Features

Programmes that encourage parents to read with their kids may teach more than just book smarts — a new study suggests they may also be associated with better behaviour and emotional health.

Reading interventions have long been linked to improvements in language and literacy, especially among young children whose parents have limited income or education. But less is known about the benefits for more affluent families or the potential for these efforts to improve social, emotional or behavioural functioning for kids and their parents.

The current analysis examined data from 18 previously published studies that included 3,264 families from a variety of backgrounds. Results showed that kids who participated in reading programmes had better social and emotional skills, behaviour and literacy than children who did not.

Parents in the reading programmes also had less stress and anxiety and more confidence in their parenting skills than parents who did not participate in these interventions, researchers report in Pediatrics.

“Reading to children is not only for having a smart child but also for having a happy child and a good parent-child relationship as well,” said lead study author Qian-Wen Xie, of the University of Hong Kong.

Some parents may not realise it is important for them to read aloud with kids from a very young age, Xie said by e-mail. Even when they know reading matters, parents might be pressed for time, unable to afford books, or unfamiliar with interactive reading techniques that can make the biggest impact on cognitive, social, emotional and behavioural development.

All of the studies included in the analysis randomly assigned some families to participate in reading programmes and others to join control groups that did not receive this help. Some included free books.

Some programmes targeted toddlers and preschoolers, while others focused on children in elementary school. Often, the reading interventions were provided to children at risk for behaviour problems or language delays, or kids in low-income households with parents who had limited education.

The majority of programmes gave parents structured training in how to read with children, with anywhere from 2 to 28 group or individual coaching sessions.

One limitation of the analysis was that the studies were too varied to test the effect of specific aspects of the reading programmes. Researchers could not tell, for example, whether free books or one-on-one coaching in families’ homes might influence how well the interventions worked.

Still, the results offer fresh evidence that early literacy programmes have the potential to improve well-being for parents and children, regardless of race, income or gender, said Dr Caroline Kistin, a pediatrics researcher at Boston University School of Medicine who was not involved in the study.

“Shared reading supports child cognitive development, helps children develop the ability to pay attention and cooperate, and serves as a bonding opportunity for parents and children,” Kistin said by e-mail.

“The shared experience — spending time together, sitting close to each other, making connections between the book and daily life — are critical,” Kistin added. “The findings from this study highlight that the time spent reading together also improves parents’ well-being and is associated with decreased stress, decreased depression, and increased markers of parental competence.”

LONDON — I’m 57, with a 30-year-old wife, a fairly new hot water boiler, an old-style television, a petrol car and no kids.

Actually, none of that is true. But that is what you might believe if you purchased access to my data from the world’s largest information broker by market value.

The recent revelation that data miner Cambridge Analytica Ltd. improperly accessed 50 million Facebook users’ personal data has heightened public concern about the way companies harvest and use our personal data.

I asked Arkansas-based Acxiom Corp., which earns over $800 million a year selling consumer profiles to the world’s largest companies, what data and insights it held on me.

In Europe and the US, companies like Acxiom are allowed to collect data from public and other sources about us. European privacy rules, which are due to be strengthened in coming months, require all data gatherers to disclose to any European who asks what information they hold on them. US law does not give Americans the right to this level of disclosure.

The result of my inquiry shows how, even with little raw data, companies attempt to build detailed pictures of individuals’ finances, relationships, personal interests and purchasing tastes.

These profiles now power the elaborate machinery that delivers advertising across the Internet, and can also be used to determine what political issues people are interested in and how they might vote.

The question is: How accurate are the pictures they sketch?

‘Affluent fun seeker’

Acxiom — like its rivals — operates by gathering publicly available information from sources like the electoral roll, which gives individuals’ addresses, and land registry data, which provides details on home ownership such as purchase price and if there is a mortgage on the property.

It also buys data from companies that conduct online surveys, as well as websites where you forgot to tick “don’t share with third parties” and other sources. This data is then put into a proprietary model, which produces a list of data points and propensities, such as the likelihood a consumer might visit a betting shop.

Acxiom sells access to these profiles to companies that wish to target advertising at potential customers. Acxiom doesn’t have a political arm like Cambridge Analytica does, but the two companies do compete for commercial customers.

Facebook, in the wake of the scandal over how it handles personal information, said on Wednesday it would end its partnerships with several large data brokers who help advertisers target people on the social network. Shares in Acxiom traded down more than 10 per cent to $25 following Facebook’s announcement.

The results for a single individual obviously don’t tell us too much about the accuracy of a database that Acxiom says contains 47 million UK profiles and insights into 700 million consumers worldwide.

Also, it seems I am a bad data subject since I usually opt out when asked to give companies data sharing rights.

“Where we have more self-reported, privacy-compliant data about individuals, we can be more accurate. In your case, we held very little of this data and the majority of the variables linked to you, are modelled, based on both your postcode and the household history,” Acxiom said in a statement.

My Acxiom profile has around 750 individual data fields under a dozen categories from “household composition” to “employment & income” and “lifestyle & interests”. It categorises me as an “affluent fun-seeker”. The accuracy of that description depends on your definition, I suppose, but some of the information is plain wrong.

To start with, I’m 46 years old, not 57. I won’t reveal my wife’s age, but I will confirm that when I got married at age 34, it was not to a teenager. Two children mean we’re not “empty nesters”, I drive a diesel car and our boiler is more than 15 years old, not less than five years as Acxiom identifies it as.

That could be a disappointment for the companies, including Tesco supermarket, Twitter, Ford Motor Company and Facebook, to whom Acxiom said it may have provided my data in the past year. Or maybe not.

Profile errors

The fact that my profile contains errors isn’t necessarily a problem for marketers said Carol Hargreaves, a professor and director of the Data Analytics Consulting Centre at the National University of Singapore.

What really matters is the predictions of one’s behaviour, interests and propensity to buy certain kinds of products.

“The things you sell to a male of 46 or a male of 57 are the same,” Hargreaves said.

In some potentially key areas, the data is certainly better than a random guess. It predicted that I had just a 5.2 per cent probability of being self-employed, rather than employed. Official data shows around 17 per cent of Britons are self-employed.

Acxiom’s prediction of my household income was also much closer to the actual number than the average published by the Greater London Authority for my electoral ward, or local electoral district, the narrowest official estimate.

But if purchase decisions are driven by lifestyle interests, the data collected on me is of little use to marketers.

My predicted annual car mileage was 12874 to 16093km, based on “modelled probability”. This figure echoes the 13526 miles that car breakdown group the RAC says the average London motorist drives each year. But it’s over twice my annual mileage.

Acxiom incorrectly says I don’t have a flat screen television, something it “derived through modelling”, even though a UK government report from 2013 says most households do.

One in seven Britons is a member of a gym, according to a 2017 industry survey; Acxiom reckons there’s a 47.5 per cent chance that I am interested in belonging to a gym. My last subscription expired over a decade ago.

Acxiom also thinks I am more likely to be interested in crossword puzzles — I haven’t done one since the 1980s — than in current affairs, which has been my working life for 20 years.

On the positive side, there are indications Acxiom does not engage in racial profiling: The company predicts I have a 13.6 per cent probability of interest in regularly going to a bar. I asked Hargreaves, the professor, if this seemed a statistically reasonable estimate for an Irish journalist. After she stopped laughing, Hargreaves said accurate predictions hinged on the raw data on which the profile is based.

Band wagon

Acxiom said individual inaccuracies did not undermine the value of its service.

“We know from working with leading brands, that data helps them deliver more accurate and relevant marketing to customers at scale... The key factor here is, ‘at scale’,” it said in a statement.

Annabel Kilner, chief commercial officer at furniture retailer
MADE.com said consumer data helped firms deliver messages that consumers found relevant.

“We adopt a test and learn approach to optimising our campaigns,” Kilner said.

Xiaojing Dong, associate professor of marketing and business analytics at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, said that qualitative predictions like those produced by Acxiom gave advertisers a much better idea of who they are reaching.

But Hargreaves said there was concern among some advertisers that the consumer profiles they purchase from data aggregators may not always be worth the large fees involved. Hargreaves said she is about to start working with clients of companies like Acxiom to ascertain whether they were getting value for money.

“Some of the data vendors are just jumping on the band wagon,” she said.

The key to accurate profiling, experts said, was good raw data. The best is held by those companies with whom we have the deepest interactions — social media giants like Facebook or Twitter and retailers like Amazon.com.

Stephan Lewandowsky, a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Bristol in Britain, said that explains why companies like Cambridge Analytica would be so eager to access Facebook data.

“The difference between using the electoral roll and Facebook is that the information we reveal on Facebook is sufficient for a computer programme to infer our personality with greater accuracy than our own spouse,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Facebook on Wednesday unveiled new privacy settings aiming to give its users more control over how their data is shared, following an outcry over hijacking of personal information at the giant social network.

The updates include easier access to Facebook’s user settings and tools to easily search for, download and delete personal data stored by Facebook.

Facebook said a new privacy shortcuts menu will allow users to quickly increase account security, manage who can see their information and activity on the site and control advertisements they see.

“We’ve heard loud and clear that privacy settings and other important tools are too hard to find and that we must do more to keep people informed,” Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan and Deputy General Counsel Ashlie Beringer said in a blog post.

“We’re taking additional steps in the coming weeks to put people more in control of their privacy.”

The new features follow fierce criticism after it was revealed millions of Facebook users’ personal data was harvested by a British firm linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — although Facebook said the changes have been “in the works for some time”.

Earlier this month, whistleblower Christopher Wylie revealed political consulting company Cambridge Analytica obtained profiles on 50 million Facebook users via an academic researcher’s personality prediction app.

The app was downloaded by 270,000 people, but also scooped up their friends’ data without consent — as was possible under Facebook’s rules at the time.

Egan and Beringer also announced updates to Facebook’s terms of service and data policy to improve transparency about how the site collects and uses data.

Deepening tech crisis

Facebook’s move comes as authorities around the globe investigate how Facebook handles and shares private data, and with its shares having tumbled more than 15 per cent, wiping out tens of billions in market value.

The crisis also threatens the Silicon Valley tech industry whose business model revolves around data collected on Internet users.

On Tuesday, tech shares led a broad slump on Wall Street, with an index of key tech stocks losing nearly 6 per cent.

The US Federal Trade Commission this week said it had launched a probe into whether the social network violated consumer protection laws or a 2011 court-approved agreement on protecting private user data.

US lawmakers were seeking to haul Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Washington to testify on the matter.

Authorities in Britain have seized data from Cambridge Analytica in their investigation, and EU officials have warned of consequences for Facebook.

Facebook has apologised for the misappropriation of data and vowed to fix the problem.

Facebook took out full-page ads in nine major British and US newspapers on Sunday to apologise to users.

“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t we don’t deserve it,” Zuckerberg said in the ads.

PARIS — Feeling lonely contributes less to the risk of cardiovascular disease than recent research suggests, scientists said on Tuesday, but social isolation really does up the odds of dying after a heart attack or stroke.

The alleged link between loneliness and heart disease essentially disappears once other well-known risk factors — smoking, drinking, poor diet, lack of exercise — are factored in, according to a study that monitored nearly 480,000 men and women in Britain for seven years.

Likewise the supposed impact of feeling friendless on premature death.

But even after dodgy lifestyle habits are taken into consideration, social isolation — time actually spent alone — boosted the risk of dying by about 30 per cent in people who suffered a stroke or heart attack, according to the study, published in Heart, a medical journal.

“Social isolation, but not loneliness... remained as an independent risk factor for mortality,” the researchers, led by Christian Hakulinen, a professor at the University of Helsinki, concluded.

Earlier efforts to tease out the influence of a solitary existence on cardiovascular disease and heart-related mortality had produced mixed results, in part due to the relatively small number of people covered.

For the new study, Hakulinen and his team drew from the so-called Biobank cohort, in which 479,054 people aged 40 to 69 were monitored for seven years.

“To the best of our knowledge, our study is the largest on the topic,” they wrote.

The participants provided detailed information on their ethnic background, education level, income and lifestyle, as well as any history of depression.

They were also asked to gauge their levels of loneliness — a subjective feeling — and social isolation, which measures the amount of time spent alone or in the company of others.

Nearly 10 per cent of the respondents qualified as socially isolated, 6 per cent as lonely, and 1 per cent were both.

The researchers cross-checked this personal data with the people who suffered first-time strokes or heart attacks, as well as those who died.

But once health-wrecking lifestyle habits were accounted for, only the link with social isolation remained.

Earlier research has shown that people who live alone die younger, succumb more quickly when they get cancer and are generally in poorer health.

A study from last November covering more than 800,000 people from a dozen nations found that walking through life alone also increases the chances of dementia, by about 40 per cent.

Being widowed after extended co-habitation also took a toll, boosting the odds of mental slippage by about 20 per cent.

LOS ANGELES — After weeks of speculating which film could slow “Black Panther’s” impressive roll, “Pacific Rim Uprising” took the top spot at the domestic box office.

Universal and Legendary’s “Pacific Rim Uprising” landed a respectable $28 million opening weekend at 3,708 locations. The monster battle film has garnered mixed critical response, with a current 46 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. Though it opened with a softer debut than Guillermo del Toro’s predecessor “Pacific Rim”, which saw $37 million in July 2013, the sequel was enough to dethrone “Black Panther” in the superhero tentpole’s sixth weekend.

Steven S. DeKnight co-wrote and directed “Pacific Rim Uprising” with a reported $150 million budget. The original, which starred Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Charlie Hunnam, and Robert Kazinsky, went on to gross $411 million at the worldwide box office, thanks to a strong international showing, especially in China, where it made $112 million compared to the US ‘ $101.8 million.

The sequel is set 10 years after the Battle of the Breach with a new generation of Jaeger pilots ready to combat the evolving Kaiju monsters and prevent humanity’s extinction. John Boyega plays Jake Pentecost, the son of Elba’s character Stacker Pentecost, who sacrificed his life in the first film. Scott Eastwood, Jing Tian, Cailee Spaeny, Kikuchi, Burn Gorman, Adria Arjona and Day also star.

Still, in its sixth weekend “Black Panther” continues to be a powerhouse, nabbing the No. 2 spot with $17 million at 3,370 sites. That number lands “Black Panther” one of the seven highest sixth weekends in history. To date, the Marvel film has taken in $631 million, making it the fifth-highest all-time domestic grosses ahead of “The Avengers”.

“It had to happen at some point, and Universal’s ‘Pacific Rim Uprising’ now holds the distinction of being the film that took over ‘Black Panther’s’ long-standing position as king of the weekend box office mountain,” Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst at comScore, said. “The latest Disney superhero film has been an absolute marvel, holding onto the top spot for a whopping five weeks, while sprinting its way up the all-time charts and now stands as the fifth highest grossing film of all-time in North America and ranks twelfth globally after just 38 days in theatres.”

Meanwhile, Roadside Attraction and Lionsgate’s faith-based “I Can Only Imagine” remains a force in its second weekend with $13 million from 2,253 sites. Based on the story behind the best-selling Christian song, “I Can Only Imagine” earned a surprisingly strong $17.1 million at the domestic box office, bringing its total up to $38 million.

Following “I Can Only Imagine’s” success, biblical drama “Paul, Apostle of Christ” opened in line with estimates with $5 million at 1,473 sites over Palm Sunday weekend. The story follows James Faulkner as Saint Paul in his last days awaiting execution by Emperor Nero in Rome. Directed by Andrew Hyatt, the film also stars Jim Caviezel, Olivier Martinez, Joanne Whalley, and John Lynch.

Also opening this weekend was Paramount Pictures and MGM’s animated comedy “Sherlock Gnomes”, which saw $10 million at 3,662 locations. That’s significantly lower than initial tracking estimates between $13 million to $18 million. The sequel to 2011’s “Gnomeo & Juliet”, which reeled in $194 million worldwide, sees the petite pair recruiting detective Sherlock Gnomes and his sidekick, Gnome Watson, to investigate the mysterious disappearance of other garden gnomes. Directed by John Stevenson and executive produced by Elton John, it features the voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mary J. Blige and Johnny Depp.

The second weekend of Alicia Vikander’s “Tomb Raider” landed $10 million from 3,854 locations, bringing its grosses up to $41 million, while the second weekend of “Love, Simon” took in $7 million with $23 million to date.

Two smaller releases — Global Road Entertainment’s “Midnight Sun” and Bleecker Street and Fingerprint Releasing’s “Unsane” — debuted with $4 million and $3.6 million respectively.

Young adult romantic drama “Midnight Sun” stars Bella Thorne as a teen who has been sheltered at home since childhood due to a life-threatening sensitivity to sunlight. Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller “Unsane” sees Claire Foy as a troubled woman stalked by her ex. Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, and Amy Irving round out the cast.

Rounding out the weekend, Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs” opened with $1.5 million in limited release, with a screen average of over $58 thousand in 27 theatres. The stop-motion animated film boasts a star-studded ensemble voice cast that includes Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, and Bob Balaban. Set in a dystopian futuristic Japan, dogs have been quarantined on a remote island due to a canine flu. A boy, Atari, ventures to the island to find his dog, Spots.

Three in four food advertisements and half of drink promotions during major US sports programmes peddle high-calorie, sugary products, a new study suggests.

“There is an inherent message in sports about the importance of physical fitness and health, and diet is a huge part of fitness and health,” lead study author Marie Bragg said by e-mail. “Having highly visible sports organisations serve as a vehicle for promoting junk food to children sends a mixed message that is incompatible with maintaining a healthy diet.”

Bragg, a researcher at New York University, and colleagues focused on the ten sports organisations with the most viewers under 18 years old, including professional leagues for American football, baseball, football, hockey, golf, mixed martial arts and car racing as well as college basketball and amateur baseball.

Researchers then identified advertisements or sponsorships promoting food or nonalcoholic beverages on television, YouTube, and sports organisations websites from 2006 to 2016.

Overall, food and non-alcoholic drinks accounted for 19 per cent of sponsors, second only to auto industry sponsors, researchers report in Pediatrics.

The National Football League had the most food and beverage sponsors, with a total of ten, followed by the National Hockey League and Little League, with seven apiece.

When researchers rated the nutritional content of these products, they found 76 per cent of foods were unhealthy and 52 per cent of drinks were sodas or other beverages sweetened with sugar.

“I think we saw so many sodas appearing in sponsorship ads because bottled water does not have profit margins as high as sugary drinks, and consumers aren’t as loyal to a specific water brand as they are to their favourite soda brand,” Bragg said. “People know they are a ‘Coke’ or a ‘Pepsi’ person, but often don’t feel the same way about water brands.”

The proportion of US children who are overweight and obese has been steadily climbing for years. As of 2016, about 35 per cent of children were overweight and another 26 per cent were obese, a recent study found.

While there are many reasons for this — including too much screen time and not enough exercise — poor eating and drinking habits play a big role.

Even when soda and junk food advertisements do not directly target children, kids are more easily swayed to crave products than adult viewers, researchers say.

“Children who view advertisements for highly palatable foods such as chips or candy as part of TV shows or within video games will eat more snack foods, even if they already had a meal,” said Jennifer Emond, a researcher at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in Lebanon, New Hampshire, who was not involved in the study.

“We call this cued eating,” Emond said by e-mail. “We see this in children as young as preschool-age.”

One limitation of the study is that researchers did not look separately at sponsorship appearances within games, on the sidelines, or brands mentioned by announcers during televised games, the authors note. Another drawback is that researchers were not able to distinguish between unique viewers and repeat viewers on YouTube.

Still, the results suggest that parents need to realise that children who sit down to watch sports are seeing much more than just a game, said Dr Megan Pesch, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.

“Children are not always able to detect what is an advertisement versus what is not,” Pesch, who was not involved in the study, said by e-mail. “Parents can explain, in simple terms, to their children that the athlete is paid by the company to promote the products, and what the marketers are trying to do, namely make money.”

Putting out reasonable portions of healthy snacks during the game may also help.

“Parents can also use this an opportunity to talk to their children about the importance of eating unhealthy foods in moderation, focusing on the importance of eating mostly healthy foods with the occasional ‘fun’ food,” Pesch added.

With no shortage of desirable, fast and viscerally styled cars to its name since it was founded in 1963, the recently launched Lamborghini Huracan Performante is among the very best produced by the hallowed Italian supercar maker. The fastest, most focused and ferociously powerful in the Huracan model range, the Performante is however more than just a wild eye-catching design, but significantly improves on the base Huracan and adds new lightweight technology, revised chassis and drive-line set-ups, more power, and advanced active aerodynamics and aero vectoring technology as its crowning achievement.

An altogether different interpretation of the Huracan, the Performante instead distils, hone and thoroughly improves on the standard four-wheel-drive Huracan LP610-4, rather than the LP580-2 that reimagines the Huracan driving dynamic as a more old-school and pared-down rear-driver. In terms of design, the Huracan Performante may not be as rare, exclusive or ultimately powerful as some of the Raging Bull manufacturer’s wilder special edition cars, but it is a more evocative and sexy design that harmonises and incorporates its aerodynamic technology into a better looking design, not to mention being one of Lamborghinis most effective cars.

Intense aesthetic

Built using lightweight aluminium and carbon-fibre construction, the  Huracan Performante is — at 1382kg — 40kg lighter than the standard Huracan owing to the use of innovative forged composite carbon-fibre components. Allowing for more complex shapes and finished in naked gloss for interior panels and its razor sharp low front splitter, dramatically high rear wing, bonnet, rear bumper and some structural components, the Performante’s forged composite carbon-fibre uses resin-hardened, chopped carbon-fibres. Contrasting with the driven model’s matt orange finish, this adds to the Performante’s visceral, hard-edged aesthetic.

An athletic tautly skinned cabin-forward, mid-engine design with lithe, low and wide proportions, jutting lines and pinched waistline, the Performante is dramatic, predatory and oozes tension from every angle. A more intense take on the Huracan design, the Performante front fascia is redesigned with sharper more overtly aggressive shapes and open ducts to direct air through the front and underneath. Black side sills and high-set big bore exhausts complement its moody disposition, but it  is the Performante’s rear wing, which takes centre stage both aesthetically and technically.

Seductive and sophisticated

In addition to open rear fascia vents, the Performante’s Aerodynamica Lamborghini Attiva active aerodynamic system features rear ducts above the engine bay, which channel air through to its huge rear wing. Controlled with electric motors and flaps, the Performante’s active aerodynamics reduce drag for acceleration, or when closed, increase downforce by 750 per cent over the standard Huracan. Through corners, the Huracan’s rear wing however becomes an aero vectoring system, with its active flaps developing downforce on the inner rear wheel to provide more tenacious road-holding and tidier, more focused handling agility. 

One of the last naturally-aspirated supercars, the Huracan’s seductive sounding 5.2-litre V10 engine receives a 30BHP power hike for service in the lighter Performante. Mid-mounted for ideal, though slightly rear-biased weighting, the Performante’s 10-pot powerhouse pulls hard from tickover through and to its high-strung redline, in one vicious fell sweep. Developing 442lb/ft torque at 6500rpm and 631BHP at a peaky and intense 8000rpm, the rev-happy Performante launches off the line with immediacy and sure-footed four-wheel-drive traction, allowing it to blast through the 0-100km/h and 0-200km/h benchmarks in just 2.9-seconds and 8.9-seconds respectively, and attain a 325km/h top speed. 

Vicious versatility

More than a high rev hero, the Performante’s revised air intake system yields improved responsiveness and confidently willing mid-range flexibility, with 70 per cent torque available by just 1000rpm. Razor-sharp responses and throttle control allow one to dial in exact power increments, while torque and power accumulate with vicious urgency. With its soundtrack coalescing from mechanical staccato to resonant metallic snarl and hardening to a wailing howl, the Performante takes on a searing intensity as it climbs past 6000rpm. Meanwhile, a 7-speed dual-clutch gearbox with manual mode fixed paddle-shifters, dispatches cog shifts with decisive precision and concision. 

So effective are the Performante’s active aerodynamics and power hike that it even clinched the world’s fastest production car Nurburgring Nordschleife lap time — at 6:52.01-minutes — from the Porsche 918 Spyder hybrid hypercar. Designed for road and track, the Performante is remarkably connected and committed on road, with rear-biased four-wheel-drive and limited-slip rear differential allocating power rear-to-front and left and right on the rear axle, to most effectively put power down to tarmac. Intuitive yet flattering, the Performante’s aero vectoring witchcraft and balanced dynamic keep it composed, sharp and engaging through corners.

Reassuring and rewarding

In its element on winding hill climbs, the Performante is stable, smooth, settled and pushed tight into the road surface, it carries cornering speed in its stride. Meanwhile, with stiffer suspension with improved vertical and roll control, and optional adaptive magnetic dampers, one can tailor ride quality, and steering, throttle, engine, gearbox response modes. Inside, one feels at the centre of the action, with quick, meaty and precise steering feel and good front visibility complementing its reassuring, rewarding and adjustable chassis.

Roomier and more ergonomic inside than its predecessor — not as much as its slightly longer and taller Audi R8 cousin — the Performante is distinctly sporty inside. Stepping in through up-swinging doors, the Performante’s cabin employs exotic materials and design, and features a guarded missile launcher-like starter button, chunky steering wheel, and body-hugging sports seats to keep up with its enormous cornering ability and g-force, by keeping the driver firmly but comfortably in place.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 5.2-litre, mid-mounted, dry sump, V10-cylinders
• Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 92.8mm
• Compression ratio: 12.7:1
• Valve-train: 40-valve, DOHC, direct injection
• Gearbox: 7-speed automated dual clutch
• Driveline: Four-wheel-drive, multi-plate clutch, limited-slip rear differential
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 631 (640) [470] @8000rpm
• Specific power: 121.3BHP/litre
• Power-to-weight: 456.5BHP/tonne
• Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 442 (600) @6500rpm
• Specific torque: 115.3Nm/litre
• Torque-to-weight: 434.1Nm/tonne
• 0-100km/h: 2.9-seconds
• 0-200km/h: 8.9-seconds
• Top speed: 325km/h
• Fuel consumption, urban / extra-urban / combined: 19.6- / 10.3- / 13.7-litres/100km 
• CO2 emissions, combined: 314g/km
• Fuel capacity: 83-litres
• Length: 4506mm
• Width: 1924mm
• Height: 1165mm
• Wheelbase: 2620mm
• Track, F/R: 1668 / 1620mm
• Dry weight: 1382kg
• Weight distribution, F/R: 43% / 57%
• Cargo volume: 100-litres
• Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion
• Turning circle: 11.5-meters
• Suspension: Double wishbones, optional adaptive magnetic dampers
• Brakes, F/R: Ventilated, perforated carbon-ceramic discs 380 x 38mm / 356 x 32mm
• Brake calipers, F/R: 6-/4-piston calipers
• Braking distance, 100-0km/h: 31-meters
• Tyres: 245/30R20 / 305/30R20

LONDON — Obesity could overtake smoking as the chief avoidable cause of cancer-related deaths, the world’s largest independent funder of cancer research said on Friday.

With smoking rates in decline and obesity on the rise, it could surpass smoking as the biggest killer, the chief executive of Cancer Research UK said as it published new research.

“Obesity is potentially the new smoking, if we’re not careful,” said Harpal Kumar.

“My sense would be it’ll be some time in next couple of decades that we’ll see those two switch around.”

Following a major new study of 2015 cancer data, the charity found that 37.7 per cent of all cancers diagnosed in Britain each year could be prevented through lifestyle changes.

Smoking remains the biggest avoidable cause of cancer, a factor in 15.1 per cent of preventable cases — down from 19.4 per cent in 2011 — followed by obesity at 6.3 per cent — up from 5.5 per cent.

Next came overexposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and sunbeds and occupational exposure at 3.8 per cent each, infections (3.6 per cent), alcohol (3.3 per cent) and eating too little fibre (3.3 per cent).

The research published in the British Journal of Cancer shows that obesity causes 13 different types of cancer, including bowel, breast, womb and kidney.

“Leading a healthy life doesn’t guarantee that a person won’t get cancer, but it can stack the odds in your favour,” Kumar said.

“These figures show that we each can take positive steps to help reduce our individual risk of the disease.

“Prevention is the most cost-effective way of beating cancer.”

The Orchard of Lost Souls
Nadifa Mohamed
UK: Simon & Schuster, 2014
Pp. 338

Focusing on the lives of three females, British-Somali writer Nadifa Mohamed paints a vivid picture of everyday life and popular culture in Somalia in the late 1980s, and how they are being threatened by the brewing civil war. Though quite different in age and background, all three might be described as lost souls, but, each in her own way, they are resisting such a fate. The cruel effects of poverty, dispossession and violence are starkly portrayed, sometimes giving rise to horrifying images, but Mohamed’s pen is equally adept at revealing her characters’ emotional and spiritual lives and the unexpected beauty of small things.

Most of the novel is set in the north, in Hargeisa, where the three protagonists accidently collide at a public celebration of the revolution, i.e., the military coup that brought the current president to power eighteen years before. Attendance is mandatory and women must wear traditional dress. “This is the way the government seems to want them — simple, smiling cartoons with no demands or needs of their own.” (p. 7) 

The three protagonists attend with widely divergent motivations. Kawsar, an older women, comes with her neighbours, but grudgingly. She had seen better days and once harboured hopes of her country moving in a progressive direction, but personal experience has made her acutely aware of the government’s corruption, hypocrisy and failure to meet the people’s needs.

Filsan, an army officer, comes from Mogadishu to be part of the security force charged with keeping the celebration in line. She comes willingly and proudly, “hoping to show that although a woman, she has more commitment to the revolution than any of her male peers”. (p. 10)

Nine-year old Deqo, an orphan and the most endearing of the characters, comes from the refugee camp which houses those displaced in the 1978 war with Ethiopia over the Ogaden desert. She also comes willingly to participate in a dance troupe for which she has been promised a pair of new shoes. 

As the performance starts, Deqo has a momentary blackout and cannot remember the dance routine. She is dragged away and beaten by the organisers. 

“The sight touches Kawsar, a moment of truth within this fiction… Kawsar feels something has broken loose inside her, something that has been dammed up — love, rage, a sense of justice even; she doesn’t know what, but it heats her blood.” (p. 21) 

When she tries to rescue Deqo, she is arrested. Deqo manages to escape but Kawsar is taken to the police station, where Filsan, who has just been sexually harassed by a top general, beats her without mercy, leaving her unable to walk.

The three women don’t meet again until the end of the novel when the war between the government and the rebels breaks out in full force. By that time, all of them have changed and the author has filled in their backgrounds. Their stories tell us not only about Somalia, but about how personal experience intersects with war and politics, and how women are doubly vulnerable. All of their stories are about loss, broken dreams and searching for family to replace the loved ones they have lost.

From Deqo’s story one learns how a homeless girl can survive the dangers and betrayals that lurk on all sides, and, most of all, the pain of having been abandoned by her mother. In the camp, they were all refugees, but the others had families and knew who they were. For Deqo, “life was just a tightrope to be walked pigeon-toed”. (p. 97)

Kawsar’s story traces the history of her community and the post-colonial changes she has witnessed, especially the growing abuses of the dictatorship, which is responsible for her ever-lingering pain at having lost her daughter, her only child. Despite having been rendered an “invalid”, she turns down chances to escape the escalating violence, wanting to remain near her orchard which flourishes by virtue of her several miscarried children being buried there. Still she feels profoundly uneasy: “The whole country has ceased to make sense… policewomen have become torturers, veterinarians doctors, teachers spies and children armed rebels.” (p. 183)

Filsan’s story is one of emotional crippling due to her rigid, loveless upbringing. While her father encouraged her education to be on a par with men, he brought her up in isolation from the broader society and half-hated her for resembling her mother who had left him for another man. A driving ambition was instilled in Filsan, but not an ounce of human compassion. 

Mohamed’s vivid prose both shocks and comforts, showing the extremes of human cruelty and degradation, but also the beauty and healing potential of human kindness and friendship. The scenes she creates literally throb with visceral details and pathos. The protagonists’ stories clearly show how power relations permeate the personal and public spheres. While differing political aims, poverty and injustice can lead to violence, so can personal frustrations and lack of love. 

While telling a captivating story, Mohamed warns of the dangers of dictatorship and militarisation, whereby citizens are trained to unthinkingly follow orders, and forget their humanity. 

“The Orchard of Lost Souls” is available at Books@cafe.

Sally Bland