Grosvenor, the Black Rat - our mascot

TUESDAY 15 APRIL 2008

100

Unbelievably, this really is the 100th posting to the truckshunters blog since it flung its unhinged doors open in October last year. When I cranked it up 100 postings ago and launched it wheezily onto an unsuspecting internet, I wasn’t sure where it would go (if anywhere at all) and what your reaction to it would be. Needless to say, I’m both flattered and delighted by the way you have rceived my wayward meanderings. One way or another, I think the ground we’ve covered here is mind-boggling and a very great deal of the credit must go to you, the faithful truckshunter blogsters!

I think, though, that now would be a good time for me to take a break. Although blogposting is not exactly an onerous responsibility, I have decided to award myself some time off for a while in order to concentrate more on developing The Nightshift itself. So although there will be no truckshunter blog for the moment at least, listen out for changes to the programme which, I hope, will make it even livelier and more fun than it already is!

Thanks once again for your enthusiasm and participation in this great blogging experiment. Please be assured that it has not been wasted. Far from it.

IAN

By Alison Best

MONDAY 14 APRIL

ALISON BEST
Once again, thanks for all the positive reaction I’ve received about my chat with Alison on last Friday’s Nightshift ( - it was repeated on Sunday morning, too). It was especially pleasing to get so many comments not just on how interesting her self-created new artform was but also on what a very pleasant lady she sounded. Well, she sounded that way because that’s the way she is; a very pleasant lady indeed.

That’s all very well, of course - except that Alison is trying to make her presence felt in what is a surprisingly competitive environment; she’s fighting for attention from the local arts bigwigs who not only have the power and influence to get her work shown in local galleries but can also help - or not help - to open grant-awarding doors, too. Alison has done astonishingly well to get this far with her innovative ideas. Let’s hope she doesn’t lose heart and that her upcoming exhibition is a huge success. Nobody deserves it more than Alison does.

Her show runs from this Wednesday 16 April to 17 May at the Buddle Arts Centre in Wallsend. Go and see it if you possibly can. If you’d like to meet me there one day, just say the word and we may be able to set something up.

JOHN’S ANAGRAMS
A listener called John - about whom I know nothing except his name - has sent me a list of particularly pertinent anagrams. I’m not sure whether he’s simply passing them on to me or made them up himself from scratch. In any case, they’re excellent John. Thanks for sending them.....

dormitory - dirty room
Presbyterian - best in prayer
astronomer - moon starer
desperation - a rope ends it
the eyes - they see
the Morse Code - here come dots
slot machines - cash lost in me
animosity - is no amity
election results - lies: let’s recount
snooze alarms - alas, no more Zs
a decimal point - I’m a dot in place
eleven plus two - twelve plus one
mother-in-law - woman Hitler

Brilliant!

Any more ingenious anagram contributions anyone?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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.

Hildie

FRIDAY 11 APRIL

The sainted - and VERY patient - Hildie sent me her contribution to the truckshunter guest-posting campaign ages ago; on 24 March, in fact. Since then, it’s been languishing unregarded and unnoticed in the inbox of ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com. The blame lies entirely with me; some weeks ago I stealthily withdrew that email as a contact option on the blog and haven’t even checked its inbox since then.

Why I did it in such a cloak-and-dagger way I can’t even begin to imagine. I must have been even more ‘preoccupied’ than usual that day. Unfortunately its withdrawal was so clandestine that Hildie - and quite a few others - didn’t even notice. Which is hardly surprising.

Once again, my apologies to Hildie and to everyone else who’s been emailing me at that address. My communication skills have once again let me - and you - down.

The REAL shame of my faux-pas is that Hildie’s posting is a cracker. I loved it, and I know you will too........

TRUCKSHUNTER BLOGPOSTING: HILDIE - A BEAMISH STORY
I thought I would tell you all about my brother-in-law Tony and his Irish friend Murphy. Tony works at Beamish Museum as a Senior Demonstrator on the 1825 Waggonway. That means he drives the steam trains.

About a year ago, one of his workmates went to Dublin for a day trip and bought a leprechaun keyring as a souvenir. He took it into work and everybody took an instant shine to the leprechaun and christened him Murphy (very original!). When one of the Waggonway team went back to Ireland for a holiday, he took Murphy back to his homeland and took photos of him in various different situations in Ireland to take back to work for everyone to enjoy.This started a craze amongst everyone at the Waggonway. Whenever one of them went on holiday, they would take Murphy with them and photograph the little leprechaun wherever they went. As you can tell from the photographs, he's had some close encounters! [There are more photos of Murphy; I'll post them over the next few days. Ian]

So far, Murphy has travelled to Prague, Amsterdam, Portugal, Ireland, Corfu, Kos, Costa Brava and Bulgaria. That's pretty well-travelled for only a year!!!

While in Kos, Murphy even met his girlfriend, Dora. She's a fridge magnet. Dora is now all set to join Murphy on future jaunts.Before Murphy came on the scene, a cockerel and two hens (named Hen & Hen) lived at the Waggonway. One day the cockerel went missing (most likely a fox's lunch). When my brother-in-law Tony went on a weekend to Hartlepool, he sent a postcard addressed to the hens at the Waggonway pretending it was from the cockerel. After that, the hens received numerous postcards from the cockerel whenever museum staff went on holiday. The Waggonway staff told visitors about this story and then suddenly the hens received postcards from all over the world!

Just thought I'd give you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes at the Waggonway of Beamish Museum! You can see they take the job seriously!

See what I mean? It's a good'un, innit?

ALISON BEST
Thanks for your very positive reactions to my chat with Alison on today’s Nightshift. It will be repeated on Sunday morning’s programme and I’ll post her contact details - and the dates and venue of her upcoming exhibition - on Monday’s blogposting.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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.

Oh b****r

THURSDAY 10 APRIL

THE THINGS WE SAY
As you know, I’ve always been fascinated by the way people around England use their native tongue to express themselves; the many ways in which the rich sounds of English have been twisted, warped or otherwise manipulated into accents that are often almost - and sometimes, completely - unintelligible to ‘outsiders’. A Tynesider waaks to wawk while a Teessider wawks to wairk. In Sheffield, ‘going down the road to the school’ emerges mysteriously as goo-in darn t’roe-ad to t’skoyle and ‘Monday to Friday’ becomes ‘Monday while Friday’.

Outsiders who say that some accents might as well be foreign languages are quite right. You can probabaly guess that German der Mann ist mein Vater means ‘that man is my father’. But how about Lancastrian artye witshert? This is strongly-accented ‘art thou wet-shod?’, the phrase often used to mean ‘is it raining outside?’ QED.

Things get infinitely more complex, of course, when what you are confronted with is a fully-grown dialect rather than a mere accent. Whether a dialect is obscure and unintelligible enough to be classed as a language in its own right depends, I guess, on how many unique words and expressions it contains and how they are used. A dialect word for ‘slow-burning coal’ is not as important in this respect as words for ‘hat’, ‘dog’ or ‘fire’.

Some dialects - very definitely including Northumbrian, and probably Tyneside Geordie, too - could easily be defined as separate languages; as different from standard ‘BBC’ English as Catalan is from Castilian Spanish. To possess utterly unEnglish words like dut and femmer is quite an achievement! (The north-east cannot decide what a dut actually is. On Tyneside, it seems to refer to a bowler hat; in East Durham - my homeland - it’s a woolly hat of the sort to which pompoms are sometimes attached.)

Finally, you may have heard me mention a few of the words I heard in Herefordshire on this morning's Nightshift. Here are a few more...
gawl - pry, snoop
killship - shamefaced
skith - minimal snowfall
spag - quarrelsome, argumentative
beethy - damp, soft
caddle - potter about
kank - bad temper
grault - ghost
I was also surprised to hear bait used in its north-east sense of ‘snack, packed lunch’.

Some years ago, a ‘dialect map’ of England was drawn up by some learned professorial types somewhere. One of the words they used to determine regionality was the word children use to excuse themselves temporarily from playing a game; where I come from, that word is skinch; in Sheffield, it’s fainites and in London, it’s kings. Why the words are so different from each other, or what their origins are, is anyone’s guess. What word did you use?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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 9 APRIL

This astonishing picture was sent to me by Gilly Hope. In case you live on another planet (or are a benighted citizen of Middlesbrough or somewhere equally as ghastly) I should explain that Gilly is our traffic presenter at BBC Radio Newcastle and, even at her tender years, she should know better than to look at websites which feature perverted images like this one. It ought to be against some BBC rule or other. In fact, it probably is.

Gilly, however, is no respecter of rules and regulations. Why, only this morning she absented herself from the Wednesday Chant (‘Inform! Educate! Entertain! Inform! Educate! Entertain!’) by brewing up a cuppa for us while we were intoning and then pulling funny faces at me from behind the Purple Curtain. A born rebel, that one.

Anyway, having revealed her weakness for facially hirsute weirdos like the one above, she then had the enormous effrontery to suggest that he looks not dissimilar to yours truly. Since she made the suggestion I have been in deep shock - a condition from which I can only recover with YOUR help.

So tell me......this man looks nothing at all like ME, does he?

DOES HE?

On a happier note....

TREES
As you know, when it comes to trees, I don’t beat about the bush (as it were). Trees are unarguably wonderful; they have infinite variety in their shapes, sizes, colours and pure ‘presence’ - from the Scottish Mountain Willow (apparently the world’s smallest tree) to the almighty and almost ageless Californian redwood.

The problem as far as I am concerned is.....there aren’t nearly enough of them. Through our centuries-long exploitation of them, we’ve almost denuded England of their beneficial presence. Remember that most of our moorlands are NOT ‘wildernesses untouched by the hand of man’ - they are very much man-made; the result of our relentless harvesting of the trees which once covered them.

Which is where WE come in.

If you can afford it, this is a really good time to plant a tree in your garden and give back to the Earth at least something in return for what our ancestors took away. Websites such as the Woodland Trust’s can recommend varieties for us to plant and there are many agencies who can get them to us - the best-known is Tree 2 My Door, which has an astonishing range. Your local nursery or garden centre can offer you advice - and often supply you with a suitable sapling too.

Yes I know trees aren’t cheap. But - provided you buy the right species - they’re easy to plant and maintain, they give height and a sense of ‘sculpture’ to your garden, they’re an endless source of interest to you and your family - and even your descendants! - as they slowly grow year-on-year, they increase the national stock of planted trees and will probably offer shelter and food to a dozen different species of birds and insects.

Do the world a favour. Plant a tree.

Marian, Stan and Eddie - eat your heart out!

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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 8 APRIL

The ‘banner picture’ today is one of an extraordinary series sent to me by Bob Williams. They show various delivery lorries adorned with eye-catching trompe-l’oeil designs that trick the eye into seeing three dimensions instead of two. It’s delightful to see that time and money has been invested in ‘public commercial art’ like the optical illusions so meticulously painted on these waggons. They are, I think, German and surely give the lie to that country’s stereotypical staid humourlessness. It must be an unexpected joy to one of them trundling along the autobahn. Thanks Bob.

PLACE-NAMES......AGAIN
As I’ve said before on the blog, my predilection for toponymy ( - I’m terribly sorry about my incurable verbal diarrhoea today - ) sometimes lands me in deep er.....trouble when I encounter someone who is certain that they know the derivation of some local place-name or other. Well, it’s happened again.

As usual, it was Pity Me that started it. (See elsewhere on this blog for examples of me fulminating against the locally-accepted derivation of Pity Me as ‘little lake’.) This time, my fellow drinker assured me that it was a reference to a Pieta, a kind of oath uttered by pilgrims as they approach their destination - in this case, the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral. Naturally, it means no such thing.

Wrong place-name derivations are, though, extremely difficult to dislodge once they’re bedded down in folk-memory, as the ensuing brimstone conversation proved yet again. Jesmond was ‘Jesus’ mound’ (which it never was), Quakinghouses commemorated a powerful underground pit explosion (which it doesn’t) and Glororum was a corruption of ‘glower o’er ‘em’ (which it most certainly isn’t).

I’ve decided that what irritates me about these glibly accepted but nevertheless incorrect derivations is not that their adherents are ignorant of the true explanations but rather that they don’t want to acknowledge a stark and simple truth: that (except for Jesmond) there aren’t any indisputably accurate explanations for the place-names I’ve mentioned at all. And there are dozens of other place-names in the same boat; names so ancient and/or so corrupted through time that even inspired guesswork comes a cropper when confronted by them. (Why do we say ‘comes a cropper’?)

Furthermore - if I may extend my contention into the realms of the faintly philosophical - the issue seems to me to tell us a common truth about ‘the human condition’. We have a brain the size of a planet (to quote Douglas Adams) and have consequently come to believe that there is nothing we don’t, or can’t, know. The corollary of this is that, when we are confronted by something patently inexplicable by any means known to us, we must invent an explanation rather than accept the bald fact that ‘we just don’t know’.

This need to be certain that there MUST be an explanation for everything - from the Meaning of Jesmond to the Meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything - has resulted in some of the most flamboyantly incredible and bizarre theories in religious history; that the moon is made of green cheese, that the Earth is flat and really WAS created by God in about a week or so or that the entire universe was sneezed out of the nose of a divine elemental frog fairy.

And all because of Pity Me.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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.

Polar Bears (courtesy of Kev)

MONDAY 7 APRIL

VOYAGE OF THE TITANIC
Ninety-six years ago on Thursday, RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on its maiden - and, as it turned out - final voyage. In the intervening decades, many books (fiction and otherwise), opinionated articles, pamphlets, reports, research documents and even poems have been written and at least two epic films made. Such is the endless drawing power of the story that it shows no sign of loosening its grip on the world’s fascinated imagination for decades to come.

You may be aware that, here at BBC Radio Newcastle, we have our own resident expert on all things Titanic - a veritable ‘titanicologist’; Railton Howes. Indeed, each year, round about the Titanic’s grisly anniversary, I try to make a point of recording a chat with Railton about it; I’ve always found his fascination with the event, coupled with his in-depth knowledge and research into what happened that dreadful night, totally gripping.

This year we’re pushing the boat out even further (so to speak). This morning, Railton and I recorded a session of interviews to be aired on The Nightshift in ‘virtual real time’. On the exact relevant days, we - and, we hope, YOU - will be ghosts on the Titanic. We’ll be there on Thursday when she sails from Southampton. On Friday, we’ll take a wander round the ship, looking in on its First Class suites, its Grand Staircase, its Parisian Cafe and its Ballroom. On Saturday, we’ll learn who the passengers and crew were and on Sunday, as the unfortunate vessel sailed towards its destruction, we’ll find out what went wrong and whether anything could have been done to prevent the disaster.

And of course, we’ll be there on Monday, precisely 96 years since catastrophe struck on 14 April 1912 - and at exactly the same moment in the middle of the night. It's going to feel really 'spooky'.

Believe me - recording the sessions with Railton this morning was grippingly exciting. What’s left of my hair stood on end several times and my jaw dropped at the indefensible complacency, stupidity and sheer horror not just on the night of the ship’s loss, but before and after the event, too.

Railton’s knowledge and enthusiasm are infectious as he warms to his subject! Be sure to catch The Nightshift’s virtual voyage on board the Titanic, starting on Wednesday morning and running throughout its voyage to next Tuesday. I reckon you’ll be hooked!

One day I must get round to asking Railton why he’s so riveted to the subject!

DAVID GRAY
The David Gray track I played was called Aint No Love from the CD Life In Slow Motion. I’m so glad you liked it. It reduces me to a quivering wreck of sentimental tears every single time I hear it. So I try to make sure I don’t hear it too often.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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.

FRIDAY 4 APRIL

WORLD RAT DAY
Big hugs from all truckshunters to our handsome mascot Grosvenor, the black rat, on this special day. And thanks once again to Lawrence for looking after him so well.

SILVER THREADS AND GOLDEN NEEDLES
As I mention on-air occasionally, there seems to be a suspiciously large number of truckshunters who choose to contribute the The Nightshift’s content anonymously. Sometimes, envelopes with Ian Robinson scrawled on them are left at Reception here but it’s much more common for them to be posted and to end up in my pigeon-hole upstairs in the post-room. It’s always gratifying to see them, of course; it makes me feel quite smug, as a matter of fact, whenever I get bombarded by a cascade of two or three letters a week.

But the anonymity is unsettling. Is this one listener repeatedly posting items to me out of shyness or a sense of false modesty (or even well-founded shame)? Or is there really an army of truckshunters out there scouring libraries, newspapers, magazines and the internet for Nightshift titbits? I don’t wish to sound ungrateful but - whoever you are - please give your name(s) so that I can give you credit on-air. After all, you deserve it.

The latest example of this anonymous largesse is a wonderful list of quotes and thoughts about the perils of growing old - or at least older. I got it this morning and below are some of the lovely things in it. There’ll be more on the programme itself next week....

You know you’re getting old when -
- your back hurts;
- you eat food past its sell-by date;
- your carpet is patterned;
- you go shopping at the supermarket in the evening to pick up marked-down bargains;
- you can spell;
- you hang your clothes on padded hangers;
- you try to get electrical gadgets repaired when they go wrong;
- you save the little packets of sugar from cafes;
- you watch old black-and-white films on tv and keep on saying ‘He’s dead’, ‘She’s dead’.

I’m sure you can think of some more!

‘Mick Jagger told me the wrinkles on his face were laughter lines - but nothing’s THAT funny’ George Melly

‘Don’t worry about avoiding temptation; as you grow older, temptation starts avoiding YOU’ Anon

‘The doctor said ‘I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you’re not a hypochondriac’. Bob Monkhouse

More thoughts about growing old gratefully accepted.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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.

Oh b****r!

THURSDAY 3 APRIL

AVERAGES
Having read your comments on yesterday’s blog, Kev, I’m fascinated by your definitions of the various kinds of averages. However....er.....I’m not quite with you. Would you mind illustrating with a concrete example......

The ages of a random group of 20 people (say, a group of truckshunters) are as follows: 18, 18, 19, 22, 22, 29, 30, 32, 36, 36, 45, 46, 46, 47, 59, 60, 61, 78, 93, 95.

What’s their ‘mean’ average age? And their ‘median’ average age? And their ‘modal’ average age? And how did you work the averages out?

MARGARET AND JIM
Once upon a time there lived in Newbiggin-by-the-Sea a lady called Margaret. In fact, she lives there still, happily and avidly listening to BBC Radio Newcastle. She passes her days listening to the provocative Mike Parr, the chirpy Jonathan Miles, the cheeky Alfie Joey....and her nights snoozing to the soporific Ian Robinson.

One morning, though - when Mike Parr was being paricularly provocative and naughty - she got up from her chair to make herself a cup of Earl Grey. Just then, something very strange happened. She looked out of her kitchen window at the very moment when Uncle Jim Bacon, the trusty BBC weatherman, was announcing the times of the high tide at Shields Bar. And, because Margaret had never lost her sense of curiosity, she began to wonder....

If the moon’s gravity affects the ebb and flow of something as bulky as the sea, why doesn’t it affect something as flimsy and insubstantial as clouds? Why aren’t clouds drawn towards the moon? After all, she reasoned, they are already closer to it than the sea is and the moon is usually in the sky, even during the day when you can’t actually see it.

She couldn’t get the enigma out of her head. Eventually, she came up with a way of resolving the puzzle. ‘I know!’ she exclaimed to Montmorency, her cat. ‘I’ll ask that nice, soporific Ian Robinson to have a word with Uncle Jim Bacon. He’s sure to know the answer!’

So she did. And I did. And he does.

Just in case any of you missed it, Uncle Jim - who obviously has several strings to his meteorological bow - followed up his on-air explanation with an email, which I reproduce below.

‘What I was trying to say without using the maths is that the force of gravity G = f ( m1xm2 ) / R squared

m1 and m2 are the masses of the two objects

f is a constant (doesn't count in this argument, its the same for both)

R is the distance between the two bodies (same for both)

Say m1 is the moon, R is the distance from moon to earth ( assume same for sea and cloud stuff )

m2 is the only thing that is different between the two examples. m2 is the mass of the ocean compared to the mass of a cloud droplet so the force of gravity between the moon and the ocean is many orders of magnitude greater than the force between the moon and a tiny cloud droplet. Infact the other forces on the cloud droplet are much greater, buoyancy and wind etc

Don't you just love physics......I'll take my anorak off now!

Jim'

So now you know. Don’t you?

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
text 07786 200954 (up to 0600, Monday to Friday)
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.

My hero

WEDNESDAY 2 APRIL

BLOGS
One of the truly awesome aspects of the internet is that there ALWAYS seems to be something new to explore, new places to go, new things to find out and new lives to ‘lose yourself’ in. Anyone with an addictive trait - such as yours truly - could waste an awful lot of time just cruising around, following link after link just to find out what’s - or who’s - at the other end. Believe me, I have to be very disciplined indeed - and self-discipline is NOT one of my (very few) strong points. Take this very blog....

A couple of years ago (when I first tried a personal blog and generally failed miserably) I discovered that if I click on any of the things I list amongst my ‘interests’, Blogger comes up with everyone else who’s listed the same thing. I tried it with ‘Istanbul’ the other day and discovered some positively beautiful blogs written in praise of that astonishing city by people who live there, or who love it as much as I do - or, of course, both.

From there, it’s possible to email the blogger or attach comments to their blogs - much like we do here. I’ve made a good ‘e-friend’ in Denver, Colorado this way. We share a love of Saint-Saens (the unfairly neglected French composer); David had visited The Great Man’s grave in Montparnasse Cemetery and was able to tell me exactly where it was so that I could visit it myself and pay homage to one of my heroes when I visited Paris two years ago.

You don’t even need to go that far. On the Blogger homepage - down the right-hand side - is a list of ‘notable blogs’ for you to explore and enjoy. Take it from there.

The internet is a magnificent gateway to the world. Enjoy it - and report back if you come across anything interesting and/or fun!

THE NIGHTSHIFT QUESTIONNAIRE
If the second question in our awesome series was ‘Which words and phrases do you most often overuse?’ then I guess my answer would have to be ‘awesome’ and ‘I guess’, I guess.

CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
ianstuartrobinson@googlemail.com
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.

Where the Famous Five re-unite!

TUESDAY 1 APRIL

The other day I received an email....

'Hi Ian,
[The truckshunters’ novel Secrets of the Sea has....] inspired me to begin a second novel. Rather than another Mills & Boon, I decided to write the first chapter of a Famous Five novel! Yes, I said The Famous Five. I know they were children's books, but I enjoyed reading them, and now I'm wondering whatever happened to Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timothy, George's dog.

I set to work a couple of nights ago, and have included below the first chapter for you to read. If you think it will go down well with other truckshunters, then please place it on the website for their contributions. I hope you like it. I can't wait to see how the story progresses.

Lots of love,
Vivienne xxx'

I’m flattered to be actually mentioned in the story Vivienne has started and I think she’s done enough groundwork to get us going....Take a deep breath.....

FIVE REUNITE ON HOLY ISLAND
Chapter One: Forty Years On

'I can't believe that forty years have passed since we spent our first hols together! Anne, how about getting together again this year for a holiday reunion? Do you think Jules and Dick will be able to take time from work to join us during August?'

Anne knew that, as a teacher, she would be available in August. Her husband, also a teacher, would be able to look after their two girls. As teenagers they no longer wished to holiday with their parents, but Anne felt anxious about leaving the girls on their own. Julian, on the other hand, was the managing director of his own accountancy firm, and was often unable to attend family gatherings. As the oldest sibling Julian had always taken charge during their childhood holidays. He had a mature, sensible approach, and was always destined to be a leader and high achiever. Julian married Amy thirty-one years ago and their four children were now in their twenties. James became a father last year and Amy reduced her hours at the library in order to help out with baby-sitting. She loved her role as a doting Grandmother.

'I'll phone Jules, but I'm not too hopeful. I doubt if Amy will come. As well as looking after young Simon her mum hasn't been well, and Amy has been spending quite a lot of time with her.'

'What about Dick, is he still seeing Rachael?'

Dick had endured two failed marriages, and was now in a steady relationship.

'Oh George, they split up last month. Can you believe it? I don't think he'll ever settle down. He's changed his job again too. He's at Radio Newcastle, and has taken over the evening slot, playing all his favourite music!'

'Newcastle? Has he moved to Newcastle? If so he's only about forty miles from me. Perhaps we could holiday in Northumberland? Anne, I keep seeing those lovely adverts of Northumberland on tv, 'Passionate places & passionate people,' and keep thinking that I should explore this beautiful county. I 'll be employing university students again this summer. There were three last year who were extremely competent, and they've asked to work again this year throughout July and August.'

George had moved to Northumberland in the mid nineties, where she opened a watersports centre. The windsurfing centre at Kielder Water had closed down, and until George saved the day with her new instruction and hire business, 'Kirrin's of Kielder,' there had been virtually no windsurfing and canoeing on the reservoir for about three years.

'That's settled then,' said Anne decisively. ' Dick will be due a couple of weeks by the summer, so if he gives his boss, Ian Robinson, enough notice he should be ok for August. I'll now just have to work on Julian.'

'Your brothers are completely different from each other, but they still get on really well together.'

'A bit like us. Gosh, we may be cousins but we're nothing alike! I love John, Sally and Kate, my home and teaching five year olds. I enjoy trying out new recipes, and next year I'm to be president of our W.I. You, on the otherhand dear Georgina, were always a tom-boy, and still are!'

'Don't start nagging me again. I can afford to employ someone to do my housework and that suits me fine!'

Quickly changing the subject Anne said, 'How I miss our adventures on Kirrin Island with Tim.'

'Oh that's it! We'll stay on The Holy Island of Lindisfarne in August. It's a lot bigger than Kirrin Island but I've heard it's a magical place, and it gets completely cut off from the mainland at high tide. I'll surf the internet now to see if I can hire us a cottage. I'll take my boat, a couple of windsurfs and my new puppy. Guess what I've called him?'

'Timothy?' asked Anne, wishing she was with George to see her puppy, rather than speaking to her over the telephone.

'Yes, we can't have an adventure without a Timothy can we? He's adorable Anne, you'll love him'.

So what are you waiting for.....?

CONTACT ME
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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.