END OF YEAR RAMBLINGS 2
The superstition of chromatology (or whatever its adherents prefer to call it), whereby colour preferences indicate personality traits or future events, is as ludicrous as suggesting that any other sort of preference does the same thing. Like lots of people, I like trees and, amongst the many hundreds of species I’ve come into contact with, the cedar of Lebanon is amongst my favourites; I think it’s graceful and ‘powerful’ and that its growth style - the familiar layers of dark green branches - is extraordinarily pleasing to the eye. That, however, doesn’t make me any more graceful, powerful or pleasing to the eye than someone who prefers willows, deadly nightshade or nettles.
So susceptible are we to such demonstrably ridiculous superstitions that I think we could profitably start a new one of our own, based on trees. Arborology. It would work like this....
Winter babies are born at a time when only evergreens manage to flourish. They are therefore sturdy, strong, cool-blooded, dispassionate and even clinical. They would make good doctors or engineers. They are also tinged with good looks and unexpected charm; after all, the fragrant wytch hazel blossoms in midwinter. And so on and so on....
Another visitor to the Big Blue Bus many moons ago numerologised me. It’s not as traumatic as it sounds. The letters of your name are converted into numbers - thus A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on. These are then added together in various ways to determine what sort of person you are and what lies in store for you. Add the consonants together for your ‘outer’ personality - the ‘image’ you wish to create. Add the vowels for the ‘inner’ you. I am, apparently, a typical 7. Reserved, an avid reader, keen on music (especially opera) and team sports. After she left, I couldn’t stop laughing. She’d even told me I had a sister and refused to accept that I haven’t. ‘There must be something your mother hasn’t told you.....’
We stand at the dawn of 2008. Incredible though it is, there are still millions of people who firmly believe that a person’s whole life and personality are determined by the letters of their name or by the stars and planets in the sky.
Or even by the colours they are attracted to and the kind of trees that appeal to them.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

YEAR END RAMBLINGS
On Christmas Eve a colleague asked me - for no apparent reason - what my favourite colour was. Almost without having to think about it, I told her it was purple. A few moments later, I remembered that a listener I was chatting to on the Big Blue Bus a few years ago had asked me the same question and that my reply then was ‘grey’. At the time, needless to say, I was roundly lampooned. The Bus visitor was a firm believer in the theory that there is some exotic chromatic significance to all our personalities and that ‘grey people’ were predictably dull, unimaginative, uninspiring and indecisive. It didn’t seem to occur to her that grey is - simply put - as pleasant a colour as any other or that it could have very positive associations. It is the colour our hair turns when we become older, wiser people who have the time to stand, stare and consider the world and the place we have carved for ourselves in it. Grey is adaptable; it sits comfortably with brash reds, greens and blues as well as more sedate black and white. Its name is attached to the tastiest tea in the universe and, for Novocastrians, it has echoes of Grey Street and Grey’s Monument. Altogether a very pleasant colour indeed.
So why the change to purple? There you have me. It is, of course, the colour of the Roman Emperors, of the velvet lining of Imperial crowns and of the Order of the Garter. Its associations are with power, royalty, wealth and good breeding - none of which seems relevant to an underpaid BBC drudge kept chained up in the Senior Editor’s wine cellar under the Pink Palace and released only to keep insomniacs and shift-workers amused during the hours of darkness.
Perhaps all I’ve done in the move from grey to purple is to exercise the right of any individual - a right too often regarded as a sign of being ‘grey’, weak and indecisive. I’ve simply changed my mind. What’s wrong with that?

TUESDAY 25 DECEMBER 2007
CHRISTMAS DAY

Durham

MONDAY 24 DECEMBER 2007
Christmas Eve

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
…and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse….
The well-known poem, which I read on this morning's Nightshift, is actually called A Visit From St Nicholas and was written by Clement Clarke Moore as long ago as 1823. It's more or less the first manifestation of a figure that has become so very familiar to us over the decades; the plump, cheerful and reassuring figure of Father Christmas. And every time I read it, I'm reminded of how much Christmas in general, and Christmas Eve in particular, seem to have changed over the last few years. Now, this is normally a cue for me to don my 'grumpy-old-man' hat and that's precisely what I'm going to do. After all, if an ageing and deeply sentimental blogger can't reminisce about - and even mourn the passing of - his version of childhood Christmases on Christmas Eve when can he do it?
To the younger version of Ian Robinson, Christmas Eve was almost as important as the Big Day itself; in many ways, even more so. It was the day the tree was put up and dressed; it was the day I and my brothers made and strung streamers across the ceiling; we would label and hang up stockings along the mantelpiece, then smile wickedly as we filled them with sprouts, cold chips, clothes pegs…..In other words, Christmas Eve was the beginning of Christmas and not - as it often seems to be nowadays - the end. Of course, I can understand why Christmas has turned upside down, as it were. A great many shops are now telling us that their profits depend on Christmas sales so, yes, there is a very strong commercial imperative to 'big-up' gift-buying and that simply can't be done unless Christmas is launched a good deal earlier than December 24! This means, of course, that most people are tired of the whole shenanigans even before Christmas Eve - and it's that that I regret.
So for me, tonight will once again mark the beginning of the twelve days. As Hildie has suggested, I intend to eat at least one mince pie on each of the twelve in order to generate as much good luck as possible for each month of 2008. (Question to Hildie: if I eat more than one mince pie each day, does that improve my chances of a good year??) We'll dress the Christmas Tree (trying to keep the cats off it in the process) and place our presents under it the way Nature intended. We'll wonder what's inside all that gaudy wrapping paper as we adorn the hall and banister with star-lights. We'll hang a white-light star-globe at each end of the mantelpiece - although the hanging of stockings was sadly abandoned many years ago. Then we'll relax with an Alabama Slammer and wait for the sounds of Prancer and Vixen, Donner and Blitzen. Naturally, we'll have fallen asleep long before Santa Claus finally arrives…….

KITTLEBERRY ROW
Margaret in Haltwhistle sent this email the other day….
My friends and I were talking about strange place names (sounds familiar? and in a village next to us called Melkridge there is a row of houses called Moor View. However, locally they have always been known as Kittleberry Row - I'm not sure of the spelling. One of the men in the company said it was to do with mining. When a new mine shaft was sunk it was called a certain name (I think it started with an 'S') and then the nearby or new mining cottages , whatever they were called, got the nickname Kittleberry(bury) Row. Can you throw any light on this?
Well….I can't. Can you?

THIS BLOG…
I will be on air 'live' tomorrow - Christmas Day - between 1000 and 1400. I hope you will be able to join me.
I will be posting a special message from our mascot, Grosvenor the Black Rat, tomorrow, too. After that, the next posting will be on Thursday. In the meantime…..

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

'Conversation Piece', South Shields

FRIDAY 21 DECEMBER 2007

THIS POSTING...
Although I drafted it on Friday, I have been unable to post this blog until today (Sunday) for - let’s call them - ‘technical’ reasons. Apologies.

SOMETHING NEW
Last night - Thursday - I had a completely new experience. When you get to my age, completely new experiences are something to savour and even actively seek out. There is, after all, a regrettable tendency amongst people over, say, 55 to become stereotypical ‘grumpy old men/women’ whose only reaction, when confronted with something unfamiliar or unknown to them, seems to be either ‘I wouldn’t know where to start’ (in the case of computers, MP3 players or nights on the town) to a sneering ‘been there, done that, got the T-shirt’. But that way lies perdition, if you ask me. Far better, surely, is to embrace all the amazing new things that younger people are developing these days - from iPhones to Thai food - and give them a whirl (- a phrase that dates me instantly). I wish I could say that my new experience was the gift of an iPhone but it was much closer to Thai food. It was, in fact, celeriac. Yes, celeriac.
As far as I’ve been concerned over the years, celeriac has been a total no-go vegetable. Not because of what it is, but because of what it sounds like. It sounds like celery, a comestible that isn’t even worth ignoring. I’m told that celery is the only negative-calorie vegetable in the world; it uses up more calories to actually go to the effort of eating it than you gain from the thing itself. Which just about says it all. This fact, and celery’s biliously pungent taste, have meant that I’ve given it a very wide berth indeed for the first 59 years of my life. Celeriac has, I suppose, suffered by association.
No more. Last night, John knocked up a very acceptable beef bourgignon (on a Thursday!) and accompanied it with celeriac mashed like you mash potatoes, and with rosemary, thyme and cardamom thrown in for good measure. It was truly inspired - as well as being awesomely tasty. (Note the 21st century use of ‘awesomely’ there.) As I was enjoying it, it occurred to me that, although I’m used to trying new recipes and unfamiliar types of food, it’s been quite a while since I tried a completely new ingredient. The last one, I think, was persimmon, sometimes called ‘sharon fruit’. They look like shiny yellow apples with bright green stalks and they’re awful. They make your mouth go numb. They really do.
Now, however, I’m wondering what victuals I’ve been wasting time by avoiding. I’ve noticed, for example, that Amsterdam’s greengrocers always seem to stock something called ‘dragon fruit’. They’re pear-sized and a kind of purple colour with green flaps sticking out all over them. Cut them open and you’re presented with pure white flesh and jet-black seeds. They look profoundly exotic and now several supermarkets are starting to stock them.....

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

At Alnmouth

THURSDAY 20 DECEMBER 2007

PANTOMIME DAMES
Can anyone update me on this story? Berwick Kaler, the star of Sinbad the Sailor (this year's pantomime at York's Theatre Royal) invited as many people as possible - including women and children - to turn up in full panto dame costume last Saturday at York Minster. It was a serious - well, OK, not that serious - attempt at setting a world record. I mentioned the story during this morning's Nightshift but I still don't know the outcome. Do you?

PITMATIC
Thanks to everyone who contacted me in response to David's emergency email. He wanted details of the book about the local pitmen's dialect he'd heard mentioned on BBC Radio Newcastle. If you're interested in it too - and who wouldn't be? - Nicola Nicholls (the Press Officer at the University of Northumbria) has been in touch to say it's called Pitmatic: The Talk of the North-East Coalfields, by Bill Griffiths. It's available at the usual bookshops locally, from amazon.co.uk or direct from Northumbria University Press (www.northumbria.ac.uk/northumbriapress) on (0191) 227 3382.

A MULTIMEDIA BLOG
I'm glad you're enjoying the images I'm topping the blog with. Please don't forget that you can submit a picture yourself. Make sure it's as small as possible - as little as 50k is OK - and email it to me as an attachment. If it's 'seasonal' or wintry then so much the better.

I guess it's fairly obvious that I'm learning the art of blogging as I go along. Over the Christmas period I'm going to investigate the possibilities of, firstly, adding video to it (like you can on YouTube and similar networking sites). I'm not sure exactly what kind of video I would add, although I'm sure you would have suggestions!

It's also possible to add audio to a blog. If I can find out how do do THAT, then perhaps I can add a daily item not heard on the Nightshift itself. Would that be counterproductive?

CHRISTMAS
Well I think I’ve just about prepared the programmes I’ll be presenting over Christmas - I think! This is one of your last chances to make any requests you might have for special tracks you want to hear or greetings you want me to broadcast - either on The Nightshift or on my special Christmas Day programme from 1000 to 1400. Remember that through the Christmas and New Year season, Nightshifts will be broadcast normally as they are now - if the way they are now can be described as ‘normal’ - except that the Christmas morning and New Year’s morning programmes will be music-only (so that I can have some time off!)

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

Newbiggin-by-the-Sea

WEDNESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2007

IN ALL MY GLORY
Since I started this blog at the beginning of November, absolutely no-one at all has asked me to post a picture of myself on it. Ever mindful of public opinion, I have therefore added the photograph you see below right. It was taken on the ‘bucking bronco’ at the Sunderland Air Show two years ago. Needless to say, Paul was wearing a brand new shirt and therefore couldn’t possibly have a go himself. He is standing out-of-shot selling tickets. The photograph is available as a child-scarer and nightmare-defence for a small fee, payable to my therapist.

RECENT CONTACTS
Ever since I took over the new-style Nightshift in August I have been receiving a fairly constant stream of emails, texts and calls about my new role at the BBC. Many of you have told me how much you enjoyed the ‘Paul and Ian’ programme, especially in its Big Blue Bus format, and how much you miss me (and Paul, too) on the daytime schedules. Naturally, I’m extremely flattered by your comments and it’s undoubtedly very kind of you to make them and go to the trouble of sending them to me. Others, though, go a step further, suggesting that I must feel sidelined or humiliated to have been ‘shunted onto the graveyard shift’ (as more than one listener put it) so perhaps it’s about time I cleared a few things up....
Firstly, whatever the BBC’s motives were in allotting me The Nightshift, they couldn’t have done me a greater favour. I hope that, by now, you realise that I enjoy it thoroughly. I research, produce and present it myself - which is, on its own, an immensely rewarding experience - and I have made many new friends amongst the programme’s loyal and (I hope) growing audience.
Secondly, please remember that BBC Radio Newcastle has changed and moved on from Paul and Ian’s Blue Bus days. Our two new daytime presenters - Jonathan Miles and Alfie Joey - are, each in their own way, strong and personable presenters taking over roles which cannot have been easy for them - and doing a marvellous job too!
Thirdly, remember also that Paul resigned of his own accord. I am in frequent contact with him, as you would expect, and I can assure you that he is a happy and contented man.
And so am I.
So once again, thanks for all your flattering and complimentary contacts about the past. This, though, is the time of year when we concentrate very much on the present and - in particular - on the future. I sincerely believe that Jonathan, Alfie and everyone else at the station is working hard to bring you the very best that BBC local radio has to offer the north-east - and I believe they are succeeding brilliantly.
End of subject?

FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK
The BBC bosses must have read this blog!

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

Chester-le-Street

TUESDAY 18 DECEMBER 2007

FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK
Apparently, this is - quite rightly - the UK’s favourite Christmas song. As far as BBC Radio One is concerned, however, the inclusion of the word ‘faggot’ in the lyrics is unacceptable and it has been ‘bleeped-out’ for airplay. Mike Parr, on his breakfast show this morning, picked up on this and asked his guests and his listeners if it was ‘political correctness gone mad’. ‘Faggot’ - or just ‘fag’ - are, after all, well-established insult words for homosexuals, especially in the USA. Naturally, as a man who has lived an openly gay life for many years, I was itching to contribute to Mike’s discussion. Probably mindful of the amount I would have to say on the subject, he didn’t invited me! However, I can impose my thoughts on you!
Firstly, then, to the words themselves. This itself is worth some earnest academic research! The traditional insult-word for homosexuals in the UK has been ‘queer’; it’s been in common use since about the time of the First World War. In the USA, though, it retained its ancient meaning of ‘strange, odd, inexplicable’, with no sexual overtones at all. Their insult word - faggot and fag - were equally confined to the USA. Over here, a faggot is either a bundle of sticks or a kind of spicey meatball. The unrelated word fag also has two meanings here: a subordinate and junior public schoolboy or - as slang - a cigarette.
With the cross-fertilisation of words between the countries, though, both words now have all of their meanings intact on both sides of the Atlantic, sexual overtones included. But are they necessarily insulting?
In the 70s or perhaps slightly earlier, minorities who perceived themselves as persecuted discovered a new way of ‘neutralising’ insult-words like these - adopt them. After all, queer cannot be insulting if a homosexual uses it to describe himself. Titles such as Queer Nation and Queer As Folk are now regarded as merely decriptive or even affectionate, like paddy or mick for an Irishman, jimmy or jock for a Scotsman or Taffy for a Welshman.
Similarly, black - used to describe the colour of some people’s skin - was regarded as offensive when I was young, and the people to whom it was directed - as an insult - took the same action. They adopted the word themselves, thus removing its ‘sting’.
For communities that have not taken this action, though, the neutralising process has not even begun. There are many words which are still hurtfully and insultingly directed at them and which are taken as intended. These are the words I cannot quote here. I don’t want to hurt or insult anyone.
The neutralising of faggot and fag in the USA is not complete yet. After all, the social situation of gay people there is much more volatile than it is in the UK or most of Europe. Over there, these words are still felt keenly as hurtful insults by a community which is, in many places, still very much persecuted. Nevertheless, the use of faggot in Fairytale of New York (she calls him ‘a cheap lousy faggot’) can hardly be construed as homophobic - at least not in the same way that many of the lyrics used by some gangsta rappers are homophobic. Radio One seems to play those quite happily, perhaps because the words are not immediately understood by everyone.
European gay comminities (eastern Europe excepted) are now mature and self-confident enough to withstand trivial references like the one in Fairytale of New York. To many gay people like me, the puzzling aspect of this debate is that it is taking place at all, bearing in mind the genuine hurt felt by many gay people when Chris Moyles used ‘gay’ disparagingly - and the BBC defended him so stoutly.
Now you can see why I wasn’t invited onto Mike Parr’s programme this morning!

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

Tyne Bridges

MONDAY 17 DECEMBER 2007

KEV’S LITTLE PUZZLE
‘Eleven plus two = twelve plus one’ is, on the face of it, a fairly obvious statement. Except, as Kev took mischievous pleasure in pointing out, there’s something special about it. I know you think I’m joking when I tell you that I puzzled over this one for hours. In fact, I still hadn’t solved it when I went on-air ‘live’ this morning at 0600 and said so. Needless to say, the phones almost burst into flames as several friendly smart-alecks called to tell me how easy and obvious it was. In case the blindingly self-evident eludes you as well as me, the answer is....eleven plus two is an anagram of twelve plus one. See - obvious innit?

PRINTING THE BLOG
Hildie’s story is a salutary reminder that not every instruction given to a computer has the result you wanted or foresaw. She wanted to print off 3 copies of the acknowledgement I made of her contribution, so simply pressed ‘print’ three times and went to make a cup of coffee. As fate - and the user-unfriendly gremlins of computery - would have it, she had actually instructed her computer to print off the entire blog from day one - three times. The entire room was flooded in paper. Bad luck, Hildie. I’m still not sure how best to print off a part of the blog - except, perhaps, to ‘cut and paste’ into a word-processing document and print from there. If you know, please help!

CHRISTMAS
Thanks again for your Christmas cards. I’m sorry I can’t return the favour to everyone but please believe me that your good wishes mean a very great deal to me indeed.
There will be a Nightshift as usual each night through the Christmas and New Year season. I will not be presenting the programme on the morning of Christmas Day because I’ll be on-air ‘live’ that day between 1000 and 1400. I do hope you can join me for at least part of the programme; I’ll try to make Christmas Day as special for you as it will be for me.
My only night off (as such) over the holiday will be on New Year’s morning, when Nick Roberts will be presenting a special ‘live’ celebration Nightshift.
Please remember my ‘appeals’ for the holiday season. Send me as much useless information as you can find. You could be really nasty if you liked; how about interspersing your trivia with facts you’ve made up and challenging me to identify the red herring? Remember, too, that your favourite quotations and aphorisms would be more than welcome.
Finally, if you have any Christmas greeting you’d like me to broadcast - either on the Nightshift or on my special Christmas Day programme, get in touch as soon as you can.

TRIPADVISOR.COM
This paragraph contains a four-letter ‘Anglo-Saxon’ word that is considered ‘rude’ by some people. You have been warned.
Tripadvisor.com is the name of last night’s Nighshift website. What interests me is that it’s mis-spelled. Advisor should be adviser - it’s a simple ‘agent-word’, like ‘drive/driver’, ‘walk/walker’, ‘present/presenter’. What’s odd is that advisor looks right and adviser looks wrong. Peculiar.
There’s a weird little group of English words whose spellings - indeed, the very words themselves - are based on ‘mistakes’. To our Saxon ancestors, peas was a singular word; one peas, two peases (or pease). The Normans, however, understood peas to be a plural (naturally) and thus was born the non-existent word pea.
The most charming example of Norman misunderstanding, though, is the name of a lovely little bird - the wheatear. You may think it got its name from some likeness to an ear of wheat waving in the wind - but it didn’t. To the Saxons, it was a ‘white-arse’ - indeed, it has got a light-coloured rump. Because white-arse ends with an ‘s’ sound, the Normans once again heard this as a plural-sounding word and assumed that there must therefore be a singular; thus white-arse...white-ar......wheatear -the nearest word they could find that made sense!

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

Durham

FRIDAY 14 DECEMBER 2007

TRIVIA FESTIVAL
A big thankyou to everyone who’s been sending in trivia and useless information for the upcoming Nightshift Trivia Festival. I’m busy attempting to collate it but it isn’t easy trying to categorise the whole world, which is what the job amounts to. Judging from your contributions so far, the Festival will prove – night after night – that the world is truly an awesome, sometimes ludicrous and often perplexing place and that – as Douglas Adams said – no-one will ever really know what exactly it’s for!
A category of trivia I’m particularly interested in is Christmas itself. A season as camp, self-indulgently excessive and wholly out-of-the-ordinary as Christmas must have acres of trivia and useless information connected to it. Do you know any?
(Incidentally, there’s no need to respond to blog-posed queries like this on the blog itself, if you don’t want to. You can use any of the contact methods shown at the bottom of each posting.)

YOU AND CHRISTMAS
I’d also be interested to know what your plans are for Christmas and the New Year. I’m not just asking because I’m nosey, either. One of the things that makes Christmas unique is surely the massive dislocation of our ordinary daily lives that comes with it. We do and say things that we wouldn’t at any other time of the year, we incur debt that it will take the next 12 months to repay, we go to places that would normally be anathema to us and we eat and drink to an extent that would normally horrify us. Sometimes it seems to me that Christmas has developed into a kind of collective temporary lunacy. A friend of mine came to this conclusion some years ago and decided not to go with the over-indulgent flow. He and his girlfriend now go to Holy Island every Christmas Day to get as far away from the tinsel as possible. They reckon watching the Christmas sunset from the island is about as spiritual and other-worldly as you can get.
What your plans are will show whether I’m right or wrong. So what will you be doing? Who with? Where will you be going? Are you happy to be ‘swept along’ or have you stamped the season with your own determined individuality? If you have, how? And how have those around you reacted?

THE GREEK PARROT
Just to prove that the story of the Greek macaw threatened with a parking ticket is true, Loz has sent this picture of the offending bird. Through Lawrence, I’ll keep you informed of what happens when the case comes up before the beak.

CANADA
The origins of the country-name Canada – prompted by a What’s In A Name? question the other night – have (as usual) generated more questions than answers. Pat in Morpeth tells me that her great-great-grandfather worked there as a platelayer, returning home to Scotland in 1856 to get married. The certificate gives his place of residence as British America. So for the many Nightshift listeners I know we have in Canada.......is the story I told about the origins of the name Canada true? How long has the country had that name? What did the Canadian flag look like before the maple leaf design was adopted in 1964? And.....are there any juicy snippets of trivia about that glorious country for the Festival of Trivia?????

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

THURSDAY 13 DECEMBER 2007

THE TANFIELD AND BOWES RAILWAYS
I’ve received an email from Neville Whaler, an old friend of BBC Radio Newcastle - indeed, without Neville’s appallingly saucy double-entendres, the career of the ‘Tipsy Duchess’ (of blessed memory) wouldn’t have lasted so damnably long. Neville’s a volunteer on the Tanfield Railway and he attached this picture of the Bowes Railway 'Santa Special' service last Sunday morning steaming towards Wrekenton. His email goes on.......
....Over 2000 adults and children travelled on the Santa trains on the four special days. The Tanfield Santa services run until Christmas Eve by which time about 5000 people will have enjoyed a steam train ride to see Santa. Your listeners/readers may like to know that on Boxing Day steam trains are running on the Tanfield Line from 1130, and each passenger will receive a complimentary mince pie! So it's a good opportunity to have a walk in the wintry landscape of the Causey Woods, and take a pleasant train journey.

THE ALDERMASTON CANDLE AUCTION
One of the untainted pleasures of being English is the astonishing range of traditions, events and ancient festivals which have managed to survive to the present day despite all the odds being stacked against them. Here in the north-east we have two Shrovetide football games and three fire-barrel festivals. No-one knows why they build the ‘penny hedge’ on Whitby beach every year and, elsewhere in England, you can find morris dancers blacked-up and dressed in rags, antler-men, obbyosses (‘hobby horses’) and men dressed from head to foot in wild burrs. There are hundreds of examples of what seems to be a uniquely eccentric English compulsion to maintain traditions well beyond their sell-by date and even well after the reasons for them have long been forgotten.
A listener called Michael, who lives in Benwell, called this morning to ‘remind’ me of another that takes place today in the south-east of England; every three years, December 13 is Aldermaston Candle Auction Day. A parcel of land called Church Acre (actually more than two acres in size) is leased to the winning bidder and the ceremony has taken pace since the parish’s common lands were enclosed in 1815. The good burghers of the small Berkshire town push a nail into the side of a candle and place the candle on a tin plate. The auction begins when the candle is lit and ends with the noise of the nail falling onto the plate when the wax melts down to it. I guess it’s a pretty neat way of bringing order to what could be a fairly rowdy and disorganised event. But were auctions of this kind ever common? And why does it happen only once every three years? It seems to me that Aldermaston should be as famed for this event as it is for the CND marches which started there every Easter in the 60s and 70s.

AN ALPHABETICAL SENTENCE
Amongst the pointless and fascinating trivia supplied by Maureen the other day – see blogpostings passim – was that the sentence ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ uses every letter of the alphabet. When I mentioned this on-air, I added a kind of Nightshift challenge; could anyone dream up a sentence that uses each letter of the alphabet once and once only? Well Kev – whom God preserve – has come up with ‘Mr Jock, tv quiz PhD, bags few lynx’. It almost makes sense, Kev. If I was allowed to award a prize, I would.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

National Glass Centre, Sunderland

WEDNESDAY 12 DECEMBER 2007

FESTIVAL OF TRIVIA
One of the features of The Nightshift over the upcoming ‘festive season’ (as I’m constrained to call it) is the 'Festival of Trivia'. I’ll be scattering provably useless information across the airwaves like damp confetti. And that’s where you come in. In order to squeeze the most benefit from this pointless exercise, I’ll need some useless information to scatter. It doesn’t matter what kind of information it is or what the subject matter is – animal, vegetable, mineral or abstract. It doesn’t matter if it’s trivia you were already aware of or factoids that you’ve looked up out of sheer curiosity or even boredom. To give you an idea of how unashamedly trivial you can be, take a leaf out of Truckshunter Maureen's book....
- your eyes are always the same size from birth, whereas your nose and ears never stop growing;
- ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ uses every letter of the alphabet (I have a point to make about this on tomorrow’s Nightshift);
- tremendous, horrendous, stupendous and hazardous are the only words in English that end in –dous.
A sense of curiosity, and an accompanying sense of wonder, are two of the things that make us human. I suppose that’s why trivia like this – and things like pub quizzes and The Weakest Link - are so ‘satisfying’ (Anne Robinson notwithstanding).
Get your useless information and trivia to me as soon as you can. And while you’re about it, look up the origin of the word ‘trivia’. I suspect you’ll find it quite interesting. Trivial, but interesting.

IAN STOREY
You probably know I feel strongly that the north-east’s heroes don’t get the credit they deserve – not even in their own home territory. Where are the blue plaques honouring Gladstone Adams or Matthew Leach? Where are the statues of Robert (rather than George) Stephenson or Dame Flora Robson? Neglect of living heroes is even worse. Until I was carelessly scanning The Guardian’s arts pages the other day, I had never heard of Ian Storey. Have you?

THE SATURDAY MINDMANGLER
I know that quite a few listeners to the weekday programmes don’t - or can’t - listen to the Saturday edition of the Nightshift, which has a special middle-of-the-night mindmangling quiz of its own. It’s called Brahms and Liszt - a fiendishly clever play on words because the quiz is basically a list with one element missing. The first list was....Alabama, Alaska, Arizona. What is that a list of AND which one is missing? Last week’s list was....Steve McLaren, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Kevin Keegan, Terry Venables. What is THAT a list of AND which one (and only one) is missing?

GEMS
Amongst the Truckshunter Gems tonight were I Dreamt I Dwelt In Marble Halls, a traditional Irish ballad sung quite untraditionally by Enya. Her style may quickly have devalued into ‘coffee table Celtic’ but, when it was new, nothing like it had ever been heard before. You may also have heard My Mother Doesn’t Know I’m On The Stage, a rare oldie sung by 1930s comedy star Billy Bennet. Most of the tracks he recorded have dated very badly and sound puerile now. This, though, still has rings of truth and humour about it. I’m glad so many of you enjoyed it!

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

Dunstanburgh

TUESDAY 11 DECEMBER 2007

TRIVIA
By some spooky coincidence probably summoned up from the depths of Hell by the Lord of Darkness himself (Jim Davidson), I received two emails on the same subject on the same day. Both Hildie and Maureen sent me some whacko! examples of complete and utter trivia. Along with everyone else, they’re obviously aware that I’m an inveterate snapper-up of unconsidered trifles..........(to break off here for a moment......who invented the expression snapper-up of unconsidered trifles? I’ve got a feeling it was Gilbert (and Sullivan) but no-one seems to know.......AND No, Loz, by ‘unconsidered trifles’ I don’t mean tuna and caramel trifle......)

Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes – my trivia ladies. I’ve already quoted several of their examples on-air and they’ve caused quite a bruhaha what with one thing and another. Here’s a reminder...

• the longest word typable with the left hand is stewardesses;
• the right hand’s longest typable word is lollipop;
• dreamt is the only word in English that ends with –mt
• no other words rhyme with orange, silver, month, purple or – as we discovered yesterday – chimney.

Other unrhymable words have been suggested since; Alan (in Hexham) suggests angst and scalp but there are difficulties with both of them. Angst is surely a loanword from German (where it means ‘anxiety’). The point at which a foreign loanword becomes ‘English’ is debatable. Are restaurant and pizza ‘English’ words? And what about alp, which is one high mountain? I’d be interested to know your views on this.

If alp is English, it rhymes with scalp, of course. And even if it isn’t, palp (apparently, the mouthparts of a mollusc) also rhymes with it. Sorry Alan. Good try!

I’ll be sprinkling the programmes up to Christmas with delicious trifles like these. Here are some of Hildie’s for you to get to grips with...

• bats always turn left when flying out of a cave;
• taking an afternoon nap can cut the risk of heart disease;
• restaurant is the most mis-spelled word on internet searches;
• only 13% of us now go out on Saturday nights.

CHRISTMAS
The Nightshift will be running normally almost throughout the festive season – except on Christmas morning (because I’ll be on-air ‘live’ on Christmas Day from 1000 to 1400) and on New Year’s Day. If there’s a Christmas record you’d like to hear, either on The Nightshift or on Christmas Day, get in touch. I’m also keen to hear your ideas about features and items you’d like me to cover over the Christmas season. So don’t be backward in coming forward.

I’ve already decided, for example, that we’re going to have a Total Trivia Festival. So......get your utterly useless information and trivia to me NOW!

AND FINALLY...
Don’t forget to send me any digital photographs of the north-east that you would like to see at the top of each blog-posting. Try and make them as small as possible – as far below 1MB as you can – and email them to me here. Thankyou.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

St Aidan of Lindisfarne

MONDAY 10 DECEMBER 2007

AWAY FROM IT ALL
The sculpture of St Aidan in the grounds of Lindisfarne Priory has haunted me for decades; whenever I'm on the island, I always make time to look at it or even spend a little time keeping it company. To sit on its plinth, drinking a coffee and otherwise doing absolutely nothing at all is bliss. It's possible to lose yourself completely in your surroundings; if the circumstances are right, the awesome sanctity of the place gets into your very bones. That's what visiting Holy Island is all about of course. You feel extraordinarily lucky while you're there and very different when you leave. There's always peace somewhere, isn't there?
OK I've told you about MY 'place'. Now tell me about yours.....

PICTURE IT
The 'specialness' of St Aidan's sculpture is why I chose the above picture as the first to 'top off' each day's blog-posting. Every day I'll head up each posting with a photograph of somewhere in the north-east. If you have a digital photo you'd like to be featured uptop, send it to the BBC email address below. But please make sure it's less than 1MB in size - preferably a LOT less. Less than 100k would do!

THE FIRST FATAL RAILWAY ACCIDENT
Every schoolchild knows that the first fatal railway accident occurred at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, when William Huskisson MP was knocked down and killed by George Stephenson's Rocket. Like everyone else (including me) The Guardian newspaper assumed that the story was true and mentioned it in an article about its archives, which covered the event. However, it's now been forced to print a correction. Readers in Egglescliffe, near Stockton, have claimed that the first known railway fatality anywhere in the world took place in their locality. The parish register records the death, in 1827, of a 'female, name unknown, killed by the steam machine on the railway'. She is thought to have been a 'blind beggar woman'. Another unusual, and perhaps mawkish, example of a record held by the north-east that isn't given the credit it deserves.
Do you have any other examples?

THE FIFTH WORD
I 'accidentally' forgot to tell listeners what the mysterious 'fifth word' is this morning. Maureen's list of unrhymable words - orange, silver, purple and month - should be accompanied by chimney, although quite a few of you have other ideas. Window had a lot of support and - for the life of me (as they used to say) - I can't think of a word that rhymes with it. Can you?

THIRTY-NINE
I also received an angry call after the programme ended this morning about the number 39. I had asked on-air how the number is represented in Roman numerals. However, as I told the irate listener (who was called Frank), I don't know the answer. That's why I didn't give it! If you know - PLEASE tell us!!

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
The 'odd one out' amongst the leggy place-names was Kneesworth; unbelievably, Hoppyland, Tiptoe and Legs Cross are all real locations....
And there's another made-up place-name amongst this list of North American names adopted at various locations in the north-east: Toronto, Quebec, California, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York. Which one is it?

GEMS
This morning's Truckshunter Gems were Windows of the World, a much-neglected Dionne Warwick track from 1967, and Vibrate, written and performed to perfection by Rufus Wainwright in 2003.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

THURSDAY 6 DECEMBER 2007

NIGHTSHIFT SUPERSTORE: COMPLAINTS DEPARTMENT
Hilda (‘Hildie’ to her friends), who lives in Dipton, has emailed me with a couple of complaints. Firstly, she wants to know what’s happened to the Truckshunter Certificate. For those not ‘in the know’, this was a ludicrous idea I had to award every listener with a certain level of mental incapacity a special Certificate; this would have the dual effect of raising their self-esteem and - on presentation at the appropriate institution, sanatorium or retreat - guaranteeing sympathetic treatment. Kev (who, I’m glad to say, is now recovering from his recent health scare) even went to the trouble of designing the Certificate. You can see his handiwork on the blogposting for 22 November. Well, Hildie, the delay is all my fault. Implementation of the The Honourable Company of Truckshunters WILL occur as soon as I can work out a system for it. Printing and posting the Certificates is beyond the resources of my bank account (seriously), especially as so many Truckshunters live overseas. Issuing them as ‘e-Certificates’, which a few of you have suggested, disenfranchises those without computers and is also, to be perfectly honest, beyond my computing capabilities. I’ll find a solution if it’s the last thing I do.
Secondly, Hildie’s having trouble posting a comment on this blog. As far as I know, all you do is click on the ‘number of comments’ indicator at the bottom of each of my postings. This should open the ‘Comments’ window. Type into the 'Comments' box and click ‘Publish’. Within a couple of minutes, your comment will be available for all to see if they click the ‘number of comments’ indicator. That, at least, is how it works on my Mac here at home. Benighted Windows users may well have to right-click something or other, enter a secret code starting with ‘C**//dir/’, hit ‘control/shift/delete/caps lock’ and take a pill. Is anyone else having problems?

HIT COUNTER
Speaking of which....I would like to install a ‘hit-counter’ on the blog. It’s a simple device which tells me how many people have looked at the blog each day. I’ve looked at various examples which are, apparently, free to download from the internet. But how do I do it?

MAUREEN
Maureen’s emailed list of trivia and useless information caused far more trouble on the ‘live’ part of this morning’s programme than I thought it would. But, as Dubya once famously said, what do I know? She said that dreamt is the only word in English that ends with -mt. Many of you called in high dudgeon to suggest prompt, tempt and others. Wrong! It seems that, on this occasion, Maureen’s right!

GEMS
Tonight’s Truckshunter Gem tracks were....Ashes To Ashes, David Bowie’s Number 1 hit from 1980. I played it because of its memorable video, directed by Bowie himself with David Mallet.......and Satie’s haunting Gymnopedie I, written originally for solo piano but played here in the version orchestrated by Debussy.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
No Place must be one of England’s strangest names and the explanation for it in my book is wrong. A Blue Bus listener some years ago informed Paul and me that the name arose because the pit-shaft sits directly over the boundary between two parishes - Chester-le-Street and, I think, Beamish. It was thus in ‘no place’.
Today’s query.....of the many leg-related place-names in the north-east, which of these have I made up: Hoppyland, Kneesworth, Tiptoe, Legs Cross?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

WEDNESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2007

THIS BLOG....
I’m sorry this posting is so late. I promise I’ll try to make sure they’re on time in future.

RISK AND PROBABILITY
The question which I posed - without realising the full consequences! - has given me headaches ever since. If you missed it.......how many people do you need in the same room for there to be a 50/50 chance that two of them share the same birthday? The question arose because of yet another pub-style argument about the answer, which is a much lower figure than you’d think.
The headaches have been caused by the mind-mangling response I got from Loz, virtually none of which I understood. It reminded me of why I only just managed to scrape through my Maths O level all those years ago. I’m not proud of the fact - that’s just the way it is. An interest in buses and canals is much easier on the logic circuits than being a maths fiend - although I can see the fascination. Which reminds me......I once owned a book that was intended as a kind of ‘dummies’ guide to maths and figures. It was called Mathematics for the Millions. Can anyone throw some light on it? Do you know if it’s still available?
There is another - so far unanswered - side to my on-air query. One of the theories I’ve always had great difficulty getting my head round is the fallacy of risk assessment. This seems to suggest that the risk of, say, being killed in an air crash does NOT increase the more often you fly; that the risk is always the same. You only need to fly once in order to assume the same risk as anyone else - including those who fly all the time. I’m assured that this is the case, although it seems entirely illogical to me. Surely, you stand a much better chance of - say - winning the lottery the more tickets you buy. Or don’t you?

THE TRUCKSHUNTER FROG
Thanks to Loz, here is a picture of the psychoactive frog I mentioned in the Newsreel.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Yesterday I asked what Shield(s) meant in names like South Shields and Carrshield. It comes from and Old English (ie Anglo-Saxon) word schele, ‘hut, shelter’. They were usually temporary shelters built for, for example, fisherfolk (as at South and North Shields) or shepherds (as at Carrshield and many other places). The same word is ‘hidden’ in Axwell, which is ‘huts by the oak trees’ and crops up - in disguise - in Cumbria, often as ‘scale(s)’ or ‘schole(s)’.
Today’s question features one of the region’s oddest names - No Place. How did it get its name?

GEMS
Tonight’s Truckshunter Gem tracks were.....Ring The Living Bell, which I wrongly dated to the late 60s. It was released in 1972 by Melanie Safka (usually known simply as Melanie).....and the theme music for Flight Of The Condor, yet another wonderful BBC wildlife series from the 70s. It was played by Guamary, about whom I know nothing at all, and spawned a craze for panpipe music of all kinds, much of it truly awful. This, though, was exquisite and my thanks go to Pauline in Low Fell for requesting it.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

TUESDAY 4 DECEMBER 2007

GROSVENOR

It’s happened at last. The Nightshift has a mascot. Not, of course, one of those ludicrous fancy-dress mascots that parade around the touchlines at football matches looking faintly - or even totally - ridiculous. No man dressed in a silly suit for us. We have....a rat. A beautiful, big black rat. In an act of selfless devotion to the programme, Lawrence (‘Loz’ to his friends) has offered to be the official mascot-monitor on behalf of all truckshunters everywhere. In a further act of what can only be described as wanton lack of common sense, Loz has also agreed that this lovely creature shall be called Grosvenor, thus fulfilling a weird childhood fantasy on my part. In my pre-teen years - and for reasons which only an extremely perceptive psychologist could get a grip on - I wanted to own a pet rat called Grosvenor. In fact, as I remember it, I wanted to own a pet rat just so that I could call him Grosvenor. After all these years, my dream has finally come true. Who’d have thought it possible? Well shunt my trucks.

CONTACT AND COMMUNICATION
I hope it’s fairly obvious that I thoroughly enjoy researching, producing and presenting The Nightshift. The amount of feedback I get via email, text, letter and here on the blog is awesome - especially considering the relative smallness (in numbers, of course) of the audience. In fact, this feedback is essential. You may think that I bleat on endlessly on-air about how to get in touch with me but before you put finger to keyboard to complain, bear one thing in mind. One of the most difficult things to get used to for me when I took over The Nightshift in August was the complete absence of ‘live’ contact with listeners. I was used to being able to generate ‘instant’ reaction to programme content. Now, of course, no matter what approach I take, we both know that the programme is pre-recorded and that I’m not there to take emails, texts and calls ‘live’ until 0545, Monday to Friday - and not at all at weekends. And that’s why I mean it when I say that I love getting your emails, texts, calls, letters and online blog comments. They are the oxygen I’m used to. So please, don’t be discouraged simply because the programme is pre-recorded. If there’s something you want to say to me......say it.

REMEMBER REMEMBER....
...the fourth of December. A very big thankyou to everyone who got in touch during the night, as well as during the ‘live’ part of the programme and throughout the day, to wish me a happy birthday. You made my day!

GEMS
The Gems tonight were Little Things by the mesmerising Dave Berry and an astonishingly saucy number (in our Listen To The Banned slot) called My Private Affair. It was sung - much in the manner of a nursery rhyme, I thought - by Dawn Davis. I wonder who she was, and what happened to her....

WHAT’S IN A NAME
A ‘haugh’ is a water-meadow. But what are ‘shields’ - as in South and North?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.

MONDAY 3 DECEMBER 2007

FREERICE.COM
This is one of a growing number of websites which seem, to the end-user, to be able to raise money by ‘magic’. In this case, all you do is play along with a word-game (you’re given a word and choose what it means from four options) and each time you get the answer right, 10 grains of rice are donated to the UN World Food Programme. The words get harder as you go along but - hey - you can always start again AND it doesn’t actually cost YOU anything. The site is able to do this because of the adverts that scroll along the bottom of the page. Neat. Several conventional websites are supporting charities in this way now - including Google. Other sites - though performing regular internet functions like browsing and email - are actually dedicated fundraisers. Take a look at magictaxi.co.uk, which is a browser and email client AND donates to named charities which change daily. Isn’t the internet amazing?

SPEAKING OF WHICH....
Someone very wise and perceptive - it may have been David Attenborough or Michael Palin - said recently that the lives of ‘ordinary’ people had changed more in the last 50 years or so than they had in the previous 2,000 years. Think about it. For most people education, communication, travel, health, life expectancy and all the trappings of everyday life didn’t alter in any meaningful way for centuries. When I was born (59 years ago tomorrow), almost no-one had a private phone; in the street we lived on in Peterlee, only one household possessed one. There were only three or four cars at most. People took their holidays in Crimdon or South Shields - and they went there by bus or train. You did your shopping locally. Computers hadn’t even been imagined, let alone mobile phones and foreign holidays. In fact, when you think about it, almost nothing about the daily lives of ordinary folk is the same now as it was then. I reckon we’re quite lucky to have lived through such exciting times.

TRUCKSHUNTER GEMS
The Gems this morning were You’re Gunna Lose That Girl, from the The Beatles’ 1964 film Help! and a truly delightful - and genuinely sad - local song called Mally Didn’t Come. It was sung by Pete Scott.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?
In local place-names, -bottle (as in Shilbottle and Newbottle) means ‘dwelling-place’ or just ‘building’. It’s related to Scots bothy.
This morning’s question.......in Pauperhaugh, Derwenthaugh and Humshaugh, what does ‘haugh’ mean?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN

NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.