This week's UK news: 3 October 2011
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3 October 2011


 

Farmer tells Rihanna to put her clothes on

Farmer Alan Graham had never heard of Rihanna before this week. And not many people had heard of Mr Graham until this week either.
Rihanna's staff had asked if she could film her new video on Mr Graham's farm in Northern Ireland. Mr Graham is a devout Christian with Bible verses painted on his barn. The filming began in one of his fields with Rihanna dressed in jeans and a check shirt.
But later in the day Mr Graham drove by on his tractor again and discovered the singer was wearing far less than before. He did not like this and asked for the filming to stop. He says he and Rihanna had a conversation about God, shook hands and parted on good terms.

Trouble at Manchester City

Losing their Champions League game at Bayern Munich this week was not the biggest problem for Manchester City. The team's former captain, Carlos Tevez, has been suspended for a fortnight for what he did – or didn't do – at the game.
The team's management said Mr Tevez refused to come on as a substitute in the game. Mr Tevez now says it was a language problem and he would have played.
Manchester City is now deciding what other action it will take, but it is likely to fine Mr Tevez two weeks wages. This would be the biggest fine ever given to a player in English football as Mr Tevez earns GBP 250,000 a week.

Car driving problem for a pilot

Prince William and his new bride Catherine Middleton got lots of cheers when he drove her from Buckingham Palace after their wedding in his father's sports car.
The Aston Martin DB8 is more than 40 years old and was driven very slowly by the Prince. It was probably more difficult to drive than he intended, as we have now found out that Prince William forgot to release the handbrake before driving away.
Prince William's day job is as a search and rescue helicopter pilot for the Air Force.

Police baffled by death

The UK and Ireland have special coroner's courts to establish how people died. A court in Ireland made history this week when it considered the case of an old man who had burned to death.
Police could not find anything at the death scene which explained how Michael Flaherty had caught fire. The coroner ruled that there was "no adequate [good] explanation" for the fire and said it fell into the category of "spontaneous human combustion". Put in simple English, this means the fire started in the man for no known reason. He was not set on fire by anything in the room, such as the fire, a match, or a cigarette.
This type of mystery death became famous in the 1850s when Dickens killed off a character in his novel Bleak House with spontaneous human combustian. Doctors at the time thought it was connected to drinking too much alcohol.

Susan Young
Susan@Englishuk.com




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