Gadfly writes...

This year the view has been rather dimmer. Though it is by no means editorial policy, a school of thought insists that ho-ho homes are no longer a laughing matter.

Sadly, the humbuggers are deadly serious.

Nancy Fell disagrees, and likewise her next door neighbour who's rung many times in an attempt to ensure that Nancy's lights fantastic radiates to a wider audience.

She'd rung last year, too. That nothing appeared may not be unconnected to the fact that the photographer turned up in broad daylight - what might be termed an electrical fault.

Nancy, a 74-year-old widow, lives in a bungalow at Scorton, near Richmond. She first switched on last year, anxious to raise money for cancer research in memory of her husband who died seven years ago. This year she spent a month covering almost every inch of her house and garden with Christmas decorations.

A tape recorder plays seasonal music, a collecting tin unobtrusively invites donations, a box of sweets awaits visiting children. "They adore it; they'd come every day if their parents would let them," she says.

Scorton itself is little less festively bedecked, though Billingham - that otherwise unremarkable Teesside town - again leads by several furlongs the charge of the lights brigade.

"I love Christmas decorations but it's not just for me, it's for the children," says Nancy. "I think it's horrible of those killjoys to complain to the newspapers. People like me only mean to bring a little pleasure, isn't that one of the things that Christmas is meant to be about?"

The column looked down, found a few bob for the tin. Other donations would greatly be welcomed. "If people decorating their houses is the worst thing that happens this Christmas, it won't be so bad will it," says Nancy, inarguably.

As Tiny Tim observed, God bless them every one.

ANOTHER Christmas conundrum from Brian Shaw in Shildon: what day is next Sunday?

All would agree that it's December 26; church folk - not least those in Willington, whose patronal festival it is - know that it's also St Stephen's day. But is it really Boxing Day?

Brian insists not. "Little things irritate me and that's one of them," he admits. "When December 26 is a Sunday, Boxing Day is the day afterwards."

The Oxford English Dictionary comes close to supporting him. Boxing Day is defined as "the first weekday after Christmas Day, observed as a holiday, on which postman, errand boys and servants of all kinds expect a Christmas box."

Whitaker's Almanac merely suggests that Boxing Day is a bank holiday if not on a Sunday; Chambers Dictionary says that Boxing Day is "the first working day after Christmas" - which this year would presumably make it December 28, or in the case of most of British industry, January 4.

Either way, Brian Shaw's poor paper boy is going to have to wait a little while yet for his tip.

NOT very seasonal, admittedly, but the conversation in the pub turned to telling lies. Oxford's dictionary of euphemisms lists 51 different ways of putting it, ranging from porky pies to (honestly) news management.

None explains why someone may be a bigger liar than Tom Pepper, a phrase of which the late Brian Clough was curiously fond.

Some suppose its origins to be naval, and that Tom Pepper was thrown out of hell for being a bigger liar than the devil himself; others cite an early Mark Twain character or Thomas Culpepper, executed by Henry VIII for committing treason (shall we say) with Catherine Howard.

Other accounts welcomed. We shall get to the truth of it yet.

SERCO Ned, a Dutch company, last week took over local North-East rail services from Arriva. As an anonymous reader points out, however, some things never change.

As has been the case for many years, there's still there's just one train a week from Darlington to Durham Tees Valley airport - or whatever nonsensical name the public has latterly been landed with - still just one a week in the opposite direction.

Intending high fliers should catch the 10.20am, Saturdays only, from Darlington. They can return, either three hours or a week and three hours later, on the 13.41.

ARRIVA still runs the buses, of course, and it's business as usual. The No. 1 from Darlington to Bishop Auckland was festively well filled last Saturday lunchtime and remained so as it left Bishop bus station. The driver rolled down his window to speak to a passing mate - "It's been like a cattle truck on here all morning," he said. How good to hear that Arriva agrees with its passengers.

SINCE recent columns have discussed insults, Tony Eaton in Northallerton recalls the reaction to a particularly acidic parliamentary remark by former New Zealand prime minister Sir Robert Muldoon.

A female opposition member rose to her feet holding the sort of audience instruction board familiar in television studios and embracing the single word "Clap."

Muldoon looked at her impassively. "Thank you for the warning," he said.

WE have also been recalling sherbet fountains, but were mistaken in last week's column to suppose that a sherbet dab was somehow synonymous.

An answering machine message from an elderly gentleman in Darlington - "in my day, the 1920s" - and an e-mail from Paul Dobson in Bishop Auckland confirm that a sherbet dip was a bag of the stuff with a lollipop, in the hope that one would stick to t'other.

A sherbet fountain sucked.

SO ends another year in the life of Gadfly, a column which could never be said faithfully to be married to the English language but which occasionally jumps into bed with it.

"Lie down, I think I love you," as the spurious old chat-up line used to run.

To the many contributors who help prolong the affair and to the readers who simply condone it, our warm and continuing thanks and great good wishes for a happy Christmas.

We return, replete, on January 12.

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