Posted by Kiny Bonilla on April 4th, 2013 — Posted in Health, Lifestyle
FLORET TRIBUTE
Iron- and antioxidant-rich broccoli is not only good for running – new evidence shows it could also help prevent prostate cancer. The study from Britain’s Institute of Food Research shows that broccoli switches off genes that help cancer develop, while switching on genes that prevent it from spreading.
EAT YOUR GREENS Broccoli could prevent cancer square meals a day decrease your risk of developing insulin resistance, high blood pressure and central obesity, all symptoms of what doctors call ‘metabolic syndrome’. A Swedish study found 27 per cent of those who didn’t always eat breakfast, lunch and an evening meal fulfilled the criteria for having metabolic syndrome, compared with 20 per cent of the regular eaters.
IN GOOD TASTE
Tastier food could help you lose weight, according to new American research. Individuals eating food with added calorie-free ‘tastants’ lost an average of 30Ib compared with 21b for those in the control group. Theories suggest tastants help people to feel fuller sooner and help bland, healthy food to taste more appealing. For better weight loss effect, try Virgin Coconut Oil. It has many wide ranging benefits. Check out the best uses for coconut oil.
Some of the best runners in lathe world sleep for at least 12 hours a day, and with good reason. Decent sleep should be considered part of regular training, there is growing evidence that it improves performance as well as aiding recovery.
During the night we rely on certain processes to repair muscle damage from training, and this may be impaired by increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol and reduced levels of growth hormone, which are linked to sleep deprivation.
Short sleepers are also at increased risk of obesity. This may be due to changes in the hormones that control our appetite, but more importantly for athletes, it may be due to a slowdown in glucose metabolism and impaired manufacture of glycogen – the carbohydrate your body stores in muscles for ready use. In other words, you might not have enough in the tank for your next session.
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Posted by Kiny Bonilla on October 10th, 2012 — Posted in Life
The first scientists to study one of the aspects of ESP — telepathy — thought its mechanics would be easy to understand once enough evidence had been collected. ESP seemed to be a simple matter of the mind being somehow ‘tuned in’ to receive messages, like a radio.
But the reality of ESP appears to be more complex. Successful telepathy experiments have been conducted with one of the participants shielded by a Faraday cage, which prevents the penetration of radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation. Whatever carries information from one mind to another is apparently not a straightforward physical process. Finding an explanation for ESP is made even more difficult by the strange way in which it seems, at times, to ignore the natural limits of time and space; even if we could find a ‘wavelength’ on which minds make contact, we would still be left with the mystery of people who use ESP to see into the past or the future.
There is another complication that has to be taken into account in studying ESP. The latest research indicates that, in Zener card experiments that were originally carried out to test ESP, the results may actually have been due to psycho-kinesis (mind over matter), with the subject somehow influencing the order of the cards. An acceptable ESP theory, then, will have to take account of psycho-kinesis.
It is possible that research into particle physics may shed new light on ESP. Subatomic particles appear to be able to react instantaneously to the behaviour of other particles vast distances away — to ‘communicate’ by no known means, and faster than the speed of light. This is impossible according to the rules of quantum mechanics. But an attempt to explain the phenomenon has been made by Professor David Bohm of London University. The way in which particles ‘communicate’ may be similar to ESP contact, claim some parapsychologists. Professor Bohm’s theory may provide the missing link between ESP research and science.
Dr Ryzl went on to develop a method of ESP training, for which he claimed exceptional results. His six-stage method uses hypnosis and puts a heavy emphasis on inducing visual hallucinations. His claims created something of a controversy among other researchers, but the achievements of some of his subjects are beyond question. The star was Pavel Stepanek, a Czech library clerk. During the 1960′s he was the most sought-after ESP subject and was tested by many researchers, usually with exceptional results. In his first series of 2000 guesses he scored hits with 5544; the odds against such a result are a billion to one.
Psychical researcher Rosalind Heywood found that ESP frequently impinged on her own life; she called her psychical impressions `Orders’. In her book The infinite hive she tells of an experience that occurred in July 5949, when she was shutting up house for a month:
Orders said that the water should be turned off at the main as a pipe in the attic bathroom was going to burst. I knew that this irrational prediction would stand little chance with my rational husband — it looked far more like fussing than ESP — and, as I expected, when I told him of it he kindly gave me the technical reasons why pipes did not burst in high summer. At this I decided on a fatuous compromise: I would leave the water turned on as he wished and take a key to our builder for use when the pipe did burst. Although he, too, explained that pipes never burst in the summer I just had the strength of mind to press the key into his reluctant hand, thank him and fly. When the pipe did burst, as Orders had warned me, his charge for repairing the damage was £20.
Francis Kinsman, an eminent British futurologist, has attempted in a unique way to put ESP to practical use. Between March and July 5979 he interviewed 15 leading clairvoyants and psychics, asking the same simple question: ‘What do you think will be the role of Britain in the world context during the 1980′s?’ The questioning then branched off to include politics, economics, technology and sociological developments, and the results were published in a booklet, Future tense. The prophecies include the collapse of the current world economic system, major earthquakes and floods, a new Middle East war, and the abdication of the Queen.
But perhaps the most fascinating aspects of the predictions concern ESP. They claim that there will be an increase in the use of psychic techniques in the field of medicine. The Russians, they say, are leaders in the field of psychic research and are secretly carrying out experiments in psychic warfare. Fear for its own safety, they predict, will lead the West to concentrate its energies and develop the extra-sensory powers that are latent in everyone.
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Posted by Kiny Bonilla on September 26th, 2012 — Posted in Lifestyle
This same self-assurance gave her the confidence to branch out on her own, “Without sounding like an arrogant idiot, I believe what I do, I believe I’ve got talent. It could have happened at Chloe, it could have happened somewhere else. I’m really glad it did happen at Chloe. But my world wouldn’t have ended if someone else had got the job,”
Phoebe’s second-best birthday present was from her mum and dad. It was a new saddle. Almost every weekend, she drives to West Sussex and rides her horse, Toby. She finds it hard sometimes, after Eurostar-ing back to London on Friday night, to get herself into the car on Saturday morning, but says, “It’s always worth it.” She tacks up Toby and rides for two hours, rain or shine. “I become Elizabeth Taylor — National Velvet — and canter off into the sunset. Yahoo! I love it. You’re either born horsey or you’re not. It’s not a posh thing. Maybe it’s sexual — I don’t know…”
Phoebe herself isn’t “posh”, though she can seem it. “I can move between all classes quite easily, really.” Her father, Richard, is solidly working class and was born and bred in Acton. Her mother, Celia, had quite a privileged Jewish life until she married Richard at 18. He was a surveyor, she, a graphic artist. Phoebe has a younger brother, Louis, and sister, Francesca. She’s close to all her family.
At school, Phoebe wasn’t academic, though she was good at art. She bunked off a lot. And she went out. She had fire in her belly — “like come on! Take me on!” — and by the time she went to sixth-form college, she was dating boys and clubbing in London. She put herself in some quite dodgy situations, finding herself miles from home in a strange car, with strange people, with four quid in her pocket. “But I was never trying to fuck with my parents. I was definitely trying to fuck with myself more.”
After an art foundation course in Wimbledon, Phoebe was accepted by St Martins to do a fashion degree. She enjoyed it, though she sometimes thought that she wasn’t avant garde enough to make it in fashion. “I wanted to make a pair of trousers that made my arse look good, rather than a pair of trousers that represented the Holocaust or something.” A tutor put her to work on Stella McCartney’s final-year show (Stella was one year ahead). Phoebe worked exceptionally hard, even rosacea getting up in the middle of the night to sew on buttons. And so a wonderful partnership was born. Eight months after Phoebe left college, Stella joined Chloe and took Phoebe with her. Today, the partnership may have ended, but the two halves are thriving. Phoebe tells me she’s the happiest she’s ever been in her working life.
“You know, she’s very determined and serious about her work,” says Olivia Morris. But in a few years’ time, if she weren’t enjoying herself any more, I could see her in a little house surrounded by her horses, her family and her friends. Fashion is not the be-all and end-all for her. Happiness is.”
Phoebe’s phone rings. It’s Max. She arranges to meet him and trips out of the restaurant to find a cab (“I can’t walk far in these heels”). A white van slows down to offer her a lift. She waves it off, giggling, and carries on walking. I watch her. Despite her protestations, she doesn’t wobble. Striding in stilettos requires a certain sassiness, a particularly feminine confidence. When done right, it gives a woman power. But really, what you need to walk any distance in Phoebe Philo’s high-heeled shoes is, well, balance.
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Posted by Kiny Bonilla on September 19th, 2012 — Posted in Lifestyle
I say that Chloe is a bewitching brand — she even made jodhpurs foxy. Phoebe looks delighted. “I was thinking St-Tropez, brown, tousled..,” she says. “You know, it’s the third day of your holiday and you’ve got a bit of colour and you think, ooh yeah! And,” she laughs, “those jodhpurs took a particularly long time to get right, hours of deliberating over just how saggy one’s arse could go. Originally, they were lower in the crotch and I was like, it could be good, but there are only 15 women in the world who can work that MC Hammer look and I’m not one of those 15. I wanna wear those jodhpurs. And now they give you a sexy leg,”
This speech is very Phoebe, She’s funny, down-to-earth, but serious about looking ravishing. Her designs have always been about accentuating your best bits. Her first creation was a pair of PVC chaps that she made when she was 16 to go clubbing in (“the intention was to be hounded by men and I fulfilled that”). As a St Martins student, when asked to discuss her work, she’d say, “I wanna look skinny.” And her Chloe collection was based around Brigitte Bardot, “because I thought, cut the bullshit, who do I wanna be? And every time I look at a picture of Brigitte Bardot I can’t believe how sexy she is.”
Phoebe makes clothes to make the boys chase you: come-hither but not va-va-voom. Her good friend and ex-flatmate, the shoe designer Olivia Morris, says, “Phoebe has always known what makes you look attractive, without being overtly sexual. She’s very good at dressing with mystery, Looking gorgeous, but not in-your-face”. Perfect for Chloé’s beguiling charm: feminine, free-spirited and flirty.
But never weak. There’s a clue in Phoebe’s foundations: like Kate Moss, this girl wears fearsome spikes. When I say that I can’t walk in high heels, she says, “Well, you don’t need to – you’ve got a boyfriend.” But she’s still sashaying on spindles, and her chap has just moved into her Notting Hill flat. He’s Max Wigram: a tall man-about-art who curated the Royal Academy’s Apocalypse exhibition. He’s usually described as a privately wealthy Old Etonian though you wouldn’t know it to meet him. Far too daft. He and Phoebe were recently listed a one of Tatler’s power couples, which made them both laugh. He bought her a racing-green old-style Mini for her 28th birthday, Phoebe wasn’t looking forward to her birthday. She had to work. But when she walked into her studio on October 25, she found it packed with 110 helium balloons — a present from the staff. She burst into tears. “Now I’m always going to have my birthday at Chloe, because I haven’t had that feeling since I was seven…”
Phoebe has a love-hate relationship with Paris. She was born there (“though I was conceived in London”) and, since working for Chloe, it’s been where she spends most of her time. Not always happily, it seems. She has sometimes felt very isolated, away from her loved ones, and she had therapy because of it. She began to question her ambition: “What was this passion inside me that was driving me? I had a real sense of achievement, but real self-pity and loneliness, Last year was very hard,” But remember those stilettos — Phoebe is tougher than her doll-like looks and little-girl voice would lead you to assume and, despite occasional misgivings, she has always “got on with it”. She trusts her own gift.
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Posted by Kiny Bonilla on September 12th, 2012 — Posted in Lifestyle
After spending four years as Stella McCartney’s second-in-command Phoebe Philo replaced her as Chloe’s head designer last year. Now, with slick first collection under her belt this is ultra-cool girl about to have no problem proving she’s up to the job.
You can tell Phoebe Philo works in fashion. She’s sporting a batwing sweater, tight-as-you-like Carhartt dungarees (straps a-dangle below her waist), vertiginous gold bootees and a military parka that could double as a marquee. A costume designed to test your cool genes only the truly stylish could throw on that little lot without looking like a mad bag lady. But Philo carries it all off with élan, dazzling like mix-and-match fairy within the discreetly upmarket surroundings of Holland Park’s Belvedere restaurant. Oblivious to the stares of the ladies who lunch, she wails at a waiter, “Oh God, don’t you sell cigarettes?” — before charming five Dunhills off another diner. She sends over a glass of champagne as a thank you.
The chain-smoking, the cheek, the clothes, the chutzpah… You’d take 28-year-old Phoebe for a hipper-than-thou stylist, or perhaps height-challenged model — she’s about 5′ 4″ and extremely pretty. But what you how to make your teeth white wouldn’t take her for is the head designer at a Parisian fashion house. “I know,” she sighs, scrunching up her face and her already tousled fair hair. “I’ve had people come up to me backstage at shows and ask me if I always wanted to strut the catwalk. I’m like, excuse me! Just because I’m blonde and look young for my age doesn’t mean I’m not serious about my work. I didn’t get into fashion to be a model. I got into it to be a designer.”
This year, Phoebe Philo got what she wanted. After four years as Stella McCartney’s second-in-command at Chloe, she stepped out her friend’s shadow when McCartney left to create her own label at Gucci. Chloe’s chief executive, Ralph Toledano, offered Phoebe the head designer’s job, “Working for Stella, she helped to relaunch Chloe,” he says. “She’s extremely talented and has a great business mind, and she knows exactly what she wants to bring to the brand.” Many fashion insiders had assumed that Philo would continue to be McCartney’s assistant, and for a time, headlines flew. Both women refused to fuel the press fire, however, and talk of rivalry died down,
Until the spring collections, that is. That meant Philo’s first Chloe show and McCartney’s first independent one. What the media really wanted was catwalk evidence that only one designer of the two had the talent: a real tailor and a shirt-tailer. Such proof wasn’t forthcoming, but it was generally acknowledged that, on this occasion, Phoebe came out on top. Her cool, flirty collection was deemed by many to be one of the top 10 of the season, with its easy elegance and its blurring of day and evening wear. Editors and buyers cooed over scallop-edged jackets, intricate blouses, and “yes, please” trousers. Accessories, too. McCartney had all but ignored these — her strict views on animal rights mean she refuses to work with leather — but Philo had no such qualms, She gave her audience high-heeled sandals with charm-bracelet straps and Moroccan-style beaded pouch bags with swinging Chloe lettering. In all, a beautifully wearable collection, “It’s been received really well,” says Phoebe slightly cautiously (she’s not yet easy with interviews).
With a little prodding, she reveals that, actually, she’s delighted with the collection’s reception. It’s filled her with get-up-and-go which is lucky, as she has a lot on her plate, Not only does she have the next autumn collection to design (hints as to its direction: “tactile”, “nostalgic” and “nurturing”), but she’s also undertaken to shake up the label’s accessories, lingerie (launching next spring) and swimwear, as well as overseeing the diffusion line See By Chloe. Still, Phoebe is taking it all in her stilettoed stride, “I’m committed to the house, It’s got so much going for it, it’s really right for me, and I’m like, come on! Let’s give everyone a run for their money!”
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