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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Pamela Anderson 'blacklisted' on Google!

If someone was to tell you that Pamela Anderson was blacklisted on Google instant search, would you believe him? After all haven't we all searched the voluptuous beauty online and found her successfully in her various avatars! But the fact is that Pamela Anderson is a blacklisted word on Google


Whenever you start typing a word in Google search, the browser automatically completes what you're typing in order to reduce search time. But if you were to search Pamela Anderson, Google will not complete the word for you, neither will it give you an option of searching the buxom babe in its drop down. Try it!
PamelaBut she is not alone. Google has a list of 'blacklisted' words, mashable reports.
Here's a sample:
nipples
asian babe
naked
pamela anderson
dirty pillows
tushy
style doggy
porn
sexy
lesbian
Why, you would ask. Answer is rather simple. Google, in its own way, is trying to not let you view the 'naughty' content online. On a serious note, Google tries to ensure that offensive searches in the past do not jump in front of users looking for something innocuous.
If you must search the words, then all you need to do is type the complete word and hit enter.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Pamela-Anderson-blacklisted-on-Google/H1-Article1-606093.aspx
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Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The madness of the quest for female Viagra

 

By Jerome Burne

Drug firms claim four in ten women have low libido - and hope to make a killing with pills to treat it. But experts say their products are ineffective, risky and pointless...

'Sex has been difficult for most of the 12 years of my marriage,’ admits housewife Samantha Lane, 30.

‘At first my husband worshipped me, but now he makes demands on me, then he sulks and I feel guilty, but I just don’t have any interest in making love.

‘He works hard and often comes home in a bad mood. If I try to bring up emotional issues he gets annoyed and says I am boring. Now I don’t even bother. We don’t kiss any more, we rarely even touch.’

Couple in Bed

Researchers and pharmaceutical - companies are accused of 'medicalising' female sexual problems in order to sell drugs

Samantha’s problem is far from unusual. Experts claim that millions of British women suffer from sexual difficulty such as low libido and discomfort.

One widely quoted study ­calculated that 43 per cent of women have problems with sex, or female sexual ­dysfunction (FSD) as it’s known.

The question is: what is the best way to help these women?

The ­pharmaceutical companies have spent ­millions to find an effective drug solution - hoping for similar returns to ­Viagra, the male impotence pill which is worth an ­astonishing $500 million (£316m) in sales every year.

Some companies have looked at how to ­target blood flow, others the hormones or chemicals that affect mood.

Already women can be prescribed a ­testosterone patch to boost low libido; other treatments waiting to be licensed include an anti-depressant-type drug that affects the feel-good brain chemical serotonin and one containing the hormone DHEA that the body can turn into testosterone. It seems millions of women - and their ­partners -could soon rejoice. 

 

But now a new book suggests they’d be wrong to do so. Not only is the effectiveness of such ­treatments questionable, says its author, but the claim that nearly half of all women have a problem is deliberately ­misleading and a wild exaggeration.

Worse, researchers and pharmaceutical ­companies are accused of ‘medicalising’ female sexual problems in order to sell drugs.

Of course, this is not unique to female ­sexual problems - critics point to other recently ­discovered ‘conditions’ such as ­shyness, which in the past might have been put down to a personality trait but for which there are now prescription drug treatments.

The difference is the potential size of the ­market for female sexual dysfunction drugs - a business report from Datamonitor in 2003 ­predicted it could soon approach $1 billion a year.

As leading health journalist Ray ­Moynihan puts it, it’s all part of the drive by drug ­companies to ‘expand the patient pool’ by ‘creating ­markets for ­lifestyle drugs’ for both men and women.

Couple in bed cartoon

Research is finding that women's sex problems are not about mechanics (unlike much male impotence)

‘Companies no longer just sell drugs,’ says Moynihan in his book, Sex, Lies And Pharmaceuticals: How Drug Companies Are ­Bankrolling The Next Big ­Condition For Women.

‘Increasingly they create a ­disease like female sexual dysfunction and then spend a fortune “educating” doctors to prescribe strong drugs to women that they don’t need and that are unlikely to help them.’

Furthermore, these drugs, which are marginally effective at best, come with a nasty raft of potential side-effects. These include nausea, dizziness and a raised risk of heart disease. One drug currently ­applying for a licence can cause depression and even loss of consciousness.

Moynihan reserves particular ire for the claim that 43 per cent of woman suffer from a sexual ­problem, calling it ‘one of the most pervasive medical myths, as extreme as it is absurd’.

This figure is important because drug companies frequently use it to indicate the scale of the problem they are trying to treat.

The faulty figure dates back more than ten years to a ­survey ­published in the ­prestigious Journal of the ­American Medical Association.

The study involved giving a long questionnaire to 3,000 Americans with the aim of finding out more about their sexual habits to fight the spread of AIDS.

The questionnaire included a very short section about ­sexual ­difficulties tacked on the end which asked women if they had ever ­suffered any ­difficulties with sex - such as lack of interest in sex, ­anxiety about performance or pain - for more than a few months over the previous year.

Any woman who answered yes to just one of them was classified as suffering from sexual dysfunction. Adding all the yeses up gives the ­figure of 43 per cent.

‘There was no attempt to ­determine how serious the problem had been or if the women had been distressed by it,’ says Moynihan.

Even the author of the study says the figure has been wrongly used.

‘There’s a lack of understanding of what really drives these ­numbers,’ Ed Laumann, professor of sociology at Chicago University told Moynihan.

‘What drives them is stress - ­physical and social stress, ­exhaustion and not being in a relationship with somebody you care about so you are not sexually interested.’

In other words, their sex problems were not about mechanics (unlike much male impotence).

In fact, later surveys have reported far lower figures. For instance, researchers at the Royal Free ­Hospital in London reported three years ago that only 6 per cent of women thought they had a problem and were distressed enough about it to want help. And when they do seek help, the problem is rarely just ­physical.

‘All sorts of things can result in a woman having a low libido,’ says Dr Sandy Goldbeck-Wood, ­associate specialist in psycho­sexual medicine at ­Camden and ­Islington Mental Health Trust in London.

‘She may have had a traumatic experience or been seriously ill or just be feeling generally unhappy in her wider life. But the reason they affect her libido is because they have an impact on her ­relationship with her partner and how she feels about her body.’

Pile of Viagra

Viagra, the male impotence pill which is worth an ­astonishing $500million (£316m) in sales every year

Researchers into sexual disorders all agree that some women have ­genuine sexual problems that may involve anxiety, pain or difficulty that might respond to medical treatment. But many others might be better helped with counselling.

Yet there is an awful lot of money and ­expertise invested in ­persuading both the medical ­profession and patients that ­popping a pill to revive a flagging libido is the ­quickest and easiest route to go.

Moynihan’s book describes in impressive detail just how this is being achieved.

For instance, 95 per cent of the experts who hammered out the ­medical definition of female sexual dysfunction that’s widely used in ­promotional literature had ­financial ­relationships with the ­company making a drug to treat it.

As an example of the kind of ­tactics some drug ­companies employ, he tells the story of a top salesman who ­persuaded doctors to ­prescribe large ­quantities of ­Viagra by ­taking them to strip clubs.

This blurring of the line between commercial ­interests and doctors’ ­independence is something that ­worries one UK expert, Dr John Dean, ­clinical director of ­Sexual and Gender Medicine with Devon ­Partnership NHS Trust, who ­admitted to Moynihan: ‘Perhaps we are a little too cosy, a little too comfortable.’

There are serious questions about how effective the drugs are. In the summer, a product called ­flibanserin, which works by ­boosting the feel-good brain ­chemicals ­serotonin and dopamine, had its ­application for a licence turned down by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The company claimed it boosted the number of ­satisfactory sexual encounters in a month by an ­average of just under one. The rate for those on the drug went up from 2.8 a week to 4.5 compared with 2.7 to 3.7 for those on a placebo.

The regulator said this wasn’t enough given the possible side-effects, which include loss of ­consciousness and depression. ­Flibanserin is not yet licensed ­anywhere; however, the company has said it will keep trying to obtain a licence.

The trial results aren’t very ­impressive. But if the drugs were used in the real world, they may not have even that small result.

A new study found that ­people who take part in these drug trials end up ­having relationship therapy (to ­participate, you have to be in a ­relationship, agree to have sex three times a month for four months, fill in detailed ­questionnaires each time, keep diaries etc).

As the study’s author, Professor Cindy Mason, of the University of Texas, points out: ‘Trying to find a solution to a sexual problem by ­participating in a study seems to make couples feel closer, ­communicate more and even act ­differently towards each other ­during their ­sexual encounters.’

What all this means is that even if a pill did come up with good results, you couldn’t know for sure that it would do the same for ­people who hadn’t been filling in ­questionnaires, agreeing to regular sex for months, filling in diaries and all the rest.

Perhaps, then, counselling and other therapies could help women who are having difficulties. Talking to a ­therapist certainly helped Samantha.

‘My therapist pointed out how ­unemotional I was, even when I was telling her about how far we had drifted apart,’ says Samantha.

‘My husband was drinking and I felt depressed.

‘I wanted to leave him because he thought I was stupid, but at the same time I was guilty because it was all my fault.’

During therapy, Samantha was able to face the much deeper anger. Her husband had had an affair a few years earlier, but she’d bottled up her feelings about it.

‘Once I’d admitted to the therapist how furious I was, I felt I could talk to my husband about my fear and tension much more honestly.’

Her relationship improved and her libido increased.

‘We’re hoping to have a child now,’ she says.

But while therapy certainly works for some people, it is not widely ­available on the NHS and there haven’t been enough big trials to show exactly how effective it is.

‘If a fraction of the money that’s been spent on drug research had been spent on running trials for sex therapy, we’d be able to deliver much more targeted packages,’ says Dr Goldbeck-Wood.

So what should be done to ensure patients get an unbiased ­opinion about the best treatment for them? Dr Dean believes in keeping ­pharmaceutical companies out of the picture.

‘In an ideal world, doctors’ learning would be funded through entirely independent sources without drug company money,’ he says.

Worth bearing in mind when your doctor brings out the prescription pad . . .

Dr Dean, Ray Moynihan and Dr Goldbeck-Wood will be ­discussing these issues at a debate organised by the BMJ on Monday.

Ray ­Moynihan’s book is available from raymoynihan.com

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1315720/Viagra-The-madness-quest-female-version.html#ixzz10qnvfk7I

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Monday, September 27, 2010

Lift buttons 'are 40 times dirtier than toilet seats'

 

Next time you use the lift, you might want to wash your hands.

A typical elevator button harbours nearly 40 times as many germs as a public toilet seat, scientists have found.

elevator button

A typical elevator button harbours nearly 40 times as many germs as a public toilet seat

A study carried out in hotels, restaurants, banks, offices and airports found 313 ‘colony forming units’ of bacteria on every square centimetre of lift button.

The equivalent surface area of toilet seat had only eight units.

The bacteria on the lift buttons could include stomach bugs such as E.coli, the researchers say.

Dr Nicholas Moon, from Microban Europe, which carried out the research for the University of Arizona in the U.S., said: 'In a busy building, a lift button can be touched by dozens of people who will have come into contact with all kinds of bacteria every hour.

'Even if the buttons are cleaned regularly, the potential for the build up of bacteria is high.'

Previous studies have shown that a typical office desk harbours 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat and computer keyboards have four times more germs than toilets.

But Professor Hugh Pennington, one of Britain’s leading microbiologists, said: 'Just because there are bacteria on a lift button it doesn’t mean they are harmful to your health.

'The best way to protect yourself is to wash your hands before you eat or handle food.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1314717/Lift-buttons-40-times-dirtier-toilet-seats.html#ixzz10kau8HUw

Pamela Anderson to heat up Bigg Boss 4?

With the dates of revelation coming closer, the guessing game is at an all time high. While rumours of Sania-Shoaib, Veena Malik and Neetu Chandra as Bigg Boss inmates having ebbed, another buzz is picking up. As per buzz, Baywatch star Pamela Anderson will bring on the heat as a

 

Bigg Boss 4 inmate.

Previously Bigg Boss seasons have seen international contestants like Jade Goody (Season Two) and Claudia Ciesla (Season Three) try their surviving skills in the house of back-stabbing and sleaze.

A source was quoted as telling Mumbai Mirror, "Talks are on with Pamela for the past one month. Bigg Boss is extremely keen on having her. Her most famous tele-series has the highest TRPs in Uttar Pradesh and the interiors.

PamelaWhile the channel broadcasting the show refused to comment, when called, Deepak Dhar, country head of Endemol, the production house that produces the show informs the tabloid, "I am not in a position to confirm or comment on the story."

With Pamela's drool-worthy appeal, Bigg Boss will not have any problems with TRPs this time.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Pamela-Anderson-to-heat-up-Bigg-Boss-4/H1-Article1-605227.aspx
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Thursday, September 9, 2010

Introducing the 'Airfryer': Gadget uses super-fast air to make perfect chips without any oil

 

The Philips AirFryer uses hot air to crisp up chips

The Philips AirFryer uses hot air to crisp up chips

No matter how much you might kid yourself, fried food is not a healthy option.

But now Philips has invented a frying machine that it claims gives you that same satisfying fatty taste - but without the oil.

The AirFryer uses Rapid Air Technology, hot air in other words, to cook the kind of meals that would traditionally be dunked in a deep fat fryer.

By circulating air up to 200C around foods like chips, chicken, fish or pastries, Philips claims to be able to brown them off nicely with up to 80 per cent less fat.

The AirFryer looks like a large rice cooker and has a chunky tray which can be removed, filled with food and put back inside.

Twelve minutes later the meal emerges hot and crisp and, according to Philips, far healthier for you.

The device will be perfect for those nervous to use traditional chip pans, which are notorious for being the cause of fires. More than 50 people die in the UK due to chip pan fires.

Ron Dobson, Commissioner of London Fire Brigade, which has just launched its Cooksafe campaign about the danger of chip pans, said: 'Any gadget that reduces the number of people cooking with lots of hot oil is a good thing.

'Each year hundreds of people suffer damage to their homes, are injured and sadly lose their lives as a result of chip pan fires.'

How it tastes is another question - the £200 cooking machine will only be available to pre-order at Philips’ website in a few weeks time, so for now there are only the company’s claims that it has a 70 per cent approval rating with consumers.

Crucially, whether it tastes as satisfying as the real thing remains to be seen.

Cracks are also emerging in Philips claim the AirFryer it is oil free.

On its website the electronics firm admits that fresh French fries need ‘half a table spoon of oil for extra taste’ when put through the machine.

French fries prepared in the Philips AirFryer are served up at the Philips stand at the 2010 IFA technology and consumer electronics trade fair at Berlin last week

French fries prepared in the Philips AirFryer are served up at the Philips stand at the 2010 IFA technology and consumer electronics trade fair at Berlin last week

Then there is the issue of keeping it clean. As any owner of a George Foreman grill will tell you, that grease has to go somewhere and getting it off is not a pleasant business.

To their credit, Philips have built the AirFryer with a Food Separator accessory so several foods can be fried at once without, say, making your chicken nuggets smell like a fish.

It also has an air filter so, no matter how much like fried food it tastes like, your house won’t smell like a chip shop.

The AirFryer was launched at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin where Philips also showcased an espresso machine that remembers your preferences and Europe’s greenest LED TV.

‘At Philips, we develop advanced solutions that help contribute to people’s health and well-being,’ Philips Consumer Lifestyle CEO Pieter Nota said.

‘The products we’ve unveiled live up to that promise by helping people live a healthy, active and more sustainable life.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1310446/The-Airfryer-The-frying-machine-gives-perfect-chips--oil.html#ixzz0z3SI6s9e

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Friday, September 3, 2010

Internet wipes out printed Oxford Dictionary

Who can forget flipping through pages of the Oxford English Dictionary looking for that one elusive word. Looks like the venerable dictionary itself become elusive. Reason? The next edition of the vast tome will never be printed again due to dwindling book sales.
According to the publishers,

the sales of the third edition of the dictionary have fallen due to increasing popularity of online alternatives.
"I don't think the third edition would be printed. The print dictionary market is just disappearing," Nigel Portwood, the chief executive of Oxford University Press told telegraph.co.uk. The dictionary will only appear online, the website reported.
Oxford DictionaryThe online version of the dictionary has existed for more than a decade and recieves more than two billion hits a month from subscribers.
Interestingly, Simon Winchester, author of The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary blames the advent of iPads for the slow demise of print.
"Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise," Winchester said.

The first Oxford Dictionary came out in sections from 1884, completed in 1928.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/books/Internet-wipes-out-printed-Oxford-Dictionary/Article1-593758.aspx

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

She's respectable and intelligent ... so why does Sarah attach a painful barbed chain to her leg for two hours a day?

 

By Rebecca Hardy
Last updated at 8:09 AM on 2nd September 2010

Sarah Cassidy is the sort of no-nonsense, capable woman you might expect to find as headmistress of a ­primary school. But Sarah doesn’t do children, and she doesn’t do husbands either.

No. Sarah is 43, single and celibate — and determined to remain so. Each night she fastens a wire chain, known as a cilice, around her upper thigh.

The device has sharp prongs that dig into the skin and flesh, though generally it does not draw blood. To most women, it sounds a peculiarly ­masochistic practice.

Masochistic practice? Sarah Cassidy uses a cilice to atone for her sins

­Masochistic practice? Sarah Cassidy wears a cilice - a painful wire chain - around her upper thigh to atone for her sins

Yet Sarah says it serves a very different purpose: suppressing her desires and atoning for her sins.

Quite what those sins might be it is hard to imagine. For Sarah is not just good, but very, very good. She doesn’t drink, abhors drugs and has never had sex.

More than that, she is a senior female figure in Opus Dei, one of the most controversial forces in the Roman Catholic church. Portrayed as shadowy and sinister in Dan Brown’s international bestseller The Da Vinci Code, the group has been accused of obsessive secretiveness, elitism, misogyny and criticised for its methods of recruitment.

But it is the ‘mortification of the flesh’ — a ritualistic form of self-harming practised by many Opus Dei members — that has attracted most widespread condemnation.

Now, in a bid to correct false impressions, Sarah has agreed to meet me to discuss what it is that attracts women like her to what seems such an austere and, frankly, painful ­expression of faith. I meet her with fellow Opus Dei ­member Eileen Cole at the group’s £7 million London headquarters on Chelsea Embankment, where Sarah now lives.

'Mortification of the flesh': The cilice is a ritualistic form of self-harming practised by many Opus Dei members

'Mortification of the flesh': The cilice is a ritualistic form of self-harming practised by many Opus Dei members

First, though, some background. Opus Dei — Latin for ‘Work of God’ —was founded in Spain in 1928 by the Roman Catholic priest St ­Josemaria Escriva. Its doctrine focuses upon the lives of ordinary Catholics, who are neither priests, nuns nor monks yet who believe that everyone should aspire to be a saint.

Today, the organisation claims to have 87,000 members worldwide, about 60 per cent of whom live in Europe — among them, former Labour education minister Ruth Kelly.
Membership is divided into different categories.

About 70 per cent are so-called ‘supernumeraries’ — married men and women with normal careers. They contribute financially to Opus Dei, and though they are not formally required to practise ‘mortification’, many choose to do so.

More committed, though, are ­‘numeraries’ like Sarah and Eileen, who pledge to remain celibate, generally live in special Opus Dei houses scattered around the world, and often work directly for the organisation.

Mortification is part of their daily routine, including use of the cilice and periods of fasting.

So every evening, just before she does the washing up, Eileen, 51, straps her strand of barbed wire round her leg and leaves it there for two whole hours, scratching at her skin and digging into the flesh.

It sounds agony, but she insists it’s ‘less painful than a bikini wax’. And besides, pain is the whole point.

‘It’s an easy way of knowing you’re doing penance,’ says Eileen, who lives in an Opus Dei centre in Ealing, West London. ‘I wear mine above my thigh. If you go swimming, you don’t want to leave a mark from where it has been.

‘To be honest, it’s the fasting I find most difficult.’

Still, many of us would ­struggle to comprehend what on earth drives two intelligent, articulate women like Eileen and Sarah to cause themselves pain on a nightly basis.

Perhaps understandably, given some of its rituals and strictures, the movement is often condemned as a cult. Certainly, Eileen’s parents thought so.

Her mother is now dead and her relationship with her father remains strained. They couldn’t understand how their only daughter, who had never given them a moment’s trouble in her life, left home at 17 to join Opus Dei.

‘My parents hated me joining Opus Dei. I think they’d have been happier if I’d run away and joined the gypsies. They thought I was joining a cult. They were terrified. Absolutely terrified.’

My parents hated it. They were convinced I was joining a cult and were absolutely terrified...

So how did she become involved with the group?

‘I never went to a Roman Catholic school and had boyfriends from the age of 12, because that’s what I thought you had to do,’ she says. ‘You really weren’t cutting the mustard if you didn’t.

‘But I changed to an all-girls school to do my A-levels, and suddenly there was complete freedom. You didn’t have to have a boyfriend or flirt all the time.

‘One of the girls in the sixth form belonged to Opus Dei. I told her I was a Catholic but didn’t know anything about it, so as well as partying all over London, I’d spend Mondays learning the catechism.

'And I just started talking to people about my faith. That’s what evangelism is — spreading the word.’

Still, the early boyfriends, those ­teenage parties . . . hadn’t she excluded herself from becoming a senior ­official of Opus Dei — a role which demands celibacy?
Again, Eileen forces a smile.

‘I wasn’t promiscuous and I looked forward to a relationship within ­marriage,’ she says. ‘As soon as I knew what it meant to become a numerary, it was like a lump in my stomach.

‘Of course, it’s a huge sacrifice from day one to make the decision. But you’re doing it for the Kingdom of Heaven, which promises to reward you a hundredfold.’

Within months of discovering the movement, Eileen was whisked away by her spiritual mentors to Spain, where she spent three weeks praying and considering her future.

Painful decisions: Sarah Cassidy (third from left) with fellow Opus Die council members Eileen Cole (far left), Chinwe Nzewi, Susan O'Brien (second from right) and Goky Sandoval (far right)

Painful decisions: Sarah Cassidy (centre) with fellow Opus Die council members Eileen Cole (far left), Chinwe Nzewi, Susan O'Brien (second from right) and Goky Sandoval (far right)

This was part of her training before she could become a full member of Opus Dei.

‘I didn’t speak Spanish, so had a lot of time to think and pray at the ­sanctuary,’ she says. ‘I understood that this was my vessel to come back to God.’
It was here, too, that she began ­wearing the cilice.

‘The mortification helps you to keep your passions under control and channel your energy,’ she explains. Despite Eileen’s devotion to the organisation, others have criticised Opus Dei for its methods of recruitment, which include ‘love bombing’ potential members with affection and praise.

The requirement for recruits to hand over large proportions of their income has also raised concern. (Today, Opus Dei is a huge cash cow for the Roman Catholic church, with tens of millions of pounds-worth of buildings around the world, funded by donations from members.)

Other questions include why Opus Dei members do not normally divulge their involvement, leading to a concern that the organisation is seeking to establish itself as a form of Christian masonry. Membership is growing at the rate of several thousand a year, with women being particularly targeted.

Sarah, it turns out, has been directly tasked with drumming up membership in Britain among young professional and married women. There’s even a glossy Opus Dei magazine ‘for and by young people’, with articles such as ‘six tips for the perfect picnic’ and ‘the internet detox’.

Eileen Cole says she finds the fasting harder than the cilice

Devoted: Eileen Cole says she finds the fasting harder than the cilice

But this is no ordinary from of ‘sisterhood’, and certainly not an easy-going one.

Unmarried male and female ‘numeraries’ are segregated in the Opus Dei houses where many of them live, with only limited contact between the sexes.

There’s also a subgroup of female numeraries known as ‘assistant members’ who perform the cooking, sewing and cleaning and ‘serve’ the men. Men never serve the women.

I find one assistant member at the Chelsea HQ, shut away in a little room with her head bent over a pile of mending. It doesn’t look much like fun to me.
I wonder how an educated woman such as Sarah, who studied physics at Manchester University, can condone such inequality. Again, though, she speaks of ‘God’s plan’.

Sarah was 19 years old and part-way through her degree when she decided to give her life to the ­organisation. Intriguingly, she was also in a ­relationship with her first and only boyfriend.

She maintains, though, that a life devoted to faith was always on the cards. Her mother and her uncle were both Opus Dei members.

‘I’m not going to say I was running after celibacy, but it wasn’t something that was so foreign,’ she says. ‘My uncle was a priest, and many of my aunts were nuns.

‘I’d seen people take the same path from the age of nine or ten.

‘But sex wasn’t something that repulsed or frightened me. ‘If I’d got married, my ideal would have been sex with that guy.

‘When I was little, I always imagined that I was going to get married and have children. ‘But this is the vocation that God gave me. It’s such a gift, and there’s so much love in there.’

Needless to say, Sarah’s smiling. In fact, she’s an enviably serene woman. The oldest of five children (with four younger brothers), she was nine years old when her mother joined Opus Dei.

‘I was a rather intense, reflective child and not very attractive,’ Sarah says. ‘My parents [her father was a newspaper photographer] had a very deep relationship with God and passed that onto us. We used to pray every day as a family — say grace before meals and prayers before bed. We’d pray when my dad lost his job, or I didn’t get the exam results I wanted, or my mother lost a baby.

‘She lost quite a few babies. I just remember she wasn’t well, she got ­better and the baby had gone. My mother always had this sense that God had a plan.

‘Having a boyfriend wasn’t as ­important to me as it was to everyone else. It just wasn’t a ruling passion in my life. I wanted to be a pilot.

I wasn’t promiscuous and I looked forward to a relationship within ­marriage. As soon as I knew what it meant to become a numerary, it was like a lump in my stomach

‘I had my first boyfriend at 19, and it was when I was starting to go out with him than I began to realise I wanted something else.’ The boyfriend, it turns out, was a fun, pleasant chap but not a Catholic.

‘Yes I kissed him. There was nothing wrong with the relationship, but I was at that stage in my life when I was going over what God wanted me to do.

‘He was very understanding when I reached my decision that it was the end of the relationship. And it was always very clear I wasn’t interested in that experience.’

By ‘that’, she means sex.

‘I didn’t like the promiscuity I saw at university,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want that for me. I didn’t want that life. I rejected it as part of my lifestyle. I didn’t want to be part of it.’

I cannot get over the small matter of the cilice — surely it’s a seismic leap from eschewing promiscuity to self-harming in this way?

Sarah was 20 when she started ­wearing it. ‘The first time you do anything that’s not particularly pleasant, you don’t like it. But over time it’s just something that’s there. The result of doing it is that you should be a much nicer person afterwards.’

Eileen adds: ‘We live in such a ­materialistic, hedonistic society that people can’t understand you’d ­actually make yourself a little uncomfortable to help you be more mindful of God.

‘They’ll understand if you go jogging and pounding the streets — which I think is disgusting — just because you want to be thinner, but they won’t understand this.’

It’s a fair point. After all, which is more peculiar or ‘unnatural’: women who endure the agony of, say, Botox injections or leg-waxing, in order to be beautiful, and those Opus Dei ­devotees who strap on a cilice as a sign of spiritual devotion?

Still, I can’t help feeling that most women would consider it a strange God who requires them to do the ­washing up wearing a chain of barbed wire.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1308090/Why-does-Opus-Dei-member-Sarah-Cassidy-attach-cilice-leg-day.html#ixzz0yMWGALyR

Pakistan cricket match-fixing: Asif told girlfriend 'We won't win this year'

 

Veena Malik (Pic:Getty)

Cricket star Mohammad Asif told his girlfriend Pakistan wouldn't win a Test match on tour, it was claimed last night.

Ex-girlfriend Veena Malik said the bowler - being probed for match-fixing - told her last year: "We will not win a match during the tour to Australia. We won't win anything until 2010."

She claimed he also bragged there was big money to be earned from betting scams.

The actress, 32, said corruption among players and officials was rife.

She added: "I told him not to become involved but he did not listen."

Pakistan Cricket 450 (Pic:PA)

Three more cricket stars are to be quizzed over claims of match-fixing.

The entire Pakistani team will eventually be interviewed as detectives work to unmask alleged conspirators.

And officials will study all 82 Tests and one-day matches played by the team in the period alleged fixer Mazhar Majeed is said to have been operating the scam.

Bowlers Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and skipper Salman Butt are already under investigation after having their mobile phones confiscated.

Wicket keeper Kamran Akmal has also been questioned.

And last night the net was widening after Asif’s ex-girlfriend sensationally claimed that cheating among the players was rife.

Actress Veena Malik said that last year Asif told her Pakistan would not win any Test series until 2010 – and that good money could be earned from spot-fixing.

In a damning interview given to a Pakistan news channel, Veena, 32, said: “When Pakistan started losing in Australia, I jokingly said, ‘For God’s sake, win a match’. To this, he replied, ‘We won’t win anything until 2010’.”

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She claimed that before the team flew out to Australia last December, her then boyfriend Asif made a sudden 24-hour visit to Bangkok to meet bookmakers.

She said: “He told me he was offered $40,000 (£25,850). I advised him not to be part of such activities but he did not listen. He went ahead and demanded $200,000 (£129,300).”

She claimed: “Since he came back, he has been totally involved in this.” She said many players and officials were also in on it.

Veena, 32, who split with Asif earlier this year, said he used to call bookmakers on his servants’ phones. She named a high-profile Indian bookie she claimed paid him for “spot-fixing” in matches

Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/2010/08/31/pakistan-cricket-match-fixing-asif-told-girlfriend-we-won-t-win-this-year-115875-22525229/#ixzz0yM0Dm5TQ

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