It was the final act in what Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper called “one of the biggest acts of civil disobedience in modern times.” Chafing under a court order that banned the press from naming a top player with an English soccer club who was alleged to have had an affair with a reality TV star, Britons took to Twitter. By May 21, details of the affair had been leaked so widely on the internet that over 50,000 users had tweeted the name of the player: Manchester United midfielder Ryan Giggs.
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How Manchester United Became the Biggest Soccer Team in the World
On Saturday, May 14, as the final whistle ended a 1-1 draw in the English Premier League between Blackburn Rovers and Manchester United, a man looking perhaps a shade younger than his 69 years began dancing around and hugging everyone in sight. If Sir Alex Ferguson, United’s manager, looked like a bit of a dork — as he usually does when celebrating — nobody cared.
BATTLE OF BRITAIN: To Beat the Blitz
The greatest battle of World War II may still be fought on English soil. If it is, one of many reasons that Hitler may be beaten will be the new and growing British People's Army opposing him: Brit ain's Home Guard
BOOKS: Versatile Monomaniac
Thomas Hardy lived to be 200 years old, or so it must have seemed to his literary competitors. He reached prominence in 1872 with his second novel, Under the Greenwood Tree, and was going strong half a century later.
The Cooling Of America: Out of Tune and Lost in the Counterculture
The wrong people, the wrong drugs have taken over.
Language: Spanglish Spoken Here
In Manhattan a first-grader greets her visiting grandparents, happily exclaiming, “Come here, sientate!” Her bemused grandfather, who does not speak Spanish, nevertheless knows she is asking him to sit down. A Miami personnel officer understands what a job applicant means when he says, “Quiero un part time.” Nor do drivers miss a beat reading a billboard alongside a Los Angeles street advertising CERVEZA — SIX-PACK! This free-form blend of Spanish and English, known as Spanglish, is common linguistic currency wherever concentrations of Hispanic Americans are found in the U.S
What Does the Queen Do?
In February, the English cricket team — virtual demigods in their country after defeating Australia last summer — were attending a reception amid the Rembrandts and Rubenses in the Picture Gallery of Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth had just pinned medals on the athletes’ chests signifying their new status as Members of the Order of the British Empire, and was strolling among them, chatting and laughing with their proud families
It’s Not Enough to Call It Genocide
MORE THAN 60 YEARS ago, a Polish Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin fled Nazi-occupied Europe, arrived in the U.S. and invented a word that he thought would change the world
Lucie Blackman: Death of a Hostess
On May 4, 2000, Lucie Blackman, wearing high heels and a silver and black ensemble coordinated to match her Samsonite luggage, disembarked from a 13-hour Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Tokyo and stepped into Japan’s national nightmare.
The Incredibly Shrinking Court
Once a year, as another December gives way to a chill January, Chief Justice John Roberts rereads a poem published in 1749 by the great writer, moralist and late-night conversationalist Samuel Johnson.