News in brief: Happy Kingstonians and a Best Independent Retailer award

The River reports bite-sized news from this month in the “sixth happiest place to live in England”.

Kingston is sixth happiest place to live

Kingston upon Thames has been named the sixth happiest place to live in England.

The results follow a survey of 40,000 homeowners conducted by property company Rightmove.

Richard Santhouse, a third year motorsport engineering student, said: “I can see why it’s on the list. The people are very friendly; it’s very clean and helps make anyone feel at home.”

Towns in England were judged on safety and friendliness.

Harrogate tops the list followed by Stockport and Ipswich.East London was voted as the place that people were the unhappiest to be living in.

Rightmove director Miles Shipside said: “Among reasons why London was marked down are topics that may be considered as sacrifices when living in a major city, such as the amount of space to live comfortably and safely.”

10 points for Tiffindor

Neha Ramu, a 12-year-old Tiffin Girls’ School pupil, achieved a score of 162 on a Mensa IQ test, which makes her smarter than Albert Einstein.

The high score puts her in the top one per cent of brightest people in the country and higher than Stephen Hawkings, Bill Gates and Albert Einstein who are all thought to have an IQ of 160.

Neha said: “Maths and chemistry are easy, but I need to work on the rest, just like my friends do.”

Both Neha’s parents are doctors and never realised how intelligent their daughter was until she made the perfect score of 280/280 at the Tiffin Girls entrance exam.

Neha’s mother Jayashree said: “We are both so proud.”

Neha said she hopes to go to Harvard and become a doctor.

A real feast of a record store on Eden Street

Banquet Records has won Best Independent Retailer at the Music Week Awards, proving the store’s motto of being “more than your local record shop”.

The awards took place earlier this month in London.

Ollie Thorn, shop assistant and DJ at New Slang, said: “It’s recognition for all the hard work we do throughout the year. I don’t know any other record store that puts on so many gigs and club nights. We dedicate our lives to it.”

He put the win down to Banquet accepting HMV vouchers when the chain went bust back in January, where in exchange for a voucher customers could get 50 per cent off in store.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply