The countries are:

1. Norway

2. Denmark

3. Finland

4. Australia

5. New Zealand

National march against foreign workers
Nutshell: an outline of protests being lined up against foreign workers in Britain. Plus, Mandelson’s reaction against this and his thoughts that it will turn a recession into a depression.
Comment: If foreign workers were restricted from taking jobs in Britain, would Brits take some of the jobs that were left behind? Eg being a waiter in a restaurant?

Snow storms will be most widespread in 18 years, Met Office warns
Nutshell: snow storms on the way… up to/min of 10cm for most of Eastern England.
Commentary: self explanatory, get the wellies out!

Octuplets’ mother wants Oprah to turn her into a $2m TV star
Nutshell: a twee article, but does give details of this medical phenomonon, oddity, ethical monstrosity or miracle – depends how you look at it.
Comment: How do you see it, should it have happened why or why not? I’d be curious to know what others think.

Further interesting, recent ‘Money’ section stories (not from today’s paper) :

Six ways to deal with slide in Sterling
Nutshell: recommendations on what to do while the pound is weak.
Comment: find this article interesting as it highlights that the pound has fallen 8% this week and also that the pound is now only worth $1.35.

The ten worst banks for customer service
Nutshell: a worst (and best of) table for banks and their customer service – compiled from a survey of 15,000 people by Which?
Comment: am not surprised that Abbey is at the top of the ‘worst’ list. I do some banking with them and the walk-in service in branches tends to be very poor as does the regular phone line for telephone banking. The Premier line (which I luckily got given a number for) is the only reasonable customer service offered – to date.

So here are some of the best films worth checking out for different reasons (in order of release to the big screen)…

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Reason: kitsch film about vampire killers and those that they are hunting. Great OTT period costumes and decor.

The Hunger (1983)
Reason: How can you beat Bowie, DeNeuve and Sarandon all in one movie? Or, for that matter, the club scene with Bauhaus playing at the beginning of the movie? Delicious noir. It also made me fall in love with DeNeuve – a gorgeous woman!

Legend (1985)
Reason: excellent plot, great acting by Will Smith, and lots of excellent action scenes, fright, and suspense, as he tries to make these ‘vampires’ (who became daylight-fearing bloodsuckers after being dosed up with a virus that supposedly cured cancer), back into humans, and excellent action.

Fright Night (1985)
Reason: interesting and suspenseful kitsch 80s film in which a group of teenagers try and evade, and then k ill off, an attractive vampire who has moved into the neighbour hood – particularly after the vamp finds out they know his true identity and reciprocally plans to dispose of them.

The Lost Boys (1987)
Reason: again, an awesome adolescent movie with vampires. Corey Haim and Corey Feldman are really good as the adolescent boys.

Near Dark (1987)
Reason: a truly fantastic trailer-trash vampire B- and road movie where they eat un-suspecting people along the way. ; )

Blade (1998 )
Reason: Fast and action-packed. Wesley Snipes is excellent as the sombre and muscular half-human, half-vampire vampire killer, Blade.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Reason: the first of the great 80s teen vamp movies with Kristy Swanson as the blond vampire combatant.

30 Days of Night (2007)
Reason: amazing action and terror as vampires descend upon a town in the dead of winter killing its members. Extremely terrifying and suspenseful as a few people try and hide from the mad hoard of brutal killers.

Twilight (2008 )
Reason: based on the Stephanie Meyer book, which has sold over 30 million copies, this is a great ‘teen angst romance’ – with vamps and lots of action. Fast-paced with odd and curious moments in it, it’s worth seeing.

Found this edition more exciting than most (recently) although I was disappointed that they didn’t do proper Culture or Home magazines.

Articles I found good this week…

House price slides expected in the new year
Nutshell: an interesting article summarising the house price falls of 15% last year, plus estimates over the next year of drops in prices… many bodies estimate the drops to be about 10%.

Pay cuts and freezes loom for millions in private sector
Nutshell: Companies are expected to cut employees’ wages to avoid mass redundancies. British Chamber of Commerce also calling for minimum wage to be kept at £5.73 due to recession.

Tories plan to unveil tax cuts
Nutshell: the Tories plan to reduce taxes in the following ways… reduce National Insurance, reduce income tax on savings, reduce tax burden on over-65s. In rebuttal, Labour thinks that this will mean cuts in public spending.

Ministers urged to lift cap off university fees
Nutshell: a report urges that universities should be able to set whatever fees they like to improve the quality of teaching.
Comment: hopefully this won’t happen – who would be able to afford to go then?

Virtual West End for Cyber Shoppers
Nutshell: a computer company hopes to create a virtual Oxford Street where people can ‘virtually’ browse many retailers. This comes after online sales are up 16% since last November. It would include links to Facebook and MySpace, plus the weather would change with what really happens on Oxford Street.

Not an interesting article, but noteworthy…

Cultural heads-up…
Turandot - on till 23 January at the Royal Opera House

Also, the advert for Demons, a TV series that starts of Saturday 3 January, looks cool. Kind of like a new Buffy the Vampire Slayer series on the up ; )

Style Guide
Mrs Mills was good as always, the rest was a bit blasé.

From the Money section…
Mortgage rates are finally falling, best fixed deals are now under 5% for those who have a 40% deposit … eg Cheltenham and Gloucester are offering 4.29% (again, a 40% deposit needed) for a two-year fixed deal.

News review tidbits…

• Doctors to set up memory clinics across the UK to help those with the disease as over 700,000 in the UK have it.
• Amusing… California’s public health department is investigating a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills who used the fat from liposuction operations as fuel in his car. Authorities also closed down the site www.lipodiesel.com. Made me chuckle that the owner, Bittner, had written – “Not only do they [patients] get to lose their love handles or chubby belly, but they get to take part in saving the Earth.” – on the site.

• British playwright Harold Pinter, sadly, has died from cancer.
  The Times obituary, reprinted in ST.
• Also, a fantastic obit done for Earth Kitt. What they wrote about her completely intrigued me. She had an interesting life and made me wish I had seen her sing – and know her quite frankly. Definitely worth reading.

A few interesting articles in this week’s paper that I wanted to highlight:

Teenagers to receive jabs to cut abortion
Nutshell: The govermnment wants to encourage GPs to give contraceptive jabs and implants to teenage girls so that it cuts down on the amount of abortions they have. The article also states that implants/jabs could render girls infertile for up to three years and that one-third of all abortions are repeat abortions.
Comment: Personally, I’m against the use of contraceptive pills as they are unnatural and can screw up a woman’s hormones and make her more susceptible to breast cancer and other illnesses. Some of the stories I have heard from women who have IUDs are horrifying. Teenage girls, imparticular, should not have their hormones and health put at jeopardy.

The great fixed rate [mortgages] loan rip-off
Nutshell: Banks reaping £3.7 billion a year on fixed-rate mortgage loans. Despite this, it is nice to note that fixed rates have come down since the last slash of the Bank of England base rate. The article also includes a ‘best-buys’ mortgage table.

Our tax manifesto: what Brown could do to help
Nutshell and comment: The ST has made an interesting and astute list of economic areas where Brown could make tax cuts or give tax relief.

A few of the stories I found interesting this week…

Joe Cool arrives at the White House
Nutshell: Article that describes Obama’s style. Plus, The Times’ Obama coverage is very good.

Finance and property slump claims 300,000 jobs
Comment: in some respects, a summary of how the recession is hitting us.

Banks defy Brown over new rate cut
Nutshell: ST is hinting that banks will not cut their interest rates for customers.

Culture heads-ups: Tickets are now on sale for Cirque du Soleil’s wonderful show Quidam, Enjoy by Alan Bennett and The Royal Academy’s exhibit Byzantium.

Ken Livingstone’s sour grapes (The Metro – IIRC – or one of the London papers)
Firstly, has anyone noticed the ‘Boris watch’ that the Metro has set up? Just saw it today for the first time, which is written by none other than Ken Livingstone. After reading it, it comes across as sour grapes and totally unfair. Give the guy a chance… surely someone as talented as Ken should have more to do than sit around and criticise Boris.

Who’s that girl – airbrushing makes actresses look like each other
Oddly, I noticed that the latest airbrushed picture of Kate Winslet although she is extremely beautiful in it, and I think it does her justice, makes her look like a younger Brooke Shields and Kiera Knightley (evidence below). Is airbrushing really a good idea – perhaps if something is a piece of ‘artwork’ but not if you’re trying to portray a person as they truly are. Eg when Diane Keaton had her film, Something’s Gotta Give, come out a few years ago, the promo image of her made her look like she was 30 years younger than she was and didn’t resemble her in the film at all.

A few interesting headlines today as we near Super Tuesday – the official ‘go to the polls day’ for the US elections…

Barack Obama has the White House within his grasp
Comment: US election piece including map of the US that is colour-coded for which States are strong for each candidate.

Money section – comment: mortgage rates pretty much still the same (ie best deals listed in the times have fixed rates at 5.44%, and in this week’s section a raft of ST’s usual money saving articles, that are generally hokey ideas. However, there was an interesting piece highlighting how savings accounts’ rates are falling.

Style guide:
p 24 – some smart ‘wanna-have-it’ calf-length pencil skirts highlighted in the Wardrobe Mistress column.
p 47 – a gorge blue sofa by Modus in the ‘Winter Blues’ article.
p 66 – the usual witty stuff in the Mrs Mills letter section

For those who have this crippling problem, I think Diagnosing and Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is a good source of information on both causes and treatment. It’s a free PDF by environmental medicine doctor, Sarah Myhill, entitled Diagnosing and treating chronic fatigue syndrome.

Further information:
Diagnosing and Treating Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (the free pdf – www.drmyhill.co.uk)
Sarah Myhill’s official website (www.drmyhill.co.uk)

Only a few bits and pieces this week as the global recession and US politics are the ‘same old’… and I’m not interested in the sensationalism of the ‘Foxy Knoxy’ murder case in Italy*.

• In the Money section, the charts at the back for best buy mortgages show that fixed rate deals are slowly getting following the BOE base rate cut of .5% at the beginning of the month. This week HSBC has a good deal of a 5.44% fixed-rate for two years with a fee of £999 – better than a few months ago. Britannia also now offers the same rate for three years with the same fee and Principality offers five-year fixed rate of 5.57% with a fee of £995.
• Culture highlights Oedipus, starring Ralph Fiennes, at the National Theatre (Olivier) as a ‘Theatre Pick’ worth seeing.
• Style Guide has some interesting pieces at first glance including the shoe feature on page 32 (including a guide on how to walk in mega high heels), p 18 – Is size zero over?, an interview with Grace Jones p 10, a piece on contraceptive pills p 49 and Totty de Bouvier’s column (which is like free Plum Sykes every Sunday) and Mrs Mills are also amusing this week.

Further information:
The Sunday Times (official site)

* Although thankfully, speaking of sensationalism, the ST did NOT go on about Madonna and Guy’s pending divorce. However, also speaking of trashy reporting, they did jump on the ‘let’s report on sex addiction bandwagon’ in The Style Guide – which was ‘been there, done’ that a few weeks ago – not impressive as usually the Style Guide is more ingenious than that.