Facing Reality

“It’s nice to get a knighthood but in the end it’s just the same old face in the mirror getting older and older — you have to shave every morning and you look at your face and think: this is it, this is the deal. And there’s a wonderful harsh reality about that. Time is going by. I better get on with it. I better live.”

Anthony Hopkins

A Spoonful Of Sugar

Taylor Swift, the American country star, is a phenomenon - her sugar-coated style a perfect antidote to her nation's ills. But it would not hurt if she could actually sing.

Who' First?

Arguably the most famous line The Who's Pete Townshend ever wrote was "Hope I die before I get old" on the angry young anthem of 1965, "My Generation". The world seems to have forgotten just how great The Who once were. They have long had to settle for third place in the pantheon of Sixties rock giants behind The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Many, though, would argue that they were the greatest live band of all time, ahead not only of The Beatles and the Stones, but also of Led Zeppelin, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Nirvana and all the other legends. When Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey – the other surviving original member of the group after the deaths of drummer Keith Moon and bass guitarist John Entwistle – played the post-9/11 Concert for New York City, their passionate performance had traumatised firemen on their feet with tears in their eyes.

The Wonder Vitamin

Imagine a treatment that could build bones, strengthen the immune system and lower the risks of illnesses like diabetes, heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure and cancer. Some research suggests that such a wonder treatment already exists. It’s vitamin D, a nutrient that the body makes from sunlight and that is also found in fish and fortified milk. Doctors are increasingly testing their patients’ vitamin D levels and prescribing daily supplements to raise them. But don’t start gobbling down vitamin D supplements just yet. The excitement about their health potential is still far ahead of the science. Although numerous studies have been promising, there are scant data from randomized clinical trials. Little is known about what the ideal level of vitamin D really is, whether raising it can improve health, and what potential side effects are caused by high doses. And since most of the data on vitamin D comes from observational research, it may be that high doses of the nutrient don’t really make people healthier, but that healthy people simply do the sorts of things that happen to raise vitamin D.

German

"The Germans have an inhuman way of cutting up their verbs. Now a verb has a hard time enough of it in this world when it's all together. It's downright inhuman to split it up. But that's just what those Germans do. They take part of a verb and put it down here, like a stake, and they take the other part of it and put it away over yonder like another stake, and between these two limits they just shovel in German."

Mark Twain

Caution!

It used to be that you’d get nervous seeing a cop in your rearview mirror. Now you worry if it’s a Toyota.

Mozart's Resurrection In Korea (Of All Places!)

Justifying The Means

An unidentified informant is offering to sell the German authorities details of 1,500 individuals who allegedly have untaxed income stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. He gave German tax auditors five sample files to prove the validity of the information which shows that the government is willing to cut the deal. It would not be the first one of its kind. In 2008, Germany purchased data on tax evaders from a bank official based in Liechtenstein. This time the government is willing to pay 2,5 million Euro for the stolen data, hoping for revenues of 200 million from the disclosed evaders. What's next? Probably negotiations with drug dealers, kidnappers and terrorists.

Actors

I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

Alfred Hitchcock

Inspiration

Anyone who waits to be struck with a good idea has a long wait coming. If I have a deadline for a column or a television script, I sit down at the typewriter and damn well decide to have a good idea.

Andy Rooney