What's On?

Trouble in Mind

    Alice Childress won an Off-Broadway award in 1956 for this story of a black actress rehearsing a play with a white director who increasingly finds it impossible for the show to go on. Tanya Moodie and Joseph Marcell star in the play directed by Laurence Boswell.

8.30p.m. —10.30p.m, Theatre Royal. Box office: 01225 448844.

Lazarus

    Inspired by the sci-fi (science fiction) novel and movie, The Man Who Fell to Earth, this musical deals with a hero, Thomas Newton. Likely to be the autumn's hottest ticket, the score includes new songs composed by Bowie.

7.00p.m. — 9.00p.m., King's Cross theatre. Box office: 0844 871 7604.

The Gaul

    On the night of 8 February 1974, a fisherman FV Gaul disappeared off the coast of Norway. For people on board, waiting for news was great suffering. Theories began to come up, including the possibility that the boat had fallen victim to cold war. Even when he was discovered, many still felt there were questions that remained unanswered. Mark Babych directs Janet Plater's play.

8.00p.m. —11.00 p.m., Royal Shakespeare theatre. Box office: 01482 323638.

The Suppliant Women

    It is a new version of Aeschylus's 2,500-year-old play about a group of women seeking shelter who make the long journey to escape forced marriage. It was written by David Greig and directed by Ramin Gray. An ancient piece asks a contemporary question: when we are in trouble, who will open their doors and give us a harbor?

8.30p.m. —10.00p.m, Hampstead theatre. Box office: 0131 248 4848.

    We often just use our sense of sight, touch, smell, and taste to eat food. But what about our sense of hearing? Does sound also affect our dining experience?

    A new report answers, “yes, it does.”

    That answer comes from researchers at Brigham Young University and Colorado State University in the United States. They found that hearing is important in the eating experience.

    Hearing is often called “the forgotten food sense”, says Ryan Elder. Elder is an assistant professor of marketing at Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management. He says that if people notice the sound the food makes as they eat it, they might eat less. On the other hand, watching loud television or listening to loud music while eating can hide such noises. And this could lead to overeating.

    For the study, the researchers wanted to test whether the sounds of eating—chewing, chomping and crunching—had any effect on how much a person ate. During the experiments, the test subjects wore headphones and listened to noise at either a high or low audio level. Then researchers gave them a crunchy snack: pretzels. The study found that subjects who listened to the higher volume noise ate more pretzels than those with the low audio levels.

    Elder says that when hiding I heard sounds of eating, like when you watch television or listen to loud music while eating, we take away the sense of hearing. And this may cause you to eat more than you would normally. The researchers are calling this, the “crunch effect”.

    The researchers admit that the effects may not seem like much at one meal. But over a week, a month or a year, all that food can really add up.

    Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

    This modern-art gallery in a Victorian house was founded in the 1950s by Tate Jim and reopened in February following a two-year redevelopment by Jamie Fobert Architects, the team behind the 2017 Tate Steves extension. This means a new cafe, a four-floor education wing and improved gallery space that can accommodate more visitors. The gallery's permanent collection includes works by Joan Miró, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

    Being Brunel, Bristol

    To celebrate the life and work of famous civil engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunei, Being Brunei will open in March on Bristol's harbourside. The museum will include a range of interactive and entertaining exhibits, including talking portraits of his friends and family and personal possessions, including an 1821 school report. It is a good place for families to strengthen connections.

    Royal Academy of Arts, London

    The RA reopens on 19 May for its 250th anniversary, following a £50m renovation (翻新) with a gallery and expanded exhibition programme. These will include three day-lit galleries, which will host exhibitions with a focus on contemporary art and architecture. The grand frontwall of the Burlington Gardens building has also been restored—possibly the first time it's had a proper clean in its 150 year history.

    V&A, Dundee

    One of the most significant new openings of the year will be Scotland's first design museum and also the first V&A anywhere outside of London on 15 September. The museum building sits on the river Tay. It will celebrate Scottish design and objects in its collection.

    When my brother and I were young, my mom would take us on Transportation Days.

    It goes like this: You can't take any means of transportation more than once. We would start from home, walking two blocks to the rail station. We'd take the train into the city center, then a bus, switching to the tram, then maybe a taxi. We always considered taking a horse carriage in the historic district, but we didn't like the way the horses were treated, so we never did. At the end of the day, we took the subway to our closest station, where Mom's friend was waiting to give us a ride home—our first car ride of the day.

    The good thing about Transportation Days is not only that Mom taught us how to get around. She was born to be multimodal (多方式的). She understood that depending on cars only was a failure of imagination and, above all, a failure of confidence—the product of a childhood not spent exploring subway tunnels.

    Once you learn the route map and step with certainty over the gap between the train and the platform, nothing is frightening anymore. New cities are just light-rail lines to be explored. And your personal car, if you have one, becomes just one more tool in the toolbox—and often an inadequate one, limiting both your mobility and your wallet.

    On Transportation Days, we might stop for lunch on Chestnut Street or buy a new book or toy, but the transportation was the point. First, it was exciting enough to watch the world speed by from the train window. As I got older, my mom helped me unlock the mysteries that would otherwise have paralyzed my first attempts to do it myself: How do I know where to get off? How do I know how much it costs? How do I know when I need tickets, and where to get them? What track, what line, which direction, where's the stop, and will I get wet when we go under the river?

    I'm writing this right now on an airplane, a means we didn't try on our Transportation Days and, we now know, the dirtiest and most polluting of them all. My flight routed me through Philadelphia. My multimodal mom met me for dinner in the airport. She took a train to meet me.

    Cooperation at work is generally considered a good thing. The latest survey by the Financial Times of what employers need from MBA graduates found that the ability to cope with a wide variety of people was what managers have wanted most. However, managers always find ways to balance the benefits of teamwork, which helps ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal. With the dangers of "groupthink", critics are reluctant to point out a plan's drawbacks for fear of being excluded by the group. The disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961 was a classic case of groupthink. Skeptics were unwilling to challenge John F. Kennedy, the newly elected American president.

    Modern communication methods prove that cooperation is more frequent. Workers are constantly in touch with each other via e-mail messaging groups or mobile calls. However, does that develop, or lower performance? A new study by three American academics, tried to answer this question They set a logical problem (designing the shortest route for a travelling salesman visiting various cities) Three groups were involved: one where subjects acted independently; another where they saw the solutions posted by team members at every stage; and a third where they were kept informed of each other's views only intermittently.

    The survey found that members of the: individualist group reached the: premier solution more often than the constant cooperators but had a poorer average result The intermittent cooperators found the right result, as often as the individualists, and got a better average, solution. When it comes: to: perfect generation, giving: people a, bit of space to, a solution seems to be a great idea. Occasional cooperation can be quite beneficial: most people have benefited from a colleague's brainwave or (just as often)wise advice to avoid a, particular course of action.

    Further clues come from a book, Superminds, by Thomas, Malone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He says that three factors determine the collective intelligence of cooperating groups: social intelligence (how good people were at rating the emotional states of others); the extent to which members took part equally in conversation (the more equal, the better) and the cooperation of women in the group(the higher, the better Groups ranked highly in these areas cooperated far better than others did).

    In short, cooperation may be a helpful tool but it does not work in every situation.

Briton Andy Park has probably the rarest addiction in the world. He's addicted to celebrating Christmas.

Park, 45, is known as "Mr Christmas" in Britain. He has been celebrating the December 25 holiday on a daily basis for the past 12 years. He's eaten 4,380 turkeys and 87,600 pies, drunk 4,380 bottles of champagne (香槟酒), and 5,000 bottles of wine, given 21,900 presents, mostly to himself, and spent a fortune on lights and decorations. His festive craze (狂热) has so far cost all estimated (估算) US $427,500.

"I'm going to be doing it for another 12 years. I've never, ever been bored with it. " he said.

The electrician from Wiltshire, southwest England, starts his day with a big breakfast of six pies and a turkey sandwich before heading off to work.

He finishes work by 11:30 am in order to start roasting a turkey—the traditional Christmas dish.

At 3:00 pm he watches a video of the British Queen's annual Christmas speech to the Commonwealth, glass of wine in hand.

Dinner is turkey, wine and a bottle of champagne.

He lays his present to himself under the Christmas tree at 8:00 pm.

He even insists on a full Christmas dinner if he goes to a restaurant or to a friend's house for dinner.

Park is hoping his love of Christmas can translate into SUCCESS in the music charts when he releases a single. It's Christmas Every Day on December 9. "I want to be No. 1," he said. Before now, he has made unsuccessful singles such as The Christmas Man.