• Convenience: 95 per cent of internet shoppers state at least one convenience-related reason. Convenience has many aspects. In particular, 24/7 access (cited by 83 per cent) and being able to find what you want quickly (cited by 80 per cent) indicate that the time saving aspect of online shopping is crucial. The other key aspect of convenience is that shoppers can avoid some of the disadvantages of offline shopping, such as having to carry items. For instance, 78 per cent of internet shoppers named ‘shopping in comfort’ and 64 per cent ‘avoiding crowds’ as key reasons why they shopped online. One focus group participant noted ‘I can shop in my underpants – that is pretty convenient’. Another commented: ‘You can sit back in your house… put the details in… not having to find parking spaces, not having to queue in stores and it is done!’ • Choice: The second main benefit people perceived was increased variety. In our survey, 74 per cent cited wider choice and ability to compare prices as reasons why they shopped online. Those living in rural or remote areas added that they can buy items not available nearby: ‘I was after Superman swim shorts – do you think that I could get those here?’.62 Indeed, 38 per cent of internet shoppers said that it was the only way that they could obtain some items and 46 per cent of respondents cited being able to buy products unavailable in the UK, highlighting the reduction in market barriers brought about by the internet. This includes lower market barriers within the UK, for example for second hand items, with 35 per cent of internet shoppers indicating that online shopping gave them more choice of second hand items. • Perceived lower prices: Financial motivation was also important. Seventy-two per cent of survey respondents stated lower prices as a reason for shopping online, with 53 per cent mentioning special offers and 45 per cent free delivery of goods. Shoppers in our focus groups generally thought prices were lower, citing ‘getting a bargain’ as a core reason for online shopping.
Coeducation refers to the education of males and females at the same institution. The founding of Oberlin College in 1833 is generally recognized as the beginning of coeducational higher education in the United States, although it was not until 1841 that Oberlin granted to women the first college degrees equal to those granted to men. Prior to this time, men and women received their higher education at single-sex institutions, with male-only institutions greatly outnumbering those available to women. Some new small colleges, especially in the Midwest, quickly followed Oberlin’s lead, as did the University of Iowa, which has continuously admitted women, as well as men, since its opening in 1855. However, coeducation was not adopted by already existing institutions until the Civil War when their shortage of students prompted some all-male institutions to admit women for the first time in their histories. Some of these institutions reverted back to male-only policies after the war was over, but there were economic, ideological, and political developments in the following 150 years that fostered both the trend toward coeducation in newly founded colleges and universities and the trend toward giving women access to what had formerly been male-only institutions. Chief among these were the larger enrollments and reduced costs that resulted from educating women in the same institutions as men; the struggles of feminist movements for gender equity; and the legal framework governing higher education in the United States.
Coeducation was not unopposed, however. From the early 1800s onward, controversy raged about what form of higher education, if any, was necessary or suitable for women. The exact content of these debates varied across place and time, but it is possible to identify three major themes that characterized most of the opposition to coeducation. These themes concerned women’s access to higher education, women’s place within coeducational institutions (once they gained access), and women’s treatment within coeducational institutions—especially in contrast to the treatment of men. Opposition to women’s Access ranged from nineteenth-century arguments against allowing women to receive any form of higher education to subsequent attempts to bar them from specific institutions. Efforts to confine women to “appropriate” places within coeducational institutions began at the turn of the twentieth century and continued until the 1970s when concerns shifted to the ways in which women were being treated in those institutions. Although those who expressed these critical concerns have not stopped the trend toward coeducation, they have made it clear that gaining equal access to institutions of higher education and to all of their programs does not ensure that women and men are receiving equally good educations.
Prior to the Civil War, most institutions of higher education were small, poor, and shortlived. Only two state universities—South Carolina and Virginia—received regular state appropriations. Their student bodies consisted of the sons of the planter aristocracy, rather than a cross section of young men from various social classes. In those two states, as in others, students from more humble backgrounds were more likely to attend denominational colleges established by a large variety of religious groups. These colleges proliferated from the 1850s into the 1890s, with many of them being established by missionaries along the ever-moving American frontier and, after the Civil War, in the South among former slave populations.
Because their goal was to provide higher education for all of their church members and converts, religious denominations often tried to provide education for both men and women. In older, more populated, and wealthier parts of the United States, this effort sometimes took the form of establishing separate institutions for men and, usually later, for women, but in the Midwest and West, and among ex-slaves in the South, denominational colleges were more likely to be coeducational and to have multipurpose curricula, including teacher training, that appealed to women as well as men. Coeducation was no guarantee, however, that denominational or even state institutions would be successful. Nevertheless, the growing demand for schoolteachers during and after the Civil War and the growing willingness of school officials to hire women for these jobs created a need for women’s higher education that could not be met only by women’s colleges which, already by 1870, were greatly outnumbered by coeducational institutions of higher education.
It would be a mistake to assume that the missionaries, religious groups, philanthropic donors, and state legislatures responsible for the proliferation of coeducational institutions were guided by ideologies that favored gender integration and equity. It is more likely that most of them held the traditional views of gender typical of their times and regarded coeducation as more of an economic necessity than a matter of justice. Even the strongest advocates for women’s education often failed to embrace the political goals of the firstwave feminists who were active on behalf of women’s rights, including suffrage, from the 1830s to the 1920s. While it is certainly true that these educational leaders championed women’s rights to higher education, it is also true that they often accepted gender segregation and advocated more protective single-sex, rather than coeducational, colleges for women. To obtain support for their efforts to provide women with high-quality educations, these advocates for women’s colleges often used traditional assumptions about gender differences such as the notion that women were naturally more pious, gentle, and virtuous than men. When coupled with a solid education, they argued, women’s essential goodness could have beneficial influence on sons, husbands, and other men and, through them, on social and political life.
Even those who advocated or wanted access to coeducation made use of arguments based on assumptions about the essential nature of women. The presence of women on campus, it was claimed, would have beneficial effects, including a softening influence, on male students. Because of their daily interactions with women in an educational environment, college men would exhibit better manners than those of the rowdy fraternity boys at some of the established male-only institutions. And under the tutelage of their women peers, college men would also increase their appreciation of the arts, music, and other refinements.
This tendency to defend higher education for women on the grounds that it would improve the lives of men continued into the second half of the twentieth century. When Mabel Newcomer published her history of women’s higher education in 1959, she expressed the belief of her contemporaries—as well as that of earlier historical periods —when she wrote that neither the advocates nor the opponents of college education for women seriously questioned that homemaking is woman’s most important role and went on to claim that attending college actually made women better wives, mothers, housekeepers, and community workers than noncollege women.
Newcomer’s congratulatory stance regarding higher education for women came under attack in the 1960s and 1970s when second-wave feminism emerged as a popular and powerful social movement. Feminists argued that women should not be required to put mothering and other family duties ahead of all other roles, and they should not live their lives through their husbands and children. Echoing a demand made by first-wave feminists more than 100 years earlier, the second-wave feminists said that the time had come to admit women to the elite male universities (and to all other male-only institutions). Once that happened, women’s colleges would have no further justification because they were nothing more than a consequence of gender segregation and traditionalism and they had failed in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to embrace, let alone lead, the fight for political and economic equality for women. Single-sex colleges also were charged with creating an artificial world that prevented women from working closely with men on serious endeavors and from competing with men academically. Although they were viewed as far from perfect alternatives, coeducational colleges and universities were considered to be more reflective of the “real world.” They also became, in the decades leading into the twenty-first century, the sites of much feminist activity and many successes in the battle for equal rights and opportunities.
These successes and the earlier successes of those who promoted coeducation in the 1800s and early 1900s were greatly facilitated by the legal framework for higher education that evolved after the passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act in 1862. That act affirmed the importance of public higher education by making public lands available to states to endow colleges. Even though the legislation did not specifically list the education of women as one of the goals that public colleges should meet, most parents assumed that Land Grant institutions should educate their daughters as well as their sons, and women gradually established their right to attend. After the funding for public higher education was improved under the second Morrill Act of 1890 and was extended to African Americans, these public institutions underwent considerable expansion and went on to become the largest coeducational institutions in the country.
Legal changes concerned specifically with gender and schooling did not appear at the U.S. federal level until the 1970s. Most important to the struggle for gender equity within public institutions has been Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 which provided that no person in the United States could, on the basis of sex, be subjected to discrimination in any education program or activity receiving financial assistance from the federal government. Despite many efforts by educational institutions to interpret “program or activity” as narrowly as possible, and despite some support for these narrow interpretations by the courts, the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, passed over the veto of President Ronald Reagan, specified that Title IX applied to all the operations of a college or university, not only those programs or activities that directly received federal funds.
Another important legal milestone on the road to gender equity in higher education was the law passed in 1975 directing that women be admitted to America’s military service academies in 1976 and thereafter. Also put into the service of coeducation was the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. constitution, which the Supreme Court used as the basis for its decision in 1996 that the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) had to admit women. That decision, in effect, made all U.S. public colleges and universities coeducational and brought to an end the right of any public college or university to bar all women (or all men) from institutional access.
By the time of the VMI decision, almost all private colleges and universities that had begun as male-only institutions had already become coeducational, with Columbia University, in 1983, being the last of the Ivy League colleges to admit women to its undergraduate programs. As was true of most other major men’s universities in the United States, Columbia had begun admitting women to graduate work back in the 1890s, a move that was justified largely on the grounds of the prohibitive cost of trying to establish separate graduate programs for women and was legitimated by the even earlier admission of American women to successful graduate work in Swiss and German universities that served as models for graduate education in the United States.
For millions of PC users in the 1990s, “going online” meant connecting to America Online. However, this once dominant service provider has had difficulty adapting to the changing world of the Internet.
By the mid-1980s a growing number of PC users were starting to go online, mainly dialing up small bulletin board services. Generally these were run by individuals from their homes, offering a forum for discussion and a way for users to upload and download games and other free software and shareware. However, some entrepreneurs saw the possibility of creating a commercial information service that would be interesting and useful enough that users would pay a monthly subscription fee for access. Perhaps the first such enterprise to be successful was Quantum Computer Services, founded by Jim Kimsey in 1985 and soon joined by another young entrepreneur, Steve Case. Their strategy was to team up with personal computer makers such as Commodore, Apple, and IBM to provide special online services for their users.
In 1989 Quantum Link changed its name to America Online (AOL). In 1991 Steve Case became CEO, taking over from the retiring Kimsey. Case’s approach to marketing AOL was to aim the service at novice PC users who had trouble mastering arcane DOS (disk operating system) commands and interacting with text-based bulletin boards and primitive terminal programs. As an alternative, AOL provided a complete software package that managed the user’s connection, presented “friendly” graphics, and offered point-andclick access to features.
Chat rooms and discussion boards were also expanded and offered in a variety of formats for casual and more formal use. Gaming, too, was a major emphasis of the early AOL, with some of the first online multiplayer fantasy roleplaying games such as a version of Dungeons and Dragons called Neverwinter Nights. A third popular application has been instant messaging (IM), including a feature that allowed users to set up “buddy lists” of their friends and keep track of when they were online
Street fairs can be unruly events. But when the whole purpose of the gathering is to create as much muck as possible, they move into a league of their own.
Food fights are surprisingly common festival activities the world over, and more often than not, the weapon of choice is the humble tomato. Each year, on the last Wednesday in August, as many as 30,000 people descend on the small village of Buñol in Valencia to celebrate theTomatina Festival. They have been coming here since 1944 to pummel each other with over-ripe tomatoes grown especially for the event. Sure, the scene is messy but at least it is relatively pain free (and low fat).
Not so in Piedmont, where partygoers are armed with welt-causing oranges. Legend has it the catalyst for the event was a local woman in the 12th Century who, on her wedding day, refused to let the local duke sleep with her. She chopped off his head and (presumably) hurled it at him. Ouch.
For organizers faced with the unbridled enthusiasm of gathering hordes, even the gentlest festival can quickly turn messy. Take International Pillow Fight Day for example, a flash mob event now celebrated in more than one hundred cities all over the world, from Accra to Zürich. The pillow fights are so ferocious the pillows often burst on impact, sending plumes of stuffing sky high. (Participants are encouraged to use hypoallergenic pillows.)
While a street full of stuffing, tomatoes or oranges might not be the most beautiful sight to behold, some messy festivals result in a painted wonderland. In Galaxidi, a small fishing village in Greece, revellers hurl multicoloured flour to celebrate one of the holiest (and most ironically named) days of the year - Clean Monday. The colouring in the flour is so strong it stains the brickwork (homes and businesses tend to wrap their property in plastic).
Only one messy festival does not requires an Olympic-sized cleanup crew - the Tintamarre festival held in the sleepy bayside town of Caraquet, in Canada. The population swells from 4,100 to almost ten times that amount during August when the Acadian French community celebrate its national day. Participants arrive with foghorns on trailers, bladeless chainsaws, and noise-makers of every description, with the sole intent of creating an unruly din.
And how did this odd, cacophonous gathering come about? In 1963, two centuries after British forces attempted to oust the Acadian French from the region, the local priest in Caraquet asked his parishioners to make some noise to let the world know that Acadians were alive and well. Not surprisingly, the celebration grew. Like their fellow tomato throwers and paint hurlers around the world, the people of Caraquet just wanted a chance to make their mark on the world.
The Big Apple is known as one of the most romantic cities in the world – second only to Paris, perhaps – but how do you induce romance in the snow-piled slippery streets of winter?
The best way to be romantic in New York is tosee New York. You can hike little-knownCentral Park trails, wander the grounds uptown at the Cloisters museum in Fort Tryon Park, or even kiss your sweetie in Times Square a la the famous V-J Day photo. As an added bonus, the famous landmark recently became a pedestrian-only zone, complete with café tables, making it a perfect place to relax. For Sleepless in Seattle fans, climb to the observatory at theEmpire State Building, although the view from atop Rockefeller Center is just as magnificent. Plus, the Top of the Rock Observation Deck features a live music series in February.
If ice skating gets your blood flowing, the Pond at Bryant Park is free if you have your own skates. But the best outdoor skating is at Wollman Rink and Lasker Rink, on either end of Central Park. Or, see the great island by boat on a Circle Line day cruise, a World Yacht dinner cruise, or even the free Staten Island Ferry, where you sail right past Lady Liberty.
Once you have had your fill of the cold, grab your Valentine for some "Wicked" hot chocolate with allspice, cinnamon and chilli peppers at one of Jacques Torres six New York stores. Pick up some champagne truffles at La Maison du Chocolat, or stop by Kee's Chocolate, where you can see the chocolate being made next door. City Bakery is renowned for its thick hot chocolate and house-mad marshmallows.
For dinner, try to book a table at the candle chandelier-lit restaurant One of By Land, Two if By Sea, Aaron Burr's former carriage house. Piano and trumpet players infuse classic jazz into the bar and three dining rooms. Sit by the fireplace or near the windows with icicle-tinged trees and try not to eat all the cheesy pretzel-challah bread so you will have room for their classic Beef Wellington and buttery poached lobster. Reservations are a must.
Alternatively, you may want to try the intimate dining experience that is created by eating in the dark. Dark Dining Projects are most often held at Camaje Bistro but you could be anywhere because you are blindfolded with foamy blackout visors before entering, and deposited outside after the two-hour culinary experience. Dana Salisbury, a dancer and visual artist who serves as the host, will lead you by the hand to your table, and wait staff will orient you to your mysterious food and drink. When you are denied the ability to see the three-course meal, watch your partner talk or see the restaurant, you will find food - and all your senses - heightened.
Aphrodisiacs are in order for a romantic day in the city, and the hard-to-find Apotheke bar, named after old-style pharmacies and perfumeries, specializes in love potions such as a Madagascan Vanilla Sidecar (cognac infused with Madagascan vanilla, aromatic bitters and lime) or the Deal Closer (vodka infused with local Chinatown aphrodisiacs, fresh mint, cucumber, lime and vanilla essence).
For drinks with a view, try the Mandarin Hotel at Columbus Circle for a spectacular panorama overlooking Central Park. Or be daring in the cosy leather booths at the White Star bar on the Lower East Side (21 Essex Street; 212-995-5464), and try some absinthe. The dark Shalel Lounge (65 W 70th Street; 212-873-2300), housed down a few stairs on the Upper West Side, feels intimate and Middle Eastern with its and half-moon entrance ways.
You may not be in Paris, but New York has everything you need for a romantic outing, even in the dead of winter.
The mammoth Pergamon Altar from the ancient city of Babylon, now enclosed in the Pergamon Museum, Berlin. Image Broker/LPI
In the past 100 years alone Berlin has staged a revolution, headquartered fascists, been divided, then reunited – a past that feeds the city’s experimental character.
Avant-garde museums, eclectic galleries, grand opera and late-night clubs – they’re all here.
See
The Pergamon Museum is a feast of classical Greek, Babylonian, Roman, Islamic and Middle Eastern art and architecture. The highlight is the marble Pergamon Altar (00 49 30 2090 5555; Museum Island; 10am-6pm Fri-Wed, 10am-10pm Thu; £10).
For great city views, take the lift to the observation deck of the Panoramapunkt. From here it's easy to see that Potsdamer Platz is divided into three: Daimler City, the flashy Sony Centre, and the Beisheim Centre inspired by American skyscraper design (panorama punkt.de; Potsdamer Platz 1; 10am-8pm; £4).
For an eye-opening exploration of 2,000 years of Jewish history in Germany visit the Jüdisches Museum. Learn about Jewish cultural contributions and leading figures, as well as the Holocaust (00 49 30 2599 3300; jmberlin.de; Lindenstrasse 9-14; 10am-10pm Mon, 10am-8pm Tue-Sun; £4).
Berlinagenten specialises in private customised tours off the beaten track and into unique boutiques, bars and restaurants - even private homes. For the culinary scene try the Gastro-Rallye tour (00 49 30 4372 0701; berlinagenten. com; from £148 per person).
Little more than a mile of the Berlin Wall survives as a symbol of the triumph of freedom over oppression. The best-preserved stretch is the East Side Gallery, turned into an open-air gallery by artists in 1990. A Wall Guide maps its course, with commentary and GPS (mauerguide.de; £8 per day).
Eat and drink
Anna Blume, Prenzlauerberg, lures patrons into its velvety art-nouveau interior all day long. Perfumed by homemade cakes, java coffee, and flowers from the attached shop, it has a good people-watching terrace too (00 49 30 4404 8749; cafe-annablume. de; Kollwitzstrasse 83; 8am-2am; mains £4-£8).
The lamps and Meissen tile mural are from the old GDR-era Palast der Republik (former East German parliament), but Tartane is a contemporary gastro pub. Bohemian clientele enjoy burgers and Kölsch beer from Cologne (00 49 30 4472 7036; tartane.de; Torstrasse 225; 6pm-2am Mon-Sat; mains £7-£15).
Engelbecken is a lakeside charmer with impeccably crafted German soul food. Local organic meat and seasonal produce might include roast organic veal meat loaf (00 49 30 6152810; Witzlebenstrasse 31; dinner Mon-Sat; midday-1am Sun; mains £7-£18).
At hip Spindler & Klatt, in a former Prussian bread factory, loll on a platform bed while eating creative fusion dishes such as beef bavette and sesame potatoes (00 49 30 319 881 860; spindler klatt.com; Köpenicker Strasse 16-17; dinner, Thurs-Sun; mains £12-£18).
Try Michael Kempf's Michelinstarred cuisine at avant-garde Facil. Expect elegantly presented dishes such as alba truffles or saddle of poulting hare (00 49 30 59005 1234; facil.de; Mandala Hotel, Potsdamer Strasse 3; Mon-Fri; two-course lunch £25, dinner from £70).
Sleep
Helmut Newton studied with fashion photographer Yva at the Hotel Bogota in the 1930s and this landmark still hosts glam photoshoots. It has great vintage charm, period panelling up the staircase and retro furnishings. Room sizes vary greatly and the cheaper ones share a bathroom (00 49 30 881 5001; hotel-bogota. de; Schlüterstrasse 45; from £53).
Propeller Island City Lodge was inspired by Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and each of the 32 rooms is a journey to a unique, surreal world. Wake up in a Disney-style castle, a padded prison cell or a kaleidoscope (00 49 30 891 9016; propeller-island.de; Albrecht- Achilles-Strasse 58; from £70).
Arte Luise Kunsthotel bills itself as a 'gallery with rooms'. Each room reflects the vision of a different artist, who receives royalties whenever it's booked. You might sleep in a bed built for giants, in the company of astronauts or in a red 'Cabaret'. Courtyard rooms are quieter (00 49 30 284 480; luise-berlin.com; Luisenstrasse 19; from £85).
Arcotel John F pays homage to John F Kennedy with whimsical detail, including rocking chairs (because he used one to combat a bad back) and curvaceous lamps inspired by Jackie's ball gown (00 49 30 405 0460; arcotelhotels.com; Werderscher Markt 11; from £100).
Once a 19th-century bank HQ, the Hotel de Rome has since been transformed by designer Tommaso Ziffer into a modern hotel. The former vault is now the pool/spa area and the directors' rooms, still with wartime shrapnel damage, are now suites with luxurious furnishings (00 49 30 460 6090; hotelderome.com; Behrenstrasse 37; from £330).
Getting around
Berlin's public transport system is run by BVG and consists of the U-Bahn and S-Bahn trains, buses and trams (bvg.de). Buy train tickets from vending machines at stations. For taxi rides up to two miles, request the Kurzstreckentarif - short-trip rate (£3.50 per trip).
Getting there
Many airlines fly to Tegel or Schönefeld airports, including Ryanair, easyJet and Air Berlin from various UK airports among others (from £70; easyjet.com; ryanair.com; airberlin.com). The Airport Express train connects Schönefeld to the city centre in 28 minutes (£2.50); a taxi there costs around £30.
The International Cricket Council knows that there is huge expectation ahead of this World Cup.
We cannot afford to have anything but a rip-roaring success after the disappointments of the last two tournaments, both of which limped drearily to their conclusions.
The World Cup, which is supposed to present cricket to a global audience in its most attractive light, has become flabby, unwieldy and far too long.
India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka now have an opportunity to host an event which gathers momentum and excitement over the next seven weeks, and given their cricket-crazy citizens, they already have a good starting point.
Will India's fanatical supporters watch games not involving their side?
Sri Lanka's win in 1996 is the only instance of a host nation winning the World Cup, when they co-hosted with India and Pakistan (although the final was in Lahore). But given that there are three co-hosts again this time, there is an increased possibility of it happening for a second time.
India and Sri Lanka certainly start the tournament strongly fancied. I take India to win although a ball is yet to be bowled, and their passage to the final would do wonders for the atmosphere and interest in the competition.
They have stroke-players and play-makers, reverse swing bowlers and two decent spinners and, under Gary Kirsten, India's fielding has also picked up.
Their fanatical supporters will cheer them on, and rack up the pressure of expectation in equal measure, but India's players are used to that.
Sri Lanka beat Australia in their brief series before the Ashes and will play well on their own pitches, and even Bangladesh might pull off a surprise or two given that they are playing all their qualifying matches on their desperately slow tracks.
South Africa always looks as if they have the all-round strength to win the World Cup, but they blow it under pressure, while Australia are very difficult to read at the moment.
They have Ricky Ponting back again, but Michael Hussey and Nathan Hauritz are big losses. In Shaun Tait and Brett Lee they have the fastest attack in the tournament, but their lack of a front-line spinner is a real problem in this part of the world.
And so to England. Thrashed after winning the Ashes, they could easily point to fatigue as a contributing factor. The injuries sustained by the bowlers clearly did not help either, but if there is a silver lining to the steady stream of casualties returning home from the tour, it is that they have been able to have a break.
England's plan to open with Kevin Pietersen is an excellent idea
It was interesting that the management chose to fly them home, rather than be treated by the physiotherapist on the tour, and while Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss would have wanted an altogether different result of that series, the fact is that more of the players have had a breather.
The top of the order still causes problems and it was fascinating to see Kevin Pietersen promoted to open in the warm-up match against Canada.
I think that is an excellent idea. It pushes Pietersen out of his comfort zone and offers him the chance to take control of the match from the start. He craves responsibility, and the feeling of being appreciated so this might give him the edge he and the team needs.
It will be very interesting to see if the experiment continues, and how successful it is. If England can first identify and then produce intimidating totals, their bowling and fielding is capable of defending them - the onus is very much on the batsmen.
So, let's see where this World Cup takes us. Will the locals come out to watch teams other than their own, and will there be much in the way of travelling support?
Can Ireland repeat their very respectable World Cup record and record a shock or two before we get to the knock-out stage, which is more than four weeks away? And will the 50-over format, which many agree is increasingly predictable, emerge revitalised?
