Bonn - There comes a time when teddy bear wallpaper, toy boxes and colourful furniture no longer seem right in a child's room. That's when most teenagers feel the desire to have a clear-out and redesign their surroundings.

Transforming a room can be expensive and a total revamp may not be necessary because with a little handy work and some creative ideas, a boring nursery can be transformed into a stylish room.

Flea markets are good sources of inspiration. "The retro style is very in at the moment," says Silke Schoen, an interior designer from Berlin.

Hamburg -Looking into the future is easy to do at autumn bicycle trade shows when manufacturers highlight their new products.

A new trend is now emerging - the retro look is honing in on bicycle design.

"The retro trend in bicycle design so far has been on the fringes, but you can certainly assume that it will continue and gain impetus," said Andre Glaeser of Germany's bicycle club. Siegfried Neuberger, director of Germany's two-wheeler industry association, agrees.

Sydney - Young people are always told to get a degree because a good education is a passport to a good job.

Up to a point.

Australian research on household income shows that those who skipped university and went straight into the workforce are not destined for dead-end jobs.

Melbourne University researchers have gone over census data and found that almost a quarter of men and almost 30 per cent of women who didn't complete high school were in the top half of the earnings scale in 2005.

Sydney - It's not true that men who go to jail end up getting raped by sex-starved fellow inmates, research in Australia shows.

"We've shown that the whole belief that young and attractive people are likely to be raped in jail is a bit of a myth," Juliet Richters of Sydney's University of New South Wales said. "It's pretty safe these days, especially with the modern prisons with things like showers in cells."

Just 6 per cent of the male prisoners interviewed said they had had sexual contact, with 5 per cent of them saying sex was consensual.

Hamburg - The healthy properties of water is ancient knowledge that goes back at least to the Romans.

Vestiges of their thermal baths can be found all over Europe, and people today are rediscovering the meaning of the Latin phrase "sanus per aquam" (health through water).

Wellness travel accounts for 60 per cent of all trips taken primarily for health reasons, according to the European spas association in Brussels. Trips to spas and rehabilitation centres comprise the remainder.

More than any other age group, 35- to 50-year-olds or people who find themselves in the middle of their most difficult work years - increasingly are part of the boom.

Belgrade - Walking down a street or riding an elevator in Belgrade on any given day in September, you are bound sense an aromatic cloud which may be unpleasant for foreigners, but invariably stirs the appetites of the locals.

The scent penetrating from a closed door tells whether a neighbour is frying peppers to store theme in a mixture of cooking oil, water and herbs or to combine them with mashed tomato and perhaps aubergine.

A balcony door may release the rich, sweet smell of plums cooked with sugar and a little water, while the pungent, sour aroma from a white plastic barrel locked away in a basement betrays the presence of sour cabbage. And the recipe books are brimming with other ideas.