Man steals greyhound bus

Man steals greyhound bus

Man steals greyhound bus, When someone suggests you 'take the bus,' do not literally take the bus.

Police in upstate New York say that a 39-year-old man planning to give himself a lift to a friend's Christmas party stole a Greyhound coach on Sunday, only to be caught by authorities several hours later.

Andrew Hickey, of Peekskill, allegedly boarded the empty bus because it was running and he was cold waiting at the Syracuse bus station, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office told WSYR.

Hickey, who does have a commercial driver's license, proceeded to drive the bus 70 miles toward his friend's Watertown home before Greyhound officials used GPS to remotely disable the bus and notified authorities of its exact location, the Associated Press reports.

Hickey still has a long road ahead of him if he's going to catch transit thief Darius McCollum, who claims he has stolen 150 busses the past decade.

HIckey is charged with criminal possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of a vehicle.

How to keep new year resolutions

How to keep new year resolutions

How to keep new year resolutions,

New Year Resolutions....

Its January 1, time for new resolution to make and follow. People do make resolutions but face difficulty in following it. Well here is the guide that will help you How to Keep your New Year's Resolution Successfully......?

Making a New Year's resolution has turned into an exercise in futility for many Americans, but you don't need to start the year with a broken promise. Lasting lifestyle changes are possible, and believe it or not, they can start with a New Year's resolution. Set a realistic goal, give yourself a little time to plan and enlist the support of your friends, and you'll be well on your way to making and keeping a New Year's resolution.

Choosing a Theme for Your New Year's Eve Party

Christina Nardozzi offers a tutorial on how to choose a theme for your New Year's Eve party. She reviews theme options and how to obtain an inspired idea that could help make your party a success. This guide is part of a larger series of holiday-themed tutorials offered on the Mahalo.com YouTube channel.

Source: mahalo

New Year traditions

New Year Traditions

New Year Traditions- What color underwear did you wear on New Year's Eve?
Your choice may say something about your culture and your hopes for 2012 -- as might whether you decide to ring in the new year by smashing dishes, respectfully bowing to your elders or feasting on everything from cabbage to sticky rice soup to black-eyed peas.

As they do every December 31, revelers around the world spent Saturday-into-Sunday ushering in the new year in distinctive ways. One of the most common was by watching fireworks light up the nighttime sky, though this was just one of many ways people found to celebrate and do all they could to ensure that the next 12 months proceed as they wish.
And yes, underwear is one way to state your intentions -- at least in many South American countries, including Brazil and Argentina.
If you wore yellow, that supposedly enhances your chances for abundance and reaping in more money. If it was red, then you'll more likely find love in 2012. And if you were sporting white underpants, preferably new and clean, then peace was your top priority for the coming year.
One New Year's theme that resonates across borders, ages and ethnic groups is feasting on foods in an effort to boost your prospects for the future. But the menu varies from place to place.
Cabbage represents money and sauerkraut is for living a long life for some of Northern European ancestry, for instance. People in Spain and many Latin American countries down 12 grapes, one each to "guarantee" a month of happiness. In parts of the American South, year-round favorites black-eyed peas, ham and collard greens carry special importance over the New Year's holiday.
People in the nation of Georgia don't count on a chef for good luck. Rather, they rely on the first person to come through their home's door after midnight -- a person who, theoretically, will bring them fortune for the following year. Snacking on candy on New Year's Eve is another way, in the former Soviet territory, to ensure that 2012 is likewise sweet, and not bitter.
New Year traditions: Scotland to Spain
Brazilians try to optimize their prospects for the coming year by jumping waves or, if they are not near the beach, eating lentil soup or handing out money. Besides raucously banging together pots and pans, Filipinos eat round fruits to bring good fortune.
Some New Year's traditions have nothing to do with luck. A front stoop littered with broken plates in Denmark, for instance, suggests that the person inside has a lot of friends since, each New Year's Eve, people throw their old dishes at the doors of their friends' homes.
The agenda for fun in Canada depends on where you are, from partying at a "reveillon" in Quebec to imbibing Screech rum in Newfoundland to savoring "beaver tail" -- a Canadian fried dough treat-- in Ontario.
Still, for all those who partake in grand New Year's events, there are many more who make their own traditions.
It may be a small gathering of family and friends, watching the Times Square ball drop on TV, or loudly running through the neighborhood. Some may simply go to sleep early, so they can be energized for an early New Year's Day hike -- perhaps while wearing underwear that suits their mood, and wishes, for 2012.

Via : cnn

Beyonce Baby rumors

Beyonce Baby rumors

Beyonce Baby rumors _ The Internet has been running rampant with rumors that Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z welcomed their first child.

People magazine reports that various Twitter sources and blogs have announced the birth of the music super couple’s first child.

Beyoncé allegedly checked into St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City earlier this week, welcoming the baby girl on December 29.

It has been reported that the couple has named the new baby Tiana-May Carter, after the first black princess ever to be featured in a Disney film (“The Princess and the Frog”).

The couple’s representatives have not commented on reports, further fueling Internet speculation.

The singer shocked the world with a surprise pregnancy announcement at this summer’s MTV Movie Awards.

The focus has been on the singer’s growing belly ever since, with some conspiracy theorists claiming that the entire pregnancy is a hoax.

We’ll just have to wait and see if the rumors are true.



The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.

source: comcast

Black eyed peas recipes

Black eyed peas recipes

Black eyed peas recipes _ A staple in the Southern diet for over 300 years, black-eyed peas have long been associated with good luck.

A dish of peas is a New Year's tradition in most areas of the South, thought to bring luck and prosperity for the new year. According to Jessica Harris, author of "Welcome Table," some add a dime to the peas for an extra "boost" of luck to the recipient. Greens, thought to symbolize folding money, are often eaten eaten with the peas. Hoppin' John, a dish made with black-eyed peas and rice, is one of the more popular ways of serving them, but many serve them in salads or simply cooked as a side dish.

Whether you're serving a full meal, appetizers, or gathering around the football game, one of these recipes is sure to fit into your New Year's menu plan.

Recipes

Hip Hoppin' John

Black-Eyed Pea Loaf

Black-Eyed Peas and Hog Jowl

Gingered Black-Eyed Peas

Cheesy Black-Eyed Pea Dip

Cowpeas and Rice - Hoppin' John

Curried Black-Eyed Peas & Bean Salad

Happy New Year Peas

Black-Eyed Peas with Ginger

Black-Eyed Peas Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

Related:
Appetizers
Party Snacks
Cornbread
Breakfast & Brunch


source: southernfood

Banished words_'Baby Bump' & 'Man Cave' Among 2011's Banished Words

Banished words_'Baby Bump' & 'Man Cave' Among 2011's Banished Words

Banished words_'Baby Bump' & 'Man Cave' Among 2011's Banished Words_Before passing comment on someone’s “baby bump,” take a pregnant pause. Likewise, give up promoting “shared sacrifice.” And if you’re tempted to proclaim your desire to “win the future,” you’ve lost it here in the present.

Michigan’s Lake Superior State University is featuring those phrases in its annual List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness. The 2012 list, released Friday, was compiled by the university from nominations submitted from across the globe.

What else do the syntactical Scrooges want to cast out with the good cheer in the new year? The list also includes “occupy,” “ginormous,” “man cave” and “the new normal.”

In all, a dozen words or phrases made the 37th end-of-the year list. The list started as a publicity ploy by the school’s public relations department on New Year’s Day 1976, and has since generated tens of thousands of nominations.

(LIST: Top 10 Buzzwords of 2011)

“Amazing” received more than 1,500 nominations, the most of any on this year’s list. Disdain for the superlative was apparently universal among English speakers, garnering disparaging dispatches from across the United States and even the United Kingdom and Israel.

While it lacked a single pop-culture culprit, such as the proliferating protest movement that occupied the word “occupy” or the collective ooh-ing and aah-ing that accompanied Beyonce’s “baby bump,” nominations to banish “amazing” cite its overuse on reality television and by daytime talk show hosts. Social media also spurred the call to surrender the word’s conversational credentials, notably through a Facebook page called “Overuse of the Word Amazing.”

“The word has been overused to describe things only slightly better than mundane,” Alyce-Mae Alexander of Maitland, Fla., wrote in her nomination. “I blame Martha Stewart because to her, EVERYTHING is amazing!”

University spokesman John Shibley said he and his colleagues were surprised that “amazing” hadn’t already graced the archive of about 900 banished words.

“The simple ones are always the ones that get through the cracks — until this year,” he said.

Other terms circulating for years that have finally raised enough ire to earn a spot on the list include “blowback,” “man cave,” “the new normal” and “thank you in advance.” The last one particularly annoys Mike Cloran of Cincinnati, Ohio.

“This is a condescending and challenging way to say, `Since I already thanked you, you have to do this,’” Cloran wrote in his submission.

Lake Superior State University, located in Sault St. Marie — the last stop before Michigan’s northernmost border-crossing with Canada — has seen its list survive despite many banished words stubbornly clinging to the language. For evidence, look no further than last year’s “fail,” “viral” and “a-ha moment.” And then there is, well, blowback from critics who can’t take a little tongue-in-cheek critique.

Shibley said some people have missed the point over the years and complained that the list is an effort to control the language. But most seem to receive it in good cheer, rather than with jeers.

“A lot of people can take this wrong. We don’t mean any malice when we publish it,” Shibley said. “If it makes you angry, it gets you thinking about language. If it gets you laughing, it gets you thinking about language. It’s done its job — to get you to think about how you express yourself.”


Read more: time

Huguette Clark_Huguette Clark’s ‘Worthless’ Girlhood Home

Huguette Clark_Huguette Clark’s ‘Worthless’ Girlhood Home

Huguette Clark_Huguette Clark’s ‘Worthless’ Girlhood Home_ SINCE Huguette Clark’s death last month, many eyes have zeroed in on her sumptuous suite of apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue, one of the most elegant buildings in New York.

Born to a vast fortune, Miss Clark grew up in an equally splendid but far different home. That was the 1911 mansion of her father, William A. Clark, only five blocks north. There, he sought to create the most magnificent dwelling in New York, costing perhaps $7 million but, by his own reckoning, essentially worthless on the day it was finished.

Mr. Clark earned millions upon millions in copper mining out West, and after stints as a prospector, farmer and United States senator, he arrived in New York in the 1890s, when the choicest patches on Fifth Avenue were going, going, almost gone. So Mr. Clark had to be very satisfied with the northeast corner of Fifth and 77th Street; he told The New York Times in 1899 that he was building mainly because one of his daughters lived in the city.

He had 77 feet on Fifth Avenue, but 250 feet on the side street, more than any other rich man on Fifth opposite the park, except for Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Clark could have hired any architect he wanted, but he retained Lord, Hewlett & Hull, at that time not known for much in particular. Later court records from a dispute over fees indicate that they in turn retained Kenneth Murchison, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts.

The Beaux-Arts affiliation was good, because Mr. Clark wanted French and plenty of it. This he got, especially after he sent the plans over to Henri Deglane, a well-known instructor at the school, for extra whipped cream. Around 1905, the mansion really began to take shape, combining elements of French-style buildings in the city, like the New York Yacht Club. The Fifth Avenue front was large for a New York house, three great bays of granite topped by a truly outrageous dormer so big it might have been labeled a dormitory.

But it was on 77th Street that the architects built up steam: a long, tumultuous facade rising to an even more elaborate dormer arrangement, set against an Alpine-steep mansard roof. The truly spectacular feature was a colossal four-sided tower with a three-story-high inward-curving arch topped by an open pergola. It had the unreality of an unbuildable student project at the école.

The mansion had 25 guest bedrooms; a 17-foot-high banquet hall paneled in oak supposedly from Sherwood Forest; a sculpture hall 36 feet high — such things are hardly surprising for a man with an income of $12 million per year at a time when a doctor could expect to earn about $2,000 and a lawyer, $1,500, according to The Times.

However, the claim of 35 servants’ rooms does seem like a stretch; even Andrew Carnegie, with a larger house, had only 21, and the 1920 census found a staff of nine tending to Mr. Clark and his family of three, including Huguette, 14.

Our millionaires tend to suffer in the hands of architectural critics, and Montgomery Schuyler, in a column titled “Architectural Aberrations” in The Architectural Record, found the Clark house inexcusable, “an appropriate residence for the late P. T. Barnum.” Everything was wrong: the tower was “meaningless and fatuous”; the rich, rounded rustication on the ground floor suggested the prototype of “a log house”; the French style had long been out of fashion.

In general this dessert was just too rich: “A certified check to the amount of all this stone carving hung on the outer wall would serve every artistic purposed attained by the carving itself,” Mr. Schuyler wrote.

The editor of The Architect called the place “The House of a ThousandCartouches” and regretted the “dolorous and ponderous granite” chosen. These opinions have been parroted many times but, upon contemplation, this is a pretty neat house. If Carrère & Hastings had designed it for an establishment client, its profligacy would certainly have been forgiven, perhaps lionized.

The man The Times called a “cool, calculating fighter” died in his house in 1925, with Huguette in attendance. She and her mother, Anna, short on sentiment, sold it in 1927, and the mansion made way for the apartment house now known as 960 Fifth Avenue.

Together, they decamped to 907 Fifth Avenue, where the annual rental for a full-floor apartment was about $30,000. The historian Andrew Alpern says that at her death, Huguette Clark owned three apartments in the building, two of which constituted a full floor.

Estimates of the value of her holdings at 907 are difficult to establish, since the configuration and condition of what her estate owns are unknown. But Jonathan Miller, the president of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, says that, extrapolating from the sales of other Fifth Avenue apartments, and with “a slew of caveats,” the price would probably be above $40 million.

How much does the value of real estate fluctuate in New York? Consider that in 1911, Mr. Clark brought suit for a reduction in the assessed valuation of his house, then $3 million. The court agreed with him that few, if any, could buy such grandeur, determining that the house of a thousand cartouches by itself had no market value.


Source: nytimes

Gladys Horton_Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes Dead at 66 Posted

Gladys Horton_Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes Dead at 66 Posted

Gladys Horton_Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes Dead at 66 Posted_Gladys Horton, the powerful soul singer who co-founded the all-female Motown ensemble the Marvelettes, died late Wednesday in a nursing home outside of Los Angeles. The 66-year-old's cause of death is unknown, though she was recovering from complications due to a stroke she suffered last year, her son told the Associated Press.

Horton was born in 1944 in a suburb of Detroit and raised by foster parents. She joined a glee club in high school and almost immediately recruited four club members, including Georgia Dobbins, to create the modestly named the Casinyets (as in, can't sing yet).

The group's big break came in 1961 with an audition for Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson of the then-startup label Motown. They weren't originally given the opportunity -- they had placed fourth in their high school's talent show, with the top three receiving auditions -- but were granted an exception.

The quartet wowed the label with a second audition, performing what would become their first hit single, 'Please Mr. Postman,' co-written with Dobbins' friend and songwriter William Garrett. They settled on a new band name, the Marvelettes, and recorded the song with the famous Funk Brothers backing them. The song and its eponymous album skyrocketed to the top of the charts.

While the group released several records over the next six years, with successful singles such as 'Playboy' and 'Don't Mess With Bill,' they failed to reach the top of the charts again. During that time, one member, Juanita Cowart, had a nervous breakdown and quit. Another, Georgeanna Tillman, was diagnosed with lupus and left. At the same time, Motown began to shift its focus to newer artists better positioned to compete with suddenly popular English rock bands like the Beatles.

Horton left the group in 1967 to get married, and never returned fully to music. She devoted herself to taking care of her handicapped son, and largely stayed out of the public eye, even during the controversy that surfaced when the Marvelettes chose to continue performing with no original members. She performed only occasionally in the ensuing decades with no apparent interest in launching a solo career, billing herself simply as "Gladys Horton from the Marvelettes."

"My mother died peacefully," Horton's son, Vaughn Thornton, said Thursday morning in a statement released by the Motown Alumni Association. "She fought as long as she could." She is survived by Vaughn and another son. Funeral arrangements are pending.

source: spinner

Suze Rotolo_Suze Rotolo, a Face, With Bob Dylan, of ’60s Music, Is Dead at 67

Suze Rotolo_Suze Rotolo, a Face, With Bob Dylan, of ’60s Music, Is Dead at 67

Suze Rotolo_Suze Rotolo, a Face, With Bob Dylan, of ’60s Music, Is Dead at 67_ Suze Rotolo, who became widely known for her romance with Bob Dylan in the early 1960s, strongly influenced his early songwriting and, in one of the decade’s signature images, walked with him arm-in-arm for the cover photo of his breakthrough album, “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan,” died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 67.

The cause was lung cancer, her husband, Enzo Bartoccioli, said.

Ms. Rotolo (she pronounced her name SU-zee ROTE-olo) met Mr. Dylan in Manhattan in July 1961 at a Riverside Church folk concert, where he was a performer. She was 17; he was 20.

“Right from the start I couldn’t take my eyes off her,” Mr. Dylan wrote in his memoir, “Chronicles: Volume 1,” published in 2004. “She was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen. She was fair skinned and golden haired, full-blood Italian. The air was suddenly filled with banana leaves. We started talking and my head started to spin. Cupid’s arrow had whistled past my ears before, but this time it hit me in the heart and the weight of it dragged me overboard.”

In “A Freewheelin’ Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties” (2008), Ms. Rotolo described Mr. Dylan as “oddly old-time looking, charming in a scraggly way.”

They began seeing each other almost immediately and soon moved in together in a walk-up apartment on West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village.

The relationship was intense but beset with difficulties. He was a self-invented troubadour from Minnesota on the brink of stardom. She was the Queens-bred daughter of Italian Communists with her own ideas about life, art and politics that made it increasingly difficult for her to fulfill the role of helpmate, or, as she put it in her memoir, a “boyfriend’s ‘chick,’ a string on his guitar.”

Her social views, especially her commitment to the civil rights movement and her work for the Congress for Racial Equality, were an important influence on Mr. Dylan’s writing, evident in songs like “The Death of Emmett Till,” Masters of War” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Her interest in theater and art exposed him to ideas and artists beyond the world of music.

“She’ll tell you how many nights I stayed up and wrote songs and showed them to her and asked her: ‘Is this right’?” Mr. Dylan told the music critic and Dylan biographer Robert Shelton. “Because her father and her mother were associated with unions and she was into this equality-freedom thing long before I was.”

When, to his distress, she went to Italy for several months in 1962, her absence inspired the plaintive love songs “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” “Boots of Spanish Leather,” “One Too Many Mornings” and “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.”

Mr. Dylan later alluded to their breakup and criticized her mother and sister, who disapproved of him, in the bitter “Ballad in Plain D.”

Ms. Rotolo spent most of her adult life pursuing a career as an artist and avoiding questions about her three-year affair with Mr. Dylan. (He was, she wrote, “an elephant in the room of my life.”) She relented after Mr. Dylan published his autobiography. She appeared as an interview subject in “No Direction Home,” the 2005 Martin Scorsese documentary about Mr. Dylan, before writing “A Freewheelin’ Time.”

Susan Elizabeth Rotolo was born on Nov. 20, 1943, in Brooklyn and grew up in Sunnyside and Jackson Heights, Queens. Her mother, from Boston, was an editor and columnist for L’Unità del Popolo, an Italian-language Communist newspaper. Her father, from Sicily, was an artist and union organizer who died when she was 14.

Artistically inclined, she began haunting Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village as the folk revival gathered steam, while taking part in demonstrations against American nuclear policy and racial injustice. She adopted the unusual spelling of her nickname, Susie, after seeing the Picasso collage “Glass and Bottle of Suze.”

The famous photograph of her and Mr. Dylan, taken by Don Hunstein on a slushy Jones Street in February 1963, seemed less than momentous to her at the time, and she later played down her instant elevation to a strange kind of celebrity status as the girl in the picture.

“It was freezing out,” she told The New York Times in 2008. “He wore a very thin jacket, because image was all. Our apartment was always cold, so I had a sweater on, plus I borrowed one of his big, bulky sweaters. On top of that I put on a coat. So I felt like an Italian sausage. Every time I look at that picture, I think I look fat.”

The album, Mr. Dylan’s second, included anthems like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”

After Ms. Rotolo returned from Italy — a trip engineered by her mother in a move to separate her from Mr. Dylan — the relationship became more difficult. Mr. Dylan was becoming increasingly famous and spending more time performing on the road, and he entered into a very public affair with Joan Baez, with whom he had begun performing.

Ms. Rotolo moved out of their West Fourth Street apartment in August 1963 and, after discovering she was pregnant, had an illegal abortion.

By mid-1964 she and Mr. Dylan had drifted apart. “I knew I was an artist, but I loved poetry, I loved theater, I loved too many things,” Ms. Rotolo told The Times. “Whereas he knew what he wanted and he went for it.”

In “Chronicles,” Mr. Dylan wrote: “The alliance between Suze and me didn’t turn out exactly to be a holiday in the woods. Eventually fate flagged it down and it came to a full stop. It had to end. She took one turn in the road and I took another.”

In 1967 she married Mr. Bartoccioli, a film editor she had met while studying in Perugia. The couple lived in Italy before moving to the United States in the 1970s. In addition to her husband, she is survived by their son, Luca, of Brooklyn, and her sister, Carla, of Sardinia.

Ms. Rotolo worked as a jewelry maker, illustrator and painter before turning to book art, fabricating booklike objects that incorporate found objects.

She remained politically active. In 2004, using the pseudonym Alla DaPie, she joined the street-theater group Billionaires for Bush and protested at the Republican convention in Manhattan.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 5, 2011

An obituary on Tuesday about Suze Rotolo, an artist best known for her romance with Bob Dylan, using information from Ms. Rotolo’s memoir and from her family, referred incorrectly to her mother’s professional background. She was an editor and columnist for L’Unità del Popolo, an American Communist newspaper published in Italian — not for the American version of the Italian Communist Party publication L’Unità. And although Ms. Rotolo’s maternal grandparents were from the province of Piacenza in Italy, her mother was not; she was born in Boston.

source:  nytimes

Notable Deaths 2011

Notable Deaths 2011

Notable Deaths 2011, They inspired and intrigued us. They entertained and enlightened us. Some made us howl with laughter or moved us to tears -- or both. When news came of their deaths this year, we remembered how each one's life left a mark in this world.

No annual list of newsworthy deaths is truly complete. As you look through these photos, you're sure to think of others we lost this year. We invite you to post a comment below about who else should be remembered and why.

Read More : huffingtonpost

New Year's Eve party games

New Year's Eve Party Games, 

 FROM FOOD AND DRINKS TO GAMES: HOW TO THROW A NEW YEAR'S EVE PARTY TO REMEMBER

It's the biggest party night of the year and it's not too late to plan the perfect bash - complete with sensational champagne, cocktails to die for and mouthwatering canapes.

Here, the Mail presents the ultimate New Year's Eve party primer, including fun party games and a host of food and drink ideas. Cheers!

GAMES

• STRIKE A LIGHT How To Play: Two party guests leave the room and together decide upon a word that the rest of the group will try to guess. They then return to the room and start a conversation together based around their chosen word, trying to give clues to what the word is - but without, of course, actually saying the word itself.

When a guest thinks they know what the secret word is, they must say, "I strike a light", then whisper their guess to one of the two original players. If they guess correctly, they can join in the conversation with the two players. If they're wrong, they must carry on until they guess correctly. The game ends when all the players have guessed what the word is.

• THE VICAR'S CAT How To Play: party guests form a circle and the first person begins by describing "the vicar's cat" with an adjective beginning with the letter "A". Each player then takes a turn finding a different adjective to describe "the vicar's cat" starting with "A".

Once everyone in the circle has had a turn, it starts again with the letter "B", and so on. Any player who fails to think of an adjective in ten seconds is out. The game continues through the alphabet until only one player - the winner - is left.

• FRUIT BOWL How To Play: You need an even number of people to play this game. Everyone gets into pairs, and each pair is given the name of a fruit. Someone at random calls out the name of a fruit, at which point the relevant pair must get up and swop places with each other. It starts off simply, but the idea is that as the game progresses, it becomes more complicated, with two or more fruit categories called out at the same time.

• CHARADES How To Play: This game is an old family favourite, so probably doesn't need too much explaining. Depending on numbers, it can be played in teams or individually. Choose a song, film or television programme and, without speaking a word, act it out for the remaining players who must guess what it is. The person who guesses correctly is the next to perform.

• LOOKABOUT How To Play: One person starts the game by showing everyone a small object in the room. Everyone then has to leave while that person hides the object somewhere in the room. When everyone is called back in, they have to search for the object. When they see it, they have to sit down quietly.

The game is more interesting if they don't sit down immediately but pretend to keep looking around for a few more seconds - otherwise it makes it obvious exactly where the object is. The last person to find the object becomes the next person to hide something.

• YOU'RE NEVER FULLY DRESSED WITHOUT A SMILE How To Play: One player is "It", and they're the only person allowed to smile during the game. They then have to try, any which way they can, to make everyone else in the group smile. This can get very silly. The game continues until only one person is left not smiling - and he or she is declared the winner.

• BLINDMAN'S BUFF How To Play: One person is blindfolded while all the other players spread out around the room. The blindfolded person then has to feel their way around the room until they manage to catch someone. They then have to guess who it is they have "caught". If they guess incorrectly, the person is freed and blindman has to keep going until they correctly guess the identity of a person caught.

Once they manage this, someone else is chosen to be blindfolded. It's probably best for you to move any fragile or delicate items out of the way.

COCKTAILS

DOUGLAS ANKRAH - founder of the London Academy of Bartending - shares two of his favourite festive recipes.

• MA CHERIE
A rich chocolatey cocktail, full of cranberry and cherry flavours.

2 Highball glasses
100ml Finlandia cranberry vodka
25ml Cherry Heering (cherry liqueur)
50ml cherry puree
35ml Mozart dark chocolate liqueur
25ml lemon juice
20ml gomme syrup
20ml soda water or 7-up Crushed ice
Hard ice cubes
Orange twists and sprigs of mint to garnish

Pour the vodka, Cherry Heering, cherry puree, chocolate liqueur, lemon juice and gomme syrup into a mixing glass and stir well with hard ice cubes. Half fill each glass with crushed ice, split the drink between the two, stir, fill up with crushed ice and top up with soda or 7-up. Stir again gently to mix all the ingredients, and garnish with orange twists and a sprig of mint.

• MAVERICK MARTINI
Bursting with fresh flavours and festive vanilla tones, this is perfect for New Year's Eve. If you cannot find vanilla sugar, you can use vanilla essence and golden syrup to make your own.

2 Martini glasses, preferably chilled, and tall shot glasses for Champagne on the side
80ml Cariel Vanilla Vodka
15ml Passoa (passionfruit liqueur)
Flesh and seeds of 4 passionfruit
5 teaspoons vanilla sugar
100ml Champagne
1 passion fruit, halved
Hard ice cubes

In a Boston shaker, shake all the ingredients except Champagne, the halved passion fruit and 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar. Strain into glasses. Separately, pour out two glasses of Champagne and dust the halved passion fruit with the remaining sugar. Dunk the passionfruit in the Martini glasses, with spoons: the idea is to fish out the fruit, eat with the spoon, drink the Champagne and then enjoy the cocktail at leisure.

• Recipes from Cocktails: Shaken and Stirred by Douglas Ankrah. Photography by Lisa Linder.

HOME-MADE CANAPES

• SMOKED SALMON AND DILL PANCAKES
(Makes 60)

For the batter:
100g plain flour
1 egg
100ml milk
A little sunflower oil for frying

For the filling:
200g tub of cream cheese
400g smoked salmon slices
4tbsp chopped fresh dill

First, make pancake batter. Measure flour into a bowl, add the egg, one-third of the milk and whisk until smooth. Stir in the rest of the milk.

Heat a small non-stick frying pan, add a little oil and heat. Pour in enough pancake mix to line the base of the pan. Cook until brown, flip over and cook the other side.

Repeat using the rest of the batter. Once pancakes are cold, spread a thin layer of cream cheese over one side of each pancake and season with black pepper. Put a layer of smoked salmon over the top of the cream cheese and sprinkle chopped fresh dill on top.

Roll the pancakes into a tight cigar shape. Wrap in cling film and chill.

Cut each pancake at an angle into 10 very thin slices and serve.

• FAST PESTO PARMESAN CHEESE STRAWS

(Makes 24)

1 packet (350g) of ready-rolled puff pastry
2 tbsp green pesto
75g grated Parmesan cheese
1 beaten egg

Lay the pastry onto a floured work surface and re-roll to a large rectangle about 17cm by 40cm, so the pastry is paper-thin. Cut the pastry in half lengthways to make two rectangular pieces.

Spread pesto on one side of one the pieces. Sprinkle 50g of Parmesan over the other piece. Place the pesto piece on top of the Parmesan piece (pesto side down), press together and chill for at least 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 200c. Trim the edges of the pastry, brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Cut into strips 2cm wide. Arrange on non-stick paper on a baking sheet and bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.

• PRAWN COCKTAIL CROSTINI
(Makes 24)

1 long thin baguette
A little butter, softened
4 tbsp light mayonnaise
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
Dash of lemon juice
200g shelled cooked North Atlantic prawns
Paprika

Cut the baguette into 24 slices about 5mm thick and spread one side of each with a little butter. Arrange buttered side down on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper.

In a bowl, mix the mayonnaise, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice. Drain prawns well and add to sauce mixture. Season. Spoon the mixture on to the bread and sprinkle with paprika. Cook in an oven preheated to 220c for about 8 minutes, or until golden brown.

• Recipes taken from One Step Ahead by Mary Berry (Quadrille, £19.99)

SUPERMARKET TREATS

The experts at Leiths School of Cookery and Wine rate the ready-made canapes

Tesco Finest Steamed Dim Sum Selection, £3.99
Unusual and a nice change. Quite big, with thick dough. Well filled and tasted good. 7/10

Sainsburys Smoked Scottish Salmon Canapes, £2.99
A bit old-fashioned looking, and quite a "fatty" taste. 5/10

Tesco Finest Butterfly Prawns with Sweet Chilli Dip, £3.99
Looked good, but quite a lot of crumbs and a bit soggy. 7/10

Morrisons Filo Tartlets, £3.99
A lot of filo (six layers) to filling, so just tasted of dry pastry really. Very bland. 4/10

Tesco Finest Oriental Selection, £5.99
Quite big but well stuffed. On the greasy side. 6/10

Waitrose Mini Filo Parcels, £17.99
A bit greasy but good flavour to the filling. 7/10

Waitrose Chicken & Mango Tartlets, £3.99
Good flavour, plenty of filling and a nice crumb topping. 8/10

Marks & Spencer Scallop and Chorizo Rosti, £5.99
Quite big to eat, a little over salty, but tasted good. 6/10

CHAMPAGNE

Wondering which brand of supermarket bubbly will make your party fizz? The experts at Leiths School of Food and Wine in London sample five of the best - and award them marks out of ten

Waitrose Blanc de Noirs Champagne, £15.99
Almost pink in colour. Pinot noir grapes only, so a bit dry. VERDICT: 6/10

Sainsbury's Premier Cru Vintage Champagne, £22.99
Nice-looking label, quite a floral flavour, very easy drinking. VERDICT: 7/10

Tesco Premier Cru Champagne, £14.99
Subtle Tesco labelling. Nice, smooth and drinkable. VERDICT: 9/10

Morrison's Nicolas Feuillatte Vintage Champagne, £25.99
A little dry and slightly acidic. Not many bubbles and they didn't last long. VERDICT: 7/10

Marks & Spencer Orpale Champagne, £34.99
Delicious, with good depth and complexity. VERDICT: 8/10

MULLED WINE

Asda Mulled Wine, £2.50

Very fruity and sweet. Quite a plummy colour. VERDICT: 6/10

Sainsbury's Spicy Red Mulled Wine, £3.99
Quite orangey, a bit bitter, but nice if you want something that's a little less sweet. VERDICT: 6/10

Marks & Spencer Red Mulled Wine, £3.99
Very aromatic and spicy. Not as sweet as some. VERDICT: 7/10

Waitrose Mulled Wine, £3.99
Citrusy, with lemon as well as orange, and plenty of cinammon. VERDICT: 7/10

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-505256/From-food-drinks-games-How-throw-New-Years-Eve-party-remember.html#ixzz1i60WI8i8