300m pounds ‘flying palace’ will have its own concert hall!

September 27th, 2009 LONDON - A high-profile Russian political family is all set to give stiff competition to the Queen's Buckingham Palace, as they plan British capital's second biggest residential building at a cost of about 100 million pounds. The Witanhurst, a dilapidated mansion in Highgate, north London, was purchased for 50 million pounds by a British Virgin Islands-based company.

September 8th, 2009 LONDON - A bizarre heirloom of the Royal Family has emerged in the form of a pair of oversized knickers belonging to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. The linen "split drawers", which had been hidden in a private collection for 100 years, measured 52 inches around the waist, and were sold at auction for 600 pounds to the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection charity.

September 8th, 2009 LONDON - A record breaking 205,000 plastic ducks floated down the Thames on Sunday as part of the third annual Great British Duck Race in London. The event shattered the previous record of 175,000 ducks in a similar race held in China earlier this year.

August 16th, 2009 LONDON - Prince Harry is all set to start on his advanced pilot training after having completed 40 hours of flight with flying colours. The 24-year-old has gained expertise in take-off, landing, basic helicopter handling and some advanced handling.

July 30th, 2009 Indo-ASIAN NEWS SERVICE LONDON - It hasn’t been a brilliant week for Lakshmi Niwas Mittal. First the chairman and main owner of steelmaker ArcelorMittal was reported to have put his ‘Summer Palace’, an 11-bedroom mansion set over an acre of land in north London, for rent.

July 22nd, 2009 LONDON - If reports are to be believed, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni have been spending over 660 pounds a day on flowers. The revelation comes as a public audit has surfaced amid the worst recession for decades.

July 17th, 2009 LONDON - Brit Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been revealed to have spent 4.6million pounds flying round the world in private chartered aircraft over the last year at taxpayers' expense. Turns out the travel fare is double the 2.3million pounds bill that Tony Blair ran up in his final year in Downing Street, reports the Daily Express.

June 30th, 2009 LONDON - An annual account of the Royal Household's expenditure has revealed that Queen will run out of funds by 2012, her Diamond Jubilee year, unless the government increases the Civil List. The Civil List, which pays for the running of the Royal Household, has not increased in the last 20 years, and at the moment any request for an increase in funds would be difficult to tackle, as UK is suffering from the global economic crisis- the worst since the Second World War.

June 27th, 2009 LONDON - British monarch Queen Elizabeth II has said that she will not accede to an MPs demand to open Buckingham Palace more often to the public to generate millions in extra revenue for badly needed repairs. According to The Telegraph, the Commons Public Accounts Committee has urged the royal household to devise a business plan for keeping the building open longer to try to pay for a backlog of maintenance that has risen to 32 million pounds.

May 6th, 2009 LONDON - Singer Rihanna, who was to perform in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) later this month, has cancelled the concert because she feels she is not ready to take to stage yet. The show was to be Rihanna's first public performance since she was allegedly assaulted by ex-boyfriend Chris Brown Feb 8, reported femalefirst.co.uk.

April 26th, 2009 LONDON - Indian steelmaker Laxmi Niwas Mittal remains Britain's richest man, but is worth a massive 16.9 billion pounds less than last year, the Sunday Times Rich List said. Mittal, who continues to hold an Indian passport, has sustained losses of more than three times the level of the Russian oil tycoon Roman Abramovich, his nearest rival as the year's biggest losers, who was down 4.7 billion pounds to seven billion pounds.

April 14th, 2009 LONDON - Recession hit fashionistas in the UK have now got a bargain which would certainly make them stand tall, and that too without burning a hole in their pocket - a pair of heels costing just 9 pounds a pair. Touted as Britain's biggest bargain, the cheap shoes have become a rage after going on sale at discount clothes store Primark.

April 8th, 2009 LONDON - Tickets for controversial comic Russell Brand's stand-up gig are being sold for as low as 2.50 pounds. Seatwave, an online fan-to-fan ticket exchange operating in the European market, was still left with over 140 tickets for the upcoming show at London's 14,500 seat O2 Arena.

April 6th, 2009 LONDON - Former 'The Beatles' members Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reunited for a concert on April 4, to raise money for a meditation charity. McCartney headlined the show at New York City's Radio City Music Hall as part of The David Lynch Foundation's 'Change Begins Within' concert in aid of Transcendental Meditation.

January 30th, 2009 LONDON - British pop star Robbie Williams has rewarded himself with a pay packet of 5.5 million pounds. Thesun.co.uk reports that Williams has paid himself for not doing anything the past year.