A. Gabriele Dionisi, a '38-year-old Italian computer wizard living in London, is a true individualist when it comes to food. He has been known to live for days on dry toast and mashed potato. He’s also very fond of tinned mackerel with biscuits, washed down with, say, an apple-and-tomato milkshake. For some unfathomable reason, he sometimes has problems with his guts. Then he makes himself a hot cup of camomile tea with honey and half a spoonful of chilli flakes. "It’s an old Italian recipe," he says. "Ms- grandmother taught me to make it. It’s very good for the digestion.”

B. Spices such as chilli have been used for medicinal purposes in Europe for centuries. Medieval herbalists believed that spices could be used to treat a range of pains, diseases, and ailments. Sometimes they got it right; sometimes they were way off the end of the spice rack. For example, they used to pound up cloves to extract the oil, which was used to treat toothache. Sensible move: modern scientists know that cloves contain eugenol, a chemical which is an effective local anaesthetic. Cloves also contain salicylic acid, the basis of aspirin.

C. Ginger was held to be good for stomach upsets, and it is now known to have anti-nausea properties. It is also believed to have a painkilling effect, which is being studied at the University of Arizona. Unfortunately, those muddled medieval medics also believed that ginger was a cure for the Black Death - it isn’t - and that eating borage would give you courage, just because the words rhymed.

D. Doctors in India have long used spices as medicines. They understood that spices could be used as remedies. Their motto was: Let food be thy medicine. The Indian chef’s favourite medical spice is turmeric, the yellow ingredient used in almost all Indian cookery. Turmeric is an antiseptic and disinfectant, and it is used widely not so much for its taste but for its antibacterial properties.

E. Turmeric is used in Indian homes as a first-aid treatment. For example, if you had a small cut on your finger, you'd run it under the tap and then dust the wound with turmeric. It is also supposed to be a cure for arthritis, and scientists are now researching its potential ability to suppress the growth of cancer cells.

F. In 2002, staff at the oncology department of Leicester University noticed that of 500 patients with colon cancer, only two were Asian, despile the fact that 20 per cent of the population in Leicester is Asian. The scientists believed this was due to their spicy diet. And, in America, researchers at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons are investigating Zyflamend, a herbal treatment for arthritis, which contains turmeric and ginger. Zyflamend has shown an ability to reduce prostate cancer cell proliferation by as much as 78% and induce cancer cell death.

G. Studies at the Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore, suggest that curcumin, the chemical that gives turmeric its yellow colour, might also help to treat malaria. Mice were infected with the malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei and given five daily doses orally. After 20 days, a third of the treated mice were alive, whereas the untreated animals all died by day 13.

H. If you want to know what chillies do to the body, cut open a fresh chilli and hold it on the back of your hand for 15 or 20 minutes. It will make the hand red and sore. It you eat it in excess, it can give you gastric problems. However, in small doses, chilli can aid digestion. Chilli contains vitamins A and E and is a good source of potassium, beta carotene, and folic acid. Also, chilli contains twice as much vitamin C as an orange, and it really can help to protect the body from colds and flu. One chilli contains 100mg of vitamin C more than the daily recommended amount, and capsaicin, the chemical in chillies that gives them heat, is also a natural decongestant.

I. The pleasure of chillies comes from the pain of eating them. Literally, the burning sensation in the mouth triggers the release of endorphins, an opiate-like painkilling chemical, in the brain. This makes you feel good; so good, in fact, that it is possible to become a chilli junkie. In the light of this, perhaps the late Signora Dionisi should have taught her favourite grandson how lo make something oilier than chilli camomile tea.

A. It’s a new phenomenon called “Cyber Monday”. On November 28, millions of Americans returned to work after the Thanksgiving holiday and fired up their office computers to take advantage of high-speed Internet links and continue the arduous task of hunting for Christmas presents. Visits to some retail websites more than doubled, and Visa reported that online spending by its cardholders grew by 26% compared with the same day a year ago. Despite concerns about a fall in consumer confidence putting the brake on store sales, online purchases are soaring in most countries, Something else is happening, too. Increasingly, the websites run by conventional retailers - once considered dinosaurs of the bricks-and-mortar age - are growing the fastest. Indeed, on Thanksgiving Day itself, the number of visitors to Wal-Mart’s website exceeded those visiting Amazon - the first time that has ever happened, says Hitwise, which monitors Internet usage.

B. Online sales in America (excluding travel) are expected to grow to more than $19 billion in the crucial two months running up to Christmas - 24% more than the same period last year - according to comScore Networks, a research firm. Online sales of toys, computer games, clothing, and jewellery are all more than 30% higher. In many countries, the websites run by eBay and Amazon get the most visitors. Both are considered “pure Internet plays”, since they have no physical shops. Their business models have changed markedly, and they now resemble online versions of vast department stores, where thousands of big and small third-party merchants also offer their wares. During Thanksgiving in 2004, Amazon for the first time sold more consumer electronics than it sold books.

C. Amazon was the company that proved online retailing could be a huge business - and it still leads the pack. Things are changing quickly. The online rise of mighty Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, is being closely followed by its chief supermarket rival, Target, which now operates the fourth most popular retail website in America. In Britain, Argos, a catalogue merchant, is the third most popular retail site, followed by Tesco, the country’s biggest supermarket chain. Europeans are surfing the web in record numbers and almost half now visit retail websites, especially those of traditional merchants. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, the leading retail websites in Europe include Germany’s Tchibo, a diversified chain; OTTO, a German mail-order specialist; and Fnac, a French high-street favourite.

D. Far from wrecking retailers’ businesses, the web plays to their strengths. Shopping comparison sites, including America’s Shopzilla and Ciao in Europe, are among the fastest growing destinations on the web. These sites allow users to compare products, read reviews - and most important of all - see who is offering the lowest prices. They make money from advertising or charging retailers when users click on a link to the retailers’ website. With huge economies of scale, it is hardly surprising that giants such as Wal-Mart often emerge as the vendor offering the cheapest prices. Besides attracting an online purchase, shopping comparison searches can also be used by ordinary retailers as a relatively cheap way to advertise and attract consumers to their physical stores.

E. The traditional retailers are finding many other advantages in expanding their stores online. One is that in cyberspace, even the biggest super-centre is unconstrained by planning laws or dogged by protests, as Wal-Mart often is when it tries to expand offline. Both Wal-Mart and Target also use the web to test the market for certain \ products before they send them to their stores. Conventional shopkeepers might be late coming to the Internet, but they now realise that they can offer more to their customers online, and that the technology required to do so is relatively easy to use, says Michael Silverstein of the Boston Consulting Group. “Retailers are starting to recognise that their most profitable customers ... find the convenience of an online offering complementary to an in-store experience,” he says. As examples of successful exponents of this in America, Mr. Silverstein points to Neiman Marcus, which has taken a lead in online top-end fashion, Victoria’s Secret in lingerie, and Circuit City in consumer electronics.

F. Circuit City was a pioneer of the “pick-up in-store” option, which is proving increasingly popular with Internet shoppers. Around half the customers buying goods online from Circuit City collect their purchases at a shop. For this holiday season, the company is offering what it calls a “24/24 Pick-up Guarantee”: if goods ordered online or over the telephone are not available for collection at a local store within 24 minutes of purchase, the customer can claim a $24 gift voucher. Apart from instant consumer gratification, why would someone want the convenience of buying online only to trek to a store to take delivery? There are, it appears, many reasons. Some people want to examine items before they accept them; some want to save on delivery costs; others want to avoid hanging around for the delivery man to call. For many, the chief reason is that they trust a big retailing brand with a local store - not least because they will know where goods can be returned if there is a problem. With more than 3,700 stores in America alone, this hands Wal-Mart another big advantage. It is developing services that link the web with its stores, such as e-mailing digital pictures and picking up the prints.

G. Does this mean retailing giants will come to dominate the web just as they do the high street? Some might carve out large chunks of cyberspace. Tesco, for instance, has a huge 30% share of the British grocery market. Online it is even more popular: Nielsen//NetRatings says almost 70% of online shoppers plan to buy groceries this Christmas from tesco.com. Even the big traditional retailers still face competition online. For instance, Wal-Mart may have more than five times the annual sales of Target, but Target’s website is growing faster and, according to some analysts, the average value of an online sale at Target is roughly three times more than one made online at Wal-Mart. This is one reason why Wal-Mart is now offering more upmarket goods on its website, including diamond rings. So, should Amazon have stuck to books? Jeff Bezos, its founder and chief executive, does not think so and likes to plug his site, with its growing army of other traders, as offering “earth’s biggest selection”. Nevertheless, he is spreading his bets. These days, Amazon also sells its e-commerce experience, helping to run the websites of big, traditional retailers such as Target and Britain’s Marks & Spencer.