This week's UK news: 22 February 2016
j0314269
22 February 2016


Studying abroad gets you a better degrees, strange things happening to UK food, and what the word Brexit means.

Every week, we summarise the UK news to give you some insight into what is happening in Britain, and what people are talking about.

New word all over the news in the UK

Have you seen the word "Brexit" in the news? It is being used a lot at the moment, because the UK is now going to vote on whether or not we stay in the European Union. Some people have been asking for a vote for many years, because they do not like being part of the EU, and the Prime Minister promised that this would happen. 

He said that first he would talk to other EU leaders to try to get changes that the UK wanted. He has now been promised some changes, and so he has announced the vote will be in June.

Brexit is a mixture of two words: British and Exit. It is a way of talking about the UK leaving the EU.

 

Studying abroad means a better degree

Students who spend time abroad at university are more likely to get the highest degree classes and earn more later. The UK's Higher Education International Uniit showed that 81 per cent of students who spent time overseas got a first or upper second degree, compared with 72 per cent of those who stayed at home. They were also likely to earn around GBP 800 more in their first job.

 

UK drinking fewer cups of tea

New research shows that we are drinking much less tea. In the 1970s people drank around 23 cups of tea, and that is now down to eight. it is still the most popular hot drink, but people drink much more coffee.

We are also eating less bread and baked beans (beans in a tomato sauce). We eat less potatoes since the 1970s, and three times as much pasta. In 1974 nobody ate pizza: we eat an average of 75g a week each.

We eat twice as many takeaways as we did in 1974, and chips are very popular. But we also eat 50 per cent more fruit. Bananas are most popular. 

 

Supermarket changes the shape of French breakfast

You may have eaten a croissant. This is a French breakfast pastry, which is usually in a crescent shape. 

Now one of our major supermarkets, Tesco, has stopped selling the curved croissants because they are so unpopular. It says people in the UK like to put jam on their croissants and it is too difficult to do this on the curved ones. 

Tesco said 75 per cent of customers said they preferred straight croissants. They said there were more accidents "with sticky fingers" with curved ones.

There have been a lot of jokes on Twitter about this.

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