New manager at Liverpool Football Club

Roy Hodgson, manager at Liverpool since last summer, left the club last week. There had been lots of talk about whether or not he would stay, because Liverpool was defeated for the ninth time during a Premiership game.

Liverpool's new manager is also an old manager: Kenny Dalglish. Dalglish is very popular in the city, and with Liverpool fans. He was a player-manager for the team between 1985 and 1991. In that time, Liverpool won the league championship three times and the FA Cup twice.

Dalglish will manage Liverpool until the end of the season.

Film about British king tipped for Oscars

A very unusual film about British royalty has opened in the UK this week. The King's Speech is about George VI.

George had a very bad stammer, which is a speech problem which makes it very hard to say some words. George was the second son in the family, and so did not expect to become King himself. But his older brother, Edward VIII, wanted to marry a divorced woman and so had to leave the country.

This meant that George did become King, and had to speak in public. The film is about how he worked to overcome his problems with the help of a brilliant Australian speech therapist. Colin Firth, the actor who plays George VI, is already being tipped to win an Oscar.

Happiness is having a job

The Government is trying to find out what makes people happy. This is because it wants to look at more than just economic information to find out whether the UK is doing well or not.

Research so far shows that the most important things are having a job, good health, and relationships with family members.

Having a job was more important to people than being paid a lot.

Britain not rainy enough this year

The rest of the world thinks the UK is a very wet and rainy place. People in the UK think it's very wet here too, especially now when a thick layer of snow has only just melted.

But we are being warned that there could be water shortages in some areas this summer. This is because there has not been enough rain this winter, and because in some places water has been lost because of leaky pipes.

People in the North West of the country are being asked to be careful about using water because reservoirs are not as full as they should be. If people use too much water now, there may be "hosepipe bans" in the summer. This is when water shortages mean that people are banned from using hoses to water their gardens or wash their cars.

by Susan Young
susan@englishuk.com