What first drew you to architecture?

I left school at 16 to go to art school, and then felt embarrassed about not doing A-levels. So I started reading a lot about the history of art. Through those books, I discovered the world of architecture – and that was it.

What was your big breakthrough?

Getting shortlisted for the Bibliothèque Nationale de France competition in 1989. It came just two weeks after I'd left Richard Rogers' office to join Jan Kaplický's. We had no work, Jan and I, so it was fantastic timing. We didn't win, but our fee – about £20,000 – kept us going for a year. We were very mean and keen in those days.

What has changed about architecture?

When I started out, I drew with a drawing board and set square, and wrote with an ink pen. Now, it's all computerised. When Jan and I started doing the Media Centre at Lord's, we were drawing all these very complex three-dimensional forms by hand. To make any changes, we had to scratch out the drawings with a scalpel. In the end, the people in our office gave us an ultimatum: either computerise or we leave. We computerised.

Which artists do you most admire?

Of course, my late partner Jan. Many of his concepts were tinged with genius – and I don't use that word lightly. Rogers, who was my first employer. And Zaha Hadid, for her tenacity, her work – and the fact that, despite being one of the most famous architects in the world, she still enjoys girly gossip.

Who or what have you sacrificed for your art?

I've never taken on work I didn't want to take on, even if that meant making compromises financially. I didn't own a dishwasher until I was 40.

What's the best advice anyone ever gave you?

About four years ago, I sat next to Dennis Hopper at dinner. I'd just come back from Vegas, where we'd been commissioned to design an art gallery. I'd found it apocalyptic. When I told him so, he just said, "Relax, babe – if you can't enjoy Vegas for a few days, there's something wrong." He was right: I was being far too uptight.

Is there an art form you don't relate to?

I find video art quite heavy-going.

What's the biggest myth about architects?

That we're all individualistic fundamentalists. Actually architecture is a very collaborative discipline. On a big project, there can be a cast of thousands: the job of the architect is not only to create, but to get everybody on board. In that sense, it's very consensual.

Do you suffer for your art?

I do. But I love to suffer, so it's not a problem.

In short

Born: Bridgend, 1955.

Career: Started out at the Architectural Association and with Richard Rogers; became a partner at her late ex-husband Jan Kaplický's firm Future Systems in 1989. Founded her own practice, Amanda Levete Architects, in 2009.

High point: "Winning the competition [to design a new extension] for the V&A."

Low point: "Completing the Media Centre at Lord's. We were virtually bankrupt."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Sweden’s intelligence agency has been left red faced after it emerged that it held a James Bond themed party for its spies, at a cost of more than half a million pounds.

The lavish event included casino tables, an evening dinner, trays of martinis and even a guest of honour from England – the head of MI5 Jonathan Evans.

Bosses at the Swedish intelligence agency have since struggled to explain the extravagant expense, which cost 5.3m Swedish krona (£508,000) and took place during a government austerity drive in which the agency underwent several budget cuts.

General Anders Thornberg, head of the Swedish intelligence service (Sapo), said the event had followed "a unique and extraordinary time" for staff at the organisation.

In 2010, Islamic extremists were plotting to attack Sweden and in December that year a suicide bomb killed one and injured three others.

"We thought that we needed a special gathering for the whole security police team," he told Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter newspaper, adding: "We'd been subjected to extreme pressure."

General Thornberg also conceding that the body had made things worse by requesting £96,000 worth of VAT refunds after the event.

The agency has since come under scrutiny for its spending habits.

Party organiser Anders Danielsson, the former head of Sapo, apologised for the expenditure, telling Dagens Nyheter: "I take responsibility for everything. If it's wrong, it's wrong … It will be sorted."

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The Garden restaurant re-opens for dinner with a menu by new Executive Chef John Johnson on Thursday, September 13, 2012 at Four Seasons Hotel New York. Chef Johnson, a 10-year culinary veteran, recently joined the Hotel from the Water Club at the Borgata in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Keeping with the Garden theme, this local favourite known for its power breakfast and lunch, features a new dinner menu with eighty percent of its ingredients heralding from a 100-mile radius of New York City.

Chef Johnson is committed to sourcing ingredients from local farms including Crescent, Eberle and Primatello Farms, to name a few. Even as a young child, he spent his time shopping at the farmer’s market with his grandmother and fishing and lobstering with his family near the Jersey shore. Johnson has carefully curated a menu bringing out the intense flavours of the season. “A great dish is no greater than the sum of its parts: simple, quality ingredients prepared carefully by passionate people who know and respect where those ingredients come from,” says Chef Johnson.

The new menu features Blue Moon Acres salad of baby arugula and red kale with a cabernet and shallot dressing; Crescent Farms duck steak with a toasted quinoa pilaf; roasted and lightly smoked Montauk wild striped bass over supergreen spinach drizzled with a syrah onion glaze; and a rib dish featuring an Upstate Farms char-grilled rib steak, melted spiced short ribs and a bone marrow potato souffle. Desserts include heirloom apple tatin with salted peanut butter gelato; housemade ice creams and gelatos; as well a Laird’s Applejack Brandy semifreddo with a coconut coulis.

Dinner is served Monday- Friday from 5:30 to 9:30 pm. The Garden is open for breakfast daily from 6:30 to 11:30 am and lunch is served from noon until 2:30 pm. Breakfast and brunch are offered Saturday and Sunday from 7:00 am to 2:30 pm. On weekends, The Garden is available for private events. Reservations are suggested by calling 212 350 6658 and on opentable.com.

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Here’s the first look at the Hermès Fall/Winter 2012 campaign, entitled ‘Time on your Side,’ lensed by photographer Nathaniel Goldberg, featuring models Bette Franke and Wouter Peelen.

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Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The number of new restaurants in London jumped by 25 percent from a year earlier to 134 in the past 12 months. Closings were little changed at 74, indicating demand is proving resilient during the economic slowdown.

The research for “Harden’s London Restaurants 2013” shows the average cost of dinner for one in establishments listed in the guide advanced to 46.55 pounds ($73.75) from 45.01 pounds.

“The increase in new restaurants is very surprising in the current economic climate,” Peter Harden, co-editor of the guide, said today in a telephone interview. “It’s as if London is operating in a bubble of some description, with different economic rules from the rest of the country.”

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal led the survey of regular restaurant-goers for their best meal of the year. The survey is based on about 75,000 reports from 7,500 diners, Harden said. The Ledbury came second and Le Gavroche third. Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley dropped to fourth from first.

Chez Bruce held onto its top spot for London’s favorite restaurant, followed by La Trompette and J Sheekey. Pollen Street Social came fourth, the only new entry. The restaurant, opened last year by chef Jason Atherton, was also highest for best meal, coming in sixth place.

The Wolseley was named best for business for a sixth year, followed by the Square and the Don. Clos Maggiore won best for romance, while the Anchor & Hope won for bar or pub food. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay dropped out of the Top 10 for best meal. Among the chef’s venues, Petrus won the highest ratings.

“Harden’s London Restaurants 2013” is published today at 12.99 pounds. It is available from bookshops and at . www.hardens.com/

*T Top Gastronomic Experience/Best Meal (With last year in parentheses; *denotes new entry) 1 Dinner (5) 2 The Ledbury (3) 3 Le Gavroche (2) 4 Marcus Wareing (1) 5 Chez Bruce (4) 6 Pollen Street Social * 7 The Square (7) 8 Pied a Terre (8) 9 La Trompette (6) 10 L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon (-)

Favorite 1 Chez Bruce (1) 2 La Trompette (6) 3 J Sheekey (9) 4 Pollen Street Social * 5 Le Gavroche (7) 6 The Wolseley (2) 7 Le Caprice (3) 8 Galvin Bistrot de Luxe (4) 9 Trinity (10) 10 River Cafe (-)

Best for Business 1 The Wolseley (1) 2 The Square (3) 3 The Don (2) 4 Bleeding Heart (4) 5 Galvin La Chapelle (5) 6 Coq d’Argent (6) 7 The Delaunay* 8 L’Anima (7) 9 Scott’s (9) 10 Galvin Bistrot de Luxe (8)

Best for Romance 1 Clos Maggiore (1) 2 La Poule au Pot (2) 3 Andrew Edmunds (3) 4 Bleeding Heart (4) 5 Galvin at Windows (6) 6 Chez Bruce (5) 7 Le Gavroche (8) 8 Le Caprice (7) 9 The Ledbury (9) 10 Galvin La Chapelle (-) *T

(Richard Vines is the chief food critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. He is U.K. and Ireland chairman of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. Opinions expressed are his own.)

Muse highlights include Scott Reyburn on art, Jason Harper on autos and Rich Jaroslovsky on technology.

--Editors: Mark Beech, Catherine Hickley.

To contact the writer on the story: Richard Vines in London at rvines@bloomberg.net or . twitter.com/Richardvines

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.

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Knowing what I know now, it’s possible that Uruguay may be the best retirement destination you could treat yourself to. Not the cheapest…but the best. (And still at about half the cost of living in North America these days.)

Uruguay offers the very best of Latin America and Europe all rolled up into one surprisingly appealing package.

Unlike much of Latin America (and even parts of Europe these days), it comes with a stable government, a strong economy, and a well-known reputation for personal safety. Its people are warm and welcoming…as is its government.

The process to obtain residency in Uruguay is easy — perhaps that’s because no one in Uruguay is a “local” — everyone can trace their roots back a generation or two to Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland, Germany…

And all of those immigrants learned what I recently learned: That Uruguay has it all, from a rich coast and a bountiful sea full of delectable seafood…to fertile farmland where you can easily grow everything from greens to grapevines (Uruguayan wine rivals those produced in Chile and Argentina). Uruguay also produces record wheat crops and is well-known for its tender, grass-fed beef.

The European heritage in Uruguay remains strong in many ways… from food to music…to the Old World architecture of the cities… as well as in the physical appearance of the people themselves. It’s one of the few places in Latin America where a pale, 6’ 5” guy like me doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

There are little villages in the Uruguayan interior that have been settled by Italians (excellent pasta), Swiss (flavorful cheese), and Germans (delicious bratwurst and potato salad.) I’m told there is even one village, up near the border with Argentina and Brazil, settled by the Irish where almost everyone has red hair.

And a fun fact: Supposedly, as a percentage of the population, there are more left-handed people in Uruguay than most anyplace else. A grade school teacher in Uruguay told us she doesn’t know if that’s because, as some scientists think, lefties are more creative than right-handers. (And Uruguayans are definitely resourceful and creative.) Or if it’s because Uruguayans are so open-minded.

“Instead of trying to change our children into using their right hand,” she says, “we just let them be.”

And that’s one more area where Uruguay stands out: tolerance.

“Uruguayans are very tolerant and inclusive,” one expat says. “I’ve always been uncomfortable in parts of Latin America where there is a distinction between, for instance, the wealthy foreigners and the poor servers. There really isn’t a class division here…and that adds to my quality of life.”

Regards,

Dan Prescher
for The Daily Reckoning

Put Uruguay on Your Short List originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning, published by Agora Financial provides over 400,000 global readers economic news, market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas.".

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TAIPEI, Taiwan — If dead men don’t tell tales, they certainly don’t sell medals awarded to them over 80 years ago.

That was the message delivered by Chinese art collectors when they refused to enter a bid for a medal awarded to late dictator Chiang Kai-sheik on Aug. 24. The medal was put up for sale in Hong Kong despite Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense saying it was a fake. According to the ministry, the real medal was buried with the generalissimo in 1975.

The botched auction is just the latest contentious sale in China’s booming art market, which according to industry research outfit Artprice, overtook both the US and the UK as the world’s largest, with $4.79 billion in sales last year.

But some experts say there’s more to those numbers than meets the eye, pointing to an industry riddled with forgeries, money laundering, bid-rigging and fraud.

“A lot [of the buying] is artificial. In the auction business it’s called show bidding. Their own captive demand is always available to drive the prices and the volume,” said Sergey Skaterschikov, founder of Skate’s Art Market Research.

“The Chinese market is really big on money laundering. The good thing about art from that perspective is you can always say I bought it for $100 and now it’s worth $10 million. It’s very difficult to argue with that because of poor transparency of the art price.”

Skaterschikov, and others, say that art has surpassed real estate, stocks, gambling in Macau and overseas bank accounts as the method of choice for dodgy businessmen and corrupt officials to hide their ill-gotten gains.

In some cases the bids themselves are used to pass bribes, where buyers intentionally overpay for shoddy pieces in order to legally pay the seller.

In one high-profile incident last year, a Chinese businessman had a fake ancient jade burial suit made up. After getting a group of appraisers to verify its authenticity, and value it at a staggering $375 million, the businessman used the suit as collateral to secure a $100 million bank loan.

“The figures are huge because they fetch very high prices. There is a hidden process of laundering through buying and selling of counterfeit and real paintings and antiques in this region,” said Lo Shiu-Hing, and expert on transnational crime at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

In an old money part of Taipei, and just down the road from the National Palace Museum and the world’s greatest Chinese art collection — which was itself stolen and transferred to the island following the Chinese revolution — Huang Hung-jen contemplates the state of a market once dominated by Taiwanese collectors.

“Most people in China are investors as opposed to collectors. It’s an investment above all else. They want to make on it fast. But the real winners are collectors. They buy and keep pieces for five to 10 years. By the time they put them up for auction the resale is five to 10 times higher,” said Huang, who racked up a decade’s worth of experience in Taiwanese auction houses before being handpicked to run a Chinese firm’s Taipei office.

“Investors have problems with forgeries, but we are OK, because our experts catch that. But cosigners have given us pieces [that were forgeries] so many times. We can’t do anything about it. We just let it go and say ’we can’t accept this item.'”

Perhaps given the success Huang and his company have enjoyed recently, they can afford to be generous.

At its June show in Beijing, Huang found the Taiwanese collector that sold a 1964 landscape by Chinese painter Li Keran for $49.24 million. Li is famous for paintings that celebrate Cultural Revolution protagonist Mao Zedong. An anonymous buyer from the Forbidden City picked up the painting — a record for a Li piece.

Nobody knows for sure how much of China’s art market is bogus. But one thing is for sure, it’s not just a Chinese problem. The Association for Research into Crimes against Art estimates that art crime is the third biggest grossing criminal activity worldwide, behind only drugs and arms trafficking.

The association estimates that the art market brings in as much as $6 billion annually, saying that those funds are used to bolster organized crime syndicates. Still, experts say that like so many other industries, the gold rush is happening faster and stronger in China than anywhere else.

“The art world is very slow to wake up to the new reality. When they wake up to the fact that the economic power has shifted towards Chinese players there will be mayhem,” said Skaterschikov. “But people are very quickly going to learn that there is none of this spiritual art buying and collecting that they're used to from American or European buyers. This is driven by other motives.”

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While hotels that offer top-notch scenery aren’t exactly scarce, some go the extra mile to ensure their restaurants, where reservations are available to both guests and outside diners, offer equally captivating visual experiences.

When Sedona’s much-beloved Enchantment Resort was planning its recent $25 million renovation, it added floor-to-ceiling windows and wraparound patios so guests would have unfettered views of the area’s magnificent red-rock-dominated landscape.

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Che-Ah-Chi—the two-floor Southwestern-inspired restaurant that joined Enchantment in May—opens out to a panoramic showing of these red-rock formations.

“We wanted to make sure that the guests felt like they were right in the canyon,” explains resort president Mark Grenoble, who oversaw the renovations, including the addition of Nana doors at Che-Ah-Chi to create a special indoor-outdoor dimension.

The task of developing a stimulating space that marries available visuals with what comes out of the kitchen requires chefs who not only appreciate the scenery but are also inspired by it. “There’s no doubt you’re in Arizona red-rock country when dining here,” says Che-Ah-Chi executive chef David Schmidt. “My menu includes a lot of local ingredients, like the mushrooms I forage in the nearby forest, so there’s definitely a Southwestern accent to my cooking. I really want diners to taste what fresh Arizona cuisine can be, and the jaw-dropping view just reinforces that every time they look up from their plates.”

Across the Atlantic in Porto, Portugal (the country’s second-largest city), the restaurant at The Yeatman Hotel is celebrating its first Michelin star for its Portuguese seafood menu courtesy of Ricardo Costa, one of that country’s most notable chefs. The coup for Costa shows The Yeatman’s commitment to having one of the best dining rooms around, and this attention to superior quality extends beyond the kitchen.

Situated along the Douro River, The Yeatman was destined from the beginning to have gorgeous views of the city’s historic center. Its fifth-floor restaurant has some of the most commanding vantage points at the hotel, especially if you are lucky enough to snag a spot on the terrace, where you can watch the flow of the river—the life source of the region’s famed vineyards. You can sample these very grapes at The Yeatman, whose cellar houses the largest collection of Portuguese wines in the world.

In Tokyo, the year-old Sushi Sora restaurant, on the 38th floor of the Mandarin Oriental, delivers stunning cityscape views that include the world’s tallest tower. Sushi chef Yuji Imaizumi serves up a rotating menu that reflects the changing seasons. “Eating seasonal ingredients while seeing the season in front of you is a special experience,” he says. We agree. From teetering cliff-top dining to dazzling underwater scenery, these ten restaurants serve up spectacular views.

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Mar’sel at Terranea, Rancho Palos Verdes, California

Set on the jutting Palos Verdes Peninsula, Mar’sel’s majestic panoramas of the Pacific Ocean and nearby Catalina Island are the perfect setting for chef Michael Fiorelli’s equally inspiring menu of seasonal dishes.

Enjoy a refreshing and on-trend kale salad, followed by roasted king trumpet mushrooms and mascarpone polenta with some of the most beautiful moonrise scenes around. (Moonlit dining is so hot here, Terranea keeps a calendar detailing when the moon rises and sets and what phase it is in.)

The restaurant favors locally sourced ingredients, most of which come from its own garden, built in 2009. Rooms, from $425; 100 Terranea Way; 310-265-2800; terranea.com.

Sushi Sora at Mandarin Oriental Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Last summer’s opening of Sushi Sora at the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo added yet another boldfaced eatery to the hotel’s already illustrious gourmet portfolio, which boasts a slew of Michelin-starred dining outlets.

Located on the 38th floor, with massive windows that frame the city’s stunning skyline, Sushi Sora is also the premier restaurant from which to see the recently completed, 2,080-foot Tokyo Skytree broadcast tower.

Manning the menu is sushi veteran Yuji Imaizumi, whose close relationship with some of the Tsukiji Fish Market’s best fishermen and produce merchants yields the freshest seasonal dishes around. Rooms, from $530; 2-1-1 Nihonbashi Muromachi; 81-3/3270-8800; mandarinoriental.com.

The Yeatman’s Restaurant, Porto, Portugal

With Michelin-approved Ricardo Costa—the former executive chef at Casa da Calçada in Amarante, which nabbed two stars during his tenure—manning the kitchen, it didn’t take long for the restaurant at the now two-year-old Yeatman to rise to prominence.

The backdrop includes the famed Douro River and Porto’s historic city center, but Costa’s technique of updating old-school Portuguese cooking methods with contemporary touches is the foundation of his seasonal menus, which also call on the country’s great seafood tradition.

With offerings like a roasted lobster appetizer topped with citrus dressing and crayfish glazed with oyster yogurt and served with eel-and-foie-gras terrine, it’s no wonder that Costa won yet another Michelin star in November 2011. The wine cellar boasts 1,000 local and international wines, making this a truly blockbuster dining experience. Rooms, from $172; 250 Rua do Choupelo; 351-22/013-3100; the-yeatman-hotel.com.

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Consolata Melis's eyes twinkle as she regales a packed room of relatives with tales of her courtship and marriage. Her crystal-clear memory would be unremarkable, were it not that the courtship took place in 1925 and Melis has just celebrated her 105th birthday.

"If the memory goes in, it stays there," said the diminutive woman, with a smile. "I just concentrate and it all comes back."

Melis's memories have been much in demand since Guinness World Records last month listed her and her eight brothers and sisters as the world's oldest siblings, with a combined age of 818. The youngest sibling, Mafalda – the "little one" – brings up the rear at the tender age of 78.

The nine now have 180 living descendants, a large chunk of the population of Perdasdefogu, a remote sheep-farming town tucked into the mountainous Sardinian region of Ogliastra. The area is believed to host more centenarians than anywhere else in the world, said to be thanks to a good diet and lucky DNA.

But the town has also witnessed violence and poverty, Melis told the Observer, and the story she tells is one of a turbulent Italian century. "We were poor, but not that poor, because we had shoes," she said, recalling walking 25km through countryside renowned for bandits with a horse loaded with grain for her father's store. In 1907, the year she was born, Perdasdefogu was rocked by protests against food shortages.

Her father served for three years during the first world war and survived, unlike 28 other men in the village, who became what Italians called carne da cannoni, fresh meat for cannons, in the brutal campaigns against the Austro-Hungarian empire.

After the rise of fascism, a Mussolini functionary sent the family a certificate honouring them for producing so many children for the fatherland, but Melis is still scathing. "What good was a stupid certificate if we got no financial support?", she said.

By her teens, Melis had a reputation in the town as a wild child who rode (side-saddle) as fast as the boys, was given hidings for crashing weddings, and bunked off school to till her parents' field. Bucking the trend for arranged marriages, her parents allowed her to marry a shepherd, Giovanni, whom she met at a dance.

Unafraid of scandal and her husband's jealousy, she continued to dance with other men. "When Giovanni flew into a rage, I said: 'You are doubting my faithfulness, which shows disrespect', and I went to my parents for a few days. From then on, he was never jealous again."

When not milling wheat at night and baking bread at dawn to support the family, Melis bore Giovanni 13 children, four of whom she has outlived. Locals hint at a huge sex drive among townsfolk to explain the large families but, as Melis recalls, "we just put our faith in God".

During delivery of her 11th child in 1946, what doctors thought was the placenta turned out to be a twin that no one had spotted. "Father cried in desperation at the thought of an extra mouth to feed," said their daughter, Antoinetta.

As Melis recalls the past, re-enacting dialogues and laughing in her seat by the window in the house where she was married, she is joined by three of her younger brothers – Adolfo, 89; Vitalio, 86; and Antonio, 93 – who hang on her every word. "I have always had a united family behind me, and that helps you live longer," she said.

Isolated from Cagliari on the coast by two hours of gruelling hairpin bends, Perdasdefogu finally joined the modern world in 1955 with the arrival of electricity, while running water – "a dream come true", according to Melis – arrived four years later.

After he saw a television in a nearby village for the first time, "Giovanni came back and said he had seen a box which spoke and told you what was happening on the mainland", she recalled.

Some inventions have not impressed her, starting with supermarket lettuces sold in plastic bags. "I would like to meet someone who actually buys them," said Melis, who attributes her longevity to minestrone soup made with vegetables from her garden, washed down with a glass of goat's milk.

What pushed Perdasdefogu from the middle ages to the space age in 1956 was the opening, on the edge of town, of a European launch base for small rockets that would take x-ray images of the sun. Early prototypes that fell to Earth were collected by farmers using their oxen and carts, while shepherds got rich renting out rooms to foreign rocket scientists. Melis joined locals in the piazza at night to watch the launches and earned money making lambswool mattresses for the scientists.

Giovanni died in 1968, since when Melis has worn the long-sleeved black garb of a widow, but her family has grown to include 24 grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. As she continues to tell stories of her youth, younger family members step in to help translate her thick Sardinian dialect and pass around the sugary biscuits left over from her birthday party.

At the party, as the older men reminisced about their time as prisoners of war, Melis sat with Alessio, her seven-year-old great-great-grandson, who will see in the 22nd century if he becomes a centenarian like so many of his family. "I told him to make it to 100," said Melis, "and that I would be counting."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Organic food is no better for you than than traditionally grown food but it may taste better, researchers have said.

Despite the perception that organic food, that has been grown without the use of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and other chemicals, is more somehow purer, more nutritious and virtuous, scientists have said there is little evidence that it is healthier.

A review of 237 research studies into organic food found the products were 30 per cent less likely to pesticide residue than conventionally grown fruit and vegetables but were not necessarily 100 per cent free of the chemicals.

They found no consistent differences in the vitamin content of organic products.

There were higher levels of phosphorus in organically grown food but the researchers said this is of little importance as so few people are deficient in this.

The only other significant finding was that some studies suggested that organic milk contained higher levels of omega-3 fatty acid, which is thought to be important for brain development in infants and for cardiovascular health.

Dr Crystal Smith-Spangler, a teacher at Stanford's Centre for Health Policy, said: "Some believe that organic food is always healthier and more nutritious,.

"We were a little surprised that we didn't find that."

"Our goal was to shed light on what the evidence is.

"This is information that people can use to make their own decisions based on their level of concern about pesticides, their budget and other considerations."

She said the overall message was that people needed to eat more fruit and vegetables, no matter how they were grown, because most Western diets are deficient.

The research was published in the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine.

Dr Dena Bravata, a senior affiliate with Stanford's Center for Health Policy, said: "There isn't much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you're an adult and making a decision based solely on your health.

"If you look beyond health effects, there are plenty of other reasons to buy organic instead of conventional."

She said taste, concerns about the effects of conventional farming practices on the environment and animal welfare as some of the reasons people choose organic products.

The group found two studies comparing children consuming organic and conventional diets did find lower levels of pesticide residues in the urine of children on organic diets, though the levels of urinary pesticides in both groups of children were below the allowable safety thresholds.

Also, organic chicken and pork appeared to reduce exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but the researchers said the health implications of this were not clear.

The group said the research was difficult because of the various ways organic food was tested, other factors that affect nutrient levels such as soil and weather and the effect that organic farming methods may have such as using manure as fertiliser which may carry bacteria.

Prof Alan Dangour, senior lecturer at the Nutrition and Public Health Intervention Research Unit, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “The Smith-Spangler paper is a careful and detailed review of reports. It again demonstrates that there are no important differences in nutrient content between organic and conventionally produced foods.

"The Smith-Spangler paper also reviews health benefits of organic foods and like our 2010 review finds no evidence that organic foods are healthier than conventionally produced foods.

“However, throughout the paper the authors make it clear that the evidence base is weak and highly variable.

“Consumers select organic foods for a variety of reasons, however this latest review identifies that at present there are no convincing differences between organic and conventional foods in nutrient content or health-benefits."

A spokesman for the Soil Associaiton said: "This US study, of limited application in Europe, found organic food helps people avoid pesticides in their food, recognised that organic milk has significantly higher levels of beneficial nutrients, and says that the market for organic food is still ‘skyrocketing’ in America. Significantly, given the rising concern about antibiotic resistance, the study found that the risk of bacteria resistant to three or more antibiotics was higher in non-organic than in organic chicken and pork.

"However, the study only reviewed some existing studies, and omitted many, including all those not written in English.

"The scientific methodology used for the review, while suitable for comparing trials of medicines, is not right for comparing different crops.

"A UK review paper, using the correct statistical analysis, has found that most of the differences in nutrient levels between organic and non-organic fruit and vegetables seen in this US study are actually highly significant.

"As the study says, there are almost no long-term studies of the impact on people’s health of eating organic food, but the study does mention one Dutch Government funded long-term research project, which found that children who consumed dairy products of which more than 90 per cent were organically produced had a 36 per cent lower risk for eczema at age 2 years."

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In what can only be described as a stroke of genius, FrederickJames.com is selling limited edition iPad covers made from the disgraced fraudster's designer clothing.

So while Mr. Madoff can only reminisce about his clothes for the 150 years sentence that he has been thrown in jail for, your iPad can get the best that money can buy.

Each cover is unique since it has been hand crafted. Only a few pieces are available for sale. Check out the collection on FrederickJames.com Prices range from $350- $500 and authenticity certificates are also available upon request. You can buy the covers and rest in the peace of knowing that a part of your money was used in paying back those who lost their life savings.

The Rich Times

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The Western Press is following a mid-ranking story in Chinese politics with more than average fervour because it is so salacious.

Ling Jihua - an aide to Hu Jintao - it seems will have a hard time being elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee. Why? Because his son (Ling Gu) died in a high speed car crash in a Ferrari.

This post is about the propaganda part of the story as reported by the South China Morning Post:

The semi-naked passengers were ethnic Tibetan and Uighur students from Beijing’s Minzu University, one of whom was now paralysed.

Now a Ferarri Spider 458 is not exactly a big car. And playing with not one but two semi-naked students in such a confined space whilst driving at (say) 200 kilometres per hour stretches my imagination (but then I am a happily and conventionally married man so maybe my imagination does not go very far). 

It seems significant that the other passengers were a Tibetan and an Uighur - their race matters.

Bill Bishop - a fairly astute China watcher - tweeted that he was sceptical of that detail - a detail released to cause maximum damage to Ling Gu's (and hence Ling Jihua's) reputation. Bill Bishop's scepticism is well-founded. If you are going to do a character assassination doing it in a race baiting manner works in China as it does in other countries.

That said, I asked the best connected China watcher I know whether he though the story as presented (two naked students of minority race in a small car) was plausible. This China watcher knew Ling Gu personally. And the response came back that that seemed just like the kid.

The death is real. But like everything else in China it all comes wrapped in a story where you have to question every detail.

And even when you question them its hard to decide what parts of the story are true.

That is how it is with most Chinese data. Spin beats truth enough of the time to make you question everything.

John

PS. I have been reliably assured that the Chinese gossip version of this story is that the women were high class hookers - and the deceased's dad is responsible for much Tibetan and Uighur policy.

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Brigitte, a German fashion and lifestyle magazine, is looking at abandoning the "no models" policy it adopted nearly three years ago. The magazine had announced in 2009 that editors were tired of "fattening up" skinny models on Photoshop and would subsequently photograph only "real women" for their pages. This week's about-turn is said to have come after magazine staff struggled to find normal women who could do the job well, on the days it needed to be done (most readers had to book time off their real jobs to attend the Brigitte shoots), and because circulation hasn't increased at all since the initiative began.

This back-pedal is in no way surprising to me. And while I can identify the magazine's ostensibly admirable intention (in addition to creating some excellent PR), it was a wholly misguided one – not to mention rather patronising towards those who model professionally. As someone who has worked with these women for 15 years, I know models bring to the table a great deal more than a pretty face and rake-thin body.

The average jobbing model is self-employed and earns something in the region of £40k – a good salary but hardly the Gisele numbers most people seem to imagine (Brigitte magazine claim they were paying their "real models", mainly readers, the same going rate). And for this a professional model spends 3-4 days a week meeting up to 30 photographers, editors and casting agents, showing her portfolio and being criticised and picked apart. "Too old", "skin's bad", "hair's all wrong": just some of the feedback a model might hear in an average day. If one client actually likes what she or he sees, then the model might get booked for a photoshoot. While she is hardly being sent down a mine to dig with her bare hands, she will spend around eight hours on her feet being largely ignored by the assembled crew, except when being ordered to pull poses (fashion is always a season ahead so this could easily be while wearing nothing but a bikini in a December blizzard) or undressing in front of assembled strangers.

During this time, she will be expected to know what makes a great picture, where her best angles are, how lighting works on the face and understand completely the mood the photos aim to create – any delay can cost thousands in studio and equipment hire and crew overtime and can often result in inferior photos. The job, while not without its great perks, involves a talent for acting, extreme patience and the hide of a rhino when it comes to criticism. Consequently, it is entirely possible to be a breathtakingly beautiful-looking woman and a very bad model.

It's unclear why the editors of Brigitte chose to use amateur models rather than "plus-sized" professional models (still a relatively slim size 14, but more representative of the average woman's size than a size six, and presumably in no need of the pumped-up decolletage Brigitte adopted as standard). Because surely the real point here is whether professional models should be more diverse, so magazines don't have to resort to those without experience in order to better reflect their readership. This seems to be a straightforward question with a rather obvious answer that few consumers would disagree with.

Except that the publishing industry consistently sees reader focus groups choose thin models over larger women in both editorial and advertising. Attempts at using larger women have been as unsuccessful here as in Germany. And yet criticising thin women has become an easy, crowd-pleasing option in recent years (politicians cynically wheel out the anti-model stance on quiet days, often using the term "real women", an expression so offensive it undermines its intended meaning).

Clearly, if magazines don't show any women over size eight it's very wrong and needs to be addressed. But we as consumers need to decide where we really stand and vote with our wallets — not continue to say we want one thing while consistently preferring another.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Hotels increasingly are turning to the world of fashion to make their properties more attractive to guests who want a touch of luxury, and to create a source of buzz.

As New York City's Fashion Week 2013 spring collection shows get underway, Starwood's trendy W chain is today announcing a partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America, in which emerging clothing designers chosen by the council eventually will visit W's 42 hotels around the world to display their new designs.

W hotels from Boston to Bali will host designer trunk shows that will give budding designers exposure to potential customers, says Starwood executive Carlos Becil.

"Introducing our guests to emerging designers -- and the next wave of what we anticipate will make an impact in fashion -- will help benefit our whole promise of what's new and next," he says.

The partnership also is aimed at drawing attention to the hotels.

W plans to videotape the designers and events for W's Facebook and Twitter accounts, its in-room "W Vision" TV channel or its website whotels.com, which gets more than 1 million page views a month, Becil says.

The W chain first turned to fashion nine years ago to create buzz by opening a pop-up location at New York's Fashion Week, which now is sponsored by Mercedes Benz and attracts other sponsors ranging from American Express to Skyy Vodka to its events.

Now, other hotels are turning to fashion designers in search of similar buzz.

Last month, the Hilton chain signed a deal with designer Vivienne Tam to create limited-edition slippers as special treats for Chinese guests.

Some designers have put their names on entire hotels. Italian designer Giorgio Armani opened the Armani Hotel Milano in November after opening his first hotel in the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

"A big percentage of our clients are Armani fans," says Aaron Kaupp, the Milano's general manager. "Obviously, everyone is very stylish."

When guests first enter the hotel, they smell an Armani fragrance and see Armani-designed lounge chairs and draperies. The result was so stylish, Kaupp says, there was no need to hang artwork on the walls. Rates also are stylish, starting at about $750 a night.

Luxury customers, especially, appreciate the touch of fashion designers because they may regularly purchase the designers' clothing and other merchandise, says Albert Herrera, a vice president of the Virtuoso luxury travel agency network.

"It elevates the bar for hotels," says Herrera. "It's cachet. More importantly, it draws a certain level of clientele who look for that."

Other fashion designers can be found working nearly every aspect of some hotels' properties, staff and locales:

- Haute couture suites and spaces. Many are increasingly putting their stamp on luxury hotels' priciest suites. Diane Von Furstenberg, for instance, designed 20 rooms and suites at Claridge's in London with signature prints, fabrics and accessories two years ago. Bottega Veneta recently transformed a suite at the St. Regis Florence, and the St. Regis New York unveiled its Dior Suite. Even iconic designer Karl Lagerfeld has gone from catwalk to hotel. He's in the process of redesigning the pool at the luxurious Hotel Métropole in Monte Carlo.

- Designer uniforms. W hotels have had uniforms by Michael Kors and L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani. The boutique Thompson chain of hotels has had Cynthia Rowley design a little black dress for cocktail servers at its hotels in Hollywood and Washington, D.C. The James New York last winter dressed its doormen in $1,000 coats from local designer Andrew Buckler. At Sofitel's So Mauritius hotel, which opened in late 2010, the interiors as well as the uniforms were designed by Japanese fashion designer Kenzo Takada.

- Designer goods. To appeal to its hipster guests' love for all things retro, the small Ace chain of hotels worked with Converse to design limited-edition Chuck Taylor high-top sneakers priced at $100 a pair. And in 2010, the W chain started its "Global Glam" fashion line by working with emerging fashion designers and selling their creations at W's 14 retail shops.

- Designer discounts. The Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills arranged for guests to receive discounts of as much as 20 percent at Nanette Lepore, Ted Baker, Kitson and other designer shops on trendy Robertson Boulevard that are popular with Hollywood starlets.

The W chain blazed the trail for merging the worlds of fashion and hotels. In 2003, it set up a VIP suite for designers, runway models and celebrities when Fashion Week was under white tents in New York's Bryant Park.

When the event moved to Lincoln Center in 2010, W began holding its own show to promote the designers who create fashion and accessories for its trendy hotel stores.

Now check out the 10 coolest fashion designer hotels >

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The spending of the super-rich is no longer just about stuff and status.

It’s more about memories and moments...and lots of home renovations.

A new study from Spectrem Group, the Lake Forest, Ill.-based research group, shows that people with a net worth of $25 million spend far more on vacations and home renovations than they do on clothing, cars, and jewelry.

The survey showed that nearly half of the respondents spent more than $25,000 a year on vacations or leisure travel. More than a third spent more than $25,000 on home improvements. Vacations and home improvement were among the top categories for the spending of the ultra-wealthy.

Lower on the list was jewelry (58 percent spent less than $10,000 a year), autos (44 percent spent less than $10,000), and clothing (53 percent spent less than $10,000).

“The data tells us that there are very few people in this group who are really flamboyant in how they spend their money,” said George Walper, president of Spectrem.

Of course, just because a couple spends $30,000 for luxury tents and chef-prepared meals in the Okavango Delta doesn’t mean they are not extravagant. It’s just that they’re “experience extravagant,” rather than “material extravagant.” (Read More: 5 Top Trophy Properties in Europe.)

Still, the spending of the wealthy has taken on a slightly different character since the bling-filled years of 2005-2007. Aside from spending more on vacations and home improvements, they're also spending more on entertainment and the arts. Today, a third of the ultra-rich are spending $25,000 or more a year on the arts. (Are they’re buying symphonies?)

In 2007, 25 percent of the super-wealthy spent more than $25,000 a year on jewelry. In 2010, that number fell to 21 percent. In 2007, one in four spent more than $25,000 a year on clothing; that share has fallen to 19 percent.

They are still a charitable group, at least, according to their survey responses. Nearly half gave $25,000 or more to charity—more than the combined totals for jewelry and clothing. (Read More: Gates and Buffett's Giving Pledge: Who's In?)

A subset of the rich are also big political givers. One in five gives more than $10,000 in political contributions each year.

“With political giving, we see that a small percentage of them are giving the most,” Walper said.

Now take an armchair tour of Mexico's famous landmarks >

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A Chinese man arrested for attempted theft after swallowing a diamond worth nearly £9,000 at a gem exhibition in Sri Lanka on Wednesday will have to undergo surgery to remove the stone, police said.

The 32-year-old had asked the stall owner for a close inspection of the 1.5-carat diamond on the opening day of Facets Sri Lanka, an annual jewellery show in the capital Colombo.

"He came with another Chinese man. One of them tried to distract me while the other had a diamond in his hand," Suresh de Silva, director of the Belgrade International gem store, told AFP.

"When I realised what was happening and shouted, one ran away and we managed to catch the man who swallowed the stone."

The man was taken to the Colombo National Hospital where he was to be administered laxatives, but police said X-rays showed the diamond was lodged in his gullet and was not going down.

"Doctors have advised surgery to remove the diamond," police spokesman Ajith Rohana told AFP.

"The man's life could be in danger if the pointed end of the diamond tears his guts. We have already informed courts about this. For the man's own safety, he will have to undergo surgery."

He said a successful prosecution was dependent on retrieving the stone, adding that officers were also keen to interview the other man, who fled the hall.

The two men had arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday as tourists, police said.

The diamond owner Silva said the captured man had offered to pay for the 7.2mm-diameter stone, but that exhibition organisers wanted police to press charges.

"He ... appeared to be appraising it and suddenly put it in his mouth," a police officer who declined to be named said.

A spokeswoman at the hospital said that an X-ray had been taken and that officers were holding the suspect under observation.

"I believe the X-ray confirmed something that looked like a stone. The man is in police custody," National Hospital spokeswoman Pushpa Soya told AFP.

Photographs showed the man, dressed in a black shirt and jeans with his head bowed, being escorted from the exhibition centre by uniformed policemen.

Sri Lanka does not mine diamonds but it has a large gem and jewellery industry and is famed for its blue sapphires.

Source: AFP

DON'T MISS: The Incredible Story Of How De Beers Created And Lost The Most Powerful Monopoly Ever >

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Since the fall of the wall, post-Communist Berlin has become a thriving creative and cultural center, boasting an internationally renowned arts scene, first-rate shopping, legendary nightlife, and ultra-modern architecture. It is also a major business hub, attracting suits and ties from across the globe.

But alongside these modern digs is historical Berlin: iconic sights like the Brandenburg Gate and the East Side Gallery attract families and backpackers alike to this European capital.

Such a diverse crowd means extraordinarily diverse lodgings. From luxe suites to hipster hovels (very attractive hovels, though), there is a “best” hotel for everyone in Berlin.

Gilded Grande Dame: The Ritz-Carlton, Berlin

Classic elegance: that’s the name of the game at The Ritz-Carlton, Berlin

. Featuring mahogany furniture, plush bedding, and massive marble bathrooms like the one seen here, this is easily one of Berlin’s most luxurious properties. And the grandeur doesn’t come without modern amenities: Wi-Fi, touch-screen controls, and large flat-screen TVs are available in each room and guests have access to a large spa, indoor pool, sauna, and fitness center as well.

The upscale French brasserie, tea lounge, and British gentlemen’s club-inspired bar are the icing on the oh-so-delicious cake. This is definitely the frontrunner for those guests seeking a luxe experience in the German capital.

Most Intimate Chic Stay: Sir F.K. Savigny Hotel Berlin

The ultra-modern black and white motif throughout the Sir F.K. Savigny Hotel Berlin attracts a design-focused clientele with a penchant for hotel freebies (Wi-Fi, a well-stocked minibar with beer and soft drinks, a Nespresso machine) and a chic locale. T

he boutique’s Charlottenburg neighborhood is rife with intimate restaurants and elegant shops, and it is just a short walk from Ku’Damm, an area lined with upscale boutiques and designer stores. The 45 rooms are bright and modern, equipped with large flat-screen TVs and iPod docks; some even have private balconies.

The outdoor garden is a major plus, but the bathrooms do lack complete privacy and food is sometimes expensive.

Most Historic Site to Seal the Deal: Hotel Savoy Berlin

The historic Hotel Savoy Berlin first opened its doors in 1929. Back then it attracted famous guests Greta Garbo and Thomas Mann, but today the hotel is home to more business travelers than starlets.

Large, traditional rooms with simple bathrooms feature free Wi-Fi, coffee machines, and flat-screen TVs. The elegant Charlottenburg neighborhood is home to several upscale businesses (as well as great restaurants and shops).

Plus the hotel’s on-site cigar lounge (seen above), small fitness center with sauna, reliable restaurants, and rooftop terrace are all great locales to merge and acquire as you see fit.

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One thing you learn quickly when you get to taste as many wines as I do is that there is only a loose correlation between price and quality.

Paying more for a wine certainly doesn’t guarantee a better wine, but when you move from one price point to another you can at least hope that the average score of the relative groups will justify the price differential.

With Pinot Grigio, that is certainly true. This group of wines, ranging from just under $10 to about $15, is really a nice representation of what to expect at this price point.

There are a few winners, wines that can easily compete with bottles costing 50 percent more, but there are also a lot of duds here. Sometimes when we spend a little less hoping to save money, we end up with a lot less wine for our money. Shop carefully and you’ll see that there are many values to be found in Pinot Grigio under $15 a bottle.

These wines are bursting with the trademark fresh fruit and bright character we all love in our Pinot Grigio. Even some $10 bottles can be delicious, but at this price point there are too many pitfalls to ignore, so shop carefully!

2011 Albino Armani Corvara Pinot Grigio Valdadige 12.5% $15

Softly fragrant on the nose with some light herb spice notes accenting the apricot, lime pith and heirloom apple fruit. Very clear and fresh in the mouth with integrated acidity supporting a slightly rounded mouthfeel. There’s plenty of fresh fruit here, simple and pure with notes of pear and apricot brightening with a touch of lime pith on the back end. This is a modestly rich, nicely dry example of Pinot Grigio with some really attractive mineral and almond notes adding detail to the moderately long finish. This is rather refined and complex for Pinot Grigio. 89pts

2011 Willow Crest Pinot Gris Yakima Valley 13% $15

Hugely aromatic with some sulfur that needs to blow off. Under that this has intense citrus, passion fruit and melon aromas. Nicely balanced in the mouth and a bit towards the round side of things but with nice cut and a light mineral edge to the fruit. The intensity found on the nose does not quite translate to the palate, though this does have a lovely tangerine, honeydew and lightly exotic tropical fruit profile which is delightful if not terribly varietal. More apple fruit pops on the back end and settles in on the moderately long finish. This is a lovely rendition of Pinot Gris. 89pts

2010 Bargetto Regan Vineyard Pinot Grigio Santa Cruz Mtns 14.5% $15

Dry and dusty on the nose with lots of apple core and mineral aromas topped with a little sage and sorrel herbiness. Dry, small-scaled and precise on entry, this is a nicely scaled wine with richness and good acidity lending excellent balance. The flavors run towards Asian pear and heirloom apples here, with a little cashew thrown in for good measure. This finishes cleanly with more orchard fruit flavors that gain a light sweetness. 87pts

2011 Santi Sortesele Pinot Grigio Delle Venezia 12.5% $12

Light and fresh on the nose with a mineral water top note over a nice base of citrus and green apple with a hint of peach. There’s plenty to like here with juicy, mouthwatering acidity balanced by an edge of fleshiness. Succulent flavors of green apple, dried lemon pith and a touch of apricot all come together on the palate and play out on the rather long finish, which shows slight sweetness balancing out the acidity. A bit simple but well put together. 87pts

2011 Innocent Bystander Pinot Gris Yarra Valley AUS 12.5% $14

Quite ripe on the nose with slightly waxy yellow fruits that quickly turn a bit flat and herbal with air. Soft and broad in the mouth with a nice mineral edge and good clarity, though this is a bit thin on the mid-palate. The acidity really drives this, lending the wine citric and slightly bitter apple peel flavors and a nice mineral wash to the finish. A final wave of sweet fruit does reappear on the finish adding nice detail to the finale. This is not going to be that popular as it is not fruit-driven, but it is somewhat complex and has a nice interplay of sweet, sour and bitter flavors on the palate. 87pts

2010 Pighin Pinot Grigio Friuli 12.5% $14

Pretty aromatic on the nose with a nice blast of greengage plum, framed by saffron and gentle, dried orange peel notes over a dried apricot base. Light and feathery in the mouth, this is sheer and delicate with clear plum and green apple flavors across the palate that quickly yield to a light dried apple- and spice-toned finish. Easy to enjoy with some complexity but ultimately a lightweight wine. 86pts

2011 Lungarotti Pinot Grigio Umbria Italy 12.5% $14

Smells like you’re zesting lime. Fresh, crisp, gently floral with a bit of green spiciness. On entry, this is lean and very direct, small-scaled and acid-driven with slightly pithy lemon flavors. With air, it gains a touch of weight and begins to show some of the green herbal and spice nuances from the nose. A lovely sipper, this gains some nice snap on the finish, which is moderately long and very firm, demanding some food to go along with it. 86pts

2011 McManis Family Vineyards Pinot Grigio California 11.5% $10

Nicely aromatic with notes of apples, pollen, a hint of honey and a squeeze of lime. Bright and lively on entry, this has plenty of acidity on a lean, fairly well balanced frame. It’s not very complex, delivering light apple, citrus and honey flavors, but it is well balanced and refreshing with a decently long finish. I can see this pleasing a very wide audience. 85pts

2011 Forchir Villa del Borgo Pinot Grigio Friuli 12.5% $10

On the nose, this is very lemony with a nice lime leaf top note and a hint of peach. Fairly sweet on entry with bright acidity, but the sugar here remains noticeable, adding a bit of creamy weight and some heft to the lemon curd and apricot fruit flavors. A bit of minerality helps to enliven the finish. This is a party wine. 85pts

2011 Tolentino Winemaker’s Selection Bodega Cuarto Dominio Pinot Grigio Mendoza ARG 12% $15

Floral, lemony and slightly creamy on the nose with some lime candy notes. In the mouth, this has a nice texture with acidity supporting modest richness in a clean and fresh way. The flavors recall the nose with a distinct candied edge, even showing some pineapple on the back end. It’s going to prove to be very popular with the cocktail wine crowd but it’s a distinctly fruity and slighty sticky style of wine. 84pts

2011 Dancing Coyote Pinot Grigio Clarksburg CA 13% $12

Sweet and floral on the nose with a hint of red peachy fruit accenting a base of lime/lime blossom fruit. A bit soft on entry, this snaps together nicely on the palate and delivers a round, easy to drink mouthful of melon and citrus fruit. Remains aromatic and floral in the mouth, adding a hint of fennel on the back end and through the modest finish. 84pts

2011 White Pine Pinot Grigio Michigan USA 12.5%

Smells a bit funky with bananas, coconut husks, melon and some flinty, mineral notes on the nose. Nicely balanced and fresh, this is very clean in the mouth. Citrus fruit is backed up by more of that almost flinty, mineral quality that takes over on the moderately long finish. Easy to drink and with some textural interest, this just needs a bit more depth of flavor. 83pts

2010 Double Decker Pinot Grigio California 13% $12

Light lemon on the nose but not very aromatic. Light and fresh in the mouth with hints of limeade and lemon flavor. This is fresh and easy with a hint of RS adding some flesh. A nice touch of bitterness emerges on the modest, lime-flavored finish. A very light wine but one that has some appeal. Chill this and serve it by the pool, I’d drink it. 82pts

2011 Kenwood Pinot Grigio RRV 13.5% $12

Sweet apple fruit greets the nose along with a hint of white pepper and a light note of dried fruit and toasted nuts. A bit of an overripe flavor profile on entry, this retains a very ripe, almost syrupy peach quality in the mouth with noticeable richness balanced by good acidity. There’s not much of a finish here but the sugar does become more obvious once the modest acidity recedes. Tastes a bit heavy and dull. 80pts

2010 Luna Pinot Grigio Napa Valley 14.1% $13

This is fairly mineral on the nose with a nice contrast of stemmy apple fruit and some hints of pineapple. Light in the mouth and a touch soft, this is inoffensive but innocuous with lightly creamy peach flavors on the mid-palate and a hint of sweet nuttiness on the modest finish. 78pts

2010 Estancia Pinot Grigio California 13% $11

This smells a bit overripe with peaches, pears, hints of dried figs and a little mango for good measure. A bit thin in the mouth, there is enough acid here but this feels quite rounded and loose in the mouth. The overripe fruit flavors lead to a dry, slightly astringent finish. Fairly innocuous but not what I want from Pinot Grigio. 75pts

2010 Discoveries Vineyards Pinot Grigio California 13.5% $10

This smells overripe, sweet and artificially fruity with hints of Fruit Stripes gum and apricot preserves. Soft, low acid, jammy apricot and golden raspberry flavors on the palate are followed by a bitter, short and abrupt finish. Pasty. 70pts

Now find out why you might not want to bother with expensive wine at all >

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Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Zong Qinghou, head of China’s third- largest beverage maker, is the country’s richest man after disclosing his stake in closely held Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. is more than double previous estimates.

The 66-year-old soda and juice tycoon owns more than 80 percent of Wahaha, the company’s spokesman Shan Qining said in an interview on Sept. 3. That stake elevates Zong’s net worth to $21.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is now $13.4 billion wealthier than Robin Li, founder of the nation’s biggest search engine.

Zong, a chain-smoking member of the Chinese legislature who says he spends just $20 a day, ranks No. 23 globally and trails only Li Ka-Shing and Mukesh Ambani in Asia. Baidu Inc. Chairman Li’s net worth has dropped 3.8 percent year-to-date.

Wahaha has benefited from decades of rapid economic growth in China. The company has about 60 factories in 29 provinces across the country, making soda, food and baby formula, as well as children’s apparel, its website shows.

“Zong has made himself a billionaire by staying in the right industry, positioning Wahaha well and eventually seizing the opportunity of growth in smaller Chinese cities,” said Zhang Lu, an analyst at Capital Securities Corp. in Shanghai. “Given the fact that Wahaha is already a well-known brand domestically, disclosing his share and wealth would help to boost the global profile of both Wahaha and Zong himself.” 

'Laughing Children'

Zong founded Wahaha, which means “laughing children” in Chinese, 25 years ago with two retired teachers and a $22,048 loan. It has a 7.2 percent share of China’s soft drink market, according to London-based researcher Euromonitor International. Coca-Cola dominates with a 16.8 percent share, followed by Hong Kong-listed Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Co.

In 2011, Hangzhou, China-based Wahaha generated $11 billion in revenue and $1 billion in profit, Zong said in a March 2012 interview with Bloomberg News. The closely held operation may boost net income to $1.6 billion in 2012 on sales of $13.3 billion, helped by the Chinese government’s push to boost domestic consumption, he said.

The beverage maker’s valuation is derived using the average enterprise value-to-sales and price-to-earnings multiples of three publicly traded peers: Tingyi, Hebei Chengde Lolo and China Huiyuan Juice.

Based on an analysis of dividends, market performance and taxes, Zong has about $1.9 billion in cash and other liquid assets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Baidu Falters

Baidu’s stock has declined about 23 percent on the Nasdaq since the end of the first quarter on concerns the most-popular search engine in China may face more competition from Qihoo 360 Technology Co., which started a new search tool on Aug. 16, Barclays analyst Alicia Yap said.

Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based spokesman for Baidu, declined to comment.

Zong’s net worth change shows the opacity of wealth in China, where disclosure requirements are less transparent than in countries such as the U.S.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index takes measure of the world’s wealthiest people based on market and economic changes and Bloomberg News reporting. Each net worth figure is updated every business day at 5:30 p.m. in New York and listed in U.S. dollars at current exchange rates.

--Michael Wei, with assistance from Peter Newcomb and Pamela Roux in New York. Editors: Patrick Chu, Matthew G. Miller

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Michael Wei in Shanghai at mwei13@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Patrick Chu at pachu@bloomberg.net

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NEW YORK (AP) — The artist who created the "HOPE" poster that came to symbolize Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign was sentenced Friday to two years of probation and 300 hours of community service by a judge who cited his charity work.

Shepard Fairey hugged his lawyers, was kissed by wife and shook hands with friends and supporters after his sentence was pronounced.

The government had said in a presentence memorandum that Fairey, 42, should serve some time for destroying documents and fabricating others in a civil lawsuit he brought against The Associated Press in 2009. No prison term, it said, would send a "terrible message" to others who might engage in similar conduct.

"After spending a great amount of time, energy and legal effort, all of us at The Associated Press are glad this matter is finally behind us," AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement. "We hope this case will serve as a clear reminder to all of the importance of fair compensation for those who gather and produce original news content."

Prosecutors had told U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas in Manhattan that Fairey had "both an ideological and financial motive" to alter evidence in his favor after basing his poster on one of the AP's photographs. They said he did so over several weeks, engaging in behavior that "cannot be dismissed as remotely impulsive or the product of a moment of bad judgment."

"This was not a mere failure to preserve documents," the government wrote. "This was the intentional destruction of evidence and the intentional manufacture of false evidence. The defendant knew exactly what he was doing when he created the fake documents and sought to destroy the deleted documents."

They noted that revenues at three companies he controlled doubled from roughly $3 million in 2007 to $6 million in 2009 while he was honored repeatedly, including being chosen to design the official poster of Obama's 2009 inauguration and commissioned to create the cover image of Obama for Time magazine's 2008 Person of the Year, which was displayed in an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Defense attorneys argued that a prison term was not warranted, noting that the misdemeanor charge carries a potential of only six months in prison.

They said Fairey is contrite and noted that he settled his civil case with the AP on unfavorable terms that included sanctions. The government outlined in its court papers that the deal required Fairey to pay the AP $1.6 million, with an insurance company contributing about $450,000 of that amount.

In their sentencing memorandum, defense lawyers described Fairey as a devoted husband and father of two young daughters who runs companies that employ almost 30 people and who serves as the creative force behind a clothing line that employs another 80 people.

They called his crime the "worst mistake of his life" and said he altered evidence "not to better his chances of winning the lawsuit or to enrich himself, but out of fear of embarrassment."

The lawyers wrote that Fairey, who has diabetes, has already suffered "significant damage to his reputation," adding that an Internet search of his name "now produces results not just about his artistic and civic accomplishments, but also many web sites degrading him for his misconduct."

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