The sight of colleagues and acquaintances taking a drag on an e-cigarette has become commonplace. But have we reached “peak vape”? Statistics suggest that vaping among smokers and recent ex-smokers, who comprise the vast majority of vapers, may already be on the decline. The figures will be studied closely by the major e-cigarette firms, which have poured millions into promoting a technology that was thought to have been growing in popularity.
Figures released in 2014 by the health charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) reveal that usage among adults in Britain of electronic cigarettes – which do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke – tripled from an estimated 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
However, figures collated by the Smoking Toolkit Study, a research body backed by the Department of Health that provides quarterly updates on smoking trends, show vaping’s appeal may be waning. Vaping rates among smokers and ex-smokers rose steadily until the end of 2013, when some 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this proportion levelled out throughout 2014 before dropping to 19% during the final quarter of 2014. Early signs suggest the decline has continued into 2015. The drop is described as “statistically significant” by Professor Robert West, of UCL’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, who collates the figures for the Toolkit.
Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette firms because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. “Numbers who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke are going down,” West said. “We’ve only been tracking vaping for just over a year, so it’s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or 'never' smokers using e-cigarettes. That is not to say vaping rates might not change but, at this stage, it looks like they’re staying the same.”
The levelling off in popularity of vaping in the UK would appear to be at odds with what is happening in the US, where the technology has been promoted aggressively and where recent reports suggested it was growing in popularity. However, West questioned the interpretation of US data, which made little distinction between people who had once tried an e-cigarette and those who regularly vaped.
Fears that vaping could become fashionable among young non-smokers appear to be misplaced, according to experts. Only 1.8% of children are regular users, the ASH study found. Instead, e-cigarettes seem to be most popular among adults seeking to quit. “While the figures published this month by Smoking In England show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has levelled off, their data also shows the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, director and co-founder of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product, and technology and innovation in hardware is improving user experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
“E-cigarettes are behaving like a souped-up nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches and may or may not be more effective. One-third of quit attempts use e-cigarettes, which makes them by far the most popular method of stopping.”
Hazel Cheeseman, director of policy at ASH, said it was too soon to say whether vaping had peaked. “Although there are indications that the market hasn’t grown in the UK for about a year, there doesn’t seem to be a decline in the number of people using electronic cigarettes to help them quit smoking. Using an electronic cigarette is safer than smoking; some, but not all, people find them useful to help quit smoking and there is little evidence that they are leading to an increase in young people smoking.”
It emerged recently that the European Commission (EC) is looking at increasing taxes on e-cigarettes, something that could have an impact on their popularity. A new EC tobacco directive comes into force in 2016 that will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase their usage to obtain the same hit, again something that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
West suggested that policymakers should see e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid and not subject them to the same regulations as smoking. “There is a tendency among some local authorities and organizations to treat e-cigarettes as cigarettes and ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said.


Like a typical bad boyfriend, Dan Sullivan arrived late to breakfast with the Guardian because the police stopped him on his motorcycle.
Sullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents.
And so, like many others in Silicon Valley, the 27-year-old has started a business: BetterBoyfriend.me, a service that sends girlfriends and wives a present every month for about $70.
Sullivan is testing the service and has about 350 boyfriends as his clients. Most clients, he says, are his friends from university and other friends who are founders of start-ups or work for companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. The girlfriends of these men get presents from Sullivan.
Each month, Sullivan’s clients choose from a list of seven possible gifts (chocolate, tea sets, etc). Then, Sullivan sends the gift to the boyfriend.
For Sullivan, the surprise was the real relationships that he has formed with his clients. Sullivan says he has begun to see himself as a sort of relationship consultant for the boyfriends.
Sullivan says he’s made mistakes. In the beginning, the gifts he sent included receipts with his name on, Dan Sullivan. “One of the boyfriends wrote to me and said, 'She’s not mad but Cynthia found out'.”
Of all the women BetterBoyfriend.me deliver packages to, about 50% know that Sullivan chooses the presents they receive: “It’s connected with age. I think, after you’ve been married for a longer time, you don’t keep many secrets.”
And over the year, the young founder says he’s got to know the boyfriends really well. They’ve even sent a package to a hospital delivery room. The key, he said, is to remember that his relationship is with the boyfriend.
When he first started his company, he attached tags that said BetterBoyfriend.me to flower bouquets and went to the Mission District in San Francisco.
“I looked for couples and gave the flowers to the girl but the boyfriends didn’t like that. Not at all,” he said. “So I changed my idea and gave the flowers to the boyfriends.”


Scarlett Johansson is suing a French novelist for €50,000 in damages, alleging that his work of fiction makes fraudulent claims about her personal life.
La Premiere chose qu’on regarde (The First Thing We Look At) by Grégoire Delacourt tells the story of a French model who looks so similar to the American actor that the book’s lead male character thinks it is Johansson herself. In the novel, the model’s looks mean that men see her only as a sex object, while women are jealous of her. She has a series of adventures as Johansson until she is eventually found out and, in the end, dies in a car crash.
Johansson herself is not flattered by the best- selling literary work. Her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Le Figaro that Delacourt’s novel constituted a “violation and fraudulent and illegal exploitation of her name, her reputation and her image.” He said the novel contains “defamatory claims about her private life” and has now gone to court to try to stop the book being translated or adapted for cinema. The court case began in Paris on Wednesday afternoon, though neither Johansson nor Delacourt was present.
“The freedom of expression that she defends as an artist is not in question,” Toledano said. “Such activities for purely mercantile ends have nothing to do with creativity.”
Delacourt has tried explaining that he chose to reference Johansson because she is “the archetype of beauty today.” He said: “I wrote a work of fiction. My character is not Scarlett Johansson.”
The author recently hit out against the actor on French radio, saying the legal action was “rather sad”. He said: “It freaks me out to think that, when you talk of a character in a novel, judges can get involved.”
Delacourt has become one of France’s best-loved authors; his previous novel, My List of Desires, was translated into 47 languages and is now being adapted into a film. But he said he was “speechless” when he found out Johansson was suing him.
“I thought she’d get in contact to ask me to go for a coffee with her. I didn’t write a novel about a celebrity,” he said. “I wrote a real love story and a homage to feminine beauty, especially interior beauty.
“If an author can no longer mention the things that surround us – a brand of beer, a monument, an actor – it’s going to be complicated to produce fiction.
“It’s stupefying, especially as I’m not sure she’s even read the novel, since it hasn’t been translated yet.”
Emmanuelle Allibert, spokeswoman for publisher JC Lattès, said taking legal action was “crazy”. “We have never known anything like it. It is all the more surprising for the fact that the novel is not even about Scarlett Johansson. It is about a woman who is Scarlett Johansson’s double.”
Delacourt’s lawyer, Anne Veil, who is also representing publisher JC Lattès, said the allegations were “totally scandalous”. “This is a literary, not commercial, approach. She has not been used as a product,” she said. “Grégoire Delacourt is not a paparazzo; he’s a writer!”
Ironically, the author’s legal situation would be far easier had he published the book in Johansson’s home country, rather than France. Lloyd Jassin, a New York intellectual property lawyer, told Time that the case would be unlikely to be considered in the United States because the book would be protected by the First Amendment.
“The First Amendment doesn’t look at most books as commercial uses or commercial propositions,” he said. “If her name or likeness is relevant, literarily, if there’s significance and literary merit to using her name between the covers, the First Amendment steps in.” However, in France, the legal position is more complicated and personality rights are taken “much more seriously,” Jassin says.
“I thought she might send me flowers as it was a declaration of love for her, but she didn’t understand,” Delacourt said. “It’s a strange paradox – but a very American one.”


Intermediate
Vienna is the worlds best city to live in, Baghdad is the worst and London, Paris and New York do not even enter the top 35, according to international research into quality of life.
German-speaking cities dominate the rankings in the 18th Mercer Quality of Life study, with Vienna joined by Zurich, Munich, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt in the top seven.
Paris has dropped down the table  it has fallen ten places to 37th, just ahead of London at 39th, mostly because of the terrorist attacks on the city.
The study examined social and economic conditions, health, education, housing and the environment. It is used by big companies to decide where they should open of ces and factories and how much they should pay staff.
Helena Hartlauer, 32, from Vienna, said she was not surprised at her citys top position. The citys social democratic government has a long tradition of investing money in high-quality social housing, which makes Vienna less expensive than other major cities.
I live in a 100sq-metre apartment in a good area about 20 minutes walk from the city centre. But my rent is just 800 (625) a month. A similar apartment in London would cost over 2,000 and even more in New York, ranked 44th in the table.
US cities perform relatively badly in the study, mostly because of issues around personal safety and crime. The highest ranking city in the US is San Francisco, at 28th; Boston is 34th. Canadian cities, led by Vancouver, do much better than their US rivals in the table.
You dont realize how safe Vienna is until you go abroad, said Hartlauer. We also have terri c public transport, with the underground working 24 hours at weekends and it only costs 1 per trip.
Vienna bene ted enormously from the fall of the Berlin Wall, becoming the gateway to Eastern European countries that often have historic connections to the former Austro-Hungarian empire.
Our big USP (unique selling point) is our geographical location, said Martin Eichtinger, Austrian ambassador to London, who lived in Vienna for 20 years. The fall of the Berlin Wall helped make Vienna a hub for companies wanting to do business in Central Europe.
According to the World Bank, Austria has one of the highest  gures for GDP (gross domestic product) per person in the world, just behind the US and ahead of Germany and Britain, although below neighbouring Switzerland.
Mercer says Zurich in Switzerland has the worlds second highest quality of life but the Viennese say their city is far more fun. There are more students in Vienna than any other German-speaking city, said Hartlauer. Its a very fast growing, young and lively city, she added.
Vienna has long been overlooked by British weekend city break tourists, who instead go to Barcelona or Berlin and tend to think of Austria as somewhere for skiing, lakes and mountains.
But, after an increase in budget  ights from British cities such as Manchester and Edinburgh, Vienna is becoming a more popular destination. In 2015, there were 588,000 British visitors to Vienna, 18% more than the year before.
Vienna has ranked top in the last seven surveys, said Mercer. It scores highly in a number of categories; it provides a safe and stable environment to live in, a high standard of public transport and good recreational facilities.
London has never been in the quality-of-life top ten, says Mercer, damaged by its poor scores for air pollution, traf c congestion and climate. After London, Edinburgh is the next-ranking British city, in 46th place.
Paris has suffered the biggest fall in the most recent rankings. Paris has remained stable for several years but has, this year, dropped ten places, said Mercer. The drop was mostly due to the terrorist attacks in 2015 because safety is a very important factor in the survey.
Auckland in New Zealand was the highest ranking English-speaking city in the survey, in third place, followed by Vancouver in  fth. Australian cities also do well in the survey, with Sydney 10th and Melbourne 15th.
War and political unrest are behind all the worst- ranked cities in the world. Surprisingly, Damascus is named as only the seventh worst, ranked better than Baghdad, Bangui in Central African Republic, Sanaa in Yemen, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, Khartoum in Sudan and NDjamena in Chad.


A top-secret document shows that the US National Security Agency (NSA) now has direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other major US internet companies. The NSA access is part of a program called PRISM, which allows the government to collect search history, the content of emails, file transfers, live chats and more, the document says.
The document says that the NSA can now get information “directly from the servers” of major US internet companies. It says the companies help them run the program, but all the companies that commented said they have not heard of the program.
Google said: “Google cares very much about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government legally and, when the government asks us for data, we think about it carefully first. Sometimes, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”
Several senior tech executives said that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar program. They said they would never be involved in a program like that. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one executive said. An Apple spokesman said he has “never heard” of PRISM.
Changes to US surveillance law, introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012, made it possible for the NSA to access the information. The program allows a large amount of in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows the NSA to watch customers of companies who live outside the US or Americans who communicate with people outside the US.
The document says that some of the world’s largest internet companies have been part of the information-sharing program sinceits introduction in 2007. Microsoft – whose advertising slogan is “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, in December 2007. It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012.
Under US law, if the government asks for users’ communications, companies must give that information, but the PRISM program allows the government direct access to the companies’ servers.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was changed in December 2012. At the time, several US senators were worried that the law might increase the amount of surveillance and they could see problems with some of the safeguards in the law. When the change in the law was first introduced, its supporters said that one safeguard would be that the NSA could not get electronic communications without the permission of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the PRISM program makes that permission unnecessary, because it allows the government to take directly from the companies’ servers communications that include email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, file transfers and social networking details.
A senior administration official said: “Section 702 of the FISA does not allow the targeting of any US citizen or of any person who is within the United States. It targets only non- US persons outside the US.
“Information that is collected under this program is some of the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect and we use it to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats.”


Intermediate
Cathal Redmond was swimming off the Greek coast and he was sure he had taken some great photos of colourful  sh with his  rst underwater camera. But, when he looked at the results later, the photos were brown and murky. He took the pictures while holding his breath underwater and blamed the limited time he had to set up the shots. All he needed, he thought, was a little more time to photograph the  sh in their natural environment.
He decided to invent something to make that little extra time a reality and the result is his invention of the Express Dive  a re llable air storage device, which is held in the mouth and lets people swim underwater for two minutes. It bridges the gap between snorkelling, with its limitations, and scuba diving, which gives divers the freedom to breathe underwater but requires heavy and expensive gear. The prototype of the invention looks like a combination of a scuba mouthpiece and a water bottle.
I wanted to enable people to do more. So, rather than just go underwater and spend 30 seconds holding their breath, I wanted people to do a little bit more, says Redmond, 27. In 2006, the Irish designer completed a scuba-diving course and loved the feeling of being able to breathe underwater and observe  sh in their natural environment. Less enjoyable, however, was all the equipment he needed
I was very aware of the fact that I had about 50kg of equipment on me and going under the water felt strange when you are used to trying to keep yourself at the surface. It was a very surreal experience, he says. The real problem is that scuba diving is very limiting. Although it allows you to stay underwater for longer, you have to plan your whole day around it. You have 20kg to 50kg of gear with you  you cant be walking on the beach and decide you want to go in. Planning is a very big part of it.
It was during a  nal-year project for his product design degree that Redmond produced the Express Dive. The device has two main parts. When above the surface, the unit sucks in air through a vent in the mouthpiece. The air is compressed through valves and stored in the tank. The tank has a light that  ashes green when it is full. When air is no longer being taken in, the vent shuts off and, as the person dives, air is fed back via the mouthpiece.
The light turns from green to red when the air start to run out. The device can take in enough air for two minutes of diving and takes approximately the same amount of time to re ll. When you put the compressor into the unit with all of the rest of the stuff, the batteries and the electronics, the dif cult thing was to make it small enough so that people could hold it in their mouths, Redmond says.
Redmond says the mouthpiece feels similar to using a snorkel. He compares it to an extension of the lungs in that the user is taking a deep breath and then using it underwater. It is an extension of the bodys ability to store air, he says. The prototype has been tested in parts. Redmond says he has shown that the motor can compress two minutes worth of air into the unit and that the design can be held in the divers mouth.
What he has not yet done is test the device on a diver, fully submerged for two minutes. But, with enough testing, Redmond is con dent he can get a fully working device that will not endanger swimmers underwater. The device will probably cost 280, he says, and it is likely to weigh from 1kg to 3kg depending on the safety features needed.
To anyone who thinks two minutes of air is no more than a very small improvement on snorkelling, Redmond says it could make a big difference underwater. The typical swimmer can hold their breath for about 40 seconds while underwater, he says. Two minutes is not a lot of time but it is a lot longer than that, he says.


There is a time in some men’s lives when the days seem darker, death is more certain, and the only thing they want to do is spend all their money on a sportscar.
Radical changes in lifestyle are normal for the midlife crisis. If the midlife crisis is real, then humans may not be the only animals to get it.
Now an international team of scientists say they have found evidence that chimpanzees and orangutans are less happy in their middle years. This, they say, is the ape equivalent of the midlife crisis.
The study says that the midlife crisis may come from the biology humans share with apes.
Alex Weiss, a psychologist at Edinburgh University, told the Guardian that most people agree that our level of well-being reduces in middle age.
He said that in the study they asked if it’s possible that the midlife crisis is not just something human.
The team from the US, Japan, Germany and the UK asked zookeepers and others who worked with male and female apes of various ages to complete questionnaires on the animals.
The questionnaires included questions about each ape’s mood, the enjoyment they got from being with other apes and people, and their success in doing things. The final question asked if the keepers would like to be the ape for one week.
More than 500 apes were included in the study in three separate groups. The first two groups were chimpanzees, and the third were orangutans from Sumatra or Borneo. The animals came from zoos, sanctuaries and research centres in the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and Singapore.
When the researchers analyzed the questionnaires, they found that well-being in the apes decreased in middle age and increased again as the animals became old. In captivity, great apes often live to 50 or more. The animals felt the most unhappy, on average, at 28.3 and 27.2 years old for the chimpanzees, and 35.4 years old for the orangutans.
“In all three groups we find that chimpanzees and orangutans are most unhappy at an age that is roughly equal to midlife in humans,” Weiss said.
Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford University, was sceptical about the study. “It’s hard to see anything in an ape’s life that would give a sense of well-being over such a long time.”
Alexandra Freund, Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, was also sceptical. She said “In my opinion, there is no evidence for the midlife crisis.”
But Weiss believes the study could give us a deeper understanding of the emotional crisis some men may experience. “If we want to find what’s going on with the midlife crisis, we should look at what is similar in middle-aged humans, chimps and orangutans,” he said.


Intermediate
We have all become familiar with wildlife emergencies such as the threatened extinction of the tiger in India, the orangutan in Indonesia and the panda. They are well-loved animals that no one wants to see disappear. But, now, scientists fear the real impact of declining wildlife could be closer to home  they believe the threat to creatures such as ladybirds is a much greater danger to biodiversity.
Climate change, falling numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and the rapid rate of species extinction mean more and more scientists now believe that we are in the Anthropocene age  the geological age of extinction when humans finally dominate the ecosystems.
A recent report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirmed that worrying picture, with statistics on the worlds wildlife population that showed a dramatic reduction in numbers across numerous species. The report showed the number of vertebrates had declined by 52% over four decades. Biodiversity loss has now reached critical levels. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have suffered even bigger losses, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. But its the creatures that provide the most ecosystem services that are getting many scientists really worried. Three quarters of the worlds food production is thought to depend on bees and other pollinators. Pandas may be cute and tigers beautiful but its worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down.
Its the loss of the common species that will impact on people, not so much the rarer creatures  because they are so rare, were not reliant on them in such an obvious way, said macroecologist Dr Nick Isaac. He says that recent work he and colleagues have been doing suggests that Britains insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates, with serious consequences for humanity. The really interesting thing about this work is that we are learning that its not just about the numbers of species going extinct, but the actual numbers in a population; thats the beginning of a fundamental shift in our understanding, he says.
He pointed to the fact that between 23 and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians used for food or medicine are now threatened with extinction. In many parts of the world, wildanimal food sources are a critical part of the diet, particularly for the poor.
The blame, most people agree, is unsustainable human consumption damaging ecosystems, creating climate change and destroying habitats at a far faster rate than previously thought. But, this time, its not just the big, cuddly mammals we have to worry about losing but the smaller, less visible creatures upon which we depend  insects, creepy-crawlies and even worms. They might not be facing immediate extinction but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. We are going to feel the impact of those losses. With the UK species, the pattern is much the same with invertebrates as it is with vertebrates. Its not as simplistic as fish die and people starve  its more complex, said Isaac.
Humans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a plague on earth, but the WWF claims there is still time to stop the decline. Its UK Chief Executive, David Nussbaum, said: The scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should act as a wake-up call for us all. We all  politicians, business and people  have an interest, and a responsibility, to protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature.
Humans are cutting down trees more quickly than they can regrow, harvesting more fish than the oceans can restock, pumping water from our rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can fill them again and emitting more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb, he said.


Many of us know we don’t get enough sleep but imagine if there was a simple solution: getting up later. In a speech at the British Science Festival, Dr Paul Kelley from Oxford University said schools should stagger their starting times to work with the natural rhythms of their students. This would improve exam results and students’ health (lack of sleep can cause diabetes, depression, obesity and other health problems).
Dr Kelley said that, when children are around ten, their natural wake-up time is about 6.30am; at 16, this rises to 8am; and, at 18, a person’s natural waking hour is 9am, although you may think they are just a lazy teenager. The normal school starting time works for 10-year-olds but not for 16- to 18-year-olds. For the older teenagers, it might be better to start the school day at 11am or even later. “A 7am wake-up time for older teenagers,” says Kelley, “is the same as a 4.30am start for a teacher in their 50s.”
He says the solution is not to tell teenagers to go to bed earlier. “The body’s natural rhythm is controlled by a particular kind of light,” says Kelley. “The eye has cells that report to a part of the brain that controls our sleep rhythms over a 24-hour cycle. It’s the light that controls it.”
But it isn’t just students who would benefit from a later start. Kelley says the working day should be more linked to our natural rhythms. Describing the average sleep loss per night for different age groups, he says: “Between 14 and 24, people lose more than two hours. For people aged between 24 and about 30 or 35, they lose about an hour and a half. That can continue up until you’re about 55 when it’s in balance again. The 10-year-old and 55-year-old wake and sleep naturally at the same time.”
So, should workplaces have staggered starting times, too? Should people in their 50s and above come in at 8am, people in their 30s start at 10am and the teenage apprentice at 11am? Kelley says that synchronized hours could have “many positive effects. The positive side is that people’s performance, mood and health will improve. It’s very positive because it’s a solution that will make people less ill, and happier and better at what they do.”
There would probably be fewer accidents because drivers would be more awake, he says. It could mean the end of rush hour because people would stagger their work times and the times of their school run. A later start to the day for many, says Kelley, “is something that would benefit all people, particularly families. Parents go and try to wake up teenagers who are waking up three hours too early. It creates problems for everybody.”
So, what time does Kelley start work? “I am 67 so that means I’m like a 10-year-old and I get up just after six. I wake naturally.” And, yes, he says he finds the start of his working day much easier now than when he was younger.


Young Cubans are flocking to use the first known free, open-access internet service in the communist island nation, which has been made possible by one of Cuba’s most famous artists. A modest cultural centre in the capital city, Havana, has suddenly become a rare source of free wi-fi. The internationally renowned Cuban artist Kcho is providing the service. Perhaps more surprisingly, his spokesman said the move had been approved by the state-owned telecommunications utility, Etecsa.
The service is reportedly very slow, especially when the centre gets crowded. But, in a country where only an estimated 5% of the population has unrestricted access to the internet, a facility that is both free of charge and free of restrictions is being hailed as an unprecedented boon.
The chance to click on international news websites, communicate with friends and family overseas and use sites like Facebook and Twitter has created a massive buzz. “I come as often as I can,” said Adonis Ortiz, 20, while video-chatting with his father, who lives in the US and whom he has not seen in nine years.
The gradual loosening of the long diplomatic and trade freeze between the US and Cuba is expected to bring American tech giants such as Google and Apple into the Cuban market as soon as they are permitted. In the meantime, Cuba has installed a high-speed, fibre-optic cable under the sea from Venezuela and internet users have some access to Chinese equipment.
Another estimate, that a quarter of Cubans have access to the internet – still one of the lowest penetration rates in the Western Hemisphere – in fact measures residents who use a restricted domestic intranet featuring only certain websites and limited email.
Kcho has offered the public admission to his own personal internet connection. But, instead of this being the counter-revolutionary, or post-revolutionary, move of a free-market rebel, Kcho may have been selected as the acceptable face of a regime acquiescing to the inevitable lure of the internet.
Kcho, who has close ties to the Cuban government, announced that his actions had been approved by the Ministry of Culture. The artist said he wanted to encourage Cubans to familiarize themselves with the internet. “It’s only possible through the will to do it and absorb the costs,” Kcho told the Associated Press. “It is expensive but the benefit is tremendous. I have something that is great and powerful. I can share it and I am doing so.”
Kcho’s real name is Alexis Leiva Machado.
He gained international fame for his painting, sculpture and drawings after winning the grand prize at a prominent art biennial in South Korea. He is currently preparing for the Havana biennial in May. Born on one of Cuba’s outlying islands, he is known for contemporary art with rustic, seaside and patriotic themes and imagery.
In the centre’s courtyard, tech-savvy millennials lounge throughout the day in wicker chairs beneath a white canopy or just outside when it’s packed, tapping away on laptops and tablets or glued to their smartphones.
Cuba has some of the lowest connectivity rates on the planet, with dial-up accounts closely restricted and at-home broadband almost unheard of except in the case of foreigners who pay hundreds of dollars a month for the service in a country where the average salary is between $17 and $20 a month. Kcho is estimated to be paying $900 a month to provide the free wi-fi.
Since 2013, Cuban authorities have opened hundreds of internet salons, where an hour online costs $4.50, at speeds far lower than those at Kcho’s studio of around 2mbps. A 2014 report by Akamai Technologies found average internet connectivity speeds to be around 10.5mbps in the US and 23.6mbps in world-leading South Korea. Globally, the average was about 3.9mbps.
With dozens of users at any given time, the signal strength of Kcho’s wi-fi gets diluted. One user said he sometimes swings by in the middle of the night, when nobody else is around, and finds it to be unbelievably fast.


1 Race engineer
A race engineer takes information from the driver and gives it to the mechanics.
Typical salary: You start at £25,000 and very soon earn more than £40,000 with just a few years’ experience. Senior race engineers earn £50,000 to £90,000.
What the job involves: “A race engineer is the interpreter between the race-car mechanics and the driver,” says race engineer Jamie Muir. “The engineer takes feedback from the driver, analyses the data and gives this to the mechanics.”
Qualifications: A university degree, usually in automotive/mechanical engineering or motorsport technology. Hands-on experience is essential.
To succeed as a race engineer, you need … to be able to work under pressure.
Worst thing about the job: The long hours. “Race engineers work 24/7,” says Chris Aylett, CEO of the Motorsport Industry Association.
2 Ethical hacker
Typical salary: A newly qualified hacker will usually have a minimum salary of £35,000 to £50,000. This rises to £60,000 to £90,000 when they become team leader.
What the job involves: A company pays an ethical hacker to hack into its computer system to see how well it might fight a real attack.
Qualifications: You don’t need a degree in computer science. The industry accepts people with a very wide range of qualifications and skills.
To succeed as an ethical hacker, you need … a passion for technology and detail. You should also enjoy solving difficult problems.
Worst thing about the job: When you are testing the security of a new customer ’s network and you find that they have already been hacked.
3 Bomb-disposal diver
Typical salary: In the private sector, you can earn up to £100,000 working just two months out of every three.
What the job involves: You descend to the sea  ed and look for unexploded bombs and mines. Then, you safely collect the weapons or safely dispose of them.
Qualifications: To dive offshore, you must have diving qualifications. To be able to dispose of the bombs safely, you’ll also need a special qualification and years of experience.
To succeed as a bomb-disposal diver, you need … to be calm in stressful situations. You work alone under water, with zero visibility and, if you don’t like living in small spaces with lots of other people, this job is not for you.
Worst thing about the job: You will be away from home for at least six months of the year.
4 Social engineer
Typical salary: Graduates start on £25,000. Your salary will rise to between £50,000 and £80,000.
The job: Companies pay a social engineer to try to trick their employees and make them give the engineer secret information.
Qualifications: Usually, social engineers have a degree in IT but an understanding of psychology is also useful.
To succeed as a social engineer, you need … to be a good liar. You also need to have strong personal ethics and to understand the law.
Worst thing about the job: Other people may misunderstand your job: social engineers are not spies but most people think they are.
5 Power-line helicopter pilot
Typical salary: £65,000
The job: To fly close to power lines in a helicopter so that someone can check the lines with a camera.
Qualifications: A private-helicopter-pilot licence, a commercial pilot’s licence and around 2,000 hours of experience flying at low levels.
To succeed as a power-line helicopter pilot, you need … a steady hand and to stay calm in difficult situations. Pilots often have to fly next to the power line, sometimes as little as 20 feet away and just 30 feet off the ground.
Worst thing about the job: “There are no negatives,” says helicopter pilot Robin Tutcher.
6 Private butler
Typical salary: £60,000 to £90,000
The job: An employer can ask a private butler to do anything from managing other staff, serving at every meal, running errands and looking after guests to booking restaurants, house security, housekeeping and cooking.
Qualifications: You don’t need any qualifications but you can do a special course.
To succeed as a butler, you need … to enjoy looking after other people.
Worst thing about the job: Long hours and an unpredictable work schedule mean it’s difficult to have a family life.


Himalayan lakes, spacewalks and the presidential primaries helped Scott Kelly keep his wits over 340 days in space, the astronaut told journalists, after he landed back on Earth from a record-setting mission. “It seemed like I lived there forever,” Kelly said. The veteran of past missions said that his biggest surprise was simply how long this one felt. “Maybe, occasionally, you do go bananas,” he said.
Kelly and a Russian counterpart, Mikhail Kornienko, spent nearly a year on the International Space Station (ISS) in order to study the effects of weightlessness, radiation and the cramped quarters of spaceflight on humans – research NASA considers essential for an eventual mission to Mars.
Kelly said the length of the mission was its biggest challenge and that he felt significantly more sore on returning to gravity than after shorter trips. Kelly and his twin brother, Mark, a retired astronaut, have spent the last year taking physical and mental tests. The tests will continue, to help NASA learn about how the body copes with the severe strains of spaceflight.
Kelly said he felt aches and had extremely sensitive skin but, so far, his balance has felt mostly decent. However, he said, “the first thing I tried to throw on a table I missed” because “you tend to underestimate the effects of gravity”.
He said the discomfort of returning to gravity – which shrank him back down to normal height after he stretched by 1.5 inches in orbit – took nothing away from the awe he felt after his capsule landed back on Earth. When the Russian capsule opened on to the cool air of Kazakhstan, Kelly said, he smelled “a fragrance like a plant was blooming in that area”. It was the fresh air mingled with the charred, “kind of sweet” smell of a spacecraft that had survived re-entry through the atmosphere.
Backing away from the vessel, he said, the scope of the mission began to sink in: 340 days on a 15-year-old space station which is “a million pounds, the size of a football field, the internal volume, some say, of a six-bedroom house ”. The ISS, he said, is a place that uses the power of the sun and was built with the help of an international team and millions of taxpayers.
“There are things we’re going to discover about our experience in space in the space station that we don’t even know now,” Kelly said, comparing the research of more than 450 missions there to the work done by computer scientists at NASA in the 1960s and 1970s. He added: “The view is great, too.”
Kelly made the most of that view, posting spectacular photos on social media of the Earth’s cities, landscapes, oceans and atmosphere. “The Earth is a beautiful planet,” he said, describing the striking colours of the waters around the Bahamas and the rainbow hues of lakes that dot the northern Himalayas. He said he would like to visit that region, though he would first need to learn “what country actually owns them”. But, “predominantly, you just notice how thin the atmosphere is, how fragile it looks,” Kelly added. “That, combined with these large swathes of pollution, is kind of alarming.”
The astronaut said he could see entire systems of pollution: smoke clouds from wildfires that covered parts of the US, sections of Asia with continuous, visible pollution nearly all year round. He said the message “we need to save the planet” slightly missed the point: “The planet will get better; it’s us that won’t be here because we’ll destroy the environment.” The world’s thin shield of atmosphere “makes you more of an environmentalist after spending so much time looking down”, he said.
“It’s for us to take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. And I do believe we have an impact on that and we do have the ability to change it, if we make the decision to.” Kelly’s active social- media life, which he said was a joint effort with his girlfriend, earned him a huge online following. But he said he was unaware of it, instead he was watching the chaotic drama of the 2016 presidential election. One of the first questions he asked the crew who lifted him out of a space capsule was “How did Super Tuesday go?”
But the astronaut demurred when asked for his thoughts on the likes of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. “I would say that, as a government employee, I am subject to the Hatch Act,” he said, referring to a law that prohibits some political activity for federal employees. “So I can’t say how I think of all the news stories of all the year.”
Besides the news, he said, steady work helped keep him sane: “I tried to have milestones that were close, like when is the next crew arriving, the next spacewalk, the next robotics, the next science experiment. That made a difference to me, keeping my sanity.” Being back on Earth with the rest of humanity had not quite sunk in, he added, recalling how shocked he had been to see a crowd of people after a previous mission. “There’ll be a point here pretty soon where I’ll start feeling that kind of culture shock,” he said.
Although a NASA scientist said Kelly embodied the qualities needed for a mission to Mars, the astronaut himself predicted that he would not fly again with the space agency. “But I don’t think I would ever say I’m absolutely, 100% done,” he added, noting the sudden successes of private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX. “They might need a guy like me someday,” he said. “Maybe, in the next 20 years, you’ll be able to buy a cheap ticket, just go for a little visit.”


Intermediate
The brand and logo of Apple are the most valuable in the world. They are worth nearly $119bn, or more than the gross domestic product of Morocco, Ecuador or Oman.
The brand value of the Silicon Valley firm, already the worlds biggest company, has increased by 21% in 12 months, according to the Interbrand Best Global Brands annual report.
Apple, which is recognized all over the world by its simple Apple with a bite missing logo, led an increase of technology companies in the 2014 report, which has pushed more traditionally valuable brands  such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Gillette  down the table.
Googles brand value rose by 15% to $107bn to take second place, followed by Coca-Cola, up 3% to $81.5bn, IBM ($72.2bn) and Microsoft ($45.5bn).
Facebook is the biggest riser in the chart, increasing its brand value by 86% to $14.3bn and taking 29th place in the table, ahead of longstanding global corporate names such as Volkswagen, Kelloggs and Ford.
Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand, said: Benefitting immensely from the rise of digital and mobile technology, savvy brands like Apple grew stronger.
Apple, which former Chief Executive Steve Jobs founded in his Los Altos garage in 1976, only appeared in the top ten of the Interbrand annual study in 2011.
Its logo, created by advertising executive Rob Janoff in 1977, was designed with a bite taken out of it to avoid confusion with a cherry. Our logo is a symbol of lust and knowledge. It is an apple, bitten into, all crossed with the colours of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldnt dream of a more appropriate logo, Janoff said.
Graham Hayles, Interbrands chief marketing officer, said it was not out of kilter that Apples brand could account for a fifth of the companys entire market value. Apple makes a lot of money because it has a very strong brand, he said. There is a very strong connection between branding and profitability.
Many technology companies rose up the chart but some fell, too. Finnish mobile-phone company Nokia dropped 41 places to 98th at $4.1bn, just ahead of Nintendo in 100th place (down 33). Theyre both only just in the chart now, Hayles said. It shows the importance of getting innovation right.
A Chinese company has got into the top 100 for the first time, with mobile-phone and broadband firm Huawei entering the table in 94th place with a brand value of $4.3bn. Huawei has been partly banned by the US and Australian governments due to fears that its equipment could be used by the Chinese for cyber-espionage.
Most of the brands in the top 100 are US-owned. The highest-placed non-US brands are South Koreas Samsung (6th), Japans Toyota (8th) and Germanys Mercedes-Benz (10th). The highest-placed British brands are HSBC (33rd), Shell (65th) and Burberry (73rd).
Other fashion brands in the top 100 include Boss, Prada and Ralph Lauren. Designer label Louis Vuitton is the top fashion name, in 19th position, with a value of $23bn, just ahead of high-street clothing chain H&M, with a brand value of $21bn and ranked 21.
Sports brand Nike is at place 22 with a brand value of nearly $20bn, ahead of its rival Adidas at place 59 with a value of $7bn.
Frampton said consumers ability to interact with and criticize brands on Twitter and other social media means companies must react faster to keep and improve their brands reputations.
The customer, through the use of social media, now has more control than ever, he said.
Customers expect interaction, responsiveness, 24/7 accessibility, customization options and high levels of personalization, he said.


Junior Smart knows a lot about gangs. He is now 36 and his life can be divided into two distinct phases. He tells how in his late teens, after his mother died, he became drawn into a south London gang, which, at the time, helped fill a huge vacuum.
“They became my new support group,” he says. “At first it was just a bit of fun but then it became more serious, more and more about making money. They got involved in criminality. That is how it was.” At school Smart failed his GCSEs, then retook them at college and passed the lot. He secured a full-time job in administration and worked as a DJ. But, on the side, he was making money illegally as part of the gang.
Eventually he was arrested for serious drug-related offences and was sent to prison for 12 years. Instantly, he says, his sense of invincibility was shattered. “The first night after I was arrested was the biggest wake-up call of my life,” he says. “I had been living a dual life. I had been living as one person to my peers and another person to my peers’ enemies. I spent a long time sorting myself out.”
Today, Junior Smart runs a team of 12 full-time workers and six volunteers, which aims to turn young criminals and gang members away from crime. Most of those working there are, like Smart himself, ex-offenders. A few are still serving their sentences but are regarded as having reformed enough to be allowed out during the day to help. They work with the police, the probation service and other, voluntary organizations to help those who feel trapped and frightened in the violent criminal gangs that operate across London.
For Smart, the extraordinary journey from gang member to mentor began when he witnessed, from within, a prison system that was so obviously failing its inmates. He recalls a drug addict he befriended who, to his dismay, kept returning. “I was touched by the people who kept coming back in,” he says. “I couldn’t believe that nothing was being done about it. I was talking to the inmates and they knew what needed to be changed in their lives, but the problem is that the prison system only deals with the 'index' offence.”
“One guy had a £300-a-week cocaine habit, which he funded through burglary. He would tell me stuff about how he would walk into a house, even when he knew people were there. So although he had a drug addiction, it never got dealt with. The thing that got me about that is that it is simply a revolving door.”
That case and scores of others persuaded Smart to start working as a prison “listener” – an inmate who helps reassure new arrivals and talks them through their first days inside. From there he developed what he calls his own “little plan” to run his own scheme once out of prison – using the experience of ex-offenders to help others reject the revolving door of prison life. He was released early, after five years. “At the end of my sentence I got an opportunity to put my little model into practice,” he says.
So what does he think now? Does he believe that, after the riots of last August, and the government’s promise to crack down on gangs, things are getting better? He is careful to offer some praise to the police and says much of their work in hauling in gang members has been good. But overall he is highly critical of a disjointed government approach that believes that, once the leader of a gang is arrested, the problem is solved. He agrees with the findings of a report that says the arrest of gang leaders can even make things worse. He says the effect of removing the leader is often to destabilize the entire gang.
He draws a diagram of the hierarchy on a pad. “When you arrest the top guy, people start fighting for position all the way up. Who was the most loyal? Who had the most respect? It is a bit like a family. They are more likely to act out, through violence. It means that the arrest of the gang leaders has been nullified because it has not had a long-term effect. They have not even given the community a respite.”
Can it actually make the streets more dangerous? “It can do, because in the vacuum the recruitment and manipulation of young people becomes even more prevalent, creating new lower levels all the way down ... People take sides. If one gang or another territorial street network knows that an elder [leader] has been taken out, then they suddenly think that gang’s weak ... And so we have inter-estate disputes going on. And what happens when that elder is in prison? He forms alliances with other gang members, or when he gets released he then tries to retake control. That is when violence happens.”
In order to spread risk down to the lowest levels, he says gangs are now recruiting far more in primary schools. The youngest members are called “tinies”. “Over the last years we have seen more and more of this. The tinies can be as young as eight to eleven years old.” The young are brought in to shield their seniors from risk. It is often they who are charged with doing the street dealing or even the stabbing, he says.
Smart says that, with a lack of government funding and commitment to long-term rehabilitation, the challenges are immense, particularly in the current economic climate. “I try to engage a young person who has been earning £300 a week through illegal methods. It was hard before, to try to convince him. But with unemployment high and cuts to benefits, it makes things tougher.”
That said, his project, which has well over 1,000 clients, is delivering results. Fewer than 20% of those who come in for help reoffend. From personal experience, Smart refuses to write off a single individual as beyond redemption and that is what drives him on. “I don’t think that about anybody,” he says.


Intermediate
Former president of the Royal Institute of Navigation Roger McKinlay says that our use of GPS (global positioning system) technology could be damaging our innate ability to  nd our way. If we do not look after them, our natural navigation abilities will deteriorate as we rely more and more on technology, he wrote.
McKinlay believes we need huge investment before navigation systems will be good enough for technologies such as autonomous vehicles to take off. In the meantime, he says, we need better research into systems for navigation. Also, children should be encouraged to learn how to  nd their way around by more traditional means. Schools should teach navigation and map reading as life skills, he wrote.
According to Ofcom (the Of ce of Communications), around 66% of adults in the UK owned a smartphone in 2015, up from 39% in 2012  so GPS technology is widely available. But McKinlay, a satellite communication and navigation consultant, believes that we should be careful not to leave our navigational needs to our devices. If we dont practise using our navigation skills, well lose them he wrote.
Not many scienti c studies have explored the issue, but research from 2009 supports his ideas. We looked at a group of current London taxi drivers and a group of London taxi drivers that had been retired for about four years, said neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers of University College London, who is an author of the study. The results showed that the retired taxi drivers performed worse on navigation tests than the current taxi drivers. We were able to show that their abilities dropped away if they werent using their knowledge.
Spiers also believes there is a danger in relying on technologies like GPS but he points out that the biggest problem is that technologies can lead drivers into dangerous situations. One of the deaths caused by satnavs (satellite navigation devices) was of a driver whose car plunged into a lake in Spain in 2010. There is a genuine potential danger in relying on a satnav, said Spiers. But the health risk of not using your brain effectively is not known.
The way in which navigational technology is used could also affect its impact on our own abilities, says Spiers. Audio instructions to drivers remove the need to think about navigation, he says, but the use of smartphone apps as digital maps is very different. When you use a digital map, you have to think hard about where you are going and interact with this device, he said. The modern technology isnt just dumbing us down completely."
McKinlay believes there have to be big improvements in navigation technologies before futuristic scenarios of driverless cars and smart cities become a reality. For really important jobs  like landing aircraft or navigating aircraft  GPS is still not good enough, he said.
Spiers believes the development of arti cial intelligence based on machine learning could lead to a new wave of navigational aids, but McKinlay is sceptical. We will see ever-smarter machines which are very, very task speci c, but the big breakthrough will be when they understand what we are thinking and what we want to achieve, he said.
Ultimately, McKinlay believes, its essential that humans remain able to take control of their navigation. Do you really want to encourage people to a point where, when it disappears or when the battery goes  at, they are in total shock and can do nothing? he said. Technology isnt magic  it is just a tool.


Illegal downloading is morally wrong, and it is theft, the same as putting your hand in someone’s pocket and stealing their wallet is theft, says author Philip Pullman. In an article for magazine Index on Censorship, Pullman, who is president of the Society of Authors, strongly defends copyright laws. He criticizes internet users who think it is OK to download music or books without paying for them.
“The technology is so dazzling that people can’t see that what they’re doing is wrong,” he writes. “It is outrageous that anyone can steal an artist’s work without punishment. It is theft, just as putting your hand in someone’s pocket and taking their wallet is theft.”
His article comes after music industry leaders met British Prime Minister David Cameron in Downing Street to discuss the issue of web piracy.
Pullman, writer of the His Dark Materials trilogy, says authors and musicians work in poverty for years to bring their work to the level “that gives happiness to their audiences and, when they achieve that, the possibility of making money from it is taken away from them”. He concludes: “If we want to enjoy the work that someone does, we should pay for it.”
“Existing copyright laws don’t work in the digital age and they criminalize consumers. We need new ideas for how artists, writers and musicians can earn a living from their work.”
Pullman is writing in the next issue of the campaign group’s magazine in a dialogue with Cathy Casserly, chief executive of Creative Commons. Casserly argues that there is a lot wrong with copyright, which was created a long time ago. She writes: “Copyright closes the door on the many ways that people can share, build upon and remix each other’s work, possibilities that we could not imagine when those laws were made.” She says artists need to think reatively about how they earn money from their work.
Index on Censorship agrees. The magazine’s editor, Rachael Jolley, said: Illegal downloading is a very big problem. Between November 2012 and January 2013 in the UK, 280 million music tracks were digitally pirated along with 52 million TV shows, 29 million films,18 million ebooks and 7 million software or games files.
18% of internet users aged over 12 say they have pirated items, and 9% say they are afraid they will get caught. Pullman writes in his article: “The ease and speed with which people can get music in MP3 is still very surprising to people like me who have been building up their iTunes list for some time.”
After the Downing Street meeting, Cameron asked the Conservative MP Mike Weatherley to be his adviser on the subject. The BPI, an organization that supports music companies, said: “Mike Weatherley is a strong supporter of copyright and the artists and creative producers it’s there to protect. We hope his influence and the prime minister’s support for copyright will change how we see illegal downloading in the UK.”


Valdevaqueros is one of the last unspoilt beaches in southern Spain. The road to the beach is filled with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain. The camper vans bring windsurfers and kitesurfers who are attracted by strong winds in the area.
Valdevaqueros beach is very different from the beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella, which are full of hotels and concrete, but earlier in 2012 the local council in Tarifa said’yes’ to plans to build a tourist complex next to the beach. Environmental groups are angry. They say that the project will harm the habitats of protected animals and plants, but most of the council just want to create more jobs. 18,000 people live in Tarifa and 2,600 of them have no work. Spain is having its worst economic crisis for fifty years.
“Traditional jobs like fishing are finishing so tourism is the only solution,” said Sebastián Galindo, a councillor from the Socialist party. Galindo says the complex does not break the law. There is a law to stop more ugly developments like those that spoilt a lot of Spain’s beaches in the 1960s and 1970s. This law says that the complex must be at least 200 metres from the coast; it will be much farther than that – it will be 800 metres.
Some people say more houses are not needed in Spain because the country already has a million empty houses. Galindo says it is unfair to migrant workers who came to Spain when the economy was good. Many of the workers are from Morocco, which is just 14km away, across the sea. You can see it from Tarifa.
Surfers fear that new buildings in Valdevaqueros would make the famous local wind less strong but would not attract people who want a traditional beach holiday. “It’s not really a place for families. The wind is too strong!” said Henning Mayer from Germany. “Ten years ago they said they would build a new highway here. It didn’t happen, so I think it will be impossible to build new hotels.”
Tarifa is at the most southern point of Spain. It is where Africa and Europe meet, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic. It is also a very important place for animals.
Hours after the Tarifa council voted for the project, a campaign started to save the beach. The campaign has a Facebook page and is supported by groups including Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The Andalusian College of Geographers is also against the project – they say that the complex would disturb two wildlife conservation areas and cross the border of a national park.
“They think money is more important than laws,” said Raúl Romeva, a member of the European Parliament. Romeva believes the project is wrong because the site has too little water. The town already has too little water in the hot summer weather of Andalusía.
Many local people also want to know why they want to built a complex 10km away. They think it would be better near Tarifa’s beautiful old centre. “We agree with the complex if it creates jobs in the town,” said Cristóbal Lobato, who has worked at the same beach bar in Tarifa for 30 years. “If they put it in the centre of Tarifa, where there is space, then tourists could visit shops, bars and restaurants.”
Standing in the green fields where they want to build the complex, biologist Aitor Galán said, “In other countries, they would protect this place, but here they want to build lots of buildings. They want this place to become Benidorm. But what attracts people here is wild animals and the wind.”


You probably know a vaper – someone who smokes e-cigarettes. But has vaping started to become less popular? Statistics suggest that smokers and recent ex-smokers (the majority of vapers) may already be using e-cigarettes less. The big e-cigarette companies will study the fi gures carefully because they have spent millions of pounds on a technology that they thought was becoming more popular.
E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco and produce vapour, not smoke. In 2014, the health charity Action on Smoking and Health published fi gures that showed that the number of British users of electronic cigarettes has increased three times from 700,000 users in 2012 to 2.1 million in 2014.
But fi gures from the Smoking Toolkit Study show vaping may be becoming less popular. The number of vapers who are smokers and exsmokers rose until the end of 2013, when 22% of smokers and ex-smokers were vaping. But this percentage stopped rising in 2014. Then, it dropped to 19% at the end of the year. Professor Robert West, who collected the data for the Toolkit, described the fi gures as statistically important.
Smokers are the key group for e-cigarette companies because seven out of ten vapers are smokers. Only around 1% of people who have never smoked have tried an electronic cigarette. “The number of people who use e-cigarettes while continuing to smoke is going down,” West said. “We’ve only been studying vaping for just over a year, so it’s a short time period, but we are not seeing growth in the number of long-term ex-smokers or ‘never’ smokers using e-cigarettes. The number of people vaping might change but, at the moment, it looks like it’s staying the same.”
Experts believe that vaping will probably not become fashionable with young non-smokers. Only 1.8% of children are regular e-cigarette users. But e-cigarettes seem to be most popular with adults who want to quit. “The fi gures published this month show that the use of electronic cigarettes by smokers has stopped rising. But the fi gures also show the huge increase in use since May 2011,” said James Dunworth, of ecigarettedirect.co.uk. “Our customers are still very happy with the product and technology is improving their experience and helping them to switch from traditional cigarettes.”
“E-cigarettes are like a sort of nicotine patch,” West agreed. “They are more popular than nicotine patches but we do not know if they are more effective. One-third of people who want to quit smoking use e-cigarettes. They are the most popular method of stopping.”
The European Commission (EC) wants to increase taxes on e-cigarettes, which could make them less popular. A new EC tobacco directive becomes law in 2016. It will limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes to below their current levels. This may mean vapers will have to increase the number they smoke to get the same effect. This is another thing that may make e-cigarettes more expensive.
West suggested that politicians should see e-cigarettes as something that helps people stop smoking. He doesn’t think they should follow the same laws as smoking. “Some local authorities and organizations treat e-cigarettes like cigarettes – they ban them in public places and outdoors,” he said. He thinks we should support vapers not attack them.


Intermediate
Youve spent eight hours in the office. The most important work of the day is done; whatever is left can wait until the morning. This is the point many workers would think about heading for the door.
But, for millions of Japanese employees, the thought of leaving their desks and being at home in time for dinner is enough to make people accuse them of disloyalty.
For decades, the government has allowed companies to make sure their workforce is as productive as possible. But, now, it is challenging Japans culture of overwork. The government is considering making it a legal requirement for workers to take at least five days paid holiday a year.
Japanese employees are currently entitled to an average 18.5 days paid holiday a year  only two fewer than the global average  with a minimum of ten days, as well as 15 one-day national holidays. In reality, very few employees take these days. Most use only nine of their 18.5-day average entitlement, according to the labour ministry. While many British workers see a two-week summer holiday as their right, workers in Japan think that a four-night vacation in Hawaii is complete self-indulgence.
By the end of the decade, the government hopes that the law will push Japanese employees towards following the example set by British workers, who use an average of 20 days paid annual leave, and those in France, who take an average of 25.
Japans tough work culture helped turn it into an economic superpower, its employees respected and admired in the rest of the world for their commitment to the company, but they have little time to do anything except work.
Japans low birth rate and population decline are partly blamed on the lack of time couples have to start families. More employees are falling ill from stress, or worse, succumbing to karoshi, death through overwork.
Japanese people continue to work hard, despite studies that suggest that longer hours in the office or workshop or on the factory floor do not necessarily make people more productive.
About 22% of Japanese people work more than 49 hours a week, compared with 16% of US workers and 11% in France and Germany, according to data from the Japanese government. At 35%, South Koreas workaholics work even more.
Erika Sekiguchi spends 14 hours a day at work and gives up many of her paid holidays. But she is not even an extreme example. The 36-year-old trading company employee used eight of her 20 days of paid vacation in 2014, six of which were sick leave. Nobody else uses their vacation days, Sekiguchi said.
Yuu Wakebe, a health ministry official overseeing policy on working hours, admits that he does 100 hours of overtime a month. He blames the pressure to match the number of hours your colleagues work. It is a workers right to take paid vacations, Wakebe said. But working in Japan involves quite a lot of volunteer spirit.
That fear of being ostracized at work is the reason for a rise in stress-related illness, premature death and suicide. According to official data, about 200 people die every year from heart attacks, strokes and other karoshi events because of tough work schedules.
The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is not known for taking long vacations. But even he has said that companies ask too much of their employees and that working hours in Japan are too long.


There are about 50,000 mystery shopping trips every month in the UK. Mystery shoppers pretend to be a customer in a store but they are really collecting information on the store and how good or bad its service is.The demand for mystery shoppers is growing because online shopping is becoming more popular.
“Retailers are becoming increasingly aware that shoppers who visit a physical store want a service and an experience they can’t get online,” says Simon Boydell, spokesman for Marketforce, which has more than 300,000 mystery shoppers. “Our clients want to know how well their stores are delivering on that experience.”
“We assign different store locations to each shopper and rotate them so that they never go back to the same shop within three months,” says Jill Spencer of mystery shopping company ABa. “Each day, they spend up to eight hours visiting five to ten stores, plus another hour or two writing detailed reports on every part of their visit.” For that, the mystery shoppers can earn up to £155 a day. Their expenses are also paid. Mystery shoppers who film their visits with a hidden camera can earn even more – around £300 a day.
Mystery shoppers are usually repaid any money they spend in the stores and may also be allowed to keep the products they buy. “They usually give me between £5 and £20 to spend at each store, to check the service I receive at the till,” says mystery shopper Laura. “I’m always given a specific task, such as buying something from a specific department or a new product range, but I can often buy whatever I want – and keep it.”
Like most full-time mystery shoppers, Laura is self-employed. She earns around £30,000 to £40,000 a year and that doesn’t include all the freebies she gets on the job. “With the perks, it’s enough to live on.” She finds it satisfying to return to a store where she has previously been a mystery shopper and see standards have improved. “I know it must be because of my feedback or why would they pay me to give it? I feel I’m not just doing a service for my company; I’m doing a service for all shoppers everywhere.”
More than 500,000 people have registered as mystery shoppers in the UK, but just 10% or less get regular work each month. This has led to a dramatic reduction in payment. Before, people were paid and got travel expenses, but now “you often just receive some money towards a purchase,” say Val, a 51-year-old former mystery shopper. Nowadays, mystery shopping companies mostly give freebies as an incentive. “Marketforce shoppers usually get a couple of pounds for a visit, for their time and effort,” says Boydell. “At the most, we’ll pay £15 to £25 plus expenses for a meal for two or a hotel stay, for example. We don’t directly employ any shoppers so we don’t have to pay them the minimum wage.” “I’d go on a cruise for nothing,” says Laura. “But I think mystery shopping companies that pay you a nominal fee to travel to a restaurant and eat a meal are exploiting people. I won’t do those jobs anymore.” But there are plenty of people who want to do those jobs.
Hannah, a 41-year-old lawyer, has made nearly 500 visits  or the Mystery Dining Company in her spare time without receiving pay or travel expenses. She has enjoyed £200 meals at Michelin- starred restaurants and overnight stays at expensive hotels.
But, it can be hard work. Hannah says she spends two to four hours after each visit writing detailed reports on everything from the quality of the food to specific conversations with staff. And, she always needs to be able to name or describe the staff. She has to memorize all these details while eating her meal because she cannot openly write anything down.


At Addis Ababa airport, visitors see pictures of golden grains, tiny red seeds and a group of men around a giant pancake. The words say: “Teff: the best gluten-free crop!”
Ethiopia is one of the world’s poorest countries, well known for its difficult food situation. But it is also the home of teff, a highly nutritious grain that you can now buy in health-food shops and supermarkets in Europe and America.
Teff’s tiny seeds – the size of poppy seeds – are high in calcium, iron and protein, and also amino acids. You can use the gluten-free grain instead of wheat flour in anything from bread and pasta to waffles and pizza bases.
In Ethiopia, teff is a national obsession. It is grown by about 6.3 million farmers – fields of the crop cover more than 20% of all farmland. They make it into flour and use it to make injera, the flatbread that is basic to Ethiopian cooking. The grain is also important in many religious and cultural ceremonies. Across the country, people meet around large pieces of injera. They use it to scoop up stews and to feed one another as a sign of loyalty or friendship – a tradition known as gursha.
Teff is now called Ethiopia’s “second gift to the world”, after coffee.
Ethiopia’s growing middle class want more teff. This has increased the price of teff, so it is now too expensive for the poorest people. Today, most small farmers sell most of what they grow to people in Ethiopian cities.
Teff is the most nutritionally valuable grain in the country. In urban areas, people eat up to 61kg of teff a year. In rural areas, they eat 20kg. The type of teff people eat is different, too: the rich eat the more expensive magna and white teff; poorer people usually eat less-valuable red and mixed teff. They also mix it with cheaper cereals such as sorghum and maize.
The Ethiopian government wants to double teff production by 2015. It says that the grain could play an important role in school meals and emergency aid programmes, and help reduce malnutrition – particularly among children.
In Ethiopia, around 20% of children under five are malnourished.
The government does not allow the export of raw teff grain, only of injera and other processed products. But this could change: the goal is to produce enough teff for Ethiopia and for export.
Mama Fresh is a family company that sells injera to top restaurants and hotels in the Ethiopian capital. It also exports the flatbread to Finland, Germany, Sweden and the US, mostly for Ethiopians who live there. But the company wants to double exports to America in 2014 and will soon start producing teff-based pizzas, bread and cookies.
Regassa Feyissa, an Ethiopian agricultural scientist, says that, without careful planning, growing more teff for export may mean that farmers do not grow other important crops.
There is not much Ethiopian teff on the international market, so farmers in the US have started planting the crop. Farmers in Europe, Israel and Australia have also experimented with growing it.


We all know about wildlife emergencies such as the possible extinction of the tiger in India, the orangutan in Indonesia and the panda. Everybody loves these animals and no one wants to see them disappear. But, now, scientists are worried that the threat to creatures such as ladybirds is a much greater danger to biodiversity.
Climate change, falling numbers of animals, rising numbers of humans and extinction mean that more and more scientists now believe that we are in the Anthropocene age – the age of extinction.
A recent report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) confirms that worrying idea – statistics from the report show a very big reduction in the numbers of many species. The number of vertebrates has declined by 52% over the last forty years. We are losing too many species. Some populations of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians have reduced even more, with freshwater species declining by 76% over the same period. But it’s the creatures that help us the most that are worrying many scientists. Three quarters of the world’s food production depends on bees and other insects. Pandas are cute and tigers are beautiful but other animals are more useful – it’s worms that turn our waste into nutrients and bats that catch mosquitoes and keep malaria rates down.
“It’s the loss of the common species that will affect people. The loss of the rarer creatures will not affect us much because we’re not reliant on them in such an obvious way,” said Dr Nick Isaac, who studies the environment. He says that Britain’s insects and other invertebrates are declining just as fast as vertebrates. He says that this will cause serious problems for humans.
He said that between 23% and 36% of all birds, mammals and amphibians that we use for food or medicine might become extinct. In many parts of the world, wild animals are an important part of the diet, particularly for the poor.
Most people also blame humans – humans damage ecosystems, create climate change and destroy habitats. But, this time, it’s not just the “big, cuddly mammals” we have to worry about losing but the smaller creatures that are less easy to see. We depend on insects, creepy-crawlies and even worms. They might not become extinct very soon, but a decline in their numbers will affect us all. “We are going to feel the effect of those losses. The numbers of both invertebrates and vertebrates are declining. It’s not so simple as 'fish die and people starve' – it’s more complex,” said Isaac.
Humans, said TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough in 2013, are a “plague on earth”. But the WWF claims there is still time to stop the decline. Its UK Chief Executive David Nussbaum said: “The amount of destruction shown in this report should make us all change our behaviour. We all – politicians, business and people – have a responsibility to protect what we all value: a healthy future for people and nature.
“Humans are cutting down too many trees too quickly, fishing too many fish, taking too much water from our rivers and producing too much carbon,” he said.


There are worse things to do in life than stroll along Rio’s Copacabana beach in the sunshine on the way to watch a World Cup match. So it was not surprising that England fan Anthony McDowell from Liverpool was in a good mood. “The place is lovely. The people are great. There’s a party atmosphere,” said McDowell. “The only thing that could be better is the England team.”
He and six friends were among the thousands of supporters from around the world who have made the beach into a party zone. Some danced, some took photos, some drank, but mostly they just walked and talked about football, waiting for the next game to begin on the big screen nearby.
The friendly, mostly peaceful mood was very different from the protests, transport chaos and stadium problems during the preparations for the World Cup. But, now the football has started, visiting supporters want to enjoy the experience. “If I knew, when I started planning, how complicated and expensive it would be, I wouldn’t have come. But, now that we’re here, it’s great,” said Brian Hill, another England fan.
The trip has not been without its problems. Hill travelled for more than 20 hours to get to Rio. His son’s sunglasses were stolen almost as soon as he sat on the beach. And, they have been surprised that many bars do not have big screens for the games. But, like many fans, they said they loved the atmosphere of this tournament, which has had a spectacular start.
Everyone enjoyed Robin van Persie’s extraordinary diving header for the Netherlands against Spain. And, there have been lots of goals: 28 in the first eight games – almost three times as many as at the same stage in South Africa in 2010. Latin-American teams have been very successful so far and, as most fans are from neighbouring countries, this has added to the carnival atmosphere.
Up to now, the tournament has avoided the problems many people predicted, though it is not trouble free. The stadiums were delivered late and – in some cases – not fully finished, but there have been no structural problems or difficulties entering the grounds.
As at previous World Cups, ticketing has been a problem, with many empty seats at several games. FIFA spokesman Saint-Clair Milesi said that only 48,000 of the 51,900 seats were filled at the game between the Netherlands and Spain.
The Globo newspaper listed a number of problems in the 12 host cities. Almost all had worse traffic jams than usual. The worst transport problems were in Natal, where bus drivers were on strike. In Salvador, some journey times were five times longer than usual. “Traffic was already bad but this week it is chaotic,” said Jecilda Mello, a local person.
But, protests have happened less often since the opening day, when small demonstrations took place in several cities and police used pepper spray. Since then, the only security problem has been petty theft and overexcited fans. Police used pepper spray on Argentinian fans when they started a spontaneous street party and blocked roads.
The huge distances have created some very different World Cup experiences. The tournament has had only a small effect on São Paulo, South America’s biggest city. But, far away in Manaus – the remote Amazonian city where England played Italy – visitors said there was World Cup fever with brightly decorated streets and flags on many cars.
The English Football Association chairman, Greg Dyke, said there was a big difference in atmosphere. “We’ve had a really warm welcome in Manaus. It’s a big thing for them. But we were in São Paulo for four or five days before the first match and it was hard to see until the last day that the World Cup was happening. It was weird.”


'The age of the big British summer music festival, including Glastonbury, is ending, according to the top rock manager Harvey Goldsmith.
He has produced and worked with most of the western world’s biggest music stars, including the Who, the Rolling Stones, Queen, Madonna, Bob Dylan and Luciano Pavarotti. He says that the biggest problem is a serious lack of major new bands to follow on from the old ones.
“The age of the music festival peaked about two years ago,” he said, speaking at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts in Wales. “There are too many festivals and there are not enough big bands to headline them. That is a big, big problem for us. And we are not producing new bands that can headline – like the Rolling Stones, Muse, even the Arctic Monkeys.”
There were about 900 music festivals in the UK between May and September in 2014, he said, and they cannot all continue. There will be lots of small combination festivals where it isn’t just music but also poetry or books or magic shows.
Goldsmith, 69, said that he is working with Robin de Levita, the Dutch producer of the Who’s 1970s rock musical Tommy. They will bring the first stage adaptation of the teen book and movie series The Hunger Games to a new 1,100-seat theatre in Wembley, London, in June 2016.
Talking at Hay, Goldsmith also revealed some of the secrets of his long career in the music industry. He said that Keith Moon put dynamite down a Sydney hotel room toilet to unblock it. And, he said that John Lennon had stage fright at Madison Square Garden in 1974 – he vomited and they had to push him onto the stage. “It’s bizarre how common stage fright is among artists. It’s odd how afraid they get but, as soon as the music starts, they’re fine,” he said.'
He also gave the answer to a rock ’n’ roll mystery: why Elvis Presley never performed outside North America. Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, told Goldsmith that the real reason why Elvis never performed in England was because Parker was an immigrant.
“He explained that it was because he was an illegal Dutch immigrant. He didn’t want to risk leaving the US,” said Goldsmith.
And his ultimate rock ’n’ roll performer? “Freddie Mercury was our most powerful stage performer, the best live performer we’ve ever had.”
But there is no group to follow Queen, he said. “We’re not producing a new generation of this kind of band. Coldplay is probably the last one and that was ten years ago.
“So, with no big bands to headline, there are no big shows. Glastonbury now can’t find any more big bands. The time of big music festivals is really ending.”


Wales will become the first country in the UK where people will be presumed to have consented for their organs to be donated unless they opt out.
The Welsh Assembly has voted to adopt the opt-out policy, which will allow hospitals to act on the assumption that people who die want to donate unless they have specifically registered an objection.
The final stage of a bill to adopt a system of presumed consent was passed by 43 votes to eight, with two abstentions, in spite of objections from religious groups on moral grounds and concerns that the scheme could add to the distress of grieving families.
“This is a huge day for Wales, for devolution and, most importantly, for the 226 people in Wales waiting for an organ transplant,” said the Welsh Health Minister, Mark Drakeford.
“I am proud that Wales will be the first nation in the UK to take this step. As a society, we have shown we are prepared to take action to increase organ donation and to provide hope to those people waiting every week for a transplant.
“Family refusal is a major factor that affects the numbers of organ donations and the main reason for refusal is lack of knowledge of their loved one’s wishes.
“The family of the potential donor has a major role to play in organ donation. The aim of the bill has always been to respect the wishes of the deceased; however, relatives or friends may object to consent being deemed based on what they know about the views of the deceased.
“When family members know that organ donation is what the deceased would have wanted, they usually agree to participate in the donation process. The new law will work by clarifying people’s wishes around the issue of organ donation and, in turn, increase the rate of consent to donation.
“Today is a landmark day for Wales and I expect the rest of the UK to be watching with great interest when the legislation is implemented in 2015.”
The issue is controversial, with opponents worried that the pressing need for more kidneys and hearts will lead to the wishes of those who have died and their family being overruled. But ministers insist there will be safeguards.
Inevitably, some people will not get around to registering their opposition. In response to concerns, the government recently announced that families would play a bigger role.
Relatives are to have a “clear right of objection”, giving them the chance to show that the deceased would not have wanted to be an organ donor.
Wales has acted because of an acute shortage of organs. “We have the enduring problem of not having enough organs for people who need them,” said Drakeford. “About one person every week dies in Wales while on a waiting list. We have been working to improve the rate of organ donation and have had some success, but we’re looking to take the next step forward.
“Around a third of the Welsh population is on the organ donor register, but well over two- thirds in surveys say they are happy to be organ donors. That other third is people who don’t get round to putting their names down. We’re hoping to make inroads into that.”
The new law would apply to anybody over 18 who has lived in Wales for at least the year before his or her death. Donated organs would not only go to people in need of a transplant in Wales but to anybody in the UK.
Doctors are delighted at the move. The British Medical Association has long campaigned for an opt-out system because of its concern over the growing number of people needing transplants – a result of medical progress in transplantation.
The number of young donors dropped substantially when seatbelt legislation came in. Big efforts have been made in recent years to increase the number of those who carry an organ donation card, with a good deal of success. Hospitals have also brought in improved systems for coordinating transplants, including the crucial discussions with relatives when there is no indication of the wishes of the deceased. But the increase in numbers of organs harvested is still not enough.
Some religious groups, on the other hand, strongly oppose the scheme, arguing that it would cause further distress to bereaved relatives. Members of the Muslim Council of Wales and the South Wales Jewish Representative Council have expressed reservations, while the Archbishop of Wales, Barry Morgan, said that “donation ought to be a gift of love, of generosity. If organs can be taken unless someone has explicitly registered an objection, that’s not an expression of love. It’s more a medical use of a body.”


To tourists, Amsterdam still seems very liberal. Recently the city’s Mayor told them that the coffee shops that sell marijuana would stay open, although there is a new national law to stop drug tourism. But the Dutch capital has a plan to send antisocial neighbours to “scum villages” made from shipping containers, and so maybe now people won’t think it is a liberal city any more.
The Mayor, Eberhard van der Laan, says his new plan to solve the problem of antisocial behaviour will cost £810,000. The plan is hopes to protect victims of abuse and homophobia. The camps, where antisocial families will live for three to six months, have been called “scum villages” because last year Geert Wilders, the far-right politician, said that offenders should go to “a village for scum”.
Bartho Boer, a spokesman for the Mayor, says that the plans are not illiberal. “We want to defend the liberal values of Amsterdam,” he says. “We want everyone to be who he and she is – whether they are gay and lesbian or try to stop violence and are then victims of harassment. We want to defend them.” According to Boer, the villages are not for “a problem neighbour who has the stereo too loud on Saturday night” but “people who are very violent and in a clear situation where a victim is harassed again and again”.
People found guilty of violent harassment will be evicted from their homes and put in temporary homes, including shipping containers in industrial areas of the city. “We call it a living container,” says Boer. The containers have showers and kitchens and have been used as student accommodation. They are going to use the containers because they want to show that if people are antisocial they do not get better accommodation.
One Dutch newspaper wrote that in the 19th century antisocial people were moved to villages in Drenthe and Overijssel, which soon became slums. But Boer says that the government has learned from past mistakes and is not planning to put antisocial families together.
They are “scum houses” not scum villages, says Boer, “because we don’t want to put more than one of these families in the same area”. After a maximum of six months in these houses, in different parts of the city, the families will get permanent homes. The city government expects to move about ten families a year, which starts in 2013.
Police will watch the temporary accommodation, but antisocial families will also be able to see doctors and social workers. “We will take care of them so the whole situation is not going to repeat at the new house they are in,” says Boer.


A lonely old man living in a crater on the moon is the unlikely focus of John Lewis’s Christmas 2015 advert, as the department store puts a charitable spin on its latest multi-million pound campaign.
Amid increasing hype around John Lewis’s seasonal ad, which has come to mark the beginning of the Christmas shopping season for many, the department store will aim to use its profile to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds for Age UK. It will also encourage staff and customers to join up with their local branch of the charity to care for elderly people who might otherwise be alone over the holiday.
The retailer has spent £7m on a campaign that ranges from the slick TV ad to a smartphone game and merchandise, including glow-in-the- dark pyjamas, as well as areas decked out like the surface of the moon in 11 stores.
After two years of successful ads featuring cuddly animals – a bear and hare, then a penguin – this time, the retailer is tugging at the heartstrings with a story of a young girl, Lily, who spots an old man living in a shack on the moon through her telescope. The determined child tries sending him a letter and firing a note via bow and arrow, before floating him a present of a telescope tied to balloons, which finally enables them to make contact.
The ad’s strapline is: “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas”, which echoes Age UK’s own campaign: “No one should have no one at Christmas”. Profits from three products – a mug, gift tag and card – will go to the charity.
“The charity really resonates with people at this time of year and the ad lends itself to thinking about someone who lives on your street that might not see anybody,” said Rachel Swift, head of marketing at John Lewis.
The campaign features the Oasis track Half the World Away reinterpreted by little-known Norwegian artist Aurora.
The ad cost £1m to make. The moon scenes were shot at the Warner Bros Studios, where the Harry Potter films were made, and the specially built set was created by one of the team behind the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens.
As in the last few years, John Lewis has drummed up interest in their most recent ad with a teaser campaign on TV and social media using the hashtag #OnTheMoon. There will be a full moon on Christmas Day 2015 – a complete coincidence, according to Swift.
In 2014, the retailer also spent £7m on a campaign featuring a realistic animated penguin and a young boy playing together to the tune of John Lennon’s Real Love, sung by British singer-songwriter Tom Odell. It had drummed up 22m views on YouTube by the first week of January, ahead of the 16.6m clocked by Sainsbury’s ad featuring First World War soldiers sharing a bar of chocolate, the UK’s next most popular ad of 2014.
Swift said that, despite the hype, John Lewis had stuck to the same strategy for the last five years. “It’s all about thoughtful gifting and going the extra mile for someone you love at Christmas,” she said. “We don’t go into it thinking, 'This is going to be huge,' just getting something right for the brand at this time of year and something we hope customers really love.”
Sarah Vizard, news editor of trade journal Marketing Week, said John Lewis appeared to have reined in its efforts this time, with a lower- key presence in stores despite a growing army of competitors. “There are definitely a lot more brands doing Christmas ads this year but I think a lot of those brands who tried to compete with John Lewis by doing something emotional and creative have gone back to what you can buy in store,” she said. “John Lewis still does the emotional piece the best. This campaign is another great way of putting that across in a way that will resonate with customers. I think people will think it is really cute.”
Among those fighting for attention in the flurry of Christmas ads was sister chain, Waitrose, which launched its Christmas ad online on social media ahead of a TV debut during The X Factor . It used the agency which has created John Lewis’s Christmas ads for years.
Burberry has launched what is only its second festive film, featuring Romeo Beckham and Elton John, while electrical chain Currys drafted in Jeff Goldblum for its first ever dedicated Christmas ad. Asda, Lidl and Morrisons also launched their campaigns at the beginning of November.
Marc Bolland, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, which also launched its Christmas ad at the beginning of November, said that, in the first week of September, the most searched term on its website was Christmas.
Boots, another retailer launching its festive campaign in early November, is going back to a more traditional approach after a critically acclaimed ad in 2014, which featured a family going to great lengths to get together at Christmas.