London, France's sixth biggest city

 Adidas Originals World Cup TR 2010-GermancyMore French people live in London than in Bordeaux, Nantes or Strasbourg and it is now thought to be France's sixth biggest city in terms of population. What is attracting a new generation of young French professionals to the city? On a wet Friday night in Hackney, a group of young professional women walk into a pub. Laughing about the British weather, they shake their umbrellas, peel off their raincoats and make their way to the bar. Like many Londoners at the end of a busy working week, they have come to unwind over a few drinks.But if you move a bit closer, you realise they are all speaking French. They are not tourists, exchange students or off-duty au pairs. They all work in creative industries, have lived in east London quite some time and consider it home.London has a long-standing French community - but it is no longer confined to the streets around the embassy in South Kensington, where you will find French bookshops, patisseries and pavement cafes patronised by impeccably dressed mothers dropping off their children at the posh Lycée Fran?ais Charles de Gaulle. Today there are French people in every corner of London and their numbers have been growing, with the result that in next week's parliamentary election in France they - along with expats in Scandinavia - will be voting for a candidate to represent them in the National Assembly.The French consulate in London estimates between 300,000 and 400,000 French citizens live in the British capital - many in London's cutting-edge creative hub, in the East End. "I came to London from Paris straight after graduating from art school, just to have a look," says Malika Favre. "That was seven years ago and I've no intention of going back."Malika is much in-demand as an illustrator. Her commissions include a bold, playful design for a new edition of the Kama Sutra, an album cover for a French rock band and artwork for a Californian beachwear company.

Adidas Originals World Cup TR 2010-FranceBeing in London and speaking English gives her access to a wider client base - Malika sees the city as a gateway to globalisation and also relishes freedom from French bureaucracy. "With a new venture in Paris you always think first of what is going to go wrong. I find the system much easier here - you don't have so many rules and so much paperwork," she tells me.Marine Schepens, who works for a fashionable advertising agency, says UK companies are more prepared to give young people a chance because it is easier to terminate their contracts than in France. This fluidity makes employees less risk-averse too."I changed careers a year ago but I would have never done that if I was still in France. I'd have thought, 'I'm so lucky to have a job - I must hang on to it.'" Nadege Alezine, a journalist from Bordeaux, says life in London is not for the faint hearted. She runs a website aimed at the French community called bealondoner.com"If you want security and nice holidays you stay in France. If you crave adventure and want to get new skills, you come here," she says.That is not to say she does not miss France. Sipping her drink, she sighs. "Life in France was easy. You know, good food and wine. I lived near the sea and not far from the ski slopes. And sometimes when London's grey and rainy I think, 'What on earth am I doing here?'" All the young women I met complained about London's over-priced property. London rents are twice those in Paris. "In Brick Lane, we had bedbugs and rats," says Malika, "and for the same money I paid for one room, friends back home had their own flats." Of course, many people living in London have it far worse, but by choosing the East End Malika and her friends are following in the footsteps of her compatriots centuries ago.The French first came en masse to the East End in the 17th Century.

Adidas Originals Samba Shoes Brazil These Huguenots, who had endured years of persecution in France because of their Protestant faith, were offered sanctuary here by King Charles II. They called their flight Le Refuge - coining the word refugee. Many settled east of the City of London, where food and housing were cheaper. There are many French street names around nearby Spitalfields Market such as Fournier Street, Fleur de Lys Street and Nantes Passage. The Huguenots were skilled craftsmen but some feared that they were depriving Londoners of work. A protectionist priest, a certain Dr Welton, called them "the offal of the earth". Today competition for jobs is intense, especially among the young, and cross-channel migrants are not always welcomed with open arms.Recently the French consulate commissioned a report called The Forgotten People of St Pancras. It focuses on the young French who arrive in London on a one-way ticket and sometimes find themselves in desperate straits. The Centre Charles Peguy, a French charity in Shoreditch, helps new arrivals to find work and a place to live. Cedric Pretat, one of the advisers, says the numbers have shot up this summer. "Many French people imagine that because of the Olympics, lots of new jobs have been created in London which is not true. But people arrive with this dream." He adds: "Others are escaping from things in France such as family problems, educational problems and areas like Department 93, because people who live in that part of Paris sometimes have trouble finding a job." Department 93 is shorthand for Seine Saint Denis, just north of Paris - the French suburb which is home to many French nationals of African origin and a large immigrant population. To the average French person, it conjures up images of riots, bleak high rises, youth unemployment and racism. It is the most-discriminated-against postcode in France, although ethnic minorities from other suburbs have also had a tough time.

 Adidas Originals Samba Shoes GermanyHamid Senni, a business consultant based in London, was one of eight children born to Moroccan immigrants in the south of France. A well-meaning teacher at his school suggested he change his name to Lionel. "Because of your name you will be discriminated against, because of your skin colour, and even the address on your CV can stop you from getting a job," he says. "As for your skills and competencies - none of that counts in France if you don't fit in the box - so I left," he adds. Hamid now advises many French companies on how to diversify their workforce and he lectures at Sciences Po, one of the country's most prestigious universities. But he says that in the early days it was much easier to get someone to pick up the phone, if he called from London than from Paris. I first met him five years ago when he had just written a book. It was called De la Cite a la City and focused on his journey from a rundown suburban estate (Cité) in Valence to London's booming financial district. Hamid suspects the success of the far right in the first round of the recent presidential elections, the highest share of the vote ever achieved by the Front National in a nationwide poll, might have pushed more young French people across the channel. "France is really struggling to create jobs and things have got worse because some people are saying the whites should come first," he says.Cleo Soazandry, another young French national with African roots, has a mother from Madagascar and a father from Guinea. Her parents met in France where Cleo was born. In her early teens, the family moved from Paris to London. "I was really pushed by my teachers here," she says. "Suddenly I realised I could actually become somebody here, be ambitious." Cleo adds that seeing black presenters on television made a deep impression on her as there were virtually none in France at the time.

 Adidas Originals Samba Shoes Spain"It's like my eyes opened up when I came here - I think the American dream is also present here in the UK." A surge in popularity for cremations in the US is threatening to overwhelm its "mom-and-pop" funeral homes, which count on big burials for their profits. The recipients of the pricey goods Mike Nicodemus sells will not be around to enjoy them.For the baseball fan, he offers a cremation urn with the favourite team's logo. Military veterans can spend eternity encased in a bronze container inscribed with the emblem of their service, or in a case displaying an American flag.The brightly lit cremation showroom at Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home and Crematory in Virginia Beach is the culmination of Nicodemus's effort to turn cremation into a touch-and-feel consumer activity akin to shoe shopping and wedding planning."Let them look around, let them shop, let them browse to see what's out there," he says. "If you don't take the initiative during the arrangement conference to let that family know what's available, they don't know."With the rise in cremation devastating funeral homes' bottom lines, the independently owned businesses that constitute about 90% of the industry must embrace the trend and capitalise on it, say Nicodemus and other industry leaders.That means building inviting show rooms to display urns and accessories, convincing families to pay for custom memorial services, and for some, rebranding themselves as regional cremation specialists."The funeral directors that will be successful going forward are those that aren't afraid of cremation," says Lawrence Little, founder of Alternatives Funeral and Cremation Service in British Columbia, Canada.The number of Americans and Canadians being cremated upon their deaths is rising sharply, according to data collected by the Cremation Association of North America. Both countries lag far behind Britain, where funeral directors confronted the shift decades ago.

Adidas Originals Samba Shoes Italy Americans are more conservative and religious in their attitudes towards the final disposition of their loved ones than Britons, death care industry experts say. Evidence for that can be seen in the regional breakdown: Cremation is least prevalent in the so-called "Bible belt" states of the South-East.And both Canada and the US have much more open space to bury bodies than Britain.Nevertheless, cremation has surged in popularity in both countries, overwhelming unprepared funeral homes.Compared to traditional burial, the process is more flexible - far flung families who need not gather immediately to bury a relative have more time to plan memorial services. And cremation is seen as more ecologically friendly - traditional burials consume land and must be maintained into perpetuity. An immediate, no-frills cremation is much less expensive than a full-service burial: $2,070 (￡1,299) on average, compared to $7,755, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. As cremation has grown in popularity, employment in "death care" businesses has declined from 137,000 in 2005 to 132,000 in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Especially hard hit were skilled embalmers: Employment in that profession declined 28% in the same period. Meanwhile, employment in all service-providing industries grew 9.5%.And in November and February, two of the largest publicly traded funeral home chains in the country warned investors the continuing upward trend in cremation could harm revenue and turnover.The key, say industry leaders say, is for funeral directors to steer families away from immediate "direct cremation" with a no-frills container for the ashes toward more costly urns, ash accessories and services.When families inquire about cremation in Nicodemus's Hollomon-Brown funeral home, his staff seats them in his urn showroom and lets them browse before meeting them.

 Adidas Originals Samba Shoes England Urns in porcelain, wood and metal line shelves on the walls. Jewellery - with space to hold a pinch of grandma or grandpa - sells well, as do smaller "keepsake" urns so relatives can keep some on the mantel after burying or scattering the rest. Wind chimes encasing a sprinkling of mum will remind the children of her with every breeze.Nicodemus estimates he is able to up-sell as many as 60% of families who walk in his door asking about cremation.To encourage families to think beyond a simple cremation, staff at Dimbleby, Friedel, Williams and Edmunds Funeral Homes in central New York state suggest they have a look at the body before sending it into the crematory, says Albert Abdulla, a funeral director there."It's always a positive experience for people to come in and view," he says, "and we've had that turn around for us: They thought that their loved one looked so good they wanted to go ahead with a public viewing" before the cremation.Alternatives Funeral and Cremation Service in British Columbia in the last year devised what founder Little describes as a new category of memorial service - elaborately planned with themes based on the life and interests of the departed."We're very consumer-oriented, we've done the homework, we now know for sure that a lot of families know what they don't want, but they do not know what they do want," says Little.For a deceased helicopter pilot's memorial service, Little hired an airport hanger, to which the the family - and the ashes - were conveyed in a helicopter. The guest book was designed with an aviation chart motif.Another man loved to gamble and drink Heineken beer. Little's staff hired his local pub, staff dressed as croupiers manned table games with cards printed with his photo, and served Heineken beer with his face on the label."There is an emotional payoff for the family, and that's what there needs to be in anything a consumer buys, particularly in something as sensitive as this," Little says.

 Adidas Originals World Cup TR 2010-South Africa "The baby boomers want personalisation, they want customisation. They may not know what exactly what they want, but they want options and they want alternatives." The fertile Wadi Hanifah valley running through part of Riyadh was for years a rubbish dump and a public health hazard, but now it's been transformed into a vast park, with lakes that attract cool breezes. It's an oasis so large it's hard to police - making it a place for Saudi citizens to relax, in more senses than one.Down by the lake, Hussein Al-Doseri is beaming."Before all this, there were no services here, no trails, no routes."An athletic 30-something in sunglasses and white T-shirt, Al-Doseri stretches his arms wide to show me the landscape of trees and open water that forms Wadi Hanifah, a shimmering lake in the unlikely setting of an industrial suburb of south Riyadh.For years treated as a dumping-ground and open sewer, the Hanifah valley has been the focus for an award-winning 10-year restoration project. It has plenty of fans in the hot, dry Saudi capital."Now I come here all the time," says Hussein Al-Doseri. "It feels like the opposite of Riyadh."Rising in the highlands of central Arabia, Wadi Hanifah runs southeast for 120km (75 miles) before losing itself in the sands of the Empty Quarter desert. This great watercourse is dry for most of the year, but fertile thanks to aquifers close to the surface. People have been farming and trading up and down the valley for millennia.As a village, then a small town, Riyadh grew sustainably with its population. But from the 1970s rapid growth quickly overwhelmed the city's ecosystems. Construction firms mined Wadi Hanifah for minerals. The valley was blocked by encroaching farmland. Seasonal flooding swept pollutants into residential neighbourhoods and then left stagnant water, jeopardising public health.