THE State of the Countryside report, released over the New Year by the Countryside Agency, contains some interesting facts about how rural parts of our region are doing.

Perhaps the most startling statistic is that 75pc of country folk in the North-East have access to a bus service six or seven days a week - the highest access rate of any region in the country.

Leaving aside what this means for other parts of rural Britain, we should take some comfort in that the bus network still survives to the extent it clearly does.

Whether it remains so may be a different matter. In Darlington for example, the borough council is wrestling with the problem of its subsidised services. The money it receives from central Government for bus subsidies is likely to be reduced in the coming years while the costs, inevitably, will rise. Some services may have to be reduced in frequency or, perhaps, cut altogether.

In view of the borough council's track record on supporting its rural communities, cynics might argue it is the rural services which will be in the firing line. The same cynics may also reflect on the routinely-empty buses passing through their villages at present.

Premium cheek

Following last week's note about the letter addressed to the D&S "The Dales, Yorkshire", our own Margaret Cave has reminded Spectator that this is another illustration of the point she made on December 6: give the Post Office a challenge and they'll jump through hoops to deliver your mail, for the publicity value.

Give them a perfectly correctly addressed Christmas card, complete with post code, and it will take them from December 10 to December 27 to transport it from Dorking to Darlington.

And did you know, she further points out, that as from this week calls to the post code checking service are now on a premium line number from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday? This costs 50p a minute. Last time she rang them, she was on hold for four minutes.

The implication in the recorded announcement is that evening and weekend calls are still on the old, cheaper, number but it isn't made clear. Up to 60pc of the price of premium numbers goes to the number-holder.

They don't seem to have flagged up this change, but it wouldn't be very good PR would it? You just find out when you ring the "old" number.

Taking to the air

WITH the announcement that the owners of Liverpool's John Lennon Airport - which has the slogan "above us only sky", taken from the great man's song Imagine - are on the verge of becoming the main shareholder at Teesside Airport, Spectator wonders if a similar name change and slogan will be forthcoming.

Suggestions include Chris Rea Airport, complete with the slogan Road (or Runway) to Hell, and Bob Mortimer Airport, under the legend Shooting Stars