Reader's Digest (November 2022)

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AUSTRALIA
NOVEMBER 2022
|
THE WORLD’S BEST LOVED MAGAZINE

T R I BU T E

Queen
Elizabeth II
1 9 2 6 -2
2022

|
readersdigest.com.au

NOVEMBER 2022 $6.50

CONTENTS
NOVEMBER 2022

Features

queen elizabeth ii
(1926-2022)

The Queen’s Portrait
For her 60th birthday,
a relaxed and friendly
Queen Elizabeth II
sat for a special
painting.

32
When She
Was Princess

PHOTO: (COVER) © NATIONAL PORTR AIT GALLERY,
LONDON; ILLUS TR ATION (BURNOUT) JAMES S TEINBERG

As a young woman,
Princess Elizabeth
was already
displaying a strong
sense of duty – and
a will of her own.
WILLIAM W. WHITE
FROM LIFE

health

Beyond Burnout
Ways to cope if you
are feeling stressed,
worried and
overwhelmed.
LESLIE FINLAY
ON THE COVER: THE QUEEN’S
PORTRAIT – PAGE 30

drama in real life

health

Trapped Down
A Well

Dementia
Warning Signals

A father leaps into an
icy cold well to save
his six year old. Now
both are stuck
20 metres down.

Memory loss may not
be the first indication
of Alzheimer’s disease.

ROBERT KIENER

food for thought

Hamburgers
The juicy history of
how a meat patty was
sandwiched into a
bun, and then became
a fast-food classic.
DIANE GODLEY

MARK WITTEN

photo feature

Nothing But Sand
Wavy dunes or carved
sculptures, there is
beauty to be found in
the grains of weathered
rock. DORIS KOCHANEK

opinion

Just Listen To Us!

Young people from
around the world have
plenty to say on the
past, the present – and
their futures.

humour

I Got Organised
The Chaotic Way
Sorting and tidying up
begins with disorder
and large clumps of
clutter. RICHARD GLOVER
readersdigest.com.au

NOVEMBER 2022

118

The Movie Gets
A New Ending

Learn A Language
As An Adult

A film producer
discovers the facts of
a crime documentary
don’t add up.

You’re never too old
to start speaking a
foreign tongue.

heroes

ADRIENNE FARR

102

culture

Music Of The Heart
Flamenco guitar is all
about improvisation –
and expressing the
deepest emotions.
LAVINIA SPALDING
FROM AFAR

112
quiz

A Very Special Juice
This vital fluid
carries nutrients to
the body. But how
much do you really
know about blood?
KIRSTIN VON ELM

november 2022

how to

EMILY GOODMAN

122
travel

Tempting Fate
At The Onbashira
Festival
Viewed as a test of
courage, this age-old
festival in Japan is
one of its deadliest
traditions.
PATRICK MURPHREY
FROM THE JAPAN TIMES

130

bonus read

26
Departments
the digest
20 Pets
22 Health
28 News From The
World Of Medicine
141 RD Recommends
regulars
4 Editor’s Note
6 Letters
12 My Story
17 Smart Animals
56 Look Twice
98 Tell Me Why
100 Quotable Quotes
humour
50 Life’s Like That
96 Laughter,
The Best Medicine
110 All In A Day’s Work

The Business Of Love
The internet offers
both romance and
broken promises, as a
widower searching
for a new partner
discovers to his cost.
HENNING SUSSEBACH

the genius section
146 Freeing Yourself
148 Puzzles
152 Trivia
154 Puzzle Answers
155 Word Power

ILLUS TR ATION: GE T T Y IMAGES

CONTENTS

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

EDITOR’S NOTE
AMONG THE EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS OF 2022, the death of
Queen Elizabeth II sparked a global response. While any individual
born into royal privilege enjoys an opulent lifestyle, the Queen’s ability
to remain devoted to her family made her universally relatable. She, too,
withstood the constraints of lockdown, made harder by the loss of her
husband and family quarrels. While there is
criticism about the institution of monarchy,
even anti-monarchists declared themselves
impressed by the Queen herself.
Our tribute to Her Majesty is two-fold.
‘The Queen’s Portrait’ (page 30) offers details
into the story behind the Queen’s portrait
commissioned by Reader’s Digest in 1986.
‘When She Was Princess’ (page 32) portrays
the life of the then 19-year-old Princess
Elizabeth Windsor, first published in the
magazine in 1945. Both tributes offer unique
The then Princess Elizabeth
perspectives into this exceptional monarch.
wearing her army uniform
We also visit a small village in the Japanese
during WWII
mountains to experience the Onbashira
Festival (‘Tempting Fate’, page 122), one of the world’s most
dangerous downhill celebrations; and try to persuade ‘grown-ups’
that it’s never too late to learn a foreign language (‘Learn A Language
As An Adult’, page 118).
These stories and much more in this month’s issue.
Happy reading,
LOUISE WATERSON
Editor-in-Chief

november 2022

PHOTO: CAMER A PRESS (PHOTO BY CECIL BE ATON)

A Global Impact

AUSTRALIA

Vol. 203
No. 1210
November 2022

EDITORIAL
Editor-in-Chief Louise Waterson
Managing Editor Zoë Meunier
Chief Subeditor Melanie Egan
Art Director Hugh Hanson
Senior Art Designer Adele Burley
Art Designer Annie Li
Senior Editor Diane Godley
Associate Editor Victoria Polzot
DIGITAL
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T R I BU T E

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

LETTERS
Reader’s Comments And Opinions

Budding Writer
My name is Lachlan Badowski and
I am nine years old. I like all the
Reader’s Digest magazines you
make. My mum has a subscription
and we read your magazines
together every month. My
favourite edition so far contained
‘I Survived!’ (July). It reminds me
of when I went to Tonga to visit my
aunty and we swam with the
whales. Luckily we did not get
eaten! I like writing letters and am
learning how to use a fountain

pen. I would like to win the prize
so I can keep on writing letters to
my family around the world.
LACHLAN BADOWSKI

Following A New Direction

Celebrating With A Cycle Ride

‘Our Second Chance’ (My Story,
September) was a wonderful and
inspirational story. Mandy Poole
beautifully showed us how we can
change the direction of our lives
if we allow it. Often, adversity is
what motivates positive change.
We just have to be brave enough
to dive in and see where the new
direction leads us.

Reading ‘My Year of Playing
70 Sports’ (My Story, August)
reminded me of a somewhat similar
experience. I celebrated my 65th
birthday in February this year.
Leading up to the date, I regularly
rode my bicycle with the objective
of cycling 65 kilometres on my 65th
birthday.
When the day came, I started
early and rode 30km, after which

NAOMI MINTER

Let us know if you are moved – or provoked – by any item in the magazine,
share your thoughts. See page 8 to find how to join the discussion.

november 2022

Letters
I took a short break and had a
light breakfast. Then I continued
and rode another 20km, which
completed my morning ride. My legs
were already sore but I managed to
ride 15km more in the afternoon to
achieve my objective.
I continue to ride my bicycle. I
am hoping to ride 70km on my 70th
birthday.
DEMOSTHENES REDOBLE

Clever New Zealanders
Trust the Kiwis to come up with the
brilliant idea of a courier pick-up
service for soft plastics (News Worth
Sharing, August). I wonder what
else, other than fence posts, could
be manufactured with recycled soft
plastics? This is definitely the way of
the future.
WAYNE PICKERING

BIRD BRAIN
We asked you to think up a clever
caption to this photo.

On a wing and a hair.
CHRIS RAMOS

One has to think a head when it
comes to nesting.
JULIET SCOBLE

I can tweet all day.
KAVITHA SUKIRTHALINGAM

Dad told me this is the only way to
pick up chicks.
CHRISTINA HATZIS

WIN A PILOT CAPLESS
FOUNTAIN PEN
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win a Pilot Capless Fountain Pen,
valued at over $200. The Capless
is the perfect combination
of luxury and ingenious
technology, featuring a oneof-a-kind retractable fountain
pen nib, durable metal body,
beautiful rhodium accents and a
14K gold nib. Congratulations to
this month’s winner,
Lachlan Badowski.

Congratulations to this month’s
winner, Christina Hatzis.

WIN!
CAPTION CONTEST
Come up with the funniest caption
for the above photo and you could win
$100. To enter, email
editor@readersdigest.com.au
or see details on page 8.

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Concern During War
It was heartening to read about the
people who generously gave up their
time to assist the Ukrainian people
(‘Human Kindness Amid War’, July).
There is another notable person I’d
like to mention: Dmitry Muratov, a
Russian journalist, sold his Nobel
Peace Prize gold medal for a record
breaking A$150 million in June
this year. He gave the proceeds to
UNICEF to help children displaced
by the Ukraine war receive the
chance of a better future.
WENDY COOKSEY

Aid For Hearing Loss
We are so tired of shouting at our
grandfather. We have to repeat
ourselves again and again, and the
TV volume is turned so high that we
can’t hear our own voices. When I
read ‘New Help For Hearing Loss’
(August), it opened new possibilities.
The article is a problem-solver for me
and many others struggling with the
hearing problems of the elderly.
MALEEHA HARIS

Just My Luck
I read with interest ‘Can You Change
Your Luck?’ (August). I have always
tried to have a ‘half-full’ approach
to life but admit that sometimes the
day-to-day challenges can dim this
notion. Professor Wiseman’s advice,
that if you are relaxed, happy and
flexible, your world view becomes
bigger, is my new mantra. ELISE MILSON

november 2022

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My Story $400
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MY STORY

Shooting
Stars
Gazing up at the night
sky during a meteor shower
throws out more than
just light

get up in the dark hours of the
morning for three reasons only:
to attend ANZAC Day service,
to catch a cheap flight, or to
witness an astronomical event.
It was the last of these three that
prompted me to set my alarm for
3.30am on Sunday May 8 this year.
My success rate with astronomical
events has been low because of
rain, cloud cover and Sydney’s light
pollution – which renders the night
sky a dull, flat, grey surface against
which only a few stars manage
to shine. But the biggest obstacle
has been my dislike of waking up
in the dark and getting out of my
warm bed. This particular Sunday,
I surprised myself when I got up
when my alarm sounded.

november 2022

That they are elusive, erratic and
startlingly fleeting makes shooting
stars (actually meteor showers)
one of my favourite astronomical
phenomena. The last time I tried
to see some, I stood in a cold,
deserted street but instead of
shooting stars I spotted Elon Musk
satellites, moving in a slow, orderly
fashion across the sky like a string
of beads. They were eye-catching
but not magical.
A newspaper article had reported
that the annual Eta Aquarid meteor
shower was going to be at its peak
that weekend. But how could
something that shoots through
space and disappears in a split
second be predictable and annual?
My confusion prompted me to do

PHOTO: GE T T Y IMAGES

BY Samantha Kent

My Story
some research: shooting stars are
actually stationary objects set in
motion only when our atmosphere
smashes into them and burns
them up. Of the different clusters of
meteors, the Aquarids are the debris
left behind by Halley’s Comet. They
have been suspended in a particular
part of the Milky Way galaxy for the
last few hundred years. And every
time the Earth collides with them,
more of them are incinerated.
I was staying
at my boyfriend’s
property in the Blue
Mountains, west
of Sydney. That
morning it was so
cold, I got out of bed
before I had time to
change my mind. I
grabbed a jacket and
scarf and headed
outside, pausing at the corner of
the cottage to look up. The Milky
Way was blazing in a cloud-free
sky and within seconds a shooting
star sped across my field of view.
Figuring it could be the real thing
this time, I woke up my boyfriend
and promised him it would be worth
his while. He had been nowhere
near as keen as me and was yet to be
convinced that bed was not the best

place to be at that moment.
We were going to need camp
beds, pillows and blankets to stay
for the show. We picked a spot in
the middle of his block and lugged
our equipment over, with me
managing to jam my finger in the
bed in my haste to set up. I lay down
and pulled the blanket around
my face. The stand of gum trees
behind was sheltering us from the
wind but a stray chill breeze rushed
across my cheek.
The neighbour’s
house across the
way was dark.
From somewhere
in the trees came
the unfamiliar call
of a night bird. An
emptiness in the
air told me we were
alone.
Only a minute later I saw the
next shooting star. I interrupted my
boyfriend’s grumbling about the
cold to shout “There!”
“Where?”
“Over there!” I said, pointing (as
though pointing could help).
“There’s another!” (He was
starting to get excited.)
The rewards were coming from all
directions now; we notched up some
ten more stars within minutes, most
vanishing before one of us could
draw the other’s attention, some
leaving long, bright tails burning in
their wake.

THE MILKY WAY
WAS BLAZING IN A
CLOUD-FREE SKY
AND WITHIN SECONDS
A SHOOTING STAR
SPED ACROSS MY
FIELD OF VIEW

Samantha Kent lives in Sydney’s inner west.
She is an editor in the book publishing
industry and her passions, besides star
gazing, are travel and ocean swimming.

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

I travel to the Blue Mountains
most weekends and make a habit
out of glancing up at the sky at
night – it’s so strikingly different
from the skies I see in Sydney –
but I had never spent more than a
minute gazing into it before, and
the shooting star
count was already a
personal record.
We continued
keeping score and
after a while I noticed
that the Milky Way –
which had been lined
up with us earlier
– had shifted across
us at an angle. The
Earth is said to move relative to the
Milky Way at a rate of 210 kilometres
per second, but I’d never registered
this movement. That it had always
appeared fixed was testament only
to my failure to pay it any attention.
With such a large area to scan,
and keen not to miss the best star
trails, I had to stay alert. Looking
intently into the night sky for a
length of time instead of glancing at
it as I’m rushing from one moment
to the next was making me focus on
the thousands of visible pinpricks of
light in a way I never had before. My
appreciation of how many different
degrees of brightness there are
between stars, of how many slightly
different shapes they take, and of
how the black spaces in between
seem to be of varying depths was

completely new. The idea that
the light I was seeing was many
billions of years old was suddenly
chillingly real.
An hour passed and I could
begin to understand how staring
into billions of years of evolution
preserved in one
single night sky –
suspended forever
over our daily
humdrum lives
and continuing
unaffected by the
events on our small
planet – might make
a person lose their
mind. The universe
is oblivious to us and most of us, in
turn, are oblivious to the history
of the tumultuous events the night
sky represents. But in just a single
hour we can perceive either the
infinite significance or the infinite
meaningless of existence – or both –
whichever way you choose to view it.
An hour and a half – and several
dozens of shooting stars – later, my
boyfriend and I were cold and
figured we had seen enough – if that
was even possible. Exhilarated at
what had felt like our own private
show, we picked up our pillows and
blankets and headed back to bed.

WITH SUCH A
LARGE AREA TO
SCAN, AND KEEN NOT
TO MISS THE BEST
STAR TRAILS,
I HAD TO STAY ALERT

november 2022

Do you have a tale to tell? We’ll pay
cash for any original and unpublished
story we print. See page 8 for details
on how to contribute.

SMART ANIMALS
Some animals have a powerful presence

Fluffy, The Dog-Rider

ILLUS TR ATIONS: GE T T Y IMAGES

CAROLE LAWRENCE

When I grew up, we had a beautiful,
long-haired, brown cat called Fluffy.
She was the most eccentric and
obsessive cat I have ever known.
When she had kittens, one of
them had fluffy ginger fur so I
named him Sandy. Fluffy had three
other kittens in the litter besides
Sandy, but she would spend more
time washing and grooming Sandy
than the other kittens. So Sandy
turned into a real mummy’s boy, a
great big sook. If another cat even
dared to look in his direction, or
come close to Sandy, Fluffy would
go at it and fur would fly!
Fluffy never lost a fight; she was a

real champion fighter. One day a very
large dog, an Alsatian, came into the
backyard with its owner who’d come
to see my dad about some work.
Fluffy was sitting on the top of the
fence in a crouching position when
the man and his dog innocently
walked underneath her. She jumped
onto the Alsatian’s back and dug her
claws in. The poor dog didn’t know
what hit him. He took off back down
the path yelping, with Fluffy riding
on his back. His owner called him,
but the dog wouldn’t return.
>>
You could earn cash by telling us
about the antics of unique pets or
wildlife. Turn to page 8 for details
on how to contribute.
readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

>> Fluffy, however, waltzed
back up the driveway, her tail held
straight up in the air, with every bit
of fur in place as if she had just won
first prize at a cat show.

Run, Rabbit, Run!
CHRISTINA MAXWELL

My father retired in the spring of
1981 to live in a house with a tiny
garden in the small British seaside
town of Birchington. Since he
always loved working with soil, he
was able to rent an allotment to
nurture from the local council.
Most days he would drive over
to his plot and tend to his carrots,
beans, tomatoes and radishes with
great enthusiasm. He had a small
shed situated on the edge of his
allotment and this contained his
well-worn garden tools and an old
wicker chair that he would sit on to
gaze at the results of his hard work.
Unfortunately, by the early 1990s,
his strength was diminishing.
Although the other gardeners
were sympathetic at first, they
complained to the council when his
previously immaculate allotment
began to show signs of decay, and he
received a notice to vacate the land.
He brought all his tools back
home, left the shed and wicker chair
for the new gardener and never
returned to his allotment again. His
health deteriorated after that and he
sadly passed away not long after.
But at the time of his passing,

november 2022

an unusual event occurred in
this coastal town. Birchington
had apparently never seen mass
sightings of rabbits or hares before.
However, on this particular evening,
several hundred rabbits arrived en
masse and ate their way through
every vegetable, flower and leaf in
the 50-plus allotments.
When the gardeners arrived the
following day, there was nothing left
except stubble. The council decided
to close the allotments. Although
people searched for the rabbits to
euthanise them, none were ever
found.
Perhaps these rabbits
sympathised with my dad. Some
people believed that since he was
such an animal lover, he sent a
message from beyond the grave.
‘Run, Rabbit, Run’ was one of his
favourite wartime songs.

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

PETS

Teaching Kids Pet Care
Children who have pets enjoy a special learning experience
BY Dr Katrina Warren

THERE IS OFTEN A VERY SPECIAL BOND between

children and pets. Growing up with a family pet can
be a wonderful experience for a child. Research has
even found that pets can be beneficial for childhood
development and health by teaching responsibility,
reducing the risk of allergies and encouraging exercise.
Veterinarian Dr Katrina Warren shares her top tips for
managing children and pets.

BEFORE BRINGING HOME A NEW PET, you should
Our regular pet
columnist,
Dr Katrina Warren,
is an established
and trusted
animal expert.

discuss basic ground rules that the whole family agrees
on. Read some age-appropriate books about the type
of pet you are getting and ask your children to answer
basic questions about what will be involved in looking
after that pet.

ALWAYS SUPERVISE YOUNG CHILDREN AND
PETS, and if you can’t supervise then be sure to
separate them. Never leave a young child unsupervised
with any pet, even when it’s your own well-loved and
trusted dog. Dog bites to children are mostly inflicted
by their own dog or the dog of a friend or neighbour.

PETS WILL APPRECIATE A SAFE PLACE that is out
of bounds to children. For puppies and dogs, this could
be a crate or playpen, for kittens and cats, a climbing

november 2022

Pets
tree or spare bedroom. Cats
should also have a bed, litter
tray and food and water bowls
in an area that is off limits to
the kids. Teach children to
respect the pet’s privacy and
to only interact when the pet
comes to them, not the other
way around.
Children need to learn appropriate
behaviour around pets

TEACH KIDS THAT PETS
AREN’T TOYS. Young
children should not be allowed to
pick up their pet, and older kids
from seven years of age should
only be allowed to pick up pets
under supervision. When patting or
playing with pets be sure children
are always sitting on the floor, not
wandering around holding the
pet. Teach kids to let go of a pet
instead of trying to force them to do
something they don’t want to do.

KIDS CAN HELP IN EVERYDAY
PET CARE. Younger children can
help fill the water bowl and older
ones can take care of feeding and
grooming or changing the litter tray.
This is a great way to teach lessons

in basic pet hygiene by reminding
your children to always wash their
hands after handling their pet.

TEACH CHILDREN ABOUT
ANIMAL HEALTH and the
responsibility of caring for a pet
by encouraging the whole family
to come on trips to the vet. This
also allows kids to understand the
role of the vet in pet health and
the importance of regular checkups. Enrolling a new puppy into
puppy classes can provide a great
opportunity for children to learn
about the needs of their puppy and
understand that puppies also need
to learn good manners.

PHOTO: GE T T Y IMAGES

TOP TIPS FOR SAFE PET PLAY
• Pets may be cuddly,
but they can also cause
injury by biting and
scratching if they are
not handled correctly.

• Young children can

• Don’t allow rough play

accidentally injure an
animal during playtime
by dropping or
squeezing it too hard.

with puppies or dogs as
this will increase the
chance of them nipping
and jumping.

readersdigest.com.au

HEALTH

Easy
Ways
To Sleep
Better
Especially when stress
is keeping you up
BY Nicole Pajer
FROM THE A ARP BULLETIN

november 2022

we tend to wake up more, snooze
for shorter periods, and get less
sleep than younger people. Simple
steps such as setting the thermostat
between 15.5 and 19.5 degrees
Celsius at night and turning off
screens 30 minutes before bedtime
can help, as can the following tips.

1. TEST YOUR PILLOW
If you bought your pillow in 2020,
guess what? It’s already old. Sleep
experts recommend replacing
pillows every one to two years. A
pillow past its prime can cause neck
and shoulder pain – and restless

PHOTOS: GE T T Y IMAGES

ith everything going
on in the world
these days, it’s no
wonder so many of
us are struggling to sleep. Almost
40 per cent of people surveyed in
13 countries have reported sleep
issues over the past two years,
according to research in the Journal
of Clinical Sleep Medicine. It’s normal
to wake up at night, especially as you
age, but negative news can activate
your mind and make it hard to fall
back asleep.
Even if you’re not up late fretting,
sleeping can be a struggle. By age 60,

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

sleep. “When your brain is sending
pain signals, it can’t also send sleep
signals,” says Dr Michael J. Breus,
a clinical psychologist and sleep
specialist.
To buy the right pillow, determine
your sleep style. If you sleep on your
back, look for a thinner pillow made
of supportive foam. If you sleep on
your side, a thicker pillow is better.

2. GET AN HOUR OF
SUNLIGHT EACH DAY
Morning sunlight is important
for good sleep. “It turns off the
melatonin tap in your brain, which
helps relieve the groggy morning
feeling,” Dr Breus says. It also sets a
mental timer to produce melatonin,
the so-called sleep hormone, that
evening.
To get more rays, aim for 15 to
30 minutes of direct light in the
morning. Next, take two 15-minute
outdoor breaks during the day.
The light cues your brain that it’s
time to be awake and prevents you
from producing melatonin before
bedtime. When you’re inside, open
the curtains.

3. SKIP SALTY SNACKS
BEFORE BED
Want to reduce those annoying
night-time trips to the bathroom?
Cut back on salty snacks, such as
potato chips. In a Japanese study,
researchers followed 321 patients
with high-salt diets and sleep issues

november 2022

for 12 weeks. When people cut down
on salt, their average bathroom trips
decreased from twice a night to once.
Those who consumed more salt
woke up more frequently to go to the
bathroom.
The urge to urinate late at night
(known as nocturia) can make it
harder to fall back to sleep, leading to
fatigue, increased napping and even
depression, says Dr Rafael Pelayo, a
clinical professor of psychiatry and
behavioural sciences and the author
of How to Sleep.

4. TACKLE YOUR TROUBLES
BEFORE DINNER
If you need an airing of grievances
with your spouse, don’t wait until
night-time. Tough discussions are
less likely to disrupt your slumber if
you initiate them earlier rather than
later.
“Right before dinner is a good
time to work things out,” says Ashley
Mason, an associate professor
of psychiatry at the University of
California, San Francisco. If you
start an argument after dinner,
your quarrelling can continue until
bedtime. That’s a problem because
arguments can activate your
sympathetic nervous system, which
can disturb sleep.
Some research even suggests that
going to bed angry may make you
surly the next morning.
FROM THE AARP BULLETIN (DECEMBER 2021) ©
2021 BY AARP

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is on balance, with sideways
and backwards movements
helping to strengthen
muscles required for good
stability. It also improves
flexibility and spatial
awareness.

HEALTH

TAI CHI
BY The Editors

It may reduce pain
A small body of
research indicates that doing
tai chi on a regular basis can
help alleviate knee osteoarthritis,
fibromyalgia and lower back pain.

Tai chi is good for both body
and mind This gentle martial
art originated in China. It’s called
‘meditation in motion’ because it
involves slow movements with a focus
on breathing and on what your body
is doing in that moment. You can go at
your own pace.
It’s easy on the body Tai chi is
suitable for all ages and levels
of fitness. It is low impact, meaning
there is minimal risk of damage to
your joints. Muscles are relaxed and
there is no stretching or straining. It’s
an exercise that can be easily adapted
for less able people, including those in
wheelchairs.

It could prevent falls A 2019
review of studies suggested that
tai chi might reduce the risk of falls in
older people. Certainly, the emphasis

november 2022

Tai chi compares with brisk
walking and resistance training
This might be difficult to believe, as tai
chi is so slow and smooth, but it can
improve upper-body strength, thanks
to the unsupported arm movements
it involves, as well as lower-body
strength when practised regularly.

It may boost brain power
Benefits aren’t just physical.
Studies have found that regular tai chi
can improve cognitive functioning
in older people, including those with
dementia. Given that it’s considered
safe and suitable for the elderly, this is
a definite benefit.

It has the feel-good factor A
reduction in stress and anxiety,
and increased confidence, are other
mental health benefits of tai chi,
according to research, although
further studies are needed.

ILLUS TR ATION: GE T T Y IMAGES

7 Reasons
To Try

Learn More
- FREE DVD
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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

News From The

WORLD OF MEDICINE

The first prescription eye drops to
treat age-related far-sightedness,
also known as presbyopia, were
recently approved by the US Food
and Drug Administration. This
promising development could
potentially replace reading glasses
for up to 1.8 billion people globally.
The eye drops work by reducing
your pupil size and expanding your
depth of focus so you can see closeup objects more clearly. They may be
best suited for people in their 40s and
50s, since they are less effective for
those with advanced presbyopia.

A DOLLOP OF YOGHURT
LOWERS BLOOD PRESSURE
A study at the University of South
Australia and the University of
Maine found that people with
elevated blood pressure
(greater than or equal
to 140/90 mmHg, the
normal level being
less than 120/80)
who regularly
consumed yoghurt
lowered their
readings by nearly

november 2022

seven points. The dairy product
may have this heart-healthy effect
because it contains bacteria that
promote the release of proteins that
lower blood pressure.

REDUCING STRESS MAY SLOW
DOWN AGEING
Scientists have begun tracking
changes in DNA as people get older
and found that this measurement of
‘biological age’ can predict a person’s
health and lifespan better than age
counted in years.
Researchers at Yale University used
a tool called GrimAge to investigate
whether chronic stress accelerates
ageing and if there are ways to slow
it down. The study found that
cumulative stress does indeed make
a healthy person’s biological clock
accelerate – and can even cause it to
move at a faster rate than other
risk factors, such as being
overweight. People who
experienced prolonged
stress but scored
high in emotional
regulation and selfcontrol were more
resilient to stress’s
negative effects.

IMAGE: VECTEEZ Y.COM

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READING GLASSES

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QUEEN ELIZABETH II
(1926-2022)

THE QUEEN’S

Portrait
T

he beautiful image of
Q ue en E l i z abet h I I
t hat features on t he
cover of this issue has
specia l sig nif ica nce
to our magazine, as
it was commissioned by Reader’s
Digest to celebrate Her Majesty’s
60th birthday on April 21, 1986.
Unlike most royal portrait painter s, M ichael L eona rd took no
sketch-book or paintbrush w ith
him to Buckingham Palace. The
sittings took place in the summer
of 1985, and for his sittings with
the Queen in the Yellow Drawing
Room, Leonard was equipped with
only a camera.
“Photographs provide all the information I need,” he told Reader’s

november 2022

Reader’s Digest UK April 1986
featuring the Queen’s Portrait

PHOTOS: RE ADER’S DIGES T, © NATIONAL PORTR AIT GALLERY, LONDON, W W W,NPG.ORG.UK.

Looking back to a special Reader’s Digest moment

“I want to give the
viewer the feeling of
having a conversation
with the Queen
– to convey royalty
combined with
human warmth”
Digest at the time. “I have to take
them myself, though.”
During the 25-minute sittings,
Leonard took more than 100 pictures as the Queen, rela xed and
friendly, sat on the sofa with her
eight-year-old corgi, Sparky. Later,
in Leonard’s west London studio, he
chose six of the photos to amalgamate into his painting.
The 76-centimetre-high portrait
is in acrylic paint on canvas, a technique Leonard used throughout his

Her Majesty has graced the covers of
Reader’s Digest numerous times

Artist Michael Leonard with the
portrait in his studio

career, which established him, at 52,
in the forefront of Britain’s figurative artists. His use of photographs
heightens the realism and immediacy conveyed in the portrait.
At the time of painting Her Majesty, Leonard said about his royal
portrait: “I want to give the viewer
the feeling of having a conversation
with the Queen – to convey royalty
combined with human warmth.”
T h is specia l ly com m issioned
Reader’s Digest portrait was published on the cover of the April 1986
British edition. It was presented to
the National Portrait Gallery in 1986
by the Reader’s Digest Association,
where it remains to this day.
Accord i ng to t he Ga l ler y, t he
Queen was associated with 967 portraits in her lifetime. Some are iconic, others abstract and some are
controversial. Our research confirms this is Sparky’s only official
portrait.
readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Princess Elizabeth
writing at her desk
in Windsor Castle in
May 1944. She had
just turned 18

november 2022

QUEEN ELIZABETH II
(1926-2022)

When
She
Was
Princess
A 1945 perspective of the woman who
would become Queen Elizabeth II
BY William W. White

P U B L I S H E D I N R E A D E R ’ S D I G E S T I N N O V E M B E R 19 4 5
A S ‘ P R I N C E S S E L I Z A B E T H ’. C O N D E N S E D F R O M T H E PA G E S O F L I F E

readersdigest.com.au

On September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully at her
Scottish castle in Balmoral. The days and weeks that followed her
passing witnessed much regalia, tradition and tears. This year also
marked her Platinum Jubilee: 70 years since she ascended the throne
in 1952 at the age of 25 after the death of her father, George VI.
It was the start of the longest reign of any British monarch in history.
Hers was an extraordinary life and one that even she could never
have envisaged. This article was written in 1945, at the end of World
War II, two years before Elizabeth married Prince Philip.
PRINCESS ELIZABETH ALEXANDRA
MARY WINDSOR will someday claim

the allegiance of 489,000,000 of the
world’s population when she takes her
full title: Elizabeth II, by the Grace of
God, of Great Britain, Ireland, and the
British Dominions beyond the Seas,
Queen, Defender of the Faith and
Empress of India. She recently saw
her sceptred isle go through the turmoil of sudden political change when
Winston Churchill lost the election in
July, just two months after he declared
VE Day. Her one recorded comment
when she learned that her good friend
had been snowed under an avalanche
of leftist votes was, “Oh, bother.”
This is not to say that the events of
the day were altogether lost on Elizabeth. She has been educated to think
very seriously while saying very little.
At 19 she is already carefully
coached and acutely conscious of
the duties, dignities and limitations
of a throne – especially the limitations. The British have whittled away
at the powers invested in the Crown
so diligently since four centuries earlier – when Queen Elizabeth I said to

november 2022

an over-presumptive minister, “I will
have here but one mistress and no
master” – that there is not much left.
What is left is the power of creating
peers, a never-used veto as head of the
Privy Council, and the rather dubious
honour of naming a Prime Minister
who has already been chosen by the
British electorate.
At present, as heiress presumptive
(as long as her father lives it is presumed he may have a male heir) Princess Elizabeth has no powers, no royal
duties of state, and no constitutional
functions. When she becomes Queen
her most vital contribution will be that
of a symbol of continuity. Governments may fall, parties may dissolve,
but the Crown goes on forever. In that
fairly certain knowledge the British
find an unconscionable pleasure. The
Crown remains one of the few expenses the British bear without grumbling.
So far, Elizabeth has shown every
prospect of living up to a prediction
made recently by one of Britain’s elder statesmen: “She has intelligence,
personality and charm. She will be a
good Queen. She may even be a great

PHOTOS, PRE VIOUS SPRE AD AND THIS ONE: LISA SHERIDAN/S TUDIO LISA/GE T T Y IMAGES

one.” Good Queen or great, she
will be an attractive one. Mannequin height (5 feet 6½ inches), Elizabeth has inherited from
her Hanoverian antecedents an
ample figure, a lovely rose-andcream complexion, good white
teeth, and a sturdy constitution.
Unfortunately, she is not photogenic because her chief attraction lies in her colouring. Her
regal bearing reminds old-timers of her grandmother, Queen
Mary.
Less lighthearted than her attractive 15-year-old sister Margaret Rose, whose superb mimicry of visiting dignitaries has
more than once caused gales
The two sisters outside Windsor Castle in April
of laughter at the royal dinner
1942: Elizabeth, left, 15; Margaret, 12
table, Princess Elizabeth has
already shown traits which indicate the women’s auxiliaries (known as
she has a mind of her own. A year the Auxiliary Territorial Service, or
ago when, like her subjects-to-be, she ATS). But Betts had other ideas, and
became due for national service, the not long afterwards the Palace made
King ruled after long deliberations a straight-faced announcement that
with his councillors that her training the King “had been pleased to grant
as a princess outweighed the nation’s an honorary commission as second
increasing manpower problems and subaltern in the ATS to Her Royal
that ‘Betts’ should not join any of Highness the Princess Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth passed her driving course
in two days less than the prescribed
time, after attending lectures and getting her hands greasy dismantling engines. Most of the students finish this
ATS driving course by driving to London for the experience. It was ruled
that Elizabeth should not, since the
risks of a smash involving the heiress

The King ruled
that she couldn’t
join the women’s
auxiliaries. ‘Betts’
had other ideas

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

presumptive would be too great. But
while the wheels of government were
churning out that ponderous decision, Elizabeth was driving a camouflaged army vehicle up to London
from the country. She arrived at the
Palace after making two complete
circuits of Piccadilly Circus in the
rush hour “to get in as much traffic
as I could.”
When Elizabeth embarks on a venture it completely dominates her life.
Thus, while she was at the driving
school the royal dinner-table conversation was centred around spark plugs
and engine performance. Currently
the major topic of conversation – as
far as Elizabeth can guide it – is horses.
She hopes to have her own stable in a
year or so and race against her father.

At dances in Mayfair private houses, which Elizabeth frequently attends accompanied by her lone lady
in waiting – and from which she
has been known to return as late as
3am – she dances with many different young gallants and favours
no one in particular. But the names
of several young peers keep recurring constantly. Handsome, blond,
29-year-old Lord Wyfold, the young
Earl of Euston, or the good-looking
Duke of Rutland are the usual three.
Elizabeth is bound by the provisions
of the Royal Succession Act to marry
only with the consent of her father
in council and not to marry outside
the Protestant faith. If and when she
marries, her husband, on her accession to the throne, would not be king
but prince consort, like VictoWhile in the women’s branch of the British
ria’s Albert of Saxe-Cobourg.
Army in 1945, young Elizabeth learned how
The number of eligibles who
to service military vehicles
would care for this subordinate
role is problematical.
Elizabeth’s first official public tour after her father became
king was in Wales. Instead of
appearing in the stately setting of an evening Court at the
Palace, the Princess made her
debut in the orange glow of
furnace fires in a Welsh tinplate mill. Since then she has
made many appearances with
her family and by herself; she
has done two radio talks and
made a dozen speeches.
Elizabeth’s most important

november 2022

When She Was Princess

PHOTO: BE T TMANN/GET T Y IMAGES

It was a cold,
grey day, but
Elizabeth confessed,
“I’m too nervous to
feel the cold”
engagement so far was the launching
of Britain’s newest and greatest battleship, H.M.S. Vanguard. Although it
was a cold, grey day and she confessed
to a nearby official, “I’m too nervous
to feel the cold,” she went through the
ceremony without a flaw. Only later
did she show she was more woman
than princess. She had been presented with a beautiful diamond brooch
and while the chairman was labouring
through a ponderous speech of welcome, Elizabeth sat quietly turning the
Rose-of-England-shaped brooch over
and over in her hands, admiring it for
all she was worth.
Elizabeth’s training has been arduous. ‘Grandmamma England’ – Queen
Mary – seems to have had a firm hand
with young Elizabeth, and she got in
return more respect from little Betts
than from her other grandchildren.
The two Lascelles boys, Gerald and
George, when very young, had a terrifying habit of rushing into a room and
attacking Queen Mary’s ankles. She
was often obliged to put up a spirited defence with her famous parasol.
Happily, Elizabeth was less boisterous.
Queen Mary taught the child the art

Princess Elizabeth playing tag with Navy
officers en route to South Africa with her
parents and sister in early 1947

of talking intelligently to the various
visitors at Court, and young Elizabeth
learned early her most difficult lesson – that she must appear to be enjoying the talk, however dull. So that
she might be well informed or curious about many subjects, her grandmother trotted little Elizabeth through
the Victoria and Albert Museum, the
Royal Mint, the Bank of England, the
science museum in South Kensington,
the Tower of London, Westminster
Abbey and the National Gallery.
Since she was six, Elizabeth’s formal education has been supervised
by an able young Scotswoman, Marion Crawford – ‘Crawfie’ to everyone
readersdigest.com.au

in the royal household. If young
Betts found it easier, as indeed she
did, to absorb history while lying on
her stomach on the floor of Crawfie’s
room, Crawfie had no objections. By
the time Elizabeth was 12 she had
shown a marked aptitude for history
and languages and a sublime distaste
for mathematics. At that point her education became a matter on which
the Cabinet had to be consulted.
Elizabeth’s mother wanted her
to go to a girls’ school so she could
meet more of her contemporaries,
but the choice of a school and the
specialised curriculum necessary
for a royal person were difficult, so it
was decided she should have a staff
of tutors as Queen Victoria had. Her
historical background includes the
study of constitutional changes from
Saxon times to the present as well as
the history of British land tenure and
agriculture. She is also well versed in

november 2022

© THE PICTURE COLLECTION INC. ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED. REPRINTED/TRANSLATED FROM LIFE
AND PUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION OF THE PICTURE
COLLECTION INC. REPRODUCTION IN ANY MANNER
IN ANY LANGUAGE IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT
WRITTEN PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. LIFE AND THE LIFE
LOGO ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF TI GOTHAM
INC., USED UNDER LICENCE.

PHOTO: TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GE T T Y IMAGES

On honeymoon with Prince Philip
in late 1947

American history, and speaks
French fluently. To what would
in Victorian days be called ‘the
accomplishments’ – she plays
the piano and sings agreeably
– Elizabeth added completely
20th-century arts. She swims,
drives a car, likes American
dance music, has t he ‘good
hands and pretty seat’ of an accomplished horsewoman, and is
a good shot.
When she was very young,
Elizabeth was asked what she
would like to be when she grew
up. Without a moment’s hesitation,
she answered, “I should like to be a
horse.” Time has served to modify
that ambition. Whether anyone would
genuinely like to lead the antiseptic
and rather empty life of a modern
queen may be a matter for doubt. But
Elizabeth will have that duty.
That being the case, her ambition
is to be a good queen. If she, like the
earlier Elizabeth, ref lects and encourages the contemporary spirit of
her people, she may occupy a position in history of similar importance.
The first Elizabeth built the British
Empire. The second, by gent ler
means, may keep it together.

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J e w e ll e r s

HEALTH

Beyond Burnout
What to do
when, or
ideally before,
stress reaches
epic proportions
BY Leslie Finlay

november 2022

ILLUS TR ATIONS: JAMES S TEINBERG

e all get busy sometimes, but feeling constantly and chronically
swamped, worried and
overwhelmed can lead to burnout,
which can have serious consequences.
Think of burnout as stress taken to
another level. “Typically, burnout is
defined as an extreme state of psychological strain,” says YoungAh Park,
an associate professor at the School
of Labor and Employment Relations
at the University of Illinois. It’s a response to facing prolonged, chronic
stressors that go beyond your ability
or available resources to overcome.

Because so many of us frequently
feel stressed, it can be hard to recognise when the line has been crossed.
True burnout is different from feeling
overextended. Michael Leiter, a professor of psychology at Acadia University, explains. “Burnout combines
three key dimensions: overwhelming
exhaustion, feelings of cynicism, and
a sense of discouragement, inadequacy or low accomplishment.”
Feeling exhausted when you begin working is a red flag. “This is a
sign that demands are building faster
than you can recover from them,” he
says. That fatigue evolves into feelings
such as pessimism and withdrawal,
“becoming grumpy and cynical about
work you used to love – especially
feeling that way towards people you’re
supposed to care about.”
That’s the end stage of burnout, but
it takes a while to get there. “At first,
we might find ourselves experiencing hyperactivity, trying to manage
our stressors by frantically working
to reduce them, and juggling more
and more simultaneously,” says psychology professor Dr Emily Balcetis.
Unfortunately, this desperation can
contribute to making mistakes, losing concentration, or even starting
to feel emotionally unhinged – all of
which pave the way for more chronic
issues to develop.
Living at a burnout level of sustained stress can lead to serious
healt h consequences, including
problematic sleep patterns, digestion

woes and a greater risk for depression, heart problems, diabetes and
weight gain, according to Dr Balcetis. Perhaps most frightening, a study
published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research found that people
who experience chronic burnout
have up to a 35 per cent greater risk
of early mortality.
Before stress ramps up to that level,
try taking these proactive steps.

LOOK FOR MEANING
AT WORK
We can tolerate stress longer if we
believe we’re doing something purposeful and worthwhile. Dr Balcetis
says we’re more likely to experience
chronic burnout-inducing stress when
something seems out of our control,
against our will, or totally meaningless. Try to identify ways in which
even the smallest of your daily tasks
contributes to the lives of others.
“If you can, cut or outsource one or
two of those things that don’t personally give you meaning,” she says.

LOOK FOR MEANING
OUTSIDE OF WORK
If you’re struggling to make your
work meaningful, prioritising life
outside of work might be especially beneficial. Research published
in BMC Medicine shows that people
more likely to experience a greater
sense of engagement when on the job
are those with a hobby – the ultimate
burnout buffer.
readersdigest.com.au

RECOGNISE WHEN
IT’S TOO MUCH

SEPARATE WORK
AND HOME LIFE
“With boundaries blurring between
work and non-work these days, research has suggested that there are
some tactics individuals can use,”
Professor Park says. These tactics
could include turning off work email
notifications on your phone, using
separate email accounts for work and
personal life, and setting up boundaries between work and personal life.

DON’T NEGLECT YOURSELF
“Neglecting your diet or eating fast
or comfort foods can become a way
of dealing with stress, but it will rob
your body and brain of nutrients necessary to facilitate energy and regulate
moods,” says family therapist Benjamin Maxson. Physical activity is essential to shaking out stress hormones,
too. “Many individuals are less active
when under stress in order to rest,”
he says. But movement is the most
natural evolutionary response to our
body’s stress. Even light movement
helps reduce stress, flushing stress
hormones out of the bloodstream.

november 2022

Talk to your supervisors
when you feel your job
should be more manageable, rewarding and
under your control. “It’s
very common for superiors to continue to increase tasks over time,”
Maxson says, adding that if we don’t
communicate our needs or limitations, they may be overlooked. If you
don’t expect things will improve, consider changing jobs or even careers.
For intensive care nurse Wendy
Reynolds, stress had always been
part of the job. Then the pandemic hit
and the stress ramped up to a whole
new level. “I wasn’t sleeping, always
had a headache, and was always anxious and worried about everything,”
she says. “I knew I needed to leave.”
She solved her burnout problem
by transitioning into a health-care
administration role where she can
manage her work-life balance while
still having a career that aligns with
her passion for clinical health care.
“I love my new job,” she says. “I actually see my family now, and I can
use my clinical skills to help leaders
at other hospitals improve workflows
for their staff, so it’s very rewarding.”
If you feel burnt out, therapy can
help you process work-related stress
and learn coping strategies, and teach
you to communicate with your employer and set healthy boundaries.

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Visit your local travel advisor

DRAMA IN REAL LIFE

TRAPPED
DOWN
A

WELL
After his little boy fell into
the cold depths, Brandon Leseberg
leapt in to rescue him. Then
drama quickly engulfed the father and son
BY Robert Kiener

november 2022

Brandon Leseberg (front)
with his sons Louie and
Everett, along with the
neighbours who helped
save him and Louie
readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

On the way back to the house, the
boys, rambunctious as always, ran
ahead of their father. As Brandon, a
farmer and cattle producer, stopped to
close the pasture gate, Louie paused at
a water tap atop an old well to quench
his thirst. Unknown to the Lesebergs,
the board covering the well opening
had, over time, grown brittle. When
Louie stepped on it, it caved in.
Brandon had just finished latching
the gate when he turned around and
saw only his youngest son.
“Where’s Louie?” he shouted to
Everett.
Everett, his blue eyes wide with
fear, told him, “He fell in the hole!”
The 37 year old immediately realised what had happened. Noooo!
he thought. Louie can barely swim!
Brandon raced over to the well and
when he heard Louie splashing and
gurgling far below, he instinctively
jumped in.
Plunging feet-first more than 20
metres down the 60-centimetre-wide
brick-lined well, Brandon could hear
Louie screaming. Somehow Brandon
managed to grab onto a pipe that ran

november 2022

down the inside of the well, which
helped slow his descent and keep
him from crushing his son.
Brandon hit the frigid water at the
bottom of the well. He popped his
soaked head out and grabbed Louie,
who was panicked, and tried to stay
afloat in water that was too deep for
either of them to stand in. Knowing
they could tread ice-cold water for
only so long, Brandon hoisted Louie
onto his chest as he wedged his own
legs and back against the well’s narrow walls for support, his body still
partly submerged.
“All right, Dad, you can pull us out
now,” said the child as his father held
him tightly.
If only it were that easy. Brandon
knew there was no way he could
climb out; 20 metres is a very long
way. The pipe that he had grabbed
onto during his fall was too slippery
to be of any use. There was only one
way they could be saved.
As he clutched his terrified sixyear-old son in the frigid waters, he
told him, “Your brother is going to
have to help us.”

PHOTO: (PRE VIOUS SPRE AD) T YNE MORGAN WITH US FARM REPORT

s the late afternoon sun beat down in May
2021, Brandon Leseberg ﬁnished feeding his
cows on his farm in Missouri in the midwest
US and decided to call it a day. As they often
did, his two sons, Louie, 6, and Everett, 3, had
tagged along with him as he worked in his
north pasture, and they were also anxious to go home.

Trapped Down A Well
Looking up to see Everett peering
down at them from the top of the
well, Brandon shouted to the boy.
“Everett, you’re going to have to be a
big boy and save us. Run to the road
and stand by the mailbox until someone stops. Tell them we need help.
And, Everett, stay off the road!”
Everett did as he was told.
But Brandon worried that there
would be few cars on the little-travelled road that ran next to the farm.
And even if someone did stop, would
his three-year-old son be able to explain what had happened? Looking
up the shaft, Brandon clutched Louie,
who was shivering from the cold water, tighter to his chest. And he prayed.
Minutes passed like hours as Brandon continued to arch
and brace his shoulders and strong legs
against the brick walls.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. There was no sign
of Everett. Where is he?
Brandon wondered. Are
we going to make it?
Finally, Everett’s face
appeared. His voice
trembling, he shouted,
“Daddy, are you still
down that hole?”
“Yes, Everet t. Did
you get some help?”
Brandon shouted back.
“ N o , t h e y ’r e n o t
coming.”
Brandon’s heart sank.

But he tried not to sound scared as he
shouted up to his son, “That’s OK,
honey. But you have to go back out to
the road and get someone to stop. OK,
Everett?”
“OK, Daddy,” the three year old replied, then turned and dashed back
out to the roadside.
Brandon began thinking of how
he and Louie could possibly survive
through the night if they were not
rescued soon, and what would happen to Everett if... He quickly decided
to shut off these dark thoughts. I have
to be strong for Louie and Everett, he
told himself.
But when Everett didn’t return after another long ten minutes, Brandon broke down for a moment and
cried. Louie immediately asked him, “Are you
crying, Dad?”
“No, this is my happy
laugh,” Brandon told his
son, hugging the boy
even tighter.
About 15 minutes after
Everett ran to the road for
the second time, Christi and Mark McKenney,
neighbouring farmers,
were driving past the
Leseberg farm when they
noticed the three year
old alone by the side of
the road, waving.
They pulled over and
asked if he was all right.
Choking back tears, he

THERE WAS
NO TIME TO
WASTE.
THE RISK OF
HYPOTHERMIA
GREW WITH
EVERY
PASSING
SECOND

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

told them, “My daddy’s in a hole.”
The couple put Everett in their truck
and drove onto the farm, and the boy
pointed to the well. Mark immediately dialled emergency services, telling
the dispatcher, “This is Mark McKenney. I need some help. A guy and
a boy fell in the well.” Meanwhile,
Christi called another neighbour,
Dan Athen.
After hearing that Brandon Leseberg was in trouble, 45-year-old
Dan swung into action. The farmer
grabbed a thick 25-metre rope from
his shed and he and his son Ryan,
13, sped to the Leseberg farm. Once
there, the pair sprinted to the well.
“Brandon,” Dan shouted down, “It’s
Dan Athen. We’re going to send a rope
down to you.”
Brandon shouted
back, “OK, I’ll send Louie
up first.”
Athen felt his heart
sink; he had no idea that
little Louie was also in
the well. He imagined
how he would be feeling
if his son, who was now
helping him, had been
trapped in similar circumstances.
There was no time to
waste. Although Athen
and the others didn’t
know exactly how long
Brandon and Louie had
been in the well, they
were aware that the risk

of hy pothermia grew w ith ever y
passing second.
After a call from Mark, Eric Duncan, who works on Brandon’s farm,
and his friend Jacob McKenney arrived to help. They tied the end of
the rope into a loop and Dan tossed it
down the well. Brandon put the loop
around Louie, but concerned that the
knot holding it in place would come
undone, he told the boy to hold on
tight. Finally, Brandon shouted, “OK,
we’re ready!”
The neighbours started hauling
up Louie but were puzzled by how
heav y the six year old was. Dan
sensed something was wrong. They
gave another hard tug and suddenly
something seemed to break free; after that, the men easily
hoisted Louie up and
out of the well. When
he emerged, they were
shocked to see that he
had w i res w rapped
around his arm. They
rea l i s e d t he ‘e x t r a
weight’ was because
Louie had somehow
b e c om e e n t a n g l e d
w ith the well pump
and its wiring.
But now he was
safe. “You’re out, buddy! You’re out!” said
Eric. “We’ll get you in
the truck and get you
warmed up.” He sat
Louie on his knee as

THE FIVE
NEIGHBOURS
GRABBED
THE ROPE TIED
AROUND
BRANDON
AND BEGAN
TO PULL

november 2022

Trapped Down A Well
others carefully unwrapped the tangled wires from his arm. Louie was
shivering and terrified as Eric rushed
him to his truck, where he bundled
him in several hoodies and turned
the heater up full blast.
The neighbours now turned their
attention to Brandon. Although they
could have waited for the emergency
rescue team to arrive, they didn’t hesitate. Their friend was in trouble – of
course they had to try to get him out.
But there was a problem. Brandon
was a big man and would likely be too
heavy to pull out of the well using just
the rope as they had done with Louie.
They decided to use the foundation of
the old windmill that still stood over
the well as a hoist to help pull Brandon up. They tossed down the loop at
the end of the rope and Brandon tightened it around his torso.
After looping their end of the rope
over the old windmill frame, Dan
shouted to Brandon, “Can you help
pull yourself up by using the well’s
pipe?”
“Yeah,” he yelled back. “I’m ready
to go!”
Each of the five neighbours grabbed
a portion of rope and began to pull.

Brandon helped by gripping the well’s
pipe as best he could as he ascended
towards the circle of blue sky and sunlight at the top of the well.
“Keep it going, Brandon!” the team
shouted as they hoisted him up.
“We’ve got you. Hang on!”
A bout 4 0 m i nutes a f ter he’d
jumped into the well to save his son,
Brandon finally emerged, cold and
wet. Just as his neighbours’ strong
arms reached out to grab him he collapsed to the ground, exhausted by
his ordeal. A minute later, emergency
services arrived.
Other than some nasty scratches,
Brandon was fine. Louie, though,
suffered hypothermia as well as deep
bruising from the wires that had entangled him. He also had a punctured
lung, which doctors told Brandon was
likely a result of the rope around his
chest. Still, he was healthy enough to
return to school a week later.
While all the rescuers have been
hailed as heroes, Dan Athen isn’t having it. “We are just neighbours helping
neighbours,” he said. “It’s just what we
do.” He pauses then adds, “If there is a
hero in this story, it’s three-year-old
Everett. He’s a real lifesaver.”

Whose Dog Is This?
A US couple was recently stunned to find a strange big dog curled up
next to them in bed. The Johnsons’ three large hounds usually share
their king-sized bed with them. The mystery mutt had escaped its
owner and found a new warm place to sleep. HUFFPOST
readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

LIFE’S LIKE THAT

Not In The Cards

Show Stopper

My birthday was coming up so I
went to the card shop and asked my
daughter (aged four) if she wanted
to select a card for me. I tried not to
look but I couldn’t help but notice
she was looking at one after the
other and making a mess of the
display.
When I asked her what she was
doing, she replied, “I’m looking
for one with money in it for you,
Mummy.”

We invited another couple to be our
guests at an opera performance of
Othello. Since they were unfamiliar
with the opera, I spent the taxi ride
to the theatre unravelling the plot for
them. The taxi’s arrival at the theatre
coincided with my recounting of the
climax. Before finishing, I handed
over the fare to the driver and
prepared to get out.
“Stop!” demanded the driver. “No
one is leaving until I hear the end.”

SUBMITTED BY LEONIE SCOTT

november 2022

VERN SCHR AMM IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

CARTOON: FR ANK MEL ANSON. OPPOSITE PAGE: VECTEEZ Y.COM

Seeing The Funny Side

Life’s Like That

Fitting End
My late Aunt Sally was a big fan
of the singer Gracie Fields and
my uncle had chosen to have her
namesake song ‘Sally’ played at
the end of her funeral in the local
crematorium.
We had given the staff a CD
to play but unfortunately they
didn’t select the right track, so as
the curtains closed around Aunt
Sally’s coffin, the quiet sadness
was broken by howls of laughter as
Gracie sang: Wish me luck as you
wave me goodbye, cheerio, here I go
on my way!
Aunt Sally would have loved it!
SUBMITTED BY R ACHEL HOWLETT

All Fun And Games
Watching soccer with my 11-yearold daughter is fun. When I get
frustrated with my team, she’ll ask
calming questions like, “Daddy, do
you really think you can do better
than the players?”

THE GREAT TWEET OFF:
BROTHERLY LOVE
EDITION
The siblings of Twitter celebrate
a very special bond.

Me: My brother is so annoying.
Someone else: Your brother is
annoying.
Me: Erm. Excuse me?!?! He is not!
@JAZZYBUMBLEE

Once I said to my brother, “It’s nice
how we’re not just siblings, we’re
best friends.” And he said, “Nah,
we’re siblings.” @BANANAFITZ
Having a brother builds character.
@1AYESHAAA

Sibling rivalry, or as my parents
called it, “Stop choking your
brother, he’s turning blue.”
@UNFITZ

@DAD_ AT_LAW

Slow Motion
My five year old wanted to learn
more about the tai chi classes I
was taking, so I showed her some
moves. At first she was totally
taken aback.
But later she hugged me and
whispered, “It’s OK, Mum, keep
practising. One day you’ll be able to
do it quickly.”

Having brothers is stressful. Why do
they eat everything?!?!?
@INAYAHH_

SUBMIT TED BY CHRISTINE SIMARD

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

FOOD FOR
THOUGHT

Hamburgers
A simple idea of a meat patty in a bun has morphed
into a multi-billion dollar fast-food business
ou don’t need to stretch your
imagination too far to gather
that the humble hamburger
most probably came from,
well Hamburg. Although there are
many people who like to regale stories
about the origins of the hamburger, no

november 2022

one is really quite sure how it came
about. But I like the tale I used to give
to my students as a comprehension
lesson when working as an English
teacher in Germany. It went something like this.
In the early 19th century, sailors

PHOTOS: GE T T Y IMAGES

BY Diane Godley

Food For Thought
from the busy northern German shipping port of Hamburg were often
docked in New York, where they
would be seen eating meat patties
(frikadellen) comprising minced beef
from Hamburg, garlic, onions and
spices. “Eventually someone threw a
frikadelle in a bun and voilà, the rest
is history!” says Kimberly Killebrew,
food writer at daringgourmet.com.
Although the simple meal was
catching on in t he US, t he dish
d id n’t act ua l ly have a
name unt il, according
to kidzworld.com in its
‘History Of Hamburgers’
blog, “some rowdy sailors
from Hamburg named the
meat on a bun after themselves years later”.
Given t he pr ice a nd
quality of Hamburg beef
back then, these meat patties were
considered gourmet and often the
most expensive item on a restaurant
menu. But as cheaper cuts of meat
started to get used, the price came
down, and they were sold not just in
restaurants but also by street vendors.
A lthough our North American
friends like to take all the credit for
the invention, to my ears the German story holds more weight. It is
true, however, that would-be restaurateurs and owners of street carts in
the US took the idea and ran with it.
Today, thousands of iterations of the
original hamburger are offered all
over the world, including chicken,

schnitzel, pulled pork, lentil, tofu and
everything in between.
Like the pizza, hamburgers are
indelibly linked to American cuisine and enjoyed all around the
world. But have you ever wondered
which of the two meals is more popular globally? The folk at food blog
richeelicious.com did and earlier this year tapped into Google’s
Keyword Planner to find the most
searched word. The results were
even. Then they looked
at Google Trends over the
past 18 years. Here pizzas
far outpaced burgers and
are still climbing in popularity. However, whether doing a word search on
Google equates to popularity is a subject out for
debate.
What is not debatable is that Americans love their burgers, devouring
4500 every minute – that’s 277,000
thousand burgers per hour, nearly six
million a day and over two billion a
year. The US also spends more money on fast food than any other country, with 50 per cent of their fast-food
spend going on burgers.
Although hamburgers are eaten in
Germany, traditional frikadellen are
more commonly served on a plate
with a side of creamy potato salad, a
crusty roll and a slathering of mustard, says daringgourmet.com.
One of my pet hates with today’s
beef burgers is that they are a bit

AMERICANS
LOVE THEIR
BURGERS,
DEVOURING
4500 EVERY
MINUTE

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

tasteless (at least compared to the
f lavoursome frikadellen I used to
buy from the butchers in Germany)
and this is compensated for through
lashings of tomato and barbecue
sauce. And what’s going on with the
burger bun? Fluffy white bread that

falls apart before you’re even halfway
through eating!
But don’t worry, by using the recipe
below for your meat patty and putting it in a crusty or sourdough roll,
your homemade burger will go from
dull to absolutely delicious.

FRIKADELLE HAMBURGERS
The origins of frikadellen are
unknown, but are attributed to
northern Germany and Denmark and
can be traced back as far as the
18th century. The seasoned meat
patties can be eaten hot or cold, on
their own or in a burger.

Ingredients
•1 slice day-old bread,
broken into pieces
•1 ½ tbls warm milk
•1 small onion, finely
chopped
•1 clove garlic, minced
•250g minced beef
•250g minced pork
•1 egg
•2 tbls parsley, chopped
•1 tsp salt
•½ tsp pepper
•1 tsp mustard
•1 tsp dried marjoram
•1 tsp paprika
•¼ tsp ground ginger
•⅛ tsp mace or nutmeg
•⅛ tsp ground
coriander
•2 tbls olive oil
•4 bread rolls

november 2022

Method
1. Break the bread
into small pieces and
place in a bowl. Pour
over milk and let soak
for 15 minutes.
2. Heat half the oil in a
frying pan and sauté the
onions until soft and
translucent. Add the
garlic and cook for
another minute.
3. Squeeze excess
liquid out of bread.
4. Place all ingredients
(except oil) in a large
bowl. Using your hands,
mix thoroughly until
meat is smooth.
5. Form into balls and
slightly flatten. Cover
and chill in fridge for

at least 30 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, prepare
salad vegetables (eg,
tomato, lettuce,
cucumber, beetroot,
carrot).
7. Heat the rest of the
oil in frying pan to
medium-hot and fry
frikadellen on both sides
until browned. Lower
the heat and continue
to cook until cooked
through.
8. Serve on a bread
roll with a dash of sauce
and salad vegetables of
your choice.

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

november 2022

SEE THE WORLD...
Turn the page ››

readersdigest.com.au

...DIFFERENTLY

Commuter Chaos
Hundreds of small boats
called dinghy noukas are
moored in the river port of
Dhaka, the capital of
Bangladesh. In them, ferrymen
transport workers, goods and
tourists across the Buriganga
River every day. It’s the lifeline
of the metropolis, which has a
population of around 22 million
and is one of the most densely
populated cities in
the world.
PHOTOS: ACTION PRESS/ZUMA PRESS,
WIRE/ZUMA PRESS

november 2022

readersdigest.com.au

HEALTH

DEMENTIA

november 2022

WARNING
SIGNS
A guide to
13 symptoms
you should
never ignore
BY Mark Witten

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

The 51-year-old IT specialist tried to
ignore the mistakes, but the situation
became more obvious when attempts
to punch in his password kept failing.
Gradually, he found it harder to focus
and perform simple, familiar tasks,
such as calculating numbers or signing a document.
“Everything was all messed up,
and I didn’t know what to do about
it,” he says. Not wanting his wife, Eva,
and two adult sons to worry, he kept
it a secret, hoping he could just muddle through.
Instead, over the next few years,
more alarming symptoms appeared.
As Chow made the daily 90-minute
drive to and from work, he had trouble seeing the centre line on the road
and the cars beside him. In early
2014, his patchy vision almost killed
him when he slid into a ditch during
bad weather. He was unharmed but
his anxiety mounted, and he decided
to talk to his family doctor.
When Chow described his difficulties with typing and driving – both
related to motor skills – his physician referred him to a specialist in
Parkinson’s disease. That condition
was ruled out. In May 2014, Chow

november 2022

met with Dr Carmela Tartaglia, a
cognitive neurologist specialising in
early-onset dementia.
Tartaglia suspected Chow’s symptoms were visual-spatial processing
problems, a warning sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Weeks later, an MRI
showed a shrinkage of cortical tissue
in the back of his brain – the region involved in processing what and how we
see. Biomarkers identified in his cerebrospinal fluid 18 months later finally
confirmed – six years after Chow first
noticed his symptoms – that he had
early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Globally, every year, an estimated
350,000 individuals under 65 develop early-onset dementia. As reported at the Alzheimer’s Association
International Conference 2021, it is
also forecasted that the prevalence
of dementia will increase from an
estimated 57.4 million cases globally
in 2019 to an estimated 152.8 million
cases in 2050, largely due to population growth and ageing.
Early detection of dementia is important so that the person diagnosed,
and their family members, can take
steps to slow and mitigate the effects of the disease through lifestyle

PHOTO (PRE VIOUS SPRE AD): SE AN PRIOR/AL AMY

TEPHEN CHOW KNEW SOMETHING WAS OFF
WHEN, IN 2010, HE STARTED MAKING MORE
SPELLING ERRORS AND TYPOS IN HIS WORK EMAILS.

SCAN HERE

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

changes. Ideally, that would mean
seeing a family doctor, undergoing
specialised testing and receiving a formal diagnosis within six to 12 months
after noticing symptoms. But according to an Australian study, on average,
it took two years for people to set a
medical appointment and more than
three years to get a firm diagnosis.
Dementia is frequently associated with memory loss, but often that
isn’t the first sign. Dementia can affect many different areas of the brain,
and scientists now understand that
symptoms differ based on where in
the brain changes occur. That’s why
doctors currently use advanced tools,
such as brain scans and protein biomarkers, to make earlier, more specific diagnoses. But getting to that stage
requires noticing that something is
wrong – and telling somebody.
“The first time I knew Steve had a
problem was when he called me from
Dr Tartaglia’s office,” says his wife Eva.
Once the diagnosis was made, she realised there had been clues. She just
hadn’t been aware of what to look for.
To make sure you are aware of the
clues, here are 13 signs that mean you
(or someone you love) should be assessed for dementia.

YOUR PERSONALITY
CHANGES

Inappropriate behaviour is an early
symptom of damage to the brain’s
frontal lobes, which regulate our social judgment.
“People might undress in public, talk about private parts, or say,
‘That person is stupid,’” explains
DrRobin Hsiung, neurologist and
associate professor at the University
of British Columbia Hospital Clinic
for Alzheimer Disease and Related
Disorders in Vancouver. “They lose
social graces and forget that what
they’re saying or doing isn’t right.”
These symptoms are often seen in
frontotemporal dementia ( FTD), but
also when Alzheimer’s or vascular
dementia affect the frontal lobes.

YOU SEE THINGS
THAT AREN’T THERE

Recurring visual hallucinations may
be an early symptom of Lewy body
or Parkinson’s disease dementia, although people with Alzheimer’s disease can experience them, too. These
can be as simple as seeing flashing
lights or as elaborate as encountering

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

animals and people that aren’t real.
“Sometimes the hallucinations are
quite frightening, like seeing a wolf
or a bear trying to break through
the window,” says Dr Hsiung. “Other times they’re more positive, like
a grandmother who looks out the
window and sees her grandchildren
playing, but no one is there.”
Researchers believe that visual
hallucinations may be caused by
damage to the brain’s visual-processing system, in combination with
the disease’s disruption of the sleep
cycle. The visions might be dreams
breaking into waking consciousness.

YOU STRUGGLE
WITH VOCABULARY

A common early sign of dementia
is having trouble finding the right
words during conversations or when
naming objects, sometimes substituting the wrong term. People affected in this way pause while speaking,
use filler words and frequently rely
on ‘it’ or ‘them’ instead of specific
names for things. Researchers at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison
found that these word-finding problems increased significantly in the
span of just two years for people developing dementia.
Language can even be affected
before memory problems emerge.
An Arizona State University study
analysed former US President Ronald Reagan’s press conferences and

november 2022

found speech changes more than a
decade before he was diagnosed with
Alzheimer’s.
To assess whether your word-finding challenges are related to a shrinkage in the language areas of your
brain, pay attention to when and how
often this happens. It could simply be
a result of being tired or stressed and
can be caused by anxiety, depression,
stroke and delirium.

OUR VISION IS PATCHY

Problems with spatial awareness
can be caused by cataracts or glaucoma, but they are also an early
sign of dementia. This was the case
with Chow, whose first Alzheimer’s
symptoms were caused by a shrinkage of the area of the brain crucial
to his ability to accurately perceive
the world three-dimensionally. Dr
Tartaglia notes that visual-spatial
processing problems are especially prevalent as a sign of Lewy body
dementia, which can affect a similar
area of the brain.
“A patient with posterior cortical
atrophy may see the world in a patchy
visual field,” explains Dr Hsiung. “If
the person is focusing in front while
driving, he can’t see things off to the
side. And if he’s changing lanes, he
can’t see other cars beside him.” For
his part, when Chow made mistakes
typing, he was having trouble seeing
the whole keyboard.

Stephen and Eva
Chow at their home

PHOTO: JAIME HOGGE

YOU FIND IT DIFFICULT
TO STAY FOCUSED

Chow’s trouble with concentration
was due to shrinkage in his frontal
lobe. “That made writing, reading,
and driving difficult and affected his
ability to do high-level tasks as an IT
specialist,” says Dr Tartaglia.
Beyond Alzheimer’s, any other
dementia can affect this area of the
brain – but note that an inability to

focus can also be caused by anxiety,
depression and medication.

YOU FORGET WHERE
YOU’VE PUT THINGS

It’s not unusual to occasionally forget
where you left your keys. But if you’re
doing this regularly, or frequently
leaving the stove on or forgetting recent events and conversations, this
could be a warning sign. Commonly,
readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

says Dr Hsiung, people with this type
of memory loss will ask loved ones the
same questions over and over again.
“Families can help a lot in recognising
these early symptoms,” he says.
Short-term memor y loss is the
most common symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, which may affect the
hippocampus – the brain area involved in forming, storing and retrieving memories. It’s less often an
early sign in vascular dementia and
Lewy body dementia, and rarely in
FTD. That said, medications and
depression can also affect memory,
so your doctor might recommend
screening.

YOU’RE SUDDENLY
BAD WITH MONEY

A pattern of uncharacteristically poor financial decisions should
set off alarm bells. “When you have
frontal-lobe damage, you lose judgment and can make rash, impulsive
financial decisions,” says Tartaglia.
“A frugal person starts giving away
more money or buying things they
don’t need.” She’s seen patients who
did significant damage to their families’ finances, as well as CEOs of companies who lost millions.

70%
68

november 2022

A combination of declining decision-making skills and memory loss
can also lead to financial lapses. A
study published in 2020 in JAMA
Internal Medicine found that people
with dementia started missing bill
payments up to six years before they
were diagnosed.

YOU’RE
EMOTIONALLY FLAT

According to a 2020 University of
Cambridge study, a lack of interest
or motivation can predict the onset
of dementia many years before other
cognitive symptoms do, especially
in people with FTD, who may be diagnosed as early as age 45.
Dr Hsiung cautions, however, that
apathy can sometimes be confused
with depression; a psychiatric assessment is often required to tell them
apart.
The key difference is how much
a person’s mood shifts. If someone
becomes tearful when they hear a
sad story, this could be depression,
but it’s apathy if the person shows no
emotional response – which, Dr Hsiung says, could be the beginning of
Alzheimer’s disease, FTD, or vascular dementia.

OF DEMENTIA CASES
ARE DIAGNOSED AS ALZHEIMER’S
DISEASE

Dementia Warning Signs

DEMENTIA,

PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBR ARY/AL AMY

But What Kind?

Dementia describes a
group of symptoms
caused by disorders
affecting the brain.
There are more than a
dozen types, including
rare conditions and
those that may develop
from other brain
disorders, like
Parkinson’s disease.
Here are the five mostdiagnosed forms:
1. Alzheimer’s
disease is the most
common type of
dementia, accounting
for up to 70 per cent of
all diagnoses,
according to the

WHO. Generally,
Alzheimer’s affects
most areas of the brain
and can involve
changes in memory,
language, problem
solving, mood and
behaviour.
2. Vascular dementia,
the second most common type, happens with
a blockage to the brain’s
blood supply, which
causes brain cells to be
deprived of oxygen and
die. Strokes and bloodvessel disease are
common causes and
can affect different
brain areas.

3. Lewy body
dementia is caused by
abnormal deposits of a
protein called alphasynuclein inside the
brain’s nerve cells. This
protein, which destroys
brain cells, is also found
in people with
Parkinson’s. Brain areas
involved in thinking,
movement and visual
processing are most
affected.
4. Frontotemporal
dementia (FTD) mainly
affects the frontal and
temporal brain areas
and accounts for about
20 per cent of cases of
early-onset dementia.
Changes in personality
and behaviour are more
apparent in the early
stage, while memory
decline often doesn’t
occur until later.
5. Mixed dementia
occurs when a person
has at least two types of
dementia, most often
Alzheimer’s and
vascular dementia.
Studies reveal it’s much
more common than
previously thought.

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

YOU’RE NOT MOVING
AS WELL AS USUAL

Difficulty performing physical activities in the right sequence can be an
early sign of damage to the parietal
lobe, which is related to motor skills.
It’s a sign that Eva thinks she overlooked in her husband. Three years
before Chow’s diagnosis, the couple
began to participate in dragon-boat
racing. Chow had always been a
well-coordinated athlete and handyman, but during training he struggled
to learn the basic stroke technique.
Motor problems are also common
with Lewy body dementia, but other
neurodegenerative conditions, such
as Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis,
should also be considered.

YOU’VE BECOME
INSENSITIVE

According to a 2016 Neuroscience
Research Australia report, loss of
empathy is a core symptom in some
people diagnosed with FTD. It’s related to loss of grey matter in the “social
brain” (the parts involved in social
behaviour). These patients are unaware of how their behaviour impacts

45
70

november 2022

others, and they lose both the ability
to understand people’s emotions and
to share in their feelings.
“You may not care about your family anymore,” says Dr Tartaglia. “Or
a family member is crying, but you
don’t recognise they are sad.”

YOU NO LONGER GRASP

FAMILIAR CONCEPTS

Problems with tasks that require abstract thinking, such as understanding numbers or reading a house plan
– especially if that was a strength before – are an early symptom that can
be caused by damage in the frontal
and parietal lobes. For Chow, this
presented as an inability to make
simple calculations, but it also impeded his long-held role as manager
of his family’s finances.

YOU’RE MORE ANXIOUS

Mood changes, such as depression
and anxiety, can be early signs of dementia that start well before people
begin to experience memory loss,
according to a 2015 Neurology study.
Tartaglia notes that, especially with

IS THE AGE AT WHICH FRONTOTEMPORAL
DISORDER CAN BE DIAGNOSED, OFTEN
FOLLOWING PERSONALITY CHANGES

Dementia Warning Signs
Lewy body dementia, non-anxious
people can become anxious. They
may exhibit persistent worry, fear
or agitation, commonly triggered
by leaving home or being separated
from a family member.

YOU GET LOST
MORE OFTEN

Losing navigational skills and the
ability to create a mental map of
your environment can be one of the
earliest dementia symptoms. In fact,
in 2019, University of Cambridge researchers developed a virtual-reality
navigation test that has proven to be
better at identifying early Alzheimer’s disease than some of the neuropsychological tests currently considered the best for early diagnosis.
To better cope with this symptom in particular, the Chows built a

running track in their backyard. That
way, “Steve could jog safely every day
without getting lost,” says Eva.
Once Chow was properly diagnosed, his anxiety about his health
decreased.
“Eva is the model caregiver because she wants to do what’s best for
Stephen and encourages him to do
things,” says Dr Tartaglia. This has
included joining support groups for
people with early-onset dementia,
practising daily meditation, and getting regular aerobic exercise.
But perhaps most importantly, with
Eva’s encouragement, Chow began to
share his diagnosis. “I felt better after
I told my family and friends,” he says.
“They were very supportive and it took
a load off my shoulders. I learned that
you should tell people what you’re noticing sooner rather than later and not
keep it to yourself.”

Not Seal Mates
A New Zealand cat was not flippin’ happy after an uninvited fur
seal entered her home through the cat flap. Mount Maunganui
marine biologist, Phil Ross, said the fur seal was inside their
house, exploring different rooms and lounging on the couch
when the family got home. It’s not clear why the seal ventured
inside, but Ross suspects that his cat, Coco, attempted to
‘defend’ the home turf against the creature but when the
seal wasn’t intimidated, Coco bolted around the side of the
house into the catflap, and the seal followed. A Department of
Conservation ranger caught the seal, which was unharmed,
and released it back into the sea. HUFFPOST
readersdigest.com.au

PHOTO FEATURE

Nothing
But

SAND
Whether on the beach or inside our very walls –
sand is omnipresent and indispensable
BY Doris Kochanek

november 2022

A haboob – what the Arabic-speaking inhabitants of this Sahara
region call a sandstorm – sweeps across the Niger River in
Ségou, Mali. Haboobs can reach speeds of up to 80 kilometres
an hour and whirl sand up to heights of 1000 metres.

readersdigest.com.au

Palm Jumeirah, an artificial archipelago in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,
is shaped like a palm tree. The four-kilometre trunk plus the 17 fronds
and the crescent moon surrounding it took seven years to build. The
huge quantities of sand required for this came largely from the seabed
and were stabilised thanks to a special compacting process. It’s home to
glitzy hotels, posh apartments and five-star restaurants.

november 2022

PHOTOS: (PRE VIOUS SPRE AD) GE T T Y IMAGES/SA SCHA GR ABOW. (THIS SPRE AD) PICTURE ALLIANCE/ZB/MAT THIA S TÖDT;
AFP VIA GE T T Y IMAGES/ML ADEN ANTONOV; GE T T Y IMAGES

Lightning releases all its
energy in just a few
milliseconds. If it strikes
loose sediments such as
sand, the heat –
followed by rapid
cooling – can fuse it into
hollow tubes called
fulgurites, also known
as lightning tubes or
fossilised lightning.

Nothing But Sand
Made of white sand, this mythical creature resembles an ice
sculpture at first glance. On display at the Frost Magical Ice
of Siam amusement park near Pattaya, Thailand, it is
designed to teach visitors about Thai culture.

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

There can be no concrete
without sand. The
construction industry
is one of the major
consumers of this raw
material, which is in
danger of becoming
scarce. This is because fine
desert sand is not suitable
for construction and the
global rate of sand use,
which has tripled over
the last 20 years, exceeds
the rate sand is being
replenished by the
weathering of rocks by
wind and water. Concrete
is made from water,
cement, gravel and sand.

Pink Beach is a beautiful feature on the Indonesian island of Komodo.
The beach, known as Pantai Merah by locals, owes its hue to
Foraminifera. These organisms, which settle in the waters off the
beach, form red calcareous shells, which are then ground into tiny
pieces by the surf, giving the sand its distinct colour.

november 2022

Nothing But Sand

PHOTOS: GE T T Y IMAGES/500PX/JONNE SEIJDEL; GE T T Y IMAGES/RICHARD HE ATHCOTE;
PICTURE-ALLIANCE/ZB/HUBERT LINK; PICTURE ALLIANCE/DPA/DPA-ZENTR ALBILD/PATRICK PLEUL

The Sandman has its origin in
European legends. In his lovable
form, he brings sweet dreams to
children. In 1959, East German
state television adapted this
character into an iconic TV show.
On the evening of November 22,
Unser Sandmännchen made its
first appearance on GDR TV. As an
export hit, it later sweetened the
bedtime routine for children in
other countries as well.

In the long jump, the winner is the
one who jumps the furthest into
the pit. To ensure that the athletes
land softly in each of their three
attempts, the pit is filled with
sand. At the same time, the
imprint they leave in it allows the
judges to measure the distance of
the jump to the centimetre.
readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Youri
Calmeyn,
FRANCE

Laura
Fernández,
SPAIN

november 2022

Mónica
Alcaraz
Loman,
MEXICO

Antti
Ahonen,
FINLAND

OPINION

Just
LISTEN
To Us!
What would young
people like to say to their
elders? Reader’s Digest
editorial offices around
the world have asked…

Esmerelda
Chou,
TAIWAN

Aadya
Morone,
INDIA

Ben
Tooher,
AUSTRALIA

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

t’s the way the world has always been: one generation
follows the next, and each has its own ideas about how
it wants to shape its own life. Some of the wishes and
dreams, worries and fears of today’s young people are
similar to those of their elders. Others differ quite clearly
from their parents’ and grandparents’. Reader’s Digest
asked young people all over the world: What do you think
about the world you’ll be left with? What are the most pressing
problems? What are your expectations? Where do older
generations serve as a role model, where as a cautionary tale?

I am grateful…
“...to my parents because they are
loving and supportive. I’m grateful
for the many opportunities I have for
my sport.”

“...for their personal history. Knowing
what has shaped their behaviour and
values means that I can better understand the decisions they’ve made and
their beliefs.”
Ben Tooher, 22, Australia

Paloma McKenzie, 13, New Zealand

We don’t really like…
“...to my parents for always supporting
me and being there for me. Whatever
happens, I can turn to them.”

“Please stop telling us what we
should never do – only to then turn
around and do just that!”

Nicole Lewen, 21, Germany

Louise, 17, Austria

“...that you have made marriage
no longer a requirement for living
together.”
Lucas Perrault, 19, France

“I wish you had given a more positive
example of what healthy relationships
are in a marriage or in love.”
Camila Baraya Almeida, 21, Ecuador

“...to my family because they never
left my dreams aside and they always
supported and motivated me. Without them I couldn’t be where I am.”

“I wish you could have been more tolerant of more than just hair styles.”
Antti Ahonen, 22, Finland

Emiliano Toledo Mares, 21, México

“...that you taught me to be kind to
people from an early age. I find this
to be very important as an adult.”

“I wish you could have improved
Dutch cuisine. For years I had to eat
bland cooked potatoes, meatballs
and cooked vegetables.”

Esmeralda Chou, 23, Taiwan

Boris van Diemen, 25, The Netherlands

november 2022

Just Listen To Us!

We are hoping for…
“What I would like to see from the
older generations is that, before casting their votes they think about not
only which party has the best policy
for themselves, but more importantly, who is offering the best policies for
the generations to come.
“The decisions made by politicians
and policy makers have much more
serious implications for our future
than theirs.”
Anna, 22, Germany

to do it when they reach positions of
power, because by then it will be too
late. We don’t have that much time.”
Mónica Alcaraz Loman, 24, México

“I wish you had not been so focused
on overdevelopment that eroded the
natural environment.“
Esmeralda Chou, 23, Taiwan

“You have done your time, let us take
over now. Enjoy the rest of your life!”
Zacharie Moroni, 19, France

“Please stop looking at social media
and modern technology as something exclusively negative. They
make a lot of things in of our lives
easier.”
Louise, 17, Austria
“We need drastic change, and urgently. We need new laws and politics that
regulate exploitation and the production of big companies. And we need
that now, today. We can’t wait for my
generation, or others closer to mine,

“This is what I’d like you to do while
you are still there: I’d like you to work
on the problem of our waste, both domestic and industrial, polluting the
Earth’s natural resources.”
Aadya Morone, 17, India

“It’s true that we inherit a lot of problems, especially when it comes to the
environment. On the other hand, my
generation – at least here in Germany

“I HOPE YOU WILL
RESPECT MY LIFE’S
PLAN, AND DON’T
PRESSURE ME TO GET
MARRIED AND START
HAVING CHILDREN”
SAM CHEN, 25, TAIWAN

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

– was born into material prosperity
that many people elsewhere can only
dream of. I’m afraid one has to do with
the other. And frankly, I’m not sure the
majority of young people is prepared
to cut back in favour of a healthier
world for everyone.
“So it doesn’t seem fair to me to
blame the older people.”

“I intend to think carefully, and do
well in what I’ve decided to do. It
doesn’t matter if I make a mistake and
take a wrong path. I’ll appreciate and
learn from what I see on the way.”

Thomas Kurz, 25, Germany

“What I aim to handle differently is to
delegate day to day routine work in order to save time for better efficiency.”

“I wish you had started taking care of
the environment earlier.”

Sam Chen, 25, Taiwan

Where we intend to do
things differently…

Siya Jumani, 19, India

Laura Fernández, 16, Spain

Where we intend to be like
you…
“I intend to follow your career choice
to support trade unions.”

“It is time for the people to finally
speak directly, and not only through
their representatives. We must
follow the Swiss example with the refYouri Calmeyn, 19, France
erendum.”

Ben Tooher, 22, Australia

“I will give my children the same
freedom to try everything they want.
Success is important, but so is failure.”
Pauliina Räsänen, 23, Finland

“When I think about how many older
people suffer from health problems, it
motivates me to eat healthier and exercise more. I hope to keep this up in
my working life as well. I also think it’s

“IT IS UP TO
THE YOUNGER
GENERATION
TO CLEAN
THINGS UP”
BORIS VAN DIEMEN, 25,
THE NETHERLANDS

november 2022

Just Listen To Us!

“AT LEAST TODAY,
YOU ARE NOT STUCK
IN THE SAME JOB ALL
YOUR LIFE, YOU CAN
CHANGE JOBS WHEN
YOU WANT TO”
LOU JOLY, 18, FRANCE

important to talk more about mental
health and pay more attention to it.”
Geraldine Guth, 23, Germany

We know you had good as
well as hard times...
“Grandma worked as a seamstress
in her younger days, to provide food
and housing for my mother and her
siblings. It must not have been easy,
so I admire her for that.”

“Different opinions and ‘freedom of
speech’ have increased among the
youth. I like that, because we question everything now. Part of that
progress is thanks to the internet and
social media.”
Diego Alejandro Rodríguez Rangel, 25 México

What we are facing…

“When I hear from some 50 and 60
year olds how easy their study time
was, I get quite envious. I have to work
up to 20 hours a week in addition to
my studies to make ends meet. Going
out and partying are very rare.”

“When I think about the avalanche of
costs that we young people are facing,
I feel anxious. Of course I’m happy
that my grandparents are receiving a
good pension, but how that will continue in the future is not clear to me. I
have the feeling that we young people
have lost out. I don’t see any alternative to the intergenerational contract,
but I just didn’t sign it either.”

Anna, 22, Germany

Thomas Kurz, 25, Germany

Lucas Ng, 14, Singapore

We are happy that…
“It’s nice that you are healthy and
look a lot younger than your age, and
we can do a lot of activities together.”

“I wish older generations had shown
more care for the environment – not
left younger generations to fix up
their mess.”

Paloma Mckenzie, 13, New Zealand

readersdigest.com.au

“SEEING YOUR
ILL-HEALTH MAKES
ME DETERMINED
TO EAT WELL AND
STAY ACTIVE”
BEN TOOHER, 22, AUSTRALIA

“A system has evolved of continuous
small adaptations that widen the gap
between rich and poor. Propaganda
and empty promises made the system
look good, but as time goes on, more
and more people will be hurt by it.”

“The unification of European regions
with the EU, the common currency
and freedom to travel is, in my opinion, one of the greatest achievements
of the older generations.”
Antti Ahonen, 22, Finland

Boris van Diemen, 25, The Netherlands

What you should not be
What you can be proud of… proud of…
“The older generations’ greatest
achievements: The second wave of
feminism and civil rights.”
Ben Tooher, 22, Australia

“The older generations’ greatest
achievement is building Singapore
into what it is today from a small
fishing village. Singapore would not
be what it is today without the hard
work and sacrifices of the older generations. We do not have many natural resources, yet we were able to
develop into a modern city that is
safe and convenient to live in.”
Lucas Ng, 14, Singapore

november 2022

“The older generations don’t have
any achievements. They failed in
Afghanistan, invaded and bombed
Iraq, allowed the invasion of Russian troops to Ukraine to happen,
massive shootings in the USA, and
trafficking of people who are dying
locked in the trucks.”
Paloma McKenzie, 13, New Zealand

“I hope my generation will understand the problems that exist and
not turn our backs on them as generations before us have done, and
instead make a serious effort to solve
them.”
Pauliina Räsänen, 23, Finland

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

“SINGAPORE WOULD
NOT BE WHAT IT IS
TODAY WITHOUT THE
HARD WORK AND
SACRIFICES OF THE
OLDER GENERATIONS”
LUCAS NG, 14, SINGAPORE

“You have too much of a ‘wait-andsee’ attitude. You revolted in May
1968, but you could have revolted
earlier, for example to defend women’s rights.
“It wasn’t until 2013 that the French
law prohibiting women from wearing
pants was repealed.”

Looking to the future...
“What I think about the distribution
of wealth that you are leaving behind:
there is no equitable distribution of
wealth, which my generation will have
to address because otherwise there
will be more social violence and more
migration to affluent countries.”

Lucas Perrault, 19, France

Camila Baraya Almeida, 21, Ecuador

Spanish Stonehenge Re-emerges
A brutal summer has caused havoc for many in rural Spain,
but one unexpected side-effect of the country’s worst drought
in decades has delighted archaeologists – the emergence of a
prehistoric stone circle in a dam whose waterline has receded.
Officially known as the Dolmen of Guadalperal but dubbed the
Spanish Stonehenge, the circle of dozens of megalithic stones
is believed to date back to 5000 BC.
Discovered by German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier in 1926,
the area was flooded in 1963 in a rural development project
under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and has only been
fully visible four times since.
REUTERS

november 2022

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HUMOUR

I Got Organised The

CHAOTIC WAY
uring the pandemic, as one
lockdown led to another, I
had far too much time on
my hands. The books were
first to suffer from over-attention.
It started with dusting, but then

november 2022

became rearranging. I pulled all the
books off the shelves and stacked
them on my bedroom floor.
But what system should I use to rearrange them? Alphabetical would be
too easy, given the amount of time I

ILLUS TR ATION: SAM ISL AND

BY Richard Glover

Humour
was trying to use up. So instead I research, you are finally in a position
went for a geographic system, where- to place the Larsson on the top shelf,
by they would be organised first by with the Høeg to its right, and then
continent, then according to latitude. finally the Tolstoy.
I now have three books on the shelf,
The books on the top shelf will
come from authors who lived further with a further 400 stacked around the
north which, to me, is only sensible. room at my feet. At this point I give up,
If a European author is from, say, fearful of the effect of self-isolation on
Crete, you’ll find their work in the my joie de vivre. Better, perhaps, to
tackle the filing cabinet.
sunny climes on lower shelves.
First to go are the bank statements,
Book rearranging is a perfect activity for lockdown, as it requires exten- which sends me into a funk of despair
sive research every time you attempt after I realise how many years it’s
been since the bank
to put a single volume
I
DECIDED
TO
paid me even a cent of
back on the shelf. Is
L eo Tolstoy closer RETREAT TO THE interest. I seethe with
rage. I then uncover a
to the North Pole, or
KITCHEN
AND
file of car insurance
does the top spot go
papers, which – folto the beaten-up palow ing ten minutes
perback by Sweden’s
of work with a calcuStieg Larsson? Throw
lator – prove that if I’d
in Miss Smilla’s Feel‘self-insured’ back in
ing for Snow by Danish author Peter Høeg and, within 1983 and just banked the money each
minutes, you’ll be sitting on your year, I’d now be driving a Maserati. I
bedroom floor, surrounded by books also uncover three gift cards, all past
and entirely stumped about what their expiry date.
By now I have the contents of the
your next move should be.
I decided that I’d organise them filing cabinet all over my bedroom
according to where each writer died f loor, fighting for space with the
– so, the Astapovo railway station books. The whole thing is too dein Russia for Tolstoy, Stockholm for pressing to continue, so I decide to
Larsson and, well, Peter Høeg’s not retreat to the kitchen where I will reyet dead, but we’ll mark him down arrange the herbs and spices.
I take out ever y packet and jar
as Copenhagen.
Then you check your latitudes – from various drawers and pile them
53.2098° N for Tolstoy, 59.3345° N on the kitchen table. What’s needed
for Larsson and 55.6761° N for Høeg is a method. I could divide them into
– and after a good ten minutes of ‘commonly used’ and ‘rarely used’,

REARRANGE
THE HERBS
AND SPICES

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

or into ‘India’ and ‘Mexico’, but that various sizes’. And then I discover
would involve too many closely de- a parcel full of pencils that need
bated decisions and I don’t want to sharpening, marked ‘Pencils that
involve my wife, Jocasta, as she is need sharpening’. I’m almost exrestacking the DVDs according to pect ing a jar labelled ‘Pieces of
string too short to use’.
how the productions were funded.
It’s the most useless box of stuff
I decide to go alphabetical with my
ever col lected a nd
own work, but I end up
I SPOT A
makes me wonder what
constantly chanting the
alphabet like a six year BOX MARKED the miserable tight-wad
fool who inscribed it as
old – it’s the only way I
‘Stuff worth keeping’,
can remember the orusing handwriting that
der. Really, it is easier
is so clearly mine, was
to just leave everything
thinking.
splayed a l l over t he
I HAVEN’T
I tip everything from
kitchen table. That way
OPENED
IT
the box onto the floor,
Jocasta can sort them
FOR
20
YEARS
filling the small space
out when she’s finished
that isn’t already littered
with the DVDs.
A las, hav ing abandoned three with books or discarded files. That’s
task s, I a m st i l l at a loose end when I find them, right at the bottom
when my eye alights on a box in of the box. There are two envelopes
the laundry cupboard marked – in marked ‘Tooth From Tooth Fairy”
large handwritten letters – ‘STUFF – each containing a tiny tooth, one
WORTH KEEPING’. It’s a box that I each from our now grown-up sons.
I open the envelopes in turn, alhaven’t opened for 20 years.
Oh boy. I open it up. The f irst lowing each tiny tooth to tumble into
thing I find is an envelope full of my hand. I find myself transported
old keys, marked ‘Old keys, unclear to another time and place. Which is
what they are for’. I then pull out an just as well. Because someone has
envelope full of envelopes, all with turned my home into a complete
dried up seals, marked ‘Envelopes, mess.

‘STUFF
WORTH
KEEPING’.

Out Of This World
The photons (particles which transmit light) hitting your retina
right now were passing the planet Mercury about five minutes ago.
THE TEAM BEHIND THE QI TV SERIES

november 2022

TIME OUTSIDE MEANS FUN TIME!
KEEP THE FUN GOING WITH
PROTECTION YOU CAN TRUST
BANANA BOAT SUNSCREEN LASTS
AS LONG AS THE FUN DOES.

2
202
S u n s c re e n

Always read the label and follow the directions for use. Wear protective clothing, a hat and
sunglasses in addition to sunscreen. Reapply frequently. Avoid prolonged high-risk sun exposure.

HEROES

The Movie
Gets A

NEW ENDING
A producer discovers that the bad guy in his
real-life crime drama is innocent

imot hy Muccia nte was
a n execut ive producer
working on a film called
Lucky when something in
the script struck him as
odd. The film was based on the 1999
memoir of the same title by Alice
Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones.
It recounts her sexual assault in 1981
while in her first year at Syracuse
University.
It was late at night when Sebold
was walking alone back to her dormitory. As she entered a tunnel, a man
brandishing a knife grabbed her,
threw her to the ground and raped
her. The book’s title came from a police officer who said a girl had once

november 2022

been murdered in that tunnel. By
comparison, the officer told Sebold,
she’d been lucky.
In October of that year, Sebold said
a man on a Syracuse street called
out, “Hey girl, don’t I know you from
somewhere?” Sebold mistakenly
assumed that the man, Anthony
Broadwater, then 20, was speaking
to her. She became alarmed. Broadwater looked vaguely like her attacker – both were African American and
around the same size and age. Sebold
called the police and Broadwater was
arrested. Although he steadfastly
proclaimed his innocence, he was
convicted of eight felony counts, including first-degree rape.

PHOTO: MARVIN SHAOUNI

BY Adrienne Farr

Timothy Mucciante
was sceptical that
the right man was
convicted

readersdigest.com.au

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Timothy Mucciante was sceptical distinguishing features like a scar on
that the convicted man had a fair trial. Broadwater’s face and his chipped
He would spend 16 years in prison. tooth were never mentioned and did
Released in 1998, he had to register as not appear in the police sketch; and
Broadwater passed two polygraph
a sex offender.
The crime was brutal. But was tests. And then there was the police
Broadwater guilty? After comparing crime lab analyst who testified that
the script to news accounts of the tri- hair found at the scene had characal, Mucciante wasn’t sure. During a teristics that were consistent with
police line-up, Sebold initially picked Broadwater’s – but the hair comparison method he used was
out a different man before
eventually changing her “SOMETHING deemed unreliable in later
cases, leading to several
mind. Not only that, Sebold
WAS
defendants being set free.
later said she and the men
Convinced they had
stood less than a metre
enough to acquit Broadwaapart. “I knew that is not
how line-ups work,” says WITH THIS ter, the team brought their
findings before a judge.
Mucciante, who was no
STORY”
On November 22, 2021,
stranger to them. He was
Anthony Broadwater, then
in a line-up in the 1980s
61,
sat
in
the
courtroom, awaiting the
when he was arrested and ultimately served time for investment fraud. judge’s ruling. When he heard it, he
Victims and suspects are never that let out a gasp and wept. He’d been exclose. Was she lying? Confused? Who onerated. His name would no longer
knows, but convinced “something was be tainted by the words ‘sex offender’.
very wrong with this story,” Mucciante Sebold regrets her mistake, saying she
withdrew the $5 million he put up to struggles with the role she played in
sending “an innocent man to jail”.
finance Lucky.
Mucciante was almost as happy as
It was not a decision he made lightly. Mucciante, who had been a law- Broadwater. “Watching Anthony get
yer and journalist, had just formed his life back is the biggest benefit,” he
his own film company a year earlier. says. As for his film career, Mucciante
Lucky was to be his big break. Using is producing a documentary about the
his own money, Mucciante hired a case, called Unlucky. In it, Broadwater,
private investigator and contacted two overcome by all that Mucciante and
lawyers who found numerous discrep- the others did for him, struggles to
ancies in the case: a partial fingerprint find the right words. “This is amazing,”
on the pocketknife used in the rape he says. “It’s just like, you can’t fathom
could not be linked to Broadwater; it, man.”

VERY
WRONG

november 2022

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

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a Publisher?
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it is a brave step to hand over one’s work to a stranger.
Our editors bear this in mind with an assessment that is
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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

LAUGHTER

Out Of Step
Jim, Scott and Alex are tired after
travelling all day and check into a
high-rise hotel. When they get to
reception, they find out they’ll have to
walk 75 flights of stairs to get to their
room because the lift is out of order.
Jim suggests that they do
something interesting to pass time
while they walk the 75 flights. They
decide that Jim will tell jokes, Scott
will sing songs and Alex will tell sad
stories.

november 2022

So Jim tells jokes for 25 flights,
Scott sings songs for 25 flights and
Alex tells sad stories for 24 flights.
When they reach the 75th floor, Alex
tells his saddest story of all, “Guys,
I left our room key at reception.”
L AUGH FACTORY

Groundbreaking Discovery
Why not confuse future
archaeologists by burying your
favourite pets in elaborate military
SEEN ON TWIT TER
uniforms?

CARTOON: BOB ECKS TEIN; ILLUS TR ATION: GE T T Y IMAGES

The Best Medicine

Laughter

No Pain, No Gain

Wedding Duties

For the exercise-averse, good news!
Researchers say that a mere three
seconds of resistance training a day
could boost our biceps by 12 per
cent. Meanwhile, The Week asked its
readers to name a workout regime
that requires the absolute minimum
level of effort.
• CrossSit
• AutoPilates
• Chairmaster
• Gluteus Minimus
• Chillates
• Zzzzzumba

Weddings should also have a worst
man. Like, here’s my best man, my
brother Mike; Richie and Dave who
are ushers; and then there’s Derek,
who I assume is going to get drunk
SEEN ON TWIT TER
and fight the cake.
Any wedding can be a fairy tale one if
you serve porridge and release three
angry bears into the reception hall. RD

Milking It
I’m annoyed that ‘cowards’ doesn’t
mean to move in the direction of cattle.
ANDY RYAN, COMEDIAN

To err is human.
To MOO is bovine.
SUBMIT TED VIA FACEBOOK

Train Of Thought
Q: If an electric train is travelling
north-by-northeast at 120km/h, and
the wind is blowing west at 18km/h,
which way is the smoke blowing?
A: There is no smoke; it’s an electric
train.

ART JOKES
TO DRAW YOU IN
How many art gallery visitors would it
approximately take to change a light
bulb? Two. One who'd actually
do it and one to say that his threeyear-old kid could have done that.
What did the art robbers who got
arrested in the middle of a heist say?
We lacked Monet to buy Degas
to make the Van Gogh.
What do graffiti artists call empty
walls? A Blanksy.
Which famous painting is always sad?
The Moaning Lisa.

Meant To Bee
A man dining at a restaurant flagged
down his waiter and said, “Excuse me.
I have a bee in my soup.”
The waiter replied, “Yes, sir. Didn’t
you order the alphabet soup?”

What do artists say when they
greet each other? Yellow!
I tried to paint a good picture
of the sky, but I blue it.
SEEN ONLINE

SEEN ONLINE

readersdigest.com.au

TELL ME WHY...

So Many Logos Are Red

here’s a reason you can’t resist the siren call of the McDonald’s or Coca-Cola logo.
What is it about these signs
that make people stop in their tracks?
They share a common colour: red.
That’s not by accident. People
make judgements within a minute
and a half of seeing a person or an object, according to the digital marketing firm WebpageFX. And as much
as 90 per cent of that impression is
based on the colour alone. Marketers use certain colours in their logos
or advertisements to evoke emotions
and feelings that encourage people to
buy, says Emily Carter, a web marketing analyst for WebpageFX.
“Red is associated with increased

november 2022

heart rate, and it’s used to create a
sense of urgency,” she says. “This
is why you’ll often see red tags for
clearance sales.”
The photo receptors in your eyes
are particularly sensitive to long
wavelength light, which we see as
red. “There’s an incentive to make
logos red because red is the most visible colour,” says neuroscientist Bevil Conway. “Of all of the colours, we
communicate red most efficiently.”
The colour red is also said to stimulate appetite, hence the number of
food and beverage companies that
use it on their logos, and can be associated with both positive (Valentine’s
hearts) and negative (stop signs)
emotions.

PHOTOS: PUBLIC DOMAIN

BY Jen McCaffery

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

QUOTABLE QUOTES
I can’t change
the direction of
the wind, but I
can adjust my
sails to always
reach my
destination.

FOCUS ON
ONE GOOD
THING
EVERY
DAY.

JIMMY DEAN, SINGER

JEANETTE AW,
ACTRESS

TAYLOR SWIFT,
MUSICIAN

100

november 2022

EMPTY POCKETS NEVER HELD
ANYONE BACK. ONLY EMPTY HEADS
AND EMPTY HEARTS CAN DO THAT.
NORMAN VINCENT PEALE, AUTHOR

Spend 30
minutes a day
doing something
to help you
become the
person you
secretly would
love to be, to
do the job you
would secretly
love to do.

Intelligence is
nothing if it’s not
accompanied with
kindness.

TOMI ADEYEMI,
NOVELIST

CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN,
DESIGNER

PHOTOS: GET T Y IMAGES; (AW) AL AMY

The lesson I’ve
learned the most
often in life is that
you’re always
going to know
more in the future
than you know
now.

enjoy
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CITY HOTEL

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102

november 2022

CULTURE

PHOTOS: (GUITAR) ©SHUT TERS TOCK. (INSE T) COURTESY OF L AVINIA SPALDING

The author
with her father
at age eight

MUSIC
Of The
HEART

When I was young my father taught
me flamenco guitar. Now I yearn to be part
of that world again
BY Lavinia Spalding F R O M A F A R

readersdigest.com.au

103

’ve been in Spain only two when I was five. Every afternoon at
days, and already my fingers home, I practised while my father
hurt. It’s a prickly sting like instructed and critiqued. I played
when a fallen-asleep limb scales till my fingertips stung and
returns to life. The sensation peeled and became callused, and
delights me. It means I’m by age seven, I was called a child
prodigy. I attended master classes
doing something right.
Yesterday, after arriv ing – always the youngest student by a
in Madrid, I took the Metro to the decade. Sometimes I performed with
Delicias neighbourhood, walked to a my father.
Then, at 11, I quit. Heartbroken, my
nondescript apartment building and
father distanced himknocked on a stranger’s
self. Guiltily, I followed
door. A thin, softly sposuit. Soon we spoke only
ken woman invited me
when necessary. Mosti n a nd ha nded me a
ly we bickered – about
$3000 guitar. “Can you
chores, rules, perceived
play something?” she
injustices. Our relationasked.
ship didn’t fully rebound
This was the reason I’d
until, in my early 20s,
come to Spain. Because
Lavinia
Spalding
I found myself pulled
I once believed I was
destined to be a tocaora.
MY FATHER back to guitar, and we
resumed lessons. Our
Forty-five years ago,
BEQUEATHED
closeness returned, and
when I was two, my faME
HIS
he started teaching me
ther also came to MaGUITAR.
flamenco. Then, when I
drid and k nocked on
BUT
AFTER
was in my early 30s, he
st ra ngers’ doors. A
got sick.
renowned classical guiHE DIED,
Before he died a few
tarist, he was enamoured
I COULDN'T
years later, my father
with f lamenco, and in
BEAR
TO
told me there were alSpain he learned from
PLAY
IT
most no tocaoras – feanyone willing to teach
him. He approached performers in male f lamenco guitarists – in the
bars, befriended buskers on footpaths, world. If I kept practising, I could be
and somehow – no one in my family one of the first. I promised, and he
knows how – managed to study with bequeathed me his guitar. But after
Paco de Lucía, the greatest flamenco he died, I couldn’t bear to play it. He’d
spent so much time with his arms
guitarist of our time.
I started playing classical guitar around that instrument, it seemed

104

november 2022

PHOTO COURTESY OF L AVINIA SPALDING

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Music Of The Heart

Despite her parents' objections, Antonia Jiménez decided at an early
age to take up flamenco guitar

an extension of his own body. Holding it gave my grief an unbearable
tangibility.
So for 13 years it sat mostly untouched, coming out only when my
toddler begged to see it. Ellis was
careful with his grandfather’s instrument in a way that made me want to
pass it down to him – both the guitar
and the music. The problem was, I
couldn’t really play anymore.
One night, I googled ‘female flamenco guitarists’. Were they still
scarce? I landed on a website that
insisted tocaoras were on the rise;
Antonia Jiménez was the most important name in Spain. On a whim,
I wrote to her. “If I travel to Madrid,”
I asked, “will you give me lessons?”

A few months later, in September
2017, I was sitting with Antonia in her
living room, who was politely enduring my defilement – on her alarmingly high-end guitar – of music I once
played well.
And this was only the beginning;
I’d contacted two other prominent
tocaoras, one in Granada, another
in Barcelona. I would spend the next
three weeks in Spain immersing myself in the world of female flamenco
guitar – a world so new it didn’t exist
while my father was alive. A world I
now yearned to be part of.
Flamenco has mysterious origins,
but people agree somewhat upon the
following: its roots lie in the mingling
of gitano (gypsy) music with Moorish
readersdigest.com.au

105

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

and Jewish traditions. In time, fla- We’re almost the same age. Our famenco emerged as an outlet for the thers died the same year. We both
poor and oppressed. It consists of began playing at five. But I stopped,
cante (song), baile (dance), toque and she couldn’t be stopped.
Before my father died, he was
(guitar), and percussive elements
that include clapping, finger snap- teaching me soleares, a standard flaping, and shouts of encouragement menco form. Determined to relearn
(like ‘olé!’), plus a more esoteric layer this in Spain, I came prepared, carryknown as duende, the dark emotion ing a thick folder of sheet music, plus
a photocopy of a soleares arranged by
at the heart of everything.
The rest of the backstory is mostly Paco de Lucía and transcribed by my
the stuff of late-night, sherry-fuelled dad in 1972.
Antonia is reverent of the trandebates. There’s just one final point
scription but baulks at
of consensus: women
ANTONIA'S
my folder. “Flamenco is
can sing and dance fla90 per cent improvisamenco, but guitar pretty
HANDS
tional,” she explains. She
much belongs to men.
EXPLODE
suggests I follow along
It’s a good old-fashioned
ACROSS
while she plays falsetas,
boys’ club.
THE
STRINGS
or soleares melodies.
Antonia spent her life
LIKE
Then her hands explode
crashing that club. She
FIREWORKS, across the strings like
began play ing at age
fireworks, and all I can
five, despite her parents’
AND ALL
objections. At 14 she
I CAN DO IS do is stare. And panic.
And realise how unprefound a teacher and by
STARE
pared I actually am.
15 was earning money
She suggests I record a video of
accompanying singers and dancers.
When I met her, she’d spent 30 years her playing slowly. Back in my rentstudying with masters, composing ed apartment, I watch the video and
and touring the globe, and was fi- practise fanatically until I memorise
nally recording her first album. But the falsetas. W hen my fingertips
her father died 13 years ago without start tingling, I’m euphoric. I run my
accepting her vocation. “He never thumb over them like they’re a row of
once said ‘Good’,” she confides. “He tiny talismans.
Heading into our second lesson,
never said, ‘Olé’. I had to do this for
myself. I fought for my career, and I’m slightly more confident. As Anit was very, very hard to grow in this tonia tunes her guitar for me, I’m reminded of my dad – the way he craatmosphere.”
I can’t help but compare our lives. dled his guitar like a favourite child.

106

november 2022

He wasn’t the most affectionate
parent, and the tenderness he
showed his instruments was
likely why I was drawn to guitar:
to be closer to him by proxy.
I fumble my way through the
falsetas. But Antonia says she’s
impressed, and I decide to believe her.
On my last night in Madrid, she
performs at Casa Patas, a vaunted tablao (flamenco stage). This
being my first flamenco show in
Spain, and my understanding of
duende being even flimsier than
my grasp of the music, I’m expecting something gloomy and
maudlin. Like sad opera with
stomping. Instead, the show is
Pilar Alonso performs with the all-female
celebratory, sexy, fiery. Duende,
flamenco Arabic quartet Mujeres Mediterráneas
it turns out, isn’t about suffering;
it’s about transforming suffering into
Among the earliest female gradjoy and passion. I try to give Antonia uates of the lauded Conservatorio
all the ‘olés’ her father never did.
Superior de Música Rafael Orozco in
Córdoba, Pilar holds degrees in both
IN 1922, GRANADA – the Alhambra classical and f lamenco guitar and
palace, specifically – was the site of now teaches at the Conservatorio Prothe first flamenco competition, Con- fesional de Música de Ángel Barrios in
curso de Cante Jondo, which brought Granada, while also performing in
f lamenco to the world’s attention. Mujeres Mediterráneas, a flamenco
Flamenco remains a constant pres- Arabic quartet of women from different parts of the world.
ence here.
When I notice a framed photo of
My first impression of Pilar Alonso, when she opens the door to her Paco de Lucía in her study, she says
apartment, is that she’s the happiest she considers him her teacher. At
person I’ve ever met. Her face is an age 11, she taught herself f lamenendless warm smile. She’s so bubbly, co by listening to his cassette tapes.
one might not take her seriously – if I’ve learned this was the customary
method of studying with him. By all
one didn’t know better.
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me. A delicate, lively string of
single notes, it’s as familiar as
a lullaby. “That!” I shout. Tears
blur my eyes, and then my fingers are plucking along as fast
as hers. It’s as if a missing piece
of me is back.
YOU DON’T REALLY go to Bar-

celona for flamenco. You go for
Gaudí’s architecture, tapas, absinthe. But a flamenco guitarist has brought me here. Marta
Robles began playing at age
seven in Seville, has earned
four degrees in classical and
flamenco guitar, and has travelled the world performing.
Marta Robles has been playing flamenco
When I watched her online, I
guitar since she was seven years old
imagined we’d be instant best
accounts, he almost never took on friends. But no. She’s tall, glamorous
and intense, and she intimidates me.
students.
I show Pilar my dad’s transcription. Even my precious transcription fails
“It’s glorious,” she says, poring over it. to impress her. She skims it, nods,
returns to her beer.
“Magnífico.”
Nor is Marta moved to provide
Leafing through my sheet music,
however, she acts like I’ve thrust rot- reassuring answers to my hopeful
ten chicken under her nose. She’ll questions. “No,” she says, “the situainstruct me, but this?! No. When she tion isn’t improving for tocaoras.”
I remind her that two nights ago
demonstrates the rhythm she intends
to teach me, her hands become birds she and another female guitarist
– darting and fluttering, dipping and played a private concert for the Rolling Stones. And days before that, her
swooping, graceful, furious.
“OK,” she says. “Now follow along.” all-women group, Las Migas, got a
To be clear, there is no chance I can Latin Grammy nomination for Best
Flamenco Album.
do this.
“Doesn’t this say something about
But during our second lesson,
something happens. Pilar begins the future of the tocaora?” I ask.
“OK, maybe,” she concedes.
playing a melody my father taught

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november 2022

Music Of The Heart
My final lesson in Spain is scheduled on the last morning before I
leave for home, and coincides with
a strike in Barcelona. Taxis are nonexistent and the Metro has stopped
running. I walk to Marta’s apartment,
arriving late, worried there’s no time
for a lesson. I need to check out of my
accommodation in an hour.
“Tranquila,” she says. She’ll take me.
Marta doesn’t feel like teaching
me soleares; instead, she’ll show me
a rumba. “It’s like this,” she says, her
hands a dizzying blur of knuckles
and skin.
“OK? Follow along.”
This joke never gets old.
But she shows me again in slow
motion. And as I study her hands,
I notice how her fingers form perfect squares above the frets and her
thumb never creeps over the neck of
the guitar. And I hear my dad’s voice,
forever correcting my form, holding
my wrist between his long, slender
fingers and jiggling it gently. “Let it
relax,” he’d say.
So I relax my wrist and follow Marta’s lead, and a few dozen tries later,
I get it. Not just the rhythm of the
rumba but golpe, too, the trademark
tapping of finger against guitar.
“That’s it!” she exclaims, and we
tamp our strings and play faster and
faster until we’re strumming in unison and grinning widely at each other. And just like that, I’m no longer
intimidated. I’m exhilarated and
inspired and want to stay in Spain

and spend every minute with these
remarkable, revolutionary women.
Do I? No. But I do remember, finally, what it means to be musical.
To practise until something beautiful emerges. To live for the moment
when it all connects and you are
elevated. And mostly, to share that
magic with someone else.
I wonder if this is duende – an old
suffering transformed into passion.
I know holding a guitar doesn’t hurt
anymore. It feels like a rekindling,
like the redemption of a broken
promise. It feels like joy.
Marta drives me back to my apartment on her motorcycle, and as we
zip through the streets, I experience
a rare moment of pure freedom. The
sense of something heavy being lifted away.
I’ve long carried guilt and remorse
for quitting guitar and missing my
chance to be one of the first tocaoras. Those feelings are gone. Now I
see how lucky I am.
Antonia, Pilar and Marta had zero
female role models. I have three.
They had countless obstacles. I have
zero. I’m suddenly impatient to get
home, tune my guitar and practise
all they’ve shared with me.
And I intend to share it, too. I want
to teach my son to play soleares
someday. But I’ve ditched all my
sheet music now. W hen the time
comes, I’ll make him follow along.
FROM AFAR (JULY/AUGUST 2019)
© 2019 BY LAVINIA SPALDING

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ALL IN A DAY’S WORK

“Do you have any true-crime podcasts?”

No Protection

Aim For The Mouth

I opened an envelope from one
of our customers regarding an
accidental death insurance policy
on her spouse. The request was
simple and to the point. Handwritten
boldly across the invoice in red ink,
it read: “Please cancel this policy.
My husband is dead, and it was no
accident.”

While volunteering at a hospital
during university, I was tasked with
feeding an elderly patient who didn’t
have the strength to do it himself.
When his tray arrived, I picked up
the utensils and asked, “Would you
like me to use a spoon or a fork?”
He replied, “That depends on
your aim.”

SUBMITTED BY KATHLEEN JOHNSON SIMMONS

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november 2022

SUBMITTED BY SANDY SPEER

CARTOON: A SHER PERLMAN. OPPOSITE: VECTEEZ Y.COM

Humour On The Job

All In A Day’s Work

All The Same
A young boy I was caring for was
staring intently at a neighbour’s
newborn when he announced, “We
have a baby just like that at our
house! He just has a different head.”
SUBMITTED BY MARY SHIPLEY BENTLEYVILLE

Proceed With Caution
We have plumbers working in our
house. I just heard one of them say
“Lefty loosey, righty tighty.” I know
we’re in good hands.
@ROLLININTHESEAT

OFF THE WALL

I create wall art and murals. I am
talking to a client about doing the
outside wall of their kindergarten.
CLIENT: Oh, and I want a big

painting with Moana, the sisters
from Frozen, and that Encanto girl
who wears the glasses.
ME: I don’t think that would be a
good idea. Those are copyrighted
characters.
CLIENT: Oh, they’ll never notice a
small kindergarten like ours!
ME: Are you kidding? This is
Disney. They probably have their
lawyers on their way to our
houses right now.
NOTALWAYSRIGHT.COM

MOST BORING JOBS EVER?
A recent UK survey listed the top five
most boring jobs as data analysis,
accounting, tax/insurance work,
cleaning and banking. But what
about these?

I literally used to watch cement
dry when I worked for a
building company which had a
job at a university. The students
were far too absorbed in their
phones to notice traffic cones
and caution tape, so my job was
to yell at them if they were
about to step into the wet
cement. SNW_23, VIA REDDIT
I was the printer-paper refill
guy at a large multinational
bank with about 12 huge
printers constantly printing
jobs. I took those jobs, stapled
them, and put them in little
boxes according to their
coversheets. And I opened
reams of paper and put
them into the printers.
And died from a thousand
paper cuts.
INTENSELY_HUMAN, VIA REDDIT

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QUIZ

A VERY SPECIAL

Ten questions
about the
liquid that
keeps
us alive
BY Kirstin von Elm

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november 2022

ILLUS TR ATION: GE T T Y IMAGES/IS TOCKPHOTO/EK ATERINA VAKHR AMEE VA

JUICE

QUESTIONS

Biologist Karl Landsteiner was
born on June 14, 1868. “Millions
of people owe their lives and
healing to Karl Landsteiner,” says his
plaque at the University of Vienna.
The Austrian discovered that:
a) there are several blood groups

b) when broken down into
its components, blood can be
stored for longer
c) when blended with saline
solution, blood can stretch further
d) blood transfusions could
save lives

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

About five to six litres of blood
circulate in the adult human
body. How far would all the arteries, veins and capillaries reach, if
they were lined up one after the other?
a) from Singapore to Johor Bahru,
Malaysia – around 23km
b) from Calais, France, to Dover,
England – around 45km
c) from Reykjavik to Sydney –
around 16,600km
d) more than twice around the
equator – around 100,000km

Blood carries nutrients and oxygen. It contains billions of cells
that continually fight bacteria,
viruses and other foreign invaders in
the body. What are these cells called?
a) haemoglobins
b) leucoplasts
c) leukocytes
d) plasma

When measuring suitability for
a blood transfusion, blood type
group as well as the rhetoric factor is considered. This is either positive or negative. Like blood types,
Rhesus (Rh) factors are not evenly
distributed. Most people worldwide
are Rh positive. In which part of the
world is the proportion of the population with a negative Rh factor
particularly low?
a) Africa
b) Asia
c) Europe
d) Saudi Arabia

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november 2022

Nanorobots that can remove
deposits in the bloodstream or
fight cancer cells is still wishful thinking today, but in the 1966
film Fantastic Voyage, it was a form
of treatment. A team of scientists in
a submarine is shrunk and then injected into the patient’s bloodstream
for brain surgery. The operation succeeds, but then antibodies attack the
submarine. The heroes escape by...
a) entering the trachea and being
coughed up
b) swimming in a tear from
the eye
c) piercing the eardrum and
escaping out the ear canal
d) being urinated out the body

About 45 per cent of our blood
consists of solid components
such as platelets. With their
help, the body stops bleeding when
we are wounded. However, platelets
also play a role in the development of
some conditions. Which one of these
four conditions causes this response?
a) athlete’s foot
b) heart attack
c) lung infection
d) diabetes

The European aristocracy – especially in the 19th century – were
afflicted by haemophilia more
often than the rest of the population.
This is because aristocratic families
mostly intermarried, chiefly to protect
their own privileges, but it also meant

A Very Special Juice
the genetic defect responsible for the
disease remained within their own
ranks. How is haemophilia inherited?
a) from mothers to sons and
daughters
b) from fathers to daughters
c) from fathers to sons
d) from maternal grandmothers
to grandsons

ILLUS TR ATION: GE T T Y IMAGES/FS TOP/MALTE MUELLER

The aristocracy are often desc r ibed a s ‘blue-blooded’.
This term is based on an optical illusion: as the gentlemen did
not work outdoors they had an elegantly pale complexion that revealed the blue-colour of their veins.
However, blueblood really does exist.
Who has it?
a) anaemia patients
b) horseshoe crabs
c) walruses
d) sea cucumbers

energy supplies. Fortunately, blood
supply to the brain is continuously
replenished. Do pollutants and pathogens pose a risk to the brain?
a) No. The blood-brain barrier is
a roadblock to microorganisms
and regulates what can enter into
the brain tissue
b) No. The kidneys eliminate
them before the blood flows to
the brain
c) Yes. They accumulate in the
brain and hasten the ageing
process
d) Yes. They can bring on a stroke
>> Turn to page 116 for quiz answers

Accident victims are just as
dependent on blood donations
as cancer patients and women
after complicated births. How much
blood is donated around the world
every year?
a) 60 million litres
b) 120 million litres
c) 180 million litres
d) 600 million litres

The brain accounts for just
two per cent of an adult’s
body mass, but consumes
as much as 20 per cent of our body’s

Donating blood saves lives

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115

ANSWERS: A VERY SPECIAL JUICE QUIZ

d) All the blood vessels in an adult
body, if joined together, would
measure an impressive 100,000km
– ie. more than twice around the
equator.

a) + b) Women are responsible for
passing the haemophilia genetic
defect to sons and daughters, while
men are responsible only for remitting
the defect to their daughters. The defect is located on the X chromosome.
Both parents pass one of them on to
their daughters. Sons, on the other
hand, receive a Y chromosome from
their father. The disease is inherited in a recessive manner: a healthy
X chromosome can more or less compensate for a defective one. Men are
therefore affected more frequently.

a) Karl Landsteiner discovered the
existence of different blood groups
and in 1930 was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Physiology/Medicine. Without his findings on the compatibility
of blood groups, blood transfusions
would remain a life-threatening
procedure.

c) Leukocytes form one of the pillars of the immune system. Unlike the red blood cells that transport
oxygen, leukocytes do not contain a
red pigment and are referred to as
white blood cells.

b) Less than two per cent of the
population of Asia is Rh negative.
In Africa it is around ten per cent, in
Europe around 17 per cent, while in
Saudi Arabia it is 14.2 per cent.

b) The heroes in the film Fantastic
Voyage escape from their disabled
submarine and then swim out of the
patient in a tear drop.

b) The platelets are involved
in t he for mat ion of vascu la r
closures that are experienced during
a heart attack.

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november 2022

b) The horseshoe crab’s light blue
blood is a coveted raw material in
the pharmaceutical industry because
it reacts directly to toxins. It is therefore used in drug studies.

a) According to the World Health
Organization almost 120 million
units of blood are donated every year,
which translates to around 60 million
litres. However, the WHO warns that
access to safe blood products is not
guaranteed in some regions of the
world.

a) The blood-brain barrier
serves as a filter and allows
only a few selected substances to enter the brain tissue. However it is not
insurmountable as alcohol, nicotine
and some pathogens can make it
through the blood-brain barrier.

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

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november 2022

HOW TO

Learn A

LANGUAGE
As An Adult

Contrary to conventional thinking, it isn’t too late

PHOTO: TMB S TUDIO

BY Emily Goodman

or more than t wo years,
Dulcie Shoener has done
daily German lessons on her
phone. To some, that might
sound like self-imposed homework,
but Shoener – a language lover and
sub-editor – doesn’t see it that way.
“I enjoy it so much,” she says. “It’s a
delight to be able to read a short story
in German.”
To be able to read, write or carry on
a conversation in another language
is a feat few native English speakers
attempt, let alone achieve.
Of her school German, Shoener
says, “I remembered very little.”
Yet the rewards for those who do
learn a second (or third, or fourth...)

language are profound: increased
travel opportunities, of course, but
also improved memory, focus and
the ability to multi-task. Bilingual
brains are better shielded against
cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. And, according to a poll
conducted by the language app Babbel, knowing multiple languages can
make you seem more attractive.
So, why aren’t more of us multilingual? There are dozens of decent
answers to that question, but one
common retort doesn’t have much
merit at all: the idea that adults, especially older ones, just can’t learn
languages as easily as children can.
Linguists have long debated how
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old is too old to acquire a language,
but newer research is refuting the
idea wholesale. “There is no magical
point at which it becomes impossible
to learn a new language,” says Professor Alison Gabriele, of the University
of Kansas, who led a study published
last year showing that adult learners
– even as beginners – could process
sentence structures in new languages
much like native speakers. Separate
research at Cambridge University
recently found that language instruction affects adults and
children the same way.
While it’s true that
children tend to pick
up ne w l a n g u a ge s
quickly and easily, this
has more to do with
how they learn than
how old they are when
they do.
Kids absorb and infer lots of information about language
simply by listening: to family, friends,
teachers and the media around them.
It happens without much thought or
effort on their part and, when they
do put in effort, it’s because they
want to understand the story, joke
or game that’s going on. By contrast,
adults tend to learn in rigid academic
settings where they have little say in
what they study and where the stakes
are also higher.
What Shoener can recall from her
German classes is the pressure to
maintain her grade point average. “I

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november 2022

was horrified of making mistakes,”
she says. “Now I’m not afraid, and I
know I’m doing better than I did at
school.”
If you dream of being bilingual,
your age does not disqualify you.
Make the process more fun – and, by
extension, more successful – with the
following tips.

FIND YOUR MOTIVATION
Wish you had paid more attention in
high school French? Consider why
you didn’t. Perhaps all
you wanted out of the
class was a good grade,
or to fulfil a graduation requirement.
Linguists call these
incentives ‘extrinsic
motivators’, but the
most successful lang uage st udents a re
‘intrinsically’ motivated, sincerely invested in their own
learning.
So pick a language you are excited
to use, whether on a grand holiday
in France or on your couch watching
French TV dramas.

PICK YOUR TOOLS
It might take trial and error, but you’ll
figure out which resources work best
for you. Mobile apps such as Duolingo and Babbel gamify your learning,
so if you could easily spend hours
playing on your phone, you’ll likely
find these similarly addictive. Others

Learn A Language As An Adult
such as Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur
are less gimmicky but more rigorously researched.
Consider a conversation-based
class on Italki or Idlewild. And don’t
neglect books. McGraw Hill and Barron’s offer excellent textbooks, grammar guides and workbooks with answer keys to let you see how you’re
doing.
But you may enjoy children’s stories more, with their simple vocabulary and easy-to-understand narratives.

DIVE IN
Immerse yourself in your chosen
language as much as you can. Watch
movies or listen to songs, even if they
are just on in the background. Periodically look around you and see
how many things you can name in
the language you’re studying.
Better yet, label items around your
home with those words. You’ll have
no choice but to see them and, in very
little time, learn them.

GET SOCIAL
Practising with other people helps
solidify what you’ve already learned
and makes you more aware of which
ideas you’re able to express. These
need not be native speakers you chat
with, though various websites and
apps such as languageexchange.com,
HelloTalk and TalkAbroad can connect you with some, either free or for
a small fee.

DON’T SWEAT
YOUR MISTAKES
Kids get it wrong all the time. They’ll
say, for instance, that they ‘goed’ to
school and played with other ‘childs’.
But inherent in these errors is an understanding of the general rules: we
use ‘-ed’ as a suffix to put an action
in the past, we add ‘-s’ to make things
plural, and so on. Although kids often
misapply these rules, they pick up on
the patterns and use them in novel
situations. This is what successful language learners do. Sometimes you’ll
miss the mark as you unknowingly
stumble on an irregular verb or an
exception to the rule. But more often
you’ll be right.

TRY LESS
It seems counter-intuitive, but you’re
more re c e pt i v e to pic k up on
language patterns when you aren’t
hyper-focused on learning them. So
rather than stare intently at a vocabular y list, glance over the words
while you listen to instrumental music. Or enjoy a glass of wine ahead of
conversation practice. As research at
t he Universit y of Liver pool has
shown, our ability to speak a second
language improves after a bit of alcohol. Or turn on subtitles in the
language you’re learning even as you
watch TV in English. But don’t devote your full attention to them – just
enjoy the show and absorb what you
can. The less you stress, the more
you’ll be able to learn.
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TRAVEL

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Norite riding a kiotoshi,
or felled tree, down a
mountainside

THE ROOTS OF LOG RIDING

The origins of the Onbashira festival
date back at least as far as the Heian
period (794-1185), though historians
at the Suwa City Museum claim residents even further back in the Nara
period (710-794) were performing
similar hazardous activities in the
name of tradition.
In a ceremony akin to the famous
razing and rebuilding of the Grand

PHOTOS: GE T T Y IMAGES

t the crest of a steep
s lop e, doz en s of
men clamber atop
a felled tree. Once
a mighty fir reaching tens of metres high, the stripped, multi-tonne
log perched on the hill is draped in
as many sacred, woven shimenawa
ropes as young norite (riders), who
dare to mount it down its rapid fall to
level ground.
On either side of the slope, onlookers chant ritual songs while, behind
the massive pillar of timber, a man
with an axe severs the only rope anchoring the tree – and its norite, clad
in bright orange and navy garb – from
a death-defying descent.
This is the kiotoshi (tree falling)
stage of t he Onbashira fest iva l,
perhaps the deadliest tradition in
Japan.
Viewed by the tow nspeople of
Suwa in central Nagano Prefecture
as a test of courage and braver y,
the kiotoshi and larger Onbashira
Festival has resulted in fatalities as
recently as 2016.
Still, the threat of death – either
from drowning as logs are dragged
across the river-strewn countryside
or from being crushed by a tree hurtling down a hill – has done little to
dull locals’ enthusiasm for this truly
unique festival.

Tempting Fate

Shrines of Ise every two decades,
Suwa symbolically renews its own
local shrines every six years (the next
Onbashira festival will take place in
2028) in keeping with Shinto principles of purity. First, shrine officials
scour the countryside for 16 fullgrown fir trees sufficiently majestic
enough to embody the essence of
the gods and poetically referred to
as hashira (pillars). These trees will

eventually be erected on the sacred
grounds of shrines around town as
vessels for the deities.
The only issue? Transporting them
from inaccessible slopes throughout Nagano’s impressive Yatsugatake mountain range to the shrines
themselves.
At some point in the late Edo (16031867 or early Meiji era (1868-1912),
the locals decided that dragging these
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monumental trees to their destinations by only the safest routes wasn’t
worth the effort. Instead, they opted to
launch the logs down the mountainside – thus, the kiotoshi was born.

ORGANISING ONBASHIRA

While the rough, rowdy and potentially fatal kiotoshi might be the most
eye-catching phase of the Onbashira
Festival, it is far from the only element worth taking in.
In fact, the kiotoshi is just one stage
of the overall yamadashi (coming out
of the mountains) event, which sees
the festival’s massive trees felled with
specialty tools and decorated in Shinto’s sacred colours of red and white
before they embark on their perilous, five-kilometre journey through
the countryside. Occasionally, this
means rivers must be ceremoniously
forded through kawaogoshi, a ritual
river crossing by which selected trees
are fitted out with V-shaped branches
to help with waterborne travel.
Land or waves, it doesn’t seem to
matter when it comes to the Onbashira’s health and safety record. Deaths
have occurred in both the kiotoshi
and kawaogoshi.
One month later in early May, the
satobiki phase kicks off, which sees
the logs hauled through Suwa’s usually quiet neighbourhoods and to
their respective shrines. When the
timber arrives at its final destination, the participants then haul it
upright and insert it into the ground

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with nothing but their own combined strength.
Perhaps it would be easier if it was
not for the lone resident strapped to
the top of each log. Once sufficiently airborne, this individual throws
lollies, snacks and other trinkets
from his lofty perch. Unsurprisingly,
whichever man is chosen to play this
high-altitude role every six years has
come to suffer his fair share of injuries over the years.
While the yamadashi and satobiki
stages comprise the bulk of the Onbashira Festival in April and May,
somewhat more subdued celebrations continue throughout summer
and autumn at shrines across the
region. At least some elements of the
festivities extend until October, making this not only Japan’s most dangerous festival but perhaps its longest.

FAMILY TREES

It might seem unusual that Suwa and
its surrounding towns, an area with
a population of just over 172,000,
has become the site of Japan’s most
hazardous festival. Like most of
Nagano Prefecture’s cities, Suwa is
tucked away in a narrow valley with
a modestly sized lake to its north.
In festival years however, the rural
town buzzes with an undeniable energy. Once a month, neighbourhood
shrines hold classes to teach young
children the kiyari (ritual chants of
encouragement sung as the trees
are transported). As the first day of

Tempting Fate

PHOTO: GE T T Y IMAGES

The monumental logs are erected in shrine grounds for the festival

yamadashi draws nearer, these classes are held nightly.
For all the idiosyncrasies of the Onbashira Festival, the atmosphere surrounding it is representative of small
communities intensely proud of their
local traditions.
“I bring my young daughters to
watch the Onbashira Festival so that
one day they will have a great appreciation for it,” says Suwa resident
Kumiko Oguchi. “Hopefully, one day,

they will become active in the festival themselves.” Just five years old,
Oguchi’s daughter can already sense
something special about the parade
of timber from Suwa’s mountainsides
to shrine grounds. “The logs seem
like ghosts,” she says.
Getting the younger generation
interested in the Onbashira Festival may be the only way to preserve
it. Unlike many other such events
across Japan, official participation
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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

in the proceedings, including riding
the logs, is limited to residents with
demonstrated and extended family
histories in the Suwa area.
Outside observers might be forgiven
for questioning the utility of a tradition
like the Onbashira Festival. Danger
and injury, after all, seem to form its
foundation. But any authority looking
to soften its harder edges would have
to contend first with the residents of
Suwa who show no signs of reticence
when it comes time to ride the 16-metre logs down a precipice.
Even this year’s festival falling
in the middle of a pandemic didn’t
completely halt the proceedings.
The more dangerous elements of the

kiotoshi were suspended, and social
distancing requirements meant only
a fraction of the normal crowd could
pull each log along its route. Nonetheless, the townspeople still showed
up in force to chant and cheer, as if
to say their six-year wait for the festival to get underway could not last
another day.
For reasons of public safety, the
Onbashira Festival might be difficult
to defend. But by putting a stop to
this dangerous yet undeniably fascinating tradition, any intervening crusader might also be digging up the
soul of Suwa root and stem.
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BONUS READ

THE BU$INESS OF

LOVE

Mr K was a widower and in his 70s when he met a young
woman on the internet. At the time, he could hardly
believe his luck – until this chance encounter led him
into the clutches of a global industry worth billions

r K has bought a strawberry cake for us to share as he
talks about his new, yet complicated love. He’s excited and
nervous at the same time. His slice of
cake falls right off his plate, which annoys him. “See, I told you,” he says. “I
can’t do things alone. I need a wife!”
Mr K is 79 years old, retired and
lives alone in the Rhineland, Germany. His full name is nobody’s business.
What’s important is to understand his
story, a story that’s difficult enough,
even for Mr K himself. “It’s very complex,” he admits.

130

november 2022

Mr K lives in a house that became
too big for him after his wife died of
breast cancer in 2013. The couple had
been together for 37 years. His wife’s
crochet blankets are still scattered
over the couches. The good crockery
and the marriage bed are the same.
The television now does the talking
instead of her, while Mr K smokes and
eats his cake.
In 1976, Mr K had found his wife
through a personal ad in the Rheinische Post. She was Czech, and much
younger than him. He explained the
West and the world to her. The two

PHOTO: GE T T Y IMAGES

BY Henning Sussebach

The Business Of Love

readersdigest.com.au

131

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

drove from New York to San Francisco. They travelled through Canada,
sleeping in a tent. When they returned
home, they moved into their house in
the Rhineland. They had a child and
made a life together.
When his wife died, Mr K was not
a member of any club, had lost regular contact with his former work colleagues, and his son had grown up.
Mr K can’t stand the
silence. Instead of love
there is emptiness.
For years after his
wife’s death, Mr K believed this emptiness
could only be filled
with new love. So he
registered on Finya, an
online dating portal.
“It’s free, but very serious,” he says. For his profile, he used
a 20-year-old photo taken while on a
holiday in Spain. He cut his wife out.
Although in his early 70s, he gives his
age as 66 and states he is looking for
a girlfriend aged between 45 and 55.
The rejections are sobering. But
there are also women from abroad
on Finya, many of them. “They write
to you on their own,” says Mr K. This
makes it seems familiar, like it used to
be, when he first answered the advertisement in the Rheinische Post, only
more modern and with photos.

art and culture and photography. I
am looking for a mature man with a
young soul and good heart. My heart
is very big, but it only has room for the
right man with a huge bucket of love!
Email me here.”
They start emailing each other.
“Good morning, how was your night?
I couldn’t sleep well because it was
so hot and I was sweating all over my
body. I think of you,”
writes Antoinette.
“In Germany you
don’t need air conditioning in the house,
but you do need heating in winter. My house
is very large and has
central wood heating
on the first floor and
gas heating on the second floor,” replies Mr K.
They exchange photos. Antoinette
has long hair, a mischievous smile and
a bust size that impresses Mr K.
“When I look at your photos I want
to ‘cuddle’, kiss and love you. I need
you,” he emails.
“Honey, you’re pretty and sweet
smile always looks up at me,” she
emails.
Mr K can hardly believe his luck,
and decides to pursue Antoinette. He
prints out all the messages so none of
their exchanges are lost. The vows of
love are piled up on the table on A4
paper. That makes everything seem
official.
Unfortunately, there is a problem.

IT WOULD BE
WRONG TO TRY TO
RATIONALLY
JUSTIFY HIS
ACTIONS, IT’S
ABOUT FEELINGS

“I’M A VERY OPEN and easygoing

woman,” writes someone named Antoinette to Mr K, in German. “I like

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november 2022

The Business Of Love
Although Antoinette is American, she
is stuck in Ghana for some reason. Mr
K suggests getting her a visa and booking her a flight to Germany. “I want to
hold you in my arms at Düsseldorf
Airport,” he writes. Antoinette would
rather have a few bucks to take care of
herself.
But Mr K doesn’t want to send
her money. Instead, he organises an
appointment for Antoinette at the
German Embassy in Accra, Ghana’s
capital. She doesn’t make the appointment. Mr K emails her: “Hello
my darling Antoinette, I am very disappointed in you. You made a fool of
me at the embassy.” He never hears
from Antoinette again.
SOME 5000 KILOMETRES south of

Ghana’s capital is Offinso, a town of
some 137,000 people. The town is full
of bare concrete houses, free-roaming
goats, and red-earth paths. A young
man is sitting on a sofa behind drawn
curtains in an unoccupied house. He
suggested this meeting place. The
house is on the outskirts, and nobody
knows him in the neighbourhood. He
wants to remain anonymous.
The young man calls himself Vincent, but even that is a lie. He’s holding a phone in his hands and shows
me what he’s sending: “I know there’s
an ocean between us ... I have never
held you in my arms, but in my heart,
I have done it a thousand times.”
To an 81-year-old widower in the
US, Vincent is ‘Juliette’.

I mention an elderly German man
called Mr K, Vincent says that doesn’t
tell him anything, and denies being
‘Antoinette’. But maybe it’s his neighbour. Or some other person in Ghana.
Because thousands of people in West
Africa do what he does. They are global marriage swindlers, modern-day
con artists, committing a 21st century
crime. They are scammers.
Vincent prefers to use the word
‘Sakawa’, which means ‘to make
money’. He calls his victims ‘clients’.
He lies to people who want to be lied
to. That’s how he sees it. The business
model is amazingly simple: “White
people have no one around. The white
people are lonely. And loneliness is
the best seductress,” he says.
Vincent has ready-made text modules on his phone: “My honey”; “My
heart”; and “My love”. He has folders
containing photos of different women. All the photos have been copied
from the internet. According to Vincent, photos and video snippets from
accounts of little-known porn actresses work best. He finds everything he
needs there, from the everyday to the
frivolous, from clothed to naked.
According to Vincent, 90 per cent of
the men on the portals respond to his
first query, with 80 per cent asking for
nude photos soon after. “Sometimes I
feel disgusted.”
Back in Germany, more than a year
passes after Mr K lost contact with
Antoinette. He watches television,
smokes, writes to other women.
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133

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Suddenly there is an email from a
women he last heard from in February 2016. The beautiful American is
writing again. “Hello my dear friend
...” she says. “I haven’t seen you for
a long time, it would be nice if you
could send me new photos, I’ll send
you some too.”
In the new pictures, the old acquaintance wears a bikini. Oddly
enough, her name is no longer Antoinette Nivon but Earlie Thomas and
she lives in Texas. When I timidly say
that I don’t understand, Mr K raises
his voice in the quiet of his dining
room and shouts: “Neither do I!”
It would be wrong to try to rationally
justify his actions, it’s about feelings.
She writes to him. He writes to her.
She wants to come to Germany again.
Three years after the death of his wife,
Mr K sends money for the first time –
€380 (A$560). What does Earlie need
the money for – a visa? A passport? He
says he can’t remember.
Mr K transfers the money via Western Union. It offers cash deposits,
cash withdrawals, anywhere in the
world, often without presentation of
ID. The receipt is still there, one of 100
slips of paper on his desk. The paper
says under payee: EARLIE THOMAS,
Waco, Texas. No passport number, no
address, nothing.
WHEN THE CLOCKS strike 6pm in

West Africa, it is already 8pm in Central Europe. Over on the east coast of
the US, it is approaching afternoon. In

134

november 2022

Offinso, the core working time begins.
“We work the night shift here,” says
Vincent.
Well over a billion dollars are
scammed every year. The FBI alone
receives around 20,000 reports a year.
And these are just the known cases.
Ghana is connected to a deep-sea
communications cable between Cape
Town and London, the most powerful
internet connection between Africa
and Europe. Phone coverage in the
country is over 80 per cent.
Ghana is one of West Africa’s
most developed nations, yet globally speaking is still poor. According
to the Human Development Index,
the country ranks 138th in a global comparison, behind Bangladesh.
A school-leaving certificate does
not guarantee a job. Relatively few
workers are needed to mine mineral
resources. There are hardly any industries outside the two main cities
of Accra and Kumasi.
While a full-time liar like Vincent
probably shouldn’t be trusted, you
can still hear his story. He claims his
mother died young. He is 34 years
old, has a wife, two sons and a daughter.
His wife is training to be a medical assistant, but to do this, he has to
pay for books, uniforms and this is on
top of his children’s school fees, who
attend a private school. “I’m a good
father,” says Vincent. He recently
earned US$22,000 (A$32,000), working as a Sakawa.

The Business Of Love
FOR MONTHS MR K has been plan-

ning for his girlfriend, who he believes
lives in the US, to move to Germany.
Earlie emails him a scanned copy of
her passport. Earlie floods his inbox:
“If I could describe the love I have for
you...”; “If only I could put my love for
you into words...”.
Unlike Antoinette, Earlie does not
want Mr K to send her money for the
flight. Instead, she suggests he transfer money into the account of a travel agency in Texas where she
can book a ticket.
Delays persist. Earlie emails Mr K that
her stepfather, in
Ghana, has died. She
has to go to Africa,
where she will be able
to collect an inheritance. Mr K pays
about €500 (A$750) for a new plane
ticket. Earlie promises to settle all
debts with him. She’s an heiress now.
It’s the last days of 2016. Mr K
doesn’t hear from his girlfriend for a
while. Then, in January 2017, he receives an email from a Dr Frimpong
from Accra: “Hello, Mr K, Earlie asked
for me to contact you.” It seems that
after arriving in Africa, Earlie was involved in a car accident. The driver
was killed. “But your partner has survived, which is the most important
thing.” Dr Frimpong says he is Earlie’s
treating doctor.
Mr K also receives new photos: a
car wreck, Earlie in the hospital bed,

her face behind an oxygen mask, with
pleading eyes. Dr Frimpong also attaches an invoice for €950 (A$1400).
Unfortunately, the patient lacks insurance, but he would like to continue
with the medical treatment.
FROM GHANA, VINCENT is able to organise emotional kidnappings of his
victims via his phone. So he doesn’t
accidentally lose sight of the small
developments impacting each of these
‘women’, his phone
constantly vibrates
and flashes, reporting incoming emails
to inboxes across several email accounts.
Vincent plays many
roles – women, doctors, lawyers.
Like every successful business,
scamming has also become institutionalised. Only a few operators
work for themselves. A love mafia has
grown, organised in groups. Experts
for image processing exist within
these criminal networks, each one
skilled in Photoshop and Illustrator
and able to create fake passports,
degree certificates and just about
any type of photo. For them, putting
a woman in a hospital bed is no big
deal. Nor is making a passport for her.
When Earlie is released from the
hospital after her accident, she sends
Mr K an email thanking him for his
help and for the “wonderful support

EARLIE PROMISES
TO SETTLE ALL
DEBTS WITH HIM.
SHE’S AN HEIRESS
NOW

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135

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

given to me all day and night”. Discharged from hospital, she now has
time to take care of her deceased stepfather’s sizeable inheritance.
To keep Mr K in the know, Earlie
sends him a copy of her stepfather’s
will, which according to the letterhead
has been filed with the High Court of
Justice in Accra. The deceased, Wilson
Bernard Thomas, traded commodities
for a living. According
to the will, he has bequeathed Earlie, his
step-daughter, exactly 7631 kilograms of
gold and diamonds
and US$800 million
in cash. This impressive bequest is safely
locked in vaults owned
by security company
PMS Logistics. The inheritance will
only be handed over to Earlie if she is
married.
Mr K marries Earlie in absentia and
pays a fee of €3000 (A$4500) to a registrar named Esther Acquah. Payment
requests from Ghana are always for
Western currencies. Mr K’s payments
to Earlie have now reached four-digit
figures. He receives an email with a
receipt and marriage certificate attached.
Now newlyweds, Earlie and Mr K
email almost every day. They also
speak on the phone once, says Mr
K, and during the call he spoke with
a woman. Another time he manages
to establish a short video connection

during which Earlie waves to Mr K,
but unfortunately the audio doesn’t
work.
Earlie reports from Accra that
Ghana’s tax laws require inheritances
to be taxed, and that she has received
a bill of €1,015,000 (A$1.5million) to
access and export the inheritance.
Luckily, the boss of the security company, a Mr Saw, was able to negotiate
with the tax office
and has managed
to have the tax reduced to €26,500
(A$40,000). In Africa,
it’s all about contacts, and Earlie is
grateful that Mr Saw
was able to do this
on her behalf. If Mr
K pays her the sum,
Earlie commits to giving him part of
the inheritance. But she doesn’t want
to open the safes in Ghana, for fear of
it being stolen from her.
From then on, Mr K began receiving emails from the boss of the security company, Mr Saw. His emails
have an urgent tone as he urges Mr K
to act quickly as he can’t be expected
to bribe the authorities at the tax office forever. Given the large amount
of money, Mr K tells Earlie that he
wants to speak with the authorities
himself. Earlie intervenes and asks
him: “I don’t want you to call them, I
was told that people want to scam us
because they know how much money
is involved.”

MR K BEGINS TO
SCRAPE TOGETHER
HIS ASSETS. HIS
SUPPORT OF EARLIE
HAS NOW REACHED
FIVE FIGURES

136

november 2022

The Business Of Love
A few days later, Mr K’s doorbell
rings. He opens the door to find a
DHL delivery guy standing there. He
hands over a yellow express envelope
from Ghana. It is heavy, bulging, and
rattles. It is from Earlie and contains
the safe deposit keys. After all, he’s the
only one she trusts.
Mr K begins to scrape together his
assets. His support of Earlie has now
reached five figures. To raise more
money, he sells an inherited house of
a deceased relative.
A year passes, then another. Earlie’s
calls for money continues unrelentingly because she’s now under pressure after telling some Africans about
the gold and now she has to bribe
them. Her emails to Mr K are now
headed: “It’s urgent, my dear.”
It is not easy to look into Mr K’s soul.
At times he sounds as if his love for
Earlie has cooled off a bit: she’s stupid,
trusts the wrong people and always
causes him new problems.
Today Mr K puts it like this: over
time he decided to remain loyal to
her, primarily for financial reasons. “I
had to pay if I ever wanted to realise
my claims,” he says, seemingly to hold
onto her like a stock that continues to
fall, but with the hope that it will rise
again, eventually.
IN GHANA , there are many theories

on why these scams work so effectively. One theory comes from Joe,
a haulage contractor who owns ten
luxury coaches, each one equipped

w ith reclining chairs, telev ision
screens, and air conditioning. His
best clients include scammers, the
‘Sakawa boys’.
He has heard them talking dismissively about these old men in the
West: how can these old people imagine that a young woman is interested in them? Where is their humility?
Revenge for Africa also forms part
of their motive: Sakawa bring back
what was once stolen. The forts from
which the colonial rulers conquered
the continent, where they loaded gold
and forced slaves onto ships, still
stand on Ghana’s coast.
To this day, whites are called ‘obroni’ in Ghana. The words ob ‘bad’ and
roni ‘human’ form the meaning of the
compound word.
IN AUGUST 2019 – six years after the

death of his wife, five years after Antoinette and three years after she
turned into Earlie – Mr K found hope
again. Earlie emails him that she’ll be
boarding the plane in a few days in
the company of Mr Saw, the security
company owner. He is accompanying
her to ensure the safes, with the gold,
diamonds and cash, make it into, and
out of, the plane’s fuselage.
“Baby, here is the information about
my flights, my dear. Kotoka International Airport Accra – London Heathrow – Dusseldorf.”
Earlie and Mr Saw don’t make it to
Dusseldorf. She is arrested in London
because of problems with the safe’s
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137

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

shipping documents. So that Mr K
doesn’t lose faith, Earlie sends him
her British Airways boarding pass. A
Mr Rodgers from Heathrow Intelligence then sends Mr K an email attaching a photo showing Earlie in a
Heathrow Airport Police holding cell.
Mr K buys Earlie’s ‘freedom’,
which breaks through the €100,000
(A$150,000) mark of his ‘assistance’.
During this latest ordeal, he prints out
more receipts and puts them in a new
transparent folder.
Earlie is then deported to the US.
There, she entrusts her inheritance
to a lawyer named Lance Grover, who
bills Mr K for storage costs, collects
administration fees, and sends a copy
of his passport. It shows a man with
grey hair, parted on the side, wearing
a white-collared shirt and tie.
Grover sends friendly emails while
Earlie begins to get nasty. Mr K finally has to fetch her, and pay one last
time, so that the treasure and the key
can be found together, she insists. But
Mr K has no more money, a total of
€150,000 (A$220,000) is gone.
“If we don’t trust each other, it’s not
true love,” writes Earlie.
Soon the lawyer can no longer pay
the storage costs and the safes are taken to New York, and delivered to Earlie’s apartment. She calls him several
times, but whenever Mr K answers,
the connection breaks off.
“Thieves have been tampering
with my window,” reports Earlie. “I
can no longer protect our property,

138

november 2022

someday someone will come and
kill me.”
Mr K puts his household items on
eBay, sells furniture and car parts. His
adult son tries in vain to make him realise Earlie is a fraudster, but eventually gives up. Mr K then refuses to listen
to his last friends, who also try to intervene. But he has made attempts to
work out the true story himself. Over
the years, he’s contacted the German
Embassy in Ghana twice, went to his
local police station and sent emails
to American authorities. In some correspondence, he expressed doubts
about the whole story. Mostly though,
he asked them to help him and his
wife transfer the contents of the inheritance, stored in the vaults.
The response from the German
Embassy was clear: he should break
off contact. He gets no response at all
from the American authorities. Now
Mr K hopes the media could help. A
reporter begins to investigate.
IN AUTUMN 2021, at Accra’s Achimota
Hospital, the chief administrator examines the death certificate of Earlie
Thomas’s stepfather, which along with
other formal documents, was filed at
the High Court of Justice together with
his will. A fan circulates the air above
the chief administrator’s head. Finally
she says: “Our coat of arms looks different.” She calls the hospital. A Wilson
Bernard Thomas was never a patient
in this hospital. The name of the signing doctor is unknown.

The Business Of Love
At the capital’s Central Registry Office, the director says marriage certificates were stolen some time ago. The
document is genuine and at the same
time invalid, because a marriage in
absentia is not legal.
At the High Court, a registrar takes
the will bequeathing the gold-diamond-dollar inheritance. He has it
appraised and writes a letter stating
that it was not issued by the court, as
the paper is different.
British Airways examines the boarding
pass Earlie Thomas
claims to have used
to fly to London and
writes: “This is not a
BA document.”
The passpor t of
Lance Grover, with
the photo of the greyhaired, side-parted lawyer, is in fact a
photo of a former Navy Admiral James
A. Winnefeld. He once commanded
an aircraft carrier, now he’s powerless
against identity thieves.
The photo, which is said to show
Earlie in the cell at Heathrow Airport’s
Police Station, is from the prison television series Orange is the New Black.
Earlie’s face was mounted on the leading lady’s head.
All the pictures in which Mr K’s
young, complicated love smiles,
winks and stretches out in bed were
stolen from a Californian woman’s
Myspace account. Umpteen fraudsters have created false profiles from

this woman’s photos. Each one is the
fantasy women of an innocent victim.
The one face has been called Anita
Johnson, Ashelly Cole, Shakira Dale,
Rachel Aasomani. And Earlie Thomas.
“It can never be a man,” Mr K says
after hearing all the findings, doubting
the information. To Mr K, Earlie may
have only wanted his money from
the start, but her greed and naivety
proved that she existed. A fictitious
woman would only have been nice to
him. “I’m convinced
by the honesty of the
intention to cheat.”
Back in Offinso,
Vincent recently
bought a third car, a
Toyota. He’s building a house. “When
we move in, I’ll stop,”
he insists, then disappears into the dusty streets of his
town.
In Germany, Mr K failed to get his
car through its registration check. He
couldn’t afford the repairs it needed
to be roadworthy. He sits in his house
and smokes. He recently wrote a message to Earlie Thomas: “Today I had
a breakfast of three small pieces of
toast with butter and jam because I
had nothing else at home ...”
Earlie doesn’t reply like she once
did. Instead, Mr K receives an email
from a new woman. Her name is Catherine Morin and she is French. It is the
name of an actress who first appeared
in films 50 years ago.

“IF WE DON’T
TRUST EACH OTHER,
IT’S NOT TRUE
LOVE,” WRITES
EARLIE

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139

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RD RECOMMENDS

Movies

PHOTO: COURTESY OF ROADSHOW FILMS

Seriously Red

eal estate valuer Raylene
‘Red’ Delaney (Krew Boylan)
busts out a rendition of Dolly
Parton’s ‘Nine To Five’ at an office
party, resplendent in blonde wig
and spangled jumpsuit. Sadly, her
performance doesn’t go down well
with her manager and she finds
herself without a job. However, the
vivacious redhead catches the eye
of a celebrity-impersonation agency
talent scout – a deadringer for Neil
Diamond – and soon finds herself

Drama Comedy

doing her Dolly Parton act alongside
Kenny Rogers and Elvis lookalikes.
Written by the main star, Krew
Boylan, the Aussie comedy is an
affectionate celebration of fandom,
identity and performance, stuffed with
sing-along classics. With an all-star
cast, including celebrated comedians
Celeste Barber, Bob Downe and Jean
Kittson, and directed by Gracie Otto,
who channels the exuberant camp of
P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding), this film
is seriously good fun.

COMPILED BY DIANE GODLEY

readersdigest.com.au

141

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

n intricate tale weaving historical fact with fiction, Amsterdam follows the
lives of three close friends, two soldiers and a nurse, who find themselves
in the Dutch city at the centre of a shocking secret plot. Set in the 1930s,
the trio (Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington) discover
a “dead white man in a box – not even a casket” and are framed for his murder.
Desperate to find the truth behind the crime, they are led on a dangerous game
in a whodunit-style thriller that sees them at the centre of one of the most
shocking secret plots in American history.

She Said

Drama

ew York Times investigative
reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi
Kantor broke the Harvey Weinstein
story and helped launch the #MeToo
movement and shatter decades of
silence around the subject of sexual
assault in Hollywood. Based on the New
York Times bestseller of the same name,
the film follows the journalists while they
try to uncover the sordid affair. However,
persuading the women to testify proves
to be a massive stumbling block. What
they do discover while going after the
now-disgraced director, is that the story
is bigger than a single man.

142

november 2022

Amsterdam Historical Drama

RD Recommends

Fiction

Sincerely Me
Julietta Henderson
PENGUIN RANDOM
HOUSE

All The Broken
Places
John Boyne

PHOTOS: DOUBLEDAY; PENGUIN R ANDOM HOUSE

DOUBLEDAY

A novel about guilt,
complicity and grief,
John Boyne revisits one
of the characters from
his international bestselling story The Boy
in the Striped Pyjamas.
Gretel, the older sister,
is now 91 and living in
London. All The Broken
Places dips in and out
of the different phases
of her life – escaping
with her mother to Paris
after the war and hitting
rock bottom, to Sydney
and then London – and
her lifelong habit of
hiding her identity.
Beautifully written, the
words flow off the page.
I found this book very
hard to put down.

Danny Mulberry, 39,
is jobless, often drunk
and lives in his best
friend’s garden shed.
While being driven
away by the police
one evening after
graffitiing the footpath
outside his residence,
his neighbour takes
a photo of him and
sends it to the local
press – which is a
catalyst that changes
his life. Not only does
his niece (who he didn’t
know existed) track
him down, but the
paper’s readers decide
he is some kind of
messiah and ask for his
help. Often hilarious,
sometimes emotional,
this is a story out of the
ordinary.

The Cutting
Richard McHugh
PENGUIN RANDOM
HOUSE

The Cutting is a
contemporary novel
that takes a dig at
Australia’s so-called
classless society.
Acclaimed novelist
Richard McHugh’s day
job is a silk representing
corporate clients at
the ‘big end of town’,
so he has a good
understanding of how
the wealthy win their
money and power
and hang on to it. This
darkly hilarious satire
has all the ingredients
for an explosive story:
old money, iron-ore
heir, left-wing charity
organiser, bankrupt
mineworker and a
shonky payday lender.
readersdigest.com.au

143

Non
Fiction

Concussion
Michael & Frankie
Lipman
ALLEN & UNWIN

Tom Wolton
MURDOCH BOOKS

Renowned for his lowfuss, family-friendly
food, award-winning
chef Tom Walton has
produced a collection
of his favourite go-to
recipes. By providing
simple step-by-step
instructions on cooking
fish – such as panfrying fillets, searing,
crumbing, barbecuing
– even the most basic
seafood cook will
be able to turn out
something wonderful.
He has also divided
his Middle Easterninspired cookbook into
the four seasons so you
can produce fabulous
food using in-season
vegetables.

144

november 2022

Photography In
Cambodia
Nicholas Coffill
TUTTLE PUBLISHING

This hardcover,
coffee-table tome
covers the period of
Cambodia from 1866
to the present day and
includes imagery of
royal dancers, food
hawkers, sports people,
religious ceremonies,
rural scenes – and
a soldier standing
guard over the body of
dictator Pol Pot. If you
have an interest in this
part of the world, this
book will be a source
of fascination and
surprising revelations.
But be warned, the
collection of photos are
not the precise digital
imagery of today (as
can be expected).

PHOTOS: MURDOCH BOOKS; ALLEN & UNWIN; TUT TLE PUBLISHING

More Fish,
More Veg

Concussion is a major
issue of contact sport,
and in the past decade
science has started
catching up with the
consequences caused
by repeated knocks
to the head. It is now
known that a form of
dementia is caused by
repeated concussion
and can strike people
in their 30s. Former
England rugby player
Michael Lipman received
a diagnosis of early
onset dementia in 2020.
In Concussion, Michael
and his wife Frankie tell
their personal story with
the hope it will provide a
wake-up call to parents
of children playing
contact sports.

RD Recommends

Podcasts
Snake Attack
Without warning, the giant anaconda – the
world’s largest snake species – shot out of the
water and wrapped its powerful body around
an eight-year-old boy. This is a terrifying story
about a grandfather’s desperate battle to save his
grandson from an anaconda’s deadly clutches.

Who Killed Dr Bogle & Mrs Chandler?
This five-part podcast series explores the baffling
cold case of brilliant physicist Dr Gilbert Bogle and
Mrs Margaret Chandler, the wife of a colleague,
who were found dead beside the Lane Cove River
in Sydney on January 1, 1963. The cause of death
wasn’t established.

All There Is With Anderson Cooper
CNN broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper takes us
on a personal exploration of grief. While packing up
the apartment of his late mother Gloria Vanderbilt,
he finds keepsakes left behind by his late father and
brother. Cooper converses with guests about the
people we lose, and how to move on.

PHOTOS: APPLE.COM, AUDIBLE.COM

Persuasion
This much-loved novel was Jane
Austen’s final finished work. In this
audio version, available on BBC Radio
4 Extra, Juliet Stevenson plays Anne
Elliot, conveying the pain of being
persuaded out of an engagement to the love
of her life, Captain Wentworth.
HOW TO GET PODCASTS To listen on the web: In a search engine, look up
‘All There Is’, for example, and click on the play button. To download: Download an
app such as Podcatchers or iTunes on your phone or tablet and simply search by title.
TO LISTEN TO RD TALKS GO TO
www.readersdigest.com.au/podcasts and click on the play button.
readersdigest.com.au

145

Sharpen Your
Mind

Freeing
Yourself
Practising forgiveness
is essential for a
happier life
BY Dr Max Pemberton

146

november 2022

PHOTO: GE T T Y IMAGES

THE
GENIUS
SECTION

t’s often said that the three most
powerful words in the English
language are ‘I love you’. But I
think there are another three
words that give them a good run
for their money: ‘I forgive you’.
Sure, forgiveness doesn’t have the
same rush of electric charge in it that
love does. It doesn’t evoke the same
frisson of excitement. It might not be
the subject of as many films or have
as many songs written about it as love
does. But it is no less powerful. Forgiveness is such an underrated virtue,
yet it holds the key to happiness in life.
There is a tendency to blame others for our faults and difficulties, but
this sense of grievance helps no one
and actually stunts and restricts the
direction of our lives. I have met so
many people who hold a grudge and
it dominates their life. Lots of people
blame their parents for their problems, for example. It is an excuse – an
easy pass to flash when life gets tough
or difficult or things don’t go how we
want them to. These people wallow in
self-pity, holding on to their grievance
like a talisman.
But as I often say to my patients,
one of the scary things about being
an adult is that you’re responsible
for your own life. It’s also one of the
greatest things because, while your
mistakes are no one’s fault but your
own, so are your achievements.
The first step in this is forgiving your
parents for the mistakes they made
and accepting that, from now on, the

The Genius Section
ups and downs of life are your responsibility. Forgiving someone frees you
from the shackles of the past. It liberates you.
One of the amazing things about
forgiveness is that it doesn’t actually
involve the other person. When you
forgive someone, they lose their control over you. Your emotions are no
longer in their grip, your feelings no
longer at their mercy.
I think one of the reasons we are
so reluctant to forgive people is that
what has happened is no
longer affecting you, or no
longer matters. That’s not
true. At the heart of forgiveness is tranquillity and
peace. That’s not weakness
– it’s what we are all striving
for in life. In fact, forgiveness puts the person who
is doing it in a position of
incredible power. It neuters
the perpetrator.
I do a lot of work around forgiveness with my patients. I think most
of therapy has forgiveness at its core
– forgiving yourself and forgiving others. Understanding that people are
complex and are capable of hurting
you either intentionally or unintentionally and how you deal with that
and move on can take years, but is
ultimately incredibly rewarding. Most
of us can console ourselves with the
idea that the person we are forgiving
is sorry. But that’s not always the case.
Sometimes people die before they can

apologise. Sometimes people aren’t
sorry. This sometimes torments people as they think they need to hear the
word ‘sorry’ before they can forgive.
This isn’t true.
I remember one woman I saw for
several years in outpatients who wrote
to her father who was in prison, forgiving him for sexually abusing her
and murdering her mother. I was astonished that she felt able to do that,
especially as he had never shown
any remorse for his actions. She had
battled for years in therapy
trying to accept and understand what had happened,
had written to him several
times and tried to see him
in the futile hope he would
apologise, which he never did. But ultimately she
found peace in forgiving
him unconditionally.
“The day I decided to forgive him, I felt a weight lift off me,” she
explained. “It didn’t matter that he
wasn’t sorry. I realised that until I forgave him, he would always have power over me. I was always his victim.”
She showed me that forgiveness is
about freeing yourself. It is a display
of power – of asserting your authority
and taking back control. Forgiving
someone and moving on is one of
life’s true joys.

WHEN YOU
FORGIVE
SOMEONE,
THEY LOSE
THEIR
CONTROL
OVER YOU

Dr Max Pemberton is a hospital
doctor, author and columnist and
currently works in mental health.
readersdigest.com.au

147

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

PUZZLES
Challenge yourself by solving these puzzles and mind
stretchers, then check your answers on page 154.
Crossword
Test your general
knowledge.

DOWN
1 Sad (7)
2 Dapper (6)
3 Patron (8)
4 Make more intense (6)
6 Red wine (6)
7 In these times (8)
8 Most feeble (7)
15 Magnificent (8)
16 Infinite time (8)
ACROSS
9 Roman sea-god (7)

15 Witches (11)
20 To give birth to a cow (5)

10 Nothing left (3,4)

22 Peculiar (9)

11 Mature (5)

25 Lack of
knowledge (9)

12 Cheap book edition (9)

17 Fine weather (8)
18 Make dim by
comparison (7)
19 Performer of
gymnastic feats (7)

13 Inflammation of the
lungs (9)

26 Greeting (5)

21 Second smallest
continent (6)

27 Fragment (7)

23 Roman general (6)

14 Snares (5)

28 Loss of memory (7)

24 Condiment (6)

148

november 2022

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5 Military aircraft (8)

BRAIN POWER
brought to you by

Puzzle
Answers
PAGES 154

7
4 8 1
6

4 3
5 6
7

2
8 7
4 9

6
8 2 9
4

Sudoku
HOW TO PLAY: To win, you have to put a number
from 1 to 9 in each outlined section so that:
• Every horizontal row and vertical column
contains all nine numerals (1-9) without repeating
any of them;
• Each of the outlined sections has all nine
numerals, none repeated.
IF YOU SOLVE IT WITHIN:
15 minutes, you’re a true expert
30 minutes, you’re no slouch
60 minutes or more, maybe numbers aren’t your thing

To enjoy more puzzles and interactive games, go to

www.readersdigest.com.au/games-jokes

"Write, Erase, Rewrite"

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

FAMILY FUN

Puzzle
Answers
PAGE 154

Spot The Difference
There are ten differences. Can you find them?

In this puzzle the aim
is to draw lines
linking the circles of
the same colours.
Sounds easy? The
difficult part is
making sure that
none of the lines
cross any other.

150

november 2022

ILLUS TR ATION: VECTEEZ Y.COM

Colour
Pathways

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

TRIVIA
1. Who recently wrote, “Political
7. Which of these is not a common
life no longer has to do with healthy
migraine trigger: cheese, broccoli,
debates ... but only with slick
red wine? 1 point
marketing techniques aimed at
8. The United Nations University
discrediting others”? 1 point
runs institutes around the world.
Where is its headquarters? 1 point
2. The average resident of lowincome countries uses roughly two
9. Of all books published in the US,
tonnes of natural resources each
translations from foreign languages
year. How much do people in highmake up only three per cent. True or
income countries use? 2 points
false? 1 point
3. The New York Times received
10. Do walruses sleep in the water,
2500 complaints in 2015 after
on land, or both? 1 point
dropping its long-standing column
11. Haloumi cheese comes from
about what game? 1 point
what island? 1 point
4. In the 1930s, Pearl Kendrick
12. Name the secret
and Grace Eldering led
intelligence service James
development of a vaccine for
Bond 007 works for. 1 point
what deadly childhood
13. What was so special
disease? 2 points
about the invertebrate
a nine-year-old New
5. How many planets have
Zealander recently found
astronomers found in our
in his Christchurch
galaxy: at least 50; 500; or
backyard? 2 points
5000? 2 points
15. According to
6. Which famous
14. Geographically,
legend, what animal
Canadian singer lent her
killed the Ancient Greek how many countries
music to a 2019 Broadway playwright Aeschylus? comprise Southeast Asia?
show? 1 point
2 points
1 point
16-20 Gold medal

11-15 Silver medal 6-10 Bronze medal 0-5 Wooden spoon

Answers: 1. Pope Francis. 2. 26 tonnes. 3. Bridge. 4. Pertussis (whooping cough). 5. At least 5000.
6. Alanis Morissette. 7. Broccoli. 8. Tokyo. 9. True. 10. Both. 11. Cyprus. 12. MI6. 13. The worm
measured about one metre. 14. Eleven: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Timor-Leste,
Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. 15. An eagle, when it dropped a tortoise
shell on his head.

152

november 2022

PHOTO: GE T T Y IMAGES

Test Your General Knowledge

ONLINE
FIND THESE UNIQUE READS AT

ReadersDigest.com.au
FOOD + MONEY

How to get dinner on
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Before you dial for pizza, use
these clever kitchen hacks to help
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GRAMMAR

21 fun pangrams
A pangram is a sentence that
has every letter of the alphabet,
A to Z, such as “The quick brown
fox jumps over a lazy dog.”
FAMILY FUN + GAMES

PHOTOS: GE T T Y IMAGES

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R E A DER’S DIGE ST

PUZZLE ANSWERS
From Page 148
Sudoku

1
9
2
4
6
7
3
5
8

6
5
4
3
2
8
9
1
7

9
4
5
7
3
2
6
8
1

7
8
3
1
9
6
5
2
4

2
1
6
8
4
5
7
9
3

Crossword

8
3
9
5
1
4
2
7
6

4
6
7
2
8
9
1
3
5

5
2
1
6
7
3
8
4
9
Colour Pathways
This is one possible solution:

154

november 2022

CROSSWORD: CROSSWORDSITE.COM; SUDOKU: SUDOKUPUZZLER.COM ; ILLUS TR ATION: VECTEEZ Y.COM

3
7
8
9
5
1
4
6
2

Spot The Difference

The Genius Section

WORD POWER
Making Cents

The centrepiece of this quiz is cent, from the Latin
centum – think centimetre, century or centipede –
which often means ‘one hundred’. Turn to the
next page for answers.
BY Sarah Chassé

1. beneficent – A: charitable.
B: all-powerful. C: blissful.
2. centaur – A: ancient sculpture.
B: king’s adviser. C: mythological
creature.
3. accentuate – A: make shorter.
B: highlight. C: mispronounce.
4. centigrade – A: Fahrenheit.
B: Kelvin. C: Celsius.
5. nascent – A: emerging.
B: having a sweet or pleasant smell.
C: bankrupt.
6. epicentre – A: brain stem.
B: exact opposite. C: focal point.
7. effervescent – A: unimportant.
B: acidic. C: high-spirited.
8. incentivise – A: enrage.
B: motivate. C: sell for profit.
9. acquiescent – A: obedient.
B: greedy. C: shimmering.

10. licentious – A: disputed.
B: lewd. C: infested with lice
or mites.
11. docent – A: midwife.
B: Venetian nobleman.
C: tour guide.
12. eccentric. – A: offbeat.
B: selfish. C: assorted.
13. florescent – A: feminine.
B: flowering. C: fermented.
14. centrifuge – A: spinning
machine. B: bomb shelter.
C: hurricane’s eye.
15. reticent – A: penny-pinching.
B: virtuous. C: silent.
16. centurion – A: person aged
100 years. B: Roman army
commander. C: middle of a graph.
17. reminiscent – A: stimulating
memories. B: getting hotter.
C: generous.
readersdigest.com.au

155

R E A DER’S DIGE ST

Answers
1. beneficent – (A) charitable. A
beneficent person might volunteer
at a homeless shelter.

10. licentious – (B) lewd. “I like the
play, but it’s a bit too licentious
for high school actors,” the drama
teacher said.

2. centaur – (C) mythological
creature. According to ancient
Greek lore, the centaur was halfman, half-horse.

11. docent – (C) tour guide. “This
painting is from Picasso’s famous
blue period,” the docent said.

3. accentuate – (B) highlight. Does
this dress accentuate my waist?

12. eccentric – (A) offbeat. Clara’s
outfits are an eccentric mix of neon
patterns and lacy headbands.

4. centigrade – (C) Celsius. Using
the centigrade temperature scale,
water boils at 100 degrees.
5. nascent – (A) emerging. The
nascent tech company put three
major competitors out of business
in its first year.

13. florescent – (B) flowering.
Luisa’s garden is so florescent, you
can barely see her house.
14. centrifuge – (A) spinning
machine. Many beekeepers use
a centrifuge to extract honey from
honeycombs.

6. epicentre – (C) focal point.
Last month’s earthquake was so
massive, it shook towns more than
100 kilometres from its epicentre.

15. reticent – (C) silent. Milo is a
chatterbox, but his wife is more
reticent.

7. effervescent – (C) high-spirited.
With his effervescent personality,
Greg is always the life of the party.

16. centurion – (B) Roman army
commander. In the Roman army,
a century was a group of 100 men
commanded by a centurion.

8. incentivise – (B) motivate. After
months of remote work during the
pandemic, how will employers
incentivise people to return to the
office?

17. reminiscent – (A) stimulating
memories. The movie’s style is
reminiscent of old westerns.

9. acquiescent – (A) obedient. We’re
hoping a good dog trainer can turn
Fido into a more acquiescent pup.

156

november 2022

VOCABULARY RATINGS
5–9: Fair
10–14: Good
15–17: Word Power Wizard

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events and BBQs
162

ONLY $2 POSTAGE. USE CODE RM229S WHEN ORDERING Offer ends 30/11/22

Feast Bamboo Cheese Board Set – complete with speciality cutters!
E
SAV

!
$20

Entertain your
guests in style!

Drawer
closes
neatly

Speciality
knives included

Pretty way to serve
your fruit & cheese platter

Here’s a cheese board with
everything you need for the
perfect platter. It measures
34.5 x 29.5 cm so there’s
plenty of room for a generous
selection as well as crackers.
Made from bamboo – attractive,
environmentally friendly and
practically maintenance free –
and, though the board is just
4 cm deep, there’s a drawer
holding four stainless steel
tools to slice and serve
everything from a firm cheddar
to the runniest Camembert.
Feast Bamboo Cheese Board
• FBCB Was $59
NOW $39 SAVE $20!

Only $2 Postage! - Quote code RM229S when ordering

Puzzle Sorting
Trays

Postage
Offer ends
30/11/22

Six interconnecting stackable sorting
trays which are perfect for sorting
puzzles up to 1000 pieces. Sort your
puzzles by colour, then link the trays for
easy viewing. 20 x 20 cm.
• 61781 $18.95

Balmoral Castle
Jigsaw Puzzle
1000 pieces 69 x 49 cm.
• 67888 $34.95

CALL 1300 303 303 OR ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.INNOVATIONS.COM.AU

163

Exclusive Italian Furniture Protectors
Here’s a beautiful way to protect your furniture from dirt, pet hair and
wear – 3D textured covers with a lovely scrolled design in versatile slate
blue. They’re woven from a washable mix of polyester and elastane
in three sizes to fit an armchair or a two or three-seater sofa. Special
wedges are included to hold the cover
Measurements:
in place. You can also add a longer
• Armchair Cover - ﬁts back width 50-210 cm
cover for an L-shaped lounge.
• 2 Seater Cover - ﬁts back width 120-210 cm
Arm covers sold separately.
• 3 Seater Cover - ﬁts back width 170-210 cm

Italian Furniture
Protectors • IFPRT
Armchair ..…$39.95
2 Seater.…..….. $69
3 Seater.…..….. $99
L-Shaped ..….. $49
Arm Covers (pair)
$29.95
4 mths payment terms available

• L-shape Cover - ﬁts back width 65 x 280 cm
• Arm Covers 48 x 70 cm

Choose from
Blue or Taupe
3 seater
and Arm Covers

L-shape

Blue

2 Seater Cover,
Arm Covers and L-shape shown here

Portable Storage Cases – safe

Armchair
and Arm Covers

Taupe

Set of 2

keeping for your CDs, DVDs & magazines
Here’s a practical, space-saving way to keep approx 100 CDs,
64 DVDs or 25 magazines clean and organised. You can see the
titles clearly through the transparent PVC, and the edges are
reinforced with the same tough Oxford fabric used for the
Magazine
comfortable handles. Supplied in sets of two.13H x 14W x
Storage
Cases
53D cm (CDs), 18H x 31W x 13D cm (DVDs) and 30L x 25W x
18D cm (magazines). Contents not included.
Set of 2

DVD
Storage
Cases

164

Keep your DVDs
clean, safe and
portable

Portable Storage
Cases
DVD • MSCSE
Magazine • MSCSF
CD • MSCSG
$24.95 each
set of 2 cases

SAVE $15

Buy any 3 sets for
$59.85 or $29.93 x 2 mths

Set of 2

CD Storage Cases

ONLY $2 POSTAGE. USE CODE RM229S WHEN ORDERING Offer ends 30/11/22

Super-Supportive Bra – unbelievable comfort!
Now you can have the extra support you need with the
comfort you crave. This ﬂattering bra has adjustable
Buy two sets
straps that cross over at the front to lift and cradle
for $49.90 or
$24.95 x 2 mths without underwires. The fabric is wonderfully soft and
breathable, there are mesh panels to help you stay cool
and the wide shoulder straps won’t cut or chafe.
Pretty
It looks pretty, too, and comes in a pack with
lace trim
one white and one nude, with a dainty lace
design
trim. Available in S, M, L, XL and XXL.

SAVE $10

Designed
for lift,
comfort
and
support

Nude

Extra Supportive Bras
• ESBR $29.95
Set of 2
Lacy straps wrap
over to provide
support
1 nude & 1
white in set

White

CRISS CROSS
COMFORT

Only $2 Postage! - Quote code RM229S when ordering

Postage
Offer ends
30/11/22

STARRING

Kevin Costner

A YELLOWSTONE ORIGIN STORY

Starring Kevin Costner, this brilliant
Western series revolves around the Dutton
family, led by John Dutton, who controls
the largest ranch in the U.S. that is under
constant attack by those it borders: land
developers, an Indian reservation and
America’s ﬁrst National Park.
5 DVDs, 703 mins.
SUBTITLES

Season 4 (2021) • MYELS
$39.95 or $19.98 x 2 mths

DVDs

SEASON 1

(2021)

4
DVDs

The prequel to much-loved series,
Yellowstone, 1883 follows the original
Dutton family as they embark on a journey
west through the Great Plains toward the
last bastion of untamed America. It’s a stark
retelling of Western expansion, as a family
ﬂees poverty to seek a better future in
Montana. 4 DVDs, 560 mins. SUBTITLES
• MYELA $39.95 or $19.98 x 2 mths

DVDs

Collection: Seasons 1-4 (17 DVDs, 34 hrs)
• MYELT $109 or $27.25 x 4 mths
CALL 1300 303 303 OR ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.INNOVATIONS.COM.AU

165

Poinsettia Pot With Fairy Lights – what a stunning effect!
Standing an impressive
97 cm tall in its ornate goldcoloured pot, this Poinsettia
will look spectacular next
to your door or in your
sitting room. The 7 bright
red flowers nestled amongst
green leaves measure 18 cm
across and are velvety soft
to the touch. 20 LED fairy
lights add an extra touch
of festive magic. They’re
powered by 3 AA batteries
(not supplied) and you can
choose from 8 settings,
including a steady glow,
flickering and flashing.

A stunning
festive display
to welcome
your guests

Fairy Light Poinsettia
• FAIRP $99ea or
$24.75 x
SAVE $20
4 mths
Includes LED lights with 8 different settings

Buy two for $178 or
$44.50 x 4 mths

4 Cute Perching
Santas
These Santas have fabric
legs that will dangle, cross
or bend, so they’re happy to
perch on a mantel or shelf.
17 cm tall overall, they’ve
been crafted from polyresin
then painted to capture all of
the festive details including
a fur-trimmed coat and hat
and the signature bushy white
beard, not to mention an
armful of presents.
Colourful Santa
Perching Santas
set to brighten
• PSNST $24.95
your mantel at
The Set
Christmas

166

Position them
to suit your
space

Set of 4

ONLY $2 POSTAGE. USE CODE RM229S WHEN ORDERING Offer ends 30/11/22

Magnificent Cathedral
LED Lights

Revolving
Musical
Christmas
Tree

These lights look like slender, gold-coloured
candles, each topped with a warm white
LED – much safer than a flame. And,
with no less than 33 arranged in two rows,
the effect is stunning. 34H x 32.5W x
8D cm and
Striking powered
centrepiece
by 3 x AA
batteries
(not
supplied).
Magnificent
Cathedral
LED Lights
• CALGT
$39.95

Decorate this
cute festive
27 cm musical
revolving
Christmas
tree with the
24 miniature
ornaments
supplied, wind
it up and it
will begin to
turn, playing a
Christmas tune.
Plays a Christmas tune
while it spins around

SPINT $29.95

Only $2 Postage! - Quote code RM229S when ordering

Postage
Offer ends
30/11/22

Senior Moments
You can’t remember the last time you had fun
playing a board game like this! Improve your
memory with this game that will keep you
laughing, but first remember to collect your
keys. Includes game board, 8 pawns, dice,
memory cards, zany lists, game booklets and
instructions.
2-8 players.
• 67967 $54.95 or
$27.48 x
2 months

Splendid
Fairy
Wren
Easy, relaxing
and super
fast, tiny
“diamonds”
are placed on
a pre-printed
fabric with
adhesive surface, using a special stylus.
Your Diamond Dotz kit includes
quality colour printed fabric, round
acrylic facets sorted by colour, stylus,
wax caddy, craft tray and instructions.
27 x 35 cm.
• 68565 $49.95 or $24.98 x 2 months

CALL 1300 303 303 OR ORDER ONLINE AT WWW.INNOVATIONS.COM.AU

167

Battery
power.
By STIHL.

2
202
Law

n M o w ers