ALL human life, as probably we have observed before, may be found on the No.28 bus. Last Saturday night, the old love-wagon surpassed itself.

Remember the bit at the end of The Graduate - you know, Dustin Hoffman and Ann Bancroft and them - where Ben finally runs off with Elaine in the back of the last bus to Berkeley? Last Saturday's eight o'clock was a bit like that, a first even for the service 28.

"It won't be a stylish marriage, we can't afford a carriage..."

The 28 runs, stumbles sometimes, between Darlington and Catterick Garrison, via Richmond. On Saturday it was joined by Peter and Mary Whitfield, who ten hours earlier had made history by becoming the first couple to marry in Darlington's new register office in the Dolphin Centre.

Peter's a Richmond taxi driver; they'd met when she got into his cab four months earlier. "There's no way I'm paying for a taxi home on my wages," he said. The squaddies did their best to look uninterested.

The groom wore a kilt, and looked good in it. The bride still wore her flowers. They'd been with their guests to a few pubs around the town, eaten at a Chinese buffet, were graduating homeward.

No matter that the groom had fallen asleep halfway through the reception, or that the bride had to deny having had one or two too many- "I maybe had had at four o'clock," she said - it was a memorable way to end a historic day, a great way to start the festive season. Long may they enjoy the journey.

THOUGH it may be Christmas Eve to you and me, in the Church this Sunday's also the fourth in Advent.

It's on the third that the Rev Chris Wardale, retired this year as vicar of Holy Trinity in Darlington, forwards an amendment to a familiar Advent hymn. (It was sent him by a Royal Naval chaplain, he says).

On Jordan's bank, the Baptists cry

If I were Baptist, so would I,

They drink no beer, they have no fun

I'm glad I am an Anglicun.

MIXED messages, too, from Harry Brook in Crook - and Harry, memory suggests, is United Reformed. With the good wishes in his Christmas card - and thanks to everyone for those - he also wonders if "fantastic", meaning "not real" or "whimsical", is the most abused word in the English language. There may be other contenders.

Thanks also to Elaine and Pat Crack in Stapleton, near Darlington, who report the sign in a town centre window - "Slippers: buy one, get one free" - and to the ever-enthusiastic Bob Harbron in Norton-on-Tees who at 13.58 on Wednesday, December 6, was in Marks & Sparks in Stockton.

It was in that tinsel-hung emporium that he spotted Easter's first hot cross buns.

"Are you sure you've got the right season," asked Bob.

The assistant answered immediately. "Dunno," she said, and returned to examining her fingernails.

FESTIVE greetings, too, to our old friend George Reynolds, enjoying this Christmas at home in Durham after spending the last as a reluctant guest of Her Majesty.

We particularly mention it because on November 22, the column reported the discovery of a machine offering "Sexual healing aromas" - at 20p a squirt - in the gents' of a Hartlepool town centre pub.

One button offered light pheromones - "mainly for refreshment" - the other oozed heavy pheromones, "only to attract". The company website described the machines as "a highly profitable money box on the wall".

Two weeks later, George - Shildon lad, former chairman of Darlington Football Club - bounded free from an open prison near Wetherby and promised he'd soon be making millions again.

His perfume dispensing machines, he said, were already in pubs from Yarm to Newcastle. Soon they'd be all over the country. Only the Grim Reaper could stop him now.

It may be, though it's not likely, that there are two companies squirting smelly stuff at 20p a shot. Either way, we're on the lad's scent - and this Christmas, in particular, may he much enjoy his pheromone from home.

IN what was almost certainly a first after 137 years of publication, the word "bugger" appeared in a headline in last Wednesday's Echo.

It topped the report of a Newcastle Crown Court case in which two would-be handbag snatchers had tried to rob a 62-year-old cleaner in South Shields. "Bugger off," she replied, hanging on to the bag, "I've worked hard for that money."

How many readers complained? None, of course.

The b-word has appeared in the body of The Northern Echo 160 times in the past ten years. Not only is it clearly no longer offensive to most but, in many cases, is regarded almost affectionately.

Inevitably, these columns are the most frequent offender, followed - perhaps more surprisingly - by the show- business pages.

Carol Vorderman uses it, Melvyn Bragg uses it, Kate O'Mara uses it ("Bugger this," she said, in print) and Simon Callow uses it. There was even something about a chap who'd spent nine months making a film about grizzly bears and who'd from time to time admonish them with the injunction "Get out of here, you old bugger".

He lives to tell the tale; the grizzlies clearly took it in the spirit in which it was meant.

The only occasion on which anyone appears to have taken umbrage is when Mr John Prescott used it when advising a travelling journalist to jump back on the bus, or words to that effect.

What does Kate O'Mara have that John Prescott doesn't?

Expletive undeleted, another first the following day when what newspapermen call a contents bill appeared outside south Durham newsagents with the wording "Raggy-arsed Shildon lad's proud day."

The bill also carried a photograph of me, in morning suit at Buckingham Palace - and since both the hyphen and the apostrophe were impeccably in place, no one's complained about it, either.

They would have done, mind, if my dear old mum had still been alive...

...and so to the end of what Her Majesty once almost called an annus mirabilis, a quite wonderful year topped and tailed (as it were) by the investiture.

As ever, and increasingly, recognition - survival, even - is down almost entirely to the loyal and greatly appreciated band of readers whose input makes these columns possible.

To you all, and to Peter and Mary Whitfield, a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a richly rewarding new year. The Gadfly column stirs again on January 10.

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/ columnists/feature/gadfly