AS usual at this sun-blessed time of year, last week's holiday was to the Land of Her Father's - and enhanced by the Daily Telegraph story of how Sunderland lifeboat had to rescue a dog which swam out after a ball.

(Doubtless it also appeared in these pages, understand, but there's not much call for The Northern Echo in west Wales.)

Ernie Laws, the lifeboat coxswain, reckoned that Ben the labrador had been amenable enough. "I think he was getting tired, he swam towards us, but it's still a canny weight when you're lifting a dog out of the water."

A canny weight? Would west Wales - or northern Scotland, or middle England - have any idea what he was talking about?

The word "canny," says the Oxford English Dictionary, has "developed an extensive series of meanings". We shall return to them before the column is out.

BACK home, the weekend news bulletins were full of the 25th anniversary of Britain's first heart transplant. Joe Burnside wasn't mentioned. Was he still getting along canny, an' all?

Joe was a carpet dealer in Darlington, retired at 50 after a second major heart attack. His operation was on July 1, 1980. Though an unwitting pioneer, only the eighth heart transplant patient in the world, he is now the second longest surviving.

"I'm fine," he insists, "if only they could do something about my arthritis as well."

His wife Mary agrees. "His legs mightn't be so good but he can drive for ever and he's still down the club every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. He's no shrinking violet, I'm not looking for a toy boy just yet."

Heart transplants were so greatly in their operative infancy that Joe didn't even know - though Mary did - that he was on the waiting list at Harefield Hospital in Middlesex.

"I thought I was just going to have a magic pill and go home again," he says. "I was a guinea pig, no one really had any experience of it.

"I only had about two or three weeks to live, but when they told me what was going to happen, I could have fallen through the floor."

The donor was 18-year-old Peter Everett, a schoolboy runner from Liverpool who collapsed and died at the end of a 800 metre race. Mary has tried all ways to contact his family ("I just don't want them to be upset") and we hope ere long to help in that direction.

Twenty four years later, the youngster's heart still beats strongly. Joseph and Mary - married 46 years gone Christmas Day - are still in Darlington, still counting their blessings.

"I've had pneumonia two or three times but what's that compared to a heart transplant? You get over it.

"I don't do much now but I still do more than I could in 1980 and I've been able to watch ten grandchildren growing up. I still marvel at what's happened, it really is a miracle."

THE day after the story about Ben's whole new ball game, The Guardian carried the headline "Blair plays it canny in high stakes game" on a story about the European constitution.

Two days later, the Telegraph described London mayor Ken Livingstone as a "canny" politician.

The Oxford lists ten different groups of meanings, from "knowing, sagacious, judicious, prudent" to "cunning, artful, wily" to "endowed with occult power".

"In the north of England," the dictionary adds, "a general epithet of approbation or satisfaction, as in 'Canny Newcastle'."

Only in North Lancashire, adds the Oxford, would "canny" mean "of good size or amount". Tell that to the coxwain of the Sunderland lifeboat.

"CUSHY" hasn't North-East roots at all. It's from the Hindu "khush", meaning pleasant.

A cushy job, says the Oxford, is easy, comfortable or soft; a cushy wound won't need the Co-op.

The great masterwork has no truck, however, with the North-East notion that cattle may simply be "cush" or a beast a "cushy cow". It is in Shildon, anyway.

There are ardent etymologists out there. Anyone want to take this one by the horns?

WHAT would Vivian Cook make of all this? Professor of linguistics at Newcastle University, he is working - reports the Sunday Times - on a book called Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary.

It's about spelling, or misspelling, its obvious inspiration Lynn Truss's globally best selling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, about the perils of punctuation.

"Six out of ten 15-year-olds can't write ten lines without at least one spelling mistake," says Prof Cook.

Spelling was also a problem for Andrew Jackson, a 19th century US president, though like other holders of that high office, he still had a way with the language.

"It's a damn poor mind," said President Jackson, "that can only think of one way to spell a word."

SOMEWHERE in deepest Wales, we left the dear driver to her road miles and flagged down the 15:18 train at Sugar Loaf, Britain's least-used railway station.

Named after the hill which towers behind it, it's on the four times a day run from Shrewsbury to Swansea - 121 miles, four hours - and attracts just 99 passengers, mainly walkers, a year.

"A vital lifeline," say campaigners against its closure.

We asked for a single to Llandeilo. "Best get a return," said the conductor, "it's cheaper".

Even atop Sugar Loaf mountain, the railways can still drive you round the bend.

IN the car park of Tesco at Carmarthen, we fell to reading the birthday Honours' List, marvelled at what a yeoman bedgoer might be - and why Her Majesty should want to recognise his doubtless loyal service - and failed to make a connection with Cilla Makinson, MBE.

Cilla, "services to the community in St Helen Auckland", was for many years, a conductress on Eden buses and also provided what might be called in-flight entertainment.

Lovely lass, she knew everyone and made bus travel a pleasure.

Also among the MBEs was the column's old friend Michael Adamson - canny lad, Mike Adamson. Formerly manager of the Hardwick Hall Hotel in Sedgefield, he is now chairman of the Durham-based Ramside Estates hotel and leisure group and seemingly on a diet as perpetual as it is unsuccessful.

Honoured for services to hospitality - "geniality" would have fitted equally - he hasn't been around this week, though a colleague confirms that the 67-year-old chairman is on yet another diet.

"I think this one's working," he adds. "He's down to 21 stones."

... and finally, the derogatory description of UKIP as "political gadflies" - an allusion in the column two weeks ago - has also been picked up by a correspondent to The Journal in Newcastle.

The insect, says the letter writer, causes much distress to bovine animals - you know, cushy cows - by boring through their hide to lay its eggs. The larvae are an even greater menace.

"In other words, gadflies get under your skin, cause a lot of irritation, do a great deal of damage and can sometimes be fatal."

To every rule there is an exception, of course. As they may never say in Pembrokeshire, gan canny.