WHAT a wild lot we are....the BBC quotes a report which says that wild animals including lions, tigers, crocodiles, rattlesnakes and zebras are being kept legally on private property across the UK.
It also showed more than 300 cobras, vipers and rattlesnakes are being kept.
A report in The Independent newspaper says that the remains of a medieval chapel which King Arthur is thought to have visited have been uncovered for the first time in nearly 50 years.
Beckery Chapel, near Glastonbury, in Somerset, is connected to legendary visits by King Arthur, who is said to have seen a vision of Mary Magdalene and the baby Jesus there.
Archaeologist Dr Richard Brunning, from the South West Heritage Trust, said: “Previous excavations in the 1960s suggested that a Saxon monastery may have been present on the site before it became a chapel.
“The present research aims to get new scientific dating samples to precisely date the monastic cemetery for the first time.”
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More crazy political craziness. An article in The Sun claims that St Monica's Catholic Primary School in Milton Keynes has banned the final whistle used to signal the end of play time over fears it is “too aggressive” and could alarm the children.
It seems that staff members must now raise a hand in the air to mark the end of playground breaks and wait for the students to notice the signal.
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Going on display in England is a bone fragment believed to come from St Thomas Becket.
The BBC says the bone, believed to be from the elbow of St Thomas, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 after he fell out with King Henry II, will be on show for the first time since it was taken to Hungary 800 years ago. It is the centrepiece of a week-long pilgrimage in London and Kent.
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We Brits love our strawberries if a story in the Daily Mail is anything to go by.
The strawberry harvest is expected to be up 11 per cent on last year and British berry sales in total, including raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, are expected to top £1billion for the first time this year.
The industry trade body, British Summer Fruits, says that strawberries are way ahead of the rest, accounting for some £564m – 51 per cent – of the total. They reckon the sales boom has been generated by the idea that berries are healthy.
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A Volkswagen camper van could be sold for a record £120,000 when it goes up for auction next month, reports the Daily Mail.
It's a 1957 Type 2 Samba Microbus, 23-window, split screen model which spent most of its life in the US, but was moved over to the UK in 2005 and has undergone a full restoration.
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Thousands of bees swarmed around the boot of a car in Haverfordwest, Wales after their queen got stuck in the vehicle's boot.
An article in The Guardian says that Tom Moses, a ranger at the Pembrokeshire coast national park, noticed a “brown splodge” on the back of the car after the owner parked it to do some shopping.
He said: “They were packed in quite tight and covered a couple of square feet. There was a lot of buzzing and moving.”
Tom called the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers’ Association and two beekeepers helped remove the swarm by luring the bees into a cardboard box.
Reference list:
The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk)
The Independent (www.independent.co.uk)
Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk)
BBC (www.bbc.co.uk)
The Sun (www.thesun.co.uk)