So now you know lads

[Declan]

Younger wife' for marital bliss

The secret to a happy marriage for men is choosing a wife who is smarter and at least five years younger than you, say UK experts.

These pairings are more likely to go the distance, particularly if neither has been divorced in the past, according to the Bath University team.

The findings predict a happy future for pop star Beyonce Knowles, 28, and rapper husband Jay-Z, 39.

The work is published in the European Journal of Operational Research.

The researchers studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship.

Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples to see which had lasted.

For better or worse

They found that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.

If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.

Add in a better education for the woman - Beyonce has her high school diploma, unlike husband Jay-Z - and the chances of lasting happiness improve further.

Those who have never divorced fare better too. But couples in which one member has been through a divorce in the past are less stable than those in which both members are divorcees.

Dr Emmanuel Fragniere and colleagues do say that men and women choose partners "on the basis of love, physical attraction, similarity of taste, beliefs and attitudes, and shared values."

But they say that using "objective factors" such as age, education and cultural origin "may help reduce divorce".

[illdecide]

Womens heads are f**ked up and it doesn't matter how smart or what age you are...it just depends on what nut-case your with

[leenie]

what if you are older and smarter?

[screenexile]

Womens heads are f**ked up and it doesn't matter how smart or what age you are...it just depends on what nut-case your with

DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!!!

Could not possibly agree with you any more illdecide... try find the hottest girl with the least amount of crazy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zADosF3XoQ

[The Real Laoislad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zADosF3XoQ

Class ...and so true 

[leenie]

Womens heads are f**ked up and it doesn't matter how smart or what age you are...it just depends on what nut-case your with

DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!!!

Could not possibly agree with you any more illdecide... try find the hottest girl with the least amount of crazy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zADosF3XoQ

fixed that for you....

ye may think women are crazy but man are so unbelievably infuriating...

[Eastern_Pride]

what if you are older and smarter?

I suppose you'll need to get a cat then....

[The Real Laoislad]

Womens heads are f**ked up and it doesn't matter how smart or what age you are...it just depends on what nut-case your with

DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!!!

Could not possibly agree with you any more illdecide... try find the hottest girl with the least amount of crazy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zADosF3XoQ

fixed that for you....

ye may think women are crazy but man are so unbelievably infuriating...

Are you saying women aren't infuriating 
Maybe its just the woman I have so.........

[pintsofguinness]

Why do they flip out over the smallest of things, everything is fine until they discover you left a dirty plate on the floor at the armchair and then there's roaring and shouting and you're hearing about everything you've done wrong or haven't done for the last 6 months.

[Caid]

Why do they flip out over the smallest of things, everything is fine until they discover you left a dirty plate on the floor at the armchair and then there's roaring and shouting and you're hearing about everything you've done wrong or haven't done for the last 6 months.

But she has a lot to listen to / put up with too - in fairness

[pintsofguinness]

Why do they flip out over the smallest of things, everything is fine until they discover you left a dirty plate on the floor at the armchair and then there's roaring and shouting and you're hearing about everything you've done wrong or haven't done for the last 6 months.

But she has a lot to listen to / put up with too - in fairness

i'm delightful

[screenexile]

Why do they flip out over the smallest of things, everything is fine until they discover you left a dirty plate on the floor at the armchair and then there's roaring and shouting and you're hearing about everything you've done wrong or haven't done for the last 6 months.

But she has a lot to listen to / put up with too - in fairness

i'm delightful

Me too... I don't understand it!

[Main Street]

Why do they flip out over the smallest of things, everything is fine until they discover you left a dirty plate on the floor at the armchair and then there's roaring and shouting and you're hearing about everything you've done wrong or haven't done for the last 6 months.

6 months?
You have a wife who can only remember 6 month's worth?
Lucky sod.

[Tony Baloney]

what if you are older and smarter?

You'll only ever be older.

[Declan]

More fuel to the fire

Date-rape drink spiking 'an urban legend'
By Stephen Adams
Tuesday October 27 2009

Widespread spiking of drinks with date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol and GHB is an "urban legend" fuelled by young women unwilling to accept they have simply consumed too much alcohol, academics believe.

A study of more than 200 students revealed many wrongly blamed the effects of a "bad night out" on date-rape drugs, when they had just drunk excessively.

Many are in "active denial" that drinking large amounts of alcohol can leave them "incoherent and incapacitated", the Kent University researchers concluded.

Young women's fears about date-rape drugs are so ingrained that students mistakenly think it is a more important factor in sexual assault than being drunk, taking drugs or walking alone at night.

The study, published in the British Journal of Criminology, found three-quarters of students identified drink spiking as an important risk – more than alcohol or drugs.

More than half said they knew someone whose drink had been spiked.

But despite popular beliefs, police have found no evidence that rape victims are commonly drugged with such substances, the researchers said.

Dr Adam Burgess from the university's School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, said: "Young women appear to be displacing their anxieties about the consequences of consuming what is in the bottle on to rumours of what could be put there by someone else.

"The reason why fear of drink-spiking has become widespread seems to be a mix of it being more convenient to guard against than the effects of alcohol itself and the fact that such stories are exotic – like a more adult version of 'stranger danger'."

Rituals to protect drinks from contamination, such as taking drinks to the lavatory in clubs and bars and buying only bottled drinks, have become commonplace, the academics noted.

Among young people, drink spiking stories have attractive features that could "help explain" their disproportionate loss of control after drinking alcohol, the study found.

Dr Burgess said: "Our findings suggest guarding against drink spiking has also become a way for women to negotiate how to watch out for each other in an environment where they might well lose control from alcohol consumption."

Co-researcher Dr Sarah Moore said: "We would be very interested in finding out whether the urban myth of spiking is also the result of parents feeling unable to discuss with their adult daughters how to manage drinking and sex and representing their anxieties about this through discussion of drink spiking risks."

Nick Ross, chair of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, commented: "There is no evidence of widespread use of hypnotics in sexual assault, let alone Rohypnol, despite many attempts to prove the contrary.

"During thousands of blood and alcohol tests lots of judgement-impairing compounds were discovered, but they were mostly street drugs or prescription pharmaceuticals taken by the victims themselves, and above all alcohol was the common theme.

"As Dr Burgess observes, it is not scientific evidence which keeps the drug rape myth alive but the fact that it serves so many useful functions."

Dr Burgess and his team questioned more than 200 students at universities in London and south east England.

Earlier this year, Australian researchers found that nont one of 97 young men and women admitted to hospital over 19 months to two Perth hospital claiming to have had their drinks spiked, had in fact been drugged.