Hello, its Peter here with Tuesdays Levy Letter. I hope your day is going well and I hope youll be able to join me tonight on BBC One at 6.30pm. Ill have all the days news and Paul will have the forecast.
On tonight's programme, we'll meet the Scunthorpe man, who blew up his own house when he mixed petrol with a cleaning product. An incredible tale, so join me for that! And I'll have a special report on the newly qualified nurses in our region, who have been told that there are now no jobs for them within the NHS. Theres a lot of worried nurses in the region, who are unable to find work, so tune in tonight for more information on that one. Plus, as you know we've been bringing you reports all the way from Connecticut in the US on the Venture Smith research project. Well, there's been a major setback for researchers, who are currently trying to dig up the 200 year old African slave and I'll have the latest on that from the US. Just weeks after Hull's East Park opened after massive refurbishment and development costing over ten million pounds, vandalism has been rife in the area. Now CCTV has had to be fitted to monitor the park twenty four hours a day to combat further acts of vandalism. Ill have the full story later. And last year, Lincoln was voted bottom in the list of sexiest cities in the country. We'll be in the city asking you if you think Lincoln is sexier than it used to be and finding out where you think we should rank this year. 1976 Last night we were looking at the year of 76, which used to be the hottest on record, up until 2006 and now this year is officially hotter and sunnier. As I write this, though, its blowing a gale around Victoria Dock, but Im sure its just a temporary blip! Of course, Paul will be here on the programme tonight to give us all the details on that. But 1976 was certainly a very hot summer and there are some memories of great music that we touched upon last night in the report, like Leo Sayer, also the Bellamy Brothers Let Your Love Flow and good old Abba with Mamma Mia and Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen. So there are lots of memories from 1976. I was reading something in the paper, as well, that was offering loads of questions to you with the slogan you know youre a child of the sixties when And the answers given were when you used to want to marry the girl in the hot air balloon from the Nimble advert, your birthday cards usually contained a ten shilling note or a book token and you were jolly grateful, you were sensitive about wearing glasses in case you were called Joe Ninety, on Saturday morning you used to be taken to the local flea pit to see a film and it took a visit to at least eight different shops to get the weekly groceries. Do you remember all this? If youre a child of the sixties like me, then you should remember this. You had your tonsils removed and when you woke up you were given ice cream and not MRSA! You were never really convinced that the Milky Bar kid was strong enough and that patience wasnt just a virtue, but a necessity when you switched the TV on, because it took five minutes to war! m up. Remember that? When there was the flash of the dot at the end. So lots of memories there of the sixties! Health A vaccine against cervical cancer could go on sale within weeks. Its been proved 100% affective against the two main strains of the virus, which trigger most cervical cancer. A decision by the European Medicines Watchdog will increase pressure for a mass vaccination programme to be brought in at the end of the year. Now, this is cervical cancer that Im talking about and around three thousand cases of it are diagnosed in this country every year. Can you believe that? Three thousand women every year suffering from cervical cancer. So experts want all women between the ages of nine and fifty-five to receive jabs against the disease with an annual programme set up to vaccinate adolescents in schools. So thats a new vaccine against cervical cancer, which could go on sale within weeks. Posting A Letter Now, I dont know about you, but this is the first Ive heard of this one, but theres a big change coming with the way that we post our letters. To be honest, its about as big a change as decimalisation, but hardly anyone has a clue about how the new mail service will work. Now let me try and help you. The biggest shake up in more than one hundred and sixty-five years in the way we pay for letters has the makings of a mega disaster according to consumer groups. Its complicated to explain, but I will try. In only three weeks, new rules will affect the price of approximately one in five items sent in the post with a stamp. For the first time, those sending anything through the post will have to think about the size and the thickness of the item, rather than simply the weight. Experts warned last night that hardly anyone knows about the shake up, which perhaps has the most significance since the introduction of the first sticky postage stamp that was the Penny Black back in ! 1840. Consumer watchdog, Postwatch, fears that many will be left confused by the changes and there will be huge queues at the countrys post offices. Customers will face a difficult choice of either waiting in a queue to find out a price or risk posting a letter with the wrong stamp on it. So there you are. Changes are coming to the way we post our letters and the cost of the letters and thats coming in just three weeks. But until I read a little bit about it in the paper, I didnt know anything about it at all. It appears to be a closely guarded secret. Eggs Now in the quest for the perfect boiled egg, this is certainly a break through. Food scientists have developed an invisible ink logo, which will appear in black on the shell when the egg is done. Whether its soft, medium or hard boiled eggs, they can all be produced with the same system, which is due in stores within the next few months. A spokesman, whos logo is an assurance of good food safety, said the development followed a flood of enquiries from customers, who did not know how to boil an egg properly. Well, with this invention, when the egg reaches soft, medium or hard, the words appear on the shell and you can then take it out of the pan. How have we managed for years and years without this and now everyone is saying this is crucial? Well, the eggs will be in the shops within a short space of time. Talking of shops, I think that most people who go to the supermarket these days will pay either with a credit card or with cash, but maybe Im wrong. Supermarkets are now preparing to ban the use of cheques, claiming they lead to long queues. Actually, I think its been quite a long while since Ive seen someone paying with a cheque at the supermarket, whereas we always used to. Its not that long back either, before we had our plastic cards and we always wrote a cheque. We would give them the little blank cheque and they would put it in their machine and it would print it for you and we all thought that was a clever invention! Anyway, soon there will be no cheques accepted at supermarkets throughout the country. Well, that's it from me for today. And just a reminder that if theres someone you know whos not signed up to the Levy Letter, then tell them how they can sign up. Point them in the direction of either one of the two addresses at the bottom of the page, go to there and sign up. Also, if youve got a problem or an issue that you think I could help with on the programme, then drop me a line to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join me tonight on BBC One at half past six. See you soon. 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. 1.94.4
