New girlfriend for Prince Harry?

Newspapers are very interested in the love life of Prince Harry. They have reported that he is seeing an American actress called Meghan Markle, who appears in a legal drama called Suits. 

There is no official confirmation of the story. Newspapers are quoting anonymous sources to say that the actress has met members of the Prince's family, and that the pair have been seen wearing similar blue bracelets. 

Prince Harry is the younger brother of Prince William. Because he is a young and unmarried member of the Royal family, people are always trying to find him a girlfriend. He has said it is difficult for him to meet women, because there are always rumours that they will marry him.

There has also been lots of publicity about a new Netflix series, called The Crown. It is a dramatisation of the life of the Queen and her family, and stars Matt Smith, a former Dr Who, as the Queen's husband. 

Politician says he didn't kill dog

There has been a very silly story this week about a politician called Michael Heseltine. He was in Government in the 1980s, and was a very colourful character. Newspapers called him "Tarzan" after an incident in Parliament when he waved around a decorated metal stick.

Mr Heseltine retired from politics a long time ago, but has just published a book. In an interview to promote the book, he told the journalist how his mother's dog had tried to bite him one night years ago. He explained that he had calmed the dog by strangling it with its collar, and the journalist believed he had killed the animal.

There were a lot of Tweets about this, until Mr Heseltine explained it was "a load of rubbish". He had pulled on the dog's collar until it calmed down but not killed it. 

The dog was killed the next day by a vet, after the family had decided that it could no longer be trusted. 

Is this the world's most boring calendar?

In the UK, we like to have wall calendars to remind us about appointments. These are like a big diary, with a new picture for each month. Calendars with kittens or puppies are very popular, and so are calendars of pretty places.

There are also more unusual calendars. One is for the Dull Men's Club, which features people who like to do boring things. The next Dull Men's Club calendar will also include dull women. It will include Dawn Walker for March (she collects pencils) and a lady who collects barbed wire for August.

Other women in the calendar include a lady who is obsessed with road signs for historic sites (they are always brown) and Dawn Searle, who has built a full-size railway station in her garden. "They truly celebrate the ordinary," said one of the club's officers.

New pound coin coming

The UK is getting a new coin next year. The GBP coin will have 12 sides, and includes two different coloured metals. The design has the Queen on one side, and symbols of each of the UK nations on the other. They are the English rose, the Welsh leek (a green vegetable), the Scottish thistle (a kind of flower) and the shamrock (a triple leaf) for Northern Ireland.

The new one pound coin has been created so it is harder to fake. Introducing it will mean a lot of work to change the machines which take money. These include half a million machines selling food and drink as well as over 100,000 parking machines. This means there will be six months where we can use both old and new coins.