Hello and welcome to todays Levy Letter. Its Thursday, and if youre an England football fan today will feel a little darker and a little bleaker. The England team failed to qualify for the European Championships last night, leaving thousands of fans crying into their pints no doubt, but if youre not somebody who enjoys the game or a so-called football widow you might be looking forward to a quiet summer next year, or having the full attention of your husband or partner while the tournaments on. So a sad day for football fans, but every cloud has a sliver lining
Coming up on the programme today, he's been in prison twelve times but now Pete Brook is using his inside knowledge of a life of crime to teach disaffected children in Hull how to avoid getting into trouble. Well have his story. Well investigate the debt collection agency that's chasing people for money they don't owe. According to a debt counselling charity it's just one of the strong arm tactics used by the debt collectors. If youve suffered from this then dont miss the story tonight, and of course you can get in touch with us and tell us your experiences by emailing in on [EMAIL PROTECTED] We'll also be investigating why the Dambuster's pub in Scampton has closed down. The pub had been transformed into a museum in honour of the famous squadron so what happens now to all that memorabilia? The centre of Hull is being transformed into a winter ski slope complete with real snow. We'll have a special report about just how theyre going to achieve that. Ill be interested to know! And it's the must have toy for all teenagers this Christmas but trying to buy a Nintendo Wii is virtually impossible... However a group of pensioners in Lincoln have got their hands on one and now it's replaced the traditional bowls and dominoes. If you dont know, the Wii is a games system thats controlled with a motion sensitive controller so you can wave it a round like a tennis racquet and the one on the screen will move with you. That sounds a bit too much like hard work to me And well have the regional forecast from Lisa Gallagher, the predictions been a bit grim lately so hold onto your woolly hats. We had a big response on our programme last night, thank you very much. Its amazing that months after the floods that hit our region, were still getting so many stories of peoples extraordinary personal experiences. Thank you for all of those, keep them coming in, and were still trying to cover as many of those as we can. Social Intelligence This is another interesting piece of research, but as with a lot of these you can debate how useful it is. Scientists in America have discovered that babies as young as six months have already developed a social awareness that allows then to distinguish between potential friends and enemies. In experiments featuring a puppet show with a good puppet and a malicious puppet, the babies were asked to pick one, with nearly all of the children tested picking the good puppet. This apparently shows that babies are able to learn the basics of social interaction early on, and demonstrate the ability to know good from bad. Its quite extraordinary, because children at that age arent able to talk properly and they dont have much life experience, but this is something they have a natural understanding of. So how can we use this new knowledge in our daily lives? Dont ask me, but thats a new piece of research just out. 50 Year Fire This is an unbelievable story that I had to read a couple of times to make sure I had the facts right. Fire fighters in China have managed to extinguish a fire in a coal mine that has been burning underground for more than 50 years, and that has burned as much as 12.5 million tonnes of coal, churning out 70,000 tonnes of toxic gasses every year since the 1950s. Theyve used enormous amounts of water and slurry to extinguish the fire in an effort thats taken three years. Now that the fires out, theyll save more than 651 million tonnes of coal which can be mined as fuel. All these numbers are astounding, its hard to imagine. According to the article I read, these fires are quite common, and in China alone they destroy untold amounts of potential fuel, and spew poisonous gasses into the environment. The fires can go on burning underground for centuries if unchecked, and the oldest one is thought to have been going for almost 150 years. You learn something new every day, especially reading the Levy Letter! You always imagine air pollution to be something exclusively human, but its interesting to learn the amount that actually occurs naturally. Some scientists claim the underground fires could release as much carbon dioxide as all the cars and light lorries in the United States, which I would imagine is a lot. Its bizarre, but true. Dont forget, if you want to watch the programme but cant see it live, now youll be able to catch it online. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthhull and you can view it on our website, or select some of our individual stories to watch. You might have seen our shiny new trail for the website after the programme some nights. So if you havent had a look at the website, nows a good time. Thats all from me for today, I hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon, and join me tonight at half past six for Look North as always. 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
