TUESDAY 30 OCTOBER 2007
THIS IS THE FIRST 'TRIAL' POSTING OF THE NIGHTSHIFT BLOG. IT'S AN EXPERIMENT - DON'T BE TOO HARD ON ME AND DON'T TAKE THIS TOO SERIOUSLY.
THE VIEWS REPRESENTED HERE ARE MY OWN AND NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE BBC.
I had to start the programme by thanking all the canny people who contacted me on Clocks Back Night when, for the first time since the new-style Nightshift started in August, I went out ‘live’ (as they say) for the first 3 hours of the night. (Well, actually it was 4 - but the clocks went back halfway through!). I lost count of the number of emails and calls I took, and the text line was busy too. So a very big (and heartfelt) ‘thankyou’ to you all. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to mention all of you - or even get to the phone in time to answer your call - but it was so good to know that you were out there spending/wasting your time listening to me!
TODAY...
..featured a peculiar list of birthdays; Michael Winner is 72, Bob Wilson (erstwhile England goalie) is 66, Henry Winkler (‘the Fonz’) is 62, Diego Maradona is 47 and Juliet Stevenson - unquestionably the most beautiful woman in the entire world - is 51. Today is also St Ethelnoth’s Day. Who on earth was HE? Or SHE?
NIGHTSHIFT NEWSREEL
The usual worldwide trawl produced a good crop of proofs - if proofs were needed - that it’s a truly absurd world we live in........a Californian dentist charged with fondling 27 women patients claims that ‘chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases’.......an inquiry has started in the Russian town of Vladimir after a 30-year-old man married his own grandmother.....an Egyptian man threw his wife out of a 6th-floor window for refusing to clean his dirty shoes......a Swiss pensioner may lose his licence after falling asleep at the wheel whilst waiting for the lights to turn green.....and a Chinese bride has set a new World Record for the length of the train on her wedding dress - over 200 metres!
SEX AND FOOD
I was happy to congratulate the four north-east eateries who made onto The Observer’s list of the 50 Sexiest Places to Eat in Britain. They were As You Like It (in Newcastle), the Tree House at Alnwick Garden, the Rose and Crown in Romaldkirk (County Durham) and Seaham Hall (also in County Durham). I’m still not sure what makes any of them particularly ‘sexy’ though....
REDNECKS
Congratulations to our American cousins on being able to take the mickey out of themselves - something they’re not exactly famous for. The 12th Redneck Games took place in July in Georgia and featured Hub-Cap Hurlin’, Bobbin’ for Pigs’ Feet, Toilet Seat Hoop-la and the Mud Pit Belly Flop. For music lovers, there was even an Armpit Serenade. Does anyone know if there’s any YouTube footage of these events?
KNOW YOUR NORTH-EAST
The answer to yesterday’s question about Lord Byron’s associations with the region was Seaham - and in particular Seaham Hall and Church, where he married Arabella Milbanke in 1821.
Today’s question is indirectly about Auckland in New Zealand. It was named after the first Earl of Auckland (yes, our Auckland), a member of the Eden family that later produced Anthony Eden, Prime Minister during the Suez Crisis of 1956. But where in the north-east was their ‘country seat’?
BAGPIPES
The news that a 15-year-old Glasgow lad has been cured of asthma by taking up the Scottish bagpipes made me do some digging around for other QI facts about them......Emperor Nero played them......a pipe band playing at full pelt is louder (at 122 decibels) than a jumbo jet taking off .......piper James Reid was executed for simply possessing a set of bagpipes in 1746 ( - it was illegal at the time)......a Stirling maker once made some bagpipes out of surplus mammoth tusks he had bought - the pipes were bought in 2005 for £3,500.......Rufus Harley, a black American, introduced bagpipes to American jazz ( - does anyone know of a recording?).....and in Bulgaria they say that ‘a wedding without bagpipes is like a funeral’!
LISTEN TO THE BANNED
This week’s rather risque track was With Me Little Ukulele In Me Hand, sung (naturally) by George Formby. It was banned by Uncle Beeb in 1933.
THE FLYING DECKCHAIR
A glaring omission form the Nightshift Newsreel has been brought to my attention by Peter in York. One weekend in mid-July Kent Crouch, who lives in a place called Bend (in Oregon), settled down in his deckchair with a few snacks, some water - and 105 large helium balloons attached to the deckchair. Jettisoning some ballast, he floated away and came down nine hours later in a farmer’s field 193 miles away. He thus ranks with Larry Walters who, in 1982, rose three miles above Los Angeles on his balloon-powered garden chair and was last seen floating out over the Pacific. Larry was given a Darwin Award for this.
TRUCKSHUNTER’S PLACE NAME
Some of the north-east’s place-names have no known explanation. Amongst them are Quakinghouses, Pity Me (there are three places with this name) and Glororum (which occurs twice). If you are sure YOU know the derivation(s) of one or more of them, get in touch!
CONTACT......
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
THIS IS THE FIRST 'TRIAL' POSTING OF THE NIGHTSHIFT BLOG. IT'S AN EXPERIMENT - DON'T BE TOO HARD ON ME AND DON'T TAKE THIS TOO SERIOUSLY.
THE VIEWS REPRESENTED HERE ARE MY OWN AND NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE BBC.
I had to start the programme by thanking all the canny people who contacted me on Clocks Back Night when, for the first time since the new-style Nightshift started in August, I went out ‘live’ (as they say) for the first 3 hours of the night. (Well, actually it was 4 - but the clocks went back halfway through!). I lost count of the number of emails and calls I took, and the text line was busy too. So a very big (and heartfelt) ‘thankyou’ to you all. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to mention all of you - or even get to the phone in time to answer your call - but it was so good to know that you were out there spending/wasting your time listening to me!
TODAY...
..featured a peculiar list of birthdays; Michael Winner is 72, Bob Wilson (erstwhile England goalie) is 66, Henry Winkler (‘the Fonz’) is 62, Diego Maradona is 47 and Juliet Stevenson - unquestionably the most beautiful woman in the entire world - is 51. Today is also St Ethelnoth’s Day. Who on earth was HE? Or SHE?
NIGHTSHIFT NEWSREEL
The usual worldwide trawl produced a good crop of proofs - if proofs were needed - that it’s a truly absurd world we live in........a Californian dentist charged with fondling 27 women patients claims that ‘chest massages are an appropriate procedure in certain cases’.......an inquiry has started in the Russian town of Vladimir after a 30-year-old man married his own grandmother.....an Egyptian man threw his wife out of a 6th-floor window for refusing to clean his dirty shoes......a Swiss pensioner may lose his licence after falling asleep at the wheel whilst waiting for the lights to turn green.....and a Chinese bride has set a new World Record for the length of the train on her wedding dress - over 200 metres!
SEX AND FOOD
I was happy to congratulate the four north-east eateries who made onto The Observer’s list of the 50 Sexiest Places to Eat in Britain. They were As You Like It (in Newcastle), the Tree House at Alnwick Garden, the Rose and Crown in Romaldkirk (County Durham) and Seaham Hall (also in County Durham). I’m still not sure what makes any of them particularly ‘sexy’ though....
REDNECKS
Congratulations to our American cousins on being able to take the mickey out of themselves - something they’re not exactly famous for. The 12th Redneck Games took place in July in Georgia and featured Hub-Cap Hurlin’, Bobbin’ for Pigs’ Feet, Toilet Seat Hoop-la and the Mud Pit Belly Flop. For music lovers, there was even an Armpit Serenade. Does anyone know if there’s any YouTube footage of these events?
KNOW YOUR NORTH-EAST
The answer to yesterday’s question about Lord Byron’s associations with the region was Seaham - and in particular Seaham Hall and Church, where he married Arabella Milbanke in 1821.
Today’s question is indirectly about Auckland in New Zealand. It was named after the first Earl of Auckland (yes, our Auckland), a member of the Eden family that later produced Anthony Eden, Prime Minister during the Suez Crisis of 1956. But where in the north-east was their ‘country seat’?
BAGPIPES
The news that a 15-year-old Glasgow lad has been cured of asthma by taking up the Scottish bagpipes made me do some digging around for other QI facts about them......Emperor Nero played them......a pipe band playing at full pelt is louder (at 122 decibels) than a jumbo jet taking off .......piper James Reid was executed for simply possessing a set of bagpipes in 1746 ( - it was illegal at the time)......a Stirling maker once made some bagpipes out of surplus mammoth tusks he had bought - the pipes were bought in 2005 for £3,500.......Rufus Harley, a black American, introduced bagpipes to American jazz ( - does anyone know of a recording?).....and in Bulgaria they say that ‘a wedding without bagpipes is like a funeral’!
LISTEN TO THE BANNED
This week’s rather risque track was With Me Little Ukulele In Me Hand, sung (naturally) by George Formby. It was banned by Uncle Beeb in 1933.
THE FLYING DECKCHAIR
A glaring omission form the Nightshift Newsreel has been brought to my attention by Peter in York. One weekend in mid-July Kent Crouch, who lives in a place called Bend (in Oregon), settled down in his deckchair with a few snacks, some water - and 105 large helium balloons attached to the deckchair. Jettisoning some ballast, he floated away and came down nine hours later in a farmer’s field 193 miles away. He thus ranks with Larry Walters who, in 1982, rose three miles above Los Angeles on his balloon-powered garden chair and was last seen floating out over the Pacific. Larry was given a Darwin Award for this.
TRUCKSHUNTER’S PLACE NAME
Some of the north-east’s place-names have no known explanation. Amongst them are Quakinghouses, Pity Me (there are three places with this name) and Glororum (which occurs twice). If you are sure YOU know the derivation(s) of one or more of them, get in touch!
CONTACT......
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
1 comment:
I found this on the web:
St. Ethelnoth
Feastday: October 30
Archbishop of Canterbury, England called “the Good,” also called Aethelnoth. He was a monk at Glastonbury until 1020, when he was consecrated archbishop. Ethelnoth won the loyalty of King Canute II, who aided his work.A gifted scholar, he persuaded Canute to assist in the restoration of Chartres Cathedral in France
Post a Comment