Notes and Shorts from Around the World
Dakota's way with drunks
Ever since Tony Blair introduced his 24 hour a day drinking reform during a fit of "bourgeois Dordogne villa madness," his dreams of continental-style café culture have turned into a "violence and injury nightmare." Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, is trying to "put the vodka back in the bottle" with tighter licensing laws, but what it really needs is the sort of revolutionary solution pioneered in South Dakota. The midwestern US state gives convicted drink drivers and domestic abusers a simple choice: booze or freedom. Offenders have to take an alcohol consumption test twice a day, and if they don't pass, or fail to show up, they're immediately locked up for 24 hours. No court, no lawyers, no fuss. The scheme is cheap (offenders pay for the tests themselves in lieu of a fine). Its results are startling: 99.3% of the 16,000 or so who elected to take the test passed it. The state's gaol population has fallen dramatically, as have levels of drink driving and domestic violence.
Origin of the English Channel
Britain wasn't always an island. Around 500,000 years ago, it was connected to the landmass of Europe by a low line of chalk hills running between the Weald in the south of England and Artois in northern France. This much is well known. Now, an Anglo-French research team has analysed ancient sediment found at the bottom of the Atlantic to work out how this land bridge was broken and Britain's history as an island began. The process started when vast ice sheets covered much of northern Europe, trapping a body of water in the North Sea. The great rivers of Europe flowed into this lake, which was bordered by glaciers to the north and the land bridge to the south. Eventually, it overflowed, causing a vast river of water, known as the Fleuve Manche, to carve its way through the chalky hills and into the Bay of Biscay. Over time, the river became so deep that, when sea levels rose, the area filled with water, and the Fleuve Manche became La Manche - the English Channel. The study, of sediment taken from the sea bed in the Bay of Biscay, reveals that the "super-river" (the Fleuve Manche) existed during three different ice ages - 450,000, 160,000 and as recently as 30,000 years ago. In temperate periods, Britain would have been cut off, but, in glacial ice eras, water levels would have fallen, enabling animals and humans to cross.
Statistics watch
China now exports as much every six hours as it did in the whole of 1978.
Bon mots
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion." - former Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, William Ralph Inge
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Dakota's way with drunks
Ever since Tony Blair introduced his 24 hour a day drinking reform during a fit of "bourgeois Dordogne villa madness," his dreams of continental-style café culture have turned into a "violence and injury nightmare." Britain's Home Secretary, Theresa May, is trying to "put the vodka back in the bottle" with tighter licensing laws, but what it really needs is the sort of revolutionary solution pioneered in South Dakota. The midwestern US state gives convicted drink drivers and domestic abusers a simple choice: booze or freedom. Offenders have to take an alcohol consumption test twice a day, and if they don't pass, or fail to show up, they're immediately locked up for 24 hours. No court, no lawyers, no fuss. The scheme is cheap (offenders pay for the tests themselves in lieu of a fine). Its results are startling: 99.3% of the 16,000 or so who elected to take the test passed it. The state's gaol population has fallen dramatically, as have levels of drink driving and domestic violence.
Origin of the English Channel
Britain wasn't always an island. Around 500,000 years ago, it was connected to the landmass of Europe by a low line of chalk hills running between the Weald in the south of England and Artois in northern France. This much is well known. Now, an Anglo-French research team has analysed ancient sediment found at the bottom of the Atlantic to work out how this land bridge was broken and Britain's history as an island began. The process started when vast ice sheets covered much of northern Europe, trapping a body of water in the North Sea. The great rivers of Europe flowed into this lake, which was bordered by glaciers to the north and the land bridge to the south. Eventually, it overflowed, causing a vast river of water, known as the Fleuve Manche, to carve its way through the chalky hills and into the Bay of Biscay. Over time, the river became so deep that, when sea levels rose, the area filled with water, and the Fleuve Manche became La Manche - the English Channel. The study, of sediment taken from the sea bed in the Bay of Biscay, reveals that the "super-river" (the Fleuve Manche) existed during three different ice ages - 450,000, 160,000 and as recently as 30,000 years ago. In temperate periods, Britain would have been cut off, but, in glacial ice eras, water levels would have fallen, enabling animals and humans to cross.
Statistics watch
China now exports as much every six hours as it did in the whole of 1978.
Bon mots
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion." - former Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, William Ralph Inge
Return to top of page