A week of many wonderments. For instance, I learn that the dot over the top of an i is called a tittle - therefore tiny, inconsequential small talk is tattle that is tittle.

I learn that because so many people now dine al-desko, the average desktop contains 400 times as many bacteria as a toilet seat.

Radio 4 tells me that it is still legal to shoot a Welshman with a longbow within Durham Cathedral on a Sunday, and a Liberal Democrat on BBC2's Newsnight informs me that the only three legislatures in the world whose meetings are not open to the Press are those of the North Korean government in Pyongyang, the Cuban government in Havana, and the European Council of Ministers in Brussels.

In Scotland, I note that a human cannonball has been fired from his job in a circus because he is afraid of flying, and, in researching a wartime article I discover that the German unconditional surrender was signed using brown Parker fountain pens that General Dwight D Eisenhower had had in his pocket ready for the purpose ever since he landed in North Africa a couple of years earlier. Eisenhower wasn't actually at the signing, but sent his pens along instead.

The same research also revealed that just after the war there was a camp for displaced persons at Villa Real on the edge of Consett - a place I, in my astounding ignorance, had never heard of before. Great name, though.

The next day, the headteacher of Villa Real Special School, Fiona Wood, is awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours, and in the following day's paper there is a report about a youth from Villa Real appearing in court.

Easily intrigued, I call the school.

They answer the first question on picking up the phone. "Villa Real school", they say, and not "Villa Re-al" as in "Re-al Madrid" football club. Nevertheless, staff there wonder if the name came from a Spanish family who moved into a large-ish house there 100 years ago.

But, even in Spain, 100 years ago there was no "Real". The football club - the most successful in the world in the last century, according to FIFA's rankings - was formed in 1902 by Englishmen who called it plain old Madrid FC. It wasn't until King Alfonso XIII took a shine to the club in 1920 that the "Re-al" bit was added.

"Re-al", of course, means "royal" in both English and Spanish: it's a shortening of the Latin word "regal".

Fortunately, in Monday's paper there was an article about Pocket Images of Consett, a new book compiled by Derwentdale Local History Society. They'd be able to explain.

"The definitive and exact explanation escapes me, " says Society secretary Tommy Moore.

Consett, he says, was a small hamlet of 190 people when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837. Between 1839 and 1841, No 1 pit was sunk and iron ore and coal was discovered. Within ten years, Consett's population had exploded to an industrial 7,500.

Villa Real is just round the corner from No 1. Tommy describes the properties at Villa Real as "quite distinguished", certainly more substantial than those built for the average pitman. Perhaps the developer wished to make them even more appealing to managers by giving them a royal name as a touch of class.

As Tommy talks, I make notes. I write Villa Real's initials, VR, which also, of course, stands for Victoria Regina.

Is that the end of the real mystery, or is just more idle tittle-tattle?

Published: 18/06/05