Rock veterans Status Quo were celebrating a rare milestone yesterday as they clocked up 500 weeks on the Official Albums Chart.
The band, whose hits include Rockin All Over The World and Whatever You Want, hit the figure when the latest chart was published yesterday on the strength of their latest release Aquostic (Stripped Bare). Guitarist and singer Francis Rossi, 65, said it felt “incredible” and said the band were “very proud”.
Status Quo first charted with their fifth album Piledriver which went top five in 1973 – five years after their debut was released. Over the years the band – which also features Rick Parfitt – have been helped by Blues For You which spent 30 weeks in the chart, and 12 Gold Bars which has notched up 48.
The band’s progress towards the total has slowed in recent years with a number of their releases achieving just one, two or three weeks on the chart, but Aquostic – a collection of acoustic versions – yesterday achieved its 10th week.
Plane crash kid fighting for life
A six-year-old boy was fighting for his life late yesterday after he was pulled from the wreckage of a plane crash which killed his parents.
The light aircraft came down in woodland near Popham Airfield, Hampshire, England, yesterday afternoon.
Lewis Tonkinson, 50, and Sally Tonkinson, 44, from Alcester in Warwickshire, died following the crash. Their son is being treated at Southampton General for life-threatening injuries.
A Hampshire Police spokeswoman said: “Enquiries have revealed that the aircraft took off from Bembridge on the Isle of Wight yesterday afternoon.”
Call for single-sex classes for boys
Boys aged 11 to 16 should be educated separately to avoid them being intimidated by girls, according to the new head of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) in Britain.
Alun Jones, president of the body which represents independent girls’ schools, said separating them in state schools could prevent boys falling behind girls in exam results.
He told the Sunday Times: “If you have a very bright, very driven, very focused, very articulate lady, which a lot of girls are, that intimidates a boy in the classroom, especially boys of average ability.
“The result is that boys don’t put their hands up to answer questions or they indulge in immature behaviour to avoid being shown up. Boys will put their hand up if they feel safe; they won’t if they are in fear of being ridiculed or humiliated. In the most formative years when adolescence is hitting with a vengeance, boys should be educated separately. More single-sex classes for boys in state schools might halt the decline in boys’ achievement.”
Baby snatched after triple shooting
Police were yesterday searching for a man suspected of shooting three people before snatching a three-week-old baby in Southern California.
Long Beach Police Department said officers went to a home on Saturday night after a call about a shooting. They found two men and one woman, the baby’s mother, with gunshot wounds. They said the victims were taken to hospital in a critical but stable condition. Police said a baby girl named Eliza Delacrus was missing from the home.
Detectives believe a man suspected of shooting the three may have taken the newborn and run away. They did not release any details about the suspect.
Craft nears Pluto after nine years
A lonely spacecraft is nearing Pluto after a three billion-mile journey lasting almost nine years.
Nasa’s New Horizons probe awoke from hibernation on December 6 and is preparing to explore the Solar System’s mysterious “ninth planet”. Discovered in 1930, Pluto was until recently described as the planet furthest from the Sun – an average distance of 3.67 billion miles.
In 2006 it was reclassified as a newly defined “dwarf planet” within the Kuiper Belt, a swarm of icy objects beyond the realm of true planets such as Earth and Mars.
The Kuiper Belt is one of the last unexplored regions of the Solar System and it is thought to be the source of comets.