Devonshire Feb 16

A point of view!
Nelson’s Column
by JOHN FISHER
menus, at the other end of the scale the equally
enterprising Royal Mint is hoping the year
ahead will be fortunate for them too.
So all parties will be pleased to know that this
promises to be a better than ‘fair to middling’
kind of a year for business, whether you are
planning to mark the arrival of the Year of the
Monkey with dim sum and fortune cookies or
specially commissioned gold coins ranging
in face value from £2 to £500 each.
Monkey business
DEVON’S 60-PLUS CHINESE RESTAU-
RANTS and takeaways are not the only
businesses looking forward to the start of
the Chinese New Year on 8th February.
As they throw open their doors to welcome
guests eager to explore their special festive
image courtesy BHF
Name that tune and save
a life
DEVON SCHOOLCHILDREN are among the
35,000 young people in the UK who are being
targeted by the British Heart Foundation to
show them what CPR can do to save lives in
an emergency.
It stands for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation
and is the first aid technique that can be
used if someone is not breathing properly
or if their heart has stopped.
Chest compressions and rescue breaths keep
blood and oxygen circulating in the body.
The British Heart Foundation used Vinnie
Jones in its tv advert to show the beat you
might adopt if you perform hands-only CPR
to the tune of Stayin’ Alive by The BeeGees.
Which tune you opt for might depend on your
age: so Nellie the Elephant or The Archers will
do just as well, providing you try to perform
those life saving chest compressions at 100
Traditionally the Year of the Monkey is
associated with ambition, activity, smartness
and adventure. But as you swing into the
year or branch out to explore another tree,
be on your guard for mischief. You know
what monkeys are.
Chinese restaurants abound in Yellow Pages
whilst those gold coins can be mined only at
www.royalmint.com . Oh, yes – and Gong Hey
Fat Choy! to all our readers!
-120 a minute.
Just call 999, says the British Heart
Foundation, then push Hard and Fast.
Nil desperandum
RESEARCHERS FROM EXETER UNIVER-
SITY reveal it’s more dangerous for animals,
humans included, to be too thin and risk
starving to death, rather than too fat.
Dr. Andrew Higginson said. “Storing fat is an
insurance against the risk of failing to find
food: for pre-industrial humans this was most
likely in winter. This suggests New Year is
the worst possible time to start a new diet.”
FACT: Spring is about to be sprung. Start
your diet in April and you will turn heads
on the beach this summer. But in a nice way.
Devon’s night of the wolf
THE LAST WOLF IN ENGLAND was hunted
to extinction in the 14th century but Devon’s
fallow deer can still be spooked by the sight
of what they take to be the eyes of a wolf
glinting and moving towards them through
undergrowth.
It’s why so-called ‘wolf posts’ have been
erected at certain places along the edge of that
part of the A38 between Exeter and Plymouth
which is wooded.
The wolf posts are designed, not to reflect the
light of a vehicle’s headlights back towards the
driver but instead to angle it at 90- degrees and
into the woods at the side of the road. A series
of posts therefore can create the suggestion
that the points of light are moving rapidly and
the deer – or other nocturnal wanderer - is
thus startled and turns tail.
A Highways Agency report suggests that
there may be as many as 20,000 road incidents
involving deer in the UK every year (20%
of them in Scotland) with perhaps 80% of
the total happening at dusk or dawn. The
same report also cautioned that over time
the deer become familiar with the perceived
threat – a question surely of who’s afraid of
the big bad wolf?
JOHN FISHER
mydevonevents 37