News

Glastonbury music festival ended last night after 3 days of live music, huge crowds and (unusually) pretty good weather.

British folk band Mumford and Sons closed this year's festival, headlining the main stage last night. In their typically energetic style they got the crowd dancing throughout their set, before ending with a unique rendition of the classic Beatles song ‘With a Little Help from my Friends'. Fittingly, they got a number of other performers to join them on stage for the final song, including Vampire Weekend, The Vaccines and The Staves- you can watch it below.

"In Bulgaria it is often impossible to know where organised crime ends and legitimate business begins. The nexus between the two is characterised by complex bureaucratic structures, opaque corporate accounting and a maze of offshore accounts." The journalist John O'Brennan gives us an explanatory view of the causes of the protests in Bulgaria, widely ignored by the media during the first week of manifestations across the nation.

Besides the economic stagnation, lack of jobs and youths' future undermined by incertitude in the poorest country in the EU, the principal cause of the outrage and malcontent that led civilians to the street is the corruption of the political elite, accused of being oligarchs and biased.

The escalated bribery, dotted by many episodes of embezzlements and elections of people whose lifestyles and morality are rather ambiguous, exasperates citizens. They are making demands that the current three-month-old, socialist-led government step down, for new and legitimate elections, for effective strategies to fight organized crime and for reforms to improve the stagnant economy.

People complain all around the world. But I would not condemn it. The fact that they are not satisfied with their lives means that they want to move on. It is still better than staying idle and putting up with one's current lot.

It is almost Murphy's Law, or let's call it Erik's law, that there are as many people seeking jobs in London as there are residents (or even more, I would say, because of the number of people commuting to work). But whenever I greet someone new in our house, they will always say that they are looking for a job. I reply: "so are 7 million other people here".

Even if they are doing well, everyone is thinking of a change. But it is natural. Life is moving fast and if we sleep in, we will be overtaken by someone from the long queue with CVs at the manager's desk. I personally hope I will be replaced at SportsDirect by the good-looking Spanish girl interviewed last month.

The football season may be over, but it is still a big summer of sport for Britain, no more so than over the last few days. The Lions British rugby team played their first match on Saturday against Australia, before the England cricket team played India in the final of the ODI Champions Trophy, which was followed up with the start of Wimbledon yesterday.

Lions Hang on Against Australia

Once every four years, the best rugby union players from England, Ireland Scotland and Wales are brought together to represent the Lions. They then tour a southern hemisphere country, playing against the national team in a series of games.

This time around, they are touring Australia, and after endless warm-up matches, they finally played the first ‘Test' (against Australia's national team) on Saturday. In a topsy-turvy match that turned into a mini-classic, there were stunning tries, ridiculous misses and plenty of big hits. Watch the highlights below:

Brazil is using the upcoming sporting events to present the idea that it belongs to the world's richest countries; however the protests against the social problems do the exact opposite.

Brazil is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and is getting ready for the organization of the FIFA World Cup in 2014 and the Olympics two years later. However, over the last week, the streets of the major cities have been stormed by protesters, using the football Confederations Cup as a way to get global attention.

They are objecting to social injustices and increasing costs, especially those of public transport- since 1994, the bus ticket price in Sao Paulo has increased by 540%. The discontent of the majority testifies to the fact that the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few and the rest fail to pay for a middle class status.

The Business of Football

In contrast, on the football field Brazil is doing well at the Confederation Cup- a kind of rehearsal competition one year prior to the World Cup. They have always been good at the ‘low cost' game brought by the British workers at the end of the 19th century.