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England spinner Graeme Swann says the squad will not waste energy focusing on this month’s first Ashes Test until their warm-up matches have finished.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
British and Commonwealth boxing champion Dereck Chisora is found guilty of assaulting his girlfriend but is spared jail.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Nine-day itch – Patrick Heery masquerades as a ‘school caretaker’ Who sprouts hair only on their upper lip these days? Well, plenty of men this month, all growing moustaches to raise money for prostate cancer charities. Among them is Patrick Heery who will be charting the highs and socially awkward lows in these pages.
TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER
I hate facial hair. I’ve never understood why anyone would grow a beard or moustache – I have never met a man who doesn’t look better once clean shaven. When someone shaves off a beard they always look years younger, more human, just better.
“I’ve been told I look like a school caretaker, a football hooligan and a porn star”
I don’ think I am beardist – well maybe a bit – but I’ve just never seen the point. I’ve certainly never tried to grow a beard or moustache myself. I’m not one of those men who has to shave every day and I’ve often thought I would struggle to grow anything resembling a decent beard. But why would I want to? I’ve been as bald as a coot for 15 years so if I could grow more hair I would want it on my head not my face.
But then along comes Movember – for the uninitiated, it’s a worldwide fund-raising campaign for prostrate cancer charities, in which men grow moustaches in return for sponsorship. Even then, it’s the sort of thing I could usually resist with ease but, when my son’s teachers all said they were taking part, he really wanted me to do the same and, in a moment of weakness, I wilted.
We are now eight days in and it has got to the stage where it is clear something is going on. I no longer just look unshaven, there is a definite shape to things on my top lip. It leads to my first dilemma. I want to shout out to everyone I meet: “I know it looks awful, I’m not the sort of person who would grow one of these for fun – it’s for charity.”
Attaboy – actor Tom Selleck provides the blueprint The worst thing is that at the moment, people aren’t saying anything. They must see something is going on but they don’t say: “Oh, are you growing a moustache?” Then at least I could say why. But at the moment everyone is being very polite and no-one is saying anything. And it drives me mad.
Thing is, when I started out I thought there would be moustaches all over the place, a brotherhood of fundraisers, all in it together, seeing who is making the most progress or looks silliest. Supportive glances across a meeting room, a common understanding. But no. I look round the BBC newsroom and mine is the only top lip with bristles on it.
I have to say, I want to shave it off. I want to shave it off so much. The razor is calling to me but there are more than three weeks to go. But I already can’t stand it. It’s just not me – I’ve been told I look like a school caretaker, a football hooligan and a porn star.
My wife hates it and I hate it. I am going to have to raise a lot of money to make this worthwhile. I initially thought £200 would be good but I would happily shave it off and stump up that sum myself. So maybe I’ve got to aim higher.
The only thing keeping me going – apart from the fact that it is for a cancer charity and we all have had lives touched by cancer and know what a ruthless killer it can be – is that my kids love it. They really, really love it.
So for now I’ll keep going, trying to raise some cash, but I can’t promise it’ll make it to the end of November.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The Xbox Kinect works with all models of Xbox 360 Gamers around the UK have queued overnight to get their hands on Xbox Kinect, a new hands-free motion control system for the Xbox 360 console.
Stores opened at midnight for fans to buy the £130 controller, which Microsoft says offers a revolutionary new approach to gaming.
It uses a camera, motion sensors and a microphone to allow users to control the Xbox 360 without holding a device.
Kinect faces a battle with Nintendo’s Wii Plus and Sony’s Playstation Move.
Nintendo is launching a 3D version of its popular handheld DS console but that is not scheduled for release until March 2011.
Microsoft hopes Kinect and its stable of family-friendly games will win the company a dominant share of the lucrative Christmas market.
Stephen McGill, Microsoft’s director of Xbox for the UK and Ireland, said Kinect would “revolutionise” home entertainment and communications.
“It’s about technology getting out of the way, being incredibly invisible.
“So you just stand in front of the TV, or sit down, however you want to play, and you just move your body, the game responds to you. It’s incredible.
“Playing Kinect is natural, intuitive and brilliantly fun, and we’re very excited to bring it to hundreds of thousands of families across the country this Christmas.”
“No wonder the PR folks are getting excited – this has been a pretty mediocre year for the games industry, and they are desperate to give things a lift in the run-up to Christmas.”
Kinect-compatible games available in time for Christmas include Dance Central, in which players try to match moves they see on screen, as well a number of other titles suitable for children.
Xbox 360 fans queuing at a Game store in Milton Keynes overnight told the BBC’s Newsbeat that the new controller would spice up their game-playing.
“I’ve had an Xbox for seven years and used to play it a lot but not so much any more. I’m just looking for something new so I want to try this,” said Michael, 21, from Luton.
Mickey, 19, said the totally hands-free design was something genuinely new.
“It’s a step up from what PS3 are doing at the moment with Move, which is a good concept, but you’ve still got a remote in your hand, and this is freehand.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Pro-government candidates win the majority of seats in Jordan’s parliament, in a poll marked by violence and an opposition boycott.
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All the action, reaction and analysis in video and text as Nick Clegg stands in for David Cameron at prime minister’s questions.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Some prices may be falling but inflation overall is expected to remain high The Bank of England inflation report says inflation will stay high next year, but the outlook is unclear.
Its Quarterly Inflation Bulletin said there was a risk consumer spending would slow, because of rising taxes and higher debt.
The report stressed the outlook was highly uncertain.
As such, it gave no clear indication over the direction of interest rates, nor whether there would be more asset buying – or Quantitative Easing (QE).
The report, did though, leave the door open for more QE.
The Bank’s Governor, Mervyn King, said the risks to the economy were “on the downside” and growth was likely to slow from its current pace.
As well as a tightening on consumers’ spending power, thanks to higher debt and taxes, the governor also pointed to a likely fall in construction activity, given the government’s cuts in public spending.
The most recent gross domestic product figures (GDP) showed growth of 0.8% in the third quarter of this year.
But the Bank’s report also noted there was a wider-than-usual range of views among Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members.
Recent meetings have seen growing disagreement between the Bank’s MPC members with a three-way split in the vote at the end of the MPC’s last meeting.
Seven of its members voted for no change to interest rates and no additional stimulus spending, one person wanted to see rates rise, while another member voted to see QE restart.
Mervyn King said this meant the MPC was operating as it should be, and compared it to the team spirit of England’s cricketers: “Like the English batsmen preparing to defend the Ashes, watching carefully, perfectly balanced in the crease, ready to play forward or back according to the length of the incoming delivery… in order to keep inflation on track to meet the 2% target in the medium term.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Three men have been charged with kidnap and blackmail over an incident in Randalstown last week.
Two other men have been charged with withholding information and assisting offenders.
The alleged kidnapping victim was taken from his home in Randalstown last Thursday by a gang who drove him away in his car before demanding a ransom.
He was released near Armoy in the early hours of Friday. A woman charged with kidnapping faced court on Tuesday.
Sabrina Andria McCooke, 31, from Carrowreagh Road in Armoy, was also charged with blackmail.
The three men facing kidnap and blackmail charges are aged 39, 33 and 32. They will appear before Coleraine Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
The other two, aged 19 and 21, will appear in court in Ballymena in December.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Hundreds marched through Newport after the passport office plans were announced The UK government minister in charge of passports is facing questions from Welsh MPs over plans to close the Newport office in south Wales.
More than 250 jobs are expected to go if the plans are approved.
Home Office minister Damian Green, has been called to give evidence to the Welsh affairs committee at Westminter.
He will be joined by the chief executive of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), Sarah Rapson.
The meeting was called after Mr Green announced at the beginning of October that consultation was to begin on the closure of the Newport passport office.
The decision sparked an angry response from unions, opposition politicians and staff, with hundreds taking to the streets of Newport in a protest.
The IPS has insisted that the changes are necessary to reduce the size of the organisation and ensure it is more efficient.
It said its analysis had found that closing Newport would result in “the greatest reduction of spare capacity at the lowest cost to the taxpayer”.
But Labour Newport West MP, Paul Flynn has described the proposal as “butchery”.
Addressing protesters in the city in October, he said: “There’s nothing rational about this – it’s unfair, it’s brutal, it’s cruel and cuts away jobs from Wales in a way only Tories can do.
“Any party that supports this will be political pariahs in Newport and Wales for a generation.”
The Welsh affairs committee, which is chaired by the Conservative MP for the neighbouring constituency of Monmouth, David Davies, will also hear evidence from the PCS union and Newport city council.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The leader of the Progressive Unionist Party backs a call from the man who founded the UVF for the paramilitary group to disband.
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The BBC’s Caroline Wyatt tours the wards of Birmingham’s new Queen Elizabeth “super-hospital”.
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Emergency food supplies are being delivered to a luxury cruise liner stranded off the Pacific coast of Mexico.
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Value Added Tax (VAT) should be applied to most goods in the UK, a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.
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A series of bombings and mortar attacks targeting Christians have killed at least three people in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, security sources say.
Five separate areas with a strong Christian majority were hit, and at least 24 people have been injured.
The attacks come days after more than 40 people when a Catholic cathedral was seized by Islamist militants.
The violence comes as top-level talks on ending the country’s political crisis ended without agreement.
“Two mortar shells and 10 homemade bombs targeted the homes of Christians in different neighbourhoods of Baghdad between 0600 and 0800 (0300 and 0500 GMT),” an unnamed official told AFP news agency.
Over the weekend, a senior Iraqi cleric in London called on Iraqi Christians to flee the country because it was so dangerous.
“If we stay, they will kill us,” Archbishop Athanasios Dawood said after addressing a congregation of Iraqi Orthodox Christians at a service in London.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
The increase in student tuition fees in England means future rises in foreign students’ charges should be kept lower, UK Prime Minister David Cameron says.
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