Casanova put his faith in oysters and ate 50 a day. But a better bet for fighting the infections that flourish at this time of year are the vitamins and other antioxidants found in cranberry juice.
THE BELIEF THAT the thrushes in the garden are better than meteorologists at long-range forecasting and can replace the now-retired Michael Fish seems a bit daft. It sounds just as unlikely that some scientific magic alerted the hollies when flowering last spring that there would be a need for more berries in the autumn, so that the birds could be well fattened to survive the winter. But amateur forecasters noted the profusion of berries, which, along with other alleged signs of a harsh winter ahead, provoked them to issue dire warnings.
| Berries are just a old wives tale. Everyone knows you have to check the woolly caterpillars to see how bad the winter is going to be. |
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