Football trouble

A children's football match had to be stopped after the players and their parents started arguing on the pitch.

The problems started during an under-nines game between two teams from a town in Wales. Parents and players were on the pitch arguing in the second half of the game, but the shouting continued. The referee then ended the game.

He said: "In my three years as a referee I have never seen anything like this. The parents were not helping." One of the teams involved has now broken up.

Surprising news about hand dryers

Most people think hand dryers are the cleanest way to dry hands after washing. But new research has found that the levels of bacteria increased when hands were rubbed together under hot air.

The problem is that bacteria living in the skin is drawn out when wet hands are rubbed together. And if hands are still damp after then bacteria can easily get on to other places.

Dr Anna Snelling of Bradford University in England said it was important to dry hands as well as washing them. The best way of drying hands was either with a paper towel or using a dryer which did not need hands to be rubbed together.

Pop star goes to prison

George Michael has been given an eight-week prison sentence for crashing his car when he had used the drug cannabis. He was also banned from driving for five years.

He was arrested in July in London after crashing his Range Rover car into a photographic shop.

Mr Michael, who became famous with the band Wham! in the 1980s, has been one of the world's best-selling male singers. His lawyers said he had started to write new songs and get his life "back on track" again.

After George Michael's car crashed into the shop, somebody wrote "Wham!" on the wall. In English, "Wham" is a slang word for something being hit or crashing, and this made a lot of people laugh.

Goodbye Big Brother

Big Brother is a UK television show which began 10 years ago and ended this week. When it first started it was one of the most talked-about programmes on television. The idea was to put a group of strangers into a house together without anything to read or watch, cut off from the outside world. Every moment was filmed.

Each series lasted for many weeks during the summer. Housemates had to complete tasks for extra food or alcohol. They were encouraged to talk about each other to the camera and suggest who should be removed from the house. The public then voted for people to be removed until there was a winner.

Big Brother has turned ordinary people into celebrities in the UK. But people taking part have become less ordinary and television audiences are far smaller now. Channel 4, which developed the programme, has decided to stop showing it now.

Big Brother shows are popular in at least 15 other countries now, including Argentina and Albania. In France, it's called Secret Story, and India it is Bigg Boss.

by Susan Young
susan@englishuk.com