United Kingdom

A British supermarket chain said on Tuesday it will start selling £19 (R210) replicas of Camilla Parker Bowles’s royal engagement ring when she marries Prince Charles on April 8. "Camilla’s ring is a timeless classic, and we want our customers to have a taste of royalty for a fraction of the price," said Justine Reid, who purchases jewellery for Asda.

A three-year-old boy with an intelligence quotient of 137 has become the youngest current member of the British chapter of Mensa, the international society for highly intelligent people, Mensa said on Monday. Mikhail Ali, from the northern English city of Leeds, was admitted to Mensa after undergoing tests at the University of York.

Arsenal celebrated fielding their first-ever all-foreign squad by thrashing relegation-threatened Crystal Palace 5-1 in London on Monday. Thierry Henry scored twice to record a memorable 200th Premiership appearance for the Gunners. Palace’s leading scorer Andy Johnson scored a penalty for the visitors.

Former South Africa skipper Corne Krige has announced he will retire from rugby at the end of the season after his contract with English side Northampton is finished. Krige said he will then return home to Cape Town with his wife, Justine, and their new baby, Sophia. Krige arrived at Northampton just before the start of this season.

Prince Charles is to marry his partner Camilla Parker Bowles, the prince’s office said on Thursday. The prince will marry Parker Bowles on Friday April 8, his official residence in London confirmed on Thursday. It also said Parker Bowles will be known as the Princess Consort, and not Queen Camilla, once Prince Charles becomes the British monarch.

Spoon-bending entertainer Uri Geller was set to appear before the august Oxford Union debating society on Wednesday to prove he really is a psychic, the union has announced. Geller (58) has offered to fix, under the watchful eye of a special camera, any broken watches that members of the union may have.

Stealing toiletries and even bathrobes from hotels is one thing, but a British couple have taken pilfering to new heights after liking their hotel shower so much they took it home with them. After they checked out of the room, staff found the entire shower unit had been taken from the en suite bathroom.

The seven deadly sins — anger, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride, lust and greed — are out of date and should include cruelty, adultery and bigotry, the results of an opinion poll suggest. Greed is the only one of the seven that should remain a sin in today’s Britain, according to the poll by the Mori organisation for BBC television’s <i>Heaven and Earth</i>.

A British great-grandfather said on Tuesday he has decided to boycott his local pub after being asked to remove his flat cap under rules designed to stop thugs hiding their faces from security cameras. John Lalor used to drop into the Jolly Falstaff pub just metres from his home in Warrington, north-west England, virtually every day.

A Welsh rugby fan cut off his own testicles to celebrate Wales beating world champions England at rugby in Cardiff for the first time in 12 years, newspapers reported on Tuesday. Geoff Huish (26) told drinkers at a social club: ”If Wales win, I’ll cut my balls off,” the Daily Mirror and The Sun reported.

British sailor Ellen MacArthur broke a solo round-the-world sailing record on Monday with a time of 71 days, 14 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds, her control team said. She battled stormy seas, gale-force winds, mechanical problems, a broken sail, burns, bruises and extreme exhaustion — even a close encounter with a whale.

The concept of lovesickness might be more than just a flighty poetic notion, as it can burden the afflicted with genuine mental trauma, a British psychological study warned on Sunday. In the most serious cases, the "disease" can prove fatal, the researchers said, calling for lovesickness to be taken more seriously by the medical profession.

When most people rummage through their kitchen drawers, they rarely uncover anything more exciting than a mislaid knife. Joanne and David Austin, however, found a lottery ticket that made them rich. The couple, from Hull in northern England, were oblivious to the fact they had bought a winning ticket in Britain’s National Lottery a month ago.

Chelsea’s charge towards the Premiership title stuttered on Sunday when Manchester City goalkeeper David James kept out Jose Mourinho’s men in a 0-0 stalemate at Stamford Bridge. City are the only side to have beaten Chelsea this season. They won 1-0 at the City of Manchester Stadium in October.

Defending Six Nations champion France needed a late try to beat underdog Scotland 16-9, while a long-range penalty three minutes from the end gave Wales an 11-9 victory over England on Saturday. Winger Shane Williams scored the only try as Wales, which had not beaten England in Cardiff for 12 years, took control.

Postmen will no longer deliver the mail on foot to a residential street in Britain due to fear of being savaged by a growling dog. Over the past few months, the roaming collie has terrorised postmen on Manor Crescent in Swindon, in the south of England, preventing them at times from delivering letters and parcels completely.

The United States unexpectedly poured cold water on Friday over British hopes for a bold Group of Seven initiative to increase aid flows to the world’s poorest countries. Germany, however, said it will propose slapping a Europe-wide tax on airline fuel as a way to finance increased help for the developing world.

The United Kingdom on Friday urged the world’s richest nations to rise to the challenge of creating ”enduring global prosperity” by removing trade barriers and stepping up aid for poorer countries. This was at a conference on the advancement of enterprise ahead of a gathering of finance ministers of leading G7 countries in London.

Nelson Mandela on Thursday compared widespread poverty in developing countries to man-made evils such as slavery and apartheid, and urged wealthy nations to do more to fight it. He was speaking before a crowd of several thousand people at a rally in London on the eve of a meeting by the finance ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised nations.

Britain will be seeking approval from the United States for its grand plan to help alleviate poverty in Africa when finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrialised nations convene in London on Friday and Saturday.

Tottenham completed their audacious £8-million combined bid for Nottingham Forest’s highly rated duo Andy Reid and Michael Dawson in the closing stages of Monday’s transfer-deadline day after the pair both passed medicals and agreed personal terms.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, hardened by years of heckling, insults and humiliating bad hair days, had an unusual experience on Monday: a member of the public actually kissed him. "He’s got lips like a baby, they’re very soft," said Jean Peterson (42), as if faintly surprised they were not made of solid British steel.

Shoppers at one British supermarket were astonished to find a pony alongside them browsing the shelves, a report said. Customers at a Cardiff branch of Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket chain, were joined by a stray Shetland pony that had escaped its nearby paddock.

Centrebacks Robert Huth and John Terry headed Chelsea into the last 16 of the FA Cup in a 2-0 victory over Birmingham City on Sunday. The German and English internationals scored a goal in each half. In Sunday’s other FA Cup game, Bolton scored a 1-0 victory at League One Oldham.

Premiership leaders Chelsea will cut back on their big spending over the next 18 months after the Londoners announced record losses of £88-million.
Peter Kenyon, the Stamford Bridge chief executive, stressed that Chelsea’s five-year vision has allowed for heavy initial spending but added cut-backs will be required.