A Point of View: Why didn't Harry Potter just use Google?

In a world that is overwhelmed with ways of accessing information, we must decide what to remember and what to forget, says historian Lisa Jardine.

In a recent article about the impact of the internet, New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik gives a particularly engaging example of the hurtling pace at which the speed of access to information is accelerating. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16443825 

A Brief History of Eggnog

Eggnog really makes you wonder: How did humans first think chugging a spiced and spiked egg-yolk-and-milk mixture was a good idea? It’s a bit like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast: “Now that I’m grown, I eat five dozen eggs, so I’m roughly the size of a barge!” Yet despite its “love it or hate it” fame, eggnog has charmed drinkers for nearly a millennium.

While culinary historians debate its exact lineage, most agree eggnog originated from the early medieval Britain “posset,” a hot, milky, ale-like drink. By the 13^th century, monks were known to drink a posset with eggs and figs. Milk, eggs, and sherry were foods of the wealthy, so eggnog was often used in toasts to prosperity and good health.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/21/a-brief-history-of-eggnog/#ixzz1hFoioioh

Sir Gus O’Donnell: The UK faces break-up

Britain's most senior civil servant Sir Gus O’Donnell has publicly questioned whether the United Kingdom will still exist in a few years’ time. 

Writing in The Telegraph, Sir Gus O’Donnell asks whether the Union can survive increasing pressure for Scottish independence.

Sir Gus, who is the head of more than 440,000 civil servants in England, Scotland and Wales, says the future of the Union is one of several “enormous challenges” facing the political establishment in the coming years.

The admission from such a senior non-political figure that the break-up of Britain is now a real possibility is likely to push the issue up the political agenda.

“Over the next few years there will be enormous challenges, such as whether to keep our kingdom united,” he warns officials and politicians. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8971787/Sir-Gus-ODonnell-The-UK-faces-break-up.html 

 

Britons are happier than the French or Germans, say Cambridge academics

People in Britain are happier than the French and Germans, according to a study by Cambridge University psychiatrists. 

One in five people in Britain could be described as "flourishing", compared to 14 per cent in France.

Academics found that no country in Europe had a population of which more than half was happy. The most miserable countries were Russia and Portugal, where fewer than one in ten citizens were reported as "flourishing".

Britain also came ahead of Germany by a fraction of one per cent.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/8972025/Britons-are-happier-than-the-French-or-Germans-say-Cambridge-academics.html

 

Warum Demokratie die Geisteswissenschaften braucht

Die US-Intellektuelle Martha Nussbaum sprach in Berlin. Sie sieht die Geisteswissenschaften in der Krise, wovon naturwissenschaftlich-technologische Fächer profitierten.

http://www.zeit.de/wissen/2011-12/geisteswissenschaften-krise 

Have a very messy Christmas, says Archbishop of Canterbury

Dr Rowan Williams said that many families start each Christmas season with good intentions, such as writing cards weeks in advance and arranging every detail of the turkey dinner.

But their preparations often descend into “the usual mess” and a “last-minute panic”, with the problems made worse this year in many homes by worries about how to pay for it all. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/8959204/Have-a-very-messy-Christmas-says-Archbishop-of-Canterbury.html?utm_source=tmg&utm_medium=td_8959204&utm_campaign=christmas1712 

Christmas through the looking glass

During this grand finale of the annual consumer cycle, the Christmas shop windows are like a stage set laid out for the shopping public to perform on. By turns opulent, witty and innovative, they set the scene for the big winter spend; the more perfectly transporting the displays, the more likely it is that we will fulfil our role alongside them, buying into the glamour of luxury.

The design of the most spectacular windows famously starts a year in advance, with the teams accumulating folders of reference images and scouring eBay and flea markets for suitable props. The visual merchandising departments tend to see their Christmas windows as a kind of gift to the shopping public. Over the past half-century or so, they've become part of the Christmas tradition: not so much a chance to cram the windows with alluring merchandise as an opportunity to create a fantasy world so beguiling that shoppers will be charmed in through the doors.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/18/christmas-through-the-looking-glass