World Vignettes

Rod Jackson, associate professor of epidemiology at Auckland university medical school, said a diet high in saturated fats such as butter and other dairy products has made New Zealand among the top ten nations in the world for occurrence of heart disease.

Cleopatra perfume

WASNGTON: Artists over the centuries have left many renditions of Cleopatra’s fabled beauty. Now, readers of National Geographic magazine can experience the scent of her perfume.

Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile, received the Roman statesman Mark Antony on a barge with sails soaked in perfume. Incense burners surrounded her throne withan intoxicating cloud,” the magazine reports in its October edition. The scent of her perfume was reconstructed from ancient formulas, using resins like balsam and myrrh and spices such as cinnamon, cardamom, iris root, lotus and saffron. The result is encapsulated in a special polymer in the magazine. It is activated by warmth, releasing its heavy scent with a few rubs of the finger.

Honesty pays

PHILADELPHIA: A 190-year-old diary, left in a taxi just before the owner was to donate it to the library company, was found in an apartment building hallway by a maintenance man. It’s wonderful news. I’m on a high,” said Cory Luxmoore, who came to Philadelphia from his home in Britain to present the family heirloom to the library.

Luxmoore left the diary of “Saucy Debby” Logan in the back of a taxi when he arrived at his hotel on September four. He and library company officials offered a $1,000 reward for the return of the book on Wednesday.

Tom Brennan said he was changing light bulbs in ahallway at the building when he saw a black nylon bag sitting on a radiator. He and his supervisor, posted a notice in the apartment building to see if an owner would claim it. No one did. Then on Wednesday, they heard a radio news story about the missing book and contacted the library company.

Sunk champagne

SAN FRANCISCO: Fine wine is known to improve with age. That may explain the $3,500 dollar price tag for each of the 500 bottles of bubbly recovered from a ship that sank more than 80 years ago. Swedish divers recovered the 1907 Heidsieck Monopole champagne from the wreck of the Jonkoping, which has rested 210 feet (65 metres) under the surface of the Baltic Sea since World War I.

The 82-foot (25-metre) Swedish schooner was stopped in 1916 by a German submarine patrolling off the coast of Finland. Inside, German sailors found 5,000 bottles of champagne, 9,500 gallons 36,000 litres of cognac and nearly 1,600 gallons (6,000 litres) of red wine bound for the Czar of Russia and his thirstytroops. The submarine commander ordered the ship sunk.

Only the champagne survived.

The water’s frigid temperature 35 f(2 c) preserved the sparkling wine in a state of suspended animation,” said Glenn Siegel, president of the wine spectrum in Santa Rosa, which obtained exclusive rights to market the bubbly in the United States.