[rude health] french, italian wines still the best

As it was featured in the Times, you know doubt saw it:

They might be losing out to the New World competition on taste tests, but traditional red wines from the vineyards of France and Italy are the best there are for protecting your health. The artery-clogging effects of a fatty Christmas dinner can best be counteracted by washing it down with a red from south west France or Sardinia, new research has suggested.

British scientists have discovered that red wines from the two regions boast the highest concentrations of a chemical that underlies the drink’s well-publicised benefits for cardiovascular health. Wines from Nuoro province in Sardinia, and the Gers departement in the foothills of the Pyrenees, are particularly rich, containing up to 10 times more of the beneficial compounds than alternatives from Australia, South Africa and the United States.

So there it is. I'm off to the wine shop to check it out.

[briefly] two pieces of non-news news

I’ll be accused of being a ‘glamourist’ by running Nicolas Sarkozy’s pic and not Peter Jackson’s but truly – I felt the latter was too much to inflict on the reader on a Thursday morning. Some may see it the other way round.

Two disparate pieces of news, not unsubstantial and yet not warranting more than a few lines. Plus you’ve no doubt already heard:

1] Peter Jackson will now direct The Hobbit movie, according to a producer whose company will soon own rights to the book.

2] Confirming the worst-kept secret in France, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, le Ministre d'Etat, ministre de l'Intérieur et de l'Aménagement du Territoire, has announced he is running for president next spring and will quit the government if his ruling centre-right backs his candidacy.

Perhaps neither were real surprises although I had thought Jackson might not.

[russian health problems] press finds another case

I’m not trying to minimize in any way this western journalistic beat-up – it could well be so. First this:

Another mysterious illness has struck another prominent Russian. Former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar became ill Friday at a conference in Ireland, vomiting and then losing consciousness for three hours, according to his spokesman. Doctors have not identified the cause of the illness and are considering the possibility that Gaidar, 50, might have been poisoned, his spokesman said. Gaidar became ill shortly after eating breakfast.

And then the inevitable Livinenko tie-in:

Former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko died Thursday in London after being exposed to a radioactive substance. That death, which has set off wide speculation about who is responsible, remains under investigation by British police.

What is on safer ground is this:

Gaidar was one of the architects of the post-Soviet transition to a market economy. He was later reviled by many Russians who blamed him for their impoverishment as favored tycoons enriched themselves from the privatization of state assets.

So, one of the boys actually. You know, it’s a rummy thing but you noticed an increase in the number of my posts last week? No? Well, I was off sick actually – stomach problems. Yikes!

[calling lady bloggers] new cervical cancer vaccine

Eva Green, mother and sister

Now people, I feel distinctly uncomfortable running this and I don’t think it’s what I should be concerning myself with. And yet it seems to be quite important to at least get the attention of some of our lady bloggers, not least because of the moral issues for mothers with daughters.

A new vaccine is available to help protect young girls and women from cervical cancer. But local doctors say some parents think it is just too soon for their daughters to be getting the vaccine. "It's incredible, it's an awesome breakthrough for women," said Barbara Horwitz. Her daughter is eleven. And so on …

That’s it. Will one of the ladies please pick up on this and run it ’cause I’m outta here.

[country quiz 3] how many of these do you know?

1]…Suva is the capital of which country in Oceania?
2]…Avianca is the national airline of which South American country?
3]…Which airport has the code DFW?
4]…The Vinson Massif is the highest mountain in which continent?
5]…n which group of British Islands would you find the port of Sullom Voe?
6]…What are Chafarinas, Alhucemas and Vélez de la Gomera?
7]…In which Asian city would you find the Potala Palace?
8]…Which is the longest river in France?
9]…How is Portuguese West Africa now known?
10]..A black letter 'A' in a white oval on the back of a car denotes it is from which country?

Answers at the end of this link...

[gavin ayling proved right] wii really is better

Gavin Ayling’s dilemma: PlayStation 3 vs Wii. Even people utterly uninterested in videogames know by now that two new game machines have arrived this month to lure holiday shopping dollars out of consumers' wallets. One is the long-anticipated PlayStation 3 from the videogame leader, Sony Corp. The other is the more obscure Wii, from the videogame pioneer, Nintendo Co. Both are going up against the year-old Xbox 360 from Microsoft Corp.

Like the Xbox, the PS3 and the Wii bear little resemblance to the toylike game consoles of the 1980s and 1990s. They are powerful computers that have been optimized for graphics and sound. And, like the Xbox, the two new contenders can handle multimedia and can connect to the Internet.

The PlayStation 3 is a bulky, shiny black box that costs $600, or $500 for a somewhat stripped-down model. That's up to $200 more than the Xbox 360, and about what you'd spend on a basic Windows computer. The PS3 includes a hard disk, a networking port, Wi-Fi wireless networking, and playback of DVDs and CDs. It produces high-definition video. In fact, the PS3 can also play a next-generation, high-definition movie disk, called Blu-ray.

The Wii is a small, thin white box that costs just $250 and has much wimpier specs than the Sony. It does have Wi-Fi, but it lacks a hard disk, a networking port, and the ability to play DVDs or CDs, let alone Blu-ray disks. It cannot produce high-definition video. It has fewer ports and connectors.

Yet, in our tests, we found the more modest Wii to be the more exciting, fun and satisfying of the two new game machines. This is a longish article and you can read on here …