Now that you have Cyber Monday-induced carpal tunnel syndrome, it’s time to put the mouse down and use the gray mush between your ears for a bit. It’s not as fun as spending money but a well-considered gift can be affordable and still make someone else happy.

As the holiday season gets rolling, you’re going to be invited to plenty of parties. Sometimes, you just won’t know what to bring. I’m here to crack that code with five great gifts for your hosts, each gift being $20 or less. All you have to do is answer a few simple questions!

Is the Host a Stranger?

It happens to the best of us, you get roped into going to parties where you don’t really know the host or his or her taste in wines. If your host is a stranger, take the easy route with bubbles.
 
I have a preference for Prosecco.

There are so many great bottles of Prosecco out there under $20 that are all festive, fun and easy to drink, with perfumed pear and apple fruit and just a hint of sweetness. In an ideal world, your host will enjoy your bottle as a hangover helper the day after the party. While they might not remember where the Prosecco came from, they sure as heck will appreciate it.


What to buy: Col Vetoraz, $16

This stuff is addictively delicious. It’s sort of a high-end Prosecco in a nice package, so that helps with the whole gifting and not looking like you just came from Trader Joe’s thing.

Do You Want to be Less of a Stranger?

And I’m talking much, much less. If so, consider festive bubbles that are pink and delicious.

Sparkling rosé is wine made for fun. Aim for something that's a little off-dry but bursting with red and white fruits. It should be clean, fresh and decidedly slurp-able.

What to buy: Fantinel, $13

A sparkling rosé introduced some time over the past few years, Fantinel may have previously been called Prosecco Rosé. This is just their Brut Rosé and it is a great party wine. Stock up and share this holiday season. At this price, that’s a no brainer. A single bottle is a perfect single serving, so you better be buying two or more.

Is Your Host a High School Buddy?

Besides possibly being a little pathetic (trust me, I know my high school buddies so I speak from experience here), you are in luck. These folks have known you for so long that you could re-gift that bottle of quince-flavored orange wine from Papua New Guinea that’s been sitting in your kitchen since Menudo was topping the charts and probably get away with it.

If you’re the one buying wine, you might be the wine guy or gal in your group, so let’s reconsider. You are old friends, so the party you’re heading to is probably more low key and food centric than most. Consider introducing your friends to one of the most food-friendly, easy to drink reds that they probably haven’t tried: Carmenere.

What to buy: Lapostolle's Cuvee Alexandre, $17

Coming mostly from Chile, Carmenere is a Bordeaux variety that fits neatly between Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. At its best, it’s got modest tannins, great fruit and really lovely herbal complexity. Lapostolle’s Cuvee Alexandre is a wonderful example that shows uncommon focus and great freshness.

Is Your Host a Coworker?

This can be a touchy subject. If he or she is a subordinate, you don’t want to come off like a total tool. In this case, remaining modest yet generous is key. On the other hand, if your host is one of your superiors, you need to be a kiss ass without coming off as a kiss ass. Again, maintaining a certain sense of modesty is essential here. So, what should you do?

Obscurity, go for obscurity. Of course, obscurity poses its own problems, like finding the wine in the first place, so you can only go so obscure. Where does great wine come from where no one seems to buy? I’m going to vote for South Africa. While in South Africa, I’m going to look for really nice packaging and a big bottle. Not that I’m shallow, just shrewd.

What to buy: DeMorgenzon’s DMZ wines, $11-$17

This line rings all those bells and you can find some of the wines stateside. Take your pick from Shiraz forthe red and fruity with classic, mineral and spice accents or Chardonnay for a classic example of cool climate, New World Chardonnay. These are steals at these prices and are worth stocking up for gifting all year round.

Are You Clueless?

Relax, we knew that about you. Just kidding, actually your friends just mentioned it, so I had no previous knowledge of your abject cluelessness when it comes to people and wine.
What’s the failsafe? What can you always bring to a party that will make you look like a champ? That is the million dollar question and I only have a handful of 2 cent answers, but if I had to pick just one wine to make you look like a knowledgeable, considerate, inquisitive, forward-thinking wine geek I would have to say, “aaaarghh…”. After much hemming and hawing, I would ultimately suggest sticking with what’s tried and true. People love Pinot Noir and it’s easy to drink, plus there’s a lot of great juice out there. So which one is the $20 or under wonder?

What to buy: Brophy Clark, $20

This winery's Santa Maria Valley and Santa Rita Hills Pinot wines come in right around $20 a bottle. For that coin, you get some really good, opulent but not overwrought Pinot in a very nice package. It’s the $20 wonder of 2012!

Want To Learn More?

Looking for fun holiday gift ideas for the wine geeks in your life? Check out our holiday gift guide here!

And visit Snooth.com to get more wine news and reviews from Gregory Dal Piaz or add him to your Google+ Circles.

You may also like:
Tips for Hosting a Great Holiday Party
7 Courses of the Ultimate Holiday Meal
7 Dessert Wines for the Holidays

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Welcome to First Bite, wherein we bring you a look at some of the city's newest restaurants shortly after they open.

We'll go, eat some food, take some pictures, and report back to you.

This go round it's L'Apicio, the newest project from Joe Campanale and chef Gabe Thompson on East First Street that opened October 18th.

We didn't have a chance to go before we left for Asia, but it was our first dinner when we got back to town.

One of the great things about Epicurean Management restaurants (dell'anima, L'Artusi, Anfora, and now L'Apicio) are the wine lists.

Joe Campanale, beverage director and co-owner, curates delightfully explorative wine lists to accompany chef Gabe Thompson's rustic, Italian cuisine. An example of this is the 2011 Arnot-Roberts trousseau from Clear Lake, California. Trousseau is a grape indigenous to the small wine producing region of Jura in eastern France, but also one that thrives in the cooler climate of Lake County, California, and the '11 Arnot-Roberts effort was recently featured in a New York Times article.

Despite its lighter-bodied profile, trousseau produces incredibly well-structured, complex, and balanced wines. We found the Arnot-Roberts trousseau to be similar to schiava, a grape that's grown in Trentino Alto-Adige in Italy's north. In both instances, the wines are light, floral, mineral-driven, and have a slightly bitter finish. Surprisingly tannic for such a thin-skinned varietal, Arnot-Roberts' trousseau is a refreshing alternative to the oft overbearing, rich, powerful wines produced in California.

The wine list will change with some regularity, particularly the by the glass options, but in order to highlight the list, we've provided a pairing option for each of the dishes we had.

Escarole pecorino-buttermilk dressing, almonds, and cucumber ($13) - The salad carries a bright acidity from a liberal squeeze of lemon in the buttermilk dressing. Cucumbers and radishes add texture and freshness to contrast the fat in the cheese and buttermilk.

The salad is a nod to the fundamentals of Italian cooking: minimal ingredients and fresh produce. It's a great way to excite the palate before the starches show up.

Wine: Vignoles Estate, Keuka Lakes Vineyards 2011 (Finger Lakes, New York) $10 - Finger Lakes wines are a quickly growing sensation. The terroir surrounding said lakes provides exceptional growing conditions in which wines of great freshness and bright acidity are produced. The vibrant, acid-driven vignoles is light and crisp, but has a slightly rich mouth feel that can withstand the fatty dressing.

Linguine clams, pepperoni, and chilies ($19) - There was no denying the fresh clam flavor in this pasta. Chilies brightened everything up, and while the inclusion of pepperoni provided a modern twist, didn't offer much else to the dish.

Wine: Bianchetta Genovese "U Pastine," Bisson 2011 (Liguria, Italy) $13 - Bianchetta Genovese is from the coastal region of Liguria in Italy, where seafood is a well-known and cherished fare. Many Ligurian wines have a subtle salinity that results from grapes growing in approximation to the Mediterranean.

It is especially evident in wines from Genoa, Liguria's coastal capital, and proves to go extremely well with the brininess found in shellfish. The wine, from one of the region's best producers, is rarely vinified as a varietal wine, and shows Campanale's passion for finding Italian gems.

Pappardelle short rib ragu ($18) - Ragus are sometimes the best place to look when scouring for a chef's ability to make pasta. This one hits the nail on the head. It's not an overly sauced, Americanized mound of poorly cooked meat; but a refined, richly flavored, and decadent pasta. The toothsome bit of the perfectly cooked noodles was matched by the most tender shreds of braised short rib meat.

Wine: Syrah "Tous Ensemble," Copain 2009 (Mendocino County, California) $15 - There are a few solid red options by the glass that would pair well with the ragu, but we settled on the California syrah. The pasta is packed with flavor and spice, so we thought a wine of similar character and ambition would be the best way to wash it down, especially on a cold night!

Broccoli Rabe garlic, chili, and onion ($16) - Polenta alla spianatora is a dish in the Epicurean Management Group unique to L'Apicio. It's a glorified side dish of sorts, served family style on a wooden board. Polenta might be to the Italian chef what the omelet is to a French chef and Thompson has the technique down pat.

With our ragu intake from the pasta, we settled on the veggie option. The result was a textural, flavorful delight. It was a little heavy handed on the spice (we dig spice), but everything polenta should be.

Wine: Nebbiolo, Vallana Boca 2004 (Piedmont, Italy) $17 -We say go for the nebbiolo, a grape indigenous to the northern parts of Italy. Polenta is said to have originated in Friuli, where nebbiolo is not grown, but the dish is also popular in Lombardia, where nebbiolo (known locally as chiavennasca) is one of the most widely planted grapes.

So, in a round about way, this pairing supports the ol' "grows together goes together" ideal. Being an '04, the wine is a bit further along in the aging process, so developed nuances and complexities will make for a more enjoyable, fuller bodied wine that will stand up to the fat and richness that makes polenta so good.

Chandeliers are part of the decor in the 180-seat restaurant. The ambitious room is hip in that industrial, clubby, East Village sort of way. It's a far cry from the intimate rooms found at other EMG restaurants, but the offerings are still undeniably Thompson and Campanale's.

L'Apicio | 13 East First Street | 212.533.7400 

Sunday-Wednesday, 5:30pm – 11:00pm, Thursday-Saturday, 5:30pm-12:00am

*brunch coming soon

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New ruling means restaurants may no longer be able to offer burgers cooked rare or medium-rare.

It is a far cry from the traditional burger sold at fast-food outlets. All over the country restaurants are putting “gourmet” burgers on the menu, offering them from rare to well done.

Now council officials are cracking down on the freedom to choose how your burger is done, warning restaurants not to offer them rare or even medium-rare.

A number of celebrity chefs are affected by the move, including Gordon Ramsay, whose Maze Grill restaurant sells a burger for £12, Angela Hartnett, whose York and Albany’s bar menu includes burgers, and the Soho House chain, run by Nick Jones, the husband of broadcaster Kirsty Young.

All face being asked at their next routine inspection how they offer their burgers after the decision by Westminster city council, which regulates food safety in more restaurants than any other local authority.

The decision is expected to be followed by other councils, but critics fear it could lead to questions over the safety of rare steaks and raw meat dishes such as steak tartare.

The policy is to be the subject of a legal ruling.

After routine inspections by environmental health officers, Westminster council challenged the way Davy’s was serving its £13.95 burgers at one of its restaurants in central London. Davy’s has taken the case to the High Court, which experts say could set a legal precedent as to whether or not diners will be able to order meat rare.

A Davy’s spokesman said: “The burgers are produced from high quality ingredients and Davy’s contends that it has safe measures in place to serve rare or medium-rare burgers.”

James Armitage, the council’s food health and safety manager, said: “This is about making sure customers are eating meat that is not a threat to their health. It is possible to produce burgers that can be eaten undercooked, but strict controls are essential.

“We have enlisted the UK’s top expert on E. coli, Prof Hugh Pennington, to get this matter resolved and he has outlined that rare minced meat that is not correctly cooked and prepared can kill.”

But John Cadieux, the executive head chef for the Burger and Lobster chain, said: “If you follow the guidelines to the letter then you’re going to destroy the burger industry.

“Not only that but you’re opening a Pandora’s box, because where do you finish? Steak tartare, runny eggs … the list is endless.”

According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), there are no rules banning the sale of raw or rare meat by restaurants or caterers.

Tony Lewis, of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, said: the case would have “nationwide implications”.

“At present the guidance from the FSA is that for burgers the meat should be cooked at 158F (70C) for two minutes,” he said. “If Westminster loses the case we will have to reassess.”

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Gulf princesses. The key to success holds in two simple words for Maison Lejaby, a historic lingerie maker rescued from collapse 10 months ago, and newly revived as a purveyor of "Made in France" luxury.

Nestled in a Paris courtyard a stone's throw from the Louvre, the firm this month opened what it dubs a lingerie Couture Salon in the hope of seducing the mega-rich shoppers who populate the neighbourhood's dozen five-star hotels.

"These women know luxury, they come to Paris two or three times a year to shop," said Lejaby's chief executive Alain Prost, who has been promoting his firm's services to luxury hotel concierges across the capital.

"The idea is simple -- we want to bring the Parisian couture salons back to life," he told AFP. "It's inspired by the salons of the late 1940s and 1950s, where clients would come to watch a fashion show, then slip into a fitting room, and stay for as long as they liked."

"Lingerie is still sold mostly in malls or department stores -- but lingerie is something highly intimate, you want to be somewhere calm, you want good personal advice."

Especially if you are a millionaire, it goes without saying.

Thick carpeted fitting rooms, with deep armchairs and scented candles, are designed with such VIP shoppers in mind, whether Gulf princesses, rich young Russians or Chinese.

Catherine Deliance, the salon's manager, has high hopes for the festive season, when wealthy Middle Eastern families take over hotel floors, sleeping late into the day before heading out on collective shopping sprees.

"These are women who adore lingerie, I have seen them buy the sexiest outfits -- sometimes behind their grandmother's backs!"

While these VIP shoppers are its key target, the salon also offers smaller private rooms for regular Parisian clients, "who can come to see a lingerie show, for a hen night," said Prost.

A former chief executive of the Italian lingerie firm La Perla, Prost is quite clear on what went wrong at Lejaby -- a house founded in 1884 that saw its turnover divided by four, from 80 to 20 million euros ($100 to 25 million), between 2009 and January 2012 when he acquired it in a state of near-bankruptcy.

"Its products had lost their soul. The strategy was to use a respected name -- Lejaby -- to sell low-cost goods made in China," he said. "The company lost 60 percent of its retail partners over three years."

"So we now know that was not the right strategy."

Instead, Prost is betting on the appeal of French know-how and craftsmanship to revive the house's image -- and fortunes.

"French haute couture holds an unrivalled place in fashion, but there is no equivalent in lingerie," he said.

Showcased in the Paris salon, the firm has launched a new line dubbed Maison Lejaby couture, entirely hand made in France using locally-sourced materials -- from Calais Lace to Lyon silk -- usually reserved for designer fashion.

Each garment is individually numbered and signed with the name of the seamstress who made it.

Models include an Empire-style half-cup bra, in strawberry pink silk with an underlay of Calais lace, soft jersey lining and velvet straps, to be paired with a pleated tulle petticoat, open at one side.

Off the shelf "couture" bra and panties sets start at 250 euros while made to measure pieces -- like a black slip that doubles as a cocktail dress, in Calais Lace with Lyon embroidery and silk -- range from 1,000 to 5,000 euros.

Prost kept 200 staff on the books, out of more than 600, and today employs 160 people in the Lyon region. The firm is also partnered with a workshop being set up near Lyon, that will employ 25 former Lejaby seamstresses.

No more Chinese outsourcing, although it will continue to use a Tunisian supplier for it main retail line, to be relaunched in the summer.

"Apart from us, no major lingerie player is doing 'Made in France' anymore," Prost said. "It's not an easy thing to do these days. You have to rebuild the whole production chain."

Maison Lejaby has so far secured retail deals for its couture collection with the Printemps and Galeries Lafayette department stores in Paris, Harrods in London and half a dozen outlets in Russia.

This year it expects to turn over 24 million euros and hopes to break even in 2013 on a projected turnover of 30 million euros.

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Thousands of couples in Asia flocked Wednesday to tie the knot on 12/12/12, seeking good fortune for marriages begun on the century's last repeating date.

Authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore respectively said 696 and 540 couples were scheduled to attend marriage registries, continuing a trend which has seen couples flocking to marry on 11/11/11 and 10/10/10 in both cities.

The figure is a near-fourfold increase compared to the daily average in the self-governing Chinese city of Hong Kong, and about an eightfold spike for non-Muslim weddings in Singapore, which is three-quarters ethnic Chinese.

Couples also queued to marry in many mainland Chinese cities, on the basis that 12/12/12 sounded like "Will love/will love/will love" in Chinese, the official news agency Xinhua reported.

In several Indonesian cities, mothers gave birth early by Caesarian section so their offspring could have a lucky birthdate.

At one of Hong Kong's five marriage registries, hundreds of people crowded the premises to take photos of brides and grooms in full wedding regalia as they congratulated the newlyweds.

"Today's date is very special and we can get married before doomsday as well," joked 34-year-old groom Raymond Ip.

Some doomsayers believe December 21 will be the date the world ends.

"There won't be a 13/133," Ip said, adding that he had booked the day half-a-year in advance to secure a spot. /1Groom Terance Fung, 29, agreed. "Today is the last day of the century with the same date numbers, so it is quite special," he said.

In Singapore hundreds of couples and family members trooped in batches to the marriage registry despite pouring rain.

One couple in India were able to celebrate an even rarer set of special dates, having got engaged on 10/10/10, held their registered legal marriage on 11/11/11 and finally had a big white wedding in Mumbai on 12/12/12.

The triple twelves, however, was a less popular day to tie the knot than previous sequential dates.

Hong Kong saw 1,002 weddings on November 11, 2011, which signified "Eternal love", and 859 weddings on October 10, 2010 which represented "Perfection".

Singapore had 553 and 724 marriages respectively on the same dates. The all-time high for a single day there was on February 14, 1995, when 1,082 couples were married because the western and Chinese Valentine's Day coincided.

Extra staff were deployed at the marriage registry at Changchun, in China's northeastern province of Jilin, where 2,000 couples were expected.

But the office director Wang Zhe played down the significance of so-called lucky dates.

"Every day is a lucky day to get married and it will be the most unforgettable day of their lives," Wang was quoted as saying.

The Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur saw 289 couples taking part in a mass wedding at the Thean Hou Chinese Temple.

The National Registration Department said another 306 couples were married at two of its offices near the capital, three times the normal number.

At Yogyakarta in Indonesia's Central Java province 12 male sugar cane workers paraded around town in 12 traditional wagons with their brides to mark the day.

Expecting mothers meanwhile headed to hospitals in the country's main cities to undergo Caesarian sections, hoping a 12/12/12 birthdate would bring luck to their offspring.

Twelve women, some of Chinese descent, were booked in for C-sections weeks in advance at the Bunda private hospital in Jakarta, spokesman Samuel Robert told AFP.

"They said they wanted to give birth today because they consider the date unique and special. As long as the women and their babies are healthy, we are happy to accommodate," he said.

SEE ALSO: 15 Unique Wedding Customs From Around The World

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December 12, 2012
Sao Pãulo, Brazil

Citizenship is a funny thing. We’re born, and we’re citizens of a country. It’s a complete accident that we have absolutely no control over.

Think about it: In many countries, simply by virtue of being born, you might have been signed up for a lifetime of obligations and responsibilities — taxation, military service, paying down debt inherited from previous generations, and so on… none of which you volunteered for.

It’s a bizarre system… thrusting obligations onto human beings because they happened to be born on a particular piece of dirt.

In some cases, though, you can use this system to your advantage. Because, while you can’t control where you were born, you can absolutely control where your children are born. And if you strategically select the birthplace of your children, you can set them up for a lifetime of benefits.

Brazil is a great example.

For the most part, any child born in Brazil is automatically a Brazilian citizen… which makes them entitled to a Brazilian passport. The icing on the cake is that if you, as the parent of a Brazilian child, live in Brazil for roughly one year, you can also qualify to apply to become a naturalized Brazilian.

And having a Brazilian passport is HUGELY beneficial.

First of all, it’s one of the most valuable travel documents in the world. Everyone loves Brazilians; they can go all over the world visa-free. President Obama has even put Brazil on the list of countries which will soon be part of the US visa waiver program.

Second, it’s easy to blend in. This country is full of nearly every race imaginable. It would be pretty hard as a pale-skinned gringo to pass as Cambodian, or as a dark-skinned Indian to pass as Bulgarian. But Brazil is such a huge melting pot, anyone can pass as a Brazilian.

Third, Brazil has a very unique status in the world in that they will not extradite citizens to foreign countries. If you or your kid end up on the wrong side of some bureaucrat’s list in North America or Europe, you’ll always have a place to hide out, worry-free. I can certainly think of worse places to live out my days.

Most importantly, though, being a Brazilian citizen entitles you to live, work, and enjoy all the incredible opportunities of this thriving country.

Undoubtedly, Brazil is on its way to becoming one of the most important economies in the world. Its trend is rising. The trend in the west (US, Europe) is falling. Simple. Having the option of being able to live, work, and do business here is an extraordinary benefit.

One fortunate thing is that there are few people thinking about this right now. The market for citizenship is like the market for anything else… there’s supply and demand. When demand is high, the ‘cost’ goes up. With citizenship, that means more time, more bureaucracy, and a higher barrier to entry.

Right now the demand for citizenship in Brazil is low. Few people are thinking about this… which means the ‘cost’ is low. You can apply for naturalization in as little as a year, and there are dozens of backdoor loopholes to qualify.

I have to imagine that the day will come, however, when people from all over the world will travel to Brazil in order to give birth… analogous to the way migrants from Central America and Mexico would travel to the United States.

As this happens, the ‘cost’ of acquiring citizenship in Brazil is going to increase. Big time. The government will pass all sorts of new laws and regulations, making it much more difficult.

This is definitely something to think about, especially if you’re considering having children. After all, your kids have to be born somewhere. And if you put some serious mental energy behind this and plan strategically, you could set them up for life.

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It's hard enough to scrimp up enough discretionary cash to pay for holiday gifts. But for Ben Tischler of New York City, getting ready for the holidays also means preparing to wed his fiancee, Alicia.

It has been especially taxing since he learned that jewelry prices would be higher this season.

Click here to see what else will cost more > 

"Everything was more expensive than I expected. The jeweler told me the price of gold has skyrocketed," Tischler says. "This clearly isn't the kind of thing I can wait to buy to see if prices come back down, so I bit the bullet."

This holiday season could be a mixed bag for consumers, retail experts say. Electronics such as big-screen televisions keep going down, but if you want that laptop that turns into a tablet — Microsoft Surface, anyone? — or that fancy new camera, expect to pay a bit more than last year.

And some traditional gift items could also take more of a bite out of your wallet as stores tap into the growing trend of using well-known designers or celebrities to hawk their goods.

All in all, prices are about 2 percent higher than last holiday season, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Travel

We've taken into account gifts and food, but let's not forget how you're going to get to your destination for the holidays.

If you are flying, expect a full plane and higher ticket prices.

Domestic ticket prices are up 4 percent from 2011, according to industry trade group Airlines for America.

For those thinking of traveling by car, gas has dipped some, giving a bit of relief.

But "we are still looking at historically high prices," says Heather Hunter, spokeswoman for AAA in Orlando, Fla.

She says about 300,000 more people will travel by car than last holiday season — and they are scouting for savvy ways to save money.

"They are looking for hotels that offer free Wi-Fi or a free breakfast," Hunter says.

When traveling by car, it might also mean more than just paying for fuel. It's not unusual for families to tune up the car and replace tires for the holiday trek, Cohen says.

And tires are much pricier than in the past. Cohen says tire companies are trying to make up for backroom costs, such as paying for all those lawsuits for faulty products in the last decade.

"You used to be able to buy four tires for $280, and they would mount them and balance them for free," he says. Look for these services to all cost something now.

Shoes

Looking to impress that runner in the family with a new pair of top-of-the-line sneakers? Nothing will impress the marathoner like a pair of Volts from Nike.

The running shoes look otherworldly — and so does the price: $150.

But these aren't the only pricey soles. Cohen says high-end athletic shoes across the board are more expensive.

On the opposite end of the shoe spectrum sits the women's discount dress shoe.

But don't take the word "discount" to heart. Vazquez says giving the woman in your life new shoes from the likes of Payless or DSW won't be as light on the wallet as in years past.

The reason again is the use of celebrities and the push to hike up the price point consumers are willing to pay.

As a result, even the discount brands now have a catch. They will make nice gifts, but they are not necessarily cheaper than last year.

"A lot of these budget-friendly brands have become more marketable and are using faces people know to sell their products," she says. "It's cool to wear them now."

And cool, she says, always translates into more expensive.

Digital cameras

A stalwart gift under the tree for any shutterbug is the single-lens reflex, or SLR, camera.

This is the perfect time of year to get new gear for them.

However, manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon are in a conundrum because every smartphone has a camera.

So that means digital SLR cameras this season are for a more niche crowd. These consumers are serious about their hobby.

"Since so many phones have cameras, they are manufacturing better digital cameras to compete with that to offer consumers better quality," Vazquez says.

"Many of these cameras also offer top-notch video capabilities. Camera phones can only do so much."

So, if you are going to indulge the shutterbug in your family, be ready to put down some serious bucks.

Stores such as Best Buy will package a camera with a set of lenses, a bag and other items, which also drives up the price, she says.

Prices for these high-tech SLRs can range anywhere from $500 for a Canon Rebel to more than $1,000 for a Nikon D700.

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The smell catches you from blocks away: a throat-tightening mix of bad egg, rotten meat and acrid ammonia. Among the rickshaws, barefoot men push carts piled with grey-blue skins. In the open gutters a tide of the same unearthly blue slowly pushes through a scum of animal hair, bits of skin and rubbish. More chemical waste, oily black, is carried in open tins through the narrow, busy alleys on poles bent over men's shoulders.

This is Hazaribagh. The name means "a thousand gardens", but there are no flowers here. The slum is the most polluted place in Dhaka, itself one of the most polluted cities in the world. Last month, 111 people died in a Bangladesh factory making cheap clothing for western brands. That was a historic disaster; this industry in the centre of the country's capital is a slower, but far more lethal catastrophe. According to the World Health Organisation, 90% of Hazaribagh's tanning factory workers will die before they're 50. Half – some 8,000 – have respiratory disease already. Many of the workers are children.

Thousands more Bangladeshi lives are blighted by the millions of litres of waste that pour, untreated, from the tannery district gutters, through a crowded housing area, and into Dhaka's main river. Levels of chromium, lead, organohalogens and other toxins exceeding statutory maximum levels are entering the water and poisoning Hazaribagh's wells. The chemicals travel downriver, into a rice paddy and the Bay of Bengal ponds where prawns are farmed for export.

Yet the industry in the heart of Bangladesh's capital is booming, because high-quality "Bengali black" leather, much in demand by European leather goods makers, is cheap. A new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report claims that's chiefly because of the factories' refusal to clean up or pay decent wages, and the Bangladeshi government's failure to step in despite repeated promises. The industry, worth half a billion pounds in exports last year, is crucial to this desperately poor country.

Hazaribagh's 150 factories were at their busiest when I visited in November, processing the hides from animals killed in the Eid-al-Adha festival. Casual labour from the country's poor rural areas had flooded into the slum, swelling the workforce to about 15,000 people. The first factory we entered was a bare shed the size of a squash court, dominated by cement tanks. The floor was covered in sacks of chemicals. Against one wall was a pile of limed and salted hides, still covered in hair. Other skins at various stages of the pickling and bleaching process sat in the vats or dripped on racks, while a 12 ft high drum rumbled on rollers in the corner, drying the leather. There was no ventilation other than holes in the brick walls.

Two men in their 20s, Monir and Saiful, were perched on the rim of a tank, wielding long tongs to pull blue whole skins from a stew of sodium metabisulphite and ammonium chloride. All the pair had on was short rubber boots on their bare legs, below their loincloths. They were getting splashed by the acids and stopped to hose water into their wellies. They are usually paid 8,500 taka (about £60) a month, for a seven-day week, though they never know how much work there will be. The boots they have to buy themselves – they rarely wear gloves and never goggles. Some of the workers sleep on a shelf above the vats.

"We start at 7am, and sometimes we work till 3am the next morning," says Saiful. "When I started four years ago, I hated it. I wanted to quit, but I got used to it. I have no option, I am poor and I have to support my family." Both laboured in the rice fields before they came to Dhaka, but their wage in the tannery is not much better – only enough to cover food and living costs. "I have a daughter, just five months old," says Monir, scratching at the dermatitis that affects most of the workers we met. "I hope she doesn't come to work here."

Both men said a small factory like theirs is a good place; the owner even allowed three days a month sick leave. But in one of the biggest factories, Ayub Brothets – in a vast room where the leather, part-cured, is cut and treated – we saw skinny boys, feeding skins at high speed into huge presses. They wore shorts and flip-flops. There were no safety rails round the machines. Mohammed Riaz, from Noakhali in Bangladesh's north, told me he was nearly 15; he came to work here with his father at 12. His wage is only 3,500 taka a month.

Sharing a wall with one of the huge Hazaribagh factories are the crumbling rooms of the Taj Mahal Tanneries district high school. A teacher there, Mohammed Yusuf, says a third of the children in his class of 13-15-year-olds work in the tanning factories. "They do the night shift and then come here. They have all sorts of health problems; they don't understand things and they fall asleep in class.'' He thinks the government should close the factories but says they won't. Yusuf has a friend who lost two fingers in a machine accident in one of the factories and received no compensation: a familiar story.

This is largely a place of men. But in a factory belonging to Fortuna Group, one of the best-known exporters of Bangladeshi leather, I met six women, padding through the chemical puddles on the factory floor in saris and flip-flops or bare feet. They said they earn 3,000 a month, working upstairs in the cutting rooms or among the tanning vats as cleaners.

"When I work down here, it burns my eyes," says Nasima. "We work seven days a week. My body and head often ache and I get dizzy." Her son Ala'uddin, now 16, has worked in the factory since he was 13. Her husband drives a bicycle rickshaw. Nasima says he gets stomach aches – a common complaint, possibly related to the sodium bisulfite. "The teacher didn't want him at school. I want to him to work here; if he was outside on the streets, he would meet bad influences." Two of the women stagger past carrying an open barrel between them. It must contain 50 litres, and is labelled formic acid – which can cause oedema and subsequent failure of the lungs.

The HRW report, released in October, has caused a stir. "Some people are a bit angry," says Mohammed Aslam Mia, chief engineer at a factory called the Bengal Leather Complex, employing 500 men. The Italian embassy, he says, has written to three factories named in the HRW report, demanding they improve conditions. "But nobody acts, though everyone talks about health and hygiene. Government wants to shift us to another site, but it won't work." Mia admits he suffers skin problems and deafness.

Since the 1990s, attempts have been made to move the factories outside the city. The EU has offered to help pay for the process. But the government has failed to act on that proposal or on high court orders demanding action at treatment plants for the factories' toxic effluent. HRW reports that the industry now wants $98m in compensation before it will move. It points out that the tanneries association's lawyer is the nephew of the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, though without offering any evidence of wrongdoing.

"Thee tannery owners are very rich and politically powerful," a senior Bangladesh environment ministry official told HRW in June, explaining that his office was not "doing anything for Hazaribagh" because it was too busy overseeing the garment sector, which attracts more public attention.

For Mia, the solutions lie with the customers. "If we can sell at a higher price then it is possible, maybe, to develop a better industry, and do more for the employees." He points out how foreign companies' insistence on standards has improved the garment sector. "But the leather sector is the opposite. Europe[an] people come here, international leather buyers, and we ask them this – we buy your chemicals, and then you say we're not hygienic. So give us the hygienic chemicals. There are vegetable methods for tanning that work – you just have to let us use them."

Medieval European cities used to keep tanneries and their offensive smells outside their walls, by law. Now, because of the demand for luxury at the cheapest possible prices, the industry is pushed out to where it is easier to ignore the moral reek.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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It is a Cambridge college anxious to show it is open to the brightest from all backgrounds. So when applicants were confronted by student pranksters telling them state school pupils need not apply, authorities failed to see the funny side.

Three undergraduates face disciplinary action after dressing up in smart Eton suits and telling teenagers lined up for an interview at Jesus College that only public school pupils were allowed in.

The applicants must have been anxious enough already as they prepared to try to convince dons that they were worthy of a coveted place at a college whose celebrated alumni include royalty, archbishops and senior politicians.

Their nerves must have been further shredded when second year undergraduates infiltrated their waiting room to play a joke on them - which fell flat after they were spotted by invigilators and the college Dean was informed.

Those responsible for the prank are believed to have been told not to return to Jesus this term and are awaiting formal punishment.

Some fellow undergraduates appear to have been tickled by the stunt, with a Facebook posting about it receiving 158 “likes”.

One of those involved appears to have been unrepentant.

A post on his page of the social networking site reading: “This evening in Jesus… ‘I got Dean’d today. And, all we did is dress up in suits and pretend to be interviewees… We said we were from Eton’.”

However one Jesus first-year student, who did not wish to be named, said: “I can’t believe anyone would want to shake up applicants like that. They were in the same position once.”

Cambridge University spends more than £2.7 million a year on hundreds of schemes aimed at persuading students from less privileged backgrounds to apply.

In September, it revealed that there were almost 200 fewer freshers from fee-paying students starting than the year before – a decline of 5% and a 30-year low.

Jesus College, founded in 1496, boasts alumni including Prince Edward, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.

Today, its website says that it is “committed to academic excellence, offering talented students, whatever their means, the advantages of a first-rate system of education”.

The college confirmed yesterday that three students were facing disciplinary action as a result of the prank, described by Dr Geoff Parks, the Senior Tutor, as “stupidity”.

He said: “Three undergraduate members of Jesus College caused a disturbance in the area where a number of applicants were waiting for interview.

“This disturbance was cut short by the prompt intervention of other undergraduates who were acting as helpers during the interview process.

“The College condemns this stupidity. The Dean of College is investigating the incident and will in due course decide what disciplinary action is appropriate.

“Applicants will not be disadvantaged as a result of this incident.”

Leading universities have been ordered to widen their intake with the Government setting up the Office for Fair Access to try to ensure that working-class students are not deterred by tuition fees of up to £9,000.

Professor Les Ebdon, who has the power to fine institutions £500,000 or ban them from charging tuition fees of more than £6,000 a year, has threatened “nuclear” penalties if they miss their targets.

He has also criticised the “patchy” record of leading Russell Group universities at increasing the number of students they take from state schools and poor areas.

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In a small Arctic town in Sweden, a construction crew bundled up in heavy parkas is bustling around a building site unlike any other: a massive ice hotel is taking shape.

Armed with thick gloves and safety helmets over fur-lined hats, the builders in the northern town of Jukkasjaervi assemble two-tonne blocks of ice as if they were a large set of Lego blocks, with the end result a giant igloo with several domes, vaulted ceilings and archways.

In one hallway, a worker uses a large pick to carve a door out of the blue-tinged packed snow, working up a sweat despite the sub-zero temperatures as he exhales feathery puffs of breath.

The builders had just a few weeks to sculpt 65 hotel rooms, a lobby and reception area, a main hall and an ice bar in a race against the clock ahead of the December opening.

An ice chapel will be added to host weddings and christenings, complete with an ice-sculpted altar, font and pews.

And yet all this effort is ephemeral: in a few months the entire structure will melt away with the spring thaw.

"We're completely dependent on the weather, we have a schedule to adhere to but it varies from year to year," Icehotel representative Beatrice Karlsson said.

The construction method is unique to the Icehotel, according to Nordic architecture expert Rasmus Waern.

"It's totally original. There's no tradition in Scandinavia of building with ice," he said.

But it is rapidly becoming a tradition: the Icehotel is being staged for the 23rd time this year on the shores of the Torne river from where the ice is taken.

"In March, 5,000 tonnes of ice are pulled from the river and then conserved in two-tonne blocks in two warehouses where the temperature is maintained at between minus eight and minus five degrees Celsius (between 17.6 and 23 Fahrenheit)," explains Jens Thoms Ivarsson, in charge of the hotel's interior design.

Construction typically begins in the autumn, when the first polar chills descend on Sweden's far north.

But five months later, once spring arrives and with it the long-awaited sun, the entire site melts down.

"We return to the Torne what we borrowed," says Thoms Ivarsson, grateful for the river's loan without which the Icehotel could not exist.

Once the building process is completed, the interior still needs to be decorated: ornate chandeliers will embellish the main hall, while avant-garde sculptures, bas reliefs, and chairs and beds all cut out of ice await.

Each of the 16 suites is considered a unique piece of art, designed by artists selected from more than 100 applicants from all corners of the globe.

While management refuses to disclose how much the entire endeavour costs each year, the hotel's interior design alone has a budget of five million kronor (580,000 euros, $752,000).

Details of the suites' themes and designs are kept a well-guarded secret until the hotel's opening: all that is known so far is that some of the artists hail from France, Argentina and the United States.

Ambitious sculptures in the past have included a pinball machine with coloured lights inside the ice, a man sitting on a toilet in a bathroom, a female Buddha, a rocket ship, and the inside of a refrigerator.

The hotel also has 49 standard rooms with less elaborate decor, some of which will feature scenes of northern lights, a spectacular phenomenon also known as aurora borealis in which streams of coloured lights streak across the night sky, a show some visitors will be lucky enough to see during their stay.

As in the suites, all of the regular room beds are made of ice blocks covered with reindeer skins. Visitors spending the night are given thermal sleeping bags when they check in -- and a diploma when they check out to prove they survived a night at minus seven degrees Celsius (19 degrees Fahrenheit).

The hotel -- copies of which are now erected in several other countries -- has no stars the way other hotels do.

But that doesn't mean it's for budget travellers: the cost of a room ranges from 2,200 to 7,000 kronor (between 255 and 810 euros) per night.

Alternately, tourists can pay 325 kronor a head to tour the hotel, which also makes money off the weddings and christenings it hosts, as well as the popular ice bar where drinks are served in glasses made of ice.

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Every time I see my grandmother she asks me without fail, if—alongside my native country—I’ve forsaken the opportunity to love.

Her question isn’t completely absurd, nor is it unusual. Expats are transient by nature. Even those who have committed to their new homeland for life are often surrounded by those who have not; as strangers in a strange land, settled expats too are pulled into the orbit of itinerants.

It’s a bit like drunk driving—just because you’re not doing it doesn’t mean you won’t be hit by someone who is.

These truisms add up to a bad reputation for expats when it comes dating. And yet, I believe that expat life is conducive to finding love to a higher degree than dating in my home country, the United States.

Here’s why.

1. Expat situations are self-selecting.

Adventurous? Check. Liberal? Check. Open to new experiences? Check. Independent? Check.

Not all the expats you meet abroad will be just like you (see point two) — and certainly not all people — but I’ve found that the kind of person who commits to a life abroad tends to have certain attributes, such as a natural curiosity and openness (perhaps restlessness), qualities that tend to reinforce themselves around likeminded individuals.

2. You meet people you never would have at home, and are exposed to a wider range of options.

When at home, a lot of people tend to spend an awful lot of time with people of their own race, their own socio-economic status, their own political persuasions, their own experiences. For some people this works, by creating bonds that are immediately strong across religious and cultural levels. But for others, it can be stifling.

Cross-cultural relationships are hard, but when they work, they can be amazingly fulfilling and even revelatory. It’s not just a question of meeting someone who tests your own assumptions and introduces you to new worlds, although this can be wonderful and life changing; you can also end up connecting across levels you didn’t yet know existed within yourself.

Even among inter-expatriate couples, a similar broadening of horizons occurs. Expats are often more likely to socialize across age groups. They’re more likely to find themselves with someone from the opposite side of their native country. It’s kind of like The Breakfast Club — a group of disparate individuals with seemingly nothing in common drawn together by the intimacy of a shared situation.

3. People pay more attention to one another abroad.

Living abroad—especially when you don’t speak the language—can be lonely. You come to rely on your friends in a way that most rely on family at home. They become your home.

Living somewhere like rural India can feel like living at the end of the world. People begin to really talk to each other, and to listen. Conversations get pretty deep, pretty fast, and people reach out to one another with more eagerness and attention. Perhaps expats in isolated situations move more quickly past faces and appearances. The incentive to embrace is more pressing than the incentive to judge. And in this fertile ground of closeness and isolation, love can quickly take seed and grow.

4. Dating in the US is competitive.

When my friends in New York City (my hometown) meet new people, they tend to approach them with a critical, appraising attitude. A city like New York has such an overwhelming wealth of cool people that you need a good reason to let one into your own circle. This overabundance of potential friends leads to an understandably parsing attitude in choosing them. People are quick to classify and dismiss one another (hipster, wall street jerk, gothic navel-gazer, model) if only to make sense of the social flood.

Just as with making friends, there are so many options in a city like New York that intense competition in dating (and the rejection that accompanies it) is inevitable. Almost all my friends in America have had to go online to avoid the stress placed on first impressions and physical appearance. (Of the romantic partnerships formed in the United States between 2007 and 2009, 21 percent of heterosexual couples and 61 percent of same-sex couples met online, according to a study by Michael J. Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford.)

My ex-boyfriend, who I met in India, and I have everything in common. We’re from the same country, the same religion, interested in all the same books and movies and bands. But though we lived in New York City at the same time, we never met, nor would we have dated if we had. We would have dismissed one another on superficial grounds, and moved on. But in the social wilderness in India, we had the time and space to recognize each other as kindred spirits and connect.

The heightened sense of camaraderie abroad makes dating feel less like a competition, and more like a gift.

5. You’re forced to be more independent, self-critical, and self-reflective.

This may sound like a tall claim, but I think that life in a foreign place can push a person to be stronger, more ethically minded, and more communally minded. I’m talking about a certain kind of expat of course—not the businessman in his high-rise, surrounded by domestic help—but the individual who chooses to navigate a foreign culture more or less alone. The deeper you immerse yourself abroad, the more likely you are to confront a culture radically different from your own, broaden your horizons, and gain a deeper understanding of what connects us as human beings.

We take for granted the emphasis in Western culture on our identity as individuals; immersed in a culture deeply rooted in communal co-dependence, we have the opportunity to re-evaluate the importance of love, and of family.

And when you do meet someone whom you can share this with, you’re inclined to hold on to him or her.

SEE ALSO: Here's What A Cheap Date Costs Around The World

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Most people struggle to find one less thing to pack.

How about seven?

Simplify your suitcase by purchasing certain items at your destination instead of schlepping them on the odyssey from home to hotel.

Most major airlines charge hefty fees for checked luggage, as well as oversized and overweight bags. So it makes budgetary sense to lighten one's load by buying a few things in the airport terminal or upon arrival, after suitcases have already been weighed and measured. Some things weigh more than others, but the more you leave out of your bag overall, the lighter your luggage will get.

Reading material

Pajamas

Toiletries

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