United Kingdom

Actress Helen Mirren. who has starred in the Prime Suspect television series for more than a decade, was named naturist of the year on Friday by Britain’s main nudist group. British Naturism said Mirren was selected from among ”a number of well-known celebrities who have made their love of a naturist lifestyle public”.

A British former MP left bankrupt and publicly disgraced just three years ago has recouped much of his riches by exploiting his notoriety in the world of show business, a report said on Friday. Neil Hamilton, who was left with debts of £3-million in mid-2001, has now bought a million-pound manor house.

Humans are not alone in suffering from stress-related illnesses, a team of British veterinarians reported Wednesday: their pet cats can be affected too. A team from Edinburgh University found that the presence of another pussycat in the same house, moving home or the arrival of a new member of the household can produce anxiety conditions.

The BBC, the world’s biggest public broadcaster, is to cut almost a quarter of its 28 000-strong workforce, in the biggest shake-up in its 82-year history, The Times newspaper in London said on Monday. A BBC spokesperson said the staff losses quoted in The Times are ”all purely speculative at this point”.

<i>Star Trek</i> star William Shatner and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Dave Navarro are among thousands who want to fly on Virgin’s proposed commercial space flights, company chief Richard Branson said on Friday. Branson said more than 7&nbsp;000 people have registered their willingness to pay the R1,3-million fare.

Like the career of its subject, London’s latest musical began in a blaze of publicity, set tongues wagging and ended, prematurely, in disgrace. Oscar Wilde: The Musical opened on Tuesday at the 500-seat Shaw Theatre. It closed the next day after receiving excoriating reviews and selling just five tickets for its second performance.

Prince Harry was involved in an early-morning scuffle with a photographer outside a London nightclub on Thursday, the palace said, revealing the photographer had received a cut lip in the fracas. The photographer reported the incident to the police and said he was considering whether to make a formal complaint.

An egg mixture in a bottle with virtually no fat will go on sale on Thursday in Britain, where a national fat problem of huge proportions has been matched by expanding diet-food sales. The Health Living Liquid Eggs contain the equivalent of five medium-sized eggs in a bottle, but have had almost all the yolk removed.

The controversial Atkins diet, credited by a host of celebrities for helping them acquire a svelte figure, has a new figurehead — a portly British cat that has shed half its body weight under the regime. Fidget has slimmed down from a hefty 10kg to only 5kg, his owner said on Wednesday.

A limited-edition magnum of champagne believed to be one of 12 selected to mark the 1981 marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana is expected to fetch thousands of pounds at auction, a saleroom official said on Wednesday. The Cuvee Dom Perignon 1961 vintage was selected by makers Moët & Chandon for the royal wedding in 1981.

A new science technique inspired by natural processes millions of years old could revolutionise public health care by allowing vaccines to be stored for years without refrigeration, British scientists announced on Tuesday. The technology would spell radical improvements in medical access to children in developing countries.

Items from Pharmacy, the restaurant set up by British artist Damien Hirst, fetched £11,1-million (about R126,7-million) at an auction in London, Sotheby’s said on Tuesday. Pharmacy became London’s most fashionable spot at the height of Cool Britannia, Britpop and New Labour’s rise to government.

Are global stock markets proving resilient in the face of surging oil prices or in danger of going nowhere — except downwards — unless crude futures reverse their relentless march higher? That’s the puzzle analysts were trying to solve on Monday as oil prices pushed into new uncharted territory above a barrel.

Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday vigorously denied misrepresenting pre-war intelligence on Iraqi weapons and rejected growing demands for an apology from opponents in Parliament who accuse him of misleading the country. Blair again insisted he had been right to back the United States-led invasion.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled plans on Tuesday to spend 10-billion pounds (,8-billion) over five years to improve commuting and travel on the city’s crumbling road and rail networks. ”This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reverse decades of under-investment,” Livingstone said.

When United States magician David Blaine starved himself for 44 days last year inside a perspex box suspended over London, many condemned the stunt as pointless. Not so, say doctors specialising in malnutrition. The medics gained valuable insights into how to treat hunger strikers and others who have starved themselves.

It has been fenced in, roughed up — critically and literally — and monitored by closed-circuit cameras. Now the problem-plagued Princess Diana memorial fountain in London is to close again for an unspecified period so that the surrounding turf can be re-laid, park officials said on Tuesday.

Spiders, cockroaches and other creepy crawlies scare the British more than the threat of a terrorist attack, suggests an opinion poll released on Monday by a Hollywood studio. The poll of 1 000 adults, conducted at 65 locations around the nation, put insects at the top of Britain’s most-feared list.

Cat Stevens, the British-born former pop star who has been denied entry to the United States on security grounds, said he was ”totally shocked” by the decision. He arrived in London Thursday. Stevens, whose heyday was in the 1960s and 1970s, told reporters: ”Half of me wants to smile, half of me wants to growl.”

Don’t give up the training. Traffic was snarled up for kilometres on a highway in the northern United Kingom on Wednesday after four police cars collided with each other and blocked the road, apparently during a training exercise. Three officers suffered whiplash while another was more seriously injured.

The British army is going into battle — for a slice of the sneaker market. A new running shoe that bears the force’s crossed-swords insignia and has the endorsement of army fitness instructors was launched this week in Britain, where it will compete for sportswear profits.

The value of a British woman’s handbag and its contents is a lot higher than most women — or men — realise, according to a survey by an insurance company published on Wednesday. The survey of 1 700 women found many women were shocked to find the total value of all the items in their handbags.

Firefighters in Derbyshire county in central Britain have been banned from playing team sports during work breaks because they keep getting injured. The fire and rescue service said on Wednesday nearly 80 staff have been injured during volleyball and football matches in the yards of firestations over the past four years.

A planned sale by British Airways of its stake in Australia’s Qantas has reignited talk of further consolidation in the European airline industry, but analysts played down prospects of an imminent deal. The British carrier said on Wednesday it expects to net about £425-million from a sale of the 18,25% stake in Qantas.

Loyal fans of British author JK Rowling who managed to crack a code on Rowling’s official website have been rewarded with a sneak preview of the eagerly awaited sixth book in the Harry Potter series, according to reports on Monday. The book is entitled Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds — worried that its feathered friends are underfed — has devised a highly original and not very scientific means to measure a possible decline in the insect population, The Independent reported on Thursday.