United Kingdom

A puritanical member of the congregation in the small southern English village of Wiston is thought to be behind the smashing of an 800-year-old pagan symbol that warns against lust, the Daily Telegraph reported on Monday. The erotic stone carving with its genitalia exposed had long been a talking point.

The queen has sacked a member of the Buckingham Palace staff for offering for sale on eBay one of the Christmas puddings she hands out to staff during the festive season, the Daily Mirror reported on Friday. Ben Church was frogmarched off the premises earlier this week, the left-wing tabloid said.

Tolkien’s Gollum from his Lord of the Rings trilogy suffered a personality disorder akin to schizophrenia, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal on Friday. The disturbed hobbit-like creature most probably suffered from schizoid personality disorder, medical students from London’s University College found.

A key but controversial aspect of Britain’s post-September 11 security policy was dealt a blow on Thursday as the country’s highest court ruled that detaining terror suspects indefinitely without trial breaks human rights laws. It is a blow to Prime Minister Tony Blair, just hours after Home Secretary David Blunkett resigned following a personal scandal.

The singer of the British pop group Erasure has said he is HIV-positive. Following a news report printed in Finland on Wednesday, Andy Bell made a statement on the band’s website revealing he has known for more than four years that he has the disease, which causes Aids.

A British wildlife artist who made a career of depicting Africa’s fauna has been gored to death by a buffalo in Kenya, his family said on Wednesday. Simon Combes (64) was out on an evening walk in a reserve of the Great Rift Valley with his wife, Kat, and a friend, cheetah expert Mary Wykstra, when attacked.

It was the social ticket of the year, a star-studded charity gala where the glitterati ate gourmet food prepared by Britain’s top chef. But for one party-goer, the curry house across the road just looked more tempting. Ivan Massow was condemned as ”childish” for snubbing his £1 200-a-plate (about R13 200) meal in favour of a takeaway.

It’s the literary award no author wants to win, and this year it has gone to Tom Wolfe.
The Literary Review gave Wolfe its annual Bad Sex Award on Monday for his bestselling novel I Am Charlotte Simmons. Judges said the book’s sex scenes were ”ghastly … inept … [and] unrealistic”.

‘Tis the season for youngsters to get some quality face time with Father Christmas — if they can still find him, that is. For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been a Christmas tradition in Britain for children to have a department-store tête-à-tête with Santa Claus, out of earshot of Mom and Dad.

A 10th-century stone carving used for many years as a headstone to mark the grave of a British couple’s cat sold for £175 000 (about R1,95-million) at auction on Friday. The stone had been found in a quarry years ago by Johnny Beeston, from Somerset, south-west United Kingdom.

Belief in Father Christmas is beneficial — for children, a British psychiatrist said in an article published on Wednesday. Santa encourages boys and girls to be good, Lynda Breen of from Alder Hey Children’s hospital in Liverpool wrote in the December issue of the Psychiatric Bulletin.

In a novel approach to cracking down on knife crime in London, British police said on Tuesday they are installing an airport-style scanner to check passengers boarding buses in the city. The metal-detecting scanner will be used at Hammersmith Bus Garage in west London, a major transport hub.

Three gamblers who used a James Bond-style laser device to win more than a million pounds (R11-million) at a London hotel casino will not face prosecution, as they did nothing illegal, police said on Sunday. The trio used gadgetry to calculate where a roulette ball would land.

Viewers of the Animal Planet cable and satellite channel have voted the tiger the world’s favourite animal, narrowly beating the dog, according to a poll published on Monday on its website, <i>Animalplanet.co.uk</i>. More than 50&nbsp;000 viewers from 73 countries voted in the poll.

A man campaigning for the rights of fathers in separation and divorce cases was arrested on Friday after he handcuffed himself to Britain’s minister for children’s affairs, police said. The minister, Margaret Hodge, was making a keynote address at a conference on family law in the northern English city of Manchester.

A week after his death, speculation still swirls around what killed Yasser Arafat. Cirrhosis of the liver, Aids, a blood disorder and poisoning are frequently mentioned in unconfirmed reports — all consistent with the little that is publicly known about the medical condition that landed the Palestinian leader in a French hospital.

Bovril, the quintessential British winter warming drink, is going vegetarian in a bid to widen its appeal and boost sales, particularly in Asia, its makers said on Thursday. Since it was first manufactured by a Scotsman in Canada to feed the French army more than 100 years ago, Bovril’s main ingredient has been beef extract.

Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera said on Tuesday it has received a videotape showing the slaying of a woman believed to be British hostage Margaret Hassan. Jihad Ballout, Al-Jazeera spokesperson, said the station received the tape a few days ago but was not sure of its authenticity.

More than 25% of married couples in Briton have lost one or both of their wedding rings since tying the knot, according to a survey released on Tuesday. Researchers found that 15% of brides had lost their original wedding ring, with one in 10 grooms also admitting to losing the traditional symbol of eternal love and commitment.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal organisation to spearhead development activities in Africa issued a call on Thursday for massive international cooperation to assist the continent. In an interim report, the Commission for Africa produced a lengthy list of areas needing action, ranging from fairer trade to concerted efforts to end conflict.

An English duchess has received official permission to grow cannabis plants, opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms as part of a poison garden in the grounds of her stately home, the Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday. The British Home Office said the licence is ”extremely rare”.

”Molecular gastronomy” — the act of transforming the kitchen into a scientific tasting cauldron — has made its mark in Britain with a young English chef who has taken the top restaurant honours in the country. The technique results in such foods as ”liquid ravioli” and snail porridge.

Fancy a bit of bhaji? You’ll need a big bite to put away the biggest fried onion ball in the world, which set a record on Friday weighing in at an astounding 84kg, event organisers said. The big bhaji — a fried and breaded South Asian snack — swells to a diametre of 86cm, the organisers said.

A one-room beach hut overlooking a picturesque bay on the coast of south-west England has sold for £100 000, a British newspaper said on Tuesday. The 2,4m by 4,2m brick chalet on Southbourne Beach in Bournemouth, Dorset, has no more than one room and no toilet, the Daily Telegraph reported.

A British plane enthusiast has put his vintage nuclear bomber up for sale on the internet auction site eBay. ”Vulcan bomber XL391 (complete with engines). Your chance to own a piece of aviation history,” reads the advertisement posted by flying instructor Brian Bateson.

The venerable <i>Times</i> newspaper of London ended more than two centuries of tradition on Saturday when its last edition in broadsheet format appeared, to be replaced by a smaller, narrower newspaper that does not want to be called a tabloid. From Monday, the paper will appear in its "compact" format.

Oil prices bounced higher on Friday following two days of sharp declines that came on the heels of rising inventories of crude in the United States and a move by China to cool its economy. Prices rose ahead of the weekend as traders sought to protect themselves in the event of a supply disruption before Monday.