Fatboy Slim Gives Up Ivor Novello Award For Charity
DJ and producer Fatboy Slim is auctioning off part of his Ivor Novello Award to raise money for charity.
The Brighton based musician – aka Norman Cook – has donated a tin of jelly beans, customised with smiley faces, to an auction being run by music website www.eq-mag.co.uk on behalf of Oxjam.
The auction is part of the charity’s Oxjam fundraiser, a month-long musical event that sees promoters around the country run gigs and club nights to raise cash for Oxfam. Norman has already played out in an Oxjam shop as part of the event.
Other items being auctioned off in the EQ/Oxjam Rave Auction include an exclusive Underworld triptych, hand-drawn by the band’s vocalist Karl Hyde, a screen print by legendary producer Andrew Weatherall, signed chromalin prints of album artwork from London club Fabric, signed CD and T-shirt from Dutch superstar DJ Tiesto, a CD wallet signed by Carl Cox, plus loads of other exclusive goodies and the chance to add your vocals to a forthcoming track.
And a certain Radio 1 DJ will also being donating the shirt (or shirts) off his own back in the coming days.
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Traditional Herbal Medicines – A Guide To Their Safer Use
This new book shows how to use herbs safely with other herbs and with conventional medicines. Britons are increasingly turning first to complementary remedies such as herbal medicines, when it comes to choosing a healthcare treatment.
The latest figures from industry analysts Mintel show:
- In 2007 alone, British consumers will invest £191 million in complementary medicines – a 32% increase in sales since 2002
- By 2011 complementary healthcare sales will break the £250 million barrier
- 49% of British women and almost three in 10 (28%) men have used complementary medication and would use it again.
- Herbal remedies, such as green tea varieties and echinacea, have proved the most popular. Not only do they account for almost two-thirds (63%) of the market, but sales here have also grown the fastest since 2002. Indeed, this year we will spend almost £120 million on herbal remedies, nearly 40% more than five years ago.
With a growing number of people buying and using herbal medicines, there’s never been a better time for a comprehensive guide that tells you how to use them safely, particularly in conjunction with conventional medicines. Traditional Herbal Medicines – a guide to their safer use is written by experts at the Medical Toxicology Unit of Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
According to the latest Mintel report, spend on herbal remedies has increased by 40% over the past five years. Many experts, however, are worried that the average man on the street is self-prescribing over-the-counter herbal medicines without knowing enough about the herbs they’re taking, some of which may be harmful if taken incorrectly.
One of the book’s co-authors Dr Lakshman Karalliedde MB BS DA FRCA, consultant, Chemical Hazards and Poisons Division (London), Health Protection Agency, says: “One of the key reasons for the increased use of traditional herbal medicines in developed countries is the generally accepted perception that ‘natural’ products are safe. They have stood the test of time and do not carry the risks inherent in newly developed conventional medicines.
“There’s not enough awareness that the ingredients that make traditional medicines effective could also be potentially capable of causing serious illness such as allergy, liver or kidney malfunction, blindness, cancer or even death.
“Herbal medicines should therefore be used with the same degree of caution as conventional medicines, but this is difficult given the lack of information available about effectiveness, optimum dose or adverse effects.”
The problem is that while the toxic profiles of conventional medicines have been extensively documented and publicised, the harmful effects of herbal medicines – either taken on their own or in combination with conventional medicines – aren’t well enough known. According to a National Institute of Medical Herbalists survey, 96% of qualified medical herbalists believed that conventional doctors do not know enough about herbs to give their patients advice. And if GPs are relatively in the dark, what hope is there for members of the general public?
It was with this in mind – and the growing, urgent need for more information to be made available to the public – that a group of toxicology experts got together to co-author Traditional Herbal Medicines – namely Dr Lakshman Karalliedde, who spent 10 years at the MTU and is now a toxicologist with the Chemical Hazards and Poisons Division of the Health Protection Agency; Debbie Shaw, who heads the MTU’s Chinese Medicine Advisory Service; and Indika Gawarammana, former registrar at the MTU. They have combined their significant knowledge of traditional medicines to produce a comprehensive herbal compendium covering traditional herbal remedies from around the world, describing their sources, known effects and side effects, dosages, interactions and – most importantly – precautions. It’s a must for anyone involved in prescribing either conventional or traditional herbal medicines – as well as the growing number of people who are taking them.
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Reading Celebrity Books In Public Makes People Look Ugly
Celebrity autobiographies such as ‘Being Jordan’ or ‘Beckham: My World’ are multi-million pound bestsellers, but read them in public at your peril, warns Britain’s largest book exchange website, Readitswapit.co.uk.
A survey by the website reveals that the majority of Brits1 change their perceptions about people they see reading these books in public places. Two out of three Brits surveyed said they would perceive someone who read Jordan’s and Beckham’s biographies in public as ‘unattractive’.
Readitswapit.co.uk co-founder Andrew Bathgate said: “Jordan and Beckham are two of the most image-conscious celebrities on the planet – so it’s ironic that if you read their autobiographies in public, your own image will suffer.”
Overall, 97% said that, if they were single, their perceptions about a member of the opposite sex could be affected by the types of books they saw that person reading in public.
Image-conscious Brits
It seems it’s not just celebrity autobiographies which image-conscious Brits should avoid. Reading so-called ‘chick lit’ and ‘lad lit’ in public can also create negative perceptions along the gender divide.
For example, more than two out of five men (44%) said there is no way they would view a woman reading Chick Lit hit ‘The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic’ as attractive, and in fact they would find it ‘a real turn-off’.
Meanwhile, over a third of women said they would actually be physically repulsed by a man they saw reading ‘The World According To Clarkson’ in public.
Books that make you look good
So what books should you read if you want to appear more attractive to a member of the opposite sex?
Overall, famous Victorian classics, such as Wuthering Heights and War And Peace, were rated the highest by both genders, with more than a quarter of men (27%) citing they be ‘very attracted’ to a woman they saw reading Tolstoy’s classic on a bus, while nearly one in two women (45%) said they would be ‘interested’ in a man they saw publicly immersed in Bronte’s classic love story.
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