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Train your Brain

Can you really train your brain to improve its functionality? Since the arrival of several products all designed to motivate us to give our brain a regular work-out, there have been detractors either telling us that they don't work or complaining that we are being encouraged into yet another sedentary activity in a time when...

Updated 22/01/2008


Thanks for all your emails asking about the podcasts. We have experienced a bit of a glitch lately but they are due to be reinstated later this week. Please drop me a line if you would like me to let you know when they are ready for your ears only.

What is Web Watch?

Web Watch is broadcast on BBC Radio Berkshire, published in the Henley and South Oxon Standard and published online right here at web-watch.info.

As a cross-media project, Web Watch is designed to help you find the best sites here on the Internet.

You can catch Web Watch on air every Tuesday at 5.45pm when Jacqueline Alexander sits down with Phil Kennedy during the Drivetime show on BBC Radio Berkshire to chew the virtual fat.

Degrees of resolution

Congratulations to all of you who, in this second week of January, are still displaying determination, commitment and resolve during the season of new beginnings. Whilst there are a few who will be sticking to their guns, the reality is that most of you will have already broken your New Year resolutions. I haven't, but before you think I am being smug and self-congratulatory, I am not. Nor am I sporting a natty little halo...

Updated 08/01/2008


Culturally diverse, visually stunning

In this era of so-called globalisation, we seem fated to experience another year of political bulletins emerging from all quarters. Not only have we got the seemingly endless run-up to the US presidential elections to contend with, we have micro-politics causing havoc across the world and, closer to home, although we do not have an officially elongated prime ministerial campaign, we all know that Mr Brown, Mr Cameron and whoever the liberal leader is this week, are...

Updated 15/01/2008


The bear essentials

Amongst all the gadgets, gizmos, toys and trinkets that will be unwrapped in a few days time, it is soothing to know that one enduring favourite will be delivered without the need for reams of instructions, numerous battery requirements or a supposedly user-friendly 'getting started' booklet.

Updated 18/12/2007


Santa Silliness

I give up. I have trawled through the internet looking for something that would serve as a valid excuse for not serving up a host of Santa silliness but it's impossible to avoid.

Updated 11/12/2007


A really, really good buy

Even if you have finished your Christmas shopping, please tell me that there will be at least one person you have forgotten. Perhaps a great uncle who has moved to foreign shores or an old friend who has somehow managed to miss being on your Christmas list this year; whoever it is, that person will help those of us yet to get started feel a whole lot better...

Updated 4/12/2007


A question of answers...

I have just been told that I am in the prime of my life. Is that a compliment? What exactly is the prime of one's life? Is it an expression that relates to age, experience or achievement? Will I only realise I am in it after I have passed it?

Updated 27/11/2007


Call me Ishmael... or John.. or Luke... or...

It's difficult to now when to write this article. Too early and I will be accused of joining in with the commercialisation of Christ's birth. Too late and I will be accused of not giving everyone enough time to take advantage of this idea.

Updated 20/11/2007


The perils of parenthood...

I was lucky. During my weeks after my son's birth, he didn't cry. He made noises and whinged but never howled. Unfortunately, this meant that I was lured into a false sense of security so when he first exercised his lungs to deafening effect...

Updated 13/11/2007


Trade secrets...

Bleary eyed and suffering the after effects of a busy weekend, I awoke on Monday to find a distinct lack of food in my kitchen. Determined not to go hungry but acutely aware that I looked remarkably like a cross between Nebuchadnezzar and Catweazle...

Updated 6/11/2007


I've got a secret...

I let a guy think that I love him. He pays for everything including my rent, cell phones and a laptop and I save the money I earn...

Updated 30/10/2007


The word is out...

Occasionally, we are shocked to our core when an unexpected, perhaps unthinkable, event occurs...

Updated 23/10/2007


Revealing the hidden truth?

More and more companies are using handwriting analysis as part of their filtering process when recruiting a new member of their personnel. When you next apply for your dream job, you may well be asked to write a page of text in freehand

Updated 16/10/2007


Why don't you...

..switch off your television and do something less boring? If you are a child of the seventies, you may have a vague memory of this oxymoronic title and the...

Updated 02/10/2007


List mania...

I am not sure if it started with Schindler's, Lloyd's or Craig's but the western world seems to have become obsessed with lists. Whether it is the a-list, z-list, the rich list...

Updated 25/09/2007


Spelling trouble...

Did you know that one of the most commonly misspelled words is, somewhat ironically, 'misspelled'?

Updated 18/09/2007


Reading between the lines...

Last week, if you had asked me what the word pertinacious meant, I would have hazarded a guess and then grabbed my handy thesaurus to confirm a few approximate equivalents

Updated 11/09/2007


Quite interesting...

Did you know that a certain Major Peter Labelliere, having accurately prophesied the date of his own death in the year 1800, expressed two rather eccentric wishes in his will?

Updated 04/09/2007


To infinity and beyond

There are certain people we love having in our world. For some, it will be their family. For others, it will be their friends. Maybe even a pet. But, for me, it's Patrick Moore.

Updated 28/07/2007


A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

I remember, on one of those rare occasions when a college lecture captured my imagination, discussing the moral dilemma presented by a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph...

Updated 26/11/2006


Are you an armchair critic?

Have you seen the movie Blood Diamond? Or The Last King of Scotland? I have and I can thoroughly recommend both. Leonardo DiCaprio is superb in the former whilst Forest Whitaker is sublime in the latter.

Updated 24/06/2007


Laughter and Lies

You are cordially invited to join me in a world where David Beckham is the president of the Steve McClaren fan club and Victoria, having embarked on a new weight-loss programme, is reported to have disappeared completely.

Updated 18/5/2007


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