The capsules that time forgot

7th January 2000, 12:00am

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The capsules that time forgot

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/capsules-time-forgot
IT’S been a good week for the millennium generation. Experts said young people today can look forward to living 100 years. We can expect 100,000 centenarians by 2066.

However tomorrow’s adults might not get that far if parents fail to heed paediatricians’ advice on footware: trendy trainers ruin young feet and stifle kids’ ability to walk at an early age. One can only hope trainers go the way of replica football shirts. “They are seen as quite naff - they have a nasty nylon image,” sniffed a fashion editor, which is good news for parental pockets.

Perhaps both shirts and trainers will be consigned to history in a time capsule. The capsule craze shows no sign of abating despite the fact that, of the 10,000 known to have been buried around the world since the Second World War, 9,000 have been lost including the one at Thameside primary in Reading. Headteacher James Moore said he’d heard it was in the quadrangle. He said: “I just hpe it isn’t under the fish pond.”

As adults across Britain regretted their millennium booze consumption, it emerged that even children’s soft drinks can have nasty consequences. Consumption of 1.5 litres a day of the top-ten selling drink, Sunny Delight, caused a five-year-old’s face to go orange and yellow - fortunately a reversible condition.

Edinburgh students, on the other hand, can reinforce their hangovers for free - all in the cause of science. The Royal Infirmary is paying volunteers pound;25 to spend three afternoons consuming vodka for a study into the effect of alcohol on memory and concentration levels. The catch is that some will be given a vodka-tasting placebo.

Should their memory lapse, the ancient Chinese medicine, Ginkgo, will come to the rescue. Ian Hindmarch from Surrey University found the plant remedy boosts the short-term recall of younger people, as well as the over-50s. Hope for us all, there.


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