Hello and welcome to todays Levy Letter for Friday. I hope youre having a good day and if youve got anything planned for the weekend then I hope it goes very well indeed. Hopefully the weather will warm up a bit, of course well have all the latest weather on the programme with Paul.
Coming up on Look North tonight we'll have the story of a man from Lincolnshire who was arrested by armed police as he shopped for a mobile phone. He says his home was searched by 40 officers even though he'd done nothing wrong. We'll be asking if Lincolnshire Police made a big mistake. We'll speak to a couple who wanted to budget for their bills by using a pre-paid electricity meter. It should have meant no more big surprises, so why are NPower now asking them for one hundred pounds? Theres a report on Lincoln City ladies as they head into the Quarter Finals of the FA Cup against Blackburn Rovers this weekend. And we'll meet the sportsman from East Yorkshire heading to the World Sled Championship with 6 husky dogs! Thats all coming up on the programme tonight at the usual time of half past six. Thank you for all the comments we received yesterday. We had a lot of messages about statues and a lot of people said they thought our statues were important to the city, and some people saying they arent worth the money. There were some suggestions as well that we should have a statue to Mick Ronson the famous Hull musician. Thats an interesting idea. Thank you for all of those and keep them coming in. Well give our contact details out as usual in the programme and our email address is [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you want to let us know what you think or if you have a story or picture for the programme. Send it along to us. Soldier School Heres an idea to strike fear into the hearts of unruly pupils everywhere. A policy think tank has called for Britain to take up an American scheme where ex-soldiers are retrained as teachers to bring discipline into the classroom. Apparently the macho image of ex-service people could help engender respect, and have a profound effect on discipline and learning. In the US, the Troops to Teachers programme trains soldiers with a minimum 10 years of service and a degree and puts them into schools. This is one of those ideas that at first seems so strange, but then the more you think about it the more it makes sense. In the US, 88% of teachers trained through the scheme stay in the profession after 3 years, thats compared to just 50% for conventional teachers. The report claims this is because ex-servicemen are sure of their own moral authority. And theyre also not intimidated by adrenaline-fuelled adolescents: they have, unlike most teachers, been there before. I can imagine a drill sergeant type figure barking orders, I think Id definitely learn to settle down in class. Theres a rather frightening quote from the report saying that children from deprived backgrounds often respond to raw physical power. Presumably ex-soldiers can provide that, although I dont really want to find out how. So dont be surprised if you start seeing children marching from class to class in perfect ranks some time soon. Its a very interesting idea. Let me know what you think about that one. Robot Testing I had a story not long ago about scientific testing on mice. Its a subject a lot of people feel very strongly about, and I saw a story in the news today that could mean it becomes unnecessary one day. Agencies in America are looking into using high-speed automated robots to carry out tests. The robots would be able to carry out hundreds of thousands of chemical tests every day to identify toxic chemicals which could mean that scientists can stop having to rely on animal testing quite so much. At the moment, a lot of testing is done on animals for things such as pesticides and household chemicals. The chemicals are often injected into the animals and the results are observed. It all sounds very cruel, but apparently its quite necessary, for now. The robot method takes individual cells grown in laboratories and performs tests on them, rather than using cells in a living creature. It all seems much more desirable, but unfortunately scientists say it will be many years before this kind of testing can become routine, but if it does, it could mean the end of animal testing. Well thats about if for me todays letter. I hope you can join me tonight for Look North at half past six, and of course youll get your next Levy Letter next week on Monday. As I mention from time to time, if you know somebody whos not signed up, they can get their free daily Levy Letter very easily. Go to www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthull, and click on Levy Letter and you can subscribe in a matter of seconds. Our Look North website also contains the latest programme for you to watch at your leisure wherever you are in the world, and also the top stories to view online individually. If you havent had a look yet then do it today. Have a very good afternoon and enjoy your 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
