Millions of shoppers hit UK stores over the weekend helping to boost dwindling retail figures, traders said yesterday.
Retailers across the UK slashed their prices to entice Christmas shoppers into stores, over what is traditionally one of the busiest shopping weekends of the year.
More than 1.5 million shoppers flooded to London’s West End, spending £180 million on Saturday, the New West End Company, which represents 600 traders in Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street, said.
Picture shows Regent street packed with Christmas shoppers yesterday.
Teen robs grandparents
A 15-year-old Austrian girl robbed her grandparents’ house not once but twice, spending the €20,000 proceeds in just two weeks partying with her friends.
The girl first broke into the house in Bad Vigaun while the grandparents were on holiday on November 24, together with three teenagers and two men in their 20s. With €75 from the house, one of the group took a taxi to a shop and returned laden down with alcohol, which they then proceeded to drink until the girl’s great uncle, who happened to be passing, put an end to the party.
First class air travel thief
A Frenchman who sold on the internet objects stolen from first class flights has been arrested in the airport on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion.
The 28-year-old photographer, based in Canada, would travel first class on Air France and other carriers and disembark with a stash of airline napkins, glasses, plates, blankets and anything else he thought he could sell online, according to French police.
A complaint from Air France alerted the authorities to the practice and led to the first-class pilferer’s arrest on Friday.
Mum miscarries on 20th baby
Arkansas mum Michelle Duggar, whose family of 19 children is the subject of a TV reality show, said Friday she had miscarried her 20th.
“We discovered during a routine 19-week ultrasound that our 20th child, who was due in April 2012, passed away recently,” Michelle and husband Jim Bob wrote on their website.
Just a month ago they announced to the world that they looked forward to making their brood an even 20. The family lives in the southern US city of Little Rock. They have 10 boys and nine girls.
Occupy protest reaches N. Pole
The Occupy Wall Street movement reached Santa’s workshop on Friday, at least in the imagination of a Miami web firm that has come up with a way to rant with wit over the Christmas holiday.
Occupy North Pole (www.occupynorthpole.net) features a platoon of elves in green tights waving placards bearing such messages as “Santa is a sweatshop boss” and “One per cent of people have 99 per cent of holiday spirit.” The messages keep changing as visitors submit their own slogans that cannot exceed 60 characters.
Scott Ownbey, founder of Storyboards Online, said his company – which develops comic-strip illustrations for websites – launched Occupy North Pole as a “light-hearted” way to let the general public sound off.