Hello and welcome to the Levy Letter. Its Monday, and the beginning of another week. I hope youll be able to join me tonight as usual for Look North at half past six on BBC One. And if you came along to the Last Choir Standing event in Hull on Saturday thank you for braving the rain. It was a wonderful event despite the weather, and I think we all had a good time, with the help of some blue plastic ponchos to keep the water off! It was great to see so many people there, and if you came along, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Olympics Its the one thing dominating the news and the television schedules at the moment, and if you saw the opening ceremony from Beijing, what a show that was! It certainly raised the bar for what Londons going to have to produce in 2012, and I dont think Ive ever seen so many people involved in one performance. Fantastic and spectacular stuff. And of course there have already been some spectacular sporting performances as well with records broken, and dreams made reality. Im sure well all be keeping a close eye on the competitors from our part of the world, and there are a few. Good luck to them, and lets hope the medals continue to come for all our British athletes. Smoking An interesting story in the news recently, scientists have discovered a gene variant which could go some way to explaining why some people get hooked more easily to smoking. According to researchers, those who got a greater buzz from their first cigarette shared some genetic similarities, although smoking is thought to be a combination of genes, environmental factors, and social pressures. Its interesting to think that some people might be genetically prone to smoking because they just enjoy it more. Perhaps those of us who dont smoke are lucky that we just dont get the same sensation from it. The guilty gene is also though to increase a smokers risk of lung cancer. I suppose its one more reason not to even try cigarettes, because if youre one of those with the vulnerable genes, you might find it difficult to put down. Beer Goggles Heres something you might not be surprised by a study claims that drinking just a pint and a half of beer can make somebody look more attractive. Men are more likely to be affected, with the impact lasting up to 24 hours. During the tests, participants waited half an hour after drinking alcohol or a soft drink, before being asked to rate the attractiveness of 20 pictures of the opposite sex. Those drinking alcohol rated the pictures 10% higher than those sticking to soft drinks. And the effect was still noticeable the next day. Alcohol is thought to stimulate the part of the brain that influences attraction. As I said, no great surprises there, and its good to know that scientists are continuing to push the boundaries to deliver ground breaking research like this! Well thats about it from me for today. I hope you have a very good day, and if youve taken any interesting and unusual photographs over the weekend, send them in to me and hopefully itll be good enough to show on the programme. Maybe you managed to turn the rainy weekend to your photographic advantage. You can email in a picture to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or you can send a hard copy in the post to the BBC in Hull. If theres anything you know about that you think we should hear, then get in touch as well. As usual, we had a busy week on the emails, texts, and hotlines last week, and I look forward to seeing what you get in touch with this week. We look at everything we receive, and if youre got a good story or an interesting opinion send it in and you could see it appearing on the programme. Have a very good day, and I hope youll join me tonight at half past six. Bye for now Peter Your email address will be held by the BBC and kept confidential, and will only be used in relation to this newsletter. You will be given the option to unsubscribe from this newsletter each time you receive it. Please visit the BBC's Privacy & Cookies Policy (www.bbc.co.uk/privacy) for more information 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
