News about Ian Dury

Sting - then known as Gordon Sumner - taught English at St Paul's School, Cramlington, Northumberland, before gaining fame as a rock star. He recalled how one pupil skipped school and put on a booming voice in a phone call to announce his absence in his autobiography Broken Music. The boy erupted: 'Er... It's me mam.' When Mr Sumner asked who was calling, he replied: 'Er, mam.' Ricky Ross, a frontman for Deacon Blue, was an English tutor at St Columba of Iona, Glasgow.

In the mid-1970s, the punk movement burst on the scene, with bands including the Sex Pistols and The Clash. Collectors are pushing up the prices of posters for punk gigs and records to new highs, almost 50 years old. Last month, a poster for the little-known punk band Bazooka Joe went for £28,000. The reason for the high price? The poster, which promoted the band's 1975 appearance at St Martin's Art School in London, includes a'service band', which was later discovered to be the undiscovered Sex Pistols.

PATRICK MARMION: Well, they've been selling mince pies in M&S for weeks, and the seasonal lights are set to light up on Stratford's High Street. So perhaps we shouldn't be concerned with the pro-arrivalance of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Christmas Carol, starring Adrian Edmondson as Scrooge. Moreover, there are so many Dickens' yuletide yarn lines around the world this year that it's likely that the RSC would order theirs early. Nor is there any doubt that this will be one of the best in Dickensian Victoriana, thanks to Rachel Kavanaugh's sumptuous production of wigs, waistcoats, and wassail.

The headlines were troubling: 'Highly contagious polio spreading in the United Kingdom for the first time in years' and 'Urgent investigations after a rare virus were found' are just a couple of examples. 'Polio terror,' a new word was printed on the back of a simple read.' During routine inspections of London sewage water, health authorities learned they had identified poliovirus. According to the report, the extremely infectious bug, which can cause paralysis and lifelong disability, was silently spreading. Following one of the most high-achieving worldwide vaccination campaigns in history, polio, which mostly harms young children, had not been seen in the United Kingdom since 1984.

When news of their divorce was announced today, FEMAIL revealed the ten children shared between Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch and supermodel Jerry Hall. Rupert Murdoch has six children to three different women: Prudence MacLeod, 53, Elisabeth, 51, Lachlan, 53, and Chloe, 19, the front row; Elisabeth, 1949, Lachlan, 19, Chloe, 19 (left, with Grace and Chloe, 19) (left, with Lachlan and James) Jerry Jagger, 30, Elizabeth Jagger, 36, Gabriel Jagger, 36, with whom she meets with her ex Mick Jagger (right, James, Georgia and Elizabeth, and right inset, Gabriel with Mick).