Things women wish men understood

Women and men are as different as chalk and cheese. Men always find it difficult to understand women. Or so they proclaim. 
But believe us, we are not that difficult to understand. Just try to keep the communication channel open and see how things fall into their place. Here's a guide of some of the things women wish men automatically understood (and remember it's neither astro-physics nor micro-biology).

1. We know men are low in EQ (Emotional Quotient) but make an effort to understand emotions. But remember we don't like men who can't control their emotions. Cry babies (oops men) are not what we are exactly looking at in life..

2. When we talk, pay attention to what we are saying. Don't just nod your head and continue watching television.

3. Your mother might be great in the kitchen and can whip up gourmet dishes in no time. But sorry we can't go on listening to your running commentary on her remarkable culinary skills.

4. We believe in the power of communication. So, talk, fight but don't just go into 'silent' mode. Leave that mode to your mobile phones.

5 All of us love a dash of chivalry in our partners. So be courteous and show us that you are well brought-up.

6 Don't brag. Showing off really acts against you. Be subtle about your fat pay packet, your swanky car and the like. That shows your class.

7. Don't think that you own us. So, behave accordingly. Like men folk, we also like our own space.

8. Romance comes naturally to us. We love it when a man expresses his love. So, please show us that you love. Say it through flowers, dinners, gifts and of course count surprises as an important element of our DNA. Understand these basic points and act accordingly

9. Don't try to give us lessons on moral science. And for heaven's sake don't comment on a low-neckline dress. That's a very cheap thing to do.

10. Don't crack jokes on our family members, close friends. Show your great sense of humour with a touch of sensibility.. 

For questions specific to your health conditions, please write down in the comments section and we will answer it as soon as possible. Thanks

Think you should do better in life? Blame your great, great, great grandfather

LONDON: Miffed that you didn't get into Oxford University? Cross because you can't afford that three-bed in the town centre? Not got one non-executive directorship to your single-barrelled name? There is only one person to blame: your great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. 

According to a new book, " The Son Also Rises", by academic Gregory Clark, our chances of getting on in life are largely down to what our family did 300 years ago. Contrary to brighter estimates, which suggest that past prosperity or poverty can be erased in three to four generations, Clark reckons it takes 10 to 15. 

So, those who feel held back by their modest beginnings shouldn't look to their parents' salary for an explanation: that accounts for a mere 10 per cent variation in a person's status, whereas our long-term lineage accounts for a variance of between 50 and 60 per cent. 

What that means, in effect, is that if your family were shopkeepers 200 years ago, the likelihood is you may be, too. 

Clark arrived at his conclusion by using surnames to track changes in familial fortune. He picked out the family names that dominated elite positions in historical records like the Doomsday Book and the Royal Society records and then tracked how long it took for those surnames to lose their wealth-predicting ability. 

Was Clark surprised at his findings, implying as they do that capitalism has not led to a rapid, persistent mobility? "Very surprised; astonished," he says. "It took us considerable time to realise that surnames were revealing a surprising persistence in social life that conventional methods fail to detect." 

Clark suggests that mobility in feudal England was not vastly different to today. Upwardly mobile artisans working in the 12th century took eight generations to be absorbed into the educated elite of the 16th century. 

Conversely, despite the introduction of inheritance tax and rapid industrialization, the 21st-century descendant of the 1 per centers of mid-Victorian England are likely to be three times as wealthy as the average man or woman on the bus. 

What is perhaps the most surprising feature of the research, though, is that the ancestral shadow appears to hang over all the countries surveyed, without exception. 

"Social mobility rates are similar across societies that vary dramatically in their institutions and income levels. Cradle-to-grave socialist Sweden and dog-eat-dog, free-to-lose America have similar rates. Communist China and capitalist Taiwan have similar rates. Homogenous Japan and the ethnically fractured US also have similar rates," he says. 

If proved correct, Clark's research would imply that attempts to invest society with even a ghost of social mobility have come to naught. As he says: "Only extreme, drastic and unacceptable state interventions have any hope of increasing social mobility." Not even the Communist Revolution in China in 1949 managed to have a lasting, pervasive effect on mobility, according to his study. 

While one might expect that the glacial pace of change comes as a result of the old boys' network, Clark contends that, actually, we inherit our "social competences". This conclusion has led some to suggest that he is a genetic determinist. In his own writing, it must be said, he points out that he is not saying that helping the disadvantaged doesn't produce "absolute, commendable benefits", merely that such action fails to boost social status. 

Still, though, it cuts both ways. As he says, the vast investments made by the super-rich in the education of their own kin eventually runs to nothing if their forefathers were not themselves wealthy. 

It seems then, that playing the lineage lottery is a lot like playing the real lottery — winners are few and far between.