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A teenager has been charged over a fatal crash in Tasmania’s north-west in February.
The 19-year-old from Forest is facing a number of charges, including causing death by dangerous driving, drink-driving and driving while disqualified.
The charges relate to a crash on the Bass Highway at Wiltshire, near Stanley, that killed Drew Betts and seriously injured an 18-year-old woman.
The man has been released on bail to reappear in court at a later date.
London, Apr 16 (ANI): The key that could have saved the doomed ship ‘Titanic’ is expected to fetch at least 70,000 pounds at an auction.
The key to the ship’s binocular box, which belonged to second officer David Blair, was transferred from the ship just before its maiden voyage.
However, he forgot to hand it to his replacement, reports the Daily Express.
Thus, officers had no access to binoculars on the bridge or in the crow’s nest – and 1,517 people perished when the ship hit an iceberg on April 15, 1912.
The crow’s nest key sold for 90,000 pounds in 2007 and the second key, with three others, is tipped to make a similar sum in the sale at Devizes, Wiltshire.
They are being sold by Titanic historian Peter Boyd-Smith. (ANI)
London, Apr 16 (ANI): The key that could have saved the doomed ship ‘Titanic’ is expected to fetch at least 70,000 pounds at an auction.
The key to the ship’s binocular box, which belonged to second officer David Blair, was transferred from the ship just before its maiden voyage.
However, he forgot to hand it to his replacement, reports the Daily Express.
Thus, officers had no access to binoculars on the bridge or in the crow’s nest – and 1,517 people perished when the ship hit an iceberg on April 15, 1912.
The crow’s nest key sold for 90,000 pounds in 2007 and the second key, with three others, is tipped to make a similar sum in the sale at Devizes, Wiltshire.
They are being sold by Titanic historian Peter Boyd-Smith. (ANI)
The Pilbara Aboriginal Contractors Association has expressed frustration over the time it is taking the State Government to consider legislative changes to force miners to engage with Aboriginal companies.
The association says it is unfair that Aboriginal people are missing out while the nation’s economy is reaping billions of dollars from the resources sector in the Pilbara.
The association’s General Manager Tony Wiltshire says the legislation would be beneficial for Aboriginal contractors and save money for resources companies.
“To date, the West Australian government hasn’t invited us to discuss anything about the report and very few resource companies have,” he said.
“Our next move is still to continually put pressure on the companies and also the government to actively engage Aboriginal people in discussions involving [and] concerning Aboriginal business.”
London, Mar 17 (ANI): Robbie Williams’ reunion with Take That has been put on hold owing to Mark Owen’s rehab stint.
Last weekend, the band had booked a recording studio in Wiltshire, but it was cancelled after Owen’s wife Emma kicked him out over his 10 affairs.
Owen, 38, is receiving help for issues with booze, drugs and depression while at the clinic.
And the band has told him that he can take as much time out as he needs.
“They were all heading down there, Robbie included, but the plan has been scrapped for now. All they care about is Mark at the moment and it wouldn’t feel the same all of them practising for their comeback without him,” the Mirror quoted a source as saying.
It was revealed last year how the band, which also includes Jason Orange, Gary Barlow and Howard Donald, spent time in a recording studio in New York last September.
But the source added: “All excitement about the future is very much on hold because Mark’s got to get better first.”
Meanwhile, Mark’s friends have revealed that it’s “far too early” for Emma to have made any decisions about taking the cheating singer back.
“She wants to see how Mark responds to treatment. Believe it or not, she does want him to get better – for his own sanity if nothing else,” said a pal. (ANI)
London, September 15 (ANI): In a new research, a scientist has found that prehistoric man navigated his way across England using a crude version of a satellite navigation system, which was based on stone circle markers.
According to a report in the Telegraph, the research, by historian and writer Tom Brooks, shows that Britain’s Stone Age ancestors were “‘sophisticated engineers” and far from a barbaric race.
Brooks studied all known prehistoric sites as part of his research.
He found that the prehistoric man was able to travel between settlements in England with pinpoint accuracy, thanks to a complex network of hilltop monuments.
These covered much of southern England and Wales and included now famous landmarks such as Stonehenge and The Mount.
New research suggests that they were built on a connecting grid of isosceles triangles that ‘point’ to the next site.
Many are 100 miles or more away, but GPS co-ordinates show all are accurate to within 100 metres.
This provided a simple way for ancient Britons to navigate successfully from point A to B without the need for maps.
“To create these triangles with such accuracy would have required a complex understanding of geometry,” said Brooks.
“The sides of some of the triangles are over 100 miles across on each side and yet the distances are accurate to within 100 metres. You cannot do that by chance,” he added.
“So advanced, sophisticated and accurate is the geometrical surveying now discovered, that we must review fundamentally the perception of our Stone Age forebears as primitive, or conclude that they received some form of external guidance,” he further added.
Brooks analyzed 1,500 sites stretching from Norfolk to north Wales. These included standing stones, hilltop forts, stone circles and hill camps.
Each was built within eyeshot of the next.
Using GPS co-ordinates, he plotted a course between the monuments and noted their positions to each other.
He found that they all lie on a vast geometric grid made up of isosceles ‘triangles’. Each triangle has two sides of the same length and ‘point’ to the next settlement.
Thus, anyone standing on the site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire could have navigated their way to Lanyon Quoit in Cornwall without a map.
According to Brooks, many of the Stone Age sites were created 5,000 years ago by an expanding population recovering from the trauma of the Ice Age.
“The triangle navigation system may have been used for trading routes among the expanding population and also been used by workers to create social paths back to their families while they were working on these new sites,” he said. (ANI)
London, June 22 (ANI): Madonna is reportedly looking to cocoon her newly adopted daughter from the world after the tot joined her new mum in London.
Little Mercy James was apparently flown 6,000 miles from Malawi to meet her new family after the singer won the child’s custody two weeks ago.
The four-year-old was whisked to Madonna’s luxury home where she joined her new siblings Lourdes, 12, Rocco, eight and adopted David, three.
The Queen of Pop, known to pals as Em, will cocoon the youngster at her Marylebone home, while she settles into her new life, according to pals.
“Em has been waiting for this moment for years, but realises that she shouldn’t over-stimulate Mercy by immediately smothering her with attention and things to do,” British tabloid The Sun quoted a family friend as saying.
“After all, she has been in this before when she brought David home from Malawi so she understands how confusing it must be.
“The next few days are all about cocooning Mercy from the world and getting her used to being around her new family. Em had hoped to have all the children together for the next few days.
“But David couldn’t contain his excitement and was tearing round the house like a runaway horse. He kept shouting, ‘I want to see my sister,” and endlessly hugging and tugging at her.
“In the end it was best to pack him off with Rocco to Guy’s place in Wiltshire. Guy has been here to meet Mercy too. Em has a gentle few days planned ahead, with lots of singing and reading to her new daughter.
“Mercy has already fallen in love with the 2,000-pound rocking horse Em has placed in her bedroom. She can’t take her eyes off it,” the friend added,
Madonna first spotted Mercy at an orphanage during her first visit to Malawi in 2006, but chose to adopt David Banda instead after the tot’s grandmother refused to let her go. (ANI)
Washington, May 19 (ANI): Brit singer Robbie Williams has been revealed to be a true lover of animals after he spared no expenses to be with his pet dogs.
Williams, 35, is said to have been flying between London and Los Angeles just to visit his dogs at his new home in Wiltshire, in his native England, as officials have told him that they could join him only after completing an isolation period in the U.S.
For the former Take That member, who has been flying to California to check up on his canines, he is just counting the days when he will be reunited with his pups.
“We’ve come back to see the dogs. Because of the ridiculous quarantine rules, the little ones and the big ones have to have jabs (injections) then wait a whole six months before they’re deemed fit enough (well, rabies free) to join us in England,” Contactmusic quoted him as having written on his official blog.
“It’s a stupid law but one you can’t do anything about. I can’t wait for them to see their new home – they’re going to s**te (literally, Maggie has trouble holding it in). Only a month and a half before they can come with us!” he added. (ANI)
London, May 12 (ANI): Duchess of Cornwall was showered with praises for bowling “a good length” despite trying her hand at the sport for the first time.
The wife of Prince of Wales was at the Box Bowls Club in Wiltshire for the opening of their new 400,000-pound clubhouse when she was encouraged to take up the challenge.
“I’ve never bowled before but I’ll have a go,” the Telegraph quoted the Duchess as saying.
While her debut attempt fell short of nearly two metres, her second go, a “jack high”, won her praises.
Club secretary Jean Collier, 63, said: “I thought she was great. In bowling terms, she bowled a good length. If you forget her first ball, the second one was jack-high (level with the jack) and that is very important.
“We say the three ‘Ls’ in bowling are line, length and luck. She was very relaxed and the ladies and gentlemen of the club will be delighted she bowled on our green.” (ANI)
London, Apr 30 (ANI): It’s finally peace between Madonna and Guy Ritchie, for the Queen of Pop has agreed that her ex-hubby can look after their children while she is away on tour for three months.
And Guy is “over the moon” that the ‘Material Girl’ is handing over their son Rocco, eight, and adopted David Banda, four, during the summer as she ventures on a European tour.
The surprise news comes just weeks after Madonna won a court order to name the US as the boys’ permanent home – leaving Guy “grief-stricken”.
“Guy absolutely dotes on his children and can’t wait to have them for a whole three months,” The Sun quoted a close source as saying.
The source added: “He is surprised and pleased that Madonna is being so generous – as she has at times been impossible.
“Madonna will be travelling a lot and agreed it makes sense for them to stay with Guy rather than constantly be uprooted.”
And now the ‘RocknRolla’ director is renovating the Ashcombe mansion in Wiltshire, which he used to share with Madonna, in time for Rocco and David’s arrival in June.
Guy, 40, is also planning an outhouse with an indoor pool for the boys- an idea Madonna, 50, had vetoed.
A friend said: “He’ll make it a summer they won’t forget.” (ANI)
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Major routes have already become congested, particularly on the M25 around Heathrow and on the Birmingham M6 toll road.
Heavy traffic has also hit the picturesque A303 through Wiltshire and the A66 in Cumbria.
With forecasters predicting temperatures could reach 19C (66F) in parts of southern England, travellers are keen to make the most of the bank holiday.
The RAC predicts that 33% more people intended to take short trips by road this year than last, and is expecting congestion on the M25, M1 and M6.
The AA said resorts such as Brighton and Bournemouth could be busy as well as historic cities such as Cambridge and Edinburgh.
More than 30 sets of roadworks are in place across the country whilst 51 have been suspended until the end of Easter Monday.
The Highways Agency, which is responsible for England’s motorways and major roads, said it had completed 37 sets of roadworks in time for Easter.
On the railways, passengers on a number of routes face service suspensions while a £55m programme of engineering work goes ahead.
P and O Ferries will carry 132,000 passengers on its Dover-Calais route from Good Friday to Easter Monday – an increase on the 98,000 figure last Easter.
A total of 200,000 passengers will travel with the Channel Tunnel high-speed Eurostar train company in the period from today until Easter Tuesday.
Those travelling by rail will have to contend with the closure of the West Coast Main Line between Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire and Rugby in the West Midlands from Easter Saturday until 12 noon on Easter Monday.
Services in and out of London’s Liverpool Street and Waterloo stations will also be disrupted by engineering work, although 64,000 train services will run over the holiday period (today to Monday) which is around 5,000 more than last Easter.
The most popular destinations for Brits travelling abroad this Easter include Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia.
British Airways said its top long-haul destinations for the holiday period were New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
Follow our live traffic updates from the Highways Agency and your reports.
Twitter Users: If you see anything on the road, please tweet a message with #eastertravel when you pull over. To follow our live travel updates please follow: skytravelupdate.
London, April 5 (ANI): A 97-year-old man braved a hair-raising jump from a plane at 10,000 feet to raise money for the Royal National Life-Boat Institution.
Pensioner George Moyse, Bournemouth, Dorset, succeeded his first skydive with Instructor Mike Jeng at Netheravon Airfield in Wiltshire.
“It was lovely, I really enjoyed it, I wasn’t frightened at all. It was the first time but it won’t be the last,” the Telegraph quoted him as saying.
George thanked his stars for letting his health and mobility to allow him to be a daredevil.
He said: “I do not sit around. I get about, I go for a walk every day and I do my own cooking, washing, ironing, everything. I have just been lucky to be so agile.”
His 43-year-old grandson Edward Brewer also took the parachute plunge with another trainer to help the Royal Air Forces Association.
He said: “This is all my grandfather’s idea. He has supported the RNLI all his life so they were the obvious beneficiaries when he decided he really wanted to do the jump.
“Both the volunteer lifeboat crew and lifeguards do a fantastic job to keep us safe on and in the water and as a charity they receive no government funding at all so to be able to do something so amazing and raise money for them is something my grandfather really wanted to do and if he can do it, so can I.” (ANI)
London, Mar 28 (ANI): The Wiltshire town of Trowbridge, famous for producing pork pies, has become the first town in Britain to be twinned with a Muslim Arab town.
Trowbridge, which is home to 30,000 people has been paired with Oujda in eastern Morocco, having a population of 500,000.
The Wiltshire town, which produces Bowyer pork pies, claims to have the largest Moroccan population in Britain outside London.
The Independent reports that the civil links between Wiltshire and Oujda are evident as many of the 80 Moroccan families in Trowbridge originate from Oujda, and came to the town in 1960s to work for Bowyers and the bed manufacturer Airsprung.
The first proposal to pair the two towns was presented by the Moroccan community in 2005.
However, after years of thoughtful discussions, the twinning charter was finalised last week, when a Moroccan delegation visited Trowbridge for the first time.
The paper quoted Trowbridge’s Moroccan partnership steering group chairman Bob Brice as saying, “I think they liked it…We took them to Longleat House and the Safari Park, where we showed them the African lions, which they enjoyed. One of the delegates was an architect and he was very fond of our old, well-kept buildings.”
The twinning between the two towns is expected to create an example of Muslim-Christian harmony. (ANI)
London, Jan 11 (ANI): Winston Churchill ordered recruitment of ordinary people from all walks of life, including clergymen, farmers and housewives, with one mission: to sabotage and kill the Nazis if they invaded Britain.
The guards would have been Britain’s last line of defence, the Daily Express reported.
The use of Home Guard uniforms was a cover. These were men of a specially trained, highly secret force who would be the first line of resistance when the Germans invaded Britain (as was expected, even by then Prime Minister Winston Churchill).
But to compare these tough resistance fighters to the Home Guard is, in the words of one senior officer at the time, “like comparing the Brigade of Guards to the Salvation Army”.
Even today, much remains secret about the activities of these men and women who were trained in the lethal techniques of guerrilla warfare. Now a new book by John Warwicker, a 78-year-old retired Scotland Yard Special Branch officer, tells the fascinating story of the Auxiliary Units using documents only recently declassified.
The units had a single purpose — to cause as much chaos behind enemy lines as possible in the event of a German invasion.
The defeat of the British Army in 1940 – when the then-invincible Germans drove it back to Dunkirk, where it was rescued by a flotilla of “little ships” – left the country vulnerable and an easy prey.
Had the Germans invaded – and they stood in force on the French coast waiting only for a signal from Hitler – the regular forces in Britain, so depleted in men and equipment after Dunkirk, could not have withstood them, the paper said.
Faced with this situation, Churchill ordered that a force of civilian volunteers be trained to operate from secret underground bases located behind the enemy lines.
The most ideal recruits would be countrymen – farmers, foresters, gamekeepers and even poachers. But this was soon widened to include men and women from all walks of life.
By the time the Auxiliary Units were finally stood down in 1944, their ranks included every section of society: clergymen, schoolmasters, university lecturers, butchers, car salesmen, students and housewives.
Churchill chose Colonel Colin Gubbins as the officer to set up the secret unit in the event of Operation Sea Lion, the Nazis’ planned invasion of Britain. He was the perfect choice for the assignment and was described as a “real Highland toughie, bloody brilliant”.
Preparation and training for the Auxiliary Units was carried out in total secrecy, much of it at Coleshill House, near Highworth in Wiltshire, in the fine Palladian former home of the Earl of Radnor’s family. It was here that recruits to the “Auxunits” learned the dark arts of guerrilla warfare. (ANI)
London, Jan 09 (ANI): Troubled popstar Pete Doherty is planning to make the French capital his main home, according to reports.
The ‘Delivery’ hitmaker, who has been living in Paris for a few months now, has his heart set on the idea of making his temporary accommodation his main home, it has emerged.
“Pete is not bothered by people in Paris and finds it creative and romantic,” The Sun quoted a pal, as saying.
However, Pete will maintain his place in Wiltshire, England too.
“He wants to move there but will keep his place in Wiltshire as his bread and butter will still be gigging in the UK,” the pal said. (ANI)
London, January 5 (ANI): Guy Ritchie reportedly spent the New Year alone at his country estate in England – as his eight-year marriage with Madonna came to an end.
The ‘RocknRolla’ director was said to have been on his own in his Wiltshire mansion while the Queen of Pop welcomed 2009 with their three kids in the Maldives.
The celebrity couple, who were granted a “quickie” divorce in November, officially ended their marriage on January 3.
And according to sources, the Brit director was feeling the blues.
“Guy was on a real downer over New Year and just wanted to be alone to think. He watched TV, had a few beers and then had an early night,” the Daily Express quoted a source as telling British tabloid the People.
“He”s been quite bullish throughout the divorce and when out with the lads he gives the impression that he is relieved to be a free man again,” the source added. (ANI)
London, Jan 3 (ANI): An archaeological team has uncovered a 4,500 year-old limestone plaque at south of Chester, in Cheshire, England, bearing a mysterious crisscross pattern, which indicates a direct link with the Stonehenge.
According to a report in the Telegraph, the closest parallel is a chalk plaque found in 1969 on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, just 1km from Stonehenge.
The markings were made with a flint tool and flint from Salisbury Plain has previously been found on site.
“There has obviously been contact between the two areas,” said archaeologist Mike Emery. “There has got to have been trading of some kind,” he added.
Mike explained that the plaque, found at the entrance to a later Bronze Age ring ditch monument, was connected with ritual or ceremonial activities, although its exact purpose is unknown.
He has suggested that the plaque maybe linked to some form of funerary activity, given its location close to cremated human bones.
“It is connected with the dead and may be some sort of invocation to the Gods to look after this person in the next life, some form of primitive writing or could be something abstract that just looks pretty,” he said.
Engraved plaques have been recovered from elsewhere, but are extremely rare and are almost always sculpted from chalk.
The cross-hatching pattern found on the plaque is also similar to designs found on ‘grooved ware’ pottery, which is unique to Britain and Ireland.
However, this pottery is almost absent from the archaeological record in Cheshire.
Another mystery is the discovery of what is thought to be an Iron Age coin bearing the image of an animal, possibly a horse or a goat.
Two universities have failed to identify the coin and now Mike will approach experts at The British Museum to see if they can shed any light on the find. (ANI)
London, Jan 2 (ANI): The British Army has taken up the ancient Indian sport of kabaddi in an attempt to find a game at which they can beat the Indians.
Initially adopted as means of attracting recruits from Asian communities in Britain, Kabaddi has been such a hit, that the British Army’s new team recently gave their Indian counterpart a run for its money.
Now, the British Army is engaged in an ambitious programme to master an ancient Indian sport in what appears to be a subtle attempt to strike back.
At a gymnasium in Larkhill, Wiltshire, a small squad meets to practise kabaddi, the sport of Indian princes and – according to literature – a pastime of the Buddha himself.
First introduced to these isles by Channel 4, which showed it on Sunday mornings in the early 1990s, the sport gained a small but devoted following, The Times reported.
Ashok Das, the Army’s team coach, believes that his players will form the nucleus of an English national team that will challenge India’s dominance.
He made this prediction on Indian national television, during the team’s debut tour, during which it narrowly lost to an Indian Army team filled with international players.
“Everyone was praising them. They were worried that England will start beating India. They said to me, ‘You are Indian, aren’t you ashamed to do this to your country?’ I said, ‘I was Indian, now I am British. I have to pay back my country. They are not winning at football, now they will win at kabaddi,’” Das said.
The team was first assembled in July 2007, after Das persuaded army recruitment officers that a kabaddi team could be a powerful recruitment tool in British Asian communities, The Times reported.
Colonel Paul Farrar, deputy head of Army Recruiting, saw “a really good game . . . something the British Army ought to look at seriously”. It also needs no equipment, so can be played wherever troops are deployed.
Last summer, the team beat Italy. A return match will take place in Aldershot next month, while overtures have arrived from the Indian Border Security Force, to play the Army next year.
Colonel Farrar believes the momentum of the team is growing, with the Army Physical Training Corps taking an interest in its martial qualities. He recently met a soldier from India, recruited via the Army’s Foreign and Commonwealth scheme, who said that the kabaddi team had convinced him to join up. (ANI)
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