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2008 Toyota Corolla Sedan - Consumer Review
Build Quality
Reliability Value
Vehicle2008 Toyota Corolla LE 4dr Sedan (1.8L 4cyl 4A)
ReviewI've driven it for 11 months now. 2 months after the purchase power steering started leaking. I had to replace rack and pinion. Acceleration is very slow, but the car maintains the speed pretty well. My fuel economy is about 30 mpg with 80/20 highway/city driving. Because of the awkward rear design, I find it hard to see what's in the back while parallel-parking. The turning angles are too sharp for the car this size. This car also lacks folding mirrors and power seats. Anyways, I think Corolla is a good entry-level car to drive short distances in the urban environment.
Best FeaturesAuto lights.
Worst FeaturesFolding mirrors, power seats, exterior design is bland.
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on 07/15/15 07:12 AM (PDT)
1/. I don't understand how the Steering Rack in this model could leak ?? - unless it was an old stock earlier model because the 2008 Corolla DOES NOT have Hydraulic Power Steering or,HAVE ANY OIL to leak anywhere IN THE ENTIRE STEERING SYSTEM. It has electric Power steering which is activated by a small electric stepper motor. The Steering Rack is lubricated with Moly grease which does not flow out of its own accord - The only time a dampness may/will occur is if a Rack Boot splits and that would be virtually never on a near new car. Unless a Rack clip came undone and the end of the boot came off - In which case the rack end need only be washed with solvent, repacked with grease and the Boot refitted or replaced as neccessary. But, no OIL will escape from the Rack anywhere because there simply isn't any within. 2/. Power Mirrors were fitted to several Corolla model variants which include LE models. They are electrically Retractable via a button on the mirror adjustment/control panel - which is one button touch to have the mirror either completely retract parallel with the body or, press again to have it return to outward position.Report it
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So it's finally here! The thing I've been waiting most for in life! {Jennifer Love Hewitt have a nude scene finally?!?} No! Not that, the other thing! {Oh, yeah the Deadpool game! Yeah we like him, he makes us seem sane.} That's right folks, Deadpool has arrived to play on your PS3, Xbox 360 and PC and he is not for kids to play with!
Quick rundown for those who have no clue who Deadpool is … {Cause you've been living under a rock, or don't like pop culture} Be nice! You want them to keep reading right?
Deadpool showed up in the 90's towards the end of Marvel's "New Mutants" comic before it was changed to "X-Force". Created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza, Deadpool started out as just a mercenary with cool weapons, serious skills, and a propensity for verbal diarrhea. {You said diarrhea, tee hee} In the last 20 years the character has exploded all over the Marvel Universe {You're dirty} and morphed into a character people either love or loathe, there is no middle ground, really.
Deadpool was given a healing factor that was based on Wolverine's, and it made him pretty much insane. He's got two voices in his head — {That's a scary thought, it's already crowded in here with just you and me} — I know, and sometimes I really want to kick you out! As I was saying he's got voices in his head and his own insane thoughts to contend with. And he breaks the fourth wall…alot. For the uninformed, breaking the fourth wall is when a character knowingly addresses the audience. I've been a fan of the character since his debut and I've been driving the Deadpool bandwagon for years, and his few appearances in games over the last decade have been decent but they only whet my appetite for more over the top insanity.
Finally the day is here.
"Deadpool" the videogame is a fun time to be had, but it's not the greatest game in the world. Written by former Deadpool writer Daniel Way, it definitely captures the essence and insanity of the character perfectly. My biggest issue is its length. {That's what she said…sorry, sorry couldn't help it} At about 5-7 hours, the game is super short. Not to say it hasn't happened before. {Don't most guys say that? We're not saying we have, but don't they?} That being said it's 5-7 hours of fun and mayhem, exactly what you'd expect from a Deadpool game.
The game is very self-referential — {Say it's meta! That's what all the kids are saying nowadays right?!?} — er, um, I mean it's very meta. One of the best examples of this is the opening, which finds you in Pool's apartment listening to voicemail. The last of which is the head of High Moon Studios (the company that made the game) stating that they have rejected Pool's video game pitch. Deadpool promptly presses a detonator and the guy calls back saying they loved the "NEW" pitch and they'd be sending over a script. Yes it's the script for the game you're playing.
As you wait, you're charged with "Playing with Deadpool's Junk" i.e. exploring his dirty little crib and having hilarious moments. You check on your dog Red Rocket, drop a "Stink Pickle" in the John as Pool says, or make 1000 pancakes. {We DO love pancakes} Also you can give a call to Nolan North, video game voice extraordinaire and consequently the voice of Deadpool and his inner voices. {See, meta!} Once you get a hold of the script, the game begins in earnest, and if you're a fan of the character it's everything you wanted — violence, insanity, crass humor, over the top action and more fun than you can shake a stick at. {Who shakes sticks at stuff anymore?!?} I know right?
Anyway, Pool has some great moves that are very easily strung together. Button mashing will get you through the tutorial and the first level, but after that, a little thought needs to go into your encounters. A little, but not a lot. Do you want to run in guns blazing or swords spinning? Or do you want to do both? {That's right kids, have your cake and eat it too!!} The fighting is pretty simple, with light and heavy attacks, on two of the face buttons accompanied by jump, and the teleport buttons. Teleport replaces the standard dodge roll here, and is actually more fun. It's also your counter button, which can get a little crazy in the heat of a huge brawl when you may mean to counter but end up teleporting behind your attacker.
That said you won't find it that big of an issue since you can just use your melee weapons and just tear them apart from your new position. {And look damned cool doing it, just not as cool as me} Deadpool is known for his use of swords and guns and you definitely get to use them here in some gloriously violent ways. The simple but effective upgrade system allows you to purchase some new toys as well. By stringing together long combos and dealing out massive amounts of death you earn "Deadpool Points" that can be used to upgrade your weapons, buy new ones, or just upgrade Pool himself a little.
Weapons include melee, ranged, and thrown weapons. Melee weapons are katanas, sais, and giant sledgehammers. {Yeah he said sledgehammers, you haven't lived til you've crushed a man's melon with dual wielded sledgehammers, I'll tell you what!} While the guns include pistols, shotguns, automatic riffles, and laser pistols. {PEW PEW!} Okay the laser sounds can go, trying to be professional here! {Sorry!} Thank you. As I was saying. Deadpool also has throw weapons, like flash grenades, frag grenades, and bear traps. Yeah those are fun to use!
The game itself is a lot of fun to play, though the camera can get a little annoying when battles get hectic, but it's controllable and I've played worse. What makes this game great though is the campaign. Despite how short it is — {That's what she said…okay again I'm sorry} *Sigh* Keep it up and the eviction notice is on its way. Ahem. The story or what parts Deadpool actually follows is pretty funny. Deadpool starts the game going after a media mogul, only to be shafted out of his bounty by Mr. Sinister and his Marauders. If any of this is lost on the non-geeks — {Dunno how, being a geek is like totally the thing to be right now, I mean even hot girls are geeks now!} — I know right, we're finally in the cool crowd, but I digress.
The game has hilarious videos every time a new and important character shows up, but if you don't want to wait they're all open in the Extras section under Bios. The game also has some crazy moments connected to level design. At some points, Deadpool has blown the budget for the level and because of this we're treated to some hilarious 16-bit inspired gameplay, and the variety and insanity continue throughout. He also calls the game designers and complains about the levels, and he also lets you know when he's not happy with how you're handling him. Deadpool does not hold back for anyone.
Long story short: if you're a fan of the character, then get the game. It's worth it. If you're iffy on it, rent it and beat it and buy it again when it's cheaper, but whatever you do, play this game! It's probably the most fun you'll have killing things and laughing at toilet humor at the same time. Is this game for everyone? Not in the least. But if you just like having some fun and a good laugh this game will not disappoint. The replay value isn't too high except for wanting to experience Pool's hilarity again and challenge yourself on harder difficulties, or the survival-like challenge maps. That said, I don't see why people wouldn't want to re-experience slapping around an unconscious Wolverine, or hallucinating that Cable is a big breasted Deadpool fan. {We sure do. Lets go BRING THE NOISE!!!}
Indeed sir! Let us go forth and cause mayhem!

subset: commoncrawl


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Wow, Mallory & daddy have crap luck with cab drivers.
Wow, Mallory & daddy have crap luck with cab drivers.
Oh, great. Now M/G are lost.
Crap. I didn't used to mind K/J, but I haven't liked them since the "answer sharing" leg. I used to like the GTs, but their recent behavior has soured me on them too. I don't want it to come down to those two teams.
G/M stuck in traffic. Mallory nearly hysterical.
GT's done. Now on to Key Largo for next clue.
K/J done and determined to catch up. I'm rooting for them now.
If the GT's win, this will be two seasons in a row that have been ruined for me. I'll have to consider whether I watch the next one.
Maggie: "While she takes care of the men with the guns, why don't you sit down and I'll make you a nice, hot cup of tea?"
Pan Am stewardesses: prepared for anything!
Oh-oh, if this comes down to a foot race like Phil said, I'll bet the GT's win. Who could out run those long legs?
Great. Weather warnings are popping up and interrupting coverage here. Since the CBS affiliate here covers the entire state, and they're known locally as the Chicken Little of weather forecasters (they always think the sky is falling), they'll blather on for at least twenty or thirty minutes.
I'm not unsympathetic to the rest of the state, but the weather cell they're talking about is a good 200 miles away, and even they're admitting it's not a very big storm in a very small area of the state. They could just have run a scrawl instead of breaking in with a map and endless chatter.
rvon... did you come here with egg on your face... no need to hide
Okay I love FORT's casino, but I really am not very good. If anyone wants to donate their FORT $$ I would gladly accept http://www.fansofrealitytv.com/forum....php?do=donate
The saving grace for the other teams could be if there's some kind of complicated puzzle/memory game at the end of all this. Puzzles are not the GTs strong suit, and I can't imagine anyone helping them at this point.
Thanks, Bonbon!
I am definitely rooting for K/J!!
Maggie: "While she takes care of the men with the guns, why don't you sit down and I'll make you a nice, hot cup of tea?"
Pan Am stewardesses: prepared for anything!


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We may have shut our doors, but as a final farewell we've announced more than £100,000-worth of IdeasTap-funded opportunities on Hiive.
Find out how you can apply...
David Farley is an Oliver Award-winning and Tony Award-nominated set and costume designer, with credits including Sunday in the Park with George (pictured above) and La Cage Aux Folles. Based in London, he regularly works abroad, including on Broadway. Here he talks to Jo Caird about training, getting his first big break and the "gift" of designing for opera...
When did you know you wanted to be a designer?
Originally I wanted to be an architect but changed by mind after doing some deathly dull work experience. I was doing Drama GCSE at the time, specialising in technical drama, and it happened that a bunch of recent drama school graduates in theatre design put on an exhibition near where I lived. I went along and saw these amazing models and beautiful technical drawings and the penny dropped: all the same skills that I'd be using as an architect, but in the world of the performing arts, which I love.
Where did you study?
After an Art Foundation course at the Oxfordshire School of Art and Design I went on to do BA in Technical Arts Design at Wimbledon School of Art. I knew I needed skills to be employable and useful, that I needed to develop my technical drawing, model making and set-building skills. I believe that it's important to have an understanding about what you're asking a workshop to build for you, in terms of practical knowledge. Not being able to solve everything, but at least being able to have a proper dialogue with set builders. Particularly if you're talking about low budgets, you've got to know how to get the best out of your materials.
How did you make the leap from low-budget, small-scale work to the big commercial productions you design these days?
I was working as an assistant for Christopher Oram and in the room next door sat Michael Grandage, who was running the Sheffield Crucible at the time. He had a young director, Angus Jackson, who he wanted to do a show on the main stage at the Crucible, and I'd assisted on at least half a dozen productions there by that point, so he put us together. That first professional show, a double bill of David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago and The Shawl, was a real kick-start to my career.
You and Timothy Bird won Olivier, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for your Menier Chocolate Factory production of Sunday in the Park with George, as well as a Tony Award nomination for the show's Broadway transfer. How has that success influenced your career?
It's a little bit scary and ridiculous just how many doors it opens, but at the same time how many doors it closes. There was quite a lot of interest from various producers, which was good. It got me an invitation to do Jason Robert Brown's new musical, 13, which was an out-of-town try-out in Connecticut and then on Broadway, but at the same time theatres like the Crucible stop calling because they think you're too expensive, too busy. Over the next year [I'm going to] to knock on those smaller but really exciting doors to say, "I want to do a play with two actors in a small space. Yes I've got a big show, La Bohéme for Houston Opera, but it's going to pay me very nicely so I can afford to come and work for you for tuppence".
How does designing for opera compare with designing plays and musicals?
Designing for opera is a designer's gift because there is so much freedom of expression visually. Unlike with musical theatre where you can tweak and change the music, the lyrics, make the entire show feel completely different; with opera, the music is the music. You've got to fill in around that and support it, but it will take your very avant-garde, brutal interpretation or your classic design... So there's a lot more room to manoeuvre.
Coming to the profession with a background in scenery design, does costume design bring additional challenges?
I would say I'm a set designer who dresses characters. I've learned a lot along the way, dealing with very good costume supervisors. There's something very satisfying about having complete aesthetic control, that the entire visual world of a piece is the product of one mind. It can be interesting working with a separate costume designer as a collaboration, but for me, having that control of the whole aesthetic of the world can be very rewarding.
Interested in winning a £1,000 for your latest project? Apply for Ideas Fund Innovators.
Second image is from Kiss Me Kate, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Ontario.
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The end of an era
Who we support and why
Five common CV mistakes
Five common cover letter mistakes


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403 Forbidden
TRENTON - For three innings Wednesday afternoon at Waterfront Park, all signs pointed toward something special happening for left-hander Vidal Nuno and the Thunder.
Nuno, rescued by the Yankees off the Independent League scrap heap, struck out seven through three frames with a sharp breaking slider as part of a five-pitch arsenal of electric stuff.
"The way we started off was like a ball of fire because Nuno was hot,'' Thunder manager Tony Franklin said. "He was focused and making pitches. Unfortunately for us, (Ethan) Martin was doing the same thing for Reading.''
Acquired in the trade that sent Shane Victorino to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Martin allowed a solo home run to Zoilo Almonte (17th) but not much else and emerged the winner of a 7-2 decision, handing the Thunder just their second loss in August following a 21-9 mark in July.
R-Phils center fielder Leandro Castro did the majority of the damage against Nuno with a fourth inning double to set up the game-tying run. Castro then crushed a two-run home run, his eighth of the season, in the sixth and Reading (62-54) never trailed again.
Nuno registered seven of his eight strike outs in those first three innings and still delivered a quality start, but one of the most reliable arms in the Trenton rotation lamented his one big mistake to Castro.
"I was just trying to throw strikes and be around the zone,'' Nuno said. "When you do that you have a chance to have a good day. Then I made one mistake, a curveball middle-up (to Castro) and he took advantage of it. The second time through the order I was trying to get quick outs so I can last longer. I'm not really down on myself, but I do feel like that one mistake cost us the game.''
Not really.
The Thunder (70-46) managed only seven hits, six of them singles, against the right-hander Martin (10-6), so there was not a lot of offensive support.
Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh, Trenton shortstop Walter Ibarra ripped what initially was ruled an RBI-double down the right field line. But following an animated protest led by Reading catcher Steve Lerud, first base umpire Tom Honec conferred with crew chief Doug Vines. The call was reversed and the run was taken off the board. Ibarra then lined into a 4-3 double play to end the inning, but not before flinging his bat in disgust.
With Nuno pulled after six innings the rest was up to starter-turned-reliever Graham Stoneburner, and the results were not pretty.
Stoneburner gave up a pair of long home runs in the eighth inning, including a colossal shot by Darin Ruff, and Reading pulled away. Brandon Tripp also homered against Stoneburner.
"When you get pitches up they are going to get hit,'' Franklin said.
Although Nuno (7-3, 2.32 ERA) was unable to sustain his early effectiveness, the 25-year-old California native has been quite a revelation for both the Thunder and the Yankees' farm system.
"He's been a big surprise to me because coming into this season I didn't even know who he was,'' Franklin said. "I started hearing about him at (Class-A) Tampa and since he's been here he's been pretty doggone good. He certainly has put a good season together. I like what he does out there.''
The two Eastern League playoff contenders wrap up the three-game series tomorrow night at 7:05 p.m.
Time: 7:05 p.m.
Site: Mercer County Waterfront Park.
Starting pitchers: Reading LHP Adam Morgan (0-0, 0.00) vs. Thunder RHP Mikey O'Brien (4-4, 4.71).
Radio, Internet: 91.3 FM (WTSR), trentonthunder.com.


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Yahoo announced that they are laying-off 2,000 employees nationwide; however they are hiring at their Western New York Branch.They currently employ 75 people at the facility.
State Senator George Maziarz said the vice-chairman of Yahoo called him Wednesday to inform him that the Lockport yahoo branch is not only adding more jobs but they plan to expand.
"First of all it's uplifting, usually when something like this happens Western New York usually falls on the bad side of the equation. It was one negative impact on a worldwide company and we fell on the positive side," said Maziarz
Mazariz said the yahoo jobs attract people from all over the world to work in Western New York, which in turn boosts our local economy.


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ACCORDING to the 'Malleus Malificarum', a 15th-century tract on diabolism, the devil may one day come among us in female form. A raven-haired succubus, that sort of thing. To watch Nigella Lawson - dark-eyed, pouty, bosomy Nigella - filming the second series of her cookery programme from her basement kitchen in Hammersmith in early April, is to be reminded of this she-devil theory.
|Tasty treat: Nigella Lawson in her new series starting on Channel 4
Already she has tempted me with a mid-afternoon bowl of sticky toffee pudding topped with double cream. Now she is offering pork crackling from a tray. Nigella - a brand name so potent these days it has made the surname extraneous - takes a piece herself and crunches loudly. 'Mmm. Go on,' she entreats in a dusky, well-modulated voice. 'The fat is so good for your skin.' She is 41 and her skin is like alabaster. But this may also be because she wears Factor 15 sun lotion every day and never sunbathes.
Instead of horns, this she-devil has curlers jutting from her hair. And it is not sulphur she trails in her languorous wake but nutmeggy fumes of baking pie (to borrow a phrase from the playfully camp introduction to her bestselling cookery book How To Be a Domestic Goddess). Where a devilish tail might be, there's a microphone wire. It runs up her back and emerges from the collar of her pale green silk pyjamas. She is wearing these because she's filming a scene in which she raids her fridge for a midnight snack. Are silk pyjamas what she really sleeps in? 'No,' she says crisply, raising one eyebrow. 'I don't wear anything in bed. But I'm not ready for a nude scene quite yet.'
There is a frivolous atmosphere: banter among the film crew, mobile phones ringing, the clattering of utensils. Rubber matting has been laid down to protect the floor and, with lights, cameras, cables and monitors cluttering up the place, you can see why Nigella compares the experience to 'having the builders in'. She removes a tray from her oven, the director says 'cut' and a make-up artist rushes over to even out the skin tones on her manicured hands, in case there are any red marks left by the hot tray. There are a couple of retakes to do before it's a wrap - and the director asks the presenter if she thinks she should be 'matronly or camp' for a scene in which she sprinkles pomegranate seeds with her fingers. She opts for sultry: 'Mmm. Just look at these beads pouring down like pink rain.' Nigella's children - Cosima, seven, and Bruno, four - run in wearing school uniforms, sucking lollies. Their nanny, an Italian, follows. Two Birman cats slink in after her. It's a chaotic scene. Nigella likes it this way. It distracts her.
That evening, upstairs in a white room lined with oil paintings and vases of purple tulips and blue nigellas, the mood is different. Nigella is sitting on a sofa, talking about her husband John Diamond, the journalist who died from oral cancer in March. She is now wearing a black skirt and clingy V-neck top and has poured a couple of glasses of champagne (Taittinger, her favourite; she drinks it most nights because it doesn't give her a headache or acid stomach). Today she has been filming the fifth in a series of ten episodes of Nigella Bites. Her husband died while an earlier episode was being filmed. 'I took a fortnight off. But I'm not a great believer in breaks.' She says this briskly, neutrally. 'I don't want to be rattling around inside my own head. I did feel I was spiralling into a Kathy Burke character and tried going out, but I prefer it here. Filming keeps me busy. It absorbs me.'
She sips from her glass. 'Of course it is displacing certain thoughts but, in a way, I don't think grieving should be your full-time job. That seems a rather modern idea. To act as if you don't have a life is probably not sensible, especially when you have children. Also, I have to say, I found it very constraining having to look demure under my veil, metaphorically speaking. I can't be other people's perceptions of me. I can't act out other people's feelings for me. I find it very intrusive.'
The response to John Diamond's death was extraordinary. Most broadsheets devoted several pages to it. Even the Prime Minister paid tribute. Was Nigella taken aback by the public sympathy? 'To tell the truth, I wasn't at that stage very focused on it. But I have put all the clippings in what I call my Morbidobox, and I haven't read them all yet. I was pleased because I hadn't foreseen any of it, in the sense that I didn't know John was going to die when he did.' She was, she adds, amused by a Private Eye cartoon which showed a graph of the amounts of newspaper space devoted to the deaths respectively of an artist, a scientist and a journalist - naturally, the journalist wins by a long way. 'John would have found that funny. He was always for being public. I was married to someone who liked all that. I never did. It wouldn't be my way of doing it. I gave into it.'
John Diamond, of course, found it therapeutic to write about his illness in his column for The Times and in his best-selling book C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too. He was witty and thought-provoking on the subject and, with cruel irony, it was the making of his career, bringing him the fame he had always wanted and, as far as some of his readers were concerned, turning him into a secular saint. But his levity in print, it seems, was sometimes counter-balanced by his anger, depression and suicidal urges at home. 'You can do an awful lot of that [being droll] in 800 words a week,' Nigella reflects. 'But doing it in your life is another matter. Real life does have a way of asserting itself. Has to. Of course. It was difficult because I had to go on a programme once to defend him, which I did willingly, though in many ways I agreed with his detractors. It was a difficult position. It wasn't a matter of [him] being dishonest but of giving a truthful account which was inaccurate. Anyway, you don't have an obligation to tell all. Right now, I have every desire to be completely honest and truthful; I've got absolutely no desire to tell you the whole truth.'
John Diamond was beginning to establish himself as a broadcaster when he was diagnosed with oral cancer in 1995. Clearly he felt proud of Nigella when the first series of Nigella Bites became a hit last autumn (even Victor Lewis-Smith, the London Evening Standard's notoriously acerbic television critic, felt moved to call her 'formidably charismatic'), but does she think her husband also felt a little jealous? 'Not really, because we were very different sorts of journalists [the couple met in 1989 when they both worked on The Sunday Times, she as the deputy literary editor, he as a travel writer. They married in 1992 and then both had columns in the Saturday Times Magazine, Diamond on dying, Lawson on lipstick]. But obviously the situation was complicated. On the one hand, he had too great a desire for me to do more than I might have wanted, and, on the other hand, there was envy. But of all the problems that were thrown up in the past two years, I would say that that was the least significant. Work is work. John, had you asked him, might have said differently. I don't know.'
Because he could not speak - having had his tongue removed in an operation in 1998 - John Diamond communicated in company by writing with an ink pen on notepads. One of his last messages to his wife, written in his final hours, read: 'How proud I am of you and what you have become. The great thing about us is that we have made us who we are.' Did he mean they had reinvented themselves? 'Often two people who are quite different get married,' Nigella says, 'and you think you like someone because there is that difference. But actually - and this may sound like gobbledegook - what you are attracted to in the supposed difference is the chance it will give you to accept a part of yourself you didn't know you had, or you secretly knew you had but were embarrassed about. So for me that meant John's showy-offy character. Because I'm naturally shy. Over the years I probably took on a lot of that character, especially when I took on John's voice [he would talk as best he could and she would interpret for others]. It turned me from being a quiet person to a constantly talking person. In the same way, he thought of himself as funny, and I was the serious one, and yet over the years he became more relaxed about not having to crack a joke every five minutes. In that sense, over time, you take on each other's characteristics and the differences evaporate.'
In other ways, I suggest, they remained opposites: whereas he seemed to reject the need for privacy and wanted to externalise everything, she preferred to internalise things and keep her own counsel. 'Sort of, though I have very good girlfriends I talk to. Yes, John was very open and honest but also self-deluding. Necessarily so. I try to be open. I'm not good at being by myself. I think John got it right in that he was gregarious but also liked his own company. Whereas I don't like going out and I don't like my own company!' She feels lonely? 'Bored, anxious and lonely.'
On a superficial level, Nigella's claim to shyness is baffling. She has a ready wit, as she demonstrated on Have I Got News for You last year. Her intelligence, bookishness and confidence in public are obvious (she read modern languages at Oxford, has been a Booker Prize judge, and on programmes such as Question Time comes across as being articulate and thoughtful). And, as if these qualities weren't enough to bolster her ego, she was named Author of the Year at the British Book Awards a few months ago, as well as 'the third most beautiful women in the world' in a recent survey (she comes in after Catherine Zeta-Jones and one of the Corrs).
'I was shy as a child,' she explains patiently. 'Now I'm not really shy any more, unless I'm with shy people. I find it contagious and I don't know what to say. But I don't think shyness is something one should feel apologetic about. When you are younger it seems an appropriate way to respond to the world. I think it was to do with my unhappiness and lack of confidence. But even now I wouldn't want a life where I was always going out to big events. I tend to see the same six people all the time.' She flicks her long black hair back over her shoulder. 'I'm someone who either has warm and intimate feelings for someone or I'm not interested in them at all. I don't have an in-between.'
Does she think strangers feel awkward with her because they are intimidated by her looks? She laughs. 'That's like a "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. I'll tell you what it is: women are only intimidated by thinness and one of the reasons women like me is that I'm not thin. I promise that's true. It's not just a facetious answer.' Her weight fluctuates, she says. 'I'm on the up at the moment. I am greedy. I eat under stress. When you are eating, the rest of the world is tuned out. And when you tune back in you feel guilty about having been greedy and the rest of the world is still there, so you have to carry on eating!'
Dominic Cyriax, the director of the new series of Nigella Bites, initiated a weekly weigh-in for the crew and Nigella feels obliged to enter into the spirit of the thing. 'There is a competition between me and the soundman for who is putting on most weight. I've put on 6lb since we started filming. Food is a narcotic. Like being at the breast. I do mind putting on this weight because you feel quite vulnerable with a camera pointing at you. But when I am thin my face looks too thin!' She shakes her head. 'I despise myself for worrying about it sometimes because in the scheme of things it is very shallow.'
Nigella is self-deprecating - she says she doesn't have a muscle in her body - but is this, like false modesty, a form of vanity? 'I'm vain in the bad ways but not the good ways,' she says. 'I worry about what I look like but I'm too much of a slattern to do anything about it. I will feel guilty because I ate all the children's Maltesers. I go around in trainers and horrible clothes without make-up and without brushing my hair. I'm lazy.'
With a rueful smile, she concedes that she might have to start making more of an effort. Two weeks after John Diamond died, the Mail on Sunday ran a carefully insinuating story about Nigella's friendship with the art collector and advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, suggesting that the two had become 'very close'. A paparazzo's snatched photograph was bought by the paper for more than £20,000, as if to justify the story. 'We were leaving a restaurant for God's sake! At lunch-time. With me in no make-up and glasses!' Was she miffed? 'Not really. One of the things about when you go through a lot is that you don't have it in you to feel. . .' Pause. 'I didn't have the energy to mind a lot. But I did feel that to have a photograph taken of yourself and not know about it is quite horrible.'
She doesn't like having her photograph taken (even when she likes the results). 'Although filming is tedious, at least you are doing something. I'm not an inactive person. I don't like the passivity of posing for photographs. It's so boring I want to punch someone. It's like going to the dentist's: it's not the pain I mind, just the sense I'm being held captive. I like doing programmes like Question Time because they don't allow you time to observe yourself. You are too busy thinking of an answer. Even though I like to think of myself as a docile creature, I probably inherited the Lawson gene of combativeness.'
If women like her because she's not thin, presumably men like her because she is coquettish on camera - the enigmatic smile, the arched eyebrow, taking a fraction too long over licking those sticky fingers of hers. 'You call it being coquettish. I call it simpering. And, yes, I do sometimes worry I'm overdoing it. Television magnifies aspects of my character. I am quite flirtatious. Regardless of sex or species.' A short laugh. 'I do it as an act of courtesy rather than an encouragement to anything sexual.'
Although she once said she was neurotic enough to see the negative in anything positive - 'It's a great Jewish gift' - she tells me she doesn't worry about the inflammatory effect she has on lonely men - and potential stalkers - sitting watching her on their televisions at home. She's not a worrier, she adds. Indeed she rarely bothers to lock her car. If it gets broken into, it gets broken into. This sense of perspective is understandable. Having lost her mother, sister and husband to cancer, she knows worse things can and do happen in life. (Her mother Vanessa died of liver cancer at the age of 48, when Nigella was aged 25; her sister Thomasina, who was 16 months younger than her, died from breast cancer at the age of 32.) 'I've learnt not to dwell on the future. I suppose I do think that awful things can happen at any moment, so while they are not happening you may as well be pleased. Having children around you makes you want to live in the present. You have to make things as normal as possible.'
In terms of bringing up her own children, what lessons did she learn from having a famous father, Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer? 'Politics is very different [to television]. The wonderful thing about having a famous father is that he knew famous people and so you grow up having no reverence for fame, which is very healthy. You know it doesn't mean anything.'
No doubt there can be a shy, reserved side to Nigella Lawson - and some people interpret this as coldness - but it is not in evidence today. She seems flamboyant, if anything, and perhaps this is a persona she can slip in and out of (John Diamond once described her as 'a gay man trapped in a woman's body'). Sitting sideways on the sofa, her Paul Gascoigne legs (her description) tucked underneath her, she is relaxed, warm and likeable - which is a relief, quite frankly, because her brother, Dominic, is the editor of The Sunday Telegraph and he has, she tells me, a tendency to feel overprotective towards her.
Nigel Lawson must have had high expectations of a daughter he named Nigella. And he set high educational standards for his children (Nigella went to Godolphin and Latymer in London). Does she think the knowledge that her father was a high-profile politician gave her an edge in life? 'I don't think of myself as the daughter of a former Chancellor. I think of myself as myself.' She won't be cajoled into expanding on the subject. When How To Be a Domestic Goddess was published last year, Nigella was accused of being part of a post-feminist movement which glamorises domesticity in an attempt to manipulate the working woman into feelings of guilt. Newspapers devoted leader columns to the issue and two columnists had a spat over Nigella in print: Carol Sarler acting for the defence in the Observer, and Charlotte Raven for the prosecution in the Guardian.
'I don't take criticisms personally,' Nigella says, 'which must be very annoying for people who mean them personally.' Smile. 'Some people did take the domestic goddess title literally rather than ironically. It was about the pleasures of feeling like one rather than actually being one. I had to take the view that the people who were saying these things were being deliberately obtuse to make good copy. I do regard myself as a feminist. I was never suggesting that women shouldn't have a job, just that they could enjoy cooking when they put their briefcase down on a Saturday morning. Just because I want to make a cake it doesn't mean I will vote how my husband tells me. Anyway, the idea of me being a domestic goddess is such a joke. Luckily I had plenty of negative character witnesses; my husband said my bedroom looked like a jumble sale. He was very amused by the idea that I was in any way domestically adept.'
Private Eye ran another cartoon last autumn which showed a man reading his newspaper, every section and supplement of which had a Nigella story. Does she worry about being overexposed? 'Yes. Sometimes it can feel preposterous. I thought, "I'm getting bored of it, what will other people feel?" So then I thought I wouldn't do any more [publicity] until the new series. I enjoyed most of it though. There was a local paper which had a caption saying, "Nigella" - they never use my surname - "every thinking man's fantasy and every thinking woman's nightmare."'
She laughs. 'I thought that was rather brilliant! Might have to frame that.' Cosima comes downstairs in her nightie. She can't sleep. Nigella takes her back to bed and, when she returns, I ask how she sleeps. 'With sleeping pills.' Does she have any recurring dreams? 'No.' I nod towards a book about Freud lying on a window ledge. 'That? One of the crew took it off the shelves.' Has she considered being psychoanalysed? 'I'm a great believer in it. I'm interested in why people behave in certain ways. Dominic says I'm the last Freudian.'
In the 1998 television documentary Tongue Tied, about her life with John Diamond, she said she couldn't read when her husband was in hospital, so she turned to cooking as a form of escape instead. It was the same when her sister was dying, only then she took up embroidery. She also said that she couldn't write her best-selling book How To Eat until long after her sister and mother had died because cooking had been a pleasure she shared with them, and the thought of writing it would have made her too unhappy. She was only able to write it when she realised that food is the opposite of death. 'It's about keeping yourself alive.'
Julie Burchill took up this theme in her Guardian column recently: 'The reason why many women remain uncomfortable about the Nigella Lawson phenomenon is not that (just) we are green-eyed bitches jealous of her biblical beauty, but because the whole Domestic Goddess shtick would never even have occurred to any contemporary women who hadn't suffered such a sadly disrupted life. Of course Nigella wanted to play house on such a grand scale - it was probably the only thing keeping her sane. But I find it as uncomfortable to watch as I would a stranger acting out an extreme sex fantasy. It's just too raw and personal.'
Does Nigella find it galling when strangers try to psychoanalyse her? 'There was an element of the comfort-cooking theory that was accurate because if you like feeding people and you are living with someone who can't feed, inevitably you will put more energy into it. But it is grossly distorted. Textbook stuff. Please. It's very simplistic isn't it? Clumsily done. This view that I cook to fill a void in my awful, empty life. . . Actually, I cook because I enjoy it and because I have small children and it helps to have a job I can do at home.'
It is obvious what people mean when they say Nigella is charismatic, but there is also something remote and inscrutable about her. Clearly she is ambitious, but what motivates her? Not money especially (she recently turned down a lucrative offer to appear in Sainsbury's advertisements); nor fame ('I don't think I give off that neediness for an audience.') A recurring theme of our conversation is that she fears boredom; perhaps that is it. She thinks her interest in cooking is about to wane because she has 'a moving-on temperament'. She couldn't move to the country, though, as her brother has done, because 'I would panic there. I don't mind the landscape, it's the country village I loathe. I get bored. The country is like Christmas: nothing to do but eat and drink.' Writing a column about herself 'would bore me and embarrass me'.
Nigella inhabits a strange world of extremes: she has experienced extreme tragedy, extreme success (at the moment there is a bidding war for her programme in the United States) and has the advantage of extreme beauty. Yet her friends remark upon her self-possession, as well as her ability to glide through life. She takes normality, or her version of it, wherever she can find it. According to one of her friends, Olivia Lichtenstein, the idea of Nigella as an ice maiden is laughable because, when you get to know her, she is kind, gentle and honest. She doesn't take herself too seriously and, says Olivia, though she misses John terribly, is not a sentimental person.
What of Nigella's own sense of mortality? Did turning 40 trouble her? 'I don't have a big thing about getting older. My sister was 32 when she died. It would be an obscenity to mind about being 40. I would rather not have any - what are they called in advertisements? - visible signs of ageing. But it doesn't give me panic attacks. I don't think I'll be weeping over old pictures of myself as I grow older. I feel I live off my wits.' She laughs. 'You may feel differently. My looks don't absorb me as much as everyone says. But then, I've had other things to preoccupy me lately. I would be a rather strange person if I was sitting around striking poses, reading my cuttings. Don't you think?'
- The new series of 'Nigella Bites' begins on Channel 4 on Wednesday.
'Nigella Bites' (Chatto & Windus, £20) is available from our retail partner, Amazon, for the special price of £16.00. Click here to order a copy online.


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Peering into the interfaces of nanoscale polymeric materialsJanuary 9, 2012 in Nanotechnology / Nanophysics
(PhysOrg.com) -- The development of polymer nanostructures and nanoscale devices for a wide variety of applications could emerge from new information about the interplay between nanoscale interfaces in polymeric materials, thanks to research carried out at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Sciences Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory.
It is well known that the physical and mechanical properties of polymeric materials confined at the nanoscale differ substantially from the bulk, the so-called nanoconfinement effect. Polymeric materials comprise a compound or mixture of compounds formed by polymerization and consisting essentially of repeating structural units, prepared on impenetrable solid substrates. There is now growing evidence that the air/polymer interface and polymer/substrate interface play crucial roles in such nanoconfinement effects: At the air/polymer interface, there exists a surface mobile layer which enhances the chain dynamics, while an immobile adsorbed layer formed onto solid substrates without specific interactions of a polymer (such as π-π stacking or hydrogen bonds) reduces the dynamics. Although most previous work has revealed the deviations of average quantities of entire nanometer films from the bulk, it is expected that the local quantities within the film would be different from the average ones, depending on the interplay between these interfaces. It was this unanswered question both theoretically and experimentally- that motivated the present study.
In order to understand to what extent these interfacial effects propagate into the film interior and to determine the rheological property of polymeric materials as a function of the distance from the interfaces, researchers from Stony Brook University and Argonne utilized the X-ray Science Division beamline 8-ID at the APS to apply x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) to polystyrene (PS) films with an embedded system of gold nanoparticles that act as markers. With this novel technique, the researchers found that the random drifting (the Brownian motion) of the markers adequately tracked the local viscosity, which controls the flow and the mechanical properties of polymeric materials, governed by chain entanglements. In addition, the use of the two illuminating modes with different incident angles for XPCS enabled them to explore in-situ the marker dynamics at the topmost surface and the near-center region of the film independently.
As a result, they discovered that the viscosity of the topmost surface (~ 10 nm depth) in PS films (~100 nm in thickness) is about 30% lower than that at the center of the film. Moreover, XPCS results conclude the long-standing debate as to whether polymer chains at the topmost surface are entangled or not. The polymer chains at the air/polymer interface are still entangled and the corresponding dynamics are governed by the reptation mechanism, which describes the snake-like large-scale motion of entangled polymer chains, as in the bulk.
This work also reports the emergence of the heterogeneous viscosity distributions within single-layer polymer thin films in thermal equilibrium. The researchers found that while the polymer/air interface is more mobile due to its reduced viscosity, the long-range perturbations (~60-nm in thickness in this case), which are associated with the very thin immobile adsorbed layer (~ 7-nm in thickness), result in an exponential-like increase in the local viscosity with decreasing distance from the substrate interface.
Thus, the present findings shed new light on the interplay between these interfaces on the local rheological property, facilitating the development of new polymer nanostructures and nanoscale devices to be used in a wide variety of fields.
More information: Reduced Viscosity of the Free Surface in Entangled Polymer Melt Films (T. Koga, C. Li, M. K. Endoh, J. Koo, M. Rafailovich, S. Narayanan, D. R. Lee, L. B. Lurio, S. K. Sinha), Phys. Rev. Lett., 104 (2010) 066101.
See: T. Koga, N. Jiang, P. Gin, M. K. Endoh, S. Narayanan, L. B. Lurio, and S. K. Sinha, Impact of an Irreversibly Adsorbed Layer on Local Viscosity of Nanoconfined Polymer Melts, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 225901 (25 November 2011). DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.225901
Provided by Argonne National Laboratory
"Peering into the interfaces of nanoscale polymeric materials" January 9, 2012 https://phys.org/news/2012-01-peering-interfaces-nanoscale-polymeric-materials.html


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You are remembered
Editor's note: This Memorial Day, we honor the sacrifices made by men and women in the military -- as well as others whose service and sacrifice is equally worthy of recognition, even if it wasn't done in military uniform.
There's a movement in some quarters to expand the roster of those honored on Memorial Day beyond the veterans of formally declared wars. My uncle returned from World War II a decorated bomber pilot for 24 completed missions, and my father, his younger brother, came back shell-shocked and on the brink of ruin.
But for me, it takes nothing away from their sacrifices to honor others this day who suffered and/or died to make a better world, even if they didn't do it in uniform. Who would begrudge the victims in the Twin Towers a place among those being remembered today because they were civilians, or the Port Authority police officers and the firefighters because their uniforms weren't military?


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The Pymlico spirit
Designer Roy McCarthy's alternative Olympics brand is for people who want to celebrate the Games in their homes, shops or pubs, without fear of infringing the usage laws of the official 2012 branding
Designer Roy McCarthy's alternative Olympics brand is for people who want to celebrate the Games in their homes, shops or pubs, without fear of infringing the usage laws of the official 2012 branding…
On the BBC's Andrew Marr show last weekend, Lord Coe was interviewed about the legislation relating to the use of the London 2012 branding. His remarks were later quoted by Owen Gibson in The Guardian in an article McCarthy read and was inspired to act upon.
Coe claimed that the legislation was essential "in protecting the sponsors who come to the table with a lot of money to help us stage these Games". For McCarthy, while this remained an understandable attitude to take in regard to regulating the involvement of the event's major sponsors, such a heavy-handed approach has already prevented much smaller businesses, not to mention ordinary individuals, from using any element of the Olympics identity in their celebrations.
McCarthy's solution was to create Pymlico, a free-to-use brand kit featuring a logo, posters, and various supporting identities people could download and use to show their support for the Games.
His project is centred on a target design very similar to the one designer Daniel Eatock designed as part of his bid for the 2012 Olympics logo nine years ago. In response to the reaction to the official 2012 logo, designed by Wolf Olins, in 2007 Eatock also made his roundel design available as an alternative logo for the Games, which could be downloaded from his website as an eps file.
"I had done a design that was more similar to Eatock's, with its distinct rings," says McCarthy, "but as I was about to make the mock-ups I thought I should research it and check, which is when I found his design. So I took the white out and started again with a new design, which became the "LOOK HERE!" logo. I expanded the idea, including a circular version. Since publishing the idea a number of people have pointed out the similarities between the two logos, but I think the differences between the two are big enough to mean there won't be any confusion."
In addition to the icon denoting where Olympics coverage might be screened, McCarthy's graphic device also works across a "HEAR HERE" radio-themed poster. "The aim is to combat something that could become a problem for people who want to show support," he says. "I wanted to turn that into an opportunity to help people, rather than moan about it, to fight a negative with a positive. Someone on Twitter called it 'a great piece of pragmaticism' – that's a nice thing to say."
Pymlico posters could alert passersby to the fact that this pub is screening the Olympics
And unlike the official visual identity for London 2012 and the numerous brands which have a presence on posters, press ads and TV broadcasts, there are no restrictions on the use of the Pymlico brand.
"I see it as a way of putting posters up in windows and saying 'we're watching the Olympics' without using the rings," says McCarthy. "I suppose I want people to respect the needs of the official sponsors, and at the same time show that they don't need to use the official branding, if it's unavailable to them."
How the Pymlico brand might look on a black cab
More on the Pymlico campaign at roymccarthy.com/pymlico and on Twitter at @VivaPymlico.
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Signatures of support for H&L Business Centre to remain open
We the regular patrons of H&L Business Centre seek to keep the business open to serve us and this petition is our show of support in our free and Democratic society of today.
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Gift For Photographer Hoodies
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Since the numbers must first be fetched from storage before they can be added, we want our storage space to be as fast as possible so that the operation can be carried out quickly. Since the ALU is the part of the processor that does the actual addition, we'd like to place the storage as close to it as possible so that the operands can be read almost instantaneously. However, practical considerations, such as a modern CPU's limited die space, constrain the size of the storage area that we can stick next to the ALU. This means that in real life, most computers have a relatively small number of very fast storage locations attached to the ALU. These storage locations are called registers, and the first x86 computers only had 8 of them to work with. These registers store only a small subset of the data that the computer is currently working with.
Although the article is fairly basic, I suspect that more advanced readers will also benefit from it. I know that it was quite helpful for me to go back and think about this material at a more abstract, conceptual level. In writing this article, I sort of felt like I was building large boxes in which to put all of the things I've learned over the years. So it could be that some more savvy readers will find some of my boxes useful. Also, I consider this article, and the series of which it's a part, a work in progress. That being the case, I'd very much like to hear any criticisms or suggestions you may have about my arrangement and presentation of the material. Anyway, enjoy, and I'll start working on the next installment.