It seems to be the decade of the smoothie. I mean the “health” drink, not people who are a little slick and pull lots of girls without even trying. Smoothies, as I’m sure everyone knows, are made from pure fruit. It’s all mashed-up together, blended and then served in bottles that are so small that you only manage to get two swigs out of them before having to go back and buy another to quench the rest of your thirst. This is the modern world's answer to the lack of good food that we eat. This, we are told, goes a long way to making up our seven portions of fresh fruit and veg a day. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?
Now, if you have one smoothie per day - as the advertising companies would clearly like you to - that might make you a smidgin healthier, but you would be spending around £14 a week. That’s a lot of money, and that’s only for a small bottle.
Imagine the damage to your savings if you were to have a LARGE smoothie everyday ...
I’ve done some maths here, and I think that I should share my findings with you all. I have uncovered, ladies and gentlemen, the shocking truth of it all. The fact is that if, instead of having a large smoothie a day, you took the money that you would have spent on them and put it away somewhere safe, at the end of the month you would have saved up more than enough to pay off your mortgage and to pay for a two week holiday in a private villa in Tuscany too.
Medical Appointment
It seems that the only way to get a medical operation these days is either to wait 75 years or to go the quick route: Go Private. The trouble is that going private costs an arm and a leg, and by the time you have sold your arm and leg for a good rate on the black market - or Ebay, as it is more commonly known - there are more pressing things to worry about than the one in-growing toenail that you originally wanted sorting out ... such as the small fact that you now find yourself with one shoe too many, and, though you have the money, are now unable to pay the doctor because the arm you auctioned off on Ebay was the one that writes the cheques.
Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.
Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Mumbai, India. He is a correspondent for All Sports magazine, and a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Examiner. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional publications. Sumantra runs a blog at DailyWorldWatch.wordpress.com. He provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.
Brian Usher is photography consultant for The-Latest.Com. He is a highly experienced editorial and commercial photographer whose work has been published throughout the world, appearing in many well known magazines and newspapers. Brian has featured in several books and has been a writer for the Royal Photographic Society magazine.
Heidi Kingstone has spent time in Afghanistan reporting for a number of publications. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times and other international journals. She has also reported from places like Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya. Heidi is The-Latest's Editor at large.
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