How Britain got the hots for curry

By Rumeana Jahangir
BBC News

The British have long enjoyed food with a bit of bite. And 200 years ago, an Indian migrant opened Britain’s first curry house to cater for the fashion for spicy food.

“Indian dishes, in the highest perfection… unequalled to any curries ever made in England.” So ran the 1809 newspaper advert for a new eating establishment in an upmarket London square popular with colonial returnees.

SoHo: The Places

A Community in Transition
By PATRICK MALONEY.
Last Updated: 23rd November 2009, 3:29am

The neighbourhood has the goods – heritage buildings, river frontage and proximity to the downtown – to ensure a bright future, writes Free Press reporter Patrick Maloney. “The rest of the city is realizing this is a little gem here,” says one councillor whose ward includes the area.

British scientist admits she’s sex blogger

Racy alter ego’s postings became cult sensation

LONDON–A British scientist says she is Belle de Jour, the anonymous blogger whose accounts of life as a call girl were turned into books and a TV series.

Brooke Magnanti was quoted by the Sunday Times as saying she decided to reveal her secret because she was afraid a former boyfriend would expose her.

Magnanti, 34, is a child-health researcher at the University of Bristol in western England.

Highly educated women more likely to have kids in their 30s and 40s: StatsCan

By Lauren La Rose (CP) – 3 days ago

TORONTO — The ranks of older mothers with preschool children have swelled in the last 20 years, with the rise in later-in-life motherhood apparently linked to the pursuit of higher education, according to a new report from Statistics Canada.

Britain’s most avid reader, 91, has borrowed 25,000 library bookshttps://threewisemonkeys.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

A pensioner has laid claim to the title of Britain’s most avid reader after it was disclosed she is on the brink of borrowing her 25,000th library book.

By Simon Johnson
Published: 2:53PM BST 29 Jul 2009

Louise Brown, 91, has read up to a dozen books a week since 1946 without incurring a single fine for late returns.

PMO Iqaluit gaffe draws smiles, frowns

Tue, August 18, 2009
By THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA — An unfortunate blunder by the Prime Minister’s Office has residents of Nunavut alternately chuckling and cringing.

A news release sent out Monday outlined Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s itinerary as he began a five-day tour of the North.

‘Moon the balloon’ protest planned in Sarnia

Willing participants invited to public park on Aug. 15 for a co-ordinated mooning of craft that carries a surveillance camera being tested for possible sale to U.S. Homeland Security

Suspected drunk driver stops at random house, uses washroom, continues driving

Fri, July 17, 2009
By JOE BELANGER, LONDON FREE PRESS

Police say a suspected drunk driver in Lambton County arrested Thursday stopped at a stranger’s home and went inside to relieve himself as two teenagers home alone fled running.

New poll shows cracks in immigration support

Thu, June 25, 2009
By ELIZABETH THOMPSON, Sun Media

OTTAWA — The number of Canadians who say immigration has a positive effect on their community has dropped “noticeably” over the past two years and is now at the lowest level since the government started tracking attitudes in 2004.

A public opinion poll conducted for the immigration department earlier this year found there is still strong support among most Canadians for immigration and most Canadians consider immigration beneficial. But it also showed signs that support might be slipping.

Study blames alcohol for half 1990s Russian deaths

Thu, June 25, 2009
By DOUGLAS BIRCH – THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOSCOW (AP) — A new study by an international team of public health researchers documents the devastating impact of alcohol abuse on Russia — showing that drinking caused more than half of deaths among Russians aged 15 to 54 in the turbulent era following the Soviet collapse.

The 52 percent figure compares to estimates that less than 4 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by alcohol abuse, according to the study by Russian, British and French researchers published in Friday’s edition of the British medical journal The Lancet.