Features

LOS ANGELES — Are we alone in the universe? It is a question that has preoccupied filmmakers since “A Trip to the Moon” announced itself as the world’s first alien movie in 1902.

In the century or so following the 17-minute silent French film, Hollywood’s extraterrestrials have visited in all shapes and sizes, from threatening tripods and genocidal lizards to benign humanoids.

While these films have traditionally been effects-laden potboilers, a subgenre of cerebral, lower budget movie has quietly insinuated itself into the mainstream.

Leading the charge this year is Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival”, which hits theatres following a Golden Lion nomination at the Venice Film Festival and tips for Oscar success. 

Taking its cue from classics such as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) and “Contact” (1997), “Arrival” challenges the notion that alien visitation equals loud, expensive armageddon.

Villeneuve, the director of “Sicario” (2015) and next year’s much-anticipated sequel to iconic sci-fi favourite “Blade Runner”, does not stint on the spaceships and extraterrestrials.

But he uses them in the service of such weighty ontological and epistemological themes as the nature of space-time, how language and memory work, and what happens when you cannot communicate. 

“There will always be trends in movies but I believe people are — I don’t want to say bored — but less enamoured by gigantic visual effects driven films,” says “Arrival” producer Aaron Ryder.

“I also think that there may be, perhaps, a little bit of fatigue within the superhero genre. You wouldn’t be able to tell by the box office but I think there is.”

‘Anti-Independence Day’

Ryder may be thinking of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, which delighted the accountants at Warner Bros. earlier this year but was panned by the critics.

Amy Adams, one of the stars in the film, takes the lead role in “Arrival” as Louise Banks, a linguist enlisted by the army after alien pods pop up worldwide, to help figure out what their “heptapod” occupants want.

The global powers argue among themselves and a group of nations led by China decides that in order to save humanity they should blow these gentle, enormous creatures out of the sky.

It’s up to Banks, a mother who has loved and lost, to put her life on the line by reaching out to the extraterrestrials.

The picture pairs Adams with fellow “American Hustle” star Jeremy Renner, playing against type as a shy, soft-spoken mathematician in a generous performance that allows his co-star space to shine.

In placing a mother-daughter relationship at the heart of its narrative, “Arrival” packs an emotional punch rarely seen in the sterile, utilitarian milieu of the sci-fi blockbuster. 

Critics agree that it is more a cultural cousin of “Interstellar” and “Under the Skin” than big, dumb alien invasion blockbusters like “Independence Day: Resurgence”.

Based on Ted Chiang’s short “Story of Your Life”, it has been described as “the anti-Independence Day” by the Hollywood Reporter.

‘Touching story’

“It was such an important and touching story for me when I read it and I’m just glad that has translated to the big screen,” Adams told reporters at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Sunday.

The 42-year-old five-time Oscar nominee said the film reminded her of the value of  “life, all life, my daughter’s life, our relationship, communication”.

Set in Montana, “Arrival” was filmed in Villeneuve’s native Quebec for a reported $50 million — a small budget for a leading sci-fi movie.

David Linde, a co-producer with Ryder and Dan Levine, said his team and the director set out from the start to make a film that felt “really distinct”, despite the familiar genre.

“I’d like to believe certainly that people who perhaps just want to go to the movies on a Saturday afternoon and have popcorn are going to be really entertained,” he said.

But he added that the emotional heart of the film ought to be particularly resonant in a year which has seen Brexit, a divisive US election and a resurgence of the Syrian refugee crisis.

“These are all serious issues and at their core if we could communicate better about them, with each other, I think probably they would feel less contentious and less scary,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Rich people. They’re nothing like us. They’ve got more money, more things and, according to a recent study, less time to waste on simply noticing other people.

In Psychological Science, a research journal, a group of New York University academics tested this phenomenon in a series of studies designed to quantitatively measure whether someone’s socioeconomic class was related to how closely they paid attention to others.

In the end, they concluded that yes, people who identified themselves as wealthy spent less time looking at other people and were less likely to notice changes in other people’s expression.

In one study, participants walked down a city street wearing Google Glass. The research team told participants they were merely trying out the new technology, but afterward they used Glass to measure how long users focused on certain objects or people. They found that those who said they were wealthy did not let their eyes rest on people for as long as those who said they were from a lower social class.

In another, researchers had participants view a computer screen with images taken from Google Maps Street View and tracked their eye movement. Once again, the more wealthy people spent less time looking at the people on the screen.

Lastly, the academics showed participants two pictures containing similar objects and faces. The two images flickered back and forth between each other until the viewer indicated that he or she had noticed a difference between them. The wealthy participants were less likely to notice a difference between faces, but they were just as likely to spot a difference between the objects.

All of the studies used separate sets of participants.

In a press release, two of the researchers hypothesised that the results of the study are due to the fact that people view others in terms of how much they might impact themselves, either as a benefit or a risk. The wealthy, they said, are less likely to see others as capable of impacting their lives and thus unconsciously spend less time looking at them.

But this study is just the latest in a series of many that seem to show the well-off lack interpersonal skills. Dating back to 2009, studies have shown that rich people fail to engage with strangers as much as their poorer counterparts, have a harder time reading other people’s emotions, are less empathetic and react less strongly to seeing depictions of suffering. Rich people are also no more likely to be happy than poor people. That’s dependent on how much one is respected or admired by their peers.

The amount of money we spend on a service or a product should be directly proportional to its importance and to what it brings us. Why is it then that a large number of private users and small enterprises still does not follow this rule that is simple and that makes perfect sense? It is plain logic after all, isn’t it?

We miss a heartbeat when our Internet connection has the slightest hiccup. We feel like dying when we lose data accidentally or unexpectedly. We call the tech support guys with the same sense of emergency as when calling an ambulance to the rescue, each time something goes wrong or an e-mail does not reach its intended recipient in less than 10 seconds.

And yet, despite how critical all these aspects of technology have become, how much we now depend on them, we often fail to acknowledge the fact that data safety, smooth operation, machines reliability and performance require some financial investment.

Early this week we could read in this very newspaper, on the occasion of the visit to Jordan of Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of mega online store Amazon.com, that the ITC (Information and Communications Technology) sector is contributing 12 per cent of the national GDP. If this is not a most striking indicator of its prime importance then what is?

Large enterprises, corporations and most, though perhaps not all, government institutions are doing it rather well and are investing heavily in ITC, be it with direct financing or with human resources, both being obviously closely linked in this case.

The traffic department in the kingdom is a good example of good investment. Indeed, renewing a driving licence or a car’s registration card at the department has become a breeze, thanks to a near-perfect computerisation system. In a similar manner renewing or issuing for the first time an international driving licence at the Royal Automobile Club of Jordan takes a few minutes and does not require moving from counter to counter. Here too, proper investment in IT tools, computers and software has paid off.

Small companies and private users, on the other hand, seem reluctant to spend the right amount of money, until they experience an incident or a problem, when it is often too late to react and to correct the situation. Planning ahead, as in any other human activity, is key to success, performance and stability here.

You cannot really operate a car without paying for maintenance, fuel, insurance, registration, parking, carwash, etc. Computers require attention too and it does involve money.

Using quality hardware components to start with, paying for professional antivirus and Internet security programmes, buying reliable cloud services, paying for additional storage for backup up, whether online or local, and using only qualified technical support personnel, it is all but money well spent. Not to mention being generous, brave and going for the fastest possible Internet subscription. Whatever you’d pay here, it will never be qualified as “expensive”.

If in absolute figures our IT or ICT expenditure is going up. In relative value, however, it is more rewarding than ever, given our equally growing IT needs and all that is at stake there.

NEW YORK — Melania Trump brings poise and glamour to the presidency of her husband Donald Trump, and will become America’s first foreign-born first lady in two centuries.

Elegant with a dazzling smile, the 46-year-old native Slovenian was at her husband’s side in New York early Wednesday when he declared victory — a discreet source of support, out of the camera frame.

She has maintained that same low-key presence throughout the long and gruelling campaign, during which she tried to humanise her husband, 24 years her elder.

“He will make a fantastic president,” she said less than a week ago in Pennsylvania at her only solo campaign appearance, playing up the property mogul’s softer side.

Melania also tried to take the rough edges off her husband and showed stage presence in a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention back in July, captivating a hall of cheering delegates.

“He’s tough when he has to be, but he’s also kind and fair and caring,” she said, describing her husband as “intensely loyal” to family, friends, employees and the country.

“If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he’s the guy.”

But the golden opportunity to tell America her story went horribly awry: US media noticed striking similarities with a speech current First Lady Michelle Obama delivered to the Democratic convention in 2008.

Her husband swiftly came to her defence, without acknowledging any plagiarism.

“It was truly an honour to introduce my wife, Melania. Her speech and demeanour were absolutely incredible. Very proud!” the billionaire tweeted.

‘Not acceptable’

More recently, Mrs Trump faced the embarrassment of a howling uproar after the release of an audio from 2005 in which her husband bragged about groping women’s genitals and getting away with it because he is famous.

Nearly a dozen women later came forward to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct or outright assault.

Melania called her husband’s comments on the tape “not acceptable”. But she said he had been egged on by a TV host who was with him on a bus on which he made the hot mic comments.

“I don’t know that person that would talk that way and that he would say that kind of stuff,” she said, before writing if off as “boy talk”.

At a humour-filled charity dinner after the last of the three presidential debates, Trump himself cracked a joke at her expense about her convention speech.

He said: “Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it. It’s fantastic. They think she’s absolutely great. My wife Melania gives the exact same speech and people get on her case. And I don’t get it.”

Glamorous life

Born Melanija Knavs in Slovenia — then part of Yugoslavia — to a fashion-industry mother and a car-salesman father, she studied design and architecture before leaving for Milan and Paris to launch her modelling career.

That brought her to the United States in 1996, where two years later she met Trump. She later became his third wife.

At the convention, she said becoming a US citizen, in 2006, was “the greatest privilege on planet earth”.

Her American experience has certainly been far removed from that of the average immigrant.

Her Twitter account — inactive since Trump declared his candidacy — reflects the privileged lifestyle of a jet-setter travelling between a lavish New York apartment and residences in Florida.

Melania will be America’s first foreign-born first lady since Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was president from 1825-1829. Adams was born in England.

The beauty of Europe is that if you drive for a couple of hours in any direction you are in another country that all have their own distinctive blend of culture, food, and dining customs, which forms a uniquely enchanting entity. It is this fascination of the continent that attracts tourists and visitors to its land every summer.

But this summer was somewhat different. With climate change, it was very hot and the temperatures rose so high that the general populace had difficulty coping with it. In Milan, which is the fashion capitol of the world, where stylish shoes are designed and crafted, many people were barefoot! Believe me it’s true. I almost thought I was in India. 

One day I saw a woman non-chalantly approach a public fountain, take a dip in it while fully clothed, and walk away, cooled for the moment. The lady took her dog into the fountain with her also. It was a most arresting a sight let me tell you. I stopped and gaped, forgetting to shut my mouth. 

In Milan, the hotel I stayed in, did not like visitors. I cannot remember the name of the place but it was diametrically opposite the central train station. After dragging my heavy bags and passing through a zigzagging noisy traffic, I finally reached the dim lit lobby where the front-desk assistant was in a foul mood. Belatedly he noticed my presence and informed me that I could only check-in after another hour, since we had arrived before time. Then he switched languages and the rest of the conversation he had with me was in Italian. The fact that I did not understand a word of what he said did not bother him one bit. 

I began framing an angry response in my head. As if sensing my irritation, another man materialised behind the desk. He was tall, pot-bellied and perspired profusely but he had a pleasant smile. 

Alfonso was the big, timid, nervous chap and Michael was the bald, rude, Mafioso looking one. I read out their names from the tags that were attached to their collars. Michael passed on all his tasks to Alfonso who was still under training, I guessed. Quite often, Michael picked up a bulky black desk phone and got busy talking into it. He was fluent in English but Alfonso was not. Michael kept admonishing Alfonso in Italian and hindered rather than assisted him. Therefore, every chore took double its time in getting done. 

Having just arrived from Amman, where the hotel clerks were charm personified, I watched this animosity with growing dismay. My husband had tuned off and placed himself in the lounge, where the air conditioning was the strongest. 

I asked Michael to hurry up and give us our room keys. He pointed towards Alfonso who smiled, wiped his perspiration, nodded his head and looked more confused than ever before. Soon, he took out two room-key cards and handed them to me. 

“Which floor?” I wanted to know the room number. 

Alfonso paused, put his hands out and extended three fingers and a thumb. 

“Third,” he said. 

“Fourth,” corrected Michael automatically from behind the counter. 

“Third or fourth?” I asked impatiently. 

“Three fourth,” repeated Alfonso, not wanting to confront Michael. 

“Let’s go,” I called out to my dozing spouse. 

He reluctantly followed me into the elevator. 

“When in Milan do as the Milanese do,” I announced. 

“Got it,” my husband responded, pressing numbers three and four.

PARIS — A small café run almost singlehandedly by a British chef was named on Monday as France’s best village bistrot.

Manchester-born Chris Wright only set up the Epicerie de Dienne as a shop/café/restaurant in a remote village in the mountainous Cantal region of central France in June.

With Dienne having less than 200 permanent residents, the entirely self-caught cook was not expecting crowds.

“I wanted it to be a low-key thing,” said the 44-year-old, who was looking for a bit of a break after spending more than a decade cooking and serving day and night at Le Timbre [postage stamp], a tiny but much-loved Parisian eatery.

“Looking at it from that point of view, it’s been a bit of a disaster,” he told AFP.

“I was hoping to wind down with a quiet little place were you could get a nice slice of ham and cheese. I failed there,” he laughed. 

But word spread quickly around the Auvergne Volcanoes Regional Park in which the village is set, with locals flocking to wonder at the Englishman who could cook.

“By mid-July it was mad and I had to get a bit of help,” said Wright hours before he received the prize from Le Fooding, France’s trendiest food and restaurant guide.

Marks & Spencer

Wright’s unexpected victory — to him at least — came as the British supermarket chain Marks & Spencer was listed as one of the best places for takeaway food in the French capital by the same guide.

Parisians have long had a love affair with the brand and there was an outcry when it pulled out of France in 2001. But it returned with a vengeance five years ago and now has 18 outlets mostly selling food in and around the French capital.

Le Fooding picked out its “quinoa, avocado and Brazil nut salad”, “Devon scones” and vegan “Vegetable Kiev” for particular praise.

Wright was one of several foreign-born chefs honoured by the guide, with the Italian Giovanni Passerini named chef of the year for his “modern trattoria” in Paris.

Le Fooding, known for its unstuffy cosmopolitan approach, also honoured Japanese chefs Katsuaki Okiyama for his Parisian restaurants Abri and Abri Soba, and Moko Hirayama for his eatery Mokonuts.

Wright said he was a big fan of cabbage and loved marrying it with Cantal’s world famous “sausages, charcuterie and cheese”. 

“The locals have been great. Quite of a lot of people knew of me, because I have been coming down for the last eight years or so and I love the food from around here.”

“Others probably thought that [being English] I wouldn’t be capable of much more than a sandwich.”

Having closed the café for the winter, Wright plans to open for the February holidays, then reopen properly again from May to October.

Whether he has found the peace he was looking for when he moved to the country, is another matter. “Not really,” he joked. “But I don’t regret it. I love it there.”

KENNETT SQUARE, Pennsylvania — Veterinarians hope an innovative type of CT scan can advance medical care for horses and possibly be adapted for humans, eliminating the need for people to lie still inside a tube.

Robotic CT at the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school allows a horse to remain awake and standing as scanners on two mechanical arms move around it. The resulting high quality images, including some in 3D, for the first time offer detailed anatomical views of the animal in its normal, upright state.

That’s a huge difference from the standard CT for a horse, which requires administering anaesthesia, placing the animal on its side and manoeuvring a scanning unit around the affected area. Not all body parts fit in the machines.

Robotic CT “is much less stressful”, said Dr Barbara Dallap Schaer, medical director of Penn Vet’s New Bolton Centre. “It’s a pretty athletic event for horses to recover from general anaesthesia.”

The New York-based company 4DDI created the Equimagine system with components from robot manufacturer ABB. First unveiled at Penn last spring, 4DDI now has orders for more than a dozen units at equine facilities around the world, according to CEO Yiorgos Papaioannou.

“The word is spreading,” Papaioannou said.

At Penn, the large white robotic arms are installed at a barn at New Bolton Centre, the vet school’s hospital for large animals in the Philadelphia exurb of Kennett Square. Horses are given a mild sedative and walked into the facility for a scan that lasts less than a minute.

CT, or computed tomography, gives pictures of soft tissues that X-rays can’t. While traditional CT requires the subject to be still, this new system compensates for slight movement. Eventually, vets hope they will be able to capture CT images of a horse running on a treadmill.

The ease of imaging means more horses can get preventive scans, said Dr Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at New Bolton. As it stands, he said, many owners are reluctant to have their horses anaesthetised for a diagnostic procedure because recovery can be treacherous. As the animals emerge from unconsciousness and woozily struggle to find their footing, they risk catastrophic injury if they stumble.

“So the whole beauty of this technology, we hope, is that we’re going to be able to scan much greater numbers of patients much, much earlier in the process of things like stress-related injuries in a racehorse,” Richardson said.

For humans, the technology could be helpful when dealing with squirming children or claustrophobic adults. Doctors could also get clearer views of, say, spinal problems in a standing patient instead of relying on CT performed while the person is lying down. Penn’s translational research team has partnered with other hospitals to look at the possibilities.

“This is an interesting concept — the ability to image in your natural state,” said Raul Uppot, an assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School who is not involved in the research. “It does offer something that doesn’t currently exist in the market [for humans].”

Equimagine’s base cost is $545,000, according to Papaioannou, though he said some new customers are getting the equipment in exchange for a per-scan fee. The company plans to make another version of the system for smaller animals, he said.

Penn’s system was made possible through a donor, said Dallap Schaer, noting the cost was comparable to standard CT scanners. Overall cost for the images will be less than CT scans that require anaesthesia, she said.

Dennis Charles, of Allentown, brought his horse Bert to Penn Vet for an MRI earlier this year, before robotic CT was available. The procedure required anaesthesia, and Charles said he was incredibly nervous watching a wobbly Bert regain consciousness afterward.

Last month, the horse again needed imaging but was able to have robotic CT. Charles, who described the robotic system as looking like something out of “Star Wars”, said the scans assured him Bert’s leg injury had healed.

“They get really precise images,” he said. “I think it’s a tremendous piece of equipment.”

With a long history of making reliably tough yet comfortable cars — like the 504 saloon and estate — that effectively doubled as utilitarian vehicles in rugged locales, before there was a crossover segment, Peugeot’s arrival in the CUV and SUV niche may have been slow, but is coalescing into a carefully calculated and well-pitched line-up. Part of a move away from MPVs biased towards SUVs at Peugeot, the 3008 is set to be soon joined by a 7-seat 5008 SUV.

Launched globally in recent weeks and set to soon arrive in showrooms, the new 3008 is a more dedicated CUV that replaces a predecessor that was less distinctly pitched somewhere between MPV and CUV. Assertive in demeanour and sized to be practical and spacious yet manoeuvrable and agile, the 3008 line-up is initially offered with four engine options, including the range-topping 2.0 BlueHDI 180, to which the sportier and more luxurious GT trim level is exclusive for now.

Assertive aesthetic

With browed, slime and assertive fascia, high-set rear lights and high side door cladding, the 3008 emits an alert and urgent sense of movement. Meanwhile blacked out pillars create a floating roofline effect that is complemented by the GT version’s chrome glasshouse outlines that the 3008’s concept car like appeal and flowing design lines. Chunky and with sharp jutting lines and defined surfacing, the 3008 is a more complex and charismatic design than the one it replaces, but is more fluent and evocative than many rivals.

Bearing a distinctively assertive new Peugeot face reflecting the brand’s lion emblem, the 3008’s weaving chequered grille is flanked by browed and moody lights with claw like lines cutting through and framing its wide lower intake. A ridged clamshell bonnet further lends to its sportingly aggressive aesthetic, while  “three-claw” rear LED lights also reflect Peugeot’s emblem. The GT model exclusively features flared fenders, more aggressive bumper, full LED lights, stainless steel trim, dual exhausts and two-tonne paint demarcated at a sharp angle along the flank.

Muscular and efficient

Only available in 2.0 BlueHDI 180 guise the range-topping GT model is powered by a 2-litre common-rail turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine, as driven. The sort of mighty and efficient turbo diesel engine we could look forward to if or when regulations allow diesel passenger cars in future, the 3008 is in the meantime offered in 1.6-litre turbocharged THP 165 guise for Jordanian customers. Developing 178BHP at 3750rpm and vast 295lb/ft
torque at 2000rpm, the 2.0 BluHDI 180, however, returns hybrid-rivaling 4.8l/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency.

Accelerating from standstill to 100km/h in 8.9 seconds, through 80-120km/h in 5.5 seconds and capable of 207km/h, the BluHDI 180 is only offered with 6-speed automatic gearbox, and is brisk, muscular and bountiful on the road, dispatching steep inclines and overtaking with effortless ease. Well-balancing between fuel efficiency with robust performance in auto mode, the BluHDI 180 gearbox’s responsiveness and gear selection are mostly well-judged in auto mode. Sport mode shifting is more aggressive in keeping the engine in its full thrust mid-range sweet spot, and avoiding low-end lag, typical of virtually all turbo-diesel engines.

Refined and fluent

Smooth, responsive and abundant on the move, the BluHDI 180 is well refined with minimal low-end diesel clatter evident. Meanwhile, fixed steering column-mounted paddle shifters allow one to self-shift, which is more fun, but requires one to keep the 3008 in mid-range when tackling winding hill climbs. Front-driven across the range, the 3008 benefits from the absence of additional, weight cost and complexity of four-wheel drive. On the road it feels lighter, more alert, engaging and fluent without a front-biased 4WD system like rivals.

Built on Peugeot’s new EMP2 modular platform the new 30008 incorporates aluminium front wings and a lightweight tailgate, to shed 100kg over its predecessor. The best equipped and most powerful 3008, the diesel-powered GT is also the heaviest of a relatively light group. Weighing in at 1,465kg, the GT nevertheless feels agile and manoeuvrable through winding switchbacks, hill climbs and narrow roads, and features specific suspension tuning better suited to its weight, more powerful engine and wider, grippier and exclusive 235/50R19 footwear.

Supple and settled

Stable, settled and refined at speed, the GT’s springs seem tauter than other 3008 models with less vertical pitch over crests but similarly buttoned down, confident and settled damping on rebound. Through corners the GT’s suspension well controls body lean while ride quality remains supple and comfortable over imperfect surfaces. Benefiting from the same quick, responsive, alert and positive steering, the GT feels fun and engaging through corners for its segment, turning in tidily and delivering the right level of steering resistance and feel.

Heavier, tauter and more powerful, the GT’s turn-in is not quite as crisp as lighter 3008 versions, with slight understeer if pushed too hard and a touch of torque steer if one comes back on power too hard and early when exiting. However, the GT’s enormous torque output more than compensates as it bounds out of corners and up steep inclines with disdainfully muscular ease. Meanwhile, the absence of four-wheel drive allows for more engaging, lighter and adjustable chassis control, and is compensated for with optional brake and traction control-based electronic off-road assistance systems.

Premium polish

A most convincing addition to Peugeot’s more premium direction in recent years, the 3008’s cabin is stylishly designed, ergonomically accommodating, well-finished with quality materials and features numerous advanced convenience and driver aid features. With driver-focused cockpit style design, relatively high seating position and small low-set flat top and bottom steering wheel that falls nicely to hand the 3008 features the best yet application of Peugeot’s contemporary design of placing the instrument panel above the steering. Working exactly as intended in the 3008, this provides clear uniumpeded views of the instrument panel and road ahead.

A more premium offering in its segment, the 3008 notably features a configurable digital i-Cockpit instrument panel — similar to Audi — and a user-friendly tablet-style infotainment screen in the centre, from which one can access most functions to allow for a reduced button count and less cluttered cabin. Plush materials even include real optional oak trim and leather seats, while seating is highly and comfortable in front and far above average for larger passengers in the rear. Emphasising the sensory experience with quality materials and textures, the 3008 also features scented air circulation, high quality sound system and massaging seats.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2.0-litre, turbo diesel, transverse 4 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 85 x 88mm

Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, common-rail direct injection

Gearbox: 6-speed auto, front-wheel drive

0-100km/h: 8.9 seconds

80-120km/h: 5.5 seconds

0-1000-metres: 30.2 seconds

Maximum speed: 207km/h

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 178 (180) [133] @3,750rpm

Specific power: 89.1BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 121.5BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 295 (400) @2,000rpm

Specific torque: 200.3Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 273Nm/tonne

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 

5.5-/4.4-/4.8 litres/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 124g/km

Fuel tank: 53 litres

Length: 4,447mm

Width: 1,841mm

Height: 1,615mm

Wheelbase: 2,675mm

Ground clearance: 219mm

Track, F/R: 1601/1,610mm

Overhang, F/R: 923/849mm

Boot capacity, min/max: 591-/1,580 litres

Headroom, F/R: 915/912mm

Soulder room, F/R: 1,493/1,484mm

Kerb weight: 1,465kg

Tyres, F/R: 235/50R19

Telepathy
Amir Tag Elsir
Translated by William Hutchins
Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2015
Pp. 169

In “Telepathy”, Sudanese writer Amir Tag Elsir plots a quirky, fast-paced novel that explores the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction, the power of words over reality, and the unexpected perils of the writing profession. Like Elsir, the protagonist is a Sudanese writer. He tells the story in a convincing first person narrative that draws the reader inside his head. Yet, one never learns his name, which only serves to increase identification with him. 

The protagonist writer is ostensibly successful, having published many novels. He imagines that he is in control of his life until the day when the main character of his latest novel, “Hunger’s Hopes”, appears at the book launch and demands his attention. From then on, the writer feels he is losing control and finds it increasingly difficult to disentangle what is real from what is fiction. 

While the writer often derives characters from real people he has encountered, and travels abroad for new inspiration, he does not write about experiences that do not involve him. As he states confidently, “I have never written a novel based on an experience that some random person had and that I happened to hear about. I have my own loose-fitting storytelling shirt that never feels too tight on the body of my writing.” (pp. 17-18) 

But his confidence is shaken and his life turned upside down when Nishan Hamza Nishan appears. Ironically, Nishan is a character he thought he had created entirely from his own imagination, right down to his unlikely name, but here is a real person whose name and life trajectory, including bouts of schizophrenia, match the character exactly. To make matters worse, the novel ends with Nishan contracting incurable cancer, confronting the writer with a double puzzle: How did this happen, and can he reverse Nishan’s fate? He has written Nishan’s life, can he rewrite his future? 

Solving these puzzles catalyses a lot of soul-searching on the part of the writer. It also takes him to many different parts of Khartoum, some familiar and others not, such as the miserable squatters’ quarter in the midst of a neighbourhood under construction where Nishan lives, and a mental hospital.

Though sceptical about such phenomena, he surmises that Nishan must have sent him his story by telepathy, especially when he recalls how quickly he wrote “Hunger’s Hope” — “faster than any previous novel, driven by powerful inspiration… the events had seemed to form an organic chain that created its own links”. (p. 35)

The writer’s other experiences alert him to the mixing of fact and fiction, and to the power of words and select images to create new realities, like when he opens Facebook, which allows people to project themselves as they like, not as they are. He detects similar deceptiveness in the hundreds of “likes” registered for diverse, untraceable purposes. Even ordinary telephone conversations and text messages can lead to illusions, adding to the writer’s confusion and despair. 

The title of the writer’s novel, “Hunger’s Hopes”, hints at his (and the author’s) concern about issues of social justice. Though he is not an idealistic do-gooder, his concern is genuine. “Telepathy” is replete with references to the problems of modern-day Sudan — the deplorable living conditions of the poor, migrants fleeing famine and war, government neglect, unjust imprisonment, etc. The novel is also peopled by many fascinating, intelligent, creative Sudanese (as well as some dubious ones), who are affected by both the positive and negative sides of globalisation, but only positioned to access its most frivolous aspects. 

Amir Tag Elsir is the nephew of Tayeb Salih, who wrote the widely acclaimed post-colonial novel, “The Season of Migration to the North” (1967). Half a century later, Elsir is proving himself a major voice on the Arab literary scene, commenting on our post-modern age while telling an intriguing story.

WASHINGTON — Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day causes an average of 150 mutations a year in lung cells, according to a new study that identifies specific ways smoke exposure damages DNA.

The research, published on Thursday in the journal Science, analyses and compares tumours, providing the first accurate measure of the devastating genetic damage smoking inflicts not only in lungs but also in other organs not directly exposed to smoke.

Although it was previously known that smoking contributes to at least 17 types of human cancers, it had remained unclear exactly how cigarettes caused tumours, according to the researchers from Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States.

Although they saw the largest number of genetic mutations in lung tissue, other parts of the body also displayed changes in DNA, helping explain how smoking causes various types of cancer.

Cigarettes contain more than 7,000 different chemicals, of which 70 are known to be carcinogenic, the researchers said, pointing to the complexity of how smoke interacts with the body.

"This study offers fresh insights into how tobacco smoke causes cancer," said Ludmil Alexandrov of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, one of the study's main co-authors.

"Before now, we had a large body of epidemiological evidence linking smoking with cancer, but now we can actually observe and quantify the molecular changes in the DNA due to cigarette smoking," he added.

"With this study, we have found that people who smoke a pack a day develop an average of 150 extra mutations in their lungs every year, which explains why smokers have such a higher risk of developing lung cancer."

In the first comprehensive analysis of the DNA of cancers linked to smoking, the scientists studied more than 5,000 tumors, comparing smokers' cancers with those of people who had never smoked.

They found specific molecular features of damage in the smokers' DNA, determined by the number of those mutations in different tumours.

More than 6 million deaths a year 

Although the number of mutations within cancer cells varies between people, the new study identifies the additional "mutational load" tobacco smoking causes.

In other affected organs, the study shows smoking a pack a day causes an estimated average of 97 mutations in each cell of the larynx; 39 in the pharynx; 23 in the mouth; 18 in the bladder; and six mutations in every cell of the liver each year.

The research shows at least five distinct ways smoking damages DNA, the most common of which is found in most types of cancer: accelerating the speed of a cellular clock that appears to mutate DNA prematurely.

"Our research indicates that the way tobacco smoking causes cancer is more complex than we thought," Mike Stratton of Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said.

"Indeed, we do not fully understand the underlying causes of many types of cancer," he added, pointing to other known causes, such as obesity.

But the new study of smoking-related cancers can help scientists better understand how all cancers develop and, possibly, how they can be prevented, Stratton said.

"The genome of every cancer provides a kind of 'archaeological record, in the DNA code, reflecting the exposure that causes mutations,” he added.

Smoking — the largest preventable cause of death — is responsible for at least six million deaths a year worldwide.

If current trends continue, the World Health Organisation says, smoking will kill more than a billion people in the 21st century.