News Round Up
by Patrick O'Connor
WHAT name do you give to a day-old baby girl found abandoned in a plastic bag in a park? Why Jade of course, after the nine year old German Shepherd dog which helped save her.
The Daily Star reports that dog owner Roger Wilday and Jade discovered the baby in Marlborough House Community Park in the Stetchford area of Birmingham.
The dog refused to move from the spot where the girl was placed, until Mr Wilday came over to investigate. The baby, who still had her umbilical cord attached, was wrapped in a light blue towel and plastic bag.
Mr Wilday said: “Jade has grown up with children around her, she loves babies and when she found the baby in the bushes she wouldn't leave until she knew I had seen it.
“She is a hero dog. There was no-one else in the park at the time and it was very cold. If it wasn't for Jade that baby could have been dead. I always take her to the park and we were out walking - she was off the lead and headed off towards the bushes.
"She wouldn't come back when I called her and so I had to go over and I saw the bag and then I heard a baby cry.”
Well, you have to learn somehow I suppose. According to The Sun, some foreign footballers at Premier League giants Manchester City have turned to children's television shows to help learn English.
It seems that City gives its new signings language packs when they arrive, which suggest they watch CBeebies and shows such as In The Night Garden and according to the paper, two of the club's new Spanish signings, Jesus Navas and Alvaro Negredo, are believed to be watching Teletubbies and Balamory in a bid to improve their language skills.
Preparing for the winter cold are two churches in Devon which, says the Daily Mirror, are going to hand out warm cushions which stay hot for 90 minutes and can be used 1,000 times for their pews,
The cushions are to be trialled at Broadclyst and South Tawton, Devon, to see if they are effective.. Apparently around 75 per cent of the Diocese of Exeter's 600 churches in Devon are large listed buildings which are difficult to heat.
If you are a lover of crime books you might be interested to know that one of Agatha Christie's early Hercule Poirot novels – The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd – has won the award for the best ever whodunit.
The Daily Mail says that as well as winning best ever crime novel, Agatha Christie was also voted the number one crime writer of all time.
However, she missed out on the 'best ever crime series' which went to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for Sherlock Holmes in the Crime Writers Association poll of 600 fellow writers which was announced at the society's 60th birthday celebrations.
Want an unusual Christmas present? Then a story in the Daily Star reveals one candidate – 61 year old Birmingham man Kevin Beresford's calendar which will feature the country's top roundabouts!
Kevin said: “I was so bored of seeing celebrity and animal calendars I wanted to do something different. What started as a joke soon developed into a passion and now I consider roundabouts one of the highlights of British culture. In my opinion there is nothing more exciting than a roundabout because there's so many things you can find on them.”
One of Kevin's favourites is in Kent. “The locals call the roundabout Duckingham Palace and it features an amazing listed pond. This roundabout sums up exactly what it means to be a Great British traffic island.”
Reference lists:
Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk)
Daily Mirror ((www.mirror.co.uk)
Daily Star (www.daily star.co.uk)
The Sun (www.thesun.co.uk)
Normal Version:-
Visit the LEN News Round Up channel on YouTube for the slower version. (More coming soon.)