U2 Can’t Play At Glastonbury Festival

The Irish band U2 were supposed to be top of the bill at the Glastonbury Festival this year. It is the 40th anniversary of the open-air music festival so organisers wanted very popular bands.

But this week U2 had to pull out of the festival. Their singer, Bono, has injured his back very badly.

Now it has been announced that Gorillaz will play instead. Gorillaz started as a cartoon band with drawings of four players and music led by Damon Albarn of Blur. The band usually plays with other well-known musicians these days, and there may be a few surprises.

Queen opens Parliament

Once a year, or when there is a new Government, there is an official opening of Parliament. It is a grand event. The Queen, wearing her crown, drives to Parliament in a carriage accompanied by marching bands. Then she reads out what the Government intend to do in the coming year.

This week we had a State Opening of Parliament and a Queen’s Speech which announced 22 new pieces of legislation.

It has been a busy week for the new Government. It announced £6bn of savings on Monday. It has also been working on its new legislation. And the new Prime Minister and his family finally moved into their official home of Downing Street. The papers had lots of photographs of his furniture going into the removal van.

Man finishes jigsaw

Jack Harris, who is 86, has spent more than seven years doing a 5,000-piece jigsaw. He had hoped to finish it this year. But he found that the last piece was missing. He thinks it was either thrown away or a dog ate it.

The jigsaw company had stopped making that design and could not help. But the story was in many newspapers. So the company decided to make that jigsaw again so that they could give Mr Harris the final piece.

Now his family will either put the huge jigsaw in a frame or varnish it and put it on the outside wall of Mr Harris’s house.

New James Bond novel on its way

Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond books, died in 1964. But an organisation which looks after his novels is now asking other authors if they would like to write a new Bond story.

Sebastian Faulks was asked to write the last book about James Bond, the spy who likes Martini, fast cars and beautiful women. Now American thriller writer Jeffrey Deaver has been asked to write a book about the spy. He has one year to do it.

Mr Deaver says he loves the Bond books, which he began reading as a child. His own novels have sold more than 20m round the world.

by Susan Young
susan@englishuk.com