The five stories you will be reading about this week

From the Mobo Awards in Leeds to the opening of the long-awaited Broadway shopping centre in Bradford, Grant Woodward looks at what this week has in store.

BOOKED OUT

The winner of the UK’s most prestigious non-fiction award, the Samuel Johnson Prize, will be revealed this evening.

Worth £20,000 to the winner, the bookies reckon it’s a straight fight between Landmarks, Robert Macfarlane’s meditation on words, landscape and the relationship between the two, and The Unravelling, an examination of the missed opportunites in post-Saddam Iraq by British professor Emma Sky, a former adviser to the US in the conflict-ravaged country.

GRAND DESIGNS

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The latest round of the long-running saga over an illegally built mock Tudor castle will be played out at the High Court in London today. Farmer Robert Fidler put up the house at Honeycrock Farm in Surrey in 2002 before leaving it hidden behind hay bales until 2006.

Mr Fidler believed it would be immune from planning enforcement because it had been complete for four years, but he was ordered to demolish the structure in 2007.

Several failed appeals later, he was ordered to demolish the property by June this year. His failure to do so means he is now subject to contempt of court proceedings.

PISTORIOUS BACK IN COURT

Fresh from his release on probation, Oscar Pistorius will be back in court tomorrow as prosecutors press for a murder conviction against the Paralympian.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Pistorius spent 10 months in jail for shooting dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, after his conviction for manslaughter last year. He insisted he mistook Ms Steenkamp for an intruder.

State prosecutors want his conviction to be reviewed and converted to murder, with a minimum sentence of 15 years.

TOY STORY

The Toy Retailers Association Dream Toys event on Wednesday will unveil the toys deemed to be must-haves this Christmas.

This year’s list of top children’s toys is expected to be dominated by the big and small screen, including Frozen, Thunderbirds, and a Tumbling Stuart toy inspired by blockbuster movie Minions.

HERE COME THE MOBOS

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

LEEDS’ First Direct Arena has previously been the venue for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year show and on Wednesday evening it will get more national exposure as it plays host to the annual MOBO Awards.

Honouring “music of black origin”, performers on the night will include Rita Ora, Ella Eyre and Naughty Boy. The show will be broadcast live on ITV2.

BRADFORD’S WAIT IS OVER

Bonfire Night on Thursday is sure to see some fireworks in Bradford, where a decade-long wait will finally come to an end with the opening of the Broadway shopping centre.

Work began on the £260m development in March 2004 but was later mothballed by developer Westfield. The vast boarded-off space in the centre of Bradford became known locally as the “hole in the ground” until work restarted in January last year.

OUT OF THIS WORLD

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

British astronaut Tim Peake will be chatting to the media this Friday ahead of his mission to space. The former Apache helicopter pilot was chosen from 8,000 hopefuls to visit the International Space Station, making him the first UK astronaut in space for over 20 years.

After three years of training with the European Space Agency, he is set to blast off on December 15 and will be on the ISS for five months.

Related topics: