Two full page ads placed by British largest clothing retailer Marks and Spencer in two British daily newspapers in London on Friday offering their apologies for charging extra for large size bras.

LONDON – The Battle of the Bust is over, and consumers have triumphed.

Britain’s largest clothing retailer, Marks & Spencer, has backed down on its incendiary policy of charging a 2 pound ($3) surcharge for bras that are DD or larger in the face of a spreading consumer revolt.

Think women don’t care about this issue? Then think again — that’s what M&S executives had to do after some 14,000 women gave their name to a Facebook campaign aimed at eliminating the big boob penalty.

“We always try to do the right thing by our customers and we thought we had, but it’s clear we’ve got it wrong this time,” said M&S chairman Stuart Rose. “From Saturday, no matter whether it’s large or small bras you need, the price will be the same.”

To get the message out, the company paid for an eye-catching full-page advertisement in several national newspapers Friday. It showed a full-figured woman in lacy green lingerie. In the ad, the company apologized for its mistake and offered a 25 percent reduction in all bras of all sizes for the next two weeks.

“We are just overwhelmed,” said Becky Mount, a co-founder of the Busts 4 Justice group that brought retailing icon M&S to its knees with a canny Internet and media-oriented campaign. “We’ve won, and we never thought it would happen so quickly.”

The group, which grew exponentially in the last few days, had vowed to challenge Rose and other M&S executives at the company’s annual meeting this summer. Mount said this threat, and growing media support for their crusade, made the company’s leaders realize they were losing the public relations battle.

“They didn’t want a lot of big-breasted women storming their meeting,” said Mount, 19. “I think they realized they were dealing with a much bigger force than they thought originally, and that we weren’t going to go away.”

She said the group’s members would be happy to shop at M&S now that the surcharge has been dropped.

The new policy brings M&S into line with other major retailers in Britain, who decline to pass the higher cost of designing and manufacturing large-size bras on to the consumer.

British lingerie specialists ranging from the pricey Agent Provocateur to the saucy Ann Summers line do not charge more for DD bras, despite the extra work that goes into producing them. In the United States, bra prices on the popular Victoria’s Secret Web site do not change as sizes get larger.

But policies change store by store and brand by brand.

At the upscale Rigby & Peller shops in London, which specialize in personalized fittings, the company’s own bras are priced the same regardless of the size, said buyer Nicky Clayton. But some outside brands the store sells do contain a markup for larger sizes.

“Some brands like the Italian company Prima Donna charge us more, so we pass that on,” she said. “But for Rigby and Peller bras the prices are exactly the same because we’ve got total control and can maintain pricing across all the sizes.”

She said M&S probably ran into trouble because its lingerie price policy differed from the strategy used for other items.

“If they charged more for larger sizes of all their items, like garments and outerwear, it would have been fine,” she said. “It was just that they took this policy only on the lingerie sector, that made it a problem.”

A man walks by a bar advertising their special offer in central London, Monday, March 16, 2009. England's Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson in his 2008 Annual Report 'On the State of Public Health', launched Monday, made recommendations to the Government to tackle alcohol harm, and particularly the collateral damage to society, family members, the National Health Services and the economy. He also calls for a minimum pricing of 50 pence per unit of alcohol to be introduced to reduce the consumption of alcohol and its associated harms.

LONDON – Two-for-one specials. Alcopops to make booze tasty to teens. Supermarket prices that reward buying in bulk. And pubs on every street corner, making it easy to start your day with a liquid lunch.

No wonder that Britain’s notorious binge drinking is so out of control that the government’s top medical adviser came out Monday in favor of stiff new price policies to cut off the massive flow of cheap booze.

“Cheap alcohol is killing us as never before,” Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said as he delivered his annual Public Health report. “The quality of life of families and in cities and towns up and down the country is being eroded by the effects of excessive drinking.”

Donaldson described a culture where anything goes — with cheap drinks, two-for-one specials and underage drinking — helping to cause public health costs to soar out of control. Anyone who goes out late at night in London or other major cities would know what he was talking about — it has become common for teenagers and young adults to drink until they drop.

“Let’s try and imagine a country where nobody is physically or sexually assaulted because of alcohol,” he said. “Let’s try and imagine a country where nobody dies in an accident caused by alcohol, where no child has to cower in the corner while its mother is beaten by a drunken partner, where the streets are welcoming for all on a Saturday night and where the streets are free of urine and vomit on a Sunday morning.”

Donaldson said per capital alcohol consumption has fallen since 1970 in many European countries, but has increased by 40 percent in Britain, where beer, wine and spirits have remained relatively cheap, particularly when bought in bulk in supermarkets.

Bringing in a minimum price regime based on a charge of at least 50 pence (70 cents) per alcohol unit would have a substantial, immediate impact, he said.

“Every year there would be 3,393 fewer deaths, 97,900 fewer hospital admissions, 45,800 fewer crimes, and 296,900 fewer sick days,” he said.

His report said the new pricing strategy would set a minimum price of 4.50 pounds ($6.30) for a bottle of wine; a minimum of 14 pounds ($19.70) for a bottle of whiskey, and a base price of 6 pounds ($8.50) for a six-pack of beer.

By comparison, a major London supermarket Monday offered 30 cans of Foster’s beer for 16 pounds ($22.50), which works out to just over 3 pounds ($4.20) for six cans of beer, roughly half the minimum price the health adviser seeks.

Donaldson’s recommendations are nonbinding, and Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quick to distance himself from the proposal Monday.

“We do not want the responsible, sensible majority of moderate drinkers to have to pay more, or suffer, as a result of the excesses of a small minority,” Brown said.

It is clear that Brown does not want to add to his considerable political burdens by becoming known as the prime minister who raised alcohol prices in the middle of a steep recession.

He was joined by Conservative Party leader David Cameron, who is far ahead in polls in advance of the next general election, which must be held by the summer of 2010. He said the new plan would penalize responsible drinkers and called instead for problem drinkers to be targeted.

Public reaction seemed muted, with some complaining about the government’s “nanny state” approach to social problems.

“It’s disgusting,” said John Michael, a 65-year-old entrepreneur. “Too much tax. Too much government. For the people who have problems, there are laws. Laws are in place so they should abide. People shouldn’t be treated like children.”

Computer systems analyst Suzanne Hamilton said the new policy would make it impossible for her and her husband to find wines in their price range.

“I think it’s penalizing everyone for a minority problem,” she said. “My husband and I have been trying to find wines for under 4 pounds ($5.60). I think the government is always trying to find a problem and slap us on the hand.”

Associated Press writer Laura Nichols contributed to this report.

A plane takes off as letters of Greenpeace's slogan "Our Climate Our Land" is seen on a plot of land in Sipson, north of Heathrow Airport, in west London. Greenpeace revealed that it had bought a section of land on the proposed site of a third runway for Heathrow Airport, and was planning to divide it into tiny pieces in a bid to gridlock the planning process with hundreds of legal challenges.

LONDON – Plans to build a third runway at London’s congested Heathrow Airport hit a snag Tuesday when Greenpeace and other environmental activists announced they had purchased a substantial plot of land where the planned runway would be built.

The coalition, including actress Emma Thompson, comedian Alistair McGowan and environmentalist Zac Goldsmith, purchased property that is about half the size of a football field in the village of Sipson, where hundreds of homes will be razed if runway plans go ahead.

The property is directly on the site of the proposed runway, Greenpeace director John Sauven said Tuesday.

“The legal owners of the site will block the runway at every stage through the planning process and in the courts,” he said. “They will never sell the land to Spanish-owned airport operator BAA, and if it comes to it many thousands of people will be prepared to peacefully defend their field in person, standing in front of bulldozers and blocking construction.”

The new owners believe the government will eventually be able to take control of the land through “compulsory purchase” laws, but they believe they can slow the process down substantially.

The coalition announced its surprise purchase as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Cabinet were grappling with the issue of the proposed new runway, which business leaders say is vital if Heathrow is to maintain its status as Europe’s busiest airport.

The Cabinet appears divided over the issue, which pits environmental concerns — and Britain’s commitment to controlling climate change by reducing carbon emissions — against economic growth and job creation.

The group that bought the land slated for the runway plans to use it as a focal point for mounting public protests against the planned airport expansion. It was not immediately clear how much they paid for the land.

Thompson, an Oscar-winning actress, said activists are ready to move onto the land and plant vegetables to protect it from being bulldozed for airport use.

“I don’t understand how any government remotely serious about committing to reversing climate change can even consider these ridiculous plans,” she said. “It’s laughably hypocritical. That’s why we’ve bought a plot on the runway. We’ll stop this from happening.”

Greenpeace posted a notice on its Web site Tuesday urging supporters to sign up to become legal owners of the property on the deeds in a bid to make it more complicated for the British government to take the property or negotiate its purchase.

LONDON – Ringo Starr doesn’t want to hear from you.

If you do write, your letter will end up in the trash.

That’s the message from Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr. After 45 years of stardom, he doesn’t want to spend any more time answering mail or sending signed photos back to fans.

The fan fatigue led the former Beatles drummer to post a sometimes angry sounding short video clip on his Web site telling fans that any mail sent to him after Oct. 20 will not be read or answered. British television stations broadcast the video on Tuesday.

“It’s going to be tossed,” he says on the video. “I’m warning you with peace and love, I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed. Nothing. Anyway, peace and love, peace and love.”

The drummer and singer did not elaborate on the reason behind his decision to cut off a major point of contact with his many fans.

Starr, 68, has maintained a very active touring and recording schedule in recent years, drawing large crowds for performances with his All-Starr band.

The band plays a mix of old Beatles hits, Starr’s many solo offerings, and other classics from the 1960s and 1970s. Starr usually serves as front man, though he sometimes plays the drums.

But he has angered longtime fans in Liverpool by telling interviewers that he does not miss his native city. Vandals there beheaded a topiary sculpture of Starr earlier this year — he was the only one of the four Beatles whose likeness was desecrated.

The good-natured drummer, who also enjoyed a brief acting career after star turns in Beatles’ films “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help!,” guest starred on a 1991 episode of “The Simpsons” in which he is shown scrupulously answering every piece of fan mail that comes his way.

“They took the time to write to me, and I don’t care if it takes 20 years, I’m going to answer every one of them,” Starr says on the show.

In his mail, he finds a package from Marge Simpson that contains a portrait she painted of him back in the Beatles heyday. He puts it on his wall and writes back to tell her — a few decades late — how much he likes her painting.

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On the web

www.ringostarr.com/