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/ 15 September 2005

Golf stars absent from million-pound event

United States Open champion Michael Campbell said on Wednesday he found it strange that so many top players had turned down the chance to win the largest first prize in golf at this week’s World Match Play Championship. The 42nd annual edition of the autumn classic, offering a first prize of £1-million, begins on Thursday.

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/ 14 September 2005

British govt publicises gay ‘marriage’ rights

Britain’s government was on Wednesday launching a campaign to publicise its new ”gay marriage” law, which will give same-sex couples many of the same rights as married people. The first such partnerships will be sealed just before Christmas, with pop singer Elton John and his partner set to become one of the first ”married” gay couples.

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/ 14 September 2005

David Beckham, forgive us our sins

England fans may pray for him to lead the country to victory in next year’s World Cup, but not even his most ardent admirers have ever compared David Beckham to Jesus. Until now, that is. An academic conference was to hear on Wednesday that while Beckham has yet to perform any miracles he is perhaps the closest thing modern British society has to a Messiah figure.

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/ 13 September 2005

Britain calls for more Nato troops in Afghanistan

British Defence Secretary John Reid called on Tuesday for thousands of extra Nato troops to be sent to Afghanistan as the alliance expands into areas harbouring Taliban fighters and drug traffickers. Reid made the remarks before departing for an informal meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defence ministers in Berlin, who are expected to discuss United States and Nato deployment plans for next year in Afghanistan.

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/ 13 September 2005

Wilkinson out for six weeks after surgery

Jonny Wilkinson will likely miss England’s autumn Tests against Australia, New Zealand and Samoa after having his appendix removed. The Newcastle flyhalf had the operation on Friday and will be sidelined for up to six weeks. ”I think it pretty much puts paid to the autumn internationals,” Newcastle’s director of rugby said.

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/ 13 September 2005

England win the Ashes

The Ashes has returned to England after the home team broke Australia’s 16-year hold on one of the most coveted trophies in world sport on Monday. Kevin Pietersen scored his maiden Test century, allowing England to draw the decisive fifth Test at The Oval and win cricket’s prized urn for the first time since 1986 with a 2-1 series victory.

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/ 12 September 2005

Elizabeth Disco, Gentle Fudge and Obedience Ginger

Horatio Hornblower is an odd name, but consider his siblings: Azubia, Constantia, Jecoliah, Jedidah, Jerusha and Erastus. Staff and researchers at the Cornwall County Record Office have compiled a list of more than 1 000 unusual names found in censuses as well as births, deaths and marriage records going back as far as the 16th century.

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/ 12 September 2005

Britons spend billions on white elephants

Britons have spent billions of pounds on household gadgets such as sandwich toasters and bathroom scales that they ended up never or rarely using, a study said on Monday. An online home-insurance firm Esure estimated Britons have collectively spent £9,4-billion (R109,7-billion) during their lifetime on gadgets.

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/ 12 September 2005

Keep a straight face, Britons told

Britons applying for a passport from Monday will be ordered to wipe their smile off their face and pose with a neutral expression so new biometric scanners can accurately read their facial features. Facial-recognition systems match key features on the holder’s face and work best when the face has a neutral expression.

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/ 10 September 2005

Australia bring weather into Ashes play

Australia took what appeared to be a calculated risk after accepting an offer of bad light when well set on the second day of the fifth Ashes Test at The Oval in London on Friday. At stumps, Australia were on their tea score of 112 without loss, 261 behind England’s below-par first-innings 373 after no play took place in the final session with 37 overs lost.

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/ 9 September 2005

Britain pushes for Turkey EU talks to go ahead

Britain and the United States pressed on Thursday for talks on the accession of Turkey to the European Union to begin as planned on October 3 in spite of increasing opposition from France and Cyprus. The intervention of the US will help persuade some of the waverers but could be counter-productive in France, which has emerged as one of Turkey’s main opponents.

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/ 8 September 2005

Open-source secrets laid bare

Ever since computer programmers began collaborating online to build software applications, the ”open source” movement has been developing into a serious rival to the multinational software companies. Since the term was coined in the late 1990s, open source has rapidly matured from an egalitarian approach to software design into a movement whose practices underpin the internet.

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/ 8 September 2005

Google’s soul search

If there’s one company that gets people talking technology, it’s Google. Many love it, and a handful hate it — but more often than not, we are interested in it. Not only does Google organise our information, but it shapes the way we think about the web. Indeed for many, it is the telescope through which they see the world.

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/ 8 September 2005

England stunned by Northern Ireland

England’s World Cup qualifying bid was stalled by a stunning 1-0 loss to Northern Ireland on Wednesday, while Thierry Henry revived France’s chances of making it to next year’s tournament in Germany. It was the most embarrassing loss in Sven-Goran Eriksson’s four-year reign as England coach.

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/ 6 September 2005

Simon Jones ruled out Ashes decider

Glamorgan seamer Simon Jones has been left rueing an injured right ankle which, after a fitness test, ruled him out of selection for England’s deciding Ashes Test at The Oval on Thursday. Jones was put through his paces at Lord’s on Tuesday morning but his ankle was still painful and he was ruled out immediately.

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/ 6 September 2005

Ashes: ‘This one doesn’t get much bigger’

As sporting events go, they don’t get much bigger than this. Australia, having dominated England on the cricket field for the best part of two decades, are locked in a tense battle to hold on to the Ashes — and their reputation. At 2-1 down in the series ahead of the fifth and final Test starting on Thursday, Australia face a fight.

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/ 6 September 2005

Buy a house and get a pig

A housing developer in Britain is offering a live pig as a pet to anyone who purchases a property from him, a spokesperson said on Monday, adding that the unusual offer has already attracted two buyers. The rare Gloucester Old Spot pig will be fully house-trained before it is delivered to its new family.

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/ 5 September 2005

Death by chocolate

Nazi German saboteurs plotted unsuccessfully during World War II to ship explosives into Britain hidden in bars of chocolate and other products as well as in dead rats, archivists said on Monday. British intelligence files released into the public domain at the National Archives in the last six months provided details of the plots accompanied by diagrams.

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/ 5 September 2005

Life’s a ditch for London law graduate

A University of Oxford law graduate who works for Sotheby’s is living in a ditch to prove people can do without all the mod-cons, a British newspaper said on Sunday. Hugh Sawyer (32) always turns up impeccably dressed for his high-flier auction-house job in London while sleeping in the woods in Oxfordshire, southern England.

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/ 3 September 2005

Oil prices slide on news of stock releases

World oil prices slumped on Friday as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United States government pledged to release 60-million barrels of crude after Hurricane Katrina severely disrupted supplies. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, fell ,82 to ,65 per barrel in early deals.

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/ 2 September 2005

‘Dear Mr L Pa …’

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s father received an odd, impersonal response to a letter he sent his son congratulating him on being elected into government in 1997, the BBC revealed on Friday. Tim Allan, a former Downing Street communications adviser, described the incident in a new BBC Radio 4 series.

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/ 2 September 2005

Naked ramblers walk into trouble

A couple trying to walk the length of Britain in the nude were due to appear in court on Friday after being grabbed by police south of Edinburgh following a complaint by a member of the public. So-called "Naked Rambler" Stephen Gough (46) and his girlfriend, Melanie Roberts (34), were arrested for an alleged breach of the peace.

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/ 2 September 2005

Player row blights new season

English Premiership rugby union’s new season gets under way this weekend against a familiar backdrop of a row between the leading clubs and the Rugby Football Union over player availability. The governing body are demanding that all elite England players have an 11-week rest break between the end of the last season and the start of this one.