World Vignettes

Nagging is not so bad after allLOS ANGELES: Never underestimate the buying power of a nagging child. A new survey released yesterday conclud...

Nagging is not so bad after all

LOS ANGELES: Never underestimate the buying power of a nagging child. A new survey released yesterday concludes that quot;nagging is serious businessquot;. It found that between 20 and 45 per cent of sales to children of things like toys and French fries occur because a child has successfully quot;naggedquot; a parent for it. The study conducted for western international media, a Los Angeles media and advertising marketing company, first had 150 mothers with children aged between three and eight keep diaries for two weeks of their children8217;s demands. A total of 10,000 quot;nagsquot; was recorded in the two week period. A later telephone survey of 300 additional mothers determined when nagging actually resulted in a purchase. The survey, conducted by Lieberman Research worldwide for western media, found that a sale also depended on the quality of the quot;nagquot;.

Historic birth

SOFIA: A Bulgarian woman recently gave birth to her 22nd child, setting a record in the country8217;shistory. Teventana Stefanova, a 38-year-old gypsy woman living in the north Bulgaria city of Lom, got married at the age of 15. From then on, she has been giving birth at the rate of one child in one year, reported Dneven Trud, a leading Bulgarian newspaper. Stefanova and her husband with their 15 kids are now living in a house with no electricity and water. Their seven grown-up children have left them to earn a living. Due to a decline in birth rate and a rise in mortality, Bulgaria8217;s population has been continuously dropping in recent years.

Star accidents

TOKYO: Japanese police have issued a warning to drivers based on the horoscope, saying a detailed study of road accidents has revealed danger days for each star sign, a trafic officer said Wednesday. The caution is not an April Fool8217;s joke, he assured. Police in the central Japan prefecture of Niigata distributed a calendar around the area highlighting the results of the study, the traffic official said. It is based on a study of morethan 62,000 road accidents from November 1993 to October 1997 in the prefecture, he said. quot;Some people phoned us to get a copy, but we have only distributed it to police stations, schools and other public places for posting in the prefecture,quot; the official said.

Grape succour

WASHINGTON: Drinking purple grape juice may be as effective as taking a daily aspirin to prevent the formation of blood clots that can lead to heart attacks, a preliminary study by John D Folts of the University of Wisconsin Medical School says. The finding has been reported by Folts to a meeting of the American College of Cardiology. Folts, who first showed in animal experiments in 1974, that aspirin can lower the incidence of heart attacks, has been studying substances called flavonoids, present in purple grape juice, tea and red wine, that reduce the stickiness of platelets small blood cells that initiate clotting. Researchers believe that aspirin8217;s ability to make platelets less sticky helps in preventing occurance ofheart attacks.

Ice-cream treat

MERIDA: Forget the traditional assortment of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavoured ice-cream 8211; a parlour in this Andean mountain city in Venezuela has a more exotic range offer. Ice-cream lovers entering the heladeria coromoto face a tantalising choice between nearly 700 different flavours, including garlic, beer, onion, spaghetti, fish and meat. With its extensive range of frozen flavoured cream or custard the andean parlour has held the world ice-cream selection range record for the past seven years. quot;We8217;ve never been short of ideas, only ingredients,quot; says ice-cream vendor Juan Da Corto with a laugh.