interesting night," Levinson recalls.
In cult TV series Twin Peaks, FBI agent Dale Cooper takes time out from investigating the murder of Laura Palmer with cherry pie and "damn fine coffee" at the Double R Diner.
While the diner acts as neutral territory for Al Pacino's cop to confront Robert De Niro's robber in Heat, in LA Confidential and A History of Violence it is used as the setting for brutal murders.
This contrast between the "placid, calm" diner and murder and mayhem makes the violence that much more shocking, says Patterson.

A cup of joe

• US colloquialism for coffee
• Origin unknown, says the OED
• First recorded use in Jack Smiley's 1941 book Hash House Lingo on the slang of roadside diners
• Other diner lingo included "dog soup" for water and "sea dust" for salt

For singer Suzanne Vega, who had a worldwide hit with Tom's Diner, a different juxtaposition appeals.

"The attraction of the diner is that it's a sort of a midway point between the street and home," says Vega, who wrote the song in her local diner, Tom's Restaurant in Manhattan.
With lyrics such as "I'm feeling someone watching me, there's a woman on the outside looking inside" she paints a picture of New Yorkers separated by the thickness of a diner window.

The retro diner formula is slavishly copied in the UK

This recalls artist Edward Hopper's most famous work, Nighthawks - four people in a 24-hour restaurant, all alone together over their nightcaps.
Paradoxically, the diner is about loneliness and isolation as well as down-home hospitality.
Its enigmatic charm has helped it to resist fierce competition from fast food chains. But fans of the wayside canteen can't be complacent. They would do well to reflect on the poignant question that you hear asked over the counter of every diner: "Do you want that to go?"
Additional reporting by Megan Lane

video: 10 Questions for Sting

10 Questions for Sting

Singer, activist and former Police man Sting is 60. He talks about sex, death, and his father's timing

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1268563585001_2099222,00.html#ixzz1e5t6q3VC

Family

Why Are We Depriving Our Teens of Sleep?

Later start times would improve school performance, so why can't we make the switch?

By Erika Christakis and Nicholas A. Christakis | November 18, 2011 |

Getty Images

Daylight is at a premium these days, and if your family is anything like ours, your teenagers are having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. “Delayed sleep phase” is what affects them: the maddening shift in circadian rhythms that causes adolescents to fall asleep and awake at ever-later hours. Adolescents need an average of 9.25 hours of sleep per night to support their developing brains, which are exploding at a rate akin to infancy. But we treat access to sleep as if it were an illegal drug, commonly requiring teens to start school at 7:00 a.m. or earlier.
(MORE: What Makes a School Great?)
This puts students at a serious disadvantage. Numerous studies show that later start times are associated with lower rates of obesity, fewer car accidents and lower drop-out rates, as well as improved academic performance. In one study, shifting the start time from 7:20 to 8:40 a.m. significantly reduced depression as well. (Indeed, one has to wonder why we offer standardized tests like the SAT at 8:00 am; average scores would probably rise 15 points if we just switched to offering tests at noon.) A few districts have shifted start times successfully, so why hasn’t the practice been adopted more widely despite overwhelming scientific evidence?
There are all sort of logistical excuses: delaying start times means parents might not be able to get to work as early; bus schedules would have to be shifted; a later school day would interfere with sports games and practices; teenagers would get home from school later, which would reduce family time.
But our inability to change start times is also illustrative of a larger pattern of neglecting the wellbeing and potential of our young people. We know, for example, that playtime and music increase cognitive development; yet school systems nationwide have dramatically slashed budgets for those critical activities. We know that children are sickened by junk food; yet we peddle unhealthy snacks in school cafeterias — and Congress just voted down proposed changes to the school lunch program that would require including fruits and green vegetables. (Currently, pizza sauce and French fries are deemed equivalent to other vegetables.) We know that American teachers are poorly paid and supervised compared to teachers in many other countries (including rich and poor ones); yet teacher-blaming is a favorite pastime.
(MORE: Has Empathy Become the New Scapegoat?)
On the sleep issue, like so many things related to children, adults often assume that there are impossible tradeoffs: if we “coddle” students by giving them adequate sleep, they might lose their competitive edge. Perhaps this is why, when an online petition was recently launched on the White House website requesting federal action to delay start times for teenagers, it didn’t meet the threshold of 5,000 signatures to merit an official response.
Making the switch would require collective action: we’d all have to make the switch together. Until the late 1960’s, the people of Sweden all drove on the left side of the road, like they do in England today. Then, one day, overnight, all the road signs in Sweden were changed, and everyone — together — started driving on the right side of the road. There were very few accidents and many benefits. Any major change in the social status quo is hard, but it is not impossible, and it often needs to be dramatic.

Erika Christakis, M.P.H, M.Ed., is an early childhood educator and Harvard College administrator. Nicholas A. Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of medicine and sociology at Harvard University. The views expressed are their own.

Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/18/why-are-we-depriving-our-teens-of-sleep/#ixzz1e5rvKqws

(VIDEO) The Once and Future Way to Run

The Once and Future Way to Run

By David Frank

Jorg Badura for The New York Times

The Lost Secret of Running: Christopher McDougall demonstrates a lost running technique from the 1800s called the 100-Up.

By CHRISTOPHER McDOUGALL

Published: November 2, 2011

WATCH THE VIDEO: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/running-christopher-mcdougall.html?ref=nutrition

When you’re stalking barefoot runners, camouflage helps. “Some of them get kind of prancy when they notice you filming,” Peter Larson says. “They put on this notion of what they think barefoot running should be. It looks weird.” Larson, an evolutionary biologist at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire who has been on the barefoot beat for two years now, is also a stickler about his timing. “You don’t want to catch them too early in a run, when they’re cold, or too late, when they’re tired.”

Multimedia

 

If everything comes together just right, you’ll be exactly where Larson was one Sunday morning in September: peeking out from behind a tree on Governors Island in New York Harbor, his digital video camera nearly invisible on an ankle-high tripod, as the Second Annual New York City Barefoot Run got under way about a quarter-mile up the road. Hundreds of runners — men and women, young and old, athletic and not so much so, natives from 11 different countries — came pattering down the asphalt straight toward his viewfinder.
About half of them were actually barefoot. The rest wore Vibram FiveFingers — a rubber foot glove with no heel cushion or arch support — or Spartacus-style sandals, or other superlight “minimalist” running shoes. Larson surreptitiously recorded them all, wondering how many (if any) had what he was looking for: the lost secret of perfect running.
It’s what Alberto Salazar, for a while the world’s dominant marathoner and now the coach of some of America’s top distance runners, describes in mythical-questing terms as the “one best way” — not the fastest, necessarily, but the best: an injury-proof, evolution-tested way to place one foot on the ground and pick it up before the other comes down. Left, right, repeat; that’s all running really is, a movement so natural that babies learn it the first time they rise to their feet. Yet sometime between childhood and adulthood — and between the dawn of our species and today — most of us lose the knack.
We were once the greatest endurance runners on earth. We didn’t have fangs, claws, strength or speed, but the springiness of our legs and our unrivaled ability to cool our bodies by sweating rather than panting enabled humans to chase prey until it dropped from heat exhaustion. Some speculate that collaboration on such hunts led to language, then shared technology. Running arguably made us the masters of the world.
So how did one of our greatest strengths become such a liability? “The data suggests up to 79 percent of all runners are injured every year,” says Stephen Messier, the director of the J. B. Snow Biomechanics Laboratory at Wake Forest University. “What’s more, those figures have been consistent since the 1970s.” Messier is currently 11 months into a study for the U.S. Army and estimates that 40 percent of his 200 subjects will be hurt within a year. “It’s become a serious public health crisis.”
Nothing seems able to check it: not cross-training, not stretching, not $400 custom-molded orthotics, not even softer surfaces. And those special running shoes everyone thinks he needs? In 40 years, no study has ever shown that they do anything to reduce injuries. On the contrary, the U.S. Army’s Public Health Command concluded in a report in 2010, drawing on three large-scale studies of thousands of military personnel, that using shoes tailored to individual foot shapes had “little influence on injuries.”
Two years ago, in my book, “Born to Run,” I suggested we don’t need smarter shoes; we need smarter feet. I’d gone into Mexico’s Copper Canyon to learn from the Tarahumara Indians, who tackle 100-mile races well into their geriatric years. I was a broken-down, middle-aged, ex-runner when I arrived. Nine months later, I was transformed. After getting rid of my cushioned shoes and adopting the Tarahumaras’ whisper-soft stride, I was able to join them for a 50-mile race through the canyons. I haven’t lost a day of running to injury since.
“Barefoot-style” shoes are now a $1.7 billion industry. But simply putting something different on your feet doesn’t make you a gliding Tarahumara. The “one best way” isn’t about footwear. It’s about form. Learn to run gently, and you can wear anything. Fail to do so, and no shoe — or lack of shoe — will make a difference.