This puzzle box that Elizabeth and Philip are fretting over is an enigma code breaking machine, and is probably pretty similar to a device used by the late Mavis Batey, one of Britain's only female code breakers during World War II. Batey died earlier this month at the age of 92, but her efforts at unscrambling the… » 11/24/13 6:30pm 11/24/13 6:30pm

Meet the "Inflatable King Dong Penis Costume BLACK"—because if you're going to go wander the streets dressed as a vulgar caricature of a black person's genitalia, you might as well throw in a little blackface too. Nice work, bros. » 10/22/12 7:40pm 10/22/12 7:40pm

Some British anti-choicers are in a huff because they think the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Britain's largest abortion provider, is "capitalizing" on recent controversy over cuts to the time limit for abortion with their new nationwide awareness campaign. Because women shouldn't know about the options… » 10/15/12 10:30am 10/15/12 10:30am

According to the New York Daily News, a Parisian fashion company called Georgede surveyed the skirt lengths of Europe (great novel title, BTW) and found that English women wear longer skirts and less revealing tops than the rest of Europe—an average of 10 centimeters longer, specifically. There's speculation that the… » 6/30/12 4:30pm 6/30/12 4:30pm

It has been drilled into us since childhood that there's no use crying over spilled milk, but it turns out that spilled milk—specifically milk wasted by people who buy it and don't use it—has a real effect on the environment. Scientists found that the milk poured down the drains of UK's residents has the same carbon… » 5/15/12 10:25am 5/15/12 10:25am

As part of her ongoing Diamond Jubilee Tour, Queen Elizabeth — the first queen ever to earn the unofficial epithet "Ninja Queen" — quietly snuck into the wedding of commoners John and Francis Canning at the Manchester Town Hall on Friday. In order to make the vow exchange as anticlimactic for the guests as possible, the… » 3/25/12 12:00pm 3/25/12 12:00pm

Mexico's German Sanchez takes part in the Men's 10m Platform preliminary Diving World Cup event at the London 2012 Olympic Aquatics Centre in London, Friday, Feb. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant) » 3/17/12 3:30pm 3/17/12 3:30pm

While picking up the clothes her slovenly-sounding boyfriend had strewn across the floor, British journalist Emma Barnett noticed that the label of said boyfriend's pants offered a quirky suggestion for washing the pair of pants whenever it accumulated an intolerable amount of floor grime: Give it to your woman. » 3/08/12 10:35pm 3/08/12 10:35pm

This video is hard to watch. It's a simulated teen rape, but it's only partially intended to shock. The British government commissioned the ad primarily to show teens that what they might think is "heavy petting" is really a sex crime. » 3/06/12 4:30pm 3/06/12 4:30pm

In a surely ill-fated bid to make kids more well-spoken, a school in Sheffield, England has banned slang. Says the school's deputy chief, » 2/14/12 4:30pm 2/14/12 4:30pm

Okay, Patrick Stewart probably doesn't like being typecast as Star Trek: The Next Generation's captain. He's also an anti-domestic violence advocate, and he's written a powerful piece in the Guardian protesting budget cuts to women's shelters in the UK. He says, » 2/06/12 3:15pm 2/06/12 3:15pm

Somebody at the Snaresbrook crown court must be a shitty tipper, because the food in the cafeteria has allegedly been contaminated with urine. Traces of it were apparently found in soup, salad, and even sandwiches, which customers had complained "smelled a bit off." Since only legal officers eat in the cafeteria, the… » 1/20/12 12:25pm 1/20/12 12:25pm

A former plumber was arrested for throwing her glass at a man's face after he hit on her in a bar. But a judge gave her a lenient sentence, ruling that she lost control because of prior sexual harassment at work. Are we seeing the birth of a new kind of defense? » 1/16/12 3:10pm 1/16/12 3:10pm

Not to alarm you, gentle readers, on this so-far placid Sunday morning, but Disney's marauding editors have hacked the Hundred Acre Wood to cheap, American pulp. According to the Telegraph, conscientious British readers are horrified at error-strewn, Yankified modern updates of the children's classic in which Pooh and… » 1/15/12 3:00pm 1/15/12 3:00pm