Like a Rolling Stone

13 May 2011 - Bob Dylan's 1965 anthem Like a Rolling Stone has been named the singer-songwriter's greatest hit by a panel of musicians, writers and academics. The poll, compiled by the aptly titled Rolling Stone magazine, was released to mark Dylan's 70th birthday on 24 May. Fellow rockers were invited to comment on the list of his 70 greatest songs. Like a Rolling Stone was described by U2's Bono as "a black eye of a pop song", while Mick Jagger praised the simplicity of Desolation Row. The 11-minute 1965 song, which consists of three chords, was number 12 in the list of 70 songs that features in Rolling Srtone's birthday tribute.Jagger's Rolling Stones bandmate Keith Richards argued that the original 1963 solo version of Girl from the North Country - ranked 30th - was superior to Dylan's 1969 duet of the same song with Johnny Cash. Like a Rolling Stone, from Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, beat A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and Tangled Up in Blue into second and third places respectively. In fourth place was Just Like a Woman followed by All Along the Watchtower, famously covered by Jimi Hendrix.

Mangosteen

12 May 2011 - The mangosteen season is coming! For centuries, those in Southeast Asia have revered the mangosteen, both for its flavor and the suggestion that it promotes good health. The whole mangosteen fruit has been used traditionally to treat a variety of health conditions, actually. As early as 600 AD, scribes recorded the use of the mangosteen in the support and maintenance of good health. Legend has it that Queen Victoria offered knighthood to any subject who could bring her a mangosteen fruit in prime condition. No one succeeded. The virtual impossibility of preserving the fruit during the weeks-long journey prohibited anyone outside of the growing regions from doing so. But, thanks to the Queen’s admirable quest, the fruit achieved the title, “Queen of Fruits,” a name still used around the globe.

Rome Rocks

11 May 2011 - If tourists find Rome unusually quiet today, the reason will probably be that thousands of locals have left town in fear of a devastating earthquake allegedly forecast for that day by a long-dead seismologist. For months Italian internet sites, blogs and social networks have been debating the work of Raffaele Bendandi, who claimed to have forecast numerous earthquakes and, according to internet rumors, predicted a "big one" in Rome on May 11. The national television network RAI has run programs aimed at calming rising panic among Romans. The civil protection agency has issued statements reiterating the official scientific view that earthquakes can't be predicted. Yet many residents of the Eternal City aren't listening. "I'm going to tell the boss I've got a medical appointment and take the day off," barman Fabio Mengarelli told Reuters. "If I have to die I want to die with my wife and kids, and masses of people will do the same as me." Memories are still vivid of the 2009 earthquake in L'Aquila, which killed more than 300 people and was also felt in Rome. On that occasion controversy also swirled around a scientist, Giampaolo Giuliani, who in the preceding days tried to warn the local population of an imminent quake -- though officials say he was wrong about its precise location.

iPad Fight

10 May 2011 - It was only a small article in teh newspaper, but four people were taken to hospital and a glass door smashed as a near-riot broke out at an Apple store in Beijing. "Crowds were rushing to snap up the iPad 2", state press media said yesterday. Angry consumers began rushing into the store on Saturday afternoon after a foreign Apple employee allegedly stepped into the crowd to push and beat people suspected of queue jumping, the Beijing news said. After the employee retreated back into the store, consumers smashed the glass front door and shoved security guards as they surged forward in anger over the alleged beatings. The store in Sanlitin commercial district closed early because of the altercation. it is not clear if anyone walked away with the beloved iPad 2. Only in China!

Jumping Time

9 May 2011 - The South Pacific island nation of Samoa is to jump forward in time by one day in order to boost its economy. Samoa will do this by switching to the west side of the international date line, which it says will make it easier for it to do business with Australia and New Zealand. At present, Samoa is 21 hours behind Sydney. From 29 December it will be three hours ahead. The change comes 119 years after Samoa moved in the opposite direction. Then, it transferred to the east side of the international date line in an effort to aid trade with the US and Europe. However, Australia and New Zealand have increasingly become Samoa's biggest trading partners. Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said: "In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week. "While it's Friday here, it's Saturday in New Zealand and when we're at church Sunday, they're already conducting business in Sydney and Brisbane." Samoa is located approximately halfway between New Zealand and Hawaii and has a population of 180,000 people.

Beauty Hurts

8 May 2011 - Beauty pageants for young men have become increasingly popular in Venezuela, where winning international competitions has long been the ambition of many women in the country. As in traditional female versions of these contests, the participants are expected to present themselves, sing, dance and appear in a variety of outfits, including swim wear. "It's no good having someone with a beautiful face if they can't answer a question," says Hernesto Boscan, a former Mr Venezuela and organiser of the event. With a population of some 28 million people (almost the same as Malaysia!), Venezuelan contestants have an extraordinary record in international beauty contests, winning Miss Universe six times, a feat only exceeded by the United States. Such success is helped at least in part by the lengths some Venezuelan women are willing to go to in order to achieve physical perfection. Many will have plastic surgery in order to compete in beauty pageants, most commonly nose jobs and breast implants, as well as visiting an orthodontist to improve their teeth. The young men competing this week also expect to go under the knife in order to get ahead.
"If it's something I have to do in order to win, then I'll do it," says Freddy Pimentel, 26. Plastic surgery of any kind is common in Venezuela, and admitting that you have gone had a procedure is not taboo. Some estimates put the number of breast augmentation surgeries in Venezuela at between 30,000 and 40,000 a year.