Most British people happy

The Government has asked people how happy they are, and the results are quite surprising.
The UK economy is not healthy at the moment and the media is full of gloomy stories. Yet a survey of more than 4,000 adults found most people rated their life satisfaction at 7.4 out of 10.
People were most happy with their personal relationships and mental wellbeing. These scored 8.3 out of 10. However, financial satisfaction only scored 6.2 out of ten, and work 6.7 out of ten.

Money falls out of the sky

Thousands of pounds in bank notes were blown around the seafront in Blackpool this week. A 75-year old man was playing on a gaming machine, with a carrier bag containing his life savings -- GBP 35,000.
Thieves took the bag and ran away. As they tried to stuff the cash in their pockets, the wind blew much of it away.
Police arrived to find people chasing bank notes along the sea front. They managed to pick up GBP 8,000 and found another GBP 15,000 when they arrested two men. "We would not advise people to carry around such large amounts of cash with them," said the police.

Exams and football don't mix well

Researchers say hundreds of thousands of teenagers taking exams next summer in the UK may get lower grades because of the Euro 2012 football competition.
A study done at Oxford and Bristol universities found boys got worse exam grades in years when there was a World Cup or European Football championship. Students dropped an average quarter of a grade in each subject.
Boys and girls are both affected. But the biggest effect was on boys from working class families, whose results often fell by half a grade. The researchers suggest that national exams should move to three weeks earlier so that they do not clash with football competitions.

New race for Christmas top-selling song

For the last few years, the best-selling song at Christmas has come from a reality pop show called the X Factor. This runs for several months until Christmas and aims to find new pop talent from thousands of hopefuls.
This year there is an odd new rival. The Choir is another reality programme. This year it took a group of women whose husbands are all serving with the armed forces in Afghanistan, and taught them to enjoy singing as a group.
Now the choir -- called Military Wives -- has recorded a song and any profits will go to charity.

Susan@Englishuk.com