A man stormed into a London restaurant and hacked off his own penis in front of horrifed diners, an Italian restaurant said on Tuesday. The man charged into a branch of a pizza and pasta chain Zizzi in a tourist area of central London on Sunday.
A pump failure at a water-treatment plant discharged tens of millions of litres of raw sewage into the estuary waters of the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, before it was repaired on Monday, officials said. The major leak over the weekend sparked health concerns among city residents who were warned to stay away from the Firth of Forth shoreline.
Chelsea are the odd club out in the Champions League semifinals — they have never won a European title. The Blues host Liverpool in the first leg on Wednesday — a repeat of their 2005 semifinal. Liverpool emerged victorious then and went on to win their fifth European Cup.
Manchester United winger Cristiano Ronaldo won two player-of-the-year awards voted for by his fellow Premier League players on Sunday. Ronaldo won the Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year at a dinner in London. He’s the first man since Aston Villa striker Andy Gray in 1977 to win both awards in the same season.
British bank Barclays has agreed to buy Dutch rival ABN AMRO for just over €67-billion as it seeks to head off rivals to clinch the world’s biggest ever bank takeover. Barclays said on Monday it would pay 3,225 new shares for each ABN AMRO share, equivalent to €36,25 a share at Friday’s closing price.
Relations between London and Moscow threatened to plummet to a post-Cold War low on Thursday amid renewed Russian demands for action against Boris Berezovsky over the tycoon’s claim that he is plotting to overthrow Vladimir Putin. he Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom warned that bilateral relations would inevitably suffer if prompt action was not taken against the Britain-based multi-millionaire.
Chelsea missed their chance to slash Manchester United’s lead in the Premier League to a single point on Sunday when they were held to a 0-0 draw at Newcastle United. Manchester United handed the initiative to Chelsea after drawing 1-1 at home with Middlesbrough on Saturday and will breathe a huge sigh of relief at the champions’ scrappy draw.
Manchester United were held to a 1-1 draw by Middlesbrough on Saturday, dropping two points in the Premier League title race. United midfielder Kieran Richardson gave the hosts the lead in the third minute, but Mark Viduka headed Middlesbrough level in the 45th.
Virgin Atlantic chairperson Richard Branson has been airbrushed out of the James Bond film <i>Casino Royale</i> in edits of the movie screened on rival airline British Airways (BA), a newspaper reported on Saturday. The <i>Daily Telegraph</i> said the entrepreneur, and all references to his airline, had been airbrushed out by BA.
Wayne Rooney was sued on Friday by Everton manager David Moyes for libel over comments in his autobiography. Moyes is suing the England striker after he said in My Story So Far that the manager was overbearing, controlling and ultimately responsible for the player’s move from Everton to Manchester United in 2004.
A London council has decided where to place a statue of former South African president Nelson Mandela, after five years of wrangling, it announced late on Thursday. The sculpture will be placed on Parliament Square in Westminster, central London, alongside statues of former British prime ministers Winston Churchill and Benjamin Disraeli.
Britain has the worst level of drug abuse in Europe, and the second highest level of drug-related deaths, a report said on Wednesday. The value of trade in illegal drugs is estimated at £5-billion a year, according to the study by Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the United States and Alex Stevens of Kent University in Britain.
The Simplified Spelling Society (SSS) is celebrating its 99th birthday by launching a new campaign to make it easier to read and write English. It may be the world’s most universal language, but linguistic experts say it has failed to adapt for the past 500 years and now half the globe’s English speakers have difficulty spelling.
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England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher should be sacked after England were dominated by South Africa in Bridgetown, much of the British press said on Wednesday. According to the Times, the ”precise figures have changed from match to match, but the theme of capitulation has remained all too constant”.
Manchester United put the pressure back on Chelsea after easily beating Sheffield United 2-0 on Tuesday in the Premier League. Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick scored a goal each to give United a six-point lead over two-time defending champion Chelsea, which plays at West Ham on Wednesday.
Politicians are lost deep in cyberspace, struggling to reach a new generation of tech-savvy voters through blogs, social networking sites and video-sharing. In the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama used their websites to launch their 2008 presidential campaigns.
The British pound broke through the mark in European trading on Tuesday, its highest level since September 1992 as new United Kingdom inflation data strengthened the likelihood of another interest-rate increase by the Bank of England. After moving past the mark, the pound quickly fell back to ,9985.
Outspoken Zimbabwean Roman Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube said in an interview published on Tuesday that he understood that he may lose his life over his continued critical stance against President Robert Mugabe’s regime. Ncube also criticised Zimbabwe’s neighbours for not doing more to avert the crisis.
Diners at one of Britain’s top restaurants are being invited to listen to MP3 players as they eat because its chef believes sound can make the flavours more intense. Heston Blumenthal already serves up unusual dishes such as snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream at the Michelin three-starred Fat Duck in Bray, west of London.
More than 30 years after his death, a ”new” book by JRR Tolkien goes on sale on Tuesday which may well be the author’s last complete work to be published posthumously. Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher, now in his eighties, constructed The Children of Hurin from his father’s manuscripts.
Robbie Keane scored two goals and set up another on Sunday in Tottenham’s 3-3 draw at Wigan in the Premier League, and Chelsea advanced to the FA Cup final with a 2-1 win over Blackburn. Tottenham rallied three times against its relegation-threatened opponents.
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England batsman Kevin Pietersen insists his bitter feud with South Africa captain Graeme Smith will not distract him from his mission of trying to secure a World Cup semifinal place. If South Africa win Tuesday’s Super Eights clash then they will be guaranteed the final last four spot and England will be out.
Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo has agreed terms on a new five-year contract at Manchester United, the club announced on Friday on its official website. The deal will mean that 22-year-old Ronaldo, one of the most exciting talents in world football, will stay at Old Trafford until at least June 2010.
A British teen whose parents were left with a £20 000 bill after a party advertised on the MySpace social networking website got out of control apologised to them on Friday. Her mother, Elaine, whose wedding dress was urinated on by revellers, discovered the damage after returning from a caravanning holiday.
A coast-guard helicopter and navy divers scoured the frigid North Sea on Friday for signs of five crewmen, including a 15-year-old boy, missing after their Norwegian oil-rig support vessel capsized off northern Scotland. Three people were confirmed dead after Thursday’s accident, the coast guard said.
Madonna, Genesis, Bon Jovi and The Police will top the pop megastars rocking the world against climate change in seven concerts across the globe on July 7, organisers say. More than 100 acts will perform in the giant, 24-hour Live Earth concert relay spanning Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, London, Rio de Janeiro and New York.
Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata said on Wednesday it was selling its aluminium business to private equity firm Apollo Management for ,15-billion in cash. Xstrata acquired the aluminium business through its purchase of Canadian miner Falconbridge last year and had been conducting a review to decide whether to use it as a platform to build a bigger aluminium operation or sell it.
British internet users spend an average of two days a month surfing the web aimlessly, or ”wilfing” as the activity has been dubbed, according to a study released on Tuesday.
South Africa’s policy of black economic empowerment (BEE) is flawed and in need of review, the country’s finance minister said in an interview published on Tuesday. Speaking to the Financial Times, Trevor Manuel said that the legislation, clarified two years ago, had been abused.
Marat Safin saved Russia and sent the defending champions into the Davis Cup semifinals. The former top-ranked Russian played for the first time in the best-of-five series on Sunday and beat Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-6 (3), 6-3, 6-2 in the deciding match to give the hosts a 3-2 win over France.
Portsmouth held on to beat Manchester United 2-1 on Saturday in the Premier League and help Chelsea move within three points of first place. United defender John O’Shea scored in the 90th minute and teammate Alan Smith nearly added another in injury time, but Portsmouth goalkeeper David James made the tough save.
Germany, Sweden and the United States qualified for the Davis Cup semifinals by winning doubles matches on Saturday, and Russia moved closer to a spot in the last four after taking a 2-1 lead over France. The best-of-five series will be decided on Sunday in the reverse singles matches.