WELL you read it here first. Back in June Spectator told you that a name change for Middlesbrough football club's stadium was on the cards due to BT's decision to ditch the Cellnet brand.

So it has come to pass. This week it was announced that the BT Cellnet Riverside stadium, to give it its current full name, may have to change its moniker in line with the new BT brand name for its mobile phone operation - 02.

The club said that nothing would change for this season. But the prospect remains that the team, which has made a depressing start to the new season, could be playing in a stadium with a name which looks like a rather unflattering scoreline.

Too early for Santa

Once again Spectator will have to explain to the children why Santa will be in Darlington from early-ish in November and not at home making all the toys.

Darlington Council this week decided that Santa will take up residence in the Cornmill Centre on November 10.

While Spectator understands traders rely on the six-week shopping spree to underpin the year's profits, why does the council insist on shattering the magic for children in this way?

Why can't Santa get time off for good behaviour and arrive with his reindeer at the beginning of December? The magic of Christmas lasts such a short time for children and surely there is a danger that attempts to start the festive feeling ever earlier may be counter-productive. There's only so much Christmas we can take.

Not nice

FROM time to time throughout the foot-and-mouth crisis which continues to grip rural Britain, old countrymen's remedies for dealing with the disease have surfaced.

One of the more bizarre came to the fore this week as Richmondshire district councillor Raymond Alderson, whose family has farmed in Swaledale for more than 500 years, was reading old family diaries.

The virus was, apparently, prevalent in the dale in the 1880s but was eradicated by smearing salt and tar on the animals' feet and the contents of the household chamber pot on their mouths. Three days later, the very old and very young had perished but the vast majority had recovered. A case of the bitterest medicine doing the most good