Sigourney Weaver

Look who?s talking

Fancy strolling through Manhattan and listening to Sigourney Weaver drawl on about the wonders of New York? Well, that?s just been made possible with Talking Street, a series of walking tours through the city, where the stars voice in on your mobile phone and talk to you as you make your way forward. While Weaver and Jeremy Stiller have signed up for the New York tours, journalist Larry King will help you out on the soon-to-be-launched Washington D.C. tour. Pegged at $6, the tours have been planned by Miles Kronby, who thinks that such tours will become even more popular as talktime charges go down. And with camera phones, things can only get more adventurous.

Jude law likes things up close and personal. The star recently landed up at a sleazy club, apparently promoting his new movie Closer, which has Natalie Portman as a poledancer. Instead, he ended up getting a lap dance from a really hot performer. Cool promo, that?ll make!

Get this, dude

There?s no way you can miss this. Scott Kiesling, a linguist at the University of Pittsburg, has entered the heart of cooldom and deconstructed one of its most prevalent catchphrases ? ?dude?, which can define anyone from a surfer to a stripling. Kiesling?s paper tries to prove that ?dude? derives its popularity from something he calls cool solidarity ? a not-too-intimate, social bond between young people. For his research paper, he went back to old taped conversations, as well as data he collected from undergrads who kept a tally of the first 20 times they heard ?dude? in a day. The paper reportedly shows that men use the phrase more than women. It?s used least to refer to parents.

Smoke screen

Doctor Tanvir Reza is a man on a mission. He has started Kolkata Action on Smoking and Health, reportedly the first clinic in the city devoted to ?curing? smokers of their habit. The programme begins from the 1st Sunday of January, and plans to tackle the problem of addicts. Dr Reza is visiting schools to get youngsters involved.

Vintage draughts

Lap it up

This is a history lesson that?ll raise the spirits of every budding tippler. Researchers have traced the history of winemaking to 7,000 BC to the village of Jiahu in the northern Chinese province of Henan. Before this finding the ancestry of alcohol was only around seven-and-a -half thousand years old ? the evidence came from a neolithic site in Iran. But tests on pottery shards now found in Jiahu have shown traces of a drink prepared from a combination of rice, honey and grapes. Jiahu is in the Yellow River basin ? a location famous for its rich archaeological relics. So there?s more to ancient China than just silk and paper.

AWARD OF THE WEEK

Goes to the Delhi University Students Union for launching a self-defence workshop for girls studying in eight Delhi University colleges.