- miraculin - There is a fruit which when eaten makes all other food even bitter food taste sweet. The company claims that the FDA banned it on the eve of launch ... and talk of big business and conspiracy

- but surely with some justification. In the natural form it seems harmless, but You could add it to any old shit and it would taste good, so you can't just allow it without any form of controls.

- Just before the banning there was a breakin at their office and only papers were taken. I suggest that the BBC weren't sceptical enough .. one breakin shouldn't have been enough to stop the whole industry. The BBC story claimed after that the founders had no money to fund the tests so the project stopped. Now hang on if your product is so great it doesn't matter if it's not approved in the US there are plenty of other markets to make money from ... and anyway once it's proved itself in them then the US will allow it.

- a long debate in favour saying tipping allows you to buy better service - The problem with tipping is 2nd class service for none-tippers no this is wrong everyone should expect first class service. Yes you should be able to pay more for better service, but when the tipper gains someone else loses. Surely it breeds corruption

- Psycholgist tested people
- 1. normally moral people become much less moral when aroused e.g. lying when sexually aroused

- 2. Predictabley irrational - people wouldn't cheat if you paid in money, but in tests almost all cheated if they were paid in tokens ie. being 1 step away from money made it OK to cheat

Ancestor - scott sibler pdf book infected
- 2nd book actually led to big sales

Which star played South Africa at the beginning of aparteid, was then arrested when his wife kissed a black child who was presenting her flowers on stage ? And then went on to cancel his tour of white audience and recruited his own guards to do a tour of Black townships even singing in Afrikaans and was then thrown out of the country by the president.

... George Formby and his wife/manager Beryl

- 1. Guardian Newspaper said UK throws 400,000 chickens away every day , the truth is 4000

2 - the BBC said in a story 9m yoghurt pots are thrown away each day yet further down the page the same article said 1.3m, it is 1.3m
- but I would guess the majority are thrown away by stores cos of expired sell-by dates

; so big companies do pay. ... ABC RN

- Idea : Experience Training crisis training school , but 10% of the people are hidden actors.

- ABC RN - Kirgistan - removing cultural practices like alcohol at funerals helps health

lookout for a Singapore film called My Magic a Cannes nomination

The Brain TV Channel Idea

- Roman Catholic sources have argued that recent terrible regimes have been atheist, but a philosopher argued actually each one demonstrates characteristics of a religion. i.e. Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were all religions

- he now admits instant gas hot water is more ecological
- but not that he should have spent the money on energy saving measures

BBC More or Less again - It's often said that The UK has 4.2million CCTV Cameras, but guess how they counted this ? One day 8 years ago someone went and counted the cameras in the London suburb of Putney they then took this number and said if it is the average High Street then since there are X number of High Streets in the UK then we can multiply this up etc

Theres not enough quinine in modern tonic to have any effect.

- I like the way the honesty makes doing business with Australians easy

- Some People don't say NO enough In UK it's OK to say "No", it is not OK to cost people time and money, so communication has to make things easy for the receiver, ie it must be as full as possible, with information based on facts with few assumptions and few secrets.

- Good Communication
- when one communicates in English it has a culture that goes with it. - To make good decisions, we must have plenty of good information based on truth, with no secrets and real facts not assumptions.

- - If my boss or my father says "Do you think X is a good idea ?", I might so "NO, because of A, B, C". He might agree or disagree, but by talking we hopefully get to the best solution together.
e.g. My if Japanese friend cooks food and says "do you like this ?", Her Japanese friends will always say, "it's delicious", but I might say "It's OK, but you put too much salt", She likes this honest answer as it helps her improve her cooking.

- but if you don't say anything, we are not sure whether to reserve a seat for you in the car or whether we can offer your seat to someone else.

No Secrets - just explanations
It's common for people to have strong emotions because of something bad that happened in the past like their father beat them, or their teacher touched them sexually etc etc, but in most cases it's important for the people to share their secret and therefore lessen the stress. For me people with secrets are difficult people to work with, they won't do certain things, but they won't explain why, so they drain all my energy cos I have do a lot of guessing

- If you ask someone a question, it's a little impolite to make work for them. - I don't like a short SMS which means I have to SMS or telephone back for clarification as this costs me time and money.

- Email not phone -
For most British people the handphone is not a good form of communication and we don't use it like they do in other countries. I almost only use it for meeting people so I spend less than 10rm/month normally. 1. If I have to phone someone or SMS it costs me money. 2. People might be talking with their friends or eating so it's rude to interrupt. 3. So for simple things we usually SMS people, so that doesn't interupt them. 4. For bigger messages email is best, cos it's free and doesn't interupt people. 5. If I was in a room together with British friends they would think it OK if I answered a call to speak for one minute, but they would think it very rude if I left them alone to speak on the phone for 5 minutes instead of telling the caller "I'm with friends I'll call you back later.

Read the emails I don't mind people asking questions, but it's extremely irritating when people ask me a question I have already answered on the email. - If people send me an SMS with a stupid question I just ignore it instead of wasting my time/money answering it.

1. say no 2. Give Full explanations 3. no assumptions, no guessing games 4. no secrets 5. use email instead of expecting me to spend money on phone calls/SMS, and read the emails.