Where France goes, other euro nations may follow; No Greek deal a 'threat to euro'; How yoga can wreck your body; 'World's worst hotel' is a hit

1 Where France goes, other euro nations may follow (Stephanie Flanders on BBC) On almost every economic measure you could mention, France is the "median" country of the eurozone - the nation in the middle. After more than four years of financial crisis, the "average" eurozone country is no longer triple A.

Economists at Credit Suisse make the point in a recent report. They look at the average levels of government debt, the budget deficit, economic growth, inflation and the current account since the start of the century, for every eurozone economy as a share of GDP. They then consider how far they are, in absolute terms - in either direction - from the eurozone average. On nearly all of these measures, France has been the country closest to the mean.

When it comes to the current account balance - the gap between what the country buys from the rest of the world and what it sells - you can see that both Greece and Portugal have been outliers for a long time, borrowing a lot more from the rest of the world than the average eurozone economy. The Netherlands and, to a lesser extent, Germany, have been exceptional in the other direction. They have consistently sold a great deal more to the rest of the world than they bought. In this and many other respects, France has been almost exactly average.

The Moody's decision may not matter very much to the French government's cost of borrowing on world markets - at least in the short run. In the grand scheme of things, it may not matter very much at all, given how many other countries have also now lost their triple A. But it does underscore that basic reality, both economic and political: Where France goes, the rest of the monetary union is likely to follow.

2 No Greek deal a ‘threat to euro’ (BBC) The failure of eurozone ministers to reach a deal to give Greece its latest bailout payment threatens the whole bloc, leaders have said. Following nearly 12 hours of talks in Brussels, the Eurogroup said it needed more time for technical work. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said: "It's not only the future of our country, but the stability of the entire eurozone [that is at stake]." Greece needs the next tranche of its second bailout worth 130bn euros ($166bn) to avoid insolvency. 

The eurozone "would be threatened if we did not reach" a deal, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said, before adding that "we are very close to a deal." The eurozone finance ministers have been considering ways of reducing Greece's public debt, which is projected to rise to 189% of gross domestic product (GDP) by next year. "We believe that, eventually, eurozone leaders will agree on a deal to cut Greek debt substantially," said Martin Koehring of the Economist Intelligence Unit. The country's bailout programme aims to get debt down to 120% of GDP by 2020.

3 How yoga can wreck your body (William J Broad in The New York Times) On a cold Saturday in early 2009, Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus, was giving a master class at Sankalpah Yoga in Manhattan. Black is, in many ways, a classic yogi: he studied in Pune, India, at the institute founded by the legendary BKS Iyengar, and spent years in solitude and meditation. He is known for his rigor and his down-to-earth style. But this was not why I sought him out: Black, I’d been told, was the person to speak with if you wanted to know not about the virtues of yoga but rather about the damage it could do. Many of his regular clients came to him for bodywork or rehabilitation following yoga injuries.

According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems.

Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury.

“Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said. “You can’t believe what’s going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, ‘You should be able to do this by now.’ It has to do with their egos.” When yoga teachers come to him for bodywork after suffering major traumas, Black tells them, “Don’t do yoga.”

5 ‘World’s worst hotel’ is a hit (The Telegraph) The small rooms are said to be filthy and the beer watered down. Such complaints are just a sample of those levelled at Amsterdam's Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, a contender for the world's worst. The hotel's saving grace is that its honest marketing policy leaves travellers looking for cheap digs in no doubt of the no-star experience on offer. 

But in a difficult economy, when hotel owners fear a negative review on a site such as TripAdvisor can make or break them, business for the Hans Brinker is booming. In recent years, self-deprecating adverts produced by the agency KesselsKramer have struck a chord with the hotel's market - backpackers who can see the funny side of spending €25 on a room that, if they party hard enough, they may never have to sleep in. Posters show images of microscopic beasts, dirty linen and carpets charred with cigarette ash, while the hotel website boasts levels of comfort "comparable to a minimum-security prison".

Environmentally-friendly features include sinks serving as showers (the "suite" is the only room with a bath), stairs in lieu of a lift and curtains that double as not-so-fresh towels. Reviews left on hotel booking websites tend to be mixed. One from October described the hotel as having a "fantastic location", while another likened the accommodation to "prison quarters" and stated, "unfortunately most of the reviews were completely true."