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DETROIT — Former Indy Racing League driver Sam Schmidt has done a lot in the 16 years since an accident left him paralysed from the neck down. He runs a racing team and a foundation. He’s raced a sailboat using his chin. But the man who raced in the Indianapolis 500 has not been able to drive around his neighbourhood — until now.

Schmidt received the first licence restricted to an autonomous vehicle in the US. The licence allows him to drive on Nevada roads in his specially modified Corvette, which requires no hands on its steering wheel or feet on its pedals. Schmidt uses head motions to control the car’s direction.

Fully driverless cars — several steps beyond the car that Schmitt is driving — are expected to reach US roads in the next five to ten years, and the disabled community is eager for their arrival. More than 4 million people in the US need assistance with daily tasks like eating or leaving home, according to the US Census Bureau. Others have less severe disabilities but are still unable to drive.

Disabled people are less likely than the non-disabled to be employed and are more likely to experience poverty, the bureau says. But that could change with the arrival of self-driving cars.

“It’s coming. We’re looking for something to help us get that level of independence,” Schmidt told The Associated Press.

Schmidt is the bridge to that future. His car is not fully autonomous; it uses four cameras to monitor his head and transmit his movements to the tyres. He breathes into a tube to accelerate and sucks the air out when he wants to brake.

The car is not practical for most people. Centennial, Colorado-based Arrow Electronics bought and modified Schmidt’s $80,000 2016 Corvette Z06. It spent an additional six figures on cameras, sensors and computers and even more to add a steering wheel and brake pedals on the passenger side.

Schmidt’s license requires that a licensed driver accompany him in the passenger seat to take over in case of emergency. When he drives, Schmidt must follow a pilot car. He cannot drive in ice or snow. Those restrictions could eventually be eased, Nevada officials say.

Some in the disabled community would like to move directly to fully self-driving cars which would not require licences at all, says Henry Claypool, policy director of the Community Living Policy Centre at the University of California, San Francisco.

“There are some people who are just so isolated that it really compromises their ability to enjoy their basic civil rights,” Claypool said.

But Claypool says it’s important to be patient and work with the industry now so when autonomous vehicles do arrive, they’re accessible.

“There are real barriers to transportation and we need to be clear about what those are and make sure we leverage the technology to address them,” said Claypool, who is wheelchair-bound but drives a $62,000 modified minivan.

Many companies are thinking inclusively. Google has worked closely with the blind while developing its self-driving cars. Tesla Motors has said it’s working on an urban transport vehicle that would accommodate wheelchairs. Arrow is working on other projects, including a modified bicycle for a paraplegic athlete.

“Sam is our astronaut,” said Joe Verrengia, Arrow’s global director of social responsibility.

Arrow is making its design and software freely available in the hope that other companies will build on what it has done. Over the next 18 months, Schmidt hopes to modify a more advanced, semiautonomous car that could drive itself for short stretches and could help him override potential mistakes. Right now, for example, he could accidentally turn the car if he looks to the side when he means to go straight. A car that was watching the road ahead could correct that.

But for now, the licence means an end to 16 years in the passenger seat of a conversion van for trips around town.

Schmidt is thrilled by the pace of improvement in technology. Within the first year of his partnership with Arrow, in an earlier version of his Corvette, Schmidt completed qualifying laps at the 2014 Indianapolis 500. Earlier this year, he raced to the summit of Pike’s Peak.

“Me driving is a lifetime-old problem and these people came together and solved it in seven months,” he said. “When you have the right people and the right resources and everyone concentrates on the goal, it gets done.”

Schmidt, who co-owns the racing team Schmidt Peterson Motorsports and is chairman of the Conquer Paralysis Now foundation, can hardly narrow the list when asked where he wants to drive first. One stop is the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, where he won a race in 1999. He’d also like to cruise down the Las Vegas strip.

LOS ANGELES — Action movie star Jackie Chan accepted an honorary Oscar on Saturday as Hollywood A-listers sounded a cautionary note over President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the polls.

Left-leaning Tinseltown overwhelmingly backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, and stars at the Academy’s glitzy Governors Awards told AFP of their dismay at her defeat.

Asked to compare the night’s honouree with Trump, double Oscar-winner Tom Hanks told AFP: “Jackie Chan has the wisdom of the East and the discipline of a master martial artist.”

After a lengthy pause, he added: “Our president-elect has a big responsibility and much to prove.”

For “Big Bang Theory” star Simon Helberg, who plays engineer Howard Wollowitz on the hit comedy series, Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election was “a terrible moment for the world”.

The 35-year-old, who starred alongside Hugh Grant and Meryl Streep in “Florence Foster Jenkins”, said change was needed but hoped a Trump presidency wouldn’t “damage our future”.

“The truth is not enough people showed up and that’s what we have to listen to. I hope that we can squash the violence and the bigotry, and whatever else this has unleashed before it gets out of hand,” he told AFP.

Andre Royo, best known for starring as a heroin addict in HBO crime drama series “The Wire”, said he was feeling “stressed out” by the prospect of a Trump White House.

“But I think we took for granted our perception of our country,” Royo told AFP.

“I think we were a little delusional and a little naive... and now we got reminded that we’ve got work to do and growing to do, as a culture.” 

Chan, known for his comic timing and acrobatic fighting style, has appeared in around 200 movies since becoming a child actor in his native Hong Kong in the 1960s.

Global star

His Hollywood breakthrough came with “Rumble in the Bronx” in 1996, and he has gone on to be become a global star through the “Rush Hour” movies, “Shanghai Noon”, “The Karate Kid” and the “Kung Fu Panda” series of animated films.

The 62-year-old — who shared a table with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone — left politics out of an unscripted acceptance speech.

But he roused Hollywood’s Ray Dolby Ballroom with an anecdote about realising how badly he wanted an Academy Award after going to Stallone’s house 23 years earlier and touching, kissing and smelling the American actor’s Oscar statuette.

“After 56 years in the film industry, making more than 200 films — I broke so many bones — finally this is mine!” Chan, who performed many of his own daring stunts, said of his Oscar. 

Film editor Anne Coates, casting director Lynn Stalmaster and documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman were also awarded statuettes at the Academy’s 8th Annual Governors Awards.

Coates, who is 90 and lives in England, was honoured for a 60-year career that has seen her collaborating with some of the industry’s most acclaimed directors, including with David Lean on “Lawrence of Arabia”.

Stalmaster, 88, a one-time stage and screen actor from Omaha, Nebraska, began working in casting in the mid-1950s and has signed up talent for more than 200 films, including “The Graduate”, “Deliverance” and “Tootsie”.

Wiseman, 86, has made a film almost every year since 1967, starting with the “Titicut Follies”, which went behind the scenes at Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane. 

The Governors Awards were created as a separate event in 2009 to allow more space for the honourees to accept their statuettes and to unclutter the main show’s packed schedule.

Previous winners of honorary Oscars include Lauren Bacall, Francis Ford Coppola, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie and Spike Lee.

The Architect’s Apprentice
Elif Shafak
New York: Penguin Books, 2014
Pp. 424 

Love is at the heart of this novel, though it is often most apparent when thwarted. One of the few great loves that does persist throughout the story is that of Jahan for Chota, the extraordinary white elephant that he brings into Sultan Suleiman’s palace menagerie in Istanbul. Another is Jahan’s love for building design which he learns while apprenticed to Sinan, the Sultan’s chief Architect — one of several real historical figures around which Elif Shafak weaves her novel. 

Another theme in “The Architect’s Apprentice” is the chasm between appearances and truth, and the possibilities this offers for reinventing one’s self if one is clever and not above engaging in deception. For Jahan is neither an elephant trainer nor Indian as he pretends. Fleeing an unhappy home at the age of 12, he stows away on a ship bearing Chota as a gift from an Indian Shah to the Ottoman Sultan. Through several twists of fate and some clever lies on his part, he replaces Chota’s original caretaker and works hard to adapt to his new role. Amidst the labyrinths, both physical and psychological, of the Ottoman court, Jahan is far from the only one pretending to be what he is not. Yet despite his savviness in adjusting to shifting realities, Jahan is at heart naïve and prone to trust others. These qualities, plus his forbidden love for the Sultan’s daughter, make him vulnerable to the intrigues which proliferate in the palace. 

At first, Jahan dreams of acquiring riches, marrying the perfect women and returning home, but after he is chosen as one of the four apprentices to Sinan, he throws himself wholeheartedly into his new vocation, without abandoning Chota. The elephant joins construction teams, and is also employed in the imperial wars, to Jahan’s great distress. 

The novel follows Jahan’s life through the reign of three sultans and a succession of grand viziers, revealing both the beauty and horrors of the 16th century Ottoman Empire, where the welfare of the many is sacrificed to ensure a life of luxury for the few. Shafak’s extravagant descriptions evoke the opulent jewels, furnishings, costumes, rituals and cuisine of the court, and a whole host of larger-than-life characters that exemplify the multiple cultural, ethnic and religious communities that make Istanbul a truly cosmopolitan hub. “A honeysuckle of a city, it drew from near and far people of every kind — bustling, seeking, yearning”. (p. 231)

But lurking beneath the surface of diversity are the machinations of power seekers who stand to gain by setting the majority against various minorities. Just as ominous are the superstitious, who view human knowledge and creativity as contrary to religious belief, and tantamount to inviting catastrophe.

Most impressive are the descriptions of how the architectural wonders of Istanbul were built and renovated — from the Suleimaniye Mosque to the Hagia Sophia to the extensive water system. Shafak takes the reader to the construction sites to observe the huge number of craftsmen and laborers involved, the quality of materials and tools used, how designs are readjusted and mistakes corrected, and the human reactions elicited by the monuments.

Upon the completion of the Suleimaniye Mosque, “Jahan could think only of the world as an enormous building site. While the master and apprentices had been raising this mosque, the universe had been constructing their fate. Never before had he thought of God as an architect. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Zoroastrians and people of myriad faiths and creeds lived under the same invisible dome”. (p. 145) 

With Shafak’s masterful descriptions, Istanbul assumes the status of a character in its own right, but it is also the epicentre of the novel’s driving contradiction: The spectacular buildings to which the gentle, wise Sinan devotes his life, with Jahan following his every footstep, are funded by successive imperial wars which entail massive destruction, plunder, killing and enslavement. By the end of the story, one understands that the many intrigues and plots against Sinan and Jahan can be traced to the resentment and rage generated by the violence and inequality of empire. 

“The Architect’s Apprentice” displays Shafak’s expansive imagination that extends beyond re-envisioning a long-past historical period, to explore secret crevices in the human psyche. She is Turkish, but writes in English, using it in an innovative way that makes her part of an international trend that is re-inventing the language. As in her other books, she tells a compelling story that highlights the importance of love and tolerance.

LOS ANGELES — Are we alone in the universe? It is a question that has preoccupied filmmakers since “A Trip to the Moon” announced itself as the world’s first alien movie in 1902.

In the century or so following the 17-minute silent French film, Hollywood’s extraterrestrials have visited in all shapes and sizes, from threatening tripods and genocidal lizards to benign humanoids.

While these films have traditionally been effects-laden potboilers, a subgenre of cerebral, lower budget movie has quietly insinuated itself into the mainstream.

Leading the charge this year is Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival”, which hits theatres following a Golden Lion nomination at the Venice Film Festival and tips for Oscar success. 

Taking its cue from classics such as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) and “Contact” (1997), “Arrival” challenges the notion that alien visitation equals loud, expensive armageddon.

Villeneuve, the director of “Sicario” (2015) and next year’s much-anticipated sequel to iconic sci-fi favourite “Blade Runner”, does not stint on the spaceships and extraterrestrials.

But he uses them in the service of such weighty ontological and epistemological themes as the nature of space-time, how language and memory work, and what happens when you cannot communicate. 

“There will always be trends in movies but I believe people are — I don’t want to say bored — but less enamoured by gigantic visual effects driven films,” says “Arrival” producer Aaron Ryder.

“I also think that there may be, perhaps, a little bit of fatigue within the superhero genre. You wouldn’t be able to tell by the box office but I think there is.”

‘Anti-Independence Day’

Ryder may be thinking of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”, which delighted the accountants at Warner Bros. earlier this year but was panned by the critics.

Amy Adams, one of the stars in the film, takes the lead role in “Arrival” as Louise Banks, a linguist enlisted by the army after alien pods pop up worldwide, to help figure out what their “heptapod” occupants want.

The global powers argue among themselves and a group of nations led by China decides that in order to save humanity they should blow these gentle, enormous creatures out of the sky.

It’s up to Banks, a mother who has loved and lost, to put her life on the line by reaching out to the extraterrestrials.

The picture pairs Adams with fellow “American Hustle” star Jeremy Renner, playing against type as a shy, soft-spoken mathematician in a generous performance that allows his co-star space to shine.

In placing a mother-daughter relationship at the heart of its narrative, “Arrival” packs an emotional punch rarely seen in the sterile, utilitarian milieu of the sci-fi blockbuster. 

Critics agree that it is more a cultural cousin of “Interstellar” and “Under the Skin” than big, dumb alien invasion blockbusters like “Independence Day: Resurgence”.

Based on Ted Chiang’s short “Story of Your Life”, it has been described as “the anti-Independence Day” by the Hollywood Reporter.

‘Touching story’

“It was such an important and touching story for me when I read it and I’m just glad that has translated to the big screen,” Adams told reporters at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Sunday.

The 42-year-old five-time Oscar nominee said the film reminded her of the value of  “life, all life, my daughter’s life, our relationship, communication”.

Set in Montana, “Arrival” was filmed in Villeneuve’s native Quebec for a reported $50 million — a small budget for a leading sci-fi movie.

David Linde, a co-producer with Ryder and Dan Levine, said his team and the director set out from the start to make a film that felt “really distinct”, despite the familiar genre.

“I’d like to believe certainly that people who perhaps just want to go to the movies on a Saturday afternoon and have popcorn are going to be really entertained,” he said.

But he added that the emotional heart of the film ought to be particularly resonant in a year which has seen Brexit, a divisive US election and a resurgence of the Syrian refugee crisis.

“These are all serious issues and at their core if we could communicate better about them, with each other, I think probably they would feel less contentious and less scary,” he said.

WASHINGTON — Rich people. They’re nothing like us. They’ve got more money, more things and, according to a recent study, less time to waste on simply noticing other people.

In Psychological Science, a research journal, a group of New York University academics tested this phenomenon in a series of studies designed to quantitatively measure whether someone’s socioeconomic class was related to how closely they paid attention to others.

In the end, they concluded that yes, people who identified themselves as wealthy spent less time looking at other people and were less likely to notice changes in other people’s expression.

In one study, participants walked down a city street wearing Google Glass. The research team told participants they were merely trying out the new technology, but afterward they used Glass to measure how long users focused on certain objects or people. They found that those who said they were wealthy did not let their eyes rest on people for as long as those who said they were from a lower social class.

In another, researchers had participants view a computer screen with images taken from Google Maps Street View and tracked their eye movement. Once again, the more wealthy people spent less time looking at the people on the screen.

Lastly, the academics showed participants two pictures containing similar objects and faces. The two images flickered back and forth between each other until the viewer indicated that he or she had noticed a difference between them. The wealthy participants were less likely to notice a difference between faces, but they were just as likely to spot a difference between the objects.

All of the studies used separate sets of participants.

In a press release, two of the researchers hypothesised that the results of the study are due to the fact that people view others in terms of how much they might impact themselves, either as a benefit or a risk. The wealthy, they said, are less likely to see others as capable of impacting their lives and thus unconsciously spend less time looking at them.

But this study is just the latest in a series of many that seem to show the well-off lack interpersonal skills. Dating back to 2009, studies have shown that rich people fail to engage with strangers as much as their poorer counterparts, have a harder time reading other people’s emotions, are less empathetic and react less strongly to seeing depictions of suffering. Rich people are also no more likely to be happy than poor people. That’s dependent on how much one is respected or admired by their peers.

The amount of money we spend on a service or a product should be directly proportional to its importance and to what it brings us. Why is it then that a large number of private users and small enterprises still does not follow this rule that is simple and that makes perfect sense? It is plain logic after all, isn’t it?

We miss a heartbeat when our Internet connection has the slightest hiccup. We feel like dying when we lose data accidentally or unexpectedly. We call the tech support guys with the same sense of emergency as when calling an ambulance to the rescue, each time something goes wrong or an e-mail does not reach its intended recipient in less than 10 seconds.

And yet, despite how critical all these aspects of technology have become, how much we now depend on them, we often fail to acknowledge the fact that data safety, smooth operation, machines reliability and performance require some financial investment.

Early this week we could read in this very newspaper, on the occasion of the visit to Jordan of Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of mega online store Amazon.com, that the ITC (Information and Communications Technology) sector is contributing 12 per cent of the national GDP. If this is not a most striking indicator of its prime importance then what is?

Large enterprises, corporations and most, though perhaps not all, government institutions are doing it rather well and are investing heavily in ITC, be it with direct financing or with human resources, both being obviously closely linked in this case.

The traffic department in the kingdom is a good example of good investment. Indeed, renewing a driving licence or a car’s registration card at the department has become a breeze, thanks to a near-perfect computerisation system. In a similar manner renewing or issuing for the first time an international driving licence at the Royal Automobile Club of Jordan takes a few minutes and does not require moving from counter to counter. Here too, proper investment in IT tools, computers and software has paid off.

Small companies and private users, on the other hand, seem reluctant to spend the right amount of money, until they experience an incident or a problem, when it is often too late to react and to correct the situation. Planning ahead, as in any other human activity, is key to success, performance and stability here.

You cannot really operate a car without paying for maintenance, fuel, insurance, registration, parking, carwash, etc. Computers require attention too and it does involve money.

Using quality hardware components to start with, paying for professional antivirus and Internet security programmes, buying reliable cloud services, paying for additional storage for backup up, whether online or local, and using only qualified technical support personnel, it is all but money well spent. Not to mention being generous, brave and going for the fastest possible Internet subscription. Whatever you’d pay here, it will never be qualified as “expensive”.

If in absolute figures our IT or ICT expenditure is going up. In relative value, however, it is more rewarding than ever, given our equally growing IT needs and all that is at stake there.

NEW YORK — Melania Trump brings poise and glamour to the presidency of her husband Donald Trump, and will become America’s first foreign-born first lady in two centuries.

Elegant with a dazzling smile, the 46-year-old native Slovenian was at her husband’s side in New York early Wednesday when he declared victory — a discreet source of support, out of the camera frame.

She has maintained that same low-key presence throughout the long and gruelling campaign, during which she tried to humanise her husband, 24 years her elder.

“He will make a fantastic president,” she said less than a week ago in Pennsylvania at her only solo campaign appearance, playing up the property mogul’s softer side.

Melania also tried to take the rough edges off her husband and showed stage presence in a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention back in July, captivating a hall of cheering delegates.

“He’s tough when he has to be, but he’s also kind and fair and caring,” she said, describing her husband as “intensely loyal” to family, friends, employees and the country.

“If you want someone to fight for you and your country, I can assure you, he’s the guy.”

But the golden opportunity to tell America her story went horribly awry: US media noticed striking similarities with a speech current First Lady Michelle Obama delivered to the Democratic convention in 2008.

Her husband swiftly came to her defence, without acknowledging any plagiarism.

“It was truly an honour to introduce my wife, Melania. Her speech and demeanour were absolutely incredible. Very proud!” the billionaire tweeted.

‘Not acceptable’

More recently, Mrs Trump faced the embarrassment of a howling uproar after the release of an audio from 2005 in which her husband bragged about groping women’s genitals and getting away with it because he is famous.

Nearly a dozen women later came forward to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct or outright assault.

Melania called her husband’s comments on the tape “not acceptable”. But she said he had been egged on by a TV host who was with him on a bus on which he made the hot mic comments.

“I don’t know that person that would talk that way and that he would say that kind of stuff,” she said, before writing if off as “boy talk”.

At a humour-filled charity dinner after the last of the three presidential debates, Trump himself cracked a joke at her expense about her convention speech.

He said: “Michelle Obama gives a speech and everyone loves it. It’s fantastic. They think she’s absolutely great. My wife Melania gives the exact same speech and people get on her case. And I don’t get it.”

Glamorous life

Born Melanija Knavs in Slovenia — then part of Yugoslavia — to a fashion-industry mother and a car-salesman father, she studied design and architecture before leaving for Milan and Paris to launch her modelling career.

That brought her to the United States in 1996, where two years later she met Trump. She later became his third wife.

At the convention, she said becoming a US citizen, in 2006, was “the greatest privilege on planet earth”.

Her American experience has certainly been far removed from that of the average immigrant.

Her Twitter account — inactive since Trump declared his candidacy — reflects the privileged lifestyle of a jet-setter travelling between a lavish New York apartment and residences in Florida.

Melania will be America’s first foreign-born first lady since Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, who was president from 1825-1829. Adams was born in England.

The beauty of Europe is that if you drive for a couple of hours in any direction you are in another country that all have their own distinctive blend of culture, food, and dining customs, which forms a uniquely enchanting entity. It is this fascination of the continent that attracts tourists and visitors to its land every summer.

But this summer was somewhat different. With climate change, it was very hot and the temperatures rose so high that the general populace had difficulty coping with it. In Milan, which is the fashion capitol of the world, where stylish shoes are designed and crafted, many people were barefoot! Believe me it’s true. I almost thought I was in India. 

One day I saw a woman non-chalantly approach a public fountain, take a dip in it while fully clothed, and walk away, cooled for the moment. The lady took her dog into the fountain with her also. It was a most arresting a sight let me tell you. I stopped and gaped, forgetting to shut my mouth. 

In Milan, the hotel I stayed in, did not like visitors. I cannot remember the name of the place but it was diametrically opposite the central train station. After dragging my heavy bags and passing through a zigzagging noisy traffic, I finally reached the dim lit lobby where the front-desk assistant was in a foul mood. Belatedly he noticed my presence and informed me that I could only check-in after another hour, since we had arrived before time. Then he switched languages and the rest of the conversation he had with me was in Italian. The fact that I did not understand a word of what he said did not bother him one bit. 

I began framing an angry response in my head. As if sensing my irritation, another man materialised behind the desk. He was tall, pot-bellied and perspired profusely but he had a pleasant smile. 

Alfonso was the big, timid, nervous chap and Michael was the bald, rude, Mafioso looking one. I read out their names from the tags that were attached to their collars. Michael passed on all his tasks to Alfonso who was still under training, I guessed. Quite often, Michael picked up a bulky black desk phone and got busy talking into it. He was fluent in English but Alfonso was not. Michael kept admonishing Alfonso in Italian and hindered rather than assisted him. Therefore, every chore took double its time in getting done. 

Having just arrived from Amman, where the hotel clerks were charm personified, I watched this animosity with growing dismay. My husband had tuned off and placed himself in the lounge, where the air conditioning was the strongest. 

I asked Michael to hurry up and give us our room keys. He pointed towards Alfonso who smiled, wiped his perspiration, nodded his head and looked more confused than ever before. Soon, he took out two room-key cards and handed them to me. 

“Which floor?” I wanted to know the room number. 

Alfonso paused, put his hands out and extended three fingers and a thumb. 

“Third,” he said. 

“Fourth,” corrected Michael automatically from behind the counter. 

“Third or fourth?” I asked impatiently. 

“Three fourth,” repeated Alfonso, not wanting to confront Michael. 

“Let’s go,” I called out to my dozing spouse. 

He reluctantly followed me into the elevator. 

“When in Milan do as the Milanese do,” I announced. 

“Got it,” my husband responded, pressing numbers three and four.

PARIS — A small café run almost singlehandedly by a British chef was named on Monday as France’s best village bistrot.

Manchester-born Chris Wright only set up the Epicerie de Dienne as a shop/café/restaurant in a remote village in the mountainous Cantal region of central France in June.

With Dienne having less than 200 permanent residents, the entirely self-caught cook was not expecting crowds.

“I wanted it to be a low-key thing,” said the 44-year-old, who was looking for a bit of a break after spending more than a decade cooking and serving day and night at Le Timbre [postage stamp], a tiny but much-loved Parisian eatery.

“Looking at it from that point of view, it’s been a bit of a disaster,” he told AFP.

“I was hoping to wind down with a quiet little place were you could get a nice slice of ham and cheese. I failed there,” he laughed. 

But word spread quickly around the Auvergne Volcanoes Regional Park in which the village is set, with locals flocking to wonder at the Englishman who could cook.

“By mid-July it was mad and I had to get a bit of help,” said Wright hours before he received the prize from Le Fooding, France’s trendiest food and restaurant guide.

Marks & Spencer

Wright’s unexpected victory — to him at least — came as the British supermarket chain Marks & Spencer was listed as one of the best places for takeaway food in the French capital by the same guide.

Parisians have long had a love affair with the brand and there was an outcry when it pulled out of France in 2001. But it returned with a vengeance five years ago and now has 18 outlets mostly selling food in and around the French capital.

Le Fooding picked out its “quinoa, avocado and Brazil nut salad”, “Devon scones” and vegan “Vegetable Kiev” for particular praise.

Wright was one of several foreign-born chefs honoured by the guide, with the Italian Giovanni Passerini named chef of the year for his “modern trattoria” in Paris.

Le Fooding, known for its unstuffy cosmopolitan approach, also honoured Japanese chefs Katsuaki Okiyama for his Parisian restaurants Abri and Abri Soba, and Moko Hirayama for his eatery Mokonuts.

Wright said he was a big fan of cabbage and loved marrying it with Cantal’s world famous “sausages, charcuterie and cheese”. 

“The locals have been great. Quite of a lot of people knew of me, because I have been coming down for the last eight years or so and I love the food from around here.”

“Others probably thought that [being English] I wouldn’t be capable of much more than a sandwich.”

Having closed the café for the winter, Wright plans to open for the February holidays, then reopen properly again from May to October.

Whether he has found the peace he was looking for when he moved to the country, is another matter. “Not really,” he joked. “But I don’t regret it. I love it there.”

KENNETT SQUARE, Pennsylvania — Veterinarians hope an innovative type of CT scan can advance medical care for horses and possibly be adapted for humans, eliminating the need for people to lie still inside a tube.

Robotic CT at the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school allows a horse to remain awake and standing as scanners on two mechanical arms move around it. The resulting high quality images, including some in 3D, for the first time offer detailed anatomical views of the animal in its normal, upright state.

That’s a huge difference from the standard CT for a horse, which requires administering anaesthesia, placing the animal on its side and manoeuvring a scanning unit around the affected area. Not all body parts fit in the machines.

Robotic CT “is much less stressful”, said Dr Barbara Dallap Schaer, medical director of Penn Vet’s New Bolton Centre. “It’s a pretty athletic event for horses to recover from general anaesthesia.”

The New York-based company 4DDI created the Equimagine system with components from robot manufacturer ABB. First unveiled at Penn last spring, 4DDI now has orders for more than a dozen units at equine facilities around the world, according to CEO Yiorgos Papaioannou.

“The word is spreading,” Papaioannou said.

At Penn, the large white robotic arms are installed at a barn at New Bolton Centre, the vet school’s hospital for large animals in the Philadelphia exurb of Kennett Square. Horses are given a mild sedative and walked into the facility for a scan that lasts less than a minute.

CT, or computed tomography, gives pictures of soft tissues that X-rays can’t. While traditional CT requires the subject to be still, this new system compensates for slight movement. Eventually, vets hope they will be able to capture CT images of a horse running on a treadmill.

The ease of imaging means more horses can get preventive scans, said Dr Dean Richardson, chief of surgery at New Bolton. As it stands, he said, many owners are reluctant to have their horses anaesthetised for a diagnostic procedure because recovery can be treacherous. As the animals emerge from unconsciousness and woozily struggle to find their footing, they risk catastrophic injury if they stumble.

“So the whole beauty of this technology, we hope, is that we’re going to be able to scan much greater numbers of patients much, much earlier in the process of things like stress-related injuries in a racehorse,” Richardson said.

For humans, the technology could be helpful when dealing with squirming children or claustrophobic adults. Doctors could also get clearer views of, say, spinal problems in a standing patient instead of relying on CT performed while the person is lying down. Penn’s translational research team has partnered with other hospitals to look at the possibilities.

“This is an interesting concept — the ability to image in your natural state,” said Raul Uppot, an assistant professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School who is not involved in the research. “It does offer something that doesn’t currently exist in the market [for humans].”

Equimagine’s base cost is $545,000, according to Papaioannou, though he said some new customers are getting the equipment in exchange for a per-scan fee. The company plans to make another version of the system for smaller animals, he said.

Penn’s system was made possible through a donor, said Dallap Schaer, noting the cost was comparable to standard CT scanners. Overall cost for the images will be less than CT scans that require anaesthesia, she said.

Dennis Charles, of Allentown, brought his horse Bert to Penn Vet for an MRI earlier this year, before robotic CT was available. The procedure required anaesthesia, and Charles said he was incredibly nervous watching a wobbly Bert regain consciousness afterward.

Last month, the horse again needed imaging but was able to have robotic CT. Charles, who described the robotic system as looking like something out of “Star Wars”, said the scans assured him Bert’s leg injury had healed.

“They get really precise images,” he said. “I think it’s a tremendous piece of equipment.”