Angel of Iran

Neda and her music teacher had gone to join an anti-government protest as thousands of young Iranians took to the streets. Moments later the 27-year-old philosophy student, who had singing lessons in secret, fell to the ground from a single shot wound. Neda Agha-Soltan was killed on Saturday during a protest in Tehran sparked by the disputed presidential election which saw hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected. A series of huge rallies have been held in the city by enraged supporters of the more moderate candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. In scenes reminiscent of the Tiananmen Square massacre, rebel Iranians have been bloodily suppressed. A video of Neda's death has been circulated around the world and the apolitical woman has become a symbol of the fight for freedom and democracy. The graphic, hard-hitting amateur footage shows the young Iranian on the ground, her helpless music teacher willing her to stay alive as blood pours from her chest wound and spreads over her face. Within an hour, footage of the video had been posted on You Tube as evidence of the killing of innocent and largely peaceful protesters. Neda's name means 'voice' or 'call' in Persian and already she is being hailed as the voice of Iran. Neda was one of thousands of women who took to the streets to demand a recount of the presidential vote which they believe was rigged by the Government. About 70 per cent of Iranians are under 30 and are growing up in a digital media age linked to the western world by Twitter and social networking site Facebook. Iranian women, who are persecuted for not adhering to strict Islamic dress codes, are blogging, reaching audiences outside the regime. Photos of Neda have been used at demonstrations around the world from Istanbul to Los Angeles. Twitter users have been tinting their profile pictures green in solidarity with Iranians and a Facebook page entitled 'Angel of Iran' has been set up to honour Neda. Nearly 12,000 people have joined the group adding video footage of the moments leading up to her death and her death itself. Discussion boards are packed with messages of support crossing borders, religion and culture. It seems Neda's death is fuelling the passion for democracy in Iran.

Nettle-eater

Last week about 50 people chewed through two foot long stalks of stinging nettles. They had one hour to eat as many leaves as possible and beat the current champion nettle-eater. The winner is the person with the longest length of empty stalk. This wonderfully bizarre English competition stems from an argument between two farmers in the mid-1980s over who had the longest stinging nettles. I know it sounds mad, but stinging nettles make great tea. The first time my fellow vegetarian colleague tried to make me drink nettle tea I was far from convinced - it has an unfortunate smell like sweaty feet and looks like pond water - but the dark green liquid has an abundance of health related properties. Even the Romans used it to cure chronic rheumatism by flogging each other with the stingers. It can soothe allergic reactions such as hay fever and gargled it can heal a sore throat. Nettles are also very useful when suffering from the alcoholic excess of a night before. These soft yet prickly leaves have been used for hundreds of years as a folk remedy, brewed as teas, steamed and eaten like spinach or applied to the skin as a painkiller. I'm not suggesting we all hurry out in search of wasteland to pluck these weeds from the ground and start beating each other with the stalks or chewing them, but there's something to be said for natural remedies.

District and Circle

The weekend before someone in a hurry knocked her over at Victoria train station. She went flying twisting on her heels as she hit the ground. Slightly inebriated she gathered herself up and carried on walking to the train. The two-hour train ride passed uneventfully and she got home, by now in some considerable pain. It turns out she had fractured her ankle and broken some bones in her foot. All because someone was in a hurry. When the tube strike crippled the transport network in the city last week, thousands of commuters stood like confused and lost sheep stuck outside train stations, groaning at bus queues and ringing to warn already absent bosses they would be late. Business leaders estimated it would cost the economy £50million a day. The city had been forcibly slowed down. I normally move like a silent, slightly uncomfortable country bumpkin from one carriage to the next, then onto a new train, unaware of the true distance of places in the blackness of the underground. Bus people are different. Used to the constant stop start of the bus, they accept the journey and take their time reading and people watching from the space above the ground. I too was pleased to be out of the hostile tunnels. It was just as he described it in District and Circle. But I had rushed then - anxious to arrive on time to hear Seamus Heaney read his own poetry. His lyrical Irish tone captivated the audience and that poem, which sits somewhere near the beginning of my autographed book, summed up the hurry which pervades London life...a crowd half straggle-ravelled and half strung like a human chain, the pushy newcomers jostling and purling underneath the vault, on their marks to be the first through the doors.

Patience is a virtue

My housemate played us the clip which had been posted online. It shows the retired soldier breaking through a police cordon, dropping his plastic bag on the ground and clambering onto the bridge in southern China. He shunts up the metal sides and reaches over and shakes the suicidal man's hand. Moments later he pushes him off the bridge. Admittedly the clip was fairly comical - perhaps it was the disbelief that someone would actually do that. Apparently Mr Lai was annoyed by the suicidal man's selfish atttempts to kill himself which had caused a traffic jam. After the push the suicidal man fell 26ft onto a partially inflated air cushion. The suicidal man, who is recovering in hospital, told police he wanted to kill himself because he was heavily in debt following a failed construction project. Mr Lai didn't care. He was being held up. His impatience got the better of him and he finally cracked after being held up several times before by 'selfish jumpers'. I was chatting to the eccentric literary enthusiast, who shares my love of strange artwork, about the Chinese pusher. You see every time there's so much as a near fatal incident it's our job to get to it. We're the ones cursing the traffic, slipping under the police cordon, approaching the emergency services and the family. There's a buzz which comes from a breaking news story, regardless of whether it's fatal, a near miss or a miracle escape. But next time you're caught in traffic on the motorway spare a thought for the suicidal man.

Mind over matter

A woman lost almost four stone in weight after she was hypnotised into believing she had had a gastric band fitted. Thirty five year old Marion Corns spent £780 on five sessions with a specialist hypnotherapist after her weight ballooned to more than 15 stone. The married housewife had been tipped-off by a friend who had been hypnotised and successfully given up smoking. Marion discovered the Spanish clinic also carried out 'gastric mind band' therapy. The mum of three was given a virtual tour through the operation with imagery, hospital aromas and props. She was hypnotised and talked through every step of the medical procedure as if she were in an operating theatre. The 'surgeon' told Marion her stomach was the size of a golf ball. Four months later and cue a slim line Marion. She was splashed about the newspapers, women's magazines and online sites. So it seems losing weight is really just a case of mind over matter.

Dead man's father

He came over and introduced himself. His voice was even and firm despite the tragedy. His houndstooth blazer, gently infused with cigar smoke, strained against his stomach. He reached out his hand and I shook it. He was the dead man's father. "I tried to catch your eye yesterday but you didn't look up," he said. "Do you work at the Herald?" It was half way through the trial and he had listened to the details of his son's death pieced together by legal experts and played out in the court. The woman at the centre of the love triangle had stood in the witness box, but her estranged husband, the man responsible for stabbing this father's son, waited in the dock. "How are you coping with the trial?" I asked him. His movements were slow and racked with grief, but his voice stayed steady, "It's been good to piece together what happened to him on that night. There's a lot we didn't know." He talked about his faith pulling him through and about his son, his eyes welling up but his face displaying little emotion. His openness and honesty disarmed me. Never before had a bereaved relative walked over to introduce themselves and spoken so readily about their feelings. "If it was up to me he would be hanged," the elderly Christian father said. He was concerned the jury wouldn't find the tattooed defendant, whose jealousy and possessiveness led him to kill, guilty of murder. We spoke again after the jury delivered their verdict. Two hours they sat in the room and unanimously decided the killer was not a murderer. Eight years for manslaughter and he'd be out in three. Fighting back the tears the dead man's father took out a cigar and lit it facing away from the wind. Smoke curled up between his yellow finger nails. His thin white hair blew across his face. "He has destroyed nine people's lives and not even got one year in his sentence for each of those lives he has ruined. He will probably be out in three or four years and have his life back. We will never pick up the pieces," he said.

National Escargot Day

In ten days time Cafe Rouge will be serving them up for less than £5 a portion. They'll be 34,000 of them. In Norwich one restaurant is planning a snail hunt to celebrate National Escargot Day. People can hunt for 20 huge cut-out snails around the city with the chance of winning Eurostar tickets to Paris. Heston Blumenthal, the owner of the best restaurant in the world, makes porridge with them. Thankfully vegetarianism creeped up on me ten years ago and the delights of sautéed snails on Parma ham porridge have eluded my taste buds. Instead I have spent the last two weeks rummaging through my flowerbed like a crazed horticulturist lobbing the slimy creatures into the park. I'm hoping it will take them a good few weeks to regain consciousness (having been thrown through the air with vengeance) and even longer for them to crawl back onto my garden. Unfortunately some snails live for up to 15 years. Perhaps I should collect them and sell them on for profit? There are hundreds of forums telling you how to keep pet snails. One such site informs you that snails do react to stimuli and can get bored. It's therefore 'imperative' to keep your snails in a fairly interesting home, with nooks and crannies to hide and compost or peat for them to burrow in. Can you imagine getting up in the morning and stepping over Marjorie the snail on the way to the bathroom after she's left a trail of slime in her wake? The same site also tells prospective snail owners that snails respond well to being handled, and though primarily nocturnal can be encouraged to emerge at other times of the day very easily. Oh great. So they come crawling out of the nooks and crannies in your house and do what exactly? Suddenly having them in the flowerbed seems to be the lesser of two evils.