This week's UK news: 16 March 2016
j0314269
16 March 2016


UK TV actors line up to be the next James Bond, Olympic cyclist turns to horse racing, and some mysterious London history.

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

 

UK TV stars next James Bond?

At least two actors known for their roles in Sunday night TV dramas are being suggested as future James Bonds.

The media in the UK think that Daniel Craig may not make any more Bond films and are thinking about who might replace him.

Tom Hiddleston, who currently plays a secret agent in a series called The Night Manager,  and Aidan Turner, who has become very well known for taking off his shirt to reveal his muscles in an 18th century drama called Poldark. Hiddleston has also been getting a lot of attention for romantic scenes in his current drama, and he is known internationally for his role as Loki in the Marvel films. Hiddleston has said this week it would be "an extraordinary opportunity" to be Bond, and Turner has apparently been in talks about the films.

Other British actors linked with the Bond role are Idris Elba, Tom Hardy and Damian Lewis.

 

Olympic cyclist turns to horse-racing

Victoria Pendleton, who won gold medals for her cycling, has had a new sport in the last year - horse racing. 

She joined a project called "Switching Saddles" after she retired from cycling, and has only been riding for a year. She will very soon ride in one of the world's biggest racing festivals, held at Cheltenham, in a special race for amateurs.

 

Secrets of the Great Fire of London revealed

Schoolchildren in the UK learn about the Great Fire of London in 1666, which started in a baker's shop and burned most of the city to the ground. 

Just six people died in the fire, but 80,000 were left with nowhere to live, and 80 per cent of the city was destroyed. Now an exhibition at the Museum of London from July will show more about what happened to Londoners after the fire. One new discovery is that lots of the poorest Londoners lived in camps outside the city after the fire, but there were destroyed eight years later by officials. 

Historians digging into the ground in London say that items they dig up still smell of the fire almost 350 years later.

 

The mysterious London Stone goes on show

Nobody knows quite what the London Stone is but that is part of what makes it interesting. The stone is currently behind a window in a building which will soon be demolished. It will then live in the Museum of London for a couple of years until its new home is built, when it will go on show properly.

400 years ago, the stone was mentioned in a Shakespeare play. The man who rebuilt London after the Great Fire thought it might be part of a Roman building. Other people have thought it was part of ancient ceremonies, or that it came from the city of Troy. 

John Clark, who works at the Museum of London, said: "It is a mysterious object… I'm not sure if we want to know what it really is. That would spoil it."

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