Scientists in Seoul, South Korea, have established that eating green vegetables before a main meal may offer significant health benefits, reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Blood sugar levels soar after meals, with carbohydrate-rich foods such as rice and pasta driving those levels higher, while foods higher in fibre, such as salad and green vegetables, maintain them.
Study findings on meal order
The research suggests that gobbling up the green stuff ahead of the main event could be key. Many people already manage some daily greens, but often do so half-heartedly, pushing broccoli spears or french beans around the plate, or mashing them into potato to offset the flavour.
Sir Anthony Hopkins reflects on his Welsh roots
Elsewhere, Sir Anthony Hopkins, at 88, no longer ventures far from his Los Angeles home. He spends late nights under a lamp peering into Google Maps to locate the backstreets and alleys of his South Wales boyhood, then dancing along Swansea Bay to relive his youth.
“I wish I could just get out and walk around,” he admits, “but I’m getting a bit too old for that. But I’m always going back there… most days I’m back there somehow.” The gritty steel town of Port Talbot, his birthplace, holds scant allure to the outsider, but as the saying goes, “Cartref yw cartref, er tioted y bo” or “Home is home, however poor it may be.”
Anna Paquin's childhood career choice
Anna Paquin, who bagged an Oscar at 11 for The Piano, reflects that female child stars often lead sad lives. In the early 1990s, a casting agent approached her family poolside in LA, urging them to surrender their firstborn to play a little English cousin in a Home Alone film. “Drop your typewriter in the toilet,” he barked, “you are sitting on a million dollars.”
Remembering Drew Barrymore, a star of E.T. at seven who was smoking and drinking at nine; Tatum O’Neal, gonged at ten for Paper Moon; and Britney Spears, a Mickey Mouse Club star at 12, the family hotfooted it back to Britain so that Mia could have a normal life. She has never forgiven her mother.
Outrage over Mount Fuji abandonment
Outrage has erupted over an unnamed Japanese father who abandoned his seven-year-old son in the early hours halfway up Mount Fuji, an active volcano 12,389 feet high, with only a soft drink and a snack to sustain him for hours until the dad and his elder brother returned to retrieve him. The boy was found, thankfully unconsumed by black bear or wild boar, and the useless parent was reported. He got away with a police caution. There have been two deaths on the mountain this year, and the unpredictable weather can be life-threatening.
Freddie Mercury memorabilia auction
Another week brings another Freddie Mercury souvenir sale. This time it is the turn of a German record producer who worked extensively with Queen at Munich’s now defunct Musicland Studios during the 1980s, and whose son is the singer’s godchild. The Reinhold Mack Collection, featuring a Yamaha C3 grand piano, lyric sheets and a microphone, goes to auction in October.
The 82 items, including an adorable teddy bear gifted by Freddie, will be on free-entry display at London’s Cumberland Hotel for five days from September 23. Said the famously monikered ‘Mack’, “Freddie was not only a colleague and close friend – in many ways he was part of our family. To us he was never a celebrity, he was Uncle Freddie.”
