Nero, the handsome seven-year-old African lion, can obviously sense, early though it still is, that this is not going to be just another day. (1)_____

The courtyard outside is noisy with people carrying bottles, syringes, drugs, drips and bandages and in half an hour a mini operating theatre is set up right on Nero's doorstep. (2)_____

'The nerve in the tooth is now totally dead,' explains veterinary dentist Peter Kertesz, who has worked on animals' teeth for 14 years. (3)_____

Peter and his assistant Samantha divide their time between working with humans (Mondays to Thursdays) and treating animals (Fridays). Under the name Zoodent International, Peter, 47, performs more dental work on animals than any other practice in the world

A few years ago, a company called Space Marketing came up with a plan to send a mile-long advertisement into space. Using light reflected from the sun, it would beam out a message as large as the moon that could be seen by every single person on the planet as it orbited the Earth.

This would have been one advert that couldn't have been thrown out with the junk mail or switched off by remote control. (1)___ Advertising standards agencies eventually decided not to allow Space Marketing to go ahead with their plans and they were forced to abandon them, but not before several major companies had made serious enquiries about launching their logos into space.

Space may indeed be the final frontier for advertisers, because on Earth we are already surrounded by advertising wherever we are and whatever we are doing. (2)___ There are the promises of health and vitality on the cereal packet weate from this morning, for example, and the ad that we saw on the side of the bus we caught to work. Most of the time, we are probably not even aware of these less obvious advertising tactics, but that doesn't mean that they aren't effective. (3)___ You are in a packed cinema, watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster. There are adverts before the film or during a break in the film, but are there any during the film? Well, look carefully at the make of car your favourite actor is driving. And what about his watch? Can you see what brand it is? Chances are, you can, and the company that owns the brand is likely to have paid thousands for it to appear in the film.

Whilst products are most often placed' in this way in movies and TV series, they also sometimes appear in music videos, video games, plays and even books. (4)___ You may not realise you are being influenced by a technique that sounds so simple, but advertisers consider product placement to be a highly effective form of advertising. After all, they would not be willing to spend as much money as they do on it if they didn't truly believe it worked.

In fact, associating products with cool, exciting lives seems to be one of the most common forms of advertising. (5)___

And let's not forget the power of pure entertainment (6)___ If the consumers are looking forward to the next 'episode' of an ad, once again the product has become associated with something 'cool" and is therefore likely to See a considerable rise in popularity.

So, whether Space Marketing eventually succeeds in launching ads into space or not is perhaps a less important issue than it might seem.

Like most tourists, I enjoy taking photographs on holiday and can't wait to show them to friends and family when I get back. But whilst for me they represent treasured memories, to others they are more often than not simply a collection of boring, badly composed, out of focus pictures. So this year I decided to do something about this by booking myself on a trip to Rome which included photography lessons.

The first time I went to Rome, I remember thinking that it was a photographer's paradise with a fantastic photo opportunity lying around every corner. (1)___ Added to this was the fact that there were crowds of tourists everywhere, blocking all the best views. But this second time things were different. Antonio, my photography tutor, was on hand to give expert advice every step of the way.

The first thing Antonio told our group was that the secret to creating a good photographic image rather than just a snapshot is to first take a long look at what you want to photograph. For example, he said, you should consider the background just as much as you do the subject. (2)___ You can get unwanted figures out of your image simply by getting down on your knees to take a picture, for instance, or changing the angle of the shot.

Our first port of call was Piazza Navona, where Antonio gave us advice about how to photograph the Fountain of Neptune. (3)___ Then, he added that we should take the photo with the fountain slightly off centre.

Next, we headed off to the Pantheon, which was originally an ancient Roman temple. Along the way, I took the opportunity to photograph anything that caught my eye. The Pantheon itself is so huge that it is impossible to take a good photograph of the whole thing. (4)___ I tried out this technique by lying down on the floor and taking a picture of just one section of the great domed ceiling. I was pretty pleased with the results.

For the next couple of hours, we wandered around the historic centre visiting many of Rome's architectural highlights. (5)___ And I felt that I was really able to appreciate the sights as I had to look at each one so carefully in order to get good pictures.

We finished off our first morning tour with a stop at a traditional Roman street café. After all the hard work and walking I'd done, a large Italian ice cream seemed like the perfect reward! (6)___ It felt like a whole new world had opened up to me. I learnt an incredible amount over the next two days, as well as having a thoroughly enjoyable time in one of the world's most beautiful cities.

Wayback in 1828, the world's first modern police force was created by Sir Robert Peel. The Metropolitan Police Force of London made its home at the famous Scotland Yard and quickly became the model for police forces around the world. But it would be another decade before the Detective Branch of Scotland Yard was set up. This branch later became the Criminal Investigation Department (commonly known as C.I.D) and to this day remains the main police department in Britain responsible for major crime investigation.

Becoming a plain clothes detective in the C.I.D is no easy task. Firstly, a police officer needs to have served for at least two years as a uniformed officer. (1)___ Once this period has been completed the officer can then apply to go to a detective training school. However, there's no guarantee they will be accepted.

In order to become a detective, an officer needs to possess a wide range of skills and qualities, the most obvious being complete honesty and good character. They also need to be highly observant and to have good judgement. (2)___ An officer with all these skills could more than likely find themselves being accepted to train as a detective. Most of these "detectives-to-be' discover that the really hard work begins once they get to the training school. (3)___ For instance, they will have to learn about psychology, which will come in handy when they are questioning suspects and witnesses. Perhaps the most difficult subjects though deal with learning all about the modem scientific methods now used in crime detection.

Once our future Sherlocks have completed their initial training, they begin life as detective constables and start working on unsolved crime cases in the C.I.D. Most of the work they do is not nearly as glamorous as it seems on TV and in novels. (4)___ Not exactly exciting, but essential duties all the same.

Apart from having to do painstaking investigative work, detectives also have a lot of paperwork to deal with. (5)___ Every detail of a crime and its investigation must be recorded. Most detectives find the amount of clerical work they have to do the most frustrating part of their job.

Nonetheless, it can be a very rewarding job; a detective gets great satisfaction knowing they have solved a major crime. However, a detective's job is still not over after a suspect has been arrested and charged. (6)___ Only when the offender is actually behind bars is the detective's goal achieved. Then there's always the next case to tackle, of course.

It was back in 1995, when my husband Eric was working as a rubbish collector for the local town council, that I first got the idea of recycling clothes. He would frequently find bags of perfectly good clothes just thrown into the rubbish. I wondered if I would be able to do something with them which would make money for me and perhaps even help the community at the same time. I decided to give it a try.

The first thing I did was to place an advertisement in the newspaper inviting people in the neighbourhood to bring me their second-hand clothing, shoes and bedding instead of throwing them away. Within a week, our garage was bursting with black plastic bags. (1)___ This kept me busy for weeks.

At the same time, I was also looking for a shop to rent where I could sell these items. (2)___ But it wasn't until I contacted Adventure, an organisation which helps people to set up their own businesses, that I finally got the assistance I needed. They helped me find the right shop and gave me advice about getting a business loan to get me started. That's how Second Best was born.

For my idea to work, I was going to need a steady supply of clothes. The town council already had recycling bins for paper, glass and the like. (3)___ I was able to make arrangements to have the clothes collected and brought to my shop, where I had installed laundry facilities to cope with all the washloads I needed to do!

It wasn't only making money in the shop that interested me, though. I was still eager for the community to benefit from my idea, too, so I started to find ways that the large quantities of very old or damaged clothing that I couldn't sell in the shop could be put to use. (4)___ Some of the old clothing is now turned into bandages for hospitals, for example, while one school in the area asks for old jeans to make into lunch bags.

Adventure believes in encouraging people by giving an annual Special Merit Award to the most successful new business they have helped. (5)___ Not only had I helped so many others, they said, but I had also had to overcome a difficulty. In 2000, my shop had been destroyed by fire and I had had to start the business all over again from Scratch.

Getting back on track wasn't easy. Not only did I have to search for another shop to rent, but I also had to spend time building up new stocks of clothes, as nearly all of the original stock had been destroyed. (6)___ Otherwise, I would have been forced to call it a day.

Today, twelve years after I first started up, Second Best is a very successful small business.