Hello and welcome to the Levy Letter for Friday. Its the end of another week, they seem to fly by at times dont they? The weathers certainly reminding us that were getting near the end of the year, its got a lot colder in the last few weeks.
Coming up on the programme tonight, five of the country's worst planning decisions are in our region according to the Environment Agency. We'll be looking at whether they could place homes at risk of flooding. Of course all eyes are on the East coast today after warnings of tidal flooding. Well have more on the programme tonight. As time runs out for campaigners trying to save post offices threatened with closure, our Political Editor Tim Iredale looks back through history at some of the great public campaigns to assess their chances of success. Its a big weekend for two Lincolnshire sides in the FA cup this weekend, but tonight we're not concentrating on Lincoln City, but Gainsborough Trinity. We'll find out if they think they can make it through to the next round. And today we pay tribute to the founder of the Samaritans, who died this week. Born in Barton Upon Humber and trained as a minister in the region, we'll look back at the life of Chad Varah, one of this countrys great social reformers. Also tonight well have the weather forecast for the weekend from Paul. Earlier in the week he was predicting a wet weekend, well have to wait and see if thats still the case. Thats all on Look North today at half past six on BBC One as always. Diwali Well a lot of us are already looking ahead to Christmas, but today is also the Hindu festival of Diwali, of the Festival of Lights. It of course falls in one of the darkest times of the year in Britain, but people celebrating Diwali try to spread light into every corner of their homes with lamps and other festive lights, which symbolise goodness. Diwali actually kicks off a series of festival celebrations for Hindus, so happy Diwali, and lighting up our homes in the dark evenings sounds like a very good idea for all of us to do. Sexy Walking Its amazing the things that weve taken for granted for generations but are now being explained in less than romantic terms by scientists. It was previously thought that a woman who walked with a swinging motion in her hips, which men find attractive, was actually displaying fertility, but now research has discovered the opposite. Its one of those bits of behaviour that turns out to have a very sensible evolutionary purpose behind it, and it turns out that those women judged to have alluring walks are actually those furthest away from ovulation. Women who were most fertile at the time of the study walked with their knees closer together and with less hip movement. The idea, it says here, is that a sexy walk throws men off the scent, protecting women from attracting unwanted attention when they could fall pregnant. When a woman is fertile and ready to conceive, shell use more subtle signs to attract attention, which will only be displayed close up and presumably to men she sees as a suitable partner. Its fascinating, and a little bizarre. Of course I dont think the researchers were suggesting that women are aware of these behaviours, its something natural that were not really aware of. An example of the hip swinging walk that comes to mind is of course Marilyn Monroe, memorably described in the film Some Like it Hot as being like Jello on springs. As I said, this research does take the romance out of things somewhat, so now you can interpret Marilyns famous walk as a sign of low fertility Lakshmi I mentioned earlier in the week about little Lakshmi, a two year old Indian girl undergoing major surgery to remove four extra limbs, part of the remains of an undeveloped conjoined twin which was absorbed into her body while in the womb. Well reports suggest the surgery was a success and Lakshmi is stable and healthy. More than 30 doctors worked more than 24 hours to remove not just limbs, but extra spine and organs from the little girl, and she was given an 80% chance of survival before the operation. The overall survival rate of conjoined twins is only between 5% and 25%, so if she makes it through itll be a minor medical miracle. It is amazing what surgeons can do these days, and we wish her well. Well thats all from me for today, and for this week. Join me tonight for Look North at half past six on BBC One, and youll get next weeks Levy Letters from me starting on Monday. If you know somebody whos not subscribed to the letter and you think theyd like it, send them to www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthhull and click on Levy Letter, and they can sign up. Have a good weekend, 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
