Strangers' Britain
Union Jack banned
The Union Jack has been banned by a charity for pensioners because it is "racist."Pictures of the flag were used by Age Concern on the cover of a pamphlet dealing with pensioners' rights.
But local officials of Age Concern in Newham, East London, refused to sell the pamphlet because they claimed it looked like National Front propaganda.
A spokesman for the group, Terry Lewis, said: "These are delicate times. We deal with an increasing number of ethnic minorities and we feel it is insensitive if we sell the booklet.
Tell-tale trap
Police may soon be able to get an accurate description of a crook's face... from his voice. Scientists can already use computers to reproduce a voice from details about a face. Now they are working on reversing the process. It is being done in Japan, says the science journal Nature.But so far it hasn't helped to trap one of Japan's most wanted criminals, an extortionist dubbed "the man with 21 faces".
£105,000 for a bottle of wine
A wine buff has paid £105,000 for a bottle of claret... and he won't be touching a drop.He plans to take it to America and put it on show. The 1787 Chateau Lafitte went for £17,500 a glass. The price paid at Christie's in London, shattered the record for a bottle of wine eight times over.
The claret belonged to Thomas Jeffer- son, third U.S. President, and has his initials on the bottle.
Buyer Christopher Forbes, son of a wealthy American publisher, plans to put it in a New York collection of items associated with American Presidents.
Mr Forbes, 35, admitted later he had overspent. He planned to bid £100,000. Christie's thought the claret would go for £25,000. An official said the price was "beyond their wildest expectations." Mr Forbes left the auction gingerly carrying the dusty bottle in a green canvas bag. "I don't want to be the first to drop it," he said.
The wine, put up for sale by a West German, will be flown to New York in the Forbes family's private plane.
Sleeping patients
The trial of Ellen Smellie, a Glasgow night nurse who was accused of drugging elderly woman patients, has ended with a "not proven" verdict. Glasgow Sheriff Court had heard that some of the women in Mrs Smellie's ward at Gartloch Hospital, were so drowsy they slept through breakfast, lunch and sometimes tea.Police rugby game brawl
Detectives in South Wales are compiling a file which is to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions after a violent clash in a friendly rugby match between police teams from Cardiff and Newport. It was abandoned after one of the players had his ear lobe chewed off.The incident came after the Welsh Rugby Union, concerned about increasing violence on the field, gave a warning that it would no longer tolerate the almost weekly punch-ups by the "win-at-all- costs" mentality.
Every spectator and all 30 players were being interviewed by detectives after the match which resulted in a Newport policeman, Mr Keith Jones, emerging from a scuffle on the ground with blood gushing from his ear.
His injury was stitched up by surgeons at the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, but they were unable to replace the missing lobe. A forward from the Cardiff side is alleged to have been involved in the incident during which he suffered a broken nose.
