Food allergies are on the increase. Or are they? The charity Allergy UK claims that 45 per cent of the population may have symptoms. But a survey of 250 GPs found that 73 per cent of them thought most of these were psychological, not physical. Now a new book has added to the confusion. Hidden Food Allergies: is What You Eat Making You Ill?, by nutritionist Patrick Holford, claims that half the population could be suffering.
Botox may be about to have a fatwa issued against it. The National Fatwa Council of Malaysia is to decide whether the injected cosmetic procedure (wrinkles, darling) constitutes plastic surgery, which is generally banned for Muslims. The country’s senior clerics are expected to rule within two months.
Be careful when calling between wards at Southmead Hospital, Bristol. An elderly couple, Rosemary and Thomas Bates, were charged more than twice the cost of a peak-time call to Australia when they used the internal phone, which is run by a company called Patientline, to keep in touch with each other while being treated for separate ailments. Not everything is free at the point of delivery, then.
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Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel is probably the world’s best video-game player. Mark Walden, his agent, predicts that “Fatal1ty” (his screen name) will be “the first cyber athlete”, and sees a future where video-game matches are stadium events. Wendel practises for up to ten hours a day at home in Missouri. The key to success, says the 24-year-old, is “being physically fit and making sure your neurotransmitters are working properly”. Spoken like a professional sportsman, except for that long word in the middle.
Kanye West, a rap singer, may have an inflated sense of his own importance now that he’s up for eight Grammy awards (but thinks it should be nine). He’s on the next cover of Rolling Stone magazine posing as Jesus Christ, complete with crown of thorns. The 27-year-old defends his confrontational approach to life. “My misery is your pleasure,” he says. But that ego is surely all his own.
Sources: The Scotsman, Agence France-Presse, Bristol Evening Post, CBS News , Foxnews.com, AP