Harry Potter book 'often unread'
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The fourth Harry Potter novel and David Beckham's autobiography are among the books least likely to be finished by Britons, according to a survey.
Booker winner Vernon God Little was the least-finished fiction title, followed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Autobiographies by David Blunkett, Bill Clinton and David Beckham topped the non-fiction unfinished list.
A Teletext survey of 4,000 Britons found that almost half of the books they bought remained unfinished.
UNFINISHED FICTION
1 Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Some 35% of those who bought or borrowed Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre's story of a US high school massacre, admitted not finishing it.
The figure was 32% for the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter series, while 28% said the same for James Joyce's Ulysses, third on the list.
The fiction top 10 also included Louis De Bernieres' Captain Corelli's Mandolin (27%), made into a film starring Nicolas Cage and Penelope Cruz.
Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, over which a Muslim fatwa was issued ordering the writer's execution, was unfinished by 21%.
UNFINISHED NON-FICTION
1 The Blunkett Tapes, David Blunkett
2 My Life, Bill Clinton
3 My Side, David Beckham
4 Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
5 Wild Swans, Jung Chang
6 Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking
7 The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher
8 I Can Make You Thin, Paul McKenna
9 Jade: My Autobiography, Jade Goody
10 Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?, Mick O'Hare
On the non-fiction list, former home secretary Blunkett's The Blunkett Tapes was too much for 35% of readers, followed by Clinton's My Life (30%) and Beckham's My Side (27%).
The average Briton spent more than £4,000 on books during their lifetime, the survey found.
Less than a quarter of people found time to read every day, with 48% saying they were too tired.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6440981.stm
The fight to copyright Mother's Day
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It's big business but who really objects to spending money on spoiling their mum on Mother's Day? Only the woman who invented it.
Mothers, they're lovely. They kiss you better when you hurt yourself, cook your favourite dinners and always take your side when someone is nasty to you.
The High Street shops might make a mint out of Mother's Day, but who really objects to splashing a bit of cash on their mum on her special day? One woman did and spent 40 years of her life trying to get rid of all the cards and presents - the woman who invented the day.
The old English Mothering Sunday has its roots in pre-Christian times, but modern-day Mother's Day - the cards, flowers, chocolates etc - was started in the United States by Anna Jarvis.
The ninth of 11 children, she made it her life's work to commemorate every mother after her own mother died. The idea - like Mothering Sunday - was for families to get together in church to recognise the real value of motherhood.
Horrified
Firstly she got her local church involved and after tirelessly campaigning for almost a decade, US President Woodrow Wilson officially dedicated a day to mothers in 1914 - the second Sunday in May.
UK MOTHERING SUNDAY
Roots stretch back to pre-Christian times
In 18th and 19th Centuries, servants were given the day off to visit their mothers
Britons sent 23 million cards in 2005, about 30% homemade
But within years it had become commercialised. Ms Jarvis was horrified. She tried to take action, incorporating herself as the Mother's Day International Association and claiming copyright on the date.
Along with her sister Ellsinore, Anna spent the entire family inheritance on trying to undo the damage done to Mother's Day. One of her protests even got her arrested for disturbing the peace. She died in 1948, in poverty and without success.
In one respect what Ms Jarvis wanted from the day lives on - it has taken on huge significance and is a celebration of motherhood. However, how most people chose to celebrate it would make her turn in her grave.
Say it with flowers
Consumers are pressured by advertising and businesses to measure goodwill in terms of presents, says branding expert Jonathan Gabay.
"Mother's Day has become a yearly windfall to business. It's an opportunity to market everything from cut flowers and greetings cards to nostalgic CDs, perfume and beauty products."
He's not wrong. The UK greeting card industry is worth more than £1.2bn a year, according to market research group Mintel. Mother's Day is one of the biggest events in the industry's calendar and Britons sent about 23 million cards to their mothers in 2005.
According to the Flowers & Plants Association, 3.7 million mixed bouquets, 394,000 bunches of roses, 294,000 bunches of tulips, 293,000 bunches of freesia and 93,000 foliage plants were bought on Mother's Day last year.
What Mother's Day needs is a re-launch without its commercial sponsors, say some. Professor Ralph Fevre says the day is supposed to make mothers feel valued but its commercialism means it "isn't up to the job".
"We have a particular problem in the UK drawing a line around those parts of our lives that we want to keep sacrosanct from the market," he says.
"When we find some aspect of our lives that we want to value, or honour as the Americans say, we always end up involving the market in some way."
He suggests making it a weekday public holiday.
Breakfast in bed
"We need to try a bit harder to put work in its place. Having Mothers Day on a Sunday lets us off the hook.
"To have it on a weekday would show that we can resist that pull that takes us into work and which makes us value everything in economic terms."
Many mothers agree with his views, and there is a real movement among them to shift the focus away from buying presents to helping others, says one of the founders of Mumsnet, Carrie Longton.
"We don't want the day to disappear or for people to stop treating their mothers. We just want people to focus on what the day is about and not just grab a card and bunch of flowers from a petrol station on the way over to their mum's house," she says.
"It's inevitable that businesses will see the day as a way to make money, but most mothers would be happier with a homemade card because it shows some thought and effort has been put into it.
"There is a real movement among mothers at the moment to think about mothers who are less fortunate. We are encouraging people to make a donation to charities that help mothers worldwide rather than buy flowers.
"I will be working on a cake stall on Mother's Day to raise money for HIV mothers in Africa. It costs just £7 to buy the medicine to make sure they don't pass HIV onto their children."
It's this type of action that Ms Jarvis would approve of. Especially as she hated Mother's Day cards, calling them "a poor excuse for the letter you are too lazy to write".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6409411.stm
Chocolate 'better than kissing'
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Couples in their 20s had their heart rates and brains monitored whilst they first melted chocolate in their mouths and then kissed.
Chocolate caused a more intense and longer lasting "buzz" than kissing, and doubled volunteer's heart rates....
Although kissing set the heart pounding, the effect did not last as long as that seen with the chocolate, which increased heart rates from a resting rate of about 60 beats per minute to 140.
The study also found that as the chocolate started melting, all regions of the brain received a boost far more intense and longer lasting than the excitement seen with kissing.
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