The Herald

Touch Sensitive; Hydrotherm Is the Ultimate Massage, Discovers Leila Farrah

There you are, 30 grateful minutes into the heady me-time of a full-body massage. Great rafts of tension are easing from your muscles. The ambient dolphin song is lapping into the corners of the fragrant treatment room. All is bliss - until your therapist asks: "Would you like to turn over for me now?" This simple act temporarily breaks the flow, but can be more than uncomfortable for some. Lying on your front is hard work for those with spinal injuries, lower back pain, PMT distention or lar...

Close Call; Kids Will Jump at the Chance to Handle Reptiles, Rodents and Insects at a Zoo Activity Session. It's the Parents Who Might Not. By Beth Pearson

Handling snails, cockroaches, and rats might not be everyone's idea of a great day out. Indeed, judging by some people's reactions at the Close Encounters session at Edinburgh Zoo, they're learning just that. Yet there is at least one reptile, rodent and insect enthusiast in attendance. "The Royal python is my favourite," says amateur zoologist Cori Pearson, nine. "It's one of the largest snakes I've held, apart from the Brazilian rainbow boa at Deep Sea World. That was about a metre or so long.

Feline Fine

Ever wondered what Scottish history would have been like if the country had been populated by cats rather than humans? Wonder no more - Purrrfect Scottish Cats transforms 20 Scottish icons into feline form, including Whiskers Wallace, Robert the Puss, Alexander Graham Tinkle-Bell and Mary Queen of Cats. The book, written by Alison Mary Fitt and illustrated by Bob Dewar, is published by Black & White Publishing, priced (pounds) 5.99.

Who's Really Who in Movies?; It's About Time the Sequences Wrapped Around Our Favourite Movies Received a Little Credit

I have sat through many credits sequences in my time, and I have wondered at many things, such as how you select the best dolly grip, and whether you can work as a best boy electric if you're a lady, and whether the person with the wacky nickname (often "Bull Dog" or "Doc") is always the most annoying one on set, and why I'm still sitting there after everyone else has gone. Chiefly, though, I wonder why films drag those immense, unwieldy lists of names in their wake at all. It's not as if you...

Are We Barking Up the Wrong Tree?; Story of the Week; Pet Dogs Have Recently Been Making the Headlines for All the Wrong Reasons, but When It Comes to Treating Aggression, Should We Look at the Dogs or the Owners? By Lorna Martin

THOMASIN Miller had good reason to feel nervous about taking her 16-month-old daughter, Isabelle, to visit friends on New Year's Day. There was nothing obviously sinister about their prospective hosts. It was just that they were the proud and devoted owners of six large dogs. Thomasin, a 27-year-old childcare trainer now living in Dublin, has only hazy memories of the day when, at the age of five or six, her own family pet lunged towards her with its jaws wide open after she accidentally stoo...

A Sound Solution to the Hearing Aid Stigma; Future World

Everyone knows the future is small. Smaller cars. Smaller phones. Now hearing aids are getting the same treatment. Danish firm GN ReSound has pioneered a tiny digital device which it says is the smallest external hearing aid the world has seen. Not only will it be more comfortable, it could also address one of the main problems with hearing aids: the stigma of wearing them. A spokesman for the company said: "It is estimated that three million people in the UK would benefit from a hearing aid ...

The Week in Pictures

1When the sales get under way, most of us look for a cheap pair of jeans or half-price trainers - not so if you're a Hollywood name. Opening this year's Harrods sale, Jennifer Love Hewitt tried on a diamond necklace that was going for half price - half, that is, of (pounds) 90,830. The event at the store got off to a good start, as did sales across the country. Retailers in Scotland said sales were good compared to a disappointing pre-Christmas season, which they blamed on consumers switching...

Bush's Effort Deserves Some Credit

IN response to Brian Quail's latest - at least superficially "anti-American" - diatribe (Letters, December 29), I find it puzzling that despite his disapproval of past American support for dictators of one sort or another he remains reluctant to concede that the current US administration may now have done the world - and, indeed, Iraq - a great favour by finally achieving the removal from power and subsequent capture of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, however mixed its motives for so doing...

Debate of the Week

Will armed sky marshals make air travel safer? The men and women chosen for this work are to be of the highest calibre and will be equipped with special low-velocity weapons designed to harm the suspect without damaging the plane. Doing nothing is not an option.

Is That the Distant Sound of a Council Tax Rebellion Heading Our Way?

TAXATION has been the cause of more popular revolts than any other issue. From Lady Godiva to the Boston Tea Party to the poll- tax riots (twice over), only good weather or war brings more people out on the streets. So it is that on January 17, Is it Fair, the campaign for the abolition of council tax, hopes to lead thousands of marchers through London and, at a later date, Edinburgh. Although these demonstrations will doubtless be peaceful, two police authorities in England have already warn...

Follow the Swedish Example On Oral Nicotine

I totally agree with Melanie Reid's article on smoking (December 30). It will be impossible to enforce a ban on smoking in public. But I believe non-smokers should be protected. The problem with smoking is that the permitted delivery system for nicotine creates a cloud of smoke containing several hundred carcinogens that affects people over a wide area. In Sweden they permit the use of oral nicotine delivery systems called Snus. These are "tea bags" containing a nicotine preparation that deli...

Was Heath Not Good Enough for Mi5?

While reading your report, Miners and the oil states were too much for Heath to handle (January 1), I was reminded of a BBC2 programme, True Spies, which was aired on October 27, 2002. It reported that the police had been informed by Joe Gormley that there "would be a national coal strike" (police agents helped to organise the strike). This was reported to MI5, which then reported to the government that there would "not be a strike".

Honour Those Who Provide the Daily Fabric of Civil Society

AS I understand it, the MBE and the OBE were created at the end of the First World War to recognise the contribution of civilians to the war effort. It was a recognition that the concept of service to the community is one on which community depends. In the word community nowadays we should also include environment. Civil servants, when they work over a lifetime honestly, unostentatiously and efficiently, are providing the daily fabric of civil society. Good administration goes unnoticed by de...

Scotland's Image

I know, I know how sad I am worrying about Scotland's steadily eroding image as a member of the world community. So sad, in fact, that I am comforted by weather forecasts in French, German, Dutch and Luxembourgish which inform the viewers that it is pouring in Scotland, when they would never say it was windy in Brittany, sunny in Catalonia or wet in Wales. At least Scotland has the edge on them in meteorological matters. On December 31, zapping aimlessly, waiting for the good lady to fix her ...

Like Lincluden, but with a Positive Outcome

I HAVE been heartened by the responses to the plight of Lincluden Collegiate Church since the problem of vandalism was highlighted by The Herald. As well as Andrew C Wilson's letter (January 1), both Historic Scotland and Dumfries MSP Elaine Murray have contacted me regarding Lincluden. It seems there are two related problems here. The first is the particular case of Lincluden. Lincluden lies on the north-west edge of Dumfries. North-west Dumfries has long been identified as a "problem area" ...

There's Life yet in the Old Body Politic

Stop Scare Stories

Interesting letter from Barry Lees (January 1), stating that water vapour from oil burning damages the atmosphere. Equally, on the lack of proof of any harm from nuclear stations, he says it is too early to assess the health of workers in such. Surely they have been followed more than any other groups, and are healthier. The stories of clusters of leukaemics around them have been disproven thoroughly by the MRC. More than 1000 deaths have occurred in the North Sea alone, plus endless more dea...

Celebrity Circus

Star makes the news for the right reasons Pop stars trying to get serious is usually cringe-making, so hopes were not high when it was announced the lead singer of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, would edit Radio 4's Today programme for one day. Yorke's headlines were the influence of oil on foreign policy, music software and how to deal with a hangover. "These are things that have occupied my mind all year," he said. Perhaps the BBC missed a better opportunity: instead of pop stars doing the news, th...

The Patter Merchant Is Back in Business; Profile; Stanley Baxter

The Scot who commanded TV audiences of millions and once ranked at the pinnacle of light entertainment retired from our screens in his early sixties. As he turns 77, Stanley Baxter returns with a series of radio shows. By Abigail Wild Some people just won't retire. Stanley Baxter, comedian, actor and very occasional Mary Whitehouse irritant, whose work paved the way for Chewin' The Fat and inspired Billy Connolly, was supposed to have gone off to tend to herbaceous borders and take cruise hol...

From the Herald Archives

25 YEARS AGO NINETEEN roads were completely blocked in various parts of Scotland last night and several others were down to single line traffic. The Automobile Association reported its busiest New Year for 20 years with the headquarters at Erskine receiving an average of 38 emergency calls for help from members of the public.