GRAEME Souness seemed to be hinting this week that we're a bunch of whingers in the North-East. He's not alone in that view - county cricketers from outside the region who have come to play for Durham have formed much the same opinion.

It could be dry humour in disguise, otherwise the only explanation for the cynicism is that there has been so little to crow about. Newcastle United haven't won anything since 1969, Sunderland since 73, Boro had to wait until last season for their first silverware, and in their 13th season in first-class cricket Durham finished bottom.

People like Sir Bobby Robson and Brian Clough have left the region to achieve their greatest successes, while Sunderland-born batsman Michael Roseberry prospered with Middlesex but suffered an inexplicable loss of form with Durham.

Is it something in the air, or the water, or is it more a reflection of overall hardship? Clough, as always, thought he had the answer, blaming the men at the top, and it's true that there have been too few wielding power of the calibre and financial clout of Boro chairman Steve Gibson.

It used to be said of the North-East that anyone with any get-up-and-go had got up and gone. We know differently, and in any case Newcastle is now a thriving city with a football team which for the last few years has been overshadowed only by the very best from even more thriving cities.

Souness is right to complain of a negative response at the end of his honeymoon period. Despite his good start, the run of four defeats was hardly unexpected given the opposition, Fulham apart, and that was a freak result.

But the suspicion remains that Newcastle are treading water, which isn't enough in this progressive age. Stand still and you get left behind.

It's too early to judge Souness, but if he proves not to be the man to take things forward we can only point the finger at those who appointed him after allowing Robson to go on too long. And before him there was Ruud Gullitt. Enough said.

THANK goodness I don't have to read London's 600-page bid for the 2012 Olympics, which was delivered amid much pomp this week. I imagine the International Olympic Committee delegates would much rather get on with their junketing than plough through that lot, especially as they still have four other bids to consider before they declare Paris the winner in July.

The IOC are sending an evaluation team to London in February, and in the run-up to that momentous event we're all expected to bang the drum and refrain from negative comment such as tipping Paris to win. Being positive is in vogue - it's a spin-off from New Labour spin.

So let's all blow the trumpet for London. How marvellous it will be for national morale when we know the Olympics are coming. Everybody will be energised, absenteeism will vanish, productivity will soar, we'll all get ourselves fitter and thereby slash the burden on the NHS, and crime will vanish because of the nationwide community spirit.

While we're being positive wasn't that football match the other night an exciting, thrilling, edifying experience?

Or can we take it that Madrid's bid for the Olympics will now be scornfully banished on the grounds of Spanish racism?

No doubt with the Olympics in mind, the government has also chosen this week to announce it will be offering us all guidance on the exercise we should be taking. One tabloid described this as a gross intrusion on our privacy, presumably because they fear that once couch potatoes start getting more oxygen to their brains they will stop reading tacky tabloids.

If the government is finally starting to take sport and recreation seriously then we should definitely bang the drum for that.

WHILE the world's best bowler stayed at home in Ashington, England's one-day cricketers alighted in Windhoek this week, somewhere in the middle of the Namibian desert. They will play a few one-sided matches there before repeating the exercise in Zimbabwe, where most of them are going under sufferance.

I am surprised the controversy surrounding this tour has not flared up again in recent weeks - it must be something to do with events elsewhere.

For the first time since 1989 Sky Sports will not be covering the trip, and with Sky News and the BBC banned from Zimbabwe we won't get to see much of the action. But unless the hosts bury the hatchet with their "rebels" it won't be worth watching anyway.

THERE were also some sad mismatches in rugby at the weekend, underlining that if it is to become a truly global sport the lesser nations need much more support. For Scotland to score 100 points suggests that Japan couldn't give Durham Constabulary a game because the Scots are so poor at almost everything these days.

No wonder Graeme Souness thinks Geordies are whingers - he knows his own countrymen really do have something to moan about.