Five stories you might have missed in Peterborough
A new pool and sports quarter was promised for Peterborough, while a "lost town" prisoner of war camp will soon be open to visitors.
Here are five stories from Peterborough you might have missed this week.
Plans to speed up a project to build a new pool for Peterborough were announced on Wednesday.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the city would get funding for a new sports quarter.
It could be about 18 months before work on the project would begin, but a local swimming club said it was "thrilled" by the announcement.
A prisoner of war camp dating back to 1796 has been bought by Nene Park Trust.
The Peterborough charity hopes to introduce visitors to the site, which housed about 7,000 prisoners during the Napoleonic Wars, in September.
Historians described Norman Cross, just south of Yaxley, as a "lost town".
A petition to reinstate a school lollipop lady made redundant in cuts to school crossing patrols has gained more than 800 signatures.
Lisa Bryan helped pupils at Eye Primary School cross the road for more than 25 years.
The petition will go before the next full council meeting on 23 July.
Litter picker Mark Fishpool said he was a "one-man band" despite 900 people joining his online community group.
He said that while many people pledged to help out, only one or two volunteers turned out each year.
But Mr Fishpool said he had no intention of giving up his efforts and admitted he found picking up rubbish "very addictive".
A community building described as a "second home" that has been closed for a year is being given a new lease of life.
The Peterborough Nepalese Society agreed a long-term lease with the council to use Stafford Hall in Westwood.
The society, which previously used the building for gatherings, will carry out repair works with plans to reopen it later this year.
Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Council approves plans for 870 new homes near city
'No confidence' motion published ahead of meeting
Cash-strapped council 'not out of the woods'
Nene Park Trust
Peterborough Nepalese Society
Peterborough City Council
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Firefighters race to another blaze at 'famous' fire-stricken Manchester venue
Firefighters descended on a blaze-stricken derelict former Manchester venue again following another fire. The old Vasa club in Blackley erupted into flames in April last year. There was a major emergency services presence following a huge blaze at the building on White Moss Road. Another fire broke out at the site this afternoon. Firefighters were called out at 3.45pm and found rubbish ablaze within the building. READ MORE: Live M62 traffic updates as Greater Manchester crash leaves lanes closed READ MORE: Woman taken to hospital after car crashes into house They spent about 40 minutes tackling the fire. A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) said: 'Shortly after 3:45pm this afternoon (Sunday 14th June), three fire engines from Manchester Central and Broughton fire stations were called to reports of a fire in a derelict building on White Moss Road, Manchester. 'Firefighters arrived quickly and use one hose reel to extinguish the fire involving a small quantity of rubbish within the building. Firefighters were in attendance for around forty minutes.' Harpurhey councillor Pat Karney was among those who reminisced about the venue in the aftermath of last year's blaze. He said: "One of the most famous venues in north Manchester. "So many people will have great memories of the centre. "What a shame it has ended up like this." Police launched an investigation into the cause of the huge fire.
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
201 ways to say ‘f**k': what 1.7 billion words of online text shows about how the world swears
EDITOR'S NOTE: CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news analysis and commentary. The content is produced solely by The Conversation. This story contains graphic language that some readers may find offensive. Our brains swear for good reasons: to vent, cope, boost our grit and feel closer to those around us. Swear words can act as social glue and play meaningful roles in how people communicate, connect and express themselves – both in person, and online. In our new research published in Lingua, we analysed more than 1.7 billion words of online language across 20 English-speaking regions. We identified 597 different swear word forms – from standard words, to creative spellings like '4rseholes', to acronyms like 'wtf'. The findings challenge a familiar stereotype. Australians – often thought of as prolific swearers – are actually outdone by Americans and Brits, both in how often they swear, and in how many users swear online. Our study focused on publicly available web data (such as news articles, organisational websites, government or institutional publications, and blogs – but excluding social media and private messaging). We found vulgar words made up 0.036% of all words in the dataset from the United States, followed by 0.025% in the British data and 0.022% in the Australian data. Although vulgar language is relatively rare in terms of overall word frequency, it was used by a significant number of individuals. Between 12% and 13.3% of Americans, around 10% of Brits, and 9.4% of Australians used at least one vulgar word in their data. Overall, the most frequent vulgar word was 'fuck' – with all its variants, it amounted to a stunning 201 different forms. We focused on online language that didn't include social media, because large-scale comparisons need robust, purpose-built datasets. In our case, we used the Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) corpus, which was specifically designed to compare how English is used across different regions online. So how much were our findings influenced by the online data we used? Telling results come from research happening at the same time as ours. One study analysed the use of 'fuck' in social networks on X, examining how network size and strength influence swearing in the UK, US and Australia. It used data from 5,660 networks with more than 435,000 users and 7.8 billion words and found what we did. Americans use 'fuck' most frequently, while Australians use it the least, but with the most creative spelling variations (some comfort for anyone feeling let down by our online swearing stats). Americans hold relatively conservative attitudes toward public morality, and their high swearing rates are surprising. The cultural contradiction may reflect the country's strong individualistic culture. Americans often value personal expression – especially in private or anonymous settings like the internet. Meanwhile, public displays of swearing are often frowned upon in the US. This is partly due to the lingering influence of religious norms, which frame swearing – particularly religious-based profanity – as a violation of moral decency. Significantly, the only religious-based swear word in our dataset, 'damn', was used most frequently by Americans. Research suggests swearing is more acceptable in Australian public discourse. Certainly, Australia's public airing of swear words often takes visitors by surprise. The long-running road safety slogan 'If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot' is striking – such language is rare in official messaging elsewhere. Australians may be comfortable swearing in person, but our findings indicate they dial it back online – surprising for a nation so fond of its vernacular. In terms of preferences for specific forms of vulgarity, Americans showed a strong preference for variations of 'ass(hole)', the Irish favored 'feck', the British preferred 'cunt', and Pakistanis leaned toward 'butt(hole)'. The only statistically significant aversion we found was among Americans, who tended to avoid the word 'bloody' (folk wisdom claims the word is blasphemous). People from countries where English is the dominant language – such as the US, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland – tend to swear more frequently and with more lexical variety than people in regions where English is less dominant like India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Ghana or the Philippines. This pattern holds for both frequency and creativity in swearing. But Singapore ranked fourth in terms of frequency of swearing in our study, just behind Australia and ahead of New Zealand, Ireland and Canada. English in Singapore is increasingly seen not as a second language, but as a native language, and as a tool for identity, belonging and creativity. Young Singaporeans use social swearing to push back against authority, especially given the government's strict rules on public language. One possible reason we saw less swearing among non-native English speakers is that it is rarely taught. Despite its frequency and social utility, swearing – alongside humour and informal speech – is often left out of language education. Cultural, social and technological shifts are reshaping linguistic norms, blurring the already blurry lines between informal and formal, private and public language. Just consider the Aussie contributions to the July Oxford English Dictionary updates: expressions like 'to strain the potatoes' (to urinate), 'no wuckers' and 'no wucking furries' (from 'no fucking worries'). Swearing and vulgarity aren't just crass or abusive. While they can be used harmfully, research consistently shows they serve important communicative functions – colourful language builds rapport, expresses humour and emotion, signals solidarity and eases tension. It's clear that swearing isn't just a bad habit that can be easily kicked, like nail-biting or smoking indoors. Besides, history shows that telling people not to swear is one of the best ways to keep swearing alive and well. Martin Schweinberger is a lecturer in applied linguistics at The University of Queensland. Kate Burridge is professor of linguistics at Monash University. Republished under a Creative Commons license from The Conversation.
CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
201 ways to say ‘f**k': what 1.7 billion words of online text shows about how the world swears
EDITOR'S NOTE: CNN is showcasing the work of The Conversation, a collaboration between journalists and academics to provide news analysis and commentary. The content is produced solely by The Conversation. This story contains graphic language that some readers may find offensive. Our brains swear for good reasons: to vent, cope, boost our grit and feel closer to those around us. Swear words can act as social glue and play meaningful roles in how people communicate, connect and express themselves – both in person, and online. In our new research published in Lingua, we analysed more than 1.7 billion words of online language across 20 English-speaking regions. We identified 597 different swear word forms – from standard words, to creative spellings like '4rseholes', to acronyms like 'wtf'. The findings challenge a familiar stereotype. Australians – often thought of as prolific swearers – are actually outdone by Americans and Brits, both in how often they swear, and in how many users swear online. Our study focused on publicly available web data (such as news articles, organisational websites, government or institutional publications, and blogs – but excluding social media and private messaging). We found vulgar words made up 0.036% of all words in the dataset from the United States, followed by 0.025% in the British data and 0.022% in the Australian data. Although vulgar language is relatively rare in terms of overall word frequency, it was used by a significant number of individuals. Between 12% and 13.3% of Americans, around 10% of Brits, and 9.4% of Australians used at least one vulgar word in their data. Overall, the most frequent vulgar word was 'fuck' – with all its variants, it amounted to a stunning 201 different forms. We focused on online language that didn't include social media, because large-scale comparisons need robust, purpose-built datasets. In our case, we used the Global Web-Based English (GloWbE) corpus, which was specifically designed to compare how English is used across different regions online. So how much were our findings influenced by the online data we used? Telling results come from research happening at the same time as ours. One study analysed the use of 'fuck' in social networks on X, examining how network size and strength influence swearing in the UK, US and Australia. It used data from 5,660 networks with more than 435,000 users and 7.8 billion words and found what we did. Americans use 'fuck' most frequently, while Australians use it the least, but with the most creative spelling variations (some comfort for anyone feeling let down by our online swearing stats). Americans hold relatively conservative attitudes toward public morality, and their high swearing rates are surprising. The cultural contradiction may reflect the country's strong individualistic culture. Americans often value personal expression – especially in private or anonymous settings like the internet. Meanwhile, public displays of swearing are often frowned upon in the US. This is partly due to the lingering influence of religious norms, which frame swearing – particularly religious-based profanity – as a violation of moral decency. Significantly, the only religious-based swear word in our dataset, 'damn', was used most frequently by Americans. Research suggests swearing is more acceptable in Australian public discourse. Certainly, Australia's public airing of swear words often takes visitors by surprise. The long-running road safety slogan 'If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot' is striking – such language is rare in official messaging elsewhere. Australians may be comfortable swearing in person, but our findings indicate they dial it back online – surprising for a nation so fond of its vernacular. In terms of preferences for specific forms of vulgarity, Americans showed a strong preference for variations of 'ass(hole)', the Irish favored 'feck', the British preferred 'cunt', and Pakistanis leaned toward 'butt(hole)'. The only statistically significant aversion we found was among Americans, who tended to avoid the word 'bloody' (folk wisdom claims the word is blasphemous). People from countries where English is the dominant language – such as the US, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Ireland – tend to swear more frequently and with more lexical variety than people in regions where English is less dominant like India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Ghana or the Philippines. This pattern holds for both frequency and creativity in swearing. But Singapore ranked fourth in terms of frequency of swearing in our study, just behind Australia and ahead of New Zealand, Ireland and Canada. English in Singapore is increasingly seen not as a second language, but as a native language, and as a tool for identity, belonging and creativity. Young Singaporeans use social swearing to push back against authority, especially given the government's strict rules on public language. One possible reason we saw less swearing among non-native English speakers is that it is rarely taught. Despite its frequency and social utility, swearing – alongside humour and informal speech – is often left out of language education. Cultural, social and technological shifts are reshaping linguistic norms, blurring the already blurry lines between informal and formal, private and public language. Just consider the Aussie contributions to the July Oxford English Dictionary updates: expressions like 'to strain the potatoes' (to urinate), 'no wuckers' and 'no wucking furries' (from 'no fucking worries'). Swearing and vulgarity aren't just crass or abusive. While they can be used harmfully, research consistently shows they serve important communicative functions – colourful language builds rapport, expresses humour and emotion, signals solidarity and eases tension. It's clear that swearing isn't just a bad habit that can be easily kicked, like nail-biting or smoking indoors. Besides, history shows that telling people not to swear is one of the best ways to keep swearing alive and well. Martin Schweinberger is a lecturer in applied linguistics at The University of Queensland. Kate Burridge is professor of linguistics at Monash University. Republished under a Creative Commons license from The Conversation.
