WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013 • plus@pen.com.qa • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741

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• SFS-Q professorswrite book onwater security

• Salt subtly trimmedfrom many foods inUS amid campaign

• Director Panahidefies Iran ban tomake another film

• Has Volkswagen discoveredthe ‘global car’?

• A stream ofconsciousnesswill kill off websites

• Learn commonlyused Arabic wordsand their meanings

insideQtel honours young talent at annual event

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Jazz it up fora good cause

2 COVER STORYPLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

By Isabel Ovalle

Local band Doha Jazz has released an album called ‘Blues on the Corniche’. The CD is fully made in Qatar,

recorded at Qatar Media Studios between February and March last year. All proceeds from the launch and sales will go to non-profit organ-isation Cancer Research UK.

Doha Jazz was founded in 2000, when British musician Chris Coull moved to Doha. He is a jazz trum-peter, flugelhorn player, pianist and bandleader. Back in Britain, Coull played regularly at various festivals and concerts with his band Hydra.

“I have always played jazz, and when I came to Doha, I wanted to form a jazz band here too,” he said. More than a decade after the creation of the ensemble, the band launched a charity CD on February 9.

On its website, the band explains that when his wife was diagnosed

with breast cancer earlier last year, Coull was determined to raise awareness and funds for research to fight this disease.

“This CD represents a cross sec-tion of the diverse and charismatic musicianship that keeps Doha Jazz at the forefront of Qatar’s live music scene,” says the ensemble.

The band describes the album as straight-ahead jazz classics mixed with Arabesque tracks, rhythm and blues grooves and lush orches-tral arrangements (courtesy of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra), which create a diverse and engag-ing outcome that keeps the listener’s interest throughout.

“The album has 11 tracks, there are some original compositions and some old jazz tunes that we have given a facelift,” said Coull.

The launch of the disc took place at W Doha hotel with a night of live jazz in a jazz club atmosphere. Blues on the Corniche is also available at Virgin Megastore for QR50.

‘Blues on the Corniche’ from

Doha Jazz

3PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

The founder of Doha Jazz added, “we have a variety of instruments, like drums, bass, piano and guitar for the rhythm section of the band, while the vocals, trumpet and saxophones form the front line.” The musi-cian describes jazz as “improvi-sation with a swing style. The beat and groove is very specific and unique, and the mode and language of jazz improvisation is also unique.”

During his time here, Coull has seen the music scene change “massively”, especially with regard to live music. “There are now several places in Doha you can watch music every week, and, of course, the likes of Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and Jazz at Lincoln Center have added to what Doha Jazz has been bring-ing to this city for the last 10 years and more.”

However, just like it happens in other fields, “there’s quite a frequent turnover. I would say about half of our members have

been here less than two or three years.”

The band plays at a variety of venues throughout Doha. For instance, every week there’s Friday night jazz at the Movenpick Hotel from 8.30pm to midnight. On February 15, the Keith Wilson quartet, a sax-ophone-led band, will play jazz classics, and on February 22, Chris Coull quartet will do the same.

For over four years, the Chris Coull jazz band has been play-ing at the W hotel’s Market by Jean-Georges restaurant every Friday from 12 noon to 4pm. Also on Friday, the Spice Market restaurant hosts Guy Turner to sing the best of swing and blues accompanied by the Doha Jazz band, from 12 noon to 4pm.

The band’s other members are: Nina Heidenreich, Patrizia Mae, James Beard, Glen Henderson, Michael Pigneguy, Keith Wilson and Matteo Gaspari.

The Peninsula

‘Blues on the Corniche’ in 11 tracks• Blues On The Corniche• Autumn Leaves• What’s New• Going Home• Duwartu Ashams Saghira• Visions of Vienna• Corcovado• Everything I Love• The Thrill Is Gone• Body And Soul• Star Eyes

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 20134 CAMPUS

Two professors at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar (SFS-Q) have written a

new book on water security called International Conflict over Water Resources in Himalayan Asia: Conflict and Cooperation over Asia’s Water Resources. The book’s authors, Robert G Wirsing, professor at SFS-Q, and Daniel C Stoll, associate dean for aca-demic affairs at SFS-Q, joined with Christopher Jasparro of the US Naval War College as tri-authors, combining their decades of experience examining water resource rivalry.

“Water has always been an essen-tial resource and, at times, a cause of conflict in Asia,” said Georgetown University SFS-Q Dean Gerd Nonneman.

“Water security issues can be daunt-ingly complex, because they intertwine with a whole host of historical, politi-cal, and economic dynamics and with a mix of local and external interests. They can become a question of life and

death reverberating well beyond their immediate locales,” he added.

Published by Palgrave Macmillan, the book explores the freshwater cri-sis of Himalayan Asia, the depletion of its water resources and the increasing disputes over who owns trans-boundary river waters and their basins. Touching on themes such as river rivalries, trans-boundary river, alternatives to water conflict, and the future of Himalayan rivers, the broad range of chapters include water topics relevant to the region, including climate change.

Discussing the book’s utility, Dr Wirsing said, “The book has no jargon. It is written in a way that is acces-sible to lay people, to students and to professionals dealing with these issues. It’s packed with useful information for people concerned about water security in Asia or other parts of the world.”

Commenting on the importance of the topic, Dr Stoll said: “While issues of water scarcity have long been of concern to policy makers, there is increasing emphasis on the connection

between water supply and the impact on domestic and foreign policy.”

Focusing on a region where abun-dant river resources combined with “rapidly modernising, increasingly affluent, and demographically multi-plying societies” has resulted in the emergence of constant resource chal-lenges, the book enters the debate on the impact of this resource crisis in the Himalayan Asian region’s present and future interstate relations.

On the scope of the book, Nonneman

said, “It takes exceptional scholars to address such a subject in ways both incisive and accessible, balanced and comprehensive. That is exactly what the authors have accomplished in this superb volume: Bringing a wealth of new data and analysis to bear in a new standard work that will speak to every-one concerned with water security well beyond Asia, and once again demon-strating how research at Georgetown University in Qatar speaks to the real world.” The Peninsula

SFS-Q professors write book on water security

Qatar Academy’s cross-country and road rac-ing teams competed on back-to-back Sundays

in Duhkan in the QUESS Cross-Country and Road Racing Championships recently. In the cross-country race on January 27, QA, presented with only 10 run-ners, the smallest of any compet-ing school, came away with five individual medals.

In the U19 boys’ event, QA filled the podium with Jean Pierre Levay finishing third, Juan Polanco sec-ond and Jean Luc Neefs winning the race. In the girls U19 event, Heba El Zoheery finished third and Minji Hong finished in the second place, just a few seconds behind the overall winner. Other finish-ers for QA included Erica Stirling (sixth), Salem Rustrom (eighth), Sunghoon Kim (37th), Mohammed Gersashi (26th) and Su Hon Li (sixth). This past weekend, five students plus newcomer Mikayla LeRoy returned to Dukhan to com-pete in the QUESS Road Race.

In the U19 event, students raced their way to gold, silver and bronze medals with Siu Hon Li placing third in the boys’ race behind his teammate, Lean-Luc Neefs, who had another outstanding win. Mikayla LeRoy finished in a com-mendable second place to receive the silver medal. Qatar Academy runners will head straight into track and field season next, com-peting at a local QUESS event before heading off to the ISAC Championships in Dubai in March.

The Peninsula

QA running teams take top spots

Students from various schools taking part in the race.

Professors with the book.

5MARKETPLACE PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

Texture Boutique brings risingSaudi fashion designer to Doha

Texture Boutique, the lavish Concept store outlet of Qatar, brings Saudi Fashion Designer,

Razan Alazzouni, to Doha. Razan will showcase her Spring/Summer 2013 Collection with pieces exclusively designed for Texture Boutique.

Texture Boutique, a recently launched luxury concept store, is a hub for local designers from the region, giving new meaning to fash-ionable abayas and modern jalbyas for women of the modern generation. Texture Boutique is the new home for unique traditional pieces presented by works of various Middle Eastern talents.

Kholoud Al Mana and Dana Al Mana, co-owners of Texture Boutique, were motivated to provide a mix of style with a modern twist in their fash-ions due to an increase in demand from the market for contemporary and fresh style.

“We wanted our clients to have a different shopping experience by cre-ating a comfortable and trendy place to fulfil the needs of Middle Eastern women, all under the one roof. “We select our designers carefully; luxury and exclusive labels from all around the Gulf region are our main focus,” said Dana Al Mana.

Texture Boutique is committed to providing women with well-con-structed and fashionable abayas, modern and classical couture jalbyas as well as unique home and fash-ion accessories from prominent and cutting-edge designers around the region. “Fashion is a personal state-ment. It’s a way to differentiate you from others. And to do that best in our culture is through the development and adaptation of our traditional abaya to up -to-date trends, which is what we aim to provide in our store” said Kholoud Al Mana.

“I really wanted to create a show place for unique pieces and to utilise local talent from the region. I’d like to carry more local designers, providing a place where they can showcase their collections and where we can celebrate fashion every day,” Kholoud explained.

Alazzouni, celebrity favourite Saudi designer, is one of Texture’s favour-ite international designers. She has dressed everyone from the region’s fashion-savvy to Hollywood’s hottest and youngest trendsetters, including Paris Hilton, Ashley Tisdale, Emma Roberts, Kelsey Chow, and Kelly Osbourne.

A Razan original is already a cov-eted label. Using soft silhouettes, luxurious fabrics and intricate details, Alazzouni cements herself as a designer with a clear and ambitious vision. The Peninsula

Mega raffle draw for ‘Win Half Million’ promotion was held at Safari Hypermarket at Abu Hamour in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Business and Trade and Safari Hypermarket. The first prize winner won the grand prize of QR250,000 (Coupon No. 1252414 S Satwan), the second winner won QR150,000 (Coupon No. 1625100 Riyas Mariyakandy) and the third winner won QR100,000 (Coupon No. 372403 Abey John). There were more prizes and the full list will be displayed at the hypermarket.

Safari ‘Win Half Million’ promotion raffle draw

Qtel celebrated achievements of its young, talented future leaders at a recent sixth annual Young Talent Event.

Held under the theme ‘Connecting the Leaders of Today with the Leaders of Tomorrow’, the evening recognised remarkable performances and aca-demic achievements of Qtel’s students, recent graduates, developees and trainees, best coaches, and employees who completed the highest number of e-learning mod-ules in the year.

Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani, CEO of Qtel Qatar, said: “We hope to continue to attract the ‘cream of the crop’ of young Qatari nationals, people who will help move Qtel towards its strategic goal of becoming the preferred choice for world-class communication services in Qatar.”

Executives at the event emphasised that the company is laying the foundations for Qatar’s knowledge-based

economy, and it is the young talent who drive the com-pany’s growth.

Mohammed Al Kuwari, Chief Corporate Services Officer, Qtel, told the audience: “You will be leading Qtel well into the 21st century and experiencing an exciting new world of communications.

“As we strive to be the employer of choice in Qatar, we continue to invest in our young employees who are embark-ing on long-lasting and rewarding careers with Qtel,” he added.

Buthaina Al Ansari, Senior Director of Human Resources, Qtel, said: “This was a successful event that celebrated efforts of our young talent. Their enthusiasm and dedica-tion as they ascend to leadership positions will help Qtel retain its position as a leading communications brand. Our investment in programmes for young talent is helping define Qtel as an employer of choice.” The Peninsula

Qtel honours young talent at annual event

Qtel officials with the young talent honoured at the event.

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013 FOOD6

By Bonnie S Benwick

Adapted from Feel Good Food: Wholefood Recipes for Happy, Healthy Living, by Tony Chiodo (Hardie Grant Books, 2010).

Ingredients4 dried figs1/3 cup hot water4 or 5 limesLeaves from 2 stems mintLeaves from 2 stems cilantro3 or 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves

(1 1/4 pounds total; reserve any tenderloins for another use)

Kosher or coarse sea saltFreshly ground black pepper2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil1/3 cup fig jam or fig spread

Method:Stem the figs and cut the fruit into quarters.

Place in a small bowl and cover with the hot water. Let stand while you prep other ingredients.

Meanwhile, cut the limes in half. Squeeze to yield 1/3 cup juice. Coarsely chop the mint and cilantro.

Trim off and discard all visible fat from the chicken. Use a sharp knife to butterfly the thick

part of each breast half to even/thin out the meat (do not cut all the way through). Place the breast halves between two sheets of plastic wrap and lightly pound with a mallet to achieve an even thickness of 1/2 to 3/4 inch.

Lightly season both sides of the chicken with salt and pepper. Cut each pounded breast half into 4 equal strips.

Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add half of the chicken pieces and cook for 3 minutes on each side or until lightly golden. Transfer to a plate and cover loosely to keep warm. Repeat with the remaining oil and chicken.

Add the lime juice to the skillet, stirring to dis-lodge any browned bits, then stir in the jam or spread. Drain the figs as needed, then add to the skillet. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, stirring until there are no lumps of jam, then return the chicken to the skillet. Cook until the chicken is warmed through, making sure it’s also completely done and coated with the sauce.

Divide among individual plates, spooning the sauce on top. Garnish with the mint and cilantro. Serve warm.

NUTRITION Per serving: 320 calories, 33 g pro-tein, 27 g carbohydrates, 9 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 80 mg cholesterol, 190 mg sodium, 1 g dietary fiber, 23 g sugar. WP-Bloomberg

Lime and Fig ChickenThis is the very definition of a winning weeknight chicken dish: Quick, sweet and sour, a little something different. Keep it in mind for when figs are in season. The fruit can be replaced with in-season plums or apricots. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Dinner in 30 Minutes

HEALTH 7

Health Tipsfrom DOCTOR

Chest pain comes in many varieties, ranging from a sharp stab to a dull ache. Some types of chest pain can be described as crushing or burning. In cer-

tain cases, the pain travels up the neck, pierces through to the back or radiates down one or both arms.

Many different types of problems can cause chest pain. The most life-threatening ones involve the heart or lungs. Because it can be difficult to determine what exactly is causing chest pain, it’s best to seek immediate medical help.

A wide range of health problems can cause chest pain. In many cases, the underlying cause has nothing to do with your heart — though there’s no easy way to tell without seeing a doctor.

Chest pain has many possible causes, all of which deserve medical attention.

Heart-related causes of chest pain include:• Heart attack. A heart attack is a result of a

blood clot that’s blocking blood flow to your heart muscle.

• Angina. Thick plaques can gradually build up on the inner walls of the arteries that carry blood to your heart. These plaques narrow the arteries and restrict the heart’s blood supply, particularly during exertion.

• Aortic dissection. This life-threatening condition involves the main artery leading from your heart. If the inner layers of this blood vessel separate, blood will be forced between the layers and can cause the aorta to rupture.

• Pericarditis. This condition, an inflammation of the sac surrounding your heart, is short-lived and often related to a viral infection.

Digestive causes: Chest pain can be caused by disorders of the digestive system, including:

• Heartburn. This painful, burning sensation behind your breastbone occurs when stomach acid washes up from your stomach into the esopha-gus — the tube that connects your throat to your stomach.

• Swallowing disorders. Disorders of the esophagus can make swallowing difficult and even painful.

• Gallbladder or pancreas problems. Gallstones or inflammation of your gallbladder or pancreas can cause abdominal pain that radiates to your chest.

If you have new or unexplained chest pain or suspect you’re having a heart attack, call for emergency medical help immediately.

Dr M M Abdul Kareem Specialist – Internal Medicine

Healthspring World Clinic

Salt has quietly been slip-ping out of dozens of the most familiar foods in brand-name America,

from Butterball turkeys to Uncle Ben’s flavoured rice dishes to Goya canned beans.

A Kraft American cheese sin-gle has 18 percent less salt than it did three years ago. The salt in a dollop of Ragu Old World Style pasta sauce is down by 20 per-cent. A handful of honey Teddy Grahams has 33 percent less salt. A squirt of Heinz ketchup is 15 percent less salty.

Their manufacturers are among 21 companies that have met targets so far in a volun-tary, New York City-led effort to get food manufacturers and restaurateurs to lighten up on salt to improve Americans’ heart health, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Monday. While it’s unclear whether consumers have noticed the changes, campaigns aim to get more salt out of the national diet in the coming years — a challenge for an ingredient that plays a role in the taste, preser-vation and even texture of food.

Salt reduction has become a recent focus of public health campaigns in the city and else-where. Salt, or sodium chloride, is the main source of sodium for most people.

Sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, a major cause of heart disease and stroke. Dietary guidelines recommend no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day, equal to about a teaspoon of salt; the American Heart Association suggests 1,500 milligrams or less. But aver-age sodium consumption in the US is around 3,300 milligrams, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found.

Officials said the first step was a meaningful one.

“The products they’re making healthier are some of America’s most beloved and iconic foods,” noted Bloomberg, a fan of Subway’s meaty Italian sand-wiches, which are now 27 per-cent less salty.

At a Manhattan grocery store, shoppers said they hadn’t noticed the salt falloff, either because they didn’t taste the dif-ference or because they eschew prepared foods to begin with.

“A decrease is good — not putting anything in there is even better. People should add their own salt,” shopper Lynne Davis said.

Fashion design student Vanndy Pan said she doesn’t think about the salt in her food, though her mother has high blood pressure.

“Maybe I should,” the 26-year-old said as she bought a loaf of sandwich bread, but “I’m a stu-dent. At this point, I only buy the cheap food.”

Health officials say Americans get the vast majority of their salt from processed and prepared foods, and not necessarily the foods they’d imagine: Bread and rolls are the No. 1 source.

“The problem is not the salt on the table. The problem is the salt on the label,” city Health Commissioner Dr Thomas Farley said.

The amount of salt in any given food item can vary widely. A slice of white bread can have 80 to 230 milligrams of sodium, for example. A cup of canned chicken noodle soup has 100 to 940 milligrams. A 1-ounce bag of potato chips ranges from 50 to 200 milligrams.

In one of a series of healthy-eating initiatives on Bloomberg’s 11-year watch, the city announced voluntary salt guide-lines in 2010 for various restau-rant and store-bought foods. Besides trimming salt levels in the foods by 25 percent by 2014, the campaign aimed to reduce consumers’ overall sodium intake by 20 percent in the same time frame. Interim targets for

the foods were set for 2012.For instant hot cereals, as an

example, the guidelines called for a 15 percent salt reduction by last year and a 31 percent cut by 2014.

A company can hit the target for a category, such as canned soup, even if not every product makes the mark.

Boston-based cafe chain Au Bon Pain lowered salt in sand-wiches and breads by getting suppliers to use fresh vegetables, whole grains and herbs, CEO Sue Morelli said in a release.

Kraft Foods Inc squeezed salt out of products ranging from steak sauce to beef bacon partly by substituting potas-sium chloride, research Vice President Russ Moroz said. It’s also salty-tasting, but potassium lowers blood pressure, and most Americans don’t get enough of it, Farley said.

The switch works up to a point — generally, about 10 to 15 percent of the sodium content — before potassium chloride causes a bitter or metallic taste, Moroz said. Northfield, Illinois-based Kraft can use other flavours to mask that, but maintaining the taste is “really the challenge in continuing to reduce sodium,” he said.

“If you don’t make foods that taste good, people don’t buy them, and, in the end, we haven’t really done anything to impact the diet in the country,” Moroz said.

Bloomberg has seized on improving New Yorkers’ eating habits as a public health prior-ity, leading charges that have banned trans fats from restau-rant meals, forced chain eateries to post calorie counts on menus and limited the size of some sug-ary drinks.

He and city officials say they’re making pioneering, rea-sonable efforts to save lives and cut health care costs. Some food industry interests and consum-ers have said New York is turn-ing into a nutrition nanny.

The salt effort has been less controversial, although the Salt Institute, a trade association, calls it misguided. There has been some scientific debate in recent years over how dangerous dietary salt is.

“If (Bloomberg’s) goal is to improve health, we recommend that he seek a second opinion based on the available peer-reviewed scientific evidence,” institute President Lori Roman said. AP

Salt subtly trimmed from many foods in US amid campaign

Chest Pain

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

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ct

man.

“I a

m n

ot

perfe

ct.

I a

m t

he m

ost

im

perfe

ct

man. A

ny m

an w

ho

says

that

he i

s perfe

ct,

trust

me, it

’s a

lie

. I

have t

rie

d. I

have l

ied…

I a

m

tryin

g t

o b

e a

bett

er h

um

an b

ein

g,” J

ohn t

old

reporte

rs

at

I, M

e A

ur

Ma

in

press

meet.

The e

nti

re s

tar c

ast

of

the fi

lm w

as

prese

nt

at

the p

rom

oti

ons

inclu

din

g

Chit

rangada S

ingh, P

rachi D

esa

i and G

old

ie B

ehl.

The 4

0-y

ear-o

ld s

ays

I, M

e A

ur

Ma

in is

a t

rib

ute

to a

ll w

om

en.

“The fi

lm i

s rele

asi

ng o

n M

arch 1

st a

nd M

arch 8

th i

s W

om

en’s

Day,

so

this

film

is

dedic

ate

d t

o a

ll t

he w

om

en. It

’s a

trib

ute

to w

om

en,” h

e s

aid

.D

esc

rib

ing h

is k

ind o

f gir

l, J

ohn s

aid

: “D

efinit

ely

, sh

e w

ill be s

imple

. T

he

beauty

about

any r

ela

tionsh

ip i

s it

s si

mplicit

y.

Just

sett

le d

ow

n w

ith t

he

one w

ith w

hom

you h

ave a

connecti

on.”

In t

he fi

lm, P

rachi w

ill be s

een a

s th

e-g

irl-

next-

door a

nd fi

nds

sim

ilarit

y

betw

een h

er a

nd h

er c

haracte

r. “

The c

haracte

r is

the c

lose

st t

o m

y h

eart.

T

here’s

a lot

of

me in it.

It

was

com

ing o

ut

very n

atu

rally.”

Sin

ger P

ink s

ays

that

befo

re r

ecord-

ing a

new

musi

c,

she w

orrie

s th

at

she w

on’t

be a

ble

to s

ing.

“When I

sta

rt

a r

ecord, I

am

lik

e, ‘g

od,

I w

onder i

f I

can e

ven s

ing.’

But

I w

rit

e

poetr

y a

nd k

eep a

journal, t

hen t

he fi

rst

day I

go into

the s

tudio

, I’m

lik

e, ‘H

ere w

e

go,

I am

turnin

g t

he f

aucet

on!’ I

bott

le

it u

p f

or s

o l

on

g t

hat

the i

nsp

irati

on

is

alw

ays

there,” s

he t

old

people

.com

.P

ink, w

ho is

marrie

d t

o C

arey H

art

and

has

a 2

0-m

onth

-old

daughte

r W

illo

w, sa

ys

her h

usb

and d

oesn

’t m

ind b

ein

g t

he s

ub-

ject

of

a lot

of

her lyric

s.“H

e is

like, ‘L

ook, I

know

you, w

e h

ave a

good s

ense

of

hum

our,

and I

know

what

I si

gned u

p for.

I o

nly

lis

ten t

o h

alf

of

what

you s

ay a

nyw

ay!’ W

hen h

e s

tarts

lis

tenin

g

to m

e t

oo m

uch, w

e h

ave p

roble

ms!

” sa

id t

he 3

3-y

ear-o

ld.

Sin

ger J

ust

in B

ieber u

nveiled a

rough

versio

n of

a n

ew

son

g

You

wa

nt

me a

fter f

ailin

g t

o c

on

duct

a l

ive

chat

wit

h h

is f

ans

due t

o p

oor I

nte

rnet

connecti

vit

y.

He w

as

schedule

d t

o h

ave a

liv

e c

hat

wit

h f

an

s S

un

day n

ight,

but

could

not

get

a g

ood I

nte

rnet

connecti

on a

s he i

s currentl

y o

n h

oliday.

So t

o c

om

pensa

te,

he p

ost

ed a

vid

eo a

nd a

previe

w o

f his

unfinis

hed n

ew

song, reports

conta

ctm

u-

sic.c

om

.T

he 1

8-y

ear-o

ld a

ppeared s

hir

tless

in

the c

lip a

nd a

polo

gis

ed, sa

yin

g: “M

y f

ans

are j

ust

overpopula

tin

g t

he s

ites

an

d I

ju

st d

on’t

thin

k i

t’s

goin

g t

o w

ork

. S

o I

am

just

goin

g t

o m

ake a

vid

eo a

nd p

lay

som

e n

ew

musi

c.”

He l

ate

r p

ost

ed a

lin

k t

o t

he s

ong a

nd

said

: “I

ts n

ot

finis

hed, but

here’s

a lit

tle p

art

a s

ong I

am

work

ing o

n.”

Reality

TV

sta

r S

haron O

sbourne h

as

ban

ned a

ll c

an

dle

s fr

om

her h

om

e

aft

er h

er h

ouse

went

up in fl

am

es.

In J

anuary,

she a

nd h

usb

and O

zzy w

ent

to

sleep w

ith c

andle

s burnin

g a

nd t

he a

ccid

ent

took p

lace.

Sharon t

old

tm

z.com

: “N

o m

ore c

andle

s.

Only

in c

hurch!”

Befo

re t

he fi

re b

rig

ade c

am

e,

the c

ouple

m

ade a

n i

nit

ial

att

em

pt

to e

xti

nguis

h t

he

bla

ze t

hem

selv

es,

leavin

g O

zzy inju

red.

Sharon, 60, sa

id s

he o

nly

knew

what

was

happenin

g w

hen t

heir

dogs

starte

d b

ark

ing.

“My e

yes a

re s

tin

gin

g a

nd m

y t

hroat’s

clo

sing u

p s

om

eth

ing w

eir

d s

mellin

g in h

ere,

then m

y d

ogs

starte

d t

o b

ark

. I

go o

ut

of th

e

bedroom

, I

go d

ow

nst

air

s and t

he w

hole

liv

ing

room

, th

e c

andle

had b

urst

and t

he c

rackin

g s

ound w

as

the g

lass

in t

he

candle

explo

din

g,” s

he s

aid

.

Pink

wor

ries

abou

t her

voi

ce

Bieb

er u

nvei

ls n

ew s

ong

Shar

on b

ans

cand

les

from

hom

e

By

Mik

e C

olle

tt-W

hit

e

Iran

’s Jafa

r P

an

ah

i h

as defi

ed a

20-year

ban

on

fi

lmm

ak

ing

to

secretl

y co-d

irect

Clo

sed

Cu

rta

in,

a m

ult

ilayered portr

ayal

of

how

rest

ric

tions

on h

is w

ork

and m

ovem

ent

have brough

t on

depressio

n an

d even

thoughts

of

suic

ide.

The m

ovie

, in

com

peti

tion a

t th

e B

erl

in

film

fest

ival, h

ad i

ts p

rem

iere y

est

erday,

but

Panahi

was

not

expecte

d o

n t

he r

ed

carpet

desp

ite f

est

ival

organis

ers

sayin

g

the G

erm

an g

overnm

ent

had r

equest

ed

he b

e a

llow

ed t

o t

ravel.

His

co-dir

ecto

r

an

d

com

patr

iot

Kam

bozi

ya P

arto

vi

did

att

en

d a

press

con

feren

ce a

lon

g w

ith a

ctr

ess

Maryam

M

oghadam

, but

would

not

be d

raw

n o

n

what

the c

on

sequen

ces o

f m

akin

g t

he

movie

could

be fo

r P

an

ah

i or oth

ers

involv

ed.

“Noth

ing h

as

happened u

p u

nti

l now

,”

he s

aid

, sp

eakin

g t

hrough a

n inte

rprete

r.

“We d

o n

ot

know

what

the f

utu

re h

old

s fo

r u

s.”

Moghadam

acknow

ledged s

he w

as

tak-

ing a

ris

k b

y a

cti

ng in a

proje

ct

involv

ing

Panahi, a

darl

ing o

f th

e W

est

ern fi

lm fes-

tival cir

cuit

and b

est

know

n f

or h

is 2

000

movie

Th

e C

ircl

e a

nd O

ffsi

de r

ele

ase

d s

ix

years

late

r.H

is s

ocia

lly e

ngaged fi

lms

about

issu

es

such a

s w

om

en’s

rig

hts

in I

ran a

nd s

up-

port

for t

he p

oliti

cal opposi

tion h

ave m

ade

him

a t

arget

of

the I

rania

n a

uth

orit

ies.

In 2

010

he w

as

ban

ned f

rom

makin

g

film

s fo

r 2

0 y

ears

an

d s

en

ten

ced t

o s

ix

years

in p

ris

on f

or “

propaganda a

gain

st

the s

yst

em

”, a

lthough h

e i

s n

ow

un

der

house

arrest

.M

oghadam

, w

ho h

as

dual S

wedis

h a

nd

Iran

ian

nati

on

ality

, sa

id s

he w

ould

try

to c

onti

nue t

ravellin

g t

o I

ran, w

here s

he

had f

am

ily.

“I a

m n

ot

the o

nly

one (

takin

g r

isks)

,”

she s

aid

.C

lose

d C

urta

in i

s th

e s

econ

d p

ictu

re

Panahi

has

made i

n d

efiance o

f th

e b

an,

an

d i

t rem

ain

s to

be s

een

wheth

er t

he

52-y

ear-o

ld faces

furth

er p

unis

hm

ent

for

a m

ovie

that

has

draw

n m

ajo

r a

ttenti

on

in B

erlin.

Th

is i

s N

ot

a F

ilm

, m

ade i

n 2

011

, w

as

reporte

dly

sm

uggle

d o

ut

of

the c

ountr

y

on a

US

B s

tick h

idden insi

de a

cake.

EM

PT

Y V

ILL

A, F

EA

R,

FR

US

TR

AT

ION

Clo

sed

Cu

rta

in i

s se

t in

an e

mpty

villa

in

Iran,

presu

mably

besi

de t

he C

asp

ian

Sea.

A m

an

, pla

yed b

y P

arto

vi, a

rriv

es

wit

h h

is d

og,

and p

roceeds

to d

raw

the

curta

ins

and b

lack o

ut

the w

indow

s, s

eal-

ing h

imse

lf o

ff f

rom

the w

orld

outs

ide

an

d p

reven

tin

g t

he a

uth

orit

ies —

real

an

d i

magin

ed —

from

seein

g w

hat

was

happenin

g.

When t

he d

og a

ccid

enta

lly s

wit

ches

on

the t

ele

vis

ion, w

e s

ee foota

ge o

f st

ray d

ogs

bein

g r

ounded u

p a

nd k

ille

d,

expla

inin

g

why h

e h

ad t

o b

e s

muggle

d in insi

de a

bag

and k

ept

indoors.

A y

oun

g m

an

an

d w

om

an

, on

the r

un

from

police, burst

in a

nd t

he w

om

an s

tays,

but

her exis

ten

ce an

d th

at

of

the m

an

becom

e u

ncle

ar a

s vie

wers

must

decid

e i

f

they a

re fi

cti

on

al

ch

aracte

rs

in t

he s

crip

t

or a

ctu

al people

. T

he layers

of

reality

mul-

tiply

as

Pan

ah

i h

imself

arriv

es,

and p

ost

-

ers a

dverti

sin

g s

om

e o

f h

is p

ast

movie

s

are r

eveale

d b

eneath

sheets

befo

re b

ein

g

covered u

p a

gain

.

In th

e all

egory of

Pan

ah

i’s li

fe u

nder

house

arrest

and in

abil

ity t

o w

ork

freely

, w

e

see h

im w

alk

ing i

nto

the s

ea a

t one p

oin

t,

a r

efe

rence t

o t

ak

ing h

is o

wn l

ife.

“He w

as

not

con

stantl

y t

hin

kin

g a

bout

suic

ide, no, because t

hen h

e w

ould

n’t

have

been a

ble

to m

ake t

he fi

lm,”

Parto

vi

said

.

“But

if I

im

agin

e m

yse

lf u

nable

to w

ork

and

just

sit

tin

g a

t hom

e, th

en I

am

sure I

would

start

to t

hin

k a

bout

suic

ide.”

Accordin

g t

o P

arto

vi, C

lose

d C

urt

ain

was

made o

ut

of a d

esi

re t

o e

xpress

onese

lf, even

though it

was

un

likely

to b

e s

een i

n I

ran

.

“It’s

dif

ficult

to w

ork

, but

not

bein

g a

ble

to w

ork

is

even m

ore d

ifficult

, and e

specia

lly

when y

ou a

re a

t th

e h

eig

ht

of

your c

areer.

You b

ecom

e d

epresse

d, and I

believe t

his

is

show

n i

n t

he fi

lm a

nd it

com

es

through

.”

The m

ood is

one o

f fr

ust

rati

on

, fe

ar a

nd

an

ger,

as

youn

g p

eople

are r

ounded u

p f

or

havin

g parti

es.

“S

he is

a you

ng w

om

an

like m

any o

ther w

om

en

in

my c

ountr

y,”

Mogh

adam

said

of

her c

haracte

r M

eli

ka.

“She i

s a s

ym

bol

of

many o

ther y

oun

g

wom

en

who s

truggle

,” a

dded t

he a

ctr

ess,

who w

as

wearin

g a

hat

to c

over h

er h

air

.

She s

aid

her c

haracte

r r

epresente

d “

the

dark

sid

e o

f h

is (

Pan

ah

i’s)

min

d ... t

hat

part

that

doesn

’t h

ope a

ny m

ore a

nd w

ants

to

giv

e u

p.”

R

eute

rs

PLU

S |

WE

DN

ES

DA

Y 1

3 F

EB

RU

AR

Y 2

013

A p

rote

ster

ho

lds

ban

ners

re

adin

g ‘

Jafa

r P

anah

i. H

e o

ught

to

be

here

!’ ne

xt t

o

cuto

uts

of

the

Iran

ian

film

-m

aker

pri

or

to t

he s

cree

n-in

g of

Clo

sed

Cur

tain

(P

arde

)d

urin

g th

e 63

rd a

nnua

l Ber

lin

Inte

rnat

iona

l Film

Fes

tival

.

Dire

ctor

Pan

ahi

defi

es Ir

an b

an to

m

ake

anot

her

film

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013 FEATURE10

By Alister Doyle

Two office blocks by the Oslo fjord will generate more power than they use from 2014 after a radical refit meant to show that the world’s energy-squandering building sector can do more to fight climate change.

Geothermal and solar energy generated on site will make the 1980s buildings “energy positive” in a tiny step to cut demand from the building sector that burns about 40

percent of world energy and emits a third of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

So far, most focus in green energy has been on new buildings, not refits. Yet about 80 percent of existing buildings in developed nations will still be standing in 2050, by when governments are planning deep cuts in emissions.

“There is a huge global potential” in renovations, said Svein Richard Brandtzaeg, Chief Executive of Norwegian aluminium group Norsk Hydro which is a partner in the Powerhouse alliance behind the 110m

crown ($20m) project near Oslo.“We believe this is the first time in the world that

a normal office block is being renovated to such strict standards,” he said of the three- and four-storey blocks in Sandvika, south Norway, with space for more than 200 workers.

The renovation will use a heat-retaining black wooden facade, an interior design that makes air flow without fans, and high-grade insulation to cut energy use by up to 90 percent. Backers say it will make long-term economic sense by eliminating bills for heating and lighting.

And an energy-positive refurbishment in Norway, where winter cold pushes up heating bills and scant sunlight makes solar panels inefficient, would show that they can be achieved anywhere in the world.

“We see it ... as a big possibility for us to take a strong market position,” Brandtzaek said, hoping for new orders if successful. Aluminium will be widely used, such as in window frames.

NEAR ZERO ENERGY STANDARDThe European Union says that new buildings

owned by public authorities will have to be “near zero energy” from 2019 and other new buildings from 2021. California has a “net zero energy” stand-ard by 2020 for residences.

The UN Environment Programme says the building sector has the biggest potential of any sector — from industry to transport — for big and money-saving cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases that are released by burning fossil fuels.

In rich nations, the rate of renovations would have to triple from one percent of buildings a year to meet goals of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, said Peter Graham, head of the Global Buildings Performance Network.

Meanwhile, emerging economies led by China and India need stricter codes for new buildings

and cities, he said.“For Europe and the US more than 80 percent

of the existing building stock will still be around in 2050. In China and India, 80 percent of the build-ings in 2050 have yet to be built,” he said.

Big clean energy building projects include Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, to be run on solar and renewable energy. Nations from China to France have some zero or positive energy new buildings.

In New York, the 39-storey UN headquarters is being renovated to a “gold” standard of energy use, just below a top “platinum” rating under a US system called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

In Norway, one problem is that tall elm and ash trees shade the coastal site, where workers are tearing out insulation and other fittings this month.

“There aren’t optimal conditions for solar energy,” said Fredrik Daehli, Project Manager at construction group Skanska. Other partners are Norsk Hydro, Norwegian architects Snohetta, envi-ronmental group Zero and property owners Entra Eiendom.

After the renovation, an environmental and architecture consultancy, Asplan Viak, will move in from February 2014.

The on-site electricity will more than cover lighting and heating and the energy used to pro-duce and recycle building materials. It will not cover energy used by equipment brought by the tenants, from computers to coffee machines.

Tine Hegli of Snohetta, which has contracts including a re-design of Times Square in New York, said solar energy was far easier to use than wind on buildings.

“Wind turbines can cause vibrations, and mean buildings need a lot more reinforcement with con-crete,” she said. Reuters

Radical refit:Buildings togenerate morepower thanthey use

11WHEELS PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

By Laurence Frost, Andreas Cremer and Paul Lienert

Ulrich Hackenberg isn’t yet a house-hold name but if Volkswagen’s $70bn bet on his big idea pays off, he may join the likes of Henry Ford,

Alfred Sloan and Taiichi Ohno in the canon of auto industry pioneers.

Since the heyday of Henry Ford and his Model T, the world’s automakers have con-sidered the “global car” to be their Holy Grail — the same basic design that can be built, in subtle variations, and sold in differ-ent markets.

Take that fundamental concept, stretch it across many different vehicle types, sizes and brands, then build them by the millions, and you begin to sense the enormity of Volkswagen’s rapidly evolving “mega-plat-form” strategy and its potential impact on competitors around the globe.

Auto engineer Hackenberg nurtured this bright idea for three decades, after early pitches to auto executives were largely ignored, until somebody finally bought it wholesale. The man who bit was Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn.

Hackenberg’s fundamental rethink of vehi-cle platforms, the industrial Lego from which cars are designed and made, is helping power the German company to the top of the global sales charts several years ahead of its 2018 target. It could also make VW one of the most profitable carmakers in the world.

The strategy is not without risk. It could, for instance, expose Volkswagen to the threat of a massive global recall if a single part, used in millions of cars, fails.

But rivals have taken note of the power behind its move. Volkswagen’s modular plat-forms are being benchmarked by most of the world’s top automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp and Ford Motor Co, according to company executives.

“We’d be crazy not to,” said a senior Ford official, requesting anonymity because of the proprietary nature of the subject.

VW’s work on its largest mega-platform, known internally as MQB, began in earnest

in 2007 and is being implemented over the next four years at a cost of nearly $70bn, esti-mates Morgan Stanley. The potential payoff is compelling: Projected annual gross savings by 2019 of $19bn, according to the bank, with gross margins approaching 10 percent.

The automaker is expected to announce a record profit for 2012 of more than $30bn later this month (February 22), according to Bernstein Research, whose senior analyst, Max Warburton, observes: “VW looks to have unstoppable momentum — in China, the US, urope and most of the rest of the world.”

That momentum has been building for some time, even before the initial deployment last year of Hackenberg’s brainchild.

Industry-leading levels of commonality — the proportion of parts that can be shared among different models — are nothing new to VW. At a gathering in Japan five years ago, Renault and Nissan executives lifted the hoods on several VW Group vehicles side by side — including models from Skoda, Seat and Audi brands — and saw trouble.

“They had the same engines, the same clutches, the same ventilation — all identical parts,” says an executive who attended the presentation. “It was a level of commonality that didn’t exist at Renault-Nissan.”

Late in 2011, as the outlook darkened for French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen, its board was given a similar demonstration, and a similar shock, at the company’s high-security research centre in Velizy, southwest of Paris. Technicians took apart the front ends of two different VW cars and swapped most of their components.

“They were a little dumbstruck by the reali-sation that there was a whole new world out there — and their development was 10 years behind,” recalls one participant.

SIX-YEAR GESTATIONAfter a six-year gestation, VW has just

begun to implement its sophisticated and highly flexible platform with the deceptively simple label MQB, a German acronym for “modular transverse matrix.” Virtually all of the group’s small and medium front-wheel-drive family models, including the latest

generations of the VW Golf and Audi A3, are being designed around MQB as their base.

The new platform features a far greater degree of plug-and-play modularity, flex-ibility and parts commonality than at Toyota, General Motors Co, Ford and other competitors.

MQB “could be the single most important automotive initiative of the past 25 years,” says Michael Robinet, Managing Director of IHS Consulting in Northville, Michigan. “It really changes the game.”

With the new mega-platform strategy sup-porting its 12 brands, from spartan Skoda to Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini, VW is poised to snatch the global sales crown from Toyota as early as next year, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley.

VW envisions enormous leverage from MQB. The plan is to boost global sales to 10 million or more, with roughly two out of every three cars — some 40-plus models totaling 6.3 million sales a year — built on some vari-ation of the MQB platform, according to US research firm IHS Automotive.

None of VW’s competitors has the diver-sity of brands, the breadth of technology, the sweeping geographic footprint or the deep pockets necessary to support and take advantage of such a wide-reaching initiative as MQB.

Even Toyota, the current global sales leader, is playing catch-up with its German rival.

“There’s no doubt we have fallen behind,” says a senior Toyota executive who declined to be named because of the sensitive nature of the subject. “We have not even begun to make the fundamental structural changes that VW has” in designing and applying flexible vehicle platforms.

The sense from competitors and auto ana-lysts is that VW’s rollout of MQB is likely to be as influential as such earlier innovations as Ford’s adaptation of standardised parts, GM’s “ladder” of brands and Toyota’s streamlined production system.

WATERSHED EVENTVW’s suppliers see MQB as a watershed

event, a break with a past when really big vehicle platforms might have yielded orders for as many as five million or six million iden-tical components over their typical six- to seven-year life cycle.

Now, with the implementation of MQB, “they’re being asked for quotes on 35 mil-lion parts,” says a senior European industry executive.

More importantly, the modularity enables VW to design, engineer and build a wide variety of vehicle size and shapes — from a subcompact Polo hatchback to a full-size, seven-passenger crossover that’s due in the US in 2015.

The flexibility of the MQB system also allows VW to create more cars that are more tailored for specific markets at a lower cost, and it doesn’t have to sell so many units to break even, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Stuart Pearson.

MQB isn’t the only weapon in Hackenberg’s arsenal.

Larger Audi, VW and Porsche models with longitudinal engines — mounted in a north-south configuration — will use a similar set of components dubbed MLB that already underpins a number of Audi vehicles.

And many of the group’s ultra-luxury and performance brands will employ a third component set called MSB, designed for premium rear- and all-wheel-drive vehicles such as the Porsche 911, the Bentley Continental and the Lamborghini Gallardo.

Each of the three modular component sets will come in different variations that will enable enormous flexibility in terms of product design, while accommodating a wide range of power train options, from gas and diesel engines to electric motors and batteries.

“Modular platforms have grown beyond the technology (alone) to become a management tool which helps support the brands’ development. The toolkits help the brands to preserve their character and sharpen their individuality,” said Hackenberg, now Development Chief for the Volkswagen brand.

Reuters

Has Volkswagen discovered the ‘global car’?

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013 TECHNOLOGY12

THE NUTCRACKER — BY TIMBUKTU (£0.69)

This children’s app looks lovely: a combination of digital storytelling and extracts from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker ballet score. Kids will be striking eight o’clock by tapping an owl, battling an army of mice, jumping on a nutshell and more in this interactive adventure.

iPhone / iPad

MINI-U ZOO ALPHABET (£1.49)

There are lots of children’s apps mixing alphabet-education and animals. This is one of the latest, and the cutest. It offers animated flash-cards for every letter, each with an animal. Expect giraffes and zebras, but also Komodo dragons, jellyfishes and newts for a dash of originality. Mini-games and a quiz help kids learn their letters, with the promise of more animals to come. iPad

BASEBALL SUPERSTARS 2013 (FREE)

Gamevil’s Baseball Superstars games have been popular around the world (well, probably more so in the countries that play baseball). Having switched to a freemium model, the game sees you batting and pitching your way to glory, training up your player, taking on others over the network, and com-pleting daily RPG-style quests as you go. iPhone / iPad

THX TUNE-UP (FREE)This is a really practical app

from home-cinema brand THX to help you set up your TV, speakers and projector in a room, position-ing and connecting all the different devices just so, while tuning their settings. It also plays THX trailers and surround-sound audio demos, and has a novelty “moo can” fea-ture. As you do. iPhone / iPad

FIGHTING FANTASY HOUSE OF HELL (£3.99)

This app from Tin Man Games is the latest in its interactive remakes of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks from the 1980s. It puts you in the position of a hero battling through monsters and traps through dice-rolling skills alone. iPhone / iPad

FOURSQUARE FOR BUSINESS (FREE)

This is Foursquare’s equiva-lent of Facebook’s Pages Manager app: A tool for business use rather than consumers. In this case, it’s for venues who want a mobile way to monitor their Foursquare visi-tors, while also posting their own updates and special deals to the social location service. iPhone

Prices mentioned are for UKSuart Dredge / The Guardian

Apps of the DAY

by John Naughton

The communications theorist Marshall McLuhan observed that “we look at the present through a rear-view mirror”.

And that “we march backwards into the future”. Amen. Remember the horseless carriage? Not to mention the fact that we still measure the oomph of a Porsche 911 in, er, brake horsepower.

But the car industry is a ferment of modernism compared with the com-puter business. When the bitmapped screen and the Wimp (windows, icons, menus, pointer) interface first surfaced in the early 1970s at Xerox Parc, its geeks searched for a metaphor that would make this new way of relating to computers intelligible to human beings. So they came up with the “desktop” on which were displayed little images (icons) of documents and document folders, just like you’d find on an actual desktop. Well, on the desktop of an effi-cient bureaucrat anyway.

But then they ruined everything by putting a trash can on the desktop. And Bill Gates & Co compounded the offence when they released Windows 95, which also had a start button on the desktop. The result was that, for a time, when most of the world’s com-puter users wanted to switch off their machines they had to press start. Even the car industry thought that was weird.

The problem with metaphors is that they are double-edged swords (as it were). On the one hand, we need them because they help us make sense of the new, which is where the horse-less carriage, “coachbuilt” limousines etc came from. Metaphors “carry

explanatory structures from a familiar domain of experiences into an other domain in need of understanding or restructuring”, as the theorist Klaus Krippendorff has written.

But at the same time as they help us make sense of something, metaphors also constrain our thinking by lock-ing us into the past. When the web first appeared in 1991, for example, the obvious metaphor was that of a global library — a vast treasure house of digital artefacts held in repositor-ies (sites) that could be accessed by anybody.

And the metaphor for a web page was, just that: A page — a static object that could be accessed by a distant reader. But in fact the time when web pages were static objects has long gone. Most web pages nowadays are gener-ated on the fly by servers pulling stuff from their databases and dispatching it across the net for assembly by the recipient’s web browser. And a webmail page is in effect a virtual computer (powered by JavaScript) in which you do your email.

So although the web has changed out of all recognition in two decades, our underlying metaphor for it probably hasn’t changed that much. And this has the downside that we’re effectively blind to what is actually happening, which is that we are moving from a world of sites and visits to one that is increasingly dominated by streams. The guy who articulates this best is a Yale computer scientist named David Gelernter.

The title of his latest essay on the subject — The End of the Web, Search, and Computer as We Know It — con-veys the basic idea. “The space-based

web we currently have will gradually be replaced by a time-based world-stream,” he writes. “This lifestream — a heterogeneous, content-searchable, real-time messaging stream — arrived in the form of blog posts and RSS feeds, Twitter and other chatstreams and Facebook walls and timelines. Its structure represented a shift beyond the ‘flatland known as the desktop’ (where our interfaces ignored the temporal dimension) towards streams, which flow and can therefore serve as a representation of time.

“It’s a bit like moving from a desktop to a magic diary: Picture a diary whose pages turn automatically, tracking your life moment to moment… Until you touch it and then the page-turning stops. The diary becomes a reference book: a complete and searchable guide to your life. Put it down and the pages start turning again.”

Gelernter thinks that this diary-like structure is supplanting the spa-tial one as the dominant metaphor for cyberspace and he may well be right. At any rate, he’s not the only geek thinking like this. The social media expert Danah Boyd has also written perceptively along the same lines. As a metaphor, it certainly provides a way of making sense of the attractions of Facebook — now dominated by its timeline technol-ogy — and of Twitter, especially as seen through a stream-browser such as Hootsuite. So it will do for now, so long as we remember John Locke’s warning: That metaphors “must be made use of to illustrate ideas that we already have, not to paint to us those which we yet have not”. He wrote that in 1796. The Guardian

A stream of consciousness will kill off websites

Mark Zuckerberg explains the Facebook timeline. Will such streams become the dominant Internet metaphor?

Forget the website, the page and the visit — the dominant metaphor for the future of the Internet is the time-based stream.

COMICS & MORE 13

Hoy en la HistoriaFebruary 13, 2008

1668: Spain recognised the independence of Portugal under the Treaty of Lisbon1941: Penicillin was first used on a human being. The patient was a policeman from Oxford, England1969: Human eggs were fertilised in a test-tube for the first time2011: Tens of thousands of women across Italy protested against recent sex scandals associated with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi

Australia’s parliament issued a formal apology to the indigenous “Stolen Generation”, forcibly removed as children from their families and Aboriginal culture

Picture: Getty Images © GRAPHIC NEWS

ALL IN THE MIND Can you find the hidden words? They may be horizontal,vertical, diagonal, forwards or backwards.

BOISTEROUS, BUMPY, BURNISHED, COARSE, CRUDE, FLAT,FLOWING, FLUENT, FLUID, GLOSSY, GRATING, HARSH,IRREGULAR, JAGGED, LEGATO, LIQUID, PUGNACIOUS,REFINED, RIDGED, ROCKY, ROUGH, SATIN, SERRATED,SILKY, SLEEK, SLICK, SMOOTH, STACCATO, SUAVE, WRINKLED.

Baby Blues Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman

Blondie by Dennis Young and Denis Lebrun

Hagar The Horrible Chris Browne

LEARNARABIC

The names of months:

Yanayer January

Febrayer February

Maris March

Ibreel April

Mayoo May

Younyoo June

Youlyoo July

Aghus’tus August

Sibtember September

OK’tobar October

Noufembar November

Dicembar December

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

HYPER SUDOKU

CROSSWORD

CROSSWORDS

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER

How to play Hyper Sudoku:A Hyper Sudoku

Puzzle is solved

by filling the

numbers from 1

to 9 into the blank

cells. A Hyper

Sudoku has

unlike Sudoku

13 regions

(four regions

overlap with the

nine standard

regions). In all

regions the numbers from 1 to 9 can appear

only once. Otherwise, a Hyper Sudoku is

solved like a normal Sudoku.

ACROSS 1 In different places 6 Girls with coming-out

parties10 Bro’s counterpart13 Meddles14 Jai ___15 Walk with a hitch16 Relaxing spot on a

veranda18 World’s fair, e.g.19 Band of secret agents20 Make a difference22 Web site ID23 Huge success at the

box office25 Braid28 Twosome29 Cribbage marker30 Fluffy stuff caught in

the dryer31 Tiny hollow cylinder33 Stick up36 Late singer Winehouse37 Virginia site of two Civil

War battles38 Attorneys’ org.

39 N.B.A.’s 7’6” ___ Ming

40 Eyeing amorously41 Person on a pedestal42 Set down44 Ambulance letters45 Prepare to propose,

perhaps46 Hillside threat after a

heavy rain49 Prefix with day or night50 Song that people stand

to sing51 Lopsided victory55 Tennis’s Nastase56 Sheet music for Van

Cliburn, say59 Makes less bright60 Title for Byron or

Baltimore61 A– and C+62 Sault ___ Marie63 Laughs over some

unsophisticated humor64 German Surrealist Max

DOWN 1 Downloads for tablets

2 Stagehand’s responsibility

3 Well-ventilated 4 Army enlistee 5 Jeans topper 6 Deputy ___ (toon) 7 Manning who has won

multiple Super Bowl M.V.P. awards

8 Prohibit 9 Greek “S”10 Traditional start of

middle school11 Architect for the Louvre

pyramid12 Athlete’s pursuit15 River through Hades17 Irreverent weekend

show, briefly21 Colorado ski town23 Glorious24 Grieves for25 With 35-Down, much-

anticipated cry every April

26 Peru’s capital27 “Whenever you feel like

it”

28 Made less sharp31 Yank32 Schlep34 Bassoon relative35 See 25-Down37 2009 British singing

sensation Susan41 Big series name in auto

racing43 Smokers’ residue45 Instruction to Kate in a

Cole Porter musical46 Eight milkers in “The 12

Days of Christmas”

47 Pitch-dark48 Suggest49 China’s Long March

leader51 Extremities52 Showing signs of use53 Annoys54 It might be out on a

limb57 Acknowledgment of

debt, in brief58 State north of La.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15

16 17 18

19 20 21

22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38

39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58

59 60 61

62 63 64

M I C A A L I E N R A C E SA D A M M E A D O W L A R KD O L P H I N S A F E T U N AE M I L E T I M E S T E TR E F E R S M S E C I S EO N O R N G O S O H O TO E R R E A V E Z I NM O N K E E S T H E C A R S

I L L X E N O N R E WT A M I L T A W T Y P E

R I G C U T E L I O T T AA V I S M A R T C L A I RP O R C U P I N E Q U I L L SI L L U M I N A T E F E E TD I S M A N T L E D E S S O

How to play Kakuro:The kakuro grid, unlike in sudoku, can be of any size. It has rows and columns, and dark cells like in a crossword. And, just like in a crossword, some of the dark cells will contain numbers. Some cells will contain two numbers.However, in a crossword the numbers reference clues. In a kakuro, the numbers are all you get! They denote the total of the digits in the row or column referenced by the number.Within each collection of cells - called a run

- any of the numbers 1 to 9 may be used but, like sudoku, each number may only be used once.

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER

14

EASY SUDOKUEasy Sudoku PuzzlesPlace a digit from 1 to 9 in each empty cell so everyrow, every column and every 3x3 box contains allthe digits 1 to 9.

Cartoon Arts International / The New York Times Syndicate

CINEMA / TV LISTINGS

0730 Rugby 6

Nations

Scotland V Italy

0915 Short

Programme

0930 Omni Sport

1000 The Football

League Show

1530 English Sports

News

1545 Short

Programme

1600 The Serie A

Show

1630 Twenty 20

Cricket

Bangladesh

Premier League

Barisal V Sylhet

1930 Basketball Nba

Oklhaoma @

Utah

2130 Atp Tennis

Magazine

2200 Uefa

Champions

8:00 News

8:30 News

9:00 Witness

10:00 News

10:30 Inside Story

11:00 News

11:30 The Stream

12:00 News

12:30 Earthrise

13:00 NEWSHOUR

14:00 News

14:30 Inside Story

15:00 Al Jazeera

World

16:00 NEWSHOUR

17:00 News

17:30 The Stream

18:00 NEWSHOUR

19:00 News

19:30 People &

Power

20:00 News

20:30 Inside Story

21:00 NEWSHOUR

22:30 The Stream

23:00 Witness

15:30 Auction Kings

16:00 Unchained

Reaction

17:50 Mythbusters

18:45 American Guns

19:40 How Do They

Do It?

20:05 How It’s Made

20:35 Auction Kings

21:00 Auction Kings

21:30 Magic Of

Science

21:55 Time Warp

22:25 Mythbusters

23:20 Mythbusters

12:00 Monster Fish

13:00 Triumph of Life

16:00 Salmon Wars

17:00 Dangerous

Encounters

18:00 Hunter Hunted

19:00 Fish Warrior

20:00 Dangerous

Encounters

21:00 World’s

Deadliest

Animals

22:00 I, Predator

14:30 Powerpuff Girls

15:20 Angelo Rules

16:35 Young Justice

17:20 Transformers

Prime

17:40 Johnny Test

18:00 Level Up

18:25 The Amazing

World Of

Gumball

18:50 Adventure Time

19:15 Regular Show

10:00 It’s Kind Of A

Funny Story-

12:00 Wayne’s World

14:00 In Her Shoes-

16:15 It’s Kind Of A

Funny Story-

18:00 Sleepless In

Seattle-PG

20:00 The Waterboy

15

13:20 Wildlife SOS

13:50 Wildlife SOS

14:45 Animal Precinct

15:40 Wildest Africa

18:25 Weird

Creatures With

Nick Baker

20:15 Bondi Vet

20:40 Safari Vet

School

21:10 Call Of The

Wildman

21:35 Escape To

Chimp Eden

22:05 Wildest Africa

11:50 A Man Called

Sarge

13:20 Kidnapped

15:05 Timestalkers

16:40 The 70’s

18:35 Mgm’s Big

Screen

18:50 A Woman’s

20:25 A Kiss Before

Dying

22:00 How I Spent

My Summer

23:35 The Men’s Club

11:40 Stars In My

Crown-U

13:10 The Merry

Widow-FAM

14:55 The Big Sleep-

16:45 Hell Divers-PG

18:35 North By

Northwest-PG

20:50 Bells Are

Ringing-FAM

23:00 The Night Of

The Iguana

08:00 Turtle Hero: Part

10:00 Spooky

Buddies-PG

11:30 Olentzero And

The Magic Log-

13:00 Battle For Terra-

14:30 Shark Tale-PG

16:00 Supertramps-=

18:00 Spooky

TEL: 444933989 444517001SHOWING AT VILLAGGIO & CITY CENTER

MALL CINEMA

1

Rise Of The Guardians (Animation) – 2.30 & 4.30pm

Lucky One (Drama) – 6.30pm

Jack Reacher – 8.30 & 11.00pm

2

The Guilt Trip (2D/Comedy)– 2.30pm

ABCD (Any Body Can Dance) (Hindi) – 4.15 & 7.00pm

The Final (2D/Horror) – 9.45pm

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (3D/Horror) – 11.30pm

3

Aala Gosety (2D/Arabic) – 2.30 & 7.15pm

Broken City (2D/Crime) – 5.00pm

Bullet To The Head (2D/Action) – 9.30 & 11.30pm

ROYAL PLAZA

1

Aala Gosety (2D/Arabic)– 2.30pm

Broken City (2D/Crime) – 5.00pmCockneys Vs Zombies (2D/Comedy) – 7.15pm

Bullet To The Head (2D/Action) – 9.15 & 11.30pm

2

Mirror Mirror (Adventure) – 3.00 & 5.00pm

One For Money (Comedy) – 7.00pm

What To Expect When You’re Expecting (Comedy) – 9.00pm

Devil’s Double (Action) – 11.00pm

3

Ice Age 4: Continental Drift (Animation)– 2.30 & 4.30pm

The Bangbang Club (Drama)– 6.30, 8.30 & 11.00pm

LANDMARK

1

Special 26 (2D/Hindi) – 2.30 & 7.00pm

Bullet To The Head (2D/Action) – 5.15 & 9.45pm

The Final (2D/Horror) – 11.30pm

2

Cockneys Vs Zombies (2D/Comedy) – 3.00pm

Broken City (2D/Crime) – 5.00 & 9.15pm

Bullet To The Head (2D/Action) – 7.15pm

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (3D/Horror) – 11.30pm

3

The Guilt Trip (2D/Comedy)– 2.30 & 9.15pm

Aala Gosety (2D/Arabic)– 4.30 & 7.00pm

Cockneys Vs Zombies (2D/Comedy) – 11.15pm

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013

PLUS | WEDNESDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2013 POTPOURRI16

Editor-In-Chief Khalid Al Sayed Acting Managing Editor Hussain Ahmad Editorial Office The Peninsula Tel: 4455 7741, E-mail: plus@pen.com.qa / editor@pen.com.qa

If you want your events featured here mail details to plus@pen.com.qa

Rigoletto: The Met Live In HD When: Feb 16; 8.55pm-11pmWhere: Drama Theater, Katara What: Director Michael Mayer has placed his new production of Verdi’s towering tragedy in Las Vegas in 1960. In this production inspired by the antics of the Rat Pack, Piotr Bezcala is the womanising Duke of Mantua, Željko Lucic is his tragic sidekick, Rigoletto, and Diana Damrau is Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda.Ticket: QR50-QR100 available online and shops of Virgin Megastores

Forever NowWhen: Until March 31, 2013; 11am-6pmWhere: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art

What: Forever Now proposes new readings based on the works of five artists from Mathaf’s permanent collection. This exhibition unpacks new narratives that posit a unique understanding of five diverse artists: Fahrelnissa Zeid, Jewad Selim, Saliba Douaihy, Salim Al Dabbagh and Ahmed Cherkaoui. Free entry

The FamilyWhen: Until Feb 28; 10am-10pmFriday: 2pm-10pmWhere: Anima Gallery, The Pearl-QatarWhat: First Guiragossian family exhibition. Despair, separation, re-union, love... Life in all its forms is portrayed in the works of Paul, Emmanuel, Jean Paul and Manuella Guiragossian. Free entry

Tea with NefertitiWhen: Until March 31, 2013; 11am-6pmWHERE: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art WHAT: Offer a critical perspective on how to perceive an artwork, particularly in and from the Arab world. Free entry

Chamber Music at Museum of Islamic Art:Death and the MaidenWhen: March 7; 6pmWhere: Museum of Islamic Art Atrium

Encounter: The Royal Academy in the Middle East ExhibitionWhen: Until March 6; 10am-10pmWhere: Gallery 1&2 Building 19 and Katara Gallery Building 22 What: An exhibition featuring over 80 works of art in a wide variety of media by 25 Royal Academicians and 25 prominent artists from across the Middle East.Free entry

Events in Qatar MEDIA SCAN

IN FOCUS

• People are discussing the new pension law expected to include Qataris in the government and pri-vate sectors.

• There are complaints about unhy-gienic conditions at the birds mar-ket in the central market, because of which birds are dying.

• People are saying the national integrated plan for sanitation and rainwater drainage is one of the long-awaited projects, and it is to be seen how fast it is completed.

• People are complaining about lack of traffic signals, speed limits and speed bumps on some internal roads in residential areas.

• There are also complaints about several vehicle repair shops using public parking space on the roads.

• People have urged authorities to tightly monitor grocery shops that

sell pain-killing medicines, which are not stored properly.

• People are divided over the idea of establishing nurseries in work-places for workers’ children.

• Road diversions in Doha is another topic people are discussing because of delay by Ashghal in finishing infrastructure projects. People say these are causing problems for drivers and pedestrians.

• The social media is discussing newspaper reports on some HMC employees resigning in protest against denial of additional allow-ances for January.

• There are discussions about risks involved in the use of fingerprint readers by some ministries, government institutions and pri-vate firms to record employees’ attendance.

A summary ofissues of the daydiscussed by the Qatari communityin the media.

A photo taken by a Peninsula Plus reader in Souq Waqif.

by Mohammed Fayaz

Fine dining meets fast food at one Aussie McDonald’s

Would you like a knife and fork with that? In a world first, a

McDonald’s franchise in Australia is offering full table service for its dine-in customers, complete with china plates, glassware and metal utensils in place of the more usual paper boxes and plastic.

Meals are also brought to the table by waiters and waitresses, and diners can daintily dab their lips with cloth napkins after eating.

“It’s very popular,” store man-ager Michelle Steain told Reuters of the five-week trial service. “Everyone seems to be loving it.”

Glenn and Katia Dwarte, own-ers of the franchise in Warilla, some 100km south of Sydney, sought permission for the idea after their habit of serving Mr Dwarte’s parents with cutlery and plates caught the attention of other diners.

Last year, they caught the atten-tion of McDonald’s head office in Chicago after creating an iPhone app that allows customers to place an order and pay in advance before they arrive in store. Reuters

If you want a photograph taken by you featured here mail it to plus@pen.com.qa