[A]Thefirstandmoreimportantistheconsumer"sgrowingpreferenceforeatingout;consumptionoffoodanddrinkinplacesotherthanhomeshasrisenfromabout32percentoftotalconsumptionin1995to35percentin2000andisexpectedtoapproach38percentby2005.Thisdevelopmentisboostingwholesaledemandfromthefoodservicesegmentby4to5percentayearacrossEurope,comparedwithgrowthinretaildemandof1to2percent.Meanwhile,astherecessionisloominglarge,peoplearegettinganxious.Theytendtokeepatighterholdontheirpurseandconsidereatingathomearealisticalternative.[B]RetailsalesoffoodanddrinkinEurope"slargestmarketsareatastandstill,leavingEuropeangroceryretailershungryforopportunitiestogrow.Mostleadingretailershavealreadytriede-commerce,withlimitedsuccess,andexpansionabroad.Butalmostallhaveignoredthebig,profitableopportunityintheirownbackyard:thewholesalefoodanddrinktrade,whichappearstobejustthekindofmarketretailersneed.[C]Willsuchvariationsbringaboutachangeintheoverallstructureofthefoodanddrinkmarket?Definitelynot.Thefunctioningofthemarketisbasedonflexibletrendsdominatedbypotentialbuyers.Inotherwords,itisuptothebuyer,ratherthantheseller,todecidewhattobuy.Atanyrate,thischangewillultimatelybeacclaimedbyanever-growingnumberofbothdomesticandinternationalconsumers,regardlessofhowlongthecurrentconsumerpatternwilltakehold.[D]Allinall,thisclearlyseemstobeamarketinwhichbigretailerscouldprofitablyapplytheirscale,existinginfrastructure,andprovenskillsinthemanagementofproductranges,logistics,andmarketingintelligence.RetailersthatmastertheintricaciesofwholesalinginEuropemaywellexpecttorakeinsubstantialprofitsthereby.Atleast,thatishowitlooksasawhole.Closerinspectionrevealsimportantdifferencesamongthebiggestnationalmarkets,especiallyintheircustomersegmentsandwholesalestructures,aswellasthecompetitivedynamicsofindividualfoodanddrinkcategories.BigretailersmustunderstandthesedifferencesbeforetheycanidentifythesegmentsofEuropeanwholesalinginwhichtheirparticularabilitiesmightunseatsmallerbutentrenchedcompetitors.Newskillsandunfamiliarbusinessmodelsareneeded,too.[E]Despitevariationsindetail,wholesalemarketsinthecountriesthathavebeencloselyexamined—France,Germany,ItalyandSpain—aremadeoutofthesamebuildingblocks.Demandcomesmainlyfromtwosources:independentmom-and-popgrocerystores,whichunlikelargeretailchains,aretoosmalltobuystraightfromproducers,andfoodserviceoperatorsthatcatertoconsumerswhentheydon"teatathome.Suchfoodserviceoperatorsrangefromsnackmachinestolargeinstitutionalcateringventures,butmostofthesebusinessesareknowninthetradeas"horeca":hotels,restaurantsandcafes.Overall,Europe"swholesalemarketforfoodanddrinkisgrowingatthesamesluggishpaceastheretailmarket,butthefigures,whenaddedtogether,masktwoopposingtrends.[F]Forexample,wholesalefoodanddrinksalescometo$168billioninFrance,Germany,Italy,Spain,andtheUnitedKingdomin2000—morethan40percentofretailsales.Moreover,averageoverallmarginsarehigherinwholesalethaninretail;wholesaledemandfromthefoodservicesectorisgrowingquicklyasmoreEuropeanseatoutmoreoften;andchangesinthecompetitivedynamicsofthisfragmentedindustryareatlastmakingitfeasibleforwholesalerstoconsolidate.[G]However,noneoftheserequirementsshoulddeterlargeretailers(andevensomelargegoodproducersandexistingwholesalers)fromtryingtheirhand,forthosethatmastertheintricaciesofwholesalinginEuropestandtoreapconsiderablegains.Order:

It seems to happen with depressing frequency—sunny skies turn to rain just as the weekend arrives. Now Spanish researchers say they have evidence that in some parts of Europe the weather really does follow a weekly cycle, although not in the straightforward way that the anecdote might suggest. Evidence has been mounting over the years that the weather in certain partsof the world, including the US, Japan and China, can be driven by the weekly cycle of human activity. This is because we tend to produce more air pollution during the week and less at the weekend. Evidence that such an effect occurs in Europe is controversial and has been harder to come by. Arturo Sanchez-Lorenzo of the University of Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues examined data gathered between 1961 and 2004 from weather stations across Spain to see whether such a pattern existed. They claim to have found it in Spain, as well as hints of weekly changes in air circulation more broadly over Western Europe. The result is puzzling, but it is known that airborne pollutants produced by human activity can affect the weather in a variety of ways. For example, particles can be heated by absorbing sunlight, which in turn heats the air and changes air circulation patterns. Pollutant particles can also provide seeds for cloud formation. Exactly which effect has the greatest influence seems to depend on conditions that vary season by season. They also found signs that air pressure in Western Europe tends to be lower midweek than at the weekend in data from a global database. This suggests that the human influence on weather goes beyond known local effects, says team member Josep Calbo of the University of Girona in Spain. However, it is not clear whether the team"s findings are statistically significant, says Thomas Bell of NASA"s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was part of a team that found a stronger weekly cycle in the US. "This whole enterprise of looking for weekly cycles is rife with possibilities for misleading oneself." Why a weekly cycle would be less noticeable in Europe than in the US and Asia is still unknown. No weekly cycle has ever been found in the UK, probably because the weather is dominated by large systems blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. These larger systems may be harder for weekly pollution cycles to influence, points out Douglas Maraun of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, who studies UK precipitation. "I doubt that there is a weekly influence of human activity on such a large weather system," he says.

A Letter of Giving Advice Write a letter of about 100 words to the president of your university, suggesting how to improve students' physical condition. You should include the details you think necessary. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

BSection III Writing/B

Evidence of the benefits that volunteering can bring older people continues to roll in. "Volunteers have improved physical and social functioning," said Fengyan Tang, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, who has【C1】______older volunteers. "They report better well-being and greater life【C2】______. There"s a reduced risk of death compared to non-volunteers." I reported a few weeks back on a public school program 【C3】______volunteers, in a small-scale initial study, appeared to【C4】______their risk of cognitive decline. 【C5】______ we"re also learning that not all volunteering is created equal. In Dr. Tang"s most recent study, 【C6】______in The Gerontologist, she【C7】______ 207 volunteers (average age: 72) who spent【C8】______six hours a week on programs providing 【C9】______services as preparing meals or teaching computer skills. The results【C10】______how important the programs" organization and administration can be. Volunteers reported greater "socioemotional benefits"—a sense of having made important【C11】______, feelings of enhanced well-being—when the programs 【C12】______greater "organizational support." What"s organizational support? Thoughtfully【C13】______volunteers with jobs that interest them. Offering training so that volunteers feel 【C14】______with the work environment, the【C15】______ , the task, the possible challenges【C16】______Making volunteering more convenient for older people by providing parking or transportation, 【C17】______small salaries. 【C18】______their efforts with events or awards. "Organizational support is more important than the individual characteristics of the volunteer, 【C19】______longer participation and greater benefit," Dr. Tang said. Seniors and families looking for engaging volunteer opportunities, and programs hoping to【C20】______and retain older volunteers, take note.

The entertainment industry and technology companies have been warring for years over the dazzling ability of computers and the Internet to copy and transmit music and movies. A crucial battle ended this week with a ruling by America"s Supreme Court in favour of copyright holder and against two companies that distribute peer-to-peer (P2P) software, which lets users share files online with others. The court"s decision, though ostensibly a victory for content providers, is. nevertheless unlikely to stamp out file sharing—much of which will continue from outside America—or stop the technological innovation that is threatening the current business models of media firms. The court was asked to decide whether two firms, Grokster and StreamCast, were liable for copyright infringement by their customers. Two lower courts had said that the firms were not liable, citing a 1984 ruling in favour of Sony"s Betamax video recorder. This held that a technology firm is immune from liability so long as the device concerned is "capable of substantial noninfringing uses". The court did not reinterpret the 1984 decision in light of the Internet. Instead the justices ruled that the case raised a far narrower issue: whether Grokster and StreamCast induced users to violate copyrights and chose not to take the simpie steps available to prevent it. Such behaviour would make the firms clearly liable for copyright infringement and end their immunity, even under the Betamax standard. The court reasoned that there were sufficient grounds to believe that inducement occurred, and sent the case back to lower courts for trial. Although the Grokster decision will probably not squelch innovation as much as many tech firms fear, it should certainly make IT and electronics firms more cautious about how they market their products—and quite right, too. But the Supreme Court"s narrow ruling makes this unlikely—in deed, the justices noted the technology"s widespread legitimate use. Yet their decision will surely embolden the entertainment industry to pursue in court any firms that they can claim knowingly allow in fringement; This could kill off some small innovative start-ups. On the other hand, the ruling could also provide legal cover for tech firms with the wit to plaster their products with warnings not to violate the law. But judged from a long-term perspective, this week"s victory for copyright holders seems likely to prove a Pyrrhic one. The Internet and file sharing are disruptive technologies that give consumers vastly more ability to use all sorts of media content, copyrighted or not. Surely entertainment firms must devise ways to use this technology to sell their wares that will also allow copyright to be protected. So long as technology continues to evolve in ways that enable legitimate content sharing, piracy will also probably continue to some degree. Happily, in this case the piracy seems to have prompted content firms to compete by offering better fee-based services. The challenge for content providers is to use new technology to create value for customers, and to make those who use content illegally feel bad about it.

The operation known as a hemispherectomy—the removal of half the brain-sounds too radical to ever consider, much less perform. In the past century, however, surgeons have done it hundreds of times for disorders that cannot be controlled any other way. Perhaps surprisingly, the surgery has no apparent effect on personality or memory. Does that mean a person needs only half a brain? Yes and no. People can survive and function pretty well after the procedure, but they will have some physical disabilities. The first known hemispherectomy was performed on a dog in 1888 by German physiologist Friedrich Goltz. Neurosurgeon Walter Dandy pioneered the use of the procedure on humans at Johns Hopkins University in 1923, operating on a patient who had a brain tumor. That man lived for more than three years before ultimately dying from cancer. In 1938, after performing a hemispherectomy on a 16-year-old girl, Canadian neurosurgeon Kenneth McKenzie reported that it could stop seizures, a neurological disorder in the brain. And today brain surgeons perform hemispherectomies on patients who undergo dozens of seizures daily that resist all medication and stem from conditions that primarily afflict one hemisphere. "These disorders are often progressive and damage the rest of the brain if not treated," explains neurosurgeon Gary W. Mathern of the University of California, Los Angeles. The surgery takes two forms. Anatomical hemispherectomies involve the removal of an entire hemisphere, whereas functional hemispherectomies take out only parts of a hemisphere—as well as severing the connections between the two halves of the brain. Doctors often prefer anatomical hemispherectomies because "leaving even a little bit of brain behind can lead seizures to return," says neurologist John Freeman of Johns Hopkins, which specializes in the procedure. On the other hand, functional hemispherectomies, which U.C.LA. surgeons usually perform, lead to less blood loss. "Our patients are usually under two years of age, so they have less blood to lose," Mathern says. Neurosurgeons have performed the functional operation on children as young as three months old. In these tiny patients, memory and personality develop normally. Most Johns Hopkins hemispherectomy patients are older than five years. A recent study found that 86 percent of the 111 children who underwent the procedure at Johns Hopkins between 1975 and 2001 are either seizure-free or have non-disabling seizures that do not require medication. Another study found that children who underwent a hemispherectomy often improved academically once their seizures stopped. "One was champion bowler of her class, one was chess champion of his state, and others are in college doing very nicely," Freeman notes.

In the following text, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41-45, choose the most suitable one from the list (A、B、C、D、E、F、G……) to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are several extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. (10 points) In 1967, in response to widespread public concern aroused by medical reports of asbestos-related deaths, the National Medical Re search Council organised a committee of enquiry to investigate the health threats associated with the use of asbestos in the building industry. (41)______. The report confirmed the findings of similar research in the United States and Canada. Exposure to relatively small quantities of asbestos fibres, they concluded, was directly responsible for the development of cancers, asbestosis and related diseases. Taking into account evidence provided by economists and building industry management, however, the report assumed that despite the availability of other materials, asbestos would continue to play a major role in the British building industry for many years to come because of its availability and low cost. (42)______. They recommended that, where possible, asbestos free materials should be employed. In cases where asbestos was employed, it was recommended that it should be used in such a way that loose fibres were less likely to enter the air. The report recommended that special care should be taken during work in environments which contain asbestos. (43)______. The report identified five factors which determine the level of risk involved. The state and type of asbestos is critical to determining, the risk factors. In addition, dust formation was found to be limited where the asbestos was used when wet rather than dry. (44)______. Machine tools produce greater quantities of dust than hand tools and, where possible, the use of the latter was recommended. A critical factor takes place in risk reduction is the adequate ventilation of the working environment. (45)______. By closely following these advices, it was claimed that exposure can be reduced to a reasonably practical minimum.A. Workers should wear protective equipment and take special care to remove dust from the environment and clothing with the use of vacuum cleaner.B. After examining evidences provided by medical researchers and building workers and management, the Council published a report which included advices for dealing with asbestos.C. When work takes place in an enclosed space, more asbestos particles circulate and it was therefore recommended that natural or machine ventilation should be used.D. The building management preferred to use machine tools because machine tools were much more efficient.E. The choice of tools was also found to affect the quantities of asbestos particles that enter the air.F. When work takes place in an enclosed space, less asbestos particles circulate and it was therefore recommended that natural or machine ventilation need not to be used.G. As a result, the council gave a series of recommendations which were intended to reduce the risks to those who might be exposed to asbestos in working environments.

There is no agreement whether methodology refers to the concepts peculiar to historical work in general or to the research techniques appropriate to the various branches of historical inquiry.

BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

What would the world look like without the dollar domination? US officials are【C1】______out a deal to end the government shutdown and【C2】______its debt limit, hoping to avoid a global【C3】______crisis. Meanwhile, some eyed【C4】______to the US dollar to avoid a repeat. Earlier this week, an editorial from Xinhua news agency, called【C5】______a new international reserve currency to【C6】______the dollar. "It is perhaps a good time for the【C7】______world to start considering building a de-Americanized world," it said. An organization like the International Monetary Fund could theoretically【C8】______an entirely new international currency, says Benjamin Cohen of the University of California, but political disagreement would raise its ugly【C9】______again "Think of all the trouble the European Monetary Union has had【C10】______with just 17 countries. Now【C11】______by ten." "I think it much more likely that another【C12】______currency becomes more important in international markets," says Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin. "The Chinese are, with mixed【C13】______, pursuing a path of making their own currency more international." 【C14】______don't expect to be cashing in renminbi any time soon. The last big【C15】______in reserve currency, from British pounds to the US dollar, began in the 1950s and【C16】______two decades. Even if we could just【C17】______the dollar overnight, no other currency, including the renminbi, can currently【C18】______it, says Cohen. "Governments still use the dollar,【C19】______the current political difficulty in Washington, because of its【C20】______availability, deep liquidity and wide acceptability."

What"s your earliest childhood memory? Can you remember learning to walk? Or talk? The first time you heard thunder or watched a television program? Adults seldom (1)_____ events much earlier than the year or so before entering school, (2)_____ children younger than three or four (3)_____ retain any specific, personal experiences. A variety of explanations have been (4)_____ by psychologists for this "childhood amnesia". One argues that the hippo-campus, the region of the brain which is (5)_____ for forming memories, does not mature until about the age of two. But the most popular theory (6)_____ that, since adults don"t think like children, they cannot (7)_____ childhood memories. Adults think in words, and their life memories are like stories or (8)_____ one event follows (9)_____ as in a novel or film. But when they search through their mental (10)_____ for early childhood memories to add to this verbal life story. they don"t find any that fit the (11)_____ It"s like trying to find a Chinese word in an English dictionary. Now psychologist Annette Simms of the New York State University offers a new (12)_____ for childhood amnesia. She argues that there simply aren"t any early childhood memories to (13)_____. According to Dr. Simms, children need to learn to use someone else"s spoken description of their personal (14)_____ in order to turn their own short-term, quickly forgotten (15)_____ of them into long-term memories. In other (16)_____, children have to talk about their experiences and hear others talk about (17)_____—Mother talking about the afternoon (18)_____ looking for seashells at the beach or Dad asking them about their day at Ocean Park. Without this (19)_____ reinforcement, says Dr. Simms, children cannot form (20)_____ memories of their personal experiences. Notes: childhood amnesia 儿童失忆症

Writeanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthefollowingdrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.YoushouldwriteneatlyonANSWERSHEET2.(20points)

Many Americans regard the jury system as a concrete expression of crucial democratic values, including the principles that all citizens who meet minimal qualifications of age and literacy are equally competent to serve on juries; that jurors should be selected randomly from a representative cross section of the community; that no citizen should be denied the right to serve on a jury on account of race, religion, sex, or national origin; that defendants are entitled to trial by their peers; and that verdicts should represent the conscience of the community and not just the letter of the law. The jury is also said to be the best surviving example of direct rather than representative democracy. In a direct democracy, citizens take turns governing themselves, rather than electing representatives to govern for them. But as recently as in 1986, jury selection procedures conflicted with these democratic ideals. In some states, for example, jury duty was limited to persons of supposedly superior intelligence, education, and moral character. Although the Supreme Court of the United States had prohibited intentional racial discrimination in jury selection as early as the 1880 case of Strauder v. West Virginia, the practice of selecting so-called elite or blue-ribbon juries provided a convenient way around this and other antidiscrimination laws. The system also failed to regularly include women on juries until the mid-20th century. Although women first served on state juries in Utah in 1898, it was not until the 1940s that a majority of states made women eligible for jury duty. Even then several states automatically exempted women from jury duty unless they personally asked to have their names included on the jury list. This practice was justified by the claim that women were needed at home, and it kept juries unrepresentative of women through the 1960s. In 1968, the Congress of the United States passed the Jury Selection and Service Act, ushering in a new era of democratic reforms for the jury. This law abolished special educational requirements for federal jurors and required them to be selected at random from a cross section of the entire community. In the landmark 1975 decision Taylor v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court extended the requirement that juries be representative of all parts of the community to the state level. The Taylor decision also declared sex discrimination in jury selection to be unconstitutional and ordered states to use the same procedures for selecting male and female jurors.

You want to apply for the following job: research assistant. Write a letter of application with no less than 100 words to show your interest and explain why you would be suitable for the job. Write it neatly and do not sign your own name at the end of the letter; use "Li Ming" in stead. You do not need to write the address.

They are "financial weapons of mass destruction," to quote the famous investor Warren Buffett as he surveyed the morning-after destruction of the sub-prime mortgage lending crisis. The continuing destruction can now be called a credit crisis—a significant escalation because credit has been the fuel powering the American economy for the past half dozen years. A whole galaxy of credit instruments has now been downgraded to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars of paper losses. Another immediate effect has been a collapse in cash-out borrowing from home equity from about $700 billion in 2005 to $100 billion to date. At the same time, tighter lending and mortgage standards have contributed to a dramatic decline in residential construction from a high of over 2 million units to about 800,000 predicted for next year, with a related decline in employment. A slowdown in consumer spending seems inescapable. What is now seriously in question is the capacity of our financial system to provide enough credit to support the scale of investment that has maintained our long economic expansion. Coming at a time of soaring oil prices, we may have a simultaneous decline in consumer spending, residential investment, and business investment. The economy was strong in the third quarter but clearly dropping off by the end. We may be at the finish of not just the long-term borrowing bubble but the long-term spending bubble. The Federal Reserve must get ahead of the curve. Its priority must be to maintain the viability of the credit system and the flow of credit; our postmodern economy is dependent on an ongoing flow of credit. The problem for the Fed is that monetary policy may be no match for the deep structural contradictions that plague the financial system. We are dealing here with a whole new set of credit instruments that are little understood and therefore extremely difficult to price. The economy is clearly transitioning to much slower growth, sharply tighter lending standards, a declining housing market, and pressure on consumer spending. People and companies are trying to cope with the debt accumulated during several years of wasteful lending and spending. The real danger from a credit crisis is that everyone, from banks to corporations to households, may economize simultaneously. The collapse of values and the risks of the credit squeeze are the worst since the Great Depression. We are going to put the economy"s resilience to a severe test.

BSection III Writing/B

In order to "change lives for the better" and reduce "dependency", George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, introduced the "upfront work search" scheme. Only if the jobless arrive at the jobcentre with a CV, register for online job search, and start looking for work will they be eligible for benefit—and then they should report weekly rather than fortnightly. What could be more reasonable? More apparent reasonableness followed. There will now be a seven-day wait for the jobseeker"s allowance. "Those first few days should be spent looking for work, not looking to sign on ," he claimed. "We"re doing these things because we know they help people stay off benefits and help those on benefits get into work faster" Help? Really? On first hearing, this was the socially concerned chancellor, trying to change lives for the better, complete with "reforms" to an obviously indulgent system that demands too little effort from the newly unemployed to find work, and subsidises laziness. What motivated him, we were to understand, was his zeal for "fundamental fairness"—protecting the taxpayer, controlling spending and ensuring that only the most deserving claimants received their benefits. Losing a job is hurting: you don"t skip down to the jobcentre with a song in your heart, delighted at the prospect of doubling your income from the generous state. It is financially terrifying, psychologically embarrassing and you know that support is minimal and extraordinarily hard to get. You are now not wanted; you are now excluded from the work environment that offers purpose and structure in your life. Worse, the crucial income to feed yourself and your family and pay the bills has disappeared. Ask anyone newly unemployed what they want and the answer is always: a job. But in Osborneland, your first instinct is to fall into dependency—permanent dependency if you can get it—supported by a state only too ready to indulge your falsehood. It is as though 20 years of ever-tougher reforms of the job search and benefit administration system never happened. The principle of British welfare is no longer that you can insure yourself against the risk of unemployment and receive unconditional payments if the disaster happens. Even the very phrase "jobseeker"s allowance" is about redefining the unemployed as a "jobseeker" who had no fundamental right to a benefit he or she has earned through making national insurance contributions. Instead, the claimant receives a time-limited "allowance," conditional on actively seeking a job; no entitlement and no insurance, at ￡71.70 a week, one of the least generous in the EU.

Media mogul Ted Turner yesterday sold more than half of his AOL Time Warner Inc. holdings for about $780 million, a move that reflects his efforts to slash his financial stake in the media giant. After the close of regular trading yesterday, Turner sold a block of 60 million shares to Goldman Sachs & Co. for $13.07 per share, or 31 cents below the stock"s closing price yesterday. Goldman was said by Wall Street sources to be offering the stock to major investors for $13.15. An outspoken critic of the corporation, Turner remains AOL Time Warner"s largest individual shareholder, with 45 million shares, and a member of its board of directors. A spokeswoman for Turner referred questions to AOL Time Warner. At his peak Turner owned about 130 million shares, but he lost billions of dollars in wealth and grew bitter after the stock plunged following the merger of America Online and Time Warner in January 2001. Turner, who initially supported the merger, later expressed outrage over revelations that America Online had manipulated its financial results. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating AOL, and the corporation has acknowledged discovering tens of millions of dollars of overstated revenue. Turner resigned as vice chairman earlier this year and has been spending less of his time on AOL Time Warner matters. He stepped down after achieving his goal of pressuring America Online founder Steve Case to resign as the corporation"s chairman. Case said he was giving up the post to avoid a bruising public battle for reelection at next week"s annual meeting. In the effort to oust Case, Turner teamed up with Gordon Crawford, the senior media portfolio manager at Capital Research & Management, the largest institutional shareholder in AOL Time Warner. Capital Research has indicated it will vote against Case"s election to remain on the board of directors next week—a position that analysts said should not affect the outcome. Turner, meanwhile, has said he will support the management slate that includes Case and will make Richard D. Parsons the company"s chairman and chief executive. Turner, a visionary who started Cable News Network, is in the midst of rolling out a new chain of restaurants, Ted"s Montana Grill, featuring bison burgers. He recently moved his residence from Georgia to Florida for estate-planning purposes and is spending time and money on his independent film company, which lost millions of dollars on a lengthy movie about the Civil War.

Walmart is at an " inflection point ". Those words are truer now than when Bill Simon, the head of its American operation, uttered them last October. He was talking about Walmart's plan for the first time to open more small and medium-sized stores in 2014 than giant "supercentres", and all that would mean. Now another big change looms. On February 1st the company gets a new chief executive, Doug McMillon, until now the head of its international business. In some respects Mr. McMillon looks like a natural choice to manage a huge beast that inspires loathing and loyalty in equal measure. A native of Arkansas, Walmart's home state, he started out in one of the company's warehouses, rose as a specialist in merchandising (deciding how goods are displayed and sold in stores) and was head of the Sam's Club unit, stores where members buy in bulk. Genial and approachable, Mr. McMillon may cure the corporate problem that afflicts Walmart when it talks to its 2. 2m employees, to its giant customer base (90% of Americans shop there at least once a year) and to critics who say it pays miserly wages and sucks life out of town centres. On January 15th the National Labour Relations Board accused Walmart of sacking and disciplining workers who went on strike in 2012. Walmart says it acted lawfully and claims to promote 160,000 people a year; Mr. McMillon's box-shifting calluses make such claims a bit more convincing. Yet the international business, which he has led since 2009, is not thriving. This year it is expected to account for 28% of sales but it has just achieved 19% of operating income. Walmart has reduced costs in China and Brazil after expanding too fast. Confusing policies on foreign investment in retailing have hampered Walmart's push into India. Walmart is co-operating with investigations into allegations that executives in Mexico bribed officials; the inquiries have been broadened to the company's operations in India, Brazil and China. Mr. McMillon is not to blame for these setbacks, many of which date from before he took over, but neither has he brought about a turnaround.