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Making one’s way through the opulent suburb of Fresnaye in Cape Town, South Africa, it’s not unusual to be surrounded by imposing mansions, beautiful mountains drenched in green and the sparkling sapphire-blue ocean. Of all this visual candy, there is one truly magnificent home perched on the edge of a koppie – or small hill – overlooking the Atlantic, that really demands one’s attention.

Owned by Stefan Antoni – one of the directors at Stefan Antoni Olmesdahl Truen Architects (SAOTA), the firm that designed and constructed the home – and his wife Carla, this modern dwelling’s allure is due in part to the levels and layers that make up its structure and capture the feel of the surrounding natural landscape and nearby beaches, as well as its fantastic location.

It was the mix of the views that span Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard out towards Robben Island as well as the intoxicating clarity of the seaside light that persuaded Stefan and Carla to demolish their original city pad and create a larger home for their growing family. "I’ve never really wanted to move from this spot," Stefan says. "It’s so unique; its position at the intersection of a number of roads, its orientations and I suppose the way I blended all this together makes it capture the view like no other home in the area."

Renowned for his ability to design houses on the steepest of mountain sites – of which Cape Town has many – Stefan admits that "this was perhaps my most difficult project to date". Constructed on a triangular plot, Stefan had to utilise as much of the space as possible, resulting in an undulating structure with curvaceous balconies that jut out gently around the house, making full use of the property and maximising views. The home includes Stefan’s dual-level penthouse with two en-suite bedrooms, a living area and a kitchen on the first level, a studio, third bedroom and garage on the lower level, as well as an apartment underneath. On the roof, which is found off the main living area up a beautiful set of marble stairs, is a private swimming pool and sun terrace with curtained four-poster sun beds and a view Stefan describes as "pure Rio de Janeiro".

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Story By: by Graham Smith

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by Peter J. Hatch

Hardcover, 263 pages | purchase

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In the nearby South Orchard, he grew 130 varieties of fruit trees like peach, apple, fig and cherry.

All the time, he carefully documented planting procedures, spacings of rows, when blossoms appeared, and when the food should come to the table. Behind Jefferson’s “zeal to categorize the world around him” was a patriotic mission, Hatch says.

Jefferson wrote, “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.”

Hatch says, “He believed that plants could transform society.” Jefferson even mused that the slavery of African-Americans in the Deep South might be replaced if sugar maple trees could replace sugar cane. He said they’d be so simple to tend, children could do it.

Despite those words, Jefferson used slave labor to construct the garden and worked there daily with his enslaved African-American Wormley Hughes, the same man who later dug Jefferson’s grave.

A bee buzzes the crimson clover at Monticello.

Lots of things failed in the garden. His entries from 1809 show the carrots, beets, sorrel and okra, the cauliflower, tarragon and Chinese melons missing the mark. Jefferson cites Windsor Beans as “killed by bug” and notes on Aug. 21: “From the 7th of Apr. to this day, excessive drought and cold. Now a good rain.”

Hatch gives some hope to home gardeners who might want to experiment themselves. “The use of the word ‘failed’ is repeated throughout [Jefferson's] garden book, and one wonders if any gardener has written about failure as much as Thomas Jefferson. He once also wrote that if he failed 99 times out of 100, that one success was worth the 99 failures,” Hatch says.

These days, some of the Jefferson garden bounty is sold to the cafe at Monticello, some goes home with employees, and many plants in the garden are allowed to go to seed. Hatch says Jefferson’s once-pioneering garden now acts as a seed bank to perpetuate rare lines and varieties like Prickly-seeded Spinach and Dutch Brown lettuce, all for sale at the gift shop.

Despite the diversity of vegetables Jefferson’s garden produced, the recipes unearthed by scholars and attributed to his family were quite typical for the day: Boil everything. Some of the recipes survived and were reprinted in The Congressional Cook Book (1933). If you’re looking for instructions for Colonial American-style Cabbage Pudding and Dried Beans, check this out. They’re hard to make out, but here are some written in Jefferson’s own hand.

LONDON (Reuters) – A decadent gown made from feathers and a printed lace latex dress designed by some of fashion’s luminaries will go on display as part of a new exhibition to celebrate the glitz and glamour of Britain’s ballgowns.

Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950, on at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum from May 19 until January 2013, showcases a collection of 60 dresses marking the journey of formal attire from private events to the public parade.

“This exhibition is a very exciting moment for us, we really wanted to launch the new fashion gallery with a display that celebrated British fashion design,” co-curator Sonnet Stanfill said.

The show displays a vast array of specially made designs for social events like debutante balls, royal state occasions and red carpet events spanning 60 years.

Most people are excited by the idea of a fairytale evening, of choosing a gown that shows their level of taste that makes them look their best and presents them in their finest attire, Stanfill told Reuters.

“There is the moment that everyone hopes for when a woman goes to her wardrobe and chooses a gown, to have that moment where you feel like you’re the belle of the ball.”

Visitors stepping into the softly lit halls, will be able to see some of the most beautiful and daring creations from designers such as Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Erdem.

Projections of the gowns, shot by photographer David Hughes, are beamed on each alcove of the domed ceiling in crisp detail.

The lower gallery showcases historic gowns dating back to the 1950s, including a Norman Hartnell design for the late Queen Mother and Princess Diana’s “Elvis Dress” by Catherine Walker.

Choosing the designers and the dresses on the display was an extremely difficult task, Stanfill said.

“We really looked for things that showcased different couture techniques, different silhouettes and also of course, it had to be British, so by culling through our permanent collection, we chose the pieces that we felt were the grandest examples.”

White chandeliers and giant silvery pearl necklaces which the mannequins are perched upon make up the new mezzanine level, which was designed to represent a grand ballroom.

But the exhibition isn’t all about parties and layers of tulle and froth, added Stanfill, who said she discovered a layer of subversion beneath Atsuko Kudo’s design, which appears to be lace but is made from latex.

“One of the things I have really enjoyed working for on this show, is notion of subversion…It’s more than just a dress, it’s that one element of surprise that I have really enjoyed discovering,” Stanfill said.

“British design, you think you know what it’s all about and then something comes along and upends your preconceived notions.”

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang, editing by Paul Casciato)

The Dubai Autism Centre has 46 children on its rolls although it can only accommodate 44. The number of children on its waiting list? Nearly 200.

At the Emirates Autism Centre in Abu Dhabi, which caters for 56 children, there is also a further 200 children waiting to join. The figures echo the sudden rise in the number of children being diagnosed with autism across the UAE.

While just 16 cases of autism were reported to Dubai Autism Centre in 2001, only two years later the number had rocketed to 30.

Worldwide the occurrence of autism has been documented as one child in 88 births. "In the UAE, although no official figures are available I can tell you we are on the same track," says Sara Ahmad Baker, head of the community service unit, Dubai Autism Centre. "Autism is definitely on the rise. There is more awareness of the condition and improved diagnosis and assessment techniques so more cases are coming to light. However, the more worrying factor is that there could be an as yet unidentified reason for this rise, something psychiatrists and doctors have yet to ascertain."

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It’s official: Having a purpose in life can actually help you live longer. Apparently those who have one – which could range from something ambitious like scaling Mount Everest to a relatively simple goal like reading a set of books – are likely to live longer than those who don’t, according to researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Ask anybody and they’ll tell you setting a goal is relatively easy. It’s investing the time and effort towards achieving it that’s the tricky part. And it is here that the importance of emotional and mental health is most crucial – it’s no secret that people who are emotionally stable and healthy can tackle life’s challenges, bounce back from adversity and build and maintain strong personal and professional relationships. A healthy mind boosts your mood and helps you savour life to the full.

Also important to your motivation is your physical well-being, because a healthy body promotes a healthy mind.

Recognising the importance of these ideas, Friday asked five experts to suggest ways to have a healthy, wholesome and fulfilling life. Follow their 15 top tips for a better life starting today.

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Story By: by Michel Martin

Dealing with diversity is kind of like swimming, says host Michel Martin. The water may be cold, but sometimes, you just have to jump in.

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a friend of mine who just got back from a wedding in Central America. He was telling me how impressed he was that just everybody at his hotel was, it seemed to him, effortlessly bilingual and even multilingual.

People switched back and forth from Spanish to English, and sometimes to French, in the span of minutes, depending on who was standing there and what was needed. I thought: Of course they are. They have to be. Their livelihood and advancement depend on it.

It’s the same thing another friend of mine told me when I was doing some reporting in Canada, and I was similarly impressed with the language skills of the people I ran into there. That friend of mine, a Canadian, laughed at me.

“Of course they are, they have to be bilingual,” he said, “to make a living and, most especially, to get ahead.”

So that’s what came to mind when I started hearing yet again about why diversity doesn’t matter, or at least why it shouldn’t matter, or at least why “liberals” need to do a better job of defending it.

Now this is one of those hardy perennials that tends to come up when there are primary elections, where someone feels the need to draw some ethnic hard line, or racial stress points of one sort or another emerge.

Interestingly enough, recently some conservative writers have rediscovered a 2006 study, published in 2007, that we talked about on Tell Me More. That study was by Robert Putnam, the social scientist famous for his previous work on civic engagement, Bowling Alone.

The work I’m talking about was a massive study of how diversity affects civic engagement, and he found — to his discomfort, actually — that more diverse communities actually suffer in many ways from civic withdrawal. People are less likely to volunteer, vote, give to charity and work on projects together. People trust each other less, so they do less and hunker down.

Can I just tell you? Is this really a surprise? Diversity is hard for the same reason marriage is hard. You’re asking people who were raised in different houses, different families, usually different genders, to submerge a part of themselves for the sake of the whole. You’re asking people to think of someone else’s feelings, if not instead of their own, at least alongside their own. And when was that ever easy, even when you’re in love?

But we don’t tell people to stop getting married. And more to the point, today this country, and in fact the world, is not going to get less diverse. And do we really want to encourage more tribalism, since our recent adventures worked out so well with catastrophes like World War II, the Balkan Wars and the Rwandan genocide? So why don’t we stop whining about what is, and get busy with what could be?

Just focusing on this country again, it seems to me the issue is not whether diversity is a civic strength or liability — that’s interesting and instructive, but rather beside the point at this stage — but rather, how it should be talked about and even taught.

To me the right analogy is a life skill, kind of like swimming — not impossible when you’re older, but easier when you are young; not always necessary, but lifesaving when it is. It seems to me that people who don’t want to face this are the kind of people who live near the beach but never get in the water — which, come to think of it, is why I’m not surprised they are often so grumpy.

Recently, a white National Review writer was fired for a commentary that his editors deemed racist and gratuitously inflammatory. I won’t quarrel with their decision. The writer trafficked in some very tired stereotypes about race and intellect, among other things, but he did say one thing that I found intriguing.

He said he was encouraging his children to make a black friend at work. Now, it was a cynical suggestion meant for political cover, not friendship, but it still wasn’t a bad one. When an ability to function in diverse environments becomes necessary for our livelihoods and advancement, believe me, we will jump in that water, whether it is cold or not.

Indian designer Manish Arora’s year-long association as creative director of French fashion house Paco Rabanne has ended.

Confirming the development, Arora said: "Yes, I am no longer associated with Paco Rabanne but the journey has been amazing. The contract was for one year and I finished a year."

The fashion house, which launched a women’s ready-to-wear line last year, says it ended the contract by mutual agreement.

"We are most grateful to Manish for the work accomplished and the energy that he displayed all along this project," it said in a statement.

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Story By: by Stuart Kauffman

The Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus (circa 95 – 55 BC)

I was fascinated a few years ago to learn the initial meaning in the Greek agora and among its citizens of “rhetoric.” But first, what do we now mean by the term?

Alva wrote recently about cigarette packages carrying frightening images of the consequences of smoking. He described it as propaganda, meant to manipulate, not persuade with the truth. He makes a powerful case.

We now think of rhetoric as, essentially, propaganda. Rhetoric is used to overstate and, often, misrepresent a case. In Alva’s good phrase, it is used to “manipulate.” In today’s sense, “rhetoric” is slightly malign, intentionally misleading, not to be trusted.

Hence my astonishment when I learned (a claim I assume is true) that in ancient Greece the meaning of rhetoric — and the reason it was taught widely in Greece and the Roman Empire — was quite different.

Citizens found themselves confronted with practical, real-life choices, where they did not have access to “all the facts,” yet had to make a real decision in face of uncertainty. Rhetoric evolved as the “art” of reasonably persuading one’s peers of a course of action in the face of uncertainty.

On learning this, two big issues snap into place for me. First, if not for these sensible reasons, why did the Greeks and Romans teach rhetoric with so much care? Presumably rhetoric was an aspect of responsible citizenship.

I’m reading now the wonderful new book The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt, about the rediscovery of the Roman poet Lucretius in 1417 by one Poggio Bracciolini. He was a papal scribe and more, perhaps in the German monastery of Fulda. The discovery did much to pitch the Western world into the flowering humanism of the Renaissance, after perhaps 700 or 800 years of intellectual confinement to the authority of the church.

The second big issue that hits me is this: why do we not teach rhetoric in the ancient sense now? I suspect the answer is the role of science since Newton. We truly believe that science will know and, as Alva wrote, we can be informed of the facts and use reason as our basis of judgement.

Rhetoric, in this worldview, has no civil job to do; just the facts, please.

But I think this view mistakes our real world today. We, like the ancient Greeks, often do not know “the facts” as they stand, or those that may become relevant.

Then, in face of this uncertainty, we, like the Greeks, still have to decide.

If so, it seems to me that rhetoric — in the sense of the ancient world — remains honorable and is part of our civic duty.