Ashleigh 19 has been allergic to water for five years

Teenager Ashleigh Morris can't go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day's work - she's allergic to water.

Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash.

Ashleigh, from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she's lived with since she was 14.


She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria - so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide.

When Ashleigh gets wet her body explodes in sore, itchy red lumps that take about two hours to ease.

She has to wash. But showering is a painful experience and she can only do it for a minute at a time.

These brief showers are the only contact Ashleigh has with water. The one thing she doesn't miss is the washing up.

"People find it hard to believe, they say things like 'Oh my god, how do you wash.

"That makes me feel dirty, but I consider myself a very clean person," she said.

Most of us take showering for granted but for Ashleigh it's a painful endurance that often reduces her to tears.

"Although my rash is unsightly, and often looks like I'm diseased, the feeling is so much worse than it looks," she said.

"I can't go anywhere for about two hours afterwards because it's so severe.

"There's been many occasions where I've been so itchy, I've made myself bleed from scratching."

Away from water pretty Ashleigh appears like any other healthy teenager.

She leads a busy life studying Journalism and Public Relations at university and working in an office.

But if she gets wet she attracts unwanted attention.

"People stare at me in the street," said Ashleigh who lives with her mum Louise Miller, 42.

"After a shower I stay at home until it goes away, that frees me of the burden of having to explain."

Ashleigh spends a lot of time explaining her condition because few people have heard of it. Most doctors and dermatologists have never seen a case of it. "Many people don't even believe me when I tell them," said Ashleigh, who hardly believed it herself at first.

She developed the condition five years ago after an acute case of tonsillitis. She was prescribed a heavy dose of penicillin that rid her of the tonsillitis but left her with another problem.

"I suddenly started getting a rash after I showered or swam," says Ashleigh who used to swim regularly and spend a lot of time at the beach.

"I tried to ignore it but it got progressively worse so I went to see a dermatologist."

Ashleigh's dermatologist, Professor Rodney Sinclair, told her the penicillin had altered the histamine levels in her body and caused the Aquagenic Urticaria to occur.

There is no cure and no successful treatment for the condition so the gravity of the situation began to dawn on the 14-year-old Ashleigh.

"I was in disbelief for a while, but I soon realised how serious it was.

"I cried for a few hours, then picked myself up, and kept going. I realised it was something I had to live with," she says.

So Ashleigh found ways to avoid water - she stopped doing sports and anything that made her sweat.

She makes sure she stays in air-conditioned places and always has an umbrella in her car. Her family and boyfriend of three years, Adam, 23, are very supportive but her condition makes intimate moments with her Adam a little difficult.

"We have to sleep with a sheet between us at night, and I can't go near him if he's sweaty," said Ashleigh.

Even the experts seem a little vague about Aquagenic Urticaria.

Dermatologists agree there's an association with elevated blood histamine levels, but there are other processes at work since antihistamine drugs often provide no relief at all.

Nina Goad of the British Association of Dermatologists says: "There isn't a wealth of information about Aquagenic Urticaria because it's extremely rare.

"We're not sure how many cases there are in the world and we do not yet fully understand the precise mechanisms that trigger the weals."

A YOUNG FEMALE RUSSIAN'S 2008

A young Russian woman's book about the pitfalls of living as an immigrant in Britain has become a surprise best-seller in Moscow ... and it paints a distinctly unflattering portrait of the natives.


Instead of finding London the city of her dreams, 23-year-old Olga Freer moans about the shopping hours, the public transport and the bad manners she encounters. In a litany of complaints about her adopted country, in her book The UK For Beginners she claims that Britons:

• Habitually scratch their bottoms in public places;

• Never remove the price stickers from the soles of their shoes;

• Fail to iron their clothes; and

• Are obsessed with TV programmes about buying and selling houses.

She says the country is full of "prudish, arrogant people who eat healthy food for breakfast – porridge or bacon and eggs. But in reality the nation suffers from obesity".

Some 60 per cent of the female population wear size 22 clothes, she says.

Do you agree with Olga's opinion of Britain? Tell us what you think in Reader Comments below

"But being overweight doesn't stop red-faced English women wearing minis and shaking their haunches at discos – some spectacle! It's a nation with girls, debauched girls to the last degree. The only sacred thing for them is Christmas, for which they wait 364 days a year."

Olga, who faked her CV to find work as a pizza-leaflet distributor, nightclub hostess and shop assistant in Oxford Street, is particularly damning about the "lazy" British working class.

"Every second immigrant achieves much more here than the ordinary Brits," she writes.

"The ordinary Brit, having a choice between education and a job on one hand, and unemployment on the other, would always prefer to live on the dole.

"Then all they have to do is send £10 notes through the mail as birthday presents for their various children who they don't see. The greed of these islanders was a real shock to me."

Olga came to Britain in 2002 when she was 18, and married a year later. She now has a son but the marriage ended in divorce, though she secured British citizenship.

She writes: "By settling in England I made my dream come true. The only plan I had since I was about 13 was to come here as an immigrant. I had no idea how it would work, but I knew that one day I'd become a UK citizen.

"I was so taken up with this idea that it never occurred to me that living in a foreign land, without friends, without mum's cooking and Latin American soap operas on Russian TV in the evenings, may not make me happy but rather vice versa.

"I'm not surprised any more how awful the free health service is. Like everybody else, I curse unreasonably high taxes. I've got accustomed to Indian cuisine, which seems to have replaced the traditional fish and chips that I used to dream about."

Olga, whose father was an official in the Ministry of Agriculture and mother a company financial director, says she is currently studying law at Westminster University and working in a London legal practice.

She told The Mail on Sunday last night: "Russian people are more heartful and soulful. I was bought up in the centre of Moscow, but here things are much worse.

"Here, for example, you switch on the water in the kitchen and the water in the bathroom goes off; here the central heating sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. At home it is always warm because the Government takes care of it for you.

"In Britain if it is your birthday, people send you a £10 or £20 note inside a card – like they can't be bothered with you.

"In Russia 99 per cent of people have been to university. Here you get on a bus and the way people talk, you can tell they aren't interested in anything other than football.

"I used to go to the theatre in Russia with my family a lot. But here I went once with my then in-laws and in the interval people were bringing in beer – were they there for the performance or a pint or what?"

She added: "Britain has a lot of exhibitions from abroad here, but English people don't seem to appreciate it. I go to museums or exhibitions twice a month and apart from a few Britons, most of the others are Chinese tourists."

Olga did concede one thing: "You can cook – I quite like Sunday roast dinners."

But she added quickly: "When you come home here, you open the fridge and what do you see? It's all supermarket food or half-cooked stuff. Do Brits ever cook from scratch? It is not because your society is incredibly advanced, it is because it is lazy.

Ironically, though, Olga is no fan of the British Government's immigration policy. She says: "I am against it. You should close your borders."

New bride dies in her love's arms

DAVIE, Fla. - Kim Sjostrom wanted a real-life version of the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which played in the background as friends fixed her hair and makeup before her own marriage ceremony.

But less than an hour after she and Teddy Efkarpides were wed, Sjostrom crumpled in her husband's arms during a Greek song that means "Love Me."

At 36, Sjostrom was dead from heart disease.

The wedding had became a project at Davie Elementary School, where Sjostrom taught first grade. Fellow teachers provided the wedding gown, the flowers and decorations. One of them, an ordained minister, performed the ceremony.

"It was perfect for her," said Dominic Church, the minister friend.

Sjostrom carried blue and white flowers during the ceremony — the colors of the Greek flag — as she exchanged vows with Efkarpides, a 43-year-old carpenter and Navy veteran. They had met three years to the day before the Jan. 19 wedding.

During the couple's first dance, Sjostrom complained of being lightheaded. Efkarpides thought his wife, a diabetic, needed sugar, but she collapsed.

Wedding guests, paramedics and doctors at a nearby hospital were unable to revive her.

She had a previous cardiac episode in her 20s and was a poster child — literally — for juvenile diabetes, relatives and friends said. Efkarpides recalled seeing the poster featuring her on New York subways.

He consoles himself by reading a list of "101 Reasons Why I Love You" that Sjostrom gave him their first Christmas together. "Number 1. You make me smile."

No. 98 is especially difficult: "You're the one I want to grow old with."

Lottery winner who blew his £10 million jackpot

When hospital porter John McGuinness scooped £10 million on the lottery he began spending his fortune in predictable fashion.

He lavished more than £3 million on close members of his family, including a £750,000 gift to his ex-wife Hazel.

This was inevitably followed by the luxury houses, a villa in Spain, a fleet of supercars, globetrotting holidays and of course jewellery for his wife.

Unfortunately for Mr McGuinness,44, he couldn't resist the opportunity to indulge in his greatest passion...football.


While he could afford fast cars and foreign holidays, bankrolling a football club put him in a different league altogether.

Now, thanks largely to a disastrous £4 million investment in lowly Scottish side Livingston FC, Mr McGuinness is more than £2 million in debt and is set to have his house repossessed by a bank.

The Royal Bank of Scotland last month won a court order to take possession of his £500,000 family home and he has reportedly been declared bankrupt over a £35,000 debt owed for a Porsche sports car that has now been repossessed.

He is likely to be evicted following an appeal hearing in four weeks time and meanwhile he is staying out of sight behind the gates of the converted schoolhouse in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, and refusing to comment on his downfall.


Not surprisingly, he and his loyal wife Sandra, 39, are understood to be deeply upset by this turn of events.

And to make matters worse Sandra's parents, who live in a small house on the site, are set to be made homeless too.

He and his wife are preparing to go back to work ­ something that was unthinkable just over a decade ago when they had the world at their feet.

Sandra, a former nurse, is said to have enrolled on a hairdressing course in the hope of starting a new career and the couple are even applying for a council house.

A friend said: "John has been decimated by what has happened. In no time at all, he's gone from millionaire to someone who's had his car repossessed.

"Sandra has an appointment with the local housing office to see if they can come up with a council house. People might not like to think of John deserving a subsidised home but his needs are as great as any other homeless person."

The extraordinary 'rags to riches to rags' story began in January 1997 when Mr McGuinness hit the £10m jackpot while earning £150 a week and sleeping on his parents floor.

He swapped his battered-old Vauxhall Astra for a £140,000 Ferrari Modena Spyder. Others followed and at one point he had six in the drive, including a Bentley Arnage T Black Label and various Mercedes, Jaguars and BMW¹s.

He snapped up a £500,000 seafront apartment in Majorca, went on Caribbean cruises, five-star ski trips and holidays around the world.

He also spent £200,000 on his lavish wedding to Sandra in 2003.

But the invitation to join the board of second division Livingston FC proved to be his downfall. The Celtic fan and football-lover couldn't resist the glamour of helping to run his own club.

He helped Livingston reach the Scottish Premier League and win the league cup in 2004. However, success on the field was not mirrored in the club's finances and it crashed into administration.

Mr McGuinness had used his personal fortune to guarantee club loans and they were called in. Legal battles ensued, which Mr McGuinness ultimately lost and his millions disappeared.

With huge legal costs adding to his debts, the former multi-millionaire owes £2.1m to the Royal Bank of Scotland and is said to have no money left to pay the bank with. Even his house will only pay off a fraction of the debts.

His cars have had to go and expensive jewellery, including a Rolex watch, have been sold at cutprice rates in a bid to raise cash.

Commenting on his disastrous football investment three years ago, he said: "I probably was a bit naïve and perhaps made a mistake but I got involved with the best possible intentions.

"I just want my life to get back to the way it was before ­ but minus the football.

"People see me and see a really quiet chap who might help people out. But I have learned a great deal from the experience, which I suppose is a positive thing to take out of it."

Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams

The Archbishop of Canterbury was facing demands to quit last night as the row over sharia law intensified.


Leading bishops publicly contradicted Dr Rowan Williams's call for Islamic law to be brought into the British legal system.

With the Church of England plunged into crisis, senior figures were said to be discussing the archbishop's future.

One member of the church's "Cabinet", the Archbishop's Council, was reported as saying: "There have been a lot of calls for him to resign. I don't suppose he will take any notice, but, yes, he should resign."

Officials at Lambeth Palace told the BBC Dr Williams was in a "state of shock" and "completely overwhelmed" by the scale of the row.

It was said that he could not believe the fury of the reaction. The most damaging attack came from the Pakistan-born Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali.

He said it would be "simply impossible" to bring sharia law into British law "without fundamentally affecting its integrity".

Sharia "would be in tension with the English legal tradition on questions like monogamy, provisions for divorce, the rights of women, custody of children, laws of inheritance and of evidence.

"This is not to mention the relation of freedom of belief and of expression to provisions for blasphemy and apostasy."


The church's second most senior leader, Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu, refused to discuss the matter. But he has said sharia law "would never happen" in Britain.

Politicians joined the chorus of condemnation, with Downing Street saying British law should be based on British values. Tory and LibDem leaders also voiced strong criticism.

Even prominent Muslims were rounding on Dr Williams. Shahid Malik, Labour MP for Dewsbury, said: "I haven't experienced any clamour or fervent desire for sharia law in this country.

"If there are people who prefer sharia law there are always countries where they could go and live."

Khalid Mahmood, Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, rejected the idea that British law forces Muslims to choose between their religion and their society.

He said: "This will alienate people from other communities because they will think it is what Muslims want - and it is not."

The Muslim Council of Britain came to Dr Williams's aid, however, describing his comments in a lecture to lawyers and a BBC interview as "thoughtful".

But Oxford University Islamic scholar Professor Tariq Ramadan admitted: "These kinds of statements just feed the fears of fellow citizens. I really think we, as Muslims, need to come up with something that we abide by the common law and within these latitudes there are possibilities for us to be faithful to Islamic principles."

The archbishop is likely to come under heavy fire next week at a meeting of the Church's General Synod.

Liberal and feminist critics have been appalled by the thought of sharia law while evangelical opponents believe Dr Williams has failed to defend Christianity.

The archbishop was already battling intractable difficulties within the church over gay rights, a row which began nearly five years ago and has brought him criticism from all sides. Later this year he has to face a conference of hundreds of bishops from around the world which threatens further bitter division.

Dr Williams's opponents on the conservative evangelical wing - who resent his liberal beliefs on issues such as gay rights - were suggesting last night that the archbishop is finished.

The Reverend Paul Dawson of the Reform group of around 500 clergy said: "We are very sad that he does not seem to be able to articulate a clear Christian vision for Britain. It is true to say that there is a lot of dissatisfaction."

Dr Williams defended himself in a Lambeth Palace statement saying he had been trying to "tease out" the issue.

The archbishop had said it could help build a better and more cohesive society if Muslims were able to choose to have marital disputes or financial matters, for example, dealt with in a sharia court. The adoption of some elements of sharia law "seems unavoidable".

But the statement insisted: "The archbishop made no proposals for sharia, and certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law."

Even fellow bishops, however, think this is precisely what Dr Williams did say.

Bishop of Southwark Tom Butler, a liberal who would normally be expected to defend Dr Williams, said the archbishop had been entering a minefield and added: "It will take a great deal of thought and work before I think it is a good idea."

He was more blunt in a circular to clergy in his diocese, saying he had yet to be convinced of the feasibility of incorporating any non-Christian religious law into the English legal system.

Housing allowances in latest expenses scandal

Four husband and wife couples in the Commons are cashing in on taxpayer-funded housing allowances by claiming twice for the same home.

They are eligible for double the money other MPs get - even though they share a property.


The couples - who include Cabinet duo Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper - are using a loophole which pays up to £22,000 a year to each of them to fund a second home.

The revelation added to calls for an end to the expenses gravy train.

And it came as Gordon Brown and David Cameron instructed their MPs to account publicly for every detail of their expenses, including naming family members on the payroll.

The Prime Minister and Tory leader were forced to act after the uproar over Derek Conway's misuse of public funds in employing his student sons as researchers.

Mr Cameron said all 96 Tory frontbenchers would be forced to record details of their office and housing allowances from April, which will be published in July.

He made it clear he expected all backbenchers - more than 100 - to follow suit.

But Mr Brown insisted all his MPs would declare expenses details as soon as possible and, unlike Mr Cameron's plan, do so retrospectively.

Yet despite the decision by Labour and the Tories to come clean, the expenses row deepened as the extent to which MP couples enjoy State-funded perks was exposed.

Mr Cameron expressed unease at the way the husband and wife teams are able to submit separate claims of up to £44,000 for the same home.

He suggested second-home perks - known as the additional costs allowance - could be axed in favour of higher salaries for MPs.

Sleaze watchdogs have been asked to investigate the financial arrangements of Mr Balls and Miss Cooper, the Cabinet "golden couple".

They claim £15,979 and £15,995 - a total of £31,974 - for covering the cost of the same London home.

Three more couples also face questions over why they are submitting separate housing allowance claims when they live together.

Senior Tory backbenchers Sir Nicholas and Ann Winterton claimed £14,797 and £18,211 last year - a total of £33,008.

The couple are also under fire over the way they have claimed the second home perk to pay rent on their London flat - which they had already bought and transferred into a family trust.

This is within Commons rules, but critics say they are using the loophole to avoid inheritance tax. They have claimed £165,000 over five years.

Mr Cameron yesterday described the Wintertons' behaviour as "indefensible", adding: "We have to be clear any arrangements we enter into are ones we are prepared to protect and defend in a court of public opinion.

"I think it is difficult to do that in their case."

Labour's Alan and Ann Keen submitted separate claims of £19,814 and £18,701 - a total of £38,515.

They share a flat in Covent Garden, as well as a house in Brentford, West London. They did not respond to calls last night.

Peter and Iris Robinson, of the Democratic Unionists, last year submitted separate claims for £19,558 and £20,386.

They share a home in East Belfast and a flat in Docklands, East London.

Extra benefits: Muslim men with multiple wives can claim more for income support

Husbands living in a "harem" with multiple wives have been cleared to claim state benefits for all their different partners.

A Muslim man with four spouses - which is permitted under Islamic law - could receive £10,000 a year in income support alone.

He could also be entitled to more generous housing and council tax benefit, to reflect the fact his household needs a bigger property.


Ministers have decided that, even though bigamy is a crime in Britain, polygamous marriages can be recognised formally by the state - provided they took place overseas, in countries where they are legal.

The outcome will chiefly benefit Muslim men with more than one wife.

Ministers estimate that up to a thousand polygamous partnerships exist in Britain, although they admit there is no exact record.

Potentially, the benefits bill for income support could reach £10m.

New guidelines on income support from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) state: "Where there is a valid polygamous marriage the claimant and one spouse will be paid the couple rate (£92.80).

"The amount payable for each additional spouse is presently £33.65."

Income support for all of the wives may be paid directly into the husband's bank account, if the family so choose.

Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said that the decision was "completely unjustifiable".

He added: "You are not allowed to have multiple marriages in the UK, so to have a situation where the benefits system is treating people in different ways is totally unacceptable and will serve to undermine confidence in the system.

"This sets a precedent that will lead to more demands for the culture of other countries to be reflected in UK law and the benefits system."

Mr Grayling also accused the Government of trying to keep the ruling quiet because the topic is so controversial.

Corin Taylor, research director for the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: "British taxpayers are paying a record amount of tax so the Government has a duty to make sure that every penny is spent properly.

"Polygamy is not something which British law allows and therefore British taxpayers should not have to pay for extra benefits for second or third wives.

"If other countries sanction polygamy that is fine but the British taxpayer should not have to fund it."

Ministers launched a review of the benefit rules for polygamous marriages in November 2006, after it emerged that some families had benefited financially.

The review concluded in December last year with agreement that the extra benefits should continue to be paid. But the decision was not publicly announced.

Four departments - the Treasury, the DWP, HM Revenue and Customs, and the Home Office - were involved in the review, which concluded that recognising multiple marriages conducted overseas was 'the best possible' option. In Britain, bigamy is punishable by up to seven years in prison.

Islamic law permits men to have up to four wives at any one time - known as a harem - provided the husband spends equal amounts of time and money on each of them.

The DWP believes the number of people in polygamous marriages entering Britain has fallen since the 1988 Immigration Act, which makes it harder to bring more than one wife to the UK.

But, while a married man cannot obtain a spouse visa to bring a second wife into Britain, some multiple partners may be able to enter the country via other legal routes such as tourist visas, student visas or work permits.

Officials have also identified a potential loophole by which a man can divorce his wife under British law while continuing to live with her as his spouse under Islamic law, and obtain a spouse visa for a foreign woman who he can legally marry.

Immigration rules say entry clearance may not be withheld from a second wife where the husband has divorced his previous wife, and the divorce is thought to be one of convenience.

This is so, even if the husband is still living with the previous wife and to issue the entry clearance would lead to the formation of a polygamous household.

Muslim couples are only married in the eyes of the British state if they undergo a register office wedding as well as a Nikah, or religious ceremony.

Muslim groups say it is quite common for men here to undergo more than one Nikah with different wives. This does not count as bigamy since only the first marriage is legally recognised.

A DWP spokesman said: 'There are fewer than 1,000 polygamous marriages in the UK and only a small percentage of these are claiming social security benefit.

"We recently reviewed the rules regarding benefit payments to customers in a polygamous marriage, which conclude that the rules in place since 1987 provide the necessary safeguards to ensure there is no financial advantage for claimants in a valid polygamous marriage."

Microsoft in £22bn bid 4 Yahoo in bid 2 beat Google

Computer giant Microsoft today launched an audacious £22 billion takeover of search engine Yahoo.

Shares in the search giant, the second most popular in the world, jumped 54 per cent after the proposal from Microsoft. The deal was seen by analysts as an attempt by Bill Gates to take on Google, which dominates internet searches.

While Google has 58 per cent of the global market, Yahoo has seen its share fall to 23 per cent.

If the deal succeeds, it would create the world's biggest internet company.

"Search is the most important part of the market," said Justin Pearse, editor of New Media Age. "Microsoft and Yahoo can't sit back and let Google just take all the money. By combining with Yahoo, Microsoft will have a better chance of challenging Google."

It is known that Mr Gates, the world's richest man, has become increasingly concerned over Microsoft's failure to mount an effective challenge to its rival in this lucrative area.

The deal, a mixture of cash and shares, will raise fears that Microsoft could increase its stranglehold on the technology industry. The company supplies much of the software for the world's computers and has its own MSN search engine and the popular Hotmail email service.

Microsoft's $31-a-share offer is 62 per cent higher than last night's closing price.

On Tuesday, Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang said that it would lay off up to 1,000 staff as it faced "headwinds" this year and announced a profit fall of 23 per cent.


It emerged today that Yahoo rejected a bid from Microsoft a year ago, raising the possibility there could now be a battle for control of the search engine.

In a letter released today, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote to the Yahoo board: "While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo that we are proposing. This proposal represents compelling value realisation event for your shareholders."

Yahoo's days as an independent company appear to be over. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation also held talks about taking a stake in Yahoo last June.

"This offer was inevitable given that Google has risen so quickly and powerfully," said Mr Pearse, editor of New Media Age.

"Yahoo launched a new search service called Panama last year while Microsoft launched its own search service AdCentre - and both are not doing very well."


Bryan Glick, a technology expert, said Microsoft was attracted toYahoo because it has "a big user base, a great brand name and a lot of good (technology) engineers. It brings a lot of research and development talent into one place".

Georges Yared, investment strategist at Yared Investment Research in Minneapolis, said: "If you were to combine these two, they would be a formidable second player."

The software giant insisted today that its proposed takeover would not fall foul of US regulatory authorities. It expects to make $1 billion in cost savings.

Mr Gates has now stepped back from running the firm, which has faced a string of competition investigations in America and Europe. Searches are the most lucrative way to generate advertising on the web. Paid-for searches accounted for more than 55 per cent of the £2 billion online advertising market in Britain 2007.

When News Corporation held talks about taking a stake in Yahoo in June 2007, the proposed offer valued the firm at around $37 billion. Shares in Yahoo had fallen 18 per cent since the start of January until Microsoft's offer today.