The final farewell
This week, we found out what British people choose to play at funerals. It is a very odd collection of music.
My Way, by Frank Sinatra, is the favourite non-religious song. Other pop music favourites for funerals include The Wind Beneath My Wings, Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, and Angels by Robbie Williams.
Popular religious songs are The Lord Is My Shepherd, Abide With Me, and All Things Bright and Beautiful. Some classical music is also popular, including Schubert's Ave Maria.
But some families have a strange sense of humour. Other music played at funerals includes Highway to Hell by AC/DC, Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell, and the music which introduces the nightly weather report for ships.
Birth of a star
We've got a new series of a talent show on television on Saturday nights, and one of this week's performers has become famous in America as well as Britain.
When Susan Boyle walked on to the stage in front of the judges they did not expect much from her. This might be because she is not very glamorous. She is 47, unmarried, lives with her cat in Scotland and says she has never been kissed. But then she sang. Her voice was so amazing that they had to start being nice to her.
Since then almost 20m people all over the world have seen her performance on You Tube, and she has sung on two American television shows. She is predicted to have a top-selling music album very soon.
Watch her for yourself here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
Liverpool FC in the news
This week, Britain remembered the 96 Liverpool football fans who died during a match 20 years ago. The fans were crushed to death in the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield during a match against Nottingham Forest.
Football stadiums were transformed after the tragedy to ensure they were safe, but bereaved families still want a full enquiry into what happened at Hillsborough.
Up to 25,000 people took part in the memorial service at the Liverpool ground of Anfield.
Liverpool's players did their best to cheer the city by playing a fantastic match against Chelsea for a place in the Champions League semi-final. But the match was a 4-4 draw and so Liverpool was the only one of four English clubs in the competition which did not make it to the final four.
Burglars beware
A businessman says he was burgled because police banned him from using a home-made defence system.
Joe Weston-Webb has a giant 10m catapult, which he was going to use to fire bags of chicken dung at intruders. But police warned him that using such a large weapon would be illegal, and so he did not fire when his business was attacked this week.
He now says he may set the catapult to attack burglars in future.
Former stuntman Mr Weston-Webb also owns a human cannon and an exploding coffin. The catapult was built to fire his wife across a river in 1976.
by Susan Young - susan@englishuk.com
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