Hello, it's Peter here. Welcome to Thursdays Levy Letter. I hope your day's going well and you'll be able to join me tonight as usual on BBC One at half past six. We'll have all the day's news including the story of one mum who fell foul of the local council when she parked her car to drop off her small child.
How many points do you need on your driving license before you get banned? We'll be meeting the taxi driver with 19! We'll take a look at a new initiative to help teenagers learn about the responsibilities of motherhood using real toddlers, instead of inanimate dolls. And we meet the Gladiator of Goole... Learning the riding skills to become a Roman Cavalryman. We'll also be finding out why vegetables are being grown - deliberately - on a roundabout in Lincoln! Also Paul will have the forecast at half past six as usual. Emails Its been a very busy week on emails again about a variety of subjects. Just a quick note here from Julie whos writing on behalf of the Walkington Victorian Hayride. Its reaching an end this year. It was started by Ernie Teal who has a regular slot of course on Radio Humberside. Well Julie is the secretary of the hayride and has told me that Jenny Agutter no less, from the Railway children and a wonderful actress, is very keen to help their fundraising and they have her coming along to their garden party on Saturday. We wish them all the best as the Walkington Victorian Hayride comes to an end. Thank you Julie for the note. Also, Shes a great talent and has quite a few dates coming up in our part of the world in the next few weeks. Shes a very talented singer and song writer, her name is Abi Moore. Shes at The Jolly Brewer on Broadgate in Lincoln on the 12th of May, shes at Market Raisen at the Festival Hall as well, and on Friday 29th of June shell be at Faldingworth live at the Village Hall at Faldingworth in North Lincolnshire. Shes a very talented lady, Abi Moore, and if you can get to see her, good stuff. Talking of things that are on, just a reminder, several people have asked me about the portrait that was done of me. Well it is, I am assured, hanging in the Usher art gallery in Lincoln. I havent actually been down to look at it but I have been told it is there if you want to go and have a look at it. Language Britons complain about foreigners who wont learn English, but many of us spurn the local lingo when we buy homes abroad according to new figures out today. In fact more than half of Britons with an overseas property have not learned the local language. Despite a boom in investing abroad, most second home owners prefer the traditional little Britain attitude of relying on locals to talk English. Research has found that 51% of those with foreign homes could not speak the language of their adopted second countries. Well its the usual thing of the British being too lazy to learn a foreign language, not that I can say anything because I cant speak anything foreign at all. Fruit We keep hearing about five a day, and on the packets of fruit they often say this counts as one of your five a day. Well eating a portion of sour cherries every day can combat heart disease, strokes, and diabetes according to a new scientific study. Researchers found that small amounts of tart red cherries can significantly lower blood cholesterol and sugar levels in the body. Cherries are already known to be rich in anti-oxidants which have many health promoting properties. So there we are, if you want to be healthy and if you want to fend off heart disease, strokes and diabetes, sour cherries are the answer. Is that the same as ordinary cherries that you buy in a punnet? Or are sour cherries different? Well it does specifically say sour cherries. And talking of fruit, it was the warmest April since records began back in the 17th Century. It means that British strawberries are in the shops three weeks early. Delighted growers say that temperatures reminiscent of the Mediterranean are bringing a bumper harvest. The home of strawberries in this country is Cheddar in Somerset. There, the hot spring is ripening fruit much earlier than normal, and of course the growers are enjoying every single bit of it. The forecast is just incredible because yesterday and the day before in southern Spain, where it should have been much warmer than here, it was actually cooler than here according to somebody who spoke to me on the phone. City Life The pace of life in our cities is getting much faster according to a new study. Psychologists have measured the speed at which people walk and discovered theres a 10% increase in the last ten years. In other words, we walk faster when were walking around then we did ten years ago. The researchers claim that walking speed provides a reliable measure of the pace of city life and more of us seem to be living in the fast lane. On a world wide list of 32 cities, London is ranked 12th. The next fastest British walkers are in Belfast, Edinburgh, and Cardiff. Lincoln and Hull do not feature, so presumably we just dawdle our way around. The quickest walkers are in Singapore, Copenhagen is second, and Madrid is third. So there we are, the pace at which you walk gives you some idea of how stressed and how busy the city life is. Website Just a reminder that our new revamped Look North website has some great features on it and some new ones on the way. You can get the latest news of course, you can also get the latest weather. Theres also a feature where if you want to look back on a particular report from the previous nights Look North you can. Or if you get home late one evening and you want to watch Look North on the computer because you missed it when it went out, then the address is www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthhull. Well thats it from me, enjoy your afternoon and join me tonight on BBC One at six thirty for Look North. 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. 1.94.4
