In the rich man's house the vomitorium became an essential chamber: the place where the guzzler of rich food emptied his stomach, so that he might come back to the feast for more.

Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.

The first day of freshman Latin class a group of betoga-ed persons greeted class members individually and baptized them with Latin names (mine was Lucius Cornelius Cinna) in a brief ceremony in which one of the baptizers says “Hoc nomen tibi do” (“this name I give you”), reads the name, then makes a ritual gesture and places around the neck of the baptized a circular card (on a gold-colored cord) with the Latin name written thereon.

The Soviet Union is offering to send commercial satellites into orbit at bargain-basement prices.