The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning "to cultivate", generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. Anthropologists most commonly use the term "culture" to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity is long been taken as a defining feature of the genus Homo. However, primatologists such as Jane Goodall have identified aspects of culture among our closest relatives in the animal kingdom.Goodall, J. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior.

Defining "culture"

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More on [ Culture ]

BBC News | UK | World Edition

'1m more' on housing waiting list
Fri, 16 May 2008 00:55:16 -0000
Five million people in England could be on the waiting list for social housing within two years, councils warn.
NHS IT 'at least four years late'
Thu, 15 May 2008 23:05:52 -0000
It will be at least 2014 before the NHS in England has a single electronic records system, say auditors.
Husband held after body found
Thu, 15 May 2008 21:30:43 -0000
The husband of a missing make-up artist is arrested following the discovery of a body near their home.
Motorbike star Dunlop killed
Thu, 15 May 2008 22:01:41 -0000
Motorcyclist Robert Dunlop dies in a crash in Thursday's practice at the North West 200 racing festival.
Website to trace Brits in crises
Fri, 16 May 2008 04:19:38 -0000
The Foreign Office launches a service to help track down Britons caught up in emergencies abroad.
Ruling due in MPs' expenses fight
Fri, 16 May 2008 03:48:54 -0000
The High Court is set to decide whether 14 MPs must disclose details of claims made for their second homes.

The Economist: Britain

A little local difficulty
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:34 -0000
Labour tries to defend a once-safe seatTHE town of Crewe, in north-west England, is used to outsiders. It had a population of just 70 in 1831 but grew rapidly when it was chosen by the west-coast railway as the location for its engineering works. Along with its more bucolic neighbour, Nantwich, it now forms a parliamentary constituency of roughly 100,000 people. Both will be inundated by visitors of the political rather than industrial variety until May 22nd, when a by-election is scheduled to replace Crewe's previous Labour MP, Gwyneth Dunwoody, who died on April 17th.Labour has a comfortable majority in Parliament, so the significance of the by-election is symbolic. It is no less important for that. Were the Conservatives to win, their first by-election gain since 1982 would quicken momentum built up by months of large opinion-poll leads and a strong showing at the local elections on May 1st. To overturn Labour's majority of 7,078 in Crewe, they need to change the minds of 8% of the electorate. A similar national swing at a general election would give them a solid parliamentary majority. ...
Nuclear diplomacy
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:34 -0000
British Energy proves a slow sell EVEN today, 13 years after it was built, Britain's newest nuclear-power station looks futuristic, with its landmark white containment dome and the blue haze of Cerenkov radiation in the cooling pond. In contrast to the huge furnaces needed to burn coal, a reactor core at Sizewell B roughly the size of a smallish lorry produces 3% of Britain's electricity. But its construction was so controversial?sparking one of the longest planning inquiries ever?that, after it was finished, nuclear power was abandoned for a generation.Now, worries over climate change and the end of self-sufficiency in oil and gas mean that atom-splitting is set for a comeback. Ministers want new plants to boost nuclear power's contribution above the 18% of electricity it currently provides but insist that, unlike in the past, there will be no subsidies. With that in mind, the government announced in March that British Energy, which owns most of Britain's nuclear plants (including Sizewell B), was up for sale, and with it the state's 35% stake. ...
The hardest word
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:34 -0000
Frank Field, the fight-back and the virtues and limitations of apologyTWO apologies were made in the House of Commons on May 13th. The first came via a startling announcement from Alistair Darling, the chancellor. The other was made by a humble backbench Labour MP, Frank Field. His was unquestionably the more gracious: concise where Mr Darling's was waffly, blunt where the chancellor was periphrastic. It is just possible that Mr Field's apology will also turn out to be the more important.Status is an odd commodity in politics. There are some cabinet ministers?Mr Darling is one of them?who combine nominal eminence with bland invisibility. There are some MPs, on the other hand, with little formal authority but high renown, sometimes derived from peccadillos or eccentricities, in a few cases from their intellect or principles. Mr Field is one of those. His latest bout of disproportionate prominence came as leader of a backbench tax rebellion. That threatened to torpedo the government; there is a chance, if a slim one, that his apology may prove a symbolic turning-point in Gordon Brown's premiership. ...
A $10m mystery
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:34 -0000
What connects the deputy-chairman of the Conservative Party with Hugo Chavez?MICHAEL ASHCROFT is a powerful man. A former treasurer of the Conservative Party, he is now its deputy-chairman. He is also a very wealthy man?the 65th richest in Britain, according to a rough-and-ready ranking by the Sunday Times. Through one of his companies, he has given over GBP3m ($6m, at today's rates) to the Tories in the past five years in cash and kind (including free flights for the leadership and opinion-poll research). Before the last general election, Lord Ashcroft lent the Tories another GBP3.6m. As well as being powerful and rich, Lord Ashcroft is elusive: he is the right-wing pimpernel of British politics, whose name is uttered with awe and terror by Labour MPs. The mystery partly emanates from Lord Ashcroft's association with Belize: he spent part of his youth in what was then still British Honduras, subsequently returning to Belize to base some of his business activities there. ...
A flimsy fightback
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:34 -0000
A darkening economy threatens the prime minister's bid to regain the initiativeWHEN Gordon Brown became prime minister last June, few doubted that it was his commanding performance in ten years as chancellor of the exchequer that made him the uncontested candidate. Yet in his astonishing fall from grace of the past few months, economic and fiscal stumbles have featured large. A haunting precedent is the short-lived administration of Anthony Eden, famed as a diplomat, who was felled by his mishandling of foreign policy in the Suez crisis of 1956.This week Mr Brown sought to regain the initiative on what used to be his home ground. His most dramatic step was an astonishing fiscal volte-face to quell a Labour Party revolt against the abolition of the 10% income-tax band. That decision, revealed in Mr Brown's final budget but with effect from this year, returned to plague him because it made 5.3m poor households worse off. The government had agreed to try to help the losers at an expected cost of less than GBP1 billion ($2 billion). But on May 13th Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer, went much farther when he announced income-tax measures costing GBP2.7 billion in 2008-09. ...
A check on the mail
Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:34 -0000
Royal Mail struggles to compete in a liberalised marketA MORE remote part of Britain would be hard to find than the small Shetland island of Foula. With a population of 30, it lies across 17 miles of angry Atlantic Ocean from its nearest neighbour. Getting to it is not easy. One can catch a ferry (assuming the waves are not too high) or take a plane, if the wind isn't too harsh. Delivering mail regularly to the 21 addresses on the island is as difficult. Although the island is one of a handful that do not get post delivered six times a week (by special exemption, its mail comes only three times a week, usually when the ferry is running), that is the only concession granted to Royal Mail, the state-owned postal company. No matter how much it costs to deliver letters to Foula, Royal Mail can charge no more than the standard rate of 36p for a first-class letter. This ?universal service? of mail deliveries to all parts of the country for a single price is one of Royal Mail's proudest achievements. It is also its Achilles heel. ...

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