The origins of the modern day Hallowe'en festival are of course, Celtic.

St. Patrick's Day was once a much more traditional religious festival which commemorated a Welshman who converted Ireland to Christianity and became its patron saint.

El día de San Patricio era en un tiempo una fiesta religiosa mucho más tradicional que hacía honor a un galés que cristianizó Irlanda y se convirtió en su santo patrón.

I used to think that hair was put on top of our heads in order to protect it from the sun. I could never see any other use for it. I just assumed it was basically decorative, to hide the skull.

Antes pensaba que el pelo servía para protegernos del sol. No le podía atribuir otra misión. Daba por sentado que era algo meramente decorativo, para tapar la cabeza.

The Romans knew a thing or two about cheese. They figured out that you could produce different flavours and characteristics depending on the treatment and conditions of storage. They even included it as part of their food rations while they busied themselves defending the empire from a few “cheesed off�? Huns.

Algo sabían los romanos acerca del queso. Descubrieron que podían dar con distintos sabores y características según el tratamiento al que lo sometían y las condiciones en las que lo almacenaban.

Stress is a very popular topic of discussion at work nowadays. Everybody complains at some time of being stressed and billions of working days are lost due to stress-related illnesses

Everywhere you turn, the potential for conflict exists. Conflict with ourselves, conflict with others, conflict at work, conflict at home

In this Olympic year we look at the downside of keeping fit.

En este año olímpico, echamos un vistazo a los inconvenientes de tener que estar en forma.

We weren't antisemitic in our town. There weren't many opportunities to be. The fact was there weren't many Jews in rural Ireland in the early to mid 70's. I suppose the closest ones to our house were about two hundred kilometres up the road in the “big smoke” called Dublin.

No éramos antisemitas en nuestro pueblo. No había muchas ocasiones para serlo. El hecho era que no había muchos judíos en la Irlanda rural de mediados de los 70. Supongo que los más cercanos a nuestra casa estaban a doscientos kilómetros carretera arriba, en la “gran nube” (o “big smoke”) llamada Dublín.

Wine seems to be a fairly straightforward drink which can accompany almost any meal. It comes in red, white and rosé forms and has been with us since about 6000 BC. For such a humble drink however, wine attracts a lot of attention. The ancient Greeks, for example, had no fewer than 80 adjectives to describe its delicious properties and contemporary experts in the matter also enjoy putting a name to some characteristics of the alcoholic nectar. In fact there are two types of wine drinker; those who drink it and those who... think about it.

Did you know that supermarkets are designed to make you buy more? It is called "Impulse Buying

Got your attention? A headline has more impact if it is short and clear: today's readers are busy people who don't have time to assimilate or even bother attempting to take in a long string of words. Furthermore, a long headline somehow gives the impression that the writer just could not express concisely what he/she wanted to say - so the author tries to get all the information into the title.