Wicked stepmothers

Prince Harry said that he was worried Camilla would become his ‘wicked stepmother’. But she would have to be rotten indeed to match the English monarchy’s original wicked stepmother, Aelfthryth, who married King Edgar in 965. Upon Edgar’s death the succession should have passed to his elder son, Edward, but Aelfthryth had other ideas, wanting her own son, Aethelred – King Edgar’s younger son – to take the throne. She invited Edward to meet at Corfe Castle, Dorset, where, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, she sent out her servants to stab the boy – then aged about 16 – to death. As a result, it was Aethelred who became king, with Aelfthryth becoming regent until he reached adulthood.

Crime time

Why are people in prison?

Violence against the person 20,341

Sexual offences 12,536

Drug offences 10,399

Theft 6,163

Robbery 5,809

Possession of weapons  2,334

Public order offences 1,282

Criminal damage/arson 1,034

Fraud 595

Source: Ministry of Justice

Gender identities

How many transgender people are there in England and Wales?

– 94% of people say they are the same gender they were at birth, and 0.5% (262,000) say they are not. The rest declined to answer the question on the census.

– 48,000 (0.1%) say they are a trans man.

– 48,000 (0.1%) say they are a trans woman.

 – 30,000 (0.06%) say they are non-binary.

– 18,000 (0.04%) describe themselves in some other way.

Source: ONS (from 2021 census)

Sleeping satellites

A rocket fired at 35,000ft from a Boeing 747 which took off from Spaceport Cornwall failed to reach its orbit and burned up, taking with it the nine satellites which it was supposed to launch. They would have been the first satellites to be launched from Britain or indeed Europe. But how many satellites are there in space?

– The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs lists 14,281 objects as having been launched into space since the first Soviet sputnik in 1957. Of those, around 7,500 are believed still to be orbiting the Earth.