Speak and Write like The Economist: Говори и пиши как The Eсonomist

The Puente Hills landfill, an artificial mountain near Los Angeles is the biggest dump in America, 30 years old, 150 metres high and containing 130m tonnes of rubbish within a 700-acre footprint. If it were a building, it would be among the 20 tallest in the city. Building a rubbish pile is, it turns out, surprisingly high-tech.

If only we had been born clowns, nothing bad would happen to us except a few bruises and a smear of whitewash.

Fiat came round after a near-death experience.

As anyone who has been to Japan knows, there are strict rules about bathing in onsen, or hot springs.

Sun, sea and alcohol, for at least two weeks a year, is now one of the unwritten rights of the British people.

A rising tide lifts all boats, but not all spirits.

One has always choose between cholera and plague in Kinshasa.

To celebrate falling fertility is like congratulating the captain of the Titanic on heading towards the iceberg more slowly.

One suggested that driving damages the ovaries.

Mr Richards laid down the riffs and Mr Jagger provided the vocal pyrotechnics. But time took its toll. Mr Richards's decision to give up heroin destroyed the delicate division of labour in which Mr Jagger took care of the details while Mr Richards took the drugs. Mr Jagger started to refer to the Stones as "his" band. He even performed the group's songs on solo tourse.

To live in Havana was to live in a factory that turned out human beauty on a conveyor-belt. He didn't want beauty.

GM spends more on health than it does on steel.

Many women still have no choice but to use dried leaves as sanitary towels: a Korean-American missionary says the greatest gift you can give to a North Korean woman is a washable one made of fabric. "They cry with joy."

Over half the world's female suicides are Chinese.

He has a brain-bank of 200 experts.

Humans have an uncontrollable urge to be precise, for better or (all too often) worse. That is a fine quality in a watch-repair man or a brain surgeon, but counter-productive when dealing with uncertainty.

Most British towns have a Victorian pool or two, thanks to the 1846 Public Baths and Wash Houses Act, which gave local authorities the power to raise funds to keep the working classes clean and healthy.