Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers blog

It’s the middle of October and Champions League football is back in full swing. 

Manchester United and Celtic showed how it is done last night with 3-0 victories whilst Arsenal were left feeling robbed by a dodgy refereeing decision.

Now the focus turns to Liverpool, who are playing at Bordeaux, and what is undoubtedly the match of the round – Chelsea v Barcelona.  As these teams face each other for the third year in a row, will Shevchenko succeed in making the Blues smile or will Ronaldinho’s genius lift Barcelona clear at the top of their group?

On Answers, we have deliberately created a new category dedicated to the UEFA Champions League. If you would like to have all your questions and curiosities solved, this is the right place to be!

We’d also like to remind supporters that all matches can be followed live on Yahoo! Sports.

–Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team

UPDATE:  Answers is back up and running again.  Sorry about the outage!

Sorry for the inconvenience everyone. You may be experiencing some outages on the site from time to time. We are working on the problem and should hopefully be back up and running at full strength shortly.

Thank you for your patience!

–Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team

“What’s the best way to encourage children to take up sport?”

This week, as part of the Yahoo! Answers Challenge, we have the world class golfer Ernie Els asking his question in the Sports category. 

Through his work with the Ernie Els and Fancourt Foundation, Ernie helps underprivileged children through a program of education and golf.  By involving the kids in sport this provides them with opportunities in life and helps them realise their full potential. 

Ernie’s question is one that affects children globally.  With concerns over obesity in children, sport is one factor that could help combat this by allowing children to exercise more.  However, it is often reported that children’s diets are getting worse, whilst their participation in sport is decreasing. 

There are many benefits to participating in sport.  It is one of the best ways to keep a health body, which in turn enables a healthy mind.  Answerer Fpjmask suggests that getting children involved in sport “breeds motivation and focus…it keeps the body in shape as well, and gives people a group to be a part of, and a sense of worth.”

The challenge faced by many parents is how to move their children from the computer to the playing field.   One method is to use fun ways to enjoy sport.  Not all sport needs to be played in the competitive sense.  Crazy golf, dance or cycling can be fun ways for families to exercise together without piling the pressure on youngsters.  For many children removing the competitive edge can make sport more attractive and therefore allows them to enjoy keeping fit.

We are sure you have many more suggestions of how to encourage children to take up sport and look forward to reading your answers to Ernie’s question.

In the meantime, check out our golf news to follow Ernie’s performance on the PGA Tour.

–Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team

This weeks’ featured user is Kralji Katica, also known as TabiaMaya. Since joining Answers in April, Kralji Katica has asked 954 questions and answered an amazing 929 questions. She has gained over 23,000 points mainly from the Travel and Languages categories, regularly appearing in the top 5 on the UK leader board!

Currently a Londoner, Kralji Katica has demonstrated her passion for travel in her answers. She’s rewarded fellow users with her familiarity of other countries such as Serbia and Turkey where she used to live, as well as Egypt and Iran, both of which she loves to visit.

“I enjoy browsing the whole site but I particularly like to answer questions in the Language, Religion & Spirituality and Travel categories, sharing my personal experience on the countries mentioned above.”

These personal experiences can be seen in her answers which range from describing Iranian traditions to finding the cheapest Eastern European countries to visit. Having traveled and lived in so many different places, she has also picked up a variety of languages and can often be found offering useful translations for fellow answerers, or providing advice on learning new languages.

When she’s not sharing her expertise, Kralji Katica enjoys swimming and getting into a good book. She looks to widen her knowledge by asking other users for reading recommendations and discussing books she has read.

Being an expert in Yahoo! Answers, it comes as no surprise to learn that Kralji Katica has also answered numerous questions explaining various aspects of the site and helping users to become familiar with how to use Answers. We feel that she has summed it up very nicely when she says Answers has given her the chance to learn from people all over the world.

Thank you for your contributions Kralji Katica, and we hope you will always continue to share your expertise with us!

– Yahoo! UK & Ireland team

“How can we encourage families to spend more time eating together?”

This week, as part of the Yahoo! Answers Challenge, we have Tom Aikens, restaurateur and Michelin-starred chef, asking a question in the Food and Drink category.

Food and Drink is one of our most popular categories with many of you taking the opportunity to share your favourite, or personal recipes with other Answers users.  Looking at the category, recent questions cover topics as varied as cooking with cheese, chow mein recipes to the effects of over-consuming beer!

Tom’s question though, is away from the preparation or consumption of food and focuses on getting a family all sitting down  to enjoy a meal together, something that has become a dying art in modern households.

This coincides with back to the table week in the UK which takes place from the 16^th to 22nd October.  It aims to put the focus on the benefits of families spending meal times together. 

With time seemingly in short supply these days due to the pressures of modern life, and with a range of diversions, such as TV, internet or computer games enabling children to happily spend hours alone, the idea of dinner time being family time is a valuable concept.  According to intentionalmasterpiece’s question it is a time to “talk about how our day went, the happenings at school and work, upcoming events, share funny stories or express concerns about things of importance to us”.  However from answers to this question, we can see not everyone shares the same dinnertime experience, so maybe there is some value in the saying, families that eat together, stay together? 

Rather than focusing on whether people eat together now, the direction of where Tom is addressing this question is more a how.  Just how can we encourage families to spend more time eating together?

We look forward to reading your answers on this subject.

–Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers team