Portrait of the Week - 17 September 2005

As the price of petrol rose above £1 per litre, a group of protesters calling itself the Fuel Lobby threatened to blockade motorways and oil refineries in protest against fuel duty. Many petrol stations ran out of fuel as motorists resorted to panic-buying. Loyalists rioted in Belfast for two nights, injuring 30 police officers, after the Orange Order was told by the Parades Commission to alter the route of one of its marches by 100 yards. The TUC gathered in Brighton for its annual conference and demanded a return of the right for secondary picketing. A team from Edinburgh University announced it had succeeded in creating a human embryo using an egg but no sperm. A team from Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said it had invented an airliner whose engines could not be heard beyond the bounds of the airport where it was taking off or landing. Danish researchers claimed that stress can cut the risk of breast cancer. A 71-year-old vicar was jailed for refusing to pay his council tax. The Muslim Council of Britain demanded that the annual Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January be scrapped on the grounds that it is offensive to Muslims. A steam railway in Somerset appealed to train enthusiasts not to have their ashes scattered over the line as they cause delays. England won the Ashes for the first time in 18 years by securing a draw against Australia at the Oval. A wayward golfer teeing off at the first hole at a course in Darlington managed to land the ball in the hole on the 18th green. The Prince of Wales disclosed that he used to sing Scottish ballads to seals as a child. Hermann Bondi, the cosmologist who expounded the theory of an ever-expanding universe, died, aged 85.