News Round Up
by Patrick O'Connor
ERR.. grandad!
Six year old Will Smith loves his video games but was perhaps a tad too over-enthusiastic when using his grandad's iPad.
According to the Daily Mirror, young Will ran up a credit card bill of £2,000 playing an app on the iPad!
Will was using the popular children's game Tiny Monster Island but his adventures were exposed when his grandma tried to use the credit card at a supermarket and it was declined.
The fraud squad contacted grandfather Barry Slatter who was gobsmacked to see the huge bill that had mounted up. Apparently Will had been spending all the money on the app, which sees participants 'collecting' and 'breeding' their own online creatures.
Armed with his grandad’s iTunes password, he bought virtual food and coins – some at £70 each – to battle his way through the different levels and reach the Dark Monster.
Explained Barry, of Redcar, North Yorks: “I must have synced my credit card up with the App Store and Will has just been pressing buttons buying baskets of food and coins for his monsters. I can’t believe how easy it is for kids to buy things. Will’s only six.”
Will’s mum Nicola, 32, said: “Will was really upset – he was about to reach Level 26 and fight the Dark Monster.”
Now for two cute cat stories.
A real-life car burglar has been exposed after stealing garments from neighbours' homes and gardens, says The Sun.
It turns out that two year Denis had taken items including bath towel, thong, football, paintbrushes, slipper, shirt, doll, gloves, shoes, cardigan, socks and even a cuddly toy.
Neighbours of Denis' owner, Lesley Newman, from Luton, Bedfordshire, now call the cat Denis the Menace after a comic book character and often turn up at her home when belongings go missing.
Lesley said: “Denis is a rescue cat and we have had him since he was six-weeks-old. I would say he has taken well over 100 things now, so I have started collecting them up and if people are looking for something, I tell them to knock on my door. “
The Mirror reports that a cat called Merlin has been reunited with his family in Reading, Berkshire – five years after disappearing.
Apparently Merlin, who was microchipped, went to live on a farm 20 miles away before a vet called owner Alan Cooke to say that the farmer had checked him in with a cough.
Alan said: “I couldn’t believe it. He turned up at the farm in Newbury four years ago. He’s not really changed that much.”
Pudding power!
Shoppers have been urged to be patriotic and buy British puddings.
New Environment Secretary Owen Paterson claims there is a “huge dessert deficit” in the UK.
In an interview in the Farmers Weekly magazine Mr Paterson said: “We have a huge opportunity to replace imported desserts with desserts made here.”
He says he is particularly alarmed at the level of dairy-based desserts which are imported from overseas, at a time when UK farmers are struggling to recover the costs of producing milk.
Worth every penny...or is it?
The Daily Mail reports that Britain's most expensive registration plate is up for sale for a record-breaking £1million.
The plate is 'X1' and was originally issued by Northumberland County Council in December 1903.
If it fetches the asking prize it would be £560,000 more expensive than the plate ‘F1’ which was bought by Bradford-based businessman Afzal Kahn in 2008.
Dozy so and so...
A Labour shadow minister has admitted that he dozed off during an emergency debate in Parliament on Afghanistan.
Stephen Pound was captured by Commons cameras, says The Independent, and the shadow Northern Ireland minister was quoted as saying: “I have absolutely no recollection of it at all. I have had a look at it and I entirely accept that I did fall asleep. I have no recollection of it and I'm seeing my doctor. I hold my hands up entirely. It was like looking at a stranger.”
Of course the biggest story in British papers over the last week has been the furore over photographs of a topless Kate Middleton.
However she got no sympathy from veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell who is reported in the Daily Telegraph as saying: “Those who don’t want to be photographed shouldn’t strip off.”