Word purr-fect

A DADS and lads day - football, inevitably - we approached the Tyne Tunnel at the usual pedestrian pace. It'll be 40 years next month since the Queen officially declared it open, though it was to be rather longer before the underground movement became fully operational.

The tunnel's 1.68km long, costs £1.10 each way - said to be one of Europe's cheapest tolls - or £1.50 for lorries and heavy goods vehicles.

Work on the second tunnel, estimated to cost £139m, is expected to start soon and should be finished by 2011.

That's all very well. The debate as we awaited the opportunity to throw a couple of silver coins into the basket was over how many vehicles presently use the tunnel in an average 24-hour period.

Estimates ranged from 5,000 to 50,000. The eventual bet, two against one, backed 5,000-27,500 against 27,501-50,000. The easiest resolution was to text one of the new-fangled answering services.

They quickly replied. So how many vehicles dive each day beneath the Tyne? The answer, and don't all queue at once, at the foot of the column.

IF not quite walking on water, others employ more leisurely means of getting from north to south banks. Tim Grimshaw regularly uses the ferry from his home port of North Shields to cross for a few beers at the celebrated Alum House, on the opposite bank.

Replete, he headed back towards the ferry landing last week only to discover that he'd missed the boat - or to be exact, that it had encountered mechanical problems on the other side. They advised him to go and have another pint.

Not unreasonably, Tim wondered how he was supposed to know when the ferry was ready to sail. "Don't worry," said the ferry folk, "we'll come to the pub and fetch you."

Two pints later, they did. "Now that," says Tim, "is what I call integrated transport."

ON the day that it was reported that truancy has risen by almost a third in three years, Ian Ramsey school in Stockton made special awards at last week's speech day to those with a 100 per cent attendance record. The first three names called were absent.

CATS-o'-nine-tales - a canny few, anyway - recent columns have been wondering if felines really can recognise their names.

Of course they can, says Brenda Dawes in Bishop Auckland - just ask her three Persians, Jasper, Reilly and Timmy.

Reilly's so-called because he enjoys the life of his namesake, Jasper because he's red-haired - like Jasper Carrot - and Tim because, like Tiny Tim, he effectively gets around on three legs.

He lost a leg and a shoulder as a six-week old kitten but still manages brilliantly, says Brenda.

There'd have been Larry, too - as in happy as - but Larry, sadly, died.

Brenda also reports that they respond to basic words like "dinner", "bedtime" and "no", that Jasper will let her know when he wants a drink - only from a running tap - and that all three await her return from work.

"If you live with cats, there is no doubting the intelligence of these remarkable animals."

LAST week's other cat call, of course, was over the blessed Blue Peter scandal. Though the bairns had voted to name the new mog Cookie, producers called it Socks, instead. No pussy footing, they rigged the ballot.

Cookie, it transpires, is the street name for a Class A drug and, in some places, for something even more difficult to explain to the average Blue Peter viewer.

It doesn't bother them at Durham County Cricket Club, we learn, where rightly acclaimed director of cricket Geoff Cook is known universally as Cookie just as Dale Benkenstein is Benky, Steve Harmison is Harmy and Paul Collingwood Colly.

The only exception to this somewhat predictable pattern is Sunderland-born wicket keeper Phil Mustard, recently called into the England one-day squad and known universally as Colonel.

Those who fail to follow the reasoning, clearly haven't a Cluedo.

THELMA Johnson takes us back down Apostrophe Avenue. As there's an ever-increasing number of takeaway food shops in the Denes area of Darlington, where she lives, there's also a fast-growing number of notices above letter boxes declining menus and other flyers. Thelma's seen "No menu's", "No menue's", "No food menues'" and "No menues" - all politely followed with a please. She herself has avoided the need for apostrophes: "No takeaway leaflets of any kind - thank you."

... and finally, John Briggs in Darlington wonders if we'd heard the one about the chap who tells the doctor that he thinks he's going deaf.

"What are the symptoms?" asks the doc.

The guy responds immediately. "They're a dysfunctional cartoon family with yellow heads."

And before the column disappears beneath the surface for another week, the number of vehicles through the Tyne Tunnel each day is 34,000.