Big money
There was gloomy financial news when the Government announced its annual Budget - how it will get and spend money.
The recession means the Government will have to borrow another £700m during the next five years. There are concerns that there will have to be cuts in public services and tax rises in future.
People earning more than £150,000 a year will have to pay a new higher rate of tax.
People who own old cars will be given money if they buy a new one instead. This is intended to help the car industry and the economy in general.
Breathe deeply
Come to London for what must be one of the strangest evenings on the planet.
It is being called the world's first walk-in cocktail. You walk into a basement bar, dressed in plastic clothes, and breathe in a mist of gin and tonic. You can talk to your friends, if you can hear them over the loud music.
Spending 40 minutes in the bar, breathing, is the same as drinking a single gin and tonic.
www.jellymongers.co.uk/alcoholicarchitecture.html
Human art
If you think a walk-in drink is a mad idea, what about people becoming living works of art for an hour?
In London's Trafalgar Square there are four areas for statues but only three statues. The extra space (called the Fourth Plinth) is now the home for temporary art displays.
The next display, called One and Other, starts in July. It is not a normal artwork: instead people will take it in turns to appear for one hour, 24 hours a day.
2,400 people will be needed during the exhibition but 22,000 people said they might like to do it even before applications opened this week. Those chosen will be able to do anything they want for their hour, as long as it is not illegal. The show will be broadcast live on www.oneandother.co.uk.
Cheap money
A bank worker and her husband were taken to court after stealing £60,000 from a cash machine.
The couple, who owed money to the bank, found that they could get money out of the supermarket cash dispenser, but because the machine was faulty it did not actually come out of their account.
They visited the machine 300 times in 88 days to take out money, and were caught when bank staff became suspicious and installed hidden cameras near the machine. Police found more than £27,000 in cash in their kitchen.
The couple have been ordered to do unpaid work.
by Susan Young - susan@englishuk.com
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