Features

DUBAI — Crowned the region’s top car at the Middle East Car of the Year ceremony, the Ford Mustang becomes the second car to claim this prestigious award. Voted through a long, arduous and thorough nomination and 10 criteria scoring process the Mustang prevailed as the jury’s overall top choice at the second annual MECOTY awards, in hotly contested process against the best that the motoring industry has to offer in the region.

The region’s only independent and most credible and authentic motoring award, the MECOTY awards distinguished from single publication awards in that they draw on a broader pool of expertise and wider scope of opinion, as provided by a 12-member jury panel representing an even larger number of print, online and TV media. Composed of established motoring journalists and specialists of different nationalities, the Jury panel represents media based in the UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

Based on juror test drive evaluations throughout the year MECOTY features 18 different nominated categories, and a top overall Middle East Car of the Year recognition, awarded on initial category voting and two further rounds of voting. Meanwhile, the jury awards are complemented by a vox pop Public Car of the Year Award, given based on online voting, and claimed by the Kia Sorento SUV this year.

Debuting last year and organised by Custom Events LLC, the 2015 MECOTY awards ceremony was held at the Raffles Hotel in Dubai, on October 29 this year some two weeks ahead of the Dubai Motor Show.

The 2016 MECOTY awards will be held in April to coincide with the Abu Dhabi Motor Show and other motoring events organised by Custom Events.

Closely contested, the MECOTY ceremony was an evening of ups and downs for manufacturers, and included some anticipated category winners and some unexpected victories. Among the hotly tipped as strong top prize contenders, the Ford Mustang won the overall award with the Audi TT and jaguar XE coming in as runners-up, and all winners in their respective categories. Cementing a double win for Ford, the Focus ST proved its resilience in winning the best Performance hatchback category, while Mercedes-Benz claimed three category victories.

Closely competitive yet with different characters, the Infiniti Q70 took a difficult victory over the Audi A6 in the Midsize Executive Sedan segment, the Chevrolet Tahoe over the Ford Expedition in the Large SUV segment and the Ferrari 488 GTB against the sensational Lamborghini 610-4 Huracan among Supercars. Notable upsets included the thoroughly well-rounded and versatile Land Rover Discovery Sport and the innovative aluminium body and ever-popular Ford F150 both missing victories in their respective categories.

Middle East Car of the Year & Best Sports Coupe: Ford Mustang

Launched regionally in spectacular fashion with a Burj Khalifa-top reveal, the sixth generation Ford Mustang is theatrically visceral in charisma and design, with potent and assertive lines, curves and details. Capturing its classic muscle car heritage, the new Mustang strays away from mere retro design to a more contemporary reinterpretation, and perfectly incorporates Ford’s current design face. Appealing to both heart and head, the new Mustang is the first with independent — rather than live axle — rear suspension and reaps handling, refinement and comfort rewards. Affordable and iconic it features three engine options, including entry-level V6, brutishly rumbling V8 and muscular yet efficient 2.3-litre turbocharged four-cylinder.

Best Premium Sports Coupe & Middle East Car of the Year runner-up: Audi TT

Leaner, meaner and better than ever, the latest Audi TT won the Best Premium Sports Coupe Award against the BMW 2-Series Coupe and came in runner-up for the overall Middle East Car of the Year award. Stylish, compact and built on Audi’s latest compact platform utilising more lightweight materials and powerfully efficient turbocharged engines, the TT is refined, quick, sure-footed and nimbly agile. Available with front- or Quattro four-wheel drive, it also features Audi’s virtual cockpit instrumentation and infotainment system.

Best Performance Hatchback: Ford Focus ST

Revamped for 2015 with revised suspension rates, interior, and fascia, the Ford Focus ST’s visceral appeal, sublime chassis and accessible pricing proved too much even for the mighty and thoroughly impressive, classy, grippy and 276BHP four-wheel drive Volkswagen Golf R. An enduring motoring enthusiast favourite with old school hot hatch thrills, the brutishly punchy all-conquering 252BHP Focus ST showcases Ford’s front-drive chassis fine-tuning expertise, and is blessed with engagingly intuitive and eager handling, communicative steering feel and authentic unpretentious charisma. 

Best Midsize Executive Sedan: Infiniti Q70

Based on a now long-serving platform, offered with two engine options regionally and facing off against an all-new, thoroughly high tech and extensively varied Audi A6 line-up, the Infiniti Q70’s category win was the evening’s first upset. Its victory is, however, deserved testament to Infiniti’s knack for combining sporty handling with smooth ride comfort. With rear-drive balance and Infiniti’s eager, linear and much-acclaimed high-revving 329BHP V6 engine, the Q70 delivers a sharply engaging driving experience with superb throttle control and keen pricing.

List of MECOTY awards

Middle East Car of the Year (jury award): Ford Mustang

Runner-ups: Audi TT, Jaguar XE

Best Midsize Sedan: Hyundai Sonata

Other nominee: Honda Accord

Best Compact Executive Sedan: Jaguar XE

Other nominee: Mercedes-Benz C-Class

Best Compact Executive Coupe: BMW 4-Series Coupe

Other nominees: Cadillac ATS Coupe, Lexus RC350

Best Compact Executive Performance: Mercedes-Benz CLA45 AMG

Other nominee: Audi S3 Sedan

Best Midsize Executive Sedan: Infiniti Q70

Other nominee: Audi A6

Best Large Luxury Sedan: Bentley Mulsanne Speed

Other nominee: Mercedes-Benz S-Class Maybach

Best Compact Utility Vehicle: Nissan Juke

Other nominee: Renault Captur

Best Compact SUV: Honda CRV

Other nominees: Kia Sorento, Nissan X-Trail, Jeep Renegade

Best Compact Premium SUV: Lexus NX200 Turbo

Other nominees: Land Rover Discovery Sport, Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class, BMW X4

Best Large SUV: Chevrolet Tahoe

Other nominees: Ford Expedition, GMC Yukon

Best Premium Performance SUV: Land Rover Range Rover Sport SVR

Other nominees: BMW X6 M, Porsche Cayenne Turbo

Best Truck: GMC Sierra

Other nominees: Ford F150, Chevrolet Silverado

Best Performance Hatchback: Ford Focus ST

Other nominees: Volkswagen Golf R, Hyundai Veloster Turbo, Renault Clio RS

Best Sports Coupe: Ford Mustang

Other nominee: Dodge Challenger

Best Premium Sports Coupe: Audi TT

Other nominee: BMW 2-Series

Best Premium Performance Coupe: Mercedes-Benz AMG GT-S

Other nominees: Jaguar F-Type R, Porsche 911 GT3 RS

Best Grand Tourer: Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe

Other nominees: Bentley Continental GT W12, Aston Martin Vanquish

Best Supercar: Ferrari 488 GTB

Other nominee: Lamborghini LP610-4 Huracan

Public Car of the Year: Kia Sorento

Leisurely Islam: Negotiating geography and morality in Shi’ite South Beirut

Deeb, Lara and Mona Harb

Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2013

Pp. 286

Many people, Lebanese or otherwise, have a rather uniform image of Dahiya (south Beirut), as being poor, socially conservative, drab and even scary. In contrast, what Lara Deeb and Mona Harb discovered in researching the area’s new café culture was an amazing diversity. “New forms of moral leisure in Dahiya highlight the area as a casually lived urban space as opposed to its all-too-common sensationalised image as a ‘Hizbullah stronghold’.” (p. 27) 

This is not to imply that Hizbullah is at odds with the new trend. In fact, the party has diversified its cultural activities, and entrepreneurs closely linked to it are involved in some of the new leisure sites.

Deeb and Harb are keen observers, interpreting what might seem to be random details from the decor of cafés, restaurants and amusement parks, to the clientele’s attire and choice of time, place, companions and seating arrangements, into a coherent whole. 

Adding to their onsite observations, they analyse relevant passages of Lebanon’s recent history, providing background for the heart of their research: extensive interviews with café staff and their clientele, well as politicians, entrepreneurs and jurisprudents. Approaching the subject from these three angles, they paint a fascinating picture of a community, a neighbourhood, a vibrant youth culture, two generations of Dahiya residents and their relationship with the city and its other communities. 

Their focus is to examine how new public leisure spaces relate to ideas about morality, geography and status. In their view, Dahiya’s new cafés “allow pious youths to spatially appropriate the city, and move away from family, religious, and political authorities, opening up interesting venues for change”. (p. 207)

Just as perceptions of Dahiya reflect the particularly Lebanese intertwining of sect, politics, geography and class, so the growth of the entertainment sector there is a result of similar factors. The 2000 liberation of South Lebanon from Israeli occupation was a seminal event for the Shiite community in particular, fuelling “both people’s desires and market possibilities for leisure”. (p. 61)

Especially the youth of an expanding middle class felt it was now okay to go out and have fun. At the same time, with the hope of peace, expatriate Lebanese Shiites returned ready to invest, and some chose to open cafés. Subsequent political polarisation across Lebanon, however, soon created new political/sectarian boundaries, and made many in Dahiya tend to stay close to home. The emerging local leisure sites made people feel safe and comfortable that their moral values would be respected, particularly the prohibition of alcohol. 

Though the authors focus on the local causes of the emergence of Dahiya’s entertainment sector, they also note that it parallels “the growth of a broader transnational Muslim consumer market where faith and fun intersect”. (p. 62)

Still, comparison of Dahiya’s new café culture with a similar phenomenon in Egypt, Iran and Turkey, reveals much about leisure in south Beirut to be very specifically Lebanese. 

While the prohibition on alcohol was a red line for the great majority, the authors found that their interlocutors among the younger generation were quite flexible on many other issues, especially when compared to the previous generation (those over thirty) who had built the Shiite movement in Lebanon and endured decades of war and instability. Deeb and Harb attribute the flexibility of youth to the “complex moral landscape” in which they live, and “the existence of multiple religious authorities, a fraught sectarian political context, class mobility, and a generation that takes religion for granted but wants to have fun”. (p. 10)

They are frequently confronted by social and moral dilemmas, such as what to do upon meeting Christian friends from work or university who suggest a café where alcohol is served. The dilemma can also be closer to home: Do you attend the wedding of a relative if you know alcohol is going to be served, or there will be dancing or singing you consider inappropriate? In explaining the flexibility of youth and their acceptance of others’ difference, the authors highlight the great popularity of the late Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadallah, who emphasised individual choice and responsibility more than the other jurisprudents to whom Shiites in Lebanon refer for guidance. 

While many from Dahiya go often to other parts of Beirut for study, work or fun, some now maintain that “one can have everything without leaving south Beirut”, an idea that “is relatively new and highlights Dahiya’s transformation from a marginalised suburb to a vibrant urban area with its own leisure sector”. (p 180)

The authors even suggest that “the most interesting urban changes in the capital today are not located in its classic centres of downtown or Ras Beirut but rather in its new centres, established through political violence, wars, and displacements, and once stigmatised as peripheries.” (p. 207)

DUBAI — The city where big spawns bigger, where to stay ahead, be relevant and competitive one has to permanently reinvent oneself has been doing just that, taking the Downtown Design, in its third edition, one step further by hosting the Dubai Design Week between October 26 and 31.

The event, held for the first time in the Dubai Design District, shortly called by acronym-loving organisers d3, brought together international and regional designers and buyers, and gave the public the opportunity to discover products of some of the world’s contemporary talent.

The just-inaugurated d3, two years ago on the drawing board and now a gleaming collection of buildings in the same attractive architectural style that, according to literature promoting it, “is not just a business district; it is an intelligently curated space designed for people and businesses operating in the fields of design, fashion, art and luxury”, wishes to be a place where designers cater to contemporary business needs, an inclusive space “for the entire creative community, from global brands to start-ups, from established names to new talent”.

What better place to start, then, than the design week, a massive happening that showcased design from the Middle East and beyond, and held talk programmes, workshops and panel discussions?

The design week also served as an introduction to the design scene in the UAE, offering insight to those interested in either the local or global design scene while addressing local concerns and issues of international impact, such as the human-centred design movement, the purpose and value of “design weeks” worldwide and the development of the design industry.

Established by Art Dubai Group in partnership with Dubai Design District, Dubai Design Week was also supported by Dubai Design and Fashion Council and Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. The intention was to place Dubai on the map as a design hub, “shining the international spotlight on the city and its exciting design talent”, according to organisers.

“In addition, in the spirit of collaboration and mirroring the city’s global outlook, the week also offers a platform for regional and international designers and brands... encompasses culture, education and entertainment, spanning multiple disciplines of design, from graphic and product design to architecture and industrial design.”

Over 120 designers from 35 countries took part in the design week, alongside “some of the world’s most influential industry figureheads, representatives from global academic institutions” and creative individuals from across the Middle East.

The aim: “To make a statement as bold and attention-grabbing as the spirit of the city itself, while encouraging the world to look beyond the expected and discover the balance of imagination and innovation that drives Dubai forward.”

There certainly was no shortage of imagination.

A tour of Abwab, a series of six pavilions built to showcase the work of designers, studios and curators from six different countries in the MENASA (Middle East North Africa and South Asia) region, was evidence of not only unbounded imagination, but also of activism, preoccupation with human condition and desire to maintain and recreate past values.

The Jordanian pavilion hosted the “Swing project”, an installation examining the “power of transformation through imagination”.

Appealing to the child in every human being, three architects, of which two are also visual artists, chose as subject the swing (murjeiha in Arabic), according to one of the artists, Dina Haddadin, “an intuitive game that has not need to explain”, that is interactive, lets the imagination free and defies gravity. Like in “empty canvas where you let your imagination free vs the heaviness of reality”, says Haddadin.

The seats, “representing the solid and grounded element with solid ideals and heritage from the Jordanian and Palestinian geology” are made of stone that bears the name of the cities and villages of their source: Ajloun, Karak, Halabat, Qabatia, Taffouh.

Swinging under milky fabric that represents “the more volatile and airy element that accompanies the dreaminess of imagination” and that contrasts with the heaviness

of the stone seat, the swings produce each a different sound, “like a symphony”, adding to the element of play and stimulating more senses.

Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates were also present with interesting, thought-provoking installations that tackle, in the Saudi case, gender roles and the equestrian tradition through the use of saddles as seating pieces — creation of Aya Al Bitar — or, again appealing to the child in us, cleverly using the “Game of nine”, or “Mother of nine” (Um tse’), listed as one of the 10 most important games in history, played as far as 1400 BC, to emphasise texture, the Saudi culture and the

real interaction while playing, now replaced by “joysticks and no real grasp or bond with the objects used to play the game”.

“Brilliant Beirut”, curated and designed by Rana Salam, illustrates how the city, “with its melange of cultures, has produced world-

renowned designers and remains at the forefront of the design industry in the Arab world”.

The exhibition documents the development of design in the Lebanese capital over the past seven decades, since the country’s independence in 1943, pinpointing

key designers and monuments, and “great achievements that built the city’s reputation for its progressive design scene”, while shedding chronological light on the milestones of the city’s design history.

In the “Global grad show”, 10 universities present “the next generation of innovation”, featuring the work of 50 young international designers and teams, “each selected for their creative approach to problem solving and their potential to make a lasting improvement to human society across six themes: construction, home, health, memory, play and work”.

It was an impressive display of imagination and desire to make the planet a better place, which gives one hope for the future.

Placed in strategic locations throughout the city, 13 installations by local and international designers intended to challenge conventions or demonstrate a strong sense of belonging, exploring regional decorative traditions, technological possibility and human environment.

More than 100 events took place all over the city involving individual designers, studios, artists, architects, educational and cultural institutions, retail stores, iconic brands, trade professionals, authors and thinkers.

The Dubai Design Week was held under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice chairman of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority.

Following a Mediterranean diet high in fish and low in meat may slow down the signs of ageing in your brain, according to a new study.

Researchers found that among 684 elderly people with an average age of 80, those who stuck more closely to a Mediterranean diet that includes lots of vegetables, legumes, cereals, fish and monounsaturated fats such as olive oil, had larger brain volumes than those who did not.

When the study participants were divided into two groups — those who adhered more closely to a Mediterranean diet, and those who did not — the difference in average brain size was 13.11 millilitres, or the equivalent to five years of ageing, the authors reported.

“In general, people’s brains tend to shrink with age and this can be associated with cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Yian Gu, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and the lead author of the paper.

“Our study found that the more you adhere to the Mediterranean diet, the more protection you get for your brain,” she said.

The findings were published in the journal Neurology.

This study follows one by the same group that found adherence to a Mediterranean diet is also associated with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Other research has shown that following the Mediterranean diet, which also includes less intake of meat, dairy and saturated fats, is associated with reduced risk of breast cancer and can halve the risk of heart disease.

In the most recent study, Gu and her colleagues were specifically interested in looking at the brains of healthy people who had not been diagnosed with dementia. The research team collected information on the multiethnic participants’ diets, and also asked them to undergo an MRI scan. All participants hailed from northern Manhattan.

The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet are increasingly well known, but researchers are still not certain why the diet is so advantageous.

“It has been suggested that multiple mechanisms are involved,” Gu said. “This assortment of foods have different nutrients that can have different biological effects in the body.”

She added that though her study shows a strong association between following a Mediterranean diet and brain health, she cannot yet issue an official recommendation.

The study was cross-sectional, meaning it allowed her team to compare two groups of people in a single moment in time. In the future, she said, she would like to see a longitudinal study that follows people over time.

“We don’t know why the brain atrophies in older age, but if we can find some factors that are not genetic, that people can change in their own lives to protect themselves and prevent disease, that would be a very important message,” she said.

MANILA — Cyclist Jack Yabut is on a perilous and likely futile crusade to help the Philippine capital beat “Carmageddon”, but even if his campaign fails — he will have saved time on his own commute.

Traffic in the megacity of 12 million people has reached crisis levels this year, as record car sales have added to long-term problems of decrepit railways, a stunted road network and a law-of-the-jungle driving culture.

In response to the worsening traffic, President Benigno Aquino recently deployed extra police to some of Manila’s worst choke points with orders for them to force recalcitrant drivers to obey laws.

But, with relatively little infrastructure spending under way, Aquino has been widely seen as otherwise helpless in trying to ease what enraged commuters and the national press have branded “Carmageddon”.

Cycling has barely featured in the discussion of remedies but Yabut, part of a growing community of daredevil bike riding advocates, believes that is a mistake.

“Cycling offers an immediate solution to the traffic and pollution problems,” Yabut, 55, told AFP after dodging trucks and buses while riding along EDSA, one of the city’s most important and gridlocked roads.

While commuters in cars or on over-crowded buses regularly spend more than two hours travelling just 15 kilometres along EDSA and its arteries, Yabut does that in under 30 minutes.

“It seems crazy to me to be stuck in traffic when you can cycle so much more quickly.”

But, for most drivers, cyclists such as Yabut are the crazy ones.

Killer roads

Cycling fatalities are common, and tens of thousands of people have signed online petitions calling for authorities to improve road safety conditions for bike riders.

“It is very dangerous,” acknowledged Yabut, a father-of-two and president of cycling advocacy group The Firefly Brigade.

Advocates are lobbying for bike lanes, which are nearly non-existent, as well as to educate drivers that cyclists have the right to share the roads.

“Opening bike lanes is one part of it. But the bigger effort is changing people’s perceptions and attitudes,” Yabut said.

Among the dangers, cyclists have to negotiate mini-bus “jeepneys” and buses that randomly stop in the middle of roads for passengers, or sweep out suddenly into lanes meant for oncoming traffic.

Most drivers also routinely ignore pedestrian crossings and block intersections at traffic lights, while indicators are rarely used and poorly enforced emission standards mean badly polluting vehicles roam free.

One of the chief strategists for the capital’s transport network, Emerson Carlos, said cyclists should be an important part of the traffic solution.

But, in a candid interview, he said there were few options for them and the ideal of bikes sharing the road with vehicles was unwise.

“It is not safe for cyclists to share the roads with motor vehicles,” said Carlos, the Metro Manila Development Authority’s assistant general manager for operations.

He said city authorities were trying to establish bike lanes but only on footpaths where there were already many other obstacles, such as electric poles, illegally parked cars and pedestrians.

“The problem is cyclists were an afterthought. We can’t move the electric poles,” he said.

Urban dreams

Meanwhile, Carlos and other city planners appear focused on much bigger problems.

With a fast-growing middle class, the Philippines is in the midst of an unprecedented car-buying frenzy.

An extra 600,000 new vehicles are expected to hit the capital’s roads this year, taking the total to 3 million, according to Carlos.

“Where are all those cars going to go? We already don’t have enough roads,” Carlos said.

Global road navigation app Waze recently reported that Manila had the world’s worst traffic, based on a survey of its users and its own data.

Carlos lamented the lack of other options for commuters, citing figures showing the city’s rail network was much smaller than in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and other Southeast Asian capitals.

“It’s pathetic,” he said of the rail network. “We need an efficient, safe and comfortable mass transport system.”

A “Dream Plan” recently adopted by the government to fix the urban chaos envisages $65 billion of infrastructure spending over the next 15 years, which would include building a subway system.

But, in a nation bedevilled by government corruption and a chaotic democracy that has seen similar strategies collapse, most people expect the plan will remain a dream.

With few other solutions, cycling offers the opportunity for quick and cheap “big wins” in the traffic war, according to Julia Nebrija, another bike riding advocate and a prominent urban planner.

“It’s not rocket science. And it will have a big impact,” she said, citing measures such as creating cycling lanes on major roads that have the space, building bike racks at transport hubs and installing showers at offices.

Nebrija and Yabut said one district in the capital had successfully started to introduce a bike network, proving it was possible.

In the meantime, Yabut intends to continue riding with an almost missionary zeal, hoping that his high stakes, traffic-beating exploits will inspire others.

“We need people to be role models... to be crazy enough to bicycle, so that motorists and pedestrians will be encouraged to bicycle too,” he said.

Surprise! Office Suite 2016 is here. And yes, it is “new and improved”, according to support.office.com.

The introduction by Microsoft last summer of its new Windows 10 marked the ninth major version, since its inception circa 1985, of what is still — against all odds — the world’s most widely used operating software for small computers. Consumers were expecting it since 2014 and therefore it didn’t come as a big surprise. Moreover no other major release by Microsoft was really expected this year.

This is why the announcement of the new Office Suite 2016 last month by the company was in a way a surprise. Especially that it was made quickly available; a mere 4 weeks after Microsoft had announcement it.

Many users are still happy with Office 2007, 2010 or 2013, the three previous versions of the famous suite. Given this very regular three-year interval pattern since 2007, perhaps the 2016 edition shouldn’t come as a surprise after all.

Surprise or not here it is, with the usual list of additional features. These are, mainly, about sharing data and documents, friendlier ways to attach files to messages, new chart types, smoother integration with Skype (remember, it was bought by Microsoft back in 2011), and a more powerful data export from Access to Excel. I for one was disappointed not to see any major improvement in Access per se — only minor ones it seems have been introduced.

Are these improvements worth moving to 2016 if you are already happy using the excellent and powerful Office 2010 or 2013? It all depends on whether you consider yourself a power user or a regular one and would benefit from the additions, despite the fact that these make perfect sense anyway.

One point is worth pondering in any case: perhaps Office doesn’t need to be upgraded as frequently as Windows. Indeed, over the years the latter has received significant changes and improvement, essentially aimed at enhancing its stability, its graphic interface and its speed. There is little doubt that Microsoft has succeeded in doing so. However, when it comes to Office, users tend to agree that it has been good and stable since its 2007 edition (only the 2003 and the ones before were seen as somewhat flawed, especially their Access database part). So, why the rush to release a new Office now?

Just like it is encouraging you to upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 to 10, the company wants you to move up to Office 2016. Fair enough, except that in the first case the upgrade is free (at least till December, 31 2015), whereas there is money to pay in the second case. As usual, licences to buy Office are more expensive that Windows licences.

Despite promotional discounts now announced Office remains an expensive product. Arguably worth the money but expensive anyway!

There’s the usual set of categories that are made to better suit one’s needs and business. From the “Home & Student Office” copy to the “Office Professional” one, prices vary from about $150 to $400. Slightly less expensive upgrades are available not only from regular Office versions but also from the online Office 365.

In the end credit must be given where due, and when you think of all that you can accomplish with the set of applications that make Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, Access, PowerPoint, etc.), the product certainly is worth every penny. It’s a whole world of features and functionality that cover an incredible range of tasks and computing needs and it has definitely gotten smarter over the years.

After all the combination of Windows and Office constitutes the very core of personal computing. Naturally, you may want or need to add software products like Photoshop, browsers like Chrome or FireFox, and probably a few others, but Windows and Office remain the pillars on which your computer is built and that help you to work. 

LONDON — Burdened with a poor reputation for customer service, facing increasingly fierce competition and under pressure to hit challenging financial targets, the cyberattack at TalkTalk could not have come at a worse time for the British telecom firm.

Chief Executive Dido Harding shocked customers last week when she said that the broadband, TV, mobile and fixed-line telephony services company had been hacked, potentially putting the private details of its 4 million customers into the hands of criminals.

The company has since said the attack was not as serious as first feared, with only some customers affected and the data not of the sort that would enable criminals to steal money.

But analysts say the cyberattack is likely to damage the firm’s reputation and require heavy spending to repair it.

“TalkTalk doesn’t go into this in the rudest of financial health, by any means,” Arete analyst Steve Malcolm told Reuters.

The hack is likely to compound what was already growing troubles at the firm, founded 12 years ago to target the budget market as a wholesale fixed line phone services subsidiary of mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse and demerged in 2010 after a series of acquisitions.

Two years later it launched TalkTalk Mobile as a virtual operator and also moved into pay-TV to better compete with BT, Sky and Virgin Media but has had to increase prices along with the rest of the market as the so-called “quad-play” market develops.

In a bid to reassure investors that it can continue to compete it has also set itself two challenging targets to be achieved by the full-year 2017 — improving its core earnings margin to 25 per cent from the 13.6 per cent it recorded in the last financial year ended March 2015 and growing its annual revenues on a compound basis by 5 per cent.

The market was already sceptical about the earnings target, with analysts’ consensus forecast for earnings at about £402 million for the 2017 financial year, well below the around £475 million the margin target would imply.

“One of the ways they needed to hit their targets was with lower churn numbers, higher customer additions and lower costs, so this probably pushes out their forecasts by a year or 18 months,” said Matthew Brennan, senior fund manager at Brown Shipley, which holds around 0.5 per cent of TalkTalk’s stock.

James Barford at Enders Analysis said TalkTalk would suffer reputational damage, which could hamper planned cost cuts,

“Given they were in a process of taking costs out of their operations, that would be interrupted at the least by what has gone on in the last few days,” he said.

If customers decided to look around for alternatives, they might discover that the gap between TalkTalk’s prices and those of its bigger rivals had narrowed, particularly with offers such as a year’s free broadband with line rental of £17.40 a month on offer from Sky.

Customers might be willing to accept poorer customer service and a perception of lower security standards if there was a big discount, but they would be less forgiving if the difference was marginal, one analyst said.

Meanwhile TalkTalk has made some improvements to its customer service but is still ranked behind its big fixed-line rivals, according to the regulator. While it has paused its marketing effort following the cyberattack it is likely to have to increase its spending in future to rebuild its brand.

Analysts said they did not have enough information to judge whether TalkTalk was at fault for the attack, but they did note that this was the firm’s third such breach this year.

UK data protection watchdog The Information Commissioner’s Office, which examines whether a company has properly protected personal data, said it was aware of the incident and was liaising with the police.

Two years ago the ICO fined Sony £250,000 after its PlayStation Network Platform was hacked in 2011, compromising the personal data of millions of its users. The maximum fine the ICO can impose is £500,000.

Released on bail

A 15-year-old boy arrested in Northern Ireland in connection with a huge cyberattack on telecoms company TalkTalk has been released on bail, police said on Tuesday.

The boy, who has not been publicly named, was arrested on Monday in connection with last week’s attack. It was one of the biggest in Britain and may have led to the theft of personal data from among the firm’s more than 4 million customers.

Police arrested the boy on the suspicion of Computer Misuse Act offences and searched his home — a small terraced property on a housing estate where the curtains were drawn on Tuesday morning, according to a Reuters photographer.

“A 15-year-old youth, arrested in County Antrim yesterday as part of the investigation into the alleged theft of data from the firm TalkTalk, has been released on bail pending further enquiries,” Northern Ireland police said in a statement.

News of the arrest, plus a hardline approach taken by the firm to customers wanting to leave their contracts without paying a penalty, helped shares in TalkTalk rebound from a sharp fall in the wake of the attack.

The company told customers they would have to pay to leave their contracts early unless they could show money had been stolen as a direct result of the hack.

The company has said that credit and debit card numbers were protected, and any bank account details that were stolen were not sufficient for criminals to access accounts.

“In the unlikely event that money is stolen from a customer’s bank account as a direct result of the cyber attack [rather than as a result of any other information given out by a customer] then as a gesture of goodwill, on a case-by-case basis, we will waive termination fees,” it said late on Monday.

The move upset many TalkTalk customers, who complained on forums on the company’s website, but will relieve investors worried that the group would face an exodus of customers if it waived charges.

The attack, which experts said seemed to use well-established and unsophisticated hacking techniques, will, however, prompt questions as to how strong the firm’s security was, especially as it was the third such incident to hit the firm this year.

Experts believe the website was hacked into via a SQL injection technique, which typically inserts malicious code into an entry field of a Web form in order to seize control of the database underpinning the site.

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, in which thousands of infected computers are targeted at a particular computer or website, could have also played a role, but mainly as a means of distracting the company’s security personnel.

“DDoS and SQL injection attacks are relatively unsophisticated,” said Graham Cluley, UK security expert, adding that they were relatively simple to pull off.

Children who receive cancer treatments may suffer thinking problems later, but using an at-home computer training programme can help reduce these deficits, according to a new study.

“This is the only computerised training so far in childhood cancer survivors,” said lead author Heather M. Conklin of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

The study included 68 survivors of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), a blood cancer, or brain tumors, who had all survived at least one year after their cancer treatment ended. All of the children had thinking or memory problems reported by their parents. 

On average, the participants were 12-year-old children,   and had completed cancer treatment about five years earlier. They were randomly separated into two groups, one receiving the computer training programme, another put on a “waitlist” to serve as a comparison. 

The first group was asked to complete 25 at-home sessions with the Cogmed programme over five to nine weeks. These sessions, 30 to 45 minutes each, included visual-spatial games or working memory games. The children also had weekly coaching phone calls to collect feedback and offer motivation to keep using the programme. 

Some kids who were making slower progress took advantage of five extra sessions. 

Almost 90 per cent of the kids in the Cogmed group completed the programme.

Ten weeks after the study began, the youngsters’ working memory, attention and processing speed increased more in the Cogmed group than in waitlist group. Parents also reported bigger reductions in their children’s “executive dysfunction”, or decision-making problems, after they used Cogmed. 

“We have done a great job in the last 30 years developing therapies to cure kids with cancer,” said Donald Mabbott of The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, who was not part of the new study. 

“Most cancer patients treated in childhood survive,” but may experience lingering cognitive problems, he said. 

Radiation cancer treatment targets growing cells, including brain cells, which is why kids have thinking problems later, he told Reuters Health by phone. 

These computerised games tax and stretch working memory ability, asking kids to manipulate an object and hold it in their working memory, training the brain, Mabbott said. 

“By getting the neurons in the brain to fire, we can foster growth of new white matter cells,” he said. 

The kids in the computer programme group had functional magnetic resonance imaging scans of their brains taken while completing a memory task before and after the intervention. After the study, they appeared to have reduced activation in the language areas of the brain.

That’s because after using the computer programme, their memory processing was “more efficient”, Conklin said. 

Cancer survivors with attention or memory problems can also take stimulant medications like Ritalin or attend in-person sessions with a therapist, which confer some benefit as well, but drugs can have side effects, and some patients cannot take them, and therapy sessions require travelling to a specific facility, Conklin said. 

“Most childhood cancer survivors don’t live near somewhere that offers it,” she said. “Computerised programmes are a really nice alternative.”

Cogmed is commercially available for adults with brain injury or children with attention-deficit disorder, but had not been used with childhood cancer survivors, Conklin said. 

“If you are noticing problems in your child, take them to a psychologist or neuropsychologist and have them evaluated,” she said. If they are struggling with attention or working memory, Cogmed may help, but it is not covered by insurance and costs between $1,000 and $1,500 for the training programme and coaching sessions, she said. 

“It’s up to the family in terms if whether they have the financial resources to pursue it,” Conklin said. 

It’s not yet clear when the optimal time might be to start computerised “brain-training” interventions, but pending future study it is possible the programme could confer some benefit as soon as cancer treatment ends, or even five to ten years later, Mabbott said. 

I have often wondered if it is possible to change your personality. In a deliberate and concise manner, that is. I have also caught myself speculating about whether flattery is an inherent or acquired skill. Incidentally, what these haphazard queries prove is that I am plagued by random thoughts all the time, which is true, but here I digress.

So, are there any routine classes where they teach you how to flatter? Where you can be taught to — lavish praise and compliments on (someone), often insincerely and with the aim of furthering one’s own interests — as the dictionary defines it? I want to know because if someone asks me an honest question I find myself speaking my mind instinctively and calling a “spade a spade” with the result that instead of my interests getting furthered, they sort of, take a nosedive. 

But I have a friend who has been trying to make me realise how important learning this talent is. He gets all the long-winded red-tape ridden official work, which needs zillions of stamp paper, and millions of attested signatures, done in a jiffy. I would think it was all an empty boast if I had not seen it with my own eyes. 

I went with him to a crumbling government building once, where we had to get some documents registered. He walked in with unhurried strides and immediately complimented the fat woman in front of us in the queue, who was wearing a bright red headscarf. She beamed at him and moved us ahead of her in the line. When we reached the officer at the window, he offered him a cigarette from the pack that he was carrying and leaned in to light it for him. 

After also lighting one for himself, he chatted with him amicably, emphasising how close he was to the officer’s older brother. “We are bum chums since our school days,” he stressed. “But I have never seen you before,” the officer claimed. I watched the entire scenario with amusement wondering how my friend would get out of this one. 

“You were very small then, a delicate little boy in kindergarten. But look at you now. Who would have thought you would turn out to be a dashing young man doing such an important job. Your brother must be proud of you,” he replied. 

The officer grinned at us and without asking any further questions picked up the heavy stamper and brought it down on the document that we had handed him. The cigarette in his hand was still half smoked I noticed, as we walked away after completing the job in 15 minutes, that would have otherwise taken me 5 hours.

For the next few days I did some self-coaching and I am happy to report that I was somewhat successful in “furthering my interests”.

Then I got my cellphone bill with a hefty fine added to it because I had forgotten to clear it for three months. 

“Good morning, what a beautiful scarf you’re wearing,” I told the lady at the billing counter.

“Give me the exact amount, I don’t have change,” she growled at me.

“Your sister and I were bum chums in school. Can you waive the fine?” I tried again.

“I’ve never seen you before’,” she said.

“You were very small then, a delicate little girl in kindergarten…,” I babbled.

“My sister is dead. Fine please, and make it the exact amount,” she cut in.

PARIS — Bacon, hot dogs and cold cuts are under fire: The World Health Organisation (WHO) threw its global weight behind years of experts’ warnings and declared Monday that processed meats raise the risk of colon and stomach cancer and that red meat is probably harmful, too.

Meat producers are angry, vegetarians are feeling vindicated and cancer experts are welcoming the most comprehensive pronouncement yet on the relation between our modern meat-eating lifestyles and cancer.

The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, analysed decades of research and for the first time put processed meats in the same danger category as smoking or asbestos. That doesn’t mean salami is as bad as cigarettes, only that there’s a confirmed link to cancer. And even then, the risk is small.

The results aren’t that shocking in the US, where many parents fret over chemicals in cured meats and the American Cancer Society has long cautioned against eating too much steak and deli.

But the UN agency’s findings could shake up public health attitudes elsewhere, such as European countries where sausages are savoured and smoked ham is a national delicacy.

And they could hurt the American meat industry, which is arguing vigorously against linking their products with cancer, contending that the disease involves a number of lifestyle and environmental factors.

While US rates of colon cancer have been declining, it is the No. 2 cancer for women worldwide and No. 3 for men, according to the WHO.

A group of 22 scientists from the IARC evaluated more than 800 studies from several continents about meat and cancer. The studies looked at more than a dozen types of cancer in populations with diverse diets over the past 20 years.

Based on that analysis, the IARC classified processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans”, noting links in particular to colon cancer. It said red meat contains some important nutrients, but still labelled it “probably carcinogenic”, with links to colon, prostate and pancreatic cancers.

The agency made no specific dietary recommendations and said it did not have enough data to define how much processed meat is too dangerous. But it said the risk rises with the amount consumed.

An analysis of 10 of the studies suggested that a 50-gramme portion of processed meat daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer over a lifetime by about 18 per cent.

A 50-gramme portion is roughly equivalent to a hot dog or a few slices of bologna, though it depends on how thinly it is sliced.

Overall, the lifetime risk of developing colorectal cancer in the US is about 1 in 20, or 5 per cent, according to the cancer society. By the WHO’s calculations, having a cold-cut sandwich every day would only raise that to around 6 per cent.

Experts have long warned of the dangers of certain chemicals used to cure meat, such as nitrites and nitrates, which the body converts into cancer-causing compounds. It is also known that grilling or smoking meat can create suspected carcinogens.

“For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed,” Dr Kurt Straif of the IARC said in a statement. “In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance.”

The cancer agency noted research by the Global Burden of Disease Project suggesting that 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are linked to diets heavy in processed meat. That compared with 1 million deaths a year linked to smoking, 600,000 a year to alcohol consumption and 200,000 a year to air pollution.

Doctors in rich countries especially have long counselled against eating lots of red or processed meat — and not just because of the cancer danger but because of the heart risks from the saturated fat and sodium.

The WHO researchers defined processed meat as anything transformed to improve its flavour or preserve it, including sausages, beef jerky and anything smoked. They defined red meat to include beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse and goat.

The report said grilling, pan-frying or other high-temperature methods of cooking red meat produce the highest amounts of chemicals suspected of causing cancer.

“This is an important step in helping individuals make healthier dietary choices to reduce their risk of colorectal cancer in particular,” said Susan Gapstur of the American Cancer Society, which has recommended limiting red and processed meat intake since 2002, and suggests choosing fish or poultry or cooking red meat at low temperatures.

The North American Meat Institute argued in a statement that “cancer is a complex disease not caused by single foods.”

Independent experts stressed that the WHO findings should be kept in perspective.

“Three cigarettes per day increases the risk of lung cancer sixfold,” or 500 per cent, compared with the 18 per cent from eating a couple slices of bologna a day, said Gunter Kuhnle, a food nutrition scientist at the University of Reading.

“This is still very relevant from a public health point of view, as there are more than 30,000 new cases per year” of colon cancer, he said. “But it should not be used for scaremongering.”