Hello, its Peter here and welcome to Thursdays Levy Letter. I hope your day is going well.
I got talking yesterday about Gordon Ramsays £100 pizza (can you believe!), which is on sale in Gordons restaurant in London. It has a truffle topping, and I was saying that I didnt know what a truffle was. Well Im indebted to Nicola thank you Nicola! for the definition, which has come straight from the dictionary. A truffle a subterranean edible fungi found anywhere between two to fifteen inches below the ground, usually in a circular formation about four to five feet from the base of an oak tree. Lovely, but does it actually warrant £100 for them to be a topping on a pizza? Well the white truffles have a slight garlic flavour. Anyway, if youre in London and you fancy going to Gordon Ramsays restaurant, itll cost you £100 for a pizza! While were tidying up loose ends, I also mentioned poker and the increasing popularity of poker. Apparently, more people would stay in and play poker than go out at night. Well thats what it said in the paper anyway. Well, there have been several emails on the subject of poker. One here from Dave Hills from Market Rasen There are many different types of forms of poker, Peter, but by far the most popular versions are Texas Holdem, No Limit, Limit or Pot Limit. Theres also Omaha. It doesnt mean a lot to me, but whatever! Dave goes on to say, Poker takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master. Talks are currently in hand apparently to make it an official Olympic sport! Youve got a computer Peter, so why dont you get on one of the sites and play online. I dont think we can be encouraging gambling can we? But anyway, there you are, thats poker! Very, very popular now apparently. More popular than staying in! Tonight at 6.30pm Join me tonight on BBC1 at 6.30pm as ever for all the days news and in the mid-eighties of course, in fact it was probably more like the early-eighties, Aled Jones was there Walking on Air!, with the hit song from the Snowman. But since then, hes gone from strength to strength with hit albums and hes just won an award for his radio presentation and of course last year he did really well in Strictly Come Dancing. Now hes on tour and hes also got a new radio series starting as well. Hes coming to Skegness and to Hull and to Grimsby. Ill be talking to Aled Jones on the programme tonight at the usual time of 6.30pm. Also tonight, Ill be announcing details of how to win tickets to see the one and only Ben Elton, live at the City Hall in Hull. So watch out for that! Men at 50 Something close to my heart here! I read in the paper this morning, and this is something that most men wouldnt admit to, but it appears theyve discovered the joy of shopping when they reach the age of 50. MOFS Males Over Fifty Spenders! They spend 11.6 billion pounds a year on clothes and gadgets. Well the gadget bit I can alike to. This is compared to just 8.3 billion spend by fifty plus women. So basically, men over fifty spend more money shopping than women. Hard to believe that isnt it ? Speed Cameras Whenever we talk about speed cameras on the programme, it always gets a huge response, youll probably not be surprised to hear. So I was interested to read this morning in the paper, that speed camera policing is a lottery, with the chances of being caught varying massively across the UK. Now on average, it says that three quarters of the yellow boxes have no camera inside or may only flash a warning, but the chances of getting a ticket vary enormously from area to area. For instance, all of the camera housings in Cleveland, Cumbria and Humberside and Northern Ireland are live as are two thirds in Essex. So there you are, its quite a lottery. But from the looks of things, Humberside have got the cameras and theyre live and online! So thats according to the paper. Bryan Ferry As you know out of all the guests that weve been asked to get on the programme, Bryan Ferry comes out on top. We get numerous requests and of course its not been easy, and up to now, its not been possible to get Bryan on the show. Its hardly surprising because, according to the paper, his enduringly handsome looks have been compared to a matinee idol for more than thirty years. But at the age of sixty, Roxy Musics crooner Bryan Ferry is apparently, belatedly launching a big screen Hollywood movie career. Hes going to be in a big Hollywood movie and hes playing a serial killer, who attempts to murder the youthful, transvestite heroine in the film played by Cillian Murphy. So there you are thats what Bryan Ferrys up to at the moment. No wonder we havent been able to get him on the programme. Levy Letter Dont forget if theres a friend or someone you know at work, or anybody in the family who would like a Levy Letter, but is not yet signed up for one, then get them to sign up. Direct them to the two addresses at the bottom of the page, click on Levy Letter and then follow the instructions through. So pass the message on! We will shortly be having one of our exclusive competitions for Levy Letter subscribers next week. Pictures I mentioned yesterday that if you happen to witness an event that you think we should know about or that we might be able to use on the programme it might be something you witness like a fire or whatever if you get a picture of it on your mobile phone or on your camera then do let us have the pictures. If you want to get in touch with me, of course you can direct your email as always to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Working Mothers I see that nearly half of working mothers depend on their grandparents for child care. I suppose this isnt really a great surprise is it? Im sure that most people would expect this. Only 37% of families said they paid for child minders or nurseries, the rest of course is made up of help from the grandparents. The research, based on a survey of 19 000 children, suggest that mothers returning to work are rejecting the formal child care that ministers are encouraging them to take up. It also flies in the face of a report last week, which showed that toddlers left with grandparents do worse at school than those who are left at nursery. Another survey last year said that a third of grandparents spent at least an equivalent of half a working week caring for the grand children. So basically, where would we be, or where would young parents be, without their grandparents to look after the children. Anyway, thats all from todays Levy Letter. I must get on and carry on working on the programme. Join me tonight BBC1 at 6.30pm as usual and look out for Fridays Levy Letter. Take care Bye for now Peter And for the latest news and more where you live, go to: http://bbc.co.uk/humber and http://bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the BBC Look North newsletter, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthhull/newsletter/newsletter_index.shtml, enter your email address in the unsubscribe box.
