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Series Is Set

Kate Hudson
Kate Hudson :: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

I don't know what this woman is doing, but whatever it is, she needs to keep it up for two more weeks. And while CC Sabathia won the ALCS MVP last night (here's a wrap-up you won't see anywhere else), Kate Hudson's boyfriend continued his postseason turnaround in the Yankees' six-game series victory against the Angels. Alex Rodriguez can't let up now, though, if the Yankees are going to dethrone the powerful Phillies. Meanwhile, one Phillies fan has taken Jay Z's Empire State of Mindand turned it into a Philly anthem.


NFL Roundup

Adrian Petersonabsolutely crushed Steelers DB William Gay. ... Jets quarterback Mark Sanchezdeserved to eat a hot dog during New York's blowout against Oakland. ... Larry Johnsonhad a Twitter meltdown yesterday and took shots at Chiefs coach Todd Haley and some fans.


College Football Roundup

Judging by this video and story, it's very easy to root against Jimmy Clausen. ... College GameDaysigns from BYU. ... Here's the college football version of the Adrian Peterson play featured above.


'That's What You Call A Bull---- Vanity Project'


Jon Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi

Last Thursday, I was fortunate enough to attend a free Bon Jovi concert at the new Meadowlands, the future home of the New York Giants and New York Jets. Before the show, I spoke withJon Bon Jovi about a variety of topics, including Bill Belichick, the future of the Arena League and the sudden rash of celebrities buying stakes in NFL teams, which is where the quote above came from. Oh, and I also got him to take that picture.


The Best Hockey Fights...
Scandals Scoresheet

If you want the latest on the sagas involving Steve Phillips/ESPN/Deadspin/Sean Salisbury, the Sporting Blog has you covered.


Hair, Hair

As Nov. 1 approaches, several Web sites are gearing up for Movember, during which the men behind several Web sites will grow mustaches as a way to raise awareness for men's health issues, specifically prostate cancer. Asylum.com is even giving away prizes in hopes that you'll grow some hair above your lip. If you need some inspiration, check out this "jocks with beards" photo gallery.


More Links On Twitter And Facebook

Follow me on Twitter and join the Hot Clicks Facebook group for more links and videos that don't make Hot Clicks.


Sports Video Of The Day

I'm not sure what the story is behind this ritual, but I'd love to see the players on the Lakers' bench do it all year long.

UPDATE, 11:57 a.m.: As several readers have pointed out, this display is right out of Major League.


Parking Video Of The Day

At least they stayed in the lines.


Dancing Video Of The Day

There were such high hopes for this video after seeing how attractive the woman was, but then she started dancing.

'Space clown' lands back on Earth

Billionaire circus entrepreneur Guy Laliberte has returned to Earth after a 10-day tourist visit to the International Space Station (ISS).

A Soyuz capsule carrying Mr Laliberte and two astronauts landed in Kazakhstan at 1032 local time (0432GMT).

Mr Laliberte, who called himself "the first clown in space", used his trip to promote awareness of water shortages.

On Saturday, he hosted an international performance of artists and speakers to draw attention to the issue.

"The team took the landing quite well; they are feeling fine," a space official was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

Television footage later showed Mr Laliberte emerging from the capsule wearing the red clown's nose he had worn for much of his time in space.

He travelled back to Earth with Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and Nasa astronaut Michael Barratt from the US, leaving six people still on board the ISS.

Padalka's departure from the station leaves Belgian Frank de Winne in command. De Winne is the first astronaut not from the US and Russian space agencies to hold the position.

Global show

Mr Laliberte, founder of the Cirque du Soleil theatre company, blasted into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 30 September, accompanied by Russian cosmonaut Maksim Surayev and US astronaut Jeffrey Williams.

The three docked with the ISS on 2 October.

On Saturday, Mr Laliberte hosted a show called Moving Stars and Earth for Water, which was broadcast live on the website of his charity, One Drop.

The performance involved artists and activists from 14 countries taking it in turns to recite passages from a poem by author Yann Martel, followed by an artistic performance.

During the show, Mr Laliberte said planet Earth looked "so great, and also so fragile".

"We should not forget that we have a great privilege to live on planet Earth," he said.

Mr Laliberte was the seventh private individual to make the trip to the ISS and reportedly paid $35m for his ticket.

Opportunities for tourists to visit the orbiting laboratory are likely to become extremely limited in future.

The expected retirement of the US space shuttles in 2010/11 will mean all Soyuz seats are needed to maintain the resident station crews, which now number six individuals.
Story from BBC NEWS:

Jaw bone created from stem cells

aw bone created from stem cells


Scientists have created part of the jaw joint in the lab using human adult stem cells.

They say it is the first time a complex, anatomically-sized bone has been accurately created in this way.

It is hoped the technique could be used not only to treat disorders of the specific joint, but more widely to correct problems with other bones too.

The Columbia University study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The bone which has been created in the lab is known as the temporomandibular joint (TMJ).

"The availability of personalized bone grafts engineered from the patient's own stem cells would revolutionise the way we currently treat these defects"

Dr Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic
Columbia University

Problems with the joint can be the result of birth defects, arthritis or injury.

Although they are widespread, treatment can be difficult.

The joint has a complex structure which makes it difficult to repair by using grafts from bones elsewhere in the body.

The latest study used human stem cells taken from bone marrow.

These were seeded into a tissue scaffold, formed into the precise shape of the human jaw bone by using digital images from a patient.

The cells were then cultured using a specially-designed bioreactor which was able to infuse the growing tissue with exactly the level of nutrients found during natural bone development.

Big potential

Lead researcher Dr Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic said: "The availability of personalised bone grafts engineered from the patient's own stem cells would revolutionise the way we currently treat these defects."

Dr Vunjak-Novakovic said the new technique could also be applied to other bones in the head and neck, including skull bones and cheek bones, which are similarly difficult to graft.

The option to engineer anatomically pieces of human bone in this way could potentially transform the ability to carry out reconstruction work, for instance following serious injury or cancer treatment.

She said: "We thought the jawbone would be the most rigorous test of our technique; if you can make this, you can make any shape."

She stressed that the joint created in the lab was bone only, and did not include other tissue, such as cartilage. However, the Columbia team is working on a new method for engineering hybrid grafts including bone and cartilage.

Another major challenge for scientists will be to find a way to engineer bone with a blood supply that can be easily connected to the blood supply of the host.

Professor Anthony Hollander, a tissue engineering expert from the University of Bristol who helped produce an artificial windpipe last year, said there was still a lot of work to be done before the new bone could be used on patients.

But he said: "One of the major problems facing scientists in this field is how to engineer a piece of bone with the right dimensions - that is critical for some of these bone defects.

"This is a lovely piece of tissue engineering which has produced bone with a high degree of accuracy in terms of shape."

BBC NEWS

ME virus discovery raises hopes

US scientists say they have made a potential breakthrough in understanding what causes the condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) or ME.


Their research in the journal, Science, suggests that a single retrovirus known as XMRV does play a role in ME.

They found the virus in 67% of ME patients compared to under 4% of the general population.

But experts cautioned that the study did not conclusively prove a link between XMRV and ME.

ME is a debilitating condition that affects an estimated 17 million people worldwide.

The discovery raises hopes of new treatments for the condition.

Retroviruses are known to cause neurological symptoms, cancer and immunological deficiencies.

Contributing factor

The Whittemore Peterson Institute in Nevada, said they had extracted the DNA from XMRV in the blood of 68 out of 101 patients with the condition.

ME FACTS

* Causes chronic fatigue and muscle pain
* Impairs immune system
* Does not improve with sleep
* More women than men suffer from it
* Condition controversial in 1980's when some medical authorities doubted whether it was a genuine physical illness


Cell culture experiments revealed that the patient-derived XMRV was infectious.

The researchers said these findings raise the possibility that XMRV may be a contributing factor to ME.

XMRV is also known to have a role in some prostate cancers.

Dr Judy Mikovits, who led the study, said: "It's a blood borne pathogen that we contract through body fluids and blood transmission.

"The symptoms of ME - chronic fatigue, immune deficiencies, chronic infections - are what we see with retroviruses.

"This discovery could be a major step in the discovery of vital treatment options for millions of patients."

Tony Britton, of the ME Association said: "This is fascinating work - but it doesn't conclusively prove a link between the XMRV virus and chronic fatigue syndrome or ME.

"Many people with ME/CFS say their illness started after a viral infection, and a number of enteroviruses and herpes viruses have also been implicated in the past.

"ME/CFS is an immensely complex illness, with many possible causes and there are up to 240,000 sufferers in the UK desperate to get better."

Invest in ME are enormously encouraged by the current research which shows a potential new cause for this devastating neurological illness. More importantly it promises a diagnostic test is within reach.

A spokesman for Invest in ME said: "This is a huge step achieved in such a short time and will bring hope to all people with ME and their families.

"We now call on the UK government, the Chief Medical Officer and the Medical Research Council to support our view that only a research strategy based on adequately funded and coordinated biomedical research into ME will succeed in creating treatments and eventually a cure for this devastating neurological illness. "

Dr Richard Grunewald, a consultant neurologist at the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust who is also on the panel that gives advice to NICE on CFS, said he had reservations about the research.

He said: "The idea that all CFS can be caused by a single virus doesn't sound plausible to most people who work in the field.

"A lot of the symptoms of CFS are not those of a viral infection."

Sir Peter Spencer, chief executive of Action for ME, said: "It is still early days so we are trying not to get too excited but this news is bound to raise high hopes among a large patient group that has been ignored for far too long.

Round-the-world solar plane debut



Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard has unveiled a prototype of the solar-powered plane he hopes eventually to fly around the world.

The initial version, spanning 61m but weighing just 1,500kg, will undergo trials to prove it can fly at night.

Dr Piccard, who made history in 1999 by circling the globe non-stop in a balloon, says he wants to demonstrate the potential of renewable energies.

The plane will be tested in a flight across the Atlantic projected for 2012.

The flight would be a risky endeavour. Only now is solar and battery technology becoming mature enough to sustain flight through the night - and then only in unmanned planes.

But Dr Piccard’s Solar Impulse team has invested tremendous energy - and no little money - in trying to find what they believe is a breakthrough design.

“I love this type of vision where you set the goal and then you try to find a way to reach it, because this is challenging,” he told BBC News.

Testing programme

The HB-SIA has the look of a glider but is on the scale - in terms of its width - of a modern airliner.

The aeroplane incorporates composite materials to keep it extremely light and uses super-efficient solar cells, batteries, motors and propellers to get it through the dark hours.

Dr Piccard will begin testing with short runway flights in which the plane lifts just a few metres into the air.

As confidence in the machine develops, the team will move to a day-night circle. This has never been done before in a piloted solar-powered plane.

HB-SIA should be succeeded by HB-SIB. It is likely to be bigger, and will incorporate a pressurised capsule and better avionics.

It is probable that Piccard will follow a route around the world in this aeroplane similar to the path he took in the record-breaking Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon - travelling at a low latitude in the Northern Hemisphere. The flight could go from the United Arab Emirates, to China, to Hawaii, across the southern US, southern Europe, and back to the UAE.

Measuring success

Although the vehicle is expected to be capable of flying non-stop around the globe, Piccard will in fact make five long hops, sharing flying duties with project partner Andre Borschberg.

“The aeroplane could do it theoretically non-stop - but not the pilot,” said Dr Piccard.

“We should fly at roughly 25 knots and that would make it between 20 and 25 days to go around the world, which is too much for a pilot who has to steer the plane.

“In a balloon you can sleep, because it stays in the air even if you sleep. We believe the maximum for one pilot is five days.”

The public unveiling on Friday of the HB-SIA is taking place at Dubendorf airfield near Zürich.

“The real success for Solar Impulse would be to have enough millions of people following the project, being enthusiastic about it, and saying ‘if they managed to do it around the world with renewable energies and energy savings, then we should be able to do it in our daily life’.”

Science reporter, BBC News

MP Lembit defends ‘publicity hungry’ model Katie Green sacked by bra firm for going topless

Bra maker Ultimo has been attacked by Lembit Opik for sacking his ‘very, very good friend’, model Katie Green.

The Liberal Democrat MP has accused Ultimo’s founder, Michelle Mone, of double standards for dropping Katie after topless pictures of her appeared in a tabloid newspaper.

Ms Mone had claimed the 21-year-old lingerie model was ‘publicity hungry’.



A lot of front: Katie Green in a Wonderbra promotion

Mr Opik, 44, said: ‘Katie is neither a gold-digger nor a publicity junkie.

Frankly, she’s never betrayed a confidence and when we’ve been out somewhere she’s more interested in the food than photos.

‘She hasn’t once said anything about Michelle or the Ultimo business, so I’m quite surprised by what’s happened. It’s a bit ironic if an industry which is entirely dependent on women’s breasts turns out to be embarrassed by a woman’s breasts.’

Miss Green was dropped by email for breaking the company’s strict no nudity clause after she was pictured frolicking topless on a beach in Portugal.

She was signed by Ms Mone last summer after quitting a similar role at Wonderbra.




Very Good friends: Lembit and Katie campaigning in the summer

Ms Mone said: ‘I’m trying to run a global brand here and I’m not going to worry about wee girls like her.’

Last night, a friend of Katie’s insisted: ‘The pictures that appeared weren’t posed for. She was on a beach when somebody photographed her.

'She’s done topless modelling before and Ultimo knew that when they signed her.

‘Look at the other girls who are still working for Ultimo. Melinda Messenger is a face of the same range, Jordan has worked for them and Rachel Hunter has posed naked for Playboy.

‘Katie’s really disappointed and she’ll be very touched that Lembit’s come out in support of her.’

Mr Opik and Miss Green were first linked during the summer when she joined forces with the MP for Montgomeryshire to launch a ‘Say No to Size Zero’ campaign.

The pair met at a cocktail party and claimed to have enjoyed a string of dinners ‘at little wine bars’.

Speaking at the time, Katie described her summer with Lembit as ‘a real whirlwind’.

In August, they both posed in front of the Houses of Parliament at the launch of their online petition against designers’ promotion of an unrealistic and unhealthy body ‘ideal’.

At the time they would say only that they were ‘very, very good friends’.

Last night, Mr Opik said: ‘As far as any saucy photos are concerned, these were hardly a secret. What did they think she was doing as a model? Covering herself up in a bin bag?’

Miss Green declined to comment.

Ref: Mail Online

The Brazilian island hideaway

With no cars and nothing to do but eat seafood and swing in a hammock, Boipeba is the perfect escape from the British winter


Not even a tractor in sight … Boipeba Island, Brazil. Photograph: Karen Robinson

'The whole village fits into three tractors," says Tony Fitzsimmons, the English owner of Pousada Mangueira in Moreré, on the island of Boipeba in tropical north-east Brazil. It strikes me as an odd unit of population to use, but since tractors are the only form of motorised transport here, it is probably fair enough.

It also strikes me as an odd thing for a Lancashireman to be doing with his life, but Tony explains that he and his wife Susana tired of the rat race (he as a sports adviser on disability, she as deputy head of a special school), typed "Pousadas for sale, Brazil" into Google and found their remote B&B.

The reason there are no vehicles here is because there are no roads, just sandy tracks criss-crossing this 8km x 12km island where the major tourist attractions are a flour mill, a palm-oil mill and an offshore raft serving oysters. Tractors are used to collect rubbish, ferry children to school or rush (and I use the word advisedly) sick or injured villagers to Boipeba's's only health centre.

"We've a one-third share in a donkey," says Tony, when I ask how they get around. "It's a nice way to travel if we want to go to Velha Boipeba [the largest village: population 1,600] to buy watermelons. It's the big metropolis for us."

Once a year, he and Susana "have a bottle of wine" at the French-owned Alizées-Moreré, the only serious hotel in the village. Guests come by charter plane from Salvador, the state capital of Bahia, and land on the next island (Tinharé) at an airstrip owned by an Italian billionaire.

"They don't know what's hit them," Tony says, walking me down to a shack on the beach where he referees the odd village football game or goes windsurfing. "To be frank, there's not a lot to do round here."

As we settle down at a rickety, sun-bleached table, that seems like no bad thing. The tide is low, and I gaze out across the gleaming, rippled sand to where Miguel, our boatman, has anchored his speedboat just beyond the surf. Behind him is turquoise water streaked with white where it kicks up over a sand bar, and above it is an improbably cornflower-blue sky.

Tanned Brazilian boys wander past with surfboards, a spearfisherman stands up unexpectedly on a submerged reef and a mounted tour guide accompanies a small group of Spanish and Italian riders along the beach. The next headland is crowned by another millionaire's house with its own helipad, and beyond it I can make out the third of Moreré's three beaches – a deserted stretch of pristine sand ruined by the odd coconut husk and backed by palms.

Close to where I am sitting, João, the owner of the shack – is doing something with a blowtorch on his fishing boat and can't quite summon up the ambition to serve me. Instead, he gestures to his son, Jean-Paul, who in turn delegates the job to a group of 10-year-old girls cleaning mangrove crabs.

"Lambreta!" he says, meaning clams (not Italian scooters), and a few minutes later one of the girls arrives, delivering a dozen meaty, golden nuggets of bivalve, slightly gritty and served with lime slices, a khaki home-made sauce like glutinous Tabasco, a small glass of hot, salty clam juice and a broad smile.

After paying the R$5 (£1.70) bill, I make my way to Miguel's boat to be ferried to the next course in my locally caught lunch. As I stand knee-deep in the shallows, an Italian family is disembarking from a bigger speedboat weighed down with Gucci luggage. They step off the bow into the clear, balmy water, getting their capri pants slightly wet.

It's a weird mix, Moreré, because well-heeled people do come here, staying at the Alizées or in rented properties, yet the village is backpacker-grungey and the infrastructure is basic to say the least. Use the facilities at João's shack and you will find yourself contemplating a sand floor strewn with toilet paper. The typical clientele, Susana says, are backpackers who book a pousada for three or four days at the end of six months' travelling, then end up staying 11 or 12 days. "Their bodies have packed in, basically," Tony says. "All they want to do is sway in a hammock and do their washing."

What we and the Gucci set demonstrate is that, on Boipeba, fast boats are the only way to get around. The tractors, a municipal resource, are not for the use of tourists. You can walk to Moreré from Velha Boipeba, where we are staying – but it will take you two hours. In a speedboat like Miguel's, it takes 20 minutes and you can easily circumnavigate the island in a day, stopping off for clams in Moreré, a spot of snorkelling, an hour on the beach, a swim at Ponta dos Catelhanos (from an offshore sandbank that you will probably have entirely to yourself), lunch at Cova da Onça (where Orlando's is the only restaurant) and then bomb around until sunset.

This will set you back R$350 (about £115) for a day, which seems quite decadent, given the price of a portion of clams. However, most people share a boat with three or four others, so it's more like £30 each. You can hire boats for half a day, or ask to be taken to a specific beach. As someone who doesn't own a car, I can't help rejoicing in the freedom of the boat culture of this part of Brazil. There are no jams, you don't have to follow roads and if you miss a ferry (as we did, underestimating the four-hour drive from Salvador to the port of Valença, on the mainland), you just hire a private boat. It's usually a canopied skiff with an outboard engine and a skipper aged about 20.

Now, with the veteran Miguel at the controls, there is no stopping us. We are out in open water, bouncing across the waves and literally flying as we hit the odd tidal rip over a reef. It's thrilling, and more so when we near Cova da Onça and Miguel seems intent on driving us at 28 knots straight up the beach. He cuts his engines, and the boat subsides in the surf just before impact.

This is where I have my Let's Emigrate moment, sitting under Orlando's blue awning, sipping a cold Antarctica beer and devouring a moqueca (Bahia's African-influenced seafood stew) for two, containing no fewer than four lobsters. It's up there in my top 10 food experiences – the chunky discs of lobster; the dende (palm) oil with its mellow, yellow richness; the little bowl of pirão (like a starchy fish gravy) to spoon next to it; the crunchy, toasted manioc flour fried in butter known as farofa, eaten instead of bread.

The food is a little bit different at Santa Clara, the dreamily tropical lodge in Velha Boipeba where we are staying. There, Mark, co-owner with his brother Charles, likes to give his food an Asian twist: squid pakora (in a crispy batter) with an Indian-inspired chutney that is big on tamarind; local fish caramelised and served with coconut rice, paper-thin slices of cucumber, ginger, lemongrass, soy, red peppers and a thimble of sweet-and-sour sauce.

"People come from all the other pousadas to eat at this restaurant," Charles tells me proudly. "It's somewhere special for them to bring people if they want to show off."

Santa Clara, with its 11 rooms – some like treehouses – linked by walkways and surrounded by tropical gardens, is impeccably tasteful all round. It's a two-minute walk from the hotel to the nearest beach bar with its thatched umbrellas, sunloungers and beautiful people doing not very much on one of Brazil's most out-of-the-way and least commercialised beaches.

Of these there is no shortage on Boipeba – and in my experience, they are wilder, more deserted and more beautiful than any along the 1,000km stretch of beach fringing Bahia's coast, which incorporates three national parks. November and December – just before the January rush (peak season in the southern hemisphere) – is the time to go, to escape the dreary British winter.

This seemingly endless ribbon of beach, the longest in Brazil, begins in Praia do Forte to the north of Salvador. From the city, you drive along a freeway lined with car dealerships, estate agents and places selling fibreglass swimming pools. There are hoardings, billboards, neon and more visual pollution than Miami. Leaving it all behind, it's hard to believe you will cruise round a bend and discover Praia do Forte, a hybrid of working fishing village and twee eco-resort. It's popular with Brazilian families who come here for the beach, staying in condominiums of pousadas and rental properties.

It's touristy, for sure (think a tasteful, tropical St Ives, rather than Blackpool) but the German man who created the Praia do Forte resort had an inspiring vision: to safeguard, and indeed create, jobs through tourism without destroying the village's essential character. You can wander the pedestrianised main drag with its restaurants, bars and souvenir shops selling surf gear, jewellery and Athena-style T-shirts, then turn round to see old men playing dominoes under the trees, boys playing football after school and their younger siblings tearing around the mini play parks created at intervals along the street. There is a very cute colonial church – in the square, right on the beach, where locals gather at sunset – but the main attraction is the Tamar turtle conservation project (part theme park, part zoo) that has put the resort on the map.

Praia do Forte is worth a detour – but not for the beaches. My advice, if you're killing a few days in Salvador, is to escape the well-trodden 16th-century colonial town centre, Pelourinho, and head for the urban beaches. The best are on the Atlantic side of the city, near the airport. Take the bus to Itapuã, where the beach shacks run unbroken for miles, serving frosty bottles of Brahma beer to sun-worshippers sitting at plastic tables. Heading south, check out the residential district of Rio Vermelho, in particular Rua da Paciência, popular with locals and the place to go for bars, restaurants and nightlife. During the day, hollering vendors sell fresh fish from cabañas on the beach, elderly couples with mahogany tans sit under parasols, and bikini-clad girls sun themselves with their boyfriends on the rocks. It's not as slick or chic as Rio, and the body beautiful ethos is less extreme, but it's beach life nonetheless.

Closer to the centre of Salvador, the beaches are more disappointing. Middle-class Porto da Barra beach, near the marina, port and lighthouse, tends to get crowded – and the water quality is poor. In Ondina, the hotel district, the beaches are good for surfing but rocky outcrops make swimming dangerous.

From there, as you head south out of Salvador, the Costa do Dende (Palm-Oil Coast) opens up with its verdant, almost south-east Asian landscape and easy access to the islands – not just Boipeba, but Tinharé, where the resort of Morro de São Paulo, with its legendary four beaches, has become too popular and developed for its own good, a Brazilian Koh Samui or Goa.

Further south still, and a world away from Boipeba, are buzzy Porto Seguro, the birthplace of the lambada and a mecca for backpackers and energetic clubbers. My advice would be to stop right there at Valença (or any small port where there's a man with a speedboat) and head for Boipeba, to swing in a hammock and do your washing.

Forgiveness is the secret to happy relationships

Forget retaliation and revenge if someone hurts you, says Dr Luisa Dillner: learn to forgive and you'll be happier and healthier


Illustration: Jean-Manuel Duvivier

Of the few certainties in life (the best known being death and paying taxes), there is one that is inevitable in close relationships. One day, someone you love or feel close to will hurt you. They may be unkind about your looks, or your friends. They may run off with the au pair, or insult your family. Being close to someone means they can kick you where it hurts the most. And if they do, how will you respond?

Retaliate, of course. If not straight away, you can always bear a grudge, so that however long it takes, even as you breathe your last, you will try to exact revenge. Except that vengeance is no longer current. These days, it's all about forgiving.

The UN's report Forgiveness, which looks at the psychological research into the subject, cites studies showing the importance of forgiving within personal relationships, as well as between war-torn nations. It makes you healthier and happier, the research says; it makes you feel stronger – it was Mahatma Gandhi who said, "Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong" – and better about yourself. Holding a grudge is bad for your blood pressure (no surprises there), causes anxiety and can reduce your life expectancy. It affects you and not them – the offender has probably forgotten all about what's making you bitter and twisted.

In relationships, couples who forgive each other are happier than those who don't – and happier couples are in any case more likely to forgive each other than those who have been making each other miserable for years.

But forgiving – as well as being dull compared with revenge – is by no means easy. Forgiveness experts define it as a process that results in your losing the desire to retaliate and letting go of negative emotions. You can forgive but not be reconciled to the person you are forgiving. You can forgive without telling them. No wonder it's not easy: the International Forgiveness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has a forgiveness model with 20 steps.

One of the world's experts on forgiveness is Frank Fincham of Florida State University. "Forgiving brings you peace and closure," he says. "But it takes time. It's more accurate to say to someone, 'I will try to forgive you.' To say you'll forgive and forget is a contradiction. You can forgive only when you remember."

So how do you forgive? First think about the benefits (no obsessing over how upset you are, no more feeling anxious or put upon), then about things you might have done wrong (no one is perfect); revisit what happened, seeing if you can understand your reaction and why the other person might have behaved in the way they did. As Fincham says, "It's a free choice to forgive or not, but you can usually make a cost benefit analysis for it."