The next day, we're on the way to a radio station, where de Burgh will perform Live for the Day, a song he has written for and recorded with Lebanese starlet Tina Yamout. He has a greatest hits album coming out, this track is the one piece of new material on it.

This isn't the first time that 59-year-old de Burgh has collaborated with a Lebanese artist - he had a hit here eight years ago with Lebanese Nights, a duet with Arabic superstar Elissa - and he was the first Western act to play here after the civil war. De Burgh will be appearing on Star Academy Lebanon, where he will belt out a track with Yamout. He'll also be signing autographs, kissing babies and meeting his legions of Lebanese fans, because here the guy is rock royalty.

The Lebanese civil war, in which 150,000 lives were lost, is the root cause of de Burgh's popularity. During the 80s, when he was filling stadiums with the romantic strains of his biggest hit The Lady In Red - more of which later - the people of Beirut were sheltering in bunkers, waiting for the all-clear. One of the ways of filling the long nights was by listening to music and it seems that de Burgh's songs were, to many, a way of taking their minds off the terrible situation.

He learnt of his far-flung fans via an acquaintance, Sir Marc Cochrane, at the time the Irish Consul to Lebanon. "I started getting reports that when the bombs were falling and people were going underground, they'd bring music in with them, and he told me, 'Your music is really popular'."

It was this very popularity that got him an appearance on Star Academy Lebanon last year, and also opened the doors for de Burgh's first encounter with 20-year-old Yamout. Already well-known across the Middle East, Yamout is perky and pretty with a perfect American accent and matching teeth. She says she is still "shocked and in awe" to be working with de Burgh. Had she heard of him before meeting him on TV?

"Who hasn't heard of Chris?" she responds. Ask her if she is aware that in the UK he has a less-than-stellar reputation, and she doesn't seem to be bothered. "I don't know much about the UK but I think there it's more of a 'cool' perspective. Our history keeps people feeling down so they need something to brighten up their day and that's what Chris does for Lebanon."

De Burgh seems an unlikely idol, even if he is sporting a black leather jacket and sunglasses when we meet. That's in part because the jacket is of the blouson variety and the shades are standard issue for dads of a certain vintage, while underneath the 5ft 6in singer is wearing a comfy jumper and sensible slacks. But then he's not exactly a byword for cutting-edge cool. In fact, it's fair to say that de Burgh's name is shorthand for schmaltz and he's regularly described in the press as a "cheesy rock legend" and a "heavy-eyebrowed balladeer" - the last of which is unfair as de Burgh has impeccably groomed eyebrows these days. He's also softly spoken, unfailingly polite and friendly.

Being smooth is all part of the job, and wooing the ladies - and gents - who buy his records has helped him amass a fortune rumoured to be in the region of £23 million (Dh165.8m). Much of this has to be down to writing one of the best-known love songs of all time - The Lady In Red. The 1986 hit was a No1 in the UK, reached No3 in the American charts and was, famously, one of Diana, Princess of Wales, favourites. When he turns up for the radio interview, he's ambushed by the DJ and asked to sing a few bars. He sighs but sings it with good grace.

So has the song he wrote more than two decades ago been a golden goose or an albatross around his neck? "I think every songwriter would give their right arm to come up with a standard that is going to be played long after they're dead," he says. "I remember years ago hearing a top band talking about a song of theirs that was a monster hit and they were really dissing it, saying that they hoped they'd never have to play it again. I thought: 'That's not right. If people love a song, play it'. We're only doing this because the public have said that they like what we do."

He holds little truck with most of the bands on the current British music scene, saying he doesn't feel part of the same industry. "I'm quite sure that some of these new young bucks would look at someone like me and say, 'God, what a boring old fart'. However, they'd give their right arms for the 45 million record sales and the worldwide recognition and, most important, a 34-year career."

Does he ever become frustrated about the way he is portrayed in the UK? "You get pigeonholed. It's a kind of safety device for people who don't really want to look any further outside of the box, but I'm actually impregnable as far as what people say about me. I don't give a toss," he says.

De Burgh's relationship with the press has been fraught over the years. In the mid-nineties there was a tabloid exposé of his relationship with his children's babysitter - he has three children and his marriage to their mother, Diane, is "rock solid" - then when his daughter Rosanna won Miss World in 2003, there were suggestions in some quarters that his fame had somehow influenced the judges' decision. His response? To employ an excellent lawyer. "I never sued anybody until they started being rude about my daughter."

His plans for the next year include turning 60 - "I'm not mad about having a wild celebration, it's just a number" - and going to Iran for the first time. He has recorded a song with The Arian Band, an Iranian outfit that has invited him to perform in their country.

"I've been to places as an initiator before. I'd been to South Africa during the 70s, when it was definitely not fine to go there. I felt the best thing to do was to be a missionary and tell people what was going on in their own country because censorship was so dreadful," he says. "I don't think completely cutting off achieves anything, that's why I want to go to Iran. You're bringing a message from the outside world, you might change something. It's the idea of a vast number of mostly young people who are yearning for something and if you can give it to them, why not?"

The following evening, de Burgh is backstage preparing for his TV appearance and is strumming his guitar contemplatively. He's doing three songs - Live for the Day with Yamout; One World, a cheesy-but-uplifting tune that sees de Burgh punching the air regularly, and High on Emotion, which de Burgh describes as a stonking rock song but is a little nearer the middle of the road than that.

He gets a huge cheer from the audience, especially when he greets the slinky hostess in halting Arabic. He comes backstage flushed with success and is accosted by a stunning Lebanese woman with a toddler. She asks if she can take a picture of him with her daughter. He poses and the mother is overjoyed. "When she grows up and sees she had her picture taken with Chris de Burgh, she'll be so excited," she says.

As for cost, users say that acid is like any other recreational drug in Beirut; the price "depends on who you know." If you happen to be friendly with a "top" dealer, i.e. someone who receives one of the initial batches, a tab can cost a mere $6. The farther down the drug-dealing hierarchy your dealer is, however, the more the prices spike, reaching up to $30 per tab.

Even if the smuggling process is relatively easy, LSD has not so much flooded the mainstream drug market in Beirut as quietly become accessible to choice participants, mostly university students between the ages of 17 and 22.

For dealers, keeping the circle of acid-droppers small is a practical matter. The fear is that, since LSD is a relatively lesser-known drug in Lebanon, people might start taking it without understanding its effects, and a string of bad trips could attract the attention of authorities, or worse, get someone badly hurt. The psychological effects of LSD vary from person to person, and a single dose can sometimes have long-term negative effects.

But for the people interviewed, the focus was only on connection they felt to the people with whom they communally drop acid several times a month. "I hate the idea that there are people who are taking acid and not appreciating it," said the literature student. "I don't want it to become popular so that people will take it just to get [messed up], because that's not what acid is about...It's about sharing a trip with other people and feeling it with them."

Another young woman with heavily-lined eyes echoed similar thoughts. Rolling a cigarette as she spoke, the girl said that when she takes acid with her group, it feels like they are "in the Sixties, like we're starting our own revolution." She's happy to keep Beirut's new wealth of LSD under the radar. "All the people who want to take tabs and go clubbing just don't understand it."

Curated by Ashkal Alwan's Christine Thome, Sfeir-Semler's contribution to the 2008 event is a collection of musings on human catastrophe, displacement and is, ultimately, a eulogy for a place called home. A nine-strong group of international artists explores themes of memory and theft, and search for an identity that has long been taken away. Thome has set the exhibition a wide-ranging brief and, for the most part, it fulfills it with articulate flair. The pieces here are important ones, both as reflections of the contemporary art landscape and as interpretations of the environments, situations and ideas they speak of.

Ideas of home form the core of the collaboration between British artist Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat. Sheets of A4 fax paper, each providing advice on how to destroy a home pepper the bright gallery walls. From "Brick the doors and windows shut" to "Fill it with bad memories", the artists' epigrams strip-bare often idealized concepts of home and family. Whereas the slogans call for the destruction of the haven of home, the piece itself instigates the construction of a new enclosed space as the artists fax works from wherever they are to the machine in the corner of the gallery, and the fresh sheets are fixed to the walls and ceiling. This is a work of conflict, a concept that many of the other works in the exhibition also explore.

Marwan Rechmaoui's monumental Spectre, a concrete and mixed media sculpture of the apartment block he used to live in, is, similarly, a hypothesis on home and its removal, by force, from those who reside there. Abandoned in 2006 due to the summer bombardment of Lebanon by Israeli forces, the piece is incomplete. Additionally, the thin wooden supports that sustain the concrete apartments appear warped, expressing the larger impression of a delicately balanced structure; fragile, fraught and precariously glued together. The essence of home, perhaps.

AlBum by Kamal Aljafari, a huge installation-piece that resembles a bullet-holed photo album, contains a sombre slideshow of half constructed and abandoned Palestinian homes. Inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca's Romance Sonambulo, "But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house...", AlBum reminisces and laments the promises these half-built, now derelict, structures held for those who began construction on them. Contrasting film footage converges in the spine of the album, showing images that conflict with each other, yet echo and resonate in the common loss they are imbued with; steel girders and outstretched flower stalks creep out towards each other in the strange, silent poetry of a landscape that does not look as it was intended to. AlBum is a deeply claustrophobic piece that hints at the absence of the comforting details of day-to-day life, things that were never allowed to take root and flourish.

This is a well-judged collation of work, and a well-curated collection; Sfeir Semler is an apt setting for the step-by-step revelation of works and ideas the exhibition has been designed to achieve. From a dark, hidden room in which two disembodied hands hammer out Mozart's La Marche Turke on an unplugged electric keyboard, to Emily Jacir's Material for a Film, a tribute to assassinated Palestinian intellectual Wael Zuaiter, work-by-work, the artists delve into the show's central themes in increasingly creative and eloquent ways.

A tangible human rhythm is at the core of the pair of Ziad Antar films exhibited here. In La Corde, Antar suggests the inversion of a recognizable and comforting rhythm, and the implications for the lone man embroiled in it. In it, a man skipping in an enclosed courtyard "[plays] by the rules of a game" in which he must remove a piece of clothing every time he drops the rhythm of the rope. Each time he stumbles, he looks directly through the camera, with a tint of self-conscious uncertainty in his eyes. Having thrown a garment to a corner of the courtyard, he begins his routine again, staring a half-arrogant, half-vacant stare that exposes the truth that he is not in control of the ritual he has been charged to fulfil.

Walid Sadek's On Learning to See Less, looks at the conflict between displacement and stability; large sheets of paper, stacked in the entrance to the gallery, are printed with a miniature manual of sorts on the nature of partnership and on "how to see less" within it. It is an ever-diminishing piece as viewers are invited to take parts of the work home with them. Sadek is challenging the revolving issue of the relationship between viewer and artwork here. He has set a silent challenge to those who see On Learning To See Less; whether a viewer simply walks past it or delves in to claim a piece of it for themselves taps into the relevance of contemporary art, and hints at the impact the artist wants it to have on its audience. Sadek's work aims to involve rather than alienate and wants those who enter into its spirit to examine their relationship with the environment around them.

Emily Jacir pursues this undercurrent in Material for a Film, which won the Golden Lion for artists under the age of 40 at the Venice Biennale last year. Jacir has collected and collated fragments of the life of Wael Zuaiter, the Palestinian translator murdered by Israeli Mossad agents in Rome in October 1972. Installed in a labyrinthine space, Jacir has constructed a very personal portrait of the translator who became Europe's first victim of the wave of assassinations undertaken by the Mossad following the Munich massacre at the Olympic Games the preceding summer. The display of Material for a Film has the formal air of a museum about it, but Jacir has softened the boundaries by filling her installation with deeply personal and intimate parts of Zuaiter's life. Mahler's 9th Symphony, representing a long, intellectual friendship with Bruno Cagli, swirls around the space while crackling recordings of Zuaiter himself, made covertly by Italian security forces, scud through the gallery. These crackling recordings reveal his long partnership with Janet Venn-Brown, an Australian artist who kept them secretly, "for my own reasons", for over three decades. Jacir is, like Zuaiter was, a collector and has excavated parts of Zuatier's life and the climate that would eventually take it from him in an eloquent documentary of what his life and death represent.

The American artist Michael Rakowitz also performs the role of a modern-day excavator in his piece The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist, a powerful response to the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in 2003. Rakowitz has photographed looted objects as they have been recovered, and recreated them from Arabic newspapers and food packaging. Each piece, made from materials found in America and labeled formally, as in a museum, represents the fragmentary nature of an American awareness of the Iraqi catastrophe, and how small a concern Iraq's ancient treasures were when US troops entered the country five years ago. Rakowitz's attention to detail is outstanding and he even succeeds in evoking the materials the looted pieces were made of; metallic food wrappers for an ancient gold bowl and the soft undulations of glued newspaper recreate the fragment of a three thousand year old stone foot. This is an important piece and an evolving one; 70 recovered pieces from the 7000 still unaccounted for have been recreated to date. Rakowitz could therefore, eventually, become the creator of a full-scale tribute to the incalculable historical and cultural wealth that was so easily destroyed and squandered in the spring of 2003.

Jalal Toufic's work underwhelms most here. The sheer amount of it and the concepts it tries to articulate have small impact when considered in the midst of the excellent work around it. Toufic's manipulated film posters seem a little too aware of themselves and fail, for the most part, to engage. They appear as distant speakers of a needlessly confusing concept making them, sadly, the weak link in an otherwise impressive exhibition.

Wael Zuaiter quoted the English mystic Francis Thompson in a commentary published shortly before he died and it is this sentiment that seems to summarize most eloquently what this group of Homeworks IV artists have strived to articulate, "Thou canst not stir a flower without disturbing a star." As a reflection of Homeworks IV, Sfeir-Semler's exhibition is an unparalleled tribute, and deserves to be savored for a while to come.

Homeworks IV: A Forum On Cultural Practices, until May 31
Galerie Sfeir-Semler in Karantina, Beirut 01-566550

Photo credit

" Follow the Women are proud to announce the 2008 Pedal For Peace in the Middle East, which will take place on 3rd to 14th May this year.

Nearly 400 women representing more than 30 nationalities will arrive in Beirut on 2nd May for the fourth 'Follow the Women' bike ride, which winds through Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine.

* The 2008 bike ride will start in Beirut with the formal opening ceremony at the UNESCO Palace. The women will ride to the Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camps before riding from Mount Lebanon to Saidon (Saida) and on to Tyre (Sour)

* They will then cross the Lebanese / Syrian border and cycle in Damascus and Qunaitra before riding in the Golan Heights. The women then journey to Jordan and take part in a Peace Advocacy cycle ride in Amman and in the evening they will meet Jordanian women and Iraqi and Palestinian refugees at the Cultural Palace. The following day those who are still able to sit on a saddle will ride along the Dead Sea before attending an International Evening there!

* All being well the 'Follow the Women' group will cross the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge into the Palestine where they will ride in Jericho, Ramallah and Nablus.

Top picture: American Kim Mander, left, talks with Iranian Shiva Marangi, right, as they prepare to ride with more than 300 other women from about 30 countries, in Baakleen, Shouf region of mount Lebanon outside Beirut on Sunday May 4, 2008, as they begin their Middle East cycle tour for peace. The peace cycling tour 'Follow the Women', attract people from across Europe, America and Arab countries, starting in the Lebanese capital and will take them to Damascus, Amman, Jerusalem

More than 300 women from about 30 countries, ride in Baakleen, Shouf region of mount Lebanon outside Beirut on Sunday May 4, 2008, as they begin their Middle East cycle tour for peace.

"I wanted to leave something for my children and tell them about their Dad," said Habib in explaining his motivation for authoring a work of non-fiction. He and his wife, Mona Sadek (also a physician at Lewis-Gale) have two young children that attend North Cross School. "In addition many of my patients and my friends ask me every day where I am from."

Habib, who likes to oil paint for relaxation, set out to describe what life was like in the war torn Lebanon of the '70's and '80's. Every day he is asked for his spin on the problems in the Middle East, and some are surprised that despite having an Arabic name he is indeed a Christian - not a Muslim. "Regardless of where we live - all humans can get along. Life is so unpredictable," says Habib, who has learned to enjoy fishing, camping and other outdoor pursuits in Virginia. "That's what life is all about.'

In his book Habib explains that Christians and Muslims "were always friends...we went to the same school, we always get along. In reality the majority get along just fine. The minority are fighting. Its all about leadership and other reasons." In Lessons in Times of War and Peace, Habib recalls his father waiting on bread lines for hours while soldiers were fed right away. "That war had an impact on millions of Lebanese," he recalls, "and every day I remember that war and what I went through." He learned not to take things like safety, freedom, education, even electricity for granted. Habib does go back to his homeland every year or so and calls it a beautiful place, caught up again in recent years by the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.

"The sound of a rifle or the explosion of a bomb in a nearby street did not stop these children from learning," writes Habib, who recounts the daily bombings he remembered as a child in Tripoli, when the aroma of flowers and sweet baklava were replaced by the smell of war. "I had a dream about a peaceful country, a safe home, a happy family and a good future." He has found all of that in America and will be happy to share sentiments from his book at Barnes & Noble-Tanglewood this Saturday from 1-4pm. "I want [readers] to get an idea of what an immigrant has to go through, to understand that this person is a human being like them and went through a lot," said Habib. "Life is short - lets get along, lets enjoy it."

Source: Our Valley

Ethiopia passed the bill after it made a detailed study of the human rights violations and domestic violence Ethiopian migrants face behind closed doors in Beirut while on duty as maids.

"Suspending the work travel to Beirut was the only solution to minimize the human rights abuses and dangers to our citizens," said Zenebu Tadesse, deputy state minister for labor and social affairs.

During the past few years, a number of Ethiopians have been killed in Beirut by their employers.

Passed human rights records show that 67 Ethiopian women have died between 1997 and 1999 in Beirut while working. Many have never been heard of again and a many others remain difficult to trace because their employers change their Christian names to let them in to the country as Muslims.

The ministry said it would take strong action against any employment agency trying to send workers directly to Beirut or through a third country.

Every year, thousands of Ethiopian women, lured by the promise of lucrative jobs and comfortable living standards , are shipped out to Middle Eastern countries but end up being trapped in prison-like conditions.

Lebanon is the most popular destination for Ethiopian domestic servants, followed by Bahrain, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

Estimates indicate that there are over 50,000 Ethiopians working in Beirut, mainly women who work as house maids hoping to bring change to their living conditions and their families back at home, who pray continuously for their safe return. Over 100,000 Ethiopian workers are believed to be working in the Arab countries of the Middle East.

According to Ethiopian women association, Ethiopian women in the Middle Eastern countries are facing the worst kind of human rights abuses, subjected to beatings, denied earned wages, forced to toil without sleep, raped by employers, have parts of their body seared in boiling oil by wives of their employers, grilled with hot irons and thrown out of high-rise balconies." As a result, many are driven to despair and end up being mentally sick and sometimes commit suicide.

Although Lebanon is a member of the advisory committee to the the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it has not signed the 1951 Geneva Convention dealing with migrant workers. Lacking the normal rights of citizens to access public forms of assistance, migrants are faced with the option of running away and becoming illegal, or coping with the daily abuse. Despite pressure from labor organizations, the Lebanese governments have done nothing to address the issue.

Bernard Khoury, Lebanon's most famous architect, takes locations and buildings associated with the Civil War and gives them a Blade Runner retro-fit. My friend Karim Ben Khelifa took this morning-after photograph (above) of a Khoury designed nightclub -- B018 -- that used to be a bunker and that now blows the brain cells of ecstasy and techno loving teenagers with a moving ceiling that open up to the stars in summer. Khoury's other work includes an underground sushi restaurant near what used to be a main checkpoint on the Greenline that separated Christian East Beirut from Muslim West Beirut, and a proposal to paint a tubular sixties era concrete movie theatre half destroyed by artillery fire a bright shade of pink.

Nada Debs, a Lebanese furniture designer who grew up in Japan, uses the the ornate Levantine and Damascene style -- mother of pearl inlays and arabesques -- refined to a minimal, modernist essence.

On the more-is-more side of the furniture design spectrum, Maria Hibri and Hoda Baroudi have given dumpster-diving a Levantine makeover. They find pieces of antique and modernist furniture and then upholster them in Oriental textiles, and sometimes, Maria's daughter's, corduroy pants.

And just for fun, here's a nargileh, a traditional water pipe for smoking flavored tobacco that's a standard fixture in Arab cafes, designed by Sybille Abillama.

If Beirut remains an incubator for creative talent despite its wars and upheavals, avant-garde design in Lebanon remains an elite pastime, the purview of a secular, hipster scene. A country interested in nation-building would be using these people -- and like-minded intellectuals -- to transform its cities, its institutions, and curriculum. But Lebanon has no president, its parliament rarely meets, and most civil society organizations have a sectarian agenda. The re-imaginative power of Lebanese art ends up merely decorating the homes of wealthy foreign patrons, rather than transforming how people live in the Middle East.

Article reprinted from The TIME Middle East Blog. Top photo credit: Karim Ben Khelifa, Bottom photo credit: Atelier S/Z

The designer explained that she first studied Business Administration and then worked in the commercial area for some years, until she discovered that her route and accomplishments were in design. "I had always liked drawing and in my childhood I started creating my own costume jewelery. As time went by, I developed my techniques even further," she explained.

Five years ago she started making products out of epoxy putty. Some time later, after testing several materials, she noticed that steel was perfect for what she wanted to do. "Then all I had to do was follow my intuition. Nature, especially butterflies, with their shapes and colors also served as references," she said.

The months went by, the number of clients rose, production grew and became brand Estylozza, with a factory and showroom no Benedito Calixto Square, in Pinheiros neighborhood, in Sao Paulo. The factory currently employs four people, plus another three or four workers at times of greater demand.

The designer has also already won clients abroad, with sales to Australia, France and the United States. Maria also develops exclusive work based on ideas and drawings taken by her clients. "In these cases, the products are so personalized and different that they end up having a special meaning both for those developing them and for those wearing them," she pointed out.

Recently, the designer launched a line of earrings, pendants, necklaces, rings and bracelets, all in brushed steel. In the new collection, special attention is on the products in the shapes of mandalas. Apart from steel and tin, the products are made out of stone, chains, Formica and chamois leather strands. In the male line, the designer has created rings and pendants for modern men, also in steel.

"In the United States, you can say anything you want about Islam and Arabs and get away with it. In other words, as someone said, 'You can hit an Arab free'," said Shaheen author of "Guilty -- Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs after 9/11".

"The images have remained primarily fixed and have only been changed in the sense that they have become more vindictive and damaging," Shaheen said in an interview in Beirut.

Photo (right) of a typical party in Beirut

"What enables these images to persist and prevail? One of the primary reasons is silence," said Shaheen, a retired professor of mass communications.

"There's nobody in authority, no political leader, no Hollywood personality who has taken a stand and said that demonizing Arabs and Muslims is the same as demonizing Jews or blacks or Asians or any other racial or ethnic group."

Hollywood's depiction of Arabs has eased the path for U.S. administration policy, he argues. Decades of portraying Arabs and Muslims as the enemy "made it that much easier for us to go into Iraq", he said. "There were very few people protesting.

"The images help enforce policy," he said. "As the policy becomes more even-handed, perhaps films will reflect that.

"Arab children can't be trusted"

Shaheen, an American of Lebanese descent, has examined the treatment of Arabs and Muslims in some 1,000 films, including more than 100 shot since Sept. 11.

"What is done is selective framing of radicals: people saying 'death to America'. You cannot deny the reality -- there are people who really want to kill Americans. But those are basically the only images we see," Shaheen says.

He describes last year's "The Kingdom" -- an action movie about FBI agents hunting terrorists in Saudi Arabia -- as one of the most damaging depictions of Arabs of recent times in which "even Arab children cannot be trusted".

Shaheen also charts a new trend of turning American Arabs and Muslims into "the new bogey person" and criticizes the TV drama "24" for its "vicious images of loathsome Muslim Americans as well as Americans with Arab roots".

"Plato said: 'Those who tell the stories rule society'. Nothing has changed, and the story tellers of today have a tremendous impact on the world as we perceive it."

Shaheen is also the author of "Reel Bad Arabs -- How Hollywood Vilifies a People" and worked as a consultant on "Syriana" (2005) and "Three Kings" (1999).

In Lebanon bananas are cheap, especially the locally grown types which by the way are far superior to those that are imported.

Bananas contain three natural sugars - sucrose, fructose and glucose combined with fiber. A banana gives an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy.

Research has proven that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.

But energy isn't the only way a banana can help us keep fit.

It can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions, making it a must to add to our daily diet.

Depression: According to a recent survey undertaken by MIND amongst people suffering from depression, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin, known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS: Forget the pills - eat a banana. The vitamin B6 it contains regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood.

Anemia: High in iron, bananas can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and so helps in cases of anemia.

Blood Pressure: This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it perfect to beat blood pressure. So much so, the US Food and Drug Administration has just allowed the banana industry to make official claims for the fruit's ability to reduce the risk of blood pressure and stroke.

Brain Power: 200 students at a Twickenham (Middlesex) school were helped through their exams this year by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch in a bid to boost their brain power. Research has shown that the potassium-packed fruit can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation: High in fiber, including bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action, helping to overcome the problem without resorting to laxatives.

Hangovers: One of the quickest ways of curing a hangover is to make a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Heartburn: Bananas have a natural antacid effect in the body, so if you suffer from heartburn, try eating a banana for soothing relief.

Morning Sickness: Snacking on bananas between meals helps to keep blood sugar levels up and avoid morning sickness.

Mosquito bites: Before reaching for the insect bite cream, try rubbing the affected area with the inside of a banana skin. Many people find it amazingly successful at reducing swelling and irritation.

Nerves: Bananas are high in B vitamins that help calm the nervous system.

Overweight and at work? Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and crisps. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers: The banana is used as the dietary food against intestinal disorders because of its soft texture and smoothness. It is the only raw fruit that can be eaten without distress in over-chronicler cases.. It also neutralizes over-acidity and reduces irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control: Many other cultures see bananas as a 'cooling' fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): Bananas can help SAD sufferers because they contain the natural mood enhancer tryptophan.

Smoking & Tobacco Use: Bananas can also help people trying to give up smoking.. The B6, B12 they contain, as well as the potassium and magnesium found in them, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress: Potassium is a vital mineral, which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, thereby reducing our potassium levels. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes: According to research in 'The New England Journal of Medicine, 'eating bananas as part of a regular diet can cut the risk of death by strokes by as much as 40%!

Warts: Those keen on natural alternatives swear that if you want to kill off a wart, take a piece of banana skin and place it on the wart, with the yellow side out. Carefully hold the skin in place with a plaster or surgical tape!

So, a banana really is a natural remedy for many ills. When you compare it to an apple, it has four times the protein, twice the carbohydrate, three times the phosphorus, five times the vitamin A and iron, and twice the other vitamins and minerals. It is also rich in potassium and is one of the best value foods around So maybe its time to change that well-known phrase so that we say, 'A banana a day keeps the doctor away!'

Bananas must be the reason monkeys are so happy all the time! One more reason the fruit is a wonder: Want a quick shine on your shoes? Take the INSIDE of the banana skin, and rub directly on the shoe, then polish with a dry cloth.

Amazing fruit!