Men are spending more and more time in the kitchen encouraged by celebrity (名人) chefs like Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, according to a report from Oxford University.

    The effect of the celebrity role models, who have given cooking a more manly picture, has combined with a more general drive towards sexual equality and men now spend more than twice the amount of time preparing meals than they did in 1961.

    According to the research by Prof. Jonatahn Gershuny, who runs the Centre for Time Research at Oxford, men now spend more than half an hour a day cooking, up from just 12 minutes a day in 1961.

    Prof. Gershuny said, “The man in the kitchen is part of a much wider social trend. There has been 40 years of sexual equality, but there is another 40 years probably to come.”

    Women, who a generation ago spent nearly two hours a day cooking, now spend just one hour and seven minutes－a great fall, but they still spend far more time in the kitchen than men.

    Some experts have named these men in aprons as “Gastrosexuals (men using cooking skills to impress friends)”, who have been inspired to pick up a kitchen knife by the success of Ramsay, Oliver as well as other male celebrity chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Marco Pierre White and Keith Floyd.

    “I was married in 1974. When my father came to visit me a few weeks later, I was wearing an apron when I opened the door. He laughed,” said Prof. Gershuny. “That would never happen now.”

    Two-thirds of adults say that they come together to share at least three times a week, even if it is not necessarily around a kitchen or dining room table. Prof. Gershuny pointed out that the family meal was now rarely eaten by all of its members around a table－with many “family meals” in fact taken on the sofa in the sitting room, and shared by family members. “The family meal has changed a lot, and few of us eat－as I did when I was a child－at least two meals a day together as a family. But it has survived in a different format.”

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    Tourism probably started in Roman times. Rich Romans visited friends and family who were working in another part of the Roman empire. But when the empire broke down, this kind of tourism stopped.

    In the early 17th century, the idea of the “Grand Tour” was born. Rich young English people sailed across the English Channel（英吉利海峡）. They visited the most beautiful and important European cities of the time, including Paris in France, and Rome and Venice（威尼斯）in Italy. Their tours lasted for two to four years, and the tourists stayed a few weeks or months in each city. The “Grand Tour” was an important part of young people's education—but only for the rich.

    In the 18th century, tourism began to change. For example, people in the UK started to visit some towns, such as Bath to “take the waters”. They believed that the water there was good for their health. So large and expensive hotels were built in these towns.

    In the 19th century, travel became much more popular and faster. When the first railways were built in the 1820s, it was easier for people to travel between towns, so they started to go for holidays by the sea. And some started to have holidays in the countryside as cities became larger, noisier and dirtier.

    Traveling by sea also became faster and safer when the first steamships were built. People began to travel more to far-away countries.

    The 20th century saw cars become more and more popular among ordinary people. Planes were made larger, so ticket prices dropped and more people used them.

    Thus tourism grew. In 1949, Russian journalist Vladimir Raitz started a company called Horizon Holidays. The company organizes everything—plane tickets, hotel rooms, even food—and tourists pay for it all before they leave home. The package tour and modern tourist industry was born.

    The first travel agency in China was set up as early as 1949. But tourism did not take off until 1978. In 2002, the industry was worth 500 billion Yuan and became an important part of China's social development.

    Shoppers in the UK are spending less money on toilet paper to save money, research has shown.

    Penny saving UK consumers choose cheaper products from discounters such as Aldi and Lidi rather than expensive alternatives.

    This has wiped 6% off the value of the soft tissue paper market in the UK. It has reduced from £1.19 billion in 2011 to £1.12 billion in 2015, according to a new report from market research company Mintel. Furthermore, the future of the market looks far from positive, with sales expected to fall further to £1.11 billion in 2016.

    In the last year alone, despite an increase in the UK population and a rise in the number of households, sales of toilet paper fell by 2%, with the average household reducing their toilet roll spending from £43 in 2014 to £41 in 2015.

Overall, almost three in five people say they try to limit their usage of paper – including facial tissue and kitchen roll    to save money. “Strength, softness and thickness remain the leading signs of toilet paper quality, with just a small part of consumers preferring more expensive alternatives, such as those with flower patterns or perfume,” said analyst Jack Duckett. “These extra features are considered unnecessary by the majority of shoppers, which probably reflects how these types of products are typically more expensive than regular toilet paper, even when on special offer.”

    While consumers are spending less on toilet paper, they remain particular about it when it comes to paper quality. One in 10 buyers rank toilet rolls made from recycled paper among their top considerations, clearly showing how overall the environment is much less of a consideration for shoppers than product quality. In a challenge for makers, 81% of paper product users said they would consider buying recycled toilet tissue if it were comparable in quality to standard paper.

    Newspapers in Great Britain vary greatly in their ways of carrying the news. There are serious papers for those who want to know about important happenings everywhere, both at home and abroad. There are popular newspapers for those who prefer entertainment to information.

    The London newspaper that is best known outside Great Britain is probably the Times. It began in 1785, and has a high reputation for believable news and serious opinions on the news. It calls itself an independent paper, which means that it does not give its support to a particular political party. Its leading articles give the opinions of the editors, not those of the owners of the paper.

    Letters to the editor are printed in the newspaper. These parts of the Times are always interesting. Most of the letters are serious subjects. But from time to time there will be long letters on the subject which is not at all serious, perhaps on a new fashion of dress, or the bad manners of the young people, compared with manners of thirty years ago.

    Are you looking for something to do? You might like to try one of these four experiences.

    Crocodile watching

    Do you fancy getting up close to some of the most terrifying animals on earth? Crocosaurus Cove, in Darwin (Australia) has the “Cage of Death”. It's an enclosure that's lowered into a pool. This gives you a 360 degree view of a crocodile as it's being fed. The cable broke once and the cage sank to the bottom, but they've fixed it since then.

    Edge walk

    How about walking along the edge of a building several hundred meters up in the air? If that sounds like fun, head off to the CN Tower in Toronto (Ontario, Canada). Built in 1976, the tower is 553.33 meters tall.

    The Edge walk consists of a 20-30 minute stroll along a 1.5 meter wide platform that runs around the tower's restaurant roof. During the walk, you're encouraged to lean forwards as you look over Toronto's skyline (轮廓线).

    Plastic ball rolling

    Do you fancy rolling down a hill in a plastic ball?

    Plastic ball rolling is popular all over the world, but the place to give it a go is in Rotorua (New Zealand). Brother David and Andrew Akers came up with the idea in 1994. A typical orb(球) is about 3 meters in diameter, with an inner orb size of about 2 meters. There's no brake or steering mechanism, but the inner layer of the plastic ball helps absorb the shock.

    Volcano bungee jumping

    If you're looking for the adventure of a lifetime, how about going bungee jumping off a helicopter into the crater of a live volcano? As part of the jumping, a helicopter ride takes you to the Villarreal volcano, one of the most active in Chile. Once you're at the drop zone, you leap off the helicopter and fall into the volcano. Finally, you enjoy the ride back to the airport flying at 130kph.

    Attracted by the above? If so, please contact us. Only half price from March 22 to April 25th For more information, please click here.

    You know the feeling that you have left your phone at home and feel anxious, as if you have lost your connection to the world. “Nomophobia” (无手机恐惧症) affects teenagers and adults alike. You can even do an online test to see if you have it. Last week, researchers from Hong Kong warned that nomophobia is infecting everyone. Their study found that people who use their phones to store, share and access personal memories suffer most. When users were asked to describe how they felt about their phones, words such as “hurt” (neck pain was often reported) and “alone” predicted higher levels of nomophobia.

    “The findings of our study suggest that users regard smartphones as their extended selves and get attached to the devices,” said Dr. Kim Ki Joon. “People experience feelings of anxiety and unpleasantness when separated from their phones.” Meanwhile, an American study shows that smartphone separation can lead to an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.

    So can being without your phone really give you separation anxiety? Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist and director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, says it is what is on the phone that counts-the social networking that creates Fomo (fear of missing out).

    “We are talking about an internet-connected device that allows people to deal with lots of aspects of their lives,” says Griffiths. “You would have to surgically remove a phone from a teenager because their whole life is rooted in this device.”

Griffiths thinks attachment theory, where we develop emotional dependency on the phone because it holds details of our lives, is a small part of nomophobia. For “screenagers”, it is Fomo that creates the most separation anxiety. If they can't see what's happening on Snapchat or Instagram, they become panic-stricken about not knowing what's going on socially. “But they adapt very quickly if you take them on holiday and there's no internet,” says Griffiths.